A/N - Characters belong to Steven Moffat/Mark Gatiss/BBC and, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Huge thanks to pyrzqxgl on tumblr for being my beta :)
"Nothing happens to me."
The full weight of that sentence – that one, seemingly simple remark – sat heavy in John's throat, making it exceedingly difficult to swallow around it. His fingers twitched lightly against the arm rest, and he clenched and unclenched his jaw. He could feel the condescending look that his psychiatrist was giving him, but his vision had glassed over. He was distantly aware that she was saying something – hopefully signalling the end of their session – but he couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. He got up quickly, muttering a forced thanks for her time as he hurried to escape the room that seemed to be getting smaller by the second.
It wasn't until the screech of tyres and angry shouting broke through his melancholy state, that he realised he had walked straight in front of a cab. His heart pounded in his chest as the world came back at full force, making London seem more vivid and beautiful than he had ever seen it before. A grin had worked its way onto his face before he'd even realised it, and he waved a careless apology to the cab driver, walking across the road with absolutely no limp. However, halfway down the street, as his apartment building came into view, his limp returned at full force, causing him to stumble, the sky turned grey, and the hub-bub around him turned back to nothing more than irritating white noise.
"Nothing happens to me."
From his open window, John Watson glanced down at the ever moving traffic below, and considered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to simply fall. It wasn't that he wanted to die; in fact, it was quite the opposite. John wanted to live. He wanted to feel something more than the constant, empty nothingness and the buzzing inside his head. John wanted to be saving lives and fighting for his country. Instead he was stuck in a small flat with nothing more than a limp, a bad shoulder, and a tremor in his hand, rendering him useless.
A frustrated growl sounded in his chest, and he clenched and unclenched his fists before leaning out his window as far as he could, and taking a deep breath in, shuddering on the outtake. His head was spinning, but not unpleasantly, and his mind was filled with images of falling, falling, falling, falling into blackness and weightlessness and wonder. The wind picked up and images of his crushed body on the pavement filled his mind, his heart now hammering inside his chest. With a jolt, he pulled himself back inside, breathing deeply, unable to force back the small smile creeping its way onto his face. If his psychiatrist could see inside his head, he knew she would have him institutionalised in an instant.
John lay in bed, his fingers drumming restlessly against his ribs as he fought the urge to be terribly destructive. The frustration of doing nothing was eating away at him, slowly ripping his insides apart, leaving him itching in places he couldn't scratch. His breath sped up without him even realising it, and hot tears slipped down the sides of his face as his fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt.
"Get a grip," he told himself, fighting to even his breath out.
He could hear his own heart beating in his ears, but this heartbeat sounded pathetic in comparison to the thrumming that kept him alive and striving in Afghanistan. This heartbeat sounded like an out of time drum, fighting to keep up with the rest of the band. This heartbeat sounded lonely and disjointed and broken, and he hated it.
The cold, hard metal in his hand made him snap out of it and he held his breath. He didn't recall moving from the bed to snatch up his gun, and yet here it was, in his hand, pressed to the side of his head. A shiver ran through his body and his grip on the gun tightened before he snatched it away, checking the safety before placing it back into the drawer. John stumbled back against his bed, his chest heaving with wet, ragged, gasping breaths.
He figured that this was probably a sign he should take his therapist seriously, but he couldn't quite bring himself to call her; not when appointments meant sitting in that dull office, talking about his dull feelings, and watching as the walls closed in on him once more. It was mundane, he was useless, and there was absolutely no point in going there (no matter how many times the small voice in the back of his mind tried to tell him otherwise).
He closed his eyes as he lay back on his bed, and took deep, deliberate breaths, until sleep finally consumed him.
John woke feeling entirely as though he hadn't slept a wink. He glanced at the clock on his side table and sighed. He had no routine and absolutely no reason to get up, and yet the bright red 11:08 was staring at him accusingly, daring him to stay in bed for the rest of the day, along with the quiet but convincing voice in the back of his mind.
"No," he thought to himself firmly, still not making a move. "I will get up on the count of three… One… Two… Three."
John's body twitched slightly before he relaxed further into the comfort of his bed, a soft sigh sending a flush of warmth through his pillow. His mind was suddenly flooded with hot, speeding, angry thoughts that whirled and whizzed and barged through his brain, demanding that his body pay attention and do as it was told, but his body didn't comply. It felt as though an invisible weight was pushing him down, holding him in place, which only added to his frustration. He felt unbelievably heavy, and extremely helpless, and it was so very tempting to just give into the pressure to never ever leave his bed again.
In a small burst of determination, John lifted his head and pushed his body of the bed, ready to slip his legs out from under the covers, but within seconds his body had crashed back down onto the soft mattress and sleep clouded his mind once more.
"Is there even any point? I have nothing to do and nowhere to go and no one to see and that is what my existence will be for the rest of my life, so why not stay in bed and do nothing where it's comfortable instead of doing nothing whilst pretending to no one that I'm perfectly okay? Why not stay here instead of bothering myself with all the monotony in store for me out there?"
Something inside him snapped, and he sprung from the bed, frustration gripping him once more. His skin itched and his muscles twitched, once again desperate for something more than his simple, broken life in London gave him. He longed for something – anything – to happen; an explosion, being mugged, saving someone held at gunpoint, being held at gunpoint, having to save someone's life again.
His cheeks flushed as he realised what he was thinking, and he cursed himself inwardly for wishing for such things. It was one thing to wish to endanger his own life, but it was another thing completely to wish that on other people, simply because he was bored. John clenched his jaw and set about getting ready for the day, ignoring the irritating buzz inside his head.
"Nothing happens to me."
"John! John Watson!"
John forced a smile onto his face as he turned to greet Mike Stamford. They had been friends in school, but things were different now, and John didn't much like the idea of the pity he felt sure would come his way. He was useless and broken, invalided home, a shell of his former self. He didn't want anyone from his old life to know that, which was why he hadn't bothered to contact anybody to catch up for drinks. (He absolutely refused to admit that that was probably only part of the story, the other much bigger part being depression.)
He smiled his way through mind numbing conversation about the good old days and what they were doing with their lives now, and before he knew it, he was being dragged off to meet a potential (unlikely) new flatmate.
Meeting Sherlock Holmes was the most exciting (and, admittedly confusing and somewhat infuriating) thing that had happened to him since he'd returned from Afghanistan, and before he even had time to really properly think about moving in with him (who was he kidding; he didn't have to think about it, he felt better than he'd felt in far too long) he was running with him through London, chasing what was possibly (or probably, if what he'd already seen of Sherlock Holmes was anything to go by) a serial killer in a cab.
He saw Sherlock jump from one building to the next, and faltered to a stop, peering over the edge. Everything else felt distant and all he could hear was his heart pounding wildly in his chest, beating life throughout his entire body, calling for him to take that plunge and feel that weightlessness before the darkness. He closed his eyes, feeling the wind in his hair, and allowed his body to drag him forward slowly, answering the call of the void.
"Come on John! We're losing him!"
Sherlock's voice snapped him back to reality, sound rushing back at 100% volume, his senses tingling and alive. He didn't even have to think twice as he stepped back to properly jump across the gap, chasing after Sherlock once more.
It wasn't until Angelo handed him his cane, after he and Sherlock had leant against the wall, laughing in earnest, that he realised that the urge to jump wasn't as strong as the desire to follow Sherlock. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant for him, but he knew that he felt more alive than he had since he'd been shot, and that thought sat comfortably inside him, filling him with a warmth he'd thought he'd never get back.
A/N - I plan on writing a small follow up piece (probably no more than 1000 words, if that) post Reichenbach. Stay tuned..