Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes & Co. are the original creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Warnings/Rating: PG-13 for insinuated homosexuality
Author's Note: Another fill for a prompt from the shkinkmeme over at Livejournal. Mythology has always been one of my passions, so this was a lot of fun to write!
Chapter 1
He normally liked the sea. It was in his blood; his mother had come from a long family line of fishermen and sailors. Right now, though, standing on this beach and watching the North Sea waves crash into the rocks, all he could think was that he was missing London.
Watson may have been a doctor himself, but he was still as prone to illness as any other man. After a relapse of the fever that had nearly killed him in India, the physician treating him had recommended he take a holiday away from the city, both for a little peace and for cleaner air. Reluctantly, Watson himself had agreed with the suggestion, if only to ward off another relapse. He was sick and tired of always being sick and tired. A holiday by the sea would do him a lot of good.
Watson reminded himself of these things as he meandered along the beach. True, he missed the activity and energy of London, but he also appreciated the charms of the smaller seaside town in which he was staying. It wasn't as bad as he was making it out to be. He took in a deep breath, humming with pleasure at the taste of salt and seaweed on his tongue.
He watched the other people further down the beach, his attention drawn to the laughter of the young lads off to his right. They were throwing a ball back and forth between them, narrowly missing a tall, dark-haired man heading for the path leading inland. The man ducked and called out to them, and the boys gleefully scattered with devious giggles. Watson smiled. It really wasn't so bad. If anything, he thought, he was mostly just upset about leaving London and coming here because he had to, rather than because he wanted to.
While he walked, he leaned on his cane as best as he could. The stick sunk deep into the sand with every step, making Watson's balance even shakier than normal. Spying a stretch of rocks a few dozen yards away, he decided to head for the more solid ground, from which he could look out at the water without falling face first into the sand.
The stone protruding up from the sand started about ankle-height and then sloped higher until it was nearly level with Watson's head, making it fairly easy for him to clamber his way up. He stood on the top, breathing a little heavy and clutching at his cane with white knuckles. The medical man in him knew he shouldn't be so hard on his leg so soon, but the soldier was tired of feeling weak. Out of breath and sore from walking a few feet up a reasonably gentle slope! The bed rest was important yes, but getting this out of shape just wouldn't do.
Looking out at the horizon, Watson never saw the small chasm at his feet until it was too late. He took one step, two steps, three onto the edge of the rock, and promptly his bad leg slipped out from under him. His cane dropped and he wheeled his arms wildly, seeing sky and sea and sand go spinning in his vision as he tumbled off the rock and landed hard on the sand below.
For a moment he just lay there, breathing hard through gritted teeth and waiting for the painful throbbing in his leg to stop. The colorful starbursts dancing in front of his eyes from the pain were slow to fade. When his vision finally cleared a little, Watson blinked up at the expansive evening sky, the top edges of the rocks in his peripheral vision. Apparently, he had slipped down a sheer rock face overlooking a low, narrow sand bar that had been hidden from view amongst the rocks.
Grateful that his landing had at least been softer than if he'd fallen onto stone, he pushed himself up, spitting out sand and biting back a groan of pain at the twinge running through his thigh. He clasped one hand at the mostly healed wound, massaging it gingerly in an attempt to relieve the ache. Blearily, he noticed his cane a few inches from his face and grabbed it, using it to help push his uncooperative body up.
He had just raised himself onto his hands and knees when he noticed the sleek dark fur less than a foot away from his face. Watson pitched himself back with a bitten-back cry, fearing he had stumbled onto some sleeping creature. The last thing he wanted to do was climb back up the rock with a hurt leg and an angry seal chasing him.
The dark shape didn't move. He stared at it, brows coming together in a puzzled frown when he realized it was too small and shapeless to be a seal. Cautiously, he crept a little closer, nudging it with his cane. The pile of fur didn't move, and he realized that was all it was: a pile of fur.
Bemused, he reached out to stroke the fur, wondering who would have left such a fine fur coat on the beach. He picked it up and held it out, shaking it out a little.
It was most certainly not a coat. It was a sealskin. An actual pelt; body, flippers, head, the whole skin of the animal was hanging from Watson's fingertips.
Carefully he laid it out flat upon the rocks, brushing away some sand. He turned it over belly-up, and examined the long slit up the center with a medical eye. This was no clean cut made by knife, or scalpel, or shears. The pelt looked as though it had been torn, ripped apart in an uneven line down almost the exact middle. He pulled one side back and felt the moist underside of the skin. It was warm to the touch. It felt strange for what it was; it still felt alive.
His grandmother's rough Scottish voice echoed in his ears as he stared at the pelt in his hands, repeating to him the seamen's lore and legends told to her by her fisherman father and grandfather. Tales of sea-beasts, of mermaids, and of beautiful Selkies, seals who could shed their skin and reveal the lovely woman underneath.
"If ye find a Selkie's skin on the beach," she had told a young Watson, with his chin nestled on her knees, "and if ye take the skin, ye can make a wife of her. And she is a good and loving wife, the Selkie-lady. But ye mustn't let her have the skin back, or she will disappear back to the sea that bore her."
Watson felt a wave of shock sweep over him, as though he'd stepped into the freezing sea itself. He had been raised on those stories, and even past childhood, through medical school and war, and illness and death, he had clung to a subtle belief in it. He still held those convictions now, however quieted they had been by time and experience. He had never seen anything of that like for himself, until now.
He looked around. The creature had picked a good hiding place for it's pelt, if it truly was a real Selkie skin. If he had not slipped into the crevice, he probably never would've found it. It was pure luck on Watson's part that brought him this opportunity, and pure luck on the Selkie's part that he was a far better man than many others who could potentially have come across it.
He heard those boys shrieking at each other down the shore a ways and frowned. Someone could still find it, if he just left it there. He had not intention of taking it with him, however; how would he find the Selkie to return it? Watson cast glance at the sun sinking below the horizon far inland. Night would soon overtake the sky entirely, but there were few clouds, and it was not too cold.
Carefully taking the skin and placing it back where he had found it, Watson went back around the rocks and climbed back up to the top once more, cautiously avoiding the crevice this time. He found a spot overlooking the hiding place so that he could keep an eye on it and settled in to wait, watching the light from the setting sun dance across the surface of the waves.
End Chapter 1
Hello again, friend of a friend! To returning readers, welcome back! To the new faces, I hope you'll stick around! If this is the first piece by me you've read, I've got several more, spanning several fandoms, so be sure to drop my my profile and check those out!
In regards to this particular story, Skins and Hearts is currently three chapters long, but I can feel plot bunnies starting to stir, so there may be more in the future. For now, I'm calling it finished, but I may eventually open it back up and start adding more to it. It depends on how busy I am with other projects and how hard those plot bunnies bite down. :) Chapter 2 will be up in one week, and chapter 3 the week after that. I hope you enjoy!