[FIC GIFT FOR YOU ALL] Happy Sherlockian Valentine's Day!
Title: Dear Sherlock
Author: Me aka Malene Nielsen/Dr. Watsonette/Here-to-see-the-Queen.
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Word Count: 2063
Warning/Spoiler: Post-Reichenbach. Angst. Death. Blood. Suicide. Spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall.
Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of anything aside from the storyline. The characters are based on and belong entirely to Sir. A. C. Doyle/S. Moffat/M. Gatiss.
Other: Un-beta'ed (sorry). Written for the Sherlockian Valentine - Jan. 29th celebration on Tumblr.
Summary: 6 months has passed since The Fall and John's made a decission.
"Dear Sherlock,"
John felt incredibly silly writing this. Silly and.. lost and.. sick.
Sick with sorrow, with anger, regret..
With knowing what was going to happen.
He cursed quietly.
His body wasn't capable of deciding on anything; at least he still had his mind - or what was left of it - and though "Dear" didn't seem right he forced himself to stick with it.
At least that was within his power.
"Dear Sherlock,"
He shivered. Realized he was cold.
Was the heat off again?
These puny flats.. always something wrong with them. So cold, so.. empty.
"You're not here."
His fingers slowly slid across the by now familiar keys of his old laptop.
Familiar? He hadn't touched it since that Day yet his fingers still found the right keys in his usual not-too-fast-not-too-slow way of typing.
The feel of the keys under his fingers inadvertedly brought him back to Baker Street. To long days and longer nights of cases, of typing, of talking, of rambling, of improbabilities and impossibilities.
Of Sherlock..
"You are not here.
I know that."
John sighed. The noise in the too-quiet one-room flat somehow startled him. Repulsed him. Made him want to take the laptop and throw it out the window and follow it, into the night, through an explosion of glass and hit the pavement like..
"I know that.
You're dead."
John frowned as tears formed in the corner of his eyes. His worn-out eyes, his old eyes, tired, hurting, bloody eyes that had seen too-much-far-too-much. Eyes he wants close forever and just..
"I wish I was too."
For a moment his eyes rested on the screen before him, the blog layout staring tauntingly back at him, reminding him..
The blog that wasn't and then it was.. because of Him.
The blog that prooved nothing ever happened to him and then suddenly that everything happened to him.
Because of Him.
He shook and regained his focus on the keys, a tear releasing itself from his eye as he dipped his head. It fell from his cheek and landed with a soft plop on the S of his keyboard..
Like He had fallen, like He had landed..
Soft against hard.
"I hate you-
I HATE YOU!
If you have any decent bones left in that ridiculously lanky body of yours where ever the fuck it is now, you WILL hear me, you WILL understand this. I HATE YOU, SHERLOCK HOLMES!"
Anger unexpectedly flared up in him and sentences were hammered out with such force he swore people in the next flats must have heard him.
He didn't care though, didn't care about anything and as soon as the anger had burst into an all-consuming fire as quickly did it die out when he noticed the now smeared out tear on S.
It gleamed as the dim, white light from a street lamp outside reached through the window to fondly caress the key.
It gleamed. The S. Like Him.
"You left me.
I don't understand.
How could you."
Careful to type more softly now, he'd purposedly left out the question mark.
He raised his hands to cover his face - to shield himself as he swallowed a sob.
It wasn't a question. He had no questions left.
Just facts.
And even if he had questions, he didn't want to know the answers.
"It's January now".
The alarm clock to the left of the laptop was also gleaming at him.
Like evil eyes. Not like gleaming, brilliant, ice blue, calculative, wonderful eyes.
Just evil, burning, brigth red numbers revealing what time it was.
John didn't keep it next to his bed. He didn't have a reason to get up in the mornings.. not anymore.
"It's January now.
Do you remember?"
For the sake of his own sanity, or what remained of it, John mostly didn't remember.
He chose not to.
Chose not to recall the exact day, the exact time where he lost Sherlock.
"I do.."
He did.
He remembered all too well.
Everything.
2 years since they met. 6 months since He.. Fell.
John sighed and leant back as if to distance himself from the facts.
He knew he couldn't.
There was no escape. None other than to follow Him and while that thought scared him it was nothing compared to his sorrow.
"It's been 6 months now.
It doesn't feel like 6 months.
I don't know what time is anymore. It's.. unimportant.
I may as well be dead too."
And that was another fact.
John might as well have died too that day.
In many ways he did, and now, today, 6 months later, all there was left of John was an empty shell.
It didn't matter that people tried. His friends - their friends - had tried everything they could.
Eventually they had given up and their last farewells to John had been said as well.
He'd be better off dead. Gone. Away and out of their conscience, free them of their nagging feelings of guilt, betrayal and empathy.
"Their empathy means nothing.
I.."
John paused, briefly considering what to write. He might be as good as dead but he wanted to do it.. properly. Leave them with something to ease their pain as they at least had attempted to do with his.
"I'm lying.
Their empathy means everything. I cannot thank them enough.
Mrs. H... Martha.
Mike.
Greg.
Molly.
Would you believe that even Sally tried to help?
You probably wouldn't."
John found himself crying again, half-heartedly clenching a fist and punching the desk.
The whimpers soon turned to full force sobbing and flashes of life with Him passed before his eyes. Everyone in it, everyone against it, everyone..
Everyone who mourned with him. Everyone who came to terms with It... and then.. how they mourned for him instead, reached out for him.. like he'd reached out for Sherlock.
Soon.
Soon they would be where he was when He Fell.
Unable to stop it. Unable to catch him. Unable.
The difference would however always be that..
At least they all knew why John had to leave.
"If I go.. when I go.
If I meet you where I am going.
I will kill you, Sherlock.."
The steady, provocatively blinking numbers of the clock revealed it was time. Soon.
The closer he got, the more he knew it was for the better.
"I probably won't.
I’d want you to be alive so you can feel guilty over seeing me so soon..
But..
I will punch you."
John let his fingers linger. Barely touching the Y, O and U keys, he noticed he wasnt shaking anymore. He felt numb.
A by now dear friend of his. The numbness. The I-can’t-feel-anything-anymore feeling and I-have-no-tears-left-to-cry feeling. For 6 months he had wished those feelings would last longer than they did.
But.. they always vanished. Left him like Sherlock had. Left him to feel and to cry because somehow, while he was an empty shell, there was always sorrow and tears in abundance left.
"Nothing, Sherlock..
I had nothing.
And.."
He paused inadvertedly. The words. The words.
Those he had always wanted to say. Those he had said, in gestures, with looks, with just being there with Him. That wasn’t enough anymore.
He needed The Words now. As a statement. As fact. As his.. their.. legacy.
John’s therapist couldn’t make him say them. She knew it, of course. And John had soon stopped going because there was no purpose. With anything.
Everyone knew it.
Maybe that’s why he pushed them away as well?
"And..
Then I had everything."
Blanky staring at the screen, he let go. He had to.
"I couldn't say it.
I just couldn't.
I regret that."
His heart picked up.
Pounded mercilessly against its cage as if it knew it was about to be released.
"I regret that.
I wanted you to know.
I need you to know.
Maybe you did?
I wish.."
Tears formed again, but John didn't notice. Didn't see. Didn't feel.
"I wish you had told me, if you knew.
I wish I could have made you stay.
Would you have stayed if you knew..."
Sunconsciously chewing his chin he realized he was tasting blood.
Rusty, sickeningly sweet blood.
It was as if it wasn’t his own, like he tasted and smelled it through a haze with a tongue made of wool.
Is that what it tasted like?
Is that what He tasted just before He..?
"Would you have stayed if you knew...
How much I.."
He bit down hard as if to pressure himself, force the words out of him.
SAY IT.
"How much I.. need you.
Sherlock.
Would you?
Would you have left if you knew my life would end with yours?
Could you still have jumped?
Could I have made you stop you and your stubborn, stupid, selfish bloody choice?"
He was far away already but he still felt a trickle down his chin.
Blood.
Blood and tears.
Like blood and rain on concrete pavement, washing out, washing away as if it never happened.
"Could I have made you stop, if you knew how much I.."
John's heart was pounding in unison with his head.
A numbing dizziness embraced him.
Must. Finish.
"I don't know.
I will never know.
Maybe I don't care anymore.
No. I will always care.
That's why I am writing this."
The clock switched to 00.01.
It was Time. It was The Day.
The Day they had met.
The Day that changed everything.
"This is my note.
Sherlock."
The Day that would change everything again
"Sherlock."
The Day they would meet again.
"Because that is what people do."
He was loosing it. The grip.
So.. this is what it feels like.
"I ask everyone who know me.
Who knew us. To forgive me.
Forgive Sherlock."
Chest feeling tight. More blood.
Eyes closing. Say it, John.
"Don't forget him.
Don't stop believing in him."
Say it, John. Say it!
"I will never stop."
An unmeasurable weight lifted itself from his shoulders.
He gasped.
"I love you, Sherlock".
Drew his breath in and exhaled with short, sharp sounds.
It felt like he was choking but.. he felt free.
Not noting the endless stream of tears covering his deadly pale cheeks and dripping onto the blue silk robe.
Not noting the way the blood stained it.
Not noting anything, he staggered to his left, not hearing how he knocked over the chair, not seeing the untouched coffee that spilled as his hand with trembling determination barely managed to reach the mouse key and hit 'Post this'.
"This is my note Sherlock", he thought as he in a blurry haze saw the page load and in his very last moments of awareness saw it join the previous entry:
"He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him."
In his mind he saw two men reaching for eachother.
Wrong.
"He is my best friend".
"He is my everything".
The hands linked together, but John still Fell.
Onto his bed bed. Into the darkness. Into..
The silence.
The numbness.
He Fell with Him.
00.06
00.08
00.10
00.14
And there was John Watson’s lifeless body.
Flat-mate. Colleague. Partner. Not-boyfriend.
In a cold room where the only sound was the slight humming of a laptop and the the only light was that of a street lamp outside.
He’d be missed.
A distant sound of a door.
He’d be pitied.
Foot steps.
He’d be remembered as a hero who fell.
Quiet but shrill sound of door hinges.
As a man who loved.
Rustling of a coat.
And maybe, hopefully, his death would make people realize what they had lost.
Soft echo of fabric slumping to the floor.
What the world would be like.
Creaking of new designer shoes slipping off feet.
Not what it would be like without an ex-army doctor.
Rapid, smooth movements towards a bed.
But what it would be like without the world’s only consulting detective.
Long, slim fingers checking for a pulse.
It would be without hope.
Rattling of Diazepam in a small glass jar.
It would be empty.
Almost breathless yet somehow still triumphant huff.
It would be dead.
Sound of a sheet being moved.
Like John.
Body weighing down a mattress.
That is..
Bare, white arm sliding across silk.
If John..
A pale hand under blonde hair.
Had..
Gleaming, dangerous, loving, wonderful, brilliant eyes.
Actually..
Protecting, caring, all-consuming, forever-lasting embrace.
Been..
Thin lips in a thinner face, breathing sweetly on a still cheek.
..Dead.
“John.
My John.
Rest now.”
Ex-army doctor now-boyfriend mumbling incoherently.
“I love you too, John..
~
Author: Me aka Malene Nielsen/Dr. Watsonette/Here-to-see-the-Queen.
Pairing: John/Sherlock
Word Count: 2063
Warning/Spoiler: Post-Reichenbach. Angst. Death. Blood. Suicide. Spoilers for The Reichenbach Fall.
Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of anything aside from the storyline. The characters are based on and belong entirely to Sir. A. C. Doyle/S. Moffat/M. Gatiss.
Other: Un-beta'ed (sorry). Written for the Sherlockian Valentine - Jan. 29th celebration on Tumblr.
Summary: 6 months has passed since The Fall and John's made a decission.
"Dear Sherlock,"
John felt incredibly silly writing this. Silly and.. lost and.. sick.
Sick with sorrow, with anger, regret..
With knowing what was going to happen.
He cursed quietly.
His body wasn't capable of deciding on anything; at least he still had his mind - or what was left of it - and though "Dear" didn't seem right he forced himself to stick with it.
At least that was within his power.
"Dear Sherlock,"
He shivered. Realized he was cold.
Was the heat off again?
These puny flats.. always something wrong with them. So cold, so.. empty.
"You're not here."
His fingers slowly slid across the by now familiar keys of his old laptop.
Familiar? He hadn't touched it since that Day yet his fingers still found the right keys in his usual not-too-fast-not-too-slow way of typing.
The feel of the keys under his fingers inadvertedly brought him back to Baker Street. To long days and longer nights of cases, of typing, of talking, of rambling, of improbabilities and impossibilities.
Of Sherlock..
"You are not here.
I know that."
John sighed. The noise in the too-quiet one-room flat somehow startled him. Repulsed him. Made him want to take the laptop and throw it out the window and follow it, into the night, through an explosion of glass and hit the pavement like..
"I know that.
You're dead."
John frowned as tears formed in the corner of his eyes. His worn-out eyes, his old eyes, tired, hurting, bloody eyes that had seen too-much-far-too-much. Eyes he wants close forever and just..
"I wish I was too."
For a moment his eyes rested on the screen before him, the blog layout staring tauntingly back at him, reminding him..
The blog that wasn't and then it was.. because of Him.
The blog that prooved nothing ever happened to him and then suddenly that everything happened to him.
Because of Him.
He shook and regained his focus on the keys, a tear releasing itself from his eye as he dipped his head. It fell from his cheek and landed with a soft plop on the S of his keyboard..
Like He had fallen, like He had landed..
Soft against hard.
"I hate you-
I HATE YOU!
If you have any decent bones left in that ridiculously lanky body of yours where ever the fuck it is now, you WILL hear me, you WILL understand this. I HATE YOU, SHERLOCK HOLMES!"
Anger unexpectedly flared up in him and sentences were hammered out with such force he swore people in the next flats must have heard him.
He didn't care though, didn't care about anything and as soon as the anger had burst into an all-consuming fire as quickly did it die out when he noticed the now smeared out tear on S.
It gleamed as the dim, white light from a street lamp outside reached through the window to fondly caress the key.
It gleamed. The S. Like Him.
"You left me.
I don't understand.
How could you."
Careful to type more softly now, he'd purposedly left out the question mark.
He raised his hands to cover his face - to shield himself as he swallowed a sob.
It wasn't a question. He had no questions left.
Just facts.
And even if he had questions, he didn't want to know the answers.
"It's January now".
The alarm clock to the left of the laptop was also gleaming at him.
Like evil eyes. Not like gleaming, brilliant, ice blue, calculative, wonderful eyes.
Just evil, burning, brigth red numbers revealing what time it was.
John didn't keep it next to his bed. He didn't have a reason to get up in the mornings.. not anymore.
"It's January now.
Do you remember?"
For the sake of his own sanity, or what remained of it, John mostly didn't remember.
He chose not to.
Chose not to recall the exact day, the exact time where he lost Sherlock.
"I do.."
He did.
He remembered all too well.
Everything.
2 years since they met. 6 months since He.. Fell.
John sighed and leant back as if to distance himself from the facts.
He knew he couldn't.
There was no escape. None other than to follow Him and while that thought scared him it was nothing compared to his sorrow.
"It's been 6 months now.
It doesn't feel like 6 months.
I don't know what time is anymore. It's.. unimportant.
I may as well be dead too."
And that was another fact.
John might as well have died too that day.
In many ways he did, and now, today, 6 months later, all there was left of John was an empty shell.
It didn't matter that people tried. His friends - their friends - had tried everything they could.
Eventually they had given up and their last farewells to John had been said as well.
He'd be better off dead. Gone. Away and out of their conscience, free them of their nagging feelings of guilt, betrayal and empathy.
"Their empathy means nothing.
I.."
John paused, briefly considering what to write. He might be as good as dead but he wanted to do it.. properly. Leave them with something to ease their pain as they at least had attempted to do with his.
"I'm lying.
Their empathy means everything. I cannot thank them enough.
Mrs. H... Martha.
Mike.
Greg.
Molly.
Would you believe that even Sally tried to help?
You probably wouldn't."
John found himself crying again, half-heartedly clenching a fist and punching the desk.
The whimpers soon turned to full force sobbing and flashes of life with Him passed before his eyes. Everyone in it, everyone against it, everyone..
Everyone who mourned with him. Everyone who came to terms with It... and then.. how they mourned for him instead, reached out for him.. like he'd reached out for Sherlock.
Soon.
Soon they would be where he was when He Fell.
Unable to stop it. Unable to catch him. Unable.
The difference would however always be that..
At least they all knew why John had to leave.
"If I go.. when I go.
If I meet you where I am going.
I will kill you, Sherlock.."
The steady, provocatively blinking numbers of the clock revealed it was time. Soon.
The closer he got, the more he knew it was for the better.
"I probably won't.
I’d want you to be alive so you can feel guilty over seeing me so soon..
But..
I will punch you."
John let his fingers linger. Barely touching the Y, O and U keys, he noticed he wasnt shaking anymore. He felt numb.
A by now dear friend of his. The numbness. The I-can’t-feel-anything-anymore feeling and I-have-no-tears-left-to-cry feeling. For 6 months he had wished those feelings would last longer than they did.
But.. they always vanished. Left him like Sherlock had. Left him to feel and to cry because somehow, while he was an empty shell, there was always sorrow and tears in abundance left.
"Nothing, Sherlock..
I had nothing.
And.."
He paused inadvertedly. The words. The words.
Those he had always wanted to say. Those he had said, in gestures, with looks, with just being there with Him. That wasn’t enough anymore.
He needed The Words now. As a statement. As fact. As his.. their.. legacy.
John’s therapist couldn’t make him say them. She knew it, of course. And John had soon stopped going because there was no purpose. With anything.
Everyone knew it.
Maybe that’s why he pushed them away as well?
"And..
Then I had everything."
Blanky staring at the screen, he let go. He had to.
"I couldn't say it.
I just couldn't.
I regret that."
His heart picked up.
Pounded mercilessly against its cage as if it knew it was about to be released.
"I regret that.
I wanted you to know.
I need you to know.
Maybe you did?
I wish.."
Tears formed again, but John didn't notice. Didn't see. Didn't feel.
"I wish you had told me, if you knew.
I wish I could have made you stay.
Would you have stayed if you knew..."
Sunconsciously chewing his chin he realized he was tasting blood.
Rusty, sickeningly sweet blood.
It was as if it wasn’t his own, like he tasted and smelled it through a haze with a tongue made of wool.
Is that what it tasted like?
Is that what He tasted just before He..?
"Would you have stayed if you knew...
How much I.."
He bit down hard as if to pressure himself, force the words out of him.
SAY IT.
"How much I.. need you.
Sherlock.
Would you?
Would you have left if you knew my life would end with yours?
Could you still have jumped?
Could I have made you stop you and your stubborn, stupid, selfish bloody choice?"
He was far away already but he still felt a trickle down his chin.
Blood.
Blood and tears.
Like blood and rain on concrete pavement, washing out, washing away as if it never happened.
"Could I have made you stop, if you knew how much I.."
John's heart was pounding in unison with his head.
A numbing dizziness embraced him.
Must. Finish.
"I don't know.
I will never know.
Maybe I don't care anymore.
No. I will always care.
That's why I am writing this."
The clock switched to 00.01.
It was Time. It was The Day.
The Day they had met.
The Day that changed everything.
"This is my note.
Sherlock."
The Day that would change everything again
"Sherlock."
The Day they would meet again.
"Because that is what people do."
He was loosing it. The grip.
So.. this is what it feels like.
"I ask everyone who know me.
Who knew us. To forgive me.
Forgive Sherlock."
Chest feeling tight. More blood.
Eyes closing. Say it, John.
"Don't forget him.
Don't stop believing in him."
Say it, John. Say it!
"I will never stop."
An unmeasurable weight lifted itself from his shoulders.
He gasped.
"I love you, Sherlock".
Drew his breath in and exhaled with short, sharp sounds.
It felt like he was choking but.. he felt free.
Not noting the endless stream of tears covering his deadly pale cheeks and dripping onto the blue silk robe.
Not noting the way the blood stained it.
Not noting anything, he staggered to his left, not hearing how he knocked over the chair, not seeing the untouched coffee that spilled as his hand with trembling determination barely managed to reach the mouse key and hit 'Post this'.
"This is my note Sherlock", he thought as he in a blurry haze saw the page load and in his very last moments of awareness saw it join the previous entry:
"He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him."
In his mind he saw two men reaching for eachother.
Wrong.
"He is my best friend".
"He is my everything".
The hands linked together, but John still Fell.
Onto his bed bed. Into the darkness. Into..
The silence.
The numbness.
He Fell with Him.
00.06
00.08
00.10
00.14
And there was John Watson’s lifeless body.
Flat-mate. Colleague. Partner. Not-boyfriend.
In a cold room where the only sound was the slight humming of a laptop and the the only light was that of a street lamp outside.
He’d be missed.
A distant sound of a door.
He’d be pitied.
Foot steps.
He’d be remembered as a hero who fell.
Quiet but shrill sound of door hinges.
As a man who loved.
Rustling of a coat.
And maybe, hopefully, his death would make people realize what they had lost.
Soft echo of fabric slumping to the floor.
What the world would be like.
Creaking of new designer shoes slipping off feet.
Not what it would be like without an ex-army doctor.
Rapid, smooth movements towards a bed.
But what it would be like without the world’s only consulting detective.
Long, slim fingers checking for a pulse.
It would be without hope.
Rattling of Diazepam in a small glass jar.
It would be empty.
Almost breathless yet somehow still triumphant huff.
It would be dead.
Sound of a sheet being moved.
Like John.
Body weighing down a mattress.
That is..
Bare, white arm sliding across silk.
If John..
A pale hand under blonde hair.
Had..
Gleaming, dangerous, loving, wonderful, brilliant eyes.
Actually..
Protecting, caring, all-consuming, forever-lasting embrace.
Been..
Thin lips in a thinner face, breathing sweetly on a still cheek.
..Dead.
“John.
My John.
Rest now.”
Ex-army doctor now-boyfriend mumbling incoherently.
“I love you too, John..
~