So here's part 2 of the story. This part is more sketchy and not fully fleshed out; it's more like an outline, in present tense, with incomplete sentences and scenes. I have story ideas all the time, but not enough time to execute them. If I did write out the whole thing, it might develop and expand to many chapters rather than one. There are references to canon stories like VALL, DYIN, FINA, EMPT, and MAZA.
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Story: chapter 2 of The Professor and the Colonel
Pairing: Moriarty/Moran, Holmes/Watson
Warnings: slash, internalized homophobia, asexual Holmes, depression and suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide
In the morning they discuss everything more soberly, suggest plans to incriminate the professor and the colonel. Holmes looks into the scandals that got Moriarty sent down from university and forced Moran out of the army. He realises that they paid well to cover them up and now have precautions set up against being caught again. If anyone whispers about them, they sue for slander and libel. Plus they have criminal connections.
Watson volunteers to try trapping Moran, using their slight acquaintance from the war. Moran might try to seduce him, and Holmes can have policemen waiting to arrest him.
Holmes worries that it would only capture Moran, and Moriarty would do his best to keep him out of prison and to slander Watson in turn.
"Slander me?"
Holmes uncomfortably confesses what he'd overheard, that Moriarty and Moran think Holmes and Watson are deviants too.
Watson is shocked.
Holmes decides to get some other information source. Needs a Porlock. They go with this plan awhile, but Porlock gets killed over the VALL business.
Meanwhile Watson is contemplating the idea of him and Holmes as a couple. Imagines it and dreams about it and falls in love.
Holmes eventually notices and is shocked. Tries to snap Watson out of it and argue that it's immoral and wrong and horrible. Watson tries to argue that it's love and devotion. Says he'd risk prison for him. He'd even risk going to hell in the afterlife for him.
Holmes does love him, but doesn't want to have sex. Watson asks if it's just the trauma of witnessing Moriarty and Moran's encounter, but Holmes counters that no, he's never wanted anything sexual, from man or woman.
Watson tries for a while to romance him and melt his heart, but realises Holmes truly does not enjoy their kisses and embraces. They spend some nights in bed together talking of their feelings and how Holmes despises his body. "I am a brain, Watson." The rest of him is a mere appendix. [MAZA]
Watson argues as ever that his body is necessary for the health of that brain. Not an appendix with no function. And besides, there is the heart, which is infinitely valuable too.
Holmes still considers his body largely useless and trivial; its daily needs interfere with his work. He imagines a world in which their minds, their hearts, their souls, could touch instead of their bodies. Becoming one and the same. That is what he wants. Watson wishes that too.
Eventually Watson decides to get married to Mary Morstan since he can't consummate his love with Holmes. Satisfies his physical desires with his wife, while still imagining Holmes. They write each other love letters, desperately aching to see each other and live together again.
It's irrational and dangerous of course. They sign every note with "Burn this letter." They know that even if they aren't having sex, the words are too intense and could be used against them if Moriarty and Moran are still monitoring them.
Eventually Mary gets pregnant, and Watson uses the excuse that she's in delicate condition to send her to visit Mrs. Forrester so that he can go visit Holmes and have a bunch of cases with him. Then the child is born and Watson stays home a lot, even if he loves Holmes.
DYIN case, Watson is furious that Holmes pretended to be dying. "Doing this just to make me visit you! You selfish bastard!"
Holmes apologises. Says he just missed him. Knows he belongs with his family. Watson stays the night to make sure he's well, then goes.
Estrangement into 1891. Alone, Holmes works up a case on Moriarty that will finally stick.
FINA, Holmes takes Watson with him to Europe. At the falls, Watson is decoyed away. When Moriarty arrives, Holmes intends to die not just for society's sake, but for Watson too. He wants to die because he can't take the conflict in his heart any more. He writes a farewell letter to Watson saying that he would go to hell for him too. Committing suicide would ensure he goes there, and then he will wait for Watson.
"I know you cannot come now, for you have your family to care for, but I hope you have a long happy life free of threats from Moriarty. And then in your old age, if you are alone and can find a painless poison, do please join me. Free of our physical bodies we could at last mingle our souls as one. I only know that eternity without you would be hell to me."
On finding this letter at Reichenbach, Watson cries miserably and calls out in despair. Just then Holmes wakes up and calls out to him. Watson looks up at the ledge and is so shocked yet grateful. "Oh Holmes, you didn't do it!"
"No, I--at the last moment I feared that dying in battle with Moriarty would not count as a suicide after all, so I caught onto the cliff and saved myself from tumbling over with him."
"Then how did you end up there?"
"After a moment I planned to actually leap into the falls myself, but then I was attacked by Moran."
"Moran! I thought he was back in London, caught by the police in the Monday raid?"
"I know, but it seems that Moriarty somehow engineered an escape for his lover and brought him here. Moran did not participate in our duel but kept watch from a distance. In fury, he started launching rocks at me, so apparently he wasn't able to smuggle his air-gun out of England. I had to get to safety, lest I be murdered."
"Then why not come back to the path?"
"I still fully intended to kill myself, Watson, and I didn't want you to see another set of footprints to give you false hope. So I climbed up here and hoped to ambush Moran should he come down to try to kill me or you. I waited quite some time, but it seems that he decided instead to go to the bottom of the falls and try to find Moriarty's body. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep, and your cry woke me up. I feared he had attacked you."
"No I am safe. Oh Holmes, thank God I stopped you. Come down now and let us get away from here in case Moran comes back for revenge."
"No, Watson, I can't. I can't go on this way any more. I'm sorry but you must go and get to safety."
"If you kill yourself, I will too. Right now."
"Watson, no. You must wait. You have a wife and child."
"No, I cannot go on without you. I love you. Don't you dare leave me like this!"
"But I cannot give you the love you crave. I cannot make you happy. We are so miserably incompatible like this. If we were only free of this flesh..."
"You cannot leave me now. I'll never forgive you."
"Watson, please. You're in danger from Moran."
"Then I'll be murdered, and ruin your plans."
Holmes gives in. "Very well. Let me come down then, and we can hide."
"Yes."
He climbs down slowly and Watson catches him. For a moment they stand together, near to kissing each other. Holmes breathes softly, "I would give you all if I could."
"I know." They start to leave, picking up the letter and cigarette case.
Grabbing his stick, Holmes gets an idea. He says they should convince Moran that he died, fell off the sheer cliff in trying to come down. So Holmes walks backwards in his footprints with Watson's help. They get away down the mountain and discuss their plan. Holmes suggests that Watson report his death to the police. Watson asks how they can trap Moran.
Eventually together they hatch the plot that Holmes shall go after Moran and try to capture him, while faking his death. They must tell Mycroft, lest he grieve needlessly. Sherlock, though, mainly doesn't want Mycroft to sell off his things in Baker Street. So Mycroft will provide him with money, and Watson insists that Mycroft's international agents monitor and aid Holmes to make sure he's well. Meanwhile Watson will return to England to take care of his family.
"Who knows, by the time you come back, my stories will be published and maybe I'll earn enough money from writing that I can give up my practice like Doyle did? Then I could come live with you again."
"Without your family?"
"Yes." There are other married authors who live away from their families because having young children around interferes with their writing. (Oscar Wilde for one.)
So Holmes agrees and he writes a new farewell letter for the public and a coded telegram for Mycroft. They kiss goodbye before he leaves. Watson burns Holmes' real farewell letter and sends the telegram, before reporting the death to the police.
Watson spends the years hopefully waiting, and is glad that his stories are enormously successful.
But the long years make him worry, and then his wife dies. Watson decides to move into Baker Street already and wait for Holmes's return. Mrs. Hudson helps him raise his daughter Violet.
Moran goes to Tibet trying to find peace after Moriarty's death. Then eventually he goes back to London to raise money and start a new criminal organisation and to try to kill Watson.
Capturing Moran in EMPT, Holmes comes back and they live together again. Though they still cannot have a sex life, they still love each other intensely.
Raise the child together before retiring to Sussex.
So that's the end, me trying to rewrite the canon and fix FINA so that Holmes doesn't deceive Watson about his fake death. Kind of melancholy and bittersweet.
I haven't worked on this since 2011. I only recalled it lately when Sara Ghaleb on Bluesky started posting on VALL and wondered about Holmes breaking into Moriarty's office so many times. That reminded me of when I wrote of Holmes's "unexpected results" in this fic.
As for little Violet, I actually had the idea of Holmes and Watson raising a kid together in an earlier story called "Nuncle" where the kid was a boy called John Sherlock, born while Holmes was away faking his death. Mary Morstan suspected their love, but died giving birth to the boy, so Watson moved back to Baker Street to have help from Mrs. Hudson. Watson told the cases to John Sherlock as bedtime stories. Then Holmes came back, and that's why Watson didn't publish anything for 10 years, so they could secretly be a happy family.
No comments:
Post a Comment