John Watson x reader, 7k words
Christmas is supposed to be the time of sharing — if only you hadn't shared your secret with John
cw: Angst, hurt/comfort, war mentioned, battlefields mentioned
AN: this is a re-upload from one of my first works on ao3 which was probably around 4 years ago. My love for BBC John never changed though, him and Tim Canterbury from the office will remain my one true loves of my life
A fleeing memory
London begins preparing for Christmas before John notices it happening.
It starts quietly—white lights strung across shop windows, evergreen wreaths hung at bus stops, the smell of roasted chestnuts drifting through the cold air. The city does this every year, dresses itself up in warmth and cheer like it hasn’t already broken a thousand hearts.
Normally, John keeps his head down through it. Christmas has always felt like something meant for other people—families, couples, lives that don’t fracture under pressure. But this year, something is different.
This year, you’re there.
You’ve been seeing each other long enough that the word seeing doesn’t quite fit anymore. You don’t talk about labels; you never needed to. Things simply… settled. Your toothbrush appeared in his bathroom without discussion. Your jumper found a permanent home draped over the back of his chair. You learned how he took his tea, and he learned how you liked the windows cracked open at night, even in winter.
John never thought he’d get used to it—someone else existing in his space without feeling like an intrusion—but he does. Quickly. Too quickly.
Sometimes he catches himself watching you in moments you don’t notice. Standing barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up as you wash dishes. Curled into the sofa with a book, brow furrowed in concentration. Laughing at something stupid on television, head tipped back, eyes bright.
Those moments scare him more than anything else.
Because they feel permanent.
“You’re staring again,” you say one evening, glancing up from your mug.
John blinks, caught. “Sorry.”
You smile softly, not unkind. “You look like you’re memorising me.”
He laughs it off, but the truth sits heavy in his chest. He is memorising you. Storing details away like rations, like proof that this—whatever this is—is real. That it’s happening. That it’s his.
The thought feels dangerous.
The closer Christmas creeps, the more domestic everything becomes. You help him decorate the flat, even though he insists it’s unnecessary. A small tree in the corner, slightly crooked. A string of lights hung unevenly across the window.
“It’s charming,” you insist when he grimaces.
“It’s a fire hazard.”
You grin. “Festive.”
John watches the lights flicker on for the first time, warm and soft, casting gentle shadows across the room. The flat looks different like this. Softer. Almost… hopeful.
Something twists painfully in his chest.
For a moment—just a moment—he lets himself imagine this lasting. Another Christmas. Another year. You still here, still laughing, still taking up space beside him.
It feels like tempting fate.
He starts making plans without meaning to. Suggesting you cook together. Asking what kind of Christmas films you like. Mentioning January offhandedly, casually, like it doesn’t matter.
Every time, there’s a pause.
You cover it well. A smile that comes a second too late. A change of subject. A quiet “we’ll see” that leaves a strange ache behind.
John notices. He always notices.
“You alright?” he asks one night as you sit together on the sofa, your head resting against his shoulder.
“Of course,” you say quickly.
Too quickly.
He doesn’t push. He rarely does. The army taught him when to hold his tongue, and life taught him that asking questions doesn’t always bring answers you can survive.
Still, something feels… off.
It’s subtle. The way you don’t linger as long anymore. The way you go quiet when he mentions the future, even jokingly. The way you sometimes look at him like you’re already grieving.
The first real crack comes in early December.
You’re meant to stay the night, but you don’t. You hesitate by the door, keys in hand, eyes distant.
“I should go,” you say.
“Oh. Alright,” John replies, forcing a smile. “Everything okay?”
“Yes,” you lie.
He watches you leave, a knot forming in his stomach that doesn’t loosen all night.
Two days later, he overhears the phone call.
It’s accidental. He’s coming back from the kitchen, mug in hand, when he hears your voice from the bedroom—low, tense.
“I know,” you say. “I just… I haven’t told him yet.”
John freezes.
His pulse roars in his ears. He doesn’t hear the rest. He doesn’t need to.
That night, when you return to the living room, he’s sitting exactly where he was before. You smile at him, tentative.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he replies.
There’s a question sitting on his tongue. A hundred of them. He swallows them all.
The days after that are strained in a way neither of you acknowledge. You still touch him—your hand brushing his arm, your lips finding his—but it feels fragile now. Like glass.
John starts sleeping lighter. Waking up before dawn, staring at the ceiling, the weight of impending loss pressing down on him.
He’s felt this before.
That sense of something good slipping through his fingers, inevitable and unstoppable. The war taught him that happiness doesn’t linger. That you don’t get to keep the things that matter.
Still, he lets himself hope.
He buys you a Christmas present anyway. Something small but thoughtful, wrapped carefully and hidden away in a drawer. He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a gift.
The breakup happens on a Tuesday.
The sky is grey, heavy with unshed snow. You sit across from him on the sofa, hands folded tightly in your lap. You won’t meet his eyes.
John already knows.
“I didn’t want to do this like this,” you begin.
His heart sinks. “Like what?”
“Right before Christmas.”
There it is.
He exhales slowly, steadying himself. “What’s going on?”
You finally look at him, eyes wet, expression torn. “I’m leaving.”
The words hit harder than he expects. He’s been bracing for them, but they still knock the breath from his lungs.
“Leaving,” he repeats quietly.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Soon. After Christmas.”
Something cold spreads through his chest.
“You were going to wait,” he says. It’s not an accusation. Just a fact.
“I didn’t want to ruin it.”
He almost laughs at that. Almost.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
You tell him. Another country. Another life. Something you’ve wanted long before him.
“I love you,” you say quickly, desperately. “This doesn’t change that.”
John stares at you for a long moment.
He believes you.
That’s the worst part.
“I can’t stay,” you continue. “I can’t be the person who resents giving something up. You deserve more than that.”
He nods once, stiffly.
“Right,” he says.
Silence stretches between you, thick and suffocating.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you whisper.
“I know.”
And he does. He knows. You’re not cruel. You’re not careless. You’re just choosing something else.
And John has always known how this ends.
He stands, moving automatically, and retrieves the gift he bought you. He presses it into your hands without ceremony.
“Merry Christmas,” he says.
You break then, tears spilling over as you clutch it to your chest. “John…”
“It’s alright,” he says, though it very much isn’t.
You leave not long after, your footsteps echoing down the stairwell like gunfire.
John stands in the doorway long after it closes.
The flat is unbearably quiet.
Christmas lights flicker softly, casting warm colors that suddenly feel wrong—too bright, too hopeful for a room that’s just lost its heart.
John sinks onto the sofa, staring at the empty space beside him.
The season presses on outside, uncaring.
And for the first time since Afghanistan, he feels it creeping back in—that sense of being alone in a world that keeps moving without him, color draining slowly from everything he touches.
Christmas comes anyway.
John half-expects the world to pause out of courtesy, to give him a moment to catch his breath, but it doesn’t. London keeps moving, loud and lit and mercilessly alive. Buses rumble past. People laugh. Bells ring. Somewhere down the street, someone is singing off-key and joyfully, and the sound crawls under John’s skin like an insult.
He doesn’t sleep much after you leave.
The flat feels wrong at night—too quiet, too still. Every small sound startles him awake: the radiator clicking, the hum of traffic, the distant echo of footsteps on the pavement below. His body stays tense, wired like it’s waiting for something bad to happen.
Maybe it already has.
He wakes on Christmas Eve before dawn, heart pounding, disoriented for a few long seconds. For one stupid, hopeful moment, he reaches out toward the other side of the bed.
Cold sheets.
Reality settles back over him like ash.
He sits up slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. His chest feels tight, hollowed out, as if something vital has been scooped from inside him and taken with you. He stares at the wall across from the bed, watching faint grey light seep through the curtains.
This feeling—this emptiness—is familiar.
It reminds him of Kabul. Of hospital tents and long, sleepless nights. Of coming back to London and feeling like he’d arrived on the wrong planet, everything too bright and loud and meaningless.
He hadn’t expected to feel that way again.
He drags himself out of bed and makes tea he barely tastes. The flat looks unchanged, but everything feels different. Your mug is still in the cupboard. Your coat still hangs by the door. Your presence lingers like a ghost he can’t quite bring himself to banish.
He doesn’t remove the Christmas decorations.
He can’t.
Christmas Eve passes slowly. John tries to distract himself—tidying the flat, reorganising drawers, anything that gives his hands something to do. He finds your jumper folded in the spare drawer, and that’s when it really hits him.
The grief isn’t loud.
It’s crushing.
He sinks down onto the bed, the jumper clenched in his hands, breathing unevenly. He presses it to his face before he can stop himself, inhaling the faint trace of your scent that still clings to it.
His chest aches. His eyes burn.
He doesn’t cry—not properly. He hasn’t ever been very good at that. The pain just settles deep inside him, heavy and relentless, like a wound that never quite healed.
That night, he dreams of Afghanistan.
Of sand and gunfire and heat. Of walking through streets where he doesn’t understand the language, doesn’t belong. He wakes with his heart racing, disoriented and shaking, the echo of explosions still ringing in his ears.
It takes him a moment to remember where he is.
London. Christmas. Alone.
Christmas Day dawns grey and cold.
John doesn’t bother changing out of his pyjamas. He sits on the edge of the bed for a long time, staring at the floor, listening to the muffled sounds of celebration drifting in from outside. Laughter. Music. Life.
He feels like a stranger in it.
Eventually, he forces himself up and makes breakfast he doesn’t eat. The television murmurs in the background, cheerful presenters talking about festive traditions and family gatherings. He switches it off.
Silence is worse, but at least it’s honest.
He picks up his phone more times than he can count.
Your name sits there, bright and tempting. He imagines texting you something simple—Merry Christmas. He imagines you reading it in another country, in another life, smiling sadly and replying with kindness.
He puts the phone down.
He learned a long time ago that reaching out doesn’t always bring comfort. Sometimes it just makes the distance sharper.
By midday, the walls feel like they’re closing in. John pulls on his coat and steps outside, letting the cold bite into his skin. The streets are busy, full of colour and movement. Christmas lights glow against the darkening sky, reds and golds blurring together.
He barely sees them.
The city feels washed out, drained of saturation, like someone’s turned the world down to grey. Faces pass him by—happy, laughing, oblivious—and he feels utterly disconnected from all of it.
This is how it felt when he came back from the war.
Surrounded by people, utterly alone.
He walks aimlessly, not really sure where he’s going. His feet carry him past familiar streets, past places he and you once went together. The café where you first laughed at one of his terrible jokes. The corner shop where you argued playfully over which biscuits to buy.
Each memory is a small, sharp cut.
He stops walking when he realises he’s standing outside a pub, its windows glowing warmly, packed with people. For a moment, he considers going in—ordering a drink, pretending he’s just another man enjoying Christmas.
He can’t do it.
He turns away and keeps walking.
By the time he makes it back to the flat, it’s dark. The Christmas lights inside flicker weakly, casting soft patterns across the walls. They look wrong now. Mocking.
John sinks onto the sofa, coat still on, and stares at the empty space beside him.
This is where you used to sit. Curled into the corner, feet tucked beneath you, head resting against his shoulder. He can almost feel the weight of you there, warm and familiar.
Almost.
He exhales slowly, deeply.
He survived Afghanistan.
He survived coming back to a city that felt alien and cruel. He survived nights filled with gunfire and days filled with nothing at all.
He’ll survive this too.
But as he sits there, alone in the dim light, he realises something that hurts more than he expected: survival isn’t enough anymore.
You showed him colour again. Warmth. The possibility of a life that wasn’t just endured, but lived. And now it’s gone, and everything feels duller for having known it.
The days after Christmas blur together.
John goes back to work. He smiles when he’s supposed to. He answers questions. He does his job well, because that’s what he’s always done. No one looks too closely. No one notices the way his eyes seem a little emptier, the way his laughter never quite reaches them.
At night, he comes home to a flat that still smells faintly like you.
He doesn’t take your coat down.
Weeks pass. The Christmas decorations come down around the city, but John leaves his up longer than necessary. When he finally takes the lights down, the flat feels even more barren than before.
One evening, as January settles in cold and relentless, he stands by the window and looks out over the street below. The world keeps moving. People hurry past, wrapped in scarves and coats, their lives full of things he no longer has.
For the first time in a long while, John feels that old, familiar sense of displacement.
Like he doesn’t quite belong anywhere.
Like he’s walking through a life that’s no longer his.
He turns away from the window and switches off the light.
The room plunges into darkness, stripped of warmth and colour, and John stands there for a moment longer before sitting down in the quiet.
Alone again.
Just like when he first came back from the war—alive, breathing, and utterly disconnected from the world around him, wondering when everything lost its colour and whether it will ever come back.
...
AN: I hate doing this to my baby, look at him
