Hello all! First ever Sherlock fanfiction both posted and written. I hope you guys like it, and I'd really appreciate reviews! This is also posted in AO3 under the same title and main pseud.
John thinks that he is slowly, surely losing his mind.
Everywhere he looks, he sees Sherlock. Or parts of him.
John is heading to the clinic – he can't bear to part with Baker Street and he has more time than he'd like – and it's a busy day for London. He's been jostled through crowds and swarms of people and warm bodies that are not Sherlock.
A sharp jab is suddenly felt in his gut – and he snaps his head up because this is the signal from Sherlock to pay attention. But Sherlock is not here anymore.
He notices that the offender is a strawberry blond girl in a white suit and he catches a glimpse of her back. Not Sherlock.
Later on, he passes a street musician. He wouldn't have spared him a second glance if the street musician wasn't so good at his job. He is playing a broken violin, held together only by duct tape, but the music he is spinning out of it was brilliant. Amazing. Like Sherlock.
John's head whirls around to see if the musician is Sherlock. The only semblance they hold are dark raven curls. The face and structure and eyes are all wrong. Not Sherlock.
A month after the Fall, the Fall in capitals because it was the only Fall he'd encountered and it was a painful Fall, and he didn't want to remember it by any other name. A month after the Fall, John earns an early day home with sympathetic glances from Sarah. He's too stubborn and proud to move out, still. But he can't stay at Baker Street today.
As he watches his flat from outside on the street, someone bumps into him and it feels suspiciously like a pickpocket. "Hey!" he's ready to shout, but one touch in his pocket assures him that the touch was accidental.
Or not.
A piece of paper is in his pocket, and it's in no way accidental now. He fishes it out and reads it.
Believe.
It's written in that sharp, flowing cursive that only Sherlock could write. Frantically John turns around. The closest passer-by wears a black trench coat, but her hair is flaming red. Not Sherlock.
Six months after the Fall, John finally ventures to the coffee shop that Sherlock had once been with him. He orders a "black with two sugars" tentatively, even though he probably doesn't like it because it's Sherlock's flavour, but it's Sherlock, and he feels like he should do it for Sherlock.
"What would you like, sir?" the girl at the counter asks, and John looks up, and she has Sherlock's eyes, the green and the gold and the blue and the gray, and oh, for one second he almost blurts out the question, but no, she's not Sherlock, she's a brunette and lithe and athletic. Not Sherlock.
A year after the Fall, John meets a lovely woman called Mary and goes out on dates with her. She is not Sherlock. He has made sure that there is no part of her that resembles Sherlock. She has wavy blond hair, always smiling, and drops compliments every other minute. She is clever, but not Sherlock clever, no one could be Sherlock clever except Sherlock. She's lovely and curvy, not sharp and angular like Sherlock.
But she holds hands like Sherlock. Her hand-holding is always unexpected, quick, firm. Just like Sherlock when he was dragged along on cases. Even though her hand is all wrong, her height doesn't match, John almost calls her Sherlock on more than one occasion. But Mary, no. Not Sherlock.
Three years after the Fall, Mary's broken up with him, John is alone again. Alone in Baker Street. He can handle mentions of the Fall better now, but Sarah still gives him a half day off from the clinic. He heads back. There is someone in the flat though. He notices just as he enters the living room.
The someone is sitting on the sofa and the someone has raven black curls and sharp elbows and a black trench coat and eyes of ice and steel and jade and gold and his hands are on John's shoulders and gripping them tightly and whispering "John, John, John" and his voice is so broken and John almost laughs at himself because there's finally a complete and whole Sherlock.
Except this Sherlock has emotions and he's worried and his eyes are glittering with tears and he croaks out a faltering "John? Please answer me!" and John thinks his hallucinations are back and oh, it's such a beautiful illusion and John wraps his arms around the illusion because he wants it to last longer.
But the illusion becomes real and instead of empty air he feels the warmth of another person, the warmth that could only be Sherlock, and John finally starts pondering between the ideas that either Sherlock is alive, alive or his senses have gone haywire.
When he feels cold, wet teardrops hit the back of his neck, John knows that it's real. Sherlock is here. Sherlock is alive. Sherlock is crying and explaining between sobs where he had been for three years and John is angry, furious, touched, guilty, he wants to comfort Sherlock and hold him in his hands forever, he wants to punch Sherlock repeatedly in the face but he cannot. This is Sherlock.
Sherlock has finally come back to him, whole, complete.