A Thousand Smiles - Forgotten Sensations
Fandom: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - EMPT
Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure I like the implication that I'm quite that old! :P
Paring: Holmes/Watson eventually, mentions Watson/Mary
Rating: G - not even kisses yet.
Categories: pre-slash, angst, return fic, URST(Holmes),
Warnings: I'm new to livejournal, so despite my best efforts I have no beta. You have been warned. Also, this one is quite short. I'm not really sure why, but it is.
Summary: This is because I'm always left wishing fics drew out the 'getting-together' phase a little longer. This is still basically a return fic, only, before the haitus, Holmes told Watson about his feelings and was rejected. Now the boys are having to readjust.
This is part one - An Unusual Reunion.
Anywho, onward to the goodies.
When Holmes asked me what I’d been doing with myself in the last few months, knowing me well enough to guess that I had found a distraction to keep myself too manic to notice that I dined alone, I was proud to show him the wall I’d dedicated to the gratitude of strangers. I saw him observe the whole room while keeping his eyes subtly averted from my bed, and I privately wondered if that was for my sake or his. When his gaze finally fell upon the source of my strength, he turned every faucet of his attention to it, seeing to read each note, and no doubt deducing more about the people I’d tended to than I would ever know.
“Oh Watson,” he breathed, “the finest artist in the world could not create a piece as beautiful as the tracks you leave through London.”
I laughed at his sentiment. “Clearly you’ve been around me too long already, if you’re waxing poetic.” I saw him shift uncomfortably at this, and bite his lip.
“Indeed Watson, I’ve no one to blame but you.” He said, schooling his features into a gentle smile, but not soon enough that I didn’t recognise the second meaning behind his words. His confession, I observed, was going to prove harder to ignore than I fear either of us first thought.
We went out to dinner that night, Holmes explaining that he wished himself to be seen, and I actually tasted the food in front of me for the first time in months. The forgotten sensation was exquisite, and so I ate all of my meal rather quickly and eventually finished off more than half of Holmes’.
At some point in the evening, Holmes told a story about a lingual mix up he’d overheard while abroad, and I laughed. The shape that mirth made with my lips felt so terribly unpractised, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t laughed since Mary’s death. Holmes saw right through me, observing my shock and deducing its source, so he treated the rest of our outing as an experiment in the number of chuckles, guffaws and giggles he could elicit from me.
By the time we returned to my sitting room, quite some time later that night, I felt as if the evening would be branded onto my face in the form of the fine smile-lines we grow around our eyes as we age, and my cheeks were beginning to ache. Still, as if to make up for the time we’d lost while Holmes was gallivanting off around the world, we settled ourselves in with pipes and whiskey, and began to fill the room with smoke. We spoke of many things, including Holmes’ plan for the capture of Colonel Sebastian Moran, before settling into a comfortable silence. I closed my eyes then, laying my head back on a cushion, content to nurse my pipe and drink.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Holmes start, and quickly advert his eyes, which roused me into wakefulness quicker than any deliberate ploy ever could, reminding me that things were not as they always had been; Mary was dead, and Holmes did not think of me in quite the same fashion as I did him. I turned to Holmes, who now reclined in the position I had been keeping before I opened my eyes, and wished him goodnight, very deliberately not wondering about his decision to keep his eyes closed.
The troubles I was only just beginning to understand weighed heavily on me as I trudged upstairs to my bed, but every worry that could possibly come bundled with my friend could not undo the healing every smile, both his and mine, had brought me.
Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure I like the implication that I'm quite that old! :P
Paring: Holmes/Watson eventually, mentions Watson/Mary
Rating: G - not even kisses yet.
Categories: pre-slash, angst, return fic, URST(Holmes),
Warnings: I'm new to livejournal, so despite my best efforts I have no beta. You have been warned. Also, this one is quite short. I'm not really sure why, but it is.
Summary: This is because I'm always left wishing fics drew out the 'getting-together' phase a little longer. This is still basically a return fic, only, before the haitus, Holmes told Watson about his feelings and was rejected. Now the boys are having to readjust.
This is part one - An Unusual Reunion.
Anywho, onward to the goodies.
When Holmes asked me what I’d been doing with myself in the last few months, knowing me well enough to guess that I had found a distraction to keep myself too manic to notice that I dined alone, I was proud to show him the wall I’d dedicated to the gratitude of strangers. I saw him observe the whole room while keeping his eyes subtly averted from my bed, and I privately wondered if that was for my sake or his. When his gaze finally fell upon the source of my strength, he turned every faucet of his attention to it, seeing to read each note, and no doubt deducing more about the people I’d tended to than I would ever know.
“Oh Watson,” he breathed, “the finest artist in the world could not create a piece as beautiful as the tracks you leave through London.”
I laughed at his sentiment. “Clearly you’ve been around me too long already, if you’re waxing poetic.” I saw him shift uncomfortably at this, and bite his lip.
“Indeed Watson, I’ve no one to blame but you.” He said, schooling his features into a gentle smile, but not soon enough that I didn’t recognise the second meaning behind his words. His confession, I observed, was going to prove harder to ignore than I fear either of us first thought.
We went out to dinner that night, Holmes explaining that he wished himself to be seen, and I actually tasted the food in front of me for the first time in months. The forgotten sensation was exquisite, and so I ate all of my meal rather quickly and eventually finished off more than half of Holmes’.
At some point in the evening, Holmes told a story about a lingual mix up he’d overheard while abroad, and I laughed. The shape that mirth made with my lips felt so terribly unpractised, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t laughed since Mary’s death. Holmes saw right through me, observing my shock and deducing its source, so he treated the rest of our outing as an experiment in the number of chuckles, guffaws and giggles he could elicit from me.
By the time we returned to my sitting room, quite some time later that night, I felt as if the evening would be branded onto my face in the form of the fine smile-lines we grow around our eyes as we age, and my cheeks were beginning to ache. Still, as if to make up for the time we’d lost while Holmes was gallivanting off around the world, we settled ourselves in with pipes and whiskey, and began to fill the room with smoke. We spoke of many things, including Holmes’ plan for the capture of Colonel Sebastian Moran, before settling into a comfortable silence. I closed my eyes then, laying my head back on a cushion, content to nurse my pipe and drink.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Holmes start, and quickly advert his eyes, which roused me into wakefulness quicker than any deliberate ploy ever could, reminding me that things were not as they always had been; Mary was dead, and Holmes did not think of me in quite the same fashion as I did him. I turned to Holmes, who now reclined in the position I had been keeping before I opened my eyes, and wished him goodnight, very deliberately not wondering about his decision to keep his eyes closed.
The troubles I was only just beginning to understand weighed heavily on me as I trudged upstairs to my bed, but every worry that could possibly come bundled with my friend could not undo the healing every smile, both his and mine, had brought me.