~ Alright... I just turned this out, so it's really raw, and I apologize... but I had to get it out! It was driving me mad! I couldn't concentrate on anything else... including homework. Err. = 3 =
Please let me know what you think! And again, I apologize if there are lots of mistakes in the spelling or the grammar... I hope you like it! ^^
~ n.t.
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Beautiful Island
He sat with his coffee in hand, warming his palm, which had become cold with the wind. There was a shuffling from his right as the man who had been sitting beside him folded his paper, tucked it beneath his left arm and made for the door. The bell tickled softly above the hum of Sunday morning chatter as he left.
Lestrade didn't like the feeling sitting with him. What he was doing now was striving to find small details in the world around him so that he might lose himself in them, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect, as what he was really doing was attempting to mimic what he'd seen the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes do time and time and time again.
He thought he had seen snowflakes, two of them, falling outside the café window, but he could have imagined it.
He didn't understand. He should be used to that: not understanding, as he rarely understood anything out of the mundane operations of the world, which, as he had learned in the course of five long, turbulent, testing, trying years, were really of very little importance in the grand scheme of things – the really grand scheme.
But this was different. This was very different. The further Lestrade dug within himself to find the source of that odd, biting, nagging thing in the back of his brain, the further it seemed to fall away. It was like a warning… like something his mother had told him, some bit of advice he'd stored away and needed now, very desperately, but couldn't remember.
What was strangest of all was the way in which his chest ached… His chest.
The aging man turned the porcelain mug round in his hands and stared down at it, idly.
It was a feeling he'd remembered from his schoolboy days. It was the feeling he felt as he'd watched his best friend get the girl they'd both fancied, and he'd let him have her even though he was cross as anything… It was a familiar feeling, but an old feeling. A childish, immature feeling he'd thought he'd graduated from, just as he'd graduated from spots and B.O.
It was an ache, certainly. It was a hungry, empty feeling, right where, technically, his heart was. It was unmistakable, painful, and impossible to ignore.
Lestrade took a deep, hollow breath, and raised his gaze to look back out the window. He felt the ache throb in a terrible sort of way upon realizing that he had been right; there were more flakes now, appearing as tiny angels in white, floating, dancing down to the asphalt earth.
He was tired. That's it; he was tired, in more ways than one. He felt as though he'd been tired for years.
He knew, yet he didn't. It was there, in the back of his brain… It was there – the little voice of advice, calmly explaining his current state of utter distress. But it was quiet, and as he approached it, digging deep and trying to understand, it would snap away like a rubber band. He'd scare it away.
"Top y'off, sir?" said a light trill.
The detective inspector's frame shook with a tremor and he turned to the waitress. She was young, and had hair like straw. In her hand was a glass mug of black coffee, softly steaming.
"Ah," he said absently, "No thanks."
The woman gave him a sort of uncertain nod and turned on her heel, heading for the next customer whose coffee looked in need of topping-off.
The tired man looked back down at his own mug. He noted that it had ceased steaming and had turned lukewarm in the time he had been seated and submerged himself in his uncomfortable thoughts.
He took both his large, dry hands and rubbed them against his face with a helpless sigh. Then he looked up at the big black clock on the café wall, pinched the skin on the bridge of his nose, pushed his chair back with a scrape, wrapped his scarf back round his neck, and left out the door, whose bell tinkled lightly as he went.
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The Yard was aflutter. The man ducked and weaved through the rushing bodies as he made for the lift that took him to his office, hoping no one would take him aside or want his attention. The clattering of feet reminded him of the bubbling of water.
He pressed the 'up' button with his thumb and waited. He tried not to think as the numbers above the lift clicked down to one. Then the cab doors slid open, revealing a woman standing inside.
Lestrade straightened. "Oh," he said, "Good morning, Donovan."
The woman in the cab raised her head and gave him a sleepy, disapproving glare. "Morning, Inspector," she responded, with strangely placed emphasis. She stepped out and placed the file she held into Lestrade's person, which he took dutifully.
"Ah," he said, "Not a good one then?"
Donovan looked up at the D.I. again. Her eyes were stony. "That depends. If you're the investigation squad, then it's grand. If you're someone like you or I, I'd say it bloody well isn't."
"And why's that?" he asked, though he knew.
"You know damn well why," said the younger woman through teeth fiercely grit, "Catching the villain's all well and good, but when it all just goes straight into that freak's inflated head…" She paused, took a dreadful deep breath and sipped her coffee mightily. "I might as well be miffed. What's the point of being on the good side if it just pisses us off in the end?"
Lestrade sighed and slowly shook his head. "As long as justice triumphs, the details shouldn't matter."
Donovan pouted her dark lips. "Yeah, 'course. Right."
The lift's doors had long closed. Lestrade pressed this thumb to the button again.
"D'you know why he bothers me so?" said Donovan.
"No," said Lestrade, "but I'm sure you'll tell me."
The woman beside the detective inspector took another breath and said, very evenly, "He is the bane of my career because he is utterly and irrevocably necessary. But what gets me – what really gets me – is that, to him, it doesn't matter who wins. It doesn't matter what side he's playing for. Whether for the good or the bad, I reckon he'd go to the ends of the bloody earth to prove to everyone that he's right. And that's all there is in him. That's it. As long as he's right…"
The girl paused again. Her silence extended so far that the inspector turned to look and found her still thinking.
Then, quietly, softly, and very sadly, she said, "nothing else matters."
Lestrade turned to face her.
"Donovan," he began, feeling strongly as though he'd stumbled upon something very odd, indeed, "you've known him just as long as I have. You should well know I feel just as you do. Don't ever think you're the only one who wishes there was another side of him… A vaguely human side. I mean, who knows? There might be, somewhere."
"Yeah, right," said the woman, "Sure. I bet he pops homes and has a nice long wank when he gets off the job."
"Oh, god!" whined the inspector with the impact of the sergeant's diction, "I... bloody well hope he doesn't."
The woman scoffed. "I'm certain he does… Fucking weirdo."
The lift's bell 'dinged', but the older man ignored the opening doors.
"Donovan… Is everything alright?"
Donovan paused. She bounced slightly on her booted heels and sucked her lips. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, and her eyes… Yet tired still, they were glossy and wide. Her forehead began to crease.
"Donovan –"
"I can't."
The woman pushed past the inspector, her face and its expression that deeply concerned him low, and clacked away against the marble floors of the Scotland Yard.
Detective Inspector Lestrade watched her go, then turned back round quickly to catch the lift doors that had nearly shut closed. He jogged in, but when he went to look once more for the younger woman he found her to have disappeared.
The doors closed again with a shunk.
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Through the haze of dreams and sleep and slumber came the disturbing buzz that was far too close.
Doctor John Watson jumped beneath his comforter and flailed his left arm in attempt to shut it off. A few tries, and once his palm met the snooze button, the doctor opened his eyes.
White. Everything was white. The floors, the walls, the curtains, his comforters… The very light, itself, was a dazzling, scotch-free white. John rolled onto his back and rubbed his face with his large, dry hands, and he sighed.
Quickly, like the pouring of a pitcher into a sink, John remembered who he was, and where he lived, and who he lived with, and all the other sorts of things one remembers upon waking from a truly deep sleep. John rolled from beneath the blanket and put his feet to the freezing wooden floor, and for a short moment he paused to appreciate that for several nights now, he had been getting the best sleep he'd gotten in years. The night terrors had completely and utterly ceased, and he knew very well why, though he'd never admit it.
The doctor sighed again, lightly, and felt the ghost of a sleepy smile pass across his thin lips. Then, slowly, he noticed the little noises coming from the living area. The smile jumped away, and he cocked his head a moment, testing, before rising to see.
John Watson neared the doorway and there was no denying it – tiny, tinkling noses. And ruffling. And a smell… a smell so familiar it made his heart give a little thump. Hesitantly, he opened his bedroom door and peered out.
"… Sherlock?"
The man in the living area turned. Against the stark whiteness of reality, he appeared like a charred tree: dark, startlingly tall and almost irrationally slender: the detective, Sherlock Holmes.
Surrounding him, amongst the usual disorderly clutter of the small flat, was a collection of cardboard boxes, all stacked up upon one another in a haphazard fashion. They appeared to have been methodically opened, in contrast to the chaotic way in which they were piled, and from the topmost additions to each pile lopped what appeared at first to John to be… sparkling furs of bright, royal colours. But what was most peculiar about the entire scene displayed before him like an abstract painting of the strangest variety was the tree, standing opposite of the man. It was squat, green, and unmistakably, inarguably and indubitably a pine.
"Wh… Whuh –"
"Ah," said the man by the tree, "Good. You're awake, finally." He drew a sharp breath. "I need you to help me wrap this, please."
John Watson watched as Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective and his flat mate, stepped aside to reveal a long length of the fur hanging from the tops of the boxes. It sprawled across the floor in a thick rope, twinkling softly in the light of the day. It was a pleasant shade of gold.
"Y… You got a Christmas tree," the doctor gasped.
The detective paused in mid-stringing, the decoration aloft in his hands. "But of course. You didn't think I would want to take part in the trivial joys of La Navidad, John? I'm insulted."
John Watson shook his head. "No. No, y… I'm sorry, but you're the least likely person to ever be… decorating a Christmas tree at seven in the morning, in my book."
Sherlock straightened. The corners of his lips turned upwards, ever so slightly. "Well. T'is the seasons of surprises. Now, come on. I haven't got all morning."
John furrowed his brow, then let a gasp of laugh escape him. Then, once again, he sighed.
"T'is the season…" Carefully, made his way to join his flat mate.
"Take this bit here, if you wouldn't mind." Sherlock had his top-half twisted round the tree, his right foot raised for balance and the golden fur in hand. John wrapped himself around to take hold of the section he was being offered.
"You just… You really don't strike me as the celebrating type."
Sherlock replaced his foot, shoed, to the floor and began to twirl the fur methodically about the higher levels of the fragrant little tree. "Please, John. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you received me to be something of a robot. Anyone can take part in the season; even otherwise calculating, logistical and, frankly, heartless individuals like myself. Don't you celebrate the holiday?"
"'Course I do," said the doctor, taking his length of fur and tucking it within the branches of the lower-half, "I mean, one has to, don't they? I've celebrated since I was a boy… It's tradition."
"Would you still, if given the choice?"
John sighed. He crouched low and stared at the tree, idly appreciating the complex weaving of the needles.
"Honestly, I can't say if I would. It's more out of habit than anything… Haven't had much to celebrate, I suppose."
Sherlock Holmes clicked his tongue. "Should be a crime," he said.
The doctor laughed sadly, then turned. Through the small crack in the thin curtains shielding the flat's windows, he thought he saw the soft falling of…
"Snow," he said, so softly that the man above him asked, "Come again?"
"Snow." The doctor rose to his feet and slowly took the curtain in hand. He pulled it open, and his breath escaped him in a quiet gasp as the world outside unfolded.
The usually dark and soggy length of Baker Street was blanketed in the most beautiful and gentle white. The cement was hidden by it; the lampposts were weighted by it. Even the walls of the opposite building appeared more delicate – not as harsh, not as hard. It reminded John of what a portion of Heaven might look like, if it were shook lose from the sky.
There was a low sigh from behind him. "Truly beautiful. The spectacle of nature at its most glorious."
John turned. And in an instant – one of the longest, he later decided, he'd ever dwelled in – he saw in the man he'd known for what felt like lifetimes but were really mere days something that both startled and enthralled him. For haloed with the darkness of his curling hair, his face, thin and stoic and sophisticatedly mischievous, appeared like an apparition: an otherworldly vision. Eyes like the belly of granite, caught in the angelic light of the world outside the window, which seemed to be growing farther and farther from the doctor as the moment lingered on, dazzled John, as it looked as though they were glowing from within. Utterly distant, like a heart-stopping mirage; a soul as untouchable as it was devastatingly desirable; a mystery, and a source of such deep longing, it grew in its victims from the inside, out. The veteran forgot to breathe.
Then the eyes that had captivated him so snapped to him, and the deep voice too much like warmed honey went, "Care to help me with this next piece?"
John Watson shut his eyes as a tremor of reality rushing through him shook through his frame, so slight it was virtually unnoticeable.
As he'd feared, his flat mate then asked, "Something troubling you?"
John opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. Eyes still shut, he tried again. "No." It'd come as a strangled whisper.
The detective waited a moment before drawing another sharp breath. "Well, then. Will you lend me a hand or no?"
John Watson, now excruciatingly weakened with confusion and realization and conflict like a thunderstorm in the hollow of his chest, took a moment to clench his fists and gather himself. He quietly inhaled, then opened his eyes and, taking great care to keep them trained on the floor, said, "Yeah."
He returned to his place beside the tree.
The braches shifted as his companion placed a bauble or something on the opposite side. The heady scent of pine and sap did little to clear his incredibly turbulent head; in fact, it was doing quite the opposite, and it filled him like an elixir. The doctor felt cloudy and warm, even in the cold of the flat.
"You know," said the detective, jostling the little tree, "if I were of a more personable, consulting sort of profession, I would not be ashamed to admit to the idea that enjoying one factor of a season – say, for instance, the manner of weather associated with said season – is just as indulgent as enjoying in the frivolous and shallow. Wouldn't you agree, John?"
The veteran could feel his brows rise into a steeple as he fought to clear his muddled senses. Panic of a most unreasonable and illogical sort began to flood inside him like the steam off a kettle. He started to stutter. "Ah – er, I… I mean, I –"
The man on his left neared, reaching for a section of tree above the doctor's head. He couldn't keep his gaze from shifting to follow his movements, and all too quickly, far too quickly, the battle the ex-soldier fought internally was lost, and he gulped.
When there came no response to his comment, Sherlock looked down. All that the veteran had felt moments ago dragged him below the surface in a single stolen breath.
The edges of the white reality faded away.
"Happy Christmas, Sherlock," whispered John.
Eyes like granite became molten. "Happy Christmas, John."
It was like a purr – feral… and the doctor shut his eyes again. His skin prickled… He sighed noiselessly.
Then the phone began to ring.
Both men jumped with such violence, two red baubles and half of the golden fur fell to the floor with a clink and a plump.
The world that had been tiptoeing away rushed to the veteran with force like a punch. He looked from side to side and buried his paled face in his hands as he turned away. The detective remained motionless for a long moment, his eyes closed.
John listened to the footsteps as he crossed the room.
"Hello," said the detective calmly, very calmly, but with a solemnity that did not completely dismiss what had just gripped the extraordinary life they shared in the little flat.
With shoulders hunched and palms pressed hard to his eyes, the doctor waited for the sound of the receiver being replaced. When it came, he braced himself for a stony silence, and was both enormously relieved and strangely saddened when instead, he heard the footsteps continue to the opposite side of the room. He turned to look.
Sherlock bent to retrieve his coat from atop his cluttered writing desk. "They want only trivial information regarding the case," he explained in a shockingly matter-of-fact sort of way. His gaze never fell on the doctor. "I'll be back in an hour. If you happen upon Mrs. Hudson, let her know we're out of milk, if you wouldn't mind."
John Watson watched as the man wrapped the scarf about his neck, turned-up the collar of his coat and made for the door, hands buried deep in his pockets. It was not until he reached the outside hall that he stopped, but did not turn.
Here – here was the silence he had been awaiting. And, in an odd way befitting of the unimaginably odd situation, he reveled in it.
The detective's head turned slightly. "Stay warm, John. And you feel up to it, add to the tree. I'd like returning to it prettied."
Then, with long, sure strides, the man made down the stairs and out of sight.
John Watson stood. In the bodiless, cold and terribly bright flat, the doctor felt as though he had returned from a hallucination. It seemed utterly and perfectly impossible that what had just happened, happened. For a stretching moment, the man was still, as though movement would shake the illusion that it had all, in fact, been a strange and terrifying vision.
The sound of car doors opening echoed from below. Steadily, John took another breath, gulped once again, and went to the window.
Down below was a car he didn't recognize. It was black, and old, and slightly boxy. He watched as his flat mate crossed the whitened sidewalk, his steps leaving slight imprints in the otherwise untouched surface of snowfall, appearing as he had earlier that morning: just a man too dark for such a white world.
From the driver's side door exited a man he did recognize. Detective Inspector Lestrade – the man by whom his flat mate was most often commissioned – unfolded to his full height slowly as he greeted the detective. John watched as the men exchanged a few words, then as the consulting detective looped around the car's front with enviably confident, even steps, his coat flowing importantly as he went.
He entered the car, and John's gaze returned to the inspector, who was still on the snowy street side. He watched as the man he knew very little looked about himself. He rubbed at his gloved fingers. Then he looked up at the window, where John was standing.
Though there was a frame of frosty glass and a number of meters separating them, the two men simultaneously realized that they were both very much aware of the presence of the other. John felt his brow furrow, as something about the man's gaze drew him slightly out of his troubled fog. There was something there, in his eyes… They were not those of an acquaintance, or those of casual recognition. They were lost eyes – hopeless. They were begging him.
Then the man broke his gaze away. John Watson watched as he swung himself into the car, shut the door, and drove away, down the snow-covered Baker Street.
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Aaaah, it's so rough and weird...! T 3 T I do hope you liked it... And I promise, I'll be continuing LLS very, very soon~! Thank you very much! ~ n.t.