Fic: Journey's End
Title: Journey's End
Fandom: Canon
Wordcount: 3,092
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Holmes/Watson
Warning(s): AU, slash
Summary: While on his way to investigate a singular murder, the doctor is sidetracked by a strange patient who harbours a secret, and an Inspector who is not at all what he seems.
A/N: Written for the Help_Japan meme over on watsons_woes for a prompt by the sparkly awesome methylviolet10b who flattered me silly by requesting a coda for my fic, Guide You Home. While you don’t need to read that first one to get the gist of this, it’s probably not going to make much sense if you aren’t familiar with The Empty House. On a final note, my apologies, rainbows, and adorable fluffy kittens are offered for this taking so obscenely long to complete. I did eventually have to re-write most of it when it started to veer off in a very odd direction :/ That's fixed now. I think.
~*~
“‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says."
- The Empty House
Some arcane instinct leads me into taking an indirect route to the scene of the Adair murder, and it is just as well I never reach my destination, for I am detained by the most baffling affair on my way.
A bookseller, his sinewy arms laden with tomes that give one the impression of being genuinely archaic - and of no little value - emerges from his shoppe on the corner of Church Street, whereupon he is immediately felled, as if by some invisible force. The imperceptible attack leaves the poor old fellow lying motionless in the gutters. It perplexes myself and the entire throng of onlookers, who swarm round the injured fellow like some grotesque birds of prey, making no motion to offer any aid, only to glimpse another's misfortune.
I cross the street quickly as my legs will carry me, and, kneeling by his side, am overcome with relief to see the man is alive and making a valiant attempt at shoving me away. Even as he takes a well aimed swipe at me with a most unusual hard bound volume entitled The History of Tree Worship, my stubborn nature refuses to be put off, and I lift his frail body into a passing four wheeler.
Without a doubt, this elderly fellow with the white side-whiskers is the most spirited and, admittedly, infuriating patient to try my tolerance to its boundaries since my days with Holmes. My stomach is besieged by a pang of sickness at the reminiscence, but what a sorry physician I should make were I to allow that to prevent me from caring for my wayward charge. Who flings the most foul obscenities to ever stray from the likes of the Limehouse docks when I all but haul him over my shoulder and tote him into my consulting room.
Locking the door in my wake, I set the flailing bibliophile upon my settee, paying no heed to his infuriated protests that I unhand his person lest he set the law upon me for my impertinence. I chuckle at his outburst, for he inspires a warmth in me despite his brash disposition. He insists the cumbrous tomes he ferrys about with him deflected the bullet meant to strike through his heart, and here a fear rises up in me that this harmless eccentric may be delirious from old age and the great shock which he has of late undergone. For having borne witness to the remarkable event, I can certainly attest that there was no sound of a rifle fired, and the vicinity was decidedly bereft of any telltale odours of gunpowder. Before he strains his nerves from the extreme state of agitation he is in the grip of, I rummage through my medical bag for my strongest sedative just as he leaps towards the door.
He is fiddling with the bolts when I come up from behind and administer the injection. Turning to face me, grasping his own arm as though I have just given him a dose of poison that burns through his veins, he looks upon me with such utter amazement, I myself am taken aback. Foolish as it seems, there is something intangible there in that penetrating stare, those liquid grey eyes tugging at the seams of my awareness.
“Doctor…” The statement is barely a whisper, yet it floods me with a thrill which even now surges anew at the mere memory. "All wrong... hadn't meant to... find me... dangerous companion..."
And with those fantastic ramblings, he slumps down in a heap upon the floor.
***
Leaning back into the creaking wooden chair, I steal a perfunctory glance at my senseless patient over whom I have kept a devoted vigil these past several hours. He is laid out on my own bed - for those accommodations were decidedly more private and less plagued by draughts than my examination room - and covered to the chin under the warmest bedclothes I am able to provide. With immense relief I note he is finally lying quietly, having been skirting at the edges of wakefulness and dreams, pitifully murmuring in some amalgamation of English and French; babble I can make no sense of. This mysterious stranger’s pain distresses me more so than my own, and, up until a quarter of an hour ago, I had settled on the side of the bed, clasping his cold, thin fingers in my own, reassured that he seemed to find an equal measure of comfort in the gesture as I did in providing it.
Content that the worst of his fits are over, I reach over to my bedside table and withdraw the very morocco case containing the instrument of evil I so chastised my dear Holmes for destroying himself with. Rolling up my sleeve, I consider letting the needle hit home. Let it take me, I no longer care for my own welfare. But this stranger needs me, and I lock the instrument of poison back in its case to drown my sorrows on soem other instance.
I have become foremost amongst hypocrites, having taken to injecting myself with a solution of morphine to dull the edges of a pain from which I know no other respite. Some days, when my consulting room is barren, I substituted the drug for food, as the former had the added advantage of subtracting years from my life, not compiling more unsought ones onto it. At a quarter to nine every evening, regardless of weather, I take my daily constitutional, which invariably leads me to one public house or another. From there, it is straight back to my lonely home, whereupon entering the hallway I might chance to catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. When I am not so inebriated - which is to say, infrequently - that the double blurred image of my likeness is not present, I find the man peering back at me to be repellent.
From there, the morphine lovingly welcomes me into her sweet embrace. There is naught else for me at the day’s end but to gladly receive the all too ephemeral quiescence of slumber, and I do freely admit how often I wish it might be a permanent one, at that.
A mournful groan from under the mound of blankets abruptly shatters my morbid reverie. This barely perceptible, though rather unexpected utterance is enough to send down my spine a thrill of excitement, though I cannot perceive why it should be so. When I approach the bed, lifting my patient's sinewy wrist to check the fluttering pulse, his eyes languidly creak open. I gently pat his hand in a gesture of reassurance - he seems to desperately wish to communicate with me, but the poor fellow is simply too exhausted.
A rapid succession of frantic rappings at my front door shatter the calm that has descended upon the two inhabitants of the sickroom. It is with a sting of ruefulness that disengage my hand from his, and with creaking limbs protesting the movement after so prolonged a period of inactivity, rise to receive my late caller. My servants were dismissed months ago, due to the appalling state of my finances.
Before I can shuffle off, however, my patient's fingers hook into the pocket of my trousers, and I feel the weight of some small object roll down and settle at the bottom. In my haste to answer my late night caller, I take my leave without inspecting what it is he has deemed so imperative to give me.
I traverse down the stairs and into the darkened sitting room. After hurriedly rummaging through my desk drawer, I light a single candle and slide back the door bolt to reveal a moustached man (whom I strongly suspect of being a plain clothes detective) whose deep set eyes rimmed in shadows which give the appearance of some vile creature peering out at me from under a rock. Surely those thick brows and cruel blue eyes are Nature’s own danger signals, warning the casual acquaintance to stand back, lest they be burnt by his fiery disposition. Indeed, his very countenance inspires within me an abhorrence so ingrained, it is as though I hold a grudge against the man for a transgression not yet committed. It is an unimaginable sort of thing to admit, for he is smiling genially and nothing of his outward manner impresses me with any legitimate cause for contempt.
My suspicions are confirmed when he introduces himself as Inspector Moran of Scotland Yard.
Reluctantly, but with a pleasant enough veneer, I take Inspector Moran's proffered hand. A shudder encompasses me as the pads of his stout fingers brush against my palm, enticing an overwhelming revulsion within my breast.
“Doctor, I think it best if we get straight down to business. It has come to my attention that you chanced upon one Mr Sigerson, who was assaulted outside his bookshoppe earlier today."
I nod in affirmation, my features set in a hard line. I've no intent on giving him an easy time of it.
"Does that man remain still under your professional care?"
“He does indeed,” I say, hackles raised. “though it is with regret I inform you he’s not yet regained his senses.”
“Ah! Truly? Oh, a great pity, to be sure,” he adds as I narrow my own eyes in suspicion of his eagerness. “Though I suppose it is for the best.” This spoken as though it were the merest afterthought and not the calculated line I recognized it for.
“Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Doctor,” says he, drawing closer to me and draping a most unwelcome hand over my shoulder, his face a perfect mask of affected sympathy, “I regret to be the bearer of ill news, however, it has come to the attention of the Yard that this man you harbour has been working against the law for some years now. We have, of late, come into possession of the most damning evidence against Mr. Sigerson - that he is the principal organizer of a counterfeiting ring whose origin has confounded our best men for years."
“But, this cannot be." I am unwilling to believe so fantastical a tale. Really, a harmless old bookseller being likened to a criminal mastermind is surely a hard pill to swallow, and the sight of those keen grey eyes of his which arose unbidden into my mind's eye makes its edges even more serrated still. An unconventional soul, I have no doubt, but a criminal mastermind, akin to another Moriarity is an unparalleled absurdity! “No. No, it makes no sense.”
“Doctor Watson,” the Inspector tightens his hold on my shoulder only to have me boorishly shove it off. “You are a good man, thus it breaks your heart to see your fellows accused of such grievous wrongdoing. But rest assured, the evidence we have against him is profound. And I might add, the Yard is prepared to recompense you for any trouble we may have brought upon your threshold; you need not worry on that account."
It is in vein I attempt to restrain my rising irritation at the disgust of his implications - the heat radiating from my cheeks proclaim as much - that something so vulgar as money would coerce me to weigh the scales against any patient, in particular, this one.
Perhaps it is because of this outrage in my own house that I seek the petty comfort of reaching into my pocket and fingering the object dropped inside. Inspector Moran is prattling on, but when the exact nature of the thing I am idly fingering dawns upon my admittedly slow intellect, a grey mist swirls before my eyes, and I can hear naught but my own blood thrumming in my ears. I nearly swoon, yet am grounded firmly back on terra firma when I pluck out the silver ring to behold the calligraphy etched on the interior.
John Hamish Watson
Aside from my long deceased relations, there was only one man upon this earth who was ever privy to that name which my middle initial stands for...
Sherlock Bloody Holmes.
Who well and truly better be dead at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls, for I am in a blind temper to murder the fellow should he have the audacity to be alive and in my bedroom, of all places! To think, Holmes, having somehow made it out of that awful abyss without so much as a whispered word in the direction of the only man who mourns his loss with ever fibre of his heart and soul - confound it! Sometimes I wonder myself if the gears of my brain are not well and truly oxidized!
If it is indeed Holmes lounging about in my upstairs quarters, then this sinister fellow must know as well, and could be here with only malevolent intent in his heart.
"My dear sir, are you not well?" The inspector prods me after my lengthy pause.
Unable to cast my eyes in his direction for fear of giving away the game with the honest face Holmes himself had, on numerous occasions, accused me of bearing, I instead focus my attention on the ring, unobtrusively slipping it onto the appropriate finger, letting my gaze linger there as I speak.
"I am quite all right, I assure you, Inspector Moran. Though I have been mulling the thing over, and suppose you are correct in that a known felon cannot be allowed to take refuge in my chambers."
He expels a breath of air which, to my ears, sounds remarkably like a hiss. "Excellent."
"So, if you would be so kind as to follow me, then."
He follows my lead up the stairs and through the shadow lined corridor. I blow out the candle upon reaching the landing, blaming the thing for having guttered down to an unusable stump. It is no great inconvenience to use it, but I prefer darkness for this endeavour.
"In here, my good sir. Oh, no, after you," I say, minding my impeccable British manners as I sidestep away and he turns the handle of my lumber room.
The man is no fool and sees through my ruse the moment his foot crosses the threshold. He springs on me with a hellish growl, his brutish hands clasped down my throat in a death lock, and yet, for all his strength, his own fury blots out the vestiges of his sense. I have no hopes of unfastening those hands which leave a spectrum of bruises on my throat, not with the searing pain in my shoulder from the exertions, but I prod him further inside, towards the back. Where I store, amongst my various cleaning agents, the gardening tools. Still snarling like a mad beast, he barely notices my arm shooting out for the small digging fork on the lowermost shelf, but the howl which ensues when I plunge it into his belly confirms I have his fullest attention now.
I take no pleasure in how the inanimate body goes down with a thump, nor is my sympathy extended to the former Inspector Moran. I am sure whatever evil intent he was harbinger of has repaid the man in full with his just rewards.
***
My brush with Moran has done little to quell my anger with the world's only consulting detective who'd the recklessness of character to brandish the only weapon in his arsenal that might wound me, to have me believe my dearest friend was a rotting pile of bones in the depths of some dreadful chasm. I dare say my scrap with the Inspector further provokes my ire, and it is with some severity that I fling wide the door to my bedroom and glare at the recumbent - but very awake and sans those ridiculous white whiskers - patient so blackly. Were my eyes daggers they should have cut Sherlock Holmes to the quick. In fact, I am not prepared to swear they may not have yet done so.
"Ah, my dear Watson," he chirps in that infernally soothing voice he used on clients who were prone to fainting and hysterics. "I owe you a thousand apologies."
"What. The. Devil. Ever possessed you to to pull such a pernicious, ill-considered, brainless, stupid, irrational, cruel stunt - and on me, no less!"
Had I not otherwise known there was no heart beating below the surface, I might just have accused myself of driving a spike through it, what with the unobscured paroxysm of pain that crosses over his features. He has not so much as made the slightest attempt to conceal the emotion from me, nor is it just another false mask in his cache of guises. I may be, by his standards, a rather dull fellow, but I do excel in the obscure subject that is the minutest gestures of Sherlock Holmes. His suffering is legitimate as my own, though more astounding than that is how he permits me to see what he must perceive as a blatant vulnerability.
He has bared his throat for me, and it remains my decision to, with talons at the ready, go for the jugular or accept this offering of remorse. It is an easy choice to make, for the surge of affection within me despite my anger makes it impossible for me to do ought else but lean over his form, grasp him by the hair, and kiss him back into insensibility.
Breathless, he pulls away, and I flatter myself it is only for the need to take in air that causes him to break the contact.
"Watson!" he cries in mock offense, but the mischief dancing in his eyes betrays his appreciation of the experience.
Reclaiming his mouth, I push him back down onto the pillows despite his protests that glad as he is to be back after three years of absence, we've work to do tonight.
"You are referring to Inspector Moran?" I query when I've sucked a bruise onto his neck to my satisfaction.
"How?" he gasps, for I have begun to make my way down his chest. "Oh, dear god..." I manage to elicit from him when, after ripping open the buttons of his shirt my tongue delves ever lower.
"That," I say, licking my lips in anticipation at the waist of his trousers, "we can discuss later. But for now," the first button slides easily out of the cloth, "I should like nothing more than to afford you half an hour of profitable amusement..."