The Skull
July 25, 2010
"Bored. Lestrade hasn't called me all day. No cases. I spent most of the day at Bart's, studying hemoglobin. No finds. There's nothing interesting at all anymore. My brain is rotting and I'm running out of nicotine patches."
Sherlock looked at the skull for a second. A wonderful conversationalist, he decided. It never interrupts you or burdens you with its problems.
"There was one thing, though. Ran into Mike Stamford. He introduced me to someone named John Watson. Army doctor, discharged from Afghanistan, alcoholic brother. Looked bewildered when I told him all that. He needed a flatmate."
Sherlock smiled bitterly at the non-respondent skull.
"He's not going to last 3 days with me."
January 15, 2012
"John cannot know. It is integral that he believes I am dead. No matter what he may feel about that."
Sherlock traced the cool bone of the skull. How long had he had that thing? Years. But he had barely talked to it in the past few months. He didn't particularly need it anymore, ever since he had met John Watson.
"I asked Molly for help as soon as I figured it out. The problem. Moriarty calls it the 'final problem'. But it's not final. Only he doesn't know that."
Sherlock rested his head on the skull and continued speaking.
"I'm scared. I don't know why. It's completely illogical. No harm will come to me physically. Molly has it all set up. I'm not going to die. So why am I afraid? It's ridiculous."
The skull was silent.
Sherlock threw it at the wall. It bounced off, unharmed.
As it rolled towards him on the floor he realized two things.
He was not scared, he was worried.
And he was not worried about himself, he was worried about John.
"All lives end. All hearts are broken," he muttered, remembering his brother. "Caring is not an advantage."
His face was as hard as the skull as he prepared himself for the fall.
January 17, 2012
"Sherlock always used to talk to you. He'd ramble on about his cases when I'm not around."
John picked up the skull and set it on the mantelpiece. But he continued to stare at it.
"I know he didn't lie to me. You know too. The papers are wrong, they're always wrong. He was brilliant."
John swallowed hard. He must be insane. Talking to an inanimate object. As if it cared.
A tear slid down his cheek. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember that he was soldier. Soldiers don't cry.
But it didn't work.
"I could've stopped him," he choked out. "I might have been able to save him. But I didn't."
He felt dizzy, and he held on to the skull for support.
"Why did he do it? Why would he ever do a thing like that? Why?" John screamed at it.
The skull was unresponsive.
He slid down to the floor and wondered why for the rest of the night.
January 24, 2012
"I'm turning into him. The bastard. I'm becoming just like him."
John gripped the skull tighter. He had begun talking to it more and more often.
"People keep coming to Baker Street. Reporters. His fans. His enemies. None of his friends though. He never had friends. Just one," he whispered, closing his eyes.
He swallowed. John didn't want to say his name. To say his name would be to acknowledge that he existed, and to acknowledge that he existed is to acknowledge that he is dead.
The skull did not understand. It never did.
He tossed it on the couch. But still he looked at it and still he continued talking.
"The funeral was yesterday. You know what it reminded me of?"
The skull didn't know.
"The funeral in The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby was brilliant and famous, and everyone loved him, but barely anyone went to his funeral. Just a drunk, the priest, and his only real friend, Nick."
John swallowed as he realized the analogy was true in more ways than one.
"Mycroft showed up too, though, and he didn't say a word. Not to me, not to anyone, not to himself. He didn't pray, either. Just as well. Sherlock wouldn't have wanted him too."
He had said his name. Sherlock. S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K. He existed. He is real. He is acknowledged.
He is dead, the skull seemed to say.
February 15, 2012
"Of course he would have a skull in his house. He was always a funny one," Molly whispered.
She turned and made sure John hadn't heard. He was in the kitchen making tea. She had decided to drop by to see how he was doing.
It was awful.
"I feel so guilty," she whispered, barely audible to the skull. "But I can't tell John. Not until Sherlock is sure it's safe."
The skull agreed. She supposed. It was an inanimate object.
Sometimes she talked to the bodies in the morgue. It was lonely, spending all day tending to the dead, all by herself.
"But not really all by myself. Sherlock is always there, fiddling with chemicals or asking for body parts. Well, was. We never really talked though. I thought it was because I didn't count."
She smiled at the skull and closed her eyes.
"But that's not true," she whispered.
As they had tea together, John couldn't help but notice Molly staring at the skull with a strange smile on her face.
March 3 2012
"Curious, lonely, naive man," Mycroft said. "Why else would he talk to skulls?"
The skull stared at him until Mycroft realized the irony of his statement.
Mycroft checked his watch. John would be back home in an hour. He would have to leave before then. He just wanted to take a look at Sherlock's things. Alone.
He observed the skull.
The skull never cares. The skull never judges. Mycroft wanted to speak to the skull.
"It was my duty to care for him. My only real job in the world. And I failed."
The skull gleamed white from the sun shining on it from the window. It said nothing.
"I tried to help him after Mum shot herself. But he said he was fine."
The skull knew better.
"So I didn't do anything. I failed then, too. I should've seen it."
He rested his hand on the skull and leaned on his umbrella for support.
"I should've seen this."
July 13, 2012
"I got rid of his stuff. All of it. The lab equipment, the experiments, his case files, even the violin. Gone. Destroyed."
The skull waited for John.
He looked at it. "Alright, I just put his stuff in storage."
Still the skull waited.
John glared ruefully at it and sighed. "I didn't get rid if any of it. I haven't even touched it."
The skull seemed content with this answer.
John doubted his own sanity for a second and realized it didn't matter.
The only thing that ever really mattered was lying in a grave marked Sherlock Holmes.
September 1, 2012
"We never get anything done anymore. Our boys aren't half as good as he is."
The skull remained silent.
"Or rather, as good as he was."
A murder had taken place next door to 221b Baker Street. Lestrade had decided to come for a visit while he was there. He had not anticipated that he would be talking to a skull when no one is looking.
"He was a great man. But he wasn't a good one. Not after all the lies he told."
Lestrade thought about the shocking things he had read in the papers. A tiny part of his brain didn't believe it, but he never listened to that part of his brain.
"I know he's a fake, but…because of him I see more. I notice things more. He's taught me a lot as a detective."
The skull seemed completely dead and at the same time full of life. Maybe it was all the thoughts, dreams, and confessions it held. Or maybe it was just Lestrade, imagining things.
"The crime scenes are different now. They're…normal. And…I can't believe I'm saying this, but they're boring. There's no excitement or peculiarity anymore. Just regular crimes."
A fly landed on the skull. Lestrade shooed it away.
He decided to walk away before he started talking to the skull again.
December 15, 2012
"Oh, you must be covered in dust. So untidy."
Mrs. Hudson swept her feather duster over the skull. It didn't object.
"I remember when I used to confiscate you from Sherlock after I caught him talking to you like some sort of madman. But Sherlock was always a bit of a madman, wasn't he? An amazing one."
Mrs. Hudson felt her heart sink a little lower.
"Remember the noise and the mess? The body parts in the fridge, the gunshots, the violin playing at three in the morning? Remember how he would ruin the walls with bullets and scratch up the tables? He was the worst tenant I ever had."
The skull knew what she was going to say next.
"And I miss him so much."
January 14, 2013
11:50 PM
"Do you know what's going to happen in ten minutes?"
The skull did not respond as it sat on the windowsill, close to the edge.
John didn't expect it to. It never did.
"It's going to be January 15. That was the day he died."
The skull knew that. John leaned on the windowsill, pushing the skull closer to the edge.
"Exactly one year will have passed. Can you believe that? That I could survive a whole year without him?"
The skull was motionless.
"Well, I can't."
He loaded the gun. It made the familiar, satisfying clicking noise.
He looked at the skull with weary, bloodshot eyes. His hair had grown out. He hadn't bothered to shave.
He didn't look like a soldier anymore. He didn't feel like one either.
"He was the most extraordinary man I ever met. He said I was his only friend."
He took the safety off the gun.
"I never told him that he was my only friend, too."
The skull just sat there. John bumped it by accident and it scooted closer to the edge of the window.
"There were so many things I never got to say to him. I never told him I loved him. I never told him I needed him."
He raised the gun.
"I never even got to say goodbye. I just watched him fall without even doing anything. Without even trying to stop him." His voice broke and his composure cracked.
The skull did not intervene as he sobbed, raising the gun to his temple.
"I'm coming home, Sherlock," he whispered, and he rested one hand on the skull and with the other he began to pull the trigger.
But the skull had already been teetering on the edge of window, and John had pushed it too far.
It tumbled off the edge and cracked into pieces of bone and marrow upon hitting the ground.
John stopped his trigger finger as he peered out the window. It was 11:58 and the streets were deserted.
Except for one person.
No.
Impossible.
John could not believe it. He would not allow himself to believe it. There is no conceivable way that this was real.
The doorbell rang.
John walked slowly to answer it. His limp had come back months ago.
He was still holding the gun, feeling dazed and confused.
He opened the door.
He stared at the person standing there, unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
"This is real," he whispered to himself, and punched Sherlock Holmes in the face.