I fingered the razor gingerly, shifting it about in my grip, trying, fruitlessly, to feel comfortable.

I ran a thumb gently down the blades. They were sharp. No more delaying. No more putting off. It was today, everything had to happen today or not at all.

I lifted my hand, firmly grasping the handle, and noticed that I was shaking. I glared at my shuddering hand, tense wrist, wishing that it would stop. It didn't.

The feeling of unbearable weariness almost managed to drown the waves of doubt, guilt. Not quite. Agony was still poking around the edges, slowly eating the exhaustion away until once again, it stood dominating my mind, foremost as I made the first stroke on my chin.

Today was my wedding day. The day when I would be chained to a life of happily married bliss with a wonderful lady. Tonight, I would sleep in a new bed. A soft one, my wife beside me. We would join and partake in the pleasures of flesh and perhaps the bitterness would waver for a while.

Perhaps it wouldn't.

I continued to shave, almost cross eyed in the mirror in ferocious concentration, as I contemplated the things that those blades could do…so close to my throat.

Not that I'd ever consider doing them…no, no.

The blade stroked carefully around my mustache, freshly trimmed, and I paused, shifted, and nicked myself. I hissed in pain and reached automatically for some gauze, considering my reflection in the mirror as I dabbed at the tiny slit.

The mustache. The recent caricatures which had begun to appear in Punch, belittling myself and Holmes almost as much as they glorified us, always made more of it than it was. It was an essential defining factor – Watson, the portly man with the mustache, forever trailing behind the great detective like a little puppy.

No more. I had denounced all of that, denounced him, taken Mary as a token of my defiance. If anything more was needed to make the split absolute, it was this.

I gazed at myself in the dusty mirror, trying to see my face without the bristle of hair. In my mind's eye it looked out of place in this familiar room. But now I was out of place in this familiar routine, in this familiar life. I was sick and tired of being the foil.

Holmes and I. So different. I used to think that opposites in character attracted, were good for each other, created a balance. Well, no more.

With a steady hand, I raised my arm to shave off my mustache, quelling the doubt forever.

A new day, I told myself resolutely, a new life, a new Watson.

When I made love to my wife that evening, the bitterness had gone.


A/N: I apologise for all and any errors, and would like to point out that this is just my take on Watson's possible feelings, and slightly over the top actions. I have exaggerated everything, but then, this is drabble, and I'm making the most of a single scene. Mustache has been spelt the British way.