John shut the door behind him, the sound booming through the silence of the flat. He paused, letting the echo diminish into nothingness before he continued on, toeing off his shoes and shrugging of his jacket. Each movement didn't make a sound. Every step was muffled, pressed down upon by the silence that followed him everywhere.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
He didn't feel like he was going anywhere.
But he was; through the kitchen, into the living room, past the bathroom, into his bedroom and onto the bed.
The usual routine.
He sighed, but even that, as heavy as it was, wasn't able to break the irrefutable silence. It just mingled with it, mixing into the abyss until it pressed back into him, soaking into his skin.
He didn't fight it.
It wasn't something one could fight. Silence was a part of him now, a hole in his chest, a darkness in his eyes, a comforting weight he'd gotten accustomed to. He closed his eyes and simply breathed. A talent he'd lost a long time ago.
His lungs barely expanded, his blood moved slowly, his heart beat without much fervor, his breaths were weak but they were still there.
Always there.
Alone.
With the silence.
He opened his eyes.
"Where the hell are you?" he whispered, afraid to talk much louder. "I know you're out there. Just come back. Come…come home." John's voice broke and he closed his eyes again, his blood moving faster, his heart beating louder, his breath choked as he held back tears.
He let out a ragged breath and curled in on himself, his knees tucking into his chest and his head curling into the pillow. He grabbed it roughly and pulled it over his ears, trying to stop the never ending silence. The oppressing demon that followed him everywhere he went. The being that laughed in his face, and took up the empty space that belonged to somebody else.
He pulled the pillow around his ears and shoved his hand in his mouth to stifle a scream that did nothing to pierce the deep ache in his chest.
A hand landed on his shoulder but he didn't feel it.
The scream broke into a sob that he couldn't keep down. It jumped out of his throat, bouncing into the silence that stretched under its weight.
The hand petted his hair as he cried, an invisible presence that he couldn't feel.
But he felt it.
So he cried. And he cried. And he cried until he couldn't cry anymore. And then he cried again because it felt so good, and it felt so bad, and it was an acceptance of a fate that he refused to accept, and a goodbye, and a preparation for a hello.
The presence lay down next to him, wrapping its arms around his shaking body. Catching the sobs that fell from his lips and banishing them into the silence that it kept at bay.
Until John stopped crying.
Abruptly.
Like his eyes had lost their source of water, which made sense, because all of a sudden he was warm.
So very warm.
He'd forgotten he could even feel like this. He thought it'd died a long time ago, buried with a coffin that was six feet underground.
"Sherlock?" he whispered, and the sound stayed.
He gasped.
The silence was gone. Not completely, he could feel it in lingering in the distance, but he was warm, and he could feel and there was somebody here.
"Sherlock?" he tried again, looking over his shoulder and seeing nobody. "Please tell me I'm not crazy." The presence moved, pulling John to a sitting position as the soldier watched wide-eyed, looking everywhere and nowhere, trying to find the ghost. "I miss you," he said when he felt the warmth leave his body.
Sherlock wasn't touching him. But he was watching him; of course he was, the clever man. Watching always watching. "But you probably already know that."
He reached forward, hoping to touch anything, to feel anything. But there was nothing, only air. "Please come back to me."
There was a breeze, and John was lying again, facing the ceiling as the silence moved in again. "Don't leave me," he whispered, reaching his hand out into nothing. "Not again."
There was silence, but that was to be expected. That was all John new now, the inexhaustible silence of a bleeding heart.
"I'm sorry," another voice said, Sherlock's voice— deep and sad, a tone only John had the ability to create.
But he wasn't heard.
Not when the silence crashed back in again, surrounding John and wrapping him in its cold embrace. John crawled back into the fetal position, squeezing his eyes shut and wishing the world away. Wishing he was anywhere but here. Wishing that he was six feet under, buried next to the coffin that held his heart.
"You'll see me again," Sherlock said as he turned his back on the army doctor, slipping into the coat that he no longer had the need for. "One day."
John looked up from the bed, his eyes settling on Sherlock's with a clarity that made him fumble on a button because he was being seen without being seen and it was so very odd.
"Obviously," John said with a smirk, before his eyes glazed over and he was lost again, falling asleep under the pressure of the silence and the weight of his emotions.
Sherlock cocked his head, a laugh breaking out into the hungry void that sucked up the noise, begging him for more. But Sherlock ignored it, simply nodding to himself as he disappeared completely.
"Obviously."