Fic: "A Near Routine"

[beeinmybonnet]

If you think the text is too difficult to read here, you can try to read it at whimsical scribbles.

Title: A Near Routine
Summary: 1886. The conclusion of a case and its aftermath; a story in which Holmes can rely on Watson.
Characters/Pairings: Watson, Holmes; Lestrade and assorted minor characters
Rating: PG
Warnings: Reference to rape of minor OFC character
Genre: Gen; Friendship/Pre-Slash
Word Count: 1 511
Spoilers: Vague references to one, plot-irrelevant scene in the film.

Disclaimer: This is a transformative work of fiction based on Guy Ritchie's adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original works.




Hurrying down an obscure East End street which Watson had never travelled before, but with which Holmes was doubtlessly familiar, and Lestrade's forces not far behind them, Watson exerted himself not to lose sight of Clark Samson's dark form. His right calf blazed in protest to this treatment, but Watson was not prepared to succumb to it.

A strong hand grasped his shoulder and there was hot breath against his ear. "He's going to turn left at the next intersection," Holmes whispered, the words twice as fast as usual. "Run down that alley and you'll intercept him."

Trusting Holmes' knowledge of the maze that was London's road network, Watson dove into the narrow alley to his left. It was even more difficult to half-run in the limited space than it had been out on the street, but when he exited the other end he nigh on collided with Samson's great bulk. Holmes was hot on his heels and he grabbed Watson by the sleeve almost in passing, not even glancing at him. "Excellent; right on time. We'll have him now."

Barely had Holmes finished this sentence when Samson suddenly slowed down his running by half. With a terrible feeling of foreboding, Watson tore his arm away from Holmes and reached for his revolver. It was just in time; when Samson turned around and the unmistakable glint of metal glimmered in his hand, Watson did not hesitate to fire.

The bullet found its way into the blackguard's arm, and with a yell of pain he fell to his knees, pistol hitting the ground with a clatter. Watson kept his revolver raised as he leant heavily on his cane, watching out of the corner of his eye Holmes confiscate the forsaken pistol. He was not able to give his friend his complete attention; not with the monster of a man, whom he still had at gunpoint, in front of his very eyes.

Again the familiar hand fell upon his shoulder, but much gentler this time around. "That's enough, Watson. That is quite enough."

Watson hesitated, eyeing the whimpering mess before him, and then reluctantly lowered his revolver. Holmes gave him a quick pat just as Lestrade and his men caught up with them.

"I see you've got your man," Lestrade remarked when he came to a halt by Holmes, with a furtive glance at the firearm in Watson's hand. Holmes, whose eyes were still bright with alertness, held up Samson's pistol for the inspector to see.

"It was self-defence," he said in a matter-of-fact manner as he handed it over. "If Watson had not fired, the one lying here bleeding would either be a doctor or a consulting detective, and a criminal would still be at large."

"Indeed," Lestrade said. He did not appear to be wholly convinced. "Still, seems to me you've put an awful lot of work into this for a common burglar."

Watson holstered his revolver with more force than was strictly necessary. He wished more than anything to shout at Lestrade to take the vile being to the gallows, but he could not; when Nicholas Grey asked for them to find the burglar, he had made both of them swear that the rape of his sister would not be disclosed.

"You think so? The notion has never even crossed my mind. Come, Watson; I am more than certain Lestrade can handle things on his own from now on; let us hail a cab and head home for Baker Street."

Watson nodded his farewell to Lestrade and followed Holmes out onto the more open roads. They waited there in silence for a cab to pass by; Watson while trying to restrain his outrage, Holmes lost in thought.

By the time they managed to hail a hansom, Watson's anger had cooled down to a sense of despondency and he had regained most of his clarity of mind. It thus worried him when Holmes sat down beside him in the hansom and had still not spoken a word. The frown on his face, his drawn up shoulders, the way he subtly flinched at every sound; all of this spoke volumes to Watson, and only fuelled his concern.

"Holmes." When Holmes did not acknowledge him, Watson repeated his inquiry. "Holmes."

"Hn."

"Holmes, tell me how you solved the case. Tell me how you deduced Clark Samson was the culprit," Watson requested and laid his hand on Holmes' shoulder.

"It was simplicity itself," Holmes muttered, leaning ever so slightly into the touch.

Watson partway agreed with him. Compared to other cases, this one had been relatively simple, if horrendous; he himself had managed to roughly puzzle the pieces together by then. "Tell me anyhow."

"The fact of the matter is that however heinous Samson might be, he is a hopeless burglar," Holmes said and looked up at Watson. "He left traces of himself in all places of the house. A swift examination gave me such a complete profile that all I had to do was to pay a visit to the Hare & Hunt pub and ask for the name of the large, red-haired sailor habitué who always ordered their cheapest stout and smoked even cheaper cigarettes."

There was still quite a bit of the journey left before they reached Baker Street, with Holmes steadily growing worse by the second, and Watson wheedled him into continuing talking with him, grasping for every subject his mind could come up with.

"Holmes," Watson called when his friend's attention strayed for the twelfth time. "Concentrate on me. Focus on me."

Holmes turned his head towards Watson but his lacklustre eyes kept darting hastily without fixing themselves on anything.

"Tell me about— Tell me about tobacco ashes. Tell me about the differences between them."

When they finally reached Baker Street, Holmes was all but exhausted from the ride and could barely sit up straight. Watson had to pay the driver and then physically haul Holmes out of the hansom.

"Come on, old fellow, don't collapse on me just yet," he said as Holmes leaned heavily against his side. His leg started protesting vehemently again. "We're almost home."

"My head. Hurts," Holmes mumbled into Watson's shoulder, his voice muffled but the note of pain in it still quite clear.

"I know." Watson ran a soothing hand over Holmes' hair. "Only one more effort and then you'll be all right."

Half-dragging Holmes up the steps, Watson knocked on the door and then regained his hold of Holmes' arm slung over his shoulders. Between keeping Holmes upright and supporting himself on his cane, he had no hands left to open the door with.

It only took Mrs. Hudson moments to open the door. She cast one look at Holmes, shook her head and stepped aside, letting them in. "Been working himself to half to death again, has he, Doctor?"

"Indeed, he has."

Watson did not wait to doff his outdoor clothes, but made directly for the stairs. He contemplated whether he should lug Holmes up the two flights to his bedroom, or just one to the sitting-room. Seeing that Holmes now rested more than half his weight on him, Watson decided on the latter. The seventeen steps were laborious, but after a lot of effort they made it into the sitting-room.

"There, Holmes; now you're home."

Watson had to untangle himself before he could let go of Holmes, and when he had contrived he whipped off his coat and dropped down into the nearest of the armchairs with a deep-drawn sigh. Holmes in a greater or lesser degree tumbled down onto the floor, where he shakily crawled the two feet to the chair so he could rest himself against Watson's leg. His head lolled on Watson's lap and he let out a small sound of contentment.

With a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, Watson closed his eyes and laid his head back against the headrest. Holmes could be infuriating—especially so when he worked so hard, rested so little and ate so scantly that he could not even suppress the intense sensory impressions that constantly plagued him—but there was something which invariably made it impossible for Watson to be whole-heartedly vexed with him. Perhaps it was the knowledge that a fully conscious Holmes would hide his face in shame if Watson would ever refer to his frankly childlike behaviour in these instances; it gave him some much coveted leverage over Holmes, should he need it one day.

Through the floor he could hear Mrs. Hudson clattering in the kitchen, although it was almost drowned out by the crackling of the fire. Holmes' breathing had evened out and he was emitting small sniffing noises that could hardly be attributed to snores, his breath warm on Watson's thigh. Watson ran his hand over Holmes' untamed locks, his affection for his friend slowly spreading through his whole being, shoving all lingering feelings of anger aside. Sinking further into the armchair, he banished the last traces of Samson the blackguard from his mind, and slowly dozed off to sleep as well.




Author's Notes: Billions of electronic hugs and kisses to ladylovelace for a lovely and speedy beta. ♥
Yes, this is pre-slash. Only, it's Holmes/Watson pre-slash, which makes it near indistinguishable from "proper" slash. It's one of their more favourable features. ♥
This supposed-to-be ficlet (hah!) was an exercise in writing the characters, in preparation for my holmes_big_bang fic, so fire away the constructive criticism. I'm thick-skinned, so don't worry about employing any kid gloves.
(And in case anyone wonders: yes, Holmes is supposed to have Asperger's Syndrome here, as well as an attention deficit disorder, though I'm not quite sure if it's ADD or ADHD yet—the jury's still out on that one.)

Comments

[beeinmybonnet.livejournal.com]

First of all, thank you so much for reading this fic -- I'm glad to hear you like it!

Secondly... ::cracks fingers:: Discussion time! ♥
The reason I'm such a strong advocate for Asperger's!Holmes and AD(H)D!Holmes is, simply enough, that I have the diagnoses myself, and I recognize far too many of the "traits" for it to just be a coincidence, imho. (Since I wrote this fic, I've thought much about this and come to the conclusion that while book!Holmes has ADD, movie!Holmes is more likely to have ADHD, so I'll refer to it as such from here on.)
The Asperger's/ADHD combo isn't an unusual one, actually; there's not an abundance of them, but they're not rare either.
Now, I'll try to keep myself cheerful and calm, but if I do come off rude or snappish, please, do forgive me. It's nothing personal, just a jadedness directed to the general public, and definitely not at you in particular.
People with high-functioning autism differ greatly. There are those who are borderline "low functioning" autistics, and those who are almost "normal". As for lack of empathy and inability to read people; it varies. Greatly. The empathy thing I know is a "common" trait, but neither me nor my autistic brother have ever identified us with it. On the contrary, we are too emphatic and feel much more than what people consider "normal". As for reading people and not understanding slang and/or sarcasm; again, it varies. I believe that a clever person with Asperger's "learns" how to read via trial-and-error and study. (For an overly-simplistic example, frowning = anger and/or confusion.) Humour is and always will be, I suspect, a great mystery. But just because a person has a form of autism doesn't mean that he/she does not have a sense of humour.
I've always suspected Holmes has Asperger's Syndrome, but it was the film that made it obvious to me. The resturant scene is a brilliant example; the inability to shut out all sensory input is a classic "thing". And then there's his monomania, his "eccentric" quirks, his awkwardness with other people, etc. I'm thinking about writing a short essay on this just to explaint his theory in more detail. But suffice to say, I identify far too much with Holmes for it to be a mere coincidence.

Then again, I'm not a typical Aspie; I love sarcasm, I look people in the eye when I talk to them, I'm overly emphatic, I enjoy social interactions. But I'm me, Anna, first and foremost; the diagnoses are just a small part of who I am.

(I do apologise if I jumbled up some of the terms and/or definitions. English is not my first language, so I'm not sure what everything's called. [And I'm also writing this at eight o'clock in the morning, so I apologise for awkward and incorrect grammar!])

[crazytook.livejournal.com]

Hello, again! Thanks for the reply. And I had no idea English wasn't your first language. On the "Holmes has Asperger's" issue, admittedly, that was not my finest explaining, I tried to get too specific with my comments (wow, first time THAT'S been a problem for me.) and I believe I explained myself poorly. Especially on the "empathy" count.

My point was not to say that all people with Asperger's are X or that they have Asperger's before they are ppl, I'm just saying that as far as actual canon goes (both the books and the 2009 film, dunno bout the TV shows), not personal canon, fanon, etc... but actual canon, I don't think there is any set of traits that Holmes displays that would diagnose him as someone with Asperger's anymore than it would diagnose him as being Bi-Polar. What I mean, is that while there is very little that actually contradicts Holmes as being someone with Asperger's there is also very little to contradict that he's Bi-Polar(he has fits of depression for long periods of time, followed by extreme happiness/excitement). But, I highly doubt that Holmes is Bi-Polar by canon. And, really, if there isn't anything to say that a person DOES have one thing or another, than you can't diagnose it. Just because they Could have something doesn't mean they DO.

And that was really what my comment was all about. You write a very lovely Holmes, and I think your own personal identification with the character makes your writing of him very specific and human. And, really, who am I to say that you can't write a version of Holmes with Asperger's-cause you absolutely can. I'm just saying that if that was your intention, it wasn't clear to me. which is fine, i loved the story. But, I do think it was not properly communicated that he has Asperger's/ADD. And, honestly, I think that's totally OK, I never would have even said a thing if I hadn't seen the tiny author's note at the bottom. And I think it's fine, I don't think it's a weakness at all when writers don't always communicate what they mean to. I'm pretty sure that Joss Whedon didn't mean to ship Topher/DeWitt originally, but they seemed shippy in one episode quite against his intentions, and he went with it. I guess I was just commenting on the disparity between your intent and what I was experiencing as a reader. And I am just one, singular opinion, so take it with a grain of salt-hell, take it with ten. :)

On a totally different note, I do have a friendly question, that my friend and I have been asking around. You mentioned that in the movie when Holmes is sitting at the restaurant that you saw that as his "inability to shut out all sensory input". I find that really interesting, because my friend and I saw it as Holmes consciously "practicing" his deductive/observant skills. That he was bored, and decided to deduce some stuff while waiting for Watson. Basically, we saw it as a very conscious choice on his part as opposed to something he just couldn't help but doing. And I just find there are very mixed responses about what exactly he was doing in that scene. So, if I may ask, what about that scene makes you think it's sensory overload as opposed to something more conscious like practicing?

And I, in turn, if you are curious, will be more than happy to explain my interpretation of that scene.

Thank you for the lovely chat! I apologize if I say anything like...that ticks you off or offends you or whatever, I know what I think I'm writing and how it reads to you will probably be two different things, so I apologize for my own shortcomings as a non-fiction writer. Just assume I mean what I say with every kindness, cause that's how I mean it.

Again, lovely story, and it's great chatting with you!

-crazytook