John lay on his bed. He didn't feel like doing anything. All he wanted to do was lay there until he died.
He grasped his left wrist with his right hand. He felt the faint thud of his heartbeat under his skin. John curled up on his side, silent tears escaping from the corner of his eyelids.
His heart was broken. No, that was the wrong word- 'broken' implied that it could be fixed, healed. No, his heart was not broken. It was taken, cared for, loved, and then taken to the top a a five story building, and dropped. It hit the ground and shattered into a million and one pieces, then each piece was blown miles away. His heart had been lost for awhile now, and now it was completely gone, never to return and heal.
John closed his eyes and took in a shaky breath. He closed off all of his outward senses and simply listened to his own, lonely heartbeat.
Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.
Over and over and over again. Never stopping, never pausing. Always hurting. After he left, John was in constant pain. His chest burned as though on fire, then clenched up as if frozen. He felt as if he was being stabbed every second he was awake.
And when he was asleep, John always had nightmares.
They grasped him and pulled him in, like a river current pulling him down. He could never escape, never get up the riverbank, never wake up.
Sometimes, he saw the war in Afghanistan. Everyone around him was being shot from an unseen sniper, and he could do nothing to help. He tried, but it was useless. Blood, death, and destruction surrounded him, drowning him.
And those were the good nights.
The normal nights were about The Fall. He saw him standing at the top of the building, talking on the phone, apologizing. Everything replayed in his head as though a film was playing.
The bad nights were... terrible.
He was always at the top of St. Bart's, like how it happened in the waking world. But this time, the phone conversation was different.
He blamed John on the bad nights. He said that John wasn't good enough for him, that John made his life worse, that he hated John, and that's why he did that.
John always woke up from these nights sobbing, soaked in his own tears and cold sweat. He always curled up on his side, trying to calm his ragged breathing, wishing that he was the one that fell.
Thump thump thump thump thump thump.
John's rapid heartbeat brought him back to reality. He stretched out on his bed, his muscles stiff from being curled up every night.
John needed him. He needed his experiments, his violin music echoing off the walls, his soul walking around the flat.
John closed his eyes. Tonight, he would fight not to fall apart, collapsing into tears.
Maybe, tonight he would dream of the adventures they had together, not the heartbreak he lived with. Maybe, tonight, he would dream of sweet violin music, chasing after cabs, the howls of a hound echoing into the night of the misty moor...
Maybe, tonight, he would not have a nightmare about his best friend, Sherlock Holmes.