#grieving john

Honeybee Heart by OffYourBird

Johnlock Love Letters #2338

John had buried his flatmate three hours ago; it was still hard to believe. Sherlock had been so exciting, energetic, so-so full of life. Bouncing around the room from experiment to experiment, rambling on and on about the science of deduction, complaining about how John was taking too long making the tea, or even standing by the window, swaying along to the music he made with his violin.

It didn't make sense for him to be dead.

John didn't want to believe it, and the longer he stared at the empty chair across from him, the more he fought the thought that Sherlock was gone.

He passed the first 24 hours staring at that empty chair, waiting for a figure to climb onto the cushion and crouch in place. The next 48 hours were spent sorting through the flat. Experiments that dealt with things that had once been alive were tossed into a biohazard bag. Clothing was sorted into piles. (Some of the dressing gowns, the Belstaff, scarf, and the gloves that Sherlock favored were stored in a separate box in the bottom shelf of John’s wardrobe. Sherlock’s violin, skull, and many notebooks filled with scientific theories were stashed with them as well.) Old books and equipment were set aside in a pile to be donated to St. Bart's.

It was only once everything had been sorted, the flat cleared of everything that screamed Sherlock, that John let himself grieve. Countless nights were spent on the couch in tears, wrapped in a dressing gown and watching documentaries on bees. Countless others spent screaming out his best friend's name in terror as he watched him fall again and again and again. Each time with a different speech, a different landing, a different goodbye.

And tonight, John sat at his desk staring at his laptop. The page it was opened to was his blog; the day he met Sherlock Holmes to be specific.

“John.” Molly Hooper spoke from the doorway. “You can't keep living like this. Please, come with me to Bart’s. I know… there are bad memories there, but I need an assistant and you need to get your mind straightened up.”

John closed his eyes as she spoke, fighting back the images that kept appearing behind his eyes of Sherlock’s body on the pavement.

Oh How the Ghost of You Clings by ArwaMachine

Johnlock Love Letters #2252 

Sherlock has been dead for over a year. On Jan 29 a series of consequences sends John across the city to all the spots he and Sherlock haunted the first day they met.

Crime Scene Haiku

One last look around, to make sure that everything you want to take with you is securely packed away in the cardboard boxes on the landing. The taxi will be coming in less than an hour to move your life on.

In the end, there is surprisingly little that is worth taking. Clothes and shoes, toiletries, your alarm clock radio, the metal box of army memorabilia, the RAMC mug, a few books and journals that you'd accumulated over the past two years. Two suitcases and two boxes.

Is that all? It's a reminder of how little you have left now that he's gone. He'd been so full of life and had filled your life so much.

You wonder if there is something of his you should take with you — a memento mori. He would have sniffed and murmured, "Sentiment."  Anger flares and you reject the idea of taking anything. He's left enough scars for you to remember.

A last glance into the kitchen. Too clean now, too ordered. But, there's that nasty scratch that Sherlock had never explained. So much that he'd never said to you and will remain a mystery now. You wonder if you will ever be able to look at a kitchen table again without being reminded of what and who is missing.

john sitting stiff and drooped like a broken doll in the bathtub. his neck is sore and his bones hurt. he’s been sitting there all day so the half a foot deep water he’s been rotting in has gotten cold and the sun has set around him but he’s just numb, slumped there with prickles on his skin and his limp hands on his knees and his toes are ice and he’s just running through all the scenes of being with sherlock before the fall, as he’s done so many times, but his eyes are dry and glazed over and he’s just staring as little bits of god knows what float around him (he hasn’t cleaned the tub; he hasn’t cleaned anything) and he finds himself stuck on remembering all the times sherlock touched him: patted him on the shoulder, shoved his coat on him, grazed his fingertips as he handed him the morning paper, and john finds it hurts more thinking that there were barely any moments to think of, like he’s just counting about three times over and over again as if they’re the most important moments in the world and his fingers almost twitch in the cold water at the feeling

and then he’s sitting in a ratty bathrobe, four hours later, in his dark room and he’s been leaving all the windows open because he likes the cold and he hears a dog barking down the street, and some of the windows of the other buildings are glowing, but he just breathes in numb breaths and his eyelids are heavy and his bare feet are curled into the carpet and the dog just won’t stop barking and sherlock just won’t stop being dead

he hasn’t eaten anything, barely, especially not his normal breakfast, especially not angelo’s. mrs hudson has to call in reinforcements (lestrade and molly) to get him to eat, and when he does it’s bland and tedious

he also doesn’t like listening to music anymore. none of it, not just classical “best of violin” soundtracks, but none of it. it’s just noise. same with telly

john smells sherlock everywhere, all over the flat, and it takes john a really really long time to track the smell into his bedroom and when he opens it, he’s hit with so much of it he swears the man himself stands, looming over him, blue eyes ablaze and john struggles not to collapse right there

and most times he can’t even bear to look at mrs hudson or lestrade or molly or sally or donovan or anyone who knew sherlock before he did, because they’re too much in the know, they got to see bits of him that john didn’t, they knew him longer and that’s not fair. eventually he accepts their condolences, but he still can’t look them too long in the face or he’ll see too much of sherlock’s past

john admits it easily to himself that he’s never loved anyone or anything as fiercely and passionately as he does sherlock, but those honesties are too late to be thought now, aren’t they?

don’t even get him started on sleep, when he can get it, he’s lucky... then he wakes up and the warm few seconds in which he’s still dreaming are just that - dreams

most of the time he doesn’t want to wake up at all, but mrs hudson would never forgive him if he didn’t

John was never one to express his emotions, it was something he wasn’t good at, especially since it was drilled into his head that showing emotions was a sign of weakness, though he tried to when it was most important, and that was what found him standing at Sherlock’s grave, shoulders slumped as they shook softly, tears streaming down his face as sobs escaped from between his lips. It had been a year, a complete year since he had laid Sherlock to rest and it wasn’t getting any easier. 

“Why!?” John sobbed as he fell to his knees, hands curling into fists and hitting the ground next to the headstone. “Why Sherlock?” There was no answer of course, nothing at all except for the silence of the cemetery and the sound of his beating heart. 

Everyone grieved differently, some openly, some not, some could handle the onslaught of emotions and pain that came with losing someone dear, but John wasn’t the kind of person to allow all of his emotions to pour out of him no matter the situation, but this, this was different.

He had spent the last three days sitting quietly in his arm chair, staring ahead at the chair opposite of his, as if he was waiting to watch the occupant magically appear, though he knew he wasn’t. John hadn’t answered any of his messages or calls, he hadn’t checked his blog, or his email, he hadn’t showered or contacted the funeral parlor. He just sat there allowing all of it sink in, slowly. It didn’t seem as if it could be real, it didn’t seem as if he had watched his best friend plummet off the hospital roof top and land on the ground, taking his life. But he knew it was, he knew it was true, he could feel it in his bones, he could feel it in the flat and how utterly cold and lifeless it felt.

John had managed to pull himself together to attend Sherlock’s service, to show his face to those who had bothered to show, they had all told him how well he was handling this, how well he looked, how much they were sorry, but nothing took away that desperate ache in his chest, the one that made his throat hurt and burn. Nothing they said to him made it any better, nothing at all. He had tried to talk to Ella once more, but she wanted him to confront his feelings, to admit to the room why he was hurting so much, but he couldn’t he couldn’t even admit it to himself let alone his therapist and that was the night he first cracked open a bottle.

The alcohol burned his throat and left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, but it was certainly easier to swallow than the truth of the matter, but it too, did nothing for the gaping hole in his being, all it did was make it easier for the dams that were holding everything in give way.

The tumbler he had been drinking from sailed across the room, smashing against the far wall, spattering alcohol on the wall paper, causing the glass to rain down onto the floor, John’s chest heaved as he looked at the mess he created before staring at the smiley face that just seemed to taunt him.