FIC. Sherlock Holmes. Slow Motion.
Title: slow motion
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Summary: AU. The night before Watson leaves for the campaign in Afghanistan.
Word count: 529
Warnings: Alternate universe!!!
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes does not belong to me in any capacity! :D
Notes: Heavily influenced by Snow Patrol.
In the next room the clock is ticking. Carriage wheels squeak over rain-slick cobblestones outside. Three damp, paper-thin maple leaves stuck in the spokes. The sound of wind and water battering the panes, monotonous.
Holmes opens his eyes.
~
“Sherlock.” Watson is frozen in a still life by the window, white shirt creasing over his back. His hushed voice reaches Holmes through a thick haze of denial. (It is easier to believe Watson has already left than to watch him go in the morning, present, aware.) When Watson turns around, he appears younger than Holmes has ever seen him. “Are you afraid?”
Holmes pushes the pads of his fingers hard into the armchair’s wide, comfortable cushions-perhaps to keep from gouging out his own heart. “I should be asking the same of you,” he says.
Watson smiles tightly, but Holmes hears more than sees that it is forced. “I shall write you letters,” he says, as if the prospect of correspondence makes this all right.
“Yes?” A door opens across the street; two different laughs, a woman’s and a man’s, carry on the night air. The clock in the next room chimes twelve, deafening. Six hours, thirty minutes. “How often?”
Suddenly, Watson is there before him, leaning down to grip his upper arms with cold, dry hands. Holmes blinks at him--at him looking simply himself, the thin veil of youthful fear cast across his face. (There is nothing more to hide in this empty house where the air is loud in their ears, where they have clutched each other like lifelines for so long.) “Say you will wait for me,” Watson says softly, very close.
Holmes takes in Watson for a long moment, memorizes the way light slants off his cheekbones and spatters his hair gold. His eyes burn a subdued blue-green through the shadows. Holmes raises his head a fraction, presses parted lips to Watson’s own. Watson sighs out a hitched breath and his mouth is pliant, responsive against Holmes’s.
It is the only answer Holmes can give.
~
Dawn comes bright, bringing a world washed clean, weak-sunned. Thirty minutes, fifteen seconds. The bedroom is quiet save for the cadence of their joint respiration. Holmes watches Watson sleep, and then watches him wake. Watson dresses clinically, buttons his vest with practiced steadiness; reluctant, Holmes follows him out into the hall and down the stairs. He wears nothing but a silk dressing gown (after Watson goes, there will be no one left here to see him in disarray.)
Drab gray light blinds him when Watson opens the door. A cab is waiting, and Watson pauses with one foot on the stoop, indecisive. Holmes steps near, twines their fingers together briefly. Watson’s knuckles are warm under his thumb.
“Goodbye, Holmes,” Watson murmurs, the words impossible, unreal, yet true. Holmes stifles the animal sound of protest that rises from his throat, feels Watson gently disengage their hands.
Watson’s outline remains etched bone-white onto the backs of Holmes’s eyelids long after Watson’s carriage drives away.
~
That evening, it rains again.
Shutters creak in the bare spare room. In his head, the discordant thrum of blood, the echo of Mendelssohn on distant violin.
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Summary: AU. The night before Watson leaves for the campaign in Afghanistan.
Word count: 529
Warnings: Alternate universe!!!
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes does not belong to me in any capacity! :D
Notes: Heavily influenced by Snow Patrol.
In the next room the clock is ticking. Carriage wheels squeak over rain-slick cobblestones outside. Three damp, paper-thin maple leaves stuck in the spokes. The sound of wind and water battering the panes, monotonous.
Holmes opens his eyes.
~
“Sherlock.” Watson is frozen in a still life by the window, white shirt creasing over his back. His hushed voice reaches Holmes through a thick haze of denial. (It is easier to believe Watson has already left than to watch him go in the morning, present, aware.) When Watson turns around, he appears younger than Holmes has ever seen him. “Are you afraid?”
Holmes pushes the pads of his fingers hard into the armchair’s wide, comfortable cushions-perhaps to keep from gouging out his own heart. “I should be asking the same of you,” he says.
Watson smiles tightly, but Holmes hears more than sees that it is forced. “I shall write you letters,” he says, as if the prospect of correspondence makes this all right.
“Yes?” A door opens across the street; two different laughs, a woman’s and a man’s, carry on the night air. The clock in the next room chimes twelve, deafening. Six hours, thirty minutes. “How often?”
Suddenly, Watson is there before him, leaning down to grip his upper arms with cold, dry hands. Holmes blinks at him--at him looking simply himself, the thin veil of youthful fear cast across his face. (There is nothing more to hide in this empty house where the air is loud in their ears, where they have clutched each other like lifelines for so long.) “Say you will wait for me,” Watson says softly, very close.
Holmes takes in Watson for a long moment, memorizes the way light slants off his cheekbones and spatters his hair gold. His eyes burn a subdued blue-green through the shadows. Holmes raises his head a fraction, presses parted lips to Watson’s own. Watson sighs out a hitched breath and his mouth is pliant, responsive against Holmes’s.
It is the only answer Holmes can give.
~
Dawn comes bright, bringing a world washed clean, weak-sunned. Thirty minutes, fifteen seconds. The bedroom is quiet save for the cadence of their joint respiration. Holmes watches Watson sleep, and then watches him wake. Watson dresses clinically, buttons his vest with practiced steadiness; reluctant, Holmes follows him out into the hall and down the stairs. He wears nothing but a silk dressing gown (after Watson goes, there will be no one left here to see him in disarray.)
Drab gray light blinds him when Watson opens the door. A cab is waiting, and Watson pauses with one foot on the stoop, indecisive. Holmes steps near, twines their fingers together briefly. Watson’s knuckles are warm under his thumb.
“Goodbye, Holmes,” Watson murmurs, the words impossible, unreal, yet true. Holmes stifles the animal sound of protest that rises from his throat, feels Watson gently disengage their hands.
Watson’s outline remains etched bone-white onto the backs of Holmes’s eyelids long after Watson’s carriage drives away.
~
That evening, it rains again.
Shutters creak in the bare spare room. In his head, the discordant thrum of blood, the echo of Mendelssohn on distant violin.