Another 221B. Sort of inspired by the song 'To Build a Home' by Cinematic Orchestra.
Also, why do these drabbles have to be so damn finicky? Took me ages to get the word count right. :P
…
The last box is tucked away into the back of the moving truck with a frightening crash of finality, like a loud thunder strike in a silent storm. He hugs Mrs Hudson, (who is crying into a handkerchief) for the last time in the sitting room, back soldier-straight. From over her shoulder, the bullet-ridden smiley face leers at him for the last time upon the wall.
Pulling away with a promise of visiting that he doesn't intend to keep, he leans on his walking stick and limps down those seventeen steps for the last time, through the door and into the waiting cab. He doesn't look back.
In the end, John Watson doesn't leave Baker Street because of the memories. He finds them everywhere, on every street corner, at his favourite restaurants, in the people he meets. He'd have to leave London completely to leave them behind.
No, John leaves because it's too quiet at 3am in the morning; because the rooms are too empty with just him; because there are too many spaces where other things should have been; because he can't bear to open the fridge and find it devoid of body parts; because… the list goes on and on.
In the end, it's the absence of memories that makes him leave.
It's the absence that leaves him bitter.