Chapter 8
Chapter Notes: I'm not good with giving warnings, but there is mention of suicide, so I'll just say as a warning. Anyway, enjoy the chapter.
Refusal to leave the flat, a bitter mood about him, isolating himself from everyone. He ignored texts from Lestrade and occasionally Mycroft, and stayed silent if Mrs Hudson came upstairs. A voice inside his head, a weak one, told him he was being absurd, but the rest of his mind kept replaying the night outside the pub and freezing on, whom he was sure, was Sherlock's face. He wanted to go outside and look for him, to visit the grave and try to decide what he believed. For now, isolation and staying put seemed the only way to fight the wishes of the others, try and make a point. Maybe he misinterpreted the face and chased a random stranger through the streets. Yet he was in such denial, not wanting Sherlock to be dead, positive he's seen his face that day.
Eventually, John had no choice. Mrs Hudson purposefully didn't go do any shopping for him, not because he was on holiday from work but because although she was on John's side like Lestrade, he seemed the only current way to get him outside the flat. With literally no food left other than two packets of crisps and a quarter of a pint of milk, he had to head outside for the shops.
Heading for the nearest Tesco, he walked out into the shadows of Baker Street, the sun beginning its slow descent behind the cityscape. He ignored the noises of the cars, buses and general main street echoes. All he wanted to hear was the silence of Baker Street after he closed the front door, no taxis chugging, no clinking behind the darkened windows of Speedy's Café… He just wanted silence and as little human contact as possible. It hit him how much he might be turning into the sour side of Sherlock, was this the result of being hated, disapproved or disbelieved by others?
All this wishing for isolation and silence was granted. Almost.
John felt watched. No life was around though, not a stranger wondering the streets, not a cat running from a sound its better hearing picked up. Not even a bird stalking him in the streets. Not even a raven. He wanted isolation, but not to this degree, not to the point where it felt like a plague how wiped every other living thing in London. He wished to see a beady eye of a stalking black bird, but he only saw a dreary street and dark shadows in the alleys. Was it the shadows that made him uncomfortable? Was he developing a paranoia that made him think eyes were materializing in the shadows? Was he just scared?
With all that happened, he half expected to see a hallucination of Sherlock appear. In fact he rather hoped it.
Nothing.
Except… Did he see it? Was it fear? Or did something just move in the shadows of that alley? Just to the right, opposite 221B's door. Not possessing the courage to stay, John briskly left to buy food.
Just one message. One can't damage.
Just one message, which could easily be the last, before taking out the final strand of this delicate web, will be fine won't it? It just seems the right thing to do…
Especially after so long.
Just before John entered the quiet store, he finally saw one. A raven was perching on the roof above the entrance, simply looking down at him, acting like an exquisite bird as it tilted its head at him. He mimicked the bird, tilting his head to also represent his confusion in the almost alien behaviour. To his surprise, the raven did something he hadn't seen a raven do in a long time. It squawked, directly at him, before flying off with purpose, judging by its straight path.
He kept it from his mind as he restocked on basic supplies, meals to cover the next few days, drink to wash away the anger and pain, and sleeping pills, just in case the nightmares simply became too much. 'Not for darker purposes,' thought John. 'You're better than that.'
Ideas, quite similar to that, had crossed his mind on occasion. When he was up long nights after a horrid nightmare, unnecessarily sobbing at the ceiling, he wondered if just giving up on life would be easier, to save him the rest of life in the many years wondering what his real role in life was now that the adventures had been abruptly ended, the job he'd grown to love had died. He'd avoided all opportunities in the past three years to fill his spare time looking for a girlfriend, even a potential wife. After so many failed attempts he just gave up. The grief from the Fall didn't help. That's what filled his spare time. And no one he loved, no family or the right person was around during the time when he considered escaping it all. There was only himself.
And a very particular hallucination.
That's when it really started, when he was truly on edge. At first it was a familiar voice telling him to stay strong. It soon became clear, during ten consecutive days when the world was too much did he realise the voice was speaking his own subconscious thoughts to stay strong, but were manipulated into a voice that deep down he would always listen to.
The voice told him to stay strong, to not give in. It told him he couldn't leave, or he would be abandoning everyone, leaving them with more pain. He told John to wake up every morning to carry life on. Just when he thought he might recover, he fell back into the dark hole he crawled out of.
He was up, not sleeping, just sitting at the edge of his bed. It wasn't any particular day or night. It would have been a perfectly fine image, if not for the bottle in his hands. Sleeping pills.
A lot of them.
Sherlock's image appeared for the first time, in the translucent state with no mysterious mist, and the crimson faded. There were silent eyes, a reassuring yet non-existent hand on John's shoulder and eventually the whisper of one word.
No.
Instead of ending everything, he threw the bottle away and begged to what he knew was an illusion, to Sherlock, to come back. Everyone else would have just seen a man pleading to nothing.
After that night he pulled himself together, the occasional hallucination helping. He didn't know why it worked, but it was his minds last card to play, or insanity and worse might have ensued. Nonetheless, John made a recovery through the array of events in the three years, up to the night outside the pub with Lestrade, when the world seemed brighter. Things suddenly went backwards, but down a different path.
John had been staying around the hole he'd descended in during the beginning of the recovery, away from the edge and moving a step or two away each day. The chase and everyone's words about stopping believing had knocked him not only towards the hole, but the delicate ground around it. The ground felt like it could crumble any minute, but what was worse is that John was balancing over the edge, staring into the dark abyss below.
Finishing his walk through the memories of the hell he'd been through in the many months between now and the Fall, he also finished his search around the shop as well. He decided to avoid self-service and the high possibility of battering the chip-n-pin machine, he went to a quiet cashier and left swiftly afterwards.
Empty streets, the occasional car, a scurrying cat.
No blackbirds.
No crows.
No ravens.
His sudden need to see the bird took him by surprise. Originally a burden on his life with their silent eyes and dark bodies, but now they were such a part of his everyday view that it felt terribly wrong not seeing them.
'Just get home,' he thought. 'Get home, calm down and get some sleep.' He followed his own advice, and promptly. Baker Street came into view, but the feeling of being watched had disappeared. John decided not to dwell on it, but as he headed for the door, he heard a small clinking sound. Not metal against metal, but talon against metal. Relief washed through when he looked up to see a raven perched on the railing outside the flat windows.
John knew Mrs Hudson was out when he found the front door completely locked and had to fumble for his keys. It was quieter in the flat than the street, the echoing sounds of afar not piercing the walls. It was something else that stopped John in his tracks. An air to the flat he didn't recognise, couldn't shake it or figure it out.
He shook his head to lose the train of thought and made his way upstairs. It got worse with every step. He didn't look out the window to check for the raven, he didn't look at the corners of the flat; he just headed straight for the kitchen and placed the bags on the table. Everything was unpacked, John not turning a blind eye towards the rest of the flat. He grabbed a mug and filled it with cold water to clear his head as he moved towards his armchair. There was a sigh. The problem was it wasn't from John. A caw from outside and the mug smashing against the floor as John lost his grip. It wasn't from the solid, unmistakeable sight before him, no translucent skin, or mist. No, it was what was said next that immediately alarmed John that it was unbelievably real, not a trick of his tired and paranoid mind. The words weren't distant, or clouded. They were said there and now, strong, direct and so bluntly said it almost felt like John was being stabbed straight in the chest, yet he never figured out why. He was unbelievably real.
"Did you miss me?"