Fic: Bel Canto - 16/16 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Bel Canto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3.6k out of 127k
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, 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
For the sake of moving the summer heat, John opens the window to the London smog. He goes so far as to stick his head out, desperate for a bit of breeze. Beneath his waistcoat, his shirt sticks to his skin and pulls with each movement. Down on the pavement, Jamison waves up at him with a small, cheerful salute. John returns it before ducking back inside.
Walking away from the window, he shucks his cravat and collar and unbuttons his cuffs. Better. Off with the waistcoat. Better still.
“Yoo-hoo!” Mrs Hudson knocks on the door frame. “He was the last of the day, then?” she asks with a look to the discarded waistcoat on the armchair.
John resists the resulting urge to tidy. Instead, he simply says, “I’ve the afternoon off.” It’s by coincidence, not by design, but it is good to know he’ll have the evening free to celebrate or commiserate with Holmes, whichever is required. Private practice involves far fewer hours than the opera house demanded. He very nearly enjoys that now, but it might have something to do with his improved social life. John glances at the sofa and Mrs Hudson smiles.
“Oh, go on,” she says, taking a seat. “What’s the news?”
“You first. Any word?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing since the first telegram. As far as I know, the ‘child in progress’ is still in progress.”
“Perhaps Holmes simply isn’t allowed to send any further telegrams after writing that.”
Mrs Hudson laughs. “I wouldn’t put it past Mycroft.” She claps her hands on her lap. “Now you. How is everyone? Did you ask after Mr Johnson?”
“Sorry,” John says. “I knew I was forgetting someone. Next time, you ought to sit in and ask directly. There’s too many to keep track of.”
“I was going to, dear, but with Jamison...” She makes a pitying face.
“It wasn’t the unmentionables this time,” John says. Doctor-patient confidentiality only goes so far when everyone already knows.
“Oh, good,” Mrs Hudson says. “It’s about time something else was wrong with him. What about everyone else?”
Counting them off on his fingers, John talks about the theatre where Green is already chafing in his position as an assistant stage manager. Green will either supplant the stage manager soon or find yet another theatre. John mentions the bits he’s heard about the carpenters and the tiny snatches he knows of the seamstresses. Mrs Hudson keeps in touch with her favourite dancers on her own, and so John doesn’t attempt to tell her anything new on that front. Instead, he adds the bits he’s gleaned about the pit members from Miss Norton, as relayed by Clara. He doesn’t mention Clara’s most recent remarks as to how Miss Norton has been coping with her grief, but he knows Mrs Hudson can recognise fellow widows when she hears about them.
Rather than dwell on the renovation of the former opera house since its sale, he saves the best piece of news for last. “We’ll have another wedding to go to next year,” he reports. “It looks like Hopkins has followed Westy’s example.”
Though John had been pleasantly surprised, Mrs Hudson doesn’t bat an eye. Delighted, absolutely delighted, but not taken aback in the slightest. “It’s about time,” she says instead. “I was starting to think Hopkins would never ask Molly.”
John blinks a bit. “I thought it was only recent.”
Mrs Hudson’s face does something very kind, and very pitying. “John, dear,” she says, “you do miss these things sometimes.”
Adjusting his braces over his shoulders, John doesn’t try to deny it. “They’re planning on next June,” he says instead. “We might be invited, but I don’t know yet. I do still owe her that pair of scissors: she might hold it against me.”
They chat for a while longer, Mrs Hudson reminiscing about her wedding until John mentions a few details about his own. Only a knock at the door downstairs saves John from recollecting the entirety of it to her.
Despite her hip, she manages to rush to the window far more quickly than John could ever manage it.
“Telegram?” he asks, already halfway to the stairs. With Mrs Hudson home these days, she’s had little need for a maid, but it does mean John has to answer the door.
“A bit more than that.” She turns to look back at him. “He doesn’t waste any time, does he?”
“Christ, what’s he done now?” John joins her at the window. Together, they look down at the hot pavement and the impatient man upon it. More significantly, they look at the Saratoga trunk on the pavement and the violin case and folio in the man’s arms. Behind him, the empty growler pulls away into the street.
“Holmes!” John shouts down.
Holmes nods up at them. “Come help!”
John’s feet pound down the stairs much in the manner of his heart. He reaches the bottom, very nearly stumbles in taking hold of the door, and John’s mouth manages to say “Good afternoon” without any conscious prompting from his otherwise occupied mind.
The occupant of his mind-soon to be occupant of this building-stands framed in the doorway, a light flush across his otherwise pale cheeks. Sweat helps his hair escape from the confinement of pomade, each escaping curl hinting at the wealth of energy about to be unleashed. Though they have certainly tried these past months, no number of letters or telegrams could ever replicate the full effect of the man’s presence. The occasional dinner helped, but their time has been limited, restrained, and agonisingly public.
“You’re early,” John says.
Holmes arches one eyebrow. “Problem?”
John shakes his head and forces some moisture back into his mouth. “No.”
“Oh, oh, what’s that?” Mrs Hudson asks from above John’s shoulder, still on the stairs. Belatedly, John makes way for her.
“Rubbish,” Holmes replies. “Little more than nonsense I needed out of my head. It’s not finished, but you can read it.” He hands the folio to Mrs Hudson with great care despite his words. The violin case, he sets down inside the foyer rather than hand it to John. His voice leaps up to a polite tone as he says, “Watson, if you could assist me.”
John follows him outside and together they manage to lift the trunk. “I’ll walk backward. Better for the stairs.”
In they go and up they go, John holding low and Holmes holding high. Despite the tight fit, they manage to round the turn on the stairs without mishap. Their coordination only fumbles at the top of the stairs as John attempts to turn for the next flight. Holmes angles them elsewhere, and John laughs as he’s backed into his bedroom.
“No,” John tells him, though his grin undermines his words. “This is my room. You are upstairs.”
Holmes feigns utter confusion. “But I’ve always stayed down here in the past.” The slightest pout extends his bottom lip. “And this is very heavy.”
They set the trunk down in the gap between John’s bed and desk. John wipes his sweaty hands on his trousers. Holmes straightens, re-establishing his full height after being so stooped by the great weight.
“When we agreed on ‘after the baby is born,’ I didn’t think you meant ‘within three hours’,” John says.
“I am much too noisy,” Holmes says. Relaxed and private, his voice rumbles up from his chest. “My work entirely disturbs the mother’s much needed rest.”
“What a shame.”
“It truly is.”
“Mm,” John hums, his tongue attempting to moisten his dry lips.
Holmes hums back at him. The trunk between their feet is as good as a chasm. It had better be, or John will leap across it, open door or not. They stand in this way for a moment far more wordless than silent. Lips quirked, Holmes slips free of his summer jacket and tosses it on John’s bed. John takes in that sight before eyeing the open door with speculation.
A grin in his gaze and a flirt in his lips, Holmes unbuttons his collar. “Is it always so hot in here?”
“It’s even worse at night,” John replies in a tone of absolute seriousness. “Stay in here and I’ve no doubt you’ll be sleeping naked.”
A flush crawls up Holmes’ neck, but he doesn’t look away for an instant. His voice, however, leaps up attentively before settling. “Perhaps I ought to move upstairs and leave you the privilege.”
“I’m sure we’ll sort something out,” John says.
“I’m sure we will,” Holmes agrees.
“How, um.” John swallows. He taps his fingers against the back of his hand, his body having assumed parade rest for the occasion. “How long of an arrangement, do you think?”
Holmes pretends to calculate the answer. He pretends very obviously, and John nearly snatches up Holmes’ jacket to chuck it at his head.
“Boy or girl?” John asks.
Holmes grins. With his whole face, with his entire body, Holmes grins.
John’s mouth nearly breaks his cheeks returning the sentiment.
“They’ve decided to christen him after Father,” Holmes says. “Havelock, because we don’t have nearly enough absurd names in the family.”
“That’s...” John says.
“Yes,” says Holmes.
John clasps his hands behind his back, fingers nervously entwined. “Then you’ll be staying? For... ah.”
“For however long,” Holmes agrees. “Provided that’s--”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” Emphatic, he nods.
“Well,” Holmes says. “Good.”
“How, um...?” John gestures about the room.
“One of us upstairs, officially. Considering our relative positions, it does make more sense for you to take the upstairs room. Still, as we’ll initially present my living here as temporary, a case could be made for my being installed upstairs.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” John says. “Mrs Hudson has a lovely basement.”
Holmes glares at him. “The setting is secondary to the company, I’ve come to realise.”
“Then what was the folio you handed to Mrs Hudson?”
“Drivel.” Holmes waves a dismissive hand. “I told you, I needed it out of my head.”
“But what--”
“Would you bring up my violin?” Holmes asks. His eyes flick down John, eyeing a body startled into stillness, and, as if to confirm he truly means his permission, he nods.
“I... All right,” John says. They circle about the trunk as John exits the room, each twitching his hands away from the other. Descending the stairs, John tries to decide whether he expects Holmes to be placing his clothing in John’s closet or rummaging through John’s desk in search of their saved, shared correspondence. Holmes will want to see how creased each page is, how worn about the edges. Though hardly love letters in composition, they have been rendered such through their treatment.
Downstairs, John sees no sign of Mrs Hudson but hears a fair amount of giggling from the direction of her sitting room. He follows the noise and pokes his head in. “Mrs Hudson?”
Sitting with the score across her lap, Mrs Hudson looks up with a poorly suppressed smile. “Does he want it back now?” she asks. “It’s so delightfully silly.”
Eyebrows rising up to his forehead, John says, “No. Just wondered where you were off to.”
“I’m in here,” Mrs Hudson says, “and I plan to have a nice sit and a read while you boys get everything sorted.”
“Thank you,” John says and ducks out before the mortification can set in. With great care, he retrieves the violin case from the foyer. It’s far heavier than he’d assumed, a fitting incongruity. He carries it upstairs as he might a sleeping child.
As he draws near the top, he hears the distinct sounds of Holmes in motion. Almost tentative, he enters to find the trunk and his closet open. Gently, John sets the violin case down upon the foot of his bed, where he’d last seen Holmes’ jacket. He spots the garment, now hanging alongside one of his own.
Without turning to face him, Holmes straightens the hangers. His squared shoulders remain centred on the closet. Revealed to nearly the elbow by his rolled shirtsleeves, his forearms strike a pale contrast against the black hanging jackets.
John navigates around the trunk to reach his desk. He opens two of the drawers and begins shifting the contents of one into the other. When he looks up from his work, Holmes is already looking back at him. “Supposing you want a drawer,” John says. “Thought I might move this desk upstairs. I ought to move most of my things up.”
“Move them tomorrow,” Holmes says.
“I don’t mind. I don’t have that much.”
“I know,” Holmes says. He hangs another suit next to the first, slowly occupying the empty space John never did find the time to fill. “Move them tomorrow.”
In silent agreement, John watches him work, watches the fluid bending and folding and sorting. He looks for the rhythm, finds the patterns, and slips in as if to a stately dance. They find their balance, Holmes griping when John touches his socks but laughing outright when John promptly tosses his pants back into the trunk. It’s his small laugh, of course, the nearly silent chuckle behind the boyish grin.
It reminds John enough to ask, “What did Mrs Hudson find so funny in your libretto?”
“Oh, is she reading it?”
“Mm.”
Holmes shrugs, but there’s a touch of red to his ears. “It’s a farce. It’s meant to amuse. It’s far less likely to be declared a haunted work if the audience laughs.”
“A farce,” John repeats. “What language is it in? I didn’t think Mrs Hudson was fluent in Italian.”
Very pointedly, Holmes sets his socks in their correct order. “French.”
As realisation dawns, so does John’s grin. “You mean, it’s a French farce?”
“No, it’s a farce in French.”
“Is it a French farce?” John asks. “With mistaken identities and absurd disguises and everyone falling in love with everyone else?”
Holmes glowers at him. “It wouldn’t leave my head.”
“You wrote a bedroom farce,” John says, convinced and unrepentant. “Does it end with them happily living in sin?”
“Married, actually,” Holmes answers flatly. “It’s two acts of busywork, nothing more. Husband and wife attempt to cheat on each other at a masquerade ball and sleep with each other without realising it. They confess their guilt by the end of act two, the mistake comes unravelled, everyone laughs, and there it ends. It bears no resemblance to anything other than every farce to ever come before it.”
“I’m sure,” John says.
“You’re lying.”
“Not even very well,” John agrees.
Holmes rolls his eyes. “The husband is an Englishman named Clarence and his wife is Henriette.”
John’s grin freezes. His eyes struggle toward something strange and stinging, but John blinks it back as Holmes goes about unpacking. John searches for the appropriate words. There are none. He searches for them anyway.
“I need more space for my shirts,” Holmes complains.
Clearing his throat, John moves his own shirts to his desk chair. They’ll be fine there for the interim. He returns to the Saratoga trunk and checks for what little remains in the drawers inside. His hand touches something cool in the heat of the room, and his fingers twitch into a curl. He touches it again, a light brush of the knuckles. He lifts it.
“Sherlock,” he says.
Holmes turns. Their blue shifting into a wary grey, his eyes fall to the white porcelain in John’s hand. “Yes?” Holmes asks, his volume low, his pitch somewhere between low familiarity and high bluster.
“You do realise I was joking about the basement, don’t you?”
“It’s not for composing,” Holmes says.
“No?”
Holmes shakes his head.
John sets the mask delicately upon the violin case. Just as carefully, he says, “I’m sure your scarf is somewhere around here too.”
More visibly than before, Holmes’ chest rises and falls. “Window,” he whispers.
“...Right. Yes.” John pulls the curtains shut. Faint sunlight makes the journey through them, but only just. Behind him, Holmes closes the door. John turns around. Holmes’ legs devour the distance between them in three long strides.
John looks up at Holmes, at Holmes’ mouth and eyes and the smile between them both, and he opens his arms to better welcome a narrow chest against his own. Arms tight about each other’s shoulders, they simply hold on. Cheek against neck, they breathe. The solidity of Holmes is a remarkable thing. As is his cologne.
Slowly, they ease back. A heartbeat passes. Their breath mingles. Their noses touch.
John cups his hands about a neck unblemished by bruise or burn of rope. He leans up, and Holmes leans down. They lean into each other. Holmes’ mouth is warm and soft and all things longed for.
Low and deep, Holmes rumbles. The sensation tickles John’s lips and leaves them tingling, or perhaps that’s the sensation of an afternoon’s stubble. He searches to discover which but soon forgets what he was thinking about. Holmes’ mouth upon his neck is far more interesting. Then again, Holmes’ clavicle is even more interesting than that. The oppressive heat of the room makes full, sustained contact uncomfortable, but John has never been one to mind flushed skin beneath his lips.
John flatters himself that Holmes’ legs give way. Certainly, Holmes’ abrupt seat on the bed takes John delightfully by surprise.
“Careful,” Holmes cautions, one hand steadying the mask atop the violin case. The other hand draws John in by his braces. John leans in to kiss him, but though Holmes doesn’t stop pulling, Holmes similarly refuses to lie down.
“What the hell are you doing?” John giggles against his mouth.
“Sit on my lap.”
John laughs. “No.”
Holmes pouts.
“No lap sitting,” John tells him firmly.
“What if it were less sitting and more straddling?” Holmes proposes.
“Then you’re an idiot,” John says. “Or you haven’t done this since you were twenty, or both. Because,” he continues over Holmes’ forming protest, “my knees won’t allow that kind of nonsense.”
“Ah. Fine.” Holmes tugs John down to sit next to him instead. “Curse my love of older men,” he mutters against John’s mouth.
A braver man might have corrected Holmes to the singular form. Braver, or perhaps more insecure. John is perfectly content as he is, and happy enough to hear music besides. It takes him much too long a moment to realise that this is not simple association inside his mind, but an actual sound.
“What is that?” John asks.
“The music box I gave her for Christmas,” Holmes explains. “Mrs Hudson wants to know if she can interrupt.”
John can’t match his optimism. “Or we’re being too loud.”
Holmes hums in the negative. He slides his gaze down John’s chest as he ought to with his hand. “You’ve been very quiet.”
“So you’re saying you did nothing to be noisy about?”
Holmes simply looks at him.
John lifts his chin in a dare.
Holmes narrows his eyes.
Outside in the sitting room, the music stops. A short moment later, a waltz replaces it.
Between their mouths, the words later and yes and tonight whisper themselves without need for a voice. Two nearly imperceptible nods, and they do what they can to put each other back into the semblance of order. By the time John can count himself as confident, the waltz has nearly run its course.
John opens the door. Behind him, Holmes stows the mask away in their dresser. When they enter the sitting room, Mrs Hudson feigns playful surprise. She sits on the sofa, the music box on the coffee table before her.
“Everything sorted?” she asks.
“I’ll be moving my things upstairs,” John answers.
“Sherlock, do help him,” Mrs Hudson says. To John, she adds, “The floor is much better up there, you know. No creaking at all. No draughts either, very good walls.”
Very much catching her drift, John nods along.
“Excellent to know,” Holmes adds, appearing at John’s side. His presence doesn’t startle. The touch of his hand on the small of John’s back does. John looks up at him sharply, but Holmes’ gaze is on Mrs Hudson, and hers on Holmes.
“Oh,” says Mrs Hudson, her hands clasped in her lap like a girl’s. The sound is one of joy rather the realisation. “Oh...!” She stands and hugs them both together, her thin arms mustering all the strength of a disciplined ballerina. “You’ll be fighting before the week is out, but I don’t care!”
“Vigorously debating,” Holmes corrects.
John laughs despite himself and hugs her back as hard as he dares. His heart pounds on harder and faster than it ought, but a rush of affection soon fills the void left by nervousness. Holmes’ hand remains precisely where it is throughout the exchange, a light passenger along John’s spine.
Holmes drops his hand only when they move to the sofa, the gesture too much in sight of the windows. By unspoken agreement, they sit with knee against knee. Listening to Holmes speak of his new nephew to Mrs Hudson, John thinks it might take them as long as two weeks for an argument. Discussing logistics via letter has helped. Perhaps they’ll continue that practice. Perhaps John will only ever know what the hell has just happened by watching Holmes’ latest opera. Perhaps any number of things may happen.
For now, John sits comfortably in his home and listens to the rise and fall of a well-loved voice.
previous | EL FIN
This fic has been nine months in the making. I began writing in October, 2012 and here I post the final chapter June 21st, 2013. Some of the weirdest writing coincidences I've ever had have happened with this fic. I told you before about my laptop's fan breaking when I wrote the first draft of the chandelier falling, but I didn't mention that there were nearly two small fires in my house between writing part 15 and part 16. Don't worry, no one was hurt.
As always, great thanks to Vyctori for listening to the initial babble that became this fic, as well as for holding my hand through much of the plot developments, finding a good title for my "phantomlock.doc" file, and teaching me enough about opera that people actually think I know anything about opera.
A big thank-you to Seiji, who reads without advance warning of the plot. Her reactions to much of the story shaped my expectations as to how you might also react. She was also the first Hopkins/Molly shipper, which is now Bel Canto canon. Her enthusiasm keeps me going.
Another round of thank-yous to Mars, the only one of my three betas who knows Phantom of the Opera. Don't worry, she knows enough for all four of us. I'm also sure she'd like me take a moment to tell you to go listen to the Phantom soundtrack with the original London cast, Michael Crawford as the Phantom. Have fun.
For those of you wondering, the reason why "Op. 20, No. #" has been the format for the chapters is this: Bel Canto is my 20th posted work in the BBC Sherlock fandom.
As always, thank you for reading. See you next Friday.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3.6k out of 127k
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, 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
For the sake of moving the summer heat, John opens the window to the London smog. He goes so far as to stick his head out, desperate for a bit of breeze. Beneath his waistcoat, his shirt sticks to his skin and pulls with each movement. Down on the pavement, Jamison waves up at him with a small, cheerful salute. John returns it before ducking back inside.
Walking away from the window, he shucks his cravat and collar and unbuttons his cuffs. Better. Off with the waistcoat. Better still.
“Yoo-hoo!” Mrs Hudson knocks on the door frame. “He was the last of the day, then?” she asks with a look to the discarded waistcoat on the armchair.
John resists the resulting urge to tidy. Instead, he simply says, “I’ve the afternoon off.” It’s by coincidence, not by design, but it is good to know he’ll have the evening free to celebrate or commiserate with Holmes, whichever is required. Private practice involves far fewer hours than the opera house demanded. He very nearly enjoys that now, but it might have something to do with his improved social life. John glances at the sofa and Mrs Hudson smiles.
“Oh, go on,” she says, taking a seat. “What’s the news?”
“You first. Any word?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing since the first telegram. As far as I know, the ‘child in progress’ is still in progress.”
“Perhaps Holmes simply isn’t allowed to send any further telegrams after writing that.”
Mrs Hudson laughs. “I wouldn’t put it past Mycroft.” She claps her hands on her lap. “Now you. How is everyone? Did you ask after Mr Johnson?”
“Sorry,” John says. “I knew I was forgetting someone. Next time, you ought to sit in and ask directly. There’s too many to keep track of.”
“I was going to, dear, but with Jamison...” She makes a pitying face.
“It wasn’t the unmentionables this time,” John says. Doctor-patient confidentiality only goes so far when everyone already knows.
“Oh, good,” Mrs Hudson says. “It’s about time something else was wrong with him. What about everyone else?”
Counting them off on his fingers, John talks about the theatre where Green is already chafing in his position as an assistant stage manager. Green will either supplant the stage manager soon or find yet another theatre. John mentions the bits he’s heard about the carpenters and the tiny snatches he knows of the seamstresses. Mrs Hudson keeps in touch with her favourite dancers on her own, and so John doesn’t attempt to tell her anything new on that front. Instead, he adds the bits he’s gleaned about the pit members from Miss Norton, as relayed by Clara. He doesn’t mention Clara’s most recent remarks as to how Miss Norton has been coping with her grief, but he knows Mrs Hudson can recognise fellow widows when she hears about them.
Rather than dwell on the renovation of the former opera house since its sale, he saves the best piece of news for last. “We’ll have another wedding to go to next year,” he reports. “It looks like Hopkins has followed Westy’s example.”
Though John had been pleasantly surprised, Mrs Hudson doesn’t bat an eye. Delighted, absolutely delighted, but not taken aback in the slightest. “It’s about time,” she says instead. “I was starting to think Hopkins would never ask Molly.”
John blinks a bit. “I thought it was only recent.”
Mrs Hudson’s face does something very kind, and very pitying. “John, dear,” she says, “you do miss these things sometimes.”
Adjusting his braces over his shoulders, John doesn’t try to deny it. “They’re planning on next June,” he says instead. “We might be invited, but I don’t know yet. I do still owe her that pair of scissors: she might hold it against me.”
They chat for a while longer, Mrs Hudson reminiscing about her wedding until John mentions a few details about his own. Only a knock at the door downstairs saves John from recollecting the entirety of it to her.
Despite her hip, she manages to rush to the window far more quickly than John could ever manage it.
“Telegram?” he asks, already halfway to the stairs. With Mrs Hudson home these days, she’s had little need for a maid, but it does mean John has to answer the door.
“A bit more than that.” She turns to look back at him. “He doesn’t waste any time, does he?”
“Christ, what’s he done now?” John joins her at the window. Together, they look down at the hot pavement and the impatient man upon it. More significantly, they look at the Saratoga trunk on the pavement and the violin case and folio in the man’s arms. Behind him, the empty growler pulls away into the street.
“Holmes!” John shouts down.
Holmes nods up at them. “Come help!”
John’s feet pound down the stairs much in the manner of his heart. He reaches the bottom, very nearly stumbles in taking hold of the door, and John’s mouth manages to say “Good afternoon” without any conscious prompting from his otherwise occupied mind.
The occupant of his mind-soon to be occupant of this building-stands framed in the doorway, a light flush across his otherwise pale cheeks. Sweat helps his hair escape from the confinement of pomade, each escaping curl hinting at the wealth of energy about to be unleashed. Though they have certainly tried these past months, no number of letters or telegrams could ever replicate the full effect of the man’s presence. The occasional dinner helped, but their time has been limited, restrained, and agonisingly public.
“You’re early,” John says.
Holmes arches one eyebrow. “Problem?”
John shakes his head and forces some moisture back into his mouth. “No.”
“Oh, oh, what’s that?” Mrs Hudson asks from above John’s shoulder, still on the stairs. Belatedly, John makes way for her.
“Rubbish,” Holmes replies. “Little more than nonsense I needed out of my head. It’s not finished, but you can read it.” He hands the folio to Mrs Hudson with great care despite his words. The violin case, he sets down inside the foyer rather than hand it to John. His voice leaps up to a polite tone as he says, “Watson, if you could assist me.”
John follows him outside and together they manage to lift the trunk. “I’ll walk backward. Better for the stairs.”
In they go and up they go, John holding low and Holmes holding high. Despite the tight fit, they manage to round the turn on the stairs without mishap. Their coordination only fumbles at the top of the stairs as John attempts to turn for the next flight. Holmes angles them elsewhere, and John laughs as he’s backed into his bedroom.
“No,” John tells him, though his grin undermines his words. “This is my room. You are upstairs.”
Holmes feigns utter confusion. “But I’ve always stayed down here in the past.” The slightest pout extends his bottom lip. “And this is very heavy.”
They set the trunk down in the gap between John’s bed and desk. John wipes his sweaty hands on his trousers. Holmes straightens, re-establishing his full height after being so stooped by the great weight.
“When we agreed on ‘after the baby is born,’ I didn’t think you meant ‘within three hours’,” John says.
“I am much too noisy,” Holmes says. Relaxed and private, his voice rumbles up from his chest. “My work entirely disturbs the mother’s much needed rest.”
“What a shame.”
“It truly is.”
“Mm,” John hums, his tongue attempting to moisten his dry lips.
Holmes hums back at him. The trunk between their feet is as good as a chasm. It had better be, or John will leap across it, open door or not. They stand in this way for a moment far more wordless than silent. Lips quirked, Holmes slips free of his summer jacket and tosses it on John’s bed. John takes in that sight before eyeing the open door with speculation.
A grin in his gaze and a flirt in his lips, Holmes unbuttons his collar. “Is it always so hot in here?”
“It’s even worse at night,” John replies in a tone of absolute seriousness. “Stay in here and I’ve no doubt you’ll be sleeping naked.”
A flush crawls up Holmes’ neck, but he doesn’t look away for an instant. His voice, however, leaps up attentively before settling. “Perhaps I ought to move upstairs and leave you the privilege.”
“I’m sure we’ll sort something out,” John says.
“I’m sure we will,” Holmes agrees.
“How, um.” John swallows. He taps his fingers against the back of his hand, his body having assumed parade rest for the occasion. “How long of an arrangement, do you think?”
Holmes pretends to calculate the answer. He pretends very obviously, and John nearly snatches up Holmes’ jacket to chuck it at his head.
“Boy or girl?” John asks.
Holmes grins. With his whole face, with his entire body, Holmes grins.
John’s mouth nearly breaks his cheeks returning the sentiment.
“They’ve decided to christen him after Father,” Holmes says. “Havelock, because we don’t have nearly enough absurd names in the family.”
“That’s...” John says.
“Yes,” says Holmes.
John clasps his hands behind his back, fingers nervously entwined. “Then you’ll be staying? For... ah.”
“For however long,” Holmes agrees. “Provided that’s--”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.” Emphatic, he nods.
“Well,” Holmes says. “Good.”
“How, um...?” John gestures about the room.
“One of us upstairs, officially. Considering our relative positions, it does make more sense for you to take the upstairs room. Still, as we’ll initially present my living here as temporary, a case could be made for my being installed upstairs.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” John says. “Mrs Hudson has a lovely basement.”
Holmes glares at him. “The setting is secondary to the company, I’ve come to realise.”
“Then what was the folio you handed to Mrs Hudson?”
“Drivel.” Holmes waves a dismissive hand. “I told you, I needed it out of my head.”
“But what--”
“Would you bring up my violin?” Holmes asks. His eyes flick down John, eyeing a body startled into stillness, and, as if to confirm he truly means his permission, he nods.
“I... All right,” John says. They circle about the trunk as John exits the room, each twitching his hands away from the other. Descending the stairs, John tries to decide whether he expects Holmes to be placing his clothing in John’s closet or rummaging through John’s desk in search of their saved, shared correspondence. Holmes will want to see how creased each page is, how worn about the edges. Though hardly love letters in composition, they have been rendered such through their treatment.
Downstairs, John sees no sign of Mrs Hudson but hears a fair amount of giggling from the direction of her sitting room. He follows the noise and pokes his head in. “Mrs Hudson?”
Sitting with the score across her lap, Mrs Hudson looks up with a poorly suppressed smile. “Does he want it back now?” she asks. “It’s so delightfully silly.”
Eyebrows rising up to his forehead, John says, “No. Just wondered where you were off to.”
“I’m in here,” Mrs Hudson says, “and I plan to have a nice sit and a read while you boys get everything sorted.”
“Thank you,” John says and ducks out before the mortification can set in. With great care, he retrieves the violin case from the foyer. It’s far heavier than he’d assumed, a fitting incongruity. He carries it upstairs as he might a sleeping child.
As he draws near the top, he hears the distinct sounds of Holmes in motion. Almost tentative, he enters to find the trunk and his closet open. Gently, John sets the violin case down upon the foot of his bed, where he’d last seen Holmes’ jacket. He spots the garment, now hanging alongside one of his own.
Without turning to face him, Holmes straightens the hangers. His squared shoulders remain centred on the closet. Revealed to nearly the elbow by his rolled shirtsleeves, his forearms strike a pale contrast against the black hanging jackets.
John navigates around the trunk to reach his desk. He opens two of the drawers and begins shifting the contents of one into the other. When he looks up from his work, Holmes is already looking back at him. “Supposing you want a drawer,” John says. “Thought I might move this desk upstairs. I ought to move most of my things up.”
“Move them tomorrow,” Holmes says.
“I don’t mind. I don’t have that much.”
“I know,” Holmes says. He hangs another suit next to the first, slowly occupying the empty space John never did find the time to fill. “Move them tomorrow.”
In silent agreement, John watches him work, watches the fluid bending and folding and sorting. He looks for the rhythm, finds the patterns, and slips in as if to a stately dance. They find their balance, Holmes griping when John touches his socks but laughing outright when John promptly tosses his pants back into the trunk. It’s his small laugh, of course, the nearly silent chuckle behind the boyish grin.
It reminds John enough to ask, “What did Mrs Hudson find so funny in your libretto?”
“Oh, is she reading it?”
“Mm.”
Holmes shrugs, but there’s a touch of red to his ears. “It’s a farce. It’s meant to amuse. It’s far less likely to be declared a haunted work if the audience laughs.”
“A farce,” John repeats. “What language is it in? I didn’t think Mrs Hudson was fluent in Italian.”
Very pointedly, Holmes sets his socks in their correct order. “French.”
As realisation dawns, so does John’s grin. “You mean, it’s a French farce?”
“No, it’s a farce in French.”
“Is it a French farce?” John asks. “With mistaken identities and absurd disguises and everyone falling in love with everyone else?”
Holmes glowers at him. “It wouldn’t leave my head.”
“You wrote a bedroom farce,” John says, convinced and unrepentant. “Does it end with them happily living in sin?”
“Married, actually,” Holmes answers flatly. “It’s two acts of busywork, nothing more. Husband and wife attempt to cheat on each other at a masquerade ball and sleep with each other without realising it. They confess their guilt by the end of act two, the mistake comes unravelled, everyone laughs, and there it ends. It bears no resemblance to anything other than every farce to ever come before it.”
“I’m sure,” John says.
“You’re lying.”
“Not even very well,” John agrees.
Holmes rolls his eyes. “The husband is an Englishman named Clarence and his wife is Henriette.”
John’s grin freezes. His eyes struggle toward something strange and stinging, but John blinks it back as Holmes goes about unpacking. John searches for the appropriate words. There are none. He searches for them anyway.
“I need more space for my shirts,” Holmes complains.
Clearing his throat, John moves his own shirts to his desk chair. They’ll be fine there for the interim. He returns to the Saratoga trunk and checks for what little remains in the drawers inside. His hand touches something cool in the heat of the room, and his fingers twitch into a curl. He touches it again, a light brush of the knuckles. He lifts it.
“Sherlock,” he says.
Holmes turns. Their blue shifting into a wary grey, his eyes fall to the white porcelain in John’s hand. “Yes?” Holmes asks, his volume low, his pitch somewhere between low familiarity and high bluster.
“You do realise I was joking about the basement, don’t you?”
“It’s not for composing,” Holmes says.
“No?”
Holmes shakes his head.
John sets the mask delicately upon the violin case. Just as carefully, he says, “I’m sure your scarf is somewhere around here too.”
More visibly than before, Holmes’ chest rises and falls. “Window,” he whispers.
“...Right. Yes.” John pulls the curtains shut. Faint sunlight makes the journey through them, but only just. Behind him, Holmes closes the door. John turns around. Holmes’ legs devour the distance between them in three long strides.
John looks up at Holmes, at Holmes’ mouth and eyes and the smile between them both, and he opens his arms to better welcome a narrow chest against his own. Arms tight about each other’s shoulders, they simply hold on. Cheek against neck, they breathe. The solidity of Holmes is a remarkable thing. As is his cologne.
Slowly, they ease back. A heartbeat passes. Their breath mingles. Their noses touch.
John cups his hands about a neck unblemished by bruise or burn of rope. He leans up, and Holmes leans down. They lean into each other. Holmes’ mouth is warm and soft and all things longed for.
Low and deep, Holmes rumbles. The sensation tickles John’s lips and leaves them tingling, or perhaps that’s the sensation of an afternoon’s stubble. He searches to discover which but soon forgets what he was thinking about. Holmes’ mouth upon his neck is far more interesting. Then again, Holmes’ clavicle is even more interesting than that. The oppressive heat of the room makes full, sustained contact uncomfortable, but John has never been one to mind flushed skin beneath his lips.
John flatters himself that Holmes’ legs give way. Certainly, Holmes’ abrupt seat on the bed takes John delightfully by surprise.
“Careful,” Holmes cautions, one hand steadying the mask atop the violin case. The other hand draws John in by his braces. John leans in to kiss him, but though Holmes doesn’t stop pulling, Holmes similarly refuses to lie down.
“What the hell are you doing?” John giggles against his mouth.
“Sit on my lap.”
John laughs. “No.”
Holmes pouts.
“No lap sitting,” John tells him firmly.
“What if it were less sitting and more straddling?” Holmes proposes.
“Then you’re an idiot,” John says. “Or you haven’t done this since you were twenty, or both. Because,” he continues over Holmes’ forming protest, “my knees won’t allow that kind of nonsense.”
“Ah. Fine.” Holmes tugs John down to sit next to him instead. “Curse my love of older men,” he mutters against John’s mouth.
A braver man might have corrected Holmes to the singular form. Braver, or perhaps more insecure. John is perfectly content as he is, and happy enough to hear music besides. It takes him much too long a moment to realise that this is not simple association inside his mind, but an actual sound.
“What is that?” John asks.
“The music box I gave her for Christmas,” Holmes explains. “Mrs Hudson wants to know if she can interrupt.”
John can’t match his optimism. “Or we’re being too loud.”
Holmes hums in the negative. He slides his gaze down John’s chest as he ought to with his hand. “You’ve been very quiet.”
“So you’re saying you did nothing to be noisy about?”
Holmes simply looks at him.
John lifts his chin in a dare.
Holmes narrows his eyes.
Outside in the sitting room, the music stops. A short moment later, a waltz replaces it.
Between their mouths, the words later and yes and tonight whisper themselves without need for a voice. Two nearly imperceptible nods, and they do what they can to put each other back into the semblance of order. By the time John can count himself as confident, the waltz has nearly run its course.
John opens the door. Behind him, Holmes stows the mask away in their dresser. When they enter the sitting room, Mrs Hudson feigns playful surprise. She sits on the sofa, the music box on the coffee table before her.
“Everything sorted?” she asks.
“I’ll be moving my things upstairs,” John answers.
“Sherlock, do help him,” Mrs Hudson says. To John, she adds, “The floor is much better up there, you know. No creaking at all. No draughts either, very good walls.”
Very much catching her drift, John nods along.
“Excellent to know,” Holmes adds, appearing at John’s side. His presence doesn’t startle. The touch of his hand on the small of John’s back does. John looks up at him sharply, but Holmes’ gaze is on Mrs Hudson, and hers on Holmes.
“Oh,” says Mrs Hudson, her hands clasped in her lap like a girl’s. The sound is one of joy rather the realisation. “Oh...!” She stands and hugs them both together, her thin arms mustering all the strength of a disciplined ballerina. “You’ll be fighting before the week is out, but I don’t care!”
“Vigorously debating,” Holmes corrects.
John laughs despite himself and hugs her back as hard as he dares. His heart pounds on harder and faster than it ought, but a rush of affection soon fills the void left by nervousness. Holmes’ hand remains precisely where it is throughout the exchange, a light passenger along John’s spine.
Holmes drops his hand only when they move to the sofa, the gesture too much in sight of the windows. By unspoken agreement, they sit with knee against knee. Listening to Holmes speak of his new nephew to Mrs Hudson, John thinks it might take them as long as two weeks for an argument. Discussing logistics via letter has helped. Perhaps they’ll continue that practice. Perhaps John will only ever know what the hell has just happened by watching Holmes’ latest opera. Perhaps any number of things may happen.
For now, John sits comfortably in his home and listens to the rise and fall of a well-loved voice.
previous | EL FIN
This fic has been nine months in the making. I began writing in October, 2012 and here I post the final chapter June 21st, 2013. Some of the weirdest writing coincidences I've ever had have happened with this fic. I told you before about my laptop's fan breaking when I wrote the first draft of the chandelier falling, but I didn't mention that there were nearly two small fires in my house between writing part 15 and part 16. Don't worry, no one was hurt.
As always, great thanks to Vyctori for listening to the initial babble that became this fic, as well as for holding my hand through much of the plot developments, finding a good title for my "phantomlock.doc" file, and teaching me enough about opera that people actually think I know anything about opera.
A big thank-you to Seiji, who reads without advance warning of the plot. Her reactions to much of the story shaped my expectations as to how you might also react. She was also the first Hopkins/Molly shipper, which is now Bel Canto canon. Her enthusiasm keeps me going.
Another round of thank-yous to Mars, the only one of my three betas who knows Phantom of the Opera. Don't worry, she knows enough for all four of us. I'm also sure she'd like me take a moment to tell you to go listen to the Phantom soundtrack with the original London cast, Michael Crawford as the Phantom. Have fun.
For those of you wondering, the reason why "Op. 20, No. #" has been the format for the chapters is this: Bel Canto is my 20th posted work in the BBC Sherlock fandom.
As always, thank you for reading. See you next Friday.