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The stairs creek as John’s heavy footsteps hit the hard, cold wood. He’s been dreading this, his first steps into the life he’d left behind. He’s only been back once, but once was enough. Far too much. Far too many feelings and memories were tied to this building, this street, that coming back would just tear him at the seams, the edges already frayed by years of longing. Mrs. Hudson had been telling him it’d be good for him to come back, so he finally agreed to apease her.
She’d kept everything just as he left it, as they left it. Not a book out of place, bullet holes still in the wall. John laughed a little under his breath. She’d wanted to kill him for that, but one shy look with those big blue eyes was all it took for her to forget and simply brush it off. He made his way to the desk, rifling through old casefiles and papers filled with illegible handwriting.
“It’s a bloody good thing that man was never a novelist. What with his scribbles and egotistic babbling..”
As much as it had annoyed him in the past, he very much missed it now. His comments on ordinary people and the way he made “obvious” deductions in general conversation. He thought it was supposed to get easier over the years. He thought the pain would slowly ease off, and this stabbing sensation that constantly nagged his heart would die away. But the more he thought, and the more he remembered, it just became worse.
He reached the window of the flat, Sherlock’s favorite spot. He’d stood here a million times before, but John realized this was the very first time he had taken that place. He just stood there for a minute, felt his eyes close of their own will. If he tried hard enough, he could even hear his voice, deep and penetrating. He could see the fabric of his clothing, the soft, white skin of his pale face. And as he remembered, his knees gave away. He sank to the ground, like a thousand times before, and felt his body racked with painful sobs. He struggled to regulate his breathing, and finally just sat with the tears still streaming down his cheeks.
That was when he heard the violin’s elegant notes being played behind him.