He was drinking when Watson's feet first hit the stairs.
Holmes jerked, whatever he was drinking sloshing wildly. He had lost track of how much alcohol was slowing his body. From the moment Watson had started seeing that woman he had been burning for the oblivion of the landscape of his mind. The very moment the completion of the Blackwood case allowed him to do so, he had looked for the man's medical store, had checked his stores of cocaine, and was consumed with vice for two days, words of malice, hate, love, lust and rage pouring from his pen onto reams of paper. They were letters, poems, critiques: 'you do not love her' and 'you can never love her'; 'you could love me' and 'you never will'. And sometimes just one word scrawled large, over and over again, until the ink blotted itself out.
Stay.
They had all been burned, those ramblings of his mind, stuffed in the grate and set alight. Holmes had sat and drank, staring at the dancing light of his dreams across the floor. Paper curled and blackened as the fire caressed them, and Holmes lets the shapes of the blaze hypnotise him as they destroyed his moments of madness. No tears escaped his eyes, and he was glad. It was conclusive proof that he did not need Watson, he needed solitude, and vice and all the things that the doctor could not give him.
But despite knowing he needed these things, his blackness and his loneliness, he knew, in the bottom of his heart and the pit of his stomach, that he needed light. He needed the flash of magnesium flare when his companion ripped open the curtains. He needed to watch the broken light under the door as the man paced away his nightmares; dreams that Holmes could never comfort him from. Sometimes, maybe, just a hint of light was better than none.
Today was not one of those sometimes.
Today was not one of those maybes.
Today he wanted it all.
He could hear them, painfully loud and painfully playful, arguing lovingly. Miss Morstan, it seemed, fancied herself quite the detective, and loudly exclaiming that her John was tricking her, there was surely nothing different today!
Her girlish laughter pierced his head constricted his heart, but Watson's answering chuckle took the breath from his lungs. It was not the laugh of the doctor he knew, rich and exasperated but, he had hoped, lined casually with affection. There was a false hint, a hollow ring, a lying tone that told Holmes all he needed to know. The bottle was placed on the side, and a paper snatched up, to prop on his knees and hide his face and the alcohol on his breath. The room was dark, but he did not open the curtains.
Sure enough, he heard the customary double knock of his former companion. Holmes did not bother with a greeting: the silence would only tell Watson what he wanted it to: Holmes was absorbed in something new and exciting, an experiment perhaps. Obviously, he was not as broken in half over Watson's engagement. Holmes knew the doctor was better than that, that should he observe carefully, the newspaper was dated almost a week ago, and the store of cocaine kept on the bookshelves was greatly depleted. Holmes also knew that he would not look.
"Watson," he said almost distractedly, as if currently doing something of much importance, "When did you purchase a new cane?"
There was a gasp from Mary, a intake of breath that told Holmes she was guilty. "How did you know!"
Holmes slid his eyes over the top of the paper to meet and lock with hers. Such a plain brown, such a plain shock in them. And a realisation: a realisation that Watson was not 'her John' at all, that he was, and always would be, the sole property of the man seated before her.
"Simple, my dear. Six months ago, he cracked the old one in an old alleyway in the back of London. We have recently received our payment for the Blackwood case, and since he no longer needs it for rent, he invested in a new cane. One which looks identical, I conceive you that. However, the base of his previous cane had been worn thin on one side, the one he favours. It made a slightly different sound on the stairs than his latest acquisition. Really, Miss Morstan, you should watch his movements more carefully if you want to answer such questions. He could have only bought it in the last week."
"Right as always, Holmes," Watson said, the hint of a smile curling his mouth, the exasperated but fond look so familiar that Holmes blinked in shock. Surely, surely, this was how it must be?
Holmes' eyes slipped to Watson's conveying so many messages as he held the man's gaze, and knowing Watson received them all, and was listening for once.
You do not love her, and you know it.
We could be so much more.
You miss me, and you know you could never be happier with her than with me.
She could never know you as I do.
She would never want to.
Please.
Stay.
Watson turned stiffly to his wife-to-be stiffly, mouth working silently for a moment as the words scratched at his throat. Holmes saw the gleam of knowledge in his eyes and hid a triumphant smile behind his paper.
"Mary, could you step outside for a moment?"
~Fin~