Love Has Limits

*EXTREME GAY PANIC*

I suggest listening to Anyone, God Rest His Soul, Blood On The Pavement, One More Miracle, SHERlocked and Which Bottle? from the BBC Sherlock soundtrack...

This trash is getting intense!

Have fun suffering.

- Trash Author

The next couple of minutes were fuzzy in Sherlock's memory.

There were passing snippets and glimpses of information that seeped into his attention, but focusing on what was happening was almost too much for him at that moment. His focus kept slipping in and out- like the glimmer of street lights as you drive by or a recollection of what happened when you first wake up.

He remembered the flash of the ambulance lights as they rounded the corner, the piercing wail of it's sirens against the gentle and simple murmurs of the night, even the sight of a paramedic in green lifting John up and away from him.

Sherlock stood as he saw that, following the paramedics dreamily to the back of the ambulance, and was about to step up with them before he was stopped by a young medic girl with wavy, blonde hair.

"I'm sorry sir, only family is allowed in."

"But I-"

Lestrade suddenly appeared at his elbow, flashing his badge in front of the medic.

"Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Let this man in."

The blonde haired girl looked back at the other paramedic's before turning to stare into the wavering face of a broken Sherlock Holmes.

It might've been the sight of his pained eyes that finally made her step aside.

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"No, no, no! We're losing him...we're losing him! Quickly!" The sound of the medic's strangled cry left Sherlock breathless.

They rushed around him, screaming instructions and fiddling with machines as the ambulance rocked and bounced, sirens whirling above them.

Stabilizers beeped and whined and blared, voices shouted demands and cries while Sherlock stood in the middle of it all. Staring at the fading life of his best friend.

It was all too much.

John couldn't leave him...he just couldn't.

Sherlock would be lost.

A sudden sob escaped Sherlock, rolling out deep from his throat.

Because abruptly everything he had been clinging onto for life, everything he needed to be stable, to survive, the thing that he relied on for being steady, quivered mockingly in front of him. He once held a heart (dull, maybe, but still a heart) in his chest. But for the past couple of years, it had been in front of him. Guiding like an angel, cussing like a demon and sneering as a friend.

He'd lost it, given it unwillingly away to the man now dying in front of him.

If anyone tried to comfort him and say that they knew how it felt he could say with certainty that they didn't.

They hadn't watched as their heart broke in front of them.

They didn't clutch at their empty chest as they watched the only life they've ever had fade before them.

They had never felt a life they never knew they had crumble before they could savour it.

Sherlock had thought they were weak, stupid, idiots for this sentiment. He always thought if he could keep himself away, let himself be so horrible that everyone was pushed away, that it wouldn't come to this. He never imagined that there would be someone brilliant and stupid enough to stay.