Exercises in the Art of Self-Deception
Title: Exercises in the Art of Self-Deception
Author: jenlee1
Rating: PG-13
Setting: SH ‘09/AGoS movieverse
Word Count: ~2k
Warnings: Spoilers for the new film.
Summary: John Watson, whatever his faults, has always counted himself a very useful man.
A/N: Missing scene from AGoS - written in response to a fic prompt, asking for a closer look at the aftermath of the munitions factory escape. Many thanks to the very kind and lovely enkiduts for her invaluable assistance ;)
John Watson, whatever his faults, has always counted himself a very useful man.
He has been a great many things to the world’s only private consulting detective over the course of his rather unorthodox career. Chief among them are the dual roles of sounding board and appreciative audience, or so he feels at times; a second pair of eyes and hands in a darkened alleyway, revolver at the ready - and of course, a steady and capable healer of hurts more times than he cares to count. But there are limits to any man’s endurance, and one thing he knows before the cursed town of Heilbronn is yet a half hour’s distance behind them - this, he cannot do.
And so, he waits. Plucks restlessly at the seam on an upholstered armchair in an absurdly expensive private room, and allows another man the space he needs to work - piecing together torn muscle and sinew as best anyone can, restoring with carbolic acid and clean linens and neat, even sutures some semblance of order over the ruined mess of the joint beneath.
He should be grateful, he thinks dully, for the very fact that Holmes is alive. That his clever hands were spared, that he found the strength to run; that the little red book he nearly died for is even now on its way to London - but his thoughts run in circles over the lilting, disembodied voice of a monster he has never met and the whisper of a bullet past his ear, blurring like wet clay around the edges.
And Holmes, crouching in the shadows with a note in his hand and his voice that knew too much - even then - asking him to choose.
Damn it all to Hell. If there is anything at all to be grateful for, he cannot imagine what it is.
The news that their patient is awake at last and asking after his doctor comes long before he is ready, and he rises as a man to face the firing squad; dashes palms against his trouser legs to dry the moisture there, and squares his shoulders for the rest.
~ * ~
The adjacent bedroom is warm and clean and softly lit, and smells nothing at all like the air inside a musty rail car lumbering through the German countryside. The Swiss are a civilized people, after all.
He thanks Providence for small favors.
Mycroft Holmes steps past him to give up his place at the bedside, inscrutable as ever though he fancies that the shadows beneath the other man’s eyes have grown; lines etched deeper into the impassive face that were not there when last they met. There are no words exchanged - only the hard, unmistakable look of a man as bitterly angry as he, before the click of the door latch shakes him from his reverie and he turns his attention at last to the solitary figure reclining on the bed.
One deep breath, and then another.
He cannot say what he expected to see, precisely. On the train, there had been blood - soaking Holmes’s shirt and waistcoat despite his best efforts, seeping through the folded cloth beneath his hands as his friend hissed and twisted in agony. More blood than a man could stand to lose, as even the great Sherlock Holmes could slip away unnoticed on the filthy floor of a boxcar and as long as he lived - God help him - he would never again forget it.
Here, the sight that greets him is achingly familiar. Ordinary, almost - the tiresome aftermath of another round of fisticuffs gone wrong, save for the unaccustomed trembling in his hands. Holmes watches him through half-lidded eyes that miss nothing at all, propped against the pillows with the Swiss surgeon’s handiwork wrapped stark white against his chest, and looks altogether better than he has any right to expect.
Breathe, he thinks again. It shouldn’t be so difficult.
He eschews the straight-backed wooden chair to sit carefully on the edge of the bed, reaches out reflexively to examine the bandage before the rational part of his mind can reassert itself. He had thought to keep his distance; this is dangerous, baring his throat for whatever comes next but his body has a will of its own, and in any case he had accepted long ago that there is no distance between them at all when it comes to a half-quirked eyebrow or the glint of the gaslight on delicate skin.
These are things he cannot change, and more’s the pity.
As usual, it is Holmes who finds his voice first - answering the half-formed question in his mind before he can find the words to ask.
“An entirely satisfactory dressing, Doctor. You needn’t trouble yourself.”
His friend is tired - unnaturally quiet and still, slurred voice bearing witness to the drugged sleep his body had so desperately needed, but his eyes are very bright indeed. They follow the careful progress of Watson’s fingertips along the line of his collarbone, tracing the neat, smooth strips of cloth that hide the worst of the damage beneath until he drops his hand at last.
Safe. From here, the wound could be anything - a bullet’s graze, the slash of a knife in close quarters - one of a hundred things they’ve faced before, anything at all but what it is. He closes his eyes for a moment; feels the sure, solid warmth of Holmes’s leg, pressed flush against his own through the blankets as if by accident.
Alive and well and safe in bed, and never mind the rest.
Holmes, for his part, flexes the shoulder experimentally and winces.
“Your colleague is capable enough, I’ll grant, though not possessed of your singular talent for improvisation under fire - I daresay he would not have been able to do nearly as fine a job on the floor of a boxcar with handkerchiefs, belts, and a knitted scarf.”
“A very fine job, indeed.” The words are out before he can stop them, tumbling out in a rush of self-recrimination that only ratchets up his fury. He’s not the one to blame - he’s not, but damned if any of it matters now. “Had the task been left entirely to my attention, you would not now be in any fit condition to regale me with your thoughts on the standards of medical care on the Continent.”
“On the contrary,” Holmes counters, an ironic smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. “You saved my life. Given the evidence at hand, one can hardly argue otherwise.”
“One can argue a great many things, as you know better than most.”
It’s the truth, he thinks bitterly - thinks of the overpowering smell of salt and copper, and Schubert creaking over a tinny German speaker in the fog. His eyes are drawn inexorably back to the bandage, crisp and clean and impossibly white.
Breathe.
Beneath his hand, Holmes shifts uncomfortably.
“You mustn’t do this, John,” he murmurs, perceptive as ever and Watson hates him all the more for it. “Of all those who may claim some responsibility for what’s happened, the professor himself is the only one worth noting. A compelling case could be made that I am very nearly as much to blame, of course, but to imagine that you might have intervened - ”
“You knew.” This is the crux of the thing, welling up and boiling over until there’s nothing left but the cold, hateful certainty in his voice that catches both of them off guard, curling like a fist behind his ribcage. “He had you strung up like a gutted carcass… wanted me to hear you scream, for God’s sake, and you knew. You let it happen.”
Holmes sighs, closes his eyes in something very much like surrender.
“Whatever you may believe me capable of, I knew very little. I had suspected, perhaps - ” His voice falters, rasping over the words - still hoarse, for Christ’s sake - and Watson ducks his head, tracing the embroidered pattern on the coverlet to hide the helpless flush of anger in his cheeks. “But in the end, it makes no difference. It’s nothing more or less than what it was, dear boy… the price of an opportunity, and one that we could ill afford to lose.”
A pause - and Holmes adds, quietly: “I am very sorry, indeed, that you had to see it.”
He stares, thinks of all the things he wants to say and doesn’t. His hands move of their own volition even as his mind refuses to work, smoothing the bedclothes like the dutiful doctor he is as he stands to take his leave. There is a peculiar air of finality in Holmes’s tone; the inexorable progress that comes of a steady downward slope and the predictable path of objects in motion, plotted out in black and white as numbers on a page and he blinks furiously against the sudden burning in his eyes.
An opportunity - dear God. He has nothing at all to say to that.
Instead, he poses a question:
“And are you sorry for anything else, Holmes?”
He hesitates by the bedside in spite of himself, and Holmes holds his gaze for just a moment too long before glancing away. Because he isn’t, of course - the Devil take him for it - never has been and Sherlock Holmes, for all his many and varied talents, cannot lie to him about this.
And so, he clears his throat and waits. Holmes’s voice, to his credit, is very nearly steady.
“Your tears are much too valuable, Watson, to waste on such trifles.” The words are soft and sad, resigned in a way he has never heard before. “Save them for a worthier cause than myself.”
Something prickles like a warning at the back of his neck. He focuses with an effort, remembers bagpipes and flowers and Mary’s perfume as Holmes sinks back against the pillows, exhausted and far too pale in spite of everything. The uninjured left hand reaches up for his wrist, almost an afterthought - always nice to see you, Watson - and he blinks, hears the echo of gunfire and broken glass crunching under his boots as the room tilts and sways around him.
“You should get some rest,” he says. “We’ll be on our way home soon, and the rest will work itself out.”
He believes it, with all the force of the beautiful lie it is.
“Of course we will,” Holmes says easily - too easily, perhaps, and the moment curls away like smoke in the lamplight. “Now come, my dear - there is room enough just there, I think, for another weary traveler. Lie down with me, and speak no more of this. We have work to do in the morning.”
He shouldn’t, of course - for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the damnable, terrifying weakness in the familiar grip on his arm - but Holmes’s eyes are fixed on his and he swallows convulsively, the little room quite suddenly too small and still.
The bed is old and far too narrow for an additional occupant. It creaks irritably beneath the added strain as he slips between the sheets in shirtsleeves and trousers, careful not to touch.
And at last, against his better judgment, shifts ever so slightly to lay his cheek against Holmes’s hair.
Something loosens in his chest at the answering sigh and he chokes, brushes dry lips against the crown of his head to feel the warm skin beneath. He smells coal soot and perspiration and fear - close enough to feel the hitch in Holmes’s breathing as he tries to move, long fingers twining together with his own on the coverlet.
It’s enough, he thinks, curiously numb. It’s always been enough.
He closes his eyes to the steady rise and fall of Holmes’s chest beneath his hand, and allows himself to pretend.