a/n:prompt from Scarper Gallywest :- Sherlock Holmes has a recurring nightmare about his mother's hands.
Holmes and companions do not belong to me.
POV of Holmes.
Hands
Hesitation:
Strangely reluctant, despite the lateness of the hour, to call it a day and retire to bed.
Procrastination:
Read his papers, read them twice; envied the doctor; no doubt sleeping peacefully overhead.
~0~
Apprehension:
Usually applied to someone else, not to an emotion he now experienced every single night.
Comprehension:
Realized he could not go without sleep indefinitely; although if anyone might be able to do so; he might.
~0~
Trepidation:
Somehow; the few steps between sitting room and bedroom seemed such a long, difficult trip to make.
Resignation:
He would, however, have to move now; bearing in mind the scientific impossibility of forever staying awake.
~0~
Calculation:
How many nights had it been? Three weeks? A month? A long time to be dreading every moment of sleep.
Isolation:
This was his personal burden. An unshared nightmare. A secret he could see no other option than to keep.
~0~
Devastation:
He slept; drifted into his own past; a small boy at a bedside; holding his mother's hands as they grew cold, pale and still.
Perspiration:
Awake and bathed in sweat. Unsettled, unnerved and shaken. The early morning air had never seemed so chill.
~0~
Self-preservation:
Putting on a layer of indifference; he headed into the sitting room; barely noticing his friend sitting quietly there.
Conversation:
Only to be brought up short by his friend calmly announcing that until he told him what was bothering him, he wasn't going anywhere.
~0~
Disputation:
The doctor was, of course, overstepping the mark, interfering, jumping to conclusions and utterly and completely wrong.
Negotiation:
A few minutes of indignant silence over breakfast; then Holmes talked; as the doctor had known he would all along.
~0~
Communication:
The doctor listened in silence; hearing between the lines, picking up on the unspoken words; the unacknowledged heartbreak of the past.
Illumination:
Holmes discovered, to his astonishment, that sharing a burden with a friend can go a long way towards achieving a peaceful night's sleep, at last.
~0~