Three years. It had almost been three years.
He had done all he could do to ease the pain that tormented him constantly in the mind. Oh, it hurt so much. It was excruciating, throbbing and shattering. Sherlock was dead. He hated that statement. Hated those three words. It broke him and tore him in ways that he didn't know possible. Those words would make him shudder and draw in a deep breath before he would close his blue eyes tightly and try to forget all about it. He never knew how true that old say was until now - you never know what you have until it's gone. He had no idea how much Sherlock had meant to him until now.
He was broken. He was shattered. He was broken and shattered mentally. There had been nights, John could recall vividly, where he would startle awake with panted breathing and drenched in a cold sweat, and in the shadows he would be able to make out the all too achingly familiar shape of Sherlock. "Just an illusion," he would tell himself in a hoarse whisper. "You're going insane." Never had he thought he would tell himself that, but here he was, believing those words were the honest truth now. His sanity had shattered like fragile glass.
The thought of drinking away his sorrows had come to his mind once too often. He had pushed that thought aside as he would not end up like Harry. He wasn't going to find himself in a drunken stupor every night; no, he wasn't going to do that to himself. He had promised himself to not do such a thing.
There was one thing that he could do, however. He had pushed away all socialization. For almost three years John had kept to himself, only coming out of his room perhaps twice a week for simple luxuries like a tiny meal from the kitchen. Mrs. Hudson would be a source of socialization from time to time, but something told John that she knew to leave him alone for the most part.
John knew he was a husk of himself. Rarely would he eat or drink now, his body thin and skinny at the rate of his current consumption. He was practically a skeleton by now, but did that matter to him? Not really. In fact, he was sure he wouldn't mind death to starvation, death to dehydration. Nothing would be worse than his dear Sherlock's downfall. Even his hair had taken a beating in his sorrow. Messy and ruffled it was, the blond strands of his hair seeming to never be brushed out anymore. His voice as well was cracked and dry from mistreatment. Every now and then he would speak with Mrs. Hudson, but that was rare. There were times he would even speak to his reflection in a nearby mirror. Everything about him now, his posture, his expression, his looks, just screamed out how bad of a depression he had fallen into.
On this particular night the horizon was still faintly stained with the last drops of the golden sunset. Tainted with that gold were droplets of creamy pink and dull purple, the colors wispy against the backdrop of dark indigo that was slowly seeping into the skies like ink upon thin paper. The daylight birds had even fluttered off into their nests, the bats and owls taking their place in the night. Only the creatures of the night were out to play now.
John was sitting upon the bedside, his blond hair ruffled and his blue eyes dull. He stared blankly up at the shadowed ceiling, his mind whispering to him in a dark and morbid way. He felt as if he only had two options left. Both were reasonable to him in a way, and both were out of pure desperation, but he was more than desperate now. The time had to come to pick between two options of fate. He could either commit suicide or make a deal.
With suicide he could just end it all. There were so many different ways to do such a task. A bullet through the head, poison, overdosing, even...even a fall. John could feel himself reeling with sorrowful pain at the thought of going out how Sherlock had. Would he even follow the once great consulting detective to the ground? He wasn't sure if he could answer that. Oh, he could just go ahead and end all of this with his own hands, but that thought wasn't truly appealing to him. Not yet.
With a deal, he could simply bring Sherlock back with a few words. John knew there would be a price, but he was willing to take it. At least he would still be with Sherlock for some time before anything would happen to him. He would sell his soul to Hell just to spend a few years with Sherlock. This felt to be the true answer out of his two questions.
The thought of making a deal had come to him just a few months ago in all honesty. John could remember how he, on impulse, was going to do it sooner than now, but he hadn't had time to prepare himself both physically and mentally. He had not gathered the items he would need back in the past weeks, but after some shady deals on the street and his own efforts, he had acquired all four items needed for the summoning. He had the picture of himself. He had the graveyard dirt. He had the bone of a black cat. He even had the yarrow. Now it was time to make the deal.
Without any delay, John slipped from the bed that he had warmed. His movements were quick and fluid as he made his way to the nightstand that had held in the items he had stored away for this moment. His hands quickly opened the drawer with a hungry fever that brought a new light to his blue optics. A light of need. Of darkness. Of insanity. The picture of himself was soon in his hands, the bitter yarrow coming next along with the black cat's bone and the graveyard dirt. This was it. He was prepared. Ready. He would have his dear Sherlock back soon.
Like a silent snake, John slipped away from the confinements of the sorrow filled flat that had hidden him from all humanity. Once he had stepped outside, he was greeted with the bright lights of the streets and cars, the illumination making him squint with unease as he hurried his pace. He wouldn't need a cab for this. Not for this errand.
The night air coursing around him felt as if it were holding its breath. No mild breeze could even be felt as he continued walking down the sidewalk without a single pause. He had no time for pausing or hesitating. This was serious. It had to be done tonight.
It seemed like years to him before John found himself in a stopping place. He feet were now glued to the dusty grounds of the crossroads he had marched to. The place, just upon looking at it, seemed eerie and quite nerve racking, the old, abandoned four way in a state of great despair in its current condition, but this was no time to talk about how bad of a state the old road was.
By now a stray wind had kicked up. His blond hair waved with it, the strands of his hair sweeping in his face before he swiped it away with a swift shake of his hand over his forehead. The breeze was eerie and ghostly, though calm and serene as John stood there in the ivory light of the crescent moon as it hit its zenith in the heavenly sky. Well, it was now or never.
John could feel his breathing begin to slowly hitch. His heart was shuddering against his rib cage as he stared down at the ground that would soon hold his four items. "You can do this," he whispered to himself, the words lost in the breeze without remorse. "Come on, John..."
Dread was coiling around him now like a squeezing boa. Slowly he crouched down to the dusty earth, his hands trembling just slightly as he began to make a small hole in the ground with his hands. Once the hole seemed large enough, without truly thinking John dumped his items into the opening and covered it back up with silent strokes and pulled himself back up to his feet to wait.
The seconds slipped away as John waited for what was to come. The moon had pulled away from its zenith and was slowly sinking low into the sky by now, the shadows thickening and growing longer with each second that ticked by. John could even feel that his breathing was becoming more hitched as he waited and waited. Waited in this silent bubble of eeriness.
Soon an icy wind clawed against John's form. His mind began to race with thoughts, dark and dreadful ones. His body shuddered silently as he let his blue eyes scan the area before him. Nothing. But he knew something was coming. He wanted to turn tail and run back to the flat, but he was frozen in place by a factor of many things, but the deep feelings of dread and eeriness unnerved him deeply.
"Doubting yourself, are we?"
The voice was dreadfully startling. It was feminine, though, feminine and soft with honey drenching against the words in a simple twist. The honey seemed to be hiding some secret darkness underneath it, though, which made John truly shudder.
Slowly he turned to make face of this creature that was speaking to him. In the dark shadows he could barely make out her features, and from what he could see, his ideas on what she would look like were totally wrong. He had expected a ghoulish, foul creature with protruding, yellow canines, tiny horns of curling darkness, claws of pure terror, and a myriad of other things, but what he was laying his eyes upon did make him feel somewhat alarmed. Apparently the demon noticed this.
A grimace came upon her face as she eyed John. "You summoned me," she commented smoothly. "It's foolish to be afraid."
For some reason John found himself stumbling over his own words. "I...I..." He clipped his words short with a trembling breath and cleared his throat. "I had not expected such a sight." That's all he could say at the time. Oh, he knew he had summoned a demon, but he had expected a creature with features that would make even a witch retch. This woman was everything but. A midnight cloaked dress clasped against her pallid skin that stood out against the weaving darkness of night. A cascade of raven black hair fell down to her shoulders from her scalp. One thing about her description did show who she truly was, though. Eyes of deep crimson red stared unblinkingly into John's blue gaze. He felt frozen in the piercing gaze, her eyes seeming to trap him like a vole underneath the shadow of an eagle's outstretched talons.
The demon scoffed at his comment and showed a roll of her eyes. "Enough of that. You have come to make a deal. What shall it be? Love...? Money...? Fame...?" The words slipped from her lips as if they were a bore to her, a lazy chore that bored her half to death.
Feeling weary now, John steadily looked into the demon's eyes as he swallowed back a feeling of nervous energy down his cotton dry throat. This truly was it. He was about to make the deal. All he wanted was Sherlock to be back, and he could do that now. He truly could.
Not pulling his gaze away from the demon, he commanded, "Bring Sherlock Holmes back."