Friction
Disclaimer: If I owned Sherlock, you wouldn't still be waiting for Series 3.
Thanks to Hannah for Beta-reading and not telling me to delete this immediately.
"He can feel the burn time leaves as it slides across his skin, but that doesn't mean he'll stop resisting." Post-Reichenbach. Because nothing's ever as simple as "moving on."
The only thing he sees in color anymore, real color, is Sherlock standing on the hospital roof, phone pressed to his ear and too far away and everything moves suddenly and Sherlock no Sherlock stop Sherlock please, please don't. Sure, the rest of John's life happens in reds and blues and greens like it does for everyone else, but nothing else is so sharp, like the lights have all been turned up a thousand times and it's shining, neon in a way that screams to be remembered the redredred blood like his face is a canvas, the black of his hair too vivid for a color so dark and everything else that happens is dimmed in comparison, not real color, because it's the things that hurt that get stuck in his mind, isn't it?
As if there's a needle stuck there, a pin marking it that just stays, won't let go and bloody leave him alone without scratching him all up first. He doesn't know whether it'd hurt worse to leave the marker in him, in his mind what else can he do? How can you rid yourself of memory? and feel the ache every time he's reminded of Sherlock it's not a reminder anymore, just a constant, and for someone who's gone, he's all too much there or pull it out, let go and watch as he bleeds too, just like Sherlock on the pavement.
He doesn't think he could though, not really. It's burrowed too deep, the memory of Sherlock and everything that came with him. He's reminded of it every time he looks around the flat, because even in his own home the bastard won't leave him alone.
Harry mentioned moving out once, a phone call almost a year later and the gentle suggestion that "John, maybe you could find someone else to share a flat with. Just think about it?" He tries his hardest not to. But if he could choose what he thought about, well, wouldn't that just solve everything?
But he can't choose, and there's no getting around that now. He used to act like he could, a couple months after Sherlock- after he fell from the roof and- after.
"He's gone," he'd say, over and over and over round and round the garden like a teddy bear chanting it because maybe then it'd finally get through to him in the way he needs it to and doesn't think he could stand at the same time. "He's gone, he's gone, he's gone," and he doesn't know why he does this to himself except that he needs it.
And maybe he needs it, maybe it's better for him, but if it is, John doesn't want it. He doesn't want the quiet at three in the morning, and once he even bought a CD of violin music to put on in the middle of the night. It didn't help, though; too impersonal, too recorded. It didn't go quickly, spastically at random moments only to cut off suddenly followed by "Of course, garden shears!"
He wants to see microscopes in the kitchen or hear the gun shots as he rushes up the stairs. He wants Sherlock to say "Even you must be able to understand; you're not completely stupid" and he wants to never be able to have a proper bloody date because Sherlock's likely as not to walk in on it somehow. He wants to complain because would you just go to the store for once? and to be abducted by a controlling, over-protective big brother who hardly stops by now because the flat's got to be just as bad for him. John wants to get a text telling him to do something stupid and by now he knows he'll do it anyways. He'll do it because it's stupid and he wants to be threatened and nearly murdered and for his bloody hand to stop shaking and for everything to go back why can't he just go back for time to go back he can feel the heat from the friction and for Sherlock to come back just one more time.
He's tired of hating how much he wants all these things.
And everything's just got to hurt, doesn't it? It would be too easy to let him move on. Instead he can feel the friction of the world as it turns, the burn time leaves as it slides across his skin, but that doesn't mean he'll stop resisting. He may not be able to go back, but he can stay firmly in place, even if it costs him, (and God, it does).
And John hates, hates the feeling of being alone, of knowing he's alone, almost as much as the truth of the matter. He hates that he's aware of what he can't do anything about Damn it, Sherlock, didn't you think of that? So he stops, eventually- stops knowing- and goes back to making two cups of tea every morning because it's so much easier and doesn't he deserve something easy by now? Maybe someday he'll stop pretending.
John falls into the routine he'd tried so hard to break, and it feels so right that if it's wrong, he's long past caring. That doesn't mean it's better- no, it hurts so much more, the burn marks of kinetic friction as everything moves past him and he tries not to keep up. But it's a better kind of pain. It's the kind of pain that comes from something worth it. And if that's all he can do for Sherlock now, John will gladly let himself hurt.
John's resilient, though- he's willing to take the wounds and more, anything, God, he'd give anything if it means he can stop letting time carry him away. So he can feel the burn of the world turning against his skin, even if he tries not to look at the marks it leaves. He can feel the strain each time he remembers, and everything is whispering let go, just let him go. Maybe it'd hurt less if he did. But John Watson isn't a soldier for nothing.