Sentiment(n)-refined or tender emotion; manifestation of the higher or more refined feelings; a chemical defect found in the losing side
Naively, you never imagined life without him. Stupid of you, really, because you should have known better. You've lost friends before—you've seen friends die before. And he isn't even the first suicide, because Pete had killed himself in the army. Quick, painless, they said, just a bullet to the head.
This is different.
Sherlock Holmes was more than just your best friend. Even though you don't want to admit it, you considered him to be your other half. Living without him is like living with only a part of your body functioning properly. It's not like when you had a limp. It's worse.
It's your fault, even though all of them try to assure you that it isn't. You should have seen it coming, should have noticed the signs, should have asked him, helped him…but you didn't. And now he's dead.
The way they all look at you makes it even worse. Even Harry, who you thought knew you better, pities you. You don't need pity. You don't need help.
You're fine, you're fine, you're—
You're not okay. You're dying inside. That's what's missing—not something as trivial as an arm or a leg. A piece of your very soul hit the pavement right along with him when he fell.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You don't remember much in the hours after his death. Even the funeral is a bit of a blur. All you remember, really, is when it happened, because those final moments are burned into your mind forever.
"Goodbye, John."
And then he'd fallen out of the skies, his dark coat flapping like a pair of black wings, and time had slowed down as you watched that brilliant, wonderful man hit the pavement. A fallen angel, cast from the heavens.
He wasn't a fake. You'll never believe what anyone else thinks, because you—admittedly rather selfishly—will always think that you knew him best. And you loved him. You really did, and you still do. Maybe that's why a huge chunk of you has gone missing—you have a broken heart.
No. That doesn't describe it.
You'll never see him again. You'll never get to work together over a case or share a happy moment or argue over who has to go out for groceries. You'll never hear him playing that damn violin in the middle of the night, never wake up to find him in the sitting room, absorbed in old case files. You loved to watch him think because he was he's brilliant, he's fantastic, he's…
dead.
Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is dead.
And you, John Watson, are to blame.