Hey guys! So, I just re-re-re-re-watched Reichenbach, and once my ugly sobbing subsided, I decided to write a one-shot about it. Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Fall
He climbs from the backseat of the taxi, steps into a colder world. There is something wrapping his stomach into Gordian knots, tying it up so tightly that John can barely breathe. Phone in his hand, palms clammy with sweat, Sherlock's voice stiff on the other end.
That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?
And there is the slow realization, the revelation that sucks air and words from John's open mouth, that wraps an iron fist around his chest, his heart, and squeezes. He cannot breathe. He cannot think properly, can only see Sherlock's dark figure, a lonely bird on the edge of the rooftop, with that damned coat flapping like the unfurl of dark wings.
There is only one word, and that word is No, but John's throat is not working properly. There is pavement under his shoes, pavement wet with rain, and the air is heavy with cold, but John cannot feel it. He feels only the sharp plunging wrench of shock, bottomless horror.
Keep your eyes on me.
Another word, another word on his lips, a scream erupting, tearing raw from his throat.
Sherlock!
And then the fall.
Sherlock, falling. Falling, and his arms are moving, are moving like he is trying to halt himself midair, and his coat has become a great dark pair of bird's wings, of raven's wings, and John cannot move, he cannot.
Something propels him forward, some tug in his stomach, but he has been consumed by horror, by fear, by something huge and dark and unnamable. Collision. Thrown. Contact with the pavement. Pain radiating through the side of his skull. Struggling to his feet, can't swallow, can't breathe, justkeepmovingforwardJohn he can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe.
A body on the pavement. Passerby rushing toward the site of impact, faces contorted with shock, the shock of seeing a man fall from the sky, fall like an angel and hit the pavement. Boom.
No. Sherlock. No. Don't. Not real. No. No. No. Nononononononono.
He staggers forward, numb, words spilling from his lips—I'm a doctor, let me through, I'm a doctor, I'm his friend.
His friend.
Sherlock Holmes, the man who does not have friends, the man who sweeps around the city with his coat and his cold face and his eyes like ice.
John drops when he sees the body, drops to his knees, drops. Sherlock's face, thin lines of blood across his cheeks and nose like warpaint. Those ice-eyes blank, fixed on the pearly sky.
Reach for his wrist. No pulse. Someone turns Sherlock over, turns him like a dummy, lifeless. A moan escapes John's mouth when he sees Sherlock's head, sees the mess of blood, hair matted with it, ribbons cutting across his white features.
There is water on the ground and blood in the water. Blood blossoming like flowers. Pink. Scarlet. Numb.
Hands on his shoulders, a distant sensation. John collapses into someone's arms, mind fuzzy. Blank.
And then the clamor returns, and there are nurses rushing about, and someone is screaming, and someone else phoning the police—A man's jumped off the St Bart's rooftop, I think he jumped, maybe he fell, I dunno, he's dead, he's dead now, he's dead—and a stretcher, and then Sherlock is gone.
There is one white hand dangling from the stretcher, one of Sherlock's marble-snow-ice-colored hands.
And there is emptiness.
And the crowd begins to dissipate, to mill around on the corner while the scream of sirens mounts in the distance.
And John cannot breathe.
And that, that moment there on the cold pavement with the flowers of blood blooming at his fingertips—
That is when John's world collapses. Collapses.
Falls.
Sooooo...what did you think? Awful? Cliché? The best, most emotional fanfiction in the entire universe? Did it bring tears to your eyes? Feel free to review/comment! :)