Work Text:
“It’s what people do, isn't it? Leave a note.”
John’s answering shout still echoed through his head, shortly followed by the sickening thud he would never forget. Even today. Especially today.
One year.
One entire lifeless, lightless year since that.
John couldn't name it, couldn't picture it, couldn't ever go near St. Bart’s again. He’d tried, once, in a vain attempt for closure, and had had to stop two blocks away, the building not even in sight, on his knees in an alleyway, trying desperately to breathe. To breathe enough for two people, as if he could force the extra oxygen into lungs that had long stilled.
It wasn't as if St. Bart’s was the only place carrying reminders, though it was the place where their fountain had stopped. John saw him everywhere. His eyes in a certain shade of silvery blue in the day, his hair in the dark curls of a nameless woman walking past, his low voice in the deep cello solo of a street performer. The thoughts and memories screamed at him, whispered of the times gone by in his ear, clouded his eyes, numbed his touch, whittled away at his body until the jumpers hung loose and the teacup grew too heavy for one hand. He’d been let off from the clinic; he couldn't well be seeing patients when he looked so much worse off than they. He wouldn't have been able to, anyway. All day he bore the relentless onslaught of pain—his shoulder from the war ached like he was still being pulled from the grave, his limp had returned worse than ever.
The nights were infinitely worse. Watson had, working with the veterans in the Army, seen many cases of phantom limbs, of men writhing in agony beyond all help of morphine, screaming that fire was burning slowly through arms and legs that no longer existed. He’d never quite got an understanding of how it could work. Now, though, he’d learned the hard way—but it was a phantom soul, a person ripped from him as tangibly as though he himself had been torn in two. The pain was so constantly at the forefront of his mind, so hugely overwhelming that it might as well have been corporeal. Every waking hour he could barely breathe; every night he dreamed of someone who could not.
John was so tired. So crushingly tired. A tired like cold that seeped everywhere and settled like poison—in his bones, in the ragged torn edges of his heart, in the darkness that had passed over his eyes.
He’d sequestered himself in this darkness. Lestrade had stopped phoning when the case-solver had stopped answering the phone. Mrs. Hudson had kept on for a bit longer until he’d changed flats again and not given her the new address. Mycroft, in an uncharacteristic display of guilt, insisted on paying his rent. John had brought over a few sparse furnishings, but mostly sat in the corner underneath the window, shades drawn, the barest rays of light passing through to glint off the cane lying next to him.
Today they glinted off something else, something with a darker, more sinister sheen. John had pulled out his old pistol, one that hadn't been fired since another hand had last touched it. It sat in his lap, heavy with the weight it carried now. John finished beneath his jumper for the chain that clinked against skin stretched taut over his sternum. He pulled it over his head, undoing the clasp and letting the contents slide off. His dog-tags fell into his hand, along with a steel cylinder. He uncapped this and shook out one silver-tipped bullet, hefted it in his palm, closed his eyes. Another military doctor had showed his to John—that last, special round reserved for when it all got to be too much. John had gone along, ordered his own. He’d considered it after his injury, taken it out, run his finger over the point, but had never given in. After he’d moved into Baker Street, there had never been a need.
Now his fist closed over the bullet. He clicked it into the pistol, turned off the safety. He tasted the cold barrel in his mouth, and placed his finger where another’s had been just over a year ago. John Watson took in one shuddering lungful of air, then closed his eyes.
------------------
Across the street, a pair of icy blue eyes flinched slightly at the deafening report as a coat-clad arm hoisted up a man by the collar. The thin nostrils twitched as a reedy snicker wafted stale breath across the ivory-pale face. The lips thinned as the gloved hand shook his ragged fistful of clothing.
Sherlock Holmes leaned in to the madly grinning face of the sniper who’d had his rifle pointed at a darkened window. “Who are you targeting?” He shook the man again.
Decayed teeth glinted crookedly. “Wouldn’ you like to know, eh? Nothing will make a diff’rence now, will it, though, mate? S’all over now, di’nt you hear that?”
Sherlock pressed his face even closer, clenching his teeth against the undisguised halitosis emanating from the mouth of this last member of Moriarty’s network. “Who. is. your. target?”
“That little pet you got chasin’ you around, ain’t it? John Watson, his name is. Been waitin’ ages for him to pull that shade up, but sounds like he just finished my job for me, nice bloke. Went and offed himself nice an’ easy.”
Sherlock’s head snapped up. “John.”
The thin giggles followed him as he shoved the man down to the floor before bolting out down the stairs. “Jim Moriarty sends his love!”
Sherlock burst into the dingy flat, flicking on the bare bulb.
The room was so bare, so empty. Cheaply whitewashed walls over stained, creaky wood floors, one bare mattress that looked hardly slept in, beer bottles tossed in the corner. But he didn't notice any of it.
Instead, he stared horrified at one lurid splash of color on the walls, a crimson Pollockian splatter he’d never be able to forget. His John slumped against it. The puddle of blood circling him. The gun lying in it.
Sherlock was across the room in a heartbeat, kicking it aside, feeling for a pulse he knew couldn't be there, wrist, neck. No. This time wasn't a trick. This corpse was John’s own and impossibly real.
No.
No. This couldn't be.
Impossible.
Sherlock hardly noticed the blood, John’s blood, inching fingers up his coat as if to welcome his return. Hardly noticed the ambulance Mycroft had called too late arriving.
They found him, curled around his one friend turned to zero, ear pressed desperately to the still chest, long limbs locked into a foetal position as if frozen into the rigor mortis soon to stiffen the hand he still clutched.