Alright, so I'm trying something a little new. Lemme know what you think/if I should keep going. I DO plan on giving the story more of a plot in the next chapter, which I'm working on this very moment, but I just wanted to get this chapter out as soon as possible. Hope you enjoy~
Listening to: Terrible Love, The National
March
Dear Sherlock,
I can't help but think any day now you might saunter through the door, looking haughty as ever and demand to know where I hid those damn nicotine patches. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I think I see your silhouette appear on the sidewalk outside our flat—yes, I still think of it as our flat—but when I turn to look again, it's gone.
It happened the other day. I went out to get some milk, and even that reminded me of you, and came back to see a tall, dark figure outside Mrs. Hudson's little shop. I could have sworn it was you, Sherlock, as silly as it sounds. Then some homeless man came up to me asking if I could spare a few coins, and I looked away. When I looked back over to the shop, the figure was gone. I almost thought I imagined the whole bloody thing.
I'm still living at 221b, in case you were wondering. At first it was too painful for me to go back, I couldn't bear the thought of the place with out you in it. Without your microscopes and strange experiments, without the weird body parts in the fridge. The thought of not being woken up in the middle of the night to go racing through London on some crazy adventure was almost too much to handle.
Out of everything, I think I miss that the most, Sherlock. You dragging me off on some wild romp across the country side or down some strange city alleyway. Not knowing where I might end up in the next twenty four hours, not knowing what trouble, what danger, we might have gotten ourselves into.
We. Because we were a team, Sherlock, and I miss that too. More than anything. In the army, I always heard blokes talking about how the bond between two soldiers is deeper and more fulfilling than any romantic partnership could ever be. I never really understood it though, the idea of feeling completely and wholeheartedly myself around someone else.
I trusted my unit with my life, I trusted the doctors I worked with. But I think I understand it now, because I never trusted any of them as much as I trusted you. I still trust you, Sherlock. I still believe in you.
My therapist wants me to "get it out of my system". I dunno what that really means, though. Get what out of my system, you? Well, I doubt that will ever really happen. I only knew you for eighteen months, Sherlock, but I will never forget you. She asked about my blog, how it was going. I told her I deleted it. It had gotten too much bad publicity after the newspapers started publishing the stories.
It's the worst, Sherlock, the press. They publish these awful stories about you, they say awful things. Some are so far fetched and ridiculous I am shocked that people really buy this stuff. It's horrendous. Sometimes I see pity in peoples' eyes when they recognize me. It's almost as if they're thinking, poor bloke, got conned into being the sidekick of a psychopath. Now look where he is, poor fellow. I can't bear talking to people like that.
Anyhow, my therapist said I should take up writing again. She said anything would be good for me. I guess that's why I'm writing, because my limp is coming back and I scared if I don't pull it together I have to start using that damn cane again.
I'm sorry, I just slipped up a little. I've been working really hard to move on, Sherlock, and it's so hard. Thinking of the cane reminded me of when I forgot in the restaurant that first night we had dinner together. The first adventure, it feels like a lifetime ago, and yet like it was only yesterday.
Okay, when this happens my therapist said I should breathe and focus on the present. Alright so, I'm sitting in our, no that's not right, in the flat in the big armchair. I'm wearing a striped jumper you'd find especially appalling. Mrs. Hudson and I have cleared a lot of your things out of the main rooms, although I can't bring myself to un-stick the pen knife from the mantle.
We put it all in your room, your things, packed it all up into several cardboard boxes and just left in there. I haven't been in there since we did it. I don't know why I keep it all, I guess the idea that you could come home any time comforts me. And of course, when you came home you'd want your things.
I know it's not right to think like that. I can't help it sometimes, though. I get so carried away in a memory I'll forget to go to work. And when I finally shake myself awake my knee will be stiff and I'll get sad all over again because I know you'll never come in through the front door muttering about Lestrade or Mycroft again.
Even though this will just go into the empty shoebox I keep some writings in and that will get shoved under my bed, I feel closer to you than I have since that last awful day. Writing's funny like that. Memories are funny. I feel like I could reach out and touch you, but there's whole universes between us. So I guess I'll just keep writing, and try to make that bridge between us.
It's so different without you, Sherlock. I feel empty when I wake up, like all the adventure has gone out of the world, and out of me. I miss you more than I care to admit to myself, more than I care to admit to anyone. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, I can't believe you're gone.
Sincerely,
John