AN - This one's Post-Reichenbach. Thanks for the prompt, lovely anon. Another one today because I finished it, it's 2am and why the feck not
Music ~anon
John stood before the grave, the rain pissing down around him. The day was grey and dull, the clouds smudging out any spec of blue sky or sun that might be trying to gleam through. It was as if the day was a mistake somebody tried to rub out but didn't quite get the job done. London moved as fast as ever, the people continuing their lives as only people can, the world turned and revolved around the sun as everyone knew despite the fact it didn't matter and no one could stop to notice John Watson standing at a gravestone. John's world lay before him, RIP scratched on its cold surface.
He'd been standing for fifteen minutes after the final mumbled words had trickled from his lips, but he couldn't leave. Not just yet. He didn't live anymore, not really. John Watson survived. He went to work because it gave him some way to while away the menial hours of existence. He ate when Mrs Hudson made him, not because he was hungry. There was no point. He slept because it was a way to go black to the world. Lestrade had taken him to a bar some time ago to try to help him, to try to get him involved in life again, but it had ended in a panic attack on the men's' room floor, and no one had tried to get him a social life since.
Scotland Yard brought him cases, sometimes, and the gleam Sherlock once held in his eye twinkled in his own as he looked over the files. He was nowhere near as good as Sherlock, but he'd learned from him, and he was better than some of the people at Scotland Yard. He'd read Sherlock's cases, studied his methods, and for a while it seemed John Watson had something to do. Something that gave him meaning. Something that let him live. But, one day, he'd happened upon the case file of the Suicide of Sherlock Holmes, and the anxiety had pounced. He hadn't done a proper case since.
Sherlock's violin lay where it had been left the day he left Baker Street for the last time. It rested against the wall by the window, the bow tucked neatly by its side. Sometimes, when John came home, he swore he could hear it. Some echo of the music Sherlock once played, the airs that once filled the flat with the million thoughts that tumbled through the detectives mind, ringing in John's ears for some torturous reason. He'd wait at the bottom of the stairs when he heard it. It would only last for a moment, just long enough for John to hear it, for John's mind to flick him back to the days he'd come home and Sherlock was there, thinking, but by the time John realised the music shouldn't be playing, it was gone. But he'd linger, for a moment, trying to hold onto the memory of him, his ears straining to hear the silent tune, but in vain. And he'd be stabbed once more in the stomach with the knife that had carved the message on his soul that Sherlock Holmes is dead.
They'd once been on a murder case that was originally a suicide case, owing to the victim's depression. He'd become an alcoholic after his wife died of cancer. People said his life had become empty. Sherlock had protested 'How can you do that though? How can you let someone become your life so completely that you're empty without them?' Of course he didn't understand. He was Sherlock. He'd never understand. 'Sometimes… sometimes you don't realise it's happening' John had said vaguely, shrugging off the question. 'Sometimes you don't realise that this person is everything you have until it's too late.' Sherlock had scoffed, of course, being Sherlock. He couldn't understand people, not the way everyone else did. 'What does 'empty' even mean, anyway? How can your life be 'empty'?' he'd asked, pacing around the flat. 'Hopefully you'll never know' John had sighed. He hadn't realised it. He knew Sherlock had helped him, how could he not? But he hadn't realised he'd fallen victim to the same curse. He hadn't known that Sherlock had become his life. And now all he knew was the emptiness Sherlock could never understand.
Eventually, John gave the grave a respectful nod and turned to leave. He limped away, not looking back, never daring to glance over his shoulder lest he stop there and never make it home. He walked slowly through the rain as the world passed him by, empty taxies not offering him a ride he didn't want, blank people not giving him the attention he didn't need. The rain was still streaking out of the grey sky when he reached the flat. He paused a moment before entering, the water falling from him as much as it was from the canopy of cloud. He closed the door behind him.
Sherlock's violin sang in his ears as he looked up at the stairs. Good, Sherlock's home. Does he have a case on? The thoughts flashed through the doctor's broken mind before he realised himself. But he remained at the bottom of the stairs, trying to hold onto the ghost of the music like water in his cupped hands. But it trickled through his fingers and was gone before it was even truly there. John swallowed thickly, and began to walk slowly towards the stairs, the oppressive silence the music left behind weighing heavily on his soul. He looked up to the flat, not entirely ready to go back, to survive in the silence and the ghost of what he was.
Then the music started again.