John has not cried at all since Sherlock… jumped. fell. died. … left him. The light has disappeared from his eyes and there was a hollow feeling growing inside him, as if he was slowly being emptied out, as if his internal organs were being removed. One. by. one.
He starts doing it subconsciously, his thumb tracing the broken skin on his wrist where the handcuffs had cut into him. A purple-black bruise surrounds the wound, like a body of water surrounds an island… enclosing. isolating. limiting. And John is an island now because he was very much alone.
A few days later, Mrs. Hudson invites him to tea. John sees the lines on her face, the look in her eyes and the tissues carelessly tucked into her sleeve (worry, concern, sad, still very sad). He sighs, gets up from his chair and joins her.
The quiet seems to have followed him downstairs, the silence providing a backdrop for the sound of tea being poured, the soft clinks of porcelain, the tick-tock of a clock. Mrs. Hudson takes a seat across from him at the small square table. It is a familiar scene, a familiar position, with one less person to complete the memory. She grabs a tissue and snivels, the familiarity bringing fresh tears to her already red eyes. John takes the tea in front of him, offers a weak smile and allows the warmth to seep into his hands. A chill has settled over him ever since it had happened. It is on his skin, underneath it, in his blood, in his bones. He can't escape it even as he sips his tea and allows the hot liquid to pass down his throat. It is like an extra layer of skin, an armor that extends outwards from somewhere inside him – an armor with the consistency of ice, or maybe melted sugar. Transparent but very brittle. A single careless touch can break it into a million pieces and John is afraid he'd break along with it.
He puts his cup back on the table and stares at it, noticing the china pattern, the colour of the tea, the steam emanating from its depths. He starts doing it again, absent-mindedly, his left thumb massaging his now yellow bruise and the cut on his skin in time with the rhythm set by the clock on the mantle. With each stroke, the topography of the wound comes into clearer focus inside his head. The skin has started to heal, leaving a broken line composed of new skin and dried blood, alternating textures of smooth and rough, like dashes on paper.
"Does it hurt, dear? Should I get you something for it?"
"Mhmm. Pardon?"
Mrs. Hudson's quivering voice pulls John out of his trance and he looks at her. She looks pointedly at where his left hand is holding his right. "Your wrist," she supplied.
John looks down at his hands, separates them and awkwardly places them on either side of the teacup. "Oh, it's nothing. Just an old scar."
Mrs. Hudson doesn't ask anymore, almost as if she understands. She can't have, John thinks. No one in this world understands. The only one who did was…
John thanks Mrs. Hudson for the tea, makes some poor excuse of having to call his sister and leaves, his tea unfinished and by now cold. He rushes up the seventeen steps into the flat and closes the door behind him. Hand still on the door knob, John slowly sinks to the floor. He doesn't want Mrs. Hudson to see him cry. But the tears never come. Even as they prick the back of his eyes, they never come. So John just sits there leaning against the door, his small figure wracked with dry sobs, and wonders if it is possible to drown in air.
A week and a half after Sherlock's death, Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade invited John to have a couple of drinks. He agrees without hesitation, his need for something stronger than tea suddenly makes itself known at the offer.
Greg looks terrible. There are shadows under his eyes and stiffness in his gait as if he hasn't slept in days. And in fact, he hasn't. Mycroft's intervention has allowed Greg to keep his job, but due to his association with the fake genius who committed suicide, he has lost the respect of most of the people in the Yard. He gets stuck with the inane cases, the ones nobody wants. Every day is a torture, but he pushes on, desperately trying to clear his friend's name.
The media has not stopped attacking Sherlock, John supposed. His tragic death has only added to the flames, each rumor is sensationalized, spread like wildfire and taken as fact. He has given up on the whole industry. No one defends Sherlock, not a single one of all those people he has helped. And John finds it so damn unfair, especially when Sherlock had done so much to protect them. After all the criminals he put behind bars, all the wrongs he made right, not one single bloody person stands up for him. Who is going to protect them now that Sherlock has… jumped. fallen. died. … left? England has lost her foremost defender and yet she doesn't mourn him.
John's mind wanders off as Greg tells him what he has found about Richard Brook. He fingers the cut on his wrist, now almost fully healed, the bruise now brown. New skin has engulfed the cut, leaving a faint pink scar where the wound used to be. Some parts are still rough to the touch, islets of dried blood clinging to the old skin. Like ellipses at the end of a sentence.
"Graffiti keeps popping up all over the place, apparently that's my division now, so I haven't had a good night's sleep, but I find that I don't really mind. Have you seen them, John?"
"Seen what?" John answers mechanically, his surprise at his own appropriate response to the conversation clears the fog from his mind.
"The graffiti! The Sherlock movement! Don't tell me you haven't seen them?" Greg exclaimed excitedly.
"What are you talking about?"
Greg drags him out of the bar and runs, eyes scanning every inch of wall and surface. He leads John to an empty lot with a brick wall lining one side. John's mouth falls open at the sight.
The words I believe in Sherlock Holmes are written in every style and colour, as if someone had thought to dress and clothe the wall with those words.
"Some of them say 'I'm fighting John Watson's war'. There's also 'I support John Watson' and 'Moriarty was real'. I'm supposed to find who did this and charge them with vandalism and defacing public property and some other thing, but I can't bring myself to do it. It gives me hope, you know?"
John knows and understands entirely. It makes him feel that he's not alone after all. He smiles for the first time since Sherlock… jumped. fell. died. … left him.
John is sitting in the living room watching the news. There was a piece on the 'I believe in Sherlock Holmes' movement, people who called themselves Watson's Warriors. John can already picture Sherlock's reaction, all sulking and pouting. If they believe in me so much, why didn't they name themselves after me? They could have been Holmes'… hobbits. John can't breathe from laughing. Hmmph. I'll work on it.
As John watches the story unfold on screen, he places his left hand over his right. Subconsciously, he touches the inside of his wrist where the veins diverge before entering his hand. Smooth, unbroken skin. John is suddenly aware that he was touching something wet. He looks down and sees the moisture on his wrist and then a few more drops land on top. He brings his trembling left hand to his face and feels the tracks his tears have made on his cheeks. He is suddenly aware of the taste of salt on his lips, aware that his vision has turned blurry. The series of realization pushes the air out of John's lungs in one anguished cry. He quickly claps his hand to his mouth and lets the noise die there. As John cries and sobs quietly into his hands, his eyes fall on the empty chair across from him. And when he has regained the ability to speak without choking on his sobs, he lets out a shaky, shuddering why.
"Why… Sherlock? Why did you… leave. go. disappear. …jump? Why did you… kill yourself? Look at all the people who still believe in you, Sherlock. They're out there. Your supporters. And even if they weren't, you had me. You still have me. So why…?"
John stares at the chair as if it holds the answer he wanted in its seams, in its legs, in its wings. But much like John's scar, there is no trace of it anywhere.
Author's Note: Hope you like this, the idea came to me because I had a scar on my wrist (I have no idea how it got there) and I found myself touching it a lot. So that feeling/experience translated to this fic. Leave a review and tell me what you think? Please? :)