Title: Fake trees
Chapters: 1/1
Author: science-of-insanity
Disclaimer: I don't own.
Genre: angst, psychological, post-reichenbach
Pairing: Sherlock & John.
Summary: I will be waiting for you. Don't be late. SH.
Comments: Just a random scene that popped up in my head while listening to Oceanship's Hotblack. Enjoy.
John's POV.
„ I have a small present for you. The road was pretty long but uncompounded and I finally managed to reach you. I am sure that if I'd ask „Would you meet me?" your answer would be yes. And I'm just as sure that you remember that place where we had our first kiss. I will be waiting for you, by the same tree where my most treasured memory had bloomed. Don't be late. SH. „
I caressed the thin paper, with its sharp edges that frightened me a bit, and smudged a few of the words you had written, a tear freeing itself from my eyes, dripping on the sheet. The letters trembled when I read and re-read, having a hard time believing what was before my eyes. The following second, before I could even notice, I drew on my jacket and ran out of the door, leaving it open behind me. People, a few empty streets, a late bus, they all made my heart jump out of my skin in my rush to get to you. I ran like a mad-man to the place you and I knew so well. I ran like a rash gale of wind, who went forward without caring of the things it had to cut through on its way. All I wanted to see in front of my eyes was you.
The gate creaked heavily when it hit the fence as I bounced into an easily mazy alley, with serpentine concrete paths and ran on them with only one direction in my mind. I must have gotten a few weird looks from the people around me, who were probably wondering why I didn't have the common sense to walk like a normal person instead of bumping into them as ground took fire under my feet. Because I was so desperate for you.
And I knew my throat was tightening around the heart which flinched when I saw the too familiar silhouette, leaning against the tree. I crawled my way to you, like a tired heavy piece of meat, frozen by the fear that you could be just an illusion. But the closer I got, the more your warm smiled stretched out its invisible arms to me, comforting my sight. I was just a few steps away from you when you opened your arms to me, a plea for a comforting embrace, whose lack had driven me insane. Cold air was now stuck in my chest and I almost thought two heavy plumb weights were dangling on my lungs, making it impossible to breathe. But you wrapped your wings around me, preventing anything from hurting me. And my heart erased every other small, unimportant detail or background surrounding us, all I could catch in my sight was your smile which, at some time, was brutally taken away from me.
I didn't know if I should cry, laugh or beg you to talk to me. I sunk in your arms, drowned in your scent and stained your black coat with my tears of joy. You were my lucky light. How was I supposed to freeze this moment in time when my hands barely had the power to bring you closer to me? But you read my burden in my eyes, and curved your hand, your skin touching mine. The tips of your fingers trailed a path of affection on my burning cheeks, soothing me, assuring me that I had traced my lost good. A wave electrocuted each corner of my body when my dry lips felt yours, so warm and protecting. And you're just like I remember. So I tasted you, I drank from you what I needed to be alive, I let the blood run riot in my veins with each touch.
When I regained composure, I gently moved away to pencil your portrait in my brain. The same soft, black curls a few inches above those shoulders who always gave me support. The same eyes, contoured with the fine tip of a pencil and in their middle, light blue orbs that absorbed me. I touched your porcelain-like cheeks and felt cold drops on my fingers. I didn't know why it had to rain when I was nowhere near crying. But your silence was worrying me. My hands trembled on your skin when something astonished me. Rain was dribbling on your hair, giving it a strange shape, and when a heavy drop hit your face, it leaned on your cheek, taking away its color with it. And then another, and then another, until your beautiful figure looked just like a tainted painting, muddy and drawn by someone with no sense of art. I was suffocating and panic was choking me. Still, I fought it, and threw my arms around you but I ran through you like running through a ghost. Instead of finding your embrace, my head hit the three you were leaning onto a few moments ago, and the bark rasped my forehead, and a few petals floated in the air at a time with my impact. No, no. I couldn't understand. Come back! I begged you on my knees, come back and I swear I'll do anything…! I'll clench my teeth and help you keep your beautiful colors alive no matter how strong would be the storm inside you, inside me.
But time quickly passed me by, and I felt my own pulse in my ears.
And that was the moment when it hit me. The roughest truth. And I knew why it rained. I knew it when I turned my eyes to my left, I saw the thing that stole my sanity away. I knew everything will suddenly crash and burn when reality pulled me back from my "dream". And I knew what you were when I touched the cold gravestone, that chained me there. You were just another hallucination.
I froze there, on my knees, thrilling the air around me with my scream. The merciless grey color of the stone was snatched from my dreams. And it woke me up. The skies cried and you faded before my eyes. How was I supposed to escape the weight of darkness when in my ears you whispered so clearly: "Goodbye, John."
„You can't even see his name, from all those flowers.." a mother said.
But that didn't prevent me from knowing who you were. It was cold in the cemetery. And I was just a sick man glued to your grave stone. And after all, you died. Today, no tear can reach the skies.