Before Holmes Met Watson (FEATURED)

Day Twenty-two: Rainy Days

With the case at The Copper Beeches wrapped up, Sherlock tendered his resignation. If Claudine had been a different sort of person, Sherlock suspected she would have been in floods. She'd even offered to sack one of the other new perfumers so she could afford to sweeten his compensation package rather extravagantly. "Even with virtually no experience, you're one of the best perfumers I've ever worked with, Sherlock," she'd told him. "With a few years to learn the business and some successful scents under your belt, you could write your own ticket. I'm willing to break the bank to keep you here, to win your loyalty."

Isn't that what everyone wanted to hear? That they were valuable, that they were the best, that they were winning?

"I dunno, Sherlock," Shinwell mused when he'd learned the news. "Maybe you should stay on there. It sounds like you're the dog's bollocks at this perfume business. And with what you know about them, the Rucastles would probably give you whatever you asked just to be sure you were still onside with the suicide story."

Jeremy Rucastle's death had indeed been ruled a suicide. As Mrs Rucastle had intimated, there were red flags in his File going back years indicating that he was unstable, and he'd had enough cocaine in his system to raise even Sherlock's jaded eyebrow. The case was over, and having made the decision not to report Esther Rucastle to the authorities meant that Sherlock hadn't made any further inroads with Inspector Hopkins. He hadn't moved a single step further in his professional life. He'd proved himself as a highly valued perfumer, though. Shinwell's suggestion was the rational choice. He had the nose, he'd mastered the chemistry, and he was creative – perhaps not in the free-wheeling sense in which the term was usually employed, but there was art in his blood. And it was this artist's passion that was gumming up the works.

A romantic. That's what Mark had called him.

Sherlock always prided himself on being supremely rational, but he wasn't so lacking in self-awareness that he didn't realise that the choices he made in his personal life were sub-optimal. He frequently abused hard drugs, he enjoyed bare-knuckle boxing, he hadn't finished university, he'd never been in a real romantic relationship, and he'd just left a stable, well-paying job with a supportive boss to scrounge for cases as a private detective. He was clever, exceedingly so, but only about an incredibly narrow spectrum of things, he was beginning to realise. He seemed to be stupid about how to live life.

All the evidence pointed to detective work being the wrong choice of career for him. But deep inside himself he knew it was the only path for him. He was an outstanding perfumer, but he could be an even better detective. Or was that wishful thinking? Was he living his life according to who he wanted to be not who he actually was? He hadn't quite botched the case, but he'd drawn the wrong conclusion, hadn't he? He hadn't been patient enough to wait for all the information. He'd jumped ahead to the end where he thought he'd stun everyone with his brilliance and be lauded a hero. Sherlock winced as he thought of how greedily he'd absorbed Mark's admiration back in Sussex, of how eager he was to be praised. But that wasn't all there was to it, was there? Claudine was in raptures over his skill at perfumery, and, while it pleased him, it gave him nowhere near the same satisfaction it did to solve a case. He could have stayed on at The Copper Beeches for a while and made a go of it. He would have had some success too, but in short order, the walls would have begun to close in on him. They always did.

He needed to be a detective.

That's what he could never get anyone to understand. It wasn't a vocation to him. It was his identity.

Why not join the force, then? The question had been put to him many times before. It was that closing of the walls, the claustrophobia engendered by institutions. Sherlock was bad at building and maintaining relationships, at fitting in, because he lacked the temperament to compromise. The flaw was constitutional. Generally, he could manage other people only in small doses. Mark had been a rare exception. So had Victor. He didn't mind Claudine, but in a matter of months it would have all exploded spectacularly. It was best to spare everyone the bother of cleaning up afterwards.

Was he deluded? Like those people who spend years, decades even trying to become professional footballers or film stars. Was he grossly overestimating the level of his skill and the demand for it? Was it even possible for him to make a real living? Would doing work he found pleasurable but that wasn't his first choice really be so bad?

In the end, he'd hedged a bit. He stayed on for two weeks to help Claudine get as far as possible with the new fragrance and agreed to consult from time to time.

He needed to stay busy, but there were no cases, and his pride prevented him from going back to Claudine so soon. It had been pouring down rain for days. He wasn't one of those people for whom the weather dictated the ebb and flow of his moods, but that excuse of staying dry made it easy, didn't it? Easy to hole up inside. Easy to beg off any invitation. Easy for his mind to become a quagmire. Easy to be seduced by the abyss.

He reached for his drugs kit and saw that he had only enough left for two doses. That wasn't right... He'd had at least five the last time he'd checked. Hadn't he?

#

John didn't know anyone at the hospital, and he felt no inclination to make any acquaintances. There was a hardening of his heart happening, a numbing of all feeling. It was better than the pain, preferable to the anguish. His shoulder was healing well, but he'd been injured in other ways.

"Not much of a talker, are you Cap'n Watson?" he'd been asked on more than one occasion. He'd never been one for idle chatter or gossip, but he'd always been outgoing and gregarious; he'd always found it easy to make friends. He supposed he couldn't see the point in making the effort. He'd be out of here in a couple of months, and he'd never see any of them again. So, he sat silently and stared out the window.

It was almost always raining.

John liked watching the patterns the drops made as they slid down the window pane. It seemed some of the drops had purpose, direction, that they were determined to take a certain path. Projection was a powerful psychological impulse, but John realised his musings were ridiculous. He was projecting onto raindrops.

For the first time in his life, John had no plans for what to do next. He'd been on a certain trajectory. It had been a steep climb, especially after his parents had died, but always having been aimed at something, always being able to press forward had made the journey bearable. He was wholly without direction now. He'd always imagined that when he left the army he'd continue being a trauma surgeon, just at a nice hospital where there were no bombs going off and that he'd get himself a partner and a mortgage. Maybe even a bull pup. They'd take him for walks and call him Gladstone. Where there'd been a strategy and milestones to meet, there was now emptiness. Everything was blank. There was nothing; there was no one.

He broke it off with Salman.

Salman was seriously considering upending his career to come home to England and be with John. John felt he couldn't allow him to make such a disastrous mistake. I'm not the man he fell in love with, John reasoned, and I refuse to be a burden, an albatross around his neck. He's still young. He can find someone else. John told him as much, and Salman's shocked silence, the hurt in his voice when he'd asked, "Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me away?" had been horrible, just horrible. But it had to be done. John tried to tell himself that he was being selfless, that he was gouging out that last little bit of light left inside him to save Salman from being pulled down into the darkness with him. But the truth was, he was ashamed. Ashamed of how damaged and broken he was, ashamed that he was no longer a dashing Army Captain, ashamed that he had no family or friends, ashamed of how much he craved Salman's comfort. He was also frightened of what it would mean to accept Salman's unconditional love and willing sacrifice. The weight of the debt would be crushing. Love wasn't meant to be transactional, but all relationships are about reciprocity on some level, John thought. And I'm not capable of giving him what he needs. I might never be. Putting us asunder now was best.

So, John broke off his only meaningful relationship and spent his days examining the patterns raindrops made when they struck his grimy window.

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