tourists in the waking world (1/3)

[mooging]

It starts when they're in Yorkshire. Probably it would have started had they been in London, but as it is, they are in Yorkshire. A rash of thefts in imposing manor houses brought them up after a telegram from the local chief inspector, and Watson thinks, later, often, that it should have been something more important. There was nothing really to the case - a butler did it - and Watson knew Holmes had solved it by the time he passed Watson the telegram instead of the butter over breakfast. But Holmes had taken a beating on the case before last and was refusing to let himself heal properly, and Watson had done some fast and creative talking to get him to agree to take a train into the countryside. A change is as good as a rest, Watson had said, and Holmes had replied that he sincerely doubted that.

They go to Yorkshire, then, however reluctantly on Holmes's part, and so that is where they are when the world ends.

*

Watson wakes up to the world in flames outside his window. A house fire, he thinks, bolting up in bed, but when he reaches the window and draws the curtains aside, it's clear it's not just the house. He presses the palms of his hand against the cold glass panes and watches everything outside burn hot.

Watson, says a voice behind him, like Watson's name means everything in that one moment, and he spins round to see Holmes silhouetted in the doorway, the same orange firebrand light catching him from the window far down the hall. Something clutches in Watson's chest. It isn't fear.

What's happening? he asks.

You need to pour a bath, Holmes tells him. He brushes past Watson's shoulder, heading for the little en-suite nestled in the corner of the room.

Watson follows. What? he says. Holmes, what's going on?

Holmes blasts on the taps, wrenching them around and around until Watson claps his hands over Holmes's and pulls him away. The water thunders into the bath, cacophonous. Holmes is breathing hard. His jaw is tight but his eyes are shining. Watson recognises this look from the ends of cases past: the game's afoot, but Watson won't like it.

Holmes tightens his fingers around Watson's own and they stand and listen to the crashing water, the cracking flames outside.

This is it, Holmes breathes, and his voice shakes; he sounds like he could run mad were Watson not gripping onto his hands. The end.

*

Holmes was butchering the violin in the next room. Watson now knew that Holmes knew this piece backwards - and that wasn't even hyperbole, he'd played it from end to beginning a few weeks prior, on a bet from Watson that it couldn't be done, and the most galling bit of it all was that he'd been fairly conclusively smashed at the time - and this screeching rendition was solely for Watson's benefit.

Watson scrubbed at his face and stared absently into his wardrobe. Mornings had stopped being his forte after he moved in with Holmes. The violin abruptly stopped wailing.

"If you'd care for some tea," Holmes called, voice louder than really necessary, "I suppose I can refrain from drinking the whole pot."

"That'd be good of you," Watson shouted back.

"I hate cold tea," Holmes informed him, still at the top of his lungs, and Watson grinned.


*


They stay huddled on the floor next to the bathtub for hours; Watson doesn't know how many. The walls shake. Outside, a wind howls like it's looking for vengeance, and Watson's drawn curtains don't stop the glow of fire from seeping into the room. It would be primordial but for the trappings of contemporary life around him, the stone walls around them, the fading wallpaper, the recently polished taps on the sink and the bath.

Watson would ask if they should make for safety, but he's almost certain there isn't anywhere safer than this little country inn, itself a doubtful haven. He stays quiet. He asked, earlier, whether they should perhaps find the other guests, the innkeeper and his family, whether they should group together. Holmes had looked him full in the eye and told him they had gone; Watson had said, What do you mean, gone? but Holmes hadn't answered.

Holmes, by Watson's side, is silent now too.

They wait.


*


The fires drop, eventually. Watson's body reminds him that it would really appreciate it if he didn't spend long stretches of time on a cold floor in a cold room with his back half bent over under the cold lip of a bath. Holmes stretches, and, as though this were permission, Watson stretches out moments later. He hears his joints creak and crack in protest.

You're getting on, old chap, Holmes says, like he might over morning tea. Or afternoon tea, at any rate, because Watson acquired his new distaste for mornings from Holmes' rather more vehement vendetta against them. Not a spring chicken any more.

Watson isn't quite sure what happened last night, and his heart beats fast, fast, when he thinks about what they might see if they peer out of the window, but nothing has changed so much that Watson won't answer back. Admittedly it's difficult for him to come up with something more involved than I find your face extremely perplexing, but he tries.

You're one to talk, he says, watching Holmes grimace as he gets to his feet. The chill's set in, has it? Yes, I see. Pity, that.

Holmes goes through into the bedroom, draws back the curtain. Watson can see even from his distance away that the glass in the window has cracked from the heat. Ice has started to rime around the edges of the panes now; it's turning cold outside.

There's someone out there, Holmes says, on a breath of disbelief. Watson hurries over; Holmes shifts almost instinctively to the right, making way for him without even glancing behind. He points; Watson doesn't see anything.

Where?

Holmes frowns. There were two men in that doorway, he says. But Holmes hasn't taken his eyes away from the empty town square and he would have seen where the men went, and so - I must have been mistaken, Holmes says. He doesn't sound convinced. Watson steals a glance at him out of the corner of his eye in the way that so infuriates Holmes if he catches him, like he suspects Watson of checking up on him. Holmes is still staring out of the window, mouth set tight and unhappy. Of course he's unhappy: Watson thinks about the night they've just spent on the floor, the sound of fire outside and the way he and Holmes, pressed tight together, couldn't tell which one of them was shaking. It doesn't make any difference, though: Watson has never been able to let Holmes look like this for long.

So: I saw them, Watson tells him.

Holmes doesn't believe him. Really, Watson? It's condescending. Some things apparently just don't change.

I saw them, Watson insists.

Holmes doesn't press the matter. This is really to Watson's advantage; if forced, he couldn't say whether he really did see anyone. Sometimes it's worth it to argue; sometimes, he just agrees with Holmes.

Holmes chooses instead to rummage through the room. Watson doesn't know what he's looking for, doesn't think it will particularly help to ask. He sits down gently on the edge of the bed. He can feel the stitching on the eiderdown surprisingly real beneath his fingers, like he'd expected the world to have shrunk to just himself and Holmes, like other things, touch and taste and tangibility, would have burnt away overnight.

Holmes, flat on his stomach to examine the underside of Watson's bed, suddenly rocks back on his heels. What are you doing, he says.

I'm not the one lying on the floor, Watson says, because surely this gives him an edge if they're going to have the I'm More Right Than You fight again, even if this is hardly the time.

Exactly.

What?

I, at least, am scouring the room for items of use, while you appear to be neither looking for such items nor being of any use yourself.

Watson actually smiles.

What?

Nothing, Watson says, and gets up.

*


It sort of makes sense that Watson follow Holmes now; why change old habits? Holmes says they should try and find passage back to London, so that is what they should do.

Watson does say, as he sorts systematically through the kitchen cupboards and tries to ignore the conspicuous absence of any other people in the inn, Wouldn't it be safer to wait here?

Wait here for what? Holmes says, brusquely, emptying a drawer of cutlery upside down onto the old, stocky table in the middle of the room and raffling through the jangled outcome. The world's already ended.

Would you stop saying that, Watson snaps, abruptly, taking himself by surprise. It's not over. We're still here, aren't we?

Holmes pauses. His hands go still on the pile of silver. My good man, he says, more softly than anything he has said since they picked themselves up from the bathroom floor, what makes you think that means anything?


*

They have a brief and vicious argument about what constitutes a necessity, glaring each other down over the counter at the bar. Holmes seems to think that bringing most of the alcohol on the premises with them would be a topping idea, while Watson, thinking of the weight of the bags and how little they are really going to be able to bear between simply the two of them, tries to pare his selection down.

They settle the matter quickly, neither of them particularly wanting to fight in the noiseless inn. They are the only source of movement. Every so often, the wind, still searching for something lost outside, bangs a shutter against a wall, a tile off a roof, and they both jump and both pretend otherwise.

By the time they have filled two hefty knapsacks and a couple of actual sacks, found by rummaging through the oddly organised basement, it is getting dark outside. Watson realises, staring out through the frosted glass in the main door, that it never really got light.

We'll set off in the morning, then, Holmes says, coming to Watson's side.

All right, Watson replies, and they watch the night creep in over the cobbles of the street outside.

*
The next morning, they lug through into the hall the bags they've packed. All heaped together under an off-kilter painting of a hillside dotted with sheep, they look too many to carry. The worst of it will be the water, Watson thinks, the water they scooped out of the bath Holmes made him pour and into any receptacle they could find with a reliable lid.

Holmes? Watson asks, glancing up to find Holmes standing rigidly still in the open doorway.

There, Holmes hisses, and he sprints out into the street. Watson swears, grabs the bags closest to hand, and follows.

It only takes him a moment to catch up with Holmes. He is standing stock still in the middle of a street, only two quick corners away from the inn. Watson had chosen the turns on instinct and hope. It's a small thing, he knows, but it's still something he's grateful for; that he took the right roads.

What is it? Watson asks, stopping just behind Holmes.

I must have lost them, Holmes mutters, not really paying Watson any attention. They must have -

Who? Watson interrupts.

The men from yesterday. Holmes is impatient. They crossed the square and I followed. Keep up, Watson.

Holmes starts to stride off; Watson grabs his shoulder.

Not yet, he says. We need the bags from the inn.

Holmes doesn't move.

Holmes, Watson says, more firmly. I am perfectly willing to start a search for these two men with you. All I ask is that you not resign us to death from exposure or starvation when we inevitably end up too far from the inn to return before nightfall.

Holmes stares at him. Watson raises his eyebrows: What?

Watson, Holmes says, we're not going to start a search for these men.

We're not? Watson thinks it must be too early in the day for him to sound this long-suffering, but apparently it's not.

Of course not. Holmes has started to walk back the way he came. We're going to London.

London, Watson echoes.

Sometimes, Watson thinks, following Holmes back to the inn, you imagined your thoughts to be completely identical to Holmes's when you were thinking tea and crumpets at four would be nice and Holmes was thinking something about magnesium compounds.

*

When they first set out, they don't talk. It is the type of quiet Watson remembers from the war, at night: men lying silent either asleep or trying to be; men on watch, evening out their breathing to pass the time and steady their pulse; the dead, their presence strong wherever you were, strongest in the medical tent, like a threat, like it would be you next.

There is no-one else out on the road. They leave the small village mostly behind without seeing another living soul, without even seeing any bodies. There are carts, charred and abandoned on the street; Watson scans them in case the axles would hold, in case they could use them, but none of them are any good. Snow lines the streets, blankets the fields; ashes lie atop it in places, from burnt-out trees or burnt down houses. It is cold. Watson wishes he had a thicker coat, that Holmes had a thicker coat. Their shoes are impractical, but they'll have to do for now.

At the very edge of the village, when they've seen no buildings and plenty of fields for about twenty minutes, or so Watson thinks, there is a horse lying dead straight across the road. There are flies swarming his eyes, his flared nostrils, his open mouth. Holmes puts a hand out, needlessly, to stop Watson from going any closer.

They wait for a moment, more out of shock than anything like respect, Watson supposes. This dead horse is the first sign they have had that they may not be all that's left.

Come on, Holmes says, grasping Watson's elbow. There's nothing for us here. Come on.


*

There was a burglary across the road from their apartment. Mrs Hudson tutted about it when she brought up a tray of lunch.

"Not to worry, Mrs Hudson," Holmes had said, batting Watson's hand away from the slivers of cold meats, "it's nothing of importance. The whole matter should be dealt with very shortly."

Watson reached for the ham again. His fingers brushed the plate; a police whistle sounded from outside and Holmes leapt up from his chair, newspaper falling unheeded to the floor in a disgruntled rattle of paper.

"My word!" Holmes cried, in an loud and entirely false expression of astonishment. "What on earth could that be?"

The three of them clustered around the window. On the street outside, a small crowd had gathered around a show front. A uniformed officer bundled a struggling man through the onlookers into the back of the waiting police cab, clipping him round the ear when he bucked and struggled to be free.

"Well," Mrs Hudson breathed, and if Watson could hear a suspicious tinge to her voice then it was one he shared himself. "Fast working policemen we've got these days."

"Anonymous tip," Holmes said, tapping the side of his nose in an irritatingly knowledgeable way, and Mrs Hudson sniffed fondly at him, and left, bearing away the cups from an earlier pot of tea.

*

They travel at quite a pace. Holmes swings his gaze from one side of the road to the other in the same way that Watson has seen him crawl on hands and knees across unfamiliar floors. When Watson watches Holmes now, he doesn't see that extra leap, the flicker of Holmes knowing something Watson hasn't worked out yet. There's just Holmes, searching for something, and the way he shivers in the deepening chill, idly, like it's a minor inconvenience.

It's just like Holmes to be trying to solve the end of the world, Watson thinks, and then he spares himself a brief moment of pride. That's a big concept to have subconsciously accepted; then again, it's hard to do anything but accept it when they're the only people around and everything else is covered in snow or the burnt remains of what was there before, silence ringing out in front of them like the bells before church.

Watson coughs, just to hear it.

Holmes flicks him a glance, and his mouth tightens with a soft, fond recognition. It looks out of place here amidst the barren fields; Watson knows that not hours ago it would have seemed ordinary, if anything about Holmes could ever seem ordinary.

Good to know you're finding something about this situation amusing, Watson says, but his voice wavers dangerously, and Holmes says, Oh, yes, hilarious, in his droll, straight-faced manner, and then they both do laugh, rowdy and inappropriate, and Watson listens to that ring out in front of them instead.


*

Dusk hits quickly in this new, dull world and they stop for the night away from the road, about fifty yards into an ash-covered field.

Watson makes a fire out of the detritus lining the edges of the road. It doesn't take immediately: the air is damp and cold, and Watson's hands shake when he tries to light a match.

Holmes says, As soon go kindle fire with snow as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Watson says, You are quite monumentally unhelpful.

They open a can of soup that they took from the inn's pantry (Watson has to smile when Holmes takes the proffered can opener from his outstretched hand; What good has man of a can opener when he has not the means to open his mind, Holmes had said, capriciously, hands on his hips and head tilted high, and Watson had said, Man has need of opening his cans) and warm its contents in a small pan that they take turns in holding over the fire. It is hardly fine cuisine, but Watson has eaten worse things out of necessity and Holmes by choice.

Watson constructs them a tent; Holmes watches, and moves sticks where Wason tells him, although Watson has absolutely no doubt that Holmes could do this on his own. They sleep on top of stolen floral bedsheets, under the canvas tarps they pulled from under a box of Christmas decorations in the basement of the inn. They weigh the tarps down with the heaviest things they can find: rocks, lying by the road, or the couple of books Holmes insisted they bring with them. They'll be too heavy, Watson had protested, and then, at Holmes's oblivious defiance, Fine, but you're going to carry them.

Watson has carried them so far.

Some time after full dark but before the slow rise of dawn, Watson jerks blearily awake out of an unremembered dream to find Holmes sitting with his arms clasped around his knees, head tilted to the side, listening to something.

What is it, Watson asks. Sleep changes the sound and shape of his words so that for a moment he doesn't recognise his own voice.

Listen, Holmes says, and Watson does, but there is nothing to listen to.

I don't hear anything, Watson says. The side of his face is still pressed into a folded blanket, a make-shift pillow.

Listen, says Holmes, impatiently. Watson peers up at him, sees only a dark shape against a darker background. Listen, Watson, there's someone out there, can't you hear them?

Watson listens again, but still nothing comes back to him. I don't, he starts, and thinks better of it. I'm listening, he says. Don't go out there.

It is silent enough that he can hear his own heartbeat steady in his ears, and beyond that, Holmes's measured, patient breathing. Watson listens to that, and how Holmes doesn't move, and, somewhere along the way, he slips back into sleep.

*

Packing up again in the morning is more difficult than packing for the first time in the inn. They encounter the familiar problem of straying away from home: everything that slotted so easily into bags on one end seems unwieldy and improbably large on the other. Snow has fallen overnight, which doesn't help matters.

Holmes is no help either, but then, Watson reasons, Holmes has never been particularly helpful when the problem to be solved is creating order out of tangible chaos rather than its metaphysical counterpart.

Are you incapable of completing tasks in haste, Watson? Holmes calls, striding the same ten paces back and forth over again. Watson can see his feet, his shins, in the peripheries of his vision as he squats by the half-packed bags; the main part of his focus is the pan handle that is presenting its own form of obstinacy by refusing to settle back in among the cans of food and make-shift tent poles Watson has already wrangled into short term submission.

We can have haste now or we can have food again later, Watson rejoins, mostly ignoring Holmes. And I for one would appreciate a meal tonight.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, good men eat and drink that they may live, Holmes tells him, without missing a beat, in that tone a knife's edge between playful and cruel. It makes Watson's skin crawl, and he doesn't know if it's entirely unpleasant.

If you could kindly refrain from casting aspersions on my moral character until I have finished packing our only worldly belongings, Watson says, wresting the pan into place and leaning back on his heels, I would most appreciate it.

I would most appreciate your haste, Holmes retorts, but he comes to a standstill. Watson glances up and back to see a smile tugging at Holmes's face. Is there anything I can do, my dear man, Holmes asks, overly conciliatory, in response to Watson rolling his eyes, and even ankle-deep in snow and dirt, Watson grins.


*

It rains that day. It rains, and rains, and they are soon soaked through to the skin, clothes plastered to their skin until they become skin themselves. Holmes shakes the water out of his hair like a dog.

They stop sooner than they did the night before, mostly to get out of the downpour. They find what shelter they can by the side of a hill, Watson working numb fingers to make the tarps co-operate while Holmes builds the fire. It's almost as if they have lived this life a thousand times before rather than spending their days in shared apartments on a busy London street, being brought meals and tea trays by their landlady.

The fire doesn't burn hot nor last long, but it is enough for the food they eat to be warmer than Holmes's skin is when Watson brushes his wrist reaching for the pan, rain-slick against the side of Watson's own hand. They leave the smoke rising from the damp wood and wait out the weather in their tent, hardly weather-proof itself. Watson shivers and shivers until his teeth chatter without him really noticing. He would change his clothes but he has only one set of fresh things and it's a long way from here to London, and Holmes is set on London. He thinks of all the times he has ever told his patients to keep warm and dry. He thinks of frostbite and infection and chest colds, tuberculosis and pneumonia.

Easy, Doctor, Holmes murmurs, in his old, sly undertone, and huddles up close to Watson. As a physician, I am perfectly certain that you could heal thyself or my own good self, should it come to that. Nothing like past experience to render absolute trust, wouldn't you say?

Watson leans against him. Watson will always let himself lean against Holmes.


*

Holmes had been awake for going on seventy two hours, and Watson hadn't known how he could just keep on going. It wasn't a particularly difficult case, as it would eventually turn out, but it had all hinged upon one little detail, and apparently that detail had been fairly elusive. Elusive to Holmes was incomprehensible to anyone else, so all Watson had been able to do was be there and try and get Holmes to eat every few hours.

There came a point where Holmes had sat himself down the wrong way around in a chair opposite Watson at about two o'clock in the morning, and Watson, lowering his newspaper, had looked up and tried to blink the exhaustion out of his eyes.

"Holmes," he said, "you need to sleep."

"No," Holmes said, feet tapping arrhythmically against the floorboards, "what I need is to solve this case. What you want is for me to sleep. Need shall always conquer want, Watson, and it's that distinction that is important here."

Watson didn't have the energy for that argument. He'd been up at least sixty of Holmes's seventy two, and everything was starting to look blurred, like he was drunk though unfortunately lacking any of the more pleasant side-effects.

He stood up, crossing to Holmes's chair. "I'm not asking for a whole night," he told him. "A couple of hours, maybe. You could wake up and find the answer has presented itself to you while you slept."

Holmes scoffed, but Watson was used to that.

"Come on, Holmes. One hour, then. I'll even wake you up."

Holmes looked up at him. "I fail to see what good that will do either of us. Inevitably, I would waste valuable time and you would simply drift off yourself once suitably convinced by my repose."

"Yes, of course, I realise I am quite the hindrance to your deductive process." Holmes made a noise of agreement. "Nevertheless. You know I have my practice just next door. It would be a work of moments to concoct the necessary solution - "

"But you won't," Holmes interrupted. "You wouldn't inject me with anything. You spend too much time as it is examining my veins." His smile turned cruel. In an odd way, it comforted Watson: Holmes usually only lashed out when something was important. "If I sought chemically induced slumber, I would be perfectly capable of creating such a state myself."

"I know," Watson said, rubbing a hand over his own tired eyes. "Yes, I know."

Watson hadn't closed the curtains yet. If he'd cared to look, he would have seen the whole room reflected back at him, the Holmes in the window panes made blurry but the lines of his body - shoulders angled taut, arms crossed around the back of the chair - just as sharp.

Watson said, "Holmes," and his voice caught on something drained and futile. His throat ached with it.

Holmes's feet stilled. When he looked up, Watson thought, his eyes are very dark, and then he thought, I am very tired.

"All right," said Holmes, getting up, dismissive. He picked up a paperweight from the chaos near the hearth, tossed it in his hand as though it were the only thing of importance of which he could conceive. "An hour." Sharply: "You'll wake me."

"Yes," Watson said, and the relief was almost something physical. "I'll wake you."


*

The following morning, the cold is a biting, dry one that freezes the effects of the rain into sleek, iced-over mud. Holmes and Watson slip and slide as they pack away their belongings. Watson, whose reflexes are just as good as Holmes's but whose leg, bitter with the reproach of being ill-used, won't support quick movement, falls more than once.

Holmes helps him up each time with the air of the disinterested, and even now, when it shouldn't matter, that studied lack of care for this abiding incapability is the only way Watson can take his offered assistance.

Starting on their way again, Holmes stops, stares over his shoulder at something in the rolling hills just beyond their campsite.

What is it, Watson asks.

I saw something, Holmes says, slowly, testing how it sounds. I saw someone.

Watson readjusts the pack on his shoulder. There's a patch there that has been rubbed red and painful over the last couple of days, the bag too weighty against the wrong fabric and unfavourable weather, and a day spent carrying the same burden in the same place against only half-dried clothes will leave it raw by nightfall. He says, Do you want to go after them?

Holmes hesitates. No, he says. No, we'll keep on.

Watson shifts the bag up again, trying to keep an awkward grip on his cane at the same time. If you're sure, he says, and Holmes nods decisively, and they set off.

Holmes doesn't say anything for a while, but Watson catches him checking the sides of the road, the crowns of distant hills, a regular, surreptitious jerk of his head. He's looking for something, or - and Watson takes in Holmes's frown - questioning what he's already seen.

The wind bites at their half-dry clothes. Watson edges the pack on his shoulder up again.

Stop that, Holmes snaps.

Watson stops.


*

Watson wasn't there when Holmes crawled out of the Thames at the end of the case, or when the police bundled him into a cab, but he was there when he collapsed on the rug in their rooms. Holmes' eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped straight down like a marionette let loose from its strings, and Watson's teacup slipped right out of his hand. He went to his knees by Holmes' shoulders, loosened Holmes' collar. He checked the pulse - still there, thank god, it was surely just a faint, just a faint because he'd been running on adrenalin and stupidity for too long, awake for four days, and a swim in the Thames, god knew what disease he could have picked up in there, and - Watson took a determined breath in.

He maneuvered Holmes up into one of their mismatching, overstuffed armchairs. He waited.

Holmes came to with a start, like he always did, eyes wide and disorientated for the briefest of instants, and Watson watched as, after days and days of cajoling and threatening and flat-out pleading, the tension eased out of Holmes.

Holmes snored. Watson poured and downed a drink of whiskey, and laughed, strung out and spent, into the glass.

*

It's three days before they come across any sign of other people. Walking down another deserted road, there's suddenly a noise in the treeline to their right, and they both snap their heads round to stare. They've not heard anything apart from their own voices, or the wind, or the shifting of bags against unsuitable suits since that last night in the inn. Watson remembers like it was a long time ago sitting at the bar watching Holmes wheedle information out of the innkeeper, easier to avoid antagonism because he already knew the answers. Holmes was always a nicer man when he already had what he wanted.

Then he remembers that there was a noise in the trees, and that if they came across a barstool now they would use it as firewood.

Just as he thinks this, a thin line of smoke rises over the crest of the wood. They start forward into the barren treeline without discussing it. Watson is hoping no-one is hurt; Holmes, Watson knows, is hoping for answers.

They reach a clearing after stumbling through the woods in silence for a good few minutes. There's the fire they've been looking for, smoking gently and untended, and while there's evidence that someone has been there recently - shoeprints in the snow, bags left open, two rifles barrel end up again a fallen tree - the place is deserted. Watson moves tentatively forward, but Holmes goes very, very still.

Holmes realises first, because Holmes always realises first. In Watson's defence, he is looking more at the ways Holmes is tense by his side, the caution tight in his jaw and the recklessness waiting to overpower that, than at what they might be walking into. This is what Holmes does: he takes what Watson knows, what is all around him, and makes him forget it.

Watson, he says, voice low. Wait.

And because Watson is so used to this, he stops even before he's thought about what Holmes has said. Sometimes he thinks it's a sort of reflex now, like snatching your hand back before you realise it's hurt. What is it, he asks.

And then Watson sees it too.

There are bones on the ground in the clearing in front of them, showing up stripped white even against the snow, whiter against the black and grey ash, and they are not the bones of any animal. There is blood too, under the bones, clinging on in stringy, fleshy, lumps. Watson has seen worse, but he swallows anyway. Neither of them are armed: Holmes had not allowed it, refusing to bring his pistol to the countryside with him and vehemently protesting Watson's attempt to bring his revolver, claiming the case did not merit even that slight affectation of respect.

Watson puts a hand on Holmes's arm. Come on, he says, there's nothing for us here. Come on.

*

They're quicker at setting up for the night now. Watson makes up a tent; Holmes the fire. There has been two solid nights of rain, and Watson is constantly wondering when the tarp will be too waterlogged to be of any use. Their sheets are mostly dry, though: Watson keeps them curled up in the middle of their packs. He spends his days either dripping wet or frozen through, and he refuses to sleep that way too.

He straightens up from securing the front of their tent, and realises there is no dance of light on canvas, no slight heat flickering like its flames on his back. He turns around.

Holmes?

I saw them, Holmes says, crouched in front of the unlit fire. Watson, I saw two men from the window of the inn, and I saw the same two men the day we set off, and I saw them once more on the road. Holmes sounds hoarse, like he's been turning this over and over this for days and never once saying it aloud. It is completely at odds with his tendency to involve Watson against his will in endless, endless monologues in which Watson has to make appropriate noises in appropriate places until he is forced to venture an opinion, which is, inevitably, scornfully trounced. Watson doesn't know why Holmes has brought this up now - maybe a combination of seeing human bones with human teeth marks in them and three days of his own bones being almost unworkably frozen - but, fighting against the dark and the ache from days walking in the cold and the fear he'd pushed down since the night the world apparently saw fit to stop going on, Watson can only do what he always does.

I know, he lies, I saw them too.

Holmes snorts, disbelieving; Watson insists, Two men. One blonde, the other with glasses. He stops, slightly taken aback. He hadn't quite believed himself until he'd said it, and then it had been true.

Holmes looks up at him, eyes blown wide. Yes, he says.

Watson shivers. Holmes lights the fire.

*

They were both drunk; Watson had gambled with his share of next month's rent, and lost it.

It is but a minor inconvenience, Holmes said, but he took Watson's checkbook and locked it back in a drawer in the desk. Watson never could find the key. Once, he found a note, high up in the very back of Holmes's wardrobe - and that hadn't been a particularly enjoyable place to dig through; everything was either burned or stained, or Watson's - that had read You really will have to try harder than this, dear fellow, and Watson had tossed it in the fire out of petty irritation. If Holmes had noticed it missing, he never mentioned it.

I highly doubt our ever-attentive landlady would simply allow us to fall upon the mercy of the streets, Holmes said, gesturing expansively with a glass of whisky, the last of the bottle. The whisky slopped over the edge of the glass onto Holmes's wrist, and he licked it off unselfconsciously, and Watson had had to knock back what remained of his own drink.

*

Watson wakes up oxymoronically, with a reluctant suddenness that sends a shot of adrenalin through him, unpleasant when he's still asleep enough that nothing quite seems real. Something is not quite right, but it takes a moment for his heartbeat to pace itself back to normal before he can work out what.

Then: Holmes, he manages, gruffly, reaching out to shake him awake. Get up.

A storm rages outside, and inside, the tent, and the tarp and the sheets and the bags are all drenched through and through. Watson swipes rain out of his eyes savagely with the back of his wrist, and grabs Holmes's shoulder more roughly. Get up!

Holmes comes to blearily, but he snaps awake faster than Watson was expecting when thunder claps like the wrath of something ancient, dead above them. They pick up what they can, everything wringing wet under their hands, slipping and sopping out of their grips. Watson throws sodden sheets into the packs, stuffs in the pan they used on top of that, wrenching it all closed with more force than necessary. His heart thrums wild again, and Holmes slicks back his straggling hair from his forehead, and grins at Watson with something maniacal in his eyes. Lightning flashes, and with the walls of their tent now stashed in a bag, it licks white across Holmes's face like it's trying to sear away the rain.

Come on, Holmes howls, and they positively sprint across the field. Watson had thought the weather had been awful up to now; this storm is proving him wrong. This, this is what he had thought of as being the end of days, the world rebelling in relentless, unending ways that would drive man to run until he realised there was nowhere untouched to reach.

Where are going? Watson yells, above the drum of rain on the ground. Beneath their feet, mud churns and ice cracks. They trip and stumble, but keep going. Watson's leg makes his gait awkward, but he grits his teeth and tries to speed up, cane slipping in the slick mess beneath his feet.

We passed a house, a couple of miles back, Holmes shouts back, over his shoulder. They don't slow down.

Watson shouts, Why didn't we stop there earlier?

No idea! Holmes bawls, and he's laughing, and Watson is more scared than he'd admit, thinking wildly of the great flood in the Bible, and the empty world they are walking, but he laughs too. The storm whips the sound away from him with the wind that bites at his skin and stings his eyes, and Watson laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

*

Watson stirs first, around dawn, spread out across a tiled kitchen floor like he literally fell into sleep. His ears ring with the absence of the storm. He heaves himself up, getting to all fours first, stiff with the run the night before and the omnipresent cold still clutching at his joints this morning. He fumbles automatically for his cane, but it has tumbled and rolled over to the side of the room and he leaves it for the moment. There's a countertop along the far wall with a large sink set into it, a window above it and a bulky, wooden table dominating the centre of the room. Holmes is asleep underneath it, legs wound around a fallen chair, like he too had dropped to the ground, sprawled out, and slept, instantly.

Watson stretches, and crosses to the sink. His chest hurts, just a little. He leans his arms on the edge of the counter and gazes out of the window. There is a faintly pink tinge to the unlifting grey clouds on the horizon, an apology of colour for the bleakness of the storm. If it were not for the undisturbed snow, the austerity of the leafless trees, the lack of any traffic on the Great North Road that they have been following, this could be a normal day. Watson tests the tap, shaking his head in a mildly amused manner, but no water comes out and he didn't really expect any. He closes his eyes, just for a moment.

The awful fear of last night, tearing through a thunderstorm in the pitch black and fits of hysteria, has lessened its grip on Watson's guts. The pained, washed-out light of the day eases even that anxiety; it seems, now, almost soothing, and Watson wishes, briefly, for the clamour of daily life in London. He glances back up, and, astonished, sees two figures walking up to the house. There are two men approaching. One is blonde; the other wears glasses.

Watson drops to his knees, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain in his thigh, and crawls to Holmes's side. Holmes, he hisses. Holmes, wake up.

The door blasts inwards. Watson jumps, and hits his head on the underside of the table. Pain flares up, sharp, and he swears and presses his hand against it.

As suave as ever, I see, Holmes says, suddenly awake and alert and smirking, and as Watson blinks back impact-related tears, Holmes swings himself out from under the table and to his feet with the grace and fluidity of a cat.

Watson shuffles out too, getting to his feet by setting his palm flat against the table's grainy surface and heaving himself up, wishing his cane were within easier reach. Lumbering, he thinks, is probably the word to describe how he's moving.

Oh God, announces the blonde man, who has just strode on in. He's as bad as you. He's addressing his companion, who ignores him in an easy, everyday sort of way.

What he means, says the one with glasses, is hello.

Pleased to meet you, says Holmes, for all the world like Watson hasn't seen him hunched over the beginnings of a fire, staring up at Watson like he's doubting his own mind. Sherlock Holmes, and this here is my friend and companion, Doctor Watson. Watson realises his hand has been hovering, unconsciously, where his revolver should be, and lets it drop.

The one in glasses gawps a little bit. Seriously? he says.

Yes, Holmes says, grandly. Watson never fails to be entertained by the sheer scope of Holmes's sense of self-importance.

I'm Harry, says the one with glasses, and Holmes nods.

Harry, he says. He looks him up and down, and Harry just looks mildly bemused. Watson is impressed: men have quailed before when faced that focus. You look very dry, Holmes adds, and his tone is equally arid.

Harry shrugs. I guess.

The blonde one sighs so deeply Watson thinks for a minute, setting aside all his medical experience, that he might actually have strained something. Oh my god, Potter, could you try to be less socially retarded for even just a couple of minutes?

Watson feels slightly bewildered.

My name is Draco Malfoy, the blonde man says. That's Harry Potter. You won't know who he is, of course, which makes a refreshing change. The attention goes to his head, you know.

Harry rolls his eyes, like this sort of thing was once an annoyance and now lingers merely as an irritation. Watson can understand this: adjusting to the sound of a violin at antisocial times of day had been a hard-won victory.

There is a lull; both parties size up the other.

Watson looks down at his own dirty, ripped jacket, Holmes's shirt hanging ragged around him now. He checks, involuntarily, that they are still standing under a roof. Harry and Malfoy both do look very dry, and clean. Watson shifts a little, and desperately wants a warm bath.

Anyway, Malfoy announces, with the same grandiose air as Holmes, earlier - and Watson spares a smile to himself; Holmes is going to like this one - can't stop, things to be getting on with. Just thought we'd check in, you know, seeing as we're deeply involved with trying to get your timeline back on track and everything, and you did keep being around.

What? Watson manages, and is vaguely disturbed that his first offering to this exchange is fairly underwhelming in terms of input. He coughs.

I'm sorry, Harry says, as he and Malfoy start to turn away, but we really can't explain right now.

Hold on, Holmes commands, imperious. Do you know what's happened? Do you know why?

How many people are hurt? Watson asks.

Holmes turns to him; it's the first time they've mentioned the possibility of other people - survivors, really, Watson supposes - since the bones in the forest clearing. He looks almost disapproving. Watson stands his ground.

They swing back to the door when the silence stretches a moment too long. There is no sign of Harry or Malfoy.

Fast runners, Watson mutters.

Did you hear them leave? Holmes is pacing again, turning on his heels when he reaches the sink, and again at the stairs near the far wall. I didn't hear them leave. He stops abruptly at the front door. Yet they left.

It strikes Watson hard enough that he almost staggers with it that this, this is what could be too much for Holmes. The end of the world comes secondary to the end of reason.

Holmes, he says, soft enough that Holmes can ignore it if he wants to.

Holmes ignores him.

*

Watson woke up with a pounding headache that made it impossible for him to actually move his head. He managed a vague, incoherent sound, and let that idea go. Staying very still, it slowly became apparent that he was lying both on a hard, wooden floor and flush against someone's back. Watson blinked, trying to clear the hangover from his eyesight. Nothing happened, so he blinked again, and the someone was Holmes.

It wasn't that odd, Watson found, to be pressed into the contours of Holmes's spine, nor was it the first time they had been at such close quarters. Following Holmes in his line of work meant that more than once they had been squeezed into a space meant only for one person, waiting, Holmes's hand over Watson's mouth although they both knew very well that Watson wouldn't make a sound until Holmes had indicated his approval; Holmes got himself injured on a frankly astoundingly regular basis, and Watson had had to manhandle him into chairs, or cabs, or the patient's table in his practice more than would be described as 'often'; and on top of that, Holmes was a tactile person - or rather, Watson thought, it was not that Holmes was overly physically demonstrative but rather that everyone else was lacking in that respect. An arm slung warm and companionable around Watson's shoulders, Holmes leaning back against Watson's legs when he was down to earth in a chair and Holmes high on the floor, Holmes leaning in close to whisper something obscene and insulting in the presence of Scotland Yard's finest: these were things that had become accepted conventions in Watson's life.

This - this was Holmes asleep in front of the hearth with Watson curled around him like a hand around the neck of a violin, this was Holmes slack and untroubled and loose in his baggy, untucked shirt with his braces slipped off his shoulders, this was Holmes smelling still of whisky and the remnants of a smoked-out fireplace, of sleep and traces of the polish Watson had once cleared a space for Mrs Hudson to use optimistically on their parlour floor, and it was different.

Watson got up as quickly as the banging behind his eyes would allow. He shucked off his own rumpled jacket and smoothed it around Holmes's shoulders, and then he spent the rest of his morning recovering in his own bed.

The next time he saw Holmes, Holmes was bowed over what Watson was sure were highly toxic chemicals in the way that other men bowed over prayer, and Watson left him to it.

As Watson reached the doorway, Holmes said, "Good night in the end, then, old boy?" and Watson couldn't turn round to answer him, for fear of being honest.

*

(Part Two)

Comments

[girlnotorious.livejournal.com]

I love the way you arrange your prose! It flows so well, and everything is wonderfully descriptive!

I don't suppose the title is from Florence and the Machine's song Blinding? If so- I adore you!

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's such a lovely thing to hear. ♥

And yes! The title is from Blinding - it was literally the only song I found that I could listen to while I was writing this - iTunes tells me I have now listened to 194 times - and so I thought it was only fitting that it should provide the title :D