John was numb. He hoped it wouldn't last. Being numb meant he couldn't let the dam of emotions welling up inside of him loose, and they would just build and build and build until something, something would crack the dam and let it all fall out.
Why did you have to go numb, when things like this happened? Were you avoid facing the truth? John was a soldier, he knew how to handle tough situations. But he didn't know how to break the dam. He wanted to face all those things that were fighting in his stomach to wrench out and rip him apart if he didn't do something about them.
He decided to go for a walk.
Walks had always helped him in the Afghanistan. Walking, even if you didn't know where, helped clear your head, or helped you face the enemy ahead of you. John always went for the latter choice when he walked. Better to look into the eyes of the enemy then run away. Running away was for cowards.
John was not a coward.
But at times like these, he wished he was.
Fumbling out of bed, shoving the sheets aside, he went outside of his bedroom. Last night, he hadn't even thought of changing into pajamas. He had slept in the same clothes he had watched his friend die in.
Why did his brain always think of the worst moments to put thoughts like those into his head?
He pulled on his jacket.
He shoved on his shoes.
He faced the stairs.
He didn't want to look at those chairs, the chairs where he had sat last night, thinking nothing could get worse. John had been wrong. This was worse. So much worse.
It occurred to him he would have to move. Mrs. Hudson could keep the flat.
John took a deep, filling breath of stale air and crept down. He didn't want to wake Mrs. Hudson, after everything she had done for him. For his best friend. He didn't want to remind her what yesterday had brought. What might happen in the daylight.
John squeezed his eyes tight. He didn't look back. He just left the flat. He desperately fought to suppress all memories of the place, of the head in the fridge or the laughs he had shared. Now he remembered all of them.
All those times he could have said something. Why the hell didn't he?
He started walking. And walking. And he didn't look twice. People rushed past him, but John didn't pay them any mind. He was too busy thinking.
Thinking about Sherlock.
There. He thought it. For that time he had knelt at the pavement at Saint Barts, he hadn't even allowed himself to think the name. Names had power.
"Sherlock. Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes." What a funny name. John repeated them until he hoped, prayed, begged, wished, yearned, that they would hold no power. No power over him, no power over anybody.
"I think I love Sherlock Holmes," he whispered.
Why hadn't he said it sooner?
But it still wasn't true.
"I know love Sherlock Holmes"
In the movies, this was the part where you rushed through the airport to confess your love, or danced in the rain knowing you found The One. But this held no such happy ending. No one was there to tell anything.
But still, It felt good, to face it.
Maybe he hadn't said it because he thought he wouldn't hear it back.
Maybe he hadn't said it because his parents would hate him if he did. They sure had hated Harry when she had said similar words.
Say it again. That little voice is his head, the one insisting he reached over a table and brush a lock of black hair from his face, or reach out and hold his hand. That voice which insisted he say those words. I love you.
He had disappointed that voice.
The voice sounded like Sherlock's voice. Deep and smooth. Comforting. John would have killed again to hear that voice. He would have killed a planet to hear him say I love you, John Watson.
The buildings started blurring together.
He let his feet carry him.
An hour passed. Maybe two. John didn't know where he was until he looked up.
The dam broke.
A sob escaped him.
The tears came next.
This was Saint Barts. This was where it had all began, meeting that handsome man in his too-tight purple shirts, then letting that man die in his dark wool coat.
He could hardly see, with the tears clouding his vision, making everything fuzzy and indistinct.
There was still police tape, hanging limply, blowing in the breeze, not an officer in sight.
He walked over. Slowly, at first, but then breaking into a sprint.
He knelt down on the sidewalk, right where they had picked him, no, his body up.
John was no stranger to bodys.
He had seen plenty of them. As a doctor. As a soldier. As a friend.
As a lover.
He could add that to the list.
He could add Sherlock to the list.
The list of people he had seen die. Under his knife, under a bullet. Now from a fall.
The Fall.
From then on, that was how he memorialized in his head. Always The Fall.
His hands shaking, he reached into his coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
He unfolded it and read the list.
It always struck him how many people were on that list.
He pulled out a pen. Slowly, he wrote.
Sherlock Holmes.
A tear fell, smearing the ink, blotching it out.
He folded the paper back up and gripped it, sliding it and the pencil back into his coat.
He sat against the building a cried.
He could almost hear his father's voice, yelling, men don't cry.
This man did. John Watson let his tears cascade down his cheeks, without shame, because he had a reason to cry.
This was no scraped knee, this was a stab to the soul.
A part of that soul, a part that made him who he was, a part that had relied on Sherlock Holmes had broken away, and would never come back.
Part of John wanted Sherlock to stay gone. Stay gone, because this was what happened when he was around. Death, tears, pain unlike any other.
But most of him wanted Sherlock to come back. Come back and wrap a coat around his shoulders and sit next to him while he grieved.
There was and shuffle from the shadows, just out of sight. John's eyes shot up, searching for a face he knew wouldn't be there.
Instead, from the shadows, an old homeless man pushing a trolley limped over to him. John quickly wiped his eyes. The man broke into a grin. He was missing a few of his teeth, and the rest were not very well cared for.
"Hullo, young man. Whatcha be cryin' for?" The man said, stopping by John.
"Nothing." John stood, making to leave.
"Now that's a lie. Hold still. I think I have a little gift for ya." He tapped the tip of his nose and went to reach into the trolley, but John didn't want to talk to the old man. He made to leave, but with a speed unknown to any old man John new, a hand gripped his arm. "What you be leaving for? I said I got a gift." The man met John's eyes with his own brown, bloodshot ones. John didn't move. Those eyes where unsettling.
The man dug in his trolley until he produced a black lump. He shoved to lump into John's arms. "Have a good night, laddie. Hope you enjoy it." the man flashed another toothless grin and pushed off.
John had bigger problems than a black lump of cloth, but the texture felt familiar. He gripped what felt like the hem of a sleeve and let the rest of the fabric drop.
It was a coat.
A very familiar coat.
Black, with a little dash of a red buttonhole. Wool. Comfortable.
Sherlock's.
John had thought the first dam to break had been the last.
He was wrong.
Something more than guilt ripped through him. Something more than grief. This was a pain he hadn't felt before. This wasn't a gunshot wound or a deadly disease, this was more than a broken heart. This was loss like he'd never know it before.
Maybe it was because it was Sherlock who had done it to himself. Because he had been the one to step of that roof like the world meant nothing, like John meant nothing. Nobody made Sherlock do this. Nobody put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. There was nobody that revenge could be brought about. There was just a empty, gaping hole, a chasm, a black hole, where Sherlock Holmes would have been.
Maybe it was because John had never loved somebody like this, and he had never had them die. He had never let them die without telling them those three important words. I love you. I love you. I love you more than the billions of stars in the sky, I love you more than the blades of grass or grains of sand or drops of water. I love you. Maybe John had never felt this strongly about such a human being.
Maybe John had just been in love.
Love hurt.
Love hurt when the other person didn't know how much it hurt.
John wondered if Sherlock had ever been in love.
But that didn't matter now. He leaned into the coat and inhaled.
The coat smelled freshly laundered. Not like old homeless man at all.
The coat smelled like Sherlock. Like a mix of tobacco and cinnamon, like 221B, like home.
Another sob stabbed through John.
Another tsunami of tears.
Another broken heart.
John buried his face in the coat. He was glad it was dark. Nobody would see him except a sleepy pidgeon.
John folded the coat up after he took another inhale of the lovely smell.
He walked home.
The peak of the sunrise was starting, and people were starting to come out by the time he had made his way to the flat.
He put the folded coat in a box.
He changed into the clothes he would where tomorrow, when the furry and storm would crash into him and he would be torn apart by a current of grief and the gaping black hole would grow and grow until it swallowed John.
Tomorrow, there would be a funeral to plan.
But that was tomorrow.
Right now he wanted to sleep.
He didn't dream of anything.
Just a hand on his shoulder or a kiss on the cheek.
He wished it could be true.
He wished he had said something.
But most of all, he wished Sherlock was alive. As a friend, as an enemy, as a boyfriend, any of it would be better than this.
John woke up to a damp pillow.
John wished he could forget.
But the tears wouldn't let him forget.
The tears wouldn't let him be a coward.
The tears would fuel him until they had nothing else to give.
When that was gone, he would find something else to give him light.
For the longest time, it had been Sherlock.
But nothing lasted forever.
He wiped a tear.
He faced the mirror.
He took a breath.
John was ready to face the enemy.
A/N I'm not even sorry. I made myself cry writing it and I hope you cried reading it. Until our next tear filled meeting, goodbye and goodnight.