Until the End
School was his only escape. It was his chance to get out of that godforsaken house, to get away from his daily hell. Often, people at school would tease him for what he could do, and some resented him for showing off. But school meant seeing John and getting away. But more importantly, school meant John, the highlight of his dreary life.
But now Sherlock would be stuck at home with father for three painful months. He wouldn't be allowed outside the house. He couldn't see John, and without him, he was certain he wouldn't survive the summer. Even if he were permitted to see his best friend, he still might not live to see his last year of school—his body wouldn't be able to take all that pain.
As is parents fought downstairs, Sherlock thought about what would soon happen. His father had been drinking (wasn't he always?) and would take out any unspent anger on him. And so his summer would go, every single day a torture.
That was when Sherlock Holmes decided to kill himself.
John sat in his room with a smile music playing loudly around him. He could get Sherlock and go to the park across from the military base and they could watch the troops train and plan for college. He expected that Sherlock would do something in science, become great. And he would just be at med school, just a doctor.
He sighed at the thought of being separated from Sherlock. He didn't want that at all. He wanted to just be with Sherlock forever. John remembered primary school, back when everyone thought for sure that they would live with their best friend. It was stupid to think he would. Still he could hope.
A yearbook on the edge of the bedside table caught his eye. IT was the one he'd looked at every night since freshman year As always, he flipped it open to the page where Sherlock looked blankly at the camera, not even a hint of a smile on his face. He loved that photo. A few others, ones he'd taken or ones of them together, fell out. He smiled. John loved all those photographs.
The phone rang and startled him into flinching. But it was Sherlock, so he really couldn't be too upset with him for scaring him. John answered.
"Hey, Sherlock." He felt like a squealing teen girl giddy from a call from the boy she liked. Of course, he sort of was.
"I. . . couldn't do it. Gave up. Sorry, John."
He froze. The words were drawled out and slurred together, hard to understand, but John knew the meaning. He had always suspected that there was something depressed within Sherlock, always knew that there was a sadness within him. He just never thought Sherlock would take it this far. "Sherlock, no! You can't do this."
"Too late, John."
John was already grabbing his coat and running out. "I'm going to call 999. I'm on my way." He wiped away tears that now poured down his face. "Please hang on."
"No point."
He couldn't stop the tears now. "Sherlock, you're brilliant and amazing, and you'll do such great things. You have to hold on for me please. I'm going to call an ambulance." Without thinking, he added, "I love you." John had to hang up and cried as he called the emergency services in a panic. He was quick to get to Sherlock's house, running into the boy's room. Sherlock wasn't there. "Sherlock!" He ran to the bathroom, trying to find him.
The sight before him was terrifying: Sherlock lay in a ball on the floor, shaking, with an empty pill bottle lying beside him. Sleeping pills. Of course. Sherlock just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. John fell to his knees and pulled the boy to him.
"The ambulance is coming. You'll be okay. You're going to live. You have to. Just hang on. Please."
"John. . . Wrote something. Composed for you. Didn't finish. . . Sorry."
John was shaking almost as badly as Sherlock now. He couldn't stand seeing him like this. "It's okay. Don't be sorry. You can finish it when you're better." Sherlock had to live, he had to. He would. John couldn't make it without him.
"Never getting better."
"You will. I. . . The sirens. The ambulance is coming. You're going to be alright, Sherlock." He kissed Sherlock's forehead, then his temple, and then anywhere he could reach. They started out well, gentle, but soon became nervous, messy, as John tried to show Sherlock everything he couldn't say.
Sherlock's body went completely limp in his arms. Passed out, or so John hoped. In a minute, paramedics were in the room and Sherlock was being pulled away. A stumbling at man made his way up the stairs—Sherlock's drunken father. He shoved John as he tried to get down the stairs to follow his friend, who was now being taken away by the medics.
"Who the hell are you?" The voice was a grumble and a roar and it frightened John quite a lot. It sounded like the voice of someone who would hurt him. Sherlock's father might have been handsome if he'd taken care of himself, if he hadn't smoked to the point of having that ugly voice and drank until he formed a beer gut. But he wasn't. He was terrifying and gruff. His face was covered in stubble and premature wrinkles.
"I'm his friend. I. . . I called the ambulance." His voice was still weak and it was now filled with sobs.
"Damn shame you did." With that, the man was gone and John ran to the ambulance, riding in the back and holding onto Sherlock's hand. He brought it to his lips and kept it there. What an awful man, thought John to himself, to want his own son not to live. If that's what Sherlock's home life was like. . .
They arrived at the hospital. John was left to sob in the waiting room as his friend had his stomach pumped. There had been so much more than sleeping pills in the concoction of drugs Sherlock had put together. There was a chance that he would make it, though. John held onto that shard of hope. He didn't care who saw him cry. None of those people mattered.
It felt like an eternity had passed by in the time that it took for someone to come and tell him that Sherlock was awake. "That's the good news. The bad news. . . The drugs got to his bloodstream. He only had a few hours."
John swallowed back bile. "Can I. . . Can I see him? The man nodded and John ran to the room where Sherlock was lying on a bed. He was paler than normal, a ghost-like sight.
"You tried so hard to stop this, and it's still going to happen. I'm sorry, John. I really did try." That voice was too soft for him. It didn't fit.
John sat on the edge of his bed. "I know." He wiped his eyes and tried to calm himself. "Can we. . . I have to tell you something." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I. . . Sherlock, I love you. So much."
Sherlock's cold hand latched onto John's warm one. "I love you too. Obviously." He was still the same old Sherlock, even on his death bed. For some reason, John found this both beautiful and sad at the same time.
"Can I lay with you?" Sherlock gave a small nod of consent and John lay beside him on the bed, holding the boy in his arms. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know about your father."
"You couldn't have stopped tis. We have a few hours, John. That's stretching it. I made a mistake and there's no going back now. I am going to die, John." There was an unexpected quiver in Sherlock's usually steady voice. "Please stay with me. If I have to die, I want to be with you."
John choked up. "Of course. I'll be here until the end." They both knew that the end would come soon, but neither wanted to mention it, so neither did.
"And I was so close to finding a solution to my hemoglobin problem. So much I haven't done, John." Sherlock looked him in the eye. "I didn't even kiss you."
John was taken by surprise. "Do you . . . Do you want to do that?" He didn't remind Sherlock that he had kissed him plenty of times, without a reaction. Of course, never on the lips, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.
Sherlock nodded. "Obviously."
"Then I think we ought to." John kissed him softly, doing the best he could not to frighten him or be too rough. He was a bit overly careful, so much so that Sherlock took over the kiss with his fierce insistence. They parted and a grin danced on Sherlock's lips.
"I liked that. Quite a bit, actually" Sherlock said.
"I did too." John was quiet for a while. "Sherlock, why did you do this? Was it me?" He had thought of that a lot in the waiting room. He knew that Sherlock's father had issues, but John had done a lot of things wrong too.
"Of course not. It was never you." He sighed. "I suppose I have to tell you, don't I?" He thought of how to word it. "I. . . My parents. I can't handle another summer. They fight and. . ." He trailed off by the bruises on Sherlock's wrists continued for him.
"He hurt you. He made you do this."
Sherlock nodded. "John, when I', dead, you need to get the letter from my desk. It's for you."
John nodded quickly. "Anything you need. I—I just want to make you happy, until . . . until. . ." His voice cracked and he broke down. "I can't do this without you." He didn't want to think about life without Sherlock.
Sherlock pulled him closer with trembling arms. "I'm sorry, John. I messed up. I shouldn't have taken the pills." He blinked away tears. It was the first time that he had ever cried in front of John, in all their years of knowing each other. He hated feeling so vulnerable, but it was alright when he was with John. Everything was alright when he was with John. "I'm just so tired of it. . . I'm tired."
John panicked. "Please, don't do this. You have to stay awake. You have to fight."
"I've been fighting, John. I'm trying to hold on for you, but I can't do this anymore." His voice grew weaker with every word. "It hurts. You're lucky I've had this long."
John's lips quivered, and he kissed him. "Okay."
"I'm going to let go, John. I have to let you go."
There was nothing either once could do besides whisper heartfelt 'I love you's in a too frantic manner, while they tried to steal as many kisses as possible before death stole Sherlock. Their lips parted for a moment."
"I love you," John said. He meant it. God, he meant it, and he would give anything to make Sherlock believe it as much as he did. "So much."
Sherlock nuzzled into his neck. "I love you too. I love you." He clung onto John's shirt, fingers digging into the materiel. "I . . . I can't hold on anymore."
"It's okay." He stroked the boy's back, trying to comfort him, trying to stop the shaking that racked his body.
"I love you." Tears poured down his face. His breathing was growing harder, inhales getting shorter with every breath. "Goodbye, John."
"G—Goodbye," John choked, is own tears flowing.
Sherlock's shaking ceased. His body was limp in John's arms. The brain that was so amazing, that heart that was so loving, all of it, it was gone in a crescendo of silence and stillness that was not penetrated. All that remained was a beautiful shell.
Dear John,
I know that you care about me. You are what has kept me from doing this for so long, my last tie to the humanity in the world, the one who has showed me that not everything is bad, that there are sparks of light in even the greatest darkness.
However, I cannot depend on one spark of light forever. I cannot burden you with my problems forever, and I do not want to upset you with my issues. They are not yours to deal with.
This is my note. It pains me to say that I have given up. I feel weak for it. But I do not see how living in the life that I've been granted will be any better than dying. I am sorry. I know that you care, and I believe you may love me. I love you as well, John. I want you to know this.
John, I do not know what happens after people die. I do not know if heaven and hell exist. I do not know if we are reincarnated, or if we simply disappear into a black void of nothingness. But I do know that if it is possible I will do everything in my power to see you again. I will find you once more someday.
Do not think for a moment that you are the source of this. You aren't. You are the one thing that kept me grounded. You've kept me here. And it is not that you didn't do enough—you've done so much for me. It is that I cannot burden you anymore, and I cannot let my problems affect you as I know they will if I tell you what has happened.
I love you, John. You are my everything. Please keep it in mind that I do not want you to grieve. I want you to go on, become a doctor and save people as you always said you would. Be the brilliant man I know you are. Continue to be you. And, I know this may sound stupid, but please visit me sometimes, at my grave. If you can be you and continue to do that, then do.
I love you. So much. Believe me when I say this. I have not told you in person, but I want you to know this as if I had told you a thousand times. I have thought it at least that much.
Goodbye, John.