Hey guys! Sorry for the break between uploads - it's exam season, and I'm stressing over my exams to a great extent, so it may be a while before I upload anything else. I hope this short oneshot makes up for it. Love you guys. Enjoy. - Léa
-insert obvious disclaimer stating that I own nothing-
Death and All His Friends
"No one could be that clever."
"You could."
There is no easy way to explain how it feels when you lose someone close to you unless you have had the misfortune to experience it for yourself.
When someone dies, the hole in your life they leave behind is too painful for words – and yet, despite this pain, you find that it is the only comfort you have. That pain is a reminder that they were real, that they were a part of your life, and the memories you're left with have not been simply imagined.
John had lost Sherlock.
And to this day, he still didn't understand why.
It seemed that one moment they'd been laughing with friends over the idea of Sherlock wearing a pair of comical reindeer antlers whilst playing his violin at Christmas, the room full of smiles and friendship and happiness. The next moment was filled with the sound of his own voice screaming Sherlock's name as John watched him fall.
Down.
Down.
And the unmistakable thud of him hitting the cold concrete of the pavement.
John was left with his life in ruin. Sherlock had been the one to heal him from the both mental and physical pains of his time at war. From the disappearance of the psychosomatic limp to the nights of peaceful sleep once plagued with nightmares of blood and gunfire.
Until that day. The day of the fall.
After that day, the limp returned. The nightmares returned – only now, his dreams were consumed with memories of Sherlock. Every so often, John would have a dream of the happy days – the days he now recognised as the best in his life. Running with Sherlock as they sprinted after some criminal, matching his pace as they shared a knowing grin, both knowing that times like that were just amazing. The feeling of adrenaline coursing through their veins, their heavy breaths providing the only other sound in the dark streets apart from the noise of their pounding feet.
Those dreams were becoming less common as time passed. They became infected and contaminated with dreams of John running resolutely for the building of St. Bart's, trying to catch Sherlock as he fell. In those dreams, he was never able to reach his friend. He'd run, and run, and run, but never make enough progress to reach Sherlock in time. He'd have to see his friend die over and over again, consumed by the guilt that he could have done something – anything – to try and save his best friend.
The raw emptiness that filled his days now made the world seem so much sharper. The jagged edges of each and every pointless day made the short time he spent with the great Sherlock Holmes seem more and more like a dream.
"You told me once that you weren't a hero."
The definition of a hero is 'a person who is admired for courage or noble qualities.'
Sherlock Holmes was therefore indeed a hero.
John, once he found himself able to return to the flat he had shared with his hero, had left Sherlock's room untouched. He had left the experiment on some form of microbe still spread out on the kitchen table. He had left the safety goggles Sherlock had worn when he'd finally taken John's reoccurring concerns for his safety into consideration abandoned by the microscope, whose viewfinder remained focused on the same slide Sherlock had been so engrossed in when he'd last been in the flat. John had allowed dust to settle on the equipment, in Sherlock's room and on his other belongings.
As Sherlock had once said, dust is eloquent.
Mrs. Hudson had tried her best to help.
She'd attempted to clean up Sherlock's chemistry equipment from the kitchen, John allowing her to take the majority of it, but stopped her when she reached to begin packing away the experiment on microbes Sherlock had left behind that day.
"He'll need it when he comes back." He'd said.
Mrs. Hudson had said nothing, only retracted her reaching hand and walked over to where the now pale and thin army doctor had been observing her from his usual chair in the living room, placing her hand on his shoulder and smiling weakly. She nodded and left him to his thoughts, which were becoming more and more haunted every passing day.
John could no longer afford the cost of the rent of 221B without Sherlock, and he'd not returned to his job after that day. John's rational conscience told him he should move out and move on, leaving Mrs. Hudson to clear out the flat and be able to rent it out to someone able to afford the rent on the place. And yet, John couldn't face the idea of leaving these walls. They held so many memories, from the bullet holes still present in the wallpapered wall at the far side of the room to the sight of the Cluedo board still skewered to the opposite wall after that unforgettable argument that it wasn't listed in the rule booklet that it was possible for the victim to have committed his own murder.
Sometimes, when it rained, John went for a walk. Grabbing his cane but forgoing his dark leather jacket, he'd pull closed the heavy door of the building of 221 Baker Street to turn and walk in whatever direction called to him.
The feeling of the rain hitting his skin was strangely comforting, too. It was the only feeling he'd seem to experience nowadays – the rest of the time feeling only numb. He'd allow himself to become soaked to the bone, turning his face into the flow of the raindrops plummeting from the sky above and closing his eyes. The feeling of the rain hitting his skin was the only thing reminding him that he was still alive.
Gradually, his thoughts turned from the unanswered questions and numbness left by Sherlock's death to asking the world why it could still continue. Why could the streets of London remain so alive when Sherlock was not? Why could the sun still shine and people continue on their daily routines when the great consulting detective lay in a grave not so far away?
How could they live?
John became more and more angry at the world. At himself. And eventually, at Sherlock.
How could Sherlock leave him like this? How could Sherlock kill himself, leaving John feeling so alone and empty he just wanted to die himself?
He wouldn't, that's why. John had told himself.
Because Sherlock couldn't be dead. Nothing could kill Sherlock Holmes, not even Sherlock himself.
On one of his many increasing walks in the rain, John had come across the boy he and Sherlock had consulted about the yellow spray paint and caused the doctor to receive an ASBO that wasn't rightfully his. The boy – John failed to recall his name – 'Raz' or something - was doing what he'd done when John had met him for the fit time: vandalising public property with what he guessed was another intriguing instalment of 'Urban Bloodlust Frenzy'.
John had marched right up to the boy, dropping his cane in the process and grabbingthe boy's shoulder, wheeling him around to face him.
The look of shock on Raz's face was evident immediately, but after a second he'd recognised John and took out his earphones that had been blasting out some heavy dupstep track. Raz had decided to keep the hood of his jacket up to shield his head from the rain, but John failed to notice. Gripped by a sudden urge to do so, John snatched the can of spray paint from Raz's grasp – the same shade of yellow as they'd first talked to him about all that time ago, John noted – and proceeded to spray his own message on the wall beside Raz's graffiti.
It took less than a minute to finish his message. Once completed, John tossed the can of paint back to a still awestruck Raz before marching away down the road, leaving his forgotten cane to lay in a growing puddle by the road.
Raz watched the ex-army doctor march away into the distance, limp gone, before turning to read what John had left on the wall for all to see.
There, immortalised on the brick, was the message
I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES.