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charleygirlTitle: Jottings from a Doctor's Journal 31/?
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 1440
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, Mrs Hudson
Genre: Friendship, fluff
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me. The book and text quoted in the story is not mine either.
Summary: A collection of scenes and fragments that are too long to be drabbles and too undisciplined to be 221Bs.
Author's Note: Complete fluff. No idea where this came from!
BEDTIME STORIES
“Holmes, this can’t go on,” I said.
He hunched over in his chair, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders and deliberately turning his back on me. “It doesn’t concern you, Watson.”
Usually when he effectively told me to mind my own business I would do so, but I could not ignore the five days he had now gone without sleep. When working on a case Holmes would stay awake far longer than any human being should ever do, concentrating his powers and extraordinary faculties on the problem in hand and almost always to the detriment of his health. It was not, however, normal for him to be sleepless like this when unemployed. After nearly a week of listening to him pacing the sitting room in the small hours and coming down to breakfast to find him sitting in the chair in which I had left him the night before I could not help but be worried.
“It does concern me,” I told him now, “both as your friend and your doctor. This is not healthy, Holmes!”
A thin hand waved dismissively. “Go away and tend to your real patients, doctor. They have more need of you than I.”
I folded my arms, biting my lip as I considered my next move. It would be easy to back down, allow him to control the situation as he wished, but I did not relish having to pick up the pieces when the inevitable happened. Decision made, I took a different tack. “Suppose a client should walk through that door now,” I said. “Exactly how much use do you think you will be to them in your condition? As soon as you rose from your chair you would collapse on the carpet.”
“That is your professional opinion, I take it?” Holmes’s voice was clipped, a warning to proceed no further down that particular route.
I ignored it. There were times when I could have cheerfully strangled the man, so stubborn was he. His masterful nature would allow him to relinquish control to no one until circumstances made it completely unavoidable. Upon the subject of his health he would dig in his heels and refuse to admit that there was anything wrong until his beleaguered body decided to prove otherwise. I had lost count long ago of the occasions upon which I had been called to assist him after his iron constitution had been pushed beyond its (admittedly exceptional) limits.
Despite my immediate desire to snatch up a heavy book and beat him about the head with it, I remained calm. “If you insist upon putting this conversation on such a formal footing, then yes, it is,” I said. “And any other doctor within ten miles would agree with me!”
“Ha!” Holmes threw back his head with a bark of humourless laughter. A moment later he was out of his chair with a speed I had not thought it possible for him to possess in his doubtless exhausted state. He took a swift circuit of the room and came to rest before me with arms spread wide and a triumphant smile upon his lips. “Well, doctor? Would you care to revise your opinion?”
I looked up at him, and at close quarters there was no mistaking the pinched features and extreme pallor of one on the verge of fainting. The circles beneath his hooded eyes were inky black, the eyes themselves rimmed with red. He swayed gently, though was quite plainly trying to hide it, and his outstretched hands were almost imperceptibly shaking. When I had taken all this in, I said, “No, I would not. And I suggest you sit down before you fall down.”
Holmes scowled at me. “Nonsense! I am - ” He broke off as all of a sudden his eyes seemed to lose focus and he wobbled on his feet. I jumped to catch him as he slid towards the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Now will you listen to me?” I asked as I guided him to the sofa and helped him to stretch out there amongst the cushions. “You must rest!”
He moaned and shook his head as I unfolded a blanket over him. “Can’t. Brain...won’t let me.”
I sighed. Many was the time I had suffered sleeplessness in the middle of the night because my mind had caught hold of something trivial and would not let it go. For hours it seemed I had fought fruitlessly with snatches of poetry or popular song which seemed to replay themselves in my head on a perpetual loop. Goodness knew what a similar affliction must have been like for Holmes with all of the information tucked away in his ‘brain attic’.
Whatever the cause, I had to relax him enough to get him to fall asleep naturally. A sleeping powder would have been the obvious solution, but it would just be the start of a destructive cycle if Holmes came to rely on medication in order to rest. Given his previous addiction to narcotics, I would prefer to leave such a course of action as a last resort. Instead, I went downstairs to find Mrs Hudson, leaving Holmes with strict instructions not to move from the sofa in my absence.
Our landlady was not surprised when she learned of her principal tenant’s malady, as she too had heard him moving about the house at night. She immediately set a pan on the stove to heat some milk, and then bustled about the kitchen hunting out extra ingredients for the warm drink I had requested. When her preparations were complete and the resulting concoction poured into a cup, she withdrew a small, slim book from her apron pocket, which she pressed into my hand.
“Mrs Hudson, whatever is this?” I asked, looking at it in mild confusion.
She smiled. “My niece’s youngest can never go to sleep without a few pages before bedtime,” she said. “I thought it might work on Mr Holmes.”
Privately I doubted that, as Holmes was not a six year old boy even though he sometimes behaved like one, but I carried the book upstairs with me, reflecting that anything was worth a try. To my surprise Holmes had obeyed me, and lay still on the sofa, his eyes closed and his hands folded upon his waistcoat. Any hopes I may have had that Morpheus had claimed him while I was in the kitchen were dashed when he cracked open one eye and looked askance at the steaming cup I held.
“Milk sops?” he enquired, arching an eyebrow.
“Something to help you sleep,” I said, handing it to him and adding in a threatening tone, “Drink it.”
With a long-suffering sigh he did so. I busied myself with pulling the curtains to dim the late afternoon sunlight – when I was done I settled myself in my armchair, opening Mrs Hudson’s book. Holmes laid aside the cup with an expression of distaste and fixed his gimlet gaze upon me. His mouth twitched in amusement.
“Really, Watson, I sincerely hope you are not intending to read me a bedtime story.”
“I am indeed,” I replied seriously.
He stared at me, obviously affronted. “I am not a child!” he declared.
“Perhaps not, but it is a well-known fact that a soothing voice can aid relaxation. Lie down and shut your eyes and just listen,” I said.
“This is an utterly ridiculous notion,” Holmes muttered, but did as he was told.
I cleared my throat, smoothed down the first page, and began, “Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.”
The detective snorted. “Good gracious, whatever next?”
“Holmes, be quiet,” I ordered. “They lived with their Mother in a sandbank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree.
‘Now, my dears,’ said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden - your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.’
‘Now run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out.’
Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella and went through the wood to the baker's. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.”
My friend did not interrupt again. I glanced over at him to see that his eyes were closed, his face slack and his hands loose upon his chest. I hope that Miss Potter will not take it amiss, or as a criticism of her work, if I inform the reader that before I had reached a third of the way through The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr McGregor, Sherlock Holmes was fast asleep.
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 1440
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, Mrs Hudson
Genre: Friendship, fluff
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me. The book and text quoted in the story is not mine either.
Summary: A collection of scenes and fragments that are too long to be drabbles and too undisciplined to be 221Bs.
Author's Note: Complete fluff. No idea where this came from!
BEDTIME STORIES
“Holmes, this can’t go on,” I said.
He hunched over in his chair, pulling the blanket closer around his shoulders and deliberately turning his back on me. “It doesn’t concern you, Watson.”
Usually when he effectively told me to mind my own business I would do so, but I could not ignore the five days he had now gone without sleep. When working on a case Holmes would stay awake far longer than any human being should ever do, concentrating his powers and extraordinary faculties on the problem in hand and almost always to the detriment of his health. It was not, however, normal for him to be sleepless like this when unemployed. After nearly a week of listening to him pacing the sitting room in the small hours and coming down to breakfast to find him sitting in the chair in which I had left him the night before I could not help but be worried.
“It does concern me,” I told him now, “both as your friend and your doctor. This is not healthy, Holmes!”
A thin hand waved dismissively. “Go away and tend to your real patients, doctor. They have more need of you than I.”
I folded my arms, biting my lip as I considered my next move. It would be easy to back down, allow him to control the situation as he wished, but I did not relish having to pick up the pieces when the inevitable happened. Decision made, I took a different tack. “Suppose a client should walk through that door now,” I said. “Exactly how much use do you think you will be to them in your condition? As soon as you rose from your chair you would collapse on the carpet.”
“That is your professional opinion, I take it?” Holmes’s voice was clipped, a warning to proceed no further down that particular route.
I ignored it. There were times when I could have cheerfully strangled the man, so stubborn was he. His masterful nature would allow him to relinquish control to no one until circumstances made it completely unavoidable. Upon the subject of his health he would dig in his heels and refuse to admit that there was anything wrong until his beleaguered body decided to prove otherwise. I had lost count long ago of the occasions upon which I had been called to assist him after his iron constitution had been pushed beyond its (admittedly exceptional) limits.
Despite my immediate desire to snatch up a heavy book and beat him about the head with it, I remained calm. “If you insist upon putting this conversation on such a formal footing, then yes, it is,” I said. “And any other doctor within ten miles would agree with me!”
“Ha!” Holmes threw back his head with a bark of humourless laughter. A moment later he was out of his chair with a speed I had not thought it possible for him to possess in his doubtless exhausted state. He took a swift circuit of the room and came to rest before me with arms spread wide and a triumphant smile upon his lips. “Well, doctor? Would you care to revise your opinion?”
I looked up at him, and at close quarters there was no mistaking the pinched features and extreme pallor of one on the verge of fainting. The circles beneath his hooded eyes were inky black, the eyes themselves rimmed with red. He swayed gently, though was quite plainly trying to hide it, and his outstretched hands were almost imperceptibly shaking. When I had taken all this in, I said, “No, I would not. And I suggest you sit down before you fall down.”
Holmes scowled at me. “Nonsense! I am - ” He broke off as all of a sudden his eyes seemed to lose focus and he wobbled on his feet. I jumped to catch him as he slid towards the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Now will you listen to me?” I asked as I guided him to the sofa and helped him to stretch out there amongst the cushions. “You must rest!”
He moaned and shook his head as I unfolded a blanket over him. “Can’t. Brain...won’t let me.”
I sighed. Many was the time I had suffered sleeplessness in the middle of the night because my mind had caught hold of something trivial and would not let it go. For hours it seemed I had fought fruitlessly with snatches of poetry or popular song which seemed to replay themselves in my head on a perpetual loop. Goodness knew what a similar affliction must have been like for Holmes with all of the information tucked away in his ‘brain attic’.
Whatever the cause, I had to relax him enough to get him to fall asleep naturally. A sleeping powder would have been the obvious solution, but it would just be the start of a destructive cycle if Holmes came to rely on medication in order to rest. Given his previous addiction to narcotics, I would prefer to leave such a course of action as a last resort. Instead, I went downstairs to find Mrs Hudson, leaving Holmes with strict instructions not to move from the sofa in my absence.
Our landlady was not surprised when she learned of her principal tenant’s malady, as she too had heard him moving about the house at night. She immediately set a pan on the stove to heat some milk, and then bustled about the kitchen hunting out extra ingredients for the warm drink I had requested. When her preparations were complete and the resulting concoction poured into a cup, she withdrew a small, slim book from her apron pocket, which she pressed into my hand.
“Mrs Hudson, whatever is this?” I asked, looking at it in mild confusion.
She smiled. “My niece’s youngest can never go to sleep without a few pages before bedtime,” she said. “I thought it might work on Mr Holmes.”
Privately I doubted that, as Holmes was not a six year old boy even though he sometimes behaved like one, but I carried the book upstairs with me, reflecting that anything was worth a try. To my surprise Holmes had obeyed me, and lay still on the sofa, his eyes closed and his hands folded upon his waistcoat. Any hopes I may have had that Morpheus had claimed him while I was in the kitchen were dashed when he cracked open one eye and looked askance at the steaming cup I held.
“Milk sops?” he enquired, arching an eyebrow.
“Something to help you sleep,” I said, handing it to him and adding in a threatening tone, “Drink it.”
With a long-suffering sigh he did so. I busied myself with pulling the curtains to dim the late afternoon sunlight – when I was done I settled myself in my armchair, opening Mrs Hudson’s book. Holmes laid aside the cup with an expression of distaste and fixed his gimlet gaze upon me. His mouth twitched in amusement.
“Really, Watson, I sincerely hope you are not intending to read me a bedtime story.”
“I am indeed,” I replied seriously.
He stared at me, obviously affronted. “I am not a child!” he declared.
“Perhaps not, but it is a well-known fact that a soothing voice can aid relaxation. Lie down and shut your eyes and just listen,” I said.
“This is an utterly ridiculous notion,” Holmes muttered, but did as he was told.
I cleared my throat, smoothed down the first page, and began, “Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter.”
The detective snorted. “Good gracious, whatever next?”
“Holmes, be quiet,” I ordered. “They lived with their Mother in a sandbank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree.
‘Now, my dears,’ said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden - your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.’
‘Now run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out.’
Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella and went through the wood to the baker's. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.”
My friend did not interrupt again. I glanced over at him to see that his eyes were closed, his face slack and his hands loose upon his chest. I hope that Miss Potter will not take it amiss, or as a criticism of her work, if I inform the reader that before I had reached a third of the way through The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr McGregor, Sherlock Holmes was fast asleep.
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 05:44 am (UTC)One, I own a set of Peter Rabbit mugs, bowls, and plates from when I was younger. I was drinking cocoa out of one of the mugs when I read this.
Two, reading that warmed me more than the cocoa ever could.
This story is a thousand kinds of adorable.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 03:36 pm (UTC)That was gorgeous, esp with petulant-child-holmes and serious-watson.
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Date: 2010-07-22 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-23 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 04:10 pm (UTC)