Suicide doesn't kill just one person {A Johnlock fanfic}

Chapter 7

(A/N tbh i'm considering abandoning this (im sure you can tell) because i have no interest in sherlock anymore. i might try to wrap it up but not this chapter, we'll see i guess)

The date had ended well, he had walked Mary home and given her a kiss on the door but had refused a coffee, too tired for any of that tonight. Though walking back to the flat was longer, it gave him more time before he had to face the realities of being alone again, and even though his leg gave him grief for it, he didn't care all that much. It was better to be there less even if he did rarely leave. 

It was a fairly cold night, the ground still wet from the rain earlier that day, a cold wind rustling through his hair, reminding him of the breath that had once gone there on one bad night where he'd had a particularly bad nightmare and Sherlock had amended his "rare touch" rule. That was both his favorite and least favorite memory, the softness of Sherlock's voice and his sleep mussed hair was too much of a reminder of what he had wanted, what he'd always wanted, and what he'd never get the chance to have, but it was the softest he'd ever seen the man, almost the most vulnerable, though that award would likely go to the rooftop phone call, another memory he hated. 

He shook his head at the thoughts circling, trying to keep himself calm and keep his cane from slipping on the wet pavement, he'd need a better one soon. He soon got to their-his door and fumbled for his keys, cursing softly when he dropped them before whipping his head up at the thump from inside. Ms. Hudson would be asleep by now, and other than a few fly by ideas of what could have possibly fallen, John was at a loss for what would make a thump like that. He stood slowly and unlocked the door, stepping in quietly and freezing at the sight of a figure he knew to well. 

He didn't want to believe it, couldn't believe it, because as much as Sherlock was capable of, he couldn't cheat death, and even if somehow, someway, he could, he wouldn't have stayed away for so long. "Great," he mumbled to himself, taking off his coat and tossing his keys down, "I've progressed onto full on hallucinations." 

The figure turned around at his mumbling, the same silver eyes and curls he knew too well, if not a little longer than he remembered, but hair length was an easy thing to confuse between memories, so John didn't dwell on that. Instead he just ignored it and went to make himself a cup of tea, hoping it would at least help him sleep when he got to bed. But that seemed unlikely, as the voice rang out through the little apartment, "John."

It was one word, one little word that he heard a million times a day, but it was the voice that said it. He knew Sherlock's voice by heart, hung onto what he had of it, though memory twisted it a bit, made it a bit higher, imagined it a bit softer a few times, but he knew that voice by heart, and that was never a tone he'd heard before. It was softer, tighter, like he was speaking around a lump in his throat, more emotional that John had ever heard, than many believed Sherlock could have the capacity to be. But he knew that voice.