Holmes fic!
Sep. 28th, 2008 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elabyFINALLY. Good lord, I've been poking at this for weeks. I have like seventeen (*exaggerates*) other little snippets of mostly H&W conversation that came more easily, but this actually has a beginning and an end. For my first attempt at writing Holmes and Watson, I hope it's good ^^;;
Title: A Discussion of Empathy
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elaby
Pairing: Holmes and Watson
Rating: G
Words: 2,420
Warnings: None really; Holmes being prickly.
Author's Notes: This is meant to take place in the spring of 1888, going by Baring-Gould's dating. That'd be after A Case of Identity and before all that marriage business in The Sign of the Four. In my brain that's very early in their relationship.
I had not been living with Mr. Sherlock Holmes for very many years before I realized that when we argued, and argued seriously, the cause was always one of two things: his opinion of my writing, or cocaine. Though superficially they were very different subjects, they boiled down to the same thing – I cared about his opinion of me, and I cared about his welfare, and he seemed utterly indifferent to both.
It was a miserable, raw afternoon in early spring when I came home to Baker Street to find Holmes stretched on the couch, his feet propped up on the far arm, staring at nothing in particular. The syringe was nowhere in sight, but I did not have to possess his eye for detail to notice that his cuffs were unbuttoned and that his face held none of the masked intensity it did when his brain whirred away under its own momentum.
I took off my coat and hat without a word and settled into my armchair. As much as I hated our arguments – his calm sarcastic vitriol was sometimes even worse than his indifference – I had suffered long enough in silence to know keeping my mouth closed did neither of us any good.
"You've forgone the possibility of conversation tonight, I see," said I, somewhat more bitterly than I had intended. I heard him chuckle.
"On the contrary. I may be bereft of work at the moment, but – as I perceive by your disapproving tone you're already quite aware – I have other means of keeping myself in peak mental form."
"Temporarily," I said. "You would sacrifice the future of your great gifts for this momentary relief."
"We've had this discussion before," he said affably. "It will inevitably end the same."
"Holmes, please," I said, laying down my paper. I wished that I was speaking to his face instead of to the top of his head and his long clasped fingers resting under it on the arm of the couch. "You must listen to reason."
"Reason is my motive, doctor," he replied. "I fear boredom would do my mind irreparable damage. The cocaine keeps it supple. It stimulates my rational faculties."
"And deadens your human emotions!"
He unclasped his hands and turned on his elbow to look at me. "Why, Watson," he said, with an edge of viciousness, "and here I thought you believed I hadn't any."
Having gotten his complete attention, I was now unsure what to do with it. I'm sorry to say I was the first to look away. "It's easy enough for me to believe sometimes."
Holmes swung his legs down so that he was sitting upright and folded his arms. "You're quite correct, though. Your so-called 'human emotions' have no place in the science to which I've dedicated my life."
I saw my chance – an argument I'd always meant to make but never had the opportunity – and took it. "I'm afraid I must disagree with you."
"Oh, really? Must you?"
"Yes. There would be no crimes for you to solve without people, and where there are people involved, emotion necessarily plays a part. Excepting in rare cases such as yourself, of course."
This seemed to amuse him. "Well, you make a good point. When a crime is committed, there is most times emotion of some sort behind it. That is the nature of criminality. But in the art of solving a crime," he said, holding up a figure, "emotion only serves to muddle the thoughts and distract from one's goal. It has no place in detection."
"I wouldn't presume to instruct you in that area," I said, and he grinned at the frost in my voice, "but I fear that is one place your methods fall short."
Holmes sat back and put his fingers together, giving me his full attention. There was something a bit more acid in the gesture than usual. "Pray continue."
I took a breath. "For almost every case in which you've allowed me to participate, you were not satisfied only with the 'who' and the 'how'. Finding out the 'why' was always just as important to you. You'd sometimes hold off revealing any details at all until you discovered it. But without a thorough understanding of human feelings – and there can be no thorough understanding except through empathy – you cannot hope to fathom motivation."
"You may be right," he said, and my shock was considerable. "But if you're set on arguing with me, doctor, I suggest you correctly define your terms. I do indeed utilize empathy in many of my cases, for empathy is the mere acknowledgement of another person's emotions. You're mixing it up with sympathy, I'm afraid, and I disagree that the only way to understand the motivation of the criminal is through sympathy. You seem so fond of setting down in writing the times when I have been correct in my deductions – and in all of those instances, I deduced the motivations of those involved based on observation alone. Were I to feel what they feel, as you suggest, I would be compromising the neutral and unprejudiced objectivity so necessary to deducing a correct explanation from the evidence."
"And I suppose you were acting in complete objectivity when you reached for your hunting crop that evening Mr. James Windibank paid us a visit."
He stared at me for a moment and then began to laugh. "Oh, Watson, leave it to you to remember something as trivial as that."
"Trivial, indeed!" said I. "Holmes, you nearly horsewhipped a man on behalf of the hurt feelings of his stepdaughter. I doubt anyone would call that an objective thing to do."
"And you see how well that case turned out."
"You did solve it."
"But only at the expense of my client. In her eyes, it went unsolved."
"A decision, I might add, that you made out of sympathy for her."
"And one that I've regretted ever since." I was surprised to hear him admit it, and for a moment, I thought I might have a chance of getting through to him. That mistake was quickly remedied. "Your example, doctor, has backfired," he said. "You've only succeeded in convincing me all the more that compassion has no place in my life. If you wish to dissuade me from my little habit, you're going to have to come up with a better reason than that it aids me in my work."
I sighed, and wondered why I ever thought I could contend with Holmes in this sort of verbal sparring. "I only do it because I'm concerned for you."
"Your concern is misplaced."
"Misplaced," I echoed. Had he used a different word – unwarranted, perhaps – I might have believed he was offering some sort of exasperated reassurance. As it was, I could not but take his comment personally. "How have I misplaced it?"
"By thrusting it on someone who neither wants nor needs it." Holmes stood and went to the mantle to take up his pipe, as nonchalant as if he'd just made an observation about the weather.
I felt myself flush, and moments later a welcome wave of indignation rose to cover the hurt. He was impossible when he was in this mood - and I could never tell whether he was being intentionally cold or he simply didn't realize how his words sounded. It was several seconds before I could be sure I had my voice under control.
"You would do well to use your proclaimed powers of empathy now."
Holmes raised his eyebrows at me, put the unlit pipe back on the mantle, and pulled a chair out from the table. He sat down straddling it and folded his long arms over the back. I couldn't stop from pressing myself back in my chair in reaction to his intense scrutiny, and I wondered if that challenge had been such a good idea after all. "A pinching around the eyes, a tightening of the lips," he said. "You're angry. Considering that your argument worked out contrary to your goal, I shouldn't wonder at it." His eyes searched my face, and I confess that I felt a disappointed sting to see nothing in them but professional curiosity, the interest of a man with a problem to be solved set before him. "You are also redder than usual. You did just come in from the cold, but..." he shook his head. "Watson, you really shouldn't get yourself so worked up over this. Your health will suffer."
"My health? It's yours I'm worried about!"
"You really are being unreasonable," he said. "I never took you for such a sore loser."
In a sudden disconcerting flash, I saw the conversation from his perspective. I regret to say it didn't do much to soothe my nerves. "This isn't a – a competition, Holmes!" I said with considerable feeling, and he had the grace to look surprised. "It isn't some sort of game to see who can out-rhetoric the other! I realize it would be hard for you, as you've trained yourself to be unfeeling, but if you could just for one moment—"
I cut myself off, and it was just as well, for I hardly knew what I'd been planning to say. Whatever it was, judging by the sudden tightness in my throat, I was better off not saying it. I stood up, intending to retire to my room, for there was no use continuing this. As I turned, Holmes's hand closed round my wrist.
"Watson. You are not just angry."
"How astute of you!" For someone who could (despite my reluctance to admit it) read my thoughts by the expression on my face, he could be remarkably blind when it came to the extent of my admiration for him – or, in truth, any of the feelings he claimed to understand when he was their object.
His scrutiny was of a different timbre now, and it wasn't until I recognized the smallest bit of wariness in his eyes that I knew he had some inkling of why I was upset.
"What was it that I said?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral. His fingers were still tight around my wrist, and I felt starkly self-conscious. Hadn't this been what I wanted, for him to acknowledge that he'd hurt me? I forced myself to relax, and his fingers loosened but didn't break contact.
"I believe it was 'neither wants nor needs it.'"
"Ah," he said under his breath and dropped his eyes from mine. "My dear Watson, you really must forgive me. In my line of work, it is... inconvenient for someone to constantly worry after my wellbeing. I'm afraid I have less experience than desirable in expressing this."
"Mm, that is apparent," said I, and his eyes darted up. I caught a glimmer of relief in them when I sat back down in my chair. His fingers slipped away from my wrist. "Is my concern really that much of an inconvenience to you?" I asked.
Holmes made a gravelly sound in his throat. "Perhaps I should have chosen a different word."
"Such as?"
He seemed to mull it over for several seconds. "Distracting."
"I see. It is distracting for you to know that I worry about you." That, at least, was some indication that he did in fact consider how I felt. Holmes rested his chin on his folded arms.
"Yes, to be frank."
"Well, I am sorry," I said, and I let enough sarcasm through so that he could be quite sure of my meaning, "but no amount of complaining or unnecessary harshness on your part is going to dissuade me. Your plan, to use your own phrase, has backfired." The corner of his mouth quirked at that. "You're my friend, Holmes. It's only natural that I should want you to remain safe."
"I assure you, should any of my cases involve physical danger, I will not hesitate to bring you and your revolver along."
"I appreciate that, but it isn't what I meant," I said. "And you know it." Holmes's jaw tightened with restrained exasperation, but I refused to let the point drop. We had gotten this far, after all. "Tell me what I can do," I said, trying a different tack. Nagging and entreating were obviously not profitable undertakings. "It's this boredom, this - this monotony that drives you to the cocaine. What can I do?"
"Find me cases," he replied automatically.
"Well, I do my best, Holmes, but besides that?"
Holmes held my eyes for a precious few more seconds, then looked away and sighed deeply. "Do you remember last Thursday, when it was fair weather for the first time in a month?"
"Yes." I was a little thrown off by his apparent change of subject.
"And you badgered me for the better part of two hours to go out for a walk and see the-" he waved a hand vaguely, "the crocuses or some such romanticized nonsense."
"Yes, and you harangued me for disturbing your peace. I believe the term 'mother hen' was used. But I broke you down eventually, and we went. I for one had a lovely time."
"And I, for the first time since the close of my most recent case, did not think about my syringe for an entire afternoon."
I had drawn in air to continue, but the implications of what he'd said hit me and I held my breath for a moment before slowly letting it out. Holmes was still looking to the side, and I could see tension in his profile. "Truly?" I asked at length.
"Do you think I would have said so were it not true?" he snapped.
I stood up, and I saw the same wary regret flash across his face as he watched me. "Let's go, then," I said, and Holmes pushed himself upright, frowning.
"What? Where?"
"I don't care," I said. I took his arm and hauled him up. "To the park again. To the British Museum. What about the new art gallery on Bond Street? I know how much delight you take in arguing with me about art."
Holmes gave an exclamation of protest, but when I held out his coat, he snatched it from me and shrugged it on. Outside, as we walked down Baker Street, I took his arm.
"I see you can be appreciative of my distractions sometimes."
Holmes rolled his eyes heavenward. "Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable when you're right?"
"My dear Holmes," I said, "I learn from the best."
Title: A Discussion of Empathy
Author:
elabyPairing: Holmes and Watson
Rating: G
Words: 2,420
Warnings: None really; Holmes being prickly.
Author's Notes: This is meant to take place in the spring of 1888, going by Baring-Gould's dating. That'd be after A Case of Identity and before all that marriage business in The Sign of the Four. In my brain that's very early in their relationship.
I had not been living with Mr. Sherlock Holmes for very many years before I realized that when we argued, and argued seriously, the cause was always one of two things: his opinion of my writing, or cocaine. Though superficially they were very different subjects, they boiled down to the same thing – I cared about his opinion of me, and I cared about his welfare, and he seemed utterly indifferent to both.
It was a miserable, raw afternoon in early spring when I came home to Baker Street to find Holmes stretched on the couch, his feet propped up on the far arm, staring at nothing in particular. The syringe was nowhere in sight, but I did not have to possess his eye for detail to notice that his cuffs were unbuttoned and that his face held none of the masked intensity it did when his brain whirred away under its own momentum.
I took off my coat and hat without a word and settled into my armchair. As much as I hated our arguments – his calm sarcastic vitriol was sometimes even worse than his indifference – I had suffered long enough in silence to know keeping my mouth closed did neither of us any good.
"You've forgone the possibility of conversation tonight, I see," said I, somewhat more bitterly than I had intended. I heard him chuckle.
"On the contrary. I may be bereft of work at the moment, but – as I perceive by your disapproving tone you're already quite aware – I have other means of keeping myself in peak mental form."
"Temporarily," I said. "You would sacrifice the future of your great gifts for this momentary relief."
"We've had this discussion before," he said affably. "It will inevitably end the same."
"Holmes, please," I said, laying down my paper. I wished that I was speaking to his face instead of to the top of his head and his long clasped fingers resting under it on the arm of the couch. "You must listen to reason."
"Reason is my motive, doctor," he replied. "I fear boredom would do my mind irreparable damage. The cocaine keeps it supple. It stimulates my rational faculties."
"And deadens your human emotions!"
He unclasped his hands and turned on his elbow to look at me. "Why, Watson," he said, with an edge of viciousness, "and here I thought you believed I hadn't any."
Having gotten his complete attention, I was now unsure what to do with it. I'm sorry to say I was the first to look away. "It's easy enough for me to believe sometimes."
Holmes swung his legs down so that he was sitting upright and folded his arms. "You're quite correct, though. Your so-called 'human emotions' have no place in the science to which I've dedicated my life."
I saw my chance – an argument I'd always meant to make but never had the opportunity – and took it. "I'm afraid I must disagree with you."
"Oh, really? Must you?"
"Yes. There would be no crimes for you to solve without people, and where there are people involved, emotion necessarily plays a part. Excepting in rare cases such as yourself, of course."
This seemed to amuse him. "Well, you make a good point. When a crime is committed, there is most times emotion of some sort behind it. That is the nature of criminality. But in the art of solving a crime," he said, holding up a figure, "emotion only serves to muddle the thoughts and distract from one's goal. It has no place in detection."
"I wouldn't presume to instruct you in that area," I said, and he grinned at the frost in my voice, "but I fear that is one place your methods fall short."
Holmes sat back and put his fingers together, giving me his full attention. There was something a bit more acid in the gesture than usual. "Pray continue."
I took a breath. "For almost every case in which you've allowed me to participate, you were not satisfied only with the 'who' and the 'how'. Finding out the 'why' was always just as important to you. You'd sometimes hold off revealing any details at all until you discovered it. But without a thorough understanding of human feelings – and there can be no thorough understanding except through empathy – you cannot hope to fathom motivation."
"You may be right," he said, and my shock was considerable. "But if you're set on arguing with me, doctor, I suggest you correctly define your terms. I do indeed utilize empathy in many of my cases, for empathy is the mere acknowledgement of another person's emotions. You're mixing it up with sympathy, I'm afraid, and I disagree that the only way to understand the motivation of the criminal is through sympathy. You seem so fond of setting down in writing the times when I have been correct in my deductions – and in all of those instances, I deduced the motivations of those involved based on observation alone. Were I to feel what they feel, as you suggest, I would be compromising the neutral and unprejudiced objectivity so necessary to deducing a correct explanation from the evidence."
"And I suppose you were acting in complete objectivity when you reached for your hunting crop that evening Mr. James Windibank paid us a visit."
He stared at me for a moment and then began to laugh. "Oh, Watson, leave it to you to remember something as trivial as that."
"Trivial, indeed!" said I. "Holmes, you nearly horsewhipped a man on behalf of the hurt feelings of his stepdaughter. I doubt anyone would call that an objective thing to do."
"And you see how well that case turned out."
"You did solve it."
"But only at the expense of my client. In her eyes, it went unsolved."
"A decision, I might add, that you made out of sympathy for her."
"And one that I've regretted ever since." I was surprised to hear him admit it, and for a moment, I thought I might have a chance of getting through to him. That mistake was quickly remedied. "Your example, doctor, has backfired," he said. "You've only succeeded in convincing me all the more that compassion has no place in my life. If you wish to dissuade me from my little habit, you're going to have to come up with a better reason than that it aids me in my work."
I sighed, and wondered why I ever thought I could contend with Holmes in this sort of verbal sparring. "I only do it because I'm concerned for you."
"Your concern is misplaced."
"Misplaced," I echoed. Had he used a different word – unwarranted, perhaps – I might have believed he was offering some sort of exasperated reassurance. As it was, I could not but take his comment personally. "How have I misplaced it?"
"By thrusting it on someone who neither wants nor needs it." Holmes stood and went to the mantle to take up his pipe, as nonchalant as if he'd just made an observation about the weather.
I felt myself flush, and moments later a welcome wave of indignation rose to cover the hurt. He was impossible when he was in this mood - and I could never tell whether he was being intentionally cold or he simply didn't realize how his words sounded. It was several seconds before I could be sure I had my voice under control.
"You would do well to use your proclaimed powers of empathy now."
Holmes raised his eyebrows at me, put the unlit pipe back on the mantle, and pulled a chair out from the table. He sat down straddling it and folded his long arms over the back. I couldn't stop from pressing myself back in my chair in reaction to his intense scrutiny, and I wondered if that challenge had been such a good idea after all. "A pinching around the eyes, a tightening of the lips," he said. "You're angry. Considering that your argument worked out contrary to your goal, I shouldn't wonder at it." His eyes searched my face, and I confess that I felt a disappointed sting to see nothing in them but professional curiosity, the interest of a man with a problem to be solved set before him. "You are also redder than usual. You did just come in from the cold, but..." he shook his head. "Watson, you really shouldn't get yourself so worked up over this. Your health will suffer."
"My health? It's yours I'm worried about!"
"You really are being unreasonable," he said. "I never took you for such a sore loser."
In a sudden disconcerting flash, I saw the conversation from his perspective. I regret to say it didn't do much to soothe my nerves. "This isn't a – a competition, Holmes!" I said with considerable feeling, and he had the grace to look surprised. "It isn't some sort of game to see who can out-rhetoric the other! I realize it would be hard for you, as you've trained yourself to be unfeeling, but if you could just for one moment—"
I cut myself off, and it was just as well, for I hardly knew what I'd been planning to say. Whatever it was, judging by the sudden tightness in my throat, I was better off not saying it. I stood up, intending to retire to my room, for there was no use continuing this. As I turned, Holmes's hand closed round my wrist.
"Watson. You are not just angry."
"How astute of you!" For someone who could (despite my reluctance to admit it) read my thoughts by the expression on my face, he could be remarkably blind when it came to the extent of my admiration for him – or, in truth, any of the feelings he claimed to understand when he was their object.
His scrutiny was of a different timbre now, and it wasn't until I recognized the smallest bit of wariness in his eyes that I knew he had some inkling of why I was upset.
"What was it that I said?" he asked, his voice carefully neutral. His fingers were still tight around my wrist, and I felt starkly self-conscious. Hadn't this been what I wanted, for him to acknowledge that he'd hurt me? I forced myself to relax, and his fingers loosened but didn't break contact.
"I believe it was 'neither wants nor needs it.'"
"Ah," he said under his breath and dropped his eyes from mine. "My dear Watson, you really must forgive me. In my line of work, it is... inconvenient for someone to constantly worry after my wellbeing. I'm afraid I have less experience than desirable in expressing this."
"Mm, that is apparent," said I, and his eyes darted up. I caught a glimmer of relief in them when I sat back down in my chair. His fingers slipped away from my wrist. "Is my concern really that much of an inconvenience to you?" I asked.
Holmes made a gravelly sound in his throat. "Perhaps I should have chosen a different word."
"Such as?"
He seemed to mull it over for several seconds. "Distracting."
"I see. It is distracting for you to know that I worry about you." That, at least, was some indication that he did in fact consider how I felt. Holmes rested his chin on his folded arms.
"Yes, to be frank."
"Well, I am sorry," I said, and I let enough sarcasm through so that he could be quite sure of my meaning, "but no amount of complaining or unnecessary harshness on your part is going to dissuade me. Your plan, to use your own phrase, has backfired." The corner of his mouth quirked at that. "You're my friend, Holmes. It's only natural that I should want you to remain safe."
"I assure you, should any of my cases involve physical danger, I will not hesitate to bring you and your revolver along."
"I appreciate that, but it isn't what I meant," I said. "And you know it." Holmes's jaw tightened with restrained exasperation, but I refused to let the point drop. We had gotten this far, after all. "Tell me what I can do," I said, trying a different tack. Nagging and entreating were obviously not profitable undertakings. "It's this boredom, this - this monotony that drives you to the cocaine. What can I do?"
"Find me cases," he replied automatically.
"Well, I do my best, Holmes, but besides that?"
Holmes held my eyes for a precious few more seconds, then looked away and sighed deeply. "Do you remember last Thursday, when it was fair weather for the first time in a month?"
"Yes." I was a little thrown off by his apparent change of subject.
"And you badgered me for the better part of two hours to go out for a walk and see the-" he waved a hand vaguely, "the crocuses or some such romanticized nonsense."
"Yes, and you harangued me for disturbing your peace. I believe the term 'mother hen' was used. But I broke you down eventually, and we went. I for one had a lovely time."
"And I, for the first time since the close of my most recent case, did not think about my syringe for an entire afternoon."
I had drawn in air to continue, but the implications of what he'd said hit me and I held my breath for a moment before slowly letting it out. Holmes was still looking to the side, and I could see tension in his profile. "Truly?" I asked at length.
"Do you think I would have said so were it not true?" he snapped.
I stood up, and I saw the same wary regret flash across his face as he watched me. "Let's go, then," I said, and Holmes pushed himself upright, frowning.
"What? Where?"
"I don't care," I said. I took his arm and hauled him up. "To the park again. To the British Museum. What about the new art gallery on Bond Street? I know how much delight you take in arguing with me about art."
Holmes gave an exclamation of protest, but when I held out his coat, he snatched it from me and shrugged it on. Outside, as we walked down Baker Street, I took his arm.
"I see you can be appreciative of my distractions sometimes."
Holmes rolled his eyes heavenward. "Has anyone ever told you that you're insufferable when you're right?"
"My dear Holmes," I said, "I learn from the best."
