Might Have Been
by Jen (dragonriderjenner at yahoo.com)
1/10/04
Does anyone remember that story I was talking about several
weeks back? Well I'm finally posting it. Yay. I don't really remember
what I was thinking when I wrote this. Maybe I wasn't thinking at all.
Anyways, don't ask me any questions about inconsistencies, loose ends,
and ambiguous phrases. I wrote it in about a half hour. Anyways.
You stand above me, my enemy, triumphant at last. You were always so
good at looking triumphant. And your victory - so well planned out and
executed. And so, I drift here, in a vat of potent acid, my head above
the surface, just so I can watch you leave me here. Though I suppose
I should count it as a blessing that you pumped me so full of
analgesics that I couldn't tell my ass from my elbow. And as I drift
here, I can only think to you - 'Congratulations, for a job well
done', seeing as my mouth can speak no longer.
When I saw you, back from the dead with your memories intact, I knew
that I would die by your hand. You are talking now, probably aware
that I can't here a single word you're saying. In spite of that, you
keep talking. You know you have all the time in the world, and you
intend on using every minute of it.
I suppose, in a way, I knew all along that I deserved this. I murdered
you, so it is only fair that you take your proper revenge and murder
me back.
All these years I've been fooling myself. I kept on telling myself,
and Watson, too, that I tried to save you, that I tried to pull you
back onto that ledge. Even as I heard the delicate bones of your hand
cracking and popping beneath my heel. And I kept telling that lie. I
told it so much I almost believed it.
Almost.
And then I'd see your face, expression splayed across your chiseled
features, and I'd hear the bones of your strong hand breaking under my
malevolent heel, and I'd hear the empty silence as you fell.
That always surprised me, you know, that you were so silent. You just
watched me. Probably right up until the moment you died. And even
though I couldn't see you through the white veil of mist, I'm sure you
could see me, in all my sadistic glory.
And when I found you, I set all the broken bones in your cold, cold
body.
Every last one.
I even stripped you down and bathed your long, lean body.
And then I buried you with all the respect you deserved as my rival
and enemy, which was (I am not ashamed to admit) quite a lot.
I even hid your makeshift tomb from prying eyes.
But nothing I did could redeem me of the fact that I had murdered you
and lied about it to keep pure my own name.
You've stopped talking, and are now just watching me. Your eyes watch
mine as I watch yours, then they follow the path of my disintegrating
body, then to the blood seeping out of my broken veins, then back to
my face and my eyes.
You kneel, now, on the walkway around the rim of my giant glass bowl
and, with a bare hand, brush some of my hair from my eyes. You do not
speak, but your mouth forms the words 'Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes.'
I recognize the hand that rests upon my brow. Its tanned surface bears
the scars of the wounds that my heel inflicted upon it.
You draw back your hand and place a kiss on two fingertips. You reach
out to me again and place the two fingertips, and your sweet kiss,
upon my brow, just as I did before I left your cold body in that icy
tomb. And then you close my eyes with your warm hand, (just as I, too,
did so long ago), and I can sense you draw back. I can sense the tear
that falls, solitary, as though it was the solitary tear that fell
from my own eye so long ago. And then I sense you walk away, the long,
lean legs that I knew so intimately taking you away from me, though
not without regret.
My heart is finally slowing, unable to properly pump the acid that now
flows through my veins.
They will never find enough evidence to find you guilty of murdering
me, but I know that when you look back upon this day, you will see
what was and not what could have been.
THE END
Back to the Fanfic index
|