lose yourself under the sun
start a fire in my heart
have you lived in the swamp of despair?
nightmares haunt me, a lost compass

All Sherlock ever was is blue eyes and rapidly moving knowledge, lines and words, trills and unblinking, unsatiable curiosity.

Was.

Now he is a dead corpse ten feet under.

John thinks that it isn't six feet. No, six feet isn't enough, because the chemicals in his brain — his brilliant, brilliant, one-of-a-kind brain — will be released and they'll get into the soil and they'll pollute the place and cause all the plants to wither before growing miraculously again. And then when someone picks an apple from the nearest apple orchard, they'll suddenly become a super-smart, super-indulgent genius that understand everything except emotions. In a non-literal sense, of course.

And John knows that if Sherlock is buried six feet under, then he'll somehow find some way to climb his way back up — through soil-roughened hands and dirtied coats — and bother John once again. And John doesn't want that.

John doesn't want Sherlock to come and then go again. He doesn't want to see his face in the morning and then his gravestone at night. That's asking too much.

Sherlock is white skin and dark hair and high cheekbones, long limbs and no smiles. Sherlock is flicking hands and tapping feet and needles through the veins. Sherlock is a dead corpse ten feet under.

Ten feet under, because any deeper, and John has this fear that he won't be able to climb his way back up.

And that, that — the edge of the building, crumbling marble beneath neatly polished black shoes and a horrified, sickening thump — is what John fears the most.

"But mummy! The green apples are better!"

John's head turns to the little girl beside him, pouting fitfully at her mother's skirts. The woman herself is a dark haired, average looking woman, and she glances and the red and green fruits in her hands. Then she turns to her daughter. "Love, they're all the same." And she drops them in the basket for checkout.

Sherlock hated green apples.

No real reason, really. But John remembers it as the first time he's ever seen a bit of humanity — something other than a cold, empty shell and husks of a grin — and he holds tight to it, tight like the daughter of the woman holds tight to her skirt.

And when they leave, John takes a red apple and a few green apples and buys them.

When he goes home, he throws out the green ones without eating it. The red one is left to rot.

After a day at the psychiatrist's office, John goes home and closes his eyes as he sits on the recliner. His laptop hums, content, on the table next to him. There are papers piled up and bills to pay and compensation gifts in the form of food from Mrs. Hudson, but none of it appeals to him.

He turns on to radio to soothe his nerves, the classical music station.

It's only when the violinist's solo comes on did John remember that he abhorred classical music.

"Waste of my time," says a lax baritone. The owner of this voice is a curly-haired, peculiar looking man — handsome, if one wished to look at him that way, but also apathetic and terribly, terribly cold.

"Then you pick out a case yourself," another says, this time an annoyed one. John isn't amused with his flatmate's flippant answers, despite the number of cases they have. But even he has to admit that some of them are terribly stupid; after all, why would Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, go looking for a child's missing pillow? But never the less, that's what's posted on John's blog, and John tells him as is.

"It would take too much of my time," Sherlock says, almost like he's scoffed and whined in the same voice. "Useless things on my precious, precious time."

John eyes him cautiously. "Have you smoked recently?" It's the only way to explain his behaviour.

"Obviously not," the bored answer shoots back quickly. "I don't smell like an ashtray and I haven't been coughing. There's no yellowing skin on me and I still have yet to retain a groggy vocal chord."

"It was just a question." John rolls his eyes and leans back. "If you're that offended, I'll gladly take — "

"I'm not offended by your brainless remark, John."

John smirks. "You sound like you are."

Those eyes, now scarily familiar, faces him and Sherlock raises a dark brow. Nothing is said between them for a while; they do not need words, and like Sherlock has said before (on many occasions), words a waste of breath and spaces if none is needed in the first place.

Finally, the dark-haired man turns to the window. "Open up that case file again."

On the way to Sherlock's one-year memorial service — despite the whole scandal about him, there were the few people (those who have worked with Sherlock before) that are adamant that such brilliance could not be faked, even with the needed brillaince to pull off such a heist — John takes the Tube and keeps his head low, feeling drowsy.

When the train takes a lurch — those goddammed trains never seemed to sit still — he squishes himself against the door until he can't breathe. And when the train rightens itself again, John is thrown by the momentum and crashes against a man.

He's tall, with a black overcoat and dark hair covered by an even darker cap. He has white skin and blue eyes that John barely gets to see before he puts himself back in the crowd, and John — John is left staring, staring because he's so sure that he's caught a glimpse of high cheekbones and a solidly bridged nose.

But then John blinks, and the stranger vanishes, just like that.

It takes him a moment to remind himself that Sherlock doesn't approve of the underground, why would he be on a train?

(John thinks that maybe he's in denial. Not about Sherlock being dead — because he's not. But about Sherlock coming on the Tube. Why would he do that?)

When John puts down plastic flowers on Sherlock's memorial, there's just the barest whisper behind him; like the sound of a bow over low G on the violin. He thinks it may be his mind whispering to him, because John also knows that he's lost it a long time ago, but that doesn't mean he still can't stop hoping.

"I'm not dead."

(Well duh, everyone knows that, John thinks to himself. But when he turns around, there is no one behind him.)