This is based upon the song "Woke Up New" by the Mountain Goats. Due to John Green recently recommending the band, many nerdfighters have been listening to the music, and many have compared some songs to Sherlock, which inspired this. The song really does fit- search it on Youtube and you can listen to it. Thanks!
On the morning John woke up without him for the very first time, he felt free, he felt lonely, and he felt scared.
He wasn't confused at first; he hadn't forgotten. He just knew. And even if he had forgotten, he would have only been blessed with one beautiful moment where Sherlock could have still been there, at least in his head. One moment- that was all. Then he would have heard the quietness of the flat, or noticed how there were no experiments that had slipped into his room overnight. He would have felt the lack of everything that was Sherlock.
As it was, he started talking because he was afraid of the quiet.
"I'm going to have breakfast now." He said aloud, hoping that maybe his voice could make up for what wasn't there.
It didn't.
He stumbled out of bed and ignored the assault of memories that threatened him and flew around the edges of his jeans and shirt, waving them off as if they were mosquitos. He held his arms out and let them skim over everything he passed, all the things that didn't know what had happened. His nightstand. The door, nicely decorated with bullet holes. The wall outside. The living room doorway.
His fingers were chafed and his arms were sore and bruised from where the doctors had torn them away from Sherlock. The last human thing those hands had touched was that soft wool coat of his, his blood-soaked hair, his cold empty hands. The room was blurry, and John held up his own fingertips and watched them a moment, not knowing quite what to do next.
"What do I do?" He said, and it never occurred to him that Mrs. Hudson could likely hear his voice through the walls.
He made tea, carefully getting the cups from his cupboard- his cupboards, the others previously belonging to Sherlock and full of God-knows-what. Probably dead things. Sherlock, John noted, was a dead thing. This didn't make him sad. His basic feelings weren't functioning at the moment; not sad, happy, satisfied.
John set the teabags in and stared at the cups, waiting for the ratio of tea-to-water to be perfect. He got out the milk. He got out the sugar. Mixed everything in, and set the cups on the table.
Two cups, too much tea. He drank both of them anyways, because Sherlock would have teased him if he saw the mistake. If he saw. After finishing both teas, John set his hands, neatly folded, on the table.
"What do I do?" He asked again.
Call Lestrade. Call Mycroft. Call Molly. Something to do with other people.
John didn't want other people. He didn't want anything, like some pointless thing without goals or dreams. He was just waiting for the future to arrive- it didn't involve himself anymore. It was just there for the world. The world was, at the moment, very cold. After a moment of contemplating why that happened, he shut off his mind and got a fresh jumper and trousers to wear. There. These were the motions, and going through them felt good.
John turned up the heat and sat on the couch, which had last been occupied by Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock had been alive twenty-four hours previously. The day before, Sherlock had been alive. John had gone through the same thoughts when his mother had died.
She was alive yesterday, and everything was fine.
She was alive last week. It's okay.
She was alive, just two years ago. You're managing.
It didn't work, because he could only think about the times he would be saying that Sherlock was alive a month before, years, decades. The flat was silent, unmoving, other than the walls. The walls were closing in on him, because Sherlock was not coming back.
John ran out of the flat and into the street. It was moving, the opposite of the flat. It was moving outwards- everyone was running away, and he was all alone. He joined them and walked listlessly about while he thought about what to do next. He could walk- that was easy. He could walk to the park, in fact. The park was a nice place to walk. That was two things to do already. There. He could do things he would enjoy, just do whatever would make him happy at that moment. It was a good idea.
There was nothing in this world that remained of Sherlock. Nothing that could make him happy- nothing that could make him feel any emotion, really. Unless empty was an emotion, because he felt very good at that one.
At the park, he was cold. It was gray. It was London, as it was every day.
He pulled his jumper close, mumbling to himself: "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?"
It was going to be a long life.