Chapter Text
Chapter 4
Watson is running. Tripping over his own feet in a hurry to reach an ever-elusive glimmer of light that flickers faintly at the very edge of a thick forest of darkness that surrounds him. Darkness whispers soothingly to him, urges him to slow down his foolish, futile pursuit, to lean against a sturdy, dependable trunk of one of its many trees, to rest. You wanted this, it reminds him. This bleak, colorless quiet, this peaceful, predictable slumber of existence – it is what you have wished for.
Branches wrap around him – a gentle but unyielding hold, pull him back against the trunk of a tree. Stay, darkness compels him, its breath cold against his neck. You are tired of running. Nothing will ever disturb you here. Rest. Sleep.
And he is tired, it’s true, his legs trembling, his lungs burning from exertion. And it is tempting, oh so tempting to give in, to rest his weary bones if only for a while, to close his eyes, to sleep. But he needs that glimmer of light, he knows it. Can feel it with every fiber of his being. So he struggles against the ensnaring grasp, because that light is moving further away, growing fainter with each passing second. And he needs to get to it. Desperately. Before it disappears altogether.
Let it go, darkness insists even as he finally manages to break free of its hold and lurches toward the enchanting glow up ahead. You don’t need it, you’ll only get burned. He ignores it, sprints the few remaining yards separating him from the forest’s edge, bursting triumphantly into the open meadow beyond.
But the light flickers regretfully as he reaches for it, his fingers just barely grazing its achingly familiar golden warmth, wavers and goes out, plunging him whole into the awaiting blackness.
***
Watson wakes with a gasp, his chest tight with misery. Blue eyes, haunted by the remnants of the disturbingly prophetic dream, flit wildly around the room, grasping for the familiarity of his surroundings as the dream gradually fades away. Calmer now, he drops his gaze down to the bed he’s kept vigil beside for the past week and… freezes, finding himself under a hooded, wary scrutiny of a pair of familiar whiskey-brown eyes.
“Holmes!” he lurches forward, nearly toppling off his chair in the excitement of seeing Holmes awake, finally, after days and days of breath-bated waiting and despair-tinged hope. Grabs for the glass of water on the bedside table, reaching with his other hand for Holmes’s good shoulder with the intent to lift him up a bit to help him drink. But something in Holmes’s expression stays his hand, and he hesitates, drink in hand, suddenly uncertain that his touch would be welcome.
Holmes regards him silently from under the thick mesh of eyelashes, nods his permission, his gaze shifting hungrily to the glass. And Watson moves in, does his best to control the slight tremble of his fingers as he helps prop his friend up while he drinks.
“I thought I’d dreamed it – seeing you here,” Holmes rasps out, leaning exhaustedly back onto his pillows, and there’s a kind of cool detachment in his voice that cuts Watson to his very core, leaves his heart a chilled, quivering mess. “I remember telling Mycroft my feelings with regards to your presence here. I was rather clear, I believe.”
Watson swallows, mouth dry as the desert sands of Kandahar. There was so much he wanted to say to Holmes, so many arguments he had planned out in his head, but it all became jumbled in the wake of his nightmare and he struggles to string together the proper words.
“You… you were dying,” he fumbles, hands twitching helplessly in his lap. “Your brother thought–”
Holmes hums in understanding, lets his eyes slip closed. “So it appears you saved my life yet again, my dear Doctor,” he murmurs tiredly, and there’s a pained grimace that flickers briefly across his features, and Watson isn’t at all sure the pain is physical alone. “I’m grateful.” He blinks his eyes open again, favors Watson with a look of the same cold scrutiny that Watson had more than once seen him direct at the clients he suspected were lying to him. “But your job is done now. I am no longer in danger of expiring any time soon. You are free to leave.”
“No, I–” Watson scrambles clumsily for words, as desperate as a drunk man is for purchase when he feels the ground slip from under his feet. “I can stay… I should… I should stay.”
“I insist.”
The simple, hollow-voiced demand is like a bucket of ice-cold water over Watson’s attempts, what few arguments he had remaining leaving him in a rush. He blinks rapidly at his friend, feeling suddenly, hopelessly bereft – a storm-ravaged sailboat adrift at sea. He searches Holmes’s face for some sign of hesitation there, a concession, an opening he could latch on to. But Holmes is no longer looking his way, his gaze lost somewhere in the distance above Watson’s shoulder, and there’s nothing left for Watson to say.
He stands slowly, numb with defeat. “I’ll let your brother know you’re awake,” he offers lamely, desperate to find reasons to stay and knowing with a kind of sinking certainty that he has no choice but to leave.
Holmes flicks his gaze back to him, a knowing, rueful smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “No need, my dear Watson,” he murmurs, and there’s a shadow of something like pity in those dark brown eyes as he nods at someone behind Watson’s back. “He already knows.”
***
Watson comes barging into his flatmate’s room at Baker Street two days later, and he would have been exceedingly proud of himself for managing to hold out from speaking to Holmes even that long if it weren’t for the fact that he is so absolutely livid with the man that his fury simply overshadows all else.
“What, in God’s name, were you thinking?” he blurts out the moment he steps over the threshold, his ire rising at the sight of the detective, face pinched and ghostly pale, slumped in his favorite chair at an awkward sideways angle to avoid putting pressure on his injured shoulder.
Holmes quirks an eyebrow at him, somehow managing to look unimpressed despite the obvious pain. “You have got to be more specific, old boy,” he drawls out calmly, stretching out his casted leg before him with a poorly hidden wince. “I’ve done nothing but think from the moment I woke up today.”
Watson grits his teeth, digs deep for patience. “I spent the last two days holed up in my practice, hoping that work would distract me enough that I could keep myself from running back over to your brother’s place and beg him for permission to see you.”
“I see that didn’t work out so well,” Holmes remarks, amused, and Watson feels his hands curl into fists at his sides.
“I went to your brother’s,” he hisses, “because I needed to make sure you were alright and because there was something I needed to tell you that I couldn’t hold back any longer. And then I find that not only were you not recuperating in bed as I fully expected you to be given the devastating nature of your injuries, but that you have somehow convinced him to take you back to Baker Street!” Watson’s voice rises as he speaks, words heated with righteous fury, and he takes a small amount of satisfaction in seeing Holmes flinch at the volume. “What were you thinking?”
Holmes narrows his gaze at him, humming in thought. “You needn’t have worried yourself on my behalf, Doctor,” he declares finally, his voice dull, subdued. “I recuperated enough.”
“Enough, huh,” Watson takes a step closer, stabbing an angry hand toward his bandaged shoulder. “Is that your expert medical opinion? Would you mind demonstrating your miraculous recovery for me then?”
It’s a challenge, and Watson should know better than that, because Holmes has never backed away from one. But there’s a small sadistic part of him that pushes him forward, pulls the words out of his mouth, as if hoping to goad Holmes into accepting his defeat.
Holmes’s lips twitch at the dare, the fingers of his right hand scrubbing sharply at the days-old stubble coating his sunken cheeks. “What would you have me do, Doctor?” he challenges in kind, an insane spark of defiance glimmering in the dark brown depths. “A little song and dance number perhaps? Or would a simple walking demonstration suffice?” And then, before Watson has a chance to react, he pushes himself up and out of the chair and begins to hobble unsteadily in the direction of the fireplace.
He doesn’t make it far. And Watson sees the exact moment it happens, the moment Holmes’s steely determination fails him, incapable of allowing the man to power through the crushing onslaught of pain. He sways sharply, his face paling further still, becoming a terrifying, agony-twisted mockery of a death mask, and Watson has but a split second to rush forward to anchor his friend before his legs fail him completely.
“You fool, you utter, utter fool!” he hisses, arms wrapped with careful strength around Holmes’s torso as the man slumps boneless against him, eyes slammed shut. This close he becomes uncomfortably aware of the unhealthy heat of fever still coming off Holmes’s skin, can feel the minute tremors of pain wracking his body, and the wave of worry-borne anger is nearly enough to drive him to his knees. “What the hell are you trying to prove?”
Holmes doesn’t respond right away, staying perfectly still in Watson’s arms, his breaths coming in short, pitiful gasps as he struggles to get his body back under control. Then, feeling apparently steady enough, he straightens out slowly, putting his weight back on his legs, pushes against Watson’s hold with his good hand, silently asking him to let go. Backs away a few steps when Watson does, coming to rest with his back against the mantel.
“Merely that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, my dear Doctor,” he says quietly, a stubborn set to his jaw. “And I don’t need your services, however invaluable, for the rest of my convalescence.” He smiles, a pained, artificial smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Leans heavily against the laid out brick. “I’m sure Ms. Mortan is vexed enough with me as it is for making you waste all this time at my bedside.”
Watson shakes his head, matches Holmes’s smile with an equally pained one of his own. “You’re a fool,” he murmurs, running a shaky hand through his hair and down his face. Adds brokenly, “And I’m an even bigger one.” Explains at the questioning frown on Holmes’s face, “I allowed my fears to control me. Destroyed the best thing that happened to me because I let my imagination get away with me. I was too afraid of what the imagined consequences of my actions, of our actions would be. Afraid of what you and I might lose should our relationship be discovered.” He lets out a small, defeated huff. Closes his eyes against the bitter burn of tears. Breathes in, tasting the same bitterness on his tongue, at the back of his throat. “Instead I ended up losing the only thing that truly mattered.”
Silence, heavy and uncomfortable, follows his whispered confession, and he wonders absently if any of what he just said made any difference anymore, if he didn’t make things worse. Eventually it becomes too much, and he risks opening his eyes again, risks looking at Holmes, because he just needs… he has to know.
Holmes stares back at him from underneath the messy tangle of too-long bangs, and there’s a dark whirlpool in his gaze, a dizzying turmoil of disappointment, heartache and regret. “You gained safety,” he points out finally, his voice so brittle that it seems to splinter like glass on the very air between them. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Watson shakes his head again, swallows down a tearful lump that threatens to choke him. “The only safety that matters to me is yours,” he confesses, risking a small step forward, and feels his heart twist sharply inside his chest when Holmes flinches away from him almost imperceptibly, backing further into the wall. “I’m sorry, I’ll let you be,” he murmurs, defeat settling over him like a heavy lead blanket, making his legs buckle under the weight of it. “Just… just do me a favor as your doctor….” He licks his lips nervously, nods at the half-opened door to Holmes’s bedroom. “Let me escort you to bed. Please. You shouldn’t be on your feet yet.”
Holmes regards him silently for a heartbeat longer. Then nods his acceptance, looking so tired, in so much pain all of a sudden that it’s all Watson can do not to pull him into his arms again and carry him bodily into the bedroom. Instead he slowly crosses the distance between them, reaches out to put a steadying hand on Holmes’s elbow, intending to guide him across the room. Holmes grips his forearm, staying the motion, meets Watson’s questioning gaze with a piercingly intense one of his own.
“Tell me,” he demands hoarsely, thin long fingers trembling against the fabric of Watson’s sleeve. “You said there was something urgent you couldn’t wait to tell me. So tell me.”
Watson gapes wordlessly at him, his throat clicking dryly, the maddening beat of his heart roaring in his ears. This isn’t the time, he tells himself. It’s too late. It won’t solve anything. But he can’t back away now, caught in the sharp penetrating gaze of the whiskey-brown eyes like a fly in a spider web, the feeble grip of Holmes’s fingers burning holes into the skin of his arm.
“I love you,” he rasps out, feeling very much like a condemned man walking the plank. “I love you,” he repeats, faintly aware of the hitch in Holmes’s breathing that oddly matches his own, “like I’ve never loved before… or will again.”
Holmes’s eyelashes flutter weakly, his eyes momentarily slipping closed. And then the fingers on Watson’s arm curl inexplicably, twisting the fabric trapped between them, and Watson gasps in giddy surprise as Holmes’s lips close over his own in an awkwardly urgent, bruising kiss. Moans with pleasure and need, bringing his other hand to cup the back of Holmes’s head, deepening the connection between them. He doesn’t know what this means. Can’t read Holmes’s intentions as well as he used to. Just lets himself melt into the moment, hoping, desperately hoping, that this is not a goodbye.
All too soon Holmes pulls back, a small hiss of pain reminding Watson starkly of his less-than-stellar condition. There’s a pinched look on his face, a deep crease cutting across the pale, sweat-dotted forehead – further evidence of the torment his still healing body is putting him through. But the gaze he greets Watson with is soft despite the pain, and the small smile that tugs at his lips appears genuine, tinged with a bit of timid hope.
“I always believed that safety was overrated, Doctor,” he murmurs, leaning gratefully into the gentle support of Watson’s proffered embrace. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
And his pale smile grows brighter when Watson responds unhesitatingly, “I would.”
***
Holmes kisses Watson on a Tuesday. And it’s the first day of the rest of their lives…
THE END