Chapter Text
John Watson wasn’t sure what day it was. He hadn’t done a very good job keeping track of time lately, what with his best friend taking a swan dive off of St. Bart’s and all. Not that he’d had any reason to keep track of time since he got sacked. No job, no cases – even the reporters left him alone after those scandalous photos of Duchess Catherine surfaced.
He did, however, have reasons to drink, and since his sacking he drank more than he had since he was at Bart’s. The trouble was that now he couldn’t drink the way he did as a young man. At 20, he had been the life of the party, the bloke who after a few beers laughed at everything he saw and made everyone else laugh with him. Now he was the bloke who cried at everything he saw and made everyone else disgusted with him. In a perverse way, he was glad Sherlock wasn’t there to see him like this.
A knock at the door jolted John out of his reverie. It was probably Mrs. Hudson again, coming by to fuss over him and try vainly to get him to eat. At least she’d never evict him, which was the only reason he’d returned to 221B so soon. He ambled to the door and clumsily undid the locks. (Let’s get this overwith.)
The woman at the door was not his elderly landlady but a young, dark-haired woman wearing an impeccably tailored suit, Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses tucked in her front pocket. John’s alcohol-addled brain struggled to remember who she was and how he knew her.
“Anthea?”
“Yes. May I come in?” She winced at John’s musk of cheap whiskey, old Chinese takeaway, and sweat.
John gracelessly shut the door and slurred, “So, to what do I owe the prid- prit- uh, honour?”
“Mr. Holmes instructed me to give you this.” She held out a large brown paper bag. “It’s been at the cleaners. I took it out of the plastic so that it would be less conspicuous.”
John opened the bag and struggled to focus his eyes on the object inside. Tentatively reaching in, he felt something very familiar, rugged and scratchy outside, but a soft lining. He gulped as he pulled the object out of the bag and unfurled it in front of him.
A long black coat.
Sherlock’s coat.
John stared dumbly for a long minute.
“Mr. Holmes thought his brother would want you to have it.”
“Th-thank you,” John stammered, his voice barely above a whisper. “T-tell him I said ‘thank you.’”
Anthea nodded and surveyed the flat once more before excusing herself. John watched her go, texting as she went down the stairs and into her car. Still holding the coat, he staggered backwards onto the couch. He’d not cried since the funeral, not since he asked Sherlock for one more miracle. As he clung to the coat, the dam holding back his tears developed a leak, which then grew into a fissure, and then the dam was no more. John sobbed from his guts, soaking the coat’s collar in the process. The last thing he remembered was curling up on the couch, Sherlock’s coat draped over him.