Thanks everyone for the follows and stuff! Sorry it's short and that it's been so long. I'll try to post more often.
So a note: In this story, there is a flashback that John thinks of. I'm going to use these { bracket things } in italic to show this.
John sighed as he sat down on the couch. He had just finished moving back in, which wasn't very much effort. John hasn't planned on staying away from the flat for this long of a time, but the thought of returning without Sherlock made him feel like he was receiving a punch in the gut although he was basically dead inside anyway.
He could not function as well without Sherlock. Whenever he saw articles about serial killer cases that the police could not solve, he thought about Sherlock; how he would be jumping about, hugging John happily. Whenever John was bored he thought about what Sherlock would be doing that very moment; shooting the wall, yelling at people on TV shows because they think ordinarily and also seems to think just because he knew what was going to happen, that it was so obvious that he could talk to John about it and ruin the show for him. "It's logic for any movie, John." He would say as John would turn off the TV. Whenever John was not thinking straight, he would think about how Sherlock would help himself think; playing the violin beautifully, talking to skulls and not Mrs. Hudson… John shook his head after that thought every time.
After the cops were done with looking over every single thing in the flat, and were 100 per cent sure that there was no further evidence in it (and thankfully drug free thanks to John's presence) they left everything in the room, almost as identically as it was left.
Lestrade of course was not personally involved in the investigation of the flat. He would not search Sherlock's flat since he was such a good friend of Sherlock's, whether Sherlock had admitted it or not.
There's hope. There must be hope in this god forsaken world. But then again Sherlock was his hope. Sherlock was John's everything, and now he has nothing. Nothing is not very much to go off of. All John wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry over Sherlock's death for the rest of his life. A life without Sherlock was not one worth living, in John's eyes. John had thought about suicide, but Sherlock would not be happy with him.
John rubbed his eyes before walking to his room, which is Sherlock's old room, to get some sleep. John laid across the bed on his back and breathed in deeply.
The room had a special smell about it. It was Sherlock's. He wished that he had the chance to tell Sherlock how he really felt. But then again, Sherlock had turned him down before.
{"What do real people have then in their real lives?" Sherlock asked John.
"Friends. Or people they know, people they like, people they don't like." John said. "Girlfriends, boyfriends."
"As I was saying, dull."
"You don't have a girlfriend then?"
"Girlfriend? No, not really my area."
John nodded, and started to look away, but then looked back at him, somewhat startled.
"Alright…" John said. "Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way."
"I know it's fine." Sherlock looked at him.
John smiled a little. "So you've got a boyfriend?"
"No."
"Right, okay." John licked his lips quickly. "You're unattached, like me. Fine." John cleared his throat. He was feeling awkward. "Good." Sherlock looked back out the window.
After a moment of silence, Sherlock had clued in and looked back at John. "John, uh, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, I'm flattered by your, I'm really not looking for anything…"
"No," John started interrupting. "No."
Sherlock stopped talking.
"No, I'm not asking, no, I'm just saying it's all fine."
Sherlock nodded. "Good." He looked out the window again. "Thank you."}
John hit the back of his head against the bed lightly. Why was I such an idiot? I wasn't even aware of my feelings and I made myself seem like I was interested. Not that John wasn't interested in him; but at the time he wasn't. He made himself seem very loyal to him already, like Mycroft had thought.
"Idiot. Idiot." John mumbled to himself.
"John?" Lestrade's voice came from behind John.
John was walking back from St. Bart's, and Lestrade and John sometimes crossed paths.
John turned and shook hands with him. "It's nice to see you." He said.
And it was nice to see him, another familiar face that was Sherlock's friend. He wasn't there when Sherlock… Well, you know, but he didn't believe any of this. John knew Sherlock had to have lied to him, for some reason. Sherlock couldn't have pretended to be as smart as he was. It was an insane thing to do. But then again, Sherlock was pretty mad.
They found themselves going to a pub and talking over a few drinks. The first subject was John's mustache, of which John had grown because he had become too damn lazy, and could care less, especially since Sherlock was not around anymore.
"How have you been?" Lestrade asked him, but he already knew the answer. He wasn't Sherlock, but he was smart. He knew how John was still grieving.
"I've been alright. This bad shoulder is becoming a pain though."
"Why hasn't it affected you until now?" Lestrade asked curiously.
John hesitated. "It gets better with stress. I was a military doctor. I had seen so many things. I strive for more dangerous situations. When Sherlock was around, it was dangerous, more stressful. It went away. At least until he…" John cut off his sentence, feeling a lump rise in his throat, and coughed. "Sherlock and Mycroft figured that one out for me."
"Ah, no wonder you got along with Sherlock so well." Lestrade laughed.
John laughed too, shaking his head. He felt it was a compliment. From someone like Anderson, he would have probably punched him in the face repeatedly.
"Sherlock was a mad bastard." Lestrade said with a smile.
"That, he was." John smiled.
They continued talking over their beers, and eventually they said their goodbyes, and left for their flats.
When John got back into the flat, he laid himself down on the couch.
In his drunken state, he reminisced on his memories. Not just of Sherlock, but all his moments leading up to now.
He remembered his dream, the one when he found a letter in Sherlock's mattress.
John stood, unsure of why he would do this, especially drunk. But he still walked to the room and searched the room.
When he found a piece of paper, he couldn't even look at it. He broke into sobs, not loud, but not necessarily quiet ones.
And he knew. He knew that it was no dream. Even drunk, he knew that it took every inch of Sherlock to be able to admit to John that he loved him. Even if Sherlock had meant to destroy it, it did take all he had.
But then John wondered, why would Sherlock intend to do something, but not do it? Did that bastard Moriarty find a way to resurrect himself from the dead and do something to Sherlock? Or did Moriarty have minions? People just as crazy as him, but less powerful, following him around like he was god?
That must be impossible.
Unless Moriarty had done exactly as Sherlock had done; fake his death. This scared and angered John at the same time. Nobody is, was or will ever be as brilliant as Sherlock is. It's impossible.
John felt the internal struggle tearing him apart. Frustrated, he took one deep breath and reread the whole letter again. And then read the three words that stunned him the most, over, and over, and over again. 'I love you, John' it said, and Sherlock had wrote it twice in the letter. TWICE.
John was not sure why he was so sad. He should be happy that Sherlock is alive and loves him. Maybe it was because of wasted time. He had hurt Sherlock by going out with women. John hadn't liked many of the girls. He had always went out with the girls because he was denying that was either interested in guys or because Sherlock shot him down at the very beginning.
Sherlock pointed his gun at the man.
"Oh come on, you know that this is a real gun. So you must know what happens when I pull the trigger..." He was about to demonstrate it for him, when the man yelled "Wait!"
Sherlock removed his finger from the trigger, and lowered the gun a little. He raised his eyebrows impatiently.
"There's not a new leader!" He said as he lowered his head in defeat.
"Really?" Sherlock said as he turned the safety on the gun off.
"Yes! We are all just watching you; no one is giving orders to us. We know when something happens! We have cameras on you at all times." The man sweated a little.
Sherlock grinned. "You are lying to me. You must be. Either that or every person in your group of Jimbos is lying."
The man raised his brows slightly, instantly knowing why he had called them Jimbos. That's what John referred to people that were his enemies. This only started immediately after Jim and Sherlock first met.
"You've been tracking John." Sherlock noted.
"Of course we have. He's the reason for your 'suicide'. If it hadn't been for him, Jim wouldn't have died. You figured it out." He snickered now. "Well partially."
"Hmm? What have I not figured out?"
"You see, there is no new leader. Jim and he were partnered up almost the whole duration."
"Ah, so you technically weren't lying." Sherlock said as he held the gun towards the man's again.
"What do you take me for, a fool?" He laughed. "I'm not like the others, not like the ones you've killed in the past."
"Oh really? Prove it. Prove you're above them all." Sherlock grinned coldly.
"The current leader's name is Karl. He doesn't use his last name, at all. Only people that would know it, would most likely be Moriarty and John." He smiled now, enjoying Sherlock's startled expression.
"John? Why would he know?" Sherlock asked. He was very confused.
"John and Karl were best friends since childhood. When they were 17 or 18, Karl asked John out. Only John turned him down, claimed that he was straight. John didn't talk to him afterwards. Karl accepted it. Moriarty came to Karl and he joined us. A year later, John met you." The man chuckled. "Of course, Karl at first wanted to back out, but then when we found John's feelings for you, Karl was furious. So he stayed and we changed aim slightly. Hurting John = Hurting Sherlock. It's just that simple."
"John doesn't have feelings towards me." Sherlock said.
The man scoffed. "You aren't good with knowing people's feelings Sherlock. That's the one thing you haven't mastered."
"I can tell you something you haven't mastered." Sherlock said as he took aim to the man's eye.
"What?"
"Knowing the difference between tricks and sincerity. Also, you haven't mastered keeping secrets."
The man clued in and looked aghast as Sherlock put his finger over the trigger. The man closed his eyes.
Bang.