~continued from last post.
And at last they met. John fainted for the
first time in his entire life. When he came round.., well, everything that
happened need not be discussed, even here. All the pain, the misfortunes, tears
were forgotten. Who cared about some criminal mastermind and his henchmen; the
cause of all the past misery? All that mattered was how tight they were going
to hold on to each other for the rest of eternity. Love conquers all, indeed.
If there is anything worth mentioning hereafter,
it is the magnified depth of understanding between the two of them after their
reunion. Until the infamous episode named “The Final Problem” during which they
were separated, there was a certain ‘feeling of uncertainty’ about the future. This
was due to a lack of communication between them. They were flirting around the
edge of a permanent relationship, but never actually got there, because our
writer was lost in doubt about the outcome of his masterpiece. He didn’t exactly
make it clear about a solid understanding between Holmes and Watson. There was
attraction, passion, and definitely tons of romance, but solidarity was not
sufficient. However, when you look into the works /after/ ‘The Empty House’,
there is a clear distinction about the level of understanding between the two
lovers. In later novels, we can feel the deepened affection raise its head even
into John’s publicised articles. He seems more open about their life together. There
are moments of intimacy that’s given out to the reader than he would’ve done in
previous cases. Even when these disclosures are given in subtext, for someone
who knows where to look, it becomes apparent that John was feeling a lot more
confident than he did before… as for Sherlock, he’s described with more
humanity than before, he laughs more often and openly accepts John to be near
him. Of course, one can imply that it was only a deepened understanding,
through a mere ‘conversation over tea’. But to me, the explanation lies in a
more intimate way.
Picture this: there are two people who are
instantaneously attracted to one another during their first meeting. They go on
to share the same apartment, and live together in it for nearly 6 years. Then,
due to some ‘disagreement’ they separate. (Now this part would not have occurred
if our narrator kept to his path without straying, but since he did, it has to
be explained in some way). So, we’ll /assume/ that Holmes and Watson came to a
disagreement because of Sherlock’s drug use. We know he was using cocaine as a
method of stimulation in order to solve his difficult cases. John is a doctor. He
is more sensitive to health issues. So when his dearest begins to use more and
more brain-stimulants, it is inevitable for him to become agitated. Eventually he
may have threatened to walk out on their relationship and Sherlock, being the smol
introvert he is, would never have dared to stand up against it, even when it
killed him inside. His pain would’ve been unbearable, but he would hold it in
because of his love for John.
Once he went away, John may have been
approached by others and eventually we’d assume he decided to marry a woman, and
we have the wife, Mrs Watson. The news of john’s marriage may have been ignored
by Sherlock until he couldn’t ignore it any longer. And then he fell into the
habit of trying to get John into his life again by asking him out on ‘dates’ to
solve cases. This stratagem was probably known by Mrs Watson (otherwise John
would mention ‘domestic issues regarding my constant absence due to leaving
with Sherlock’, wouldn’t he?).
All we know is that in the end, Sherlock
decided to ‘leave’ the situation by getting involved in a ‘war’ with Moriarty. There,
Sherlock /knew/ he was poking a sleeping dragon; an enemy who would be too
twisted and evil than what his own powers can deal with. But /he/ chose it. He chose
death, rather than seeing his Watson happily living with someone else. Isn’t
that quite an example of jealousy evoked through love? Sherlock loved John so
much that it killed him to see John being happy with someone else. And still, instead
of trying to meddle with John’s happiness, Sherlock chose death. It’s a classic
trait of a martyr.
When they reunited, there definitely /was/
love. They didn’t wait until Moran was carried off into custody; they expressed
their joy very well /before/ leaving John’s apartment in order to catch the
colonel.
After that, their life at 221B, Baker
Street became their paradise, with both of them learning through their
mistakes, and beginning to accept (and even copy!) their significant other…
Baker Street was indeed the happiest street on earth.
In later stories, there’re references that
John cured his partner’s drug habit completely (‘the adventure of the devil’s
foot’). So, we can have faith in our conjured theory for their separation… and
by looking more into that statement, it seems our narrator was thinking (and
giving himself) the same explanation.
For some time, Sherlock went on with his
detective work, with John as his faithful partner in anything (from sharing a
country walk to house-breaking). Life was bliss. Slowly, their age caught up
with them. Even Sherlock Holmes began to feel that his physical strength was
not what it was before. However, John was a little ahead this time; he was
investing for a villa in Sussex. (Some say that it may have taken more than ‘gentle
persuasion’ to budge our stubborn Sherlock into retirement; John may have had
to put his foot down, to be honest. But in the end, he managed it. It is
believed that during ‘The adventure of the creeping man’, Sherlock understood
that ‘using stimulants to stay young’ would not work out at all…) And Holmes finally
decided that he would be more than happy to put down his magnifying lens and
turn to bee-keeping (one of his dreams, apparently). It was only a matter of
time both of them quietly moved out of London into the peaceful country.
From then on, our two ‘partners’ (they were
married, according to Sherlock) were together until the end. Now there is some speculation
because in ‘His Last Bow’, which is Holmes’s last adventure, the world war has
begun and John was apparently going back to the army. But um…they were in their
sixties. Do you think that is an age where people (those who were ‘invalided
due to war-injury’) went to war, out of their country? Hmm…. I think it’s safer
to say that while John /wrote/ that he went away feeling all bright and peppy with
a bunch of soldiers, Sherlock was quietly humming to himself, examining the
wing-structure of a worker-bee in their backyard. He was waiting (quite
impatiently) to show John how it glittered like a rainbow in sunlight…. If only
John would stop scribbling on those absurd ‘adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ articles
and come out to where he was… after-all, for such boring things, they always
have tomorrow.
~The End.
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