The Most Natural Thing
Title: The Most Natural Thing
Author: jenlee1
Rating: PG-13
Setting: SH ‘09 movieverse
Word count: 2300
Warnings: Spoilers for the new film.
Summary: Train car, post-munitions factory. Missing scene from AGoS.
A/N: Written for a fic prompt by the lovely enkiduts asking for Holmes’s POV near the end of this particular scene, though it grew a bit from what I originally intended. Many thanks for all your help, dear ;)
The train is dark and blessedly quiet after the deafening hail of gunfire and artillery, and his first coherent impression of his surroundings as the door thumps closed behind them at last is one of sheer, overwhelming relief. That he finds his fortunes improved by lying face down on the floor of a musty boxcar, breathing stale air and mouse urine and caked mud on too many pairs of boots, is an irony he prefers not to dwell on - and in any case, it makes little enough difference at the moment.
They are safe, at least for now.
He tries hard to believe it, draws his knees up to his midsection and allows himself a moment to simply react - curled around the blossoming agony in his shoulder, every muscle trembling with exertion, right hand pressed high and flush against his chest in a futile effort to blunt the pain.
There are things that they should do, of course. Even exhausted and bleeding and scarcely aware, he is not fool enough to think that the danger has passed. They need to take stock of themselves, sort out a strategy and plan the next move, but the low murmur of nearby voices rushes over him in a dizzying cacophony of sound and try as he might, his beleaguered senses cannot keep up.
The low creak of floorboards beneath his ear startles him more than it should; the sudden, unwelcome proximity of someone’s hands and voice and breath, and he jerks half-upright away from the touch - the dragging pressure of too much weight as his shoulder screams in protest, bucking against the cruel grip on his wrist - but it’s wrong, somehow. The movements, the rush of sensation, the reflexive drive to escape; all strangely foreign, muscles contracting without conscious effort or control and the panic drops away as abruptly as it came.
His head feels thick and heavy, fingers bunched white-knuckled in the familiar shirtsleeve of his ever-reliable Doctor, recently married and unaccountably bitter and bending over him with his voice pitched low and frightened all over again, and his body strains instinctively to relax as it always has before. There are some things that simply never change - and at the moment, for good or ill, he cannot muster the energy to care about the rest.
There.
A hand resting warm and certain on his hip - easy, lie still - and the faint scratch of wool trousers against his cheek as Watson settles more closely beside him, counting a pulse with careful fingers in the hollow of his throat.
“Bit of a scrape this time, old boy,” he hears himself say. The words are reflex, by now - he cannot imagine the grotesque spectacle he must present, half-curled on his side like a broken doll with one hand clutched against the ruined shoulder. “Not so bad, now, is it?”
Helpless animal instinct, to try and hide the damage - whispers a voice in the back of his mind. Too little, too late. He knows it as well as anyone, forces the words from his mind with an effort as Watson lets out a breath from somewhere above.
“You’ve no basis for comparison, obviously.” One corner of the doctor’s mouth quirks up in a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Budge up into the light, and let’s have a better look - you’re bleeding all over.”
His waistcoat is the first casualty of the examination, falling away without more than a cursory protest in the wake of Watson’s pocketknife when it becomes obvious that Holmes cannot move his right arm. He wants to explain - about the little glass of liquor and the music and the rope, and Moriarty’s hands on his body - but the words tangle together and catch in his throat, limbs leaden and sluggish in the fading rush of adrenaline and he accepts the supporting arm at the small of his back without complaint.
In the crumbled ruin of the tower, of course, there had been no time.
Precious little for the bare essentials - on your feet, keep moving, don’t look back - and none at all for niceties, and so there had been nothing for it but to sling an arm around Watson’s neck and force himself up. No thought to spare for speculation or strategy or planning the next move, for once in his cursed life; breathless and dizzy, running as though the very hounds of Hell were in pursuit.
He had known only that it hurt, like nothing in his life had hurt before. And Watson, hefting up with an iron grip around his waist and a single, whispered apology, had known it too.
Here, the hands on his shoulder are impossibly gentle. They ease away the blood-soaked fabric crusted against his back as though he were made of glass - probing carefully at the edges of the ugly wound beneath, reaching down to cradle the injured arm as he swallows convulsively, stifling a groan against the familiar stiff-starched fabric of Watson’s shirt collar.
As it happens, explanations are entirely unnecessary.
“Oh, Holmes,” his friend whispers, fingers tightening unconsciously on his wrist and he shakes his head once, hard.
Don’t.
If Watson speaks the words, he will have to stop and think. His mind snags with sickening, crystalline precision on the snap of bone, the coppery-warm taste of blood in his mouth over the creak and hiss of the gramophone, and he forces the rest away - breathes hard through his nose and holds it as Watson’s fingers do their work.
He has always been oddly grateful for the doctor’s air of quiet efficiency under fire, and never more than here and now. The worst is over in an instant - one hand resting on the wounded shoulder to confirm the unnatural shift as his arm is turned just so, and the rest is lost as his world explodes in a white-hot haze of agony. He cannot speak, can hardly think; presses his face to the crook of Watson’s neck as his vision grays at the edges, and breathes cold sweat and shaving soap beneath the acrid smell of gun smoke and antiseptic.
Holmes, someone whispers again. Holmes, all right. It’s all right.
It’s a damned lie and he knows it - it’s there in the pins-and-needles trembling of his right hand against his chest, the lancing shock that runs from shoulder to fingertips as his body tries to flinch away. Watson’s hand is on his back rubbing slow, desperate circles; eerily quiet and leaning close enough to feel the brush of a stubbled cheek against his temple and God forgive him, it’s very nearly too much.
He thinks, absurdly, of shag tobacco and brandy snifters at Baker Street, the way it was before. Of the fit and feel of a violin against the wounded arm like something in another life, the blissful half-sick numbness of too much morphine and wonders - with Watson’s eyes glinting like bits of glass in the light of the sitting room fireplace, someplace far away - if it hurts this much to die.
“Fractured, yes,” he grinds out, eyes shut tight. Forming words is harder than it ought to be, like breathing through wet cotton wool. “Right collarbone. Lateral third near the joint, if I’m not mistaken.”
“My God,” Watson murmurs, flat and utterly without affect. The muscles of his throat work spasmodically, and Holmes has no need to see his expression to divine the rest. “He made a bloody good job of it, didn’t he?”
Holmes chuffs a laugh at that, thin and humorless though it is. “Suffice it to say that our adversary is a man well-versed in the principles of leverage, properly applied.” His shoulder throbs mercilessly, pulse pounding behind his eyelids. “That he is also possessed of an apparent appreciation for German lieder and twisted parlour games is neither here nor there.”
He feels Watson twitch against him, then - a reluctant flicker of muscle movement that stops just short of becoming something else, and wishes at once that he hadn’t spoken.
“Right, then,” the doctor says at last. “We need to set it, stabilize it somehow. I can’t - Christ. ” An unsteady exhalation, too slow and too careful; and then, as if it matters: “You need a hospital.”
His eyes slide past Holmes’s face to dart over the meagre contents of the train car - belts and braces, perhaps. A pair of handkerchiefs, Mary’s ridiculous scarf. All entirely inadequate for the simplest of medical emergencies, never mind this, and he feels the slow, half-panicked shiver of helpless frustration in the rise and fall of Watson’s chest against his back - the inevitable contemplation of could-haves and might-have-beens and the smoldering, unmistakable burn of regret, all the more dangerous in the face of whatever comes next.
Whipcord taut, the calm before the storm.
Not that, my boy. Never that. Promise me.
He calculates the average blood volume of a healthy adult male, weighs it against the way his clothing sticks wet and heavy along his back and chest and takes a steadying breath.
Focus.
“Left trouser pocket,” he murmurs, answering the unspoken question hanging in the air. It’s a distraction, if nothing else - he tugs half-heartedly at the crumpled shirtsleeve beneath his hand, shifting a bit to invite closer inspection as the little red book burns like a firebrand against his hip. “Our trump card. We have the advantage of him, for the moment.”
There is a moment of stillness, punctuated only by the sharp, staccato rasp of Watson’s breath behind his ear; the inescapable implication of cryptic warnings and useless telegrams clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle - come at once, if convenient - and perhaps it’s no surprise that the good doctor has no interest in pursuing the point.
“God-damn it, Holmes.” His hands are shaking - finally - pressing the folded cloth to his back with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “That God-damned fucking bastard.”
He coughs, once - allows his head to fall back against the solid warmth of Watson’s shoulder and finds that he cannot disagree.
He braces himself for the rest as Watson strokes the crown of his head with trembling fingers - soft and slow, now, gentle enough to hurt - and says nothing at all for a time while the world lumbers past outside. Hills and forests and soot-stained German snow, frosting his breath through the slatted walls of the boxcar with the setting sun in his eyes. He should be shivering, of course; should be cold and dizzy and just this side of nauseous, swallowing hard and leaning back against the welcome pressure of Watson’s hand at the nape of his neck, but the sensations are oddly distant; muted and over-bright like sunlight through dusty glass and he very nearly misses what comes after - the doctor’s voice, half-whispering against his hair with all the fight wrung out like so much water.
“What in God’s name were you thinking?”
A perfectly reasonable question, for all that it misses the point entirely.
He thinks of all the answers that Watson doesn’t want to hear - of church bells and empty glasses and the inexorable motion of the train, and sees the way it has to end. It’s a simple matter of logic, tracing the tangle of red silk ribbons on the wall of Watson’s consulting room to its inevitable conclusion, and the realization - for better or worse, he thinks, closing his eyes against the glare - comes as something of a relief.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he is.
~ * ~
The rest is academic, really. The makeshift application of bandages and slings; an exercise in improvisation and wishful thinking that leaves him weaker than before, settled warm and quiet on his back with numbness stealing over his body like fog in the forest outside. All right, he thinks again and the careful hand that smoothes his hair and touches his chest feels far too much like Watson’s - not three paces away, with his mouth set in a crooked line and his shirt rucked up along the side as he puts his sewing kit to use.
All right.
It’s an effort, remaining awake; like clutching too hard at sand and water and wisps of smoke. Drowning in the open air, in the unaccustomed softness of cotton skirts and Romani leather - and if that isn’t irony, for God’s sake, he damned well doesn’t know what is.
He breathes - once, twice - and his world narrows to a single, indelible point of focus as it always has before. Watches the rhythmic motion of the needle in Watson’s hand, steady and careful as ever in the half-light filtering in through the slatted wall, and allows his grip to slacken.
So much simpler, after all.
The tower clings to him, bits of rock and blood and coal dust in every seam and crease. The muffled crack of a sniper’s rifle flickering in and out of focus like drops of water on a windowpane, the sure and certain knowledge that he’ll wake up someplace safe and he holds it in his mind like a lifeline - the best and worst of what they are, and all he has ever asked of Providence.
A hand cupped beneath his head. Gentle fingers in the hair at the back of his neck for the space of a single, indrawn breath - urging him up and on and away, thank God, and the worst of the pain recedes at last.
The most natural thing in the world, elegant and effortless as falling asleep.
Always good to see you, my dear.
Then there is Watson’s shoulder braced against his side and Watson’s voice in his ear, and he runs.