Author's note:
Go get tissues.
"Swan dive down,
"Eleven stories high,
"Hold your breath
"Until you see the light.
"You can sink to the bottom of the sea,
"Just don't go without me."
-C'est la mort by The Civil Wars
C'est la vie. Such is life. These three words were exactly what the public said when Sherlock Holmes made the papers for the very last time, bloody and broken on the street. Too bad. He'd solved so many crimes, helped so many people in his own way. And now? Gone. It looked like suicide; perhaps he simply couldn't take the strain of being a celebrity as he was. Or maybe he really was making everything up as some suspected, and he had finally become so caught in his self-created web of lies that the only way out was a step into the air and a plunge into darkness. Whatever the case, he was gone now. C'est la vie.
They didn't know him as I did. They didn't see his tantrums, his child-like fascination with his experiments. They didn't hear him playing his violin at 4AM, disregarding any complaints from the neighbors, Mrs. Hudson, and me. They didn't see how he turned up his collar when he wanted to seem mysterious, or how he'd look up from his microscope disdainfully when interrupted while experimenting. They didn't feel his brilliance, his energy, his arrogance. They weren't trying to live without him.
I, John Watson, former military doctor and possibly the single person who could read Sherlock like an open book, was.
When I returned from Afghanistan, I was a broken man. Plagued with post-traumatic stress disorder which brought the bullets into my dreams and a psychosomatic limp to my right leg, causing me to require a cane, I had never felt so lost. I had had nowhere to go, really. My army pension didn't cover the cost of renting a flat in London, and I would soon be sent out to fend for myself. My only chance was to find a flatmate. But who wanted to live with someone who turned, thrashed, called out in his sleep? No one.
And yet Sherlock Holmes had accepted the challenge, and from there, everything changed. He was impossibly stubborn, brilliant, but not modest, and childish in ways I hadn't experienced in a grown man before. But he was beautiful in the way his fingers moved, the way he smiled at his thoughts sometimes, the way he'd rest his steepled hands against his lips when he was focused. I grew fond of him in a way I'd never been fond of someone before. His presence soothed me when my dreams turned dark and the macabre soldiers drew their machine guns and opened fire, startling me into wakefulness, terrified and shaking with lingering trauma. He got me involved in solving crimes, which kept me occupied long enough to make me forget the horrors I had seen. My limp disappeared, and my cane became a memento of passed suffering and a reminder of how good things were with Sherlock.
But all good things had to come to an end, didn't they? And Sherlock's end was more bloody and painful than I would have ever dreamed. It sent my mind careening into shock, where I surrounded myself with all the meager evidence that I could uncover that told me he was coming back. All the evidence that said he wouldn't leave me. Not now. Not ever. But after weeks of texting him and asking when he'll be home, if he'll pick up some milk, if he is investigating a new crime, it started to sink in.
Sherlock Holmes was dead. And he'd left me behind.
When it finally registered, finally reached my core, I shook like a leaf on the autumn winds. I cried like a soul so lost in darkness that it would never again see the day. I alternated between sobs and screams that ripped through my throat and tore at the ragged edges of my heart, which displayed deeper cracks with each passing day until it finally shattered into a million pieces. I began to limp again, visible proof of how I struggled to keep myself going, living from day to day, knowing that if I stopped, I'd never be able to start again. I clenched my hand so hard around my cane that it became like a claw that could tear through my skin, my muscles, but never inflict equal pain when compared to what I already felt. I broke plates and coffee mugs, begging whatever God existed to bring him back, bring him back, bring him back because I need him, need my companion, need my flatmate, my coworker, my friend, my love. I did love him, but I'd been too blind to see it and too mute to speak of it. Too afraid that it would change everything. And it would have. But as pain ravaged my body, I could feel those words burning a hole through my heart. I LOVE SHERLOCK HOLMES would forever be imprinted on my soul, in the lines on my face. Might as well etch it into my skin so everyone could see it in plain and simple lettering, though nothing about what I feel is simple or easy. I hated him for leaving me, but hated myself more for letting him go.
Mrs. Hudson was worried about me. When it all started and she first heard the cries of pain that I could no longer contain, the horrible, nightmarish sounds of a soul dying, she'd rushed up the stairs, saying my name over and over again until it ceased to mean anything to either of us. I collapsed on the ground, and she'd lowered herself beside me, putting her arms around me, her own tears joining mine, and we'd both sobbed until our eyes felt dry and raw and our throats were sore and sandpapery from the sounds of anguish we released. "He wouldn't want you to be like this, dear," she'd said through her own tears, stroking my sandy, unkempt hair with a gentle hand. "He'd never have wanted you to hurt. He'd have wanted you to be happy." But how could I be happy now? It seemed the moment he'd stepped off that hospital roof, I had begun to fall in my own way.
I, John Watson, former military doctor and possibly the single person who could read Sherlock like an open book, was broken and bleeding on my own stretch of pavement. I know what it felt like to be shot, what it felt like to watch your comrades fall. But this was worse, so much worse. This was what it felt like to die while living.