A/N GUYS. I'M ACTUALLY UPDATING ON TIME. LIKE WHOA. This is post-Reichenbach, obviously~

Thanks to maggiemacjack, MapleleafCameo, and eohippus

Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.

XV. Silence

The flat is empty, and John hates it.

It seems to smother him, almost, the silence pounding in furiously on his eardrums, the absurdly still air poisoning his skin until it seems to fester, and he has to brush at it, disrupting the sick, diseased lack of energy.

There's no one here, no one but John. And, being himself, does he even qualify as an occupant? He certainly isn't any sort of company. In fact, his own existence seems to inflate the absence of any other, makes it ring, echo, scream, building up inside of him, tearing, ripping, devouring like a rabid beast, more and more until it's gone, until he's empty again and feels like he should be able to crumble and collapse just to fill the consuming gap that seems to be all he consists of. It will happen again, though—the pain. He knows it will. It's a constant, hellish cycle, and the best he can fathom, it's one that he'll continue to spiral down for the rest of his life. People claim to "get over" losing loved ones eventually, but that isn't going to happen. It can't possibly happen.

Because this isn't just any person. This is Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, and he's dead.

Sherlock is dead.

His body flashes before John's eyes again, suddenly, the awful stark white of his bloodless skin looking so fake, so empty, the unruly dark curls plastered with violently bright scarlet streaks, and the eyes—God, the eyes. John knows them so well, that gorgeous, icy grey-green—he's seen them dark with contempt and alight with energy, sparked by a new idea or dulled by the lack of one, even shining with nervous dears, back at Cross Keys Pub in Baskerville. But on that body—on that corpse, that empty shell that will never again hold the childish, cold, infuriating, stuck-up, smartass, absolutely heroic man who had unwillingly rescued John from his quiet, lonely misery after the war—those eyes were blank, holding nothing, because they'll never see John's face again, never see anything. And now the ex-army doctor was back to square one, back with absolutely nothing but the awful emptiness that was the consequence for his eighteen wonderful months with Sherlock.

A year and a half. Such an insignificant amount of time, but he'll never be the same man again now. Now the dull Dr. John Watson who had come out of Afghanistan with a psychosomatic limp and an uneven tan. He's the Dr. Watson now, the deerstalker detective's companion, sidekick, confidant; he's bachelor John Watson next to boffin Sherlock Holmes, he's confirmed bachelor John Watson, he's—

All part of the lie.

Because that's what the public has accepted now. Some people still refuse to believe it, other than John, that is. Mrs. Hudson knew the real Sherlock, and so did Molly Hooper. John hasn't said a word to Mycroft since the actual event—he hates the damn man too much for everything he did—but he knows for a fact that most everyone else believes the papers. Anderson and Donovan, of course. Lestrade, in his quiet, apologetic way. Even John's own friends, Mike and Bill, even Harry, and she isn't too sensitive about it, either.

Irene Adler would know better.

The name is a bizarre, practically random one, but John is immediately sure that it's true. Irene's smart. She saw Sherlock for who he really was. And for a moment, a single, blazing, uplifting moment, John imagines tracking her down, finding her, seeing her face and just talking about him to her, about Sherlock, because he could, and she would listen—

Irene Adler is dead.

And then it hits him again, in a massive wave of emotion so great that all he wants is for it to end. Irene Adler is dead, James Moriarty is dead, Sherlock Holmes is dead. And he, John Watson, is the only one left to carry all of their memories in his already haunted mind, left completely alone with the all-too-familiar silence.