Unbelieving (A Johnlock Fanfiction)

Cracking

Chapter 1:

One year, seven months and twelve days.

That's how long he had been gone. From this flat, from these streets, from this world. Everything seemed deserted. Plain, placid.

Grey.

But not so much from my life.

He was most certainly gone. Everyone said that. Hell, I said that. He was never coming back. I said that. I knew that. The news said that. The world knew that.

It was just at a standstill. Everything. My memories with him, the time we spent together, our life in the flat, the bickering in the morning, the melody that oozed out of the violin at midnight, that lulled me to sleep, his voice that always had it's way with people, even after shredding the dignity of beings into microscopic fragments.

Now it wasn't there. Nothing. Empty. Hollow. Now the flat, at night, was silent as death, it hurt my ears. The kitchen was just painfully, blindingly clean. The ever resounding footsteps of him pacing around were long gone.

No one called "John!" every now and then and nobody pulled me out of the flat to run around the city, chasing murderers and blood, and the thrill of the chase.

All that was heard was the pitter- patter of rain on the roof, or the rush cars outside, or the annoyingly ecstatic laughter of the youngsters passing by.

All of it was just.. like a dream.

Actually, was a big, deep pit painted to look like a colourful dream, that I never wanted to climb out of, because outside, the harsh realities awaited.

*****

There were times, when the reality began to strike me hard enough to put me into shock, I sat in my chair for hours together, trying to put these pieces together, but I tired out, and gave up.

Sometimes the pieces are too far scattered for it to be possible to reach them, so you avoid the travail of reaching out and piecing them together.

Instead, you build a façade. A façade that covers any darkness inside, and the holes you can never fill. And you build it strong enough for it to be a believable, tangible illusion, even for you.

And then my mind always regained it's balance (or if you could call it that, not being able to digest your best friend's death.)

My life was still. Stagnant. Because I knew.

But I didn't believe.

It was impossible. "Never coming back," they said. Never? How? Did they not realise how strong a word this was? Never, as in not for eternity. How can anyone be gone forever? He would come back some day. He had to. Believing it was so onerous, that it was almost funny.

Sherlock.

I missed him.

Everything about him. Everything was just.. plain, without him. No quiver, no life to anything. But I felt so empty. So.. emotionless, like a rock.

I did have feelings, though. I knew I did. I would laugh at TV shows and almost be reduced to tears many a times. I would hide behind the blanket when I watched something scary, and wake up sweating, panting, terrified from a nightmare.

But there was always a nagging at the back if my head. I had no one to share these with.

Like I had before.

He had left a hole in my life. It was like a crack in a pristine piece of pottery, except this was far more irreversible.

I had this information. I knew that he wasn't coming back, ever, but I couldn't imagine it, and maybe because of that, my mind converted it into something close to a myth, and even after denying it and going over it, again and again, in the background of everything I said or I thought, I always believed that he wasn't gone forever.

I knew he was.

But I didn't cry. I didn't grieve as much as everyone else did. Everyone I saw, just gave me pitiful glances and sympathetic bows, but I couldn't comprehend any of them. Why wasn't I crying? Why wasn't I feeling so much?

Why wasn't I broken?

Maybe because I was far beyond that.

Maybe I was denying it.

And that is the most broken anyone could be.

It felt so unrealistic, that it was almost impossibly funny.

Yes, I've said this before.

It was simple. No life so colourful, so vibrant and quivering with energy can just.. just go. Just be wiped from the face of the earth. It just couldn't happen. It was too, far too twisted to be true.

So I sat there, in my armchair, drinking my tea while staring at the empty space on the armchair across me, waiting for it to be filled once again. It would be filled. Death was just too gruesome a thing to happen to him.

My best friend.

He was alive.

Yes.

He had to be, and he would come back.

I liked to believe that.

And so, a tear slipped from my eye and made it's way down my cheek and stopped at my chin. Another one followed it and when the weight became too much, fell onto my hand to remind me, that I felt. I did have feelings.

These tears often reminded me of myself. My relationship with my emotions. Maybe someday, like the tears fell when the weight got too much, I would fall when my emotions weighed too much. The water will once flow out, shattering all the walls, scattering any of the broken pieces I had so carefully pieced together. I felt distant. From the world, from myself, and what hurt me the most, from Sherlock. His face was imprinted in my mind like a stain of ink on an immaculate, white cloth.

The quill that dropped the ink was now destroyed.

Sherlock's death to me, was either something extremely ordinary, or an absolutely incomprehensible entity.

My feelings were like water trapped inside a half frozen ice cube, a cracked, dry leaf hanging loose on a barren, creaking tree.

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Unlike last time, I actually have something to go on with. Also, I'm going through a terrible block, hopefully I'll be back in some time.
Leave a comment if you'd like, tell me how it was, if you don't feel like it, don't, but I still love you because you're reading this shit ;)

I'll try my best to update in the next few days.
I love y'all

Thank you!

~Annie~