A drippy perspiration of dust hung through the air. Individual motes came to rest on the untouched violin, the untouched skull, the untouched (and molding) experiment lying on the kitchen counter. Faint scents of the mold and Mrs. Hudson's lasagna drifted through the flat, mingling with the dust and pervasive silence. John allowed all of this to happen not through depression, but for necessity and only a shade of the former.

The army doctor was not usually in the habit of slovenliness. Even after Afghanistan in his little closet of a flat, everything was dusted and white and clean. Granted, his psychosomatic limp did not allow for tripping over a stray humerus lying around, and now, he did not have that issue thanks to Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock. And there went his daily allotment for saying his name. This was a nameless zone. As far as John was concerned, he mused as he made some tea, he was still here, just up in his room thinking about some new case, or out and about at the park studying scat trails or something. He certainly wasn't gone, even though he certainly was.

John knew. He knew Sherlock was dead, and that was all. He knew saying the name "Sherlock Holmes" held a certain monopoly on his life; however, he did his best to ignore the monopoly by ignoring the absence of it. Furthermore, he decided by ignoring his absence, it would feel as though Sherlock did come back, just for him.

Sometimes, when he was sleeping, John did think that Sherlock came back. In his sleep, he'd feel cold fingers tickle across his zygomatic arch; causing him to sleepily blink up and see his counterpart's apparition before it disappeared and he fell back into oblivion.

The phone rang too, sometimes, and when John answered it, it sounded like Sherlock was muttering something far off, and John didn't catch much besides the painfully familiar decibels before the line went dead. At first, John thought it was another hallucination, a simple conjuration that his mind built up to help him cope. But now, the rational doctor felt he was going insane.

He suddenly believed in demons. Nothing else could explain the increasingly insistent raps on the door, the whisper of a familiar voice over the steaming kettle or accompanying the touches in the middle of his sleep. Surely all of these things must be demons, something beyond his mind, leeching onto his sorrows and sucking him dry of any life he could have had left after- him.

It was a slippery slope into insanity, but the final fall was when John returned home from the surgery to see a note taped to his door. He figured it was from Mrs. Hudson, asking him to be a dear and fetch some milk for their weekly Sunday supper. Which is why when he opened it, he fell to his knees and became short of breath.

"John- Please say something when you answer the phone. The silence is boring. -SH."

John woke up to Mrs. Hudson shaking him away, her voice hitting notes the likes of which dolphins spoke in. He felt the crinkly streams of dried tears on his cheeks, and he realized the note that he held crumpled in his hand wasn't there.

"Oh dear, you gave me such a fright! I told you that you needed to cut back..." His mind closed to tune out the fussing woman, and he stood up silently and entered his flat. The poor old woman was still prattling on about him needing to do something about caring about something when he shut the door on her.

He scanned the room, and noted that everything was as he left it. The entity that had pervaded his being seemed to have left, and he was consumed with a feeling of numbness all over again.

And then suddenly, as John was about to be completely submerged in his melancholia, the phone rang. He started, and lunged for the telephone as if it was a life line, saving him from a death he came back from after Afghanistan.

"Hello?" he answered breathlessly, praying to the God that had to exist if

demons were real that it would be him, that he had left the note, that he wasn't crazy.

That he was alive.

His eyes widened at an acknowledging crackle, and suddenly he heard something that brought him back to that day, that very second his soul was lost as demon food.

"I'm sorry, John."


I have no idea whether or not I should continue this, or just leave it where it is. Any feedback is definitely welcome, and I hope you all enjoyed it.