so, I apparently wrote this last night.
I don't remember writing it. I remember waking up at five in the morning and being at my table, but I don't remember writing this. I cleaned up some mistakes and spelling errors, but I haven't done anything major to it. Considering that it's black-out writing, I'm fairly impressed with myself.
After the fall, I don’t believe John would be able to stay in London. He’d run. He’d never have run from a single thing in his life, but he’d run from the reminder of the life he’d shared with Sherlock, that he would never get back. The memories in every nook and cranny of the city Sherlock had loved so much, and the time he’d spent there. The happiest in his life.
So he’d run.
And that’s the good thing about being a doctor. Save for small variations here and there, human bodies are the same all around the world. And where there are people, there will be sickness. No one will turn a doctor away. So he becomes that. He sheds everything of himself, every facet of his personality that has nothing to do with medicine, and being a doctor, and helping people. He sheds the remnants of Sherlock and pretends he is lighter with half his heart missing.
Shedding Sherlock consciously is one thing. Trying to forget him completely is another. He dreams. And he dreams and he cannot wake up. He does not know whether he wants to wake up. Dreaming is agony. Some small part of him knows that there is something wrong with the feeling of Sherlock curling around him like a sleepy cat. There is something unnatural, and slowly becoming unfamiliar. Some small part of him is aware that he is dreaming. But then Sherlock will kiss him under his jaw, and press his cold nose into his neck, and nothing else in the world will ever matter again. And waking up is torture. Wondering, for a split second, where Sherlock’s gone, and why he was up so early, and why the spot in the bed beside him is so cold. As if no one had slept there at all. And remembering, every morning. Again and again and again, and reliving it and knowing that he’d only been dreaming. That Sherlock would never again curl around him like a sleepy cat. That Sherlock would never again count his heartbeats in the morning.
Some part of him wondered what the point was, of his heart beating, if Sherlock wasn’t there to count it.
But he knows dangerous thoughts. He is no stranger to them. And he knows well enough to stay away from them. But still, honey thick sleep and silence become more and more tempting each day.
And then one night he wakes up and he remembers it again and he can’t help it. He hasn’t spoken to anyone but patients in broken French in what feels like weeks. He hasn’t had anyone to speak to. Anyone who would be interested in what he had to say. Anyone who would even care that he was on the brink. So he would write. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d turned to pen and paper in the absence of human company.
And he wrote. And it poured out of him like something brimming over, finally, and instead of pressing it deeper inside himself, to make more space, it comes out, and he’s not drowning anymore. He still aches, like he’s been beaten black and blue on the inside, and he still can’t sleep for it, but it feels like the pain after the day you were hurt, rather than the pain you feel on the day you are hurt.
'Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home! Your house is on fire, and your children are gone!’
From Sherlock’s perspective. He reaches home and his house is in shambles. Mrs. Hudson couldn’t stay in the house alone, after John left, so she went to live with her sister-in-law in Florida, where the weather was generally kinder on her old bones. John is gone, and no one has heard from him in years. He fears the worst, but doesn’t want to imagine it. Doesn’t want to think of the fact that there is a possibility that Sherlock has accidentally caused what he was trying to avoid so desperately. (Sherlock is a different person, for not wanting to think about anything. It’s unprecedented) A self-fulfilling prophecy. That in trying to protect John, he caused John to hurt himself. But John is no fool. John has a sense of self preservation. John wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that.
It feels like his world has fallen apart. Like he has no anchor, and no ceiling, and no walls, and he doesn’t know which way is up anymore. And he doesn’t know how to get John back, because that is definitely what he needs to be doing. He just doesn’t know how to get John back.
(I’m not omniscient brother. I do not have eyes everywhere. I was otherwise occupied when he left. Forgive me for my lapse)
‘All but one, and that’s little John!’
It feels like some sort of bizarre writing exercise. I have no idea where I was going with this. I don't even. I mean. How? What do I do now? Ugh.
After the fall, I don’t believe John would be able to stay in London. He’d run. He’d never have run from a single thing in his life, but he’d run from the reminder of the life he’d shared with Sherlock, that he would never get back. The memories in every nook and cranny of the city Sherlock had loved so much, and the time he’d spent there. The happiest in his life.
So he’d run.
And that’s the good thing about being a doctor. Save for small variations here and there, human bodies are the same all around the world. And where there are people, there will be sickness. No one will turn a doctor away. So he becomes that. He sheds everything of himself, every facet of his personality that has nothing to do with medicine, and being a doctor, and helping people. He sheds the remnants of Sherlock and pretends he is lighter with half his heart missing.
Shedding Sherlock consciously is one thing. Trying to forget him completely is another. He dreams. And he dreams and he cannot wake up. He does not know whether he wants to wake up. Dreaming is agony. Some small part of him knows that there is something wrong with the feeling of Sherlock curling around him like a sleepy cat. There is something unnatural, and slowly becoming unfamiliar. Some small part of him is aware that he is dreaming. But then Sherlock will kiss him under his jaw, and press his cold nose into his neck, and nothing else in the world will ever matter again. And waking up is torture. Wondering, for a split second, where Sherlock’s gone, and why he was up so early, and why the spot in the bed beside him is so cold. As if no one had slept there at all. And remembering, every morning. Again and again and again, and reliving it and knowing that he’d only been dreaming. That Sherlock would never again curl around him like a sleepy cat. That Sherlock would never again count his heartbeats in the morning.
Some part of him wondered what the point was, of his heart beating, if Sherlock wasn’t there to count it.
But he knows dangerous thoughts. He is no stranger to them. And he knows well enough to stay away from them. But still, honey thick sleep and silence become more and more tempting each day.
And then one night he wakes up and he remembers it again and he can’t help it. He hasn’t spoken to anyone but patients in broken French in what feels like weeks. He hasn’t had anyone to speak to. Anyone who would be interested in what he had to say. Anyone who would even care that he was on the brink. So he would write. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d turned to pen and paper in the absence of human company.
And he wrote. And it poured out of him like something brimming over, finally, and instead of pressing it deeper inside himself, to make more space, it comes out, and he’s not drowning anymore. He still aches, like he’s been beaten black and blue on the inside, and he still can’t sleep for it, but it feels like the pain after the day you were hurt, rather than the pain you feel on the day you are hurt.
'Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home! Your house is on fire, and your children are gone!’
From Sherlock’s perspective. He reaches home and his house is in shambles. Mrs. Hudson couldn’t stay in the house alone, after John left, so she went to live with her sister-in-law in Florida, where the weather was generally kinder on her old bones. John is gone, and no one has heard from him in years. He fears the worst, but doesn’t want to imagine it. Doesn’t want to think of the fact that there is a possibility that Sherlock has accidentally caused what he was trying to avoid so desperately. (Sherlock is a different person, for not wanting to think about anything. It’s unprecedented) A self-fulfilling prophecy. That in trying to protect John, he caused John to hurt himself. But John is no fool. John has a sense of self preservation. John wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that.
It feels like his world has fallen apart. Like he has no anchor, and no ceiling, and no walls, and he doesn’t know which way is up anymore. And he doesn’t know how to get John back, because that is definitely what he needs to be doing. He just doesn’t know how to get John back.
(I’m not omniscient brother. I do not have eyes everywhere. I was otherwise occupied when he left. Forgive me for my lapse)
‘All but one, and that’s little John!’
It feels like some sort of bizarre writing exercise. I have no idea where I was going with this. I don't even. I mean. How? What do I do now? Ugh.