Monsters Aren't Real (Superlock)

Chapter 11

John wandered through the London streets. He had called his sister about an hour ago, but she hadn't answered. She rarely did, but that didn't ease his mind. At first, he wanted to rush to her house, make sure she was alright. However, just before he had called for a taxi he remembered the last time he had dared to visit his sister. It hadn't lasted long, it had been awkward. She wasn't completely there yet, still hungover from the night before. In the end, his sister had thrown him out of the house after she had grabbed for the bottles again. That was just after he had been released from the hospital after he had been shot in the field. That night, he hadn't had anywhere to go. His parents were no option, he and Harry had estranged from them long ago. And to be honest, he had lost contact with his sister not much later. But when he walked out of the hospital he realized he had nothing here, and he remembered how Harry had taught him how to skip stones across the lake and how to play poo-sticks in the river. But after that visit, those memories faded. The echo of the slamming door and the howling wind of a cold night replaced the visions of the past. And it was that night, when he was alone and wandered towards the city center, he could be seen walking with a small limp. After a week, it had been impossible to walk without a cane. He had emigrated to London fourteen days later, burned on making a living for himself. He had tried, he had. John went to therapy for his PTSD, visited the doctors for his limp. Desperately tried to start new, but it was in those months that he had felt utterly alone and empty. And that feeling wouldn't leave him for a long time, not until he and Sherlock had spent a whole night chasing a cab in London hoping to catch a serial killer.

After his team up with Sherlock, he hadn't seen his sister. Yes, a few times John had tried calling her, you know, just to make sure she was still breathing. But as he raised his hand to stop the cab, the memory of his sister demanding the he'd leave the house this instant shot through his head and he slowly lowered his hand. He wanted to visit his sister, but that would take a little more time than he had now. The situation here in London was still a mess. Sherlock was trying to solve a murder and catch two of the US most wanted criminals, who just happened to not be dead. And that wasn't the only thing, it so happened that those criminals were not really criminals but monster hunters. Oh, and Sherlock didn't know that monsters existed, but his big brother was afraid that Sherlock would go crazier than ever and try and hunt down every one of them. However, John had figured out the truth and couldn't possibly return to Sherlock in the state he was now in. It was impossible to hide things from the consulting detective. It was a mortal flaw in Mycroft's plan. He had hoped that John wouldn't tell Sherlock the truth, but it appeared that Mycroft had forgotten that his younger brother had the same skill he possessed. However, that didn't mean he couldn't try. And to be honest, even if he told Sherlock but didn't have any proof, he doubted Sherlock would believe him. The only reason he himself believed the ridiculous stories was because of Harry. Sherlock had already encountered the supernatural, yet he hadn't believed it. It was a good sign, maybe John could hide the truth a little longer than he thought he had been capable of doing in the first place. If he could just calm down, get used to the idea, maybe it was possible to just forget the whole ordeal. Pretend like nothing had changed, after all, it wasn't like John had ever seen a monster himself, right? And Mycroft had taken it upon himself to keep the things in the dark away from his brother, so it wasn't like he had to deal with them from now on.

Deciding that trying that visiting Harry wasn't his top priority and that returning to the museum in this state would certainly give away to Sherlock that something was wrong he turned away from the street. He needed some time for himself, and John knew one thing that always could calm him down. A nice cup of tea. And that was exactly what he needed right now, just a nice cuppa at home in his chair with some lovely music in the background. No Sherlock, No Harry, No Mycroft, No murders, No monsters. That sounded the right thing to do right now. It wasn't too far of a walk, and although it was raining a little he preferred walking at this moment. When in the army, you didn't have another choice. You saw stuff that if you thought about for too long made you lose your mind, cripple you mentally if you didn't keep moving. So moving on you did, and when John lingered too long because the lifeless body of a toddler caught his eye, one of his comrades would come next to him and slap him on the back. "We have to keep moving John, come on."