AN: So, this is H/W. Maybe not blatantly so, but more in the tradition of the Anne Rice vampire Chronicles, where Anne Rice proves that more ambiguous descriptions can be SO much more.
The words on the gravestone burn like fiery arrows into his retinas.
SHERLOCK HOLMES
And below that, in smaller type, as though cast into shadow by the power of the first two words:
World's greatest consulting detective. The wisest man we've ever known.
He takes off his gloves. Slowly. The leather sticks to his wet hands, sticky and warm. He crouches down in front of the simple marker that says so much in so few words. His gloveless fingers trace the words and at each curvature he feels a small, pinpricking stab of regret near his thumping heart.
He places the raggedy bunch of flowers in front of the stone. Some of them are sunflowers, mixed in with oh God, is that a dandolien? He sniffles as the potent, delicate little weed disguised as a flower tickles the tip of his nose.
Sunflowers are worse though, he ruminates, so full of life one day, their wide, yellow faces cast down in shame and defeat the next, and then on the third day, dead.
"And so here you are, the nicest plot in the cemetery. You've done well for yourself."
He pauses. His next words come with conviction, anger even.
"It's like you had something to prove, the way you died. It was daring, falling in Moriarty's arms off a cliff. I'll give you that. Something straight out a penny dreadful. I had always imagined you'd do something like that, just not...the final dying embrace with your enemy was a little too much."
The gloves dangle loosely from his delicate fingers. He pushes a hand down into the dirt, assisting himself to his feet. He thinks about putting on the gloves again, but he'll just wind up taking them off. He feels like he's spiraling out of control and away from reason. It terrifies him.
He is paranoid. This is not logical.
"You didn't have to do this, you didn't have to die. There were other ways you could have won the game, you know."
He spits the words bitterly from his constricting throat. The wind blows through long hair, threaded with the first streaks of grey.
He doesn't hear the footsteps until he feels a hot breath on his neck and he barely restrains himself from whirling around.
John Watson stands behind him, an expression of open, child-like curiosity on his face. Bless him.
He looks younger than Holmes, though his face has lines that weren't there before. He doesn't look Watson directly in the eyes, because he knows without a doubt that Watson would know it was him then. And he can't have any of that yet. He wants him at that moment, more than he has ever wanted anything, after death or before. He wants to melt into his arms like in the old days and feel his chin resting on top Watson's mess of unruly hair.
Watson. His Boswell.
Sherlock Holmes tells his heart to stop pounding so furiously, makes himself practice the calming breathing techiques he'd learned in Japan during the worst of his nightmares, when the monks had told him calm was always an ooohm and a breath away.
The scent of his salt skin mere inches away is intoxicating. The sun beats down with a vengeance through swirls of fog.
"Who are you?" Asks Watson.
"A friend of your friend's," said Holmes, making his voice unnaturally deep. He hopes he is doing a good enough job of it.
"Really? How did you know Holmes?"
"Oh, the likes of him helped me out of a couple of muddles." The roguish voice came naturally. Thank God.
"Oh good. Uh-I-"
"I'll be getting out of your way, right enough. Just came to pay my respects to the old master."
"Right," said Watson, then regaining himself, "No, stay as long as you want. It's a public space."
The rougish merchant/sailor/thug stares at the ground and remembers the monks in the flowing black robes, and the technique of staring at the walls until all thoughts shot out of your brain, and nothing remained but a ringing echo in his ears. He tries to clear his head so that the logical thoughts will come back, and he will no longer think of their proximity and the way the sunlight illuminates Doctor Watson's hair. Or the way Watson's fingers twitch nervously at his sides, or how clever and agile those fingers can be.
Doctor Watson takes a deep breath that is miles away from steady. "I talk to him sometimes. It's odd, but I get the feeling he can hear me...I don't know why I'm telling you this."
"I talk to him too," says the merchant. "Sometimes, if you listen close enough, he whispers back an answer."
The Doctor's eyebrows rise, as if trying to say that's a queer thought, you strange old man.
"I was raised thinkin' religious thoughts, sir. All's of what I just said is nonsense, nothing more. Don't be regardin' me as though I'm a mad hatter at your tea party."
"My God, you're funny!" Says Watson, and begins to laugh for what Sherlock Holmes regards must be the first time in months. "You remind me of him, in a way. He was always saying incredible things that no one believed. Until they finally had to."
Holmes gets a strange, fleeting satisfaction in making him laugh. All he's done these past few months is make him cry, and now it feels good to turn the tide around.
"I've been told I'm a wee spot funny in the head. But me nan did go and drop me as a lad. I still has this soft spot on me head, right near the temple. Ah, I'm a spot mad, but your friend was a spot madder."
"He was, wasn't he?" says the doctor. "He was incredible though."
"That he was," breathes Holmes softly. "The world was too small to contain him."
Watson frowns. The merchant takes the opportunity to pick up a sunflower and twirl it between his nimble fingers.
"He hated sunflowers," the merchant says. "Said they were the worst kind of flower. All they did was die."
"And yet you brought him sunflowers?"
"He had a queer since of humour. Sunflowers on his grave would have sent him right into a laughing riot."
"He's also allergic to dandelions, I regret to inform you."
The merchant keeps his watering, offended eyes on the raggedy flowers.
"I miss him so much," says the Doctor, his voice thick with emotion. "Sometimes I think it has to be one of his plot twists. He never let me know what we plotting, and then in the end he would tell me everything. He'd lay all the cards on the table, and it would all make sense."
"You think he's withholding cards?"
"No." The single word, spoken in a breathless punch, fires an arrow into the merchant's chest. "He wouldn't do that to me. I mean, he wasn't cold, you know? I might have let on that he was in my stories, but he had a heart."
"He was a good man," Holmes says, and felt his hands tremble as he fits them into the gloves. "He'd do anything for a friend, he would. Anything to protect his friends."
The bitterness of his tone is like acid to his ears. He must go before something slips, before the Doctor sees that underneath the face makeup, the fake nose, and the false, yellowed teeth is a man he once knew and loved. A man that betrayed him in an effort to save his life.
"Good bye, Mr. Holmes, you were a fine soul." Holmes salutes his own grave and then turns his back and walks away.
"Wait!" Cries the Doctor. "I didn't get your name."
He half turns to take in the disheveled figure in his wrinkled trousers and white button-down shirt, fresh from doctoring. "Sherringford," says Holmes, and instanty regrets it. Too flippant.
"Oh." He nods, once, the similiarities of the names not occurring to him. "It was nice to meet you."
Holmes is already at the crest of the hill. He doesn't risk turning around a final time, though he wants to so badly.
He calculates risk versus reward, and finally decides it is worth the risk. Doctor Watson stands before his grave a broken man. His hands twist into his wild, windblown hair and tear at its edges. His shirt is too large on his scrawny frame. He shakes like a wet dog, and the wind seems enough to lift him away. An evening storm is rolling in, the clouds heavy with rain.
He wants to run down the hill.
He stands and watches the only man he ever loved, and knows it is all his fault. Nothing he can do will ever fix this.
"Good night, Watson," he whispers, and feels a queer, unexpected dampness on his warming cheeks seconds before the rain breaks loose.