For I Have Sinned
Title: For I Have Sinned [1/?]
Author: pendulumsigh
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG.13 - NC-17
Word Count: 2874
Summary: When love has burned away, darkest sins will be revealed.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and make no profit. Just for fun :)
Each time he climbs the seventeen steps of Baker Street, Watson forgets Mary exists. Lately, though, he’s been finding her harder to forget; Mary’s eyes are too imploring and her tone condescending, and she seems frequently on the verge of tears whenever he leaves the house that Watson can’t help but feel somewhat guilty.
Whatever guilt he may feel, however, is soon obliterated by the overwhelming responsibility that comes with Sherlock Holmes.
Or rather, that Sherlock Holmes demands. Watson cannot believe that any grown man could possibly need so much attention, and depriving Holmes of what he believes he is more than entitled to, is sheer absurdity, and there are days when Watson wishes Holmes did not scorn society as he does and could find another to anchor him and give the doctor just five minutes of quiet.
But these days are few and far in between the many he wishes he could spend entirely with Holmes and not with Mary.
Mary.
Watson cringes and pushes open the door, knowing as soon as he enters the haze of chemicals and smoke, all troubles will be left at the foot of the staircase where they will wait patiently for his return.
He is not to be disappointed.
The heavy curtains are drawn roughly, slithers of fragile light streaking the room and trapping dust particles in their delicate beams. There is a haze of coiling blue smoke that spreads arms against closed windows and a heavy scent of chemical that makes Watson nauseas. “Holmes?” He does not expect a response and makes no inclination to anticipate one, instead calling Holmes’ name again as he stumbles over the furniture and falling stacks of paper.
It is moments later - when Watson is still in the centre of the room and patting down his coat for a cigarette - that he hears a grunted whisper over the sharp syllables of his name.
He sighs heavily and places the cigarette between chaffed lips, searching for a match now, “Location?”
“Up.”
It takes Watson a minute to understand this, and when he does, the cigarette dangles from his lips as he cranes his neck upwards and to the right with hands on hips and his jacket tails folding over them, “Well I’ll be damned,” he murmurs, then louder, “I say, what are you doing up there, old boy?”
Holmes peers groggily down from the bookcase, hair splayed against the ceiling like trapped spiders legs, fingers clutching bone-white to the very edge, “I’m not entirely too sure, but I’d be most grateful if you could be so graciously inclined as to help me down.”
The clock has turned a quarter around before Watson has Holmes safely on the floor. They squabbled over methods - Holmes refusing to slither and slip into Watson’s waiting arms, and Watson refusing to call the fire brigade - before Mrs Hudson knocks assertively on the door and chides them for their brash loudness (and for “Dr. Watson to walk in here without so much as a passing hello!”) and pointedly telling the men the ladder was destroyed in one of “Mr. Holmes finer experiments” and that a chair might suffice.
It does not, so Watson stacks three on top of the other and helps Holmes slide down with a hand on his lower back, and the other falling to cup Holmes’ rear.
“Really now,” Holmes brushes pieces of lint and dust away, “any chance for a fanciful grope and you’ll have right at it, won’t you.” It was too much for Watson to expect a thank you.
“What were you doing up there?”
“As I said,” and he studies the tall shelves and surveys the room, “I can’t be quiet particular on an answer for you, but I woke there, so I assume it has much to do with the act of sleeping.” He turns and brushes a simple, dry kiss across Watson’s cheek as he glides past.
“Yes, but,” he watches Holmes snatch up tattered papers and discard them with as much vigour as he did approach them, “why were you up there?”
“Why are you here and not with Mary?” He counters airily, “Or better yet, why are you with Mary and not with me? Some questions simply do not reciprocate simple answers other than superficial surface ones.” He pauses long enough to read a yellowing scrap that has captured his intrigue, “I was there because I was in need of respire, and you are with Mary because it is lawful, if not awful, and no one need know the real reasons why.”
The paper falls in a furious spiral as it is discarded with an agitated grunt and Watson watches it crumple, “Please, not tonight.” He does not want to think of her, of the way she looked at him as he left, the way her hand lingered, the way she begged him silently not to go. How she had cooked and cleaned and bought a new dress and still, he had not stayed.
Holmes glances up from where he is on hands and knees amid a week’s worth of newspapers and nods respectfully, “Come and lend us a hand then, old chap, I have a case you might be quite fond of.”
Watson shuffles over, “I suppose that explains your place of sleeping.” He kneels gingerly and rustles through fading ink, “What am I looking for, exactly?”
“Anything medicinal.”
They spend the next hour in silence, a small pile gathering between them of useable articles, until Watson leans back and sprawls over the floor; shoulder blades pressing against hard floor. In a moment’s time, Holmes relents and curls fittingly against Watson, sighing deeply and twitching restlessly. Watson does not ask, and shortly, Holmes is filling him in on a case originally presumed trivial - Watson asks why he took it then, and Holmes simply states for distraction - but has since escalated into something much more puzzling. He has not been feeling well, he concludes, and Watson could have told him this from the way his bones are far too sharp through skin where Watson’s arm curls around him and by the gauntness in his face, and all the rest that Watson so loves about this man.
“Do you need me to come baby-sit?” he asks good-naturedly.
“I have Nanny,” but what he is really saying, is that Watson has Mary. It falls like a dead weight between them and suddenly Watson feels terribly uncomfortable, but he fights through it.
Even past the point when Holmes says softly, “The bookcase smells like you. Or rather, you smell like books. I suppose it’s from that entire dribble writing you do. In any case, the two are one. And it is all I have for the moment.”
/=/
Watson is late home from the surgery one night. Mary does not speak to him.
He does not make an effort to be on time the following evening because of that, and is greeted by a wife whose face is tear stained and smile wobbly but voice soft and loving and he swallows the food she’s cooked with great difficulty.
The night after, Watson loses that days money and comes home with a heavy heart. He leaves sometime in the middle of the night when Mary is sleeping and slips into the bed of Sherlock Holmes. He returns before Mary wakes, smelling of darkest sins, and is asleep before he realises that Mary never was.
A week later, Watson has seen very little of Holmes, specifically, none, and Mary’s burst of happiness grinds him the wrong way. He does not understand her looks, or her flunks, or her sudden highs. He cannot make any sense of her thoughts, and he cannot find a place to pick them from an endless list of possibilities, and he is irritated that she is dancing through the halls for reason he does not know, humming trivial, childish tunes, and smiling sweetly, and fattening him up with small cakes, and-
She is not Holmes. And he is not Watson without Holmes, but an imposter that sits in soft chairs by oak tables covered in lace doilies.
Watson spends the entirety of the next day, and its companion night, looking for Holmes, but finds no trace of him. Mrs Hudson tells that she has not seen him for three days, and Watson returns in poor spirits. Mary gently takes from him his coat and hat and hangs them up while he warms himself by the fire. She comes to stand next to him and eventually, Watson reaches for her hand. She leads him up to the bedroom and Watson knows it will be a poor substitute for what he desires.
He almost says Sherlock’s name when he orgasms, but catches himself before he thinks Mary has noticed.
Mary’s eyes are accusing the next morning, and the afternoon afterwards, and by the evening, Watson thinks he should, by all unnatural rights, be dead from the burning stares of hatred.
Later, when Watson is wondering if Holmes is alright, Mary sits herself by his feet, and the gesture is so strangely familiar to him, that his heart restricts and he aches for Holmes and needing human contact, reaches for Mary. She kisses his tender fingers and his hard knuckles and whispers that she loves him. He barely manages to say it back without tears escaping.
/=/
Mary invites Holmes for dinner the week following. Watson does not think it is such a good idea, but no amount of talking can dissuade her. She is, in every mark, a stubborn woman and Watson supposes this was some of the initial attraction. He sends a telegram out that morning, not expecting a reply, and receives one in the evening where he just manages to discern a positive response through horrendous handwriting.
Mary is thrilled.
John is sceptical.
Together, they plan tomorrow’s evening with small smiles and gentle touches, and later, he takes her to bed passionately.
He wakes to the sound of Mary bustling around the house and stumbles groggily from bed to see her scampering around the place for Holmes’ visit.
“I would not worry Mary,” he kisses her good morning, “I have heard next to nothing from him until last night. I would not be surprised if he is far too exhausted to come.”
“All the more reason to make a fuss,” she argues, “If he has been on a case for as long as you maintain, he will be in need of warmth and comfort and food, and a homely place can soothe many a sore wound.”
Watson knows this to be true because 221B Baker Street has always had that affect on him in his moments of darkness that this house he shares with Mary cannot give. So he simply says:
“As you wish, dear.”
/=/
The night has gone well, Watson decides sometime during the last of drinks. He is surprised by that statement, having envisioned truths unravelling and thrown porcelain and bloodshed, but none of these things occur. Civil conversation maintains with light humour and gentle debates, and the majority of it gyrates around Holmes. It cannot be helped. The man has come back battered and in need of several meals, and Watson knows it is not just his poetic licensing on such matters, for Mary had gasped loudly and taken Holmes straight to a chair upon seeing him.
For his part, Watson tried to ignore the quickening of his heartbeat and made ratty remarks as he fetched his medical bag. Most cuts were superficial, some requiring a pad of gauze, and he seemed more bruised than actually injured. Holmes’ hand, however, is poorly and Watson scolded Holmes as he bandaged the sprain. He understands now why Holmes’ scrawl was worse than usual.
They sit together now, having heard of Holmes’ great adventure - and Watson pushing away the bubble of jealousy - and Mary offers the last of cakes. Neither man takes them, and she bustles in the kitchen for a moment, giving Watson desired time.
“You could have let me know.”
“You are busy,” Holmes shrugs, “and it was a trifling matter in the end. A peculiar case nonetheless though”
“Still,” and he is not sure why he is so incensed, but he thinks it might have to do with the lump in his throat and the sickening feel in his stomach every time he looks at Holmes battered body, “Look at you,” he rasps, “you were victim to foul play and only very fortunate.”
Holmes scoffs, “Fortunate? I will ignore that insult, Watson. I am skilled in my profession by all aspects.”
“I like being there with you.”
Holmes raises a swollen brow, “Do you?”
Watson isn’t quite sure why Holmes is in the mood he is, and it stings the slightest, “I worry about you. I am not made of stronger stuff that when you don’t return home one day I will be able to merely forget it all.” He barely understands his own theatrics at present, having not been worked up for the near two weeks he had not seen Holmes, but realises it has something to do refusing to allow his mind to settle on all worse possibilities - for, given Holmes' lifestyle, if Watson were to do that, he would not be a sane man - until moment of safety were Watson’s emotions rush to the surface.
Holmes is not paying him attention, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Utter nonsense, old boy. I am quite fine, and thus accordingly, so are you.”
He knows Holmes won’t understand, the detective’s emotional level resembles no other man but child, so tries, “I don’t enjoy seeing you like this,” which is why he’s looking into his glass of whiskey instead.
Holmes sniffs, “Yes, well, I don’t quite enjoy seeing you like this.”
The insult is low and performs its intended wound and Mary’s appears again before Watson can ground out a bitter retort.
“It’s been a most pleasurable evening, Mrs. Watson,” Holmes stands graciously with a semi bow, “and I extend my warmest regards and pleasure of your excellent cooking to you, however,” his hat and coat are whisked up from where he dropped them on the arm of the couch, “I have other matters that require my attention and the hour is late.”
Mary is not a fool, another trait, Watson muses, that he was fond of, but she does not say anything about the palpable tension in the room or the abrupt leaving, but smiles and nods and helps Holmes with his coat, “You must join us again, Mr. Holmes,” she passes him his stick, “it is always a pleasure to cook for another.”
“You have only to pen, my dear,” and Watson wonders if it is only he that can hear Holmes’ voice tightening slightly with displeasure, “and I shall come if I am fit to.” He never did like Mary.
Watson makes to stand to walk Holmes to the door, and have his last acrid words with a biting kiss to show the idiot man he loves him, but Mary waves him down. “No John dear, I’ll escort Mr Holmes. You look rather comfortable there and I am already up.”
He cannot formulate an argument quick enough and so losses, glancing at Holmes and catching his tight smile and flared nostrils as Mary takes his arm. Something about social decency and etiquette enters Watson’ mind, but he is too tired to care. Mary was always a forward woman; another trait he so liked about her, and Watson is finding the similarities between her and Holmes are growing.
Mary stands on the top step as Holmes takes the one beneath it. They are level like this, and Holmes wonders if Mary so enjoys stepping on toes to kiss Watson as he does.
“Again, thank you for a most enjoyable evening, Mrs. Watson. Your skills of the kitchen leave much to talk about.”
“Thank you,” and Holmes knows that Mary is not here for chivalry, but something more important, and he shifts on the step in anticipation, “But I have not excused myself from John for obligated flattery. I am in need of your help.”
Holmes laugh is short and gruff, “Why Mrs. Watson,” he curls, “petty thieving is it? Or have you made a deal with one of society’s devils?” He looks over her, notices the new dress, “or perhaps you are in the business of illegal pawning? You are a curious little woman.” Holmes words are rich and cruel, and he expects his cheek to burn with a swift and deserved slap, but he anticipates for nothing.
“You are quite wrong on all counts, Mr. Holmes. Either your skills are tarnished and unused, or you have been spoken highly of by only the dimmest of man.” Mary’s temper, Holmes notes, is like Watson’s - monitored, forced polite speaking, and a quick goad at Holmes to reverse the tables. He bristles, and waves for her to continue.
“I believe John to be unfaithful in our marriage, and I would be most grateful if you could shed light on this humiliating situation.”
Holmes, for once, is left wordless.