A/N: i better not see tfios refs because they're not tfios refs okay

Fatal flaws are a common theme in this chapter and it is also something that happens to be in tfios ugh

I'd rather you spend your energy referencing oedipus rex and hubris

so like pls before you comment

don't

"What 'appened to your fuckin' face, mate?" The woman sitting next to him in the hospital stares at the blood pouring down Sherlock's chin in absolute bewilderment, noting the flecks of red dotting his now-dingy dress shirt.

Sherlock says, voice rapidly rising throughout the sentence, "I don't want to tell you, nor is it any of your business!" He shoos her away dismissively with the hand that isn't holding the tissues inside his nose.

She scuttles in dismay, gathering her bags and moving to the other side of the room, glaring coldly as she goes.

"Rank old cow!" he yells after her, but it's just a half-hearted protestation. The real reason he hadn't told her is that he doesn't know what happened much himself.

***

Sherlock doesn't come home that night. John texts him, once:

Where are you?

And he gives up as quick as he starts. He is so tired, he doesn't have the energy to talk with Sherlock - to break up with Sherlock - and he needs to write a bullshitted essay about why he wants to work for the company he is applying to.

But he doesn't want to, and he knows if he pours himself a glass of red wine it'll turn into vodka, and he knows that if he tries to color in the lines, the lines might disappear. The boundaries might go when Sherlock comes back.

He's not sorry. John's not sorry. John is not sorry, whatsoever. He got what he deserved, and that's nothing for John to be ashamed of - except he is. He double guesses himself and overrules judgements and steps over common sense, a veto turning into a triple-veto; he is the king over himself, but the king can't decide what he wants over the noise of his subjects.

He wants to be happy. But should kings want to be happy?

Maybe selflessness was how John got here in the first place, running away so he wouldn't have to place the first punch. God knows that's how people lose in life; they underestimate things that should be overestimated, like love, like cold ice cream, like carnivals in March and rain that soaks you to the bone. Like Sherlock. He underestimated Sherlock. The fatal flaw, the hamartia; it was his selflessness. His unwillingness to let himself see the bad in people, although he had seen it come out in different variants, time and time and time again. Maybe, if John decided what he wanted, this ordeal wouldn't have been so callously jarring. He would have known what he wanted. He would have been able to send a text, and end it.

But he doesn't know. He has no goddamn, fucking, sodding, bloody shitting iota of a granule of an infinitesimally small fraction of an idea of what he wants. And he hates wishy-washy, vapid, temperate people. He hates them like he hates Sherlock's eyes and his lips and his face and the dimples in his skin when he grins and the sounds of his voice; he hates people like that just as much as he hates watching movies and hearing the snarky, snide voice of discontent surrounding him like blankets in the middle of the night. He hates bland, indecisive, threadbare people as much as he hates Sherlock Holmes's hands and the birthmarks that dot him like he's part of the night sky. Chocolate brown stars draw patterns that resemble nothing less and nothing more than that of an ill-fated Orion. But John, for not the first time in his life, has no idea what he wants, and it's burning him up inside.

John has to want something, God... He isn't alive so he can avoid basic needs, to not want, not let live, not be alive. He has purpose. He isn't, no matter what Sherlock says, a joke.

He's so angry, he can't think. Everything is mush in his mind, as if he replaced his brain with cold oatmeal. He remembers the feeling of Sherlock's skin under his knuckles, and the way his head snapped back into the pavement, curls bouncing like a human rubber band.

He just wants happiness.

He didn't want to hurt Sherlock. He didn't want to say that no one loves him. Because...

Because that isn't true, really.

So, no. John didn't want to scream at him, like he was some sort of rabid dog, like he was a child that was burning all the toilet paper. He didn't - no, doesn't - want anything but the opportunity to go out on a date. But instead, Sherlock stole. Sherlock lied. Sherlock was out of control, he did the deed, and John has no control over that.

But John has control over himself. He didn't need to say those things. What if... what if, just a tiny bit... he shouldn't have hit him? Or said that no one would blink if he left? Because maybe John wouldn't blink. But he'd fall apart. He'd shut his eyes closed so fast that the last thing he would see would be darkness.

He should apologize. Discreetly.

John leaves the laptop sitting on the bed, open to an empty document, gathers 10 dollars off the counter, and runs into the pouring rain.

***

The flat looks exactly the same.

For some reason unbeknownst to Sherlock, he had imagined that when he snuck back into the flat, it would look different. Things would be in order. The bed would be made. The VCR would be off, and the DVDs that were John's favorites (Good Will Hunting, Inception, Jerry Maguire) would be in the same case that they corresponded to.

Instead, it looks upset and murky, unlit in neutral colors that lull Sherlock into thoughtless staring. He walks, slowly, towards their bed, and falls in, landing on his front, cheek pressed into the cool linen. He breathes it in.

It smells whole. Like all the light in the room was sucked up, right into that smell.

He can't even smell, really. John hit his nose so hard that all the capillaries burst and clogged it up. But he can smell that. It smells like a smoking rose, a match after it extinguishes. He loves that smell, even though he can't smell it.

But he imagines he can smell it. He imagines he's okay. He imagines that Mycroft cares. He imagines his father is alive, and if he isn't, then he imagines that he'll go to the funeral, because he loved his dad, in his imagination. He imagines that his nose isn't the color of these fucking walls - royal purple and peach-ish green. He has a very good imagination, and he imagines that maybe this relationship is something that he can fix. If he had a screwdriver, and a hammer, and some nails, if this relationship were a toy - if it were a wind up doll, he'd glue the spring up so well that when it snapped back, it would play better than before. He imagines he isn't alive, and that he's a part of the blanket, a part of the room, a part of John. He imagines that he is codependent and symbiotic, that if the roof of the flat disappeared, and it snowed atop his body, that when he sat up, John would sit up too. There would be nothing where they lay, and they would breathe in the sounds of snow and the taste of cold, cold oxygen before it dispersed into the atmosphere. They would inhale as the other exhaled, and as they existed they would be one and the same. He imagines that he and John are together. He imagines that he doesn't hurt. He never hurts. He's Sherlock Holmes, and he imagines that pain is just a stranger to him. They are barely acquainted.

He imagines too much, and does too little. That is his fatal flaw.

That, friends, is Sherlock Holmes's hamartia.

A/N: AUAGAHAYAGAG ausufghas. ;-;

They might break up omg I'm sorry it's just how the plot turned out

Please forgive me

I hope this was acceptable

And sending you a lil christmas cheer with all my updates :) I've been trying harder to write

dearwatson has no mirth and is not cowriting with me at the moment

HOPEFULLY

BY MY FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY

WE WILL HAVE FINISHED KLEPTO AND WILL HAVE STARTED COLORBLIND

go check the prologue out; it's up; I'm pumped

I love you all so much? Like wow? This past year has been amazing and more than I ever imagined? So thank you so much. I never knew i could make an impact on people

I'm crying from sentimentality

I cry a lot lately

Oh god byE