Fic: Reflected in flames, 1/1 G
Title" Reflected in flames
Author: genagirl
Rating: G
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Adler
Word count: 960
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine.
Summary: On a London dock, Watson has a split second of insight.
A/N: Another small fiction centering on what could have been going through Watson's mind as the world erupted in flames around him.
I see the bewildered and haunted expression on Holmes’ face, the fear still clinging to the brown of his eyes. My dear friend has no experience with women, but he regards Irene Adler with an almost hypnotic gaze. She is a foreign creature to him, ruled by emotions and filled with deceit and that strangeness is as captivating as any mystery. She has twice bested him, and in doing so laid claim to some part of his admiration. She has also kissed him. I know as Holmes, in a melancholy and slightly drugged state, had once recounted the incident in detail to me. He’d sought out my council, trying his best to figure out what it was about her that called to him. I did not mention that most men can be captivated by an alluring mysterious woman, especially if said woman has spent years perfecting the art of displaying her charms and an ample amount of flesh. Holmes believes himself to be above mere biology. And I believe him in that aspect, he has never shown the least inclination in carnal matters in all the years I have known him.
Still, his reactions to Adler are his own and I determined to give him privacy to explore them, knowing full well he would quickly disentangle himself from whatever gratitude Miss Adler contrived to show. Truth be told, I was angry and needed the distraction of chasing Blackwood from the stifling muck of the slaughterhouse. I will admit that my temper often gets the best of me and looking back on events from this vantage point I can see where Blackwood once again counted on my reckless nature. If Holmes is calculating in his actions I am his counterpoint, given to snap decisions and reacting immediately. It had nearly cost me an eye and possibly my life when we’d finally apprehended the fiend. I would have done well to remember that.
Instead, I left Holmes and darted after the fleeing criminal. I could see the boat and knew if I hurried there was a remote chance of catching it, beyond that I had not thought. I’d made it two dozen running steps before I felt the slight resistance against my shin, the sensation instantly communicating itself to long buried memories I still carried. A booby-trap is something all soldiers live in fear of. I had seen many of my comrades felled by just such a thing during the war. I knew instinctively what was about to happen, that thin wire snapping with a whisper of sound that pierced me to the heart. For just a moment I closed my eyes, overcome by sadness. I had failed him. I would perish because I didn’t think things through. Blackwood had counted on my impatience before and I had once again let it get the better of me.
I heard Holmes’s footsteps racing towards me in that instant. I turned, my hand thrown up and his name tearing from my lips. If I were to die that night I would go to Hell before taking him with me. Realization blossomed in his eyes making them glisten like onyx in the gaslight. He liked to think he is unreadable. He has exiled all emotion from his life, banished sentiment and feeling as distractions to his amazing deductive abilities but in that moment I saw the great heart that beat within his breast. If a man’s soul is said to shine within his eyes then I glimpsed the very core of Sherlock Holmes, a part of him that no one had ever seen. There in the mahogany depths of his large liquid eyes I saw pain, bleak despair and unbelievable agony. Heat burned my side, a blast more potent than any I had experienced in the desert, seared across my right side. An explosion of heat that lifted me off my feet and flung me like a child’s cloth toy accompanied a roaring so loud it caused spots to dance before my eyes. I screamed his name again, praying he would not move closer but also needing his to be the last word to spill from my mouth.
I would have shouted more, told him in those seconds of what he meant to me, what I had never dared say aloud but the air within my lungs evaporated in the inferno and all I could do was say them inside my head like waning dreams. It must have been only a moment but in that instant Death seemed to fly beside me, his hands not cold as I had imagined, but fiery claws that raked my flesh and rent my bones. I reached out, taking hold of that spectral fiend, capturing it as if I could keep it from spreading further and enveloping my dear friend, fulfilling something I had long known about myself - that I would die to protect Sherlock Holmes. I am told that when I was found in the wreckage I was clutching my arms to my torso so tightly it took two orderlies to pry them loose. My doctor assured me it was a physiological reaction, instinct propelling me to protect myself but I knew it was something much more visceral.
And now I sit in this stifling room, my body torn and bloodied, but still living, and watch over my companion as he gasps and cries out. She is also here, sitting beside him lacking only a lamp in her parody of the songbird. I watch her watching him and know even now, when he thinks I am abandoning him, that our lives are forever entwined. When those far distant generations remember the name of Sherlock Holmes I am certain that my own will be said within the same breath.
Author: genagirl
Rating: G
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Adler
Word count: 960
Disclaimer: Sadly, not mine.
Summary: On a London dock, Watson has a split second of insight.
A/N: Another small fiction centering on what could have been going through Watson's mind as the world erupted in flames around him.
I see the bewildered and haunted expression on Holmes’ face, the fear still clinging to the brown of his eyes. My dear friend has no experience with women, but he regards Irene Adler with an almost hypnotic gaze. She is a foreign creature to him, ruled by emotions and filled with deceit and that strangeness is as captivating as any mystery. She has twice bested him, and in doing so laid claim to some part of his admiration. She has also kissed him. I know as Holmes, in a melancholy and slightly drugged state, had once recounted the incident in detail to me. He’d sought out my council, trying his best to figure out what it was about her that called to him. I did not mention that most men can be captivated by an alluring mysterious woman, especially if said woman has spent years perfecting the art of displaying her charms and an ample amount of flesh. Holmes believes himself to be above mere biology. And I believe him in that aspect, he has never shown the least inclination in carnal matters in all the years I have known him.
Still, his reactions to Adler are his own and I determined to give him privacy to explore them, knowing full well he would quickly disentangle himself from whatever gratitude Miss Adler contrived to show. Truth be told, I was angry and needed the distraction of chasing Blackwood from the stifling muck of the slaughterhouse. I will admit that my temper often gets the best of me and looking back on events from this vantage point I can see where Blackwood once again counted on my reckless nature. If Holmes is calculating in his actions I am his counterpoint, given to snap decisions and reacting immediately. It had nearly cost me an eye and possibly my life when we’d finally apprehended the fiend. I would have done well to remember that.
Instead, I left Holmes and darted after the fleeing criminal. I could see the boat and knew if I hurried there was a remote chance of catching it, beyond that I had not thought. I’d made it two dozen running steps before I felt the slight resistance against my shin, the sensation instantly communicating itself to long buried memories I still carried. A booby-trap is something all soldiers live in fear of. I had seen many of my comrades felled by just such a thing during the war. I knew instinctively what was about to happen, that thin wire snapping with a whisper of sound that pierced me to the heart. For just a moment I closed my eyes, overcome by sadness. I had failed him. I would perish because I didn’t think things through. Blackwood had counted on my impatience before and I had once again let it get the better of me.
I heard Holmes’s footsteps racing towards me in that instant. I turned, my hand thrown up and his name tearing from my lips. If I were to die that night I would go to Hell before taking him with me. Realization blossomed in his eyes making them glisten like onyx in the gaslight. He liked to think he is unreadable. He has exiled all emotion from his life, banished sentiment and feeling as distractions to his amazing deductive abilities but in that moment I saw the great heart that beat within his breast. If a man’s soul is said to shine within his eyes then I glimpsed the very core of Sherlock Holmes, a part of him that no one had ever seen. There in the mahogany depths of his large liquid eyes I saw pain, bleak despair and unbelievable agony. Heat burned my side, a blast more potent than any I had experienced in the desert, seared across my right side. An explosion of heat that lifted me off my feet and flung me like a child’s cloth toy accompanied a roaring so loud it caused spots to dance before my eyes. I screamed his name again, praying he would not move closer but also needing his to be the last word to spill from my mouth.
I would have shouted more, told him in those seconds of what he meant to me, what I had never dared say aloud but the air within my lungs evaporated in the inferno and all I could do was say them inside my head like waning dreams. It must have been only a moment but in that instant Death seemed to fly beside me, his hands not cold as I had imagined, but fiery claws that raked my flesh and rent my bones. I reached out, taking hold of that spectral fiend, capturing it as if I could keep it from spreading further and enveloping my dear friend, fulfilling something I had long known about myself - that I would die to protect Sherlock Holmes. I am told that when I was found in the wreckage I was clutching my arms to my torso so tightly it took two orderlies to pry them loose. My doctor assured me it was a physiological reaction, instinct propelling me to protect myself but I knew it was something much more visceral.
And now I sit in this stifling room, my body torn and bloodied, but still living, and watch over my companion as he gasps and cries out. She is also here, sitting beside him lacking only a lamp in her parody of the songbird. I watch her watching him and know even now, when he thinks I am abandoning him, that our lives are forever entwined. When those far distant generations remember the name of Sherlock Holmes I am certain that my own will be said within the same breath.