JWP 2019 | Day 28

[thesadchicken]

Title: His Only Vice.
Author: thesadchicken
Rating: G.
Universe: Ritchie!verse, Sherlock Holmes (2009).
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes.
Summary: He comes home tired, worn-out; defeated.
Word Count: 221(B).

Prompt: The Needle, The Bottle, The Pipe: Everyone has an addiction of one sort or another. Select one to spotlight in today's entry. This can also apply to side characters such as opium-smoking Isa Whitney or former-junkie Alfredo Llamosa.

He comes home tired, worn-out, defeated; he falls into his chair without a word. But I need no words – the story is already written on his boots, his sleeve, his pocket, his jaw. I see everything, and then I deduce. I know where he has been and what he has been doing.

Then he looks up and I see something more, and I understand the lassitude in those bright blue eyes. I understand the guilt, the self-loathing, and I wish I could hold his hand in mine and say, ‘Watson, what is mine is yours; even if it is a large sum.’

I see his white-knuckle grip on the chair, the way he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. Once more I wish I could hold him against me and whisper, ‘You are the best man I know, Watson. Gambling is your only vice – and if it costs us the rent, so what?’

He wants an easy way to tell me. I give it to him.

‘You should have made your customary bet, old boy,’ I smile at him.

He smiles back, but it is weak; forced. ‘Yes,’ he says, although I know he means ‘I want to stop but I don’t know how.’

I want him to rest his head on my shoulder and sleep his worries away.