All the Pretty Girls
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, the BBC, or Fun. I bake a killer batch of cookies, though!
A/N: The italics are John's memories.
Dating had never gone well for John, neither before The Fall, nor after. He had thought that the absence of a sociopath in his flat (and his life) would allow him to finally settle down, marry, maybe even have kids. Oh how wrong he was.
The nightmares began soon after the funeral. He found himself waking up in the middle of the night, Sherlock's name on his lips. The intermittent tremor in his left hand returned, but it was no longer intermittent. It was surprising how even Sherlock's name could drive away women.
"John?" asked Addie, his latest conquest. "Who's Shirley?" She evidently hadn't heard the whole name, or she would know. "Is she some other girl? Are you seeing someone else? Get out of my flat this instant!"
And with the nightmares came the memories, one after another, often causing a waking hell for him.
He remembered all the times Sherlock had lounged around the flat after a case. For a sociopathic genius, Sherlock could be surprisingly idiotic when he had nothing to prove or deductions to make.
"Sherlock, what did I say about using my laptop?" John tramped into the flat after a long day at the clinic.
"What's your password, John?" Sherlock hardly even bothered to look up from the sofa where he was laying.
"My... password?" John asked. "Don't you usually guess it yourself?"
"Yes, but for once in my life I'm tired, so please do not rub it in. And do not make me repeat myself. What. Is. Your. Password?"
He hadn't been able to stay in 221B. The memories had been far too painful.
Mycroft had been helpful in that regard, setting him up with a new flat, and a new job at another clinic, as far from Barts as you could possibly get. Out of a sense of remorse, perhaps? John didn't even want to think on it.
"Welcome to your new flat, John." Mycroft held out the keys, a fake, expressionless smile on his face. You could almost call it a grimace.
"Don't think this makes up for anything, Mycroft. Because it sure as hell doesn't. You can't just make me forget about Sherlock. It's not going to happen." John turned away, angrily jammed the key into the lock, and stepped into the new flat, and hopefully a new life.
Surprisingly, the flat was near one of the pubs John had frequented in medical school, so the owner was constantly giving him free drinks. And of course, girls noticed it and began talking to him.
He no longer even had to say anything; the many women had just known what he "needed"- or what he thought he needed.
Many nights found John snogging some girl in the alleyway behind the pub, and even more mornings found him waking up with a strange woman in his bed, but these pulls never progressed further than that.
Hell, even the women, drunk as they both usually were, noticed his lack of caring, and dumped him before he had the chance to have a nightmare (or dream, depending) about Sherlock.
"John! 'Ello, earth to John, anyone home?" Lucy, some girl he'd met at the pub, was currently lying next to him in bed. She'd been a good shag, not the best, but good. Yet, in the middle of it all, he found himself thinking about Sherlock. What the fuck? he thought to himself.
"John! Are you even there? All right, that's it. I'm outta here." He hardly even noticed as Lucy stalked out of his flat and back out into the London night.
He took violin lessons after Sherlock... left. To feel closer to him. He didn't dare touch Sherlock's violin, so bought one of his own, a shabby little thing he picked up in a music shop. Yet he abandoned even that, it was just so damn painful.
He couldn't even listen to classical music on the radio anymore, because he would remember all the times Sherlock would play in the middle of the night. The impromptu concerts had been a bit irritating at first, but as time had gone by, they actually helped with his nightmares of the war.
Yet the brief, glorious respite came to an end, as all good things do. After the fall, his nightmares of war had been replaced by those of Sherlock, dying in a million ways, injured or maimed in a million others. They had certainly done a number on his mental health, poor as it already was.
And so John had fallen further and further into a spiral of drinking, depression, and loose women.
John subconsciously began comparing the women to Sherlock.
Some girl, Alexis he thought her name was, looked a lot like Sherlock, and in his drunken stupor, he began contrasting her to his former flat mate.
Sherlock would never wear those boots, he thought to himself. And she has the right kind of hair, but Sherlock's is - was, he reminded himself, - shorter than that. Next.
One woman, Mary, tried to turn him around. He believed he might even grow to love her. She helped him so much, and he knew that he could never repay her. They began a long-term relationship, and eventually moved in together. One morning, about a year and a half after he met her, John made the decision to propose to Mary Morstan.
He took her to a beautiful beach he knew she'd wanted to visit for some time. They made a little trip out of it. And now they were walking on the beach at sunset. Cliché, he knew, but Mary was a sucker for those kinds of gestures. While she was looking out at the sunset, he dropped to one knee, and coughed quietly to get her attention.
"Mary," he began, "You pulled me out of a dark place, and for that I will be forever grateful. I love you more than words can ever express, and I'd be honored to have the chance to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?"
Her shocked face said more than John knew words could express. He hadn't thought about what would happen if she said no. She turned on her heel and fled, leaving him alone on the beach as the sun dipped over the horizon, plunging him into complete darkness.
Sherlock never would have done that. Sherlock had been many things, but never a coward. Most likely, the bloody git would have stayed and rationed out his reasons for not wanting to be married, or turned up his collar to accent those goddamn cheekbones and stalked away.
What? he thought to himself on the train ride home. Why the hell are you thinking about a dead man's cheekbones? You're straight, for crying out loud! John chewed the inside of his cheek as he stared desolately out the window. And that would be necrophilia, a snarky little voice that sounded suspiciously like Sherlock said in his head.
After Mary left, John found himself questioning things much more often. Why had she refused him? Why had Sherlock jumped? Why the hell was he thinking about Sherlock so much time later?
He came to a startling conclusion one night: he had indeed loved Sherlock bloody Holmes.
And now he would never have the chance to tell him.
With the absence of both Mary and Sherlock, John once again spiraled into depression and alcoholism. He often found himself meeting up with his sister, who, like him, had relapsed. They often served as wing-people for each other, and sometimes even competed over the same woman.
One night, he even got into a fight with a woman who said Harry was going to Hell for her sins. He had to admit, the religious nutcase could sure hold her own in a fight.
A few weeks later, the pub had held a retro night. The next morning, John found that the woman he had taken home seemed to think every day was retro night.
Day after day, John found himself imagining what it would be like if he had told Sherlock of his feelings. Oh, sod it. He knew exactly what would happen. Sherlock would have deduced it ages ago, and been all smug about it to figure out John's sexuality before he himself did.
John, suddenly weary, headed off to his small bed, to sleep on his aching shoulder and leg, resigned to the pathetic life he was now living.