Work Text:
John had been waiting for the dark all day.
Grief had made him superstitious, bargaining with weather, clocks, stars. Sherlock was dead. The Moon crossing the Sun could not bring him back.
Still, John waited.
The light thinned until evening bled into afternoon. Eyes lowered, he watched crescents of sun beneath the trees, pale wounds trembling over the pavement.
Come back, he thought. Just once. Let the dark give you back.
The crescents sharpened.
Then another shadow entered them. The long sweep of a Belstaff. The high collar. Curls breaking the outline of a bowed head.
John knew that shape better than he knew his own grief.
He turned.
A hand covered his eyes, warm, solid and living.
“John, don’t. You can’t look up during a partial eclipse.”
That voice was a knife.
He clawed at the hand, but it held fast; tears had stolen his voice. He caught Sherlock's coat, kissing him everywhere he could reach, scrambling for his mouth. Sherlock opened to him, warm, wet with tears and saliva, pulsing with life.
“John—John,” came that low rumble.
John kissed him, tasting salt, breath, life.
“John—don’t look now.”
John kissed him and whispered against his mouth, “I’d rather go blind than never see you again.”
The hand fell away, and totality shone behind the man John had mourned.