Watson's Deal- Part 1

It was a foggy day. The thick air was filled with the kind of fine, tiny raindrops that settle in one's lungs and in one's hair, particularly collecting at very ends of my neat handlebar mustache and falling in fat drips onto the cobblestones beneath my feet. I had ventured out on a walk around two hours ago, but the slow accumulation of newly-formed oceans in my shoes was now forcing me to return to my accommodations at 221B, Baker Street.

However, I had no sooner turned the corner leading onto the narrow road in which my quarters were established when I was run straight into and almost bowled over in the sudden impact. Mrs. Hudson was suddenly before me, tugging on my arm and obviously in a state of great agitation.

"Oh, Dr. Watson, thank goodness I found you... I'm ever so sorry to run into you like this... It's just that... Oh, Doctor, it's Mr. Holmes; I think something is the matter with him!" As she spoke, her hands fluttered in the air like nervous birds, her light-blue eyes wide with fear and worry.

"Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Hudson," I said soothingly, "I'm sure everything is fine. No cause for anxiety; I'll go see whatever it is he's done this time."

With that, I strode down the sidewalk of Baker Street with Mrs. Hudson still clinging to my arm. We entered the hall, shutting the front door behind us with a soft thud, and I followed her up the burgundy-carpeted stairs to the room I shared with my eccentric friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

At first, when I entered the room, I saw nothing wrong. Papers that detailed various aspects of the London Crime Underground were still littered about the floor in disarray, as their owner refused to put them away. A merry fire was blazing in the stove to keep away the typical London chill of the afternoon. The Persian slipper which held my companion's tobacco still lay on the coffee table, which was also scattered with test-tubes and various bottles and jars for Holmes' chemistry experiments. However, my attention was soon directed to a small hypodermic syringe which lay amongst the hodgepodge of belongings on the table and my heart sunk within my chest.

The owner of the needle lay curled on the floor beside the couch, his usually keen eyes dull and hollow-looking as he stared blankly up at us without any sign of recognition.
Mrs. Hudson gave a little cry of fright and I gripped her arm bracingly, though my own heart was pounding within me so fast that it seemed almost pretentious of me to give comfort to her.

"Mrs. Hudson," I said calmly to her, "I think it best that you leave the room. Don't worry about Mr. Holmes, he'll be alright once I have a look at him. I am a doctor, you know." I smiled at her comfortingly, although I myself was full of fear. I brought the frightened woman to the door with a short backward glance at the shattered Holmes and walked her downstairs, giving the maid instructions to bring her some tea while I worked. Then, I went back upstairs to my room with a feeling of dread in my chest.

Holmes hadn't moved. One of his arms was thrown out on the floor beside him and the other rested upon his chest, the long, white fingers splayed and twitching slightly. His right leg was bent sideways, his bare foot drawn up to his hip, while the left leg was straight and the foot adorned with a match-less bedroom slipper. His gaunt, drawn face retained no expression and his lack-luster dark eyes were fixed on a point somewhere behind my head.

"Holmes?" I asked tentatively, laying my large, warm hand over his cold, slim-fingered one. His enormous pupils slowly fixed on my blue-eyed gaze as his hand shook spasmodically beneath mine.

The haggard face looked up at me expressionlessly as I knelt beside him, pushing the coffee table away so that I could attempt to examine my friend from the eyes of a doctor examining an average patient. Upon picking up his limp wrist and gently pressing my fingers to the soft skin of its underside, I found that his pulse was racing along at a highly dangerous and irregular pace. With the pops of tearing buttons, I ripped open the nightshirt he was wearing to expose his thin chest and grabbed my stethoscope from the lining of my hat, which I'd placed on the table. That was definitely not a promising pulse.

What could I do? For me to give him anything that might slow his heartbeat would be to add more chemicals into the dangerous poison that was already swirling through his veins. Nor could the drug be effectively purged out of him, as it was in his blood and not his stomach.

The heaviness of defeat was settling on my shoulders as my mind lurched frantically from solution to solution, each seeming less probable than the next. In the end, I simply took the tall man in my arms and, with the little effort it cost a man of my size and training, set him on the couch, arranging a pillow beneath his head and covering him with the old, plaid quilt that had been thrown carelessly over his usual chair. There was nothing I could do but wait it out.

I sat down anxiously in my chair by the still-blazing fire, glancing sideways every couple of seconds at my burnt-out friend. It seemed that it must have been over an hour since he had taken the drug, as its initial effect was one of intense energy and excitement and the shuddering figure huddled on the couch seemed to be anything but invigorated. Subsequent to taking his usual small dosages of the cocaine, Holmes would generally lock himself in his room and pace up and down restlessly, or scrape tunelessly at his violin to produce rapid, unharmonious chains of chords that would have driven one who didn't know Holmes' temper to strike him. After the original fit of restiveness and anxiety, he would flop grimly into his armchair and puff at his pipe, casting moody scowls at the woodstove.

I presumed that it was this second stage that he had arrived in; however, he was currently in a much worse state than I had ever seen him before. I attempted to keep my eyes on the fire, telling myself that staring worriedly at Holmes would do him no good, but I found my eyes wandering toward him constantly. After several minutes, the glassy brown eyes of my friend began to close, the flickering of the firelight reflected in their misty surface. He heaved a quiet sigh through his nose and snuggled deeper into the recesses of his blanket, causing me to smile slightly despite myself. He looked so unlike the keen, fierce Sherlock Holmes that I knew and almost similar to a sleepy bloodhound puppy, so vulnerable and innocent that I felt almost pitying.

Holmes' soft, unbroken breathing filled the room as I waited, watching over the only man in the world for whom I would truly do anything.


* * *
It was hours before he awoke.

I had dozed off myself and was drooling with my head lolling onto the side of my winged armchair when the sounds of a violin awoke me. With a start, I sat up and looked around wildly, my dreams of gun-smoke and soldier's blood fading into the walls of 221B, Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes was sitting calmly in his chair opposite me and tuning his chestnut-brown violin by ear, plucking at a string manically with his long, pale fingers.

"Curse this A-string," he muttered to himself, "It's this vile weather that's setting it off..."

"Holmes!" I cried in relief.

He looked up at me with bloodshot, purple-rimmed eyes, the only tributes to his recent self-poisoning beside the strangely over-energetic pose of his body. "Yes, Watson?" Holmes said, infuriatingly unruffled.

"As if you don't already know," I snarled like an aggrieved parent, "You had me terribly worried over you! You might have killed yourself!"

He chuckled. "My dear Watson, you would make an excellent dramatic writer. Perhaps instead of romanticizing our adventures together to the point of fantasy, you might find a niche in the playwright society," Holmes said drily, still playing the same pizzicato 'A' incessantly and twisting the tiny silver tuning-knobs of his violin, "My little weaknesses are nothing for you to get quite so excited over."

"Little weaknesses... Little weaknesses?" I said furiously, my voice growing louder and more heated by the moment, "Holmes, you were completely oblivious... lying on the floor, when I arrived. I thought you were dead. I don't know what you were... Holmes, stop that!" He looked up in mild surprise, ceasing to pluck at his violin at my request.

"I don't know what you were thinking! You might have died! I thought you were going to. If this ever happens again, I'll... I'll..." I continued irately, unable to come up with a terrible enough punishment.

"Shout at me another time?" Holmes suggested with a twitch of a smile, "I doubt it would be any more effective than it is now. You may want to simply resign the task and keep your voice down; my head is already aching."

"Whose fault is that, Holmes?!" I bellowed, standing up over him, my ears red. Holmes looked up at me, suddenly thoughtful, setting his violing down on his lap and steepling his fingers.

"My own, Watson," he admitted frankly after a pause, looking at me curiously, "You know, I suppose I have behaved, in your eyes, rather shamefully. Allow me to make it up to you. No cocaine for a week; none at all, not even my regular, harmlessly small dosages. Will that suffice to banish your concerns for what you perceive to be the possibility of an addiction?"

I blushed, embarrassed for him by his candor and surprised at his sudden lack of denial to my arguments.

"Have you a case? If there is one, then my fears will not be lessened." I knew the of the amazing vigor that possessed him during his investigations, causing him to neglect his own needs, even going so far sometimes as to nearly starve himself, while he was on the trail of a criminal. There would be no desire in him for the drug while he was in such an energetic and productive state.

"No, and I will not take one in the duration of this experiment if it would harm the results."

Experiment, I thought, Why must you treat everything as an experiment?

"It's a done deal, then," I agreed, reaching out my hand, "If you're right, and you have absolutely no addiction to this vile substance, I'll never vocally object to your usage of it again. But if I'm right..."

"Watson, I believe the records prove your odds against being the correct one of our pairing."

"...then you'll stop injecting yourself with it," I plowed on, ignoring his sly comment, "Swear to it." I held my hand out and he took it in one of his own.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes," I said, looking confidently at him, "I swear to you that if you can go a week without the usage of drugs, then I will never again question your somewhat unwholesome habits." He grinned at my disapproval.

"Dr. John Watson, I swear to you that if I cannot do what you have asked of me, then I will place myself without resistance into your capable hands for rehabilitation," he said calmly.

I let go and nodded firmly to my friend, who instantly picked up his violin once more as though nothing had occurred and resumed his irritating plucking. It was only after I sat back down that I recognized that his hand had still been trembling.