0o0
Exhaustion overwhelms Watson, like the dusk blanketing the fast-moving terrain outside a boxcar that rattles toward Switzerland. Everything hurts; his skin feeling as if he's been stung by a nest of bees and he vaguely wonders how many splinters are still lodged in his flesh, every drop of sweat making them burn mercilessly.
Holmes is calmer now but his eyes are dazed and his cheek twitches alarmingly still, hours after the administration of whatever chemical concoction was in that hypodermic. Juice of sheep glands my arse, Watson thinks uncharitably, but he keeps his fingers close to Holmes' pulse just in case.
"That was a fantastic escape," Holmes babbles, his head bobbing in Watson's general direction. "Top shelf."
Watson is pretty sure that Holmes has no idea what he's saying. "We lost most of our party and barely made it out with our lives. It was a lousy escape."
"Ah, but all for the greater good," Holmes says, but his expression falls, as if he's no longer quite in control of what he's saying.
Watson doesn't reply, but puts Holmes' feet up higher on his lap instead - just in case. Shock can kill, as he was just so clearly reminded.
The boxcar rocks along the tracks and Watson watches as Simza curls up and goes to sleep. She's a strong woman, not prone toward tears, like he was when he thought that Holmes would never come back. Watson is jealous of her in a way; it doesn't seem to bother her that she's miles from nowhere - she's at home no matter where she might roam and the home he thought he'd found just a day or so before?
Still dangling just out of his grasp.
"I know you're stressed, Watson," Holmes says, and Watson has to reach out to stop Holmes from clawing at his mangled shoulder. He's seen this reaction before in wounded men; like an animal worrying at a sore, they have to be kept from constantly touching it. "But all will be right as rain in the end. I have a plan ..."
Watson wants to yell at him, shake him to at least shut up with his cheerful pronunciations, but he simply sits and listens and thinks about what he'll have to do to get Holmes back into something resembling fighting shape if he truly plans on stopping Moriarty.
He knows he can't do this alone.
"Do you remember when we were in Brighton?" Holmes asks, his subjects changing as rapidly as his staccato heartbeat. "That ridiculous bath house ..."
Jaw tense enough to crack, Watson shakes his head. "I was never in Brighton. Not with you."
"Lying bastard," Holmes laughs, his dirty, bloody face crinkling with mirth. "Maybe you don't really remember - we didn't admire the scenery much, did we? It could have been one of a dozen dark rooms, I suppose. But I remember."
"Shut up and go to sleep," Watson orders, his distressed temper growing even shorter if that were possible. We made a promise not to speak of it ... you promised that we wouldn't.
Holmes stares at him like he's a traitor. Or worse. "I'll sleep when I'm dead."
"Literally, it seems," Watson shoots back, but the boxcar is growing too dark for further conversation and they both turn quiet with the night.
If Watson strains, he can hear Holmes' breathing, over the roll of the wheels on the tracks. He slides closer, then even more so when Holmes groans as he dozes, the pain in his arm truly agonizing by now. If Watson moves just so he can pull the shivering body into his embrace - just for warmth really and ignore the fact that Holmes' face is pressed desperately to his throat. Something wet and salty is rolling down the skin of Watson's neck, making the dozens of tiny cuts there prickle with pain.
He ignores that too.
"I want to go home," Watson whispers to no one in particular, even through the sudden doubt of where exactly that home might be.
0o0
The next morning is an awful scramble to see where they are and to check on Holmes who is very much aware and wide-eyed with the agony of his wound.
The near-deadly puncture is one thing - the damage done to the skeletal musculature of the shoulder is another entirely. Watson's seen men cry like babies when their shoulders become dislocated and he wouldn't be surprised if most of the tissue as well as the joint has been damaged beyond repair from the dangling. He doesn't want to say anything, but it's almost a certainty that Holmes - if he survives - will never play his violin again.
This thought hurts Watson more than he'd like to admit.
"Sick bastard," he hisses as he gingerly checks beneath his makeshift bandages, one of them Mary's ruined scarf, all of them filthy beyond use, but there is nothing else to be had. They've never faced anyone of Professor Moriarty's gleeful depravity, the sheer magnitude of his evil nauseates Watson, making the soldier in him cringe at the thought of even a single one of those weapons he's developed ever making it onto a battlefield. "Sick, sick bastard," he repeats, more forcefully.
"Ow," Holmes interjects, too weakly for Watson's taste. "Are we near Meiringen yet?"
"Two hours it looks," says Simza, chewing on a stick of some type, another of which she offers to Holmes. "This will hold you over until then. Helps with the pain."
He accepts it in his mouth and slowly gnaws on it. Watson doesn't bother asking what it is, it hardly matters at this point; Holmes needs care far beyond Romani folk medicine.
They go on a little further before the train slows down on a hill and Watson swings himself over to the door, to sit on the edge of the open car. He dandles his legs to bring some blood back into them while breathing in air and sunshine that is far too cheery-looking for how he feels.
Tomas, their other companion is as quiet as a mouse, watching over Watson's shoulder as the beautiful scenery slips by. There is nothing left to do except survive until Switzerland and Watson listens as Simza begins to sing again, but a different song, maybe worried that the last one was the cause of near-fatal results.
Part of him wants to rail against the peacefulness of their trip, this travesty of an adventure and Watson's so very tired of knowing the weight of the world - as well as Holmes' existence - rests on his shoulders. He wants a normal life, for god's sake, he's earned some damned boredom. He wants to treat gout and wonder what biscuits are for tea today. He wants to read the morning paper and pat his children on the head goodnight and never again have to fight for Holmes' life.
And since the only way he'll ever get to do that is by leaving the selfish bastard ...
"You'll be home soon," Holmes calls out, as if he can read Watson's thoughts just by examining the stooped line of his back. "Soon, Doctor."
Watson's laughter is without any mirth at all. "Just concentrate on how we're going to get out of this car in one piece. I'm not sure it will stop when we need it to."
"My brother has it all figured out." Holmes says confidently, or as confidently as a man with one useful arm and possibly near death can sound. "Worry not."
"Right," Watson replies sourly, glancing up at Tomas who is still looking serenely out over the green fields. "Just like he's figured everything else out, I'm sure, without getting up from the dinner table."
"There's something to be said for inactivity, I'm sure," Holmes says, levering himself up with Simza's help. "I'm just not certain what that is."
"I'm looking forward to finding out," Watson says pointedly, turning toward him. "Once this is over."
Holmes' brown eyes are as solemn as he's ever seen them. "You will. Once this is over."
0o0
It does end, but not in the way Watson imagined it would.
Holmes is truly dead, his body never to be found and Watson finds himself at Holmes' memorial service, too shocked to throw the disgraceful tantrum his heart is demanding he have - smashing glasses and overturning tables and screaming at the top of his lungs, railing against the unfairness of it all.
He can only hide in the corner and close his eyes, shutting out the spectacle of a hundred or more mourners filling the church. He wants to get rid of them, lash out and clear the temple of these non-friends, but he can't move. He can only keep praying that he'll wake up from this nightmare soon.
It's only Simza's little hand in his that keeps him tethered to reality and he knows she's crying, so he lets her do that for him. His wife is somewhere, dressed in blue - blue, because she's not cynical enough to publicly mourn what she won't miss - wondering aloud who all these people might be to Mycroft who sarcastically wonders right back at her. Mrs. Hudson silently wipes her eyes as Big Joe sighs with Captain Tanner and Watson doesn't have to look to know that's what's happening.
Eventually it's Lestrade and Clarky who are left to persuade Watson to open his eyes and leave, which they do with bumbling compassion. Numbly, he follows them out into the damp London afternoon, where he's whisked away from strangers, wishing him well. They ply him with whiskey until he's amiable enough to bring home and he sleeps on the couch of his study for two days straight.
On the third day he buys a typewriter because writing by hand won't go fast enough and there's so very, very much to tell about his good friend, Sherlock Holmes, the best and wisest man he's ever known.
He will tell Holmes' story and it will be a parcel of half-truths, like a certain night in Brighton he's conveniently forgotten for the better part of six years. Holmes will be the genius and Watson will be the fool and in this way they will always be together, never to die, eyes closed and hearts aching.
And John Watson isn't bored at all when he writes, which is every day, almost all day long, sometimes most of the night too, his hands filthy with ink. He's quite content, ignoring most everything - and everyone - else as he tells story after story about Holmes, who is safe and wonderful and they are happy with one another and that, at least until the final problem, is how it will stay.
He's finally, thank God, in a home that's all his own.
0o0
end