When Luck Runs Out

Not So Effective Group Therapy

"Come one Sherlock, we'll be late." Molly insisted.
"Late for what?" I snapped.
"For our train back to Twelve." Mrs. Hudson pointed out, and for the first time I saw hope. We were leaving this trash dump we called the Capital and we were going home. When we got back to the penthouse, it was time to say goodbye. Mrs. Hudson and Molly had already packed up their things, and the stylists were all in tears, exclaiming how they'd miss us so much, even though they'd no doubt see us in like, six months for the god awful victory tour. But there was no victory to be celebrated, not anymore. As I stuffed my things into my bag I noticed a couple of things that were missing, like my knife, my morphine, and my cigarettes. Oh I was going to kill them, confiscating my drugs and weapons at my lowest point. I was sure I could get Molly to crack though, just play up the whole sob story and she'd buy me packs and packs of morphine.
"Sherlock, five minutes!" Mrs. Hudson called from the living room. I crammed the last of my shirts into the bag and zipped it, leaving it on the bed and walking out to John's room. The door was closed, undisturbed since we had left, and I asked myself if I really wanted to go in there. There would be more than memories; there would be the pain of remembering what I had lost. But all of John's things were there, his clothes, his bag, his books, I had to go in there and get them. It felt like I was opening the door to a crypt or something, because as soon as I opened the door a layer of dust that had been collection on the door frame sprinkled into my eyes. The lights from outside shone through the darkness, illuminating the room dully, enough for me to see but not bright enough to make it look a little bit cheerful. John's outfit, the one he had worn to the arena, was laid out on the bed, his red zippered hoodie, the one that his trembling hands couldn't zip... It had to be the dust in my eyes that made my eyes start to water. I picked up his brown bag and carefully put all of his folded clothes inside it, his unwrinkled jeans, his tee shirts, his sweatshirts. All of them faintly smelled like him, the smell that none can describe, the smell that just made my heart swell with love. But I knew that soon that very smell would wear off, and it would never be smelled again. Everything of John would be gone, his beautiful hair, his voice, his heartwarming laugh, that gleam in his eyes when he was up to no good, never again. I sat down on the bed, smoothing out the wrinkles I had created in the bed spread with my hand, and felt a couple of tears fall down my face. I didn't know where he was now; all I knew was that he wasn't here. I was hopelessly alone, sitting with all of John's memories and no John. It was enough to make me wish I had indeed jumped.
"Sherlock are you ready?" Mrs. Hudson asked, poking her head in quietly as if scared to disturb me. Obviously though, she didn't care too much, because she was interrupting me all the same.
"I suppose so. I just packed up all of John's stuff, because, you know, I didn't want it left behind." I muttered, keeping my head down because I didn't want her to know I had been crying. But when I got up Mrs. Hudson gave me a grave look, and I realized that my makeup told my story.
"Sherlock, it's not your fault." She assured, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
"I never said it was." I insisted.
"I know you too well to know you're thinking it." Mrs. Hudson insisted. I dropped my head again and shouldered John's bag, taking one last mournful look into the room once occupied by John, and then Mrs. Hudson closed the door, sniffling a little bit as if she were just as upset about this as I was.
"Ready?" Molly asked. She was rolling her little polka dot suitcase behind her, looking happier than I've seen her since I've gotten back. But then again, that was only a day and a half, and she had a bit of a breakdown in that range of time.
"As I'll ever be." I muttered, going to my room and getting my bag.
"We'll see you soon Sherlock." Sara insisted, trapping me in a big hug.
"And on TV of course, the interview broke the most viewed record for Caesar's show, and the whole balcony thing is trending like wildfire." Anthea insisted.
"Oh yes, thanks for reminding me." I sighed, but let her give me a farewell hug anyway.
"Alright then, say goodbye." Molly sighed, taking a sweep around the room as if taking it all in.
"We'll be back next year." I pointed out.
"Yes, but still, it's hard leaving." Molly sighed.
"No it's not. It's terrible here." I insisted, leading the way to the elevator and granting myself the honor of pushing the ground floor button, watching the elevator doors close as we descended to the lobby. When the doors opened once more we saw all of these mentors and escorts mingling around, but I was the only tribute here. For a moment I caught myself scanning the floor for Greg, as I had done every day since I met him, in an effort to avoid him at all costs. But now it broke my heart knowing that I would never see his smirk from across the room, hear his overenthusiastic laugh as he told some corny joke, never hear his loud voice from a mile away. Now I would do anything just to listen to him ramble on about the stupidest things, maybe even make one of his trademark gay jokes while he's at it. I just hoped he was watching after John up in Heaven. Molly and Mrs. Hudson were saying goodbye to their mentor and escort friends, all who looked very somber and were congratulating me through their teeth. It was obvious now that I wasn't the most popular Victor among this lot, especially since their close friends and fellow mentors had died in the games I had survived. I probably even killed some of them. But I just nodded and forced a smile, something I was starting to get very used to now, trying to avoid shoving the crown that sat on top of my head in their faces.
"Alright then, let's go." Mrs. Hudson decided, leading the way to the train station. I had to admit, I could see what Molly meant about not wanting to leave, especially as I saw the doors close and felt the train start moving. Of course if I never saw that place again I would be happy, but it wasn't just home to horrible memories, nightmares, loss, it was also where I had shared some of the happiest moments of my life. John and I had formed the foundation on which our love was built here; I had admitted my love to him for the first time, even if he hadn't heard it. In those walls I had realized that my heart wasn't stone, but just dormant until I had found the man to bring me to life. And now I was dying, my heart was slowly forming it's walls once again, with brick and mortar, building up my walls so that no one could penetrate them again. When we all had dumped our things into our designated rooms we met on the couches outside in the living area. Mrs. Hudson had made hot chocolate, the first proper batch of the drink I'll have since I got back. This was, of course, not including the lumpy powder water I tried to make at one o'clock in the morning. I sat on the couch alone, while Molly and Mrs. Hudson shared the one opposite, sipping our hot chocolate in desolate silence.
"So, is it alright to ask what exactly happened tonight?" Mrs. Hudson asked timidly, like I was going to snarl and bite her head off for asking an innocent question.
"I got low. I decided that maybe there are simpler ways to live, or not to live. It only took one step and I would be with John again. I was thinking that maybe that one step should be taken then." I admitted.
"Sherlock you can't die, we just got you back!" Molly insisted.
"I know, I know. I know that you hate the idea of me dying, killing myself for that matter, and I know that you think district twelve should get it's Victor." I sighed.
"You don't sound convinced." Mrs. Hudson decided.
"I'm nothing without him. The person I had become since he was reaped, that Sherlock is fading, dissolving as the idea of John not being here settles in. I'll build my walls back up, stop eating, sleeping, stop talking. But this time it'll be twice as worse because I know what not being miserable felt like." I insisted.
"You don't have to be miserable. You can take this as another chance, a change to change who you are, find out that there are other things in life that can make you happy." Mrs. Hudson insisted.
"Morphine." I shrugged. "Which I noticed was missing once more."
"We think it's time once more to ween you off of it." Molly shrugged.
"I think I'm pretty fine now, but thanks." I snapped. "There are no other things, no other people in this world that make me happy. There were three, now there's two, and the point of the triangle has broken."
"You're so poetic when you're sad." Molly sighed, sipping her hot chocolate innocently. Mrs. Hudson smiled in agreement, as I just glowered, popping some mini marshmallows in my mouth as a substitute for the drug.
"I always expect to look up and see him again, as if this were a simple game of hide and seek." I sighed.
"Sherlock you need to accept the truth." Mrs. Hudson insisted. "John's gone, and he's not coming back." That seemed to push me off the edge, the metaphorical one of course, since no one seemed to want me pushed off the real one. I slammed my mug on the coffee table and stood up angrily, dramatic energy just flowing off of me.
"You think I don't know John is gone?" I growled. Mrs. Hudson and Molly looked a bit dumbstruck, but of course they knew this was coming. "You don't think I don't know that I LET HIM DIE!?!" I screamed, feeling an overwhelming need to punch something, or someone. "I HAD TO WATCH HIM CHOKE ON HIS OWN BLOOD, I HAD TO FEEL HIS LIMP FINGERS SLIDE FROM MY OWN, I HAD TO LISTEN TO THE KNIFE SINK INTO HIS CHEST. DO YOU NOT THINK I KNOW THAT HE'S DEAD!?" I screamed, and with that I stormed out of the room, fuming, to my bedroom. I slammed the door so hard that the hinges gave a threatening crack, but I didn't care. They think I don't know, they think that I'm living in a cloud right now, waiting for John to join me. Well, guess what, "I KNOW WHAT'S REAL!" I screamed loudly, knocking the lamp off of the end table with a violent smack of my hand, the bulb shattering and the cord yanking out of the wall with a shower of sparks. They thought it was a joke, a joke that John was gone, and they thought I was just sitting with my hands covering my eyes, refusing to believe he had died. I crushed the end table with a powerful kick, closing my eyes as splinters rained upon me. John was dead. JOHN WAS DEAD! I tried to punch a hole in the wall before realizing with a flare of pain that it wasn't the cheap plaster that they use in buildings, we were on a train, and the walls were metal. Too late though, I was sure I had some sort of fracture, but that wasn't going to stop me. I took up a leg of the end table, my rage flooding through, rage for the capital, rage on Snow, on Jim Moriarty who I should've let die slower, and impaled a large painting of some stupid sunset. The leg of the table stuck right out of the watery orange sun, shimmering above the ocean in what I was sure was meant to be a beautiful portrait. But it wasn't, nothing was beautiful anymore. The most beautiful thing in the world had perished. And the worst thing about it was that there was no one to punish. He had died at his own hand, Jim and Moran were dead, so there was no making them suffer. The only hope I had was to get to Snow, making him pay for the horrors he had inflicted upon me, and make him suffer the way I had, the way he deserved to suffer.

    Maybe since I had taken all of my anger out on the room around me I didn't have dreams, or maybe it was purely since I hadn't even notice I fell asleep. Either way, the nightmares that should've plagued me weren't present, even though the first night of sleep I'd had since the games. I had fallen asleep on top of my blankets, the room in pure shambles around me, and when I woke, I woke to the most annoying, most horrible thing in the world. Sunlight. The reminder that the rest of the world was happy, the rest of the world was waking up to their normal jobs, feed their families, their loved ones that were still alive, kiss their spouse goodbye as one of them made their way to some boring, generic office job. And I was here, with no job and too much money, no family to take care of, no life to wake up to, no beautiful man to kiss goodbye. Because I already had kissed him goodbye, I had said goodbye for good, expecting the pain to end with one simple stroke to my heart. But instead the pain flared when that blade pierced his instead. I crawled to my feet, not bothering to get dressed since I was still in my clothes from last night. But then again, this was the fancy color changing suit the stylists had created for me, and my makeup was smeared so bad that I was sure I looked like some crazy emo band. So I picked out another outfit and dumped the suit on the ground, stepping into the shower and turning it boiling hot, wallowing in my sorrows under the steaming water and trying to scrub the makeup off. I don't know what exactly I was trying to do with this heat, trying to remind myself that I was still alive or trying to punish myself in the most socially acceptable way for letting John die when I could've easily fallen. Maybe a little bit of both, but I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Probably a little bit of both though. When I got out I changed into my normal clothes, except my purple shirt was being washed so I had to wear a white one, which looked very odd against my chalky pale skin. I pulled my jacket overtop and dried my hair the best I could, walking out to find Molly and Mrs. Hudson already up. The news was on, and I saw a crudely taken video, obviously on some sort of smart phone, of my on the balcony. The Victor boy was yelling at me, and I looked a mixture of angry and annoyed as I stepped off.
"There you see it, two time Victor Sherlock Holmes prepared to end it all last night after his ground breaking interview, almost stepping off of the balcony at the victor's gala. Questions are still circulating, like what the waiter said to him, and what would drive Mr. Holmes to such suicidal actions?" the news anchor asked.
"I think that's fairly obvious." I sighed, stretching out my still aching hand as I went to sit down in an empty armchair. Mrs. Hudson turned off the TV in an instant, looking guilty as she looked from Molly to me.
"I wasn't actually watching that, just channel surfing." She insisted.
"Oh, of course." I agreed with a sarcastic eye roll.
"I still think this is all absurd, it's not like you're a ball of sunshine, you just lost your boyfriend. I saw one tweet claiming that you had wanted to jump because you were having an affair with Greg and we found out." Molly groaned, rolling her eyes. I sighed, wanting to brutally murder the people of society right now.
"That's...that's not true right?" Molly clarified.
"No it's not true!" I assured, giving her the most peculiar look of stupidity.
"I thought not." She agreed, but obviously her reaction to my silence said that she slightly doubted me.