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John. John was his blogger; dependable, reliable John, the one permanent thing in sherlock's life. no matter what happened to sherlock, he could always return to 221B Baker Street, and John would be there waiting.
that was until he returned from the fall.
in two years, the only thing that had kept sherlock going was the thought of John; he had to get back to John. but, in two years, John had moved on, and moved out, and gotten engaged.
and now sherlock was back. but John, his beautiful, reliable John, was gone. in his place was someone who'd been as broken as sherlock himself, and sherlock realised: he'd done that. sherlock had broken John with his fall, and now sherlock had to live with the consequences. but unlike sherlock, when John broke, he started mending himself, bit by bit, with help from her. mary had found John broken and started putting him back together wrongly. sherlock hated thinking it but damn mary. damn her ring and her love and her perfectness. when John found out sherlock had lied after the fall, he hated sherlock. when he'd found out mary had lied, he'd said he'd love her through it all. sherlock couldn't help but wish he was mary. he wished more than anything that he was wearing her ring. of course sherlock wasn't good enough, he'd always known it, always known he was a freak and a burden and not worth anyone's time, let alone their love.
but apparently mary was worth John's love. how could sherlock hate her? and that's what he realized on the day of the wedding. that if John Watson loved mary then she really must be something special
but oh god the day of the wedding. watching them stand, hand in hand, declaring their eternal love. he had to be happy. for John. he'd snuck a fag that morning, his first in months, to keep the nerves at bay. to keep him happy. happy for John. keep smiling keep smiling keep smiling. the murder plot was a welcome distraction.
then he played.
he loved his violin. he had played since he was six years old. it was his way of freeing emotions; if he hid them and locked them away for too long, they were bound to flood out, so he played. the emotions flooded through his fingers into the violin, and from there they flowed into the world: sherlock holmes' emotions, laid bare for all to hear, if anyone listened.
no one listened. all attention was on the happy couple's happy first dance, the dance sherlock had led John through countless times behind closed doors.
sherlock was willing to let them be happy. but he didn't expect to feel so alone. he didn't expect everyone to look so happy without him. what was the point in staying?
as soon as he stepped out into the cold night air, he ached for another smoke. but his coat pockets were empty and mycroft would be watching his flat if he had some there. oh well. let mycroft pretend to worry, as if he cares; sherlock knew he must only be a a nuisance to his brother, and why mycroft kept up this pretence of caring was a mystery to him. he got a cab back to the flat, and it was surprisingly nice to be home alone, with Mrs Hudson still at the wedding. it was so quiet inside, only the sound of London life filtering in, which sherlock usually loved. but now... it made him feel alone. everyone else had a purpose, had somewhere to be, or someone to talk to, or something to do. but here sherlock was, alone in this cheap flat that felt like home. he had nowhere to be, no one to talk to and nothing to do. he had no purpose. he needed something to make him forget.
he rolled a cigarette with shaking hands. even before he lit it, he was angry at himself for caving to his desires. but it was better than the knife, wasn't it?
he'd barely slept. he'd been chain-smoking into the early hours of the morning, until a tipsy Mrs Hudson had returned.
and no one noticed that he was smoking again. Mrs Hudson didn't realise. mycroft didn't call. John didn't ask- in fact, he hardly visited.
so sherlock made it a game. how much could he have before they noticed? he smoked more each day, but no one seemed to care. he had to drown out that voice, but it kept getting louder. no one cares. it was getting seriously hard to resist the knife now.
of course, the first person to notice, slightly over a week after the wedding, was Molly. Molly Hooper. she was the reliable one, the dependable one, not John. sherlock wished he could love her back; it would be so much easier.
he'd been trying to study a sample in the lab, but he couldn't focus, blinking hard at the microscope.
'are you alright?' Molly asked nervously from the other side of the room.
she made sherlock jump. he'd forgotten she was there. 'me?' he tried to calm himself, feeling his heart rate increase rapidly. she looked at him concernedly. 'what? yes, i'm fine.'
'i'm not stupid, you know,' she said defiantly.
'of course you're not,' sherlock replied absent-mindedly, turning back to his microscope. he tried to hide his shaking hands in his pockets, but Molly noticed.
'sherlock!' she walked over to him. then her voiced lowered to be soft and gentle. 'it's not funny. please, just... stop it.'
sherlock looked away, but she couldn't make him do anything he didn't want to do. 'i'm sorry, Molly,' he said quietly, before standing up and quickly walking to the door.
when he returned to his flat, he found Lestrade in his doorway, and a couple of officers inside. his stomach dropped. before sherlock could ask, Lestrade said: 'it's a drugs bust, sherlock. your brother told me.'
Lestrade's tired, disappointed stare made sherlock want to apologize.
mycroft called him later that night. sherlock didn't pick up. Lestrade's team had been thorough in their search, and without nicotine he was seriously considering the knife.
after a few minutes, John called him. that was a surprise; it had been a while. sherlock let it ring a couple of times, then he answered it.
'sherlock.'
he'd missed just hearing John's voice. sherlock hadn't had the time to return his calls- that's what he told himself anyway- and he hadn't visited in weeks. not that sherlock expected John to come round; he had a pregnant wife after all.
'John,' sherlock replied.
John sighed. 'why didn't you tell me?'
'why didn't you notice?'
'i'm sorry sherlock, i've been busy.'
sherlock tried to keep the resentment out of his voice. 'i know.'
John sighed again. 'you could have told me you were-'
'you could have noticed!' sherlock interrupted angrily. 'why did you even call me? did mycroft tell you to?'
John was silent for a moment. 'he told me you were smoking again,' he said carefully. 'but... why, sherlock?'
'if you don't know,' he said stiffly, 'i'm not telling you.'
'oh don't be so childish!' John exclaimed, exasperated.
sherlock went cold. so he was just a burden. so he was just a burdensome child to John. 'i'm sorry,' sherlock murmured. he'd been saying that a lot recently, though didn't know what he'd done wrong.
'no, sherlock wait-' but he hung up.
the knife. pain could take the emotions away. enough pain could make you forget anything.
so what did John Watson have to show for the last two years? he had a therapist, a wife, and a baby on the way.
why would he need sherlock? sherlock was just a burden.
and what did sherlock holmes have to show for the last two years? rhe had no one. all he had were scars, and a deep, stupid love for John Watson.