The Blanched Soldier: Artistic License

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: The Blanched Soldier: Artistic License
Author: gardnerhill              
Word Count: 60
Rating: G
Warning: Postulates a pairing or two.
Summary: John Watson isn’t the only one in the family who changes the facts of the case to protect the people involved.
                                                                                      
***

“‘Leprosy’.”

Holmes smiled bitterly. “No better analogy. Family shame, preference for death of the one stricken, a loved one turned away at the door?”

I kissed him. “They are together, if disowned. They are happy. As are we.”

He smiled. “I did tell one unabashed truth.”

“That I had wed.” I caressed his angular jaw. “My ‘wife’ needs a shave.” 

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Nice interpretation.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Those two did seem awfully pally, and the conversation lent itself to the interpretation.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

I like your interpretation. Yeah, Dodd and Emsworth were awfully close, no? Brothers in arms, indeed.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

The conversation could have easily been switched to the discussion of a gay son with just a tweak or two.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

A very possible reading of the story. And reading it that way, makes it even more sad - even though Godfrey and Jimmie are eventually reunited. But I suppose Holmes and Watson's relationship does give hope there might be a happy future for Dodd and Emsworth too.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

One simply didn't write of homosexuality in nice family Victorian fiction magazines. Could the two young men have appealed to the sleuth, possibly knowing the true nature of his relationship with Watson, as an advocate to the parents?

[debriswoman]

A plausible alternative, neatly penned:-)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Some people, like Holmes, know how to tell a story in metaphor.

[godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com]

Aw!

But wait... will they quarrel over who's the wife? *ponders*

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

"Wife" is a very convenient term to use when writing of one's beloved lifelong spouse at a time when any other arrangement was an imprisonable offense.

[godsdaisiechain.livejournal.com]

Ah. Understood.