Alloy

Not Dead. Let's have dinner. [Sherlock]

For Zahra,

The day Sherlock Holmes died, a piece of John Hamish Watson shattered irreparably. A section of his soul had been torn from his body and detatched. He felt akin to Peter Pan, the separation from his shadow was both sickeningly freeing yet a part of him was missing and he couldn't seem to rest. His heart fluttered when he walked past his long coat in the hall, or spotted the tartan patterned deer-stalker on the bannister. In public he was used to being watched, stared at as an extension to the great genius, now he was looked at in so many ways, he didn't really know which he hated most. Disgust? The mass hatred of Sherlock following the reveal of his supposed 'treachery' tacked itself to John, the knowing accomplice. Perhaps, it was the pity? The upturned eyebrows and wrinkled foreheads made him nauseous, he was sick of being treated as fragile, as though one incorrect breath would send him free-falling after his partner. While pity was abhorrent, doing very little but reminding him that he was in fact fragile, he was allowed to be hurting, arguably the worst reaction received was confusion. One year, an entire 365 days without him and London still anticipated his harsh glare. They peered at him as though measuring up a wonky wall. He was off balance, his counterweight removed from the scale.

John came to the conclusion very early that the worst aspect of grief was rarely your own head, unlike Sherlock he spent very little time in the recesses of his mind. No, it wasn't his own subconscious at all, nor the night terrors, the paranoia, the guilt. It was the realisation that he had begun to blur, him and Sherlock were rapidly becoming one. He suspected this was customary when one spent near eternity with another person. He noted this shift in personality when he began analysing people on the street, he doubted with any accuracy but the sentiment stands. Whether it be a stain in a peculiar spot or an oddly spaced letter on a bulletin, he noticed it. Sherlock taught him to see the world. Yet, he wouldn't be able to live it with him. He didn't let himself caught up in thoughts like that anymore, wallowing wasn't good for anyone. Especially not for Mrs Hudson, who found him near catatonic on Sherlock's chair wrapped in one of his scarves. He refused to let himself get like that again. For Mrs Hudson if not himself. He occasionally visited Angelo's, his order always remembered. Angelo had regularly tried to pay for his meal, "A gift for the grieving spouse," he reasoned. John hadn't the energy nor the motivation to correct him. It was nice to live in fantasy once in a while.

221B was collecting dust, John had first attempted to make the very empty flat into something habitable, at least not too painful to reside in. He rather rapidly discovered this was an impossible feat and started the hunt for a flat of his own; John left the flat in a form of stasis, a scene inside a cruel snowglobe. Sherlock's arm chair had since been moved into his bedroom, untouched by the man himself but slept in regularly by John. His violin hidden away under the bed, slowly going out of tune. The fridge was stocked with actual edible material, the experiments disposed of as biological waste. John realised how little of a physical footprint Sherlock had left, not having very many belongings. This footprint however small held so much weight.

The news had died down with time, an anniverary message marking his death was a stumble but he recovered. The photograph they picked made him seem sinister, he didn't recognise the man pictured. It was the night of the Taxi Driver case, the garish 'shock blanket' draped across his broad shoulders; Sherlock's eyes had never been that dark, at least he never allowed John to see him like that. John knew the truth and that was enough for him, memories of the tall man ripping a live bomb from his chest all the evidence he needed to put all his faith in Sherlock Holmes. He supposed he should have heeded Molly's indirect advice, had looked into him closer, maybe he did look sadder when John couldn't see him. He desperately tried not to blame himself, his therapist regularly told him it wasn't his fault. But that was what she was paid to do.

When John started seeing Mary Morstan, he denied vehemently that she was a stand-in for his flatmate. He felt so passionately about this, he decided to let a slug nest upon his top lip, in defiance. He blocked out his voice telling him what a fool he looked. Sherlock Holmes no longer ruled his life. It was for this reason that he ignored just how similar his new partner was to his lost beau. Mary knew that John had his skeletons, yet she maintained the idea that she too had hers, that they could work on them together. She would never reveal her true skeletons, buried futher from sight than he could ever imagine, yet the proposal was catharsis in of itself. The pair both knew there was no emotional investment, this was the appeal of their arrangement, nothing to hurt should they inevitably split. It was a relationship borne of reluctance to be alone.