Fic: Bel Canto - 9/16 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Bel Canto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 9.3k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
Op. 20, No. 11
Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
Mrs Hudson sits beside him in the growler without speaking. Eyes closed in unfeigned exhaustion, John can’t stop thinking. His mind returns to the tunnel, to its bends and openings, to the flooded section with broken segments of furniture peeking above the water’s surface. All accomplished within the span of a few hours. All gone.
The tunnels branch off in more directions than simply that, but John’s leg had forbidden a full exploration. It aches now in the cold of night and the rattling of the carriage. God, it aches. His leg and his shoulder join forces, paining him with no respite.
“Why today?” John asks. He doesn’t specify.
“There might be another attack tomorrow,” Mrs Hudson answers without hesitation. Good to know she pays such close attention to him tonight. “Today, now, if it’s after midnight.”
“It is.” The sixth of January. “Is there some significance to Epiphany?”
“It’s--” And here she hesitates. “It’s Sherlock’s birthday.”
“Then he and the Earl will be attending tomorrow night?” he asks, strictly as a concern for safety. “Well, tonight, now.”
“And the police.”
John nods, picturing it. “Better prepared than on New Year’s Eve, I hope.”
Mrs Hudson pats his arm. “And with somewhat less fire.”
Something like a laugh shakes up through John’s throat. It hurts. “Only somewhat less. Might be a bit cold, otherwise.”
“I’d much rather you simply wear a scarf, dear.”
As quickly as it had come, the laugh fades away. John clears his throat. “I’ll simply stay inside, then.”
An eternity later, they arrive home. John pays the cabbie, wishes him goodnight, and helps Mrs Hudson to the door in a pained, two-person hobble. “I don’t like winter very much,” Mrs Hudson remarks once inside.
“No, nor do I.” As Mrs Hudson instructs her maid to go to bed earlier, John hangs up his own coat. He takes Mrs Hudson’s and does the same. “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Good night.”
“Yes, good night.”
Mrs Hudson bites her lip.
John pauses with one foot on the stairs, his weight on his good leg. “Is there a problem, Mrs Hudson?”
“It’s none of my business, dear.”
“Thank you.”
She nods.
He manages two steps up the stairs before he has to stop. “Did you-Sorry, did you know he was cross with me? Yesterday, when you told me not to go down.”
“With creative types, it can be so hard to tell.” Her words aren’t an apology, but her expression certainly is. “With the passionate ones, it can boil up in any direction. My husband was like that.”
“How--” John swallows. “How well do you know him?”
“My husband?”
“Vernet.”
“What’s he done?” Mrs Hudson asks.
“Run off. But--”
“The police are coming to search. He had to run off.” Dismissive if kind, her words entirely miss the point.
“They weren’t coming tonight. Not until morning. He didn’t have to just... leave.” John stops himself before he can say something regrettable. “I’m sorry, I ought to...” He gestures vaguely up the stairs.
“Good night, dear.”
“Good night, Mrs Hudson.” Medical bag heavy in his hand, he begins to climb.
“...John, dear?”
For the second time, he stops and turns, looking over his arm on the railing.
“We’ve all sorts, you know,” she says. “The theatre’s lovely for that.”
His grip on the railing tightens. “Foreigners aplenty.” He could add something about the visiting divas but doesn’t. The words dry up in his mouth.
“All sorts,” she repeats. “I nearly forget, sometimes, what the world outside is like. Much less friendly.”
“It’s very different.” He stands there for a moment, then taps his fingers upon the handrail. He looks at his hand rather than regard his leg. “Anyway.”
She sets her fingertips on the top of the banister. It’s not quite a prayer position, not quite like Vernet in his rare moments of stillness.
“I don’t want to say anything rash,” John admits.
“Would it still be rash over breakfast?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll know in the morning.”
“I hope so. Good night. Again.”
Small yet unwavering, she smiles beautifully. “Good night, dear.”
John nods and goes to bed.
Over breakfast, he says, “I might return to private practice.”
Mrs Hudson responds to that by pouring him more tea.
“I’ve a few patients now outside of the opera house. I’ve written in regards to my current living situation, but I think at least two plan to stay with me,” John continues. “I could have a go of it, at least. Not entirely sure where, though. I need to find somewhere to live, that’s first on the list.”
She nods along as he speaks. “There’s room upstairs.”
“Oh, no, I meant living on a permanent basis.”
“I don’t see why not,” Mrs Hudson replies. “It’s so much space. Too much space for me, really, but I’m much too attached. I tried letting it out, oh, a decade ago, but it ended poorly. I can be a landlady, dear, but I’m not a housekeeper.”
“I could live here?” John asks. “Really?”
“You could use the sitting room upstairs for your patients. I’m out all day: it wouldn’t bother me at all.”
“Mrs Hudson, you are a saint.”
She makes an affectionate, appreciative sound, not at all the noise of someone who knows how entirely serious John is. “It’s nice to have company.”
“It is,” John agrees immediately. “It absolutely is. You’re entirely right.”
“I was going to insist on it anyway, until the police catch the Red Death. Not the plague, I mean, the man in the costume.”
“The opera ghost.”
“Not the real opera ghost. But it is much easier for the police to keep an eye on both of us at once.”
“True,” John agrees, ignoring the implication that there is a real opera ghost. If Mrs Hudson could be argued out of superstition, John imagines Holmes would have managed it years before. “Let’s wait on making it official until the arsonist is behind bars, yes?”
“Might be for the best.”
“Mm.”
Even so, John carefully returns to his bedroom upstairs soon after. Truly his bedroom now. He opens his medical bag and finally removes his two photographs. His hand touches cloth in the process; he ignores this. When he sets the framed photographs upon the disused desk, a crinkled envelope flutters to the ground.
“Christ.” Beyond taking the money out of it, he hasn’t looked at it since before the fire. He really ought to toss it. He’s hardly giving it back to Holmes at this point.
Instead, with no small effort, he picks it up and sets it in front of Harry’s photograph. A good contrast, that, and something worth remembering. Holmes won’t die from it, and neither will John.
His revolver, on the other hand, he leaves in his medical bag. There are worse threats tonight than mere heartache.
“Mr Havill, sir, could I have a word?”
Seated at his desk, papers before him, Mr Havill gestures him forward. “Dr Watson! Do come in.” He indicates the chair in front of his desk.
John closes the office door behind him. When he sits, he does his utmost not to wince. Even so, his movements aren’t as smooth as he’d like. Perhaps he ought to give in and accept that cane from Miss Hooper. He oughtn’t be surprised she’s already found one for him. Forcing his mind to remain on task, John engages in the absolute minimum of pleasantries with his employer.
“This is hardly a social visit, is it?” Mr Havill asks.
“No, sir.”
“More bad news, eh? Let me have it.”
John sits at attention, insofar as this is possible. “In light of my recent injuries, I’m afraid I’m no longer sufficiently mobile for this position.”
Mr Havill’s response is one of inexplicable relief. “Your interpretation of your post has always been much more mobile than called for. If you would prefer a stationary location, by all means. One position during the performances for our patrons, another backstage if you intend to continue aiding the performers.”
“I don’t intend to, sir. I would like to resign. I plan to cultivate a private practice,” John explains. “I have accommodations as well. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time here, I feel it’s time to leave. Please consider this my two weeks’ notice.” A wheeze slips into his voice, an audible sign of his condition.
“I see. We will catch this menace, Dr Watson. I do hope you believe that.”
“It’s not the danger, sir.”
Mr Havill’s eyebrows rise. “You come to me a week since the day a madman set you ablaze and you tell me it’s not the danger? I don’t fault you for leaving any more than I find you lacking in courage. It’s downright sensible of you. I simply wish to assure you we will catch the monster who has done this to you.”
“Thank you, sir,” John answers. He clears his throat. “I’m glad you understand.”
Mr Havill nods. “I’ll have to find a replacement if I’m to have any peace of mind. I hope you won’t mind assisting the search.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Watson.”
John smiles reflexively, then attempts to stand.
“Oh, one more thing.”
John sits back down.
“Tonight’s performance. You’re aware we expect trouble?”
“Because of Mr Holmes’ birthday, yes.”
“Yes. Troubling business. The police are willing to help us, but only so far. Limited personnel. I’ve our people on alert against anything strange or anyone unknown, for all the good it’s done us. Tell me, do you still have that pistol from the Masquerade?”
“Revolver, sir. Yes.” John indicates his medical bag.
“Good man.”
“Will this be part of my new, stationary position?” John asks.
“In part. We believe you may remain a target yourself. As such, it would be best to have you under protection. Any other night and I might risk sending you home, but if the ghost is to attack the Earl or his brother, well.” He pauses, the look of a man with friends in danger. “I hope you see why it would be best to keep you at hand.”
“I understand.” Though if something happens and Holmes needs patching up, the man may choose to die before accepting treatment. “Where should I be stationed?”
“In Box Five, of course,” Mr Havill answers. “I understand you’re a personal friend of Mr Holmes. Inspector Lestrade is as well and will be joining you three.”
“Us three?” John echoes.
Mr Havill looks at him curiously. “The Earl, Mr Holmes, and you, of course.”
“Yes, I... Is that wise? Three targets all in one box? Shouldn’t we be separated, for safety’s sake?”
“Hardly enough manpower for it. Should everything go well, Box Five will simply appear to be a small celebration. Should it not, you and Inspector Lestrade are each armed.”
“I see,” John says. “Is the Countess attending?”
“Safe at home.”
“Oh. Good.” John in the box with an enraged invert, the fully informed brother of the aforementioned, and a police officer. All while a ghost with a vast pyrotechnical skill set takes exception with them. Surely, this will end well.
“Something the matter?” Mr Havill asks.
“I, um. My leg and all. If I’m to be sitting for extended periods, it would be best if I was able to elevate it.”
“Tell Hopkins. He’ll fetch something for you. Is that all?”
“Yes, sir,” John says. He stands without flinching. “Thank you, sir.”
“Miss Hooper, I think I’ll take that cane after all.”
She takes one look at him and says, “Oh, God, sit down.”
John does, gladly.
Shortly before the house opens, John idly contemplates the grand staircase. Marble, yes, but not steep. If a man were to, say, bodily fling himself down a stone staircase, this one might be quite nice.
He fails to muster either the nerve or the cowardice in time. One of the two. Perhaps both. At any rate, he leans heavily upon his borrowed cane, standing next to Mr Havill in the lobby.
Inspector Lestrade arrives first. He moves with a brisk efficiency that puts John’s soul at ease and his stance at attention. It doesn’t last terribly long, partially because of his leg, but primarily because of the two Holmes brothers checking their coats.
“Eric, good evening!” the Earl exclaims to Mr Havill. His gaze sweeps over John with no overt sign of hostility, but John’s stomach plunges all the same.
“Mycroft, hello!” The pair shakes hands warmly. By accident or design, their cravats and waistcoats nearly match, yellow to yellow and blue to blue.
Silver cravat gleaming above his purple waistcoat, Holmes stands at his brother’s side, eyes firmly on Mr Havill, then Inspector Lestrade. He looks at John only for a moment during the round of greetings and pleasantries.
“Happy Birthday,” John risks.
“Thank you,” Mr Holmes answers. Hands at his sides, he holds himself aloof despite his proximity. Like much of his arrogance, the sight is charming indeed. John batters down the guilt this thought provokes: noticing reality is no crime.
Inspector Lestrade gestures up the stairs. “Shall we?”
“Yes,” Mr Holmes agrees instantly.
Inspector Lestrade stoops and picks up John’s medical bag. John reaches for it. Inspector Lestrade shakes his head. “Stairs first.”
“Will you be joining us, Dr Watson?” Lord Holmes asks, each word as polished and deliberate as the cut marble of the floor.
“With the inspector holding my things hostage, I’m not sure I have any choice.” He attempts a smile as well as the joke and fears he accomplishes neither.
“Best to have everyone under guard who needs to be,” Mr Havill says in a low voice.
“Quite,” Mr Holmes agrees. Then, louder, voice so terribly light, he says, “This is turning into rather the party.” He starts up the stairs, Mr Havill at his side. Lestrade takes up the rear behind John, leaving Lord Holmes to walk beside John over the course of his slow, painful climb.
John does his best not to look at anyone. Particularly straight forward at Mr Holmes’ bum. How impossible a thing it ought to be, for one man to be at once so abandoned by his lover and so guilty of his own small disloyalties.
“Mrs Hudson has a new tenant, I hear,” Lord Holmes remarks.
“Until this matter is over, my lord,” John agrees. “It would be a pity to move somewhere else only for that to burn down as well.”
“Very. How fortunate the police have been willing to extend their protection to Mrs Hudson’s residence. My brother is very fond of her, you know.”
“For good reason.”
“Yes. It would be a shame were anything to interfere with my brother’s ability to visit her.” Lord Holmes’ eyes are much too like his brother’s in that moment, their colour a piercing, indeterminate blue-grey.
Before him, he sees Mr Holmes’ shoulders tense, his left hand a fist held against the side of his thigh. John forces his leg to move faster. “Nothing will be settled until the opera ghost is caught, I’m afraid, my lord.”
“Something to look forward to,” Lord Holmes muses.
They reach the top. Inspector Lestrade doesn’t return John’s bag and John doesn’t have it in him to protest. He barely has it in him to reach Box Five. Someone, most likely Hopkins, has set an ottoman before the chair against the right wall. With John’s seat decided for him, he sits heavily, careful not to groan or flinch. He prays the inspector will sit beside him, but to no avail.
For the second time that evening, John finds himself next to the Earl. Mr Holmes sits next to his brother. Inspector Lestrade returns John’s bag to him before taking the final chair between Mr Holmes and the left wall.
“Revolver ready?” Inspector Lestrade asks. He leans forward slightly to see John around the Holmes brothers.
“Ah, yes.” John sets his medical bag on his lap rather than the floor, not trusting his ability to bend over. His revolver rests beneath a bed of soft black cashmere. An easy task, practised to the point of instinct, the act loading his gun calms him. His hands grow steadier for it.
“What a handsome scarf,” Lord Holmes remarks, his gaze lowered just so into John’s medical bag.
John’s stomach plummets through his chair. His eyes remain on his revolver. “Thank you.” Be it handsome or not, he’s looked at the scarf as little as possible.
“I do hope you aren’t cold.”
“Not presently, my lord.” Though his heart pounds, his hands remain steady. He closes his bag and sets it down, then nudges it beneath the ottoman with his left foot.
Mr Holmes mutters something to his brother. At first thinking it incomprehensible due to volume, John quickly realises his words are in fact French. Lord Holmes responds in smooth Italian. His answer involves some sort of joke, one Mr Holmes fails to find amusing. John can’t see Inspector Lestrade or his reaction to this. For John’s part, he sits back in his chair, his leg elevated, his sight of the stage somewhat impaired by his distance from the box’s low front wall.
An eternity later, the opera begins. With Mr Holmes’ focus upon the stage, Lord Holmes’ presence lessens in its severity. If nothing else, John becomes slightly less paranoid that Lord Holmes knows exactly from whom and where that scarf had come. He becomes slightly less anxious that Mr Holmes will somehow see the token and know what to make of it. John certainly doesn’t know what the scarf means.
A parting gift? A memento, a reminder? A pledge to remain until John returned, simply to convince John to leave?
There lies the crux of the matter. Vernet had wanted him gone from the first moment John arrived yesterday afternoon. He’d attempted to chase John away in no uncertain terms. But then their inexplicable rift had vanished, lost amid so many acts of affection.
John may know the touches of women far better than he knows the touches of men, but he knows first and foremost the touch of a lover from that of a dalliance. He knows the reverence for the broken, the care for the beautiful, and he knows-he wants to know-that Vernet’s intentions align with his own. Their wishes align, perhaps. Wish and intent, hope and plan; these are but cousins.
When a man promises to discuss logistics only to vanish, is that his side of the discussion? Is it a refusal or an act of cowardice? Is there anything that could have possibly driven Vernet away from the spot, save for John himself?
John has no idea. A night and a day of wondering and trying not to wonder, of missing him and cursing him, and John still cannot hazard a guess. John’s one certainty: somewhere in the world, there is a tall, thin Englishman, fluent in Italian and missing his scarf. Perhaps he was in London last night. Perhaps he had a bit of money on him and stayed at a hotel before taking a morning train away, or perhaps he took the train as quickly as he could. Is his family surprised to see him again so soon? Does his family know what he does?
Brothers and sisters, of course, this family. An elderly parent or two. Nephews and nieces. Surely this is what Vernet meant when he said he would be returning to his family for the holidays. He couldn’t mean anything else. He’d told John in no uncertain terms that he’d never loved a woman.
Love and marriage are two distinct spheres, whispers a voice from an unwanted corner of John’s mind. Not all women are Mary. Obligation, wedlock, money, anything: any motive may support a marriage.
John shifts his aching leg and tells himself he’s being an idiot. Vernet promised they’d see each other again. With no time limit asked or assigned, surely John ought to last longer than one day before labelling the man an adulterer. If anything, the danger lies in another category. If Vernet is an established invert, then there must have been other men. In the past. Please, in the past.
He wonders if Vernet had ever sung for the others.
John wonders if he’s special. He flatters himself that he is, rejects the notion, then promptly embraces it anew. He turns it over within his mind until a particularly loud round of applause startles him from his thoughts. The end of the first act, only that.
No intermission, not yet, but there’s a short, music-filled pause while the sets are changed. Inspector Lestrade occupies Mr Holmes’ time by asking what in the world just happened. Holmes’ explanation is pithy and quick, devastatingly blunt in the most amusing of ways. John chokes on a laugh and coughs instead, a rattling wheeze sneaking back into his lungs.
“All right over there?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
John clears his throat. “Fine, thank you.”
When Lestrade asks Holmes to continue his explanation, Holmes tells him to read his programme.
Not at all subtle and clearly not intending to be, the Earl eyes him. John is achingly aware of what Lord Holmes sees: a man close to forty, one arm stiff, one leg injured, perpetually short of breath. Clothed in new, hasty suits and sporting a borrowed cane. A man who will accept his brother’s confidences and reject his advances, a man considered worthy of neither.
Lord Holmes tilts his head slightly, a low turn at the corner of his mouth. His eyes state a remarkably clear message in three parts. First, that John is not at all wanted in the booth. Second, that John shall be ruined should he ever breathe word of Mr Holmes’ proclivities. Third, that John may expect retaliation on behalf of his brother’s heart.
In reply, John looks longingly toward the door, sadly at his leg, and gestures vaguely toward his revolver. He stays because he cannot go, and because he might do some good.
Lord Holmes does not blink. He does, however, give the impression that John is still alive only because Lord Holmes deigns to permit it.
John sits with a touch more tension after that.
Act two begins. John has never been happier to watch an opera, with the exception of Vernet’s. Which isn’t precisely the thought he needs at the moment, but it’s already much too late. Between the music, Box Five, Vernet, the disdainful Earl, it’s all much too much. John suffers through the second act with both hands tight in his lap in the attempt to hold shut his heart. He flexes his leg for the sake of circulation. The strain drains him beyond all plausible limits.
It’s only three acts tonight, he reminds himself. Not four, not five. Only the three.
Then, like the opposite of a miracle but no less hoped for, the star soprano croaks like a frog.
“Someone left her drinking water exposed again,” John says with a bit of a sigh. The music stops and restarts at the beginning of the song, a method of pushing through the croaking that has yet to ever work. At the second croak, Mr Havill appears on stage as the soprano makes way for her understudy. The handover is smooth in the extreme. John looks at the box door in the vague expectation of Hopkins coming to fetch him.
“Look!” Mr Holmes points upward.
“The chandelier again?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
“No, behind it! Don’t you see him?”
“There’s a man,” John agrees, leaning forward, revolver in hand. “Around the edge of the walk, near the chandelier mechanism. Is that...?”
“Skull mask,” Holmes confirms.
Inspector Lestrade leans forward as well. “My lord, Mr Holmes, kindly press yourselves against the walls.”
Before either of the Holmes brothers can protest, comply, or ignore Inspector Lestrade, a voice from above booms out, “Ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you to my theatre! I’ve a very important announcement for you all!”
Lestrade stands and pushes Holmes down by the shoulders.
“Especially for you, my lord!” the man from above adds. “Hello, Box Five!” He waves. “Quite frankly, it’s a pity we didn’t have a chance to speak sooner. I was so looking forward to our chat at the Masquerade! What fun we were going to have!
“And then Doctor Watson had to go and spoil it! Shame on you, Doctor. Shame, shame, shame. You can’t even die correctly! How’re the new rooms? Warm enough for you?” He throws his hand out and a blaze of fire shoots from his palm toward the chandelier. Patrons scream below.
John’s left hand grabs at the arm of his chair, his right clenched about his revolver. His left hand shakes, or perhaps his heart does. It’s loud in his ears, his heart.
“Silence!” the man above bellows. Red Death, yes, the same voice, the very same. “Speaking of moving house, my dears, I do believe it’s time,” the man above continues, voice loud yet smooth. “Your time in my opera house is at an end. I’ve been patient, I’ve been nice, but I’m afraid daddy’s had enough now...!
“Consider this your final warning. No more letters, no more cautions. I will burn the very heart from this theatre. Renounce your claim or pay the price.”
With that, another blaze of fire flares up and the man vanishes. John’s eyes remain fixed upon the spot, upon the scorch marks. He smells smoke.
Distantly, John hears the panic below. Even more distantly, he hears Inspector Lestrade speak, rushed words full of purpose. Strange, that Inspector Lestrade should sound so distant from so close by.
A flash of red in front of his eyes and John panics, his body frozen save for where it trembles. More sound, a roar of it. Everything tilts and blurs. Gray smoke swirls before his eyes. By the time it clears, his collar-ends have come undone, his tie loosened, and the aftertaste of brandy tingles upon his lips and tongue. Holding John’s medicinal flask, Holmes bends over John’s chair. Behind him, the box’s red curtain has been pulled shut.
“What?” John asks thickly.
“You were shaking,” Holmes explains, his eyes very wide.
The past tense is wrong, very wrong. John forces his hand to unclench around his revolver before he shoots himself or Holmes. John touches his bared neck with trembling fingers, where Holmes must have unfastened him.
“I didn’t--” Holmes begins, cutting himself off when John pulls his cravat looser and gasps for air.
John tries to wave him off, simply breathing, trying to breathe. He turns his face against the back of the chair, twisted in his seat, oddly fallen in his seat. Terribly heavy, his eyelids fall shut. Against his arm, the gentle pressure of a hand rests, tender and familiar.
He startles at the touch, ill and panicked and dizzy. “Ver--” He blinks up and Holmes stares down, eyes as gray and unreadable as a full moon. John coughs and hacks, trembling, broken, absolutely falling to pieces and unable to stop. He’s not crying. He’s almost certain he’s not crying, thank God. He can still smell smoke, why can he still smell smoke?
“What was that?” Holmes asks, a high edge to his voice. “What did you say?” He presses the flask to John’s lips and John struggles to drink until the coughing subsides. John tries to take the flask, but his left hand trembles against Holmes’ right.
“Very dizzy,” John rasps. He forces himself to sit up. He can at least slump away from Holmes rather than toward him. “Do you smell smoke?”
“Smoke bombs in the house. It’s being taken care of.” Holmes sits on the ottoman, his hip against the side of John’s shin. “The audience panicked and fled. They interfered with the police, no doubt. Mycroft is taking as much control of the situation as can be found, but it’s nearly certain the ghost escaped.”
For the first time, John notices that they are, in fact, alone in the box. This new weight rests upon the already broken bridge of John’s nerves and promptly falls through. “He’s going to kill me, isn’t he.” It’s no question, merely a cold truth shuddering beneath John’s chest.
“He may try.” John needn’t look at Holmes’ face to know his expression: the casual defiance, the edge of fury peeking out beneath his detached veneer. There’s another note in Holmes’ voice tonight, one John doesn’t know, one he doesn’t wish to know.
Faced with Holmes’ new possessiveness, John replies dryly, “Third time’s the charm, and all that.”
“Yes: we’ll catch him.” Holmes grips him by the shin, a hard hold that triggers a flinch.
“Please let go.” John’s voice is thin.
“Doctor--”
“No, it hurts.”
Holmes releases him. “Then why are you walking on it?”
“Army doctor.” His rasped answer clearly leaves Holmes unsatisfied. “Civilian doctors tell you to sit down, stay, rest up. Army doctors see to it you can walk and then make you.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes.” John turns his face against the chair back and closes his eyes. The sound of his own breathing, audible and strained, annoys him. Everything about his body annoys him. Humiliation wells up from his gut. It’s not simply Holmes who has seen him like this, but the Earl and Inspector Lestrade as well.
John hears Holmes stand. He feels the shift in the ottoman and the loss of heat by his leg. A murmur of shifting cloth precedes a new whiff of smoke. Immediately, John sits at attention, moving his leg to the floor.
Peering out, Holmes stands at the curtain. “Very nearly empty now. Demands for refunds are well underway, I’d imagine.” He wrinkles his nose, perhaps at the smell, perhaps at the thought of speaking with so many irate people.
Rather than put his gun away, John tucks it behind his waistband, beneath his jacket. He pulls his medical bag out from beneath the ottoman and grips his cane. When he stands, the world wavers before holding firm. His knees do the same. Blinded by a rush of blackness, John blinks away the dark and the fizzling colours before he dares to move.
“A swift recovery,” Holmes observes over his shoulder. His tone could transform lakes into deserts.
“I need to be away from the smoke.” He lifts his chin, indicating his throat.
Holmes’ eyes trace the distance between them. “Only from the smoke?”
John hesitates. “I’m... not certain.”
Holmes’ attitude shifts. The harsh stiffness of his limbs gives way to limberness. He draws the curtain shut in a fluid motion and turns to face John fully. “Of what, dare I ask, are you uncertain?”
“Are we still friends?” John asks.
A curious light comes into Holmes’ eyes, a startled, bewildered shine. “Your opinion on the matter?”
John strains to articulate the mess within his mind. Ultimately, he sighs in exhaustion. “My opinion is that, if you want to throw anything else at me, I’d prefer you to wait until I can dodge.”
“Meaning, if I restrain myself, we are still friends.” Holmes narrows his eyes slightly but otherwise barely moves as he twists John’s words. “I may fling myself at you as long as you can step neatly out of the way, how kind.”
“That’s not-no.” His thoughts muddle themselves before his tongue ever has a chance at them. “I only meant, well, helmets.”
“Why not me?” Holmes asks.
Capable of nothing else, John stares at him with his mouth agape.
“Why am I so absurd a possibility?” Holmes demands.
“You... I...” He works his mouth a bit until it begins to speak without conscious thought guiding it. “The madman who set my person and my house on fire just threatened my life and smoke bombed the building, and this is what you want to talk about while the police are still running about?”
“Yes,” Holmes replies with a harsh nod. He doesn’t step forward, but his presence crowds against John all the same.
John becomes inescapably aware he can’t open the door while holding both his medical bag and his cane.
“Do you intend to avoid me?” Holmes asks. “My opportunities to learn the truth of the matter are much diminished.”
“‘Truth of the matter’,” John echoes. He adjusts his grip on his cane, his leg protesting their standoff. A small spasm in his thigh joins the ache.
“Your excuses on New Year’s Eve: was there a true reason against me among them?”
“Frankly, you have terrible timing.”
“You mean, there’s someone else,” Holmes says, the jealous, perceptive arse. “An issue of timing, is that all?”
“I mean you shouldn’t do these things when surrounded by the police.” God, Holmes is exhausting.
“You may have noticed they’re busy at the moment.” He lowers his volume all the same. “Is there a reason you declined? You said yourself you find me attractive. Is it my position? The uncertainty? What excludes me, specifically?”
The veneer of Holmes’ manners has at last lifted. Beneath, agony and agitation writhe like cramping muscles under the skin. Holmes’ expression grows ever sharper on the whetstone of his emotions.
John attempts to hold his gaze. He fails. The undisguised sentiment is too much to bear. Silence stretches and John cannot answer.
“...In answer to your earlier question,” Holmes continues, “we... ought to remain friends. Do you agree?”
John nods. He doesn’t attempt eye contact.
Frustration outweighs the pain in Holmes’ silence.
John looks at the door.
“Doctor--”
“I’m going to fall down soon,” John warns.
Holmes presses into his space, never once breaking the boundaries of propriety, never touching. The force of his eyes is enough. The reaction brimming within John’s body is enough, even in his weakened state. Damn the man’s cologne.
Holmes reaches past him and opens the door. The line of his arm is oddly soft, his chest welcoming despite its narrowness. John’s jangled nerves demand soothing, and it is perhaps to the benefit of all that Hopkins stands immediately outside the box door.
“All clear, sir,” Hopkins informs Holmes. Standing guard? How long? Has he heard anything?
“Excellent,” Holmes replies, seeming to find nothing distressing in Hopkins’ presence. “See Dr Watson out.” His hand strays to John’s back, out of Hopkin’s sight, and presses against the hidden firearm. Just barely, John keeps from jumping out of his own skin. Holmes nods, a small mark of approval. “Where’s my lord brother?”
“With Mr Havill in his office, sir.”
“Thank you, Hopkins.”
“Of course, sir,” Hopkins says. “Could I carry that for you, Dr Watson?”
John relents and lets him. He does not, however, accept Holmes’ arm. Out of pride, of course, just the pride. If Holmes thinks otherwise, he hides it behind seemingly guileless eyes. A few moments later, Holmes takes the stairs to the lobby faster than John could ever hope to.
It’s all a bit of a blur after that, exhaustion tugging at his mind. Hopkins hands him off to Mrs Hudson and a police sergeant before darting away to check on Miss Hooper. John falls asleep in the carriage home and wakes to the faces of Mrs Hudson and the sergeant both.
A number of pleasantries and reassurances later, John goes to bed and falls instantly into a restless, twitching slumber. He startles awake in the morning only to recognise Eliza’s silhouette. With a stumbling tongue, he thanks her for lighting the fire and promptly collapses back to sleep.
He receives word by telegram that he’s not to return to work. It’s from Mr Havill, thankfully, not either one of the Holmes brothers.
John sends a telegram in reply, asking whether this applies to today or for the remainder of his two weeks. He receives his answer shortly before lunch. It applies until the scent of smoke can be expunged from the opera house.
Pained and restless, John attempts to make the best of it. He reads and sleeps and tries to remain stationary. He stares at Mary’s photograph on his desk, overcome by a strange, sullen longing. Not for the softness of her hands or the cadence of her voice, but for the quirk of her lips when John betrays a flaw in his own perception.
“That doesn’t seem quite right,” she would tell him. And he would say, “It doesn’t, does it?” And she would ask and he would answer until some sense was found, unless she struck a nerve and John stormed off. If John stormed off, he’d return with apologies. If it were all right, she would kiss him and say so. If it weren’t, she would do the same but withhold the kiss, and hadn’t that taken months to catch on to. In either case, she would keep pressing at the problem until it gave way at her persistence, as most things had the good sense to do.
John wonders what she would make of this. The ghost as well as Holmes and Vernet, but mostly Holmes and Vernet.
He snorts a little, knowing the answer. She would have glared at the pair of them and taken pains to remind all involved just who John was married to. And why. Oh, would there be that reason why. The many reasons.
As pleasant a thought as that is, it hardly helps him now. The more John thinks of it, the more his stomach clenches. No, that pleasant thought is fantasy and fantasy alone. Though she’d accepted John’s explanation of Harry with some nervousness, John has a crushing sense of just how well Mary would have taken word that Harry wasn’t singular in the family. However much Mary had claimed to enjoy her marriage to a pervert, she hadn’t meant the word in that sense.
For perhaps the first time in the history of the world, John wishes he could have spoken with his sister about this. The sense of hiding, the terror at the prospect of being found out. Confessions of love, once terrifying in their own right, become nothing short of horrific in this new context. John could ruin Holmes, he knows. He has no proof, but rumours are easily enough set in circulation. John could destroy him utterly, reputation as well as heart. What an immensely unfair gamble.
The same applies to John through Vernet. Whoever and wherever Vernet is, the man knows John in his entirety. But Vernet cannot reveal his acquaintance with John without breaking his contract. This, John trusts more than his own feelings on the matter. For all John would be willing to swear that Vernet would never betray him, John would have also been willing to bet the remains of his home that Vernet would still be in his chamber when John returned to him.
That was two nights ago, only that. A handful of hours spent with the man after a month of waiting, and now two days removed, affection wrestles with resentment. If John could know, that would be the end of the debate, the wondering. Is a telegram really too much to ask? Not a letter, no handwritten clue in Vernet’s tight scrawl, but a telegram. Some word, any word. Be it wait for me or a blunt move on, John could act. Instead, he listens to his strained loyalty buckling under the weight of injured pride.
John doesn’t know how Holmes can bear it. How the rage of a week ago could soften into the tender care of last night. Is that the difference of not leading a man on? Of stating a difficult no rather than playing into an easy yes? John had hardly dared to hope their friendship might be salvageable. Or had Holmes cared for him out of instinct and concern, his anger circumstantially set aside? Their subsequent argument must have ruined that reprieve. When they next see each other, Holmes might not be so forgiving.
Then again, he might be. John swallows thickly, recalling the frustrated longing in Holmes’ eyes. Holmes might be very forgiving indeed, should John be willing to make it up to him. John looks at the crinkled envelope beneath his photographs and sighs. He wonders if Holmes will invite him to dine out again. He wonders if there’s a way to accept without an implicit promise of more.
He wonders if Holmes might force the issue. If Holmes might draw close until his cologne fills up John’s head, then John might hold still as Holmes takes the matter out of his hands. Holmes might lift that heavy weight of consequence and set it, temporarily, aside. He might press his lips to John’s temple as he had upon the stage, suffuse him with the knowledge of being securely, unwaveringly loved. John might let it wrap about him as the curtain had.
That might last minutes or days, however long it took for Holmes’ unrequited passions to transform into a towering rage. Or, worse, it might persist longer still, Holmes certain to the last of a hollow, empty space in John’s heart, unaware that the loneliness stems from a heart full, not empty.
And should Vernet return, what then? Even with the man unannounced, John would know Vernet’s voice anywhere. And the gesticulations, of course. If Vernet were enthused enough, John could spot him from a block away. Closer, John knows the exact lines of him without the shorthand of his face. John would go to him instantly, if only to punch him, and he knows beyond doubt he would stay to kiss the bruise better. How would Holmes react to discover he’d played the placeholder? Beyond poorly, of course. Of course poorly. He was already jealous last night, as if John had been disloyal to him.
John’s stomach lurches with sudden realisation. December. All of December. The lunches, the telegrams. Their game with the envelope, practically an act of flirtation. Holmes sending John off to watch entertainment after entertainment through his period of enforced boredom. John’s list of everything he wished to tell Vernet and sharing the topics with Holmes instead, unable to wait. Holmes asking him to keep Mrs Hudson company but joining them on Christmas all the same.
Holmes had manoeuvred John into doing everything he wanted, simply by asking John’s help. He’d taken John to shows in Box Five, to the circus, to dinner, to the loveliest Christmas John’s had in years. Christ, the Masquerade. Even that. When had he received that invitation? November? Late October? He can’t remember any longer and his calendar is ash. He only remembers the prompting to accompany Mrs Hudson and Holmes’ insistence on attending with his own disinterested companion.
The magnitude of Holmes’ courting becomes utterly, devastatingly clear. And John had gone along with every piece of it, grateful for the distraction, the temporary relief, like a starving man filling his stomach with water. John groans, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
He stares blankly at the wall for a bit, rummaging through his own memories for a distraction. He finds calming scenes and attempts to relive them, if only for a moment. Vernet composing, Vernet paused between the bouts of writing, at once hurried and achingly careful.
He’d touched John that way. Like some rushed goodbye where all John had seen were beginnings. Had Vernet planned even then to run?
Unable to withstand his own thoughts any longer, John forces himself to his feet. He staggers to the window and sits there to watch the sunset through to its end. After, it is very nearly four in the afternoon. Mrs Hudson might be home in eight or so hours.
John settles in for a long wait.
Mrs Hudson returns well before midnight and very close to tears. She tells him of the crashing backdrops, the broken fly system, the swarms of moths in the wardrobes. Disasters everywhere, and the singers threatening to quit. Only the divas thus far, and that’s nearly par for the course, but it’s only going to worsen.
“If it weren’t for the threats last night, I doubt the police would believe these aren’t accidents.” She cradles her hands about her teacup, skin and china equally frail and veined with blue. “So many all at once, and you can still see it in their eyes. They’ll tell it to you, even! ‘These things do happen, my dear.’” She rolls her eyes. “Yes they do: when someone is making them happen.”
“Are we any closer to knowing who?” John asks.
“A man,” she says. “A corporeal one, I’ve no doubt. One who seems to think the opera house is his.”
“That might be part of the persona,” John points out. “‘Look at me, the great big ghost. I’m haunting here, get out.’”
She shakes her head. “Sherlock thinks there’s something there. He’s going through all the employee records. They’re hardly thorough-too many stagehands and dancers come and gone-but anyone with enough skill to carry off this scheme ought to have been remarked upon.”
John ponders this. “How many people connected with the opera house might hold a grudge against Lord Holmes?”
“Most would be against Mr Havill, I would have thought.”
“I know. That’s what makes it so curious.”
They sit and regard their tea.
“What about the old owner?” John asks.
“Oh, he must be dead by now,” Mrs Hudson answers. “If he isn’t, he’s hardly spry enough to go slipping through windows.”
“But alive enough to hire an acrobat for it,” John says.
“And the Red Death as well? Keep everything nice and sinister while staying out of it? Seems a bit strange.”
John frowns. “Keeping safely out of the way is strange?”
“It’s not dramatic enough,” Mrs Hudson replies with conviction. “You don’t see all that flashy business with the fire with someone who doesn’t want the limelight. I can’t begin to tell you how many conceited idiots I’ve known, John Watson, but I know one when I see one.”
“Just because he’s the star of the show doesn’t make him the composer.”
“Maybe,” she says, not at all with conviction.
They regard their tea a while longer.
“More trouble to come tomorrow, no doubt,” Mrs Hudson remarks. She sighs. “It’s so good to have something to look forward to.”
John nearly chokes on his tea.
“You’re not really going to resign, are you?” Mrs Hudson asks.
“I’m leaning against it now,” John admits.
“Good. Better to not be overhasty.”
“But I might need the week until I’m fit for walking. Stairs especially.”
Mrs Hudson reaches out and gives his wrist a warm squeeze. He releases his cup to meet her palm with his. He nods. They let go.
“...Is Mr Holmes all right?” John asks.
Mrs Hudson smoothes down the pristine tablecloth. Though her eyes worry, her lips are fond. “Sherlock’s always been a complicated boy.”
“He turned thirty-five yesterday.”
“It’s a long time to be a complicated boy, you must admit.”
John laughs a bit at that. “Agreed.” He sobers slowly, not quite sure what to say.
“Are you still angry with him?” she asks.
John blinks at her. “Sorry? I’m not, I’m not angry. That’s not, no.”
“I know it’s hardly my place and he’s asked me to stay out of it, but I can’t help feeling responsible.”
“About... not warning me, you mean?” John asks.
“Something like that.” She smoothes the tablecloth down until it needs smoothing. “I keep forgetting you’re not really from theatre. It’s so silly. But it is important, remaining respectable.”
“I know.”
She shakes her head. “It’s worse for him.”
John waits for her to fix the tablecloth, certain she has more to say.
“When he was little,” she says, “he never wanted to go home. He’d slip backstage and hide somewhere. We’d find him in the most unlikely places and he’d refuse to crawl out. That’s how his mother and I met, you know. She was an admirer already, but coaxing out her son for her cemented it.
“Anyway, what I mean to say is, the hiding places all had something in common. Wherever he was, Signor Varesi would be nearby. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Big Italian man, exceptional voice. He was our leading man for years. Sherlock adored him. He’d sit through any performance, no matter how long, provided Signor Varesi had the lead. Mycroft would barely put up with it and he was at least, oh, ten or eleven when their mother first took them.”
“How old was Holmes?”
“He must have been, hm, four, I’d say, at the start. Young enough that it ought to have been a disaster. When he started hiding, we thought he was bored, but he was always so quiet and out of the way.
“Where was I? Oh, yes, Signor Varesi. One day, I couldn’t find Sherlock. I tried all the usual spots, and then I went to Signor Varesi’s dressing room. Signor Varesi was already inside with his assistant.” She makes a face of remembered panic. “He and his assistant were very close, you see, and not in a way the Countess would have approved of.
“I knocked on the door and warned him that I thought a child was inside. His assistant, what was his name. Something like Angelo, one of those Italian names. His assistant opened the door right up and let me in. When I found Sherlock in the wardrobe, oh goodness. They were so worried. Had no idea what to do with him. They started trying to explain how men in Italy behave differently than men in England. We were all so worried what he would tell the Countess.
“But Sherlock, he...” She closes her eyes and sighs. Shakes her head. “He asked Signor Varesi if he would take Sherlock back to Italy with him.”
“How much later was this?” John asks, staring despite his best intentions. “He must have been at least, I don’t know, fourteen?” That’s still young enough to hide in a wardrobe.
“He was five,” Mrs Hudson replies. “He explained it all very neatly for a five year old. For anyone, I imagine. His mother had told him he’d fall in love when he was older, and he thought this meant he needed to go somewhere where it was allowed.”
“Christ.”
“Signor Veresi explained. He was kind about it. I remember, oh, this is embarrassing. I tried to ask Sherlock if this wasn’t simply him being impressionable. Signor Veresi was his hero. But Sherlock stood right up and told me, ‘I like him because he’s like me. And his voice is pleasant, even if he’s flat sometimes in the upper ranges.’ Something like that. But certainly the first part.”
“What happened after?”
“Signor Veresi laughed. Then he took Sherlock back to the Countess and told her Sherlock had asked for Italian lessons. He said his assistant wasn’t busy during the shows. It worked surprisingly well. And don’t you dare tell me it was dangerous to leave that boy alone with them.”
“I wasn’t about to,” John lies.
“They made the opera house the best home he’s ever had, as far as I’m concerned,” Mrs Hudson states. “But an earl’s heir needs to be respectable.”
“And that’s why you didn’t tell me. About him. In advance, I mean.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I couldn’t risk being wrong.”
He reaches out and squeezes her hand.
She squeezes back. For an instant, she seems to have something more to say, but all she tells him is, “I ought to turn in for the night.”
“Good night, Mrs Hudson.”
“Good night, dear.”
The so-called accidents continue as John’s leg heals. Each night, Mrs Hudson returns home with a new piece of a horror story. Some nights, she returns at the usual time. Other nights, she’s early or late, depending on the particular catastrophe of the day.
For John’s part, he listens closely and performs his leg exercises more thoroughly than is perhaps wise. At last, a week after his moment of panic in Box Five, John returns to the opera house. Though he needs the cane, he doesn’t need it quite so badly. He manages the front stairs easily enough without Mrs Hudson’s help and quickly navigates to Mr Havill’s office alone.
“About my resignation, sir,” John begins.
“If you’re not taking it back...” Mr Havill warns.
“I’m taking it back.”
“Thank God. We’ve enough problems keeping everyone else. All the newer stagehands have already quit.”
John grins a bit. “Then I’d best go reassure them, shouldn’t I?”
“Or something else entirely,” Mr Havill suggests dryly. “We could use a dash of Captain Watson today. Scare some sense into them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before John can duck out of his office, Mr Havill adds, “If you see Mr Holmes, tell him Inspector Lestrade left a note for him.”
“Mr Holmes is here?”
“Unless he’s already left. He does forget to make his goodbyes on occasion.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” John promises. Provided John sees him. The man is probably searching the roofs or inspecting the rafters.
Medical bag in hand, John doesn’t take the quickest route backstage. After Mrs Hudson’s depictions of the havoc wreaked upon the opera house, a look at the house is much called for. When he enters, nothing seems very out of place. There are repair men fighting with the backdrops and the fly system, but the seating areas themselves look all right. A faint whiff of smoke here and there, but nothing enough to alarm him.
John walks down the aisle toward the stage. The footlights have yet to be lit and the only light upon the stage is from the chandelier overhead. As the backdrop jerkily rises, catching here and there, it leaves the feet of those behind it still in shadow, though visible. Two men, one obviously Mr Green in the midst of managing his stage. Green shouts at the fly operator, berating him for the uneven lifting. The backdrop continues rising. The line of light follows at a short distance, touching the men’s feet when the backdrop reveals knees, touching knees when shadowy waists become visible.
At the waist, John recognises him. At the sight of the waist, John’s stomach drops to the floor the way his medical bag nearly does.
His mouth dries up and he stops walking and he thinks, he wonders, oh God, could Vernet possibly work here now? As what, what could he possibly... Has Mr Johnson quit? Do they need a new conductor?
The backdrop continues to rise, slowly permitting light to fall on a pair of familiar, gesticulating hands. No, hand, only the right one, the left self-consciously at his side. The scar, concealing it.
With a surge of affection, John teaches his feet how to move once again. He limps down the aisle with increased speed, a giggle growing at the back of his throat that he absolutely cannot let out. There he is. Oh God, there he is. Look at him.
The backdrop halts yet again. Green shouts at someone in the wings. Beside him, a taller, much thinner man turns to see the target of Green’s ire. Cleanly dressed and neatly pressed but Vernet, absolutely Vernet. John would know that stage-turn anywhere, the flare of motion in those long legs.
The backdrop lifts higher still before stopping with a terrible, not at all good noise.
John stops as well, mind rebelling against his eyes.
The light reaches the man’s mouth, his nose, falling and rising this inch as the backdrop sways. The rest of the man’s head is held in shadow, but not lost in it.
John doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t, he doesn’t understand. What, what is... Who is...
That is Vernet’s chin, his neck, his body. That is Vernet. The backdrop rises higher, jerking, fighting this ascent. Beneath it stands a different man, the same man.
Beneath it stands Sherlock Holmes.
previous | next
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 9.3k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
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Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
Mrs Hudson sits beside him in the growler without speaking. Eyes closed in unfeigned exhaustion, John can’t stop thinking. His mind returns to the tunnel, to its bends and openings, to the flooded section with broken segments of furniture peeking above the water’s surface. All accomplished within the span of a few hours. All gone.
The tunnels branch off in more directions than simply that, but John’s leg had forbidden a full exploration. It aches now in the cold of night and the rattling of the carriage. God, it aches. His leg and his shoulder join forces, paining him with no respite.
“Why today?” John asks. He doesn’t specify.
“There might be another attack tomorrow,” Mrs Hudson answers without hesitation. Good to know she pays such close attention to him tonight. “Today, now, if it’s after midnight.”
“It is.” The sixth of January. “Is there some significance to Epiphany?”
“It’s--” And here she hesitates. “It’s Sherlock’s birthday.”
“Then he and the Earl will be attending tomorrow night?” he asks, strictly as a concern for safety. “Well, tonight, now.”
“And the police.”
John nods, picturing it. “Better prepared than on New Year’s Eve, I hope.”
Mrs Hudson pats his arm. “And with somewhat less fire.”
Something like a laugh shakes up through John’s throat. It hurts. “Only somewhat less. Might be a bit cold, otherwise.”
“I’d much rather you simply wear a scarf, dear.”
As quickly as it had come, the laugh fades away. John clears his throat. “I’ll simply stay inside, then.”
An eternity later, they arrive home. John pays the cabbie, wishes him goodnight, and helps Mrs Hudson to the door in a pained, two-person hobble. “I don’t like winter very much,” Mrs Hudson remarks once inside.
“No, nor do I.” As Mrs Hudson instructs her maid to go to bed earlier, John hangs up his own coat. He takes Mrs Hudson’s and does the same. “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Good night.”
“Yes, good night.”
Mrs Hudson bites her lip.
John pauses with one foot on the stairs, his weight on his good leg. “Is there a problem, Mrs Hudson?”
“It’s none of my business, dear.”
“Thank you.”
She nods.
He manages two steps up the stairs before he has to stop. “Did you-Sorry, did you know he was cross with me? Yesterday, when you told me not to go down.”
“With creative types, it can be so hard to tell.” Her words aren’t an apology, but her expression certainly is. “With the passionate ones, it can boil up in any direction. My husband was like that.”
“How--” John swallows. “How well do you know him?”
“My husband?”
“Vernet.”
“What’s he done?” Mrs Hudson asks.
“Run off. But--”
“The police are coming to search. He had to run off.” Dismissive if kind, her words entirely miss the point.
“They weren’t coming tonight. Not until morning. He didn’t have to just... leave.” John stops himself before he can say something regrettable. “I’m sorry, I ought to...” He gestures vaguely up the stairs.
“Good night, dear.”
“Good night, Mrs Hudson.” Medical bag heavy in his hand, he begins to climb.
“...John, dear?”
For the second time, he stops and turns, looking over his arm on the railing.
“We’ve all sorts, you know,” she says. “The theatre’s lovely for that.”
His grip on the railing tightens. “Foreigners aplenty.” He could add something about the visiting divas but doesn’t. The words dry up in his mouth.
“All sorts,” she repeats. “I nearly forget, sometimes, what the world outside is like. Much less friendly.”
“It’s very different.” He stands there for a moment, then taps his fingers upon the handrail. He looks at his hand rather than regard his leg. “Anyway.”
She sets her fingertips on the top of the banister. It’s not quite a prayer position, not quite like Vernet in his rare moments of stillness.
“I don’t want to say anything rash,” John admits.
“Would it still be rash over breakfast?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll know in the morning.”
“I hope so. Good night. Again.”
Small yet unwavering, she smiles beautifully. “Good night, dear.”
John nods and goes to bed.
Over breakfast, he says, “I might return to private practice.”
Mrs Hudson responds to that by pouring him more tea.
“I’ve a few patients now outside of the opera house. I’ve written in regards to my current living situation, but I think at least two plan to stay with me,” John continues. “I could have a go of it, at least. Not entirely sure where, though. I need to find somewhere to live, that’s first on the list.”
She nods along as he speaks. “There’s room upstairs.”
“Oh, no, I meant living on a permanent basis.”
“I don’t see why not,” Mrs Hudson replies. “It’s so much space. Too much space for me, really, but I’m much too attached. I tried letting it out, oh, a decade ago, but it ended poorly. I can be a landlady, dear, but I’m not a housekeeper.”
“I could live here?” John asks. “Really?”
“You could use the sitting room upstairs for your patients. I’m out all day: it wouldn’t bother me at all.”
“Mrs Hudson, you are a saint.”
She makes an affectionate, appreciative sound, not at all the noise of someone who knows how entirely serious John is. “It’s nice to have company.”
“It is,” John agrees immediately. “It absolutely is. You’re entirely right.”
“I was going to insist on it anyway, until the police catch the Red Death. Not the plague, I mean, the man in the costume.”
“The opera ghost.”
“Not the real opera ghost. But it is much easier for the police to keep an eye on both of us at once.”
“True,” John agrees, ignoring the implication that there is a real opera ghost. If Mrs Hudson could be argued out of superstition, John imagines Holmes would have managed it years before. “Let’s wait on making it official until the arsonist is behind bars, yes?”
“Might be for the best.”
“Mm.”
Even so, John carefully returns to his bedroom upstairs soon after. Truly his bedroom now. He opens his medical bag and finally removes his two photographs. His hand touches cloth in the process; he ignores this. When he sets the framed photographs upon the disused desk, a crinkled envelope flutters to the ground.
“Christ.” Beyond taking the money out of it, he hasn’t looked at it since before the fire. He really ought to toss it. He’s hardly giving it back to Holmes at this point.
Instead, with no small effort, he picks it up and sets it in front of Harry’s photograph. A good contrast, that, and something worth remembering. Holmes won’t die from it, and neither will John.
His revolver, on the other hand, he leaves in his medical bag. There are worse threats tonight than mere heartache.
“Mr Havill, sir, could I have a word?”
Seated at his desk, papers before him, Mr Havill gestures him forward. “Dr Watson! Do come in.” He indicates the chair in front of his desk.
John closes the office door behind him. When he sits, he does his utmost not to wince. Even so, his movements aren’t as smooth as he’d like. Perhaps he ought to give in and accept that cane from Miss Hooper. He oughtn’t be surprised she’s already found one for him. Forcing his mind to remain on task, John engages in the absolute minimum of pleasantries with his employer.
“This is hardly a social visit, is it?” Mr Havill asks.
“No, sir.”
“More bad news, eh? Let me have it.”
John sits at attention, insofar as this is possible. “In light of my recent injuries, I’m afraid I’m no longer sufficiently mobile for this position.”
Mr Havill’s response is one of inexplicable relief. “Your interpretation of your post has always been much more mobile than called for. If you would prefer a stationary location, by all means. One position during the performances for our patrons, another backstage if you intend to continue aiding the performers.”
“I don’t intend to, sir. I would like to resign. I plan to cultivate a private practice,” John explains. “I have accommodations as well. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time here, I feel it’s time to leave. Please consider this my two weeks’ notice.” A wheeze slips into his voice, an audible sign of his condition.
“I see. We will catch this menace, Dr Watson. I do hope you believe that.”
“It’s not the danger, sir.”
Mr Havill’s eyebrows rise. “You come to me a week since the day a madman set you ablaze and you tell me it’s not the danger? I don’t fault you for leaving any more than I find you lacking in courage. It’s downright sensible of you. I simply wish to assure you we will catch the monster who has done this to you.”
“Thank you, sir,” John answers. He clears his throat. “I’m glad you understand.”
Mr Havill nods. “I’ll have to find a replacement if I’m to have any peace of mind. I hope you won’t mind assisting the search.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Watson.”
John smiles reflexively, then attempts to stand.
“Oh, one more thing.”
John sits back down.
“Tonight’s performance. You’re aware we expect trouble?”
“Because of Mr Holmes’ birthday, yes.”
“Yes. Troubling business. The police are willing to help us, but only so far. Limited personnel. I’ve our people on alert against anything strange or anyone unknown, for all the good it’s done us. Tell me, do you still have that pistol from the Masquerade?”
“Revolver, sir. Yes.” John indicates his medical bag.
“Good man.”
“Will this be part of my new, stationary position?” John asks.
“In part. We believe you may remain a target yourself. As such, it would be best to have you under protection. Any other night and I might risk sending you home, but if the ghost is to attack the Earl or his brother, well.” He pauses, the look of a man with friends in danger. “I hope you see why it would be best to keep you at hand.”
“I understand.” Though if something happens and Holmes needs patching up, the man may choose to die before accepting treatment. “Where should I be stationed?”
“In Box Five, of course,” Mr Havill answers. “I understand you’re a personal friend of Mr Holmes. Inspector Lestrade is as well and will be joining you three.”
“Us three?” John echoes.
Mr Havill looks at him curiously. “The Earl, Mr Holmes, and you, of course.”
“Yes, I... Is that wise? Three targets all in one box? Shouldn’t we be separated, for safety’s sake?”
“Hardly enough manpower for it. Should everything go well, Box Five will simply appear to be a small celebration. Should it not, you and Inspector Lestrade are each armed.”
“I see,” John says. “Is the Countess attending?”
“Safe at home.”
“Oh. Good.” John in the box with an enraged invert, the fully informed brother of the aforementioned, and a police officer. All while a ghost with a vast pyrotechnical skill set takes exception with them. Surely, this will end well.
“Something the matter?” Mr Havill asks.
“I, um. My leg and all. If I’m to be sitting for extended periods, it would be best if I was able to elevate it.”
“Tell Hopkins. He’ll fetch something for you. Is that all?”
“Yes, sir,” John says. He stands without flinching. “Thank you, sir.”
“Miss Hooper, I think I’ll take that cane after all.”
She takes one look at him and says, “Oh, God, sit down.”
John does, gladly.
Shortly before the house opens, John idly contemplates the grand staircase. Marble, yes, but not steep. If a man were to, say, bodily fling himself down a stone staircase, this one might be quite nice.
He fails to muster either the nerve or the cowardice in time. One of the two. Perhaps both. At any rate, he leans heavily upon his borrowed cane, standing next to Mr Havill in the lobby.
Inspector Lestrade arrives first. He moves with a brisk efficiency that puts John’s soul at ease and his stance at attention. It doesn’t last terribly long, partially because of his leg, but primarily because of the two Holmes brothers checking their coats.
“Eric, good evening!” the Earl exclaims to Mr Havill. His gaze sweeps over John with no overt sign of hostility, but John’s stomach plunges all the same.
“Mycroft, hello!” The pair shakes hands warmly. By accident or design, their cravats and waistcoats nearly match, yellow to yellow and blue to blue.
Silver cravat gleaming above his purple waistcoat, Holmes stands at his brother’s side, eyes firmly on Mr Havill, then Inspector Lestrade. He looks at John only for a moment during the round of greetings and pleasantries.
“Happy Birthday,” John risks.
“Thank you,” Mr Holmes answers. Hands at his sides, he holds himself aloof despite his proximity. Like much of his arrogance, the sight is charming indeed. John batters down the guilt this thought provokes: noticing reality is no crime.
Inspector Lestrade gestures up the stairs. “Shall we?”
“Yes,” Mr Holmes agrees instantly.
Inspector Lestrade stoops and picks up John’s medical bag. John reaches for it. Inspector Lestrade shakes his head. “Stairs first.”
“Will you be joining us, Dr Watson?” Lord Holmes asks, each word as polished and deliberate as the cut marble of the floor.
“With the inspector holding my things hostage, I’m not sure I have any choice.” He attempts a smile as well as the joke and fears he accomplishes neither.
“Best to have everyone under guard who needs to be,” Mr Havill says in a low voice.
“Quite,” Mr Holmes agrees. Then, louder, voice so terribly light, he says, “This is turning into rather the party.” He starts up the stairs, Mr Havill at his side. Lestrade takes up the rear behind John, leaving Lord Holmes to walk beside John over the course of his slow, painful climb.
John does his best not to look at anyone. Particularly straight forward at Mr Holmes’ bum. How impossible a thing it ought to be, for one man to be at once so abandoned by his lover and so guilty of his own small disloyalties.
“Mrs Hudson has a new tenant, I hear,” Lord Holmes remarks.
“Until this matter is over, my lord,” John agrees. “It would be a pity to move somewhere else only for that to burn down as well.”
“Very. How fortunate the police have been willing to extend their protection to Mrs Hudson’s residence. My brother is very fond of her, you know.”
“For good reason.”
“Yes. It would be a shame were anything to interfere with my brother’s ability to visit her.” Lord Holmes’ eyes are much too like his brother’s in that moment, their colour a piercing, indeterminate blue-grey.
Before him, he sees Mr Holmes’ shoulders tense, his left hand a fist held against the side of his thigh. John forces his leg to move faster. “Nothing will be settled until the opera ghost is caught, I’m afraid, my lord.”
“Something to look forward to,” Lord Holmes muses.
They reach the top. Inspector Lestrade doesn’t return John’s bag and John doesn’t have it in him to protest. He barely has it in him to reach Box Five. Someone, most likely Hopkins, has set an ottoman before the chair against the right wall. With John’s seat decided for him, he sits heavily, careful not to groan or flinch. He prays the inspector will sit beside him, but to no avail.
For the second time that evening, John finds himself next to the Earl. Mr Holmes sits next to his brother. Inspector Lestrade returns John’s bag to him before taking the final chair between Mr Holmes and the left wall.
“Revolver ready?” Inspector Lestrade asks. He leans forward slightly to see John around the Holmes brothers.
“Ah, yes.” John sets his medical bag on his lap rather than the floor, not trusting his ability to bend over. His revolver rests beneath a bed of soft black cashmere. An easy task, practised to the point of instinct, the act loading his gun calms him. His hands grow steadier for it.
“What a handsome scarf,” Lord Holmes remarks, his gaze lowered just so into John’s medical bag.
John’s stomach plummets through his chair. His eyes remain on his revolver. “Thank you.” Be it handsome or not, he’s looked at the scarf as little as possible.
“I do hope you aren’t cold.”
“Not presently, my lord.” Though his heart pounds, his hands remain steady. He closes his bag and sets it down, then nudges it beneath the ottoman with his left foot.
Mr Holmes mutters something to his brother. At first thinking it incomprehensible due to volume, John quickly realises his words are in fact French. Lord Holmes responds in smooth Italian. His answer involves some sort of joke, one Mr Holmes fails to find amusing. John can’t see Inspector Lestrade or his reaction to this. For John’s part, he sits back in his chair, his leg elevated, his sight of the stage somewhat impaired by his distance from the box’s low front wall.
An eternity later, the opera begins. With Mr Holmes’ focus upon the stage, Lord Holmes’ presence lessens in its severity. If nothing else, John becomes slightly less paranoid that Lord Holmes knows exactly from whom and where that scarf had come. He becomes slightly less anxious that Mr Holmes will somehow see the token and know what to make of it. John certainly doesn’t know what the scarf means.
A parting gift? A memento, a reminder? A pledge to remain until John returned, simply to convince John to leave?
There lies the crux of the matter. Vernet had wanted him gone from the first moment John arrived yesterday afternoon. He’d attempted to chase John away in no uncertain terms. But then their inexplicable rift had vanished, lost amid so many acts of affection.
John may know the touches of women far better than he knows the touches of men, but he knows first and foremost the touch of a lover from that of a dalliance. He knows the reverence for the broken, the care for the beautiful, and he knows-he wants to know-that Vernet’s intentions align with his own. Their wishes align, perhaps. Wish and intent, hope and plan; these are but cousins.
When a man promises to discuss logistics only to vanish, is that his side of the discussion? Is it a refusal or an act of cowardice? Is there anything that could have possibly driven Vernet away from the spot, save for John himself?
John has no idea. A night and a day of wondering and trying not to wonder, of missing him and cursing him, and John still cannot hazard a guess. John’s one certainty: somewhere in the world, there is a tall, thin Englishman, fluent in Italian and missing his scarf. Perhaps he was in London last night. Perhaps he had a bit of money on him and stayed at a hotel before taking a morning train away, or perhaps he took the train as quickly as he could. Is his family surprised to see him again so soon? Does his family know what he does?
Brothers and sisters, of course, this family. An elderly parent or two. Nephews and nieces. Surely this is what Vernet meant when he said he would be returning to his family for the holidays. He couldn’t mean anything else. He’d told John in no uncertain terms that he’d never loved a woman.
Love and marriage are two distinct spheres, whispers a voice from an unwanted corner of John’s mind. Not all women are Mary. Obligation, wedlock, money, anything: any motive may support a marriage.
John shifts his aching leg and tells himself he’s being an idiot. Vernet promised they’d see each other again. With no time limit asked or assigned, surely John ought to last longer than one day before labelling the man an adulterer. If anything, the danger lies in another category. If Vernet is an established invert, then there must have been other men. In the past. Please, in the past.
He wonders if Vernet had ever sung for the others.
John wonders if he’s special. He flatters himself that he is, rejects the notion, then promptly embraces it anew. He turns it over within his mind until a particularly loud round of applause startles him from his thoughts. The end of the first act, only that.
No intermission, not yet, but there’s a short, music-filled pause while the sets are changed. Inspector Lestrade occupies Mr Holmes’ time by asking what in the world just happened. Holmes’ explanation is pithy and quick, devastatingly blunt in the most amusing of ways. John chokes on a laugh and coughs instead, a rattling wheeze sneaking back into his lungs.
“All right over there?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
John clears his throat. “Fine, thank you.”
When Lestrade asks Holmes to continue his explanation, Holmes tells him to read his programme.
Not at all subtle and clearly not intending to be, the Earl eyes him. John is achingly aware of what Lord Holmes sees: a man close to forty, one arm stiff, one leg injured, perpetually short of breath. Clothed in new, hasty suits and sporting a borrowed cane. A man who will accept his brother’s confidences and reject his advances, a man considered worthy of neither.
Lord Holmes tilts his head slightly, a low turn at the corner of his mouth. His eyes state a remarkably clear message in three parts. First, that John is not at all wanted in the booth. Second, that John shall be ruined should he ever breathe word of Mr Holmes’ proclivities. Third, that John may expect retaliation on behalf of his brother’s heart.
In reply, John looks longingly toward the door, sadly at his leg, and gestures vaguely toward his revolver. He stays because he cannot go, and because he might do some good.
Lord Holmes does not blink. He does, however, give the impression that John is still alive only because Lord Holmes deigns to permit it.
John sits with a touch more tension after that.
Act two begins. John has never been happier to watch an opera, with the exception of Vernet’s. Which isn’t precisely the thought he needs at the moment, but it’s already much too late. Between the music, Box Five, Vernet, the disdainful Earl, it’s all much too much. John suffers through the second act with both hands tight in his lap in the attempt to hold shut his heart. He flexes his leg for the sake of circulation. The strain drains him beyond all plausible limits.
It’s only three acts tonight, he reminds himself. Not four, not five. Only the three.
Then, like the opposite of a miracle but no less hoped for, the star soprano croaks like a frog.
“Someone left her drinking water exposed again,” John says with a bit of a sigh. The music stops and restarts at the beginning of the song, a method of pushing through the croaking that has yet to ever work. At the second croak, Mr Havill appears on stage as the soprano makes way for her understudy. The handover is smooth in the extreme. John looks at the box door in the vague expectation of Hopkins coming to fetch him.
“Look!” Mr Holmes points upward.
“The chandelier again?” Inspector Lestrade asks.
“No, behind it! Don’t you see him?”
“There’s a man,” John agrees, leaning forward, revolver in hand. “Around the edge of the walk, near the chandelier mechanism. Is that...?”
“Skull mask,” Holmes confirms.
Inspector Lestrade leans forward as well. “My lord, Mr Holmes, kindly press yourselves against the walls.”
Before either of the Holmes brothers can protest, comply, or ignore Inspector Lestrade, a voice from above booms out, “Ladies and gentlemen! I welcome you to my theatre! I’ve a very important announcement for you all!”
Lestrade stands and pushes Holmes down by the shoulders.
“Especially for you, my lord!” the man from above adds. “Hello, Box Five!” He waves. “Quite frankly, it’s a pity we didn’t have a chance to speak sooner. I was so looking forward to our chat at the Masquerade! What fun we were going to have!
“And then Doctor Watson had to go and spoil it! Shame on you, Doctor. Shame, shame, shame. You can’t even die correctly! How’re the new rooms? Warm enough for you?” He throws his hand out and a blaze of fire shoots from his palm toward the chandelier. Patrons scream below.
John’s left hand grabs at the arm of his chair, his right clenched about his revolver. His left hand shakes, or perhaps his heart does. It’s loud in his ears, his heart.
“Silence!” the man above bellows. Red Death, yes, the same voice, the very same. “Speaking of moving house, my dears, I do believe it’s time,” the man above continues, voice loud yet smooth. “Your time in my opera house is at an end. I’ve been patient, I’ve been nice, but I’m afraid daddy’s had enough now...!
“Consider this your final warning. No more letters, no more cautions. I will burn the very heart from this theatre. Renounce your claim or pay the price.”
With that, another blaze of fire flares up and the man vanishes. John’s eyes remain fixed upon the spot, upon the scorch marks. He smells smoke.
Distantly, John hears the panic below. Even more distantly, he hears Inspector Lestrade speak, rushed words full of purpose. Strange, that Inspector Lestrade should sound so distant from so close by.
A flash of red in front of his eyes and John panics, his body frozen save for where it trembles. More sound, a roar of it. Everything tilts and blurs. Gray smoke swirls before his eyes. By the time it clears, his collar-ends have come undone, his tie loosened, and the aftertaste of brandy tingles upon his lips and tongue. Holding John’s medicinal flask, Holmes bends over John’s chair. Behind him, the box’s red curtain has been pulled shut.
“What?” John asks thickly.
“You were shaking,” Holmes explains, his eyes very wide.
The past tense is wrong, very wrong. John forces his hand to unclench around his revolver before he shoots himself or Holmes. John touches his bared neck with trembling fingers, where Holmes must have unfastened him.
“I didn’t--” Holmes begins, cutting himself off when John pulls his cravat looser and gasps for air.
John tries to wave him off, simply breathing, trying to breathe. He turns his face against the back of the chair, twisted in his seat, oddly fallen in his seat. Terribly heavy, his eyelids fall shut. Against his arm, the gentle pressure of a hand rests, tender and familiar.
He startles at the touch, ill and panicked and dizzy. “Ver--” He blinks up and Holmes stares down, eyes as gray and unreadable as a full moon. John coughs and hacks, trembling, broken, absolutely falling to pieces and unable to stop. He’s not crying. He’s almost certain he’s not crying, thank God. He can still smell smoke, why can he still smell smoke?
“What was that?” Holmes asks, a high edge to his voice. “What did you say?” He presses the flask to John’s lips and John struggles to drink until the coughing subsides. John tries to take the flask, but his left hand trembles against Holmes’ right.
“Very dizzy,” John rasps. He forces himself to sit up. He can at least slump away from Holmes rather than toward him. “Do you smell smoke?”
“Smoke bombs in the house. It’s being taken care of.” Holmes sits on the ottoman, his hip against the side of John’s shin. “The audience panicked and fled. They interfered with the police, no doubt. Mycroft is taking as much control of the situation as can be found, but it’s nearly certain the ghost escaped.”
For the first time, John notices that they are, in fact, alone in the box. This new weight rests upon the already broken bridge of John’s nerves and promptly falls through. “He’s going to kill me, isn’t he.” It’s no question, merely a cold truth shuddering beneath John’s chest.
“He may try.” John needn’t look at Holmes’ face to know his expression: the casual defiance, the edge of fury peeking out beneath his detached veneer. There’s another note in Holmes’ voice tonight, one John doesn’t know, one he doesn’t wish to know.
Faced with Holmes’ new possessiveness, John replies dryly, “Third time’s the charm, and all that.”
“Yes: we’ll catch him.” Holmes grips him by the shin, a hard hold that triggers a flinch.
“Please let go.” John’s voice is thin.
“Doctor--”
“No, it hurts.”
Holmes releases him. “Then why are you walking on it?”
“Army doctor.” His rasped answer clearly leaves Holmes unsatisfied. “Civilian doctors tell you to sit down, stay, rest up. Army doctors see to it you can walk and then make you.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes.” John turns his face against the chair back and closes his eyes. The sound of his own breathing, audible and strained, annoys him. Everything about his body annoys him. Humiliation wells up from his gut. It’s not simply Holmes who has seen him like this, but the Earl and Inspector Lestrade as well.
John hears Holmes stand. He feels the shift in the ottoman and the loss of heat by his leg. A murmur of shifting cloth precedes a new whiff of smoke. Immediately, John sits at attention, moving his leg to the floor.
Peering out, Holmes stands at the curtain. “Very nearly empty now. Demands for refunds are well underway, I’d imagine.” He wrinkles his nose, perhaps at the smell, perhaps at the thought of speaking with so many irate people.
Rather than put his gun away, John tucks it behind his waistband, beneath his jacket. He pulls his medical bag out from beneath the ottoman and grips his cane. When he stands, the world wavers before holding firm. His knees do the same. Blinded by a rush of blackness, John blinks away the dark and the fizzling colours before he dares to move.
“A swift recovery,” Holmes observes over his shoulder. His tone could transform lakes into deserts.
“I need to be away from the smoke.” He lifts his chin, indicating his throat.
Holmes’ eyes trace the distance between them. “Only from the smoke?”
John hesitates. “I’m... not certain.”
Holmes’ attitude shifts. The harsh stiffness of his limbs gives way to limberness. He draws the curtain shut in a fluid motion and turns to face John fully. “Of what, dare I ask, are you uncertain?”
“Are we still friends?” John asks.
A curious light comes into Holmes’ eyes, a startled, bewildered shine. “Your opinion on the matter?”
John strains to articulate the mess within his mind. Ultimately, he sighs in exhaustion. “My opinion is that, if you want to throw anything else at me, I’d prefer you to wait until I can dodge.”
“Meaning, if I restrain myself, we are still friends.” Holmes narrows his eyes slightly but otherwise barely moves as he twists John’s words. “I may fling myself at you as long as you can step neatly out of the way, how kind.”
“That’s not-no.” His thoughts muddle themselves before his tongue ever has a chance at them. “I only meant, well, helmets.”
“Why not me?” Holmes asks.
Capable of nothing else, John stares at him with his mouth agape.
“Why am I so absurd a possibility?” Holmes demands.
“You... I...” He works his mouth a bit until it begins to speak without conscious thought guiding it. “The madman who set my person and my house on fire just threatened my life and smoke bombed the building, and this is what you want to talk about while the police are still running about?”
“Yes,” Holmes replies with a harsh nod. He doesn’t step forward, but his presence crowds against John all the same.
John becomes inescapably aware he can’t open the door while holding both his medical bag and his cane.
“Do you intend to avoid me?” Holmes asks. “My opportunities to learn the truth of the matter are much diminished.”
“‘Truth of the matter’,” John echoes. He adjusts his grip on his cane, his leg protesting their standoff. A small spasm in his thigh joins the ache.
“Your excuses on New Year’s Eve: was there a true reason against me among them?”
“Frankly, you have terrible timing.”
“You mean, there’s someone else,” Holmes says, the jealous, perceptive arse. “An issue of timing, is that all?”
“I mean you shouldn’t do these things when surrounded by the police.” God, Holmes is exhausting.
“You may have noticed they’re busy at the moment.” He lowers his volume all the same. “Is there a reason you declined? You said yourself you find me attractive. Is it my position? The uncertainty? What excludes me, specifically?”
The veneer of Holmes’ manners has at last lifted. Beneath, agony and agitation writhe like cramping muscles under the skin. Holmes’ expression grows ever sharper on the whetstone of his emotions.
John attempts to hold his gaze. He fails. The undisguised sentiment is too much to bear. Silence stretches and John cannot answer.
“...In answer to your earlier question,” Holmes continues, “we... ought to remain friends. Do you agree?”
John nods. He doesn’t attempt eye contact.
Frustration outweighs the pain in Holmes’ silence.
John looks at the door.
“Doctor--”
“I’m going to fall down soon,” John warns.
Holmes presses into his space, never once breaking the boundaries of propriety, never touching. The force of his eyes is enough. The reaction brimming within John’s body is enough, even in his weakened state. Damn the man’s cologne.
Holmes reaches past him and opens the door. The line of his arm is oddly soft, his chest welcoming despite its narrowness. John’s jangled nerves demand soothing, and it is perhaps to the benefit of all that Hopkins stands immediately outside the box door.
“All clear, sir,” Hopkins informs Holmes. Standing guard? How long? Has he heard anything?
“Excellent,” Holmes replies, seeming to find nothing distressing in Hopkins’ presence. “See Dr Watson out.” His hand strays to John’s back, out of Hopkin’s sight, and presses against the hidden firearm. Just barely, John keeps from jumping out of his own skin. Holmes nods, a small mark of approval. “Where’s my lord brother?”
“With Mr Havill in his office, sir.”
“Thank you, Hopkins.”
“Of course, sir,” Hopkins says. “Could I carry that for you, Dr Watson?”
John relents and lets him. He does not, however, accept Holmes’ arm. Out of pride, of course, just the pride. If Holmes thinks otherwise, he hides it behind seemingly guileless eyes. A few moments later, Holmes takes the stairs to the lobby faster than John could ever hope to.
It’s all a bit of a blur after that, exhaustion tugging at his mind. Hopkins hands him off to Mrs Hudson and a police sergeant before darting away to check on Miss Hooper. John falls asleep in the carriage home and wakes to the faces of Mrs Hudson and the sergeant both.
A number of pleasantries and reassurances later, John goes to bed and falls instantly into a restless, twitching slumber. He startles awake in the morning only to recognise Eliza’s silhouette. With a stumbling tongue, he thanks her for lighting the fire and promptly collapses back to sleep.
He receives word by telegram that he’s not to return to work. It’s from Mr Havill, thankfully, not either one of the Holmes brothers.
John sends a telegram in reply, asking whether this applies to today or for the remainder of his two weeks. He receives his answer shortly before lunch. It applies until the scent of smoke can be expunged from the opera house.
Pained and restless, John attempts to make the best of it. He reads and sleeps and tries to remain stationary. He stares at Mary’s photograph on his desk, overcome by a strange, sullen longing. Not for the softness of her hands or the cadence of her voice, but for the quirk of her lips when John betrays a flaw in his own perception.
“That doesn’t seem quite right,” she would tell him. And he would say, “It doesn’t, does it?” And she would ask and he would answer until some sense was found, unless she struck a nerve and John stormed off. If John stormed off, he’d return with apologies. If it were all right, she would kiss him and say so. If it weren’t, she would do the same but withhold the kiss, and hadn’t that taken months to catch on to. In either case, she would keep pressing at the problem until it gave way at her persistence, as most things had the good sense to do.
John wonders what she would make of this. The ghost as well as Holmes and Vernet, but mostly Holmes and Vernet.
He snorts a little, knowing the answer. She would have glared at the pair of them and taken pains to remind all involved just who John was married to. And why. Oh, would there be that reason why. The many reasons.
As pleasant a thought as that is, it hardly helps him now. The more John thinks of it, the more his stomach clenches. No, that pleasant thought is fantasy and fantasy alone. Though she’d accepted John’s explanation of Harry with some nervousness, John has a crushing sense of just how well Mary would have taken word that Harry wasn’t singular in the family. However much Mary had claimed to enjoy her marriage to a pervert, she hadn’t meant the word in that sense.
For perhaps the first time in the history of the world, John wishes he could have spoken with his sister about this. The sense of hiding, the terror at the prospect of being found out. Confessions of love, once terrifying in their own right, become nothing short of horrific in this new context. John could ruin Holmes, he knows. He has no proof, but rumours are easily enough set in circulation. John could destroy him utterly, reputation as well as heart. What an immensely unfair gamble.
The same applies to John through Vernet. Whoever and wherever Vernet is, the man knows John in his entirety. But Vernet cannot reveal his acquaintance with John without breaking his contract. This, John trusts more than his own feelings on the matter. For all John would be willing to swear that Vernet would never betray him, John would have also been willing to bet the remains of his home that Vernet would still be in his chamber when John returned to him.
That was two nights ago, only that. A handful of hours spent with the man after a month of waiting, and now two days removed, affection wrestles with resentment. If John could know, that would be the end of the debate, the wondering. Is a telegram really too much to ask? Not a letter, no handwritten clue in Vernet’s tight scrawl, but a telegram. Some word, any word. Be it wait for me or a blunt move on, John could act. Instead, he listens to his strained loyalty buckling under the weight of injured pride.
John doesn’t know how Holmes can bear it. How the rage of a week ago could soften into the tender care of last night. Is that the difference of not leading a man on? Of stating a difficult no rather than playing into an easy yes? John had hardly dared to hope their friendship might be salvageable. Or had Holmes cared for him out of instinct and concern, his anger circumstantially set aside? Their subsequent argument must have ruined that reprieve. When they next see each other, Holmes might not be so forgiving.
Then again, he might be. John swallows thickly, recalling the frustrated longing in Holmes’ eyes. Holmes might be very forgiving indeed, should John be willing to make it up to him. John looks at the crinkled envelope beneath his photographs and sighs. He wonders if Holmes will invite him to dine out again. He wonders if there’s a way to accept without an implicit promise of more.
He wonders if Holmes might force the issue. If Holmes might draw close until his cologne fills up John’s head, then John might hold still as Holmes takes the matter out of his hands. Holmes might lift that heavy weight of consequence and set it, temporarily, aside. He might press his lips to John’s temple as he had upon the stage, suffuse him with the knowledge of being securely, unwaveringly loved. John might let it wrap about him as the curtain had.
That might last minutes or days, however long it took for Holmes’ unrequited passions to transform into a towering rage. Or, worse, it might persist longer still, Holmes certain to the last of a hollow, empty space in John’s heart, unaware that the loneliness stems from a heart full, not empty.
And should Vernet return, what then? Even with the man unannounced, John would know Vernet’s voice anywhere. And the gesticulations, of course. If Vernet were enthused enough, John could spot him from a block away. Closer, John knows the exact lines of him without the shorthand of his face. John would go to him instantly, if only to punch him, and he knows beyond doubt he would stay to kiss the bruise better. How would Holmes react to discover he’d played the placeholder? Beyond poorly, of course. Of course poorly. He was already jealous last night, as if John had been disloyal to him.
John’s stomach lurches with sudden realisation. December. All of December. The lunches, the telegrams. Their game with the envelope, practically an act of flirtation. Holmes sending John off to watch entertainment after entertainment through his period of enforced boredom. John’s list of everything he wished to tell Vernet and sharing the topics with Holmes instead, unable to wait. Holmes asking him to keep Mrs Hudson company but joining them on Christmas all the same.
Holmes had manoeuvred John into doing everything he wanted, simply by asking John’s help. He’d taken John to shows in Box Five, to the circus, to dinner, to the loveliest Christmas John’s had in years. Christ, the Masquerade. Even that. When had he received that invitation? November? Late October? He can’t remember any longer and his calendar is ash. He only remembers the prompting to accompany Mrs Hudson and Holmes’ insistence on attending with his own disinterested companion.
The magnitude of Holmes’ courting becomes utterly, devastatingly clear. And John had gone along with every piece of it, grateful for the distraction, the temporary relief, like a starving man filling his stomach with water. John groans, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
He stares blankly at the wall for a bit, rummaging through his own memories for a distraction. He finds calming scenes and attempts to relive them, if only for a moment. Vernet composing, Vernet paused between the bouts of writing, at once hurried and achingly careful.
He’d touched John that way. Like some rushed goodbye where all John had seen were beginnings. Had Vernet planned even then to run?
Unable to withstand his own thoughts any longer, John forces himself to his feet. He staggers to the window and sits there to watch the sunset through to its end. After, it is very nearly four in the afternoon. Mrs Hudson might be home in eight or so hours.
John settles in for a long wait.
Mrs Hudson returns well before midnight and very close to tears. She tells him of the crashing backdrops, the broken fly system, the swarms of moths in the wardrobes. Disasters everywhere, and the singers threatening to quit. Only the divas thus far, and that’s nearly par for the course, but it’s only going to worsen.
“If it weren’t for the threats last night, I doubt the police would believe these aren’t accidents.” She cradles her hands about her teacup, skin and china equally frail and veined with blue. “So many all at once, and you can still see it in their eyes. They’ll tell it to you, even! ‘These things do happen, my dear.’” She rolls her eyes. “Yes they do: when someone is making them happen.”
“Are we any closer to knowing who?” John asks.
“A man,” she says. “A corporeal one, I’ve no doubt. One who seems to think the opera house is his.”
“That might be part of the persona,” John points out. “‘Look at me, the great big ghost. I’m haunting here, get out.’”
She shakes her head. “Sherlock thinks there’s something there. He’s going through all the employee records. They’re hardly thorough-too many stagehands and dancers come and gone-but anyone with enough skill to carry off this scheme ought to have been remarked upon.”
John ponders this. “How many people connected with the opera house might hold a grudge against Lord Holmes?”
“Most would be against Mr Havill, I would have thought.”
“I know. That’s what makes it so curious.”
They sit and regard their tea.
“What about the old owner?” John asks.
“Oh, he must be dead by now,” Mrs Hudson answers. “If he isn’t, he’s hardly spry enough to go slipping through windows.”
“But alive enough to hire an acrobat for it,” John says.
“And the Red Death as well? Keep everything nice and sinister while staying out of it? Seems a bit strange.”
John frowns. “Keeping safely out of the way is strange?”
“It’s not dramatic enough,” Mrs Hudson replies with conviction. “You don’t see all that flashy business with the fire with someone who doesn’t want the limelight. I can’t begin to tell you how many conceited idiots I’ve known, John Watson, but I know one when I see one.”
“Just because he’s the star of the show doesn’t make him the composer.”
“Maybe,” she says, not at all with conviction.
They regard their tea a while longer.
“More trouble to come tomorrow, no doubt,” Mrs Hudson remarks. She sighs. “It’s so good to have something to look forward to.”
John nearly chokes on his tea.
“You’re not really going to resign, are you?” Mrs Hudson asks.
“I’m leaning against it now,” John admits.
“Good. Better to not be overhasty.”
“But I might need the week until I’m fit for walking. Stairs especially.”
Mrs Hudson reaches out and gives his wrist a warm squeeze. He releases his cup to meet her palm with his. He nods. They let go.
“...Is Mr Holmes all right?” John asks.
Mrs Hudson smoothes down the pristine tablecloth. Though her eyes worry, her lips are fond. “Sherlock’s always been a complicated boy.”
“He turned thirty-five yesterday.”
“It’s a long time to be a complicated boy, you must admit.”
John laughs a bit at that. “Agreed.” He sobers slowly, not quite sure what to say.
“Are you still angry with him?” she asks.
John blinks at her. “Sorry? I’m not, I’m not angry. That’s not, no.”
“I know it’s hardly my place and he’s asked me to stay out of it, but I can’t help feeling responsible.”
“About... not warning me, you mean?” John asks.
“Something like that.” She smoothes the tablecloth down until it needs smoothing. “I keep forgetting you’re not really from theatre. It’s so silly. But it is important, remaining respectable.”
“I know.”
She shakes her head. “It’s worse for him.”
John waits for her to fix the tablecloth, certain she has more to say.
“When he was little,” she says, “he never wanted to go home. He’d slip backstage and hide somewhere. We’d find him in the most unlikely places and he’d refuse to crawl out. That’s how his mother and I met, you know. She was an admirer already, but coaxing out her son for her cemented it.
“Anyway, what I mean to say is, the hiding places all had something in common. Wherever he was, Signor Varesi would be nearby. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. Big Italian man, exceptional voice. He was our leading man for years. Sherlock adored him. He’d sit through any performance, no matter how long, provided Signor Varesi had the lead. Mycroft would barely put up with it and he was at least, oh, ten or eleven when their mother first took them.”
“How old was Holmes?”
“He must have been, hm, four, I’d say, at the start. Young enough that it ought to have been a disaster. When he started hiding, we thought he was bored, but he was always so quiet and out of the way.
“Where was I? Oh, yes, Signor Varesi. One day, I couldn’t find Sherlock. I tried all the usual spots, and then I went to Signor Varesi’s dressing room. Signor Varesi was already inside with his assistant.” She makes a face of remembered panic. “He and his assistant were very close, you see, and not in a way the Countess would have approved of.
“I knocked on the door and warned him that I thought a child was inside. His assistant, what was his name. Something like Angelo, one of those Italian names. His assistant opened the door right up and let me in. When I found Sherlock in the wardrobe, oh goodness. They were so worried. Had no idea what to do with him. They started trying to explain how men in Italy behave differently than men in England. We were all so worried what he would tell the Countess.
“But Sherlock, he...” She closes her eyes and sighs. Shakes her head. “He asked Signor Varesi if he would take Sherlock back to Italy with him.”
“How much later was this?” John asks, staring despite his best intentions. “He must have been at least, I don’t know, fourteen?” That’s still young enough to hide in a wardrobe.
“He was five,” Mrs Hudson replies. “He explained it all very neatly for a five year old. For anyone, I imagine. His mother had told him he’d fall in love when he was older, and he thought this meant he needed to go somewhere where it was allowed.”
“Christ.”
“Signor Veresi explained. He was kind about it. I remember, oh, this is embarrassing. I tried to ask Sherlock if this wasn’t simply him being impressionable. Signor Veresi was his hero. But Sherlock stood right up and told me, ‘I like him because he’s like me. And his voice is pleasant, even if he’s flat sometimes in the upper ranges.’ Something like that. But certainly the first part.”
“What happened after?”
“Signor Veresi laughed. Then he took Sherlock back to the Countess and told her Sherlock had asked for Italian lessons. He said his assistant wasn’t busy during the shows. It worked surprisingly well. And don’t you dare tell me it was dangerous to leave that boy alone with them.”
“I wasn’t about to,” John lies.
“They made the opera house the best home he’s ever had, as far as I’m concerned,” Mrs Hudson states. “But an earl’s heir needs to be respectable.”
“And that’s why you didn’t tell me. About him. In advance, I mean.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I couldn’t risk being wrong.”
He reaches out and squeezes her hand.
She squeezes back. For an instant, she seems to have something more to say, but all she tells him is, “I ought to turn in for the night.”
“Good night, Mrs Hudson.”
“Good night, dear.”
The so-called accidents continue as John’s leg heals. Each night, Mrs Hudson returns home with a new piece of a horror story. Some nights, she returns at the usual time. Other nights, she’s early or late, depending on the particular catastrophe of the day.
For John’s part, he listens closely and performs his leg exercises more thoroughly than is perhaps wise. At last, a week after his moment of panic in Box Five, John returns to the opera house. Though he needs the cane, he doesn’t need it quite so badly. He manages the front stairs easily enough without Mrs Hudson’s help and quickly navigates to Mr Havill’s office alone.
“About my resignation, sir,” John begins.
“If you’re not taking it back...” Mr Havill warns.
“I’m taking it back.”
“Thank God. We’ve enough problems keeping everyone else. All the newer stagehands have already quit.”
John grins a bit. “Then I’d best go reassure them, shouldn’t I?”
“Or something else entirely,” Mr Havill suggests dryly. “We could use a dash of Captain Watson today. Scare some sense into them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before John can duck out of his office, Mr Havill adds, “If you see Mr Holmes, tell him Inspector Lestrade left a note for him.”
“Mr Holmes is here?”
“Unless he’s already left. He does forget to make his goodbyes on occasion.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” John promises. Provided John sees him. The man is probably searching the roofs or inspecting the rafters.
Medical bag in hand, John doesn’t take the quickest route backstage. After Mrs Hudson’s depictions of the havoc wreaked upon the opera house, a look at the house is much called for. When he enters, nothing seems very out of place. There are repair men fighting with the backdrops and the fly system, but the seating areas themselves look all right. A faint whiff of smoke here and there, but nothing enough to alarm him.
John walks down the aisle toward the stage. The footlights have yet to be lit and the only light upon the stage is from the chandelier overhead. As the backdrop jerkily rises, catching here and there, it leaves the feet of those behind it still in shadow, though visible. Two men, one obviously Mr Green in the midst of managing his stage. Green shouts at the fly operator, berating him for the uneven lifting. The backdrop continues rising. The line of light follows at a short distance, touching the men’s feet when the backdrop reveals knees, touching knees when shadowy waists become visible.
At the waist, John recognises him. At the sight of the waist, John’s stomach drops to the floor the way his medical bag nearly does.
His mouth dries up and he stops walking and he thinks, he wonders, oh God, could Vernet possibly work here now? As what, what could he possibly... Has Mr Johnson quit? Do they need a new conductor?
The backdrop continues to rise, slowly permitting light to fall on a pair of familiar, gesticulating hands. No, hand, only the right one, the left self-consciously at his side. The scar, concealing it.
With a surge of affection, John teaches his feet how to move once again. He limps down the aisle with increased speed, a giggle growing at the back of his throat that he absolutely cannot let out. There he is. Oh God, there he is. Look at him.
The backdrop halts yet again. Green shouts at someone in the wings. Beside him, a taller, much thinner man turns to see the target of Green’s ire. Cleanly dressed and neatly pressed but Vernet, absolutely Vernet. John would know that stage-turn anywhere, the flare of motion in those long legs.
The backdrop lifts higher still before stopping with a terrible, not at all good noise.
John stops as well, mind rebelling against his eyes.
The light reaches the man’s mouth, his nose, falling and rising this inch as the backdrop sways. The rest of the man’s head is held in shadow, but not lost in it.
John doesn’t understand.
He doesn’t, he doesn’t understand. What, what is... Who is...
That is Vernet’s chin, his neck, his body. That is Vernet. The backdrop rises higher, jerking, fighting this ascent. Beneath it stands a different man, the same man.
Beneath it stands Sherlock Holmes.
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