"John…"
John knuckled his lower lip, biting at the flesh until it bled. He felt the pain and tried to focus on it. Tried to overwhelm the raw agony clutching at his heart, choking the life out of him. Tangy, coppery blood oozed slowly over his tongue and he swallowed hard. Memories flashed before his eyes.
His body dropping like a stone…
Blood flowing onto the cobblestone street…
Those vacant, lifeless green eyes…
Sherlock's eyes were never so dull. Both had always burned with an intense fire. During his most intense cases, John swore his gaze almost glowed. Normal people, like John himself, didn't have eyes like Sherlock's. Normal people had eyes dulled by care, labor, or time.
"John!"
He jerked, suddenly alert and aware of the woman sitting across from him. She gazed at him pointedly.
"I'm sorry, what?" John asked. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. His therapist sighed patiently and reclined back in her chair. Her eyebrows were knitted together in concern.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
John swallowed hard, frantically trying to clear his mouth of the taste of blood. He sniffed and twitched his nose. A lump formed in his throat.
"Take your time." His therapist soothed, "You need to get it out."
John began, speaking haltingly as emotion choked his words.
"He – Sherlock, I mean – he…" John licked his lips and furiously blinked back hot tears. "He – he jumped off the roof… of the hospital."
"Committed suicide?" His therapist asked. John nodded his head sharply. The scene played in his mind again; vivid and fresh.
Sherlock, standing on the rooftop. His silhouette distinct against the gray London sky. There had been a hitch in his voice that John had never heard before as they spoke over the phone.
"Keep your eyes fixed on me!" He had commanded. Then he had thrown the phone aside and stepped off the roof.
It hadn't seemed real at first. John watched him fall; sharp features passive, arms flailing as if he were trying to fly. With his coat flapping about him as he fell, Sherlock looked like a freakish raven. For a heartbeat, John wondered if the man would fly. It wouldn't have surprised him in the slightest.
He could picture Sherlock pulling up just before hitting the cobblestones. His friend would have soared above the amazed crowd, probably preforming a few spiraling flips. He would have landed in front of John with that smug little smirk of his, all traces of tears gone. Maybe he would have even chided him:
"You actually thought I was going to hit the ground?"
Better that Sherlock had flown away forever…than hit the pavement with a sickening thud. Anything would have been better than that.
The tears he had been holding back began to run, burning, down his cheeks. John blinked his wet eyelashes together and his vision blurred.
"He...he fell, and...and there was nothing I could do but stand there," he paused, his breaths coming in hitching gasps, "and watch him fall."
His therapist leaned forward to put a comforting hand on his forearm.
"John, this wasn't your fault."
John nodded mechanically, again accepting the same words everyone had told him.
"Not your fault..."
"You did all you could..."
"It was his choice..."
Nobody understood. Not really. He knew everyone was just trying to be helpful. Words could never express what a person wants to say in a time of grief. All the condolences came off sounding like pity, and John did not want anyone's pity.
All he wanted was for his best friend to be alive again.