"Straw" (WWI-Era), June 2020 Monthly Prompt

[gardnerhill]

Title: Straw
Author: gardnerhill
Form/Wordcount: 400
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: PG (language)
Warnings/Content: profanity
Summary: Trauma can be triggered by a little thing.
Author’s Notes: For the Holmes Minor June 2020 prompt: Vessel. This story is another part of the post-war Sussex series in this year's Holmes Minor 2020 offerings.


I'd accustomed myself to the sounds of regular thumping and crashing as Watson relearned his way around the cottage and grounds without benefit of the eyesight he'd lost in the war. The first time I'd helped him up had also been the last, as he snarled that he was going to goddamn do this without my goddamn help thank you very goddamn much. (My only rejoinder was that I would not accept any invitations to tea with Vicar Brown for at least 6 months or until Watson had trained his tongue away from frontline vernacular, and left him to his navigation.) My returned spouse had acquired a splendid array of bruises and welts but he was regaining familiarity with our world.

But one day, nearly three weeks after John's return from the front, a crash from upstairs was accompanied by a splintering sound and a cry of anguish from John. Even as I ran up the stairs, I deduced what had happened before I laid eyes on it.

The model sailing ship that had graced my room since 1885, the one John had painstakingly carved and painted and strung only to present it upon my birthday that year to my utter surprise, the vessel that had survived all the years in Baker Street and the move to Sussex, lay on the floor where John's misstep had jolted the shelf upon which it had rested.

John was on the floor too, fingers grazing over the ship's tangled lines and splintered wood, and he was shaking. Again a cry of grief arose from him.

I knew all the correct things to say - It's easily mended, it's only a trifle, we've weathered far worse - but I was wise enough to say none of them. This had only as much to do with that broken ship as the straw has to do with the camel's spine.

He knew I was there, he'd have heard me run up the stairs to make sure he wasn't badly hurt. I sank down next to John and rested my hands on his shaking shoulders from behind. Again that cry of grief from the bowed back, the tearless sightless eyes, the hands buried in the flotsam of his own labor of love. "Go ahead," was all I said.

I held John as he wailed for the loss of his sight and battered the little ship to kindling.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

You are too angsty for your own good! Or mine.

Very real, the pain of not being able to put something right.

[gardnerhill]

More than that little ship cannot be put right - and that's what set John off after putting on such a brave face since he's been home.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Oh dear. Very well written but heartbreaking.

[gardnerhill]

Poor John's been putting on a brave face so far in these stories. Something had to crack, and fortunately it was the ship and not his mind or his spirit. Holmes will get him good and drunk and let him rip and swear all he likes. The next day Watson will have a ghastly hangover which will distract him from his mental pain, and he'll go right back to making his way around the cottage and stowing his self-pity away.

[scfrankles]

That is heartbreaking ^^" Yes, of course Watson is going to be a perfectly capable blind man and have a fulfilling life, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need to grieve over losing his sight and his old life.

[gardnerhill]

Exactly. He's been putting a brave face on it, but he's thoroughly entitled to a few bouts of self-pity too, and to mourn this loss.