It was a crisp, cool winter's morning; frost rapped its bony fingers at the edges of the window panes of 221b Baker Street but was warded off by the billowing steam of an old copper kettle sitting atop the hob that granted warmth to the whole flat. John Watson sat alone at the breakfast bar, his face buried in his hands, seemingly oblivious to the boiling kettle. Half-finished experiments and laboratory paraphernalia littered every surface around him and a worn metal crutch leant against the side, next to his chair.
It had been almost six months since… that day, but you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the flat. Sherlock's chair had a little creased imprint on the seat; unopened bills were attached to the mantelpiece by a penknife; slides and messy handwritten notes were scattered everywhere as if someone had simply left their work for a few minutes, though the handwriting was not John's; in fact, nothing had changed save the position of the TV remote and a thin layer of dust covering everything.
Finally, the impertinent whistling of the kettle seemed to rouse John from his fevered daydream and he made his way over to the oven, switching off the hob and fetching two mugs from the overhead cupboard. One had a military crest on it; the other depicted a black fingerprint against a plain white background. The teabags were still in their box; no one had bothered to empty it into the pot bought for that purpose. The short bachelor made both teas, adding two sugars to the fingerprint mug but none to the army one. He sighed, remembering that there was no milk, and resumed his place at the breakfast bar, shoving aside a platter of slides in order to have room to open up his newspaper, and waited for Sherlock to return with the milk.
The thing was, John knew that his taller detective friend was … gone, but it was like his brain refused to believe that yet another one of his friends was dead. After seeing so many of his closest friends, as close as brothers, blown to pieces he'd told himself he would never let someone get that close again, that it wasn't worth the pain of loss. But then Sherlock had come along and John didn't really get a choice in the matter – they had become best friends in an impossibly short amount of time and against all odds. And yet again, his closest and most trusted friend had been torn away from him, ripped from his life, and left him somehow even more alone than he was before. It turned out his mind just couldn't take the pain of another loss and had created what John supposed was a hallucination of Sherlock. Sometimes John knew that what he was seeing was fake, but other times his mind let him have his blissful moments of ignorance.
Right now John's imaginary Sherlock was out fetching milk. A tiny, quiet part of his brain knew that he'd end up having to ask a neighbour for enough to make a few mugs of tea (Mrs Hudson was on holiday), and this was the part that had given him back his limp and insisted he began using his crutch again, but another, more stubborn and louder part clung hopelessly to his illusion and fully expected Sherlock to walk through the door any minute now.
Knock knock!
"That'll be Sherlock," John said to himself (it was a dreadful habit, but one he barely noticed he had). He grabbed his crutch and hobbled down the stairs.
At the other side of the door was, in fact, Sherlock - though he didn't have any milk. He'd spent the last six months eliminating the remaining few spiders in Moriarty's web and proving his innocence to the police force. Lestrade has kept it all hush-hush on Sherlock's behalf – the last thing they needed was more publicity – but everyone that counted knew he was still alive. The only person left to tell was John himself and Sherlock had left him till last for good reason. He might not experience many of them himself, but he understood other people's feelings. He observed the human race meticulously and was almost an expert at predicting human relationships. Even so, he couldn't be sure how John would react. Would he be angry? Overjoyed? Doubtful of his integrity? Sherlock could predict any of these reactions with a large degree of certainty. What he didn't expect was no reaction at all.
"No milk?"
"John, I'm so sorry-"
"Knew you'd forget. Would've been pretty abnormal for you if you hadn't! I expect you forgot completely about the milk and solved three murders and a burglary while I was sitting here waiting."
"No, John, I-"
"Well, come in then. I'll borrow some milk off Gregson from 220," and with that, John stood to one side, allowing Sherlock to pass and closing the door behind him. "I made you a tea, but it might've gone cold."
Being the man that he was, it didn't take Sherlock long to realise that John was probably suffering from extreme grief and this was why he was acting so strange. He surveyed the flat; everything was exactly as he'd left it – eerily so. Even his experiments were still intact, although the toes he'd left on the side had been thrown out. Shame.
John entered the flat, having been to 220 and gotten about half a pint in the bottom of a bottle.
"Well? Is the tea still edible?" Sherlock assumed that this reaction was John's way of coping and thought nothing more of it.
"Technically, John, as tea is a beverage rather than food, it never was 'edible'."
And with that, the boys slipped back into their normal daily routine.
"Bored!" shouted Sherlock, rolling over on the sofa to face John. "I'm bored, John!"
"Well go and find something to do, then!"
"There is nothing! Everyone's being so insipidly law-abiding recently!"
John rolled his eyes and went back to his book. Sherlock huffed and rolled over, pulling his dressing gown tighter around him.
The doorbell rang and John got up to get it; there was no use asking Sherlock to get it, he never did. His limp was still there, and he still needed his crutch, so his progress was slow. When he finally reached the door and opened it, Lestrade looked like he was about to turn and leave.
"Alright, John?"
"Alright, Greg? Sorry about the wait, my bloody leg…" Greg smiled in understanding and followed John back up to the flat.
"Sorry to bother you at your house, but there's been a triple murder and the public are getting restless,"
"Why are you asking me, Greg? I'm not him…" Greg frowned at John in misunderstanding and looked over his shoulder at the desultory form of Sherlock who had at least rolled over to face him.
"Will you come?" said the detective inspector. John frowned, looking between Greg and Sherlock with the look of a man who has seen a ghost.
"Triple murder? Routine. Boring," said Sherlock. If anyone had been paying attention to him, they would have seen John's mouth hit the floor.
"Well, some guy handed himself in saying he was the killer, and then he was found dead in his cell,"
"Hmm… Okay, I'll take it! A good old killed-in-a-locked-room case!" cried Sherlock, leaping off the sofa and heading towards his bedroom to get dressed.
"Wait a second!" shouted John, causing Sherlock to freeze in his tracks. He turned to Lestrade, pale as a sheet, and whispered; "you can see him too? You can… see… Sherlock?"
"Of course I can, John, don't be an idiot-"
"Shut up Lestrade. John, are you serious? You thought I was…" Sherlock immediately realised what had happened, and without a second thought, ran over to John and enveloped him in an encompassing, no-holds-barred hug.
"It's okay, John. I'm here. I'm real. I'm so sorry…"
"But you… I thought you were… Oh God, Sherlock, I'm such an idiot-"
"No you're not, John, anyone would assume the same. I'm so sorry, John." he held John even tighter, if that was possible.
"Would someone like to let me in on this?" asked a very confused Greg Lestrade.
AN: Based off of this prompt on from sillyunicorntime's tumblr:
"What if when Sherlock gets back he goes to see John and John doesn't even react just lets him slide seamlessly back into his life. And at first Sherlock thinks it's kind of weird but he gets used to it, to John never bringing it up, to the way he sometimes just snaps and yells or breaks something because he figures, "That's just the way he copes and I deserve so much worse." Then one day Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson or someone shows up and starts talking to Sherlock and John goes all white in the face and says
"You can see him, too?"
And that's when Sherlock realizes that the reason John never said anything was because he'd been imagining that Sherlock was still there the whole time. He never noticed that his hallucination had been replaced by the real thing."
The title is from the song "After The Storm" by Mumford & Sons, you should check it out 'cause I think it fits the Fall situation perfectly :)
Hope you guys liked my first fic! My tumblr is eeelneekey if you wanna, you know, check it out ;D (free cookies? :D)