Once upon a time, there was a detective. The world's first consulting detective.
He was a man immune from everything. Happiness, sadness, love, friendship. Or so he said. But even the greatest of men are not immune from loneliness.
And then, there was the doctor. An army surgeon, wounded, tired, ill. Seen more of life then he wanted to. A broken piece, people sniggered.
And, of course, then there was the house. Or flat, which they came to share. 221b Baker Street, with the smiling landlady, with her gentle smile and wonderful cooking.
The detective's brother remarked that it would not be a month before his flat mate moved out. He bowed to this theory, well aware of his eccentricities and also well aware that his brother was never wrong.
For once, they both were.
Watson was resilient. He had been a soldier, an army surgeon, but most importantly, as Holmes discovers, he was a good man.
In his world, very few are there who are good men.
Watson says that Holmes is a cold machine, a brain without a heart, but he wonders if this description is justified when he sees him addressing a group of street boys with all the gentleness of a father.
His pen finds his notebook and leaves a little note : Has a constant element of surprise
Unsurprisingly, his companion notes the same of him.
In their early friendship, when they caught themselves surreptitiously looking at each other, they would become flustered very quickly. Holmes would make some off hand remark about Watson's wound paining him, and Watson would eagerly accept that though it was never the case.
None were willing to accept that they were curious about each other.
His brother remarks at the sudden change in him but he waves it off as an effect of London. It bothers him, very much. It has been only a year for god's sake! I can to be so moldable, that he can change me so very quickly. He, of course, misses his brother's secret smile.
Then comes the sudden tide of cases and they both are swept away into it, and Holmes wonders why he feels so strange, Disturbed, he racks the recesses of his mind and comes to a conclusion. Contented…I'm contented.
Then came Watson's marriage and suddenly life no longer seemed fast paced. The sparkle had gone, the cocaine had come instead. Though Watson informs him that he is always at hand, he still feels angry. At Watson, at himself, for making them so dependent on each other. Sometimes, he notes Watson's own restlessness, and wonders if he is not the only one.
It took Moriarty and a supposed death of three years to teach him what he had lost. My heart is locked in an iron box and I cannot find the key. When I find the key it will not open for I have gone so long without emotions that it has rusted over.
It took one sight of his friend's unconscious body to see what he had missed, to realize what he had done. And the box developed the tiniest of cracks, allowing just a little to seep out.
He had never been happy about that.
The years flash by them, Mycroft's meeting, a thousand more cases, of which less then half Watson had records. He calls many of them his most important cases but misses out a most vital one.
And finally, our last note. It took a bullet, grazing by Watson's leg, a small flinch of pain, to realize just what he had. The crack grew deeper and more emotion than he intended spilled out before he could control himself. But he is not ashamed. Not this time.
Many years later, when he stands by his Sussex farmhouse talking with his friend, he realizes what he had all this time.
This, then, is friendship.
Ugh I'm putting up way too many one shots! OK about this one I just wanted to try a new style. Please tell me if it was alright and I didn't get too sappy in the end or something.
