THIRD YEAR WITHOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES
After removing Mary's corpse from 221B and eliminating any traces of evidence from both the flat and her body, John sat in his chair.
He stared at the detective's leather seat, relishing in the absence of the specter.
Of course, it would be back, but he was enthralled with the knowledge that he knew how to exterminate it once again.
Imagine his euphoria when the apparition didn't return for a week.
It wasn't something John noticed right away, but it often revealed itself when he was at work and he didn't see the detective glaring at Sarah or the particularly flirty patients he treated on occasion.
When Sherlock reappeared, John tried to extinguish his ghost by cutting his arm, but that still didn't work. He shrugged and didn't protest when the specter began shadowing him once again. John didn't know if his unexpected ease with the apparition was due to its absence allowing his loathing to ebb slightly or if he was more comfortable because he knew how to make it disappear once more.
John was under no misconception about the difficulty of this new cure; while his cutting was considerably easier to carry out and conceal, murdering random people would prove to be quite challenging. Where was he going to get these new victims? How was he going to practice this unorthodox cure in secrecy?
Although he was perfectly fine with killing people to preserve what little sanity he still possessed, John wasn't fond of the repercussions should their deaths be linked to himself.
Living with Sherlock, whether that was reality or not, did have a few benefits. John knew about how to conceal evidence that he was the murderer, but there was still the problem of luring people to his home. For three weeks, these thoughts were constantly in his mind, though oftentimes he would shove them to the back and focus on the task at hand. He still loathed the specter's presence, but John's unusual ease didn't diminish rapidly during the three weeks.
He was grocery shopping when inspiration hit.
John had been standing in the cereal isle, gazing at the numerous boxes and brands though his mind was a million miles away, when a woman walked up to him. She shamelessly flirted with him and, for whatever reason, he responded.
She had followed him around the store and to the flat with a particularly shoddy excuse for her actions, and, once they arrived at 221B, John lured her into the kitchen and killed her in a similar, if not more than Mary, brutal manner.
It was then that he realized how simple it was to snag innocent albeit clearly desperate people from stores and murder them, and his grin widened. Of course, John would have to alternate shops to stump the police should they be heavily investigating.
Although he was beginning to believe that his time with Sherlock, including the many hours spent at New Scotland Yard, was just a figment of his imagination, John knew that they weren't bright enough to trace the murders to himself, at least, certainly not for a while.
Thus, John began luring and killing one person every two weeks from various stores. He didn't discriminate by gender, although some of the males were tougher to slaughter than the women, he was still able to carry out the deed.
This went on for months, during which John's pride grew and the specter diminished. Even through his largely-expanding ego, he knew that it was unusual for the police to still be entirely ignorant. He was surprised, at first, when he had been particularly sloppy and they still didn't suspect him.
He finally understood Sherlock's "you see but do not observe" lark.
For whatever reason, while he was murdering a particularly beautiful young woman, John got carried away. She resembled Sherlock more so than Mary ever did and, in a fit of sadistic rage, he carved SHERLOCK HOLMES on her chest before killing her.
Her body was deposited in an alleyway a few miles away from Baker Street. A week later, John got a phone call from someone he hadn't talked to since before Sherlock's suicide.
"Hello?"
"John? Is that you? Is everything alright?" Lestrade frantically questioned.
"Yes, why? What happened?" He slipped into character with ease, becoming a worried man with such speed and skill that Sherlock Holmes himself would have been impressed.
"Someone's been murdering numerous people by luring them out of stores and stabbing them repeatedly."
"That's absolutely dreadful!"
"That isn't the worst part; the last victim had SHERLOCK HOLMES cut into her body. We think Moriarty is back and out to get you. We need to take you into protective custody."
"It's all right Detective Inspector; I think I can take care of myself."
"Are you sure?" Lestrade sounded hesitant but slightly relieved, and John's smirk widened.
"Positive."
They exchanged brief yet polite small talk before John ended the call, the smirk never vanishing from his face though it never appeared in his voice. Once again, John admired his own ability to sound sincere and frightened yet be filled with a strange sadistic joy. It was intoxicating to be so clever that Lestrade was completely fooled. While he wasn't Sherlock, Lestrade definitely wasn't stupid; if anyone could find John out, Lestrade could.
If it was possible, John's ego expanded. Was his method of curing himself so well concealed that the police really thought they were dealing with the world's only yet greatest consulting criminal?
With his rising self-esteem, John's murders began to occur on a weekly basis, though he took the same precautions implemented before carving the detective's name in the beautiful woman's corpse.
This continued for another two months, up until the apparition suddenly didn't disappear after John murdered a particularly annoying female.
The horror that smote John as his hand, for the first time in years, touched the detective's flesh rather than air was unfathomable.