I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC.

If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Written for the Rupert Graves birthday meme, though I'm afraid I haven't given him a very good one here.

In the first moments after the bomb, there is no sound for several city blocks; ears ring and screams fall silently into a blank, white void. The world tilts on its axis and there is no help for London, not until the minutes stretch like molten tar across the sudden peace, snapping back rapidly to a roar of violence and flame.

Sirens through smoke, the ambulances useless to charred bodies lying scattered in the streets, but they come anyway, and leave with pointless cargo like so many shattered bricks piled on their stretchers, travelling to hospitals now newly-minted morgues. Fire engines follow in a flash of red against the grey, heavy streams of Thames-brown water drowning the flickering shadows as the steam curls up to meet the smoke and soot.

This is where it happened, and there is no air to breathe.

Police response vehicles gather, piling up next to jagged debris as officers in lurid yellow jackets spread over the devastation, cataloguing, shifting pieces, shouting, was there anybody here?

There is an answer to that question, but no one knows whom to ask.

The Major Investigation Team arrives and Donovan climbs out of a car, shrill-voiced, to marshal the uniformed officers into some semblance of organization; Anderson, behind her, delegates jobs with efficiency. Both have been trained for incident response, though everything they do seems hollow in the face of this rehearsal for apocalypse.

Piece by piece, they move the wreckage, twisted rebar jutting out from broken concrete, compound fracture for the bones of London. Fragments of pool ceramic slice through gloves and hands; dust clogs respirators and lungs, masks and eyes.

They find a body here, and then another. Donovan's eyes turn cold, and even Anderson is stunned to silence when he recognizes dark, curled hair against the gold.

Sherlock and John go to Bart's by ambulance, not because it will help, but because no one on the team is ready yet to comprehend what it means that they've found them here, pale skin networked with rivulets of ink-dark blood, already cold despite the flames that edge toward their heads.

They were together when it happened; John still has one arm at Sherlock's waist and no one separates them as they are taken away.

No one sees the gun, either, dropped almost negligently on the tiled floor where they are found. A British army standard-issue, nine-millimetre, compact; it fits well into a hand. And no one checks to see how many cartridges have been spent, not even when shaking fingers close over the grip and pull it haltingly across the mud-slick surface of the deck.

No one sees the shattered man who weeps alone in a corner, cradling the gun because it's all that there is left.

The others proceed with the cleanup, not knowing that there should have been another body, not alarmed when none is found. This is an easy death, they think. John has no family, no friends and none to grieve him, and Sherlock is no better loved. So all the ends are tied up, neat and clean, because John had Sherlock and Sherlock John, and no one thinks there might have been another left alone when the brilliant trajectories of their lives were cut off abruptly halfway.

He goes unnoticed, then, grey-haired man in a grey suit, grey-faced, because nothing in this blast-scoured place has any colour.

It comes to him only slowly that the object he is holding, fragment of shrapnel from a life that's blown apart, is not just a memento. The gun opens a door, and even if it is a one-way trip, it's still a way out of the world, and God, he wants it.

He stares at the gun and it stares back, single blind accusing eye set deep into the barrel, and he can see the sheen of gold down at its base. It's waiting for him, then; they have an understanding.

He tilts it to one side, searches the grip for fingerprints, for signs of John or even Sherlock, but anything there was has since been scorched away. It crosses his mind that, when he's ready, the gun may not even fire – except it will; that's why it's here.

A shout rings out from somewhere in the hazy distance. He doesn't hear the words, but stills a thick shock of adrenaline as he thinks for a moment, John, before remembering the truth. It sounds like John – or does it? is he already forgetting? – but it won't be, John is gone, and Sherlock, and he wraps his hand more firmly around the gun (trembling, his fingers, but it's hard to miss from such a distance).

He doesn't believe there will be more to the world when he leaves it; he's not looking for some grand reunion. It's only that there is no other way to end the emptiness already gnawing at his chest, no way to go on living that doesn't have John and Sherlock stamped bright-bold around the edges. High, gold laugh and warm, rich bass and Sunday evenings shivering at a crime scene, only now, no more, his new friend whispers, no, no more.

"All right," he whispers back, "no more."

Sherlock would see the tiny movements of his shoulders, see the look on his face in the moment he decides; Sherlock would stop him.
John would see the gun in his hands, knock it across the pool deck, send it spinning off into the dark and gather him up tightly, orange blanket bringing colour back into a world without.

Sherlock and John are gone, and he thinks, what's just one more tiny Armageddon in the middle of it all?

He expects to hear the gunshot crack, but the world is already empty, and when he pulls the trigger, there is nothing left to carry sound.