A/N: Mucho trigger warning for suicidal thoughts and sadness everywhere sorry bout dat

Sherlock

He didn't ride the bus anymore. Instead, he woke up, every morning, at five, and walked to school. Like it was part of his religion.

Siger and he had moved house, as Violet wasn't alive to pay the bills anymore. He still received mail from their post office, though. It piled up, quickly. Sherlock put the unopened packages under his bed.

Some days, he would sit in the Audi and let whatever was left of John wash over him. He'd breathe in the scent until he ran out of air. Until he ran out of heroin.

Because that was all that remained. His mum left. His dad left. His brother left; John left. The narcotics never would. The pain wouldn't either, and Sherlock finally mastered, in those moments locked in the Audi, the art of feeling nothing.

That first night, the dark felt like dragging smoke, an impenetrable haze of dulled emotions and shock. John wasn't around anymore. Sherlock would never see him again. Not in this lifetime. The night had sounded like he was listening underwater, crickets being swallowed by the sea. Sherlock dreamed of the time that John kissed him behind his grandparents' van and he had felt special, for once. Beautiful.

Now everyone was gone. Sherlock's heart was broken and he didn't want to cut John with the shards by picking up the phone, speaking to him with his lips: pointed, like daggers. His arms: dotted, a Georges Seurat on the crook of his elbow, a twisted illustration.

It was for the better. The best thing about them; they could just... stop. No one would be the worse for it.

John

John didn't ride the bus anymore. Rory bought him a Nissan, and he drove in it constantly, because it didn't remind him of Sherlock. He didn't even want to go to school. His dad made him, even though it was fucking May 29th and the only good coming of that was nothing.

Rory went up to Baskerville, to grab anything Pickard hadn't destroyed. John had pleaded with him to come - pleaded, because Sherlock had answered none of his calls - but he had said that if Pickard saw him, he would have been dangerous, and Rory wanted nothing more than to keep John safe.

He came back three days later, sporting broken pastels and a ripped up drawing that faintly resembled a woman with warm brown eyes and alabastrine skin.

John already had a boombox. New clothes, and boots that didn't smell like him. And a new bookcase. And CDs, CDs, CDs. He could have recorded a thousand songs on those. Sometimes, he made mixed tapes. Sometimes, John played the one last song Sherlock recorded over so many times that he got tired of it.

One day, one frustrating day, he broke the last CD in half.

Sherlock

And it wasn't like there was anything else to do but fantasize. He had no friends. Moriarty still was a dick. Sally still hated him. Tuesday, there was a pep rally and someone threw a water balloon at the side of his head. He couldn't hear out of that ear for days.

He began to inventory all the possible ways he could top off - there were knives and pills and gallows made of his mother's belts. All Sherlock needed to do was to kick the chair out from under him. He could jump off a bridge, or, maybe, look straight down the barrel of a gun. If he detached himself from the thought, it almost started becoming a game. ("What is suicide?" Sherlock would say, the theme to Jeopardy clanging out of the speakers.)

Everyone died. Sherlock had nothing to live for. There was nothing anymore. Nothing except prescription pills and a syringe and a heart beat that didn't want to beat.

He'd decided, while driving John to Cornwall. He'd decided that if they weren't forever, they were just going to stop. They weren't going to drift, or fade, or break up... they were going to just stop, and that was okay.

Sherlock was okay with that.

John

It'd been only a week since Sherlock. He had no idea what had happened. He'd sent a voicemail every day, and Sherlock's phone was almost always on, so John had to assume that it was, indeed, Sherlock. He'd written his number into his heart like a tattoo - it wasn't as if he was mixing it up.

The first thing John did was write Sherlock a postcard anyway. And he knew without a doubt Sherlock's post office box, so Sherlock must have been getting something...

John was sitting on the bed, and he took out his phone to scroll through the pictures he took that one night in the car. None of the pictures looked enough like him anymore. They didn't look as adult. The pictures didn't match his real face.

His new step-mom gave him a pair of pajamas, "If they don't fit, just give them back, it's no trouble." (She smiled a lot. It was weird. John liked it.) He still wore Sherlock's T-shirt constantly, despite Amy's charitable advances. Because it still smelled like him. Like mint, like his house, like them.

He missed Sherlock. Oh God, he did.

Sherlock

Sherlock never listened anymore. He liked to pretend he wasn't alive, sometimes; he lost consciousness just enough to forget that John existed. He'd pretend that the voicemails weren't real. He'd pretend he wasn't real, and then he'd slide his hand into the mattress and shoot up again, until his eyes were glazed over and his vision was tilting like he was looking at the world through a funhouse mirror.

The colors that spun in his hazed vision were so beautiful if he wasn't directly looking at them, thus, he never looked directly at anything. He was a spectator watching his own life play out from a third person's point of view and transform into something entirely different. He didn't care if John would hate it. He didn't care if John was even real, because as far as he was concerned, only the high was real. Soon, if he wished hard enough, maybe that would all disappear, too.

Being Sherlock Holmes, to say the least, was tiresome.

When he finally got sick of himself, when he finally got tired of his bedroom, he walked past John's old house, taking a detour onto the property.

There were still broken beer bottles on the lawn and cigarettes put out into the soil. Sometimes Pickard's truck was there. Sometimes, it wasn't. Sometimes an old gray cat would come out of the house and rub against Sherlock's leg.

When Sherlock finally got sick of everything, when he knew the only color in his life was fading, when Sherlock knew that the only way to escape life was through death, he looked at his calendar and set a date like a casual reminder. Mondays were too presumptuous, Saturdays too casual, Wednesdays too self-centered and Sundays too blasphemous, so Sherlock circled Tuesday in a red Expo marker.

John

John's CDs went untouched. He didn't know what to put on them. His life had no music anymore, and the only thing John really had going for him was his ex, Mary, who he'd started calling again. Maybe she was just a substitute for something.

Sherlock wasn't answering his calls. That was all John knew. Was he dead? Did he kill himself? Because that's what he wanted to do, right? Was John calling a number that wasn't even being paid for?

Why couldn't he just answer? It wasn't too late. He could've wrapped John around his fingers in simply an instant if he just answered one call. One call.

"Jesus, Sherlock," John whispered, staring at the picture that didn't look like him anymore. "You fucking dick."

That night, John decided that if he could only have a bit of Sherlock, and the rest would be dangled by a thread in front of him, he didn't want Sherlock at all.

He took the CDs. And the pastels, and gel, and Violet's goddamned portrait and he made a fucking bonfire and he burned it all.

He burned it all.

"One more miracle, Sherlock," John cried, dropping to his knees and counting the seconds. "One call. Don't. Be. Dead."

Sherlock

Sometimes, Sherlock would practice dialing John's number in. He'd press random keys and let the heroin subside for only minutes, letting himself listening to the broken, distorted dial tone. It reminded him that it might not be too late.

Sometimes, he would pretend he was singing Hey Jude into John's ear. Sometimes he got so emotional, listening to that fucking phone, that he gave the syringe as much as he could possibly take. Just at the tips of overdose. Just enough to almost kill him.

He sometimes wished his mum was alive, so she could make him soup. Only sometimes. Just enough to imagine her eyes, like liquid chocolate.

And sometimes he wished he wasn't a druggie, a freak. Sometimes he wished that John was holding his hand. Sometimes he wished that John had gone to his mum's funeral.

It was a closed casket. Her body was lowered into the ground and he'd heard a girl cry out in anguish and he was right there, looking down at her coffin, and he had no idea what to do because his mummy was disappearing into the earth and he felt like a child again, so he reached for her, reached. He felt lost. He had wanted her there; he had wanted to whimper into her chest as she fell down, down, down.

Sherlock hadn't cried; he'd been too high to cry.

After, Steve had given him some pot to "calm down." He'd sunk into the couch, laughing, laughing. "Hey, Jude!" He spat it with malice. "Take a sad song. Make me better!" And he had laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and had wanted to swallow the burning joint; had wanted to shove it down his throat and have it cauterize all of his bleeding insides. No one would remember to let him into their hearts.

Smoke a blunt. Numb the pain. Load a syringe. Shoot. Up. Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, now look what you've done. You broke yourself. The heroin will help, if you let it, just let go, Sherlock, love. Let go.

Sherlock snorted coke up like air. He took meth, smoked crack, popped pills... he didn't eat anymore; preserving that hunger inside of him until it broke through his stomach and made him spin with malnutrition-induced vertigo. He saw his dad when he was pleading for deliverance. He did not remember John's last kiss when he woke up in the middle of the night, screaming. He remembered thick hands, cold sweat, scalding soup. He remembered dots and blobs of pain, radiating, stinging. Anthills in his skin. He remembered the gun in his dad's bureau.

In the end, Sherlock ended up scratching Tuesday and instead marking Monday, which just happened to be in exactly one week.

John

Sometimes John would contemplate deleting Sherlock's phone number, and attempting to destroy any ties he had to him. They weren't really ties, even. More like threads, trying to hang onto the semblance of his face, pale blue and gentle. He still left voicemails every day, in his desperation. Not because he believed Sherlock was alive, but because he didn't care if Sherlock was dead.

He wondered if Sherlock was even getting the calls anymore. If he ever loved him. If he ever wanted to be with him. If he already was finished. Maybe John leaving was his last straw.

John breathed heavily and called again.

Monday

"Hey, Sherlock. We, uh, we went out on a class trip, yesterday. Ginny is causing trouble, as usual. She always ends up touching the things that our teacher insists not to be touched, and I would tell you this really funny story about her but seeing as you're preoccupied I'll keep the message short. I hope you're doing well. Um... yeah. I love you. See you soon."

Tuesday

"Hey, Sherlock. Our teacher is making us do an 'end of the year project.' She says that's an actual thing, and that if you don't do it correctly she's taking off fifteen points. She is an annoying, little... God. She made a horrible math pun in class the other day. It's a wonder I'm even alive after listening to that. Wanna know what she said? She said, 'In math, pi takes the cake.' I nearly hired a hitman right then and there. Anyway. Miss you. Love you, still. See you soon."

Wednesday

"Hey, Sherlock... I don't know what to say anymore, and I'm sorry about that. I love you. See you soon."

Thursday

"Hey, Sherlock. I found this website dedicated to just making customized pens. It's actually quite fascinating - Mum got a discount on a really amazing looking teal pen she designed, and they asked her if she wanted to sell the idea to the company. You'd probably call her an idiot, but she said no. Something along the lines of, 'I made this pen. Why do they think they can steal it away from me?' Even though they didn't steal it. I made one myself. It looks okay. Anyway. See you soon, Sherlock. Love you, always. I'm probably really gay for saying that, aren't I? Okay. See ya."

Friday

"I finished the project. It looks terrible. Literally. I don't know anyone who can fuck up like I can. At least I can still make percentages. I hate trig. I hate trig. So much. Wish you could help me. Okay. Love you, see you soon."

Saturday

"Hiya, Shrrrlock... I swear to God that right now, I am so shitfaced. Piss drunk. I think Mary might've given me a fucking roofie!

"Right, Mary? ...Mary, you are the stupidest person ever. Yeah, Mary. Yeah. You think I'm stupid? You're stupid, you little - stop being such a flirt. And don't ask me why I call him every day. You wouldn't understand - no, Mary. Stop, seriously, what are you doing, no, don't say he's over me, he isn't. Or else the... the phone... yeah.

"You think you like me? How? Because I'm taken. I think. Sherlock... No. Mary, get off of me. Jesus, Mary, you are too drunk to be doing this... Mary... God, Mary... Oh my God, nngph. Oh, you're so good at this, oh my God, Mary. Mary. Mary, Jesus. Jesus. M-Mary. Mary. God, Mary-"

Sunday

"I've got the worst hangover ever, Sherlock. I don't even remember what I did last night. Fill me in, if you can. But then, you can't. Because you ignore all my fucking calls. Whoop de doo...

"You know, I'm getting really bloody tired of calling. I think you might want to know that I enlisted today. They said that I wouldn't be able to be a doctor, because I haven't even gone to college, so I settled for a soldier. Can't pay for med school! Can't do anything.

"But you wouldn't care, would you? You would never care! Never call! I asked you one thing. One call. That's all I want, Sherlock. All I want is nothing more than that. Can you do that for me? Or are you too fucking caught up with yourself? Stop being a selfish bastard and answer my damn calls.

"Answer them, Sherlock.

"Uh. See you soon. Love you."

Monday

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. I'm so sorry. Bye."

And John could've sworn he heard the phone pick up.

Sherlock

Sometimes, when Sherlock was feeling really sick of himself, he answered John's calls.

His head had almost convinced him that his heart didn't work anymore. He'd almost made himself believe that John was a figment of his deprived imagination. A hallucination based on an uncanny thirst for fatherly love.

John sounded disbelieving when he said Sherlock's name.

Sherlock sounded like a blind man who could have sworn he saw the sun.

"Hey, John..."