Fic: Fireside: Gen

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Title: Fireside
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Notes: H/C. Fluff. pre-Retirement!lock, one of my all time favourite tropes.
Summary: The last Christmas Eve at Baker Street.


“Where have you been, Holmes, on such a night as this?”

“Where does anyone go on Christmas Eve, my dear Watson?”

“A public-house!” I teased, then finally tore my gaze from the fire. “Ah, there’s my Gladstone. I wondered what had become of it. I assumed that you destroyed it in one of your experiments.”

“I told you, Watson, when you inquired as to its whereabouts that I had need of it,” he said gently.

“Is it not the same thing?”  I harrumphed and resumed my solemn contemplation of the flames.

Holmes set the bag by the fire. “I observe that you are in a philosophical mood tonight, my dear man, and not a wholly festive one, either.”

“Yes,” I said, curtly, and, after a few minutes of companionable silence, spoke my mind.

“I suppose that people have been staring into fires for as long as there have been fires in which to stare and telling stories by them for as long as people have been speaking at all.”

My eyes roamed about the mantelpiece, resting lightly on each piece in turn:  the clock, the jack-knifed which still transfixed unanswered correspondence; the pair of birds of prey, one black, one white, mounted; the Indonesian puzzle-box. A vine of red-berried ivy wound its way through the clutter.

I didn’t want to say the words aloud. Holmes said them for me.

“Our last Christmas at Baker Street.”

I nodded, blinking.

“How many stories, Holmes? How many stories have I written at that desk?” I pointed. “How many have stories have these dancing flames witnessed? So many. I haven’t published half. I suppose I’ll store the notes in my old tin dispatch-box.  Ah, well. We have led a life. Such a life!”

I felt a hand not yet warmed by the fire, covering mine. Long elegant fingers curled in a reassuring squeeze.

“Our lives are not over, my dear Watson.”

“No, of course, not.” I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between finger and thumb. “By Jove, I’m a maudlin one tonight.” I looked at him. “Happy Christmas, Holmes.”

“Happy Christmas, Watson,” he replied, releasing my hand and reaching for the Gladstone bag. “And I hope that this will provide a bit of remedy for your melancholy and serve as a reminder that there are yet pleasures to be had, pleasures which this life, even with all its adventure and riches, could not have afforded us. There will be fires and stories in Sussex, stories made and told.”

Then he pulled his hand out of the bag.

My heart threatened to burst with joy. “Oh, Holmes!” I exclaimed.

I took the small, squirming bundle of chocolate-coloured fur from him and brought it to my chest at once, feeling very much like a child at Christmas.

My voice broke when I said, “He’s wonderful.” And the little scamp began to lick my chin.

Smiling, Holmes leaned back in his armchair and turned his grey eyes toward the fire.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

This is lovely. The melancholy is perfectly pitched. And then the present, which Watson could never have had if they were not moving.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Moving is always difficult and especially when you've lived somewhere a long time and made a lot of memories in a place. And, yes, it is the perfect distraction for Watson because it gives him something special to look forward that could not be had in the rooms. And it's fun to give him a puppy!

[alafaye]

Aw!

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I do love the description of the mantelpiece: ...the clock, the jack-knifed which still transfixed unanswered correspondence; the pair of birds of prey, one black, one white, mounted; the Indonesian puzzle-box. A vine of red-berried ivy wound its way through the clutter.

And it is a wonderful and thoughtful present from Holmes - a reminder that the move is a new start and not just an ending.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

A bit of canon & head canon, there.

Thank you. Yes, lots of good things about a puppy.