A/N: see you on the other side, comrades.

John sits up at 4:30 in the morning, sweating bullets, panting like a dog. His entire bed is drenched in sweat, and his lips are parched with the dry air - in this state of confusion, he gets up and limps his way to the bathroom.

When he looks inside the mirror, all he can focus on is his face, which is horrendously gaunt. His pupils are blown wide, bags so dark that they contrast starkly next to his skin. He looks like he's a watercolor painting. Every color of him is exaggerated and unhealthily pale. And his eyes...

They look like they've been washed out; pastel tints of what they used to be, the smile but a fading memory. Crow's feet sit in the corners of his eyelids, unused, and the blues and browns less bright than usual. Not that they were ever bright, but now, they're just... plain.

Sherlock used to look at his eyes like they were imponderable galaxies, not hard to solve, but hard to dig through. Sherlock used to think that John was made of endless layers, like a Russian nesting doll that never got smaller. He could peel back the skin of him and never stop, for eternity; he could research every layer every second of every day until the minute he died. John was solvable, but also more complex than any jigsaw puzzle Sherlock had ever tackled. Sherlock used to look at him like he was worth something more than the sum of his parts. Because John was beautiful, and intelligent, and talented. And God, he thought that John lit up a fucking room.

He had faith in John (God knows why), faith that John couldn't find in himself. He thought that Sherlock's faith in him was enough to move mountains and build bridges; create little worlds of his own inside his head, paint stories of gold upon a canvas of silver.

John just wants one more second with him. One more early morning. One more smell, one more taste, one more touch; he wants to feel Sherlock with him, against him, he wants one more moment for them to be one and the same.

He looks into those bloodshot, terrified eyes - the ones that are looking back at him - and he thinks, I am going to hell for this. Not that I wasn't before. But it was more subtextual. God might've let me stay in purgatory for a few thousand years. Now, I'm just going straight to the fucking ninth layer.

John limps to his bedroom, groggily opens his closet, and puts on his winter clothes - and with a last second thought, he takes some post-it notes and a pen. He doesn't hesitate as he scribbles a note onto it; a note that is weighted and heavy, like brass.

At times in the evening, he used to think that these words were only said in lies, forced out of people's mouths to hide the truths of being alive. John was never a depressive, but he tried to be a realist. He hated the idea of having something taken away from him, out of his mouth, forcefully volunteered from his lips. He hated the idea of having to admit it, because admitting something makes it sound like you're lying in the first place. He hated having to spit it out like a necessary evil. He hated feeling like the other person had stolen your heart away from you, because then they had it, and you did not; they could do with it what they saw fit.

It seemed like something someone said before they broke; something someone said when it felt like the world was going to stop turning, when they were to the point of begging for mercy, and John himself promised a long time ago he'd never beg for anyone's acceptance.

But here he is, with those words on a sticky note, and everything on earth feels dead quiet.

When he's about to leave, he looks outside.

It's... snowing.

***

For some unknown reason, Sherlock decides to stay up late. Soon late turns to super-late, and then super-late turns into morning.

He isn't staying up because he's sorry, or because he wants to recount how many mistakes he's made in the last few months - hell, he's made a lot. But that isn't why.

He stays up late and plays a worthless violin that keeps on going out of tune when he presses a string too hard, and he recalls melodies that he'd wrapped away in the back of his mind as a child. The music he makes is soft and melancholy, not unlike something one would hear in a contemporary drama that one watches on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

That's all it's been doing lately; raining, so Sherlock thinks that makes enough sense. He dedicates every single song to John, in his mind, because all of them remind him of his eyes, and the way he holds his head up, and his limp, and his paintings that he often doesn't realize are exceptional.

Sherlock doesn't like thinking about John this way, honestly. He doesn't like attaching positive connotations to his name, because, surely, this wasn't a positive experience.

But here he is, holding a violin in his arms that can barely play, and recounting every song as John's to own. If John asked Sherlock to play those pieces, he would say yes a thousand times, and play each piece forwards and backwards, in pizzicato, upside down, for God's sake...

Sherlock knows he isn't an honest person. He thinks that he's above the law, unprincipled beyond even the most egotistical criminal. He has no scruples, and he will never be as selfless, kind, or wise as John, never, in a million years.

He will never have the smile that John has, and he will never look him in the eyes as they're entangled in the sheets that smell of beer and cigarettes and mint and vanilla and run his hands through the hair that looks of sunshine. Sherlock will never be able to fix them, because he can't fix himself, but that doesn't mean that if given the chance, he wouldn't try.

Sherlock isn't an extremely moral person - in fact, the only morals he has have been rubbed off onto him from John. He could never be what John is, but he wants to be; he wants to be like John if it costs him everything.

He wants to kiss his lips, and touch him everywhere, and he wants to wake up with him, and he wants to go to sleep with him, and he wants to talk with him, and yell at him, and tell him that he is fucking remarkable in a subtle way; Sherlock wants to run his fingers down John's spine and kiss the scars that he'd gotten from the war, because, after all, they don't hurt anymore, but they are part of him and they are a wonderful, hateful, destructive story still being told.

John instilled a fear of being alive in Sherlock. Like every moment was a new moment, a moment that needed to be made into something more. And if he could, he'd arrange the stars into a sonnet, "Shall I Compare Thee To a Midwinter's Dawn," the skies would shout. And John would smile his smile, that was of sunshine, and Sherlock would forget how to breathe. Again and again and again, Sherlock would forget how to breathe.

He wants to press his forehead against John's and breathe in the liquor that taints his clothes like watercolors. He wants to - to - he wants... to kiss him. He wants to kiss him so much, as much as he wants to pass notes under the door, as much as he wants pasta and blueberry-honey jam on toast, as much as he needs John, he needs him so much.

He needs his eyes and his lips and his hands, strong and steady, like the veins and arteries that keep Sherlock somewhat alive. He feels like he's cauterized himself emotionally, and he needs John to clear his lungs and to let him breathe again, because he's fucking choking - he needs - he needs - he doesn't know, anymore, but this violin music is driving him to the edge of his sanity - and he fucking needs John's voice to tear into him, over, and over, and over, until he can't fucking speak-

He loves John. He loves John.

And with that realization, Sherlock throws down his violin, and bolts outside.

Strangely, he feels little pinpricks of subtle cold striking him all over, and it isn't until he really looks that he sees:

It's snowing.

***

Snow lands on his tongue, and lips, and nose, and cheeks. It dots him, creating a map of all the dips and bumps on John's body. When he fits himself into Sherlock's spot, overlooking the fair, he lets the snowflakes cover him like he's inanimate.

In this silence, he would be able to hear an ant crawl along the ground. He would be able to hear footsteps from a mile away. He swears he hears something, but he can't be sure.

John wraps his arms around his body and leans against the dead tree that Sherlock had shown him, listening to the pounding of the waves; the falling of snow. His eyes close on their own accord, and unsurprisingly, he feels closer to Sherlock than he's been in weeks.

***

Running is hard: Sherlock had learned that over the past hour. He had run all the way to John's flat, intending to do something grandiose. Like in that one movie John and he watched - Say Anything.

But when he wasn't there... Sherlock was confused. And tired. And he didn't want to go back to his flat, with the broken violin in pieces upon the floor. That would feel like he'd given up. Sherlock had done many things in the last hour (almost dying, being one of those things), but what he did not do was give up, and he resolves that he never will.

It's just that Sherlock is a little tired, and he needs a break.

None of the shops are open around now, though people are beginning to drive down the street in a slow procession. Sherlock flips a mental coin in his head, and decides to walk to the tree overlooking the seaside carnival. There, he can regather himself, and think about his next plan of action.

***

John has a dream about snow. He has a dream that a beautiful snowy figure is in a video rental store, that he's touching a copy of Titanic, James Bond... He is a perfect anomaly - no one seems to notice him as he walks in such a way that it seems like he's floating, snowflakes dancing around him like he's a planet with billions of orbiting moons.

He has a dream that the being floats out without paying, and John is suddenly overtaken by an urge to run into the blizzard. His feet pound into the snowy pavement, and when he catches up, he yanks on the entity's scarf and yells, "I saw you! I fucking saw you!"

And when the snowy figure turns to look back at him, the winds dancing and whipping around his body, snow blowing into John's clothes and into his hair and peppermint breaths filling his mouth...

When the snowy figure turns to look at him, ice blue eyes fix onto John's, and John falls in love with the entity instantly, over and over and over again.

***

Sherlock wasn't expecting for John to be there when he arrived, coated in a thin layer of snow. He wasn't expecting to feel like his heart had stopped beating in his chest.

But he does see him, he is indeed there, and the strangest thing happens.

Sherlock starts running.

He runs up that fucking hill like he's in the Olympics, even though he's not a good runner, really, and when he gets to the top, he is panting like he just did a 10k, but he keeps going, until John's freezing cheeks are in his hands-

John opens his eyes.

John opens his eyes, and Sherlock is right fucking there. On his knees, looking into them like they are imponderable galaxies.

***

"How... how... I..." John's voice gives out and shatters into tiny pieces, because it's too early and everything and nothing makes sense. He doesn't get how he can't see, but yet, everything is so impeccably transparent. "How," he breathes.

Sherlock's face is twisted into a smile so emotional that it almost looks like he's crying - or maybe he is, he doesn't know. Through his panting, he lets out a wild, relieved gasp of laughter that grumbles in the back of his throat, and John melts into the noise, out of breath and flustered. John pulls Sherlock so close to him, trying to emboss him into his chest. He squeezes so tightly that he swears that if Sherlock leaves, right now, he'll rip off some of John's skin.

He's so lost in the moment that John forgets that there's the sticky note in his pocket. "Wait," he breathes, his voice thick. "Wait, Sherlock..."

Sherlock's brow crinkles as John struggles, with numb fingers, to grab it from his coat. His hands shake as he hands it Sherlock, his tongue set on his lips in anticipation.

Sherlock takes the paper, and runs his eyes over the sentence.

For a few dead silent moments, everything alive ceases to be. It's just John, and Sherlock, and those words.

The note reads:

Sherlock, I love you.

And Sherlock feels his heart in his stomach and his brain in his chest and everything so entirely, completely out of place. Nothing has ever been so striking, so profound. The shock of it makes him close his eyes, as if to be in prayer.

John wasn't expecting this, honestly. But that's Sherlock: he stops your heart from beating in your chest and steals the words from your mouth so skillfully that you don't notice they're gone. John holds his breaths inside his lungs, because if, happenstance, they do escape, he'll say something incredibly stupid to muck it up. He stays stark silent and prays to a god that may not exist that out of all the possible things that Sherlock could do, he doesn't leave again. He begs the heavens, he begs them.

Sherlock looks up at John, after a long while.

Their noses are inches apart, and snow is falling onto John's fluttering eyelids as the silence becomes quieter, and quieter, and quieter. John can barely breathe. Sherlock clasps his hands around John's cheeks, running his fingers gently through his hair, letting himself breathe deeply through his mouth. Snow melts under his warm, pink fingertips, and John closes his eyes expectantly, breathing out what looks like mist into the freezing air. John places his hands onto the shoulders of Sherlock's coat, eyes still closed in subtle expectation. Never, in a million years, did he expect to be kissed this way.

And as Sherlock leans in ever closer, frosted breaths mingling with John's, he whispers:

"...Marvelous."