One of my favourite people in the whole wide world, Sarah, sent me a text that said her life was destroyed when she saw a GIF of Sherlock and John fading in and out with the lyric "What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you?" She didn't realize she was speaking to a monster when she said this, and now I have to create a story. Though it's not my favourite song, that's mostly just because it's overplayed. This song is one that I do like very much and, though not all the lyrics fit, a lot of them fit all too well for my sanity. So, here I go.
I will take this moment to tell you that this is not a songfic in the traditional sense that I'd usually go with, where lyrics are interspersed and the story follows them. The story is just based on the song. There will be an occasional lyric, but nothing important in any terms. The song is "Breakeven (Falling to Pieces)" by The Script.
I rated this "T" because it's quite depressing, as John appears to be suffering from severe depression, and there seems to be a bit of suicidal talk/reference. It's nothing too bad (anything in here that's related to suicide), but I just want people to be safe.
'So, without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you,' the story!
John woke up for the third time that night, gasping for air as he did every single other time. He never made it through the night anymore without waking up a minimum of five times, which left him exhausted during the day. He didn't care, not really, because he didn't do anything during the day that required energy. His waking and sleeping moments were all the same; haunted by the memory of Sherlock's death and tainted by the ever-repeating sounds of Sherlock's last words.
He lay on his back, breathing heavily and staring at the darkness above his head, surrounding him, enveloping him, weighing on him like the crushing weight of a pitch-black ocean. As his eyes adjusted, he was able to start recognizing the ceiling and the patterns on the walls. He shut his eyes again and sent a silent prayer.
John Watson was not a religious man by any means, but sometimes it helped to have someone to talk to. Even if that someone wasn't there and did not exist. How was it any different from when he would catch himself talking to a flatmate, a best friend, a soul mate who was no longer there?
He turned his head slightly, opening his eyes to look at the painful green lights of his digital clock. The time read nearly two in the morning, which still gave him plenty of time to fall back asleep and still wake up at least his required twice more. He was suddenly jealous of Sherlock, but he was often jealous of Sherlock; he was jealous now because Sherlock was free of this world. Sherlock was free of the burden of knowing that his best friend was dead and he did nothing to save him, while John had all the time in the world to live with this knowledge.
John knew Sherlock wouldn't have had the same reaction, had the situation been reversed. He was sure that Sherlock would've spent a couple of days just staring at the ceiling, perhaps he would've gone with Mrs. Hudson to visit the grave, but that was all. John knew life would continue as regularly scheduled for Sherlock after a few moments of silence in John's honour. John was a lover, and Sherlock was a... well, not a fighter. He was just Sherlock. He didn't give as much of his heart to John as John gave to him.
John also knew, however, that Sherlock gave more of his heart to John than he did to everyone else combined. And that was mostly enough for him.
John wondered how Sherlock felt now. He knew, in his logical, medical mind that Sherlock really didn't feel anything, but he still wondered. He wondered how Sherlock felt on the days that John just couldn't get out of bed. On the days when the weight of everything that John was trapped under crushed him, crippled him, when he laid immobile and yearned for Sherlock.
John had given everything for Sherlock. If he was being honest, he really had given everything he could for that man. But Sherlock still left him, still took his own life and left John behind to deal with the world all by himself. It was so unfair, John had always put him first and Sherlock had left him anyways.
He turned away from the clock again, shutting his eyes in an effort to fall back asleep. It wasn't working, it never worked; he would always have to go out to the kitchen and take one of the cups of tea Mrs. Hudson left out for him. He didn't sleep easily, not anymore, not when his flat was huge and cold and empty, and Sherlock was laying elsewhere sound asleep. John preferred to think of him as asleep, it eased him slightly, if only for a moment before the inescapable pain flooded back.
John could almost feel the shattered pieces of his heart in his chest thumping brokenly as he wandered to the kitchen. There was a huge chunk out of his heart, the part that Sherlock had taken with him, the part that now lay in a coffin with a cold body six feet under the ground. All John was left with was a sliver, just enough to keep him alive, the bloody thing. He wished Sherlock had taken more so maybe, just maybe, there wouldn't have been enough to keep John alive.
John constantly wondered what he's supposed to do now. What am I supposed to do when the best part of me was always you? John thinks that Sherlock was the best parts of him, the genius, the logic, while he, John, was the best parts of Sherlock, the caring, the feeling. Now that Sherlock was gone, all John felt was that he was the worst bits of both of them, left behind and trying to mesh into one living being. John felt that the bits were failing to succeed in keeping him alive and whole.
If he closed his eyes, John could see Sherlock breathing, living, giving him that smile that could mean a thousand different things but at the same time always just said John. John's breath caught in his throat; he couldn't bear to see Sherlock alive and then have open his eyes to the harsh reality of his death. He opened his eyes again and swallowed a mouthful of tea around the lump in his throat.
The pieces of John actually lay around the flat, if you paid close enough attention. There were his ears, on the sofa, from when he tried to forget Sherlock's last words; there were his eyes, by the door, from when he tried to forget the empty blankness of Sherlock's eyes when he lay dead on the pavement. Though John was not in literal pieces, he would've preferred it.
John remembered Mrs. Hudson putting her hand in his, wrapping her arms around him, crying into his jumper. He remembered just staring at her as waterfalls of tears poured from his eyes, streaking down his face, and she pat his cheek. She was like a mother to him, he noticed in the corner of his mind. She just kept repeating "These things all happen for a reason, dear. It's fate. It's for the best. It was his time, John, it happened for a reason." John just kept staring at her; there was no reason great enough in his mind to justify what had been stolen from him.
John remembered the doctors around him, buzzing like a swarm of bees, making a lot of noise but not a lot of sense. He knew they were telling him Sherlock was dead, but the information was completely useless to him. He watched the frozen cracks in the hospital wall as Molly came over and told him that Sherlock was gone. He was vaguely aware of her hugging him tight, saying something reassuring before she said "There was nothing we could do, John. We can help you make arrangements-" John stopped listening again. Nothing she said could bring Sherlock back.
John forced himself to stop remembering, to open his eyes again. He realized that he had fallen asleep at the table and his tea was cold again; he got up to reheat it in the microwave. His movements were tired, stumbling, the walk of a defeated man. Mrs. Hudson bustled upstairs, and he watched her in surprise at her early arising; she didn't seem upset, not any longer. She seemed like she had moved on, like she was done with grieving, while John was broken and lost in his own personal hell. She left again, telling him to get back to sleep. He just watched her, not speaking a word.
He laid a hand over his chest, hoping against hope that he had died. It was something he did every once in a while; checked for his heartbeat, then checked the front room, in case he had died and was back with Sherlock. He felt like his heart would know when the bigger part of it had returned.
He got a call from Lestrade nearly two weeks after the whole thing. The Detective Inspector told him that they had a case, if he'd like to help. John knew that Lestrade wanted to check up on him, that much was obvious, but he also wanted to see what John could do. People had been checking on that every so often, to see if bits of Sherlock had rubbed off on the stray army doctor. He'd been able to show them that, yes, Sherlock did rub off on him; John tried his hardest, with more energy than he gave anything else, to keep the best parts of Sherlock alive, since John's own best had gone under with the body.
John had gone to his first crime scene without Sherlock that afternoon. He got there alone, made his own way under the tape. He passed Donovan, who stared but remained silent; Anderson, too, remained silent, but he had averted his eyes. Everyone was quiet as John approached Lestrade, including John himself. He didn't speak a word, but he made eye contact with Lestrade, giving him a look that clearly said Go ahead. He could feel his eyes brimming with tears, but Lestrade just kept talking, oblivious, healed, so John choked them back.
Back at 221B, back at the flat, John's hands were by the sink, from when he tried to scrub Sherlock's blood off of his hands. His feet were by the door, from when he tried to run to Sherlock in time to do something, to save him, but had been pulled away from his exercise in futility. The pieces of John were numerous and lost.
John had left the crime scene with Lestrade, catching a ride in his car rather than getting back in a cab alone. The Detective Inspector had brought him to St. Bart's so they could pay a visit to a body in the morgue; John immediately regretted coming when he was hit with a wave of memories hard enough to leave him teary and nauseous. Lestrade pretended not to notice when John shut his eyes and leaned away, remembering; John remembered how much he had loved Sherlock, how much he had loved him in that one moment when Sherlock left him. It hurt too much to remember, but John felt that he deserved the pain, especially since he had been the one to return to this place.
John followed Lestrade absently, paying just enough attention to be sure he was still walking behind the Detective Inspector. He tried to ignore the places around him until he reached the morgue. The morgue which had been the last place he'd seen Sherlock's eyes, open, grey, and staring. He had laid his hand over Sherlock's chest, hopelessly feeling for where his heart was, hoping to feel just one flutter of life. He had closed his own eyes, sunk beside the table, knowing that Sherlock's heart would never beat again. He knew that Sherlock had taken not only his own heart, but John's heart as well, bringing them both to the grave with him. Sherlock took both of their hearts and left John empty, the walking dead, full of all the pain that Sherlock didn't have to feel but John most certainly did.
Sherlock's mind was gone, as well. It was for that which John felt most guilty. Sometimes, he'd catch people looking at him, and he imagined they were staring at him and thinking There's the man who let our greatest mind down. He's the reason we lost the best man we had. John couldn't take it sometimes, he just couldn't. The worst was when he looked in the mirror and felt a wave of guilt. He blamed himself, of course he did, because he believed it to be his own fault; Sherlock was dead because John could not save him, and that was the simple truth of it.
John tried to justify getting out of bed in the morning. He went on cases rarely, on the days that he could move. He just couldn't make sense of it, couldn't come up with any reasons why the world needed him that day. There were no reasons that anyone would want the scraps of what John used to be, that anyone would want the shell that John had so quickly become. He couldn't justify it anymore, not when so little remained of the life he once had. There was no longer a point to it.
He sometimes felt angry with Sherlock. He was so angry that Sherlock could leave him like that, just throw himself off a building without a care in the world and leave John with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was angry that he loved Sherlock so much, but Sherlock had shown so little consideration for John's feeble protests and John's incredible love before killing himself. Sherlock had left him loveless, hopeless, empty, and John sometimes was angry with him for that; he sometimes resented Sherlock for that. But the feeling never lasted long.
John was so close to dying sometimes that he could feel it. John felt that if he reached out far enough, if he stretched his arm just a little bit more, he could finally grasp Death's hand and get pulled away from this life that he was barely living. He wanted to leave, he wanted to get out, because this wasn't a life anymore. What used to be considered John Watson had become something of a zombie, the walking dead, still alive but lungs hardly breathing, heart hardly beating.
John sent up a silent prayer once more; he wished for Sherlock to return. If he didn't pray for that, he wished that he himself could leave. Either way, as long as he was back with Sherlock, he would be content. One way or the other, John was still praying to something that didn't exist, but it was all the man had left.
It killed John that he had all the time in the world. He hated that he possibly had years more to live, that his life had probably been extended thirty years from the mere fact that he didn't go on dangerous adventures with Sherlock anymore. He hated that Sherlock was free to do whatever he damn well pleased while John was trapped in this endless eternity of nothing, even though he knew Sherlock wasn't doing anything anymore. It pained him too much to think of it, so he settled for hating it. What was the difference, if it hated him right back anyways?
John returned from helping Lestrade that day and just lay on the sofa. He curled up on his side, tightening himself into a ball in an effort to try and hold himself together. When worst came to worst for John, and the missing chunk that took up the majority of his heart became too much for him to lose, he'd just try to make it through. Sometimes, though, he'd wonder why he bothered; if he stopped trying to hold himself together, he figured, he'd probably just fall apart. And wasn't that what he wanted, to fall apart? John never knew the answer for sure, but he sure as hell knew that he didn't want to stay this way.
Sometimes, John would talk to himself. At least, that's how it appeared to other people, as though he were talking to himself; in reality, he was talking to Sherlock. A shadowy mirage, a shimmering figure beside him, trying to help him along through his days that were all endless nights. John would whisper questions to him, mostly Why? and What now, Sherlock? Sherlock would never answer, which pained John to his core; why had this ghost inherited John's silence?
John would give in. It did not shame him, nor did it please him; it simply happened that sometimes John gave in and broke down. He would scream, and cry, and throw things. He tried to burn his own mind once, trying to cleanse himself with the flames, but couldn't find proper matches in his mind; he knew that, with the right kindling, his memories would destroy him. He was done, he was simply finished, but Sherlock was okay. Of course Sherlock was okay.
One day, John met Sherlock again. Sherlock wandered around the flat, picking up the fallen pieces of John; the legs that had tried to fling him off of a building after Sherlock, the arms that had held on to the body as tightly as they could. The lungs that were finished, the stomach that couldn't hold anything down anymore, the heart that had stopped. Sherlock pieced him back together and sat him down on the sofa, just holding him tight. John could feel his arms now, his warmth, his weight, actually feel them, unlike when the ghost had appeared to him.
John felt their hearts form back together, the large piece that Sherlock had and the small piece that John had been left with fusing back into one. John was unsure as to whether he had died or Sherlock had come back, and he found himself not caring either way, as long as they were together once more.