The Art of Losing it

So Sherlock jumped. He jumped and made him watch. He lied. He lied and made him go.

You machine. That's what John said. But it was all a lie and John ran back to his friend. Sherlock had to lie again. He lied and made him listen.

Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please. That's what he said, but John wouldn't believe him; Sherlock knew that much. He had to try anyway, make him watch and listen to his lies. He let a little secret slide through his words nonetheless.

It's a trick, just a magic trick. John could hold on to that, he would use it to keep holding on. And John is holding on, he's using his last strength to hold on; to hold tight, tight, tight. Sherlock wouldn't slip through his fingers. Don't be dead.

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen; John would've to lose it.

So he is, right now, losing it, big and sound. One year since, and now he's losing control. He's losing perspective. He's losing hope. One more miracle. He did ask for it a year ago, but Sherlock couldn't listen. Or...

He could and he actually did, but what was there left to do? John used to be full of hope, but not anymore. It took one year, one long and lifeless year full of doubts and secrets, to deplete any kind of warm light from his heart.

Sitting on the sofa, John turns to look at the smiley face on the wall. Stop shooting the wall. Then, he turns his gaze to the ceiling and closes his eyes. He now understands that he can't continue this way and he needs to choose: one side, the land of the living or the other, the land of the dead.

He has to make a choice. His friend is gone. He can't keep living with the dead, with a ghost tangled around his life. There're two choices, stay or leave, life or- Silence. Silence falls. Silence will always fall. This phone call, it's… it's my note. That's what he said. And he sees the jump replaying over and over in his head, words on repeat for hours and hours and hours. Ok, look up, I'm on the rooftop. That's what he said.

Memories hit his mind non-stop, full-power at any given time. It began with isolated episodes every few nights for the first months. Blood, eyes and hands; voices, phones and silence; the sensation of falling, a heart beating and a wrist; no pulse, death and gone; a bicycle, a siren and a lifeless body. Those are all of the things that torment him rising from his own memory.

It took one year for them to become so incessant, vivid and overwhelming that he now realizes he's suffering PTSD again, from a fall- and silence. But there're also other things eating him alive, from his mind; his own creations, his own living and breathing monster: the things unsaid, his own words, muttered, whispered in his dreams, explanations never given. So John decides that he will stop looking for evidence to rekindle the fire and bring back the light- his beaming light.

He will tell himself the truth: Sherlock didn't say wait for me, he meant let go. Let go, John.

"Goodbye, Sherlock."

Goodbye, John. That's what he said.