A Study in Hotson
Notes: I wrote a little fill for sherlockkink to go with the art fill done by coasterchild . The title is taken from her post. Art is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!
Holmes was sitting in his chair, smoking, while staring with an intense look at a framed piece of art balanced on the table opposite him. Watson, having just entered and being confronted by this interesting tableau, wondered what could have entranced him so.
"Have you acquired a masterpiece of some fame there?" asked Watson, crossing the room.
"Actually, it is a work of illicit nature," said Holmes, glancing at him with an almost disapproved manner. Watson was puzzled.
"Good lord, is that pornography?" exclaimed Watson; then, after a moment of stupefied realizatioon: "Good lord..."
"Hm, indeed, Watson."
Watson could only stare at the sketch, completely unable to come up with an excuse, any excuse, to explain away the very distinct - identical - resemblance of the nude figure to himself.
'Well, old boy, I was a dreadfully poor mathematics student and decided to attend figuring class and seek a tutor; however, figuring class was not about what I thought it was...'
“The most interesting thing about this work,” Holmes’ voice broke Watson out of his internal anxiety, “is that it is but one of a series of equally risqué pieces. The artist,” which Holmes said with a distinct sneer in his voice, “was fortunate enough to be able to use the same model in all of them.” He gestured vaguely to a covered stack of artworks on the floor. Then he turned his intense stare onto Watson, demanding a response of some kind.
“Ah, ahem, well,” coughed Watson.
Holmes was silent, continuing to stare.
Watson tried several times to force words out of his mouth, but ultimately also was silent.
The silence stretched. Finally, Watson coughed, cleared his throat again, and said, “I attended a most liberal school.”
Holmes’ left eye twitched, or at least Watson thought it did. He was not paying sufficient enough attention as at that moment Holmes slowly stood and, setting his pipe aside, said, “This artist’s,” that sneering reference to the poor man, “attempts at rendering your likeness are amateur at best. If he had not managed to record your most prominent features, then even I should not have known it was you, Watson.”
Which would have been a good thing, Watson wanted to have said.
“Therefore, it is obviously imperative that I be the one to correct your image’s representation in the art world. Undress, and here, Watson, the chair will fine to pose in.”
“Pose, what? Holmes, you are not going to make more of these nude portraits of me to replace those that you think are of an inferior quality. It was a youthful-“
“Have no fear, those mockeries will never be seen in public again. I can hardly let people think you so disproportioned-“
Watson squawked: “What!”
Holmes ignored him as he sifted through the various things in the room and collected blank pieces of paper and pencils. “Come now, doctor, no need to be shy. This is hardly your first experience, after all.”
“Holmes, really, I must insist that you end this line of thought immediately. I am not going to allow you to keep those old sketches or make new ones of me to keep around the house and, and, to humiliate me with them!” said Watson, scrabbling for a sense of dignity, which was utterly destroyed when Holmes, settling himself on the floor with paper and pencil in his lap, looked up at him with a mischevious twinkle in his eyes, and said:
“But Watson, I intend to keep them in my private gallery.”
original thread & art @ sherlockkink