cause it's not the same

5. and then sherlock is gone, and john falls just as hard as he had, except when he landed he broke something else entirely. there's a different girl every week and still he can't - they aren't-

he can't.

there's a nagging voice in the back of his mind that talks like him, and it's an unending stream of "dull," or "boring," or "john, stop,"

the girls still change every week and the voice keeps talking, but john doesn't stop because he doesn't want to let his voice go.

if he closes his eyes sometimes, he can still hear him.

reality's a bitch.


4. then he's walking into the alley down the street and it's too easy, but he gets a fix and goes back home.

he never did tell him it would be that easy, and the rush through his veins is almost enough to stifle the empty feeling that the apartment emanated.

he sees him in the haze-

sees him fall again

and again and

again

until

john's not sure who's fallen- and how.

he moves out later that week, depositing the small baggy anonymously on lestrade's desk late at night.

he's not sure where he'll go, and

he doesn't care.


3. there was crazy and then there was this, he thinks, dodging the punches aimed at his direction as he slowly backed away from the group of about five very angry drunkards heading towards him right now.

he'd been in the bar and he'd been...bored.

once in a while he lets himself get hit, but it's not the same, and it doesn't hurt the way he wants it to, and he escapes their grasp too easily.

it's still not the same without him.


2. "was there a way to stop this?" he asks, cold and trembling at the foot of the granite stone.

"you can't be dead, but-

you are.

aren't you?

if you aren't...

you would've let me know,

right?"

he pauses.

"sherlock..."

it's the first time he's spoken his name in months.

john realizes it's been months.


1. one year ago, he'd found a new reason to live.

john watson was in love with danger, and oh - sherlock holmes was danger personified.

it wasn't-

it wasn't like that though.

it was and it wasn't- there were lines- and-

john doesn't care anymore.

all he knows is he wants sherlock back. goddamn, he wants him back so bad.

he swallows thickly and walks back through the doors of 221b baker street.


0. "john."

he drops whatever he'd been holding in his hand.

and slams that hand right into sherlock's face.

he doubles over and steps back, but says nothing.

and john

is falling

all

over

again.


but he's here and that's all that matters.