Fic for colebaltblue: Sentiment to Paper
Title: Sentiment to Paper
Recipient: colebaltblue
Author: mistyzeo
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None.
Summary: No fewer than three times by the winter of 1883 had I heard Sherlock Holmes disparage the ways of lovers and their irrational tendencies toward writing letters. With this often and loudly-expressed opinion in mind, I was very surprised indeed to find a stack of unsent, unsealed letters in a drawer in his desk.
Thanks are owed to mydwynter and tweedisgood for beta reading and suggestions!
No fewer than three times by the winter of 1883 had I heard Sherlock Holmes disparage the ways of lovers and their irrational tendencies toward writing letters. Long before the events that involved Irene Norton, nee Adler, and the King of Bohemia, he expressed his scorn for sentimental attachments and the apparently inevitable process of committing them to paper. On the one hand, this letter-writing occasionally made his professional consultation easier, because following a trail was simplified when it was all documented. On the other, whenever a dignitary or person of stature begged him to clean up after their indiscretions in the forms of communiques, he took the time to chide them before accepting their case and their grudging gratitude.
With this often and loudly-expressed opinion in mind, I was very surprised indeed to find a stack of unsent, unsealed letters in a drawer in his desk. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I was rummaging through his drawers in search of blotting paper, having run out of my own and, it being the dead of winter and therefore much too cold for me to risk my bad leg on the icy pavement, being unwilling to go out and buy some more. His desk is a veritable minefield of chemical equipment and unsorted case notes, so I had been at it some minutes when I opened the drawer in which the letters lay. They were situated under a stack of sheets of blotting paper, and were revealed when I lifted the stack out in triumph. If I had not been so obsessed with Sherlock Holmes already, I might not have given them a second glance.
But he had been trying so hard to convince me that his methods were perfectly useable by the modern layman, and I had been attempting to employ them: observing, rather than merely seeing.
What I saw was a small pile of neatly folded pieces of paper taking up one corner of a deep drawer. What I observed was that the paper was of outrageously good quality: thick and pristine white. The folds were done crisply, as if with the back of a knife, and the edges were cut very neatly indeed. This paper was special. It was no wonder Holmes kept it in a lower drawer of his desk, else I would be after it for my own final drafts.
That was all I was able to glean from the folded pieces immediately, but it was enough to pique my curiosity. I put the blotting sheets on Holmes's chair and picked up the little bundle of paper. Holmes had gone out after lunch in the guise of an elderly ink seller, and had entreated me not to wait up for him. He had not elaborated- he never did- but I got the impression he was going to spend the evening drinking in some public house with the locals, gathering information for some . I was a little jealous that he was engaged upon a case without me, but it was not my place to press his confidence.
Perhaps that was why I felt justified in opening his private correspondence. I had no idea what I was about to read, only that it might reveal something of him to me, something that might match all the things he had read on my face and hands and clothes that I could never hide from him. I had managed to conceal one particular secret thus far, and was
I started at the top, opening the first folded paper and coming up against Holmes's personal mode of short-hand. He used it to write in his massive index sometimes, and I had seen it often enough to recognise it. So these were letters, notes, whatever they were, that Holmes had written, rather than notes that had been written to him. I had to adjust my thinking a little, and then I could decipher the squashed, secretive handwriting so that it spooled out into words.
The cold is making you very irritable, my dear, and I wish there were something I could offer you besides a seat closer to the fire or another cup of tea. If only you would come to my bed, let me warm you with the heat of my body, allow me to soothe your aching limbs with the pressure of my hands. I can hear you in the mornings, cursing your leg as you come down the stairs, gripping the handrail so tight I fear it will crack between your fingers. I hate to see you like this. You are so much stronger than you know, and yet you would turn from my comfort for fear of seeming weak. It would unnerve you if I were to express my concern for you, let alone offer a massage. Perhaps I will suggest a trip to the Turkish bath. The steam might set you right for a while.
I stared. Holmes had mentioned the Turkish bath to me only three days ago, as I had lowered myself stiffly into my armchair. No, I thought. This was insane. It was a trick. I could imagine nothing more absurd than Holmes writing me a letter from the sitting room and then hiding it away, unless it was Holmes writing me an amorous letter. Not in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined it would go this way.
I folded the missive once more, and turned to the next one.
Our case last week made you unhappy, dear one, and I am sorry for it. I could never say this to you directly, as I myself enjoyed it very much, but I know how it has affected you and I regret that I cannot show you more tenderness than this. I can limit my smoking and my chemical experiments-although I do have several pertinent ones that I would very much like to begin- but I cannot take away the image of a young man murdered for the love of his family. I can only do so much to right this wrong, and yet it feels like it is not enough. It will never be enough.
Sitting there on the floor, my hands shaking and fascinated terror thrumming under my skin, I read each and every letter from the latest to the earliest. They dated back nearly two years. Some of them were a few lines, jotted down at the end of the day: an observation, an expression of affection, an entreaty. Some of them were pages long, outpourings of emotion I could scarcely believe. And yet, they all rang true. He was snide and sarcastic and sometimes he was angry, his pen biting deep into the paper. He berated himself for his foolishness, and swore again and again to burn the pages. He made many comments upon my hands, almost satirizing my own more public fixation on his.
How it made me blush. He was occasionally suggestive, never graphic, but always very clear on his desires. He made no apologies for them but embraced his nature, as someone who has long come to terms with the way of things. He wanted me. Holmes wanted me. He wanted me. Even with the words laid out in front of me, I needed convincing. And eventually, as I reached the bottom of the pile, where the handwriting was more cramped, more defensive, I was convinced. No mention of my name was ever made, but I was thoroughly convinced.
When I came up for air, looking around as if coming out of a trance, barely an hour had passed. The blotting paper I had been after still sat on Holmes's chair, and the sun was just now breaking through the clouds and slanting eastwards across the sitting room floor. I put the letters back in their designated spot and struggled to my feet. The room swam. I felt drunk-and so I was, on emotion, revelation, possibility.
I did not know when my admiration for Holmes had changed into desire and affection, but it had been inevitable. I have always been drawn to men like him: smart, quick-witted, severe in their beauty. Holmes was my anchor upon my return to London, and he had quickly become my safe harbour as well- to fall in love him was simplicity itself. But to be in love with him was a kind of splendid torture. The cocaine made me deeply unhappy. His sharp tongue and his apparent scorn of sentiment was often disappointing. I had never believed him capable of the level of emotion I had just read. He kept himself buttoned up so tight; it was no wonder it had spilled over somewhere.
I retired to my bedroom and lay upon the bed. His words were imprinted behind my eyes, and I saw them before me once again. It is this precise recollection of conversations and words that makes me so invaluable to Holmes as a companion-and so accurate as a writer-and now it tortured me.
The country suits you, and if I were a wiser man I would protest more vehemently against coming out here, for to see you in your element like this makes me ache for you. I want to tear that ridiculous hat off your head and kiss you against a fence, to feel your hands in my hair and the fresh air on my skin. I want to take you in the grass, hidden from prying eyes by the curve of the hills, witnessed only by the sun on my back. I imagine congress with you would be alternately tender and absurd, and I long to know which I would enjoy more. To see you laughing, naked, shall be my dearest wish. Do you suppose Father Christmas would oblige me? No, I didn't think so either.
Alone in my room, my hands stole to the front of my trousers. I bit my lip and unfastened them, adopting his fantasy as my own. His powers of observation would serve him well, and I would hardly have to indicate what I wanted. He would press me into the bed-the grass, if he so wished-the strength hidden in his body overpowering me, and I would go willingly. He might hold me down, or he might merely hold me, his hips against mine, his cock-oh, God- rubbing against me. I could see the look on his face, that expression of surprised pleasure I had seen during many a case, at the moment of realisation of the truth. Could I coax that expression from him with my hands and mouth? Could I be the truth?
I spent myself with a gasp into the palm of my hand, having barely undressed, and lay for a short while in a guilty daze. I had invaded his privacy deeply. His confidence was not mine to press, and now I knew something that he had been keeping very deliberately a secret. It was nothing like the bits of knowledge he read from me- this was much bigger than the places I had walked to, or my medical career, or the passing of my estranged brother. I had no right knowing what I now knew. He had never meant me to find out.
Then again, I was as much to blame as he was. I had never meant to say anything either. We might have lived twenty years side-by-side, crushed under the weight of our complementary secrets.
I was in the sitting room after supper, working diligently at scratching a hole in my paper where my manuscript should be forming, when Holmes burst through the door.
"Watson!" he cried, "Congratulate me!"
"Congratulations," I said automatically, putting down my pen. "For what, exactly?"
He was still wearing part of his disguise, though he began to tear it off in pieces as he stalked around the sitting room. He stretched his back until it cracked, and gave a great sigh, before throwing himself into his arm chair. A moment later, he was on his feet again. "The Yard was completely out of its depth on this one, my dear boy," (and I heard it in his voice, dear one) "and they will be on their knees thanking me by morning."
"That's splendid," I said, struggling to get my blush under control, "but what have you done this time?"
He flashed me a grin, acknowledging the compliment, and moved to the mantle to stuff a pipe full of old tobacco plugs. "Do you recall the mention I made last week of counterfeit notes falling into the hands of the metropolitan police?"
I nodded, recalling something of the sort. "You were surprised they'd noticed they were counterfeit."
Holmes lit the pipe, sucked hard, and let the smoke out in a hazy cloud. His lips were softly parted, and his tongue darted out to taste the pipe stem as he put it back in his mouth. "Yes," he said around it, "but they were not the ones who had identified them, as it turns out. The matter was brought to their attention by a sharp-eyed bank manager who noticed an imperfection in a bond."
"That is sharp-eyed indeed," I said. "And you think you've got an idea of who is behind the whole thing?"
He began to pace back and forth across the hearth rug as I watched. "I was stumped for a while, Watson, but a few hours at the local public house has shone a veritable sunrise on the whole matter. The pieces begin to align."
Sometimes I am glad you cannot read my train of thought from my face, as I can yours. You would discover me in an instant. I watch you when you write, bent over your task, the dedicated author at his craft. You are devoted to your readers. I wish you were so devoted to me. But then you would see this expression on my face, this look of lovesick longing; you would track the path of my eyes from your hands to your face to your backside, and you would know. You would no longer poke your tongue out of the corner of your mouth. You would not grumble to yourself and scratch out the words you had written. You would not glance at me in annoyance when I disrupted your process. You would not do these things because you would not be here, and so I must be grateful that you do not have my powers of observation. Oh, but if you only knew!
"And that is where we will find them tonight!" Holmes concluded with a triumphant flourish.
"Oh!" I said, "Of course, yes."
He narrowed his eyes at me. I had not been paying attention, and he knew it. Damn.
Suddenly, he lunged for his desk and began to rummage. My heart leapt into my mouth. I had left everything exactly as it had been, hadn't I?
"Have you been in my desk?" Holmes asked.
My heart nearly stopped. "What?" I asked. "Why?"
"Oh, never mind," he said, holding up a pen knife. "I thought maybe you had used-but it was right there." He stood up again. "Will you come with me tonight? There will not be much danger, I am afraid, but perhaps that is-" With an effort, he stopped.
I finished his sentence. "Perhaps it is for the best. This damn cold does dreadful things…"
"Yes," Holmes said, "I thought it did."
"You knew it did," I corrected him, and stood up. "Well, are we going?"
Holmes put the pen knife in his waistcoat pocket and snatched up the remains of the wig that had been left on my chair. This, along with the rest of his ridiculous costume, he flung into his bedroom, and then reached for our overcoats. By the time I had reached the door, he was fully dressed again for the winter weather, only now he looked the part of the gentlemen.
"Have you notified the police?" I asked, tucking my muffler around my neck. "Are we making an arrest tonight?"
"We certainly are," he said. "Lestrade and Gregson have both been alerted; I look forward to learning which of them turns up first at the location where I believe the forgers are camped."
"That is most unjust of you, to tease them like that," said I, and followed him downstairs as he laughed.
+++
Gregson was the first to arrive at the house on Leman Street with a police wagon and six police constables, and Holmes greeted them each with a handshake and a nod. He directed three constables to take up a post out behind the house and sent Gregson with them, while we and the other three stepped up to the front door.
The affair was over in less than ten minutes. When Holmes identified himself to the woman who answered the door, she slammed it in his face and we heard the sound of running feet. Holmes and the constables broke down the door with a battering ram, and I followed them into the house, taking up a post by the door. There was a brief search, a briefer scuffle, and the counterfeiters- a husband and wife team complemented by a second man- were dragged from the basement in darbies. Holmes was congratulated at length, during which period Lestrade arrived with another wagon.
Holmes ducked out of the ensuing argument between Gregson and Lestrade and led me away, stifling his merriment.
"You are mad," I said. "Some day you're going to provoke them so badly they'll never come to you for help again."
"Oh, don't be absurd," he said, patting my arm where he held my elbow. "Pigs will grow wings, et cetera."
I realised belatedly how close we stood there on the pavement, his body warm all along my side, his hand tucked in between my arm and my ribcage. It was no different from any other time we had walked arm-in-arm, but now it was fraught with meaning. Now that I knew. Holmes did not seem out of sorts; rather, he looked very comfortable to be standing there with me, watching Gregson and Lestrade gesticulate at one another, while their prisoners sat glumly on the stoop and the neighbours began to take an interest in the proceedings.
"Well," Holmes said, giving me a tug towards the street, "that is quite enough of that, I think. Cab!"
+++
The next day was spent inside by the fire: Holmes worked happily on a chemical experiment that was neither explosive or malodorous, and I suspected he was doing it for my benefit. I could not be driven from the flat, and so he did not drive me. I should have been taking advantage of his good humour and his charitable streak, but all I could think of were the letters in the drawer, and the flat seemed smaller and smaller the longer we shared space. Every time he went to his desk I was certain that he would find some sign of my interference, and at the same time I watched him like a hawk for any suggestion that he was writing me another letter. He kept catching me at it and finally, making a face of disgruntled confusion, asked what I was about.
"Is something the matter?" he demanded. "Watson, you've been on edge all afternoon. Are you upset with me about the good Inspectors?"
"No," I said quickly, turning back to my novel and finding myself no farther along in it than I had been that morning, "although it was childish, I really hold no objections about that."
"Then why on earth that face? You're bored, aren't you? You keep looking at me as though I'm about to do some magnificent trick and you don't want to miss it."
I shook my head, trying to think of a reason for my constant scrutiny.
"Let's go out," Holmes said, getting to his feet. "I have been reliably informed that the weather will be clear all day. Would a walk do you good?"
I glanced out the window. A walk might suit me very well, but doing it arm in arm with Holmes would not calm my nerves at all. I would be so aware of him next to me, and so conscious of his regard for me. I didn't deserve the quality of his attentions. God, me? A miserable ex-army doctor with no occupation besides following him around like a puppy? It had been nearly four years since my discharge, and here I was, still terrified of what a chilly day would do to my gait. How could a man like Holmes fall for a man like that?
"You're wallowing," Holmes said, coming over to me and taking the novel out of my hands. "We are certainly going out."
I sighed and got to my feet, testing my leg surreptitiously. Holmes bundled me into my coat and put my hat on my head. Rather than protest this treatment, I buttoned up as he put on his own outerwear, and he preceded me down the stairs to the door. I suspected it had something to do with the way I leaned heavily on the bannister, but I could not decide if he had done it to give me the privacy, or to keep himself from having to watch.
The air outside was not so cold as I had thought, looking out the window. It did not hint at spring, certainly, and the tips of my ears were chilled, but my fingers and toes stayed within my reckoning. Holmes did not cling to me so as he had the night before, but walked alongside me, his hands in his pockets. He kept the pace very moderate, and I did not lean on my walking stick so much.
As we walked, Holmes began to explain the experiment he had been working on, but I heard almost nothing of it. Instead, the words of his letters to me floated in front of my eyes and echoed in my head, taking on his voice as he spoke aloud beside me.
It does not take long for a child of my intellect or a man of my ego to realize he is clever, and yet, my dear, when the sentiment is expressed by your own honest lips, it feels like a revelation. The Inspector hides behind the notion that my work is novel or experimental in some way, loath to admit that I see what he cannot, but you-you have no such qualms. Your beloved face lights up when I show you the trail of my inferences, and that, dear one, is why I hide the process from you until I have all the threads in my hand. I refuse to lose the privilege of witnessing that expression of wonder. You may think me very cruel, but in reality I am very selfish. I hope you can forgive me for that. You usually do.
I wondered if I would have the chance to do just that. How was I to broach this subject? There did not appear to be an obvious way to come out and simply say it: "Holmes, I have read your letters, and I would very much like to engage in deviant sexual behaviour with you." That would never do.
"Holmes, I stumbled across a strange set of notes you have apparently written me. Care to explain?" No, God no, that would sound like an accusation. I already had the proof of his guilt in my hands-figuratively. I couldn't allow him to think I would use it against him.
"Holmes, I should like to kiss you, and never mind the reason." Too evasive.
"Watson," Holmes said, breaking me out of my brown study, "shall we go home? You look terribly peaked. I think you're coming down with something."
"I'm not," I insisted, but he was already turning us back towards Baker Street.
"Hush," he said. "Doctors make the worst patients, I know that for a fact. If I don't get you into bed soon, you'll probably ruin your whole month of December."
Dear God, he really thought that writing it all down got it out of his system. If I didn't know better, nothing he said would mean anything but what it sounded like on the surface. And here he was, promising to…. I was going to have to say something. I have always been a dreadful liar, and I couldn't even hold onto this secret for twenty four hours. What a disgrace I was. Holmes, with all his skill in deception and disguise, would be so disappointed.
Holmes led me home like the invalid he supposed I was, and called for tea as we mounted the stairs. I was hopeless against the controlled assault that was Holmes trying to help, and I soon found myself out my coat and jacket and in my dressing gown, with my feet up by the fire and a hot cup of tea in my hand. Holmes sat down beside me, his brow furrowed with concern, and peered earnestly into my face.
"I am not sick," I said again, although I was beginning to think I ought to take the diversion that had been offered me and go lay down for a few days. "I have simply been- thinking."
"My dear Doctor," Holmes said, "as much as I tease you about the dangers of thinking, and beg you to apply yourself to the science of deduction, I never hope that mere thought would make you look as troubled as you currently do. There must be some particular thing you are thinking of that would cause this distress in you."
I shook my head. "It's nothing. Holmes, please leave it alone."
Holmes pulled away, his visage dark with concern. "Don't think I'm going to give up so easily," he said.
"I don't think that at all," I muttered to myself.
"Is your leg bothering you?"
"Damn my leg," I snapped. "Leave it."
"You're going to tell me, sooner or later," Holmes said, pushing himself to his feet.
I was going to have to do it now. Now, I thought, putting the tea aside with a clatter. "Holmes, do you trust me?"
"Why, my dear fellow, of course I do. You- of all people- should know-"
"And you know I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you."
He looked baffled, but he nodded.
"And if- if I were to say that I wished you could trust me more than you do, what would you say to that?"
Something dark began to creep into his eyes. "I don't believe it's possible," he said.
"If there were some- perhaps something you had not mentioned to me." My stomach churned with anxiety, and for a moment I worried that I would ruin my protestations that I was not ill by vomiting. My mouth was dry, and no amount of swallowing would relieve the feeling. I looked anywhere but directly at him, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Is this about the cocaine, Watson? Because I have never kept anything about that from you; you know full well what concentration I use, and when I use it. I do not hide it."
"Holmes, I looked in your desk."
I made you laugh today, and I count it among my highest achievements. You share a room with a madman, my dear, for my highest achievements are quite high indeed. To include among them the simple task of amusing you is utterly ridiculous, and yet I can’t help but be filled with pleasure when I do. You are in an infectious good humour this week, and I find myself buoyed up by your mere presence. If I let it show, you will become suspicious of me. But to watch you laugh, dear heart, gives me such joy, and I want to do it again as soon as possible.
"Oh, my God," Holmes said, putting both hands over his face. "Oh, God. You found them."
My heart was in my slippers. "I didn't mean to."
He groaned behind his hands. "Damn it all," he said, mostly to himself, "I was going to burn them, I was- and I never did, and now- fool! Bloody fool." Then he removed his hands from his face, and his expression had turned to steel. "What were you doing in there, anyway?" he asked.
"Looking for paper," I said. My voice was barely above a whisper. This was not at all how I'd planned for this to go. "I thought perhaps they were old case files of yours." A blatant lie. He kept his old cases in trunks in the attic, as I knew perfectly well.
"Doctor, for as much time as you spend berating me for disregarding widely accepted notions of privacy, you seem to have no great respect for them yourself."
"Holmes, that is most unfair," said I, scrambling for moral ground and finding none.
"Unfair?" He barked a laugh that held no humour in it. "Unfair is trusting a man with your life but being unable to trust him with your property. Is nothing sacred?"
"You're overreacting," I said, standing up to reach for him, placating.
"Over-" Holmes pushed past me, throwing up his hands. "How pleasant it must be, to live in a world where one's secrets can be violated left and right, with no concern for consequences!"
"Now see here," I said, trying very hard not to grow angry but becoming frustrated all the same, "you're the one who has no care for violating secrets. You read private thoughts from people every day, and damn their eyes. I can't go anywhere in this bloody city without you rattling it off later, and why would you think of doing any different? You love knowing things about people they don't want you to know."
"Do not pretend you know why I do what I do," Holmes cried. He was visibly shaking, and his eyes were blazing with indignation. He began to advance on me, as if he could drive me from the room. "Aren't you afraid, Watson, of what I might do to you? Aren't you going to go to the police?"
"Holmes, stop," I said, planting a hand on his chest. He drew to a halt, as if he'd encountered a wall, and we stared wide-eyed at one another. Then, knowing it was my only chance, I closed the distance between us and I kissed him.
He stiffened in surprise, and the kiss itself was very unsatisfying. As soon as he comprehended what I had just done, he grasped me by the arms and shoved me away. His face was flushed with colour, and his lips were parted in shock. His eyes had grown wide and dark, glimmering with uncertainty and- dare I say it? - hope.
"I'm not going to go to the police, you stupid man," I said. "What would I tell them? That the object of my desire has finally admitted the feeling is reciprocated, although in less than perfect circumstances? That the man I call friend and brother might allow me to consider him more than that? That I want to kiss you senseless?"
Holmes gaped at me. His brow furrowed in a moment of confusion, and then I had the pleasure of watching it clear away. His visage softened, his ice-grey eyes warming. He closed his mouth, licked his lips, and then began to smile.
"Might allow?" he asked.
"I have done you wrong," I said. "I never meant to find the- the letters, but I found them all the same, and I am glad I did."
He flushed again, this time from embarrassment rather than terror and fury, and pressed his lips together.
I began to lean in again, giving him an opportunity to stop me, and then touched my lips to his. This second kiss was significantly nicer than the first had been, and it was followed soon by another, and another, chaste little presses that had me praying for more. Then Holmes's mouth opened on a sigh, and his grip on me changed from push to pull. He crushed me against him, and I in turn slid my hands around to the small of his back. His tongue pressed insistently into my mouth, and I allowed the invasion warmly, welcoming the systematic exploration of my palate and the backs of my teeth. He was more skilled at it than I had reason to expect, although perhaps I should have anticipated it.
"Holmes," I said, breaking away once more, which earned me a little grunt of disapproval, "I am sorry."
"Yes, yes, all right," he said, dragging me in again. "Apology accepted."
"But-"
"I am suffering the consequences of my foolishness," Holmes assured me, biting at the underside of my jaw. "Suffering terribly."
I couldn't help but laugh. I walked him back three steps to the doorway of his bedroom, and pressed him against the doorframe to kiss him again.
"In," he said against my mouth, opening the door with one free hand and allowing us to fall awkwardly through. We had to separate in order to keep our balance, but as soon as the door was shut again behind us we were shucking our outermost layers and reaching for one another again. Holmes was wearing a truly ridiculous set of long underwear beneath his shirt and trousers, and he gave me a look as he unbuttoned it that dared me to say anything. I refrained, and as soon as it was hanging loose around his waist I took advantage of his distraction to get my hands on his skin.
His chest was warm and strong, his musculature as palpable as his ribcage. He slipped his arms around my neck and kissed me again. I had been afraid that this part of the confrontation would be more awkward and fumbling, but now that Holmes was assured that his feelings were returned, he was as unapologetic about this as he had been about his nature in the first place. And confident! He kissed me deeply, carding his hands through my hair, arching his hips against my belly. The hard line of his arousal sent a pulse of desire through me.
I turned my attention from his mouth to the curve of his neck. His skin was feverish under my lips, his pulse beating strong and fast and steady. "You hid it very well," I said, as he shivered deliciously and his appreciation for my ministrations rumbled in his chest. "You were utterly opaque; if I hadn't read it for myself, I'd never have known."
Holmes laughed breathlessly, shaking his head, at the same time that he was pushing my shirt from my shoulders and tugging at my trouser buttons. "You were not meant to know," he said, "that was the whole point of the exercise."
"Well, now I do," I said, and threw my shirt in the same direction as my dressing gown. I urged Holmes backwards to the edge of his bed, and when he sat I pushed him still further, until he was flat on his back and I was kneeling astride his thighs.
"And what are you going to do about it?" Holmes asked, looking up at me from under half-lowered eyelids, his chest heaving.
"Why, Holmes," said I, leaning over him and brushing a kiss across his open mouth, "haven't you deduced that yet?"
Will this feeling never go away? We have been living together nearly a year, my boy, and I don't know if I can stand it much longer. If this is the agony of love, then it is truly dreadful. I swear never to ridicule anyone who sets foot in our sitting room for the purpose of love, ever again. How do people manage? Would I suffer so if you were a woman, and we could be married? No, God, I've made myself laugh and you are looking at me. I can't imagine you as a woman, and I can't imagine myself as a marrying man, even so. But it hurts, to know you are there, and you are fond of me, and yet I cannot have you.
In a minute we were naked, skin touching bare skin as we shifted our positions, the chaste bump of his knees against mine utterly thrilling. His chest was pale and mostly hairless, the dark rose of his nipples standing out. I passed my thumb experimentally over one, and felt him shiver. We lay side by side, facing one another, scant inches between us. Holmes's long, slim prick bumped against my shorter, darker one. He was glistening already, and when I passed a hand over the curve of his hip, it twitched eagerly. He made a little half-stifled noise in my ear.
When I closed my grip around him, that noise turned into a moan, and I felt his teeth dig into the meat of my shoulder. His prick was warmer than the rest of him, a little humid, and iron hard. I gave him a gentle tug, exposing his head, and he let out a huff of breath.
"How-" I asked, "what-"
"Full sentences, man," he said.
"What would you like?" I murmured.
"Oh, my dear boy," he said, and lifted my chin to kiss me again, "this is magnificent. Perhaps next time we can attempt some inventive acrobatics, but to be perfectly honest, I am quite- ah- stirred up by your presence alone and suspect that will be more than enough."
I felt myself blush. Rather than answer, I put my hand to my mouth and licked it. Holmes watched me with the sort of intense concentration he usually reserved for his more challenging puzzles. When I touched him again his gaze faltered as his eyes fluttered shut, but he opened them again and stared into my eyes, allowing me to see every sensation as it passed through him. He kept licking his parted lips and biting softly on the lower one, so I leaned in to do the same. His cock passed easily through my hand, lubricated by his own excitement, and I felt his hips move in concert. He kissed me softly, the hand that was not propping up his head finding a grip on the curve of my ribs. I was intensely aware of every place we touched; his fingerprints burned into my skin, and I imagined I could count the hairs on his legs.
Soon he was breathing harder and squeezing my side, and he broke away from our uncoordinated nuzzling to admit, "I need- I need more."
"Yes," I agreed, and let go of him to slide his right leg over my left. We rolled together, and I fit beautifully on top of him, my hipbones parting his thighs, my cock laying alongside his. He stopped me before I could pick up where I had left off, and reached for his bedside drawer, where a three-fingered scoop of petroleum jelly made the juncture of our bodies slick and smooth. I gave an experimental thrust, dragging my prick down his belly, and his mouth fell open in surprise and delight. He hooked his heels behind my calves and ground his pelvis up against mine, eliciting from me a moan of delight that I scarcely recognised. I braced myself on the pillows beside his head and gazed down into his beloved face; his eyes were bright and wicked, his face flushed with exertion. His normally-neat hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He grinned at me.
"Watson," he said, "do that again."
I did. We began to rock together in earnest, our bodies sliding easily, and the pleasure began to mount. My heart was racing in my chest, and my lungs struggled to keep up. Holmes moved his hands restlessly up and down my arms, over my shoulders and chest, between us to palm at my cock. He circled a hand around us both and let me rut into the tunnel of his grip, which made it impossible to keep my eyes open. The soft, uncontrolled moans that escaped him suggested he was similarly undone.
"Kiss me," Holmes demanded suddenly, gripping me by the back of the neck. I went to one elbow and pressed our mouths together, barely managing the coordination required. Holmes groaned deeply, both hands tightening. I tensed on the edge of orgasm, and then I felt him shudder and go rigid. The hot pulse of his seed against my skin sent me instantly into my paroxysm. We shuddered in near-silence together, the only sound our staccato breathing. Holmes's shoulders twitched with the force of his climax. We twisted, smearing ourselves against one another, and my teeth found their mark in the taut line of his pale throat.
He moaned again and sighed, relaxing all his limbs at once. I ducked my head into the crook of his neck, managing to hold myself up still on hands and knees, and breathed in the sweet, earthy smell of his body. It seemed so familiar- smoke and salt and soap- and yet so exotic, as if his essence had been distilled. I tasted the sweat on his skin and felt him shiver, and then one of his hands was curling around the back of my neck as the other found a place along my spine. He breathed softly into my ear for a while.
"Watson," he murmured finally, after a long moment, "we'd better-"
"Yes, we probably had," I agreed, pulling reluctantly away. Our hips were at risk of staying glued together forever. Holmes snickered and hid his face with his hands while I padded naked across the room to find the flannel in his washstand. I wiped myself down as best I could and then passed it over to him and averted my eyes.
His skin was cool and damp against my back a moment later, as he hooked his arm around one shoulder and put his chin on the other.
"Well," he said.
"Well," I agreed. A glance at the clock across the room told us that it was barely past five, and if we weren't careful we'd be interrupted for supper soon. Holmes pressed a kiss to the back of my shoulder.
"What I said, earlier," he began. "I may have been a little- abrupt."
"There's nothing to apologise for," I replied. "I did everything you accused me of, and worse."
"No," he said.
"I did. I violated your trust, and I read your private letters. It was wrong of me."
"Well," he said, "you did read them, but I'm not sure I'm all that upset anymore. I should have known better than to keep it from you."
I smiled. "You should have known better than to write it down at all."
Holmes groaned and pinched the tender fleshy spot where my arm and shoulder met. I yelped in surprise and batted his hand away, which made him laugh. "As I have always said," he proclaimed, giving me another kiss. "Nothing good ever came from committing sentiment to paper."
"Not nothing," I protested.
I felt him smile. "As you say."
I am the worst kind of hypocrite. I have railed against the foolishness of writing down one's secrets, thinking the only people stupid enough to do it are imbeciles who betray their wives and passionate women who trust faithless men, but here I find myself with no other recourse. There are words inside me, clamouring to get out, and I am afraid if I do not write them down, give them some expression, they will come out of me another way. I will tell you how I feel about you to your face, and you will leave me. Here, at least, I know I will never be heard. I will follow my own advice, so that I will never risk losing your friendship nor your admiration. And I will know the words I long to say have been said, though not by my voice, and never to your ears. I will burn this as soon as I am satisfied. I love you. I love you. God damn it, man, I love you.
Recipient: colebaltblue
Author: mistyzeo
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None.
Summary: No fewer than three times by the winter of 1883 had I heard Sherlock Holmes disparage the ways of lovers and their irrational tendencies toward writing letters. With this often and loudly-expressed opinion in mind, I was very surprised indeed to find a stack of unsent, unsealed letters in a drawer in his desk.
Thanks are owed to mydwynter and tweedisgood for beta reading and suggestions!
No fewer than three times by the winter of 1883 had I heard Sherlock Holmes disparage the ways of lovers and their irrational tendencies toward writing letters. Long before the events that involved Irene Norton, nee Adler, and the King of Bohemia, he expressed his scorn for sentimental attachments and the apparently inevitable process of committing them to paper. On the one hand, this letter-writing occasionally made his professional consultation easier, because following a trail was simplified when it was all documented. On the other, whenever a dignitary or person of stature begged him to clean up after their indiscretions in the forms of communiques, he took the time to chide them before accepting their case and their grudging gratitude.
With this often and loudly-expressed opinion in mind, I was very surprised indeed to find a stack of unsent, unsealed letters in a drawer in his desk. But I am getting ahead of myself.
I was rummaging through his drawers in search of blotting paper, having run out of my own and, it being the dead of winter and therefore much too cold for me to risk my bad leg on the icy pavement, being unwilling to go out and buy some more. His desk is a veritable minefield of chemical equipment and unsorted case notes, so I had been at it some minutes when I opened the drawer in which the letters lay. They were situated under a stack of sheets of blotting paper, and were revealed when I lifted the stack out in triumph. If I had not been so obsessed with Sherlock Holmes already, I might not have given them a second glance.
But he had been trying so hard to convince me that his methods were perfectly useable by the modern layman, and I had been attempting to employ them: observing, rather than merely seeing.
What I saw was a small pile of neatly folded pieces of paper taking up one corner of a deep drawer. What I observed was that the paper was of outrageously good quality: thick and pristine white. The folds were done crisply, as if with the back of a knife, and the edges were cut very neatly indeed. This paper was special. It was no wonder Holmes kept it in a lower drawer of his desk, else I would be after it for my own final drafts.
That was all I was able to glean from the folded pieces immediately, but it was enough to pique my curiosity. I put the blotting sheets on Holmes's chair and picked up the little bundle of paper. Holmes had gone out after lunch in the guise of an elderly ink seller, and had entreated me not to wait up for him. He had not elaborated- he never did- but I got the impression he was going to spend the evening drinking in some public house with the locals, gathering information for some . I was a little jealous that he was engaged upon a case without me, but it was not my place to press his confidence.
Perhaps that was why I felt justified in opening his private correspondence. I had no idea what I was about to read, only that it might reveal something of him to me, something that might match all the things he had read on my face and hands and clothes that I could never hide from him. I had managed to conceal one particular secret thus far, and was
I started at the top, opening the first folded paper and coming up against Holmes's personal mode of short-hand. He used it to write in his massive index sometimes, and I had seen it often enough to recognise it. So these were letters, notes, whatever they were, that Holmes had written, rather than notes that had been written to him. I had to adjust my thinking a little, and then I could decipher the squashed, secretive handwriting so that it spooled out into words.
The cold is making you very irritable, my dear, and I wish there were something I could offer you besides a seat closer to the fire or another cup of tea. If only you would come to my bed, let me warm you with the heat of my body, allow me to soothe your aching limbs with the pressure of my hands. I can hear you in the mornings, cursing your leg as you come down the stairs, gripping the handrail so tight I fear it will crack between your fingers. I hate to see you like this. You are so much stronger than you know, and yet you would turn from my comfort for fear of seeming weak. It would unnerve you if I were to express my concern for you, let alone offer a massage. Perhaps I will suggest a trip to the Turkish bath. The steam might set you right for a while.
I stared. Holmes had mentioned the Turkish bath to me only three days ago, as I had lowered myself stiffly into my armchair. No, I thought. This was insane. It was a trick. I could imagine nothing more absurd than Holmes writing me a letter from the sitting room and then hiding it away, unless it was Holmes writing me an amorous letter. Not in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined it would go this way.
I folded the missive once more, and turned to the next one.
Our case last week made you unhappy, dear one, and I am sorry for it. I could never say this to you directly, as I myself enjoyed it very much, but I know how it has affected you and I regret that I cannot show you more tenderness than this. I can limit my smoking and my chemical experiments-although I do have several pertinent ones that I would very much like to begin- but I cannot take away the image of a young man murdered for the love of his family. I can only do so much to right this wrong, and yet it feels like it is not enough. It will never be enough.
Sitting there on the floor, my hands shaking and fascinated terror thrumming under my skin, I read each and every letter from the latest to the earliest. They dated back nearly two years. Some of them were a few lines, jotted down at the end of the day: an observation, an expression of affection, an entreaty. Some of them were pages long, outpourings of emotion I could scarcely believe. And yet, they all rang true. He was snide and sarcastic and sometimes he was angry, his pen biting deep into the paper. He berated himself for his foolishness, and swore again and again to burn the pages. He made many comments upon my hands, almost satirizing my own more public fixation on his.
How it made me blush. He was occasionally suggestive, never graphic, but always very clear on his desires. He made no apologies for them but embraced his nature, as someone who has long come to terms with the way of things. He wanted me. Holmes wanted me. He wanted me. Even with the words laid out in front of me, I needed convincing. And eventually, as I reached the bottom of the pile, where the handwriting was more cramped, more defensive, I was convinced. No mention of my name was ever made, but I was thoroughly convinced.
When I came up for air, looking around as if coming out of a trance, barely an hour had passed. The blotting paper I had been after still sat on Holmes's chair, and the sun was just now breaking through the clouds and slanting eastwards across the sitting room floor. I put the letters back in their designated spot and struggled to my feet. The room swam. I felt drunk-and so I was, on emotion, revelation, possibility.
I did not know when my admiration for Holmes had changed into desire and affection, but it had been inevitable. I have always been drawn to men like him: smart, quick-witted, severe in their beauty. Holmes was my anchor upon my return to London, and he had quickly become my safe harbour as well- to fall in love him was simplicity itself. But to be in love with him was a kind of splendid torture. The cocaine made me deeply unhappy. His sharp tongue and his apparent scorn of sentiment was often disappointing. I had never believed him capable of the level of emotion I had just read. He kept himself buttoned up so tight; it was no wonder it had spilled over somewhere.
I retired to my bedroom and lay upon the bed. His words were imprinted behind my eyes, and I saw them before me once again. It is this precise recollection of conversations and words that makes me so invaluable to Holmes as a companion-and so accurate as a writer-and now it tortured me.
The country suits you, and if I were a wiser man I would protest more vehemently against coming out here, for to see you in your element like this makes me ache for you. I want to tear that ridiculous hat off your head and kiss you against a fence, to feel your hands in my hair and the fresh air on my skin. I want to take you in the grass, hidden from prying eyes by the curve of the hills, witnessed only by the sun on my back. I imagine congress with you would be alternately tender and absurd, and I long to know which I would enjoy more. To see you laughing, naked, shall be my dearest wish. Do you suppose Father Christmas would oblige me? No, I didn't think so either.
Alone in my room, my hands stole to the front of my trousers. I bit my lip and unfastened them, adopting his fantasy as my own. His powers of observation would serve him well, and I would hardly have to indicate what I wanted. He would press me into the bed-the grass, if he so wished-the strength hidden in his body overpowering me, and I would go willingly. He might hold me down, or he might merely hold me, his hips against mine, his cock-oh, God- rubbing against me. I could see the look on his face, that expression of surprised pleasure I had seen during many a case, at the moment of realisation of the truth. Could I coax that expression from him with my hands and mouth? Could I be the truth?
I spent myself with a gasp into the palm of my hand, having barely undressed, and lay for a short while in a guilty daze. I had invaded his privacy deeply. His confidence was not mine to press, and now I knew something that he had been keeping very deliberately a secret. It was nothing like the bits of knowledge he read from me- this was much bigger than the places I had walked to, or my medical career, or the passing of my estranged brother. I had no right knowing what I now knew. He had never meant me to find out.
Then again, I was as much to blame as he was. I had never meant to say anything either. We might have lived twenty years side-by-side, crushed under the weight of our complementary secrets.
I was in the sitting room after supper, working diligently at scratching a hole in my paper where my manuscript should be forming, when Holmes burst through the door.
"Watson!" he cried, "Congratulate me!"
"Congratulations," I said automatically, putting down my pen. "For what, exactly?"
He was still wearing part of his disguise, though he began to tear it off in pieces as he stalked around the sitting room. He stretched his back until it cracked, and gave a great sigh, before throwing himself into his arm chair. A moment later, he was on his feet again. "The Yard was completely out of its depth on this one, my dear boy," (and I heard it in his voice, dear one) "and they will be on their knees thanking me by morning."
"That's splendid," I said, struggling to get my blush under control, "but what have you done this time?"
He flashed me a grin, acknowledging the compliment, and moved to the mantle to stuff a pipe full of old tobacco plugs. "Do you recall the mention I made last week of counterfeit notes falling into the hands of the metropolitan police?"
I nodded, recalling something of the sort. "You were surprised they'd noticed they were counterfeit."
Holmes lit the pipe, sucked hard, and let the smoke out in a hazy cloud. His lips were softly parted, and his tongue darted out to taste the pipe stem as he put it back in his mouth. "Yes," he said around it, "but they were not the ones who had identified them, as it turns out. The matter was brought to their attention by a sharp-eyed bank manager who noticed an imperfection in a bond."
"That is sharp-eyed indeed," I said. "And you think you've got an idea of who is behind the whole thing?"
He began to pace back and forth across the hearth rug as I watched. "I was stumped for a while, Watson, but a few hours at the local public house has shone a veritable sunrise on the whole matter. The pieces begin to align."
Sometimes I am glad you cannot read my train of thought from my face, as I can yours. You would discover me in an instant. I watch you when you write, bent over your task, the dedicated author at his craft. You are devoted to your readers. I wish you were so devoted to me. But then you would see this expression on my face, this look of lovesick longing; you would track the path of my eyes from your hands to your face to your backside, and you would know. You would no longer poke your tongue out of the corner of your mouth. You would not grumble to yourself and scratch out the words you had written. You would not glance at me in annoyance when I disrupted your process. You would not do these things because you would not be here, and so I must be grateful that you do not have my powers of observation. Oh, but if you only knew!
"And that is where we will find them tonight!" Holmes concluded with a triumphant flourish.
"Oh!" I said, "Of course, yes."
He narrowed his eyes at me. I had not been paying attention, and he knew it. Damn.
Suddenly, he lunged for his desk and began to rummage. My heart leapt into my mouth. I had left everything exactly as it had been, hadn't I?
"Have you been in my desk?" Holmes asked.
My heart nearly stopped. "What?" I asked. "Why?"
"Oh, never mind," he said, holding up a pen knife. "I thought maybe you had used-but it was right there." He stood up again. "Will you come with me tonight? There will not be much danger, I am afraid, but perhaps that is-" With an effort, he stopped.
I finished his sentence. "Perhaps it is for the best. This damn cold does dreadful things…"
"Yes," Holmes said, "I thought it did."
"You knew it did," I corrected him, and stood up. "Well, are we going?"
Holmes put the pen knife in his waistcoat pocket and snatched up the remains of the wig that had been left on my chair. This, along with the rest of his ridiculous costume, he flung into his bedroom, and then reached for our overcoats. By the time I had reached the door, he was fully dressed again for the winter weather, only now he looked the part of the gentlemen.
"Have you notified the police?" I asked, tucking my muffler around my neck. "Are we making an arrest tonight?"
"We certainly are," he said. "Lestrade and Gregson have both been alerted; I look forward to learning which of them turns up first at the location where I believe the forgers are camped."
"That is most unjust of you, to tease them like that," said I, and followed him downstairs as he laughed.
+++
Gregson was the first to arrive at the house on Leman Street with a police wagon and six police constables, and Holmes greeted them each with a handshake and a nod. He directed three constables to take up a post out behind the house and sent Gregson with them, while we and the other three stepped up to the front door.
The affair was over in less than ten minutes. When Holmes identified himself to the woman who answered the door, she slammed it in his face and we heard the sound of running feet. Holmes and the constables broke down the door with a battering ram, and I followed them into the house, taking up a post by the door. There was a brief search, a briefer scuffle, and the counterfeiters- a husband and wife team complemented by a second man- were dragged from the basement in darbies. Holmes was congratulated at length, during which period Lestrade arrived with another wagon.
Holmes ducked out of the ensuing argument between Gregson and Lestrade and led me away, stifling his merriment.
"You are mad," I said. "Some day you're going to provoke them so badly they'll never come to you for help again."
"Oh, don't be absurd," he said, patting my arm where he held my elbow. "Pigs will grow wings, et cetera."
I realised belatedly how close we stood there on the pavement, his body warm all along my side, his hand tucked in between my arm and my ribcage. It was no different from any other time we had walked arm-in-arm, but now it was fraught with meaning. Now that I knew. Holmes did not seem out of sorts; rather, he looked very comfortable to be standing there with me, watching Gregson and Lestrade gesticulate at one another, while their prisoners sat glumly on the stoop and the neighbours began to take an interest in the proceedings.
"Well," Holmes said, giving me a tug towards the street, "that is quite enough of that, I think. Cab!"
+++
The next day was spent inside by the fire: Holmes worked happily on a chemical experiment that was neither explosive or malodorous, and I suspected he was doing it for my benefit. I could not be driven from the flat, and so he did not drive me. I should have been taking advantage of his good humour and his charitable streak, but all I could think of were the letters in the drawer, and the flat seemed smaller and smaller the longer we shared space. Every time he went to his desk I was certain that he would find some sign of my interference, and at the same time I watched him like a hawk for any suggestion that he was writing me another letter. He kept catching me at it and finally, making a face of disgruntled confusion, asked what I was about.
"Is something the matter?" he demanded. "Watson, you've been on edge all afternoon. Are you upset with me about the good Inspectors?"
"No," I said quickly, turning back to my novel and finding myself no farther along in it than I had been that morning, "although it was childish, I really hold no objections about that."
"Then why on earth that face? You're bored, aren't you? You keep looking at me as though I'm about to do some magnificent trick and you don't want to miss it."
I shook my head, trying to think of a reason for my constant scrutiny.
"Let's go out," Holmes said, getting to his feet. "I have been reliably informed that the weather will be clear all day. Would a walk do you good?"
I glanced out the window. A walk might suit me very well, but doing it arm in arm with Holmes would not calm my nerves at all. I would be so aware of him next to me, and so conscious of his regard for me. I didn't deserve the quality of his attentions. God, me? A miserable ex-army doctor with no occupation besides following him around like a puppy? It had been nearly four years since my discharge, and here I was, still terrified of what a chilly day would do to my gait. How could a man like Holmes fall for a man like that?
"You're wallowing," Holmes said, coming over to me and taking the novel out of my hands. "We are certainly going out."
I sighed and got to my feet, testing my leg surreptitiously. Holmes bundled me into my coat and put my hat on my head. Rather than protest this treatment, I buttoned up as he put on his own outerwear, and he preceded me down the stairs to the door. I suspected it had something to do with the way I leaned heavily on the bannister, but I could not decide if he had done it to give me the privacy, or to keep himself from having to watch.
The air outside was not so cold as I had thought, looking out the window. It did not hint at spring, certainly, and the tips of my ears were chilled, but my fingers and toes stayed within my reckoning. Holmes did not cling to me so as he had the night before, but walked alongside me, his hands in his pockets. He kept the pace very moderate, and I did not lean on my walking stick so much.
As we walked, Holmes began to explain the experiment he had been working on, but I heard almost nothing of it. Instead, the words of his letters to me floated in front of my eyes and echoed in my head, taking on his voice as he spoke aloud beside me.
It does not take long for a child of my intellect or a man of my ego to realize he is clever, and yet, my dear, when the sentiment is expressed by your own honest lips, it feels like a revelation. The Inspector hides behind the notion that my work is novel or experimental in some way, loath to admit that I see what he cannot, but you-you have no such qualms. Your beloved face lights up when I show you the trail of my inferences, and that, dear one, is why I hide the process from you until I have all the threads in my hand. I refuse to lose the privilege of witnessing that expression of wonder. You may think me very cruel, but in reality I am very selfish. I hope you can forgive me for that. You usually do.
I wondered if I would have the chance to do just that. How was I to broach this subject? There did not appear to be an obvious way to come out and simply say it: "Holmes, I have read your letters, and I would very much like to engage in deviant sexual behaviour with you." That would never do.
"Holmes, I stumbled across a strange set of notes you have apparently written me. Care to explain?" No, God no, that would sound like an accusation. I already had the proof of his guilt in my hands-figuratively. I couldn't allow him to think I would use it against him.
"Holmes, I should like to kiss you, and never mind the reason." Too evasive.
"Watson," Holmes said, breaking me out of my brown study, "shall we go home? You look terribly peaked. I think you're coming down with something."
"I'm not," I insisted, but he was already turning us back towards Baker Street.
"Hush," he said. "Doctors make the worst patients, I know that for a fact. If I don't get you into bed soon, you'll probably ruin your whole month of December."
Dear God, he really thought that writing it all down got it out of his system. If I didn't know better, nothing he said would mean anything but what it sounded like on the surface. And here he was, promising to…. I was going to have to say something. I have always been a dreadful liar, and I couldn't even hold onto this secret for twenty four hours. What a disgrace I was. Holmes, with all his skill in deception and disguise, would be so disappointed.
Holmes led me home like the invalid he supposed I was, and called for tea as we mounted the stairs. I was hopeless against the controlled assault that was Holmes trying to help, and I soon found myself out my coat and jacket and in my dressing gown, with my feet up by the fire and a hot cup of tea in my hand. Holmes sat down beside me, his brow furrowed with concern, and peered earnestly into my face.
"I am not sick," I said again, although I was beginning to think I ought to take the diversion that had been offered me and go lay down for a few days. "I have simply been- thinking."
"My dear Doctor," Holmes said, "as much as I tease you about the dangers of thinking, and beg you to apply yourself to the science of deduction, I never hope that mere thought would make you look as troubled as you currently do. There must be some particular thing you are thinking of that would cause this distress in you."
I shook my head. "It's nothing. Holmes, please leave it alone."
Holmes pulled away, his visage dark with concern. "Don't think I'm going to give up so easily," he said.
"I don't think that at all," I muttered to myself.
"Is your leg bothering you?"
"Damn my leg," I snapped. "Leave it."
"You're going to tell me, sooner or later," Holmes said, pushing himself to his feet.
I was going to have to do it now. Now, I thought, putting the tea aside with a clatter. "Holmes, do you trust me?"
"Why, my dear fellow, of course I do. You- of all people- should know-"
"And you know I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you."
He looked baffled, but he nodded.
"And if- if I were to say that I wished you could trust me more than you do, what would you say to that?"
Something dark began to creep into his eyes. "I don't believe it's possible," he said.
"If there were some- perhaps something you had not mentioned to me." My stomach churned with anxiety, and for a moment I worried that I would ruin my protestations that I was not ill by vomiting. My mouth was dry, and no amount of swallowing would relieve the feeling. I looked anywhere but directly at him, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Is this about the cocaine, Watson? Because I have never kept anything about that from you; you know full well what concentration I use, and when I use it. I do not hide it."
"Holmes, I looked in your desk."
I made you laugh today, and I count it among my highest achievements. You share a room with a madman, my dear, for my highest achievements are quite high indeed. To include among them the simple task of amusing you is utterly ridiculous, and yet I can’t help but be filled with pleasure when I do. You are in an infectious good humour this week, and I find myself buoyed up by your mere presence. If I let it show, you will become suspicious of me. But to watch you laugh, dear heart, gives me such joy, and I want to do it again as soon as possible.
"Oh, my God," Holmes said, putting both hands over his face. "Oh, God. You found them."
My heart was in my slippers. "I didn't mean to."
He groaned behind his hands. "Damn it all," he said, mostly to himself, "I was going to burn them, I was- and I never did, and now- fool! Bloody fool." Then he removed his hands from his face, and his expression had turned to steel. "What were you doing in there, anyway?" he asked.
"Looking for paper," I said. My voice was barely above a whisper. This was not at all how I'd planned for this to go. "I thought perhaps they were old case files of yours." A blatant lie. He kept his old cases in trunks in the attic, as I knew perfectly well.
"Doctor, for as much time as you spend berating me for disregarding widely accepted notions of privacy, you seem to have no great respect for them yourself."
"Holmes, that is most unfair," said I, scrambling for moral ground and finding none.
"Unfair?" He barked a laugh that held no humour in it. "Unfair is trusting a man with your life but being unable to trust him with your property. Is nothing sacred?"
"You're overreacting," I said, standing up to reach for him, placating.
"Over-" Holmes pushed past me, throwing up his hands. "How pleasant it must be, to live in a world where one's secrets can be violated left and right, with no concern for consequences!"
"Now see here," I said, trying very hard not to grow angry but becoming frustrated all the same, "you're the one who has no care for violating secrets. You read private thoughts from people every day, and damn their eyes. I can't go anywhere in this bloody city without you rattling it off later, and why would you think of doing any different? You love knowing things about people they don't want you to know."
"Do not pretend you know why I do what I do," Holmes cried. He was visibly shaking, and his eyes were blazing with indignation. He began to advance on me, as if he could drive me from the room. "Aren't you afraid, Watson, of what I might do to you? Aren't you going to go to the police?"
"Holmes, stop," I said, planting a hand on his chest. He drew to a halt, as if he'd encountered a wall, and we stared wide-eyed at one another. Then, knowing it was my only chance, I closed the distance between us and I kissed him.
He stiffened in surprise, and the kiss itself was very unsatisfying. As soon as he comprehended what I had just done, he grasped me by the arms and shoved me away. His face was flushed with colour, and his lips were parted in shock. His eyes had grown wide and dark, glimmering with uncertainty and- dare I say it? - hope.
"I'm not going to go to the police, you stupid man," I said. "What would I tell them? That the object of my desire has finally admitted the feeling is reciprocated, although in less than perfect circumstances? That the man I call friend and brother might allow me to consider him more than that? That I want to kiss you senseless?"
Holmes gaped at me. His brow furrowed in a moment of confusion, and then I had the pleasure of watching it clear away. His visage softened, his ice-grey eyes warming. He closed his mouth, licked his lips, and then began to smile.
"Might allow?" he asked.
"I have done you wrong," I said. "I never meant to find the- the letters, but I found them all the same, and I am glad I did."
He flushed again, this time from embarrassment rather than terror and fury, and pressed his lips together.
I began to lean in again, giving him an opportunity to stop me, and then touched my lips to his. This second kiss was significantly nicer than the first had been, and it was followed soon by another, and another, chaste little presses that had me praying for more. Then Holmes's mouth opened on a sigh, and his grip on me changed from push to pull. He crushed me against him, and I in turn slid my hands around to the small of his back. His tongue pressed insistently into my mouth, and I allowed the invasion warmly, welcoming the systematic exploration of my palate and the backs of my teeth. He was more skilled at it than I had reason to expect, although perhaps I should have anticipated it.
"Holmes," I said, breaking away once more, which earned me a little grunt of disapproval, "I am sorry."
"Yes, yes, all right," he said, dragging me in again. "Apology accepted."
"But-"
"I am suffering the consequences of my foolishness," Holmes assured me, biting at the underside of my jaw. "Suffering terribly."
I couldn't help but laugh. I walked him back three steps to the doorway of his bedroom, and pressed him against the doorframe to kiss him again.
"In," he said against my mouth, opening the door with one free hand and allowing us to fall awkwardly through. We had to separate in order to keep our balance, but as soon as the door was shut again behind us we were shucking our outermost layers and reaching for one another again. Holmes was wearing a truly ridiculous set of long underwear beneath his shirt and trousers, and he gave me a look as he unbuttoned it that dared me to say anything. I refrained, and as soon as it was hanging loose around his waist I took advantage of his distraction to get my hands on his skin.
His chest was warm and strong, his musculature as palpable as his ribcage. He slipped his arms around my neck and kissed me again. I had been afraid that this part of the confrontation would be more awkward and fumbling, but now that Holmes was assured that his feelings were returned, he was as unapologetic about this as he had been about his nature in the first place. And confident! He kissed me deeply, carding his hands through my hair, arching his hips against my belly. The hard line of his arousal sent a pulse of desire through me.
I turned my attention from his mouth to the curve of his neck. His skin was feverish under my lips, his pulse beating strong and fast and steady. "You hid it very well," I said, as he shivered deliciously and his appreciation for my ministrations rumbled in his chest. "You were utterly opaque; if I hadn't read it for myself, I'd never have known."
Holmes laughed breathlessly, shaking his head, at the same time that he was pushing my shirt from my shoulders and tugging at my trouser buttons. "You were not meant to know," he said, "that was the whole point of the exercise."
"Well, now I do," I said, and threw my shirt in the same direction as my dressing gown. I urged Holmes backwards to the edge of his bed, and when he sat I pushed him still further, until he was flat on his back and I was kneeling astride his thighs.
"And what are you going to do about it?" Holmes asked, looking up at me from under half-lowered eyelids, his chest heaving.
"Why, Holmes," said I, leaning over him and brushing a kiss across his open mouth, "haven't you deduced that yet?"
Will this feeling never go away? We have been living together nearly a year, my boy, and I don't know if I can stand it much longer. If this is the agony of love, then it is truly dreadful. I swear never to ridicule anyone who sets foot in our sitting room for the purpose of love, ever again. How do people manage? Would I suffer so if you were a woman, and we could be married? No, God, I've made myself laugh and you are looking at me. I can't imagine you as a woman, and I can't imagine myself as a marrying man, even so. But it hurts, to know you are there, and you are fond of me, and yet I cannot have you.
In a minute we were naked, skin touching bare skin as we shifted our positions, the chaste bump of his knees against mine utterly thrilling. His chest was pale and mostly hairless, the dark rose of his nipples standing out. I passed my thumb experimentally over one, and felt him shiver. We lay side by side, facing one another, scant inches between us. Holmes's long, slim prick bumped against my shorter, darker one. He was glistening already, and when I passed a hand over the curve of his hip, it twitched eagerly. He made a little half-stifled noise in my ear.
When I closed my grip around him, that noise turned into a moan, and I felt his teeth dig into the meat of my shoulder. His prick was warmer than the rest of him, a little humid, and iron hard. I gave him a gentle tug, exposing his head, and he let out a huff of breath.
"How-" I asked, "what-"
"Full sentences, man," he said.
"What would you like?" I murmured.
"Oh, my dear boy," he said, and lifted my chin to kiss me again, "this is magnificent. Perhaps next time we can attempt some inventive acrobatics, but to be perfectly honest, I am quite- ah- stirred up by your presence alone and suspect that will be more than enough."
I felt myself blush. Rather than answer, I put my hand to my mouth and licked it. Holmes watched me with the sort of intense concentration he usually reserved for his more challenging puzzles. When I touched him again his gaze faltered as his eyes fluttered shut, but he opened them again and stared into my eyes, allowing me to see every sensation as it passed through him. He kept licking his parted lips and biting softly on the lower one, so I leaned in to do the same. His cock passed easily through my hand, lubricated by his own excitement, and I felt his hips move in concert. He kissed me softly, the hand that was not propping up his head finding a grip on the curve of my ribs. I was intensely aware of every place we touched; his fingerprints burned into my skin, and I imagined I could count the hairs on his legs.
Soon he was breathing harder and squeezing my side, and he broke away from our uncoordinated nuzzling to admit, "I need- I need more."
"Yes," I agreed, and let go of him to slide his right leg over my left. We rolled together, and I fit beautifully on top of him, my hipbones parting his thighs, my cock laying alongside his. He stopped me before I could pick up where I had left off, and reached for his bedside drawer, where a three-fingered scoop of petroleum jelly made the juncture of our bodies slick and smooth. I gave an experimental thrust, dragging my prick down his belly, and his mouth fell open in surprise and delight. He hooked his heels behind my calves and ground his pelvis up against mine, eliciting from me a moan of delight that I scarcely recognised. I braced myself on the pillows beside his head and gazed down into his beloved face; his eyes were bright and wicked, his face flushed with exertion. His normally-neat hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. He grinned at me.
"Watson," he said, "do that again."
I did. We began to rock together in earnest, our bodies sliding easily, and the pleasure began to mount. My heart was racing in my chest, and my lungs struggled to keep up. Holmes moved his hands restlessly up and down my arms, over my shoulders and chest, between us to palm at my cock. He circled a hand around us both and let me rut into the tunnel of his grip, which made it impossible to keep my eyes open. The soft, uncontrolled moans that escaped him suggested he was similarly undone.
"Kiss me," Holmes demanded suddenly, gripping me by the back of the neck. I went to one elbow and pressed our mouths together, barely managing the coordination required. Holmes groaned deeply, both hands tightening. I tensed on the edge of orgasm, and then I felt him shudder and go rigid. The hot pulse of his seed against my skin sent me instantly into my paroxysm. We shuddered in near-silence together, the only sound our staccato breathing. Holmes's shoulders twitched with the force of his climax. We twisted, smearing ourselves against one another, and my teeth found their mark in the taut line of his pale throat.
He moaned again and sighed, relaxing all his limbs at once. I ducked my head into the crook of his neck, managing to hold myself up still on hands and knees, and breathed in the sweet, earthy smell of his body. It seemed so familiar- smoke and salt and soap- and yet so exotic, as if his essence had been distilled. I tasted the sweat on his skin and felt him shiver, and then one of his hands was curling around the back of my neck as the other found a place along my spine. He breathed softly into my ear for a while.
"Watson," he murmured finally, after a long moment, "we'd better-"
"Yes, we probably had," I agreed, pulling reluctantly away. Our hips were at risk of staying glued together forever. Holmes snickered and hid his face with his hands while I padded naked across the room to find the flannel in his washstand. I wiped myself down as best I could and then passed it over to him and averted my eyes.
His skin was cool and damp against my back a moment later, as he hooked his arm around one shoulder and put his chin on the other.
"Well," he said.
"Well," I agreed. A glance at the clock across the room told us that it was barely past five, and if we weren't careful we'd be interrupted for supper soon. Holmes pressed a kiss to the back of my shoulder.
"What I said, earlier," he began. "I may have been a little- abrupt."
"There's nothing to apologise for," I replied. "I did everything you accused me of, and worse."
"No," he said.
"I did. I violated your trust, and I read your private letters. It was wrong of me."
"Well," he said, "you did read them, but I'm not sure I'm all that upset anymore. I should have known better than to keep it from you."
I smiled. "You should have known better than to write it down at all."
Holmes groaned and pinched the tender fleshy spot where my arm and shoulder met. I yelped in surprise and batted his hand away, which made him laugh. "As I have always said," he proclaimed, giving me another kiss. "Nothing good ever came from committing sentiment to paper."
"Not nothing," I protested.
I felt him smile. "As you say."
I am the worst kind of hypocrite. I have railed against the foolishness of writing down one's secrets, thinking the only people stupid enough to do it are imbeciles who betray their wives and passionate women who trust faithless men, but here I find myself with no other recourse. There are words inside me, clamouring to get out, and I am afraid if I do not write them down, give them some expression, they will come out of me another way. I will tell you how I feel about you to your face, and you will leave me. Here, at least, I know I will never be heard. I will follow my own advice, so that I will never risk losing your friendship nor your admiration. And I will know the words I long to say have been said, though not by my voice, and never to your ears. I will burn this as soon as I am satisfied. I love you. I love you. God damn it, man, I love you.