Fic: The Dead Man And The Ghost
Title: The Dead Man and the Ghost
Author: 42footprints
Recipient: romanticidiot
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Implied character death.
Summary: Holmes comes home from Reichenbach to find that the world may not have changed, but Watson certainly has, and he learns the meaning of chiasmus.
Word Count: 1700
One of the railings on Baker Street had been bent. Judging by the height and angle of the bend, as well as the flaking of the paint around the area where the metal was warped, a large dog, standing around two feet six inches at the shoulders, had been tethered to the railing using a rough rope. The dog had subsequently been startled by something on its left flank, pulling to the right and out towards the road. Looking at the rust in the places where the paint had fallen away, Holmes calculated that this had occurred at some time not exceeding six months but no less than four months previous. He was seeing it for the first time.
The opportunity for these musings was given during the hour that Holmes had spent, curled like smoke into the shadow of the archway, observing the door marked 221B. He was satisfied, after an hour, that he was the only person watching the entrance to his former house. He had checked every possible vantage point, with no cause for alarm. He congratulated himself that his death had been an altogether successful one, and slipped through the low orange grey light of the coming day, picking the lock with an ease born of much recent practice.
Holmes would have liked very much to say that his rooms looked as though a hurricane had hit them. It would have conveyed the depth of the disturbance that had occurred there. However, unless there was a previously undiscovered, or at least undocumented, hurricane that left a trail of neatly alphabetised paperwork in its wake, then the analogy would be hopelessly inaccurate. The rooms looked almost exactly as though Dr John Watson had locked himself inside them, and had not quite held together the threads of his sanity. This impression was further strengthened by the presence of Watson, sitting perfectly still, back flat to the wall, in the shadows under the window ledge.
Watson’s eyes moved obliquely over Holmes, the doorway, the walls, and rested on the tired fabric of his trousers as it pulled over his knees. He folded and refolded his hands, seven times exactly, with the right hand beginning and ending over the left.
“You’re late, Holmes,” he began, conversationally, “it’s already dawn.”
Draping his scarf loosely across the hat stand, tangling with Watson’s, the ends of which hung perfectly symmetrically, Holmes paused in the act of removing his hat from his head.
“I have to say, old chap, I was rather expecting more of a welcome.”
Deep set eyes flickered up to his face sardonically. “Very droll.”
The coat landed on the bed with a soft heavy sound, and slid inexorably into a crumpled heap on the floor. By the time it settled there, Holmes was kneeling at Watson’s feet, chin on his hand. Closer inspection revealed a week’s ragged growth of hair on his cheeks and neck, creases in both shirt and trousers, and dark feathered bruising around the eyes that spoke of prolonged sleep deprivation.
Reaching gently across the space between them, as one might approach a startled horse, Holmes took Watson’s hands between his own. They were startlingly cold.
Watson tensed in shock at the touch, and his eyes, fever bright, fixed on Holmes’ face for the first time. His voice was scratchy, panicked, like a sleepwalker woken in a strange room.
“Holmes?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s me.”
Shaking his fingers free of Holmes’ grip, Watson pressed them to the bones and hollows of his face, the strong shape of his eyes, the softness of his lips over the sharp edges of his teeth and tongue. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped his hands back to his thighs and closed his eyes.
Standing, and holding out his hand, head tilted in invitation; “Come along, Watson.”
Watson took the proffered hand, and followed it somnambulistically to the chair beside the fire, where he sat down heavily.
The light in the room was brightening to an orange that was nearly pink. Holmes kindled the bare embers of the last night’s fire; watching paper, wood, and coal being reduced to ash. Watson spoke to his crouching back.
“You were dead.” Holmes moved as if to speak. “No. I am speaking now, Holmes. I am speaking, and you are listening. You were dead.” Watson rubbed his fingers over his forehead in thought. “You were dead, and I loathed you.”
The copper kettle shone dully over the coals, dirty as the sky. A red sky at morning. Holmes considered himself warned, and leaned against the arm of the chair. He rested one warm, dusty hand in Watson’s hair. Watson leaned almost imperceptibly into the touch, a tiny fraction of the tension easing from his posture; Holmes breathed more easily.
“I worked, but of course you knew that I would. I worked longer each day than the last. I certified the deaths of criminals, attended the births of paupers, pampered the sentimental afflictions of the wealthy. I left the house before sunrise, and wasn’t back until night. I searched every face I found, in every borough of this wretched city, and never admitted that it was your face that I was looking for.”
Holmes’ fingers had insinuated themselves into Watson’s flat hair. It felt thick, cloying, greasy, like clay rich soil after rain. He increased the pressure he was putting on his wrist, winding his fingers more tightly through his hair and down to the scalp. The warm skin under his fingertips seared them, blank and new.
“All the time, Mary was fading away. She’d caught a cold, some trifling contagion. I was so exhausted that I barely noticed her coughing in the night. By the time she spoke, it was consumption. Within a week she had sweated her life out into the sheets, silent with her fever. I woke in the chair to find her, dead and cooling, in our bed. I have never slept there again. I fear I never could.”
Watson tipped his head back to catch Holmes’ eyes. His expression was bleak, angry, like a rain storm across a moor. Holmes’ hand slipped forward to rest in his hairline, on the seams of his face.
“Where were you, Holmes?”
The accusation was clear in his tone, piercing, and Holmes flinched minutely.
“She was dead. You were dead. I was alone.”
Watson’s body shook slightly; Holmes slid his hand down his cheek to rest on his shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles over the skin above his crumpled collar. Everything about Watson’s demeanour was hard, jagged, like ice that had been broken and had frozen again, sharp against a grey sky. Holmes saw his actions refracted in his harsh light, and recoiled.
The rising sun caught on the bones of Watson’s face, always prominent, and now sharp enough that they pressed tightly against his thin skin. Even in the pink orange glow, he was wan. Holmes focused on everything but Watson’s eyes, which were relentlessly fixed on his face.
Eventually, his resolve broke under the weight of Watson’s stare. Absence, so often rumoured to make the heart grow fonder, seemed to have wrought a chiasmus in them. Holmes was displaying empathy, leaning towards Watson, engaging with him. Watson was brittle and unmoved; glassy. Neither belonged in their skins, nothing about the room fitted, it was like a suit stolen from a corpse.
“They had to believe I was dead.”
Holmes’ voice was quiet, almost regretful, seeming to shrink into the shadows of the room.
“They would never have stopped looking for me if I had lived. It was the only option, Watson. Everyone had to believe that I was dead. Much the simplest way for that to happen was for you to believe that I was dead. They will have watched you. I couldn’t risk discovery.”
Watson’s eyes fell closed; he looked infinitely weary, and just a little disappointed.
Extricating himself gently from Watson’s hair, Holmes removed the kettle from the fire, pouring the warm water into the basin on the sideboard. He set the bowl down at Watson’s feet, and was silently grateful for the obsessive cleaning when he easily located towels, cloths, soap and a razor.
A towel draped around Watson’s shoulders, and he opened his eyes blearily. Holmes glowed faintly, the cloth in his hand steaming like breath in the coolness of the air. It was a long moment before he nodded, barely moving, a silent acquiescence to an unspoken request. Holmes rubbed the cloth gently across his forehead, a strangely fitting benediction, and began to wash the staleness from his face and hair.
Holmes drew circles of soap across the prone neck and cheeks, clouding them white as though erasing them. He positioned Watson’s chin with his fingers, and placed the blade of the razor coolly across the base of his throat. He shaved methodically, enjoying the low rasp of wicked blade against skin, cleaning the razor on a towel after each stroke. He recalled each body he had examined, the sticky blackness of the blood congealing around a slash wound to the neck, feeling the hot red pulse under his fingers. He paused for a moment, Watson swallowed, and he continued.
Satisfied, at last, Holmes dried Watson’s face with a towel. His eyes were open, though clouding with sleep. Holmes took him by the arm, walked him over to the bed. Surprisingly proficiently, he removed Watson’s crumpled shirt and trousers, leaving him in his underclothes. Watson lay down, obediently, on the bed. When Holmes moved to withdraw, he found a hand held tight around his wrist.
“Stay.”
The rough, sparking fear in Watson’s voice was undeniable, and Holmes found himself singularly unable to recall an instance where he had refused something that Watson had commanded him to do.
That was how Mrs Hudson came to find her deceased ex lodger and the man she had begun to think of as a ghost, in their undergarments, asleep with their faces on a single pillow, and their hands somehow joined. She had known Sherlock Holmes and John Watson for too long to be surprised, so she smiled indulgently, rather as a mother would look on her muddy children, and pulled the door closed behind her.
Author: 42footprints
Recipient: romanticidiot
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: Implied character death.
Summary: Holmes comes home from Reichenbach to find that the world may not have changed, but Watson certainly has, and he learns the meaning of chiasmus.
Word Count: 1700
One of the railings on Baker Street had been bent. Judging by the height and angle of the bend, as well as the flaking of the paint around the area where the metal was warped, a large dog, standing around two feet six inches at the shoulders, had been tethered to the railing using a rough rope. The dog had subsequently been startled by something on its left flank, pulling to the right and out towards the road. Looking at the rust in the places where the paint had fallen away, Holmes calculated that this had occurred at some time not exceeding six months but no less than four months previous. He was seeing it for the first time.
The opportunity for these musings was given during the hour that Holmes had spent, curled like smoke into the shadow of the archway, observing the door marked 221B. He was satisfied, after an hour, that he was the only person watching the entrance to his former house. He had checked every possible vantage point, with no cause for alarm. He congratulated himself that his death had been an altogether successful one, and slipped through the low orange grey light of the coming day, picking the lock with an ease born of much recent practice.
Holmes would have liked very much to say that his rooms looked as though a hurricane had hit them. It would have conveyed the depth of the disturbance that had occurred there. However, unless there was a previously undiscovered, or at least undocumented, hurricane that left a trail of neatly alphabetised paperwork in its wake, then the analogy would be hopelessly inaccurate. The rooms looked almost exactly as though Dr John Watson had locked himself inside them, and had not quite held together the threads of his sanity. This impression was further strengthened by the presence of Watson, sitting perfectly still, back flat to the wall, in the shadows under the window ledge.
Watson’s eyes moved obliquely over Holmes, the doorway, the walls, and rested on the tired fabric of his trousers as it pulled over his knees. He folded and refolded his hands, seven times exactly, with the right hand beginning and ending over the left.
“You’re late, Holmes,” he began, conversationally, “it’s already dawn.”
Draping his scarf loosely across the hat stand, tangling with Watson’s, the ends of which hung perfectly symmetrically, Holmes paused in the act of removing his hat from his head.
“I have to say, old chap, I was rather expecting more of a welcome.”
Deep set eyes flickered up to his face sardonically. “Very droll.”
The coat landed on the bed with a soft heavy sound, and slid inexorably into a crumpled heap on the floor. By the time it settled there, Holmes was kneeling at Watson’s feet, chin on his hand. Closer inspection revealed a week’s ragged growth of hair on his cheeks and neck, creases in both shirt and trousers, and dark feathered bruising around the eyes that spoke of prolonged sleep deprivation.
Reaching gently across the space between them, as one might approach a startled horse, Holmes took Watson’s hands between his own. They were startlingly cold.
Watson tensed in shock at the touch, and his eyes, fever bright, fixed on Holmes’ face for the first time. His voice was scratchy, panicked, like a sleepwalker woken in a strange room.
“Holmes?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s me.”
Shaking his fingers free of Holmes’ grip, Watson pressed them to the bones and hollows of his face, the strong shape of his eyes, the softness of his lips over the sharp edges of his teeth and tongue. Seemingly satisfied, he dropped his hands back to his thighs and closed his eyes.
Standing, and holding out his hand, head tilted in invitation; “Come along, Watson.”
Watson took the proffered hand, and followed it somnambulistically to the chair beside the fire, where he sat down heavily.
The light in the room was brightening to an orange that was nearly pink. Holmes kindled the bare embers of the last night’s fire; watching paper, wood, and coal being reduced to ash. Watson spoke to his crouching back.
“You were dead.” Holmes moved as if to speak. “No. I am speaking now, Holmes. I am speaking, and you are listening. You were dead.” Watson rubbed his fingers over his forehead in thought. “You were dead, and I loathed you.”
The copper kettle shone dully over the coals, dirty as the sky. A red sky at morning. Holmes considered himself warned, and leaned against the arm of the chair. He rested one warm, dusty hand in Watson’s hair. Watson leaned almost imperceptibly into the touch, a tiny fraction of the tension easing from his posture; Holmes breathed more easily.
“I worked, but of course you knew that I would. I worked longer each day than the last. I certified the deaths of criminals, attended the births of paupers, pampered the sentimental afflictions of the wealthy. I left the house before sunrise, and wasn’t back until night. I searched every face I found, in every borough of this wretched city, and never admitted that it was your face that I was looking for.”
Holmes’ fingers had insinuated themselves into Watson’s flat hair. It felt thick, cloying, greasy, like clay rich soil after rain. He increased the pressure he was putting on his wrist, winding his fingers more tightly through his hair and down to the scalp. The warm skin under his fingertips seared them, blank and new.
“All the time, Mary was fading away. She’d caught a cold, some trifling contagion. I was so exhausted that I barely noticed her coughing in the night. By the time she spoke, it was consumption. Within a week she had sweated her life out into the sheets, silent with her fever. I woke in the chair to find her, dead and cooling, in our bed. I have never slept there again. I fear I never could.”
Watson tipped his head back to catch Holmes’ eyes. His expression was bleak, angry, like a rain storm across a moor. Holmes’ hand slipped forward to rest in his hairline, on the seams of his face.
“Where were you, Holmes?”
The accusation was clear in his tone, piercing, and Holmes flinched minutely.
“She was dead. You were dead. I was alone.”
Watson’s body shook slightly; Holmes slid his hand down his cheek to rest on his shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles over the skin above his crumpled collar. Everything about Watson’s demeanour was hard, jagged, like ice that had been broken and had frozen again, sharp against a grey sky. Holmes saw his actions refracted in his harsh light, and recoiled.
The rising sun caught on the bones of Watson’s face, always prominent, and now sharp enough that they pressed tightly against his thin skin. Even in the pink orange glow, he was wan. Holmes focused on everything but Watson’s eyes, which were relentlessly fixed on his face.
Eventually, his resolve broke under the weight of Watson’s stare. Absence, so often rumoured to make the heart grow fonder, seemed to have wrought a chiasmus in them. Holmes was displaying empathy, leaning towards Watson, engaging with him. Watson was brittle and unmoved; glassy. Neither belonged in their skins, nothing about the room fitted, it was like a suit stolen from a corpse.
“They had to believe I was dead.”
Holmes’ voice was quiet, almost regretful, seeming to shrink into the shadows of the room.
“They would never have stopped looking for me if I had lived. It was the only option, Watson. Everyone had to believe that I was dead. Much the simplest way for that to happen was for you to believe that I was dead. They will have watched you. I couldn’t risk discovery.”
Watson’s eyes fell closed; he looked infinitely weary, and just a little disappointed.
Extricating himself gently from Watson’s hair, Holmes removed the kettle from the fire, pouring the warm water into the basin on the sideboard. He set the bowl down at Watson’s feet, and was silently grateful for the obsessive cleaning when he easily located towels, cloths, soap and a razor.
A towel draped around Watson’s shoulders, and he opened his eyes blearily. Holmes glowed faintly, the cloth in his hand steaming like breath in the coolness of the air. It was a long moment before he nodded, barely moving, a silent acquiescence to an unspoken request. Holmes rubbed the cloth gently across his forehead, a strangely fitting benediction, and began to wash the staleness from his face and hair.
Holmes drew circles of soap across the prone neck and cheeks, clouding them white as though erasing them. He positioned Watson’s chin with his fingers, and placed the blade of the razor coolly across the base of his throat. He shaved methodically, enjoying the low rasp of wicked blade against skin, cleaning the razor on a towel after each stroke. He recalled each body he had examined, the sticky blackness of the blood congealing around a slash wound to the neck, feeling the hot red pulse under his fingers. He paused for a moment, Watson swallowed, and he continued.
Satisfied, at last, Holmes dried Watson’s face with a towel. His eyes were open, though clouding with sleep. Holmes took him by the arm, walked him over to the bed. Surprisingly proficiently, he removed Watson’s crumpled shirt and trousers, leaving him in his underclothes. Watson lay down, obediently, on the bed. When Holmes moved to withdraw, he found a hand held tight around his wrist.
“Stay.”
The rough, sparking fear in Watson’s voice was undeniable, and Holmes found himself singularly unable to recall an instance where he had refused something that Watson had commanded him to do.
That was how Mrs Hudson came to find her deceased ex lodger and the man she had begun to think of as a ghost, in their undergarments, asleep with their faces on a single pillow, and their hands somehow joined. She had known Sherlock Holmes and John Watson for too long to be surprised, so she smiled indulgently, rather as a mother would look on her muddy children, and pulled the door closed behind her.