Chapter Text
Gunshots, gunshots everywhere. Soldiers running, screaming, returning fire. Dust, and sand and screams everywhere. He can hear his name shouted “Watson!! Watson!!” the fire continues, the fire isn’t ceasing. He can hear his name again “Watson!”
John Watson jumps in his bed, panting, sweating, his eyes are wide open. It takes him a few moments to realize he is not in the battlefield anymore. It was just a dream, just another nightmare, yet his body is still in panic and it’s hard for him to stop the panting. The dark bedsit, his dark bedsit, is spinning around him as he pants.
John tries to relax himself, he really does. He drops his body back to the matters as he pants.
It was just a nightmare, just a bad dream, breath Watson, in and out, in and out, deep breaths Watson, just breath…
But he can’t stop his whimpers as panic washes over him, he can’t bring himself to relax fully.
Just a few more breaths, Watson, just breath…
John can’t sleep again, even after he’s finally relaxed. He turns up his bedside lamp and sits on his small bed, his hands folded in his lap, staring.
This is everything that’s left from me. This void is my life nowadays.
He barely has anything, any property. He barely feels the need to own any property nowadays. John barely lives, he’s breathing his life away on earth.
He can’t stop these thoughts, not in this time of the night as he’s sitting on his bed, wide awake in his small bedsit, all the curtains closed as he avoids the world, sometimes he wishes it could work and the world was this small bedsit. It could make all of this so much easier…
His life turned around in the last few months and he can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop his self-hate and self-disgust - I am useless, I can’t help others anymore… I can barely walk by myself.
In these times of the night, it’s hard to find propose for his life, as the world is so quiet.
But today is not the day, not still, pass this night as well Watson, be brave…
John sits on his small bed and holds his thoughts to himself. He takes a deep breath.
Just pass the night, Watson.
It’s better in the morning, not really, but at least the thoughts are a little bit quieter. John is limping in his small bedsit from his kitchen to his desk, with a glass of tea and a single green apple as his usual breakfast nowadays. He doesn’t eat much any longer, he doesn’t feel the need to. He sits down and take out his laptop from the desktop’s drawer, barely noticing his gun, the gun which became a daily interest of his. Something he makes sure to keep in a hand reach, just in case today is the day. He opens his laptop and stares at the screen – ‘The personal blog of Dr. John H, Watson’ is written in front of his face, and yet again John can’t bring himself to write down anything. Another dead void and nothingness.
John only leaves his bedsit nowadays for two things – In search of some food, just to pass another day, or to meet his therapist, Ella. John can’t find any joy in either activity, but he can’t avoid each of them, so he keeps indulging. Well… indulging to some extent…
“How’s you blog going?” Ella asks. John hates the sessions with her, it makes him feel even more broken, so out of place…
“Oh, fine. Good. Very good” John answers, stoic. He tries to look indifferent, even flush a smile, but his good leg is moving in nerves and his hand is twitching. He hates being there, he hates talking about his feelings.
“You haven’t written a word, have you?” she tells, knowingly, as she’s writing down in her notepad.
Annoyance, that all John can feel in this moment. Annoyance and resentment.
“You just wrote ‘still has trust issues’” he says pointedly, as his left hand is twitching. He tries to smile politely, and fails miserable. Damn it all. Damn her.
“And you just read my writing upside down. See what I mean?” she answers him sincerely
Touché.
“John, you are a solider. It’s going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life – writing a blog about everything that happens to you, will honestly help you. Trust me.” John has heard this sentence before, it’s not the first time Ella tells him he needs to express his feelings, to give his life on earth nowadays some purpose.
But she doesn’t understand, she would never understand. I am broken and lost and a stupid blog would not turn my life upside-down. She won’t understand, they never understand this void…
John is looking at her bleakly - “Nothing happens to me”