Heyyyyy, so I know it's been a while since I updated, sorry, but here's the next installment, and I really do hope to start updating more regularly
I learned very quickly that Sherlock Holmes was not an ordinary flatmate. For one thing, I never thought that life would be anything more than dull and painfully mundane after the war, but living with Sherlock changed that. I never thought my psychosomatic limp, as well as all of my other psychological ailments, could heal so easily, but living with Sherlock changed that. I certainly never thought that I would be able to tolerate living with an egotistical dickhead, but, along with practically everything about my life, living with Sherlock changed that too.
I quickly grew accustomed to Sherlock's strange quirks and mannerisms. He would hardly ever eat or sleep, especially on cases, which I found a bit distressing given my doctoral inclinations, but I did not interfere with him too much on the matter. With other hobbies of his, however, I was not so passive. Not rarely did I find severed body parts in our fridge (on one occasion I found a whole human head), which always left me wondering why the bloody hell I'd moved in with this lunatic in the first place. The flat was always alive and buzzing with some new experiment of Sherlock's (some of which I suspected myself of being the incognisant test subject). I often came home from a long day at the hospital—at which I was now employed—hoping to get some rest only to find the flat wreaking of electrocuted mice or perhaps microwaved deodorant (the latter of which I never truly learned the purpose of).
Sometimes I would look around our chaotic residence and see a nasty, dirty, wet flat, occasionally filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell; other times I would see a dry, bare, scanty flat with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; but despite the unwelcome experiments that perpetually polluted our flat and the outlandish propensities of my partner-in-crime-fighting, I never considered leaving the place or abandoning my friend, because no matter how outre my life there tended to be, it was home, and that means comfort.
God, it'd been so long since I'd really had a home. Even before I went off to Afghanistan I didn't truly feel like I fit in anywhere. Perhaps that's why I'd left to begin with. But here, living with Sherlock, going on wild criminal pursuits, occasionally getting kidnapped (by either enemy or arch enemy), solving crimes (more accurately, standing by as moral support for Sherlock as he solved the crime, and I repeatedly saved his arse from said enemy/arch enemy), it all felt so natural. For once in my life I was finally right where I belonged.
Sure, this absurdity of a life could be dangerous, and often involved risking my neck for something as innocent as going out to get a jug of milk, but to be quite honest, it was the kind of thing that really made me feel alive. It wasn't until I moved in with Sherlock that I was finally able to realise that my psychosomatic limp wasn't caused by "Post Traumatic Stress;" it was caused by a complete and utter lack of excitement. That was what I really craved. Danger vitalised me, and the only "stress" I may have struggled with was the stress of being confined to the insipid monotony of life.
It was awful, before I met Sherlock. The depression, I mean. The days would plod forward, going nowhere, accomplishing nothing. I was a ghost in a man's body, hardly even alive. Some days, I wished I wasn't. Some days, I would look longingly at my revolver and think what a relief firing a bullet in my mouth would give me. But I refused to linger on those thoughts, because if I was nothing else, I was a soldier; and soldiers don't surrender.
Then came Sherlock, and all those thoughts were buried.
There was one thing, however, that I never got over from that period of my life: the nightmares. I was never able to fully rid myself of them. I wouldn't get them every night, but I still got them often. The oddest thing was that Afghanistan would make rarer and rarer appearances, and my dreams about this… other world seemed to be getting more and more vivid. Even stranger were Sherlock's random manifestations in the dreams. I say "manifestations" because truthfully I never actually saw him, I only ever heard his voice: cold and menacing and terrible. I could understand why he might come off as cold and menacing in my dreams, but at no point in my life had I ever feared the man like I did in my nightmares. It began when Donovan had said those haunting words: one day we'll be standing around a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there. And there were always bodies. So many bodies laid bare by his hands. Bodies of humans, of animals, of houses; entire cities burnt to the ground surrounded by fire and his ethereal voice haunting the air: I am fire. I am death.
Always the drama queen.
I kept quiet about my dreams. I considered on several occasions going to see someone about them, but after I met Sherlock, after I rid myself of that damned limp, I realised that I didn't ever want to see anyone about anything ever again. I guess I preferred to just ignore my problems and hope for the best. I never even told Sherlock about them; Sherlock was a great friend, but he wasn't exactly adept at seeing eye to eye with people.
You see, being friends with Sherlock Holmes was like playing a game of riddles because you never knew who was going to come out on top, and you always had to keep your mind alert for fear of missing something that could be detrimental to your notoriety. His opinions of people were directly correspondent to their level of competence, and given his high level of intellect, you can understand how his respect was rather difficult to maintain. His mind functioned like a computer that never stopped programming, computing, downloading, and deleting. If one were to write out everything that went on in that man's head they would likely have a full novel in less than a week (complete with charts, diagrams, and all).
Yes, Sherlock Holmes was a great man, and, despite his irritating inclinations and egocentric manners, he was the best friend I'd ever had, odd as that may be. Other people didn't understand why I put up with him. To them he was inhuman—a cold and calculating machine who possessed no filter for rude or impertinent comments and showed no regard for conventional decency; who used people to his own ends, whose social skills were atrocious, who often failed to understand the meaning of boundaries. In short he was a complete dick.
But to me, other people couldn't be more wrong. Sherlock wasn't a machine; on the contrary, he was more human than most people I've ever known. He was human because he was honest to the point of indecency. He was human because he didn't conform to social conventions for the sake of conventionality; he didn't try to hide who he really was human because he was passionate about his work, and he engaged himself completely without asking anything in return. And on top of all of this, and despite his detached demeanour, he was a friend who was loyal almost past the extent of human capacity, whether that meant taking a bullet for his friend or telling him how horrible he looked in red before he went out on a date wearing his new, red jumper.
He had a different way of showing affection.
It was during a rather stagnant time in our flat, when we were both quite bored with the lack of a good case, and Sherlock was beginning to resort to worthless experiments just for the hell of it, when we received a visit from a rather odd client. He was not odd in the sense that he looked or acted in any peculiar way; he was odd in that he seemed to resonate at a very different frequency from the rest of the world. Moreover, the moment he stepped into our flat, I had the strangest, nostalgic feeling that I knew this man. That we had some sort of connection that nobody else shared. He left me with a feeling that was strikingly similar to the ones the nightmares left me with, only this was a good feeling. It was a comfortable feeling.
When he entered our flat I saw that he was an old man, quite decrepit from obvious years of hard work, not physical, per se, but exhausting nonetheless. In his right hand, he held a walking stick that was intricately designed with carvings and symbols, and resembled more a staff than a crutch. He possessed an inexplicable aura of wisdom, as though he knew a great deal of things he didn't let on about, and when he looked into my eyes I felt like I could crumble into scattered fragments of broken security. It was ridiculous; I was the most composed and well-ordered person that I knew. Damnit, I was a soldier for Christ's sake. But he made me feel like I was nothing more than a pawn in a game of chess that had been going on since the beginning of time. The weirdest part of it all was that he acted completely normal, just an average, everyday, elderly man.
I put on a polite smile and invited him in, saying "Would you like some tea, Mr., erm…?"
"Wilson," he responded, "Geoffrey Wilson. And yes please, I would be delighted to have some tea. Thank you." He ended with a polite, tight-lipped smile as I wandered into the kitchen to put on the kettle.
"Geoffrey, you say?" spoke Sherlock. "I know another Geoff myself. Please, do come take a seat." He motioned to our chair reserved specially for clients.
I wondered briefly who Sherlock was talking about, then groaned internally when I realised he meant Lestrade. "His name's Greg, not Geoff, you git." I chastised the detective
"Greg, Geoff, Gavin, it makes no difference to me," he rambled, waving his hand at me in an impassive gesture.
I gave an apologetic smile to our rather bemused looking client before leaving the kettle on the stovetop and taking a seat in my armchair next to Sherlock.
"Well?" urged Sherlock. "I assume you're here on a case, so get on with it. My time is precious and I prefer not to waste it doddling about uselessly. Speak."
I clenched my fists at Sherlock's unreserved impertinence, but to my relief, and surprise, our client only looked more amused than before.
"Well," Geoffrey Wilson began, his deep voice cracking with old age, "it all began when I was looking for someone to share in an investment." He paused for a moment, looking quite pleased with his particular choice of words, before continuing. "You see, my daughter, Dorothy, got engaged several months back. Her fiance, Ethan Howard, co-owns a business that sells electronics and spare parts for gamers and programmers. I honestly never understood half of the terminology he used, and admittedly did not have much mind for it at all, but when I found out that the business was running low on money, I decided to put an investment into the company to see that my daughter was well off. I can't just let my only child get hitched to a poor man, you know." I laughed internally at the notion of hearing the word "hitched" come out of this man's mouth.
"That was when I went to my friend, Mr. Christopher Kent, for help," he continued. "While I can honestly say that I am indeed a wealthy man, and in no great need of money, I do not have the money to fund a business like Mr. Howard's all on my own. I told Mr. Kent that if he should provide half the total sum of money I wished to invest in this business, that he should receive seventy-five percent of the profit. Now, normally I do not run the risk of partaking in a shareholding, but the Kent family and I go very far back, and I know Christopher very well and consider myself a good judge of his character. (I was very like a father figure to Chris growing up, since he lost his own father when he was only just a baby,)" he added as a side note. "So I decided it was perfectly safe to share a fund with Mr. Kent, and I put the money he leant me into an account that was accessible to both of us."
There came a whistling sound from the kitchen, and the conversation ceased temporarily as I got up to go make our tea. When I returned and we were all settled with our drinks, Sherlock continued the inquest. "So you shared in an investment with Mr. Kent. What happened next?"
"Well, all was going perfectly well, you see. I had decided not to tell Mr. Howard, the owner of the business, about the investment I had planned to make until I felt the time was right. It was nearing that time, however, when suddenly Christopher disappeared. He was nowhere to be found; he did not respond to any of my emails or phone calls, and when I finally went to visit his house, I only received an obscure explanation from his housekeeper that 'Mr. Howard has gone away,' and she would say nothing more. I was hit by a sudden stroke of fear that I had been misguided in my trust of Mr. Kent, but when I checked our investment account, I found that all of the money was still there. "
At this Sherlock perked up his ears a little. It wasn't necessarily a thrilling case, but a missing person always turned out to be somewhat of interest. And on top of the dead silence from cases we've been having recently, I knew that Sherlock was likely to at least look into this one.
"Missing, you say," prodded Sherlock. "And he left behind all of his investment money?"
"Well… not exactly.
"Explain."
"You see, it was several days, and I still hadn't heard a word from my friend, when today I found that all of the money from our account, including mine, had gone missing. When I asked the bank, they told me that Mr. Kent had taken it this morning!" Mr. Wilson ended in a tone that exaggerated the absurdity of the situation, a signature trait of the elderly.
"Pardon me for asking," I chimed in, voicing the question that I knew Sherlock must be thinking as well, "but why exactly did you come to us for help? Did you not go to the police to investigate first?"
The man mumbled a bit before responding to my question. "I certainly would have," he said, "but for the strangest detail of this whole affair."
"Go on," said Sherlock, clearly struck with interest.
"Well, you see, when I first asked Christopher if he would take part in the investment with me, he had just returned from a business trip. I don't know where he had gone, but from the way he talked about it, I imagined it must have been some place without a great deal of televisions or electronics for that matter. I should probably inform you that Christopher is a jeweler; a family business, and it's the primary source of his wealth. Anyways, he had been gone around the same time that you, Mr. Holmes, became renowned for the famous Reichenbach Mystery. Several days ago, on the night of his disappearance, I asked him to have dinner with me at the local bar so that we could further discuss plans for the investment. He came to the bar, and we sat down to chat. He seemed to me at the time to be acting perfectly normal. The local news was playing in the background, when you, Mr. Holmes, appeared on the telly. He seemed interested and asked me who you were. Clearly he had not yet heard of you, so I explained your remarkable accomplishments to him. That was when your friend, John Watson, here, came on screen. I swear that I have never seen something so bewildering in my life. After taking a look at you," he said, making intense eye contact with me, "Christopher went quite loony. His eyes glazed over as if he had suddenly just seen a ghost. I asked Mr. Kent what was wrong, quite taken aback by his sudden, dazed manner. He began to mumble nonsensically, and glanced up at me, looking quite shocked, before running off into the blue. That was the last I saw of Mr. Kent before he went missing."
Hey, by the way if any of you actually know anything about how shared investments and whatnot work, especially in the UK, then please send me a PM or something because honestly, I'm just muddling my way through right now despite my inconclusive attempts to figure it all out