Love's Bitter Sting, 3/?
Title: Love’s Bitter Sting, 3/?
Author: fiery_fox2
Pairing/Characters: Slash; Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Often, truth comes too late.
Warnings: Spoilers for the entirety of the new film; m/m relations; angst; violence, alcohol abuse, suicidal tendencies. This section and those that follow will contain drug use.
Word Count: 1,123 for this particular section.
A/N: Since part 2 of the arc, this work has been a product of my imagination.
----
“You’re certain you can’t stay to heal me, Doctor?”
Watson finished buttoning his shirt, sending the woman a cold look before tossing her a small coin purse. She held it up and shook it, a satisfied smile crossing her lips.
“For one so obviously calloused and cold, you do pay quite well.”
“And you, Madam, are without a doubt the worst bedmate I have ever known.”
She flushed, her eyes narrowing, and Watson took that as his signal to leave.
He no longer cared who witnessed him leaving such a place of debauchery. What remained in his life that he had to keep up the façade of a proper, civilized gentleman? If he was tempting the Fates, he thought grimly, they’d damn well need to prepare themselves for a fight.
Nearing a tavern, Watson fingered the four pouches hidden in the pocket of his jacket. The evening was still young-a few stiff drinks to start it off would not reduce him to the status of a beggar.
The rowdy music and loud laughter coming from within the building drew Watson in a dark, selfish manner, and he entered, making his way through the shouting, raucous crowd. A group of men sat at a nearby table, cards and coins spread across the wood.
Their game paused as Watson tossed a large piece of silver in their midst.
”Count me in, gentlemen.”
Their calculating gazes should have frightened him, but Watson was no longer held captive by fear or intimidated by consequence. He fixed them with a cool, calm stare.
A cruel smirk at last graced the lips of one of the men, and he gestured silently at an empty chair. Watson took his seat, cane resting across his knees, ready for immediate use if the need arose.
The first three hands ended in Watson’s favor, and as he swept his winnings into a neat pile before him, the sight of another man sitting partly in shadow across the room gave him pause. The other seemed to be fixated on him, and the doctor’s ire rose as he continued to be stared at. He would have called out something rather uncouth to him, but then the man’s eyes met his own.
And Watson suddenly could not breathe.
The dark amber gaze was painfully familiar, and it sent memories crashing over him.
Reichenbach; the falls; Holmes’ last, lingering look at him as he tumbled over the edge of the balcony; the guilt and grief and pure, unadulterated horror Watson had felt-
“Have you lost your nerve?”
The demand brought Watson back to reality, and he smiled coldly at the man across the table.
“Hardly, though it’s my humble opinion you would do well to consider your place in this game. Perhaps you should retreat while you have the option of doing so.”
Fury flared in the man’s eyes, and he leapt to his feet. The others stayed put, however, and Watson remained where he was, still as a stone, waiting.
As he’d suspected, a gun was pointed at his face, and the tavern’s noise was reduced to anxious murmurs.
“How well can you dodge a bullet, boy?” he growled.
Watson smiled mirthlessly.
“I’m certain that would be simple, due to your ridiculous aim.”
In an instant, he’d struck out with his cane, sending the man tumbling to the floor of the tavern, howling in pain as he clutched at his likely broken leg.
Watson’s eyes were filled with a dark, excitable fire, his voice a low, almost maniacal rumble.
“Have at it, then.”
With an almost unanimous shout, the remaining five men rushed forward. The fight was on.
~*~
Watson laughed, spitting in the man’s face, despite the fact that he was pinned to the alley wall outside the tavern, surrounded by the others, bruised and bloodied.
“Surely that can’t be all you have within you,” he mocked. “Who taught you the game of fisticuffs, you fool?”
The man indeed slammed his fist into Watson’s abdomen, but a wheezing laugh was all that was earned for his trouble.
“You wage battles like a child.”
A direct kick to his war-injured leg caused an unexpected roar of pain to leave Watson’s lips, and dark chuckles were heard.
“It seems that even your determination has limits,” his aggressor growled.
Blow after blow rained down now on Watson, the men taking care to focus their attention on the past wound now that they were aware of its weakness. Despite the haze of pain he was in, the doctor continued to fight.
A scream was ripped from Watson’s throat as a knife was suddenly buried to the hilt in his ribs, and his vision turned white, stomach heaving as he retched with the agony of it. With the connection of a final fist to the side of his head, Watson’s world became blissfully, beautifully dark.
~*~
He woke hours afterward, the taste of vomit and the burn of his injuries causing a silent curse that he was still alive to enter his mind. Repressing a cry as every muscle and bone burned with each labored breath he took, Watson began the journey back to Cavendish Place.
There were not many on the streets at this time of night, and the few that were quickly moved out of his way, their horrified glances enough of a tell as to how awful he truly looked. At last he dragged himself into his home and the bedroom, and found he could no longer bear his sorrows.
Forcing himself to move again, he stumbled and limped to the liquor cabinet, pulling whiskey from within it, forsaking a glass to drink directly from the decanter. However, the sharp, sweet warmth that spread throughout him was hardly enough to drive away his grief and torturous despair.
Damn you, Holmes, he thought bitterly, beginning to weep. Damn you.
~*~
For weeks afterward, Watson continued his downward spiral, yet quickly discovered that all the women and liquor London had to offer would never repair his broken soul. He needed a miracle, but the afterlife had denied him the one thing he desired above all else.
It was a bitter night, a chill wind flowing from the direction of the Thames, when Watson took the final plunge into the basest lows of humanity.
The peddler grinned at him, his crooked, broken teeth the devil’s own gaping maw.
“Why, Doctor Watson, I dared not believe you would ever come to me. What a fall we have endured.”
Watson gazed at the man with empty eyes, throwing three large pouches of silver at his feet. He did not speak.
The other’s grin grew wider, and he pulled a small bottle from his pocket. The smell alone was indicative of what contents it housed.
Watson took the offering, turning away, but the peddler’s words struck him to the core.
“No amount of drug will dull your pain, Doctor. Guilt is a great and undefeated monster, which follows one to their grave.”