A/N I wouldn't have written this, had a friend of mine not spoiled 'The Sign of Three' for me. I figured this was apt punishment. Characters not mine, sweethearts.
His mind was a vivid palace of beauty, one that could not be touched by anyone other than himself. It was his safe place, his shelter.
There was nowhere else for him to go, now. No one could see him, no one could hear him. He was alone, in this dark and dripping world.
The boards of the flat, once so golden and bright beneath faux Persian rugs, now lay in a state of decay. Holes led to the rooms below, empty though they were.
Mrs. Hudson had left, so long ago. A few months after his 'death', he believe. The holes wouldn't bother her, anyway.
Her departure, of course, had left him with no one to talk to.
John had left before Sherlock had even registered that he, the great detective, still existed. Not that he should still exist. Not that he wanted to exist anymore. Not like this. Never like this.
John had left the flat right after the Fall. Right after his 'suicide', as it was called. Too true, in hindsight. Far too true.
It had been one bloody miscalculation on his part that threw the whole thing off. Stupid, really.
Not yet conscious, and yet still aware, Sherlock had followed the doctor, watching him.
He could have been so bright, Sherlock mused. John had always been beautiful. Now, then—it had all gone to waste.
It had started out simply. John claimed to hear a voice in the darkness of the night, voice that sounded distinctly like they were coming from the mouth of someone who was, most certainly, dead. He grew scared, suspicious, and Sherlock had watched as he locked himself in his own dingy little flat, separated from the rest of the world.
Sherlock was desperate to get closer. He couldn't control himself, really.
There had been a beauty to John, when he lived. There was beauty there, and Sherlock feasted on it.
Soon enough, the voice wasn't just coming from the dark. John heard it coming from the walls, and, far too soon, from inside his head.
Sherlock watched heartlessly as the doctor slowly lost his mind, feasting greedily on the light inside his mind.
It was only when John took the gun from his desk drawer that Sherlock registered where and what he was.
The blood on the wall stank, and he blanched, reeling back, frightened.
It was far too late once he realized what he had done.
That was his legacy, it seemed. Always too late to save them.
Now, as the hours ticked mercilessly by, Sherlock would sit in the armchairs of old, back in 221B, floating somewhere between memory and present. The flat was now home to rats and worms, all crawling and eager for the scraps of his memory. He would sit and pick at his brain, watching as the world passed by before him. Ignorant as he had never been in life.
The emptiness of the flat haunted him. It sent him into a maddening spiral from which he could not escape.
John never came home anymore.
John was gone.
He was gone, technically. He shouldn't even exist. He was a fabrication, a monstrosity. He was a beast, trapped forever in a place that he could not escape from.
He was a memory of a time long, long past. He was far too late to save the rest of the world. Poor man couldn't even save himself.
Time and grief twisted him, turned his mind outside of itself.
Lestrade came to visit him, once. He brought the old crew with him, too, Sherlock noted with disgust. He hadn't wanted to be bothered at the time, and had driven them out, accordingly.
No one came after that. No one but the rats and the worms.