John Watson had never felt so alone.
It was a funny feeling, and even though he had felt it many times before, almost foreign. Making tea for one, watching the news uninterrupted—he didn't like it, not one bit. The fact that everything else remained made it almost harder.
Mycroft hadn't taken any of it. The man had called by, of course—this time without the offer of money—and offered his condolences, which John had returned, but he hadn't even glanced at the skull above the fireplace, or the violin by the window. It was as though he couldn't see them, as though John was the only person left who could lay eyes on his possessions.
Really, John Watson wanted anything but. He wanted the skull and violin to disappear, for Sherlock's dressing gown to pick itself up from the floor and fold itself away into a cupboard. He wanted the remnants of experiments to tidy themselves away and for the flat to clean itself up again. He wanted, more than anything else, for Sherlock to stop messing around and come back. But even John, who had moved in for the thrill, who had known that it wouldn't last forever and that someday their risks would have consequences, knew that it wasn't going to happen.
It made him sick.
What "it" was, John wasn't sure, but he knew that "it" had something to do with the games that had and were being played, the deaths and the cases, the absence and the longing, the lack of hope. "It" had a lot to do with James Moriarty and all the pain that the man had brought with him.
James Moriarty isn't a man at all. He's a spider in the middle of a web…
John had to shake his head to get Sherlock's voice to go away. It was pitiful, being unable to move on. John was a soldier, he was supposed to pick himself up and move on, to go on to fight the next war and not worry about what he was leaving behind. That was what he was meant to do, what he had to do—and yet John simply couldn't bring himself to leave his chair.
The sofa and chair nearest the window were Sherlock's, and so John would only ever sit in the chair near the kitchen and at the very messy desk against the wall. He hadn't yet opened his blog, hadn't yet faced Stamford or anyone else who would surely demand a story or ask invasive questions.
It was from this that John had realised that he had always, in fact, been very alone.
If John hadn't been alone before, then he could have found someone. But he could count all the people that he was really friends with on his fingers, and one of those was his own sister. Another was dead. One was his landlady, and he also had his therapist (who he didn't really like). There was a disgraced DI in there. Yes, there was Stamford, a couple of the boys from the army, but he didn't want to meet up in a pub or throw darts.
John Watson wanted to sleep.
Sadly, that wasn't proving to be an escape either.
When John fell asleep, he didn't expect (however frequent it might have been) to wake up to the sound of gunshots, to see a river of blood running down the pavement, or to be close to screaming. If one looked at John Watson, one would not expect him to be capable of screaming.
Well, it was more of a shout, but the point still stood.
It was midday, but John was already tired. He was tired of watching television that made no sense, from chat shows to soaps. He was tired of waking up in the idle of the night, terrified and sweating. He was tired of expecting Sherlock to walk through the door at any second and drag him off to a crime scene. John Watson was tired of a great many things, and those could not all be listed on his fingers.
His tea had gone cold.
Watson!
John!
Help me!
Please, God, let me live.
Trapped
Falling through the sand and dirt and dust
The battle field dissolving around him
Numb. Burning. Pain. Echoes. Sound is loud but so very irrelevant.
Falling
Jumping
Swimming through the air and landing on the pavement.
And a river of blood running down the pavement.
John
Running
Sherlock!
"Let me through, he's my friend!"
I don't have friends.
I've just got one.
John Watson had friends. But none of those friends were Sherlock Holmes. None of those friends would run around London in the small hours of morning to peruse a killer, none of those friends would venture around old power stations with him in search of the Dominatrix. None of those friends would leave their comfort zone for him, none of those friends would be real and honest and help him to grow as a person.
None of those friends were Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective and the best man he had ever known.
Who was falling?
Sherlock?
John?
Both?
From the rooftop of a hospital that they both so well knew.
Down, down, down.
Splat.
A broken body upon the floor.
Geniuses didn't need help
Doctors even less so.
Afraid.
John Watson was very, very afraid.
"Sherlock!"
This wasn't the first and nor would it be the last night that John woke up sweating and scared, reaching for his gun and ready to shoot.
"Stop this. Please."
So, I'm back from London! I've had a great two weeks and from that I present you... this. Not very good but I hope you liked seeing into John's mind for a change. I'll have something actually good next week, but for now, here you go! Hope you like it and thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed!