Time Makes it Harder (JohnLock)

A Shared Reality

(A/N Probably more trigger warnings, but this whole story is filled with triggers and angst, so what's the issue? If you're still reading, kudos and thank you. Love you all)

John lays in the empty bed, that haunting presence of Sherlock still evident after all these months. His scent has slowly faded away and John can no longer be comforted by the smell of Sherlock's hair in his pillow.

Tears slip from his eyes before he can stop them. He's been crying every single night since he left, and it's been months.

"How could you just leave, Sherlock?" John cries to the darkness, holding Sherlock's pillow, trying to find any last scent of him.

Eventually, his tears lull him to sleep, and his dreams are filled with Sherlock.

He imagines Sherlock in the war, guns blazing all around them, bombs going off in every direction. He feels disoriented, scared, and over and over, he sees Sherlock get killed. He tries to wake up, trying to force his eyes open, but he's stuck in the battlefield, replaying Sherlock's possible death over and over.

Waking up in a cold sweat, the sheets beneath him are damp and tears run down the side of his face. His room is dark with night and he can't see a thing. Laying back down, he tries to think of when Sherlock was alive, somehow trying to control his dreams to the good times as he did when he had nightmares as a kid.

Closing his eyes again, he reluctantly drifts away.

His dreams are not in the war setting, but instead his very own kitchen. He sees Sherlock dumping chemicals into beaker singing a happy tune as he goes along, and suddenly he lift the smoking cup to his lips and drinks the whole thing, looking directly at John and smiling a maniacally before falling to the ground. John seems stuck in place until finally, his feet unstick from the floor and rushes to Sherlock, but his face is already blue, his hands stone cold and his blue eyes wide open in death.

Once again John sits up in bed and throws the covers off him.

"Mrs. Hudson!" He calls loudly. "Mrs Hudson!" He practically screams, feeling his face heat up with fear and panic. Is she dead too?

"What, what is it dear?" Mrs. Hudson crashes into the room with a bang, causing the doorknob to hit the wall, leaving a dent. She seems flustered with curlers in her hair and a robe tied hastily around her waist.

"Mrs, Hudson, can you make me some tea?" He asks, his voice shaking.

"It's 3 in the morning!" She sounds annoyed.

"Mrs. Hudson please." John buries his head in his hands and begins to cry. "I can't go into the kitchen." His voice cracks and the visions of Sherlock's cold, dead body on the floor floods in his mind, threatening to rip his life apart again and make his brain and eyes overload with sadness. "The dreams... they never stop."

Mrs. Hudson wanders to the side of the bed and puts her hand on his shoulder.

"They never did for him either. He came to me John, told me everything. Every night he would dream of you dying in the war, you dying, fighting and it caused him to die."

John's tears continue flowing as he feels the same thing Sherlock did. Although for John, it's his reality.