Fic: Relative Reality [Sherlock Holmes, AU]
Mary doesn’t know what to do with a Mr. John Watson. His picture stares at her from the chart in her hand and she sighs. He is a good man, extremely nice, and would be completely and perfectly sane… if it wasn’t for him. She reads the words over and over again on her chart: Sherlock Holmes. She nearly goes as crazy as her patients with that name, one brought up over and over again. It pains her that this man seems so real to John.
Walking up to the bolted down door of 221b she knocks, biting her lip as she does so. The guards have unlocked it for her, but the need not do it in the first place. Mr. Watson isn’t a risk for escaping, mostly due to Sherlock’s tendency to want to stay inside.
He opens the door, mustache trimmed and eyes bright. “Miss. Morstan, how nice to see you again!” He opens the door widely and invites her into his room. It isn’t padded, it doesn’t need to be. There are a couple of chairs, sat opposite of each other and a bed that is referred to as a ‘couch’ by the occupant. He sleeps there, saying that returning to ‘his own room’ isn’t necessary at night.
“John, thank you for letting me in; how are you today?” She asked, taking up her clipboard and putting on a slightly forced smile. Her training had prepared her for screaming, illusions of monsters, even people believing that they were birds… the epitome of a Victorian gentleman wasn’t in the manual.
“Today has been quite good, actually. Although I see our landlady is late with tea, I’m sure she’ll be up in a few moments.” He waited until she sat herself on the ‘couch’ [a while ago she had learned not to sit in Holmes’ chair or else her patient would get most irate] before taking his usual seat.
“Mr. Watson-“
“DR Watson, if you please.”
“Mr. Watson, I know I must say this to you at every visit but you have no landlady. You are, once again, within London’s finest psychiatric hospital, St. Elizabeth’s, and you are suffering from dissolutions. You are living in the 21st century.” She hated this speech, mostly because his eyes became very far away after she stated it. She went through this every day, trying to break him from his dream world and wake his up. He wasn’t a Victorian; he was living in the year 2010. Everyone surmised that it must have been the war that had done this to him; trauma screwing up his brain. She had worked with soldiers before; they had never been this bad.
“Reading more of those novels, are you? Wells, I think his name is. Great dreamer, although I think his ideas have infected the populous. Making claims of time travel. The part of my illusions? Excellent touch to the story! You should take to the pen, I’m sure the literary world would be glad to have you.” He smiled, trying not to let it falter. “Have I told you that I, too, have taken to the pen? My adventures with my dearest friend have taken me on some great adventures. To the extent, in fact, that I have taken the liberty of writing them down. I am thinking of publishing them.”
The saddest fact in Watson’s file was the fact he was writing a Victorian era novel during the war. He learned in great detail everything about it, and it was why he could live it so vividly in his mind. He wrote himself as the main character, a doctor who met the detective Sherlock Holmes. The book, itself, was about the different adventures. After the war he reverted into his story to cope, literally.
“Where is Holmes?” She said, sternly. Right now was the time to make him see the truth. It was time to force him from this illusion. She hated it, but maybe this time it would work.
“He’s off on a case, of course.” Watson said, shrugging her off without much effort.
“And he didn’t bring you along?”
“He… he knew that I have patients to look over.” He was starting to get defensive; this was the opening she needed.
“But he always takes you, according to what you have told me over time. He is never around when I visit. You always open to door to your sitting room for me to enter, and we never seem to have tea due to the mysterious absence of your landlady. Tell me Mr. Watson, why do you carry on this delusion?” Her hand was in a fist, wondering what he would say to that. Most of the time he would laugh and start the whole conversation over again- creating never ending loops. Sometimes he would get defensive about it and demand for her to leave. Once, only once, did he ever show a crack in his mask. He had responded to her with a ‘we aren’t talking of those things, Doctor’ and quickly started the conversation over again.
This time, though, this time he stared into her eyes. He looked tired, worn ragged from the minimal amount of drugs they got into him and fighting off the ones he knew would stop his daydreaming. The nurses felt bad about giving such a nice man so many of them, so they mostly went with the ones that made him tired. They left his precious delusion alone.
Right now, however, John seemed frozen. Eyes glazed over and he slumped back into his chair. She almost made to stand until a dark chuckle came forth from the man before her and he finally looked up.
“Mary Morstan, Doctor to the psychiatric anomalies. Fixing this would be the high point in your career would it? Cure the crazy John Watson and have him finish his novel so the masses could read it. All they need is an ending now, isn’t it? I’ve been watching you, you know, from the back of his mind.” She froze, watching her charge. His demeanor was different, the way he carried himself more feline. “You, my dear, will stop trying to rid of me. I think you know who I am.” The grin that crossed his features was dangerous in a way.
“Holmes.” The name was whispered as she watched the figment manifest itself. He had never displayed such forms of schizophrenia before, not to the point of something like this happening. She vaguely remembered a lecture back in college about the Tyler Durden effect not being possible. Vaguely she made a note to prove that professor wrong.
“Very astute, nothing less from London’s finest I’m sure. Now I have a few things to say to you. First, your daily chats with my dear Watson distress him. He suppresses him and he is starting to ask me things like ‘is there really more in the world?’ and ‘were our adventures a sham?’ and I for one do not like it. Second, you are to tell your chambermaids to stop giving him ideas. You, Miss Morstan, are in fact not engaged to my dear doctor. I am sick of hearing about you and what ring he needs to pick out. He. Is. Mine.” The last part was practically growled out.
She knew that she shouldn’t even be fraternizing with the part of her patient but he was quickly getting under her skin. At least Watson’s descriptions of him had been accurate. “I think, Mr. Holmes, that if anything he owns you. You are, in fact, his creation and need to leave his troubled mind alone. You need to remain in your literature- stop plaguing the poor man.”
“Plaguing? Indeed! He created me for one purpose, my dear, and that would be to cope with the outside world. It does not matter if it was an escape in order to write, or to sit here and actually be happy in his own world. His creation. I think, in fact, that you are plaguing him with your drugs and visits. You do not own him, and at least I was made so I could.” He leaned back into the chair, quite satisfied with his answer to the rival standing before him.
“You can’t claim him.” She argued, trying to cool her temper.
“But you see, doctor, I already have. Mind, body, and soul. I would say you could ask him, but I know you have already had that conversation with him before. I always win that particular battle, as I always shall.” His grin was perverse in the way it spread and Mary had the irrational need to punch his across the mouth.
“That is where you are wrong, Holmes. I have only had that discussion with him while he is delirious. If I could get to him to see reason I would win that war. You are nothing, and have no power. I will prove this once and for all, even if it takes me the rest of my career.” Mary boldly stated, even if she was loosing confidence in her resolve.
“That is what you think, is it? If you can make him aware of his situation and talk him into a reality he hates while my arms are wide open for him to return to? Very well then, let us see if the great London psychiatric hospital can coax a man out of what he wants. What a man knows that he needs, and craves for each day. Someone to care for him, love him, in a way the world never has. Try, oh great doctors, I completely dare you to do it!” And with that he man before her started to shake violently.
In a moment she was by his side, looking into wide and scared eyes. She didn’t know what to make of his, he looked the most alert he had in the past year. He looked around wildly, his body still convulsing slightly. She wrapped an arm around his side and whispered soothingly into his eyes. “John, it’s alright, you’re at St. Elizabeth’s.”
“No, I… I can’t be… I was with him… I was just with him.” He searched the starch white walls again in panic. Mary bit her lip; she needed to get him to see reason.
“John, Sherlock Holmes is a figment of your imagination. He is a character you wrong for a book, and has somehow become real in your mind. We can help you- get rid of this man for you. Please, John, let us help you.” He shook his head frantically, tears welling up in his eyes. His body calmed down, even though there were still light tremors wracking his body.
“No… don’t.” He asked, pleading with his heart and soul. Mary had gotten her wish, he was completely aware, so why was she feeling so dissatisfied by the results?
“John, you have to tell me. Why don’t you want our help? Come on, you’ll be safe. Just tell me, maybe we can help you. Please, just tell me.” She whispered soothingly.
“Don’t make him leave… no… please.” He took a gasping breath, “I’m in love with him. Holmes, I love him. My heart, my lover, my Holmes.” Mary pulled back as if something had struck her. She hadn’t heard of something like this happening and she wasn’t sure what to do. Her mind was working; going over all of the lectures she had sat through, and couldn’t come up with a single damn thing to do about this.
“John you… uh… you can’t just…” She watched him; he was slumping back in his chair- eyes half lidded as exhaustion was taking over his body. He was still protesting to her. She knew that when he woke up, he wouldn’t remember any of this. He would be back to being the Victorian gentleman that had been assigned to her.
“No… can’t lose him… love him… no… Holmes… please…”
Mary knew that she had lost.