(A/N: This is my first attempt at writing a fanfic, so it's probably a little bit awkward. Constructive criticism is accepted and encouraged. It's going to stay a one-shot, and there's Johnlock subtext a littke bit. Please enjoy it! :D)
John looked up at the shiny black door with the crooked knocker, full of apprehension. So many memories lay behind that door; the good, the bad, and the confusing.
The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker street.
He fiddled with the keys, paused, and pushed the door open. The familiar steps that led to the apartment Sherlock and him shared - had shared, John corrected silently- faced him,the yellow smiley face grinning at him ominously through the semidarkness . John glanced around, memories flooding back to him. Coming back from the cab chase, gasping and panting and laughing. The deerstalker hat Sherlock absolutely hated, but wore anyways. Returning from every case Sherlock ever took, him formulating theories as they walked and John watching Sherlock like one would look at a thunderstorm from afar. Awe-inspiring and terrifying and beautiful.
The game is on.
Goddamnit. John took a deep breath and climbed the stairs to their flat. Fine. I'm fine. It was difficult to describe the relationship between Sherlock and himself. Lovers? Definitely not. Friends? Yes, and something more. Sometimes it killed John, how many words they never said and never would. He would never know if Sherlock thought about him like John thought about sherlock as he went to bed, a thin wall between their bodies. Never know why on earth Sherlock fell, and how, as a damn doctor, John never realized the symptoms of depression earlier. Don't blame yourself, Ella had said. But how could he not? John was Sherlock's best friend. What sort of best friend couldn't even see how much Sherlock was hurting inside?
It's a trick. It's just a magic trick.
Wind whistling through his ears. The sun blinding him as John stared up onto the roof helplessly as his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, jumped off a building.
Goodbye, John.
Something creaked downstairs, and John snapped back to reality. "Mrs. Hudson?"
Nobody answered, so John shrugged mentally and entered the flat. Dust particles filtered through the weak winter light, and the sameness of it all knocked the breath out of John. The furniture hadn't been moved, and Mrs. Hudson hadn't even cleared off the empty teacups sitting on the table. Sherlock could have been sleeping in his bedroom, John just returned from grocery shopping. God. How could everything still be unchanged, the world keep on ticking, when the man who had saved it all was asleep six feet under? Cars roared on the street outside, unaware of how Sherlock had risked so much to save London again and again. People laughed and chattered down below, not caring that John Watson's best friend in the world had killed himself. Those chairs in the living room. The drug bust when Sherlock and John first met. God, it felt like just yesterday they were investigating serial suicides, puzzling over the mysterious pink case. And now Sherlock had gone and jumped off a building.
Shut up, John. Don't think about that. You're here for your stuff, not for bitter memories and could-have-been's.
John hurriedly rifled through his bedroom and picked up the clothes that he needed, as well as his other important possessions. He couldn't stay at Sarah's place forever, and he supposed he could get a flat by himself.
Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.
Sherlock's violin music trickling through the walls at one in the morning. John lying awake in bed, listening to the haunting music seeping through the walls. Sherlock somehow knowing when John was having nightmares and getting up to play (even though he probably hadn't slept for two days) just for John. And now he was dead, and John would never hear him play again.
Fine, fine. I'm fine. Breathe. I'm fine. Fine. Never been better.
John steadied himself and walked back out into the hallway when the door to Sherlock's bedroom caught his eye. Sherlock never left the door open. Ever. He had always valued his privacy like he valued his deduction skills. But now the door was open, and it wasn't John that opened it. John felt his feet moving towards the open door. "Hello?"
Sherlock only came back to 221B for his violin. Mycroft's plan, that bastard, had him scheduled to leave London two weeks after the fall. But that had been delayed another two weeks as Mycroft's pet goldfish gathered information about Moriarty's minions, including the movements of a certain Sebastian Moran. These last two weeks had been terrible, full of lying on Mycroft's couch, thinking about John, annoying Mycroft, thinking about John, and wishing for his violin. Sherlock had just about been ready to tear the damn place down when Mycroft finally agreed to let Sherlock go back to 221B to get his violin, but only with Anthea waiting outside with the car. If Mycroft somehow knew that John would be there at precisely the same time he was, he didn't let on about it. And now John was here, and maybe Sherlock would be able to see his face one last time.
I was so alone, and I owe you so much.
John had no idea how much those words applied to both of them. No idea how much it hurt right after he jumped, seeing John's eyes fly open in disbelief, his whole world shattering around him and lying there, helpless on the ground, for the second time in his life. Unable to say anything to let his best friend know that he was alive, to not worry, that he would be back one day, soon. Mycroft had warned him, of course, but Sherlock hadn't listened. And now he found himself wishing he had.
Don't get attached, baby brother.
All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage.
He had finally let someone in again, and within what seemed like mere hours, they had been wrenched brutally from his life again. First Redbeard, and now John. There was no point in getting attached, because in the end, they'd be gone. Mycroft was right. Mycroft was always right. Sherlock couldn't keep anyone in his life.
John's familiar footsteps thumped down the hallway, the slow, steady beat matchingpace with Sherlock's pounding heart. Come on, use your brain. Detach from the situation. You are supposed to be dead, Sherlock. What are you going to do when John comes in?
John stuck his head inside Sherlock's room. He could have sworn he saw a swish of black trenchcoat, but there was nothing except for the devastatingly familiar furniture. The bedsheets were rumpled and unmade, and the curtains were wide open. John's heart crumpled. This room felt painfully of Sherlock's essence. John could even smell him, violin rosin and something...sweet. Sunlight filtered through the dust particles, and in that moment John remembered. He thought of everything Sherlock and him had done together. The serial suicides. The Black Lotus. Dinner at Angelo's. Irene Adler's whirling personality, and their visit to Buckingham Palace. Every second John had spent with the miracle of life that was Sherlock Holmes, blind to the fact that time was slipping through their fingers like sand.
He stifled back a sob. "Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes." he whispered, choking on Sherlock's name. "Fuck you, and your grave, and your note-" John sobbed, clutching the doorframe as he broke down. He hadn't cried once after the fall, but now his body decided to let all go, let his walls down for the first time since he met that bastard. The hole where Sherlock had been in his soul was throbbing painfully. He could feel it, feel the hole that bastard had left in him. Part of John had disappeared when Sherlock died, dissolving into ashes as John watched his best friend thump lifelessly to the ground. Sherlock had been his lifeline, John clinging onto him and him to John as they battled their way through life for eighteen short months. The two of us against the rest of the world.