Apparition
A/N: Hehehe… I'm messing with Holmes's mind… I was reading through some of the older stories when THIS popped into my head. Don't ask why, just read and review.
I had not gotten a wink of sleep worrying over the Crixton case, and the missing letters. The most galling fact about it was probably the most simple- it was I who had misplaced the letters! I had turned over the whole flat in my head, wondering where it could be hidden away, as it was near three in the morning and surely my searches would have woken Watson. After dragging him about London until ten, he deserved some rest, and no doubt my flat mate shared the opinion. Finally, as I was mentally searching my desk for the hundredth time, it came to me- I had left the letters wedged into the space between two drawers!
I could not fathom why I had not remembered this fact earlier. My specific purpose in putting them in such an odd location in the first place was so that I would not lose track of them among the other paraphernalia cluttering the flat. I thrust aside the bedcovers, slid into my slippers and lit a candle, eagerly throwing open the door to the sitting room and crossing to my desk. I quickly rifled it and emerged with the desired letters, and turning around was about to return to my room and study them when something stopped me dead in my tracks.
I am not a man given to supernatural tendencies or beliefs, but for a moment the specter that stood in front of the mantle almost shattered that. I fear I jumped in fright as I beheld it. Its eyes were wide and staring, its figure stooped and loose, its raiment white and long. It held a candle in a pale hand near its side, and just then began to raise the taper ever so slowly to the height of its face… and revealed the specter to be none other than Watson, wide awake, clad in a white dressing gown.
Relief flooded me at the knowledge that no ghastly specter had come from beyond the grave to haunt me. It was a foolish idea, something more akin to Watson and his romantic sensibilities than I and my logic. I mentally reprimanded myself, and then my friend out loud and in perhaps a sharper voice than was required (which, in my defense, was merited by the state of my nerves), clutching a hand to my frantically beating heart,
"Watson! You gave me the start of my life! I thought you some sort of haunted apparition! What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?" He fixed me with a hollow gaze made all the more unsettling by the candle he held under his chin.
"My dear Holmes, you have been relentlessly pacing your room for the past five hours. How could I have gotten any sleep in that pounding racket?" I passed a hand over my face in chagrin for my carelessness. Watson had remarked many times that my pacing kept him from sleep; I suppose I was too absorbed in the problem of the missing letters to have noticed. I stepped toward him and clapped his shoulder, saying in a sincerely apologetic tone,
"I am sorry, my friend. I honestly did not realize I had been pacing. Force of habit, you know. But I have found what I was looking for-" and I held up the letters for him to see- "and I shall immediately retire." Watson's sleep-deprived eyes closed in thankfulness.
"Good God, Holmes, I have to say it will be a blessing to finally be able to fall asleep. I am so tired I can scarcely keep my eyes…" I had to seize his wrist to keep the candle from slipping from his limp hand and igniting the carpet. He was sleeping as he stood, and I had to gently guide him to his room, for I do believe he would have slumped against the wall right then and there and slept as soundly as if it were the finest feather bed.
As for myself, I could also rest easy, for having found the letters, my mind was free and easily fell into the familiar pattern of slumber.
A/N: My first fic from Holmes's POV. Normally I prefer writing Watson, cus that's how the canon is and I am much more in tune with his style and thought processes, but this fic wouldn't have worked from any POV but Holmes.