Nutrisco et exstinguo Chapter VI - Unus multorum

[zoffoli]

A.N.: I've used quotes from the episodes and John's blog in this chapter. Obviously, I'm not the author. For the blog, credits go to Joseph Lidster.
Edit: This chapter has been kindly betaed by Sianco and BritChick101. Many thanks!

Nutrisco et exstinguo means "I feed from it and extinguish it"

Unus multorum means 'one of many' ; usually used to designate an average person.

Warnings:Rating for this chapter is T (for dark themes)



Illustration by Tiofrean

Chapter VI: Unus multorum
song: Black and blue, by Ingrid Michaelson

oOo

Oh, I think I got you figured out
Boy, I think I know what you are all about
Finally, I can finally see you pull the darkness right down over me
But now I see

"You haven't said what you wanted to say."

Well, yes, that happens. Some things take you by surprise, they're so unexpected that you didn't have time to get prepared for them. For instance when your best friend, who's still in his thirties, jumps from a building in front of you.

Even when you get to talk to him before he kills himself, you usually try to convince him not to - that is, when you have realized what he's about to do. Surprisingly, the first reaction isn't to say your farewells, but to keep him alive. Strange, isn't it?

But once he's dead and buried, you've got all the time you want to talk to his grave. For a few days, John hopes Sherlock will come back, or suddenly answer his rant in the cemetery - he does disappear sometimes and doesn't talk for days on end, too. But eventually he's always back. Not this time, though. One day John realizes he'll miss the madman's voice, and thinks it's stupid. Of all the things to miss... not that he doesn't miss anything else. But the voice? Won't hear it any more... That's when a bloody crow decides to caw and John wishes he could shoot it. Nevermore. John doesn't even wonder why he would hear a crow from this room he started renting, doesn't question his sanity - honestly, he doesn't care. That day, he vomits the lunch he had managed to eat, and breaks the bathroom's mirror. It's not like he's going to need it any way.

When Harry visits the first time, he wonders if he should worry. When she comes for the second time in three days and he notices she hasn't been drinking at all, he knows he should indeed. So he tells her. At first she's too stunned to reply anything, but her face says it all - God, John, you are worried? Then of course she gets mad. What kind of sister does he think she is, if she can't even manage to be sober when her brother is in depression? Now it's John's turn to be flabbergasted. In depression? Him? What in the world is she talking about? He's angry, certainly. Incredibly so. He can't believe Sherlock dared do that to him - because he knows, he knows the detective completely manipulated him, sent him away to do whatever he did on that rooftop before jumping, was aware he would come back on time to actually witness the whole sickening little act he had prepared. John couldn't forgive Sherlock for hiding all this from him, for keeping him out of the matter, whatever that matter was (and it drove John mad not knowing, still not knowing, and God he would never know) and for bloody lying to him until the very end. His last words to him had been bullshit. And that hurt more than anything.

Well, more than anything apart from the fact that he'd never see Sherlock again. John didn't know why the thought made him sick (literally). He had lost many mates in the war. But maybe precisely because it was the war, it was something to be expected. People die on the front. The army doctor himself risked his life and knew it. He'd lost patients. He'd lost friends. It enraged him and it hurt, but never did he feel such emptiness. Maybe after his parents' death? That certainly was unexpected. And still, it couldn't compare to this.

Everybody knows that I'm a mess
Everybody knows you stole the heart from out my chest
Every thing you ever said was a lie
You're hiding behind your sweet, your sweet goodbyes

Harry was wrong. This wasn't depression. John was a doctor, he knew the signs. Sure, the hopelessness and helplessness were there, but because John was John, a soldier at heart, they held a literal meaning, and nothing close to desperation (in which in fact, you're still hoping). There was no hope, and there would be no help. Nothing could make this better, and nothing ever would: this wasn't something John would cry about, it was a certitude. He hadn't gone back to Ella's. He didn't talk to Harry - not the way she obviously wanted him to in any case. He resigned from the clinic because he couldn't stand everyone's stares, either full of pity or somehow suspicious. In fact, Sarah herself had been about to ask him to leave, because even some patients weren't comfortable seeing him any more - couldn't trust him. He had cut to the chase and given his resignation. He probably should wait until the whole scandal had quieted down. He had broken his phone by throwing it at the wall one night, and he didn't bother to buy a new one. Who would text him any way? He absolutely didn't feel like putting up with all his ex girlfriends' crap - from 'You asked for it' to 'I'm so sorry do you want to meet up for a drink?' He almost found the first type more decent.

He hadn't lost interest in daily activities: he just no longer had any. No crime scenes, no chases through London, no dangerous and thrilling and crazy situations. No cases. No patients and no dates either, but he honestly didn't miss those. Didn't feel like getting laid or listening to someone complain about an aching throat.

He did have insomnia, but he never was a good sleeper to begin with, and he had always been prone to nightmares. Only now they involved more black curls and blood than sand and heat. True, he had lost his appetite. But he still ate. It wasn't his fault if more often than not his body would just reject the food. He still had his three meals a day, diligently, and so did the bucket of his toilets.

He wasn't agitated or violent: angry, yes, but in a cold, icily calm way. He only shouted at Sherlock's grave, not at anyone else. Not at Mrs Hudson when she asked him if he could take a look at the things in 221B, not at Harry who suggested it would be safer if he came to live with her. Not even at Lestrade who came to the funerals and babbled apologies on and on for a good five minutes. He didn't interrupt him, didn't punch him, didn't ignore and leave him. He looked at him and half listened. It was obvious how guilty the man felt, he was almost radiating self-loathing. Much more than John, whose conscience wasn't at rest either. Greg seemed to believe he had much more responsibility than John in Sherlock's death. And maybe he did, but John didn't think so.

He had been the one closest to Sherlock. The one by his side less than an hour before he killed himself, the one calling him a machine and falling for a bloody act. The one Sherlock had called. The whole time John had been with Sherlock, ever since Moriarty's trial. And he still hadn't noticed anything. You see, but you don't observe. He tried to swallow the bile but the bitterness came back full force. He was glad when Lestrade was done flogging himself and looked up to him as if he were expecting - and even hoping - he would shoot him on the spot. John just nodded once, and went away. There was nothing he could tell the D.I. Yes, they both had made mistakes and were worthless, and if he was waiting for John to give him solace and salvation, he certainly got the wrong person.

I'm black and blue 'cause I fell for you
You said you never would let me go
Ooh, how could I ever know?
I'm black and blue and in love with you
You said you never would let me fall
You never would let me fall, but I'm falling
You never would let me fall
You never would let me fall, but I'm falling

All in all, John didn't think his temper was short. People did get on his nerves, but his tolerance level wasn't low - quite the opposite, in fact. Mycroft hadn't been at the funeral - at least, John hadn't seen him, but he suspected the man to have watched the ceremony from afar. He didn't look for a black umbrella, though. When Holmes the elder - the only one left, John thought darkly - had visited him in his flat, after the doctor had ignored his cars and beautiful women holding a phone, he was thinner than John recalled. Maybe we should do a campaign. 'Want to lose weight in no time? Kill the person you care most about. Results 100% guaranteed.' The ex-soldier had then remembered that some people actually became bulimic instead, and corrected mentally. Results 95%* guaranteed. *you may want to kill your dog first to test your reaction. He wondered absent-mindedly when his thoughts had started to get so fucked up. Then without bothering to move from his armchair he had taken the gun laying by his side on the small table and pointed it at Mycroft. He wasn't trembling, didn't even look angry. On the contrary, his composure was perfect. The expression on his face was nothing but stoical.

"Get out."

Mycroft opened his mouth to say something but John started to slowly squeeze the trigger. His composed gaze couldn't be less significant: I don't particularly want to shoot you. But if you don't get out my sight now I will. Without a blink. Mycroft's face darkened, but he left wordlessly and never came again.

John didn't feel physically drained or fatigued, even though he barely slept. No trouble concentrating either. Every sensation was raw and his mind was clear. Clear enough to see exactly how much he had lost. He did not behave recklessly, except maybe when after a nightmare that was just too much he ran to the cemetery in the middle of the night and climbed the wall to shout at the grave. He always left before dawn though. Didn't want people finding him there and sending him to an asylum.

Sure, the pain in his leg was back, but he refused to use a cane again. He refused to even limp. It hurt, but he didn't walk differently from anyone else - well, maybe Sherlock would have been able to tell, still. He wasn't around to do so any more, though. John didn't tell anyone about the leg, nor about the trembling in his hand, and took up the habit of always putting his fists in his pockets. Not that he went out much.

OK, so maybe this was depression. But what did that even mean? For the first time in his life he thought how absurd such a diagnosis truly was. He had just lost the most important person in his life. How could his grief be considered a mental illness? This was preposterous. He had almost snapped at Harry when she had used the word, but then decided it wasn't worth bothering. When other people were in the room, John was serene and cold. Composed. Lifeless, they thought. When he was alone, he would feel like shooting the wall, or himself. The one he truly wanted to shoot though was Sherlock. No, a bullet wouldn't be enough. He wanted to strangle him or beat him to death. He also wanted to kiss him and take him and never let go. One night, the urge to touch him was so unbearable that he had actually began to dig the earth frenetically in front of the gravestone. When he had realized just what he doing, and visualized his friend as a cadaver, he had jumped back and thrown up. John never went to the cemetery again after that. It was the following day Mycroft came to see him for the first and last time.

John's nightmares also involved a good deal of falling, of course. For both Sherlock and himself. He couldn't forget the dream he had had a while before the whole ordeal - he would hardly call it and 'adventure', now - and hated the irony of it. Tragic irony. That should only exist in ancient plays, not in real life. But nothing about Sherlock should have existed in real life.

The ex-soldier didn't feel the same emptiness as when he had come back from Afghanistan. Back then, is was only nothingness and worthlessness. Now though, the hole in himself was the reminder of something that had been ripped from his very being. He felt despoiled of a part of him that was irreplaceable and had held all the meaning, although not a vital one (and that was all the more cruel), like a professional runner losing his legs in an accident. Phantom limb syndrome. John didn't know it could work with missing people. He was often woken up by the sound of a violin at night. He caught a glimpse of Sherlock in the street every day. Whenever it rained he would smell his scent - even though he couldn't see the link. Every time he opened the door, he would be surprised not to see him rush in and rant about the stupidity of the police or gloat over a challenging murder. He stopped opening the door when someone rang and just waited for them to come in - he never locked. And whenever he went out, he'd close his eyes until he was in the staircase.

Oh, I know I'm never gonna stop
I keep burning time away until I hit the top
One day, I'll wake up and take up to the open skies
And I'll be the one with all the sweet goodbyes

He was so angry with Sherlock and so utterly devastated that he couldn't picture himself in the future at all. Time had somehow stopped. Days went by, and John was falling a little farther every passing hour. Once, he looked at the date in a shop and was abashed to see it had only been a week since the funerals. He stood there, staring at the incomprehensible numbers as if they didn't make sense - and they didn't to him. It couldn't possibly have only been a week. He had seen Lestrade and Harry and Mycroft and Mrs Hudson and even Molly... She kept sending him emails to go out for a drink but after seeing her exhausted face at the funerals, John really didn't feel like chatting. She told him she had taken a week off from work (and that he could perfectly understand - she had been the one examining Sherlock's body, after all, and it must have been a blow) and that she'd be free whenever he'd want to meet.

The thing is, he didn't. All he wanted was to revive Sherlock to kill him slowly and painfully, or better even, to make him go through exactly the same thing he had endured: distance himself without letting anything on and kill himself under his very eyes, just close enough for him to see everything without being able to stop it. Suicide wasn't so appealing if it couldn't make Sherlock suffer. A week. It had only been a week.

Would it always be like that from now on? The emptiness engulfing time. The pain eating the hours away so we became old unwittingly. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, then, mused John. It would, though. If a week had felt like a year, he didn't even want to start thinking about what a year would feel like. Oh, how he just wished he could murder the man. John remembered having written once on his blog that one day, he'd kill Sherlock. It had been after the consulting detective had used him as an experiment in Baskerville, testing his theory even though it involved terrifying John. How stupid. One doesn't know what it means, to kill. John had known, though. He'd kill men in Afghanistan. He'd kill a man for Sherlock. Still, him too used the common expression. I'll kill him. He was an average person after all. Who'd get angry and throw out stupid things - Maybe Sally Donovan is right. Maybe he is a freak. - It's not something I'll ever really understand and, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever want to understand it. To be that much of a psychopath. To be that above the rest of us. To be that dangerous. It's pretty terrifying. - You machine!

John woke up with a start, panting and sweaty. So now he was dreaming of his own blog and of what he said to Sherlock's face when he was still alive. Guilt, then. Fine. So be it. Alone protects me. No, Sherlock. Friends are what protects you. He He just made it to the bathroom in time before his dinner went down the toilet once again.

John didn't understand what was the whole thing with throwing up - he didn't see the point. It didn't make him feel any better, didn't lessen the pain, didn't make him forget. Maybe it was his way of shooting at the wall. He drew a smiley face on the toilet lid.

Falling, falling, over and over again
I'm always falling, over and over
But I'll get up, I'll make it
I need some time to un-break it
I feel like I'm falling, I'm falling far away from you
It's what I need to do

Harry came the following day - three times a week, then. Now John should be more than worried. She said they'd go out for lunch. Of course, her brother didn't feel like it, and told her so.

"What do you feel like doing, then, John?"

He stared at her blankly.

"Killing Sherlock."

And because Harry was crazy, and pretty cool too when she wasn't drunk, she nodded.

"OK."

They went to a wholesaler and bought a dummy (after Harry had argued a good half hour with the distributor). Next was the wig - they actually managed to find a rather convincing one, although John was adamant that Sherlock's hair had been much softer. Harry stared but didn't ask how in the world he could know such a thing. The clothes were a little more tricky. John didn't want to spend so much money on a shirt and trousers he intended to tear up eventually (it's always a risk, when playing with a knife or a gun). But Sherlock wouldn't have bought anything but the best - he was incredibly elegant for someone who claimed not to care about appearances. When John had questioned him about it, he had seemed surprised, and replied that of course it wasn't about the look, John, but obviously for the feel of it - couldn't he tell the difference between plaid flannel and cotton twill? The doctor smiled. The idiot had such sensitive skin. Had had.

He suddenly felt giddy and had to hold onto the counter. Yes, the flannel one would be great, thank you. Harry didn't look at him like he was mad and throwing his money away. When they came out of the department store, she asked him if he wanted to murder his ex-flatmate in the room he was renting or somewhere else (the people walking past them in the street had exchanged puzzled and even worried glances, and John thought it would be quite amusing if they were to call Lestrade about it). He understood his sister was implying that using the gun in his new room wasn't a very good idea, unless he wished to move out right away ("Not that I would mind, you know you're very welcome to come over, I'd be more than happy...") He shook his head. The room was fine, a good beating would do, and if he really needed to use more than his fists there was always the kitchen knife. She nodded.

"You owe me a lunch, though. If you don't want to go out, we can cook. Don't look at me like that, I've improved a lot! I'll see you tomorrow."

Of course. She was still worried, and would check on him. But John was grateful that she was trying so hard to be there without being a nuisance. He realized she was the only one he was almost fine seeing. Because she knew what being a mess meant, maybe? Or perhaps because she had never met Sherlock.

John went back to his room and straight to bed. He couldn't go on his blog any more, couldn't watch telly either, because he could hear every comment Sherlock would have made - he actually heard them. Before turning the light off, he looked at the dummy and felt so sick he had to throw it in the corner of the room and hide it with some of his own clothes. Then he went to sleep, wishing he wouldn't have to wake up. That changed when he started dreaming, though. Of Sherlock, of course. He gets off on it. He's a freak. Try fishing! Not a psychopath, Anderson, a high functioning sociopath. My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher. Yet, he chose to be a detective. What does that tell us about him? Do you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr. Holmes? However hard you try, it's always a self-portrait. I think you're damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it's yourself. But originally, he wanted to be a pirate. He's a great man, and maybe one day, he'll even be a good one. Look, John, I'm afraid. My body is betraying me. I felt doubt! I told you I had no friends, and I meant it. I only have one. Goodbye, John. SHERLOCK!

John sat up gasping in his bed and thought he would vomit on the spot, before remembering that he hadn't had anything to eat the previous day. Trembling with rage and sheer pain, he tried to regulate his breathing, for want of anything better. He couldn't deal with the anguish, but at least he could try to avoid a fit of rage. Or not. He held his head in his hands, feeling like he was about to explode. Then he remembered the dummy, and he did. He jumped out of bed, walked to the pile of clothes in the corner, tossed them around and gripped the puppet before throwing it violently at the feet of the bed. It wasn't a soft dummy, but one of those you can find in the glass display case of stores, and its fall broke the unbearable silence of the room.

"How could you... How dare you do this to me?"

Maybe he had finally lost it. He couldn't care less. Throwing himself at the dummy he started beating it to a pulp - except that it wouldn't actually bruise nor bleed. John could, though, as he soon found out, punching and kicking the hard plastic repeatedly, bestially.

Black and blue and in love with you
You said you never would let me fall
You never would let me fall, but I'm falling

John saw the only physical fight he'd had with Sherlock replay in his mind, that one on the street when he had asked him to punch him. I've had bad days. Well, if this wasn't bad, what was? He felt tears streaking down his cheeks and a wrath so deeply rooted it was consuming him. His punches became more frantic, he cut himself on the doll's chin. I could cut myself slapping those cheekbones. He smashed the faceless head onto the floor violently and tore the flannel shirt from the back, beating again and again, unaware of what part of his own body was hitting which of the dummy. He could only feel the tears and the pain.

"I hate you... I hate you so much! I'll never forgive you."

A gruesome crack came from the puppet and John realized jubilantly he had just managed to break an arm. As if this had renewed his energy, he grabbed the beaten body wearing half-torn clothes and hurled it at the closest wall savagely. He didn't think about the neighbours for a second. In fact, he didn't think, period.

"Why, Sherlock, why? I can't believe you did this to me.. I can't believe your last words to me were FUCKING LIES!", he roared, brutally pouncing on the damaged plastic carcass brutally.

Blow after blow after blow, devoured by anger and desperation, John never seemed to get enough. His voice was getting hoarse from shouting at the lifeless figure. His eyes burnt and the tears refused to stop. He wished the puppet could bleed and scream and cry too, but of course it couldn't, it was just a doll.

"I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you so much..."

He was strangling it from behind, pulling and pulling with all his might, kicking with his knee and if he could have bitten the other arm off he would have. Something in him had snapped and his whole demeanour was utterly feral. A dreadfully neat cracking noise made him come to a halt. Shocked, he slackened his grip and the dummy's head rolled onto the floor of the quiet room. John's gaze followed it with horror before turning back to the remains in his arms. John broke down.

A beastly wail escaped his lips as he pressed the headless chest against his own. Shaking uncontrollably, weeping like he had never wept, he embraced the broken body desperately and held onto it as if it were the world.

"I hate you, I hate you... I hate you so much..."

Weaving this mantra into the atrocious silence, he kept sobbing himself to exhaustion until he blacked out, never letting go.

You said you never would let me fall
You never would let me fall, but I'm falling
And I'm falling, black and blue
It's what I need to do

.

.

.

tbc
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