When John returned from war, the normalcy had almost killed him. That sudden transition from a life of uncertainties, of blood and death, to one of certainties and a population largely unaware of...well, anything, was far harder than actually being at war for John. That's not to say that he revelled in it or anything, not at all. He might have been attached to an infantry unit and all the craziness that entails, but at the end of the day, he was a medic and would be in the wrong field if war was something he delighted in. Still he couldn't deny it, during the entirety of his time in Afghanistan, the sense of calm that had followed him wasn't unlike that which the infantry or even special ops guys had described in the heat of battle.

In some ways it reminded him of how it is when you dive into the deep end of a pool, for the few moments until you surface, you're surrounded by the buffering water that makes even voices at the poolside sound far away. Sooner or later though, even the deepest diver must surface, and that 'surfacing' was always a hundred times harder for John than when the bombs or bullets were flying. He could be the calm at the centre of the storm, which was invaluable, really.

That time, he'd been forced to the surface by the sensation of a bullet ripping through his shoulder – his gasps of pain also being the gasps of a man surfacing and coming to the horrifying realization not only of what he'd lived through, but that he'd have to go back to the underestimated chaos of civvie street.

When he first came back from Afghanistan, there had been dreams, terrifying dreams of hellish but real scenes that had caused him to wake up screaming. Bloodied people, burnt land, and lost friends.

And that was basically how it worked for John, when fucked up things were going down, say like that time when he'd been forced into a bomb jacket to serve as a 'voice' for that dick, Moriarty, he'd be deadly calm; but as soon as the danger was over, he'd begin to 'surface' and he'd literally struggle to keep his legs as his feelings threatened to overwhelm him.

But then there was Sherlock. Since he'd taken his own life by jumping off the roof of St Bart's, with the exception of one shaky trip to his head doctor, there was nothing. No dreams, no sleep, no appetite, and no emotions. The doctor in him knew that was a bad sign, one that he should probably get professional help for, but who would really understand, who *could* really understand? Everyone thought Sherlock had been nothing more than a fake that manipulated crimes to make himself look good, any psychological help he tried to get would have been with the assumption that he was just trying to get over the 'fact' his best friend had duped him, and John really didn't need to get arrested for punching some psych in the face. So instead he went through the motions of life, spending as little time at 221b as possible, going to the pub every night, doing lines of coke in the lavs…well ok, that wasn't one of his usual 'motions of life', but the white powder at least allowed him to smile enough to pick up birds so that he could do something about his libido – which was pretty much the only thing he had that hadn't gone MIA.

It was sad, but he'd become that squaddie stereotype in spite of having been an officer: Fighting, fucking and drinking his way round the pubs of London.

By his reckoning, Sherlock had been gone for just over six months, not that it mattered, John was just going through the motions of getting himself ready for a day at work on the 'morning after the night before'. Some of it he could remember, a lot of it, he didn't. It was a Tuesday, he knew that, and a quick look out the window told him the weather outside was grey and drab. Moving to the kitchen he instinctively got two cups out of the cupboard before putting on the kettle and automatically putting the spare one back. Cup of tea in hand, he went to the sofa, the wall above it still riddled with bullet holes from every day that Sherlock had been bored and began the business of rolling up his sleeves and assessing his arms.

Over the surface of his skin, around the veins were dozens of tiny needle marks, some of them bruised, each one representing a morning when he'd been so shitfaced the night before that he'd had to resort to giving himself an IV the next morning to straighten himself out enough to work. Of course, if his colleagues ever saw what his bulky jumpers were hiding, they'd probably think he'd turned into some kind of a smackhead.

Giving an IV for hangovers was nothing new though, medics would do it for other soldiers all the time back in the army and it was a win/win situation for all concerned, the soldier got to get rid of a nasty hangover, and the medics got to practice giving IVs. But even in the army, with its culture of squaddie binge drinking, John wouldn't have gotten away with this shit for too long. Someone would have already noticed the late night binge sessions that happened pretty much every day of the week, the numerous women leaving the morning after, and the PT uniform would have forced him to reveal the marks on his arms. His arse would have been in psych and rehab faster than you could say 'Curry in Kandahar'.

But the civilian world wasn't the army, and in the civilian world, a person could die choking on their own feces in their flat and not be noticed for weeks – it was one of the things he hated the most about civvie street – the selfishness, self-centredness that kept people from generally giving a fuck about others. He was pretty sure Mrs Hudson had noticed something though – a very perceptive lady was Mrs Hudson – not that he wanted to think about other ways in which Mrs Hudson's 'perceptions' had been right, especially not when it came to Sherlock. But she left him his space and occasionally he came to sit and watch daytime TV with her in companionable silence.

Work that day was more of the same, well, until Sarah pulled him aside to say that patients had been requesting not to see him, people who had been rapidly becoming his regulars until…this…

"I don't know how to tell you this, John", she'd said, her sympathy shining as tears unshed in her eyes. "But people don't want to come to you anymore…they say you're like dealing with a robot, that you don't seem to care, and you know as well as I that caring, or at least the perception of caring is necessary for a doctor." John had just simply nodded, ignoring the sneaking knowledge that he'd somehow fallen a little bit further. "I don't want to let you go, John..", taking a deep breath, Sarah had studied him a little before continuing, "but you need some time."

Deep inside him, John had felt something that resembled an emotion beginning to well up in him, something akin to irritation, who was she to judge that he needed time? So he didn't pander to the hypochondriacs anymore! "I don't need any time.", he'd ground out and Sarah had backed away slightly, turning her body slightly away from him, a move that belied her defensiveness. She had put distance between them, turning so that she could more easily defend herself and limit access to the most vulnerable parts of her body should he…what? Did she really think that he'd…?

"Sarah…", he'd began.

"No, it's ok John. Like I said, you just need some time…", her breathing had been heavy, adrenaline response obviously in effect, "I mean…you never really taken the time to mourn Sherlock."

Feeling his fists balling as though of their own accord, John had stepped back from her to put even more space between them. It wasn't that he'd hit her, but it had begun to feel too much like the start of him surfacing, and if he was going to lose it, he'd rather not have an audience. "Understood.", he'd said, the words like broken glass in his throat, and turning on his heels, he'd walked away.

At some point on his walk though, the desire to get home before the breakdown had turned into a desire to beat the breakdown, and so he found himself at some dive Wetherspoons in Hammersmith of all places. It was cheap, the type of place where the old dears would come to spend their pension on lunch before milling off for the day, the bar slugs would get quietly drunk while reading the newspaper and the evening crowd would bring easy birds and dealers. Setting himself up with a couple of beers, a shot of vodka and a newspaper, John settled in for the afternoon.

By dinner time, when he'd had about six pints of Stella and had read every newspaper from cover, he took a trip into the lavs where a chav had set up business selling everything from E to coke, to smack in one of the cubicles.

"Oy oy, what's your pleasure mate?"

Staggering in, John began to reach for his cash as he slurred out his order for a line of coke. The dealer, a twenty-something student 'mockney', got his line ready as he watched. There was something about this kid, something about the way his…that's right, curls, fell around his face as he bent over the cistern getting the line just right that made John's libido start to wake up – of course, it had been the unexplored and unspoken side of his relationship with Sherlock. John really tried not to think about it too much, when he'd been around, it had just been confusing, but now he was gone, it just plain hurt. The dealer straightened over his obsessively precise line before handing him a straw in exchange for his cash, an almost flirtatious smile on his lips. If only Sherlock had…

Stopping his thoughts in their track, John bent over the cistern, placing the straw at his nose and snorted up the line in one clean sweep, before gasping as the drug began to hit his system, removing the heavy thoughts from his mind as though they were merely chains. The first time he'd done this, he hadn't been able to do a line in one go, but like they say, practice makes perfect. Smiling stupidly at the dealer, he thanked him before staggering out back to the bar.

The crowd tonight was pretty mixed, and to John's drugs and alcohol addled brain, all very very good looking. Staggering from group to group, he eventually landed himself some bird – Janine, maybe, that might be her name. 'Janine' was a typical London chav, all garish gold, dyed blonde hair, and tits in your face. For John, she was perfect for a quickie out back. That seemed to be all she was after too because within fifteen minutes of saying 'Hello', they were staggering down the back of a side street, fumbling with each other's' clothes with a crazed ferocity. Janine smelled like cider and cheap perfume and made a clinking noise as she moved her head because of the large gold hoops she wore. The slightly crinkled skin of her breasts marked her out as being a little older than she was making out and somewhat of a devotee of the sunbed. But John didn't care about any of these things right now, he only cared about his raging coke-induced hard-on, and getting inside her so he could relieve himself, stagger home and never come back to this pub again. 'Janine' reached into his pants, stroking him, and John hissed with the pleasure-pain of her acrylic nails lightly contacting against the delicate skin of his penis.

"So, how do you want to do this, darling?"

Her voice had been an attempt at 'sexy', an attempt at husky, and John responded by turning her to face the wall, moving her hands to brace herself against the brick and using his legs to spread her legs.

"This will do… darling."

He really didn't need her looking at him while he fucked her. It was official, he'd become a callous bastard, maybe Sarah had had a bit of a point? Thankfully 'Janine' had a short skirt on, and thankfully she was also the kind of girl to find his kind of rough handling arousing if her wetness was anything to go by. Hitching up her skirt he put on a condom and positioned himself at the entrance of what he was rapidly coming to refer to mentally as her 'fuckhole', and pushed in.

And that's when he heard it, the voice he never thought he'd hear again.

"Oh for fucks sake, John! And I thought big nose was bad!"

The cocaine hit to his brain had been nothing compared to this, and John felt himself go cold, still. He was 'surfacing', and fast. Vaguely he felt Janine attempting to gyrate on his increasingly flacid penis, still unaware of their 'spectator'. What if he hadn't been real? Quickly shutting down, John gasped as he tried to stay on his feet as his psychosomatic limp returned and his vision began to blacken.

Then there was a hand, and John felt himself pulled back from 'Janine', the darkness round the edges of his vision closed in and the thumping in his ears grew louder. Before he'd lost consciousness though, he could have sworn he'd seen the blonde, half-naked form of 'Janine' slap a tall thin figure with dark curls.

Briticisms (and other slang)

Civvie street – The civilian life, generally used by people in the armed forces to refer to a return to civilian life.
Psych - Shrink
Lavs – Toilets, from 'lavatory'.
MIA – Military acronym: Missing In Action
Squaddie – UK term for 'enlisted soldier'
Jumper – Pullover/Sweater
Smack/Smackhead – Heroin/Heroin addict
PT – Military acronym: 'Physical Training', the physical fitness component of military daily life, usually taking place in the morning.
Wetherspoons – A chain of low budget pubs in the UK.
Hammersmith – A part of London known for being a little on the 'rough' side.
Chav – A subdivision of the working class. The UK equivalent of white trash..more or less.
Mockney – Contraction: 'Mock' + 'Cockney'. The term 'Cockney' is generally used to refer to those that are from the East End of London, or 'born within the sound of Bow Bells'.
Bird – Chick, woman. Not necessarily derogatory.
Snog – To make out.
Quickie – Quick (usually illicit) sex session.
Sunbed – Tanning Bed