holmes_minor | Fic: Play Them as They Lay: Teen (Reply)

Title: Play Them as They Lay
Rating: Teen
Length: 500
Content Notes & Warnings: pre-canon, references to suicide, tarot cards.
Summary: As Watson spends such money as he has considerably more freely than he ought, he meets a grey-eyed fortune teller.
Author's Note: I put on my best Watson aura and used an online tarot reading service and got three cards. I used the parts of the interpretation which best fit the story. For the monthly prompt: card.

“But the cards believe in you. Have a seat.”

She gestured to a makeshift stool beside an equally makeshift table. Light danced in her grey eyes, and I was reminded of the soft, rippling fur of a well-stroked feline.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t the time or money.”

“Half-truths, soldier,” she tut-tutted.

“How—?”

“Three cards. Play them as they lay. Pay what they’re worth.”

“You sound like a gambler.”

She replied by nodding towards the establishment behind me.

I shrugged. “Oh, why not? Let’s see what the cards say.”

“Excellent! Past, present, future. First, the three of swords.” She frowned. The eyes that met mine were dark now—like that well-stroked feline summarily dropped in the bath.

“Heartbreak. Loneliness. Betrayal. Pain without solace. Feeling lost. Realising your faith has been misplaced.”

“Bit bleak, that,” I said with a tight smile. “But war is hell, past is past. Where am I now?”

“Eight of pentacles. Diligence. Knowledge. Detail. Working hard—“

“Work? For what work am I fit?” I looked down at my body, and not for the first time, cursed its weakened state. I sank, then found myself perched atop the stool, which in terms of weight-bearing integrity inspired all the confidence of a rotten tree trunk, which it might have been.

“It also refers to increasing knowledge, formally or less so. Pursuing greater understanding.”

“I suppose I’d like greater understanding, but I haven’t the strength to pursue anything. I’m adrift, like all my fellow loungers and idlers in this great cesspool. Let’s have the future.”

She turned over the third card.

“Dear God,” I breathed. The stool threatened to collapse with my trembling.

She put a hand on my sleeve and shook her head. “No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“No, the card does not mean what you think it means. No, you should not interpret it as a sign that you should take your own life tonight, or any other night.”

“How—?”

“’The Hanged Man’ is about shrugging off the past. It is about up-ending the old order, pausing to reflect while waiting for the best opportunity. It is about sacrificing yourself to aid others and to become part of something larger. It is a powerful card for a powerful future. The card is reversed, suggesting delay, but, I think, not denial.”

Pinned by her gaze, I suddenly understood why ancient kings has their cats entombed alongside themselves. Who’d want to navigate this life—or the next—without them?

Finally, I nodded.

She exhaled and released her grip on my sleeve.

“Oh, and a word of caution: avoid that place tonight.”

I turned. “Why?”
“There’s to be a police raid.”

“Is there, by Jove?! Oh, well, let’s see, that was remarkable and worth every—“

I fumbled at bit, and when I turned back with money in hand, she was gone.

All that remained was the card of my future with words hand-scrawled along the edges:

‘Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.’