WARNING: Content including minor gore, alcohol abuse and suicide. Read at your own discretion.
One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-six days.
Sixty months.
Five years.
Five years without Sherlock. Five years since he jumped from the roof of St. Bart's, sacrificing himself to save his only friends. Not that they knew that.
Five years since John Watson's life was torn to shreds at his feet.
Five years too long to grieve, to reminisce, to abandon hope.
Later, (thankfully, not Mrs. Hudson, her dear old heart would've given out) they find him in front of a wall painted in his blood, the same wall that's decorated with a faded yellow face. Another hole for the collection, it seems.
Five years after the death of his best friend, and John celebrates by eating a bullet.
One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days.
Tomorrow's a big day.
John Watson let his life begin to wither the second Sherlock's head broke against the pavement.
He decides the second he wakes up that it's been five years too long without Sherlock. He decides that he's pretty much gone already, and that he might as well make it official.
The morning before the five-year-anniversary, John decides it's to be his last day.
One thousand, eight hundred and ten days.
It's the beginning of the month, and Lestrade phones to check on him. He asks if he's interested in watching the game with him tonight at the pub.
John politely declines, telling him he's been sober for almost a year and it probably isn't wise to go to any bars.
Lestrade tries to talk him into watching at his place, instead. "No booze, promise," he adds. John still says no. Says he's got a late shift at the Surgery. It's not entirely a lie.
It's the time of year when he starts to receive the calls, checking in on him. Or Mrs. Hudson making her regular rounds, with excuses of cleaning and crap telly.
Rounding the five-year mark, John can tell something's different about this year. It feels more…he can't place his finger on it, but he's not worried. He's strangely at peace, maybe more than in the last five years combined.
Something about this year feels…final.
One thousand, four hundred and sixty days.
Four years.
John relapses, as he has every anniversary since the first. It's practically tradition, he thinks glumly.
He works the Surgery all day, then slips into a liquor store on his way home and buys enough alcohol to last him for several hours, at least. It won't take nearly that long to knock him out, and he figures maybe he'll save himself the trip for next year.
Next year. God, the thought makes his head throb.
Maybe there won't be a next year, he thinks. Maybe I'll drink myself to death before then. Or something else.
That something else has imagery attached to it: every possible way he's considered killing himself. Most he thought of in those first months, between bouts of drunkenness. He's added a few ideas over the years, too.
He's scheduled the next day off from work. One less thing to worry about.
And then he heads home.
One thousand and ninety-five days.
Three years.
John's already drunk off his rocker and collapsed on the floor at the foot of Sherlock's old bed. He's never dared touch it, for fear of wiping away any trace of the man that remains. Hasn't even changed the sheets—and he nearly made Mrs. Hudson cry the first (and only) time she tried.
It's the only time of year that he digs the key out of his 'junk' drawer and disturbs the room's silent, dusty existence.
Harry called him earlier that day, sounding surprisingly sober. When he asked how she was doing, she huffed and muttered something about not drinking that night because he was sure to drink enough for the both of them. He responded with some equally (or maybe more so) not-nice words and proceeded to hang up on her. He would call her tomorrow, post-hangover, and apologize, but she'd already be drunk and would probably forget.
All she'd remember was the bad. Story of his life, nowadays.
John falls asleep with a gun in his hand. When he wakes the next morning, he'll not remember why it's there, or how he managed to dig that key out of the 'junk' drawer in his state.
But it doesn't scare him, not even a little bit.
Seven hundred and thirty days.
Two years.
Honestly, this is the only year he tries not to give in. He works all day, comes home without making a pit stop to buy cheap whiskey and beer, takes a call from Mycroft, eats a proper dinner and watches crap telly with Mrs. Hudson until a relatively decent hour.
And then he goes to bed.
He's awoken just before midnight, thrashing and shouting, sweating and crying. The dreams are back, worse than ever before.
It's not yet midnight, and he makes the trip to the liquor store in his pyjamas.
Three hundred and sixty-five days.
A whole year.
He'd been sober for three and a half months, and had gathered his life into some semblance of togetherness.
He looks back at his life only a few months ago, and wants to laugh.
At first, it seemed explainable by the loss—missing work at the Surgery, drinking himself into a blackout each and every night, alternating weeks of no eating and over eating. He gained weight first, then lost it all—and then some. John became a ghost of what he had been.
The limp returned. As did the night terrors—but only on the nights when he cried himself to sleep before he could drink himself there. He quit going to therapy after three visits.
They let this go on, telling themselves it was the loss. Lestrade, Harry, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft. They let it go on for months and months.
Until one night Lestrade got the call from Mrs. Hudson. John had choked on his own vomit, and had been shipped to the hospital.
Harry got him set up in a rehabilitation program, the same one she'd never quite finished. The next time would be her last, and she'd get farther than ever before, but two days shy of a year and she'd fall off the wagon again, and wouldn't get back on.
Mrs. Hudson would let John stay at Baker Street, always keeping an eye on him but never really interfering.
John looks back at this and wants to laugh.
Because on the outside, John's fine. Working, eating, not drinking, living. But John's merely a shell of what he was before, his body walking around and carrying on with life while his heart, his soul, is suspended in liquid darkness—like an old body part suspended in formaldehyde.
And no one notices. Or they do and they ignore it. Either way, it's just damn bloody brilliant.
Drinks are on him, tonight. Literally, at one point, when his hand shakes just a bit too much and his beer goes walkabout, spilling all over him in his chair.
And this time, John really does laugh.
Two hundred and fifty-seven days.
John wakes up in the hospital.
It didn't work, he thinks.
One day.
Sherlock is dead. John sits in his chair, staring at his chair. Sherlock is dead. John cannot move; he can barely breathe. Sherlock is dead. He hears a creak in the hallway, expects Mrs. Hudson to come coddle him.
"John," he hears, trembling staccato and deep treble.
Sherlock is not dead. Sherlock is not dead.
Sherlock is alive.
A/N: So this story is really hard. It was a one-second idea that became an hour-and-a-half fic. Honestly, I would love reviews on this one because I really don't know what was happening here other than a lot of emotions. My own, as well, because suicide's kind of a touchy topic.
I don't know if it's made clear—actually, I'm pretty sure it's entirely unclear—but the end of the story is supposed to be a resolution of sorts. The story starts with dead John, dead Sherlock; it ends with them both alive and (for the most part) well. It changes the timeline, so the story is, essentially, unwritten. Get it?