A/N: Merry Christmas, guys! I hope you have a safe and lovely day with lots of delicious food. :-) Keep writing and doing what you love, but make sure to relax too. Thank you for making me smile every day with your amazing talent. Cyber hugs all round!

This one I have definitely bent and taken on the psychological train (maaaaaybe slightly AU-ish too).

Prompt 22: From Domina Temporis – Watson meets another famous Victorian author. Your choice which one!


In Your Own Words


Watson writes about a soldier.

He writes about a doctor.

He writes about an author.

Watson does not write about himself, not truly. The better parts of him are on paper, markings he can refine if he is becoming too much like the real person.

He is doing this now, seated at his writing desk in Baker Street, editing and softening himself at the edges. His fingers are smudged black with ink, faded marks across his forehead and right cheek where he rubs and rests his hand.

He wonders if he will get to meet this character of whom he knows so well; this young Doctor Watson, a gentleman to rival most gentlemen. He is loving and loyal and possesses a kind heart, the grandest gift of silence, a companion and confidante to London's greatest detective.

But that Watson does not have the flaws he has. The Watson in his pages does not drink beyond his capability and flaunt money away on things he should not. His fictional counterpart has the smallest of gambling problems, nothing that cannot be fixed by Holmes merely locking his cheque book away.

The real-life Holmes is just as Watson describes him, has offered to take the cheque book away. However Watson will not let him, not until he were to pose a risk to the rent becoming unpaid again. Watson has imposed on Holmes's kindness one too many times, and any offers to cover the cost of their lodgings were withdrawn six months ago.

Fortunately since, Watson has not lost badly enough that he has failed to pay his share. It has not yet come to that.

He presses a full stop into the paper, writes, it is only a matter of time, and then changes 'is' to 'was', because he meant to write in the past tense. This particular story is about forgery and murder and a fleeting chase around Regents Park. Nothing to do with him, really, neither the copy nor the original.

He is not sure why he has made this error. It is unlike him. He stares at the words, the ink slanting dark and permanent like a premonition.

/-/-/

As it turns out, a prediction it was/is/will be, the correct tense hardly matters, though he has no idea how it has come to this point. He returns to Baker Street one night with pockets empty, devoid of watch and chain. His clothes are wet because there was no money on his possession for a cab, so he walked, several miles in the rain.

He cannot remember much, only glimpses where the evening started very well, a gratuitous supplement inside his cheque book, betting slips and cards and coins shining like stars flicked out of the sky, one by one.

Then it becomes hazy. He knows somewhere along the timeline he has erred terribly, because now he has nothing. He sits at his desk and puts his head in his hands, tries to piece some bits together. The rent is the least of his concerns, because he needs to get the watch back. The watch is the most important thing. He just needs to figure out where he last had it.

The draft from the Buckingham case is in front of him, complete and ready to send to his editor. Though the publication will not cover his losses tonight, nowhere close to the amount.

Watson picks the manuscript up, ideally flicks through the pages, words running past like miniature inky trains. His hands are shaking, tracks shifting. He is written an awful lot here, though he knows why.

He assisted Holmes throughout the case, by his friend's side from start to finish, no dialogue explanations from Holmes during parts he was not there. He was there from the moment Sir Alex Buckingham entered their living room to the conclusion.

He was there for all of it. The good-natured Doctor Watson.

He drops the manuscript, soft rustling noise as pages take flight. He leans back in his chair, presses his fingers hard over his eyes, because he does not wish to see any more of this man living in ink. The soldier. The doctor. The author.

Watson has already met him, and he is better than Watson in every sense of the word.


End


A/N II: A drop of angst in your Christmas tea? :-p