thespanishcockerel replied to your post: Reposting in case anybody wants another shot, since I have so many.

*so many goodies* Sherlock-Congo, please.

Waaaaay back when people first started writing all the ‘Sherlock dies, John can’t take it and commits suicide’ fics, I thought, “Hell, no, that’s not what would happen.”

***

“I’m leaving.  I’ve signed on with MSF.  I’m leaving in a month for the Congo.”

Lestrade stared.  “Why?”

“I told you that Sherlock saved me.  He saved me from war.”  He lifted his head to look at Lestrade like he expected him to understand. 

Lestrade shook his head.

John clenched the bottle in his hands, looking reluctant.  Sheepish.  “You’re a police officer, not a soldier, I don’t know if I can…”

Lestrade scoffed.  “I lived with Sherlock for five years.”

John shook his head, eyes impossibly distant.  He wasn’t seeing London.  “It’s not the same.  Mycroft called it a battlefield once, but he was wrong.  It really isn’t.  I wouldn’t have come back if they hadn’t made me.  War is…  It can be ages and ages of boredom, interspersed with sudden bouts of insanity.  It is insane, Greg.  You have no idea.  Seeing scraps of people who up till a few minutes ago were your teammates, having someone ripped open so you can put your hand inside them…”  He shook his head again.  “It’s mad.  Like some sort of twisted mirror of normal life.  But I got used to it.  No.  I got…acclimated.  This…”  He waved a hand out over London.  “This is a joke to me now.  I can’t…”  His lips thinned.  “I’m not saying that’s good.  But I can’t turn it off.  It doesn’t feel like I’m living if I’m not at risk of dying.  It doesn’t feel real if there isn’t a chance of something horrible happening.  It’s a fairy tale.”  He turned back to Lestrade, eyes black in the low light.  “Sherlock saved me.  He gave me a reality I could live in, that wasn’t war.  Something that could be good and dangerous at the same time.  I won’t find that again.  And I tried, I tried to live in the fairy tale kingdom, but…”  He scoffed.  “I’d rather shoot myself.” 

John’s voice held a deadly ring.  He wasn’t joking, and that wasn’t an exaggeration.  Lestrade felt himself go cold in the pit of his stomach.  Two years, and John had…he could have…

“So.  The Congo.”  

***

But as you can see, it was kind of terrible and not actually going anywhere, so I stopped.