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Man has vices since he’s born, John thinks absentmindedly as he passes the betting papers for the evening through his fingers.
You come out from your mother’s womb and you already want to drink her milk, then you search for approval, then alcohol, smoking, women and gambling.
Then you crave youth, and then you die.
Every gentleman in London has a vice, come on. He saw people with degrees and doctorates smoking opium in the worst brothels with the worst people, he saw decorated people drinking until they forgot how to unzip their pants to piss, so he can indulge in the art of gambling from time to time, right?
Right?
Not to add that he’s definitely smarter than all the other gamblers here. He bets only on that raving lunatic of his best friend, who after two days without cases and a good syringe of cocaine in his bloodstreams he goes like a train.
Is not that he’s happy with his friend’s addiction, but…
Beggars can’t be choosers.
Let alone gamblers.
The crowd, this evening, is more variegated than usual. There are fighters by the sides of the ring ready to get their nose broken again, and then there are people like him, dressed all preppy in that…place. Let’s say.
He’s a doctor graduated from Barts and a war veteran.
He sighs heavily, when a hand grabs his shoulder.
“Good evening, my dear doctor” seems like Holmes covered the distance between Glasgow and London by running, judging by the drops of sweat covering his forehead and the panting between his words, “it’s warm this evening, isn’t it? Summer is coming”.
He prances like a grasshopper, doing some jabs directed to air. And surely he hasn’t seen a calendar in a while, since it’s November .
John looks at him from head to toe: he misses a shoe, his sock has a hole, and he doesn’t even have a jacket on. There’s a worrying quantity of red liquid on his pants and unbuttoned shirt. His eyes are two pitch black billiard balls, and a red shade on his poorly-kept mustache.
Good God. What did he do in the last hour? In the last hour , since he told him running out the door I’ll catch you later, my dear soldier! I’ve got business to attend!
“What happened to you? Why is there blood on your shirt? What did you do?” he wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until his head pops out from his shoulders, but he just crosses his arms on his chest.
“No no basically basically! Basically” he keeps on moving, spinning and laughing like the devil he is, “I went to the port to take some ingredients to…to win tonight’s match. Yes, to win the match”
“Holmes?” seeing his friend acting like a rabid racoon makes him giggle, “which substances did you take?”
“A mix. Yes, a mix”
“A mix of…what?”
“Don’t remember”
“And then?”
“And then I came here. Running”
“Running”
“Running”
“And your nose?”
“I stumbled and then I got up. Yessis, it’s warm this evening, don’t you think?”
“Maybe it’s not necessary to fight” John puts his hand on his shoulder, with the clear intent to take him away, because he might not have his deduction talents but he surely has a medical degree. And if there are two things that he learned in uni is that, first of all, mixing drugs is not good, and second of all that blood is not from a fall, but from an epistaxis.
And an epistaxis together with the use of more than one drug, knowing him probably at the same time, is
not
a great sign.
The man moves his hand with violence, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips like an angry child. “Of course not. I’m in great shape, see? Great shape. I’m ready to get on the ring” he points at a non specific spot in front of him, hurting a gentleman that briefly gives him a poisonous look, “I’m in great shape and I'll win all those pounds. All those pounds! You’ll finally be able to purchase that book! What was it? An essay concerning human understanding? Isn’t it peculiar how a philosopher has part of your name and part of my name in his name?”
“That’s eno-” he can’t even finish the sentence that the other is running towards the ring, taking out the shoe and socks in clumsy movements together with the shirt, and John follows him reluctantly to the first row.
His adversary, tonight, is a brute double his height and muscles, pale skin decorated with way too many scars and short red hair. He smiles at the sight of his opponent, with his few remaining teeth.
Holmes is keeping on hopping, posing as a great boxer as he still punches the air.
Delirious, that’s the only word John can use to describe him. He snaps his head, his chest rising and falling in a frenetic way, when the ref starts the match.
John follows everything with his gaze, holding the wooden barrier that separates him from the stamped ground of the ring: he saw many times his best friend fighting, he knows his seconds in which he looks at the ground just to floor down the opponent in a few simple punches, but this time he doesn’t…
He doesn’t follow his usual script.
He’s always metodic, he avoids blows fast and plays with the adversary just to make him fall on one of his traps. This time he jumps on the other man, taken by an animalistic fury and punching him as if it was his only reason to live. The opponent is on the ground in seconds, his head knocking on the wood in front of the stunned doctor.
The detective is usually over the top, but never this violent. He punches randomly, leaving on the ginger’s face a plantation of bruises.
He doesn’t even have a scratch on his face, but suddenly his nose starts to bleed. Profusely.
John sees the ref taking Holmes’ arm before he can hurt the man further, almost separating him from the ground and announcing him as the winner, focusing on the abnormal quantity of blood from Holmes’ nose.
Who has found his gaze, smiling proudly at him.
Bloody teeth.
If he didn’t know him in the same way he knows his native language, he would almost scare him.
The crowd emits a variety of sounds, from disappointment to rage to profound joy, but he’s still focused on Holmes.
The ref leaves him, and he’s still next to the barrier. Alone. All the energy that was with him until this moment seems to fade from his body, as he takes uncertain steps to the doctor.
“Tomorrow” he pants, “tomorrow you’ll get that book”.
It has been a mistake talking to him about it, John thinks as he analyzes his body.
A small and trembling being, that takes drugs just to win money so he can buy a book.
“Let’s go home” he whispers, with the intention to catch his shoulder and drag him away, when Holmes falls forward, risking to crash on the wood if it wasn’t for John’s arms catching him by the shoulders.
His nose is still bleeding, red streams on John’s jacket, on his chest and on the ground.
Half-closed eyes, his breathing is too fast.
“Holmes, please!” John feels the gazes on his skin, as the other slightly opens an eye.
“I don’t feel so…” he takes the trouble to move his head, puking his soul next to his feet. Red traces in the bile.
Oh, no.
John opens the little gate that separates them, taking the man in his arms. He has to think fast, because he doesn’t really know what is happening.
He has to be rational. So: severe epistaxis, shortness of breath, rapid irregular heartbeat, large iris, loss of consciousness, blood in vomit, excessive sweating.
He needs to go to the hospital. Immediately.
He hates him. He hates him so much. He hates him so much it almost makes him want to leave him there, on the ring, dying alone because this is what he wants’, right? A person who treats himself like this just for fun craves death, right? Then why worrying?
But he still takes him between his arms, making his head rest on his shoulder.
He’s heavy. His bad leg hurts like hell, deaf pain through his spine. He could just throw him in the Thames, forget all the events that led to this moment and run away as far as possible.
The people’s gazes sting, his blood pulses in his brain as he locks his jaw.
He has to get to the hospital.
The people are murmuring around him, and are touching them, but he keeps going, speeding up the pace.
As much as possible, with his damn leg and that dead weight on him.
“You despicable scoundrel. You foolish monkey. You petulant idiot” he comes out from the dive bar with a specific direction in his mind, keeping on talking to a dying Holmes. He doesn’t have shoes, he doesn’t have socks, he doesn’t have a shirt. His only clothing is his pants.
Shivering, with hair glued to his forehead, the epistaxis is over but his blood paints his chin and cheeks.
He’s never at peace, not even when he sleeps. Their rooms are next to each other, the walls too thin. Sometimes he wakes up in the night, awakened by the sound of a violin or more often by his screams and disconnected words.
Now he’s too…calm. His breathing became slower, clouds of vapor in the autumnal air under the streetlights, as John walks through the deserted streets.
“You firecracker. You rascal. Born from your mother’s ass” he’s still listing insults as if Holmes could hear him, just to release the tension on his shoulder.
It was supposed to be a simple evening. An extremely simple evening. A win, a beer, a return to Baker Street. Their armchairs, his violin as he tries to read a book.
But no. Of course.
“Can’t you just not do stupid things for three, three , second? Good Lord, Holmes! You’re a lost cause of a man!” he finally snaps, almost screaming on the sidewalk.
He knows it’s not professional, he knows it’s not good, but he doesn’t know how else to react. He’s a war surgeon, that’s it. If he had an injured leg, a bullet in his arm, or something else that is physical, he could do at least something.
But he had the brilliant idea to get high on shit. He doesn’t know what kind, he doesn’t know how, he doesn’t know when.
Cocaine, sure. He knows it.
But what else?
My mind rebels at stagnation, he always says. Yes, it rebels at stagnation, but also common sense, it seems.
The most normal, normal , common sense.
The normal common sense and decency to stop him from taking more than one lethal substance in one shot. To win a stupid boxing match.
In all of this, his hand is on the detective’s neck. Just to know if he’s alive or not, just to be clear. Because it’s quite complicated to yell at a dead man. Because it’s quite complicated to pay the rent alone, in that apartment. Because it’s quite complicated to not know how to dance and not having the balls to ask anyone how to learn. Because it’s quite complicated, the loneliness, the silence. Because it’s quite complicated not to talk to anyone. Because it’s quite complicated to go to the relatives and say that their son and brother is…
“Watson” Holmes whispers, raising his hand painfully to touch the other man’s cheek.
“Shut up, for once” John grumpily replies. The hospital is near, anyway. Just a few steps.
His pulse is not regular, from being erratic and throbbing it has become too slow.
His temperature has dropped, he hasn’t even covered him…
To hell with that. They’re basically there.
“Watson” he repeats, “forgive me”.
John can’t mask his surprised expression. It’s the first time he actually apologize for something.
Oh, so he’s doing really bad.
Knowing that he’s still capable of forming coherent thoughts makes his chest warm, so he just curls his eyebrows in a hard expression.
“Go to hell, Holmes”.
He sits on the hospital’s wooden floor, his head against the wall and his hat between his hands, passing the brim through his fingers.
Emergency gastric lavage, they took him there hours or minutes ago, he doesn’t know. The windows are covered by thick curtains, the only light is the one of candles. They’re the only two people in there, all the other beds empty.
Holmes’ breathing is calm, regular. Looking briefly at him, he can notice a humid rag on his forehead to break the fever that hit him shortly after he arrived.
He doesn’t emit not even a sound, except from some rare whimper.
He doesn’t know why he’s like this. He doesn’t know how he always manages to put himself in the worst situations and always comes out of them unharmed.
As if all the people around him should necessarily follow him in his nonsense until the end.
How can a man be so lonely to yearn for danger just to be saved by others?
Sometimes he thinks he hates him. There is no other possible explanation.
Maybe he takes a perverse pleasure in putting himself in danger, running in the worst situations just to be saved.
By John, of course.
(And he’ll always come to save him. That’s how it works, right? He also does it with a fair amount of pleasure)
(Because he knows they’re tied, now. Inextricably)
(He doesn’t know if it’s good or not. He’ll think about it).
“Holmes, why are you like this?” he whispers, hoping he’ll hear it. He wants him to get up in a jump, gloating some witty sentence about how of a genius he is as he won the match against Death even this time.
But he stays still, sighing lightly.
“You’re a mystery, you know? I can’t get you” he keeps on muttering, “I don’t understand you at all. You’re maybe the stupidest genius I even knew”.
He purses his lips, trying to find the exact words. “Because you know I’ll always come to save you. Even if you always treat me like a rag. Well, almost always…let’s say”.
Once, Holmes taught him how to play the violin. It was a rainy morning, without cases at the horizon. To quiet down the detective’s agitation, he challenged him to make him become a virtuoso before lunch.
He yelled at him for at least four hours, straightening his back and constantly moving his chin on the chin rest because you maintain your military posture only when you have to woo some ladies, don’t you dear Watson? until he finally learned how to play Frère Jacque.
He can’t deny it was fun.
“Almost always” Holmes’ voice is raspy. He opens his eyes slowly, looking at the doctor next to his bed. “You chat a lot when you think people can’t hear you. Unfortunately for you, my hearing still works”.
The bastard.
“You’re an idiot” John finds himself growling, a newfound rage in his chest.
“And you're sentimental. I’m afraid we’re from the same circus”.
John can’t contain a nervous laughter, taking his face between his open palm.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I thought you were dying in my arms and now you’re here talking about circuses”
“No sense of humor, I can see”
“You mixed drugs to win a boxing match”
“You wanted that book”
“But I didn’t want to end up in this situation!” he raises his voice, tightening his fists.
Holmes is quiet, just for a few seconds.
“I’m not suicidal, if you’re asking” he adds, closing his eyes again.
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe that”.
Holmes takes out his hand from under the cover, letting it dangle just for the other man to take it.
Fingers hold each other, John can hear his heart beating from his wrist.
“Forgive me for my…”
“Foolishness?”
“Recklessness. I should have calculated the doses better”.
John puts his head on the side of the bed, passing the thumb on the other’s palm. “Just…try to be more careful with your vices” he bites his inner cheek, thinking about it for a second. “I’ll be more careful with mine”
“Alright. Don’t get used to my excuses”
“Got it”.
Some more of that embarrassing silence.
“I value your friendship greatly, Watson. I’ll make sure to return the favor”.
John looks at him, a small smile on his lips. “There’s no need for that” his tone got softer, “I just need you to be fine”.