Sherlock x Reader

And all that's left is an empty shell.

For a short while, there was peace. Quiet. You didn't realise how much you'd longed for it until you had it. The blackness didn't suffocate you, it cradled you, swathing you gently in its soft folds. It was the most restful, most peaceful, you felt since that happened. Since you came to Baker Street, actually.

So, of course, it couldn't last.

You don't know why Mrs Hudson decided to visit you. She hadn't seen you properly since that happened and when she did catch a glimpse of you, it was when you were walking back to your flat after finding your way home from a stranger's own home. But she decided to pay you a visit anyway. Maybe she felt it was time for you both to come to terms with what happened.

She knocked on your door. Then she knocked again. And again. Each time with more urgency.

"______, please open up. I know we've had a tough, more than tough, time of it, but I thought we should talk." More frantic knocking. "______?"

You heard nothing. You were still enveloped in this death-like sleep, blissfully unaware that worse was still to come.

Eventually the knocking started to come through to you, though Mrs Hudson was now banging at the door, desperate for the comfort and consolation of a friend.

You'd forgotten that she was in pain as well.

When the sound interrupted the tranquil nothingness in your head, annoyance was the first emotion you felt. You didn't want to be hearing anything, feeling anything. You wanted the calm you'd just been taken from. You tried to get off the bed, but your limbs were numb, your brain still fogged over. You fell off. You didn't even feel anything then. If only your mind was as dead as your body. Still wanting to get rid of whoever was at the door, you attempted to shout at them to go away, but only a groan left your mouth. Something didn't feel right. There was something making your body feel. With another groan you realised it was your stomach, violently upset for some reason. Maybe the pills were too much. Again, you attempted to move and finally succeeded in moving your arm, willing it to move in the direction of place you'd last seen your phone; somewhere on the ground. But the movement was too much. Your stomach gave a lurch, and vomit forced its way up to your mouth. And you were on your back. Stupidly, you'd used the momentum from your fall to roll onto your back, thinking it would be more comfy. But the truth was sinking in, or rather, coming up. There was no energy left in you. You started to choke on the vile, rancid, sick. And it still got worse. You didn't simply have no energy, you were falling asleep again, if you could call that blurry state of mind being awake. Desperately trying to keep your eyes open, you tried to swallow the vomit, only to make it go up again. The shouts for help you tried to form with your mouth came out as weak groans. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't breathe, oh god, you couldn't breathe. You were dying and the person at the door had seemed to have gone away. You couldn't die like this, you deserved a-. A what? A proper death, a dignified death? No, this is exactly what you deserved, for what you did. This is, exactly, what you deserve you despicable, disgusting, traitorous, vile-
You lost consciousness again. You wanted it to be for the last time.

~

Mrs Hudson walked in to find you on the floor, vomit at your mouth, hand centimetres away from your phone. After frantically banging at the door, she realised that she'd have a spare key to your flat. She was going to talk to you, no matter how you felt about it. But she could only gasp, and collapse to her knees. Screams were threatening to escape her but she stopped herself before they got out. She had to help. She had to do something, she couldn't just leave you. She had no way to help him but she could still save you. She couldn't deal with another death, another young death. Another suicide. Somehow, Mrs Hudson managed to run back to her flat and find her phone to call 999. She couldn't get the image of your weak and pathetic body out of her mind, or take the faint, rasping, gargling sound of your breath away from her ears.

"... A young woman, I don't know what happened... Vomit around her face... She can't breathe, please, you have to come as quickly as possible!"

The woman at the other end knows the drill. She has been subjected to many of these calls, these young attempted suicides, and knows how to deal with the panic of the person trying to do anything to save their life.

An ambulance dispatched.

Mrs Hudson crying silently with relief at he news that you are still alive, though barely, sitting with your unconscious form in the ambulance, saying meaningless phrases that you can't hear.

The blackness came back. The soothing, welcoming, soft folds of black. But it isn't as soothing. For some reason, you are fighting against the black, frantically tearing the gentle waves apart, gasping for a breath of pure white.
And it comes.

But the white isn't as soothing as the black. The white is painful, the white burns your eyes so that you can only stumble blindly through it, searching for something you don't remember. With every step you take, you feel needles stab through your skin and with every breath, fire burning through your lungs. Then the shadows appear, surrounding you, menacing even though they have no face to terrify you with. But you can feel the shadows attacking you, squeezing you by your stomach though their hands remain by their sides. You are trapped in this white hell, this painful, burning, hell where no friend appears to comfort you. Not like you deserve a friend, you worthless piece of shi-

~

"______? What do you remember?"

There's a voice. You keep staring at the wall, trying to figure out how the voice could be coming from it.

"You can't keep pretending that you don't hear me," the voice chided. "We know you can respond to us. Just try to look at me, ______, can you manage that?"

Look at them? How were you meant to look at them if you couldn't see them? But wait... The voice wasn't coming from this wall. You could hear it at your right ear. Maybe if you looked, this would be the wall with the face.

You turned your head, oh so slowly. There wasn't any pain. There was just effort. So much effort that you had to put in into forcing yourself to turn your head to face the next wall. But there wasn't just a wall. There was a man. He had glasses. A suit. The hair. Was curled. Brown. Framing a long face. You couldn't breathe. You started to hyperventilate. You tried to get up but another person's hands kept you sitting.

"Sherlock," you managed to choke out. It was Sherlock, it was, it definitely was, it. Wasn't. No one could be Sherlock. Sherlock was dead. He was dead, dead...

"... I killed you. You're dead, you're dead, I killed you, you're dead!-"

"Please, ______, calm down. Who are you talking about? The detective? It was a suicide. It was very unfortunate, but he went on a downhill path. He made some bad decisions-"

"No, shut up, shut up! I killed him, he didn't do anything wrong, it was me, all me, he died because of me! Don't you understand, you have to put me away! You have to... lock me up, kill me for killing him!-"

That someone behind you grabbed your arm as you tried to run up to the man in front of you. Your flailing hand, almost curled into a fist, made contact with their face. As they fell, time seemed to slow, and you saw what they looked like. Brown hair, again. Tight curls packed on top of their head. Her head. Thin lips far below high cheekbones. That woman. Sherlock. You couldn't escape them. They wouldn't leave you alone. You couldn't be here, live in this world like this. No escape. The man had gotten up. Why was he getting up? Why couldn't he kill you, so you wouldn't be such a burden to a world with enough troubles of its own? You weren't going to let him stop you. He tried to grab your arms. Why did everyone want you to stop destroying such a despicable thing as yourself?

A rush of adrenaline. He couldn't keep hold of you. You pushed and he fell to the ground. Now you pushed yourself into the wall. Pushing your head as hard as you could into it. You wanted these thoughts to go away. You didn't want to live with a tainted soul.

More banging. The memories wouldn't go away. Forcing your head harder into the wall.

They didn't go away.

Harder and harder. Until hands finally managed to grab and keep hold of you. Not before one last bang. And the black swallowed you up again.

But the memories didn't go away.