Empty House AU (1/1)
Title: Empty House AU
Author: jenlee1
Rating: PG
Setting: 2009 movieverse
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Word Count: 3156
Warnings: none that I’m aware of
Summary: He stares down at the paper in his hands, at the plain little envelope with its deceptively innocuous postmark, and cannot think what to feel.
A/N: Written for a prompt by ingridmatthews on our little fic meme at worththewounds, asking for an AU in which RDJ!Holmes writes to Watson during the Hiatus, revealing that he's alive.
The letter arrives out of the blue, in an ordinary white envelope, on an otherwise perfectly unremarkable day.
Three years, two months, and sixteen days after Sherlock Holmes vanished into the churning mist of Reichenbach Falls and Watson’s life as he knew it fell to pieces.
Not that Watson has been keeping track - because he isn’t, dammit, not consciously - but some deranged, masochistic part of his mind refuses to stop counting, and so he knows without trying precisely how long it’s been. Three years, two months, and eleven days since he returned home profoundly altered, to a practice that no longer interested him and a wife whose ever-present kindness and understanding scarcely registered through the blinding pain of his loss.
Mary. Thinking of her never fails to reawaken the dull, heavy knot of guilt that had settled in his chest the day he realized that the wet, nagging cough represented something far more ominous than an innocent autumn chill. The knowledge came too late to be of any use (and Watson is uncomfortably familiar with how that feels, playing catch-up with only half the facts), and they buried her less than six months later. The funeral took place in the little country church Mary’s parents had attended, in the spring with all the cherry trees in bloom two years, seven months, and twenty-three days ago, and Watson could hardly bring himself to notice at the time.
Damn Holmes for that, too.
Because if the letter in his hand is to be believed, the world’s only consulting detective is alive and well on the Continent and decidedly not lying still and silent at the bottom of a cliff with his lungs full of water, no matter what Watson sees with alarming regularity in the worst of his nightmares.
Alive. He stares down at the paper in his hands, at the plain little envelope with its deceptively innocuous postmark, and cannot think what to feel. Alive. Dear God.
He goes through the motions with quick, mechanical efficiency - this, like so many things, is easier if he doesn’t stop to think. His overcoat is on, scarf snugly tied, hat in his hand without conscious effort, and he’s out in the street before his mind begins to catch up. No matter; the logistics of transportation, of train schedules and port cities and luggage, will sort themselves out in due time.
Sherlock Holmes is alive. And Watson knows, with a sharp, peculiar sort of clarity, that his first action upon confirming this impossible reality with his own senses will be to throttle the man himself.
******
As it happens, finding Holmes is far simpler than it should be.
There can be no doubt as to the missive’s authenticity; his address is scrawled across the front in a hand so familiar it hurts, and so he takes up the trail as best he knows how. He doesn’t have a detective’s keen instincts or a network of well-placed contacts to guide him, but he manages all the same - it’s child’s play to trace the postmark and from there the rest falls into place like pieces of some long-forgotten puzzle.
Watson doesn’t know whether to be relieved or deeply suspicious that Sherlock Holmes, of all people, should be so damnably easy to track.
The journey across the continent is impossibly long; the days bleed into each other until Watson no longer recalls how long he has traveled, lost in the monotonous thrum of wheels over train tracks. It leaves him with far too much time to think - he has never truly understood the exquisite torture of simply thinking, until now - and so he passes the time wondering. He wonders about the expected things, the how and the why and what the hell was he thinking, but his thoughts run in circles and in any case, trying to sort out his erstwhile friend’s motivations for doing any number of ridiculous things has always been an exercise in frustration.
He wonders if Holmes has suffered as well - has sat bolt upright in the night drenched in cold sweat, choking on tears and whispered apologies.
For a searing split-second of bitterness, he almost hopes so. Almost.
The trail ends at last in a village just outside Geneva and he finds it almost funny, in a twisted sort of way, that Holmes is still in Switzerland after all this time. Oh, he doesn’t doubt for a moment that he has been in other places as well - Holmes can melt in and out of languages and cultures as easily as most men change their clothing, and he’ll have been driven hard with Moriarty’s men on his heels - but he’s returned here all the same, drawn back to the scene of the crime in physical reality as Watson’s thoughts have strayed there ever since.
It’s poetic justice, of a sort. He wonders why he doesn’t find it satisfying.
Never mind, he thinks. It doesn’t matter now, nothing matters except the inn on the corner of a quiet little street, where the keeper smiles and nods and points him upstairs in response to his queries. He takes the steps one at a time, slow and measured and steady in perfect counterpoint to the trip-hammer pounding of his heart, and opens the door at the top without knocking.
The room is dimly lit and dusty, and he squints into the dark for several agonizing seconds - a lifetime, or so it seems - before his eyes adjust enough to make out the figure on the bed, which jerks and rouses at Watson’s muffled cough.
He stares - Christ, he thinks, it’s true - and Sherlock Holmes stares back.
Some distant, still-functioning part of his brain takes in the details - the dark, hollow eyes that can’t quite seem to focus; the sharp, angular cheekbones, a trifle more prominent than he remembers - but they scarcely register as he crosses the room in three quick strides to seize Holmes by the shoulders.
Watson, someone whispers, and his fury ratchets up another notch. The infuriating man actually has the audacity to look relieved.
He wants to shake him, to twist and pull and dig his fingers in until it hurts, but his hands refuse to cooperate. They close as carefully as ever on the trembling, too-thin shoulders, hatefully gentle and steady in spite of everything, but in the end it makes no difference - Holmes pitches forward into his arms in a dead faint.
Naturally, he thinks, easing his burden back onto the bed with a pang of bitterness that takes him by surprise. His lecture, it seems, will have to wait.
Not that it’s particularly unexpected, mind. He has never in his life known Holmes to alter his chosen course in response to any amount of disapproval - or to offer any apologies afterwards - but God help him, he has it coming this time.
Watson ducks his head and breathes deep, presses his face into Holmes’ hair and allows his eyes to drift closed. There are things that he should do - strip Holmes down and examine him, catalogue the damage, determine how it is that he’s quite clearly not dead and what needs to be done to keep him that way - but his eyes are burning, hands shaking with adrenaline and something else he can’t quite place, and so he waits.
Three years, he thinks again, for what seems the thousandth time. Dear God. Three years, two months, and twenty-nine days, and perhaps it’s time to stop counting.
Holmes smells of dirt and sweat and fear, of running and starving and hanging on by his fingernails, and his fury dissipates as suddenly and irrevocably as a handful of snow in the wind.
To be fair, the gaunt figure shivering against his coat is anything but smug.
The silence drags on longer than it should, broken only by the squeak of the bedsprings as Watson shifts his weight and the too-loud sound of his own breathing. As usual, it is Holmes who recovers himself first, though he makes no move to stir from where he has come to rest.
“You,” he states, earnestness somewhat muffled by the fabric of Watson’s waistcoat, “are not supposed to be here.”
Watson shuts his eyes again. He wants to take offense because it feels like he should, but finds that he lacks the energy.
“I got your letter,” he replies, unnecessarily. “It came as a bit of a shock, as you might imagine. Three years, and then out of the blue - I’m alive; and by the way, I love you. So tell me, Holmes - “ His voice softens as the journey catches up with him at last, blurred and fading around the edges. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Holmes shifts restlessly against him, sensing the trap before it closes.
“I think you’ll find, upon re-reading, that those are not precisely the words I used…”
“I’m paraphrasing,” Watson replies shortly. “That was the heart of the matter, was it not?” He strokes the dark head now resting in his lap, fingers wondering at the sensation - warm and solid and real - even as the last remnants of his hard-earned anger sharpen his words. “Why now, Holmes? Why in God’s name would you send me that letter, after all this time?”
The murmured reply is soft and slurred, scarcely a whisper against his trouser-leg.
“What can it possibly matter?”
“It matters,” is all Watson can say. He cannot explain why, precisely, but he’s certain that it does.
Holmes chuffs a little laugh at that -a dry, breathy sound devoid of any humor - and stirs from his position at last, levering himself up to sit propped against the headboard.
The movement takes more effort than it should, leaves him white-faced and reeling under Watson’s steadying hand, and something wet and heavy settles itself in Watson’s chest as he sees his friend - really sees him, past the filter of shock and anger and sharp, terrible relief - for the first time in ages.
The man before him is a far cry from the graceful and elegant creature he remembers, smoking tobacco and writing monographs in London. Not that he had expected that, of course; three years and a long, protracted game of cat and mouse are bound to have their effects. He doesn’t know what he expected.
It wasn’t this, although perhaps it should have been.
Holmes has always been thin, it’s true. His eyes have always been dark and shadowed, his left arm a mass of tiny scars, his clothing in various stages of disrepair - these things should not have been a shock, but Watson clamps his mouth shut all the same. His friend holds himself stiffly, movements careful and deliberate, and Watson knows without looking that the ribs beneath the ragged shirt - purloined, no doubt, from someone’s unattended trunk, as it doesn’t fit him any better than Watson’s ever did - are a mass of aches and bruises. But it’s more than soreness, somehow; more than missed meals and sleepless nights and healing injuries and he wonders, not for the first time, just how bad it’s been.
He sees a man who cannot run anymore, and lacks the will to try.
Holmes leans closer, eyes shut tight against the scrutiny, and Watson reaches out to draw him in. One skeletal hand reaches up, long fingers twisting in the fabric of his coat like a lifeline.
“I was always going to tell you,” he whispers, oddly matter-of-fact. “Someday. When I was home and Moran was dead, and all of this was behind us. And then, one day… well.” His voice hangs on the word, draws it out like a bowstring before the shot, and Watson hears the train of thought behind it flickering in and out of focus. “It seemed only fair that you should know.”
He seems to be finished speaking, but it isn’t an answer and Watson knows it, knows there’s something more to tell. Whatever other faults he might have - and there are many, he thinks bitterly - Sherlock Holmes always has a reason.
“You weren’t planning to come home, were you?”
Holmes twitches against him, heaves a sigh against his neck like he wants to deny it, but the words won’t come. The silence is answer enough, and it all makes a terrible kind of sense now: the gleaming hypodermic on the bedside table; the quiet, defeated air of resignation; the ghastly pallor of Holmes’ skin.
He is a man awaiting his own execution, and the realization chills him to the core.
Of course, he thinks. Of course. How could he have missed it?
It had troubled him from the beginning - the nagging certainty that a man in hiding should not be so easily found. He steadfastly refuses to contemplate how many days Holmes has been lying here, alone in his room at the end of the world, waiting for fate to catch up.
No matter. There will be time, later, for recriminations.
Moriarty’s man is coming, as surely as the sunrise in the morning. He gathers Holmes closer - gently, carefully, whatever the appalling man might deserve - and waits.
******
Sebastian Moran - not surprisingly, Watson supposes - is every bit as arrogant as his late employer.
Which is exceedingly fortunate, in a way. If Holmes has taught him anything about strategy in the course of their work together, it’s that careful planning trumps rash emotionality every time. The Colonel’s careless self-assurance provides the tactical advantage that Holmes has been lacking for the past three years, and in the end, Watson can only be grateful for it.
Still. The sheer nerve of the bastard is enough to set his teeth on edge, and he cannot bring himself to consider what might have happened had his own arrival in Switzerland been delayed.
Best not to think on it, he muses ruefully. Could-haves and might-have-beens are useless at best - an inefficient and irrational preoccupation, as Holmes would say, and so he refuses to give the matter further thought.
The fact remains, however, that it was a very near thing indeed.
The heavy tread on the stair comes as expected, not twelve hours after his own footsteps first echoed in the hall outside, and Holmes tenses beside him a split-second before his own straining ears detect the sound. He is up and off the bed in the space of a single indrawn breath, poised in the shadows and revolver at the ready when his chance comes at last.
The silent, creeping figure in the doorway is everything Watson has imagined in his nightmares. He takes in the trappings of his trade - the rifle strapped across his back, the polished boots of a fellow military man - and the slow, familiar burn of protective fury rises in his ribcage.
This is the man, he thinks numbly, blood rushing like a maelstrom in his ears, and for a terrible, agonizing instant he cannot move. This is the man who has hunted Sherlock Holmes to within an inch of his miserable life, who even now narrows his eyes in malevolent satisfaction at the sight of his prey, lying unguarded and defenseless on the bed.
This is the critical error - the hateful, unquestioning certainty; the grim anticipation, the silver blade flashing in the moonlight - and Watson hates him all the more for it.
He eschews the revolver when his feet consent to move at last, hurtling out of the shadows to throw himself solidly between the assassin and his target. The cruel features twist in a snarl, furious at the prospect of being thwarted, but Watson has not spent years apprehending the most vicious of London’s murderers and thieves for nothing. Moran, in any case, is a man unaccustomed to doing his own dirty work.
The struggle concludes entirely too easily for Watson’s taste, and the villain stares up at him with the coldest eyes he’s ever seen.
A lifetime in the prisons of whichever vengeful government wants him most seems too merciful a fate for the monster before him, but Holmes calls his name pitched in warning and he contents himself with a vicious backhand, delivered with the silver handle of his walking stick.
The Devil take him, thinks Watson savagely, and turns away without a backward glance.
Holmes, propped half-upright and staring wide-eyed and silent, seems to agree.
******
They should stay, and Watson knows it.
Not in Holmes’ squalid little hideout, of course - which is rather the worse for wear, following last night’s violent confrontation - but the village has any number of other rooms for let, where a man in no condition to travel could recover his strength for a time.
A month at minimum, drones the rational part of Watson’s mind. Anything less would be foolhardy.
But the gaslights of Baker Street are calling, and when Holmes grips his arm in the street to keep from falling and murmurs that he wants to go home - home, he thinks as his breath catches, home to Mrs. Hudson’s scones and the armchair by the fire, and everything he thought he had lost - he cannot help but agree.
“All right?” he asks, as Holmes stumbles against him again. It’s a faintly ridiculous question - Holmes looks every bit the erstwhile half-starved refugee he is, and if he cannot walk unassisted he has good reason - but it feels as close to normal as anything between them ever has, and the the answering snort against his collar echoes the sentiment.
All right, indeed.
The train is small and cramped and private, which suits their needs just fine. They settle together against the window by unspoken agreement, with Holmes pressed perhaps a bit closer than is strictly necessary given the confines of the compartment. Watson, for his part, does not complain.
They have all the time in the world now, but he draws the blinds regardless; twists on the narrow seat to press a single, chaste kiss to the corner of Holmes’ mouth and pauses to gauge the reaction. His fingertips linger too long over the pulse point, as much force of habit as conscious reassurance, and he sighs without quite meaning to.
Holmes, even pale and exhausted and half-asleep, is as perceptive as ever.
“Will you forgive me someday, do you think?”
His tone is trying for light and unconcerned, but falls a bit short. Watson hears the regret behind the words - the wistful sincerity, and the guilt - and something loosens in his chest.
“Yes,” he says, and he means it. “Someday, I think I will.”
It’s answer enough for Holmes, who drifts off entirely before they’ve even left the station, and Watson almost manages to smile. This is it, he thinks. This is the rest of their lives, warm and safe in a tiny train car after everything that’s happened. Hopelessly intertwined, and for the first time in ages he finds that he doesn’t mind at all.
He lays his cheek against Holmes’ hair, closes his eyes to the rolling rhythm of the train and finally - finally - remembers to breathe.