Second fanfic :) I have been told I should write longer ones, but I love one-shots because they can provide such a beautiful taste of a character's life. Still v much a newbie so please R&R!
Disclaimer: Characters & setting belong to A.C. Doyle, Moffat & Gatiss
"Shit"
John Watson dropped to his knees, fumbling blindly in the cold, London evening for the keys to 221B. Clumsy, grasping fingers raked across the doorstep in the dark, until finally they locked onto the devilish pieces of metal. Juggling an assortment of shopping bags in on his hip, John straightened and reached for the lock. At least one thing hadn't changed since Sherlock's death: he still bought his own milk. The door creaked inwards into the darkened hallway. Mrs Hudson was out for the weekend, visiting her sister. Her absence irritated John. Something about the empty apartment seemed alien and wrong, when just over a year ago it had been a blazing hive of activity. One could never be bored when Sherlock Holmes was your flatmate. Just as soon as things got too quiet he would be up and haring off after another case… or alternatively pacing around, jumping out of his skin and preparing to and launch another attempt to destroy the place. But all that was gone, leaving the flat darkened and lonely, a hole that struggled to be filled by any other presence than the extraordinary one that had left it.
John was fumbling in the dark again, blinded by the night. His cold fingers found the light-switch and finally the hallway was bathed in the golden glow. Once it would have been a welcome sight, but now it seemed just as empty as it had in the dark. His therapist had suggested moving on, but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the end of the life he had led here. He told her (and himself) that he was here to look after Mrs Hudson. Sighing, he locked the door behind him and began to stamp up the stairs.
He swung himself into the living room, not bothering to turn on the lights this time (and narrowly avoiding tripping over a pile of laundry for his trouble). He felt his way into the kitchen and dumped the paper bags on the table. He stared down at the darkened surface. Solid, hard, unmoving. If only life was like that, if only good things never changed. 'How boring,' said Sherlock's voice in his head. He knew Sherlock would never stand for the cold, foggy half-life he was living now. A part-time job at the clinic, the rest spent eating, sleeping and moping. Just look what a mess he's left me in, that bastard.
Familiar sensations of loss, abandonment and anger leeched through him, so familiar that he only half felt them, as if they were weakened from overuse. He clenched his fists, and resolution replaced them. He was going to be done with feeling sorry for himself. Time to get out, do something, have fun. Somehow, he would drive Sherlock from his mind. Maybe he would go and crash at Harry's, or a bar perhaps. With a jolt, he lurched towards the light switch; he had to get out of here before he changed his mind.
He flicked it on, and stopped short.
Doorway. Tall man. Long coat. Blue eyes. Scarf. Cheekbones.
Impossible.
Real.
"You!"
"Obviously," Sherlock rolled his eyes, sarcasm dripping from his voice. Coolly, he strode towards the kitchen table, relaxed and gliding on long legs, moving to pull out a chair and sit down. As if nothing had ever happened. He never made it.
All John's hurt and anger, all bottled up and multiplied by time, seemed to explode. The fog was gone. Rich, raw emotion pounded through him, deliciously replacing the numbness of the past months. Grabbing Sherlock by the front of his coat he shoved him up against the doorframe, breathing heavily into his face.
"You were alive… all this time… and you let me believe you were DEAD!"
His fist smacked into Sherlock's nose with a dull crunch. The taller man grunted softly and shot the doctor an accusing, wounded look.
"John."
Blood was starting to trickle down his face, but John didn't care. How dare he feel hurt! After all I have been through.
"And it wasn't just me! Mrs Hudson! Lestrade! Mycroft! We all thought it! We MOURNED you, Sherlock, and you didn't even THINK to come out and say 'Hey guys, it's all fine, I'm ALIVE'. You complete BASTARD!" He barely even noticed that he had raised his fist again.
"John! Please listen to me."
It was the plea in his voice that did it. Only once in his life, that fateful day at St Bart's, had John ever heard Sherlock plead with anyone. Slowly, he softened his grip on the front of Sherlock's shirt and lowered his fist. Numbness began to seep back into his limbs as Sherlock strode past him to sit down at the table, holding his scarf up to staunch the blood now streaming freely from his nose.
"I think you might have broken it," he said absently.
John joined him at the table, clasping his hands on top of the surface, and staring solidly at Sherlock as if to solve the puzzle just by looking at him, to pull one of his own deductions on him. "Explain, please?" he asked simply.
For once, the singularly stubborn man obliged. He didn't look at John, just stared at the table and rumbled, as if to himself, in a deep monotone, dabbing occasionally at his stony face with the red-stained scarf. John watched him carefully; saw how hard it was for him to admit that he had done it to save their lives, to finally acknowledge that he too had succumbed to that great human weakness: sentiment.
"So now you're back here, boring old Baker street, eh?"
"Hmm," muttered Sherlock, scarf pressed to his face once more. They stared in opposite directions, the black silence stretching out between them, broken only by the soft ticking of the clock. John, with his hands still clasped on the table, trying to wrangle his scattered thoughts and feelings into something resembling coherency. Sherlock, with his own fingers pressed together against his chin as he so often did when dealing with a particularly difficult case, apparently off somewhere deep in that unfathomable mind. The silence was hollow like the apartment, fool of so many unknowns and hurts, a span that both wanted to bridge, but with no idea how to lay the foundations.
Sherlock spoke so softly John barely heard him. "Not boring, never boring. You are here."
The doctor's head snapped up and their eyes met. All the feelings and words that had gone unsaid, which had never needed to be said, seemed to be laid open in that one look. Together, they started to build the bridge.
And all the tears that John had never cried rose up in his chest and tumbled down his face.