A/N Aaaaaaaaaand, a character death was needed. Not like he's going to stay dead, because, like I said, these drabbles are basically each a universe unto themselves, but yes.
Thanks to Hummingbird1759, 1895GoodSir, johnsarmylady, muffinlover18, for-my-fingers, and Natalie Nallareet
Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.
XLIII. Dying
"Sherlock, it's not going to end like this. Not now. Not after everything. Please."
The words are steady, empty, and they reflect the utterly numb cavity in John's chest, which seems to be widening by the second, because he can feel Sherlock's breaths getting shallower, and he knows it's coming, coming for him all at once, and he can't bear it—not like this—sickness, sickness, it's so mundane, so horribly mundane, and like this, in a hospital bed, surrounded by steady beeping (growing slower, ever slower) and crisp white sheets… the doctors aren't here, they're not trying to stop it, and John knows that that means. He knows they've given up.
"Sh-sherlock. Please."
There are no tears, just his horribly tight grip on Sherlock's limp hand. The dying man can't hear him at this point, he knows that, but he keeps talking anyways, even as his throat seems to swell up, pressing against the words, trying to hold them in, so that by the time they manage to get out, they're cracked and dry.
"You're strong, you're stronger than this, hold on…"
For a moment, just a brief, burning moment, the fingers that he's clinging to clench suddenly, tight but still weak, and his heart and lungs and mind seem to freeze all at once—Sherlock—but then a slow sigh comes from his body, from the horrible clear plastic mask encasing the lower half of his face, and he seems to deflate, settling against the pillows as his hand goes entirely limp, a calm, serene expression settling over his deadly pale face as the slow beeps stretch into a single long, endless note, one that instantly springs a headache in John's skull, the worst noise he's ever heard.
"Sherlock," he says again, shaking the hand that he still clutches back and forth. "Sherlock… Sherlock. Sherlock."
Then he's reaching his other arm up, cradling the side of Sherlock's face, feeling the still-warm skin, a sick swoop lurching through his stomach at the awful stillness. His fingers move down, past the neck, shoulder, until they're positioned on Sherlock's chest, over the heart, the heart that he'd felt beat next to his so many times.
A breath, a heartbeat, anything. Please, anything.
There's nothing.
"Sherlock," he mumbles again in horrible repetition, his lips going numb as something hot blurs his vision, mars his view of that perfect, frozen face. "Sherlock… Sherlock."
He needs to hear his voice again, hear his rare but beautiful laugh, see his eyes. Instead, he gets coldness and emptiness, a sterile hospital room, a swarm of faux-sorrowful nurses approaching and that horrible, endless, monotonous beep.
They're saying something to him, taking ahold of his shoulders and pulling him away, holding him back as they put something over Sherlock's face, something white, something obscuring and unwanted and out-of-place.
John just wants to see him.
Wants to hear him say that everything will be okay.
"Sherlock."