Ficlet: A Winter's Tale (Holmes/Watson, PG) , for igrab
Title: A Winter's Tale
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Disclaimer: Lies
Summary/Notes: This is for igrab, who prompted me wonderfully in my Ficmas post. She asked for canon Holmes and Watson, except that she wanted Holmes to be a Shakespearian actor and Watson to be a theatre critic. I was only too happy to oblige.
The first time I saw him, he was, I believe, seventeen, a Drury Lane prodigy. I was still, at that time, engaged in my medical studies at the University of London, before my addiction to the theatre overtook my adolescent zeal for a career as a physician - a change in which, may I say, he played no inconsiderable part. I was perhaps twenty years old, still buoyed by the optimism of youth, and it was Sherlock Holmes who, all unknowing, spun out that optimism and kept it alive.
He played Edgar that night, all easy spite and rough-granite edges. I knew then, I think, that I would watch him until it came his turn to play Lear himself, an old man of the stage and a king.
I was always sure, I must emphasise, that he would become such a king.
My fascination with Sherlock Holmes became, I suppose, an obsession. I could not understand, at first, what it as about him that so compelled me; what about his variable gestures, the fluidity of his body, so allowed him to inhabit the very bones of another person with each stage-run. He might have been a shape-shifter, or a snake, shedding endless perfect skins. I did not understand.
So, then, I began to educate myself. The radical shift towards journalism was an entirely logical progression, as I saw it, although my mother in Northumberland disagreed with me vehemently. She laid the blame upon London, this cesspool of a city which she had been taught, at her mother's knee, to distrust, but I knew better. I shifted because of Sherlock Holmes - changed, and was changed, because of him, this brilliant, Protean man. I followed him, studied him, demanded seats for the opening nights of his every new play, and frequently wrote thousands of words of analysis, afterwards. It seemed only sensible for me to begin sending my analyses to newspapers, who, to my delight, accepted the words, and sent me money to write more. Enabled thus, the obsession became my life.
I do not regret it. How could I? He has made my career, and I, in my own way, have made his. I am known everywhere, now; the opinion of John H. Watson, on this play or that, is valuable currency. They put my name as a commendation on boards outside the theatres of the West End, as if my endorsement were gold dust - as often, to their economists' eyes, it so proves to be. I am a hired critic, and, pragmatic as I am, I attend the other plays to which they send me, and enjoy them more or less, depending upon the performance. But a Holmes play, to my mind, is a different thing entirely. Holmes is more than an actor. Sherlock Holmes does not play, Holmes simply is.
Like Pater's Mona Lisa, he has been dead many times; I have seen him resurrected, reborn. As Hamlet, he has suffered, grown crazed before my earnest, anxious eyes; as Macbeth, his madness took on a different, darker form. As Puck, he has dazzled and bewitched me; as Desdemona, on one memorable occasion, confused, at first, deceived and then delighted me, up until the moment that Othello smothered, on stage, his brilliant light.
He has been dead many times, but his light will never be smothered to me. My eyes will always find it in the dark.
Tonight, the theatre is decked for Christmas, all holly and bells, in perfect accord with the snow falling softly outside. On the stage, in some other winter world, Holmes is Leontes, nobility and strife at war in his wiry frame. I am transfixed, as always. I watch his tragedies as if they were battlefield dramas; his joys and triumphs as if they were my own. It is a Merry Christmas for me when I see him end happily, even if he is, as today, Leontes, some ancient winter-king.
Holmes is many men: like a gemstone well-cut, there are facets and chambers to him, more than could be plumbed in my lifetime. After the final bows, though, I wait for him, as has always been my way - I wait for one reason, and for one facet in particular, that I like to label John.
The theatre empties only slowly, especially in this weather, as people don their many layers and shuffle, grumbling, out into the night. Holmes, though, is patient. This is our time, and our tradition; he will not abandon it, though he ascend to the very pinnacle of Mount Olympus. In my customary place in the audience, I wait, until the room has fallen still, only the ushers remaining.
He appears on the stage like a wraith, as ever, in his shirt-sleeves and braces, his eyes still lined with stage-kohl. This is Holmes's face, though, and Holmes's alone, despite the make-up, that smiles at me, and Holmes's mouth quirked around his cigarette.
"Ah, Watson," he says, while I swallow his sibilance worshipfully. "You enjoyed the performance, I trust?"
I smile at him, as I always have smiled at him, crossing the room to lean my elbows on the edge of the stage, looking up. It is fitting, I think, that I should look up to him. There has never been an actor in this world so fine as Sherlock Holmes.
"You were magnificent, Holmes," I tell him, as I always have told him. He laughs a little, and it is worth waiting for.
"One of these days you must buy me a drink," he says. He has always said this, since the first or second time we met like this, afterwards - I sitting, unmoving, in a sort of post-adrenal daze, he coming out purely to see what it was that I wanted.
I wanted to see him. Him. This is what I have always wanted. Perhaps this is why I love so much to watch him, in all his guises, living the lives of unreal people for London's pleasure. Perhaps I am only waiting for him to slip, to let his true face show. But, as an actor, he does not slip. He is perfect. It is only here, in this afterspace, that I truly see Sherlock Holmes.
"We could go now," I tell him, "if you like."
I do not know what it is that makes me say it. There is nothing in his stance, in the casual curl of his long fingers around his sharp hipbone, that is different from usual. Perhaps it is only the festive fripperies, or the snow. Afterwards, I regret the words immediately, my pulse pounding unhappily in my throat.
But then his mouth quirks again, something glancing over his grey eyes like understanding, and he says, "Very well, then."
I can barely credit it. After all these years, very well, then.
"A moment, please, Watson," he begs, "while I put on my overcoat."
I blink up at him, unmoving; and at the empty stage, when he has gone away on his errand. Sherlock Holmes is going to drink with me tonight. Sherlock Holmes, not Lear, nor Hamlet, nor Macbeth; and yet, at the same time, all of these, for he is all of these, and none. Who is he, I wonder? He is an actor, a changeling, an old man and a young, my career and my obsession. Who is Sherlock Holmes?
Perhaps I shall find out tonight. Perhaps, my world will be changed again, as he has always changed it.
I sit back down to wait for him to come out again, as nobody but himself. I do not wait long. He is not many minutes about it; he emerges in a fine-milled woollen overcoat, a grey scarf that sets off his skin, and I see that it is not so pale as I have always thought it; but that his eyes are greyer. He holds out his hand to me, the long, pale fingers, and it is unfamiliar, shockingly, when I take it in my own.
"Well then," he says, smiling at me.
"Good evening," I reply, with a smile of my own. "I don't think we've met."
He laughs at that, throws back his head and laughs, and the sound of it is enough to chase every vestige of winter away.
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Disclaimer: Lies
Summary/Notes: This is for igrab, who prompted me wonderfully in my Ficmas post. She asked for canon Holmes and Watson, except that she wanted Holmes to be a Shakespearian actor and Watson to be a theatre critic. I was only too happy to oblige.
The first time I saw him, he was, I believe, seventeen, a Drury Lane prodigy. I was still, at that time, engaged in my medical studies at the University of London, before my addiction to the theatre overtook my adolescent zeal for a career as a physician - a change in which, may I say, he played no inconsiderable part. I was perhaps twenty years old, still buoyed by the optimism of youth, and it was Sherlock Holmes who, all unknowing, spun out that optimism and kept it alive.
He played Edgar that night, all easy spite and rough-granite edges. I knew then, I think, that I would watch him until it came his turn to play Lear himself, an old man of the stage and a king.
I was always sure, I must emphasise, that he would become such a king.
My fascination with Sherlock Holmes became, I suppose, an obsession. I could not understand, at first, what it as about him that so compelled me; what about his variable gestures, the fluidity of his body, so allowed him to inhabit the very bones of another person with each stage-run. He might have been a shape-shifter, or a snake, shedding endless perfect skins. I did not understand.
So, then, I began to educate myself. The radical shift towards journalism was an entirely logical progression, as I saw it, although my mother in Northumberland disagreed with me vehemently. She laid the blame upon London, this cesspool of a city which she had been taught, at her mother's knee, to distrust, but I knew better. I shifted because of Sherlock Holmes - changed, and was changed, because of him, this brilliant, Protean man. I followed him, studied him, demanded seats for the opening nights of his every new play, and frequently wrote thousands of words of analysis, afterwards. It seemed only sensible for me to begin sending my analyses to newspapers, who, to my delight, accepted the words, and sent me money to write more. Enabled thus, the obsession became my life.
I do not regret it. How could I? He has made my career, and I, in my own way, have made his. I am known everywhere, now; the opinion of John H. Watson, on this play or that, is valuable currency. They put my name as a commendation on boards outside the theatres of the West End, as if my endorsement were gold dust - as often, to their economists' eyes, it so proves to be. I am a hired critic, and, pragmatic as I am, I attend the other plays to which they send me, and enjoy them more or less, depending upon the performance. But a Holmes play, to my mind, is a different thing entirely. Holmes is more than an actor. Sherlock Holmes does not play, Holmes simply is.
Like Pater's Mona Lisa, he has been dead many times; I have seen him resurrected, reborn. As Hamlet, he has suffered, grown crazed before my earnest, anxious eyes; as Macbeth, his madness took on a different, darker form. As Puck, he has dazzled and bewitched me; as Desdemona, on one memorable occasion, confused, at first, deceived and then delighted me, up until the moment that Othello smothered, on stage, his brilliant light.
He has been dead many times, but his light will never be smothered to me. My eyes will always find it in the dark.
Tonight, the theatre is decked for Christmas, all holly and bells, in perfect accord with the snow falling softly outside. On the stage, in some other winter world, Holmes is Leontes, nobility and strife at war in his wiry frame. I am transfixed, as always. I watch his tragedies as if they were battlefield dramas; his joys and triumphs as if they were my own. It is a Merry Christmas for me when I see him end happily, even if he is, as today, Leontes, some ancient winter-king.
Holmes is many men: like a gemstone well-cut, there are facets and chambers to him, more than could be plumbed in my lifetime. After the final bows, though, I wait for him, as has always been my way - I wait for one reason, and for one facet in particular, that I like to label John.
The theatre empties only slowly, especially in this weather, as people don their many layers and shuffle, grumbling, out into the night. Holmes, though, is patient. This is our time, and our tradition; he will not abandon it, though he ascend to the very pinnacle of Mount Olympus. In my customary place in the audience, I wait, until the room has fallen still, only the ushers remaining.
He appears on the stage like a wraith, as ever, in his shirt-sleeves and braces, his eyes still lined with stage-kohl. This is Holmes's face, though, and Holmes's alone, despite the make-up, that smiles at me, and Holmes's mouth quirked around his cigarette.
"Ah, Watson," he says, while I swallow his sibilance worshipfully. "You enjoyed the performance, I trust?"
I smile at him, as I always have smiled at him, crossing the room to lean my elbows on the edge of the stage, looking up. It is fitting, I think, that I should look up to him. There has never been an actor in this world so fine as Sherlock Holmes.
"You were magnificent, Holmes," I tell him, as I always have told him. He laughs a little, and it is worth waiting for.
"One of these days you must buy me a drink," he says. He has always said this, since the first or second time we met like this, afterwards - I sitting, unmoving, in a sort of post-adrenal daze, he coming out purely to see what it was that I wanted.
I wanted to see him. Him. This is what I have always wanted. Perhaps this is why I love so much to watch him, in all his guises, living the lives of unreal people for London's pleasure. Perhaps I am only waiting for him to slip, to let his true face show. But, as an actor, he does not slip. He is perfect. It is only here, in this afterspace, that I truly see Sherlock Holmes.
"We could go now," I tell him, "if you like."
I do not know what it is that makes me say it. There is nothing in his stance, in the casual curl of his long fingers around his sharp hipbone, that is different from usual. Perhaps it is only the festive fripperies, or the snow. Afterwards, I regret the words immediately, my pulse pounding unhappily in my throat.
But then his mouth quirks again, something glancing over his grey eyes like understanding, and he says, "Very well, then."
I can barely credit it. After all these years, very well, then.
"A moment, please, Watson," he begs, "while I put on my overcoat."
I blink up at him, unmoving; and at the empty stage, when he has gone away on his errand. Sherlock Holmes is going to drink with me tonight. Sherlock Holmes, not Lear, nor Hamlet, nor Macbeth; and yet, at the same time, all of these, for he is all of these, and none. Who is he, I wonder? He is an actor, a changeling, an old man and a young, my career and my obsession. Who is Sherlock Holmes?
Perhaps I shall find out tonight. Perhaps, my world will be changed again, as he has always changed it.
I sit back down to wait for him to come out again, as nobody but himself. I do not wait long. He is not many minutes about it; he emerges in a fine-milled woollen overcoat, a grey scarf that sets off his skin, and I see that it is not so pale as I have always thought it; but that his eyes are greyer. He holds out his hand to me, the long, pale fingers, and it is unfamiliar, shockingly, when I take it in my own.
"Well then," he says, smiling at me.
"Good evening," I reply, with a smile of my own. "I don't think we've met."
He laughs at that, throws back his head and laughs, and the sound of it is enough to chase every vestige of winter away.