John stared out the window, his hand resting on the scroll of Sherlock's violin.
Oh how he missed the sound of Sherlock practising his bloody violin at three o'clock in the morning. He would allow Sherlock to play it all the time when he was trying to sleep if only he would come back.
Bloody idiot. Why the hell would he jump off a building because everyone – except John, of course – had turned against him? Why did it bother him? He never cared about what people thought of him before then, what had changed?
John turned his thoughts to less depressing subjects and ran a finger thoughtfully along the bow to check if it needed more rosin – it did. His face creased as he tried to remember where he had left Sherlock's rosin. It couldn't be far.
~O~
It took him almost a week to find, as it happened.
Not that it had been far, John just didn't really look that hard. He was far too busy doing stuff. He allowed himself a moment of guilt for being dishonest to himself – he had barely moved from the window all week. Other than kipping on the couch and occasionally reheating the dinners Mrs Hudson supplied, he hadn't moved.
John stretched the kinks out of his neck and picked up the violin to play.
He wasn't in any shape of form good, he was mediocre. He wasn't exactly bad but he couldn't claim he was any good either.
He had only taken it up because he wanted to do something to honour Sherlock; something he could do that was so Sherlock that sometimes he could even kid himself that the man in question was the one playing.
And John hated himself for it.
He should let Sherlock go, let him rest in peace, but he couldn't. Sherlock had saved him, kept him from dying mentally and emotionally and Sherlock had been his friend when no one else would.
People looked at him and looked away again. He wasn't tall – actually he was kind of short; he wasn't brilliant like Sherlock, or mad like Moriarty. He wasn't in command like Lestrade, or powerful like Mycroft. He was John Watson; an army doctor of average intelligence, no friends and nothing to live for.
Sherlock had taken away any motivation to live when he jumped off St Bart's. He had taken every shred of John's self-confidence, every shred of John's being and he destroyed it, snuffed it out the moment he jumped.
It killed John every day that he was so dependent on a man who was dead almost two and a half years. Eight-hundred and sixty-four days, to be precise. Sherlock used to love being precise.
John picked up a sheet of music; the last one Sherlock had worked on, and began to play.
Sherlock might have known he was going to die because the music was sad and depressing – and only half finished. John had gone through all the music Sherlock had written and put the songs in order of date. Then he had taught himself how to play violin by learning off those pieces, one by one and now he was at the end.
He supposed he could start again, get better at them, but it wasn't the same. John had felt like he was saying hello to Sherlock every time he had begun a piece. To play them again was just like reliving the memories Sherlock had given him.
What about all the things John would have liked to say to his favourite consulting detective – the only one that had ever existed? John couldn't continue Sherlock's trade after the man had passed, he wasn't clever enough, didn't know as much as Sherlock.
The week passed and John had spent the last few days sitting around idly.
The violin was in the corner, mocking him as it sat there gathering dust. John didn't have anything to do. He couldn't leave the flat, the thought of sunlight made him feel nauseous, he couldn't play the violin, he couldn't do any one of the numerous things he would have once done because Sherlock wasn't there! He was bored. Sherlock used to be bored.
With a sigh he dragged himself to the kitchen to make tea. Noticing a page with a list of things hastily scribbled on it, he paused and picked it up. There was a clench in his stomach as he realized that it was Sherlock's, that it was something Sherlock had left lying around almost two and a half years before hand.
John peered down and noticed it was a letter. Just a simple letter – more of a note really – explaining to John that he was going out and not to be worried. He picked it up and held it to his heart, unable to stop the tears that coursed down his cheeks. The tightness in his throat hurt so badly and the trembling sobs coursed through his body as he slid down the fridge and howled out his pain.
The kettle clicked but John didn't notice. The paper crinkled and John did his best to smooth out the wrinkles that had appeared. Sherlock would do that to a page when he realized it wasn't perfectly straight.
He sobbed harder, the pain catching him again as he picked out the small flick Sherlock had always done to the bottom of the 'J' in John. He had never done it to any other J's and that was what made it special, that was what tore another hole in John's heart.
"Sherlock, you bastard, why did you have to leave me behind?" he yelled out to nobody. "Why did you leave me?" The questions poured out, each leaving John more hysterical than the rest until finally he stopped screaming. "Was I not important enough to you?" he whispered, the golf ball in his throat preventing him from being louder.
Mrs Hudson made her way cautiously into the kitchen. "John, dear," she said quietly. She kneeled beside him and took his hand in one of hers. She was getting old, John thought silently. Her hands were more wrinkled than ever and her face was almost worse, none of her wrinkles were laughter lines anymore. John didn't think she had laughed once since Sherlock passed away. Sherlock would have been proud of him for that deduction.
"It's all right," she said, dropping his hand to put both hands on his cheeks. "It's okay, darling." The tears continued pouring but they were silent now, he had barely enough energy to breathe, let alone smash things up like the roaring in his chest wanted him to do.
"I'm fine," he croaked, the tears never ending their cascade. "Sorry to worry you Mrs Hudson." He turned his face away from her, how could he face her when moments before the thought of taking his own life had been a very attractive thought? Sherlock had taken his own life.
Mrs Hudson sat back. "Oh I wish you would get out a bit, John. Do you think Sherlock would have wanted you to waste your life pining for him?" She hadn't used Sherlock's name against John – she had barely said the name Sherlock – since the man had died, but desperate times call for desperate measures and John was beyond desperate.
John stared at her.
"That isn't fair, Mrs Hudson." He couldn't believe she was doing this to him. This was exactly the sort of guilt-trick Sherlock would use on him for tea, or so that John would go and get the shopping without arguing.
He sighed and picked himself up off the floor. "I'll be going out now, Mrs Hudson." She just smiled sadly. Aside from his trips to the graveyard, John hadn't left the house since before Sherlock died. It used to bother him that he couldn't leave the flat without Sherlock striding beside him but he had grown used to it in the years that had passed.
He made his way down to Angelo's, hoping that Angelo himself wasn't working. He would just fuss over John and make him feel worse. As he walked he felt people's eyes glance at him and look straight through him. It was quite disconcerting that people could literally see and yet not be looking.
As he walked, he imagined all the things that Sherlock would be saying to him had the man been there. The woman with the grey coat had two dogs, three kids and her husband worked late. The man with the limp had surgery on his hip three months previous and the cold was getting to him. Somehow John could even picture the smirk or sneer that would grace Sherlock's face as he made these declarations.
Sherlock would look at him then with that piercing gaze of his and ask him what he thought. John would usually get everything wrong, but it was okay because he could see the delight Sherlock took in helping him work on his non-existent deduction skills. Those rare occasions when John got something right were especially heart-warming because Sherlock would smile slightly and his eyes would be proud.
He slunk in to Angelo's and seated himself in the very corner – it was hard not to be slightly paranoid when you had worked with Sherlock and the action was subconscious. He could see everyone and nobody would sneak up on him.
Angelo's booming voice filled the small café when he spotted John. "John Watson!" he said, beaming. "I haven't seen you in such a long time!" John smiled.
"Angelo," he said with a nod, "Just decided to drop in while I was out." Angelo took his order with a dimmed smile and seated himself in front of John while they waited for the food.
He peered intently at John. "I know you haven't left the flat properly in ages. I ask Mrs Hudson when she passes to do some shopping."
John bowed his head. "It's hard," he murmured, his emotions were still whirring under his skin waiting for something to snap him into some sort of a breakdown.
Angelo nodded seriously. "I understand. My wife died suddenly a long time back. You never really get over it."
John raised his head, "We aren't a couple." The words were overused and carried little weight anymore. He merely said them on reflex nowadays. Then his eyes widened and he brought a hand to his mouth. "I mean we weren't. We weren't a couple." The tears welled up in his eyes and he blinked them away furiously. He was a man. Men don't cry and he had already broken that rule once that day, he wouldn't be doing it a second time.
"It's hard," he repeated, this time with a thick voice. The cracks in his emotional barrier were beginning to break open.
"I'm sorry," he stood up suddenly, the memories rushing over him as he spotted the place where they had first been mistaken for a couple. "I shouldn't have come here." He dropped money onto the table and almost ran out.
Angelo was left staring after the husk of a man that was John Watson.
Hours passed and he simply wandered the city, his eyes picking out the spots he had been with Sherlock. He was a man living for and in the past. He could pick out almost every street in London and give a Sherlock-related memory. The time Sherlock had fell over a severed arm, when John had gotten sick and Sherlock had allowed him to puke in the bag Sherlock had assured him was both very valuable both in value and in sentimentality to the man. John hadn't understood at the time why a plastic bag was so important but accepted it as one of the quirks of Sherlock. Sherlock had admitted later that he had lied so that John would try not to vomit again because he wasn't sure how to treat a sick person.
He noticed the alleyway they had ran down when they were handcuffed together. It brought back a memory of the time Sherlock had pretended to be an undercover policeman. He told the man that he was arresting him for suspicion of murder when all they really wanted was information. Sherlock had taken out a pair of handcuffs he had lifted from Lestrade.
John could still remember the self-satisfied smirk on Sherlock's face. John had felt quite proud of Sherlock – for reasons unknown, of course.
John had been overly proud of Sherlock and his accomplishments since day one. He had kidded himself over time that it was simply because the man was his best friend and the only real one John had ever had, but that was just John's self-delusions.
Now that he was back at the place where they had been cuffed together, John remembered the first time he had gotten the urge to kiss Sherlock. It had been after Sherlock had almost gotten himself killed by that cabbie.
Shooting the cab driver had been a piece of cake. It was like a whole new frame of mind and John had realized in that moment that there wasn't much he wouldn't do for Sherlock. When Sherlock had come over, tugging on his blanket and claiming to be in shock, John had almost reached out and taken his hand. When Sherlock had walked away with him, smiling in the way he only did for John, he had almost pulled the man in for a kiss.
The last time he had felt the urge was when they were cuffed together in the alley he was in right now. Sherlock – impatient as he always was – had leaped over the gate leaving John on the other side. John had grabbed him through the bars and had a seriously hard time resisting the need to snog Sherlock.
It scared him.
It really scared him. He didn't understand where the urges came from. He had often heard of people falling in love with their partners because they had protected each other from being killed, but it was different somehow with John and Sherlock – at least it had been before Sherlock had gone and offed himself.
John could admit to himself that he had been sort of in love with Sherlock and that they had sort of been a couple. Not in the usual definition of the word, more of the sort of old married couple type relationship where they hadn't felt the jealousy of new lovers who were sure that their other half was cheating on them, or the nervousness of a middle-aged couple who thought their partner would divorce them. It was the old love of a married couple in their eighties, not lusting after each other but bickering all the time in a completely affectionate way.
And John missed it so badly it hurt.
He was at the door, remembering the second time he had met Sherlock and the first time he had seen his new home, when Mrs Hudson opened the door and ushered him into her kitchen for tea.
"I'm glad you got out, John," she said patting his hand.
Perhaps she thought that he had done something productive? It wasn't true; all he had done was relive the memories Sherlock had given him. This, to him at least, was both productive and counter-productive in its way.
"I realized something today, Mrs Hudson," he said when the silence between them felt awkward even to him.
She perked up and John felt bad about how he had been treating her. Making her worry about him was terrible, she was an old woman, she deserved better.
"What was that, dear?"
"I loved Sherlock," he said grandly. It felt like some heavy burden was lifting off his shoulders. "That's why I felt so horrid after he had gone. I didn't understand it. I thought he was only my friend and my roommate and colleague. I feel better now that I understand why it hurts so much."
Mrs Hudson's eyes filled with tears. "Oh John," she whispered, "You poor, poor dear." She pulled him into one of the hugs she always felt he needed when he made some sort of a remark that seemed like he was healing even slightly.
"I'm fine Mrs Hudson. I really am." And he was, sort of. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He put the cup he had been using in the sink and left Mrs Hudson's to go up to his flat. Then he picked back up the note Sherlock had written and the pen that Sherlock had been the last to use.
Then he sat down in Sherlock's seat to pen the man a letter.
Sherlock,
I suppose you're up in heaven right now, you know if you believe in all that stuff. How's life with the angels?
I don't know why I'm writing this, only that it feels right. I know you probably won't read this, but you should know some things that I never told you when you were alive.
I suppose that you would rather a text instead of an old-fashioned letter and giving your infatuation with texting you would probably see this as an insult.
I love you Sherlock. I really do. You have no idea just how horrid life is now without you. I don't think you would, even if our situations were reversed. You wouldn't have been as stupid as to let the grief consume you.
At first I just sat my armchair and stared at yours.
Every time I made a cup of tea for myself I made the mistake of making one for you too. Every time I had a bath I would wash out the tub just encase you had conducted some sort of experiment in there. I cringed every time I went to open the fridge just on the off chance you had acquired more body parts to dissect or whatever it was you did with them.
Then after a while it hit me that you weren't ever coming back. That I wouldn't ever have to listen to you playing that damn violin at three in the morning, that I could sleep on in the mornings instead of getting up for a case, that I wouldn't have to listen to you grumble about Mycroft or yell about Moriarty. That I no longer had any reason to live, that I no longer had a friend in the world.
So then I took out you violin and taught myself to play. It was usually only at night seeing as you weren't there to play at that time. After I got the hang of it a bit I gradually extended the time until I played all day when I wasn't sleeping or drinking tea. I think Mrs Hudson managed to force me to stop to eat sometimes then, once or twice.
That stopped after Mrs Hudson found me passed out from dehydration. A doctor would have to be stupid if he allowed himself to dehydrate, wouldn't he? Mrs Hudson was so worried; she said I was just as bad as you when you were on a case. That made me both proud and disappointed at myself, it was bad, I suppose.
So I played often after that, read all those ridiculous books you have and learned off the music you wrote. I left the flat every two or three days to visit your grave. It didn't help much.
Until today I hadn't left the flat for anything other than that. Mrs Hudson found me when I was crying and guilt-tricked me into leaving. I didn't do much except go to all the places I remember you from. It was hard to see that the world actually went on without you in it. For me it stopped.
There isn't much to tell you except I realized that after all we sort of were a couple. I suppose you'd tell me off if I told you that and say, "Sentiment is a terrible thing, John." Or that you were above such dull, ordinary things.
I really do love you. I've realized that it wasn't as strictly platonic as I once would have insisted upon. I was quite thick, wasn't I?
Anyway, come and see me if you actually get this. One thing I did learn with you is that no matter what the strangest thing you've seen is, stranger things can happen.
Love,
John.
He rifled through the drawers for an envelope and slipped the letter in gently. He would leave it on Sherlock's grave tomorrow. For now he would make some semblance to dinner and have a shower before bed.
Sherlock always had to have a shower before he slept.
A/N: Well I've returned.
This is my first non-Harry Potter fanfic so go easy on me. Let me know what you think – in a nice way though, right?
(You guys may be wondering because I recently changed my pen name but this was ShazzaBlack, I changed my pen name to CopperCaramel!)
~CopperCaramel...x
