Five minutes after Mycroft Holmes had kindly but firmly escorted him from the flat and the bulky figure had disappeared around the corner toward Whitehall, Watson found himself standing on the pavement in Westminster, listening to the clock tower chime ten. Only when he was bumped out of the way by a hurrying middle-aged gentleman with greying hair and a foppishly ornate walking-stick (obviously a politician) did he realise he was still standing aimlessly rather in the middle of the walking path.
Sighing, he obligingly moved along in the flow of morning work-traffic and endeavoured to make sense of a situation that he knew now had spiraled completely out of control. What had begun as a slightly juvenile prank war, half to win the bet with Mycroft and half to keep Sherlock Holmes from resorting to his cocaine habit due to the abysmal boredom in the crisp autumn months, had taken a more sober turn than he had ever intended it to. Were he brutally frank with himself, he knew the wager was no longer worth the candle.
Yet, he had the wager's consequences to consider, and the fact that Holmes had, rather snidely, remarked that he did not believe the Doctor was capable of carrying it out to its fullest.
And he had been intolerably rude about Watson's latest story. Being prohibited from publishing, and thereby from gaining any sort of audience, was horrible enough for a prolific writer; then for his sole reader to be so inexcusably offensive multiplied the sting in the tale a hundredfold.
The choice was a difficult one. Yes, the detective had practically dared him to do whatever it took – in essence giving his permission for all the demons of hell to break loose in Baker Street if so summoned. Holmes would have only himself to blame for the outcome.
To further trouble his irresolute mind, the fact remained that it would be absurdly simple to perform this last fear-inducement. He was as practical and medically-minded as Holmes was theatrical and melodramatically-, and the solution was no more difficult than to find a medico colleague at a local hospital, call in a small favour, and have the man send a bobby round to Baker Street with a note that he'd been involved in a terrible accident while out this morning and that Holmes had better come quickly. One conversation, one favour, one note, the use of an empty hospital room for one hour – no more complicated than that. It would involve no acting from him, and be all over in sixty minutes for Holmes.
And besides, the thought occurred to him as he turned his steps onto a more traveled thoroughfare in search of an empty hansom, one hour hardly began to balance the scales for three years of a similar living nightmare, now did it?
--
Sherlock Holmes had spent the entirety of the day in a fit of nervous energy, after tearing his bedroom apart in search of that horrid snake when he cautiously entered mid-morning to find it in absentia. It was not until he espied a note affixed to the mantel with his correspondence, informing him kindly that Watson had let the thing into the back garden before leaving this morning, that he felt himself relax ever so slightly, enough to put the rooms back into something more resembling a gentleman's living quarters than a post-hurricanic disaster zone.
However, his unease only increased as the day crawled onward. Autumnal winds whipped about the house, causing it to curse and groan and emit all sorts of noises that could be the Doctor returning to enact heaven-only-knew what as that last fear upon his person. Mrs. Hudson only sniffed disdainfully, when he jumped like a frightened rabbit as she entered with a luncheon tray and warned him to tell Watson if either of their 'shenanigans' caused her to lose sleep again, she would make them both sorry.
By late afternoon, he was beginning to wonder where Watson was, and why he hadn't returned to the house. He had not taken his medical bag, which meant he hadn't planned to go to work anywhere, nor had he taken his heaviest overcoat, which meant he had not planned to be out all day or to walk far – the chilly weather played havoc with his old wound, and more so because a storm front was brewing far above the city in a swirling mess of green-grey cloud.
In addition to the gloom both indoors and out, he realized after his forty-seventh round of pacing a path between the window and the fireplace that it was Halloween night. Not a pleasant night to be alone with one's thoughts, and more so when one never knew what sort of trap was lurking around the doors or the shadows under one's bed.
He was anything but a nervous man, but he had been forced the hard way to admit that the Doctor was a most resourceful antagonist. Granted, his sallies had been anything but artistic in form, but had been made all the more bluntly effective for their appalling directness.
But the most disconcerting thing of all, was that he could not fathom what might possibly be the last, and greatest, fear that his brother could have furnished – and that alone sufficiently frightened him. Try as he might, he could not come up with another item, childhood or otherwise, that could possibly be worse than the last few he had been subjected to.
The prize for this venture was certainly not worth the mental disquiet, though even jumping at branches scraping on windows was still preferable to ennui when it came down to a stiff comparison.
The storm burst with a torrent of equinoxial rains and a scream of thunder, around seven that night. Shivering, he ran a hand over his sleeve to smooth down goosebumps and rose to prod the fire into dispelling the damp chill. The half-hour struck, and then eight ghostly chimes between lightning-flashes, and then the half of eight tolled.
And still he had not heard anything from Watson, nor even knew where the man was.
He was just going to the window for the tenth time in as many minutes, in hopes of penetrating the shadowed fury beating against it, when the outer door downstairs opened and slammed quickly against the downpour. Sighing with relief, he quickly arranged his features from their worried concentration into an expression of ill-tempered lassitude, and reclined upon the settee with one eye cocked toward the door.
Two minutes later, it opened. Watson was drenched, limping, and obviously, if the splashes upon the cuffs of his trousers were any indication, had spent far more time in the weather than out of it.
He frowned, and drawled out a suitably smug "Where the devil have you been?" as it was nearing nine now.
Two weary eyes looked back at him from under damp hair and knitted eyebrows. "Out," Watson said succinctly, and moved past him to the fire.
He waited until steam had stopped rising from the hissing coals, and until the Doctor had stopped shivering quite so violently, to reply. "Yes, I had been able to deduce that for myself, Watson. Allow me to rephrase. What have you been doing?"
Whatever he had been expecting, it was not a dejected slump of the shoulders. He swung his legs around as Watson turned toward him, and looked at the Doctor quizzically.
Finally the latter sighed, visibly trying to quell a fit of shivering. "You may stop regarding me so warily, as if I am going to don a rubber mask and hide behind your doors to frighten you," he answered bluntly, running a hand over his hair.
"Oh?" he retorted, with good reason. "And why am I entitled to drop my guard now?"
Watson dropped his gaze to the damp carpet beneath his boots. "The bet is off. I concede."
Surprised, for a moment he sat silently processing the fact. "That…is not what I was expecting, my dear fellow," he finally ventured cautiously. "May I ask why?"
The Doctor moved slowly, leaning on the mantel, over to his desk, and Holmes was not so foolish as to think his position, turned away from him as he rummaged through a drawer, was coincidental.
"Because, as you said, I am not capable of seeing it out," he responded flatly, yanking an unused journal from the drawer with more force than was merited.
Holmes blinked in blank disbelief, and reached mechanically to catch the book as it was tossed to him. "That was said merely to goad you into doing just the opposite, Doctor," he protested. "You cannot profess to think I was serious in that sentiment?"
"Evidently you were correct," Watson replied tiredly, moving toward the door. A sudden barrage of thunder upon the windows sent them both to jumping. "Be thinking of what case you want to dictate to me – those were the terms of the agreement, correct?"
Holmes tossed the book onto the floor (narrowly missing the damp patch) and stood, arms folded and lips pressed together in an unwavering line. "Not until you tell me what the last thing on that list was, Doctor. I find it hard to believe that the man I know better than I know myself could possibly back out on a bet without a logical reason." Watson paused, shivering hand on the door-knob, and sighed. He continued, less antagonistically. "Insults from me hardly constitute that, and a lack of nerve simply will not hold water as an explanation, not for you. No, Watson. The truth, now."
He had moved beside the Doctor as he spoke, curiosity burning in his eyes, and received an oddly calm look in return – the look of a man who knows he has made the right decision despite an unpleasant outcome.
"Well?" He gestured impatiently. "What was that last fear that my brother gave you, Watson?"
The Doctor folded his arms and leaned back against the oaken door. "He told me to make it appear to you that I had been either severely injured, or killed," he answered simply.
For a moment the words did not register, and then when they did his mouth opened slightly in utter disbelief. "He what?" he asked hoarsely.
"It would have been simple enough to do," Watson continued ruthlessly, staring at the flashes of light stabbing at the window. "And frankly, much easier done than some of those others. Just a note delivered by a mutual friend, borrow an empty hospital room for an hour, and there you have it."
He looked back to meet Holmes's stunned gaze, the lurking horror that was vying for dominance over disgust in those disturbed grey eyes, and smiled thinly. "But I know that fear all too well," he added, unconsciously glancing toward the fireplace, over which hung the foreboding painting of an all-too-nightmarish waterfall.
The detective found his voice in time to mutter an incomprehensible word or two, but fell silent at the ghosts that had suddenly materialized out of nowhere.
"And I won't do it," Watson finished softly. "I can't do it."
"I…" Holmes stopped, swallowed hard upon the self-loathing he felt in the realization that he was far less a man than the one he was currently looking at. "…Thank you," he ended wretchedly, and had the grace to look properly ashamed at the unintentional rebuke.
He received a slightly sad nod, and then the door closed behind the Doctor. He listened to the damp shoe-squeaks ascending the stairs, and only when he had ascertained they had reached the top did he return to the fire, staring morosely at the blank notebook lying on the hearth.
Mycroft had been correct, of course…how correct! Holmes rarely regretted his actions, and he even more rarely apologized for them – and in this case he would do neither for deceiving Watson those three years; the man's safety, and his family's safety, during that time was not something he ever would or could jeopardize in any fashion, no matter if Watson was hurt by the deception or not. Watson was a gambler; he was not, and while his own life and safety were good enough prizes to cast upon the table, his friend's certainly were far too valuable.
But now he had won, by Watson's defaulting, and he could not deny a small, very small, amount of satisfaction at the knowledge that he had won the bet – tainted as it was by this gnawing ache that seemed to settle somewhere in his chest, a terribly distracting sensation from what should be, but was not, a flash of utter triumph. He had been quite right about this wager of theirs; Watson was not heartless enough to continue what had started as a fairly innocuous battle of wits and ingenuity in terrorizing his existence for ten days.
The question was now, how heartless was he?
--
Busy keeping Alfie running back and forth from the closest telegraph office for the next hour (after Mrs. Hudson had upbraided them both for keeping a child up past bedtime and given the lad a cup of cocoa and a slice of fruitcake to keep up his energies), Holmes had only just finished his plans for the night when, over the crack of lightning striking somewhere in the vicinity of Hyde Park, he heard the sixth bout of coughing in the last hour from the upstairs bedroom and could stand it no more.
After rapping sharply on the door, he entered without waiting for permission.
"You all right, old fellow?" he asked hesitantly, when the Doctor turned from where he was sitting, blanket-huddled, before his writing-desk. An open cheque-book lay beside a folded paper, and apparently Mrs. Hudson had also brought the man up some cocoa for a half-drunk cup steamed in fast-melting curlicues in the vicinity.
Watson sighed and, so smoothly an ordinary observer would not have noticed, hid the cheque-book under the blotter. "Tramping about in near-freezing rain is not, I admit, a healthy prescription."
"You would be warmer downstairs," he ventured in reply.
"Possibly." Watson looked away for a moment, and then sneezed abruptly, setting the cup rattling in its saucer.
"Bless you. What are you sending my brother?"
Scowling, Watson realised he should have known better than to think he could hide anything from his friend. "We had a bet as well, Holmes. I've no doubt he will be quite thrilled to know he won."
Holmes, making no answer for the present, pulled up the remaining chair with his foot and sat backwards on it, folding one arm across the top and with the other hand tossing the blank journal onto the table beside the blotter.
"Decided already?" Watson asked tiredly, rubbing a hand across his bleary eyes and reaching for the book. As he did, the blanket fell off his right shoulder.
Holmes reached out and quickly pulled it back up. "So to speak," he agreed, refraining from more than a slow upturn of lips as the Doctor nodded a mechanical thank-you and opened the book.
Two pasteboard rectangles fluttered down onto the varnished wood, and Watson raised a quizzical eyebrow his direction. He grinned. "I intend to claim my prize, Doctor – but only if you will accompany me. Southsea, I believe, is the focus of that travel guide you were rambling on about a few weeks back?"
"But –"
"Because technically, Watson," he continued, calmly interrupting the rising protest, "a bet only stands if one party defaults from the agreement. When both do, the wager is nullified."
Seeing that his friend still appeared understandably dubious, he smiled quietly and laid a hand on the Doctor's wrist as he sat looking at the tickets. "Watson, I am not one for flowery or profuse apologies nor thanks. I recommend you accept the gesture for what it is, for I shall not make another." He grinned as the tension eased in the Doctor's face. "Besides, you did put a snake on my pillow, and a tarantula in my slipper," he added with an only half-mocking scowl.
Watson chuckled at last, and laid a hand for an instant over his own. "In that case, I shall be glad to accompany you, Holmes," he answered quietly.
He beamed. "Capital!"
Thunder suddenly boomed about the house like a cannon-barrage, causing them both to jump. Watson coughed hoarsely for a moment, waving off his inquiry of needed assistance, and finally subsided into a small moan, sipping at the cocoa on his desk and mumbling about needing tea with lemon and menthol and a few other ingredients Holmes only knew from botany textbooks.
"By the way," the detective added, sneaking the letter and the cheque it contained while the Doctor's back was turned, "I am not going to allow you to send this, you know."
"Holmes, I have an obligation – don't tear that up! Holmes, for pity's sake!"
He tossed the shreds into the wastepaper-basket and then turned a stern eye toward the chagrined face of his friend. "One, Mycroft does not need your money, and only made that bet to goad you into continuing this ridiculous escapade in the first place." He checked the point off on one long finger, and moved on to the next. "And Two, my dear fellow, Mycroft's laziness would shame the most obese sloth in the animal kingdom. He will never get round to claiming his payment."
Watson hid a smile at his unflattering comparison, and he continued briskly. "And even if he did decide to move his elephantine physique to come after this, I have absolutely no qualms in threatening to send Her Majesty's Cabinet a very interesting photograph and a few letters of my brother's in his younger – and slimmer – days, during a very promising and compromising situation with a neighbouring squire's daughter. You are not giving him a cent, Doctor, is that clear?"
"I promised, Holmes," Watson remonstrated with a fond look, writing out another cheque.
"Then tell him you won," he retorted sensibly.
But the Doctor remained stubborn. "I didn't win. I didn't frighten you."
"Actually, Watson…" He rested his chin atop his crossed arms on the back of the chair, and glanced down aimlessly to study the carpet fibres. "…you did. Don't look at me like that; I am perfectly in earnest," he added, glancing up at the skeptical expression. "Remember all those years ago, in the Jefferson Hope case? That discussion we had about imagination."
"It's the breeding-ground of horror," Watson quoted softly from memory. Then his eyes sharpened in understanding.
"Whether you carried that last 'fear' out or not in your little drama, Doctor, makes no difference. Just the thought of it is more than enough for me," he finished soberly.
Silence fell over the room, other than a sheet of fat, oily raindrops slamming into the window with the force of a railway locomotive. Finally Watson sighed, his gaze softening. "Still, Holmes, I don't –"
"Tell my brother you won," he interrupted, pointing a stern finger as he rose to his feet and shoved the chair somewhat back into position, "and we shall have lunch on the train at his full expense with the money. Now you'd best stock up on some throat lozenges and pack, Doctor; we leave at seven tomorrow."
"Seven?!"
"It is hardly my fault that you've not slept much due to this little spree of juvenility," he called grinning over his shoulder as he left the room. He heard a snort, and a low sneeze followed by a rather crude comment regarding the earliness of the hour. "Good night, Watson!"
A head poked around the door-jamb, and he was favoured with a glare that dripped acid. "Good night," the Doctor retorted. "Oh, and Holmes?"
Smug, he paused in the doorway of his bedroom. "Hmm?"
Watson smirked. "Best check your room carefully before you go to sleep."
Aghast, he watched the door close on a snickering physician, and eyed his deeply-shadowed bedchamber with new-found horror.
Yes, he could definitely wait to pack until the early morning.
All the credit goes to KCS for her hard work in keeping up these chapters...I just provided the ideas *grin*. Though this last chapter was entirely her own idea.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it! So....if you liked it....add a teeny tiny review ok?
Thanks!
