Pain is weird. Moisture pooling in the corner of your eye, seemingly purposeless. Pain does not care that you are hurt, you would think it would have the decency to allow you to function at the very least, a fundamental survival instinct. The adrenaline, noradrenaline flooding your system. Pain brings focus. But sometimes you simply stop. Curl into a ball and wail. Defenceless. Alone.
Not alone. You have Pain.
You suppose it's why we cling to it. Pain sometimes is all we have, sitting there in your stomach. Always. But then they ask you to let go of Pain and it scares you more, because Pain is nothing if not expected and predictable. So great is it that the ability to create more through further entanglement with others and their inevitable abandonment of you is incomprehensible.
Let it go. Move past it.
Ridiculous.
So you pretend for a while. And sometimes, without meaning to, Pain dulls and shrinks. Never fully gone, but less of a presence in the shadows of your thoughts. And you move on. You let people in. You allow yourself some semblance of happiness, always aware of Pain, but less bothered.
Pain worries about you.
And you finally feel ready, because Pain can no longer be called Pain because it's more of a dull throb around your heart rather than spikes of nausea and choking grief. You are human though, so this also was inevitable. (Because really who can keep such an intimate acquaintance with Pain without also being introduced to his possessive elder brother. And you have no need of Him quite yet, thank you. )
Gone. Just heart ache and memories.
But sometimes Pain is sneaky. Sometimes it just hits you like a truck. Or like a server in a Restaurant.
"Sherlock…"