"Well, Watson, shall we go?" Sherlock Holmes asked his roommate even as he was already on his feet and headed towards the living room door.
"Not tonight, Holmes," John Watson said with a sigh.
Holmes paused, turning around with a strange look on his face that wasn't anger but certainly wasn't pleasure.
Watson caught the look. "It's not urgent, you said?" he asked in a bid for clarification.
"Well... no," Holmes admitted. "I suppose it isn't urgent."
"Very well, then. It's already late, and so Inspector Lestrade may not be able to act on the results of your findings even if he is in his office. Besides, we've been active all day, and I'd rather go when my leg isn't aching from the exertion and the cold. Will tomorrow be alright? You know I've never tried to hinder an investigation, but if the delay will make no difference, then tonight I'd very much like to rest."
"Of course, Watson," Holmes agreed. "Tomorrow will suit fine."
Holmes put away his papers, ready to settle in for the rest of the night. As he did so, he watched as Watson sighed tiredly and lowered himself into his chair stiffly. Watson reached to his side table, unfolding his reading glasses and perching them on the bridge of his nose. Holmes settled into his chair and continued to watch Watson as his friend turned the wick on his oil lamp up high before taking up a book and flipping through it to find his bookmark. The doctor noticed he was being watched, then, and looked up, his expression slightly confused.
"Holmes? If you wish, you can go alone, or I can..."
"Apologies, Watson," Holmes murmured. "I have not changed my mind about leaving. I was simply thinking."
"Oh?"
"You wear reading glasses," the detective observed.
"I have for a while, Holmes." Watson smiled a bit hesitantly. "You are the world's foremost consulting detective. Surely you'd noticed?"
"Of course I noticed, Watson," Holmes scoffed. "But I have never examined them, and therefore I suppose I never thought about their… implications."
"Implications?" Watson demanded a bit testily. "Need I remind you that you also wear reading glasses? Or you're supposed to, at least, when I can bully you into it so you are not straining your eyesight so much as you pour through your files. Therefore, seeing as how we both utilize them, I advise that if there is an insult on your lips you refrain from saying it."
"Not an insult, I assure you," Holmes said with a chuckle. "I simply mean…" he trailed off, tilting his head and steepling his fingers under his chin as if that explained it.
Watson raised one eyebrow.
"We were young when we met, Watson," Holmes murmured, "and now we are old. You and I, it seems, have remained exactly the same every day we've known each other, and yet looking back I see that everything has changed."
"Holmes, are you becoming philosophical because I wear glasses?"
"Not philosophical, dear friend."
"Sentimental, then," Watson proclaimed with a small twitch of his lips towards a grin.
"Certainly not!" Holmes answered him. "But perhaps… reflective, and reflection is a perfectly acceptable form of both philosophy and sentiment. Reflection offers questions which may not always have answers, but, unlike philosophy, it is content when some of them go unanswered. And, unlike sentiment, it does not attempt to inject emotion into truth."
"And what, my dear Holmes, are you reflecting on?"
"On our present actions, and the value they may or may not hold. For example: you and I, Watson. We were young, we are old, and there will come a time when we will be no more. We work everyday and do what we can, yet the world seems very much unchanged. What is it all for?"
Watson took off his glasses. "There was a time, Holmes," he said softly, "when you would have been happy to give anything, even your life, if it took one criminal in particular away from the world."
"But I did not die, and the world has not changed. There are crimes and criminals more dark and dangerous than the one I would have sacrificed myself to remove."
"Yes, Holmes. There will always be more criminals, but I disagree when you say the world has not changed. Perhaps, like us, it also seems unaltered on the day to day, but when we look back, everything is different. There will come new criminals, but there will also come more detectives. New detectives, better ones."
Holmes looked at him steadily. "You really believe so, Watson?"
"I do. You are quite aware, I hope, that there is no one in all England who holds you in more esteem than I do, but, even though I admit I am hard-pressed to imagine it, I do think that one day even you will be surpassed. After all, it was you who pointed out that we are different now: we are old luddites compared to the pioneering young men we used to be. As the world changes, so will the detectives. When new classes of criminals rise, so will new methods of criminal detection. The world is cruel, Holmes, but it is not always, and there will always be those who work to make it less so. And if we, too, can make it better, then that is our duty. If we can make it easier for the next great detective to begin his work, then that is our privilege."
Holmes grinned. "Perhaps we already have," he murmured. "I know I have spoken of retirement recently, but I am also aware I will never truly retire. The world won't let me stop, and I don't really want to, just to slow down. I want to enjoy the peace I hope I've done my part to earn. When that happens, when I have slowed down, Watson, and when cases inevitably come up again, will you come with me?"
"Of course I will, Holmes," Watson murmured. "It will be my honor. It always has been."
"I think, my friend, based on what you have said, that it is the future's honor, though they may never know it."
"No. Perhaps they will not know, but they will benefit from these two old men working quietly on their behalf nonetheless. Will that be enough?"
"Yes, my dear Watson. I do believe it will, and perhaps it always has been."
For the prompt from: sirensbane: Hope for the future.
Happy New Year! Well... that's all for 2022, folks :) Thank you for reading my responses, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed.