Written for the LiveJournal community Watsons_Woes for their July Writing Prompts challenge. The prompt for day 27 was: Like gold to airy thinness beat: Pick up the book you're currently reading (or the closest one to you). Pick a random page, and find a description or simile. Use that - and be sure to tell us what your original description is, and what's the source.
My source ended up being Psalm 38:13 NIV: I am like the deaf, who cannot hear, like the mute, who cannot speak; (the context is about being miserable, which inspired the story as much as the verse itself did)
This story uses four different Holmes universes: canon, Granada TV series, RDJ-as-Holmes movies, and BBC TV series (in that order), but it's not a crossover...
_Parallels_
Mary was a sympathetic soul and Watson was grateful for her compassion when he returned from Switzerland tired and heartsick. She encouraged him to talk to her about the pain of Holmes' death, but Watson found he could not, even with her. The mere thought of the last days with Holmes and how he'd left him alone at the Falls made his chest clench with pain and guilt. When Mary recognized his trouble, she wisely suggested that he write about Holmes instead. He took up his pen and the stories spilled out as quickly as he could write them down.
.
Mrs. Hudson was very understanding when Dr. Watson told her after the funeral that he could not return to living at Baker Street, at least not yet. She encouraged him to go buy a practice like he'd been considering for years; that was precisely his intention. Seeing patients was a welcome distraction from the fact that he couldn't bear to even hear his dear friend's name, but the practice was not busy enough to serve as his only occupation. A chance meeting with Lestrade led to him working as a police surgeon, which seemed a fitting tribute to Holmes' legacy.
.
For weeks and then months, the clack of the typewriter was a balm as he lanced the wound that Holmes' leaving had inflicted. In all that time, Holmes' name was never spoken. Even as they rescheduled the trip to Brighton and occasionally mentioned him lightly, Holmes was only ever referred to as He. He was the looming, invisible cloud over their heads, He was what still kept Watson's full attention from Mary, He was the driving force behind Watson's mania to write all of Holmes' stories. But the stories were almost done, and what came after, neither of them knew.
.
After posting a brief entry about Sherlock's fall, John disabled the comment notifications and turned his back on the blog. Reading the comments would be too painful and replying to them, impossible. It was months before he could bring himself to log in again. 1000 new comments, the toolbar helpfully told him. Convinced it was all spam, he clicked on the link to have a look. He read a few, then scrolled down rapidly, the words washing like waves over his weariness. On every entry he'd ever posted, multiple comments from around the world declared, "I believe in Sherlock Holmes."