Hey, guys! This happened when I was recovering from a particularly bad bout of angst over my week-long vacation. Yep.

Pairing(s): Johnlock (if you squint), Donovan?Lestrade (possibly platonic? Didn't think that one through).

Warnings: angsty-angst (it's post-Fall), death, more angst

Spoilers: If you've seen the first episode, then you know what you need to know.

Hope you like it! This is my first (second?) official Sherlock fanfic. The first will never see the light of day, ugh. But yes, please enjoy! ^_^

Before everything, John thought himself a simple man. He didn't need much living space, worked hard, had fun on weekends, and only dated one person at a time.

But then Afghanistan happened, and Sherlock happened, and that image was ultimately skewed.

Now he needs epinephrine running through him to stop the shake in his hands, excitement to keep his limp away.

John is quite the adrenalin junkie now.

He would blame the war and his former flatmate, but he knows it's pointless. Fear has always been something he's needed. He thrives on it.

Now, John sighs. His leg has been especially irritating lately—the high thrum of pain just doesn't seem to pipe down these days. Light tremors also course subtly through his fingertips, making his already messy scrawl even less legible. John is frequently plagued with headaches now as well, strange dull-throb burns that make him wonder if they are caused by his brain is mourning the loss of Sherlock's intense logic and Afghanistan's constant battle of survival and instinct.

These aches only bring John's losses into sharper contrast.

A year ago, John had wondered if the two catalysts would ever relieve him of his mental burden. Now, he has given up that thought. Afghanistan has scarred him, both physically and mentally, forcing him to use a cane. Sherlock was an impossibly cold and bright light, an icy sun hanging low and sharp, just above the horizon. Without Afghanistan, John can't walk. Without Sherlock, John can't see. He knows how dependent he is on his flatmate, on his former occupation, but he doesn't say anything.

John slumps to the bed presently. He had been pacing for almost an hour, according to the barred clock on the wall. Somehow, it feel so much longer than that.

It isn't fair, he says to himself. Why could he just stay? Why couldn't I just stay?

He asks this of himself internally quite regularly. His flatmate's voice always bites out some witty retort that John never really hears. What Sherlock is saying doesn't matter; as long as he is speaking, John is content. The detective's voice is new leather, soft and smooth, yet chilling in the best of ways. John wraps himself in it and burrows into the memories of chases and gunshots, fistfights and deductions, the hot and wet, the cold and dark.

He sleeps.

—

When John stirs, Sherlock is there, just like he always is. They speak of trivial things like they never would before, how is John, how is Sherlock, how Mrs. Hudson and Molly have been holding up without them. And then, Sherlock's head caves in by his temple, and his blood hits John's cheek. Sherlock's ebony curls hang limp, drenched in his own blood, and his eyes are wide with terror.

This is my note, John, he says, and John can hear so much more woven into those five words spoken in that shaky tone.

I'm sorry.

I'll miss you.

Believe in me.

And John does. John forgives him every single time, and he'd do it again, 'til the day he dies. John misses him too, yearns for him, pines for him. He always will.

And he most certainly believes. Always.

He thinks about telling Sherlock this out loud, but doesn't.

—

Greg calls shortly after lunch. It is the first time in months that John has contacted (or been contacted by) anyone from his time running alongside Sherlock, or submerged in the perfect unholy darkness of war. And, on the days John decides to be honest with himself, he knows that it's the only kind of communication he can receive now. All other types just aren't real to him anymore; it's as simple as that. They don't speak to him the way Sherlock did.

He is given oxycodone for his leg, but that only dulls the physical pain, does nothing for the mental, and just makes him drowsy to top it all off. He succumbs to the chemically-induced need for rest.

—

John wakes again several hours later—he had needed that rest much more that originally anticipated—and for once, Sherlock isn't there. His head is still itching right in the centre of his brain, but it's a slightly unavoidable part of John's life at the moment. But it is at least partly livable, and for that, John is thankful.

Still, he calls for the nurse, and she gives him two small, red-orange tablets and a glass of water. She says they are ibuprofen. John nods silently in agreement.

And finally, he has enough.

When he is alone once more, John opens his desk drawer in such a way that it doesn't creak, and pinches the two little pills between his fingers before setting them in the drawer with the hundreds of other ibuprofens he has hidden away.

Two-hundred and forty-three of them to be exact.

The first few, he swallows dry and all at once, then takes a sip of water, barely enough to wet his tongue, cleanse it of the pill-taste. He takes four more with another drink of the cool liquid. He continues like that until every single painkiller is settled with a perfect, satisfying finality in the pit of his stomach.

A smile finds its way across John's lips because of the memories. John had pestered about his website, and the fixation on the two-hundred forty different types of tobacco ash.

Two-hundred forty-three, Sherlock had corrected absently, and if each of the little red tablets had been a type of tobacco ash, then John would have consumed them all, taken every last one. They are the remains of the simple man he once was, and is no more.

He lays back, smiling softly with his fingers twined over his stomach. John has done much taking in these years he has spent alone in the dark depths of his mind—taking care of himself, taking out his frustration, taking care of himself, taking out the garbage, taking his time, taking chances and medicine. But now, he lets what comes do the taking, just this once.

Darkness descends, and John is taken.

—

Greg gently uncurls his fingers, letting the soft, dry earth slip between them. The sun seems too bright for the occasion as it blasts sharp, hot, and bright in Greg's eyes. As he turns from the gravesite, head bowed, Sally rests a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes are painted with the slightest touches of pink from the tears that match his own. She nods once, the kinks in her hair slightly jostled by the movement.

Neither has to mention the obvious, not after Greg's speech, not when he is the only remaining member of the Holmes-Watson-Lestrade trio, solving crimes and wreaking havok wherever they go.

Greg is not okay now, but he might be, someday.

Sherlock had been around for years, but John had been closer, joining Greg for a pint here and there, until John had been "persuaded" via Mycroft the check in to the Lakewood Centre for Psychiatric Care as a permanent resident. The official reasoning had been because of John's PTSD, but Greg and Sally and, hell, even Anderson knew that no trauma would tear down the army doctor—a lack of it, however, would do the job just fine. But no one says anything, instead leaving the media to its own devices and its outrageously loud headlines.

It hadn't been the noise that broke John, but the silence.

Greg doesn't know what he'll do, faced with a similar silence. He has already lost the strongest people he knows to it, and it is already glaringly obvious to him and Sally, the brilliant woman, that he is nowhere near as strong as John or Sherlock.

Greg is not okay—and he probably won't ever be—but they don't mention that either.

-end-

Ugghhh, this was frickin' depressing to write. But I hope you liked it.

Please review—it's good karma! :D

Ta,
Lorakeet~