He barely even hears their questions anymore– that's how used to them he is. He's so used to the pitying smiles of consolation and the disapproving looks and the feeling of concern that everyone seems to have around him nowadays. He just wants to scream at them until they finally get it through their thick heads – my best friend died and I watched. What would that do to you?
He's so sick of their questions and the people asking them that he's stopped answering them alltogether. He's taken down his blog and stopped checking his old email. He's even gotten rid of his mobile. The can't ask him questions if they can't reach him.
He's taken up more shifts at the hospital, and when he's not there he's back at 221B, curled up in his old armchair and nursing a glass of whatever alcohol he's picked up for that week, trying to forget that day and their questions and his solitude. More often now than not, Harry comes and joins him, and the two of them sit in silence as they drink away their problems together. Rehab's never done a thing for Harry and John's only just gotten started, after all.
Mycroft's drops in every month or two and his abductions from off the side of the street seem to have been left in the past along with Sherlock. He doesn't ask John how he's doing, only sits opposite him as John tenderly fingers Sherlock's violin. Sometimes he recounts an anecdote from Sherlock's childhood for John, other times he sits silently for the entire visit. John isn't sure whether or not to be thankful for Mycroft's presence.
Lestrade manages to arrange a drugs bust on the flat every few months, just to make sure John's still alive. He's one of the people who keep asking John the questions that he hates so dearly.
He passes Molly in the hospital cafeteria sometimes. She's never asked him how he's doing since the first time when he snapped at her. She looks guilty and miserable and like she's about to cry every time John sees her. He wishes that he could care more about her. She was friends with Sherlock, too, but he's learned Sherlock's ways far too easily– caring is not an advantage.
Nowadays, John Watson was a drunk and it was all Sherlock Holmes' fault.
- xxx -
He shoots up. He smokes. He longs for the past where he was busy and occupied and in the presence of John.
He's gotten a new skull and he talks to it, just like he always has, but now he pretends that it's John, or sometimes Mrs. Hudson. He can feel himself going insane, quite literally, and the drugs and the cigarettes seem to be the only things keeping him from a mental facility.
He's living in the States now, against his will and very much to his displeasure. They've settled him in the middle of nowhere, some boring rural town in the middle of some worthless state. He doesn't bother with the geography of any of it, just the fact that it's miserable and nothing terrible has happened in the area. New York City or Los Angeles, some big city like London where he would at least have people to watch, would have been preferrable, but his dear older brother had insisted on someplace small and out of the way, someplace where no one could acidentally run into him. In other words, someplace boring.
He's living off of Mycroft's money, which is the only thing that gives Sherlock pleasure about being stuck in this place. He's buying his drugs and cigarettes with Mycroft's money. Mycroft would not be happy if he found out and that's what makes Sherlock content about it all.
In a way, it's like old times– the times before John. He's living off of heroin, smoke, and an unhealthy lack of sleep. He's alone, watching out his window as he plays away on his violin nearly all day. He's alone, alone, alone.
Nowadays, Sherlock Holmes is just another junkie.
- xxx -
When they saw each other again after three years of a forged death, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes merely stared at each other. Mycroft quickly excused himself from the room, leaving Sherlock standing alone in the doorway with an unlit cigarette dangling from between his fingers. John had slumped down onto the couch at the opposite end of the room, his head cradled in his hands.
"Moriarty had gunmen on you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade," Sherlock offers weakly into the silence. John raises his head slightly, looking up at his old friend with eyes that seemed emptier than Sherlock remembered them to be.
"And you couldn't have told me that you were alive?" John says tiredly. There seemed to be none of the anger that Sherlock had been expecting from the ex-army doctor. The man back from the dead merely shrugs in response, for once at loss for words. "You're an idiot."
"Yes, well, I'm not an alcoholic now," Sherlock manages to respond as he settles himself into an armchair. "It is intriguing, though. I didn't expect that to become of you, not considering your sister."
"It seemed to work bloody well for her," John snaps back. "At least I'm not a junkie." He seems to deflate a bit after this comment, sinking back further into the worn couch.
"Very good, you've gotten better with your deductions, I hope?"
"I can recognize a junkie when I see one," John replies solemnly. He rubs his eyes and looks at Sherlock again. "You were dead."
"For all intents and purposes, I was. Phyically, however, I have been alive this entire time."
John feels- actually feels, to his own amazement- irritation bubbling up in him. It was faint, but it wasn't the numbness that had been plaguing him since he saw Sherlock dive off the top of St. Bart's. It was like before, he realizes with another surge of emotion- this time glee at Sherlock's state of being alive. Sherlock was alive and irritating John already. It was just as it was before, this time simply with substance abuse hanging over both their heads and so many words left unsaid.
Sherlock Holmes was home, and John Watson was finally there with him.
word count: 1,101
Yeah so, this happened. It only took two hours to write.
Post-TRF, obviously.
Reviews are good.
Love,
Sarah xx