Hey guys! I am so looking forward to going through all these posts in the fanfic thread and reading some good stuff! Can't wait! But I wanted to share something of my own. I started writing this fic about 5 months ago. I never finsihed it, and I'm not sure I really plan to. I tried my hand at writing a fanfic but I'm not a writer. I'm a vidder. I like telling stories with video, not with words. Anyways... This has just been sitting on my computer collecting dust for the 5 months and no one has ever seen it, so I figured, why not share what I wrote. I've never written a Sherlock fanfic before, so I am sorry that it's not that great. But I would still love to hear what anyone may think about it.

No Title

John Watson is standing on the ledge of St. Bart’s Hospital. To his left stands Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock is holding a cell phone to his ear and talking softly. “Nobody could be that clever.”
John peers over the ledge and looks down at himself. From this height he can’t hear himself answer. It doesn’t matter, though, the John on the ledge knows exactly what the John on the ground is going to say in reply. He lived this moment. It was burned to the back of his eyelids, forcing him to see it every time he closed his eyes. It was etched into his mind, forcing him to remember it when he was awake. It was branded onto his heart and soul, forcing him to feel it every moment of every day.
“You could.” He thinks, closing his eyes in anticipation of Sherlock’s response.
Sherlock laughs. It’s not words, but it says so much. It’s a short laugh, a surprised laugh. John has pondered over this laugh for many days. Why did Sherlock seemed so surprised by his faith in him? Was it really possible that Sherlock had doubted his loyalty to him?
John watches as the Sherlock on the ledge pauses for a long moment, the wind causing his jacket to billow around him.
The wind brings with it an echo of a memory. Sherlock’s voice floating back to him – “You’re worried their right.” It hadn’t been a question. This had caused shock, anger and resentment to fill John’s chest. After everything they had been through how could Sherlock state with such certainty that John actually believed this bullshit? Of course he had immediately told Sherlock that this was not true, and Sherlock seemed to accept his “No one can fake being such an annoying dick all the time” comment as confirmation. But had he really? Was it possible that John hadn’t done enough to prove his unyielding faith in his best friend? Could he have done more? Did he fail? “Yes.” He thinks. “I failed him.”
Sherlock tosses his phone behind him onto the roof, spreads his arms and leans forward. John reaches out to grab Sherlock’s coat, but his fingers close around thin air and Sherlock falls. “I’m Sorry.” He says and then dissolves into tears.
The next thing John knows he’s sitting on a park bench with a large cartoonish bird sitting on his shoulder and pecking on his head. The sound each peck was making was wooden. It sounded like knocking rather than pecking. Knocking… knocking…
John opens his eyes to find himself sitting in his armchair across from Sherlock’s. It takes his mind a moment to process. He must have fallen asleep, or rather passed out, in his chair last night. As soon as his brain makes this connection there comes another set of knocks.
“It’s open!” He calls, not even bothering to get up.
The door swings open and Greg Lestrade is standing just beyond the threshold.
John groans. He’s not happy to see Lestrade right now.
Lestrade looks him over, placing his hands into his pockets, and teeters on his heels and toes, waiting for John to invite him in.
John doesn’t. Instead he closes his eyes and lays his head back onto the chair letting out a long sigh. “I guess you heard?” He asks, keeping his eyes closed.
“Yes.” John doesn’t have to be looking at Lestrade to know he’s giving him a disapproving look.
“Am I in trouble?” He asks, still keeping his eyes closed. He can’t look at Lestrade, he can’t handle seeing his disapproval right now, it’s too bloody early and he feels like shit.
“You should be.” Lestrade’s voice is closer now, meaning he invited himself in, probably concluding that John had no intention of extending that courtesy at the moment.
“How bad?”
“You don’t remember?”
“Bits and pieces.”
“John –“
John jumps out of his chair, Sherlock’s coat falls from around his shoulders – he doesn’t recall putting it on – and storms into the kitchen to start the kettle. “What do you want me to say?” He spits over his shoulder.
Lestrade sighs, his signature never ending patience pouring out of him.
“John,” he tries again, “you can’t keep getting into drunken fights with every guy at a pub who says something bad about Sherlock.”
John huffs, switches on the kettle and then begins to rinse his mug in the sink. He ignores the ashtray from the palace sitting next to the sink filled with mold spores, an experiment Sherlock was working on shortly before he… “I told you, he deserved it.”
“I believe you.”
John allows the tension in his body to ebb a bit at Lestrade’s words. Of course Lestrade believes him. He was with him the first time it happened.
It had only been a little under three weeks – 19 days, 14 hours, and 37 minutes to be exact - since he had failed Sherlock, and he was wondering around London, lost in so many ways, when he had bumped into Lestrade. Lestrade had been investigating an apparent robbery of the shop John was currently walking by. John hadn’t seen him since the funeral, and they hadn’t spoken much since then. It didn’t help that this was the first time John had left the flat, other than for the funeral, since that nightmarish day.
“Seems strange.” Lestrade had commented.
“Sorry?”
“The world. It keeps moving forward, regardless if we want it to or not. Criminals,” he waved his hand toward the shop, “don’t stop being criminals, and detectives,” he gestured to himself, “don’t stop being detectives just because…” He had trailed off, looking away from John.
“At least you’re keeping busy.” John remarked, trying to keep the conversation light.
“I’ve just finished here, actually, and was about to head home. Want to grab a few drinks?”
“Why not?”
‘A few drinks’ turned out to be many. John was quite far gone by the time he heard it. The television behind the bar had been changed to a news station and John jerked his head up when he heard the reporter say something about Sherlock.
Lestrade had heard it too and asked the bartender to change the channel, but not before John heard a few sentences.
“There’s still no information on Sherlock Holmes’ apparent suicide. The yard has refused to give any stateme –“
The channel changed over to a game, and John looked down at his sixth (seventh?) empty drink.
“Hey!” Came an irritated shout from one of the tables in the corner of the pub. “I was watching that! That was about that fake detective guy.”
John was suddenly filled with rage. He balled his fists in front of him and set them carefully down on either side of his glass.
“Who?” Came another voice from the same direction.
“You know, the crazy detective who made up all those crimes to make himself into a hero. Christ. What a nut job that one.”
John turned slowly in his chair to face the direction of the voice. Lestrade placed his hand on John’s shoulder, squeezing gently, a cautionary gesture.
John ignored him and speaks directly to the man across the pub. “He didn’t make anything up, and he wasn’t crazy.” His words were a bit slurred, but they came out clear enough.
The man snorted. “Yeah, sure.” He turned back to his friend, brushing John and his words off as unimportant, and continuing his conversation as if John had never said anything. “He actually hired this guy, some actor, to play this big shot criminal just so he could be in the spot light. Sad, really sad.” He shook his head.
“Moriarty was real.” John told the man through clenched teeth.
The man looked up again and actually looked surprised that John was still talking to him. “Oi, mate, no one asked you.” Again, he turned back to his friend, “Isn’t it amazing what people will believe? How anyone could believe a psychopath like that –“
John had closed the space between them in three strides, flipping the table up and over the side of the bar, decking the man square in the face before anyone even knew what was happening. Several things happened at once then.
The nameless, trash talking, git fell sideways off his chair, the bartender cried out in surprise and anger, and the nameless man’s friend tackled John to the ground.
John and the man’s friend struggled on the floor momentarily before the man was grabbed from behind and ripped off him by Lestrade. He whirled around to defend himself, possibly to punch Lestrade, but Lestrade shoved his badge into his face saying, “I wouldn’t do that.”
The man’s friend held his hands up in the “I give up” gesture, and then turned to help his friend up from the floor, staring daggers at John. “Aren’t you going to do something about him?” He asked pulling his friend onto his feet.
“Yes.” Lestrade reached his hand out towards John, and John took it, letting him pull him to his feet. Lestrade reached into his pocket and for a moment John actually thought he was going to pull out his handcuffs, but instead he pulled out his wallet. He opened it, pulled out a wad of bills, and then dropped them onto the bar. “That should cover ours and the dicks’ drinks.” He said, and then clamped a hand onto John’s shoulder, steering him out of the pub.
Lestrade helped John into his squad car, closing the door behind him. As they began to drive away Lestrade spoke.
“You probably shouldn’t have done that.”
He didn’t sound angry, merely concerned, but John bristled in immediate defense, the anger, adrenaline and alcohol burning in his veins. “That guy deserved it!”
“Yes. But that doesn’t give you the right –“
“You heard the bollocks spewing from his mouth!”
Lestrade nodded. “Yes, and I would have liked to have punched him myself, but I can’t. You have to show self-control, John. You have to understand it’s the public you are dealing with. They didn’t know him like we did. And the media is a powerful influence. If the papers and the news say he was a fraud, people are going to swallow it. That arse at the pub isn’t the only one, and he won’t be the last. At least not until everything completely settles down.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Lestrade helped John up the stairs and bid John goodnight.
That was a month ago.
“But this is the third time, John!” The present version of Lestrade’s voice breaks into John’s thoughts. “I can’t keep covering for you like this.”
“I never asked you too!” John snaps at him.
“John, please. Look at yourself. Look at this place!” He waves his hand through the air, gesturing towards the mess that had built up in the flat. “You haven’t left this place in almost two months, except to go to the pub and get drunk! And then you beat the shit out of anyone who even mentions Sherlock in a negative way! You’re self-destructing, and you have to stop!” He takes in a calming breath. “Sherlock wouldn’t have wanted this.”
John lets the air from his lungs escape and glances around the flat. Truth be told, the flat was never really clean, even when Sherlock was alive. The mess was just… different. Beakers, burners, chemicals, petri dishes with varying degrees of growth in them, goggles, pieces of cloths with different woven fibers, books, notes, other varies science and chemistry items had always littered the flat, and they still did, but now they were hidden behind months of dishes, trash, beer bottles, food, and anything else John might have just left lying around. Mrs. Hudson had kept trying to get John to let her inside and cleanup for him, but he refused to let her in to touch anything. He didn’t want anything of Sherlock’s moved, and eventually she gave up.
John’s eyes fall to Sherlock’s coat lying on the floor in a heap. He was pretty drunk when he stumbled into the flat last night and didn’t recall placing it around his shoulders, but it wasn’t the first time he had done it, so not remembering wasn’t a big deal. Many nights when the loneliness and guilt threatened to make him grab his gun, he would grab Sherlock’s coat off the rack and wrap it around himself. It still smelled like Sherlock, and it gave him comfort. Sometimes, even though it was July, or August, he would light a fire in the fireplace, hold Sherlock’s violin in his lap and mindlessly pluck at the strings with Sherlock’s coat draped across his shoulders. He would do this for hours, lost in thought and oblivious to how hot it would get inside the flat. He would even talk out loud to the empty chair across from him. Sometimes it was just mundane conversations, other times it was cursing and crying. For the first few weeks he would just stare at the empty space across from him and repeat over and over in his head – Don’t. Be. Dead.
Lestrade follows John’s gaze to Sherlock’s coat and leans down to pick it up from the floor. He moves across the living room and replaces it onto the rack. “I know you miss him, John. I understand, really I do.”
John shuts his eyes tight, fighting back the memories. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“This might come as a shock to you,” Lestrade begins, “But he was my friend too.”
John leans back against the sink, dropping his hands to his sides. “He was more than just my friend.”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I was completely blind? Or that I would flatter myself by thinking I was in on the same level as he put you on? Anyone who had half a brain could see how much you two meant to each other. Only God knows whether or not he considered me his friend, but I sure as hell considered him one… even if…” His voice cracked on the last words. “Even if I didn’t show it towards the end there.”

ANNNND that't it! As I stated above, I'm fairly sure I won't be continuning to write this, but hey, if it gives someone else inspiration for their fic, it'll make my day.

Cheers,

Neptune