All children grow up, except one.
John nudged the glossy green children's edition out of the bookcase behind Sherlock's chair and opened it, reading the first line through a fog of acrid tears and last night's badly-judged doses of Temazepam. Why he'd ever been allowed to administer his own sedatives was a mystery. But then, nobody else in the building had been in a state to do it for him either. Harry had spent the night in Mrs. Hudson's flat and Greg had crashed on the sofa – John glanced across at the cushion and frayed-edged tartan throw-blanket still lying crumpled there. He'd gone out some time before without saying anything. Maybe to be chewed out by Chief Superintendant Dawson. Maybe to… see Mycroft... about the funeral. The sound of crying and soft voices floated up the main staircase. Harry was down there, probably doing more harm than good.
How could there be a world without Sherlock Holmes in it?
This wasn't grief. Grief John knew well – a bewildering, all-encompassing sense of loss that settled over the world like a fine layer of dust. This was fear. Fear of a world that was in ways so very like the world of yesterday, yet so horribly mangled, like a dislocated neck or an amputated limb. It was fear of what it would be like when he woke up, and fear at realising that he was already awake.
Sherlock's coffee mug still sat innocent and still on the table. It was half-full of manky instant-roast, as if he was going to run up the stairs any minute now. Take a sip. Gag. Absent-mindedly remark that he was 'just drinking that two minutes ago.' Be reminded that it was actually two days ago… deny it. Make another cup. Leave it on the counter for another two days while he rushed off to the morgue again.
The big child had been up to these antics just yesterday.
Yesterday.
John sank down into his armchair, the precious volume open on his lap, and flicked the pages. A musty, comforting smell billowed up; all of Sherlock's books smelled like this, and it sometimes pervaded his shirts, his jackets, his coat, his scarf. It reminded John of the university library where he'd studied for five years, in a time and place where everything came down to facts and science. It was the smell of order and logic and sense and reason.
But there was no order in this. No logic, no sense, and no reason for Sherlock Holmes to be dead.
John's eyes flickered over the tale of a boy named Peter who had a girl named Wendy sew his shadow back into place for him, then crowed about having done it himself.
All children grow up.
Except one.