Both eyes misted, dark irises, which ranged from navy, to deep cerulean, finishing with a flourishing splash of brown around the pupil, full to the brim with moisture, just waiting to spill over, to gain freedom. But the deluge wouldn't come. A single teardrop, one sole bead of liquid from all those that had amassed, made the break, trickling slowly down the right side of the face, working its way from the corner of the eye, past deeply-embedded crow's feet that had grown significantly worse in the past weeks, its path stuttering slightly as it pooled in the crease of deep, dark circles before its weight grew too much and it continued, winding and wending down the soft curve of the cheek, leaving a faintly warm trail of dampness on skin that otherwise felt too cold, too parched, too tight, before coming to a rest at the stubbled chin, now a perfectly formed droplet, simply hanging, suspended by its own tensile strength. With no followers to force its hand, no traffic, no rush, it remained, weight, gravity and strength in equal balance so that, if left, it would never move from that spot, sitting languidly, lazily in place for eternity.
And sitting in his armchair in the darkened flat, no longer theirs but his, John Watson had never felt so broken.
A/N: I don't really know how this became what it is. It started off as just an idea; a writing exercise to follow that one teardrop, but then, like everything at this moment in time, it got me thinking about Sherlock and somehow, when I noticed the word count for the original exercise (which was most of the first chapter) I thought, 'Hey, I've been trying to come up with a Sherlock fic for ages. Why not make this a 221-B?' I think it's pretty obvious that it wasn't intended as fanfiction, as, until you get to John's name, it could literally be about anything, but none of the other ideas in my head want to be written apparently and this did. I'm actually surprised by how easy it is to write in 221-B format. I always thought it'd be really hard to get the words exactly right, but I only had to take out one word, that was actually redundant anyway, to make it fit. Oh, and I apologise if that run-on sentence is a bit excessive at 122 words (My God, that's over half the entire thing!), I know they can be hard to read. Okay, I'm gonna stop now before this note is bigger than the story. Thanks for reading! Feedback would be greatly appreciated, good or bad. I find I'm actually really nervous about posting this now...
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or any of its characters and receive no profit from this story. All credit goes to Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss and to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the original characters.
