Chapter Text
The first time he laughs (and it is not the first time he has laughed in his life, but he thinks privately that it might as well be because it is the first time this new version of himself has laughed. He is getting so very tired of rebuilding this shattered body, mind, soul, heart of his.) it is in response to a mindless pun. A stupid joke that would have caused Sherlock to scoff, but John thinks the him Before would've laughed too, and perhaps he and Sherlock would've met eyes after and Sherlock would've rolled his eyes at John with a fond look on his face.
New John laughs, but when he looks up and to the side at the exact angle he has learned will allow him to meet eyes with a too-tall detective, he sees nothing but an empty wall. It's a wall he's seen before, painted a bright gray and covered with a painting of the countryside, but somehow it's different. Same color, same painting, same height, same length, but it seems somehow infinitely duller and sadder than it did a month ago. How he wishes he didn't see it. How he wishes it was blocked by a head of curly dark hair.
New John's laugh comes out too low. It has the same pattern of exhaled puffs of air that Old John's laugh did, it is only the pitch of it that's changed. It still sounds like it's him laughing, John thinks. It now sounds like it's him sobbing at the same time.
It's funny, the difference one thing can make.