A/N: My first Sherlock fic. Be gentle.
Disclaimer: The idea that I own anything is hilarious! Please, continue to amuse yourselves. ;)
Summary: John misses Sherlock. Something manages to make it better in the end. Prompted by Noxid Anamchara over on tumblr for the great drabble prompt! Enjoy.
John hadn't touched his blog in months. 3 of them, to be exact. 3 months of countless hours passed staring at his computer screen, the clean white glow of an empty blog page glaring back at him, the tiny cursor blinking in place over and over as he waited endlessly for words that wouldn't come. How could they come? Sherlock was still gone; what more was there to say?
His apartment was taupe. Taupe walls, taupe carpet, taupe curtains. John resisted the urge to shoot at the walls with his pistol, choosing instead to keep it safely in its desk drawer. He hadn't been outside in a week, choosing instead to have his groceries delivered to the tiny flat.
He felt most days as he was turning taupe himself, blending further in with his drab apartment as he mourned the loss of all vibrancy in his life. He'd witness horrors of war in foreign deserts but this is what stopped John Watson from living.
Still the words didn't come.
Another week. And another. Still nothing. Harry had been been by, with false, misunderstood sympathies and the proffer of booze. She'd fallen off the wagon, then. John found himself hard pressed to be overly concerned this time.
He lounged in his cheap, overly worn desk chair and stared at his laptop with bleary eyes. Blank, white, nothingness stared back at him. It was suddenly too much and rather than give in to the temptation to hurl his laptop against the wall, John found himself leaning forward, fingers tapping hesitantly against the keyboard as words slowly found their way out.
Nothing new to report.
John clicked the "publish" button and sat back in his chair. There. It was something, as his therapist would say. Would have said, if he'd bothered to show up for meetings. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, feeling the burn of staring at the computer for too long again.
Ping.
He looked; a comment. He was surprised; he'd never had a comment on his blog that quickly after publishing even the most popular of his adventures with Sherlock. It was anonymous.
Hang in there, John. Everything will be ok.
He lost count of the hours he spent staring at those 8 words.
Another month passed. There was nothing special about the day John found himself typing again on his laptop.
Still nothing new to report.
He sat back and rolled his head, listening to the creaking in his neck. Within a minute, the faint ping that signaled a comment reached his ears. Again, anonymous.
It will all be all right, John.
The next day, he opened the window and was surprised to find the air had grown colder with the coming autumn, the sky the pale blue of a robin's egg. It was the first thing of any kind to catch his eye in weeks, months and he spent an hour, watching the whisps of clouds moving across the sky and trying to remember just when the last time he'd set foot outside this god forsaken flat was.
I don't remember the last time I left my flat. I wonder who has been paying my rent. I certainly haven't been! The sky is lovely today.
He waited, curious. He didn't have to wait long. It was still anonymous.
Getting sick of taupe yet?
For the first time in months, John Watson almost smiled.
It went on for another month. Every day, John found himself posting the most inane things on his blog. Nothing of true meaning, nothing to show the immeasurable guilt and sorrow that threatened to bury him alive, but... something. And every day, within a minute of his posting, he'd get the notification of a new anonymous comment. Always, it was either a small comment in reply to that day's entry or just a small note of encouragement.
It's ok, John.
It will get better, John. I promise.
You're not alone, John.
Always 'John', never 'Watson' or 'Dr. Watson'. He refused to let himself think about the potential identity of his anonymous online friend. No other comments came, the sudden surge of his blog's popularity having faded into pop culture obscurity.
He found himself minding, not for his own purpose but for Sherlock. Sherlock deserved a better memorial. John found himself thinking that more and more as the days wore on and the leaves fell from the trees, twisting and turning in the cold air and leaving bare, brittle branches behind.
It was time to open the box.
Mrs. Hudson had brought it months ago, a small box of possessions left from Baker Street that she'd insisted he have. Just a small box. It had sat unattended in the corner of the flat, the brown cardboard blending almost perfectly into the drab taupe walls. John found himself sitting on the worn taupe carpet, slowly unfolding the flaps of the box until he could see the only two items that lay inside.
The pale, dull bit of rounded bone reflected in the polished sheen of almost obscenely bright wood; a skull and a violin. Sherlock's violin and the friend that for so long had rested on the mantlepiece of 221B Baker Street.
There was a lump in John's throat as he carefully lifted the violin from the box and cradled it in shaking fingers. He had no idea how to play it, of course; musicality was something the Watson family lacked as a whole. He timidly plucked at the strings on the neck of the violin and let the faint whisper of slightly out of tune chords echo around him.
There was no blog update that day. He didn't even turn on his computer. Instead, he talked to an old skull as he sat on the floor, plucking timid chords with gentle fingers from the violin.
The next day, John showered, shaved and, for the first time in 7 months, left his flat. He lasted less than 5 minutes and didn't make it any farther than the front porch of the building before his lungs closed up and panic seized him, causing him to flee back up the winding stairs to his land of taupe. As he leaned back against the door, the ping from his laptop came to him over his labored breathing. Funny, that. He didn't remember turning on his computer. He slowly crossed the room to his desk and flipped open the laptop, bringing up his blog. There, on his entry from the day before yesterday, he had a new comment from his friend Anonymous.
Baby steps, John. Well done.
The months old ache of guilt and sorrow lifted from his shoulders, leaving John Watson breathless all over again.
He knew.
He knew.
He knew, and suddenly everything made sense. His fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out a short blog entry.
A strange man once told me I see but do not observe. This tends to result in delayed reactions on my part. At the very least, they were delayed compared to him. I figured out today that he was right. I understand now.
He hit "publish" and waited. It took 30 seconds for the anonymous comment to arrive.
Finally.
John felt as though his face would break from smiling as he typed out a reply to the comment.
I'm pissed as hell.
20 seconds, this times.
That's ok, John.
John laughed. Laughed. It sounded incredibly loud in his small, dull, taupe apartment. He grabbed his coat and went out again, leaving the door open in his wake. Panic didn't hit him this time and he made it all the way to the end of the street, picking up enough food to make dinner for 6 people at the grocery on the corner.
He took his time walking back, even though the paper bags were heavy and threatened to burst. John sucked in deep lungfuls of air, the chill of the winter air seeping into his bones and making him feel alive again. It was snowing, barely. Trickles of ice fell and melted instantly but they were there and John found himself sticking out his tongue to catch the tiny flakes like a child as he walked back to the flat.
He was about halfway up the staircase when he remembered he hadn't shut the door and his smile grew even bigger. It figures. I just needed to catch up. When John Watson came upon the entryway of his flat, he wasn't surprised at all as he regarded the visitor standing in the middle of the room, staring at the taupe with thinly veiled contempt.
"Took you long enough," John said.
Sherlock just smiled. "I like to make an entrance."