So, I totally forgot to mention why June is Scottish. I thought I'd add my own little twist to the table, with John being British and all. I just thought I'd give June something else to keep her apart from John. Hope you guys enjoy! And thank you for all the follows and favorites, I was surprised! Truly it means a lot and gives me great motivation!
Disclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock nor any previously own titles.
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It's abnormally warm, the sun glaring down on June with a satisfying distrust and lustering radiance. Today was a bad day to wear one of her jumpers, she thinks regretfully, rueful to the imagination of wearing something with less fabric. She arches her sleeves up, entering the small café that only seconds ago stood around the corner.
Mocha, to be specific, the areal brick building small and round. Wafting in the smell of coffee beans and various saccharine pastries, all laced with a minimum of sugar or honey. There's a delicate melody in the air, drifting through the small crème walls and June stands awkwardly near the entrance. Fingers tight on the arms of her purse, she inches in, the further she enters the stronger the smell.
She takes the time to look at it all, with everything bundled up into such a tight space, she can't help but grow distracted. The longer she stood the stronger the hint of marshmallow she had yet to find became apparent.
The walls were all filled to the brim, oil paintings from way back when, quotes on every other wall that were 'inspirational', pastel chalkings of a coffee cup on every corner and large clocks here and there. Leaving the slightest bit of imagination decimated.
Of all places Lestrade wanted to meet up, he chose here, a small little café with cupcakes for clocks and walls that smelt like chocolate. She didn't blame him, if she were to be honest, it was an appealing center for talks.
But she didn't take Lestrade for the type of person to come here, what so ever, so you could imagine the surprise when she found him actually waiting for her, checking his phone on and off with a bite to the lip. He didn't exactly look skittish, but there was an ill placement in the way he sat. Waiting for her.
Unhurried, she stalked her way over, sitting across from him in the corner booth he had chosen. He makes eye contact with her, gawking with a dumbfound expression pasting his slowly aging face. She coughed a bit, a bit too unpleasant for her, the way he's staring. He went to open his mouth, but closed it when he thought through about what he was going to say; as if he had she'd slap him.
It's a long time before the two speak, June finally getting weary of the game they were both playing, parted her lips and spoke up. "What'd you want to talk about?" Her voice is soft, tangible, a courteous silk walkway he hasn't heard in so long and he feels his stomach somehow grow emptier without having to go to the bathroom and get rid of its contents.
He brackets his nose with his forefinger and thumb before speaking up, but can't seem to draw the words a nice little path. He had called her here to see how she was doing. Greg hadn't seen her in the last five months, not one pop in or peep to let him know that she was still breathing. She hadn't let him know whether she was alright or not, and he knows he has no right to such knowledge, but he was still concerned with an amity of a dangerously large quantity of overwhelming care. A care he obviously couldn't control, considering his position now, with an annoyed June in front of him.
Just from looking at her, you'd never guessed her best friend had only died just a few months ago. But knowing June, she was never one to show her emotion with great strength, you learn to do that after eight years in a war. Unless she was with Sherlock. At least, not as vibrantly, because when you're with Sherlock Holmes he pushes you to the edge of a colorful personality. You have to keep up.
He just wanted to see how she was doing, after getting to know the woman; he'd grown attached despite himself. A loyal to the bone, conservative, exhilaratingly beautiful woman. Not only that but a doctor, soldier and as funny as it was a blogger. It was funnier when you knew she only stood at five foot three.
The small Scottish woman boisterous when given the right mood, and frankly he was surprised she wasn't married yet, but at the same time it made sense. Everyone thought she and Sherlock were shagging on occasion, though she regularly objected the idea. Scowling at the ones who accused her of such a thing.
Brows knit tight and arms crossed with a pension quivering in her tiny little form, a passionate wroth easing off of her. Which is what made her entertaining to watch with the great Sherlock Holmes, while he was hardly interested in others feelings, June had quiet the mouth on her.
In fact they had a swear jar back at the yard for her, in which she had resigned quickly enough, convincing the lot of them that if she has a jar for swearing Sherlock gets one for being an "inconsiderate ass". Her words exactly.
It was fun to watch the two try to control their impulsive reactions to unnatural situations. He almost smiles at the thought. Those two were close. No wonder why everyone thought what they thought. They lived in the same flat for crying out loud, and Sherlock never denied their accusations much to June's livid retorts at his snubbing disregard to the problem.
He's blast from his thoughts, June's constant tapping on the hard wood table gracing him with her devoted attention, obvious impatience creasing her frame and he finally spots the difference in her.
She'd grown unnaturally angry now, the irritation rooting seeds in her frown, one of the many sorts of transformation you go through when one of your loved ones die. Normally, she would have waited him off, let him drift off for as long as he needed, but here she was leaning on her palm with an uninviting snarl protesting her lips.
He'd never seen her like this. Well, actually he had once, but that was once. Well, he didn't see what happened, but when he had heard she head-butted, let him repeat head-butted his chief superintendent on the preexisting fact of his choice of words about Sherlock, that was the day he swore to never anger her.
Nor after the fact that he had learned she was the one who had shot the cabby, after knowing her for a full twenty four hours, he had admitted to himself that she was quiet scary for such a tiny woman. He had to say, he was stunned that after only knowing Sherlock for such a short amount time, she had killed a man for him.
He never confronted the two on it, wanting to avoid court work; he already had enough work as it was, though he was positive that Sherlock knew he knew. How couldn't he have? The man was amazing. Talented and courageous, along with loud and rude, but both were out there in the wind, just enough to grab the likes of June Watson. Enough to grab just about anyone in London, but not enough to keep them around like June had.
He licks his drying lips, leaning back into the pleated cushion behind him. "I just wanted to see how you were doing." He puts all a little too fast, but not fast enough, and it's confusing enough to get him to arch a brow at his own comment. Her dark and narrow attitude lights up and she sinks into the seat.
"Oh…I'm fine." She adds, her tone far from convincing, and even she can hear it. Sure, she was getting better, the death not being as fresh, but enough to push her out of the comfort of her boundaries. Like just now, she had been terrible to a man who just wanted to check up on her because she had failed to let him know she was alright.
But that would have been lying. She wasn't alright, but she didn't want to worry the man. He already felt at fault for Sherlock's death, even if he didn't let on that he felt such a guilting pattern, she could see it in the way he looked to the wall for answers, the chocolate in his hues dubbing insecurity as a whole.
They both got excessively quiet and the tune playing in the background, the local radio, sounded as if it were thundering. Astounding, how silent two people could get when there was a mutual distaste in past afflictions.
"Well…" Lestrade puts abruptly, breaking their trance of never ending perking tranquility, her eyes flash to him and he suddenly feels as if he's been put on the spot. "Do you want something while you're here?" She scurries her attention to the side, her sights on the tea they had shown off for advertisement, something she hadn't touched for four months. Lestrade lets out a soft snicker.
June eyes him for a moment, watching as he gets up and heads to the counter to order whatever he, was well, laughing at her for. Or at least that's what she gathered from his sudden absence. She had hoped he was advising for tea, coffee wasn't exactly her go to right now.
The time went by with posthaste, Lestrade settling down before her with the slightest of disgruntled change in shift. He scoots a large ceramic tea cup, steam rising and biting at the air with haste, over to her. June thanks him, taking a sip, soothing her sore throat, the sting subsiding momentarily.
He takes a bite of the muffin he had chosen over a cuppa, savoring the taste with a soft hum. She'd have to pay him back for the drink, it was nice of him, especially after her less than chivalrous attitude towards his incoming worry with how she was getting along.
"So…How's, uhm…" June didn't know what to say. She was going to ask how the rest of the Scotland Yard was doing, but she couldn't care less about a few of them, the few being Anderson and Donavan, and wanted to correct her statement that had been cut short. Lestrade store at her, far from ferociously befuddled as she had feared, but just slightly confused. She shrugs off the remark and takes another sympathizing sip.
June sighs morosely, leaning forward as to support her now splinting shoulder blades. The glaze on the eggshell cup staring at her blankly and she huffs. These pains had been getting worse, and she had no other sign to their indifference other than post dramatic stress, in other words it was getting worse. And she hated that. She despised it.
Lestrade plucks another piece of the muffin into his mouth, eyes narrowing as she grunts. "June, are you alright?" She looks up at him, nods slowly, painfully so and arches her back. A loud pop is heard and she heaves out, cradling her left shoulder with her hand.
"Fine." Her tone brassy, like scarping metal, but he keeps that to himself.
Lestrade nods, unconvinced, showing that she should be fully aware that he doesn't believe her. "Alright…Do you need a ride to…"she gawks up at him and shakes her head.
"No, I can take a cabby." He gives her a disconcerting glower, its soft, but not in a comforting way.
"I insist." He stands up, having already finished his muffin, and she doesn't know how to respond to that politely. She knew he was just trying to be nice, trying to help, but she didn't need it. Shew was perfectly fine with taking a cabby; something about the police car threw her off. She narrows her own eyes at the thought.
Sherlock had rubbed off on her in all the wrong ways, they had yet to bother her, and she doesn't know if that's good or bad. There was nothing wrong in taking a ride from a cop. But for Sherlock, it was an ordeal he refused with the back side of his hand. She supposed it was because of all the drug busts he'd been through, always in the back of a vehicle with chain around his wrist, and that made plenty sense.
She wouldn't want to get a ride from something that gave her a negative feel, clamping up on her on the inside and have her turned into a slippery, distasteful oil. That was hardly ideal. Lestrade is waiting for a response, legs stiff and shoulders back, like the respectful man he is.
And she's curious now, looking at him, a man who had claimed to have not entirely trust Sherlock, nor like him. Yet he always checked in on the man, like he had been through something like it, with the drugs and all.
She'd never been there when Sherlock had his addictions, but Lestrade said it had been bad. And she fully understands the requirements of looking up a drug addict every once in a while, but he did it an awful lot. Her mind strays, her mouth following and before she can stop herself she asks something that's been pending for some time but never had the gusto to actually speak up.
"Why did you care?" Lestrade is taken by it, but not to the point of understanding, for he was in a glass case of befuddlement and she realized she hadn't finished her question. "I mean…his addiction. Any other cop, or I guess detective would have shrugged it off." She adds, a bit flustered that she had spoken so outwardly. "Even after he claimed he was clean." She quips, settling further into the seat.
Lestrade seems to breathe in the question, the sage of query sucking him in and he sighs out dolefully. "Tell you what, you let me hitch you a ride back to wherever, and I tell you?" she repeats the offer in her head before nodding, taking her purse in arm and follows him out.
The sun greets her with its casual flare and she wishes that today, for once, it was cloudy. She had gotten so used to the coral like weather, she was in favor of it. Greatly so, she was actually glaring at the sun, like it had done her wrong personally.
It's the beeping of his car that grates her attention up front, he opens the passenger side for her and she hops in. With a slam and click he's already on the other side, plugging his keys in and the car growling through the air with a biolistic rhythm.
Pulling the seat belt across her chest she turns to him. "So?" She voices expectantly and he gives her a soft smile. Like he had just accomplished something and she doesn't understand the meaning.
"I had a brother." He claims, slowly actually, he can feel her glossy hazel hues rimming over his figure as he speaks, intently so. She focuses on the word had, unsure if she should have asked in the first place. He pulls out of the parking lot, focused, but not enough for it to make a convincing argument. "Where we going?"
"Weymouth Street, 245 south." He nods, making a left turn. She doesn't know if she should push, curiosity getting the better of her, but she keeps her mouth shut either way.
"Anyways, I had a brother. Nice guy, could be a bit of a wanker at times, but I loved him." He gives her a smirk, but it almost looks broken and she instantly knows she's gone too far, for once it's her shoving about and not the consulting detective. Sure, he was willingly telling her, but only because she had refused to let him give her a ride. "He had a drug addiction, meth and crack cocaine." The loose body on his volume is lowly letting up, the chocolate melting around the iris of his eyes.
She has a feeling of where the story is going, and doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want Lestrade to reimagine something…something gruesome. It's horrid, the imagery that is brought to bay by just bringing up a word, a single conjunction of intervals that could break a man.
"He'd been on them for some time. Three years." The sun glares at her again and she feels that she deserves it, letting it cascade over her now lumped over form. "When he went broke, I finally said enough was enough and made him go to a rehabilitation center." His words slither out, like drawing poison from an old, scabbed over wound.
She winces at the waver in his voice. She really just wants him to stop, wants him to discontinue the torment he was bringing upon himself, she almost tells him to, but he interrupts her before she can even part her lips.
"After some time, he'd said he was clean, I believed him." They're almost to her place, and she wishes he'd speed up, wishes he'd stop himself before he picked the scab clean off, like a band-aid. But it wouldn't end swiftly, like the sting after ripping a bandage off, no. It would stick to him for some time and it was obvious he was still sore over the thought. "A week later and we found him dead, hugging that damned…" He huffs as he cuts himself off, unable to go any further, laughing a bit in remorse.
He pulls up to her flat and its quiet, like in the café, except this time she's silent for him and his melancholy, not the other way around. He doesn't look at her, eyes avoiding all contact and he seems to be reliving the series of events without pause.
Breaching her comfort zone, as well as his, places a hand on his arm breaking his chasm. She's rendering herself useless when all he does is jump and she picks on an occurring thought to just hug him. Because she knows how it feels to lose one close to you and have it relive out in front of you no matter the display, until the end of time, holding you back from living your life. But she doesn't know if he'd consider that inappropriate, she doesn't even know if she considers it inappropriate.
She's ill-footed, not sure where her boundaries stand between the two. She didn't even know if she should consider him a friend or not, the only link between the two of them now dead. Severed with a snip, sharp blades breaking the thread that held everything together, the thread once stable now loosely undone without their consulting detective to piece it together, hold both ends of the string side by side.
"I'm…I'm so sorry." June lurched forward, the dismal that was kept captive in her throat slid out before she had time to catch it. Not that it would have been good to have done so, the sympathy and empathy portrayed in her voice held too much importance as of right now. He doesn't look at her, like he's thinking something through, and a snippet of words come out.
"Sherlock reminded me of him, my brother, subtract the brainy attributes the Holmes happen to have." He speaks slowly, contracting his voice in and out like he was losing the war he was fighting inside his head, a war he'd never been able to win. "The drug addiction, it was like he was taking me back in time, except this time I could actually save him." June sinks, she feels as if she's been ripped open and lied to waste with all the horrors he's been put through.
He ogles her at some point, eyes sorrowed and empty, devoid of any other emotion than forlorn. Woodenly, he shifts in his seat, his eyes almost narrowing her down to a pinpoint, keeping her still, as if he were examining her as a whole. Yet was somehow dividing her up in chunks, like he'd find some part of her he'd never seen before, something he could use.
"June…" He leans back, resting a palm on his cheek. He can see the incertitude lace her orbs with an innocence he hasn't seen since he was a kid. "You have no idea what affect you had on that man." He states, a matter of fact, but still fit in small package of crestfallen amplitude.
Her face twists at the words, sparking up a flame of despair and inconsiderate tolerance that raided her shrinking form. She steels her eyes, forcing them to look anywhere than the man in front of her. Not because he'd messed up, his words gone awry, but because she was afraid she might break in front of him. Those words, that simple sentence was dangling her over the cliff of cobalt waves. It unexpected, because she was unaware of her effect on the man, a man that she had loved and he had left her.
Only days ago had she stopped crying, halted the pretesting quakes that shook her body as she sheltered herself in a bottle of sorrowful hate, one that happened to be bullet-proof, one that was evading any sort of sound control.
The sting in the back of her eyes, she can feel it warming up, ready to slip past her barriers, the ones she's taken five months to build. A sore, heart-wrenching, shattering five months. June knew, knew, she couldn't possibly cry in front of Lestrade. Not right now, not after she had just confirmed she was fine.
She didn't want to make herself a liar, or at least show herself as one. And it's now that she realizes, that over these past months, she has made little progress in healing herself, easily breaking and caving in like it were a test, as if she were timed and it was bad. She keeps distancing herself from people, ones who obviously care, and that isn't anyway to sew the wounds that have tangled around her neck and began to slowly dry her lungs as the air in her body is whisked away from her, rubbing her skin raw with an instinctive burn. The oncoming of emotions thrust her forward and she chokes out a so, unable to hold it in, it being a long time coming.
She makes a grab for her neck, holding it with the blunt of her nails and Lestrade's overwhelming presence is around her. Arms keeping her up as she breathes in and out the sobs in her chest, her abdomen tightly shriveled into something she couldn't understand anymore. She had thought, if given enough time, she'd be able to control it.
And she was so close, getting there, that's what she told herself. But right now, in this instance she can see that lie had only grown stronger, because she believed she was finally over it. His death just a battle wound, like the bullet that had made a masterpiece on her shoulder, a scar that sat on her flesh until the end of her days.
There to remind her how she messed up, what happened, how she could have fixed it, how she could have protested and lived on with her life with a smile on her face. No mistakes, no problems, it equals a happy life. One that just wasn't cut out for her.
Lestrade is rubbing her back, trying his best to comfort her, but it only regards her with the swinging of that violin, stuck in her head, eyes red and convulsing glum desperately clutching at her heart, to rid her of everything that makes her human, keep her still and watch her drown in her own sad sighed story.
A mantra for the ages, a poem to live on and warn others to keep their distance from the people out there, that the warmth that you receive isn't anywhere worth the throbbing torture that sits in you, burying your soul into a canvas you can never release yourself from, stained in blue's, blacks and reds. Love isn't worth being given to anything that can be touched by death.
She's shaking now, Lestrade can feel the minute long shudders that seem to be rolling the world around her head, and the one thing that comes to mind other than him, is the gun in her top right drawer or even a necklace of rope that sings around her neck, paling her down to a nothing. June buries her head into the crevice of his neck and shoulder and wants to shout, because she didn't want that, not in her head, but it all seemed the best way to find her release.
To leave this God-awful world, be done with it, ridden of the tragic and unfortunate. A clean space under her stone of life, such a useless way to tell one from another. It's the shame that widows her down to a dull flat edge, already breaking in front of another and she can't stop. It keeps coming out, the bristle in her shoulders and the tremor in her blood, the wavering in each disastrous wail she attempts to keep lodged in her mouth, teeth held together; tightly clamped in the hopes it'd stop the oncoming storm she was about to bring in this very car.
Lestrade only holds her, because what else can he do? He's never seen her like this before, always the brave little soldier, holding her breath and counting to ten before opening her mouth and speaking. That is, when she wasn't angry or extremely excited, then you'd get an earful.
Look at the world, still turning as millions fall to their feet and give up, losing all sense of gravity in their lives as it's ripped away from them brutally. Scratching at their eyes, digging at their skin, numb to the pain but still do it in the aspiration that they feel it someday. That it'll hurt less than what they feel now, something to bleach out the agony that squanders them into the ground, six feet under.
You see, the day a person decides to take their life, whether they be ill or not, it doesn't only kill one, but two. Lestrade never really understood the saying, even after his brother, but now he was getting a front row seat to it.
Sherlock had killed June and he'd never known he'd done it. She was a wilting flower, slowly losing all color and turning to ash, feathery and soft but gone. Her existence was just a parallel to trying but failing. Something just bearable enough, something that had become light enough for the wind to sweep aside and decide she's not important enough to carry on through.
Because when you meet someone, that one person that connects you to the world it changes you, in ways one wouldn't be able to possibly understand or believe. They become someone different, someone better and new and when that person is taken away from you, what do you become then? What's left other than broken fragments scattered across the world, flung across the night sky for all to admire?
He had seen the way they helped each other, both of them getting better. Sherlock more than June, he says that because he didn't exactly know her long enough before the change to understand the shift. But he had with Sherlock. And now…now June was a machine.
A robot, a mechanic being with only three simple tasks.
1. Sleep
2. Eat
3. Work
It repeats, over and over until the world sinks its bitter teeth in and takes the rest from her. That little schedule that she now held so dearly, because it gave her something to do, desperate enough to actually hold onto it. During the day, whether the sun be shining or the cold murk the sky with grey tones of aggravation and moody consonance she acted like she was fine. She had just demonstrated that to Lestrade.
So well in fact, she was sure she fooled him, even if he did have his doubts.
But at night, she walked a tight rope as the stars sung to her in their silent melodies, the muzzling stillness eating away at her, and the tranquility laughs at her when she thinks in anguished belief that she heard a soft string of courted violin.
In what kept her sanity was now slipping through her, like sand does its fingers, the way her heart shatters its simply asking not when she's going to hurt herself but how. How is she going to mangle something so sturdy? How is she going to crush her body in two and leave the rest of her for them to find? Is she going to use a terrible amount of ruddy rope or a silver swept bullet, ending it quickly but leaving a mess?
She bites down on her thumb as she brings it around Lestrade, the sanity in which she had withheld was plundering to the ground like her dear Sherlock, with a splat she can almost hear it erase itself from her and she's hoisting a breath into existence, like she was finally able to breathe again.
She listens to the silence, trying to find him, not to disturb it. But she can't, the brilliant, the bright and the mad all but gone and she's left to pick up the pieces. She's reaching for a falling man, one who has already hit the ground, quaking the stars above him, even if he didn't know they shined for him.
It isn't silent anymore, the melody in her head there, the rough strings as his finger ghost them over and she's screaming inside. The louder the gets the quicker she falls, and she's falling with him at a speed she thought impossible, her hearts pace quickens and she has to duck fingers into Lestrades back for application.
The tune pitches higher at that finale, rallying her to the center stage, where she puts on her costume, the fake bright yellow smile cruising her face as it does her heart and a sudden rage tugs her to the left, the tempo fast and loud, burning her throat and ringing her ears. She trips, falls, smashes into the ground with a tumble that leaves her breathless.
And then just…silence…numbness and all she can do is pull back from Lestrade, wiping her cheeks she gives him a false smile, like always.
"Thank you…thank you for the ride." She contorts and Lestrade is staring at her like he just found something dead on the inside. Her stare indefinitely cold and he tries to find what should be left of her in there, but not even a fragment withstood her fall. "I'll call you later…I just—I just need to rest." He isn't sure about it, letting her leave after such a scene, but like the foolish man he is he lets her leave the safety of his supervision and June heads to her flat.
There, in her head, a thousand ways to bring herself down in a course response of self-loathing. She enters the reasonably sized flat, it all looks empty to her, small and discharged of him. She bumbles around the room, looking for a sign to stop her and there is none. So she leaves the sitting area and stumbles to her room. The stairs, even for her are a climb and she loses her breath, falling to her knees in defeat with a whimper.
She didn't know how to live anymore. She was a defect, like she had told herself after leaving the sands of blood, a defect that could not possibly be real anymore. She was nothing, an existence once privy in the eyes of men but now just a stag waiting to be put out of its misery.
The agony she felt, the uprising in her chest and the coil indentured in her abdomen and wrapped around her spin spoke the volumes she couldn't even breathe, something she'd never be able to fathom. She needed a release, something to break her just a little, something to tie her up and spin around, something keep her colored and bright when she couldn't be for the people she loved.
She wanted a release. She wanted to be let go of, like he had, fall and shatter into a million pieces and feel if she can somehow come into reach with him as she does this. Somehow bring him to life with the vibrancy she knew he held deep inside, sharp needles barricading it in as he plunges to the ground in a fit of black and blue and she thinks just how ironic and charming it had to be to be dressed in her battle wounds.
She forces herself up the stairs and turns the hallway lights on just in case he comes back, just in case; she's positive she's a quivering mess, eyes stained crimson with the fatality it brought about her useless form. She thinks about tonight, how it will be a bitter oblivion that burns her into the cotton of her blankets and she realizes he won't come back, that the heat she needed to save him, that fire that was supposed to push her would burn her alive. And she can't risk it.
She needed an end to it.
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