"Please, Sherlock," he wanted to say but never did, "Please, snap out of it!"
The words always got caught in his throat—if they even made it that far—and he'd give up, turn away, try to block out the horrifying noise of a bow crawling across a violin's strings. The instrument's plaintive cries followed John Watson up the stairs, slipped under and around the cracks between the door he closed behind him and its frame, pursued him to his desk, sent sparks of anguish through him as he, with fumbling hands that were unlike his steady doctor's hands, got out his laptop and booted it up.
Headphones, that's what he needed. John found them at the bottom of the drawer that usually housed his laptop when Sherlock wasn't 'borrowing' it. Plugging them into the jack, he hurriedly began playing music—anything that did not feature the violin or a similar instrument. He turned the volume as high as he could without the sound becoming painful, but still he could almost hear the discordant notes from the floor below where Sherlock played. John could picture it without effort, without closing his eyes; he could see Sherlock's pale hands moving with an alien listlessness as he played, long fingers apathetic as they held down cords, the bow dragging over strings instead of gliding.
But the worst were Sherlock's eyes—they were empty, void, and though they were light in color, they reminded John of that line from Jaws about the shark's eyes: like a doll's eyes. He shivered despite the warmth of the room and shook the image from his mind.
A different song was playing now, and it prompted the doctor to action. He signed into his blog an opened up a new post. Without stopping—without letting himself stop to even think—he began to type, hands forming the words almost as quickly as he thought them, grammar and punctuation ignored as he poured his mind into the 'body' field on the page.
I can't take it anymore, he wrote, I don't remember what it's like to not hear the sound of a violin being played by the idiot I live with. It's like sharing a flat with two different people who change places, one of them full of energy and life and the other one without a soul or any drive to do anything He just plays the violin or sprawls on the couch all day I can't take it There haven't been any cases in weeks and he's going insane and taking me with him What am I supposed to do? I can't help him unless I go out and start serially killing people and we all know he'd catch me in about five minutes anyway and I could never kill innocent people like that I almost miss Moriarty damn me for it but I'm already damned because I can see him falling and there's nothing I can do about it That violin I can hear it when the songs change and it's tearing me apart why can't he have a silent hobby like knitting But that would be silly Sherlock knitting can you even imagine? Am I rambling I think I'm rambling but I don't care because rambling is better than thinking about him down there an empty shell a hole a nothingness where a man should be sitting my flatmate my colleague my Sherlock where have you gone? I'm worried he won't ever snap out of this I'm a doctor I should help him get him help but he won't let me I'm not sure medicine will work anyway his mind is unfathomable to me you think you know a person and then he changes like he was never the man who ran through the streets with me after that cab how could the man sitting in my living room be the man who got so excited over those crimes those mysteries and now I don't know I don't know someone tell me what to do I can't
He closed his eyes and stopped his hands from rambling on further. Exhaling a sigh, he closed the browser window, unwilling—afraid, even—to read what he'd written, and actually posting the entry was out of the question. The thought of bearing his soul to the entire internet like that made him so horrified that he shut his laptop quickly and put it away.
The sound of a violin greeted him. For a moment, the terrible, wonderful, extremely appealing image of John storming downstairs and beating that damned instrument to pieces on the wall flickered through the doctor's mind, but he couldn't do that. He wouldn't destroy someone else's property, unlike certain flatmates he could mention.
Breaking the violin wouldn't fix anything, not really. John didn't mind when Sherlock played when he was musing about a case, and sometimes the man would even play real songs, and when he did, they were beautiful enough to move even John, who had no real interest in music. When Sherlock played songs he was so animated, moving with the notes, absorbed by it; what he was doing now was a travesty, an obscene mockery of that.
John wished with all his heart that the sound would stop. He felt a sudden kinship with the protagonist from "A Tell-Tale Heart" though his torment was not imagined, nor was it for something he'd done wrong, unless it was fail to be able to help his friend.
Silence hit him with a force greater than the loudest noise he could think of. Sherlock had stopped playing! A surge of hope rushed through him—Lestrade must have sent a text about a case, or he'd gotten an email that interested him.
There was a strange feeling on his face and John realized he was smiling—really smiling—for the first time in weeks. Sherlock's depression had been infectious, but now it was broken. He hurried downstairs, wondering what kind of case it would be, what adventures they'd have—maybe even a car chase this time. John had always secretly wanted to be in one, and with Sherlock, anything was possible.
He rounded the corner to the living room and was hit with the sight of Sherlock sliding a needle into his pallid arm. John had always thought the phrase "hit with the sight" to be stupid, but it was accurate; what he watched was like a physical blow to him, so abrupt, so polar opposite from his feelings of elations only moments before, that he almost felt as if he would really vomit. Wind knocked out of him for a second, he recovered, and stepped forward, into the room, lips parted to say something—anything—to stop him.
But like his previous pleas for Sherlock to save himself, John's words didn't make it past his almost-closed throat. By then it was too late, anyway. The drugs were in him. Stopping himself and slipping, unnoticed, back into the hallway, John leaned against the wall, feeling his left hand begin to shake slightly. He knew, in the rational, doctor part of his mind, that Sherlock wasn't likely to drop dead that instant from the drug—cocaine—but the not-so-rational part of him was screaming that he should do something to stop it.
John Watson walked slowly back up the stairs, waiting for the violin to begin playing once more, waiting for his best friend to return.