Two Months And Four Days In, a sherlock fanfic

AN: Spoilers for "The Reichenbach Fall". Reviews are always appreciated.

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Two months and four days in, you sleep with a stranger. Me. You know my first name and little else about me.

Later, I know everything the media has to offer about you, which isn't much, but it's enough.

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I can tell – by, oh, about the third glance at your phone – that something's wrong. You don't want to be here, not at all. You're not engaging at all, and it seems absent minded, the way you keep fiddling with your mobile, but you're still much more interested in it than me.

I wonder if you've got somewhere else to be, maybe, and you're checking the time – after all, you do look familiar in some way, and for all I can remember, you might actually be someone important, though I don't know how. A lot of people look familiar in London, I know, but it's a little more than that. Or maybe you're expecting a call from someone. Maybe you're dying to get out of here and a friend is going to rescue you, like in bad TV.

When you end up taking me home, it's quite surprising. Maybe you changed your mind. Whatever the reason, you're a wonderful kisser – all fire and focus where minutes ago you seemed disinterested.

Past your front door, at first I can't see a thing; at first you're kissing me, those lingering, almost bruising kisses, like a movie goodbye between a hero and heroine, or something equally dramatic.

Once we're inside, you ask if there's anything I want. I nearly say "you", just to keep in with the mood, which is suddenly wildly romantic, but I remember the way you were earlier, completely bored with me, and instead I ask for coffee and have a glance around whilst you go and make it.

I don't want to seem utterly transfixed with you, even though I wouldn't actually be here with you now if I wasn't. And how couldn't I be? I'm a people-watcher, and you come across as complicated.

Your flat is new, I notice – anyone could see that. I don't know exactly how new until later, but it's new and it's very empty, empty of almost anything that shows actual life.

Yes, you have furniture, which is alright. But there isn't much else that doesn't look out of place, honestly. There's a laptop, but it's covered in a thin layer of dust, the kind it takes at least two weeks of disuse to appear.

I can't think of the last time I didn't use my laptop for that long, personally.

I look into your kitchen, where you have your back to me.

You're living alone, I think. I don't think you're used to it, and two cups were already sitting by the kettle together. You move one to the side and get a new one out for me, which is strange.

I can't be sure, but I think a couple of people have been around to see you recently. The washing up has all been done apart from a wine glass, and there's a box in the corner of the living room which isn't unpacked, despite the fact that you've clearly been here long enough to get the place sorted.

You're not the type to drink a lot of wine, much less by yourself, and you wouldn't bring a box of something you wouldn't want to unpack and leave it in plain sight like that. Besides, the box hasn't been there for as long as you've been in the flat – there's no dust on it, it's only been in this room a few days. Maybe someone else brought it here and you couldn't bear to look through it yet.

I think I know why.

I think you've lost someone. People come to see you, probably check up on you. You aren't used to living by yourself, and you have a whole box of something which you can't bring yourself to look at. Things as everyday as maintaining an online presence don't matter to you, and you waited for a call or text from someone, out of habit, but it never came. You couldn't make coffee in that extra cup.

When you're coming in again, with the two cups you did use, I'm still thinking. It's rude, but I'm not sure it counts because you won't really notice.

I'm thinking about how you kissed me.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure you were kissing me. That the desperate sentiment was meant for me. I thought, didn't I, that it felt like a goodbye.

It's something grief does to some people. For a while, everything is a way to say the goodbye you never had.

Blowing gently on my coffee, I want to know who you're saying goodbye to. I'm not sure how I feel about you using me for it – to you, I'm a stranger, not a medium. (I'm not a medium by any stretch of the imagination.)

I wonder what you'd do if they reappeared and suddenly walked in through your door – whoever you've lost, I mean. I wonder if you ever kissed them like that, if you wanted to. I wonder what they looked like, how you met, precisely what you meant to each other and how it all got taken away.

I wonder if they would be able to tell how you felt and what was wrong from little things, if they knew you and knew how to read you.

Like I said, you do come across as complicated.

You make love – but not to me, not really – like nothing else has ever mattered so much in the world. In the morning you let me leave like nothing ever happened.

Two days later, I realise I already know the cause of your grief, a few of the details even, but none that truly count.

It's not in the newspapers any more, just on your mind, but there are reminders everywhere and I stumble into one walking home those two days later, when all the pieces come together.

It's one of those stupid hats. I remember where I've seen it before, all the pictures in the news, the headlines that scream abuse where they used to adore, who you are and who you've lost and everything that took him away from you.

He was Sherlock bloody Holmes, John. My God.

I'm so sorry for your loss.