John froze. "What?"

Sherlock said nothing, he just buried his face in his hands.

"Sherlock!" John shouted, and his friend's head jerked up, with desperate, pleading eyes gazing at John.

"You... Love me?" stuttered John in a whisper.

Sherlock's face screwed up in agony. "John. Please, John."

"No, no, no, no, NO!" screamed John as he leapt to his feet. "Sherlock, NO!"

Sherlock rose also, hopelessness etched into every line of his face. But John's eyes were wide and fearful, and they looked at Sherlock as though he was some stranger. John spun around with his hands on the back of his head, with anger and loss. Sherlock's mouth stayed shut.

"I can't... I can't do this, Sherlock!" John gasped. "You... You..."

"John, I didn't mean..." Sherlock began, but John cut him off.

"You didn't mean for this to happen?" he yelled in Sherlock's tormented face. "You didn't mean to have some kind of sick gay attraction to me, did you?!"

Sherlock backed away, and pain filled his whole body, wracking his mouth with a terrible gasp of disbelief and shock. "John!" he said in horror.

John calmed for a second as he realized what he had said. "Dammit, Sherlock!" he growled. "I didn't mean it. I just... I can't stay here."

"Don't leave, John. Please, please don't leave me," Sherlock begged. "You can't go. Please."

"I don't know what else to do, Sherlock!" expressed John as he clenched his frustrated fists. "I can't live with you anymore. Not when I know that every day you look at me like... That."

Sherlock shook with held sobs. "You can't go, John. I need you."

"No. You want me. There's a difference, Sherlock."

"No, John," said Sherlock, his voice rising in passionate speech. "I need you. I can't live without you here."

"You can live perfectly well without me!" John snapped. "You've only known me a year and you were fine without me."

"I was not fine, John. Anything but fine," said Sherlock in a small voice. "I was alone. I was alone without you, John. And I didn't realize what was wrong with that until I met you. You, John. My only friend. I don't want to be alone again, John. Please."

There was a deathly silence. They were both as still as stone, with their eyes locked. Sherlock's were pleading, and John's fearful and uncertain. Their breaths mingled between them.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock," said John. And with that, he brushed past his friend, Sherlock Holmes, and out of the door, closing it definitely behind him.

Sherlock stood alone in 221B, Baker Street, with his dinner smeared across the kitchen floor, and John's unfinished upon the table. It was colder, somehow. More barren. And Sherlock could do nothing as his heart slowly cracked, except for to collapse into his chair, which sat opposite John's empty one, and slowly sob himself to despair.

It was late. Footsteps on the stairs. Not John. The feet were too small, and slippered. Sherlock wiped the salt water from his cheekbones, and sat, slumped in his chair with his temple resting on the two fingers of his left hand.

"Sherlock?" Mrs Hudson's voice cut across the quiet. "Sherlock, what's happened? Where's John?"

Sherlock's voice was rough and raw as he spoke in harsh tones.

"John's gone, Mrs Hudson. He's gone."