Fic: Letters, or the Case of the Cerulean Syringe, Part Eight
Title: Letters, or the Case of the Cerulean Syringe, Part 8
Author: agaryulnaer86 and sarisa_rahe
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Disclaimer: Not ours.
Summary: Visitations and... er... disagreements.
Spoilers: Movie
Warnings: Drug use. Angst abounds.
Word Count: 9,212
Author's Notes: Epic-fic, part 8/~14.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
~~~~~
The cab is moving before Watson realizes that Holmes had not followed him into the carriage; he twists about, peering back through the window, but what he can make out of Holmes' dark figure through the dirty glass... Holmes is already walking away down the street in the opposite direction.
Watson falls back onto the seat, staring forward at the bench seat opposite his own, which would normally be where Holmes would lounge. The cab feels too large as it trundles along towards Cavendish Place, too large and too empty, the silence almost overpowering.
The driver stops in front of the townhouse far too quickly, and Watson climbs carefully out, leaning heavily on his walking stick and the iron railing as he navigates the front steps, pushing the front door open and stepping inside. There is noise still emanating from the dining room, and he realizes, staring at the hall clock, that it's barely been two hours since he'd left in such a rush.
He's walking better, now, no more awkwardly than on a particularly bad day for his leg, and he's at least no longer dizzy. Stripping his overcoat from his shoulders, he hangs it up neatly, realizing that Mr. Akers is still in possession of his favorite hat. The stairs seem to stretch out forever before him, and he's still gathering the willpower to mount them when Mary suddenly steps out into the hallway from the dining room, worry plain on her face.
"John," she says quickly, rushing over and putting a hand to his face; he must not look much better, after all. Attempting a rather weak smile, he pats her hand in return, shaking his head.
"I'll be all right in the morning," he assures her in a low voice, looking over her shoulder at the light spilling from the open doorway. "Please don't worry, dear. There was a... a minor incident with a paralytic, but I've received the antidote. The murderer is now secure in Lestrade's custody, and his intended victims are shaken but safe."
She looks pale and horrified, and he feels as though they should probably both sit down. "I don't know how good of a host I'm able to be at the moment--"
"John, dear boy!" Mr. Morstan emerges from the dining room, his normally-pleasant face as worried as Mary's. "What on earth's happened to you? Trouble catching that blighter?"
Watson smiles slightly. "Not much, in fact, Sir. I'm just not feeling entirely up to form, it's been a rather eventful night." And he wants nothing more than to just fall unconscious, but that's looking less and less likely with each passing second, especially once Mrs. Morstan appears and sniffs at him, although he detects some worry, as well. "Really, I'll be fine by morning," he assures all three of them, wishing for the quiet of his bedroom.
"You look terribly pale," Mary says, the worry plain on her face, mingled with horror at the idea of her husband having an 'incident' with a paralytic, antidote or not. Battles and stories of valor are wonderful and well and good when they are just that: stories. But seeing her husband returned home to her like this, well, strong though Mary might be, she is not used to it at all.
"He should sit down," Mrs. Morstan suggests, managing to make even her slight worry for him into a command.
Mr. Morstan, meanwhile shakes his head. "He should do more than sit down. Mary, why don't you take care of your husband? He should have time to recover. We can see ourselves out."
Slowly, Mary nods, obviously thankful to her father. The man nods to his son-in-law before turning and leading his annoyed-looking wife back to the dining room to give the younger couple some privacy; certainly they can always return tomorrow or the day after. It would hardly be sensible or fair to keep the man on his feet or even sitting any longer than necessary when he is looking like that.
Mary, meanwhile, has not stopped looking at her husband worriedly. "John," she says slowly, "are you certain we shouldn't perhaps call another doctor?" Normally she would trust him to take care of himself, of course, but in some matters that is impossible. Such as when he looks as though he might pass out at any moment.
Watson waves this off with his free hand, eyeing the stairs again. He thinks he can make it... probably. If he can't, he'll just fall asleep halfway up and drag himself the rest of the way once he wakes up again. It's not an uncommon occurrence, sadly, although he doesn't dare tell Mary that.
"No," he says finally, shaking his head in a firm sort of manner. "I'm not dizzy anymore." He turns, sees the worry Mary isn't bothering to hide, and reaches over to touch his hand with the two fingers not grasping his cane. "It's all right, Mary. I dashed out of here this morning because Holmes injected himself with this same paralytic, and gave him the antidote. He's right as rain."
With that not quite reassuring tidbit of information, Watson begins to slowly haul himself to the second floor, glad at least that his coming home in such a condition has probably pushed the inevitable confrontation to the next morning. Which is really a good thing, as he has no idea what he plan to say at all. Has no bloody clue, despite the conclusions he'd come to, aside from the fact that he's going to have to just tell Mary that... well, he can't just give up working with Holmes. It's as much of a passion as his work as a physician, and to deny that would be denying a large part of himself.
But even more importantly, he cannot simply give up his friend. It would likely kill them both, and he may very well mean that literally in Holmes' case. Watson cannot picture his life without Holmes, does not want to try. And though he knows Mary does not want to break their friendship, he also knows that working with Holmes will likely bring about exactly what's happened in the past few weeks, that he may not always be able to send word, may come home looking as he does now or bruised from another fight. And she hadn't dealt with that very well.
But he doesn't know how to put any of this into words in a way that won't hurt her or make her feel as though she's coming in second in his life, which is not true. But is it so much to ask to want both parts of his life to not be so separate and singular? Why must he have one at the expense of the other?
And above all of that is the terrible expression he'd seen in Holmes' ever-expressive eyes the night before, and then again this night, as he'd gotten Watson into the cab and then gone off on his own. That pain and resignation, that Watson had not been able to or perhaps had been too cowardly to identify, the abandonment that might, just might, to Holmes, be more than his friend simply getting married and changing his life.
And Watson has no bloody idea how to respond to that, if Holmes even wants him to respond at all. He might have made it all up, anyway. It might be all in his mind, in that place he'd never dared enter for fear of it sending his world completely upside-down, the place he'd kept hidden, dark and locked away.
Thankfully, these thoughts are enough to keep him distracted through the long trip up the stairs, and he's barely even aware of Mary following him into the bedroom, so lost in his musings as he is. Finally, though, he sits down on the edge of the bed with a long sigh, and glances up, startled to see her there, her own expression (beneath the worry, anyway) quite unreadable. "And how was your father's journey?" he asks hopefully, grasping at strings.
"Well enough, I suppose," Mary says, watching him; she does not sit down on the bed with him, not intending to sleep but rather simply to be certain that he does. She does not like how very pale he looks, and his assurances that Holmes had done the same that morning and is now perfectly fine does not make her feel much better about it. Holmes injecting himself with a paralytic is, sadly, quite normal. John having a minor incident with one- which Mary, being quite intelligent, had immediately recognized as him having been attacked by the murderer with said paralytic- is not normal, nor so easily brushed off.
True enough, he hadn't been gone more than a couple of hours, not long enough even for her parents to have left. But to Mary, those couple of hours had felt like an eternity. He hadn't given her any details on the murders- and certainly it had been John's request that had kept Holmes from enlightening her as well- but that had almost made the entire thing worse. For hours, she had sat with her parents, unable to stop imagining all of the terrible things that might happen to him.
And so she hadn't the slightest idea how her father's trip had gone, to be honest. "I found it hard to pay attention," she admits calmly; she imagines he knows why that might be, and is not cruel enough to elaborate. He is not well, and she will not force any more conversation upon him tonight.
There are, however, other things she will force upon him. "John," she says, forcing anything but her worry for him away for the time being, "Lie down and rest, if that is what it will take for you to recover. Should I get you anything?"
Stripping off all but his undershirt and drawers, Watson tosses the rest of it all into the hamper, not even needing to look to know it had all hit its mark, and climbs sideways back into bed. "No, Mary, but thank you." He'd like to try to eat something, perhaps leftovers from dinner, but he's not certain he can either keep anything down or wait for Mary to bring anything up. He's likely to be sleeping like the dead in just a moment, now that he's lying in a horizontal position again.
There is one thing, however, that he has to say to his wife before he loses consciousness. "We'll speak about everything tomorrow," he reassures her, the guilt returning as it always does when he enters this house. Meaning that it goes away when he leaves, and he knows that isn't healthy either, but can't bring about the energy to address it just at this moment. "Good night, dear..."
His voice trails off as his eyes close, but his last thoughts are not for his wife and the upcoming (and undoubtedly uncomfortable) discussion they'll be having. No, all he can see is Holmes' blurry figure walking off down the street, his head lowered beneath his slouching hat in as defeated a position as Watson has ever seen his closest friend in.
The next day goes by at once at a crawl and too quickly for both Watson and his wife; Mary might indeed have slept in bed with him, but when he woke she was not there. And then for the rest of the day, he had not seen her, as he'd had two days' worth of patients to make up for. Or at least, that's his excuse.
Mary allows that. She does. She has no more desire to hold what will undoubtedly be a terribly uncomfortable discussion than he does. But he is avoiding her, and the way she looks at it, the sooner they do this the sooner they will be over it, rather than in this limbo for days on end. And all that aside... she really is quite displeased with him. The anger had faded, yes, with time, but the fact that there had been enough time for her to lose some of the edge on her anger is enough to make Mary even more angry.
This has to stop. He cannot avoid her indefinitely, and if Mary is honest with herself, she's a bit hurt that he should want to avoid her. And so, in the interest of putting an end to all of this... madness, she determines that she shall have to take the lead in this.
Which is why, when his last patient leaves for the day, Mary is waiting. As soon as the man is out the door, she knocks on the door to her husband's office. "May I come in?" she calls quietly, unwilling to invade his privacy even though she is determined to corner him and force a discussion out of him.
Watson looks up from his notes with a guilty wince. He honestly had just been writing up his observations from his last patient, who is suffering from a chronic fever. But he can see her point; he hasn't seen Mary all day, and he knows exactly why she's here. "Yes, just a moment!" he calls, putting away the patient file and then scampering over to his brandy cabinet, taking a quick swig from the decanter before replacing it silently and then hurrying over, his steps much more normal, to open the office door for her.
"Of course you may come in," he says with a slightly awkward smile, holding the door until she sweeps gracefully inside and then deciding after a moment to leave it open, feeling a bit less claustrophobic that way. He takes a deep breath, letting it out and clasping his hands behind his back before turning to her. He might look rather distinguished in his black doctor's coat, but just now he feels like an errant schoolboy... and somehow worse than that.
"Mary," he begins slowly, still having no idea how this discussion will go, "I'm so dreadfully sorry. There's no excuse for my behavior since we've returned to London. I've hurt you and disappointed you." She doesn't respond, only making him feel guiltier, which obviously was the intention.
"I do owe you explanations and I know it, but please feel free to go first and have at me, you certainly have that right."
"Perhaps I do," Mary agrees slowly, watching him carefully. "But I don't wish to shout or lecture you, John."
And that much, at least, is true. Mary is not given to shouting or great shows of anger, but as her husband has learned, it isn't difficult to tell when she is displeased. She does make her anger known, simply through... quieter, more stately means. Typically, although she has been known on occasion to have slightly more explosive tendencies (as exemplified by her first meeting of Mr. Holmes).
But never with her husband. "I should like to hear your explanations first," she says after a moment's pause. "It seems only fair to do so before I can gauge how much of my displeasure is truly warranted."
Watson blinks, truly unsure of how far back he should go. The better part of two weeks, he supposes. Perhaps more than that, since the first Benton murder scene he'd visited. "I suppose I don't know where to begin," he says finally, turning to face the window. "Before the wedding, I suppose it wasn't an issue; you and I were so busy preparing for it all that there was no time for anything else." He's certain she recalls that. "And then on the honeymoon, it was wonderful." Even though... even then he'd been worried for Holmes.
He has no idea how to put this in a way that won't hurt her, but he'll do his best. "I know you don't wish me to end my friendship with Holmes. He is my dearest, closest friend... probably my only true friend." He pauses, glancing back over his shoulder at her apologetically. "Aside from you, of course." She's watching him evenly, with no expression, and he supposes he can take that as a positive reaction.
Slowly, he turns around so that he's facing her, not only looking back at her, and rests his hands on the end of his desk, leaning forward. "Mary, I want so desperately to be able to give you... give us both the life we'd talked of for so long... and I will do that, I will try my hardest to give that to you, none of that has changed." He pauses for a moment, swallowing. "But the thing I've realized over the past few weeks is that I haven't changed, either, and... I don't want to. It would break me, I think, to stop helping Holmes, to stop working on cases with him."
Now he can see the hurt in her eyes, but he has to be honest. He can't lie to her; it would only be worse in the end. "I can't leave him alone, Mary. It's not only the work, although that's part of it. I'm not a peaceful man, and the past few weeks I've tried to suppress that part of me as much as I could, but it came out in very, very unhealthy ways."
He looks down at his left hand, sees the scrapes and callouses on the knuckles from his fight with Holmes, and then with Benton the night before. He knows Mary would never be able to picture the hand on which she'd placed a wedding ring attempting to beat another man into unconsciousness, or slicing an artery with his blade. Knows that despite her knowledge of his past as a soldier, of what he's done over the years about London with Holmes, that she sees him as the genteel, gentle veteran doctor.
"I am a violent man, Mary. I never wanted you to see evidence of that, wanted to keep that part of my life, my past and present, from you. But I didn't leave that part of me behind in Afghanistan, and what I do here, with Holmes... I'm not only his assistant. I can help people here, as much as I can as a doctor. I wanted to change, have tried to change but I cannot give up that part of my life, even for you, my dear." He looks down, his hands clenching the side of the desk so tightly that he'd swear there should be imprints of his fingers in the wood.
"I love you, Mary Watson, and I know Holmes drives you mad, that I'm not responsible or considerate of you as I should be, but he needs me, and I need him, too. And frankly, London needs us as well. You've all the right in the world to punish me for my behavior, but I intend to find a way to balance the two parts of my life."
For a long moment after that speech, Mary is silent, thinking it over. She had let him go on, true to her word; she wanted to hear what he had to say for himself before making any condemnations or judgments. She's not an unfair woman, or she tries not to be. And she knows very well that John isn't unfair, either. He knows that the things he has been doing- or not doing, in some cases- have hurt her, feels guilty for it. And Mary doesn't know if that makes all of this better or worse.
But after a minute, Mary cannot keep to herself any longer. Slowly, she sits down in the nearest chair, on the other side of his desk, and looks up at her husband. "I'm trying to recall the moment when I asked you to change," she says carefully, still looking up at him. "But I cannot."
He blinks down at her, but she continues on. "John, I don't want you to give up anything for me. I don't want you to lose your friendship with Mr. Holmes, or even to put an end to your mad adventures. I truly don't. But what I cannot stand is you leaving without word constantly, avoiding me purposefully, and missing entire days of your company with no forewarning. I'm not accustomed to real life adventures; it's hard to sit at home and wonder where you are, if you'll be coming home tonight or if I'll receive a note from the hospital that you've been blown up or stabbed, or perhaps injected with some paralytic. While you're off saving London, I'm still at home. Worrying." By now, she is frowning up at him, her brow furrowed. She doesn't know what she's feeling, really, about all of this.
He has good points, and yet... as much as he says he wants all of the things he lists, she's not certain that's true. She doesn't know why she feels that way, but she does. "You needn't change, John," she says, voice quieter now, more hurt. "I don't want you to. But it would be nice to be taken into account now and then."
The guilt increases yet again, and Watson looks down at his hands once more, lines etched into his brow. She's exactly right, and he deserves to feel as poorly as he does about it. He hadn't let her know where he would be, hadn't sent word... had neglected to, he thinks, because each time he had, it had hurt Holmes. And therein lies the one thing, one person that negates all of his determinations, that he will drop everything for, every time.
"I will endeavor to do so," he promises, meaning it entirely. "As much as is possible, I swear it." He drags a hand back through his own neatly-combed hair, unconsciously mimicking his friend, and finally moves over to sit in the second patient chair, next to Mary.
"I know you never asked me to change," he says quietly. "You have never asked it of me, but I have asked it of myself, and it is my failing that I've been unable to manage it. I want to be a proper husband to you, the sort of man I aimed to be when we were courting. Respectable." At least, the sort of man he'd been when he'd been with her. "But it isn't in me to be a peaceful man." He smiles wryly. "I do try."
"I know," Mary says, although she's not entirely certain she understands that in full. He's right; she doesn't know the violent side of him, she thinks. He's never shown her, and she doesn't know if it is because of what her reaction would be, or his fears of her reaction. No matter either way, because it is simply the case that she has not seen him as anything but a peaceful man.
She doesn't know how she feels about this admission, but she will think on it. Now is not the time to wonder what all of this means.
"All I ask," she says slowly, "is for you. Proper or not. I don't care what sort of a man you are, John. Whatever sort you are is the sort I want." She does want that life, the one they have discussed, but she doesn't want it at the expense of his happiness. And so she is willing to compromise. It's just a matter of finding a compromise that suits them... and apparently, of getting John to remember the compromise at all.
But thoughts of compromise do have her wondering... or have had her wondering, over the past couple of days: between her and Mr. Holmes, which is the one doing the compromising, and which is the compromise?
For two weeks things stay quiet, although Mary watches John disappear to Baker Street at all hours of the day and night; not constantly, no, but normally at least once per day, sometimes for only a few minutes and other times for several hours (but those only when he is careful to let her know ahead of time, and often when she is occupied with work or friends in the evenings, or with a church planning session). But still, he spends a great deal of time there comparatively, often hurrying out between his patients.
For Watson, it has been an unending task to keep Holmes from sinking into a worse depression than usual. He can hardly relay to Mary Holmes' addiction to his various chemicals, that which he keeps in the Moroccan case most prevalent. Watson hurries over so often to check on the man simply to make sure he is alive, if not hale, and to convince him to sleep and to eat. More than once he's found his friend on the third floor in Watson's own old room, sitting in the corner or stretched out on his bed. Watson can only assume that Holmes' own bed cannot be used for some reason, but he can hardly question this, as it's no longer his room Holmes is using.
Holmes receives a visitor on one such afternoon, a Sunday, coming down from a chemically-induced high and barely conscious, when Mrs. Hudson knocks on the door to Watson's old room, where Watson, returned from church and planning to spend the afternoon with his friend, is periodically checking his vitals while Holmes recovers on the bed. The doctor straightens from the old wooden chair, moving over to open the door to find a startled Mrs. Hudson announcing that a Mr. Akers and a Mr. Wickham have arrived to see Mr. Holmes.
"I'll come down to see them, I know them," he assures the landlady. "Holmes is indisposed once again, I'm afraid."
"Do they bring a new case?" she asks hopefully. Watson dearly wishes they did, but he knows otherwise.
"I'm afraid not. They're here in response to the most recent, I'm afraid." She looks disappointed but nods, and Watson pauses. "Show them into my office, would you, Mrs. Hudson?"
He flinches slightly. "That is, my former office." She sends him a knowing smile, nodding and not questioning his wording in the first place as she starts back down the stairs. Watson sends the barely-conscious Holmes a look.
"Akers and Wickham are here," he says in a quiet voice, the figure on the bed too pitiful for Watson to torture him with a louder tone. "I'll see what they want. Change your shirt if you feel up to it and come down." With that, he closes the door behind himself and makes his way down the stairs, the other two men already in the office by the time he reaches it, immediately moving forward to shake their hands. "Gentlemen, hello. You've been well?"
Wickham (who had spent the most time with Watson, though both men had spent considerably more time in Holmes' company), smiles a bit wryly at that, nodding assent for both of them. "Yes, many thanks to yourself and Mr. Holmes," he says. In fact, it is thanks to the doctor and detective that they are alive to be well or not at all. "And yourself?"
Watson nods in response as well, and Wickham glances over at Akers, who seems to remember what he is holding, glancing down at the item in his hands before holding it out to Watson. "I believe this is yours," Akers says, smiling a little. "We'd been hoping Mr. Holmes would be able to give it to you, but it's good to be able to give it back to you in person, to thank you again."
"Is Mr. Holmes not well?" Mr. Wickham asks, a touch of worry for the mad detective obvious in his face. Obviously, both men had at very least tolerated Holmes, or they would not have allowed him into their home, let alone have come to see him after the case's end. But from the time spent in the kitchen that night, it's obvious that Wickham was at least rather amused by Holmes, despite his various insults and... oddities. Or maybe because of them. "I'd been hoping to thank him as well."
Akers looks amused; Wickham continues on. "I don't suppose I should have been surprised that the both of you disappeared before we could thank you," he says. "I had heard of both of you, and yet your pictures are never in the paper."
Watson thanks Akers profusely, relieved to have his favorite hat returned to him. He'd been avoiding the trip to the millinery, not wanting to have to pay out the not inconsiderable expense involved in having another made for him, and this particular hat and he have been through a good amount with one another.
"He is unfortunately indisposed," Watson says regretfully, the resignation in his expression a customary response when Holmes is between cases. "But I shall relay your greetings and thanks to him. I'm sure he'll be very grateful, as am I." Mrs. Hudson appears, then, and Watson sends her a grateful look, gesturing for the two men to sit down, as he does in his familiar chair behind his desk. "Tea?"
They agree, and he pours quickly. "Mr. Holmes' greatest passion is the investigation itself, the hunt for the culprit. He has never, during our long friendship, sought recognition for his achievements, but prefers to leave the glory to the constabulary. Our goals remain to put the criminal elements behind bars, or deliver them to the rope, as necessary." He smiles slightly. "I do find that the occasional picture and mention increases business in my practice, however."
Sipping his tea, he eyes both gentlemen; Mr. Wickham is clearly the more talkative of the two. "Tell me, have you both recovered well since your own ordeal?"
"Indeed," Wickham says, Akers nodding as well, clearly not minding the fact that Wickham seems to be speaking for both of them. “Although we’ve put an extra lock on the door.”
“And the kitchen window,” Akers adds dryly. The window, as Holmes had pointed out on the second time he had visited, would provide a prime entry, should someone choose to break into their home. The reason for the dryness in Akers’ voice being the fact that Holmes had pointed this out by breaking into their house through said window and scaring the maid out of her wits.
“And the kitchen window,” Wickham adds, looking amused. But the amusement dies off quickly, replaced by something else. “Although he wouldn’t have needed to break in at all, would he have?” At this, Akers sends him a look, clearly meant to be reassuring; obviously both men have had a rather difficult reconciling the fact that their would-be murderer was a police officer.
“Do you live here as well, Dr. Watson?” Akers asks, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from a topic that so obviously bothers Wickham.
Startled out of his own musings about Benton, who while still on trial is sure to be hanged, Watson glances up, his brows raised. "Here?" he asks rather densely. When both men blink at him, he glances about. "Oh... I did, yes, until a few months ago. Holmes and I shared the flat for six years."
He finishes his tea, setting it down on the saucer on the tray and leaning back a bit in his chair. "I married and moved to Cavendish Place with my practice, but at times it seems I still live here." A fact which he knows does not exactly make his wife happy, but he keeps that to himself, not knowing these two men so very well. But what he's already divulged is in fact common knowledge, at least.
"And it might be a comfort to you to know that most thieves are themselves not as skilled as Sherlock Holmes," he adds, in reference to their new security measures. "In fact, if you've installed the new locks as he suggested, I expect you can cease worrying quite so much. Constable Benton is locked away in Newgate and shan't bother you again."
“Good,” Akers said when Wickham says nothing, not appearing comfortable with the idea of... well, any of this. And yet, Wickham does pause to spare Akers a glance at Watson’s response to his query about where he lives. They say nothing, of course, but they don’t have to.
Except something else begins to bother Wickham after a moment’s thought, and he turns a slightly confused look on the doctor.
“Forgive me, doctor,” he says slowly, “but did Mr. Holmes tell you that he had broken into our home?” Akers had mentioned the window, yes, and their new lock, but that was hardly enough information that the other man could have determined how the detective had gotten into their home.
Watson smiles slightly. "Well, merely first by your mentioning it in such a wry tone I deduced that someone had attempted entry into your home by way of that route," he points out. "And since Mr. Holmes is not one to make use of the conventional method with regards to anything at all, added to the fact that he would not have wanted to be seen by the individual watching your front door..."
He shrugs one shoulder, amused. "When we arrived at your home the night of Benton's attack, Holmes headed straight for that window with a familiarity that only comes from past experience. Therefore I concluded that he must have located a weak spot in your home's defenses and made use of it, of course recommending that you repair said weak spot once he had finished with it."
Said conclusion comes more from a familiarity with Holmes' methods (unconventional as they are) than anything else, although he's rather proud to say that Holmes often points out that he is developing considerable deductive powers of his own. His friend would be impressed with that one, he thinks. Or perhaps Watson be called marginally intelligent for seeing something undoubtedly blatantly obvious to the great detective himself. One never knows.
Still, he hears the stairs creak even though Holmes had undoubtedly been attempting stealth, and he raises his brows slightly, impressed himself that the other man had gotten down from the third floor without falling or otherwise injuring himself, considering the state in which Watson had left him a few minutes earlier. "Speak of the devil," he says drily. "Mr. Wickham, Mr. Akers, you will be able to thank Mr. Holmes in person after all."
Sure enough, a moment later the door from the upstairs room (Watson's room) opens, and Holmes himself appears, or rather his head does as he is clearly testing both the amount of light in the room and whether or not he actually wants to enter the room. He actually hesitates a moment when he spots Wickham and Akers, as though he hadn't been aware that they were here (despite Watson having informed him), but in the end makes up his mind to enter, giving both men a weak sort of smile when they stand. Both men offer their hands in greeting, which Holmes manages to shake despite the fact that he is blinking profusely and trying to recall if Watson's office was always this bright.
Clearly someone turned the sun on in here. Holmes would like to meet the bastard and give him a piece of his mind. Perhaps two pieces. He's not using them right now anyway. And of course, that reminder nearly has him turning right back around and crawling back up the stairs (as he could never make it back up there any other way), except he's not sure he'd make it back up there in one piece. And now he can't remember why he thought coming down here in the first place was a good idea.
"Gentlemen," he manages in a hoarse voice; it doesn't take a deductive genius to determine that he is not in his best health. Despite what they might have thought about his appearance before, Holmes at the moment looks a bit like a drunken homeless man who had come out on the worse side of a mugging. Twice. "How lovely to see you." He blinks again, almost violently. He's not convinced he is actually seeing them at all. "You must excuse me, my eyes are slowly melting."
Mr. Wickham and Mr. Akers both stand to shake his hand; Watson does not get up, just raising a brow at his friend and not particularly pitying him, as he’d pointed out before Holmes’ last self-injection that this would, as always, be the inevitable result of such a measure.
“Mr. Holmes, please don’t let us keep you,” Mr. Wickham says immediately, wincing in sympathy. Watson shakes his head slightly when Akers sends him a questioning look. No, sympathy is not warranted.
“Oh, no, please do keep him,” Watson says a bit more loudly than necessary, nudging the spare chair with his foot, just enough to make it scrape across the floorboards. “It’s about time he rejoined the living.”
There’s a quiet, muffled snort from Mr. Akers at that; Wickham turns to send him a look, but Akers doesn’t seem bothered by it at all.
Deciding right now that Mr. Wickham is his favorite person in this room, Holmes would send Watson a glare if he could make his eyes focus on Watson at all. Since he cannot, he instead sits down in the chair Watson had used to make his brain bleed out of his skull, thus ending that torture. Well, "sits." He actually sort of falls into it about as gracelessly as humanly possible. Frankly, it's only luck that he doesn't end up on the floor. A great deal of luck, because he would have remained there had he fallen. In fact he is considering it right now, as he's sure it would be much easier to take a nap if he crawled under Watson's desk, where it appears to be darker.
Watson does, however, receive a pained scowl. Mr. Akers does not, but only because he is further away and Holmes has by this point moved on to rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to make the burning go away. This of course does nothing at all, but it does make him feel as though he is at least trying to do something about it.
Rejoined the living. If only the living had something interesting for him to do, but most of the time the living are less interesting than the dead and Holmes doesn't feel like either of those things right now. He's somewhere in between. Inanimate. Perhaps water. Or a rock, like Watson's head. "There is nothing interesting in the world of the living," he mumbles.
Wickham looks unable to give up his sympathy for the detective; Akers continues to look rather amused. Holmes is certain they came to return Watson's hat, and considers briefly lighting it on fire just because he can think of no better way to lash out at Watson when he is being so very inconsiderate. But instead, he stays where he is, which is slouched in his chair, staring at the palm over his eyes and trying to keep his brain from leaking out of his ears. Or his eye sockets, as he is convinced he no longer has any eyes.
There's silence for a moment, but finally Mr. Wickham (who clearly does not care for silence), decides to speak to fill it. "We'd hoped to thank you once again, Mr. Holmes, for your rescue of us recently." He pauses. "And to return Dr. Watson's hat." Right as usual. And yet still so boring.
Watson spends much of this time eyeing Holmes, but finally, with a dramatic (and loud) sigh, he stands, taking a step first towards what had once been his medicine cabinet before recalling that it is not, in fact, his storage space anymore and making a detour to the sitting room, where he retrieves his laudanum and pours Holmes a small, but still suitable, dose.
“Here,” he mutters, thrusting it beneath the detective’s nose. “Stop whinging. It’s your own fault.” He tries to make the gesture seem magnanimous, as though he is merely responding to the pain of one of his patients, but really, this dance happens far too often for it to be that, even to Wickham and Akers, who still looks amused and is now sending Watson a commiserating look.
Not sure what to make of that at all, Watson merely clears his throat, pouring himself a second cup of tea and then another for Holmes. “I do appreciate its return,” he responds after a moment too long, when it becomes clear that Holmes will be offering no verbal response whatsoever. “I’d been avoiding a trip to the milliner’s in the hopes that I’d locate it again.”
"It's his favorite," Holmes announces, suddenly proving that he may actually be listening to the conversation going on around him instead of simply existing in a state of pain and possibly mild hallucinations in reaction to that pain, because walls should not glow. Even so, a moment later, one brown eye appears through the fingers of his hand (having returned to covering his eyes after Watson had given in and aided him as any doctor with half a heart would), looking over at Mr. Wickham and Akers.
Poor Mr. Wickham appears quite taken aback by just about everything that's gone on since Holmes appeared, which of course is an effect Holmes is used to having on people despite not always quite seeing why that should be so. And Akers, currently on the list of people Holmes is displeased with in this room, simply looks amused. Holmes is less angry with Watson now, though, so he decides to be kind also to Akers, who doesn't know any better.
"Do either of you fine gentlemen have a favorite pen?" he asks, quite innocently, to their utter confusion.
This time, there is a quiet groan from the chair next to the detective, and Watson rubs his temples with his free hand. “Holmes,” he mutters in a long-suffering voice. “Do let it go, already. It is exactly like every other pen in the box I bought of them.”
He’s extremely tempted to kick the side of Holmes’ chair, or perhaps do his best to open the blinds further and let in more light, but in the end decides that such behavior would mean he would sink to Holmes’ level, and that he does not wish. He is clearly the mature one of the two of them, and someone has to act like an adult.
He grumbles for a moment under his breath instead, and shoots a glare at the other man, completely ignoring the amusement that has become visible on both their guests’ faces (Watson of course does not count himself a guest, despite the fact that he no longer lives here). “And I only put it away before I left so that you would be able to find it, rather than it becoming forever lost in the bottomless pit that is the sitting room.”
"Obviously that was not logical at all," Holmes says, now turning his one visible eye on Watson. "As you knew full well I do not keep it there and so would not think to look for it in such a common place." With the other, common, pens. No matter how much Watson insists that it is exactly like every other pen, Holmes knows that no two pens could possibly be exactly alike, which refutes Waton's entire argument. If it were like every other pen, Holmes would have picked up one of the others and not been able to tell the difference. And yet, when he put that particular pen in the drawer, when Holmes had finally discovered its location he had been able to tell it from the other, so-called "exactly alike" pens immediately.
Also, Holmes takes offense to the suggestion that the sitting room is a bottomless pit. It is not a bottomless pit. He frowns over at Watson, as though that frown could be distinguished from the pained look he's been wearing since he appeared. "I know exactly where everything is in the sitting room," he says, scowling. "Including my pen, now."
“You know where everything is in the sitting room,” Watson mutters. “You couldn’t tell me where to find a tea cozy to save your life.” He decides that it’s not worth arguing about the pen any further, as Holmes has clearly decided to dig in his heels, and there’s no way through or around that situation.
Rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath about Holmes’ clearly not knowing where the newspaper might be located whenever Gladstone is too lazy to tell them when he needs to go outside, Watson sets his teacup back on its saucer with a particularly sharp snap, making Holmes wince visibly. He would feel the slightest bit guilty about that if he, in fact, hadn’t been woken in the midst of a hangover so very many times to the sound of Holmes causing his violin to squeak as loudly and off-key as possible.
"Everything of significance," Holmes mutters in return, hand back over both of his eyes. Oh god. The sun. It shouldn't be this close to his face. Somehow this is all Watson's fault, Holmes knows it must be. Tea cozies. Who cares where a tea cozy is? Certainly not Holmes. And, as per usual, if he doesn't care about it (and thus it is not important to a case or anything else of interest to him), it doesn't matter at all. Despite his extensive skills of observation, Holmes has been known to completely disregard anything he finds uninteresting, such as dates, food, people, place names, and where he'd managed to put his shoes.
Really, though, Watson is being entirely unfair, and Holmes is just about to make this all known very loudly and dramatically, when Mr. Wickham clears his throat.
"Though I must admit to some curiosity regarding this sitting room now, I'm afraid we must be leaving," he says, and Akers nods. "I apologize if this was an inconvenient time, Mr. Holmes."
"Mr. Wickham," Holmes says quite frankly, in the midst of considering moving his hand from his eyes to cover his ears instead, "I assure you that no other time would be any better." Of course, this could be taken in several ways, and this was undoubtedly Holmes' intention, as he does not elaborate, but even with his hand covering his eyes, he can't hide the slight smile that takes over his features for just a moment.
Fighting not to roll his eyes, Watson at least stands to shake both guests’ hands again, seeing them out to the stairs and then returning to stare down at Holmes. The other man’s arm doesn’t waver from its position covering his eyes, however, and finally Watson gives in with a quiet snarl, stalking over to jerk down the blind so that the sun is no longer shining in. The room is abruptly dim, and he moves back over to Holmes, standing over him once again and crossing his arms.
Holmes’ shirtsleeves have not been rolled up in their usual manner in more than a week, and although Watson knows exactly what he’ll find beneath them, he’s not going to pretend along with this anymore. It’s been quite long enough. “You need a new case. Surely Lestrade has something for you.”
When there is no immediate response, he reaches down, jerking up the nearest sleeve all on his own and then drawing in a sharp breath when he sees the black and purple bruises mottling Holmes’ forearms, needlemarks, and many of them. More than he’s seen there in years.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?!” he half-shouts. “It’s barely been two weeks since the Benton case ended!”
Once again, Holmes does nothing but flinch and make a pained sound, and Watson has had enough. Turning on his heel, he marches into the sitting room and drops down onto his hands and knees, searching… and finally locates more than half a dozen small glass bottles, either empty or half-full, of Holmes’ seven percent solution.
Growling and swearing quite loudly, he pitches one after the other at the wall, each one making a satisfying shattering sound, until they’re finally all broken, the chemical now staining the wallpaper beneath the V. R. bullet-hole insignia. There is a wordless yell from behind him, and when he turns he’s promptly punched so hard that he sees stars, knocked back into a table. But Holmes is nowhere approaching hale at the moment, while Watson is at his full strength, and he tackles Holmes with a yell of his own, his shoulder hitting the other man in the middle of his chest, knocking Holmes to the ground beneath him.
“What is it in you that has you so intent on self-destruction?” he growls, clearly just… finished with being patient. “You are the worst I’ve possibly ever seen you!”
Finding himself very suddenly on the floor with Watson on top of him and no idea how he managed to get there, Holmes nevertheless manages to respond quickly (if not verbally), ignoring the spots in his vision and managing to focus on Watson, who is growling at him words that Holmes in his current state can barely understand. Frankly, right now all he can understand is that Watson is yelling at him, has him pinned, and had just destroyed several bottles his seven percent solution, which he needs.
Frankly, Holmes has no idea why this even matters, he has nothing else to do and he does not care what Watson thinks and Watson has no right to go about destroying anything of his at all, not to mention shouting at him and acting all high-and-mighty. He has a wife and his practice and life to go back to when he leaves here. Holmes has nothing and no one. His life is on hold until the next case, and if he doesn’t have something to do, to bloody think about god anything, he will implode and no one would notice, least of all Dr. Watson of Cavendish place.
Suddenly more than furious just about the destruction of his solution, Holmes begins struggling wildly, trying to get Watson off of him, snarling as he is unable to form words to express his rage and whatever else that is (hopelessness, the part of his mind that won’t shut down even now says quietly). But the look in his eyes expresses it more neatly than his words ever could, along with what might be an attempt to strangle the doctor.
But Watson is too strong, or Holmes is too weak, and if Watson doesn’t get off of him Holmes is going to kill him. “Why do you care?! You don’t- live here,” Holmes finally manages, barely coherent as he struggles violently, voice hoarse from more than just lying in bed for days now. Anger, yes, and an inability to breathe suddenly. He’s going to pass out. Maybe he can stop then, maybe he won’t wake up until Watson is gone or he will and Watson will be back. “Get- off, getoffofme.”
Watson goes very still when Holmes snarls that he, Watson, doesn’t live here anymore, and hence, why should he care? Every muscle in Watson goes very still, not releasing Holmes in the least, and in fact his writ on his friend’s already-bruised wrists tightens painfully. He has to hold himself back from striking another blow, then, and is in fact extremely close to the line he can’t cross, not right now, not with Holmes too weak to fight back.
“No,” he says in a low voice, his tone dangerously even. “No, I won’t.”
He has to fight back the hurt that that barb had delivered, the pain resulting from an accusation that Watson wouldn’t care. “Don’t you ever,” he says, his voice low and deceptively calm, “say something like that to me again.” His head lowers so that his face is inches from Holmes’, the color drained from it. “I care, you fucking bastard. I care.”
Holmes struggles again, But Watson holds him down and himself up quite effortlessly. His shoulder and leg will make him regret it the next day, he knows, but he doesn’t even recall just now that they’re a problem. In fact, his body is heating up in the strangest way, but the strangeness is not what he’s dwelling on at the moment. No, it’s the fact that he really wants to do something right now, has the overwhelming urge, no, need to do something-
And that something is apparently to lean down and kiss his best friend, more of an attack on Holmes’ mouth than anything else. And his mind promptly vacates the premises, and in fact may have vacated this plane of existence altogether because he’s lying in the sitting room pinning Holmes down and kissing him, another man, Holmes, and he’s not bothering to stop and recall that he’s actually holding the other man there against his will. But then again, Holmes isn’t exactly fighting against him.
~~~~~
Part Nine
Author: agaryulnaer86 and sarisa_rahe
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Disclaimer: Not ours.
Summary: Visitations and... er... disagreements.
Spoilers: Movie
Warnings: Drug use. Angst abounds.
Word Count: 9,212
Author's Notes: Epic-fic, part 8/~14.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
~~~~~
The cab is moving before Watson realizes that Holmes had not followed him into the carriage; he twists about, peering back through the window, but what he can make out of Holmes' dark figure through the dirty glass... Holmes is already walking away down the street in the opposite direction.
Watson falls back onto the seat, staring forward at the bench seat opposite his own, which would normally be where Holmes would lounge. The cab feels too large as it trundles along towards Cavendish Place, too large and too empty, the silence almost overpowering.
The driver stops in front of the townhouse far too quickly, and Watson climbs carefully out, leaning heavily on his walking stick and the iron railing as he navigates the front steps, pushing the front door open and stepping inside. There is noise still emanating from the dining room, and he realizes, staring at the hall clock, that it's barely been two hours since he'd left in such a rush.
He's walking better, now, no more awkwardly than on a particularly bad day for his leg, and he's at least no longer dizzy. Stripping his overcoat from his shoulders, he hangs it up neatly, realizing that Mr. Akers is still in possession of his favorite hat. The stairs seem to stretch out forever before him, and he's still gathering the willpower to mount them when Mary suddenly steps out into the hallway from the dining room, worry plain on her face.
"John," she says quickly, rushing over and putting a hand to his face; he must not look much better, after all. Attempting a rather weak smile, he pats her hand in return, shaking his head.
"I'll be all right in the morning," he assures her in a low voice, looking over her shoulder at the light spilling from the open doorway. "Please don't worry, dear. There was a... a minor incident with a paralytic, but I've received the antidote. The murderer is now secure in Lestrade's custody, and his intended victims are shaken but safe."
She looks pale and horrified, and he feels as though they should probably both sit down. "I don't know how good of a host I'm able to be at the moment--"
"John, dear boy!" Mr. Morstan emerges from the dining room, his normally-pleasant face as worried as Mary's. "What on earth's happened to you? Trouble catching that blighter?"
Watson smiles slightly. "Not much, in fact, Sir. I'm just not feeling entirely up to form, it's been a rather eventful night." And he wants nothing more than to just fall unconscious, but that's looking less and less likely with each passing second, especially once Mrs. Morstan appears and sniffs at him, although he detects some worry, as well. "Really, I'll be fine by morning," he assures all three of them, wishing for the quiet of his bedroom.
"You look terribly pale," Mary says, the worry plain on her face, mingled with horror at the idea of her husband having an 'incident' with a paralytic, antidote or not. Battles and stories of valor are wonderful and well and good when they are just that: stories. But seeing her husband returned home to her like this, well, strong though Mary might be, she is not used to it at all.
"He should sit down," Mrs. Morstan suggests, managing to make even her slight worry for him into a command.
Mr. Morstan, meanwhile shakes his head. "He should do more than sit down. Mary, why don't you take care of your husband? He should have time to recover. We can see ourselves out."
Slowly, Mary nods, obviously thankful to her father. The man nods to his son-in-law before turning and leading his annoyed-looking wife back to the dining room to give the younger couple some privacy; certainly they can always return tomorrow or the day after. It would hardly be sensible or fair to keep the man on his feet or even sitting any longer than necessary when he is looking like that.
Mary, meanwhile, has not stopped looking at her husband worriedly. "John," she says slowly, "are you certain we shouldn't perhaps call another doctor?" Normally she would trust him to take care of himself, of course, but in some matters that is impossible. Such as when he looks as though he might pass out at any moment.
Watson waves this off with his free hand, eyeing the stairs again. He thinks he can make it... probably. If he can't, he'll just fall asleep halfway up and drag himself the rest of the way once he wakes up again. It's not an uncommon occurrence, sadly, although he doesn't dare tell Mary that.
"No," he says finally, shaking his head in a firm sort of manner. "I'm not dizzy anymore." He turns, sees the worry Mary isn't bothering to hide, and reaches over to touch his hand with the two fingers not grasping his cane. "It's all right, Mary. I dashed out of here this morning because Holmes injected himself with this same paralytic, and gave him the antidote. He's right as rain."
With that not quite reassuring tidbit of information, Watson begins to slowly haul himself to the second floor, glad at least that his coming home in such a condition has probably pushed the inevitable confrontation to the next morning. Which is really a good thing, as he has no idea what he plan to say at all. Has no bloody clue, despite the conclusions he'd come to, aside from the fact that he's going to have to just tell Mary that... well, he can't just give up working with Holmes. It's as much of a passion as his work as a physician, and to deny that would be denying a large part of himself.
But even more importantly, he cannot simply give up his friend. It would likely kill them both, and he may very well mean that literally in Holmes' case. Watson cannot picture his life without Holmes, does not want to try. And though he knows Mary does not want to break their friendship, he also knows that working with Holmes will likely bring about exactly what's happened in the past few weeks, that he may not always be able to send word, may come home looking as he does now or bruised from another fight. And she hadn't dealt with that very well.
But he doesn't know how to put any of this into words in a way that won't hurt her or make her feel as though she's coming in second in his life, which is not true. But is it so much to ask to want both parts of his life to not be so separate and singular? Why must he have one at the expense of the other?
And above all of that is the terrible expression he'd seen in Holmes' ever-expressive eyes the night before, and then again this night, as he'd gotten Watson into the cab and then gone off on his own. That pain and resignation, that Watson had not been able to or perhaps had been too cowardly to identify, the abandonment that might, just might, to Holmes, be more than his friend simply getting married and changing his life.
And Watson has no bloody idea how to respond to that, if Holmes even wants him to respond at all. He might have made it all up, anyway. It might be all in his mind, in that place he'd never dared enter for fear of it sending his world completely upside-down, the place he'd kept hidden, dark and locked away.
Thankfully, these thoughts are enough to keep him distracted through the long trip up the stairs, and he's barely even aware of Mary following him into the bedroom, so lost in his musings as he is. Finally, though, he sits down on the edge of the bed with a long sigh, and glances up, startled to see her there, her own expression (beneath the worry, anyway) quite unreadable. "And how was your father's journey?" he asks hopefully, grasping at strings.
"Well enough, I suppose," Mary says, watching him; she does not sit down on the bed with him, not intending to sleep but rather simply to be certain that he does. She does not like how very pale he looks, and his assurances that Holmes had done the same that morning and is now perfectly fine does not make her feel much better about it. Holmes injecting himself with a paralytic is, sadly, quite normal. John having a minor incident with one- which Mary, being quite intelligent, had immediately recognized as him having been attacked by the murderer with said paralytic- is not normal, nor so easily brushed off.
True enough, he hadn't been gone more than a couple of hours, not long enough even for her parents to have left. But to Mary, those couple of hours had felt like an eternity. He hadn't given her any details on the murders- and certainly it had been John's request that had kept Holmes from enlightening her as well- but that had almost made the entire thing worse. For hours, she had sat with her parents, unable to stop imagining all of the terrible things that might happen to him.
And so she hadn't the slightest idea how her father's trip had gone, to be honest. "I found it hard to pay attention," she admits calmly; she imagines he knows why that might be, and is not cruel enough to elaborate. He is not well, and she will not force any more conversation upon him tonight.
There are, however, other things she will force upon him. "John," she says, forcing anything but her worry for him away for the time being, "Lie down and rest, if that is what it will take for you to recover. Should I get you anything?"
Stripping off all but his undershirt and drawers, Watson tosses the rest of it all into the hamper, not even needing to look to know it had all hit its mark, and climbs sideways back into bed. "No, Mary, but thank you." He'd like to try to eat something, perhaps leftovers from dinner, but he's not certain he can either keep anything down or wait for Mary to bring anything up. He's likely to be sleeping like the dead in just a moment, now that he's lying in a horizontal position again.
There is one thing, however, that he has to say to his wife before he loses consciousness. "We'll speak about everything tomorrow," he reassures her, the guilt returning as it always does when he enters this house. Meaning that it goes away when he leaves, and he knows that isn't healthy either, but can't bring about the energy to address it just at this moment. "Good night, dear..."
His voice trails off as his eyes close, but his last thoughts are not for his wife and the upcoming (and undoubtedly uncomfortable) discussion they'll be having. No, all he can see is Holmes' blurry figure walking off down the street, his head lowered beneath his slouching hat in as defeated a position as Watson has ever seen his closest friend in.
The next day goes by at once at a crawl and too quickly for both Watson and his wife; Mary might indeed have slept in bed with him, but when he woke she was not there. And then for the rest of the day, he had not seen her, as he'd had two days' worth of patients to make up for. Or at least, that's his excuse.
Mary allows that. She does. She has no more desire to hold what will undoubtedly be a terribly uncomfortable discussion than he does. But he is avoiding her, and the way she looks at it, the sooner they do this the sooner they will be over it, rather than in this limbo for days on end. And all that aside... she really is quite displeased with him. The anger had faded, yes, with time, but the fact that there had been enough time for her to lose some of the edge on her anger is enough to make Mary even more angry.
This has to stop. He cannot avoid her indefinitely, and if Mary is honest with herself, she's a bit hurt that he should want to avoid her. And so, in the interest of putting an end to all of this... madness, she determines that she shall have to take the lead in this.
Which is why, when his last patient leaves for the day, Mary is waiting. As soon as the man is out the door, she knocks on the door to her husband's office. "May I come in?" she calls quietly, unwilling to invade his privacy even though she is determined to corner him and force a discussion out of him.
Watson looks up from his notes with a guilty wince. He honestly had just been writing up his observations from his last patient, who is suffering from a chronic fever. But he can see her point; he hasn't seen Mary all day, and he knows exactly why she's here. "Yes, just a moment!" he calls, putting away the patient file and then scampering over to his brandy cabinet, taking a quick swig from the decanter before replacing it silently and then hurrying over, his steps much more normal, to open the office door for her.
"Of course you may come in," he says with a slightly awkward smile, holding the door until she sweeps gracefully inside and then deciding after a moment to leave it open, feeling a bit less claustrophobic that way. He takes a deep breath, letting it out and clasping his hands behind his back before turning to her. He might look rather distinguished in his black doctor's coat, but just now he feels like an errant schoolboy... and somehow worse than that.
"Mary," he begins slowly, still having no idea how this discussion will go, "I'm so dreadfully sorry. There's no excuse for my behavior since we've returned to London. I've hurt you and disappointed you." She doesn't respond, only making him feel guiltier, which obviously was the intention.
"I do owe you explanations and I know it, but please feel free to go first and have at me, you certainly have that right."
"Perhaps I do," Mary agrees slowly, watching him carefully. "But I don't wish to shout or lecture you, John."
And that much, at least, is true. Mary is not given to shouting or great shows of anger, but as her husband has learned, it isn't difficult to tell when she is displeased. She does make her anger known, simply through... quieter, more stately means. Typically, although she has been known on occasion to have slightly more explosive tendencies (as exemplified by her first meeting of Mr. Holmes).
But never with her husband. "I should like to hear your explanations first," she says after a moment's pause. "It seems only fair to do so before I can gauge how much of my displeasure is truly warranted."
Watson blinks, truly unsure of how far back he should go. The better part of two weeks, he supposes. Perhaps more than that, since the first Benton murder scene he'd visited. "I suppose I don't know where to begin," he says finally, turning to face the window. "Before the wedding, I suppose it wasn't an issue; you and I were so busy preparing for it all that there was no time for anything else." He's certain she recalls that. "And then on the honeymoon, it was wonderful." Even though... even then he'd been worried for Holmes.
He has no idea how to put this in a way that won't hurt her, but he'll do his best. "I know you don't wish me to end my friendship with Holmes. He is my dearest, closest friend... probably my only true friend." He pauses, glancing back over his shoulder at her apologetically. "Aside from you, of course." She's watching him evenly, with no expression, and he supposes he can take that as a positive reaction.
Slowly, he turns around so that he's facing her, not only looking back at her, and rests his hands on the end of his desk, leaning forward. "Mary, I want so desperately to be able to give you... give us both the life we'd talked of for so long... and I will do that, I will try my hardest to give that to you, none of that has changed." He pauses for a moment, swallowing. "But the thing I've realized over the past few weeks is that I haven't changed, either, and... I don't want to. It would break me, I think, to stop helping Holmes, to stop working on cases with him."
Now he can see the hurt in her eyes, but he has to be honest. He can't lie to her; it would only be worse in the end. "I can't leave him alone, Mary. It's not only the work, although that's part of it. I'm not a peaceful man, and the past few weeks I've tried to suppress that part of me as much as I could, but it came out in very, very unhealthy ways."
He looks down at his left hand, sees the scrapes and callouses on the knuckles from his fight with Holmes, and then with Benton the night before. He knows Mary would never be able to picture the hand on which she'd placed a wedding ring attempting to beat another man into unconsciousness, or slicing an artery with his blade. Knows that despite her knowledge of his past as a soldier, of what he's done over the years about London with Holmes, that she sees him as the genteel, gentle veteran doctor.
"I am a violent man, Mary. I never wanted you to see evidence of that, wanted to keep that part of my life, my past and present, from you. But I didn't leave that part of me behind in Afghanistan, and what I do here, with Holmes... I'm not only his assistant. I can help people here, as much as I can as a doctor. I wanted to change, have tried to change but I cannot give up that part of my life, even for you, my dear." He looks down, his hands clenching the side of the desk so tightly that he'd swear there should be imprints of his fingers in the wood.
"I love you, Mary Watson, and I know Holmes drives you mad, that I'm not responsible or considerate of you as I should be, but he needs me, and I need him, too. And frankly, London needs us as well. You've all the right in the world to punish me for my behavior, but I intend to find a way to balance the two parts of my life."
For a long moment after that speech, Mary is silent, thinking it over. She had let him go on, true to her word; she wanted to hear what he had to say for himself before making any condemnations or judgments. She's not an unfair woman, or she tries not to be. And she knows very well that John isn't unfair, either. He knows that the things he has been doing- or not doing, in some cases- have hurt her, feels guilty for it. And Mary doesn't know if that makes all of this better or worse.
But after a minute, Mary cannot keep to herself any longer. Slowly, she sits down in the nearest chair, on the other side of his desk, and looks up at her husband. "I'm trying to recall the moment when I asked you to change," she says carefully, still looking up at him. "But I cannot."
He blinks down at her, but she continues on. "John, I don't want you to give up anything for me. I don't want you to lose your friendship with Mr. Holmes, or even to put an end to your mad adventures. I truly don't. But what I cannot stand is you leaving without word constantly, avoiding me purposefully, and missing entire days of your company with no forewarning. I'm not accustomed to real life adventures; it's hard to sit at home and wonder where you are, if you'll be coming home tonight or if I'll receive a note from the hospital that you've been blown up or stabbed, or perhaps injected with some paralytic. While you're off saving London, I'm still at home. Worrying." By now, she is frowning up at him, her brow furrowed. She doesn't know what she's feeling, really, about all of this.
He has good points, and yet... as much as he says he wants all of the things he lists, she's not certain that's true. She doesn't know why she feels that way, but she does. "You needn't change, John," she says, voice quieter now, more hurt. "I don't want you to. But it would be nice to be taken into account now and then."
The guilt increases yet again, and Watson looks down at his hands once more, lines etched into his brow. She's exactly right, and he deserves to feel as poorly as he does about it. He hadn't let her know where he would be, hadn't sent word... had neglected to, he thinks, because each time he had, it had hurt Holmes. And therein lies the one thing, one person that negates all of his determinations, that he will drop everything for, every time.
"I will endeavor to do so," he promises, meaning it entirely. "As much as is possible, I swear it." He drags a hand back through his own neatly-combed hair, unconsciously mimicking his friend, and finally moves over to sit in the second patient chair, next to Mary.
"I know you never asked me to change," he says quietly. "You have never asked it of me, but I have asked it of myself, and it is my failing that I've been unable to manage it. I want to be a proper husband to you, the sort of man I aimed to be when we were courting. Respectable." At least, the sort of man he'd been when he'd been with her. "But it isn't in me to be a peaceful man." He smiles wryly. "I do try."
"I know," Mary says, although she's not entirely certain she understands that in full. He's right; she doesn't know the violent side of him, she thinks. He's never shown her, and she doesn't know if it is because of what her reaction would be, or his fears of her reaction. No matter either way, because it is simply the case that she has not seen him as anything but a peaceful man.
She doesn't know how she feels about this admission, but she will think on it. Now is not the time to wonder what all of this means.
"All I ask," she says slowly, "is for you. Proper or not. I don't care what sort of a man you are, John. Whatever sort you are is the sort I want." She does want that life, the one they have discussed, but she doesn't want it at the expense of his happiness. And so she is willing to compromise. It's just a matter of finding a compromise that suits them... and apparently, of getting John to remember the compromise at all.
But thoughts of compromise do have her wondering... or have had her wondering, over the past couple of days: between her and Mr. Holmes, which is the one doing the compromising, and which is the compromise?
For two weeks things stay quiet, although Mary watches John disappear to Baker Street at all hours of the day and night; not constantly, no, but normally at least once per day, sometimes for only a few minutes and other times for several hours (but those only when he is careful to let her know ahead of time, and often when she is occupied with work or friends in the evenings, or with a church planning session). But still, he spends a great deal of time there comparatively, often hurrying out between his patients.
For Watson, it has been an unending task to keep Holmes from sinking into a worse depression than usual. He can hardly relay to Mary Holmes' addiction to his various chemicals, that which he keeps in the Moroccan case most prevalent. Watson hurries over so often to check on the man simply to make sure he is alive, if not hale, and to convince him to sleep and to eat. More than once he's found his friend on the third floor in Watson's own old room, sitting in the corner or stretched out on his bed. Watson can only assume that Holmes' own bed cannot be used for some reason, but he can hardly question this, as it's no longer his room Holmes is using.
Holmes receives a visitor on one such afternoon, a Sunday, coming down from a chemically-induced high and barely conscious, when Mrs. Hudson knocks on the door to Watson's old room, where Watson, returned from church and planning to spend the afternoon with his friend, is periodically checking his vitals while Holmes recovers on the bed. The doctor straightens from the old wooden chair, moving over to open the door to find a startled Mrs. Hudson announcing that a Mr. Akers and a Mr. Wickham have arrived to see Mr. Holmes.
"I'll come down to see them, I know them," he assures the landlady. "Holmes is indisposed once again, I'm afraid."
"Do they bring a new case?" she asks hopefully. Watson dearly wishes they did, but he knows otherwise.
"I'm afraid not. They're here in response to the most recent, I'm afraid." She looks disappointed but nods, and Watson pauses. "Show them into my office, would you, Mrs. Hudson?"
He flinches slightly. "That is, my former office." She sends him a knowing smile, nodding and not questioning his wording in the first place as she starts back down the stairs. Watson sends the barely-conscious Holmes a look.
"Akers and Wickham are here," he says in a quiet voice, the figure on the bed too pitiful for Watson to torture him with a louder tone. "I'll see what they want. Change your shirt if you feel up to it and come down." With that, he closes the door behind himself and makes his way down the stairs, the other two men already in the office by the time he reaches it, immediately moving forward to shake their hands. "Gentlemen, hello. You've been well?"
Wickham (who had spent the most time with Watson, though both men had spent considerably more time in Holmes' company), smiles a bit wryly at that, nodding assent for both of them. "Yes, many thanks to yourself and Mr. Holmes," he says. In fact, it is thanks to the doctor and detective that they are alive to be well or not at all. "And yourself?"
Watson nods in response as well, and Wickham glances over at Akers, who seems to remember what he is holding, glancing down at the item in his hands before holding it out to Watson. "I believe this is yours," Akers says, smiling a little. "We'd been hoping Mr. Holmes would be able to give it to you, but it's good to be able to give it back to you in person, to thank you again."
"Is Mr. Holmes not well?" Mr. Wickham asks, a touch of worry for the mad detective obvious in his face. Obviously, both men had at very least tolerated Holmes, or they would not have allowed him into their home, let alone have come to see him after the case's end. But from the time spent in the kitchen that night, it's obvious that Wickham was at least rather amused by Holmes, despite his various insults and... oddities. Or maybe because of them. "I'd been hoping to thank him as well."
Akers looks amused; Wickham continues on. "I don't suppose I should have been surprised that the both of you disappeared before we could thank you," he says. "I had heard of both of you, and yet your pictures are never in the paper."
Watson thanks Akers profusely, relieved to have his favorite hat returned to him. He'd been avoiding the trip to the millinery, not wanting to have to pay out the not inconsiderable expense involved in having another made for him, and this particular hat and he have been through a good amount with one another.
"He is unfortunately indisposed," Watson says regretfully, the resignation in his expression a customary response when Holmes is between cases. "But I shall relay your greetings and thanks to him. I'm sure he'll be very grateful, as am I." Mrs. Hudson appears, then, and Watson sends her a grateful look, gesturing for the two men to sit down, as he does in his familiar chair behind his desk. "Tea?"
They agree, and he pours quickly. "Mr. Holmes' greatest passion is the investigation itself, the hunt for the culprit. He has never, during our long friendship, sought recognition for his achievements, but prefers to leave the glory to the constabulary. Our goals remain to put the criminal elements behind bars, or deliver them to the rope, as necessary." He smiles slightly. "I do find that the occasional picture and mention increases business in my practice, however."
Sipping his tea, he eyes both gentlemen; Mr. Wickham is clearly the more talkative of the two. "Tell me, have you both recovered well since your own ordeal?"
"Indeed," Wickham says, Akers nodding as well, clearly not minding the fact that Wickham seems to be speaking for both of them. “Although we’ve put an extra lock on the door.”
“And the kitchen window,” Akers adds dryly. The window, as Holmes had pointed out on the second time he had visited, would provide a prime entry, should someone choose to break into their home. The reason for the dryness in Akers’ voice being the fact that Holmes had pointed this out by breaking into their house through said window and scaring the maid out of her wits.
“And the kitchen window,” Wickham adds, looking amused. But the amusement dies off quickly, replaced by something else. “Although he wouldn’t have needed to break in at all, would he have?” At this, Akers sends him a look, clearly meant to be reassuring; obviously both men have had a rather difficult reconciling the fact that their would-be murderer was a police officer.
“Do you live here as well, Dr. Watson?” Akers asks, clearly trying to steer the conversation away from a topic that so obviously bothers Wickham.
Startled out of his own musings about Benton, who while still on trial is sure to be hanged, Watson glances up, his brows raised. "Here?" he asks rather densely. When both men blink at him, he glances about. "Oh... I did, yes, until a few months ago. Holmes and I shared the flat for six years."
He finishes his tea, setting it down on the saucer on the tray and leaning back a bit in his chair. "I married and moved to Cavendish Place with my practice, but at times it seems I still live here." A fact which he knows does not exactly make his wife happy, but he keeps that to himself, not knowing these two men so very well. But what he's already divulged is in fact common knowledge, at least.
"And it might be a comfort to you to know that most thieves are themselves not as skilled as Sherlock Holmes," he adds, in reference to their new security measures. "In fact, if you've installed the new locks as he suggested, I expect you can cease worrying quite so much. Constable Benton is locked away in Newgate and shan't bother you again."
“Good,” Akers said when Wickham says nothing, not appearing comfortable with the idea of... well, any of this. And yet, Wickham does pause to spare Akers a glance at Watson’s response to his query about where he lives. They say nothing, of course, but they don’t have to.
Except something else begins to bother Wickham after a moment’s thought, and he turns a slightly confused look on the doctor.
“Forgive me, doctor,” he says slowly, “but did Mr. Holmes tell you that he had broken into our home?” Akers had mentioned the window, yes, and their new lock, but that was hardly enough information that the other man could have determined how the detective had gotten into their home.
Watson smiles slightly. "Well, merely first by your mentioning it in such a wry tone I deduced that someone had attempted entry into your home by way of that route," he points out. "And since Mr. Holmes is not one to make use of the conventional method with regards to anything at all, added to the fact that he would not have wanted to be seen by the individual watching your front door..."
He shrugs one shoulder, amused. "When we arrived at your home the night of Benton's attack, Holmes headed straight for that window with a familiarity that only comes from past experience. Therefore I concluded that he must have located a weak spot in your home's defenses and made use of it, of course recommending that you repair said weak spot once he had finished with it."
Said conclusion comes more from a familiarity with Holmes' methods (unconventional as they are) than anything else, although he's rather proud to say that Holmes often points out that he is developing considerable deductive powers of his own. His friend would be impressed with that one, he thinks. Or perhaps Watson be called marginally intelligent for seeing something undoubtedly blatantly obvious to the great detective himself. One never knows.
Still, he hears the stairs creak even though Holmes had undoubtedly been attempting stealth, and he raises his brows slightly, impressed himself that the other man had gotten down from the third floor without falling or otherwise injuring himself, considering the state in which Watson had left him a few minutes earlier. "Speak of the devil," he says drily. "Mr. Wickham, Mr. Akers, you will be able to thank Mr. Holmes in person after all."
Sure enough, a moment later the door from the upstairs room (Watson's room) opens, and Holmes himself appears, or rather his head does as he is clearly testing both the amount of light in the room and whether or not he actually wants to enter the room. He actually hesitates a moment when he spots Wickham and Akers, as though he hadn't been aware that they were here (despite Watson having informed him), but in the end makes up his mind to enter, giving both men a weak sort of smile when they stand. Both men offer their hands in greeting, which Holmes manages to shake despite the fact that he is blinking profusely and trying to recall if Watson's office was always this bright.
Clearly someone turned the sun on in here. Holmes would like to meet the bastard and give him a piece of his mind. Perhaps two pieces. He's not using them right now anyway. And of course, that reminder nearly has him turning right back around and crawling back up the stairs (as he could never make it back up there any other way), except he's not sure he'd make it back up there in one piece. And now he can't remember why he thought coming down here in the first place was a good idea.
"Gentlemen," he manages in a hoarse voice; it doesn't take a deductive genius to determine that he is not in his best health. Despite what they might have thought about his appearance before, Holmes at the moment looks a bit like a drunken homeless man who had come out on the worse side of a mugging. Twice. "How lovely to see you." He blinks again, almost violently. He's not convinced he is actually seeing them at all. "You must excuse me, my eyes are slowly melting."
Mr. Wickham and Mr. Akers both stand to shake his hand; Watson does not get up, just raising a brow at his friend and not particularly pitying him, as he’d pointed out before Holmes’ last self-injection that this would, as always, be the inevitable result of such a measure.
“Mr. Holmes, please don’t let us keep you,” Mr. Wickham says immediately, wincing in sympathy. Watson shakes his head slightly when Akers sends him a questioning look. No, sympathy is not warranted.
“Oh, no, please do keep him,” Watson says a bit more loudly than necessary, nudging the spare chair with his foot, just enough to make it scrape across the floorboards. “It’s about time he rejoined the living.”
There’s a quiet, muffled snort from Mr. Akers at that; Wickham turns to send him a look, but Akers doesn’t seem bothered by it at all.
Deciding right now that Mr. Wickham is his favorite person in this room, Holmes would send Watson a glare if he could make his eyes focus on Watson at all. Since he cannot, he instead sits down in the chair Watson had used to make his brain bleed out of his skull, thus ending that torture. Well, "sits." He actually sort of falls into it about as gracelessly as humanly possible. Frankly, it's only luck that he doesn't end up on the floor. A great deal of luck, because he would have remained there had he fallen. In fact he is considering it right now, as he's sure it would be much easier to take a nap if he crawled under Watson's desk, where it appears to be darker.
Watson does, however, receive a pained scowl. Mr. Akers does not, but only because he is further away and Holmes has by this point moved on to rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to make the burning go away. This of course does nothing at all, but it does make him feel as though he is at least trying to do something about it.
Rejoined the living. If only the living had something interesting for him to do, but most of the time the living are less interesting than the dead and Holmes doesn't feel like either of those things right now. He's somewhere in between. Inanimate. Perhaps water. Or a rock, like Watson's head. "There is nothing interesting in the world of the living," he mumbles.
Wickham looks unable to give up his sympathy for the detective; Akers continues to look rather amused. Holmes is certain they came to return Watson's hat, and considers briefly lighting it on fire just because he can think of no better way to lash out at Watson when he is being so very inconsiderate. But instead, he stays where he is, which is slouched in his chair, staring at the palm over his eyes and trying to keep his brain from leaking out of his ears. Or his eye sockets, as he is convinced he no longer has any eyes.
There's silence for a moment, but finally Mr. Wickham (who clearly does not care for silence), decides to speak to fill it. "We'd hoped to thank you once again, Mr. Holmes, for your rescue of us recently." He pauses. "And to return Dr. Watson's hat." Right as usual. And yet still so boring.
Watson spends much of this time eyeing Holmes, but finally, with a dramatic (and loud) sigh, he stands, taking a step first towards what had once been his medicine cabinet before recalling that it is not, in fact, his storage space anymore and making a detour to the sitting room, where he retrieves his laudanum and pours Holmes a small, but still suitable, dose.
“Here,” he mutters, thrusting it beneath the detective’s nose. “Stop whinging. It’s your own fault.” He tries to make the gesture seem magnanimous, as though he is merely responding to the pain of one of his patients, but really, this dance happens far too often for it to be that, even to Wickham and Akers, who still looks amused and is now sending Watson a commiserating look.
Not sure what to make of that at all, Watson merely clears his throat, pouring himself a second cup of tea and then another for Holmes. “I do appreciate its return,” he responds after a moment too long, when it becomes clear that Holmes will be offering no verbal response whatsoever. “I’d been avoiding a trip to the milliner’s in the hopes that I’d locate it again.”
"It's his favorite," Holmes announces, suddenly proving that he may actually be listening to the conversation going on around him instead of simply existing in a state of pain and possibly mild hallucinations in reaction to that pain, because walls should not glow. Even so, a moment later, one brown eye appears through the fingers of his hand (having returned to covering his eyes after Watson had given in and aided him as any doctor with half a heart would), looking over at Mr. Wickham and Akers.
Poor Mr. Wickham appears quite taken aback by just about everything that's gone on since Holmes appeared, which of course is an effect Holmes is used to having on people despite not always quite seeing why that should be so. And Akers, currently on the list of people Holmes is displeased with in this room, simply looks amused. Holmes is less angry with Watson now, though, so he decides to be kind also to Akers, who doesn't know any better.
"Do either of you fine gentlemen have a favorite pen?" he asks, quite innocently, to their utter confusion.
This time, there is a quiet groan from the chair next to the detective, and Watson rubs his temples with his free hand. “Holmes,” he mutters in a long-suffering voice. “Do let it go, already. It is exactly like every other pen in the box I bought of them.”
He’s extremely tempted to kick the side of Holmes’ chair, or perhaps do his best to open the blinds further and let in more light, but in the end decides that such behavior would mean he would sink to Holmes’ level, and that he does not wish. He is clearly the mature one of the two of them, and someone has to act like an adult.
He grumbles for a moment under his breath instead, and shoots a glare at the other man, completely ignoring the amusement that has become visible on both their guests’ faces (Watson of course does not count himself a guest, despite the fact that he no longer lives here). “And I only put it away before I left so that you would be able to find it, rather than it becoming forever lost in the bottomless pit that is the sitting room.”
"Obviously that was not logical at all," Holmes says, now turning his one visible eye on Watson. "As you knew full well I do not keep it there and so would not think to look for it in such a common place." With the other, common, pens. No matter how much Watson insists that it is exactly like every other pen, Holmes knows that no two pens could possibly be exactly alike, which refutes Waton's entire argument. If it were like every other pen, Holmes would have picked up one of the others and not been able to tell the difference. And yet, when he put that particular pen in the drawer, when Holmes had finally discovered its location he had been able to tell it from the other, so-called "exactly alike" pens immediately.
Also, Holmes takes offense to the suggestion that the sitting room is a bottomless pit. It is not a bottomless pit. He frowns over at Watson, as though that frown could be distinguished from the pained look he's been wearing since he appeared. "I know exactly where everything is in the sitting room," he says, scowling. "Including my pen, now."
“You know where everything is in the sitting room,” Watson mutters. “You couldn’t tell me where to find a tea cozy to save your life.” He decides that it’s not worth arguing about the pen any further, as Holmes has clearly decided to dig in his heels, and there’s no way through or around that situation.
Rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath about Holmes’ clearly not knowing where the newspaper might be located whenever Gladstone is too lazy to tell them when he needs to go outside, Watson sets his teacup back on its saucer with a particularly sharp snap, making Holmes wince visibly. He would feel the slightest bit guilty about that if he, in fact, hadn’t been woken in the midst of a hangover so very many times to the sound of Holmes causing his violin to squeak as loudly and off-key as possible.
"Everything of significance," Holmes mutters in return, hand back over both of his eyes. Oh god. The sun. It shouldn't be this close to his face. Somehow this is all Watson's fault, Holmes knows it must be. Tea cozies. Who cares where a tea cozy is? Certainly not Holmes. And, as per usual, if he doesn't care about it (and thus it is not important to a case or anything else of interest to him), it doesn't matter at all. Despite his extensive skills of observation, Holmes has been known to completely disregard anything he finds uninteresting, such as dates, food, people, place names, and where he'd managed to put his shoes.
Really, though, Watson is being entirely unfair, and Holmes is just about to make this all known very loudly and dramatically, when Mr. Wickham clears his throat.
"Though I must admit to some curiosity regarding this sitting room now, I'm afraid we must be leaving," he says, and Akers nods. "I apologize if this was an inconvenient time, Mr. Holmes."
"Mr. Wickham," Holmes says quite frankly, in the midst of considering moving his hand from his eyes to cover his ears instead, "I assure you that no other time would be any better." Of course, this could be taken in several ways, and this was undoubtedly Holmes' intention, as he does not elaborate, but even with his hand covering his eyes, he can't hide the slight smile that takes over his features for just a moment.
Fighting not to roll his eyes, Watson at least stands to shake both guests’ hands again, seeing them out to the stairs and then returning to stare down at Holmes. The other man’s arm doesn’t waver from its position covering his eyes, however, and finally Watson gives in with a quiet snarl, stalking over to jerk down the blind so that the sun is no longer shining in. The room is abruptly dim, and he moves back over to Holmes, standing over him once again and crossing his arms.
Holmes’ shirtsleeves have not been rolled up in their usual manner in more than a week, and although Watson knows exactly what he’ll find beneath them, he’s not going to pretend along with this anymore. It’s been quite long enough. “You need a new case. Surely Lestrade has something for you.”
When there is no immediate response, he reaches down, jerking up the nearest sleeve all on his own and then drawing in a sharp breath when he sees the black and purple bruises mottling Holmes’ forearms, needlemarks, and many of them. More than he’s seen there in years.
“What the bloody hell is wrong with you?!” he half-shouts. “It’s barely been two weeks since the Benton case ended!”
Once again, Holmes does nothing but flinch and make a pained sound, and Watson has had enough. Turning on his heel, he marches into the sitting room and drops down onto his hands and knees, searching… and finally locates more than half a dozen small glass bottles, either empty or half-full, of Holmes’ seven percent solution.
Growling and swearing quite loudly, he pitches one after the other at the wall, each one making a satisfying shattering sound, until they’re finally all broken, the chemical now staining the wallpaper beneath the V. R. bullet-hole insignia. There is a wordless yell from behind him, and when he turns he’s promptly punched so hard that he sees stars, knocked back into a table. But Holmes is nowhere approaching hale at the moment, while Watson is at his full strength, and he tackles Holmes with a yell of his own, his shoulder hitting the other man in the middle of his chest, knocking Holmes to the ground beneath him.
“What is it in you that has you so intent on self-destruction?” he growls, clearly just… finished with being patient. “You are the worst I’ve possibly ever seen you!”
Finding himself very suddenly on the floor with Watson on top of him and no idea how he managed to get there, Holmes nevertheless manages to respond quickly (if not verbally), ignoring the spots in his vision and managing to focus on Watson, who is growling at him words that Holmes in his current state can barely understand. Frankly, right now all he can understand is that Watson is yelling at him, has him pinned, and had just destroyed several bottles his seven percent solution, which he needs.
Frankly, Holmes has no idea why this even matters, he has nothing else to do and he does not care what Watson thinks and Watson has no right to go about destroying anything of his at all, not to mention shouting at him and acting all high-and-mighty. He has a wife and his practice and life to go back to when he leaves here. Holmes has nothing and no one. His life is on hold until the next case, and if he doesn’t have something to do, to bloody think about god anything, he will implode and no one would notice, least of all Dr. Watson of Cavendish place.
Suddenly more than furious just about the destruction of his solution, Holmes begins struggling wildly, trying to get Watson off of him, snarling as he is unable to form words to express his rage and whatever else that is (hopelessness, the part of his mind that won’t shut down even now says quietly). But the look in his eyes expresses it more neatly than his words ever could, along with what might be an attempt to strangle the doctor.
But Watson is too strong, or Holmes is too weak, and if Watson doesn’t get off of him Holmes is going to kill him. “Why do you care?! You don’t- live here,” Holmes finally manages, barely coherent as he struggles violently, voice hoarse from more than just lying in bed for days now. Anger, yes, and an inability to breathe suddenly. He’s going to pass out. Maybe he can stop then, maybe he won’t wake up until Watson is gone or he will and Watson will be back. “Get- off, getoffofme.”
Watson goes very still when Holmes snarls that he, Watson, doesn’t live here anymore, and hence, why should he care? Every muscle in Watson goes very still, not releasing Holmes in the least, and in fact his writ on his friend’s already-bruised wrists tightens painfully. He has to hold himself back from striking another blow, then, and is in fact extremely close to the line he can’t cross, not right now, not with Holmes too weak to fight back.
“No,” he says in a low voice, his tone dangerously even. “No, I won’t.”
He has to fight back the hurt that that barb had delivered, the pain resulting from an accusation that Watson wouldn’t care. “Don’t you ever,” he says, his voice low and deceptively calm, “say something like that to me again.” His head lowers so that his face is inches from Holmes’, the color drained from it. “I care, you fucking bastard. I care.”
Holmes struggles again, But Watson holds him down and himself up quite effortlessly. His shoulder and leg will make him regret it the next day, he knows, but he doesn’t even recall just now that they’re a problem. In fact, his body is heating up in the strangest way, but the strangeness is not what he’s dwelling on at the moment. No, it’s the fact that he really wants to do something right now, has the overwhelming urge, no, need to do something-
And that something is apparently to lean down and kiss his best friend, more of an attack on Holmes’ mouth than anything else. And his mind promptly vacates the premises, and in fact may have vacated this plane of existence altogether because he’s lying in the sitting room pinning Holmes down and kissing him, another man, Holmes, and he’s not bothering to stop and recall that he’s actually holding the other man there against his will. But then again, Holmes isn’t exactly fighting against him.
~~~~~
Part Nine