John, ever the military man, sat stock straight in one of the kitchen chairs, staring holes into the backsplash opposite. His utter exhaustion forced the blue tiles to blur and swirl together, but he did not climb the stairs to his bed.
His Browning laid on the table in front of him, a round in the chamber and safety clicked off. He didn't even glance at it, though he fantasized about its exact heft, its precise weight as he lifted it to his temple. It would be so easy. He thinks that's what keeps him from following through. Easy was never what John wanted.
No, John wanted the war; the battlefield sang its siren song and John came running.
Even now, without Sher –
No, John though emphatically, sitting straighter still.
Even without the cases, he corrects; John still lives on the battlefield. He may not be battling serial killers, kidnappers, thieves, or criminal masterminds, but his life remained a war.
Now, though, John fought depression, loneliness, and insanity. It'd been three years, but that swirling vortex of complete abandonment had not abated. In fact, that gaping maw of nothingness only seemed to widen with time, now threatening to swallow him whole.
Oh, don't be so maudlin, said the figure in the corner that John actively ignored on a daily basis. The not-really-there man had sprung up during an exceptionally trying day of cleaning out the den and hadn't left John since. That was near two and a half years ago.
John kept boring holes into the wall and pretended he had not just heard a dead man's voice. Tonight was harder than most, though, and a wracking sob tore through John's chest. Exactly three years since that bloody fool left John behind, but John could still conjure the planes of his ethereal face, the fall of his onyx hair, and worst of all, his thick and lyrical baritone voice. John could still imagine exactly what inflections the git would use, and the apparition would spew them forth with unerring accuracy.
Tonight John imagined him to draw out the 'au' sound in 'maudlin,' but clip short the rest of his words, and sure enough the ghost recited it just that way. John tore his eyes from the wall in time to see the shade roll his too-light eyes in exasperation and mutter something about sentiment under his breath before walking to the living room to fetch the violin.
John snorted, unbidden tears sliding down his sallow cheeks.
"You bloody bastard," he said loudly. "You right bloody git." The shade just scoffed and disappeared.
John knew he was hallucinating. He knew Sherlock was dead and long buried. John had done the burying himself. John knew Ella worried about him; worried about his mental health. But John also knew that wouldn't, not for anything in the world, give these hallucinations up. So he did not tell Ella he was seeing a ghost, did not give anything away. He wanted to keep even this little piece of his friend, however fabricated and artificial it was.
The soldier finally cast a glance at the gun on the table, but no longer felt the need to lift it to his head. He was too tired. He was always too tired. This was how his nightly ritual always ended: John getting up from the chair and going to bed.
John struggled to his feet, fumbling with his new cane, and made the trek upstairs to his waiting bed.
"You right bloody git," he said once more as he folded himself into a painfully tight ball and wept. Suicide was not an option; not yet.
Because if he just popped off, who would be here for Sherlock when he came home?