John, no, John don?t walk away. Look at me, please. Please. I?m sorry, John.

John.

John.

JOHN!

With a tremendous heave, John Watson hauled himself level with his bed frame, chin resting on the sagging mattress. Odd how the mattress reflected John's own emotional state; sagging, tired, worn. He briefly shook the morning fog from his head, orienting himself once again with his reality. The surroundings of his bedroom came in to focus a little too quickly. A wave of nausea overcame the doctor. A quick turn of his head produced a very unpleasant feeling in his temple, and the contents of his stomach released themselves upon the bed sheet.

Skin covered in a sheen of sweat, John crawled weakly to the darkest corner of his room. He briefly smirked at the redundancy of hiding himself in a dark corner, considering the past 18 months had passed in darkness regardless of the position or placement of his physical body. But the darkness that consumed John Watson for a year and a half could not, would not, be banished at 6am each day. No, no. The darkness that consumed John Watson's every living moment came from within. From a pain so blinding that the only way to quell it is to ensconce it in darkness.

As his muddled brain drifted slowly back into unconsciousness, John twitched slightly against the wall, muscles relaxing despite the tense scenes running beneath his eyelids. Any serotonin that his body produced from the casual encounter with Mrs Hudson yesterday had all but worn off.

The quiet morning was suddenly pierced by a horrible, heart-wrenching sound that would have closely resembled a wounded animal's death cry, if not for the fact it was pouring out of John?s mouth.

Bolting to the nearest window, half-crazed and dire for relief, the good doctor screamed until his lungs burned. He screamed until his eyes were bloodshot, until the small capillaries around his eyes had popped and bloomed in fuchsia freckles along his cheekbones. He screamed until a copper tang saturated the back of his throat. He screamed until the jagged shards of his shattered heart hurt less than the self-inflicted wounds of his outburst.

One word spilled from his lips, the echo off the red brick buildings and black phone boxes and the rain-soaked pavement reverberating all around his head. And his ears ringing with the one word he prays will bring him solace in this darkness.

Sherlock.