Behaving Truthfully
…
John slumps tired in his chair and stares blankly at his bare feet, his toes curled in the worn carpet. This past session with his therapist has been particularly useless. He just sat there, his legs crossed, his arms folded. He understands the effort Ella does, and he also knows it makes Harry happy if he goes to her, sees her and talks to her, and even he knows somewhere that it will work out for the better, but John simply has nothing to say. Not any more at least. Nothing of that matters anymore.
Oh, don't misunderstand John here. He has enough to say. His heart bursts from the things he wants to say, shout, scream, cry, weep. There is enough, but John tucks it away, deep, deeper, deepest until he reaches the bottom of his heart.
Harry called him this morning, before the sun warmed the city with its golden water, asking him how he was. He told her not to bother and hang up on her. Why should he tell this to his drunken sister? It's not as if she cared.
Mrs. Hudson opened the door for him when she saw him approaching, but John chose to be rude and stalked up the stairs, ignoring her sad eyes and pleas to talk to her and drink some tea.
He doesn't want to talk to anyone. No one. Why would he, it's not as if it changes anything. It doesn't make his heart lighter, it doesn't make the last days un-happened and it certainly won't make any of this better.
John has had so many opportunities to speak.
He sighs and gets to his feet. He is not strong enough to suppress his bodily needs like food, drink, sleep, air. He was tough enough to suppress the things that really mattered, and the mere superfluous things, the dull and mundane, are forcing themselves upon him.
They say he needs the food, drink, sleep, air to survive, to get through this. John knows he only needs one thing that will help him through, but that won't happen.
He moves towards the kitchen and makes tea mindlessly. He opens the tap and lets the cold water run into the rusty drain. He grimaces. If he can't get that one thing, he might as well try all the other things.
Opportunities enough and he allowed them to slip through his fingers.
I want you.
He doesn't want to talk to Ella about how he feels, about what he thinks about doing next, about detectives admitting they were frauds. About things he wanted to say but didn't say, about things he should say, about things he dreams about at night when it's cold and dark and so alone.
Stay with me.
Three words, and they have proven to be too much to say aloud. John was a soldier, John was tough and John was brave. John was Sherlock's flat mate and his only friend. John and Sherlock. Sherlock and John. Doesn't that sound wonderful?
Again, and again and again, John sips from his lukewarm tea, a vicious circle that never ends. His monotonous life is reduced to a loop, rituals, mindless undertakings. Get up, eat, sit, eat, drink, sit, walk, blog and delete, talk to Ella, go home, sit, sit, sleep. Over and over again.
Love me. Never leave me.
Would it have made a difference if he had said that then? His eyes had been fixed on that small figure high, higher, highest up, unreachable, no matter how far John stretched his hands.
He never said those words. He wanted to, when they sat there, reading in the paper when Sherlock beat his ear hat.
Why did he care about what people said about Sherlock? Sherlock didn't understand. Why would John care so much?
John had just looked at Sherlock, baffled that he really didn't see. He had swallowed hard and flicked another page of the newspaper. "Try to keep a low profile."
Love me, I'm going mad.
What could have happened, if only..?
John sips from his cold tea. It's too hot, he burns his tongue. Burn. Burn.
Burn.
"Love me, please?" John tries, staring at the wall with the lonely cow skull with the headphones with closed eyes.
John pricks up his ears, his body tense, geared up to undertake action. Nothing happens. The words, John's deepest thoughts, outspoken, linger in the room, just sounds, sound waves, reduced to nothing. Spoken, they don't mean anything anymore. They resonate in the empty room, against the battered walls and back to John's ears. They could have entered those pale ears, covered by dark hair, they would have passed that wonderful brain and entered his heart to nestle there and grow big, bigger, biggest of all loves in the world that ever existed. Sherlock and John. John and Sherlock.
But not now, not anymore. Of course not. What would happen?
Had he spoken then, he would have ruined any chance on love, friendship, anything they had would have been broken. John realised that back then, but now, sitting in the chair, staring at the caressed wall paper, he would give everything to have ruined that friendship, to have taken the leap and the courage to make his life one worth living.
His mug hits the ground hard as he flexes his hand. It leaves a stain in the carpet, John watches it and shrugs.
It was his favorite mug. The pieces lie on the floor, the carpet slowly drinks the tea. Perhaps the tea will help it, it doesn't make John feel better anymore. It reminds him of those warm afternoons spent with a detective roaming the house. It reminds him of his friend in that beautiful coat, lying in pieces on the cold, unyielding ground.
I want you.
It runs like a mantra, a curse, through his small, overfilled head, screaming to get out.
"I don't have friends, I've only got one."
How easy it could have been to just blurt out, "I want to be your friend, your love, your partner, your experiment for god's sake. I want you. Love me, never leave me."
John curses his spinelessness. He should have said it.
Love me, I'm going mad.
John slowly walks over to the lonely music stand that rests close to the window. Its forgotten sheets of music are crumpled and scribbled with spidery notes, understandable to one person only.
If John feels this lonely, how must the violin feel? John never had the chance to be held by the detective, to be caressed and played so softly and gently.
John picks up the wooden instrument and lets his gaze glide over it. It's old, really old, but it's been taken care of very well. The snares are spanned tense, its wood gleams in the soft strokes of the sun.
John is jealous of the violin but he also understands he has nothing left but the instrument. With his new friend in his arms, John turns to face the dirty window and stares over the sunlit street. The streets are empty, practically everyone has gone off to something important where John was not invited.
The heated air outside is blocked out of John's small safe haven, his sanctuary, the place where nothing will hurt him, where no one will try to invade and pollute the air Sherlock once breathed.
If he can't have the detective, his friend, his love, he will have the stale air, the stinking experiments, the starched clothes in the closet.
The truth always comes too late, people say. Not for John. John has always known the truth, but he just didn't act upon it.
People always say the things they don't want to, and they swallow the things that should have been spoken.
"You… MACHINE! Sod this. Sod this. You stay here, if you want, on your own."
John obeys the calls of his burning eyes to be closed for a moment, falling down, deep, deeper, deepest. He presses his forehead to the cool window, his cold anchor in the calm before the storm. Those were not the words he had wanted to say to Sherlock. Did these words kick him over the edge?
Those expensive, polished shoes stood on the edge, tickling the vacant air. What would have gone through Sherlock's mind the moments before John arrived and he called him?
I am a machine. I am a robot. No one wants me, not even my only friend.
"Stop it!" John shouts to the cold unforgiving window. His voice is muffled as it collides with the window.
Not even a window wants to listen to him.
Never leave me.
What kind of lover would Sherlock have been? Would he have been just as gentle in bed as he was in fiddling with the lenses of the microscope, as fixed in entering John and kissing him as putting on his coat? Would he be as precise in touching and memorising John as he was in observing the bodies in dirty alleyways? Would he know what buttons to push and where to touch John like he knew how his phone worked? Would Sherlock, his skin, his lips, his curls, be as soft as John thought he was? How would Sherlock taste? Like nicotine, smoke, excitement and music?
Love me.
How would it have been? Their becoming one, their bodies matching perfectly? How would the dance of love befall to them? Would it ruin their friendship, deepen their love? Would they be never able to stop, never able to do that again?
John's knees give way. He clutches the violin in his arms to protect it from hitting the wooden floor as his back slams into the chair leg of the forlorn grey leather chair.
How did they become this? It should have been different. They were meant to be together, from the very beginning. The wounded doctor and the misunderstood detective. Sherlock and John.
I want you. Stay with me. Love me. Never leave me. I'm going mad.
I want you. Stay with me. Love me. Never leave me. I'm going mad.
"I want you. Stay with me. Love me. Never leave me. I'm going mad," John chokes on the words and he weeps. The words sound chilling and fake and useless and lonely in the room as there is no one who will hear them, no one who will care and reciprocate them.
I want you. Stay with me. Love me. Never leave me. I'm going mad.
Every night and day, again, again, again. A vicious circle, a ritual, a lifeline. A lifetime.
John never speaks them aloud again. In the echoing void of his heart they mean so much more, there his words are treasured and loved and true.