Part Ten
This is a very pathetic and small update, but I had a moment tonight. When RL calms down, more will be forthcoming but I hope this is some way compensates for my random absence!
I do not now how long we lay there. Nor do I fully understand how we made it back to Baker Street; whether I propped his weight, or he mine, or who directed our staggered steps towards and up the seventeen stairs. For Holmes, the effort must have been superhuman. Now the demon had left him, so too had its monstrous reserves of strength; he was left a man who had been starved, beaten, bound and drowned, yet he still dragged himself home with a grim and silent determination. He hesitated on the first floor, but it was there that I recall the effort came from me - I tugged him onwards to my bedroom. I could not bear to see him finally lie down amidst the wreckage that thing had left for us.
And somehow we collapsed on my bed, silent, panting, pained. And the realization that, barring a few seconds unconsciousness, I had not rested since the nightmare began, hit me with the force of a lead pipe. I fumbled for his hand and gripped it even as weariness overwhelmed me.
“Holmes,” I murmured. He did not speak. I did not feel him move beside me. But there was a pressure on my hand as he returned my grasp, that felt like a benediction. It was all I needed to let go, and I spiralled into sleep.
I slept as I had not done since my body had fought the fever that brought me home from war. (I thought I dreamt fingers unbuttoning my shirt, and tracing the edges of the bruise that marked where a bullet should have pierced my heart) - but the darkness pulled on me so heavily, and the bed sank so soft beneath me, that I could not swear whether it was fact or fancy. All I knew, as I slept on, was the certainty of those fingers gripped warmly in mine. It was all I needed to know, to rest.
When I awoke, Holmes had gone.
I do not now how long we lay there. Nor do I fully understand how we made it back to Baker Street; whether I propped his weight, or he mine, or who directed our staggered steps towards and up the seventeen stairs. For Holmes, the effort must have been superhuman. Now the demon had left him, so too had its monstrous reserves of strength; he was left a man who had been starved, beaten, bound and drowned, yet he still dragged himself home with a grim and silent determination. He hesitated on the first floor, but it was there that I recall the effort came from me - I tugged him onwards to my bedroom. I could not bear to see him finally lie down amidst the wreckage that thing had left for us.
And somehow we collapsed on my bed, silent, panting, pained. And the realization that, barring a few seconds unconsciousness, I had not rested since the nightmare began, hit me with the force of a lead pipe. I fumbled for his hand and gripped it even as weariness overwhelmed me.
“Holmes,” I murmured. He did not speak. I did not feel him move beside me. But there was a pressure on my hand as he returned my grasp, that felt like a benediction. It was all I needed to let go, and I spiralled into sleep.
I slept as I had not done since my body had fought the fever that brought me home from war. (I thought I dreamt fingers unbuttoning my shirt, and tracing the edges of the bruise that marked where a bullet should have pierced my heart) - but the darkness pulled on me so heavily, and the bed sank so soft beneath me, that I could not swear whether it was fact or fancy. All I knew, as I slept on, was the certainty of those fingers gripped warmly in mine. It was all I needed to know, to rest.
When I awoke, Holmes had gone.