AN- You guys have been great, and I know how much the last chapter hurt, so maybe this will help a little bit.
John had known, right from the beginning, how terrible Sherlock's death would be. He wouldn't go to bed fine and never wake up. He wouldn't collapse one day in the middle of a sentence and just be gone.
He would suffer, gasping for breath and his lungs ceased to work. Or perhaps his heart would forget how to beat. Or something so simple as the common bloody cold would take down the great Sherlock Holmes.
And John hated that. He prayed it would be as simple as his heart ceasing to beat. He prayed a lot.
Really, Sherlock was dead. Had died a week ago in fact. This wasn't him. It may have been his body, heart still beating, lungs still struggling to keep on breathing, but this was not Sherlock Holmes. The brilliant brain once contained in this transport had been eaten away, leaving only a shell of what had once been.
It happened. It happened, and it happened about as well as it could have. Despite being on oxygen around the clock, John watched anxiously as Sherlock's sats dropped dangerously low with each shallow gasping shuddering breath. So it was almost a relief when they stopped. It took everything John had in him to not go into doctor mode and insist to Sherlock's broken body that it needed to start up again, because he damn sure wasn't ready for this. He didn't beg for just one more minute.
He held Sherlock's hand until it was no longer warm and kissed his best friend on the forehead before shakily leaving the room.
John noted numbly that it was exactly 6 months to the day that Sherlock had told him he was going to die.
"I have 6 months. Maybe more. Probably less."
Those were his exact words.
John wasn't entirely sure why, but this was hysterical.
He practically fell over laughing, gasping for breath and he writhed around on the floor.
It's not even funny, his brain told him, and he knew that. But he also knew traumatic experiences sometimes cause emotions to get entirely mixed up. Still, it didn't seem appropriate to be dying of laughter poor choice of words when his best friend lay in the room next to him. Ceasing to exist.
John's breath caught in his throat, and he realized he was no longer laughing, but sobbing. Better.
And there was nothing else to do but curl up in a ball and cry until he could no longer form tears, until he dried out and his racking sobs tore him apart and he flew off in the slightest breeze, just dust on the wind.