"Hope" is the Thing with Feathers

He was running.

Sweat dripped down his face, landing on the rough fabric of his shirt. His lungs burned as he inhaled the freezing air of the winter night. His legs felt nonexistent, yet they kept running, one after the other after the other.

Why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth shut?

He stole a look behind himself, hoping desperately that the man chasing him was out of sight. 

It usually only took a few minutes for John to outrun his drunken father. He would tire out eventually and sulk back to the house, dropping into the porch chair, waiting for John to return. But it always happened that by the time John found the courage to wander back home, his father was aggressively asleep. 

He slowed to a walk, trying to catch his breath and listening for any footsteps. All he heard was the beating of his own heart.

He looked around to find that he had run so far that he was in the Stamfords’ corn field, which was about a mile from the Watsons’ house. He had never run that far in his escape attempts, but this night his father had more than enough whisky and John had an abnormal amount of courage bubbling in his throat.

He meandered back to the homestead, focusing hard on slowing his breathing. He would get back, find his father asleep drooling on his chest, and he would crawl into bed, making sure to leave early enough in the morning to avoid the subsequent hangover.

But this time, as the house came into view, John’s father was not asleep. He was so awake, in fact, that he was standing on the front lawn pacing, waiting for John’s return. He knew he couldn’t escape this. He cursed himself, realizing that his father likely didn’t even run after him this time and instead conserved his energy by waiting for John to come back. 

Shit.

John approached slowly, meekly, even submissively. He knew he couldn’t get out of this. The closer he got, the calmer his father seemed. As his eyes came into view in the dark night, John saw what he could only describe as malice, pulling his father’s lips into a smile that caused John’s heart to sink. 

Before he could even utter an attempt of justification, his father’s arm was up in the air with a half full bottle of whisky in hand, plummeting quickly toward John’s head.

John shot up in bed, gasping for air and shielding his face with his hands. 

This particular dream was frequent, but it never got any easier to wake up from.

He sat there frozen for a moment, every muscle engaged, as he adjusted to reality, his consciousness slotting back into his 20 year old body. He softened slightly, one muscle at a time, gradually reassuring himself that he wasn’t a 15 year old boy anymore and that his father was, in fact, dead.

His fingers found their way to the scar above his left eyebrow like they always did, expecting them to be sticky with blood and whisky when he pulled away. But they weren’t. They were dry aside from the sweat on his brow and his scar hadn’t been open in five years. John kept reminding himself of this.

Sure that he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, John got up quietly and made his way to the porch chair like he did every other morning. While he sat, he toed at the loose board that warped upward.

When Harriet and his mother woke up, they would all dress in their nicest clothes and walk down to church. They would listen to Father Morstan rattle about morality and, just like every Sunday, everyone would be thinking about the irony of his gospel.

John didn’t think much about church and God, although he knew he should. He usually spent his time in the pew daydreaming about the future or ruminating about the past. 

Today, while sitting in the pew in his itchiest suit, with his sister on his left and the Stamfords on his right, his mind spun with the image of a tall, mysterious, curly headed, self-proclaimed detective. He couldn’t stop thinking about him: his piercing eyes staring into John’s, his lean muscles working under his thin work shirt, his long fingers around the handle of a hammer. Although John’s mind lingered on Holmes’ impressive physique for arguably too long, he craved to know more about him. He wanted to hear how he reached the conclusions that he seemed to pull from thin air. He wanted to hear his story and understand why the child of such an esteemed family settled on working for the railroad. He wanted to know what his hobbies were (besides pissing people off) and he wanted to know what made him tick. And he really wanted to know what he had meant last night in the schoolyard. 

Holmes had deduced correctly: John craved danger. But he couldn’t have meant anything more than that. For John to even think about more than that, let alone hope for it, would be a certain death sentence not only to his reputation, but to his livelihood. Surely Holmes had not seen the lust that John refused to acknowledge even to himself.

John shifted uncomfortably in the pew, paranoid at the possibility that everyone could see through him and his wrongful thoughts. He had had thoughts like this before, sure, but never this intense. He often had crushes on girls at school and he even had a fling with the preacher’s daughter in his teens (thank God no one ever found out about that). He had never paid any mind when his thoughts fixated on someone who was male, he figured everyone just pushed it down and moved on. As he got older, however, he started to understand the serious implication same-sex attraction held in society. Thus, John accepted at some point in his teens that he would marry a respectable woman, have kids, and live a life providing for them (of course, much of this was sullied by the death of his father). It didn’t matter if he found men attractive or if he could envision himself lying next to one, what mattered was that he chose not to.

But right now, John was finding it extremely difficult not to imagine himself next to Holmes. He knew he needed to stay away from him in order to make it easier for himself when they inevitably toed the line of acceptability. John didn’t think it possible to stay away from Holmes if they ever got that close to breaking such a strong social boundary, so he knew the best thing was to not get close at all. 

Of course, Holmes may not even think of John like that at all. Maybe Holmes’ advances and seemingly blatant attempts at flirting (if you could call it that) were all in John’s head. Maybe it was a sick joke his own mind was playing on him to make sense of Holmes’ unorthodox demeanor. Regardless, John decided at that moment that he would stay away from Sherlock Holmes. 

That is, until he walked out of the church and found Holmes waiting for him. 

At first, in his confusion, John convinced himself that he was waiting for someone else. But when Holmes’ eyes lit up excitedly and called John’s name, he knew. He knew there was no chance he could say no to whatever adventure Holmes was about to ask him on.

“Watson! We’re going to Hooper’s. A body came in early this morning and he said he’s sure I’ll find it satisfactory. I need a second eye, one that’s familiar with the townspeople.” Holmes rattled all this off with little regard to the crowd of people around them and John didn’t know whether to be flattered or frightened. 

John looked back at his mother and Harriet, both waiting for him to join them before returning home.

“You want me to go to the mortuary with you?” John asked, pulling his eyes back to Holmes.

“Yes, obviously,” Holmes replied shortly, “Unless you have other obligations?” He raised his eyebrow, but John knew he knew that he didn’t.

“ Uh… no, just let me tell them I’m leaving,” John stammered, motioning to his mother and sister.

Holmes nodded curtly and turned, walking slowly enough for John to catch up.

John turned to his family. “I’m gonna go check something out with him. He said it’s for Sheriff Lestrade, thought I’d help and be, you know, a good samaritan.” John tried to keep his voice as steady as possible. 

Harriet looked at him with discontent, knowing something was aloof, but not daring to speak it. Mrs. Watson had little reaction. She was often in her own world after church, which John knew was likely due to the internal battle she had with life and her late husband.

“We’ll be at home,” Harriet said, not dropping her puzzled expression. She took her mother’s arm in hers and they began to walk the path back to the farmhouse.

John turned quickly and was happy to see that Holmes hadn’t made it very far. He caught up and settled into a walk beside him, suddenly very unsure what he was supposed to do or say. 

“Did you see the sermon today?” John asked, attempting to make small talk.

Holmes looked at him unamused. “No. I don’t waste my time on ludicrous fantasies like God.”

John was taken aback, but admired Holmes’ consistent and brutal honesty.

Holmes softened slightly and John felt his guard drop a little.

“I guess I don’t either,” John shrugged. He had never admitted that out loud before.

“A lot of people don’t, Watson. They cling to it because they have little else to cling on to. Look at your preacher. No respectable man can agree that he lives by the word of God while his daughter prostitutes herself off to the lonely and miserable. But, they all ignore this and pretend. They pretend because it’s all they have.”

John stayed silent for a moment. “It’s not Father Morstan’s fault she decided to do that with her life,” he said.

Holmes looked at him amused. “Of course not. And it’s not, in my opinion, the worst way to make money in a world full of desperate men. But the masses, Watson, it’s the masses that decide.”

John’s head spun with perspective. He had never met someone who so blatantly opposed the fabric of society the way Holmes did. It sent spark through his veins.

As the two men approached the mortuary, Milo Hooper, the town’s mortician, came into view.

“Holmes,” he said as they shook hands.

“Hooper,” Holmes responded with a slight smile. “This is my colleague, John Watson.”

Hooper shook John’s hand firmly and smiled. He had a bushy, blonde moustache above his lip that matched his shaggy, yet kempt hair. He was short in stature, about four inches shorter than John was, but had a confident air about him. 

“Good to see you again,” John said, remembering the few times they had met to discuss funeral arrangements for his late father.

“You’re gonna like this, Holmes,” Hooper said, turning around to lead the two men inside.

The smell of wood and arsenic punched John in the face as he stepped inside. He was back at his father’s funeral and he was watching his mother break. His father was here, in a cheap casket, surrounded by the few people who had bothered to show up. John was sitting with clenched fists, watching as Harriet placed a single flower in his casket. 

“Watson?”

John snapped out of his stupor and dragged his eyes away from the place his father’s casket had once sat.

“Alright?” Hooper asked, reaching a hand out to steady John.

John cleared his throat. “Yes. Fine, thank you.”

John met Holmes’ eyes and caught the split second of concern they held.

Hooper turned and led the both of them down a flight of stone stairs that opened to a cold basement. 

“Here she is,” Hooper said, gesturing to a body that lay on a slab in the middle of the room.

Holmes immediately pulled a magnifying glass from his pocket and began examining the body.

“Strange situation,” Hooper continued, “She was here when I came in early this morning. Not sure how she got here though, all the doors were locked.”

“Who else has a key,” Holmes asked, still inspecting the body.

“Only my assistant, Otto Engel. ”

“Where is he now?” Holmes was now bent over the body’s toes, inspecting each one of them carefully.

“I reckon he’s back home with his wife and baby. It’s his day off. Surely, you aren’t suggesting he has a role in this?” 

Holmes put the magnifying glass in his pocket abruptly, seemingly done with his inspecting. “Nonsense, Hooper, of course he doesn’t. But someone knows he has a key. Watson?” 

John looked to Holmes, attempting to catch up and process everything. Was he seriously investigating a supposed murder with this man?

Holmes looked at him expectantly. “Do you know this woman?”

Hooper spoke before John had a chance to, “She’s not from town. No one’s claimed her.”

Holmes rolled his eyes and continued looking at John, searching for his answer. Why did Sherlock Holmes need his input?

“Uh… no. Never seen her before.” He stammered. “Does the finger belong to her?”

Holmes smiled widely. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and unwrapped it to reveal the finger from the previous night. He lifted the corpse’s left hand gently, showing John that her ring finger was missing. He lifted the finger to her hand and slotted it between the middle and small fingers to show where it was attached at one time.

Holmes held John’s gaze for a moment before abruptly putting the finger back in his pocket and crossing the room back to the other men.

“Let me know if anything changes” he said to Hooper as he began ascending the stairs.

“The dead rarely change,” the mortician responded glumly.

Holmes ignored his remark and kept climbing. “Come, Watson!” he yelled behind him.

John froze for a moment, unsure of what to do, but quickly followed Holmes up the stairs, nodding to Hooper as he went by.

“Where are we going,” he huffed as he caught up to the taller man.

“We’re going to pay Engel a visit.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t involved,” John said.

“He’s not,” Holmes replied, and John could see the spark in his eye. 

John didn’t ask anything more and instead decided to follow Holmes without really knowing what they were doing and why they were doing it. 

He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he should leave and go back home. He knew following Holmes was only encouraging the sin that hid just beneath the surface all these years. 

He also knew that he didn’t really care.

He finally felt alive.