After Holmes returns, things with Watson are ... complicated. They are too careful and polite with each other, and sometimes there is this terrible silence that has never been there before. Holmes has never been good at handling emotional situations when he is involed himself, but now, whenever he bravely tries to bring up what happened, Watson withdraws. He looks hurt and sad and silent, and Holmes doesn't know what to DO. He has spent years running and fighting, longing just to return home ... but now that he's back, he finds he can't hold still, he can't sleep, he cannot WAIT any longer. He knows Watson deserves to take his time, but Holmes has waited for so long, too, and he just NEEDS Watson to come to a conclusion - to shout at him, to slam the door, to sob, to calmly tell him they cannot see each other again. Anything is better than this horrible sad calmness.
And so, just to bear it all, Holmes takes up boxing again - to feel something, to do something he knows well, perhaps better than ever before. He goes to the ring every night and returns late and sleeps till the afternoon. But every evening, he's back again, fighting and sweating and cursing in pain, hurting men who aren't himself or his friend, and it is still better than all the alternatives he considered. And he keeps winning, because he's just defeated Moran and he's desperate and still not home, and he needs to get going, because otherwise he can never return. And he keeps winning. Until he doesn't.
Until he doesn't because he's tired, oh so tired and his heart is like lead in his chest and breathing hurts, and after that first hard punch the following ones are almost a relief, because now he knows he can rest for the ten seconds it takes him to regain consciousness.
He stumbles home afterwards, one eye swollen shut and perhaps with a cracked rib or a broken nose, but he doesn't really care.
And then suddenly it is 9 am and he is woken from his fitful sleep on the settee by his friend's alarmed cry and a thousand angry questions what happened and what he was thinking and how he could DARE to get into danger like this now. But Watson's hands are gentle and shaking a little, and Holmes is too, because why must Watson come now, NOW when he cannot fight for the first time in three years.
But then Watson's arms are around him, pulling him impossibly close, and Holmes makes a broken little sound, although he has completely forgotten about his ribs.
Holmes will not go fighting today.
