White-2
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Holmes doesn’t know how long he’s been here already, but for Watson it has been four years. four years of guilt, grief, anger and excruciating pain. Holmes has seen enough to know that all these years Watson has been blaming himself for his death, thinking of what it would be like if he showed up earlier or went with Holmes from the beginning.
Watson has become an alcoholic eventually. At first he completely buried himself in work, then, when it didn’t help, he began to go to the pub more and more often. Mary left him, or more exactly, he told her to leave. She went abroad and changed her name so she wouldn’t be associated with her former husband. Watson moved back to the Baker-street, because he had nowhere else to go, and Mrs. Hudson let him out of pure pity.
Holmes has seen it all, every piece of it, every moment of Watson’s massive breakdown and he could do nothing about it, and that fact still tears him apart, kills him over and over again each second he is here in this goddamn white place.
Lucy is always there when he needs to ask her something, but most of the time she doesn’t give him an answer, just says something else, completely unrelated to the topic. It used to get him mad at once, but eventually, he got used to it. He is now either watching Watson or spacing out in his trance. There’s nothing else to do here.
Today Watson is especially bad, and Holmes is there in the room with him, watching his friend destroy himself.
Watson is drunk. Theirs is a bottle of rum dangling in his hand dangerously, ready to fall from his weak fingers at any moment. He paces the room unsteadily, dripping his tears so hard, Holmes thinks he can hear them gnashing.
Then, all of a sudden, Watson crushes the bottle to the floor, breaking it into smithereens, the rum spilling everywhere.
“The hell have you done, Holmes?!” Watson yells, swinging his arms so hard he nearly loses his balance and falls. “How- how in the hell could you do that to me?! You bastard!” He screams and his eyes water. “You goddamn bastard! I hate you! I hate you!”
It hurts Holmes to see it or hear it, but he can do nothing and somehow he is frozen in his place, unable to move. He simply watches, because that’s the only thing he is capable of noe - watching.
“How could you die, you bloody git?!” Watson roars, grabbing the vase from the windowsill and smashing it into the wall. The pieces of glass fly everywhere.
Watson grabs the next thing which is unlucky enough to get cross his path. It happens to be a candlestick and soon it follows the vase to the wall, hitting it and bouncing on the floor.
“I hate you! How could you do it to me?! How could you…” He sobs finally, tears running down his cheek, the overwhelming pain in his eyes so clear that Holmes feels it too, his guts twitching and he feels like crying with Watson.
“You said- you promised me…” Watson babbles, his shoulders shaking. “You promised me you would wait… you said you would be here for me…”
The next moment Watson leans on his other leg, shifting, and he accidentally steps on the puddle of rum on the floor and he slips down on the floor, his head hitting the bedside table while he falls, and Holmes can see blood start to drip from Watson’s forehead.
His friend falls on the cold floor, his head bleeding, but he still remains conscious, repeating Holmes’ name like mantra, tears rolling down his cheeks “please, be here, Holmes, please, please, be here, I love you, I love you, oh god, be here, pleaseplease”
He can’t watch this anymore. Holmes turns around and immediately he is in the whiteness and Lucy stands beside him, indifferent expression on her face.
“Why are you doing this?!” Holmes yells at her angrily, his own tears stinging his eyes. “Why are torturing him?! Hasn’t he had enough already?! He’s a wonderful man, he hasn’t done anything bad!”
“No, he hasn’t” Lucy agrees.
“Then stop it! Stop it now! Isn’t there a God or something?!” he demands furiously.
“For there to be a God, you should have believed in him” Lucy says dryly.
“Is there… I there anything I could do? Anything?” he pleads, desperately, helplessly, feeling so miserable he had never felt while being alive. He’s surprised, though, when he hears her next words.
“There is. Actually, Watson’s future is solely up to you.”
“What do you mean?” he asks her, both relieved and suspicious, realizing it can’t be just that easy.
“You don’t know what is Watson’s future but I do. There are two ways his life can develop from this day on. The first one is that he lives, drinking and blaming himself for the rest of his life, and then he will die eventually from the liver disease, caused by his drinking. But when he dies, you two will be together again and then, nothing will ever separate you again.”
“Really?” Holmes says, disbelievingly. “And how long will he live?”
“For you” Lucy says “it will be nothing. You could just close your eyes and when you open them again, he’s here and he’s yours, forever”
Holmes doesn’t know what to think. His body is frozen all over, and he feels shivers run down his spine. That’s just too perfect, he thinks, too perfect to be true. There must be something else to it. The answer comes immediately.
“And for him?” he finally asks her, his voice hoarse. “How long will he live?”
“Twenty-six years,” she says quietly, and Holmes’ heart falls.
Twenty-six more years of pain, guilt, grief and self-hating. Twenty-six years of destroying himself and his life. Mrs. Hudson won’t take that long and when she dies - where will Watson go? A man in his forties-fifties, a drunkard, unable to do anything, without any money, what will he possible do? How could he survive those twenty-six years?
“And what about the other way?” he asks shakily.
“Two years from now Watson will meet a man named James Samville. He’s a nice kind man, he’ll help Watson out of his life crisis and eventually, the two of them will fall in love. They will move out of London together, Watson will get back his medical license and will live happily for thirty-three years until he dies in an accident.”
“And when he dies” Holmes whispers, afraid to hear the answer, “he will be here for me, right?”
“No, in that case he won’t” Lucy deadpans. “You won’t be something which he seeks anymore. James Samville will.”
So, Holmes thinks, I have a choice - either Watson is his, but he has to survive through twenty-six years of hell, or Watson will live happily ever after with another man, never thinking of Holmes again. His hands shake when he asks:
“Why do I have to decide?”
“Who else will?” Lucy shrugs. “He’s your friend, you’ll make the right decision. Besides, you don’t have to decide right now, there’s no time in here, as you’ve noticed, so you shouldn’t hurry.”
Holmes stays silent, his whole body shaking, the new information too much for him. His whole life and even his after-life existence are brought up to this, to this point, this decision he has to make. The life of his best friend, his loved one is up to him now and, obviously, this is the most important case he’s ever had.
He has always been an egoist, a thing Watson had always complained about. Now, the egoist in him is clearer than ever.
Absent-mindedly, he wonders why has everything always have to be so complicated. Why people have to suffer for the others’ mistakes.
He looks at Lucy and for the first time he sees emotion on her face. Sorrow.
In the heart of hearts, he already knows what he’s going to choose.
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He watches Watson and this James person laugh, sitting at the table and drinking coffee, something in the morning newspaper is seemingly very funny for them.
Holmes doesn’t want to look what it is.
“John” Samville suddenly says, making Holmes wince at hearing Watson’s first name. They never called each other by first names, but with that James Watson doesn’t seem to mind. “I’ve been thinking lately…”
“As if you know how” Holmes mutters darkly, knowing perfectly well that he’s being unreasonable. James Sawmville is a rather sharp man, of course far from Holmes’ level, but good enough for Watson’s taste.
“…What would you say if I suggested that we should buy a dog?” he finishes.
Something dark flickers over Watson’s face.
“I don’t know, James” Watson replies hesitantly. “I mean, I don’t know if I want another dog after Gladstone”
“But Gladstone died almost eight years ago!”
“Yes, but we bought it together with -” He stops abruptly, but the unsaid name is clear enough.
“Holmes” Samville finishes the sentence for him, sounding sad and a little bitter. “I thought you decided to move on.”
“I did, yes, but” Watson sighs deeply. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.”
Samville doesn’t say anything to that, instead he leans forward over the table and kisses Watson on the lips. From his corner of the room, Holmes’ heart clenches.
They kiss for about a minute, and when they pull apart, Watson’s lips are red and glittering just like all those years back when Holmes kissed him in the alley in the middle of forest, and Holmes feels a lump in his throat.
Then Watson smiles and says “I think, I shall consider buying a dog”
Samville laughs and kisses him again, his hand going up to brush Watson’s cheek, and Holmes think of all these things like that - kissing, hugging, sharing bed together, all these things he never got chance to try, though he so wanted to.
Enough, he tells himself firmly, and he’s in the white place at once. Enough of that, or he’ll end up in tears all over again and he doesn’t need that. Tears won’t help or change anything.
Nothing will.
There’s no going back, Holmes knows, and all he has now is the ability to get back to that forest and rewatch his conversation with Watson over and over again, before he ends up in the whiteness.
At least Watson is happy, he keeps reminding himself, when he’s all alone in a Hell, he doomed himself for.
Hell. Funnily enough that while people are alive they all believe and associate Hell with fire and scream and red.
Who would have thought it would turn out to be white.
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Please, review, I’ll use them to wipe away all the tears the story caused :)