Today's Prompt: Let nothing you dismay! (from Book girl fan)
I admit this one wandered a little far from the prompt. The late night setting is inspired by the line before it ("God rest ye merry gentlemen"), and the tone was inspired by the prompt itself. This is intended as a bit of a follow-up to a semi-recent fic of mine, Violin in the Middle of the Night (which was coincidentally inspired by one of someone else's stories from last year's challenge).
Watson tossed and turned in bed. At some point he had fallen into a restless sleep, but it could only hold him for so long. Now he lay awake, chased from sleep as though haunted. At last he threw off the blankets and hoisted himself out of bed. He lit a candle and padded down the stairs, into the sitting room, by its flickering glow. A dim orange light filtered in through the blinds from the street below. He could make out the silhouettes of the walls and furniture. In the darkness, the flat may as well not have changed at all in the three years it had been left uninhabited, or even since Watson had last lived there. There was an eerie chill to the empty room.
Suddenly he almost jumped as a door opened with a loud creak. He spun to face it and found Sherlock Holmes standing in his nightgown in the door of his bedroom, like a tall, pale ghost. Watson's heart pounded and he could feel himself shaking a little with the force of all of the emotions that the sight of the man in front of him evoked.
"Watson, are you quite alright?" Holmes asked urgently. "I didn't intend to startle you."
Watson gave a dazed nod. "I'm fine, Holmes. I didn't realize you were awake." Their voices echoed a little too loud in the quiet of the night.
"I've become accustomed to sleeping lightly," answered Holmes with a rueful smile across his wan features - a constant reminder of the hardships he must have faced in his time alone, of which he was so reluctant to speak.
Still, all Watson could do was stare, to take in every line of Holmes's face as though it could vanish in an instant like the flickering of a candle. For three long years, he had been forced to accept that the man standing before him was buried beneath the rush of the Reichenbach falls, that he would never see him again. And now…
"Watson," Holmes spoke again, his voice near a whisper, "Is there anything I can do to help?" He attempted to hold out a hand to Watson, but seemed to not know what to do with it, so it remained hovering in the space between them.
Finally, Watson shook his head. "Just a little trouble sleeping, that's all."
"This is certainly not a rare restless night." Watson could see Holmes examining him in the candlelight with those sharp eyes of his.
"No," Watson admitted under Holmes's indomitable scrutiny. "You know I am a light sleeper in the best of times."
"And we have both seen better days. But I believe there is still hope for us yet. What do you say, Watson?"
Watson could not swear to it - he could hardly believe his own eyes, let alone his perception - but he thought there was some softness to Holmes's gaze beyond the usual piercing intelligence, perhaps a glimmer of hope to mirror his own.
"Yes," Watson said at last, a little breathless, his heart fluttering in his chest, "If you'll have me."
"I am lost without my Boswell."
Finally, Watson took Holmes's proffered hand and let Holmes lead him to the settee where they remained side by side, chatting to wile away the late night hours.