acdholmesfest | Fic for rachelindeed: Scars

Title: Scars
Recipient:

spacemutineer
Rating: PG
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Warnings: residuals of war
Word Count: 2550
Beta Thanks: to my dear [redacted], always so helpful and encouraging.
Summary: "We have been learning about each other, Watson. I would learn this."

"It won't do, Watson."

Sherlock Holmes finally stopped listlessly staring at our waning fire and turned to me, all seriousness in his eyes.

I was not used to that piercing gaze only a few weeks yet removed from the Jefferson Hope affair. I regarded Holmes as a form of weather then, fickle and wild. This was a roll of thunder from him, and there is a peculiar excitement one feels when lightning is in the air.

Holmes said nothing else and instead stood to fill his pipe again. This was a thinking problem for him, as all were. He struck a match and blew out a long thin line of fresh smoke.

"I have to enquire. I have no other choice. If we are to continue in each other's company, this situation cannot be avoided. It is enquire now consciously and with intent, or discover later after my mind pieces the answers together from small hints in your speech and larger hints in your manner. It may take me years, but it will happen. I will know."

"Just what is it you want to know?"

"It is not a matter of want, Watson. I will obtain this information one way or another. It cannot be prevented by you or by me. What I am attempting to do is acquire what I will in the most respectful method possible."

He sighed and dropped his weight onto the edge of the table behind him. "Respect requires honesty. All of what I just said is true except that, yes, this is also a matter of want. I want to understand what happened to you. I want to know what it means when you refer to it."

At last I arrived at his oblique implication. "You're asking me about the war."

"The war I know about. Maiwand is a matter of history at this point, documented in excruciating detail in every kind of print. I need none of that. I am asking about your wound, your shoulder. You speak of it often, but in clinical terms only and thus that is how I know it, as shattered bone and nicked artery. But that is internal and not at all how your injury is experienced, by you or by anyone else. It is a ubiquitous constant in your life and thus our newly shared time. We have been learning about each other, Watson. I would learn this."

His roundabout method of engaging his curiosity about me charmed me despite the grim circumstances of the question. I had been recovering well under the roof at Baker Street and out on cases with him, in body and in spirit. It was an honour to be of interest to a man who excluded anything he deemed dull and pointless from his thoughts.

"To be honest, there is not much to tell you, Holmes. My arm is somewhat limited now in its range of motion and my shoulder aches with overuse or humid weather. The fever mercifully took any memory I had of the event itself, but I can show you the scar if that is what you are after. It's not pretty, but I doubt you will find it grotesque enough to be interesting either. It is a gunshot wound, nothing more or less. Do you wish to see it?"

"I am virtually assured of seeing it eventually. We will go to the Turkish baths one day after a chase resolves, perhaps. Or we will hurriedly change clothes in an alleyway as we discard one set of disguises for another on the fly. At some point, I am certain we will have to address some minor or more than minor upper bodily injury. Usually those should be mine and I do hope we can keep yours to a bare minimum, but if you continue in this line of work with me, expecting none is unrealistic. In any case, I will see your shoulder at some point, Watson, so I do not propose now to simply look at it. I propose to observe it. I gather data by utilising a variety of senses, and I can most efficiently learn what I will if I am allowed to employ them. Do you consent?"

For the first time, I hesitated. His winds had shifted on me again, and I was not sure what he meant by that statement. I had not felt self conscious about my scars until that moment. Any number of physicians had seen them by necessity. I allowed them to look and poke and prod as they would freely. I examined the injury with my professional eye on a regular basis myself. But what would Holmes conclude from his study? Would it alter what he thought of me, what he considered I was capable of? I was beginning to gain his trust. Would he continue to extend his faith in me, knowing exactly all of my boundaries?

On my delay, I saw a shadow of worry pass behind his astute eyes. It was subtle, but I was beginning to find softness in him in places I did not expect.

"If you are going to conduct an examination, Doctor, would you mind closing the door first?" I said, trying to lift the mood for both of us. Holmes straightened and did more than I asked, shutting and locking the sitting room door in one fluid motion.

"I am no doctor," he said quietly as he returned to me. "I am a detective."

He averted his gaze as I began to disrobe, electing instead to thoroughly examine the pipe rolling between his fingers, but once I was down to my shirtsleeves, his attention came back to me in full force. He watched every button of my shirt open, and studied every shrug I employed to tease stiffened limbs out of my clothing. Standing bare to the waist before Sherlock Holmes I felt more exposed than I previously knew possible. He looked into my eyes for a moment, confirming to himself I was in fact allowing whatever would come next to proceed. Then he stepped forward to address his subject.

At first, he did nothing more than stand in front of me. I waited and resettled myself in place, unable to keep still completely. This seemed to please him, presumably as it gave him a chance to see my arm move naturally at my side. I scratched at my nose with that hand, half out of nerves and half to offer Holmes a different view of my shoulder in motion. When I dropped it again, he came closer.

For a moment I wondered if he would conjure his magnifying glass from his pocket as Holmes leaned forward to view the keloid lumps piled around my collarbone. He peered at all angles, above and behind, craning his neck and bowing low beside me with his hands tucked behind his back. Holmes did not address my arm as a physician would, as I would, as damage to be assessed and treated. Instead, he examined it as the evidence of the attempted murder it also was.

He took his time. He leaned in. His breath flickered off of my skin. I tried not to watch him watching me, but found the effort entirely impossible. His attention was a physical sensation.

"You will tell me if I cause you pain? I mean to understand, not harm further. Watson?"

I snapped back into the verbal world, or at least the best that I could approximate at that moment.

"You aren't hurting me, Holmes."

"That is not what I asked you."

He took another long beat to scan me, perhaps this time with less caution than curious surprise. Then at last Holmes returned to his work, taking my arm into his hands. His fingers felt warm gripped at my elbow and wrist.

First, he tested my ability for motion, gently pushing and lifting my arm and shoulder into various positions. Gradually, simple slow movements advanced in complexity. My joints complained audibly throughout but I was successful at everything required until Holmes tried to fully extend my arm above my head. The damaged ligaments resisted him but he stopped before I felt much more than a twinge. He released my arm and stepped behind me.

"I want to hear it," he said.

He laid his hand on my good shoulder and crouched to press his ear to my back.

"Would you continue moving your shoulder, Watson? Small to medium range motions only, please. Slow and easy."

I took a steadying breath he must have listened to and did as he asked. Every internal pop and creak he catalogued along with its corresponding arm motion and position. When he was at last satisfied with his findings, Holmes stood up straight to return his focus to my surface scars.

Again, he leaned in close, but this time he gripped my shoulder itself, holding the joint steady to keep me still. He touched at my twisted skin delicately, measuring it, stretching it, watching it react to his pressure. Long, dexterous fingers crept slowly along the length of my clavicle, hesitating at intervals for closer analysis of mended bone.

At the entry scar at the top of my shoulder, close to the crook of my neck, he paused his movement. He worked his fingers there for a minute or more, testing depth and density. I breathed and watched him and waited.

Holmes stepped back, his brow furrowed deeply. All his focus remained entirely on that one point. Without a word and without meeting my eyes, he abruptly removed his coat and threw it aside to the floor. His waistcoat and collar followed into the pile. He unbuttoned his shirt enough to expose the paleness of his thin chest and he snaked his hand inside to feel at his own shoulder.

That arm he moved experimentally in the air, extending it and straightening it, raising and lowering. His fingers tucked into his shirt danced and tested at the joint as it moved. Finally, a position suited him, but he seemed more sombre than pleased to discover it. His arm hung in midair, his hand outstretched, reaching to touch something in his imagination I could not see.

"But did he live, I wonder?"

"Did who live?"

"Your patient. The man you were tending when you were struck. You were kneeling at the time, aiding someone prone on the ground. You had your hand upon him. Do you know if he survived his injuries?"

"That was Lieutenant Durand," I said, taken aback as ever by his accuracy. "And yes, he did. What appeared to be a punctured lung turned out to be only a bad graze to the ribs. Telling him that good news is the last thing I can remember. He sent me a bottle of cognac when I arrived back in London. I never properly thanked him for it."

Holmes stepped back and refocused his eyes on the present and on me. He sat down and breathed deeply as he sank into his chair. It was a long moment before he spoke again.

"Did you drink it?"

"The cognac? No, I... I never came on a good reason to open it." I thought of long nights by myself in a room I could not afford to keep, looking over at a gifted bottle of brandy I could not afford to replace. "I suppose I was saving it."

"Perhaps you were saving it for tonight. If you are amenable, Watson, I propose that you open it, and if you are feeling so generous, I propose that we share it. Lieutenant Durand gave you this gift as an honour to you. I should like to share in that honour if I can. And, if his French surname is any indication, the lieutenant's choice of cognac has hope of being quite decent. If I can, I should like to share in such quality liquor as well."

He kept his standard demeanour of solemnity, but a mischievous quarter-smile gave him away. I redressed and headed upstairs for the bottle. Holmes did not bother with such formalities. When I returned, he was exactly as I had left him, sitting back low in his chair, his shirt still hanging open at his throat, his expectant gaze just as intense.

"To Eric Durand," I said as I lifted my glass.

"To his doctor," Holmes added when he lifted his.

His deduction turned out to be right, of course. The cognac was extraordinary. I waited a glass or two in for both of us before I brought up the questions that still sat weighted in my mind. I had to know.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I am not certain what I thought I would discover tonight. I only knew there was something there," he said. "I found it."

I said nothing, waiting, willing him to elaborate. He looked at me, and Holmes rolled his brandy in his glass, considering how he wished to proceed.

"I know what you want, Watson. You want me to tell you I did not find you limited by your wounds. You, a medical man, know I cannot, of course. You are limited, as are we all to differing extents by our troublesome mortal bodies, but that is no consolation. You want me to tell you that your damaged body does not represent you and your worth. Again, I cannot. Your injuries do represent you, and perfectly so. Everything one need know of John Watson is obvious from any cursory inspection of his scars."

I felt my heart twist, my stomach sink. His analysis had been as harsh and realistic as I feared and knew it must be.

"I see," were the only two words I could manage. At least he had been honest with me, I told myself. Respect requires honesty.

"You truly are not understanding me, are you? No, of course you're not. You are going to make me say it."

Holmes sighed and downed the last of his brandy. His glass hit the table empty and hard, but his shining grey eyes were anything but.

"You wish to know what I saw when I examined your healed shoulder. That is simple. I saw you, Watson. I saw your history. I saw your life."

"What you see only as disfiguring scars are in fact your innate decency made manifest and flesh. To any astute observer, they are clear and unambiguous depictions of your bravery, your strength, your unbending will to help and to survive. Your wound is you, Watson, more indicative of the man it represents than any portrait or photograph could ever be. Now I am but a selfish soul, so despite knowing in detail the suffering it has caused you, I am of course immeasurably grateful for it. It is the single direct underlying reason that I should have ever met you at all, and I held it in my hands."

With that, Holmes grew quiet. He retreated back into his seat to pour himself another drink and focus into its depths, assiduously avoiding my stunned stare. I was no detective, but it was clear to me he had said more than he intended. Everything that happened since the moment he turned from the fire was more than he intended.

But it was not more than I wanted. With Sherlock Holmes, nothing ever was.