John and Sherlock really did nothing but argue. Well, John argued. Sherlock dismissed in a quickly put together sentence that made complete sense but angered John anyway. Sherlock couldn't win the fight—he just continued to put John and his anger on a shelf. That was how he always was. It happened when Sherlock used John's phone for the first time, then his laptop, then ate his food. John's flatmate was impossible, and so when John came in after a long day at the surgery to see the tails of Sherlock's coat disappear into his room, John stormed up the stairs. Sherlock was standing in the doorway, his eyes alight with a familiar playful light. Sherlock was experimenting. And it had to do with John. And his room. Where he slept.
He thoroughly enjoyed being around Sherlock. But goddamnit he hated him. And it was not until after Sherlock died that John could truly admit why he hated Sherlock as much as he appreciated him. It was love.
Sherlock Holmes was dead, and John was too. In his place stepped Dr. Watson, empty and sad with very little to inspire him to care. From the roof of Saint Bart's Sherlock had fallen. He had landed directly on John's heart.
Why was it always serious harm and death that cause humans to realize how deeply they care for others? Why must we be shaken out of our pathetic stupor by tragedy? Why can we not look at each other and know how perfect that other person is for us?
Dr. Watson hated himself for being such a coward, afraid to lose the comfortable atmosphere of the flat in exchange for a weird unrequited love situation. He had been afraid of losing Sherlock as his best mate. He had been afraid of telling Sherlock even the tiniest inkling of how he felt because then things would have changed. Most of all, he had been afraid of what telling Sherlock meant about him—he was afraid of the label and what that might do to his perception of himself. He was a coward, pathetic and now alone.
Two and a half years of living in a Sherlockless world, and of nights sleeping in a Sherlockless flat had left Dr. Watson exhausted. Or rather, these two years had acknowledged the very obvious fact that he had no energy. It was impossible to be exhausted of energy if none existed in the first place. Dr. Watson was empty, and so he made the decision to fill that space with a new flat.
Mrs. Hudson cried, begging him not to leave her too. She said too. Sherlock and John were a unit and Sherlock was dead and John was dead. Dr. Watson smiled tight lipped and hugged her. He promised to visit. They do meet for tea every few weeks. She misses John. So does he.
The new flat was 9 Outer Circle, parallel to the Baker Street one. There was nothing even remotely comfortable about Outer Circle. It was a busy road, and there was no sociopath at the window drowning out the cars with his violin. His landlord thought himself real royalty and so Dr. Watson was given the highest rent he had ever seen for the smallest excuse for a flat he had ever seen. The landlord justified the price because 'he had furnished it'.
It was one room, with a kitchen he couldn't turn around in without hitting a knob or handle. There was a garbage shoot. The only saving grace was the fridge. The edge of the kitchen counter next to the sink jutted out a bit, just enough that the land Lord Almighty supplied a chair and called it the kitchen table. Three steps back and four to the right was the futon, "useful for both lounging with friends and taking a nap." This is what counted as the bed. It smelled odd. Dr. Watson covered it in blankets from Baker Street, never letting the black velvet that originally covered it touch him. Across from the futon was a crooked full-length mirror next to a yellowing white wardrobe. Upon opening, Dr. Watson is hit with the smell of mildew and aging wood.
Dr. Watson accepted it because there was literally no room for Sherlock here. There was no room for John here. Just Dr. Watson and nothing else.
The next day, two and a half years after Sherlock had Fallen, Dr. Watson packed up his room at 221 Baker Street. He started with his clothes, knowing they were the easiest to get through. Sure, this was the jumper he had worn to this crime scene, and didn't he wear those socks to that other crime scene, and this is what he had worn on their holiday—no. They were just clothes. The memories would wash out just as easily as John had.
He moved on to his books. Hardly any of them could go to the flatita, as Greg had called it upon visiting, and so Dr. Watson just picked an obnoxiously large dictionary—he wasn't sure if it was his or Sherlock's but it smelled nice and had the proper definition of
u·su·fruct /ˈyo͞ozəˌfrəkt/ N.
The right to enjoy the use and advantages of another's property short of the destruction or waste of its substance.
He also took the medical humour book Molly had gotten him for Christmas. It wasn't funny but it was worth it.
He packed the rest of the books away, and Mrs. Hudson's sons hauled them to the truck. The books were getting donated to the nearest library. It was only a few blocks from his Outer anyway, if he needed to see them for some dire reason. Next was the bookshelf in his room. Dr. Watson was dressed in a tight wifebeater, white and drenched with sweat. He filled his hours not at the surgery at the gym. He grieved through exercise and so he did so with classic military determination. His trousers were cargo, dirty but easy to move in. He began to deconstruct it, starting with the shelves. He remembered when Sherlock—no. Dr. Watson had gone a good few hours without thinking about the memories in this blasted flat. He was not going to do that. He began to think of all of the medical jokes he could, even managing to smile a tiny bit when osteosarcoma was changed to osteosarcasm. Really, the idea of cancer wasn't funny. But sometimes there was nothing to do but laugh when a book was written specifically to make you do so.
The shelves were hollow, and as he turned the first shelf to empty it out, Dr. Watson was suddenly hit in the face with a bizarre number of things. A lighter, an inconceivable amount of dirt, and a green tie that he recalled Lestrade making fun of at a crime scene. Sherlock must have hidden it here.
Dr. Watson coughed and coughed until he knew the thought of him was out of his mind. He grabbed the next shelf roughly, holding it at arm's length and dumping it onto the floor. Three slips of papers came out, followed by three more lighters and what looked like a microphone. Wait, what? Dr. Watson picked it up, blowing dust off of it and pulled on the wire. It hooked into the bigger part of the shelf and when he tugged it hard, it came out, a small satellite attached to it. There was a green light blinking from the satellite, and he calmly said,
"Whoever this is, most likely Mycroft and the British government, you'll need to bug my new flat at 9 Outer Circle. I'm leaving this empty hole of a place."
He put it down, and shook his head, groping for the last shelf and turning it on its side once in his grip. This one contained the most junk. There was actually a tiny book within it—the cover said Two Hundred and Two Things to be Happy About. Dr. Watson laughed darkly and threw it back into the shelf. Among the dirt that had poured out was a single darkened envelope. Written in a handwriting uncomfortably familiar, his name.
John. Open when found, if convenient.
Dr. Watson saw his actions in slow motion. He grabs the box cutter from one of the infinite pockets and rips the envelope open. He got hit with the most amazing sniff of Sherlock's cologne. Stop. Dr. Watson couldn't resist what the universe was offering. He unfolded the page of slightly smeared ink, remembering that Sherlock loved to use pens that had too much ink. He remembered everything.
"Each word needs to have impact, John, if I am going to pass my very limited time writing rather than texting. Ink has impact. Ink actually is made by pressurizing a combination of substances and one could say that pressure on a substance is much like an impact on said substance. So yes, impact. Ink." There was a smirk on Sherlock's face. As quickly he had known it was there, it was gone.
Dr. Watson read the letter, and immediately after doing so, he got up. He started screaming, begging the Hudson brothers to come back, and to bring everything back in, he wasn't moving! Stop! There was nothing that could make him move now. This was his flat and it was also Sherlock's flat and he was so deliriously happy. As they brought everything back in, John laid on the bed, looking up at the ceiling with the letter grasped in his hand.
Written on it was a letter from the genius consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.