Chapter Text
The day was dishwater grey, the sun once again refusing to make an appearance over London’s damp and chilly streets. No surprise, thought John Watson, huddling low in his oversized coat. He refused to give in to the shiver building at the base of his spine. It’s not that cold, he told himself, but the truth rattling around at the back of his mind was that if he started to shiver now, he’d never stop, he’d go on shaking until his bones clattered apart.
The shops were open, but the streets were mostly empty. John’s only companion, as usual, was his flickering reflection in the windows he passed. He never looked over, in the last few months he’d started hating what he saw. The dark hollows under his eyes, the sunken cheeks. He felt old, his warm honey hair fading to ash. The last time he looked in a mirror, he was frightened by the visible outline of his skull, the boniness of his shoulders. He was fading.
So John had started avoiding his reflection, avoiding the truth. It was easy. He spent so much time avoiding things that it was nearly second nature to add this one to the mix. The fact was, there was really one one thing he couldn’t face. All the others were part of the whole. And that truth never got any easier to swallow. And that was the fact that his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, was dead.
Like his reflection, that truth followed him everywhere, like it or not. It made itself known as he sat drinking tea, pressed against him as he was filling out patient records. It went home with him at night, wound around his legs while he showered, ran its fingers through his hair as he watched telly, and finally crawled into bed with him at night. All the while it cried, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock.
No, please, he begged as it coursed through his blood, as it beat painfully out of time with his heart, as it settled into the marrow of his bones.
No, no, no.
Compared to that, ignoring his reflection was spectacularly easy, which is why he didn’t have his guard up. He glanced at the movement in the shop window and his eye caught on the face there.
Sherlock?
Time fractured, tore itself apart. His thoughts were burning, suddenly incoherent and screaming.
A pale face in the window, haloed by dark curls. Staring right at him.
It was, unmistakably, Sherlock Holmes.
You're my reflection and all I see is you
My reflection, in everything I do
- Justin Timberlake, "Mirrors"