Sherlock Holmes - A New Experience
Title: A New Experience
Author: ladylovelace
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Holmes/Victor Trevor
Disclaimer: I think you can safely assume that these two do not belong to me.
Summary: Victor has something very special planned for Holmes.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 2000
Author's Notes: For the schmoop_bingo square 'wooing/courtship'. The usual to beeinmybonnet (who promises to write Holmes/Victor at some point, so I won't be the only one). Standalone, but continues to take place in the universe of which the last installment was No Mean Art.
It was just as Holmes was heading to the door to leave that he noticed a single perfect daffodil and a note on the floor just inside. He smiled a little and bent down to pick both things up, and opened the letter.
Do not come to me just yet - I have something special in the works, but will need all day for it.
Please get some sleep if you didn't yesterday, and I'll see you later. Shall we say 6 o'clock? V. T.
Holmes grinned openly, and then turned his mind to finding something to do with himself for the next six hours.
~oOo~
Victor answered the door with a bright grin, to find Holmes standing there with a flower that looked to be the one he'd given him. His face fell.
“Ah, I see.” He said quietly, looking down at the ground.
Holmes frowned in confusion. “Victor? What's wrong?”
Looking more carefully this time, Victor saw that there was no rejection or malice in Holmes' expression, just simple confusion, which was a rare sight indeed. He felt instantly guilty for letting his own insecurities upset his friend.
“I misinterpreted something.” He nodded to the flower, “is that for me?”
A shy smile appeared on Holmes' face. “Yes. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but I went out to find another one while I was waiting. Whatever the intended message, it is certainly returned. I did think for a moment that you might be accusing me of narcissism, though.”
“Oh,” Victor stepped back to let Holmes in, taking the flower when it was offered and trying not to attach too much weight to Holmes' statement about returning the sentiment, “no, that isn't a narcissus. It's jonquil. Same species, but the colouring is notably different. The associations likewise.”
“I thought as much. I like your voice, but I'd miss the rest of you if you faded away.”
Victor contemplated that for a second, and wondered if it was Holmes cleverly telling him that he knew what was going on here, or if he was just putting Victor in the place of the other character in the myth. He decided to focus on the compliment instead. “I would have thought my accent rather grating, actually. I have been trying to get rid of it.” He smiled sheepishly.
“I hope you won't. It makes you different. I sound like everyone else.” Holmes returned his smile.
“Yes, well,” Victor blushed faintly, and cleared his throat quietly to cover it up, “I'll keep it in mind. Now, please, take your coat off and make yourself comfortable.” He held his hand out to take said garment, but Holmes threw it over a chair, as he always did. Victor tried not to find it endearing.
“We are short a mutt, it seems.”
“Cerberus is staying with my dear uncle for the weekend, which is why I disappeared so quickly yesterday afternoon. My apologies once again.”
Holmes lit up at that, and then tried to go back to looking neutral. “I never asked you to choose between me and your dog.”
“No, but you were pleased to hear that he wasn't here.” Victor smiled gently, “I haven't chosen, I'm just keeping him out of the way for the moment. I'll be collecting him Sunday evening.”
“I will learn to like your dog, Victor.” Holmes announced with great sincerity. Victor smiled again.
“I know you will.” He approached slowly and pulled Holmes into a light hug. “I just thought I'd give you an evening when you didn't have to.”
A soft sigh was his only reply for long moments, and eventually Victor pulled back. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” He backed Holmes over to the settee and pushed gently on his shoulders until he complied.
“You don't actually need to coddle me, you know. I would have sat down of my own accord sooner or later.”
“I'm not coddling, I'm treating you like the precious treasure you are. Besides, I have a plan, and I fully intend to follow it.” Victor bent over the back of the settee with some difficulty to reach the table behind, and the bottle of wine on it. “Do you know anything about wine?”
“Not as yet. It hasn't seemed important so far.” Holmes contemplated the apparent gap in his knowledge with a serious little frown. Victor giggled quietly and kissed the line that had formed between his eyebrows.
“You must stop that - you'll be old before your time if you keep it up. And that's just as well, since I haven't either, and I suspect my father is similarly ignorant,” he inspected the bottle, “I gather it's French.”
“That would be from your inability to read the label, would it?” Holmes smiled teasingly.
Taking a seat next to his friend on the settee, he handed the bottle over for Holmes' inspection. “I'll have you know I'm exactly proficient enough in French to get by in England. As that's the only place I've ever been, it has served me rather well.” He reached back for a pair of wine glasses, which he set on the low table in front of them, and a corkscrew, which he handed to Holmes. “I think I'll let you do the honours.”
Holmes took the corkscrew and worked it in with all the concentration he would afford a complex experiment, complete with the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips. Victor watched, enrapt, until Holmes made a small sound of triumph, and yanked on the top of the instrument. The cork, for it's part, split into a large chunk - which remained stuck to the corkscrew - and the rest, which fell into the bottle with a soft splash.
Victor started giggling, and then found that he couldn't quite stop, and indeed was getting much worse. By the time he managed to speak, there were tears in his eyes. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Do you suppose that's what they mean when they say that the wine is 'corked', though?” He continued to laugh, unable to help himself even when Holmes set the bottle down with a little too much force, and folded his arms petulantly.
After letting it go on for a solid half-minute, Holmes spoke up. “Are you quite finished?” His tone carried enough hurt and ice that Victor managed to stop himself with a few short coughs. He shifted closer to Holmes, and put on his most sincere expression of regret.
“I am sorry. It's not that I'm laughing at you, exactly. I just... I'm very sorry.” He stated sincerely.
Holmes smiles wryly. “You are not,” he paused, his smile becoming fuller, “but it was funny, wasn't it?”
Victor coughed delicately to stop himself from laughing again. “It was. But in the end, you have given us an excellent excuse to drink the whole bottle.” He grinned.
“Are you going to get me drunk and take advantage of me, Victor?” Holmes asked innocently.
“No.” I'm not quite that desperate yet, he added internally, “Are you terribly disappointed?”
Holmes shrugged and made a decidedly non-committal noise, at least from where Victor was sitting. He tried not to think too hard about it, lest he come to the wrong conclusion. He concentrated on his wine, instead.
“This is what you were organising, wasn't it?” Holmes spoke up suddenly, causing Victor to jump a little. It was lucky his glass was almost empty, really.
“I have a confession to make on that score, actually. I wondered if you might stay the night. Not, umm, not like that, but I rather liked sharing your bed and I thought I might offer you mine in return, when neither of us is suffering from any sort of discomfort,” he paused, “except perhaps the discomfort of sharing a bed with someone you'd rather not.”
“I had always intended to. I was going to tell you I was tired in about four hours, in the hopes that you might make such an offer. This saves me a measure of subterfuge.” Holmes drained his glass in one swift motion and set it down on the table. Victor stared quietly.
“Umm. All right then. Good. Excellent. Well, I'm glad I went to the effort of tidying up, then.” Victor blushed and looked away.
“You tidied for me?” Holmes was incredulous, but then he stopped to think for a moment, “you don't tidy for anyone,” he finished quietly.
“Well, I've never had anyone in my bedroom before. Consequently, the sheets badly needed changing at very least. And it would have been rather difficult to navigate without breaking your neck, and I've grown rather fond of it, you see.”
“But you said... practically half the school have...” Holmes tried to reconcile the two contrary pieces of information - Victor's habit of sleeping around (until recently, he thought, because he only smelled of himself these days), and the idea that no-one ever went in his bedroom - without great success.
“Never in my own rooms. It's too personal.” Victor supplied quietly.
“Oh.” Holmes swallowed subtly. “But you don't mind me being personal?”
Victor refused to hear the hope in Holmes' voice, taking it for an imagining of his own. “No. I don't mind at all.”
“Oh.” Holmes repeated, paused, and then leaned in to kiss Victor's cheek softly. “I think I like that idea.”
~oOo~
Four hours, the rest of the bottle of wine and the sharing of the personal details of every person either man had ever run into later, Holmes and Victor collapsed in an awkward tangle of limbs onto the latter's bed. They giggled together for a few minutes before quieting down slowly.
Holmes spread himself out, after managing to get all of his extremities to behave themselves. He stroked one of the pillows idly and turned to look at Victor. “Am I really the first to be here?”
Victor nodded and rolled onto his side so he was facing Holmes. “You are.”
“I can live with that, if I can't be the first in all things.”
“Would you have wanted to be?” Victor smiled sadly.
“I don't know. I will never know, because there is no way of knowing the impossible. It's not that I mind, it's just...” Holmes trailed off.
“Damaged goods.” Victor said with a sigh.
“I don't think you're any more damaged than I am. At least people like you enough to do... that.”
Victor chuckled hollowly, and then realised what Holmes had actually said. He reached forward to tuck the other man's hair behind his ear gently. “I like you enough to.” He whispered.
Holmes grinned. “As seductions go, Victor, I'm fairly sure you're better at it than that.”
“That would be because I'm not trying to seduce you. Seductions seems... dishonest. Insincere. Dirty. They're not right for you. You should be wooed.”
“And that is what you are doing?” Holmes seemed a little nervous.
“That is what I am doing. But I don't expect my efforts to bear any more fruit than they already have tonight. Don't worry, I'm not going to molest you, now or in your sleep.”
“You would have had ample opportunity before now if you were. Indeed, I find I am not in the mood to object at all.”
Swallowing thickly, Victor steeled himself for the most intense exercise in self-control he had ever considered. “And that is exactly why we are both going to sleep now.”
“Because you want me to put up a fight?” Holmes raised an elegant eyebrow to punctuate the question.
“Because your judgement is severely impaired. Go to sleep.” Victor instructed calmly.
“Spoilsport.” Holmes mumbled, already having closed his eyes and snuggled down into the bedding.
Victor gathered up the blanket he had removed before they'd fallen on the bed, shifted closer to Holmes, and threw it over both of them. “Good night, my love.” He whispered to the now softly-snoring man beside him.
----------
Jonquil, depending on your source, means 'love me', 'affection returned', or 'desire' - it is safe to assume that all three apply in this case. I also meant to ask, are people happily googling/already knowing various mythological characters, or would they like explanations?
On to Never That Simple
Author: ladylovelace
Rating: PG
Pairing/Characters: Holmes/Victor Trevor
Disclaimer: I think you can safely assume that these two do not belong to me.
Summary: Victor has something very special planned for Holmes.
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 2000
Author's Notes: For the schmoop_bingo square 'wooing/courtship'. The usual to beeinmybonnet (who promises to write Holmes/Victor at some point, so I won't be the only one). Standalone, but continues to take place in the universe of which the last installment was No Mean Art.
It was just as Holmes was heading to the door to leave that he noticed a single perfect daffodil and a note on the floor just inside. He smiled a little and bent down to pick both things up, and opened the letter.
Do not come to me just yet - I have something special in the works, but will need all day for it.
Please get some sleep if you didn't yesterday, and I'll see you later. Shall we say 6 o'clock? V. T.
Holmes grinned openly, and then turned his mind to finding something to do with himself for the next six hours.
~oOo~
Victor answered the door with a bright grin, to find Holmes standing there with a flower that looked to be the one he'd given him. His face fell.
“Ah, I see.” He said quietly, looking down at the ground.
Holmes frowned in confusion. “Victor? What's wrong?”
Looking more carefully this time, Victor saw that there was no rejection or malice in Holmes' expression, just simple confusion, which was a rare sight indeed. He felt instantly guilty for letting his own insecurities upset his friend.
“I misinterpreted something.” He nodded to the flower, “is that for me?”
A shy smile appeared on Holmes' face. “Yes. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but I went out to find another one while I was waiting. Whatever the intended message, it is certainly returned. I did think for a moment that you might be accusing me of narcissism, though.”
“Oh,” Victor stepped back to let Holmes in, taking the flower when it was offered and trying not to attach too much weight to Holmes' statement about returning the sentiment, “no, that isn't a narcissus. It's jonquil. Same species, but the colouring is notably different. The associations likewise.”
“I thought as much. I like your voice, but I'd miss the rest of you if you faded away.”
Victor contemplated that for a second, and wondered if it was Holmes cleverly telling him that he knew what was going on here, or if he was just putting Victor in the place of the other character in the myth. He decided to focus on the compliment instead. “I would have thought my accent rather grating, actually. I have been trying to get rid of it.” He smiled sheepishly.
“I hope you won't. It makes you different. I sound like everyone else.” Holmes returned his smile.
“Yes, well,” Victor blushed faintly, and cleared his throat quietly to cover it up, “I'll keep it in mind. Now, please, take your coat off and make yourself comfortable.” He held his hand out to take said garment, but Holmes threw it over a chair, as he always did. Victor tried not to find it endearing.
“We are short a mutt, it seems.”
“Cerberus is staying with my dear uncle for the weekend, which is why I disappeared so quickly yesterday afternoon. My apologies once again.”
Holmes lit up at that, and then tried to go back to looking neutral. “I never asked you to choose between me and your dog.”
“No, but you were pleased to hear that he wasn't here.” Victor smiled gently, “I haven't chosen, I'm just keeping him out of the way for the moment. I'll be collecting him Sunday evening.”
“I will learn to like your dog, Victor.” Holmes announced with great sincerity. Victor smiled again.
“I know you will.” He approached slowly and pulled Holmes into a light hug. “I just thought I'd give you an evening when you didn't have to.”
A soft sigh was his only reply for long moments, and eventually Victor pulled back. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” He backed Holmes over to the settee and pushed gently on his shoulders until he complied.
“You don't actually need to coddle me, you know. I would have sat down of my own accord sooner or later.”
“I'm not coddling, I'm treating you like the precious treasure you are. Besides, I have a plan, and I fully intend to follow it.” Victor bent over the back of the settee with some difficulty to reach the table behind, and the bottle of wine on it. “Do you know anything about wine?”
“Not as yet. It hasn't seemed important so far.” Holmes contemplated the apparent gap in his knowledge with a serious little frown. Victor giggled quietly and kissed the line that had formed between his eyebrows.
“You must stop that - you'll be old before your time if you keep it up. And that's just as well, since I haven't either, and I suspect my father is similarly ignorant,” he inspected the bottle, “I gather it's French.”
“That would be from your inability to read the label, would it?” Holmes smiled teasingly.
Taking a seat next to his friend on the settee, he handed the bottle over for Holmes' inspection. “I'll have you know I'm exactly proficient enough in French to get by in England. As that's the only place I've ever been, it has served me rather well.” He reached back for a pair of wine glasses, which he set on the low table in front of them, and a corkscrew, which he handed to Holmes. “I think I'll let you do the honours.”
Holmes took the corkscrew and worked it in with all the concentration he would afford a complex experiment, complete with the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips. Victor watched, enrapt, until Holmes made a small sound of triumph, and yanked on the top of the instrument. The cork, for it's part, split into a large chunk - which remained stuck to the corkscrew - and the rest, which fell into the bottle with a soft splash.
Victor started giggling, and then found that he couldn't quite stop, and indeed was getting much worse. By the time he managed to speak, there were tears in his eyes. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Do you suppose that's what they mean when they say that the wine is 'corked', though?” He continued to laugh, unable to help himself even when Holmes set the bottle down with a little too much force, and folded his arms petulantly.
After letting it go on for a solid half-minute, Holmes spoke up. “Are you quite finished?” His tone carried enough hurt and ice that Victor managed to stop himself with a few short coughs. He shifted closer to Holmes, and put on his most sincere expression of regret.
“I am sorry. It's not that I'm laughing at you, exactly. I just... I'm very sorry.” He stated sincerely.
Holmes smiles wryly. “You are not,” he paused, his smile becoming fuller, “but it was funny, wasn't it?”
Victor coughed delicately to stop himself from laughing again. “It was. But in the end, you have given us an excellent excuse to drink the whole bottle.” He grinned.
“Are you going to get me drunk and take advantage of me, Victor?” Holmes asked innocently.
“No.” I'm not quite that desperate yet, he added internally, “Are you terribly disappointed?”
Holmes shrugged and made a decidedly non-committal noise, at least from where Victor was sitting. He tried not to think too hard about it, lest he come to the wrong conclusion. He concentrated on his wine, instead.
“This is what you were organising, wasn't it?” Holmes spoke up suddenly, causing Victor to jump a little. It was lucky his glass was almost empty, really.
“I have a confession to make on that score, actually. I wondered if you might stay the night. Not, umm, not like that, but I rather liked sharing your bed and I thought I might offer you mine in return, when neither of us is suffering from any sort of discomfort,” he paused, “except perhaps the discomfort of sharing a bed with someone you'd rather not.”
“I had always intended to. I was going to tell you I was tired in about four hours, in the hopes that you might make such an offer. This saves me a measure of subterfuge.” Holmes drained his glass in one swift motion and set it down on the table. Victor stared quietly.
“Umm. All right then. Good. Excellent. Well, I'm glad I went to the effort of tidying up, then.” Victor blushed and looked away.
“You tidied for me?” Holmes was incredulous, but then he stopped to think for a moment, “you don't tidy for anyone,” he finished quietly.
“Well, I've never had anyone in my bedroom before. Consequently, the sheets badly needed changing at very least. And it would have been rather difficult to navigate without breaking your neck, and I've grown rather fond of it, you see.”
“But you said... practically half the school have...” Holmes tried to reconcile the two contrary pieces of information - Victor's habit of sleeping around (until recently, he thought, because he only smelled of himself these days), and the idea that no-one ever went in his bedroom - without great success.
“Never in my own rooms. It's too personal.” Victor supplied quietly.
“Oh.” Holmes swallowed subtly. “But you don't mind me being personal?”
Victor refused to hear the hope in Holmes' voice, taking it for an imagining of his own. “No. I don't mind at all.”
“Oh.” Holmes repeated, paused, and then leaned in to kiss Victor's cheek softly. “I think I like that idea.”
~oOo~
Four hours, the rest of the bottle of wine and the sharing of the personal details of every person either man had ever run into later, Holmes and Victor collapsed in an awkward tangle of limbs onto the latter's bed. They giggled together for a few minutes before quieting down slowly.
Holmes spread himself out, after managing to get all of his extremities to behave themselves. He stroked one of the pillows idly and turned to look at Victor. “Am I really the first to be here?”
Victor nodded and rolled onto his side so he was facing Holmes. “You are.”
“I can live with that, if I can't be the first in all things.”
“Would you have wanted to be?” Victor smiled sadly.
“I don't know. I will never know, because there is no way of knowing the impossible. It's not that I mind, it's just...” Holmes trailed off.
“Damaged goods.” Victor said with a sigh.
“I don't think you're any more damaged than I am. At least people like you enough to do... that.”
Victor chuckled hollowly, and then realised what Holmes had actually said. He reached forward to tuck the other man's hair behind his ear gently. “I like you enough to.” He whispered.
Holmes grinned. “As seductions go, Victor, I'm fairly sure you're better at it than that.”
“That would be because I'm not trying to seduce you. Seductions seems... dishonest. Insincere. Dirty. They're not right for you. You should be wooed.”
“And that is what you are doing?” Holmes seemed a little nervous.
“That is what I am doing. But I don't expect my efforts to bear any more fruit than they already have tonight. Don't worry, I'm not going to molest you, now or in your sleep.”
“You would have had ample opportunity before now if you were. Indeed, I find I am not in the mood to object at all.”
Swallowing thickly, Victor steeled himself for the most intense exercise in self-control he had ever considered. “And that is exactly why we are both going to sleep now.”
“Because you want me to put up a fight?” Holmes raised an elegant eyebrow to punctuate the question.
“Because your judgement is severely impaired. Go to sleep.” Victor instructed calmly.
“Spoilsport.” Holmes mumbled, already having closed his eyes and snuggled down into the bedding.
Victor gathered up the blanket he had removed before they'd fallen on the bed, shifted closer to Holmes, and threw it over both of them. “Good night, my love.” He whispered to the now softly-snoring man beside him.
----------
Jonquil, depending on your source, means 'love me', 'affection returned', or 'desire' - it is safe to assume that all three apply in this case. I also meant to ask, are people happily googling/already knowing various mythological characters, or would they like explanations?
On to Never That Simple