Title: Silence.
Rating: K+
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock.
a/n: Originally written for mishamonkeyhats at Tumblr.
If there was anything that John hated most, it was silence.
There were many types of silences: comfortable and uncomfortable ones, awkward ones, the lull before a great storm. The silence he hated was not comfortable or uncomfortable, awkward, or the lull before a great storm. It was the empty silence.
The silence when one woke up alone and shivering, echoes of gunshots slowly fading away, but the evidence of a horrible, terrible, dream in the form of a racing heart and cold sweat.
The silence when a text or a murmur of "I'm home!" never gets a reply.
The silence when he stands in front of a grave and feels eyes on him, but he doesn't want to get his hopes up too high. He still glances around to catch sight of the familiar black hair.
John hates the empty silence.
Where he was once comfortable with the natural silence that came with being Sherlock's flatmate, he now couldn't bear the sight of Sherlock's possessions exactly as they were left before the Fall. The skull on the mantelpiece lay exactly where it has always been.
Sherlock will come back.
Sherlock will come back, and John will wait for the horrible, gnawing, empty silence to be filled with another silence that is more, so much more, filling. Sherlock will come back.
John believes in Sherlock.