From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were, I have not seen
As others saw, I could not bring
My passions from a common spring
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow, I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone
And all I loved, I loved alone.

Edgar Allen Poe

There had to be some sort of button that he could press to undo what he had just done. Some way to rewind or even fast forward this moment, to move it on from the perpetual pause it seemed to be stuck on. Sherlock wasn't moving – he was barely blinking – and as the seconds ticked into minutes John began to wonder if his eyes were deceiving him. Surely someone couldn't stay this still or this silent for so long.

In the immeasurable amount of time that they had been staring at each other, John had watched as Sherlock's expression had morphed from shocked to terrified to sad recognition to finally dissolving into its current state: cold impassivity.

John couldn't read him when he was like this and for the first time in their acquaintance John found it simultaneously maddening and agonising that he couldn't hear what Sherlock was thinking. It couldn't be good though. Sherlock usually voiced his opinions when he was excited about them. His prolonged silence suggested that he was trying to carefully pick through a concept that he didn't quite understand.

After what felt like an eternity – but what could only have been fifteen minutes – Sherlock finally showed signs of life. He took in a quiet breath, blinked a few times and finally refocused his eyes on John. There was another pause which passed agonisingly slowly and John felt his heart rate spike when he finally saw Sherlock's lips part. He was going to say something. John held his breath and waited...

Nothing happened. No words tumbled out of Sherlock's open mouth. They were frozen in the moment again and this time John couldn't bare the silence,

"Sherlock," he pleaded, "Please say something. Talk to me."

John watched as Sherlock's chest rose and fell gently with each taken breath, watched as his Adam's apple bobbed slightly in his throat as he swallowed and finally, mercifully, watched as his lips began to move,

"John," he said slowly, "I believe that you have made a mistake."

John blinked in confusion a few times before he said, "I... I don't understand. What do you mean?"

Sherlock fixed him with a steady look before continuing to explain in the same slow, soft tone in which he had begun, "When people experience trauma – either psychological, physical or a combination of the two – they can sometimes experience an impairment of judgment and reasoning, up to the point where they sometimes do or say things that are illogical and lacking in rationality and are not truly representative of how they actually feel."

John felt like someone had just smacked him across the back of the head with the longest sentence in the world and it took him a few seconds to understand what Sherlock was getting at,

"Are you trying to say that the only reason why I told you that I loved you was because I've been psychologically traumatised?"

Sherlock nodded, "Yes."

John didn't know whether he should laugh or cry at the ridiculousness of Sherlock's reasoning, "Sherlock that's... I don't have a response to that. How could you possibly think that the only way that I could love you is if I am psychologically traumatised?"

"It's the only explanation that makes any logical sense. You don't lov_ the way that you are currently feeling isn't truly representative of the way that you actually feel."

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't."

"Sherlock I think I know how I feel."

"Not at this moment, in this moment you are emotionally compromised by the trauma_"

"Don't do that." John warned as he finally got to his feet. He had been kneeling for so long that the second he stood all the blood instantly rushed to his legs and he almost fell to the floor. He managed to keep his balance by leaning against the wall, "Sherlock don't do this, please don't do this."

"Do what_?"

"Try and rationalise this... thing between us. Don't try and devalue my declaration by chalking it up to impaired judgement or whatever bollocks you're going to come out with next."

John braced his hands on his knees, suddenly feeling light headed. How had this gone so wrong so fast? "Isn't this supposed to be a good thing? People usually respond in two ways to a declaration of love, they either say "I don't feel the same" or "I love you too." They don't analyse the fucking life out of the situation." John pressed his head against the wall. This was simultaneously the most humiliating and torturous thing he had ever experienced.

"It's not to do with the trauma_"

"Yes it is_"

"I'm not traumatised!" John finally shouted, "I was a soldier, I know what it feels like to experience trauma and what we went through last night doesn't even come close to some of the things that have happened to me. I am not traumatised. My feelings aren't illogical or ill-founded or unrepresentative of my actual feelings_"

"John I think_"

"For fuck's sake Sherlock." John practically sobbed in frustration, "Do you really think that I told you how I felt on a whim? That these feelings just sprung up overnight like fungi and I thought "Hey, why don't I tell Sherlock something that could potentially shatter our friendship and destroy my life?" Months Sherlock," John said as he thumped his fist against the wall, "I've spent months feeling like... like the world had come to an end because I was feeling something for you that friends shouldn't feel towards one another. It's been agonising to see you every day and want something from you that I don't even know if you're capable – let alone willing – to give me."

Sherlock sat as still as stone. Even from across the room John could see the faint pulsing of the arteries in his neck and muscles in his jaw clenched painfully tight. This time he looked Sherlock right in the eye when he said,

"I'm in love with you and that is a fact, that is how I truly feel, I am in love with_"

"Would you stop saying that?" Sherlock hissed as he eased his trousers back over his knees and refastened them around his waist, "You don't..." and he seemed almost incapable of saying the word out loud, as if he thought that the word itself would burn his tongue if he tried to utter it.

Sherlock took in a deep breath before he said harshly, "You don't love me John, it's a lie, it's not real. You've deluded yourself. You've taken the close nature of our relationship and combined it with a level of hero worship and labelled that emotion as love. You're mistaken. You're wrong."

John wanted to hit him, he actually felt the skin around his knuckles prickle with the need to collide with the hard edge of Sherlock's jaw,

"You arrogant prick. How dare you imply that_?"

"It wasn't an implication it was a statement of fact."

"You can't look inside my head Sherlock, you might think that you can but you can't. Hero worship... for fuck's sake..." John shook his head incredulously. It shouldn't have to be this hard, he had thought that he most difficult part to all this would have been actually telling Sherlock how he felt, not having to fucking convince him of the fact.

"Sherlock I_"

"Don't say it again." Sherlock said, his voice sounded tight like he was barely holding back some emotion that John couldn't quite place, "We need to forget that this ever happened_"

"Sherlock_"

"If you care for me, in any capacity, you'll stop, you'll do this for me, you'll pretend that you never said anything."

"Why? Don't you..." a part of John didn't want to hear Sherlock's response but he needed an answer, he needed to know once and for all what Sherlock saw him as, "Do you not feel the same way?"

Sherlock stared at him for an immeasurable amount of time, his face impassive, his eyes cold, "If we did this," he said so quietly that John had to take a step forward so that he could actually hear what Sherlock was saying, "If we tried to be more than what we already are then it would... it would..." He rubbed a blooded hand over his brow, "John," he said, his tone pleading, "John it would kill me."

When John tried to approach Sherlock he backed away slightly, moving quickly up the bed, seemingly unimpeded by his injuries. He looked so lost in that moment, so vulnerable that all John wanted to do was reach out a hand and touch him, reassure him that everything was going to be OK.

"Sherlock, I know that you don't do relationships_"

"It's not that." Sherlock said and in the pause that ensued John thought that he saw Sherlock trying to communicate some emphatic meaning behind his words through his eyes. They were willing John to see the subtext to that simple sentence.

"It's not that." Sherlock repeated before he continued, "It's the fact that it wouldn't last, it could never work. We're too different, it's fine now because we're friends and at the end of the day you can walk away from me. It works because I only take up a part of your life. If we were to... if we were to become something more_"

"Oh for goodness sake Sherlock, just say it, don't hedge around generalities, give it a name."

Sherlock's nostrils flared slightly and John watched as some of his trepidation and vulnerability was replaced by defiance,

"If we were to be in a romantic relationship, if we were to start dating and fucking and actually start living together rather than simply being flatmates, then you would end up hating me." Sherlock hissed, "It would be too much, I would be too much for you. This thing that you feel for me right now it's not going to last John, not forever, not even for a considerable length of time. How do I know this? For starters you're not gay, you've spent from the time of your adolescence to the present date only entering into romantic and sexual relationships with women. In case it has escaped your notice, I am a man_"

"Don't_"

"So you'd try me out, try out this different type of life. You'd make it work for a couple of months, you'd probably even be happy at first, but then our arguments would grow tedious and I would grow tedious and whatever illusion of magnificence and intrigue that you've built up around me would slowly dissipate until you'd want to leave, to break things off, end the relationship and go back to sleeping with women."

Sherlock's eyes burnt bright with an intensity that made John almost shudder, "Do you really think that we could return to being "just friends" after that? It wouldn't happened, we could never restore the equilibrium so you would leave, leave me, leave Baker Street – probably even leave London so that you could forget the past. And then you'd find a woman, someone nice and simple and then you would truly fall in love."

His tone, although slightly mocking, was also laced with bitter contempt, "And you'd think back to this moment, think back to me and realised that you never loved me, not really, not in the true sense of the word. I am not the sort of person who people "fall in love with"; I'm the sort of person who people use to help them get what they need. Lestrade uses me to solve his cases, Irene uses me to entertain herself and now you're using me to fulfill some latent desire to explore a phase in your life that you obviously missed during university. If we did this then I would stop being your friend and would simply become a phase in your life that, once lived, would be instantly forgotten."

He smiled a depressingly sad smile, "You said that this declaration had the potential to destroy you..." he shook his head and looked up at the white washed ceiling, "I might not be made of glass but every structure has its weakness, ever person has some form of weakened heel."

Sherlock finally turned his head from the ceiling and back towards John, "As my friend I ask you not to do this, don't do this John. Please, take it back."

John stared at Sherlock, his heart beating in his throat, his eyes burning hot and threatening tears,

"I can't. Sherlock I can't, not now it's finally out. I thought that I could but I... I can't go back to pretending that I don't feel anything more than platonic friendship towards you. How can we go back to Baker Street and just go on like nothing has changed? You know what I want from you, you know how I feel, how do you suggest I get over this? Do you really think that I could go back to picking up girls, or going on dates? We can't go back Sherlock, I can't un-ring the bell."

Sherlock nodded solemnly but said nothing.

"So, what does that mean for us?" John asked, although he already knew and a sickening feeling was already churning in his chest and stomach.

Sherlock stared back at John, ashen faced and resigned, "If we have no state of friendship that we can return to, nor a new state of relationship that we can progress to, then we must come to terms with the fact that what we once had is gone and what we have now is nothing."

And just like that it was over. John felt motion sick. How had they got from home to here? From declaring love to effectively ending their three year friendship? The events of the past few hours blurred before John's eyes and he had to press his back against the wall to steady himself.

There had to be another way. Something that he could say or do to stop Sherlock from slipping out of his grasp. But as John frantically searched his mind for this something he realised that Sherlock was right. If he couldn't go back and Sherlock couldn't go forward then the only thing for them to do is stay right here, in this moment, staring at each other from opposite sides of the room.

John felt acute sadness swell in his chest as he realised that this was it, they had reached the apex of their relationship and now the only thing for them to do was... leave each other, go their separate ways.

So John stood absolutely still and silent, almost as if by doing this he would be able to hold on to this moment for as long as he could even as he felt it slipping from his fingers. Sherlock was staring back too and even though they were both completely still, John could feel them drifting apart, could feel a chasm being dug between them.

He wanted to reach out his hand and pull Sherlock back to him but it was too late, there was a sound at the door, Irene was returning and the second she opened that door the moment would be broken and their separation would be complete.

John almost called out to her to leave them alone but the key card machine pinged from red to green and the door opened to reveal Irene holding a handful of carrier bags.

"I think I have found you the most disgusting looking piece of knitwear that a human hand has even had a part in making." Irene said gleefully as she threw the other bags into the room and began rummaging around in one.

John and Sherlock exchanged a final look before they turned their attention to Irene, "I mean look at it," Irene said as she held out the offending jumper, "It looks like Mothercare was raped by a rainbow."

The jumper was striped purple, green, orange and blue with thousands of yellow ducks were embroidered onto the fabric. It looked pretty small too which gave John the impression that if he put it on the collar would choke the life out of him and the cuffs would cut off blood supply to his hands.

Irene seemed to be deliriously happy with her purchase and as she looked up from the revolting piece of clothing she beamed at John. He must have looked as broken as he felt because her smile quickly faded and she looked from John to Sherlock, her brow creasing as she took their devastated expressions in.

"Oh boys," she said with a laboured sigh, "What have you done?"

John turned his head towards Sherlock but found that Sherlock was now avoiding his gaze. He wouldn't look at him, wouldn't even acknowledge his presence. The room suddenly felt suffocating and claustrophobic and John just needed to get out.

So that's what he did. He plucked his coat up off the floor, slid his arms into the sleeves, crossed the room and disappeared through the open door. Because he didn't look back he didn't see Sherlock watching him leave.