Falling For You

Shadows

John returned to Baker Street with his head hung low.  It was hard for him to return sometimes, especially on the anniversary.  Mary would be worried and he was probably mental, but he went to the old flat anyway because it was the only time he could really remember him.  Everything had remained the same.  Not a single thing was out of place.  Well, except for Sherlock's bed.  John stayed over sometimes and slept in the bed, but he never washed the sheets.  He didn't have the heart to wash Sherlock out of the comfy sheets that he used to parade around in.  It was all too much, but it was over.  Sherlock was dead.

John Watson decided that he would take a shower in Sherlock's shower with Sherlock's shampoo and soap.  Then he dried himself off with Sherlock's towels and cried for a bit, dripping water from his eyes and his body.  He looked at himself in the mirror.  There were bags under his eyes because he only slept well when he was in Sherlock's bed, and he hadn't come back to the flat in a month.  His therapist had tried prescribing him sleeping pills at one point.  It had been about a year into his withdrawal.

"John, please.  They'll help you sleep," she had explained.

John had shaken his head, refusing.  "I don't need them," he said.

"They'll help with the nightmares.  John, you need to sleep."

Tears had stung his eyes.  "The nightmares are the only time I get to see him again."

But John wouldn't have a nightmare that night.  He never had nightmares when he was in Sherlock's bed in Sherlock's room in their old flat.  

John couldn't help but think about how stupid he had been.  He thought about the fall as he got dressed for bed in a pair of Sherlock's old pyjamas.  He thought carefully about every word he had said to his friend before he had jumped.  He should have told Sherlock how he felt.  He should have told him that he was in love with him right before he fell because then maybe he wouldn't have jumped.  

He scoffed.  Sherlock Holmes was married to his work.  He wouldn't have been interested in John like that.  He would have laughed and mumbled something about sentiment while rolling his eyes.  John wouldn't have been able to handle the rejection.  He wouldn't have been able to take the death and the rejection because Sherlock Holmes surely did not love John Watson.  

Sherlock stood by the door of the flat, waiting.  He was always waiting for something.  Now he was waiting for John to come back into the room.  Or, he was going to wait for John to come back into the room.  Sherlock needed to find out if Mycroft was right.  If John loved him.  God, he wondered if John was thinking about him right then and there.  If John was crying because of Sherlock. 

Sherlock pushed open the door to the flat.  John was in the kitchen making tea.  He was distracted and his vision was impaired by the tears stinging his eyes as he stirred the sugar into the cup. Sherlock, who always needed some kind of dramatic entrance, took a seat in his black leather chair. He scanned the flat.  He missed it so much and John hadn't changed a thing.  He smiled to himself.