Post Reihenbach Fall. We'll see further. No beta.
"We should have been only roommates," but when in life anything turned out as John Watson wanted it?
"What were you then, if not roommates?" his therapist tried to make him talk as she always did.
Usually, John had no desire to talk but things have gotten out of hand. He was constantly alone and his sorrow saw no end.
"We were friends," he said stiffly. "Colleagues too. Flatmates."
"It's understandable to miss your friend," she said gently but that only made him angry, angry at himself.
"I don't just miss him," he said angrily but then withdrew.
"That's good, John, that's progress," she said satisfied.
She knew nothing of progress. Progress would be if he would stop dreaming of bloody Sherlock Holmes.
"You're a bloody therapist and you don't get a clue. You don't understand how angry I am at him, angry at the mess he made," he shouted.
"That's a natural reaction to suicide. People often feel betrayed and enraged," she said slowly as she's speaking to a child.
"That wasn't a suicide," John moved forward to sit on the edge of his chair. "That's the part that enrages me. It couldn't have been a suicide. He wasn't a suicidal man, he would never… No, I know him, he played that stupid game with Moriarty and got himself in that position. He pressured him enough and he did what he always does, he played a bloody hero even if he never admits to being one. I never asked him to do that for me."
"The guilt is normal," she persisted and he gave up, it was like talking to a wall. "I'm sure you aren't to be blamed. Suicidal people often hide their depression, with the news and all…"
"I'm done here," John got up. "There's nothing you can do for me."
With that, he stormed out not caring of her opinion or anyone else's.
He paced the streets swiftly as he always did rushing after Sherlock's long stride as his coat swished behind him. That thought made him stop. He crouched beside the rails on a bridge.
"Don't do it, man," a passer-by said to him. "It's not worth it, there's always something waiting for us, something just behind the corner."
John lifted his head but the man was already walking away. The voice was different but for a second it was as it was him. It couldn't ever be him.
That was the part of John's problem. He saw him dead, Molly confirmed him dead, everyone mourned, but still. It was Sherlock Holmes, John could never believe anyone can outsmart him, not ever.
He lifted himself up and walked on slower, in his own pace, not like he's chasing after someone tall.
The problem with walking at that pace was that nothing ever happened, not to him. The world left behind Sherlock Holmes was a hollow place, it was empty, things seemed flat, people dull. The worst part was that he had no one to share his sorrow with. No one understood. They were sad, but they didn't miss him, not as John missed him.
While Sherlock was alive John was barely aware of how immersed he was in the man. His life became Sherlock's to dispose of. Wherever John was, he was just a text away from pacing off on some mission, be it big or small. To hell with it even the buying of milk and sugar in a shop was an adventure, was an argument.
As he would buy things he would lead inner argument against Sherlock, shouting at him in his head for being so out of touch, so dependent on John. And Sherlock did depend on John for many things. He got so used to it that he was ready to take a phone from his pocket instead of him.
No matter how mad would John get at Sherlock, how loud would he yell, how many times he would refuse the task, Sherlock would just stand there, or more often sat there, and waited to know that John will calm down and do just what he was told.
That wasn't even Sherlock's fault. It was John's military training fault. Sherlock just knew how to use it, or was it his unassuming ordering voice that did the trick every time.
Nothing ever went the way John wanted it to. That's how that damn military service went on to shape his life long after it was over. Even after Sherlock fixed his limp the memories still haunted him. As Mycroft said with his irritating voice, John missed the war, he missed the feeling of being alive, of death lurking over his shoulder.
In the army John wasn't the one firing guns, he wasn't aiming, he was aimed at. Despite that, he managed to do his job, to run between trenches and patch up people, soldiers. He went where he was told to go and he fixed things. That was his calling, to fix people and he was quite good at it.
He fancied the illusion that one day he might even fix infamous Sherlock Holmes. That he'll return the favour of life Sherlock gave him.
John knew Sherlock wasn't suicidal, he knew how he adored life and the thrill of the chase, he was too emerged in life to want to flee it. John knew that all too well because he was the man who was suicidal before they met. That was the reason he kept his gun in his drawer constantly checking up on it to see did it vanish. That gun was his exit card, if things went too meaningless he would just pull the trigger and be gone.
Now that wasn't an option. Sherlock ruined that. He made that gun a centre point of John's role in his adventures. John was two things that Sherlock wasn't. He was a doctor and he was a soldier. First meant that he could examine a body or to help a person, the second one meant that he could protect them if needed.
To break that function of his gun would be to betray Sherlock
John was sure that in Sherlock's mind jumping off that building was to protect John. All that he said could be interpreted in that light. Why would he lead a private conversation so wrongly lying all the time? Someone listened and Sherlock complied. That was the only explanation John could find. Everything else was just a lie.
If Sherlock would really do that, before the end he would insult John in some manner, he would insult the whole world. Sherlock would never talk about himself in a moment like that because Sherlock didn't think of himself as interesting. All he thought about was the world and all its faults.
Someone falling to its death would say what's wrong with the world. Like now, John would say there's no Sherlock in this world, but that would be the thing that would stop John.
If Sherlock did what he did for John he surely didn't do it so he could escape too.
No, there was no escape for John. He was trapped on this side and he'll have to deal with it. If only he could think of something to do, something at least partly entertaining.
'The game is on,' said Sherlock in his mind and John smiled.
"For you," he murmured and decided to lift himself up and get out.
If Sherlock could see John it wouldn't be nice if there was nothing to see, would it?