Title: Reactions
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: Teen
Length: a touch over 100 words
Spoiler: through Reichenbach (end of season 2)
Content notes: Direct fallout from canon, specifically (skip) suicide/death and resultant grief
Author notes: Erm. Sorry it isn't more cheerful? *wry grin*
Summary: How things should be, and how things are.



This is how
(some people think)
John should be reacting:

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance

and then
(some people think)
he should move on

get over it

forget

...

(people are idiots,
he imagines Sherlock saying)

...

This is how
(he thinks)
Sherlock thinks he should react:

observation, analysis, logic

and then
(Sherlock would think)
he would understand

or at least

accept

...

(if only Sherlock were here
to tell him these things--
not with words
but with a glance, a lifted eyebrow,
a flicker of elegant fingers--

if, if, if)

...

This is how
(he knows)
he is reacting:

like an airplane
with one wing gone, spinning out of control
trailing smoke

and then
(someday; not yet)
hitting the ground