A/N: After Reichenbach ended, I pressed stop on the livestream player, opened up a new Word doc and started writing this songfic. Based on the Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring." YouTube it and give it a listen.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Pure fiction. I don't own the song or the lyrics. I am making no profit off this other than soothing my post-Reichenbach grief.
The radio was on. It was nearly always on now. It wasn't that John really wanted to hear news and music and adverts, but more that it was something to combat the terrible Quiet since Sherlock had died. It was all-pervading, the Quiet. It was in the flat, on the street, in John's head, heart, and soul. He'd gone still and quiet inside and so he surrounded himself with noise lest he truly go mad.
Everyone thought he was mad already. His steadfast refusal to believe that Sherlock was a fraud had earned him pity at first, later frustration, and then people just didn't want to talk about it anymore. John didn't care. The only time the Quiet lifted was when he was defending Sherlock's character. Trying vainly to erase the stain on his friend's name.
Mrs. Hudson believed in Sherlock, too. She tended to John in the earliest days, bringing him tea and soup and gently coaxing him to have some when he could barely muster the energy to sit up. His grief was indescribable. His loneliness all-consuming.
Mycroft paid the rent on the Baker Street flat. John had been too exhausted to even argue that technically he should only be paying half. Everyone else thought he was mad for continuing to live there, but it was in keeping with his new reputation for being a daft ostrich with its head in the sand, unable to see the obvious truth of things. John let them think whatever they wanted. He kept the flat exactly as it was the night Sherlock was arrested. Being surrounded by the detective's things was comforting.
The main drawback was coping with the giant, gaping hole where Sherlock should be. A gaping hole filled with the terrible Quiet.
The advert block ended and a song came on. John recognized it. It was an older song by the Pet Shop Boys. He remembered it being popular when he was in uni. Laying on the sofa, the way Sherlock used to do (John also suspected he was going mad because he talked to Sherlock all the time. Taking the piss. "I'm in your favourite spot on the sofa! I'm tidying your papers! What do you think of that, eh?"), John found himself humming along with the first verse, but when the chorus kicked in, it felt like a punch to the stomach.
'Cause we were never being boring.
We had too much time to find for ourselves.
And we were never being boring.
John took a shaky breath.
We dressed up and fought, then thought, "Make amends."
And we were never holding back or worried that
Time would come to an end.
"Dear god," John whispered and he listened while the song played on.
When I went, I left from the station
With a haversack and some trepidation
Someone said, "If you're not careful
You'll have nothing left and nothing to care for."
It was still very early days. Before the funeral. Before Sherlock's broken body was put in the ground. Mike Stamford had come around the flat to check up on John. He was one of the very few who still seemed to believe that Sherlock was for real. Mike thought that maybe a bit of fond reminiscing might be what John needed.
It wasn't.
"Such a funny bit of coincidence, wasn't it?" he'd chuckled. "You walking by me in the park that day. If I hadn't seen you, well, imagine how differently things would have gone."
John's hand tremoured, causing his teacup to rattle on its saucer. He set it down carefully. "Why didn't you let me keep walking," he said very quietly. He hadn't slept since it happened. His head still throbbed from when he'd been knocked over by the cyclist. There were dark circles under his eyes and his bones felt like they were grinding together when he moved. The grief felt like a disease and he was dying very slowly.
Mike blinked in surprise. "Excuse me? What did you say?"
John leaned forward and clasped his hands, resting his arms on his knees. "I said, Mike, Why. Didn't. You. Let. Me. Keep." His voice rose with every word and he was practically spitting when he bellowed, "WALKING?"
Now it was Mike's hands that shook. He set down his cup, nervous. "John, I …"
John stood up and started frantically pacing the flat. He knew he was losing control, but oh, it felt so good to fall apart. "Why, Mike? You could have spared me from this. You could have spared me from ALL OF THIS!" he flung his arms open, spanning the flat. He spun around and leaned in, placing his hands on the arms of Mike's chair and hovering before him. Their noses practically touching. "Why didn't you, eh?" John whispered. "I'm in hell, Mike. I'm in a never-ending hell, and you put me there."
Mike gasped.
John pulled back and sank down into the sofa, exhausted.
Mike was quiet for a long moment and then he murmured softly, "Do you mean to tell me that you wish you'd never met Sherlock Holmes at all?"
"Bloody brilliant deduction," John hissed. "You know there's an opening for a consulting detective. Fresh on the market."
Mike folded his arms in front of his chest. "You're saying you wish you'd never gotten involved in all this. That your life had stayed exactly the way it was before you met him. Lonely and miserable in that bland little bedsit. Limping about with a cane."
John pressed his lips together, sulking.
"You were bored to tears, John. Sherlock saved you. And you know it. And I guess that means I saved you, too."
"Wouldn't go that far," John muttered.
"You can't tell me that you're incredibly surprised that Sherlock died young. Died tragically. The man put himself in incredible danger every single day. Usually dragging you along for the ride."
"Doesn't make it all right!" snapped John.
Mike nodded. "Of course it doesn't. But you need to realize that people like Sherlock are very special, John. They're like shooting stars. There aren't many of them. You have to keep an eye out to find them. And they flash brilliantly and burn so hard and it's the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen …"
"… and then it's gone," finished John, staring at his hands.
"Yes. And then it's gone. But you never regret having seen it." Mike looked at John intensely. "Sherlock Holmes was a terrifically lonely man before he met you. He hid it well, but it was obvious to anyone who knew him even a little. But that all changed when you walked into that lab with me. I think you brought him a great deal of joy and comfort in his final years. You can't possibly tell me that you regret that. That you would deny him that. That you wish I'd let you keep walking."
"No," John whispered. He looked at Mike, his eyes haunted and sad. "I'm sorry, Mike. I didn't mean to —"
"Think nothing of it." Mike waved his hand dismissively. "Loss … it's a beastly thing."
"It was my job to keep him safe."
"No, John. Your job was first to pay half the rent. And then it was to be his friend. And you did a wonderful job on both counts."
The song rattled inside John's hollow shell. Making him remember. Making him think. Again, in those awful early days, he found himself questioning everything. Not Sherlock's integrity, no, no one could dissuade him of the fact — yes it was a fact — that Sherlock Holmes was everything he had always claimed to be. A great genius. An honest man. A good man. John's best friend.
No, he questioned all the things they'd done. Why had Sherlock put himself at such risk. Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn't he have played it safer. Stayed where John could look after him. Be less brilliant so John could have his friend for more than a few piddling years. It wasn't fair. Why wasn't there more time?
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought, in spite of dreams,
You'd be sitting somewhere here with me.
John closed his eyes, but the tears pushed their way out anyway, streaming down his cheeks.
'Cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored.
John didn't want a boring, safe Sherlock. He wanted precisely what he'd been given: a temperamental genius. A mad scientist. A rogue. A square peg in a world of round holes. And if a few years was all he was given, then he considered himself luckier than those who never got to experience it at all. Sherlock had made John into the man he'd always wanted to be.
We were always hoping that, looking back
We could always rely on a friend.
'Cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored.
"No we weren't, Sherlock," John murmured, tears still falling, dragging their way over his exhausted flesh. "We certainly were not." He reached for his laptop and opened iTunes. It only took a few moments to find and purchase the song and he had it playing on the computer shortly after it faded away on the radio. He set it on repeat.
He turned the radio off and lay on the sofa again. From behind a cushion he withdrew a soft, blue scarf. He knew it was pathetic, but his friend's scent still clung to the material. John wrapped it around his neck and closed his eyes, feeling the tears cooling on his cheeks.
'Cause we were never being boring
We were never being bored.