"À Paris (In Paris)" (ACD, "Oubliette" series, 2016 JWP Prompt #20, Rated G)
Title: À Paris (In Paris)
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD (“Oubliette” series)
Word Count: 811
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: Paris; city of lights, city of romance, city of murder. A story in my Oubliette series.
Author's Notes: For the 2016 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #21, 21 Song Salute: Choose one of the following songs/song titles to inspire your story today. (I chose to use them all.)
1. You will be mine
2. April in Paris
3. Dream Dancing
4. Forgive and Forget
5. Make me Rainbows
6. Behind the Broken Glass
7. Old Devil Moon
8. You saw me standing alone
9. The man that got away
10. Someone to watch over me
11. Just around the corner
12. A bedtime story
13. I've got it bad and that ain't good
14. Starlight in your eyes
15. Afternoon in Paris
16. Stranger in Paradise
17. Whisper Not
18. Stolen Moments
19. Your warm embrace
20. Song in the Moonlight
21. Murder by Numbers
July in this city is sunny and warm, and mostly dry, with its own charms. Poets extol April in Paris but it is a delight at any time of the year. The 7-year-old Tower that dwarfs the Arc and presides over the Champs d’Elysee is a miracle of the modern age, though traditionalists and aesthetes sneer at it as an eyesore in their city. I find it stunning, elegant. I stand at our hotel window in the morning; I ponder old things and new, endings and beginnings, learning how to forgive and forget.
You saw me standing alone. I feel your warm embrace; we have some precious time before the femme de chambre arrives with our breakfasts, stolen moments in which we can learn how to be a wedded couple in all but law after so many years of being steadfast friends. I began this year in utter despair, having lost all love in this world, and must still accustom myself to the realisation that you will be mine going forward. Your arm is pale against my chest; I am bronzed from our fortnight of labour in Monsieur Lehouillier’s winery. The back of your bare thigh against mine holds a roughness from a scar you took in your 3 years of exile, the man who got away. I squeeze your wrist with one hand and cover your scar with the other.
“I may let down my guard at long last, dear one,” you breathe in my ear. “I have someone to watch over me.”
“Whisper not,” I laugh, turning in your embrace. “The maid is not just around the corner; we have ten more minutes, époux de mon cœur.” (My French has much improved, both in volume and pronunciation, in my nearly month-long immersion in the language.) I prove the truth of my words by kissing the husband of my heart.
“My Watson never spoke so eloquently in Grandmere’s tongue,” you murmur. Your eyes are the same lovely grey that I mourned for 3 years, but are warm now in a way I have not seen from those memories. “I have found a stranger in Paradise.”
We laugh together as heartily as if facing a red-headed pawnbroker in our Baker Street parlour. My tone is as suave as I imagine a dashing Parisian would sound. “A stranger who desires to spend an afternoon in Paris with the cleverest man in this hotel.”
What separates us is not the discreet tap of the mademoiselle with our trays of baguettes and café au lait, but a hurried pounding of footsteps that is as familiar to us as a Scotland Yarder’s whistle. We are in our dressing-gowns and halfway respectable before we let in the flustered, wild-eyed directeur. “Monsieur Holmes! Oh Dieu merci that you chose my establishment for your visit!”
I would have cursed my lover’s choice to use his true name to register - did I not see the thrill of the hunt light up those beloved grey eyes. His tone is that of the consulting detective. “Dites-moi tout, s'il vous plaît.” (Please tell me everything.)
***
Murder by numbers, I’d have called the case were I the slightest bit inclined to write it up. A chef’s assistant found knifed in the alley near the service door, an interrogation of the distressed staff, a tracking of the blood-traces to an old church, a night-time chase that shattered one stained-glass window, the culprit buried behind the broken glass and revealed to be the assistant’s jilted lover. Starlight in your eyes and a song in the moonlight in French as we walk back to report to the directeur.
“How kind of you to make me rainbows,” I say drolly, remembering the multi-coloured glass cascading over the three of us.
We stop in another dark street and end the case as we never did before; the old devil moon is the only witness to our kiss.
“A late supper by the Seine,” Sherlock Holmes replies, his eyes never leaving me. “And since we cannot go dancing in any respectable venue, some dream dancing in our room. And then perhaps a bedtime story.” The deviltry gleaming tells me exactly what kind of story he wishes me to relate in bed.
I think of the crime of passion that drove Marie to knife her faithless lover, the dead grey existence I trudged through with the loss of love and the explosion of life that dropped me in a faint in my study on April 1. Fool for love, some small sane portion of my rational mind scolds. I’ve got it bad and that ain’t good, taunts a nightclub singer. But my heart turns and pivots in a dream-dance of its own as I walk arm-in-arm with my spouse, as giddy as when I courted my dear Mary. I banish the cynical thoughts: Begone. I am on my honeymoon.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD (“Oubliette” series)
Word Count: 811
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: Paris; city of lights, city of romance, city of murder. A story in my Oubliette series.
Author's Notes: For the 2016 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #21, 21 Song Salute: Choose one of the following songs/song titles to inspire your story today. (I chose to use them all.)
1. You will be mine
2. April in Paris
3. Dream Dancing
4. Forgive and Forget
5. Make me Rainbows
6. Behind the Broken Glass
7. Old Devil Moon
8. You saw me standing alone
9. The man that got away
10. Someone to watch over me
11. Just around the corner
12. A bedtime story
13. I've got it bad and that ain't good
14. Starlight in your eyes
15. Afternoon in Paris
16. Stranger in Paradise
17. Whisper Not
18. Stolen Moments
19. Your warm embrace
20. Song in the Moonlight
21. Murder by Numbers
July in this city is sunny and warm, and mostly dry, with its own charms. Poets extol April in Paris but it is a delight at any time of the year. The 7-year-old Tower that dwarfs the Arc and presides over the Champs d’Elysee is a miracle of the modern age, though traditionalists and aesthetes sneer at it as an eyesore in their city. I find it stunning, elegant. I stand at our hotel window in the morning; I ponder old things and new, endings and beginnings, learning how to forgive and forget.
You saw me standing alone. I feel your warm embrace; we have some precious time before the femme de chambre arrives with our breakfasts, stolen moments in which we can learn how to be a wedded couple in all but law after so many years of being steadfast friends. I began this year in utter despair, having lost all love in this world, and must still accustom myself to the realisation that you will be mine going forward. Your arm is pale against my chest; I am bronzed from our fortnight of labour in Monsieur Lehouillier’s winery. The back of your bare thigh against mine holds a roughness from a scar you took in your 3 years of exile, the man who got away. I squeeze your wrist with one hand and cover your scar with the other.
“I may let down my guard at long last, dear one,” you breathe in my ear. “I have someone to watch over me.”
“Whisper not,” I laugh, turning in your embrace. “The maid is not just around the corner; we have ten more minutes, époux de mon cœur.” (My French has much improved, both in volume and pronunciation, in my nearly month-long immersion in the language.) I prove the truth of my words by kissing the husband of my heart.
“My Watson never spoke so eloquently in Grandmere’s tongue,” you murmur. Your eyes are the same lovely grey that I mourned for 3 years, but are warm now in a way I have not seen from those memories. “I have found a stranger in Paradise.”
We laugh together as heartily as if facing a red-headed pawnbroker in our Baker Street parlour. My tone is as suave as I imagine a dashing Parisian would sound. “A stranger who desires to spend an afternoon in Paris with the cleverest man in this hotel.”
What separates us is not the discreet tap of the mademoiselle with our trays of baguettes and café au lait, but a hurried pounding of footsteps that is as familiar to us as a Scotland Yarder’s whistle. We are in our dressing-gowns and halfway respectable before we let in the flustered, wild-eyed directeur. “Monsieur Holmes! Oh Dieu merci that you chose my establishment for your visit!”
I would have cursed my lover’s choice to use his true name to register - did I not see the thrill of the hunt light up those beloved grey eyes. His tone is that of the consulting detective. “Dites-moi tout, s'il vous plaît.” (Please tell me everything.)
***
Murder by numbers, I’d have called the case were I the slightest bit inclined to write it up. A chef’s assistant found knifed in the alley near the service door, an interrogation of the distressed staff, a tracking of the blood-traces to an old church, a night-time chase that shattered one stained-glass window, the culprit buried behind the broken glass and revealed to be the assistant’s jilted lover. Starlight in your eyes and a song in the moonlight in French as we walk back to report to the directeur.
“How kind of you to make me rainbows,” I say drolly, remembering the multi-coloured glass cascading over the three of us.
We stop in another dark street and end the case as we never did before; the old devil moon is the only witness to our kiss.
“A late supper by the Seine,” Sherlock Holmes replies, his eyes never leaving me. “And since we cannot go dancing in any respectable venue, some dream dancing in our room. And then perhaps a bedtime story.” The deviltry gleaming tells me exactly what kind of story he wishes me to relate in bed.
I think of the crime of passion that drove Marie to knife her faithless lover, the dead grey existence I trudged through with the loss of love and the explosion of life that dropped me in a faint in my study on April 1. Fool for love, some small sane portion of my rational mind scolds. I’ve got it bad and that ain’t good, taunts a nightclub singer. But my heart turns and pivots in a dream-dance of its own as I walk arm-in-arm with my spouse, as giddy as when I courted my dear Mary. I banish the cynical thoughts: Begone. I am on my honeymoon.