Warning for this chapter: Swearing.
Note: This is set from the same day as chapter one, just after the fall.

I wander thro' each charter'd street,

Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe…

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How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackening Church appalls,

And the hapless Soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down Palace walls.

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— Excerpt from William Blake's poem "London"

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The flat was empty and quiet. No lights were on and only a small amount of sunlight made it through the window.

Sherlock closed the door behind himself and surveyed the sitting room. It was bleak.

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"Leave me alone."

Sherlock gave his phone a sharp look and then resumed his staring straight ahead at the kitchen table. A bird flew by outside the window, just a dark blur of movement, and Sherlock jumped in surprise. Without much thought, he loudly pushed back his chair and stomped to the window. Reaching his hand out, he roughly jerked the curtain closed. He resumed his previous position of thought and stared at the table and ignored his phone occasionally lighting up in front of him for the rest of the hour.

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The next day, he did the same, and the day after that. The curtains remained closed and his phone untouched. His back was getting a dull ache.

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On the third day, he allowed himself a break to shower, trying not to think of how different he felt from the last time he'd had one. He tried not to think at all. As a result, his expression was stony and his eyes intense. He reached for the soap and the shampoo without thinking and did his usual routine while he focused on thinking about nothing. When he snapped the shampoo closed, the passing idea occurred to him that something was different. He paused and stared ahead.

With a start, he realized he was holding John's shampoo instead of his own. He'd run out of his own the day before events had happened and hadn't been to the shop to get more.

With a quick intake of breath, Sherlock's grip weakened and the heavy bottle slipped through his fingers and clattered loudly to the floor of the shower. Sherlock jumped at the sound after three days of quiet in the flat. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his body tensed. There was only one second of stillness before he stepped under the water directly and violently scrubbed the shampoo from his hair.

"Fuck."

The hand that had gripped the bottle now shook when he used it to steady himself against the wall. He repeated the expletive and hit his hand uselessly against the tile wall. Still though, his tremor had returned with a vengeance. The only man who could cure him was now laying in a box in the ground, his insides washed from the pavement by a cleanup crew, his absence haunting the flat. He'd had fucking enough reason to kill himself in his life, why did John think he had the right to do that? Maybe he had just as much reason to do so, but then why hadn't he said anything? He was his best, possibly only, friend and there had been no communication whatsoever. Fucking selfish bastard. He needed John to sort him out, return from the dead, his caustic comments and all.

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He didn't go to the funeral.

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On the fourth day, he munched on crackers and cheese. He drank lukewarm water in a plain glass, and he didn't bother with napkins or places. Crumbs landed where they would and he ignored them. Who was going to complain?

His phone lit up only once and he saw Mycroft's name appear. He read the first line of text that showed up automatically: "10 minutes."

Sherlock scowled, picked up his phone, and replied with simply a blank message. He wasn't about to open the door for Mycroft, and he didn't fancy listening to him bang on the door for an hour. He let his phone clatter onto the table and he crossed his arms.

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Finally, on the seventh evening, he got what he'd been expecting. Or at least what he'd been hoping for. A number he didn't recognize sent him a text. He opened it immediately, his limbs stiff from being still for so long. He was perplexed at the body of the text. It simply read: "Eat." He stared at it a moment, trying to draw any other meaning from it than the obvious one. Was that code for something? He and John had no code like that. So… just a text then. A random text to a mistyped or outdated phone number. There was no one else in their—his—their—the flat, and the windows were closed, so no one else could know whether he was eating or not. Even John, if he were still alive somewhere, could not see through walls. And why send a message so trivial?

Well, he thought with a sigh, easy enough answer to that. It was just a miss-sent message. He deleted the text and left his phone on the table. He was going out.

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There had been nothing in the flat the day of and Sherlock hadn't been out of it for a week. He couldn't be eating anything more than the single tin of beans that had remained and the moldy cheese in the door of the fridge. After his experiment with the head, Sherlock had refrained from buying too many perishables, lest he need to set his food next to John's saliva experiment. There wasn't a high chance of cross-contamination, but Sherlock had insisted.

John waited a week, only guessing at what might be a "proper" amount of time for the stages of grief to run their course. John didn't think it would be long; Sherlock wasn't overly-emotional and he had no family that he was close to who would reopen the subject to him, thus prolonging the process. But he hadn't gone out; Sherlock had remained in the flat, and Mrs. Hudson had left two days ago with a suitcase—probably visiting her distant cousin in Scotland again—so no one had gotten food for him and he hadn't gotten it for himself.

That hadn't been the reaction that he'd been hoping for. John had expected Mycroft to come over by now; the man took every advantage he could of the journalist; he fully expected the man to convince Sherlock to move back in with him so that he'd have someone to take care of him if he drank too much. It wouldn't be the first time. He typed out a text and sent it.

"Eat."

Ten minutes later, he spotted Sherlock leaving the flat; he looked determined with his hands in his pockets, his collar up in the cold weather. He was pale in the low light and that was worrying. What was more worrying was that John followed his straight to a shop that exclusively sold hard spirits.

John crouched and peered through the low window. He was getting dirt on his knees.

"Don't you dare, Sherlock," John whispered.

Sherlock was trying to force his hand, make him reveal himself if he was still alive. They both knew how dangerous alcohol was in his family, with Mycroft's and their parent's histories. Well, Dr. John Watson was dead, and he would have to stay that way for a while. He'd be on the first plane out of London that Harry could get for him. He didn't care what strings she had to pull. He wasn't going to watch a train wreck that he could do nothing about, and he certainly wasn't going to put Sherlock's life in any more danger than he had already.