The Sweet Science
The Sweet Science
Holmes/Watson, R, 7400 words.
The Prompt, found here: Holmes/Watson: Boxing matches of increasing sexual tension! Watson decides to challenge Holmes to a fight at the boxing club. They both rather enjoy the experience of being all shirtless and sweaty and violent so it happens again. And again. And again, until they can barely stand the overwhelming urge to fuck instead of fight. SUPER BONUS POINTS for them finally cracking and booking it out of the ring after a particularly frustrating match to finish what they started just out of range of the crowd.
Warnings: LOTS OF VIOLENCE, lots of sexual tension, some blood. Dudes gettin' other dudes off.
Notes: This is more or less in pastiche style, with references to minutiae in SIGN re: boxing. I planned on filling this prompt with a few thousand words, but it sort of exploded and ended up eating two days of my life. It is not beta-read, so all mistakes are mine. Credit is due to featherfish for cheerleading and hand-holding.
The Fill:
It started because we were low on rent. I knew of my friend’s skill at the sweet science, and his resulting small fame within those albeit limited circles. Though I had never been to a match, upon returning to our rooms some nights he occasionally explained, with his usual lack of modesty, how he had that evening gotten the better of some crowd favorite, how a right hook or well-timed cross had left his opponent reeling and the crowd puzzling.
I found it difficult to believe that he had never once bet on himself, though for all I knew he had never lost a match. When I put the question to him, he simply shrugged. “It is merely a hobby, my dear fellow. I look not to earn a living off of it, only to improve my own gifts in that particular realm.”
Nevertheless, it was almost a year after Holmes and I had taken rooms together, and several months after he had revealed his remarkable vocation to me, that we found ourselves in dire monetary straits. I had not yet recovered enough from my experiences overseas to practice medicine, and as Holmes’s fame had not achieved the renown that it would in the years to come, we lived on my meager salary and whatever my flatmate could earn within the month with his cases. The summer had gone by well enough, but the autumn weather had cooled down the hot tempers of evildoers and Holmes had sunk into both an emotional and a monetary depression.
Again, I brought up the idea of putting money on my friend’s talent at boxing.
“I am sure that any indication that I was humoring your penchant for gambling would be naught but detrimental to your finances, Watson,” he responded with his usual stagnation-induced irascibility.
“I am serious, Holmes. Until your singular profession gains some greater notoriety, I don’t see how you plan to keep up your half of the rent payments.” I confess I myself was feeling just as peevish as he; poor weather had kept us both locked indoors for nearly a week, and stress built as the end of the month approached and we were still as poor as ever.
Holmes heaved a long suffering sigh around his pipe. “I have,” he admitted, “been toying with the idea of making another appearance at Alison’s rooms, and if you would like to place money on the chance of my winning, it is hardly upon me to complain.”
I agreed, and several hours later we set out together with Holmes’s gloves slung over one of his shoulders and what little money we could pool together, towards whatever settlement fate would have of us.
Alison’s rooms, one venue in a small but reputable circuit of underground boxing, was really just one room, of medium-size and filled with cigar smoke and the shouts of men. What could be smelled underneath the cheap cigars was rather execrable but somehow stimulating all the same, sweat and musk laced through with the sharp bite of blood. At one side was a bar, with a man in a slightly crushed bowler hat standing at the side waving white sheets of paper and calling for bets. I glanced around; in the middle of the room was a regulation 24-square-foot ring, sunken to a lower level in the floor and surrounded by a six-foot wooden wall, on which onlookers leaned their elbows and set their beers. Holmes disappeared and I laid down everything we had, praying that his talk of his talents was unexaggerated. The first match started, then, and I stood near the back of the crowd as I watched three bouts between a terribly ill-matched pair of opponents. A smallish in-fighter (whose name I didn’t catch) was utterly pummeled by a huge slugger appropriately named “Knock-Out Nick”, and my excitement was piqued in spite of my medical judgment. I counted broken ribs and burst blood vessels, marked recovery time in my mind as the crowd cheered and clamored.
After the little swarmer was thoroughly knocked to the ground, Holmes stepped up against the massive brawler. I realized he was not unheard of in this circle, as some onlookers did cheer as his name was called, but Knock-Out Nick held the crowd’s palpable favor. The referee called the first round to action.
Holmes circled his opponent, who was about his height but quite larger in girth. His quick feet threw clouds of reddish dust into the air; his movements had an elegance which seemed to take the brawler off-guard. He started out defensive, throwing only the occasional jab while sizing up his opponent’s graceless and uncalculated method of fighting. Holmes easily dodged Nick’s predictable combination of hooks and uppercuts, and when he finally began to attack he threw enough of his own clear jabs to throw Nick into a discernible daze. The fight was over in two rounds, Holmes finally swarming close and overpowering Nick with a unexpected cross to the jaw. The crowd’s reaction was decidedly mixed, but not altogether negative, for which I was thankful (I was sure I could not stand by silently while my friend was maligned, though I was equally sure I could not stand up unharmed to an angry group of boxing fanatics).
Holmes left the ring with a wink at me, and I went to collect our winnings as he disappeared into some back room for his discarded shirt and coat. He appeared at my side as I counted notes. “Mrs Hudson would no doubt be horrified at how we are paying our rent this month,” he said. “But we will surely be able to pay.” He smelled of sweat and, though he favored the shoulder where he had taken a powerful jab, he could not keep an exhilarated grin off of his face. I, likewise, betrayed some of the excitement I felt at this whole excursion -- not only at the bet, which gave me the same guilt-tinged thrill I had always felt when gambling, but the cheering of the crowd and the sight of two men so primally at war with one another was more than enough to stir the adventure in my blood.
It was raining lightly outside, each streetlamp in a halo of luminescence. Holmes’s hair had fallen out of its usual slicked-back order and had been matte with dust, but now shone again with water drops. He spoke animatedly about his theories and strategies of boxing, holding his hat in one hand and gesticulating wildly with it, and after a few minutes I couldn’t tell whether the shine on his forehead was sweat or rain. When he looked at me sidelong it was with a curious little half-smile, which I could have written off as my own imagination had my senses been less heightened from the adrenaline racing through my system.
“What are you smiling at, Holmes?”
“I confess, my dear Watson, I had thought little of your gambling scheme, but it appears to be a remarkably satisfactory way to supplement our meager income. As much as I may disapprove of your only vice,” he added with a rakish twinkle in his eye which took me completely aback, “it seems sensible to indulge it just a little while longer, does it not?”
“Well, this is just enough to cover the rent, so if you want any money for sundries…” I mentally berated myself for enabling both of our potentially detrimental habits, but was unable to keep a sly grin from mirroring his on my own lips.
We spoke no more of this promise, though, for the next few days. Mrs Hudson got her rent on time, and Lestrade brought Holmes a new case within the week. It was “an intellectual pittance,” my friend complained, but as he laid down his syringe and took up his magnifying glass I was contented.
“I received a telegram from William Alison with the morning post,” Holmes said over luncheon one day. “I believe I will be returning to the ring this evening.” He had just finished the case for Lestrade (it had been the countess’s maid’s brother, after all) and so had not yet sunken back into that black depression which had so recently had him in thrall.
“I suppose I should not insult your vast intelligence by reassuring myself that you are sufficiently recovered from your last bout there?”
Holmes barked a short laugh. “I assure you, doctor, my bruised ribs are quite sound, and my shoulder was better within that same evening.”
“If you don’t mind, I should like to accompany you,” I put forward somewhat cautiously, loath to infringe upon his territory.
“I was about to suggest that same thing,” Holmes said with a smile. “Eight o’clock, then? I have a few errands to run today, so if I do not return by then, should I assume you remember your way?” I nodded my assent, and he left our rooms in a swirl of coat-tails.
Sure enough, by a quarter to eight he had not yet returned, so I picked the lock on his desk to extract my cheque-book. One does not spend all one’s time with Sherlock Holmes without learning some unorthodox skills.
The boxing room at William Alison’s was less crowded than it had been on our last visit, but seemed somehow to be as loud and smoke-filled as ever. I approached the man taking bets, recognizing his dusty and battered hat from last time, and casually enquired as to who would be fighting that evening.
“Mister Holmes versus Tweedy Anderson, for the first round, as a sort o’ cursory go-round. But Left-Hook Mickey ain’t shown up yet, so we might have to cut th’evening’s entertainment short, as it were.”
Although the odds were nowhere near as profitable as last time, I laid down a few pounds on Holmes. Easing through the crowd, I attained a spot close enough to the sunken-in ring to lean my elbows on its wall and lit a cigarette while I waited for the match to start. I had not long to wait, however, for before I had finished smoking my friend and his opponent squared off.
It was more evenly matched than either of the two fights I had seen before. Holmes’s opponent was, like himself, wiry and rather tall, playing it close to the chest with quick unexpected jabs and a painful-looking half hook. By the second round Holmes was developing a nasty-looking black eye and had taken a few near-debilitating blows to the stomach, while Tweedy Anderson worked his bruised jaw back and forth and clearly favored a possibly dislocated lead arm. They went four long rounds before Holmes knocked Tweedy down, both bruised and panting, looking balefully yet respectfully at each other. As Holmes backed close to where I watched, I saw a fine coating of dust sticking to the sweat on his pale skin, smudged on the outside of his arm where he had just barely blocked a cross-counter. His breath came hard, and he shook tension out of his arms as the referee (Alison, I presumed) proclaimed him victorious.
“Now comes the sad truth, gents, that Left-‘Ook Mickey’s got ‘imself locked up in Newgate for the time bein’, on account of some trouble with a pinchcock, so we’re sorry to say there ain’t going to be a second bout this evening.” Boos and hisses echoed through the room. “Well, unless one o’ you fellows wants to step up…”
“I’ll do it.” I almost didn’t recognize my own voice at first, my rational mind divorced as it was from the insane part of me which thought that this was a good idea.
A cheer went through the room. There was no backing out now.
I was led to a back room where I shed my jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. I left my stick and hat upon this little collection and emptied my pockets with no little trepidation. The referee bound my knuckles, then handed me a pair of gloves which he laced up with competent, economical movements, and my apprehension was slowly replaced with adrenaline-fueled eagerness. I had fought a few bouts in my spare time while in the army, and had been considered (if I may say so myself) no weak opponent. Having not engaged in anything of the sort in months, however, I was unsure as to how long I would last with such a capable opponent as Holmes. I glanced down at my body, and knew that it was far less substantial than it had been in my heyday (though I was not yet thirty, my experiences in the war had aged me considerably beyond my years), more marred with scars now than before. Yet I was more muscular than Holmes, having kept up a certain amount of exercise during a year of inactivity, and trusted that we would be evenly matched in weight if in no other arena.
The crowd seemed more interested than exactly thrilled, I assumed because most people would not have placed bets on a match between a little-known and unknown contender. This made it easier for me, somehow, knowing that few people favored one of us over the other. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, took a breath, and stepped into the ring.
Holmes’s sweat had dried but the dust remained stuck to his skin. His slim frame was tense, each muscle standing out in sharp relief, breathing now slow and steady. His expression was as bemused as it could be, underneath the focused, almost predatory look that was typical for him in such situations. A little smile crossed his thin lips as he moved into a semi-crouch, angling his torso half-away from me. I approached him, also assuming a semi-crouched position.
“I knew you were going to --”
I hit him in the mouth before he could finish speaking. I still hold that it was not unsporting so much as aiming the interaction in a certain direction.
He smiled, almost feral, and used his glove to wipe away a little of the blood that spilled from his split lip. “Oh yes,” he murmured.
He opened with a quick jab, which I dodged and followed with a cross-counter. He blocked this easily; of course, he had expected it. His uppercut was quick and caused a flash of pain in my jaw, and as I stumbled backwards a step he aimed a few blows at my midsection. I just barely blocked them, and responded with a cross that he dodged so closely he had to take a step back to catch his balance. I recovered quickly from his next jab and weaved in close, hit his diaphragm with a well-placed short straight-punch. Though his breath caught in his chest, he smiled at me, blood still trailing a thin line down his chin. He feinted a cross with his rear hand and caught me off-guard with one from his left hand, crowding so close to me that even when I blocked his hook I was hit with my own hand. So he was not a straight out-fighter, I mused: he could just as easily hold his own at very close range. A dangerous opponent.
By the end of the first round, my hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat. My ears were ringing from a half-hook I had taken to the side of the head, my torso gritty with dust kicked up by our constant maneuvering. My jaw was bruised, my ribs and forearms sore. And I was somehow happier than I had felt in a long while.
Round two started with a few halfhearted jabs from each of us, each trying to calculate the other’s next move. Holmes had used the first round to gauge my style of fighting, and I had tried to gauge his, but I was afraid our success was unequal. He feinted more often this round, and his feints were masterful, earning me a nearly dislocated jaw and what could have been a fractured rib had he not held his hand back at the last moment. For some reason this little mercy incensed me, and I attacked him with even more vigor than before. I blacked his other eye and he actually laughed, grin stretching his split lip open again. He spit blood onto the floor.
At the end of the second round I stayed on the floor where his final half-hook had laid me. Panting, both eyes bruised, lip dark with blood, Holmes was again proclaimed winner. He leaned over me as the referee called his name and the crowd cheered, extending one gloved hand and pulling me to my feet. “Excellent rounds, old boy,” he said, but his voice was rough and dark and still sounded dangerous. “I extend my sincerest apologies that I did not think I would be so well-matched.” Here he regained some of his usual composure, throwing me his customary aloof but still warm smirk.
“You are a masterful opponent,” I responded in all honesty. We went to the back room together and attempted to rinse some dust and sweat off of our bodies before putting our clothing back on. Holmes carefully washed his face, so all that remained of my first jab was a little dark cut on his lower lip. I watched him with a new appreciation for his body -- whereas before he had been simply tall and slim, with elegant hands and regal posture and a disregard for all things physical, I felt a little how deeply rooted in physicality his psyche could be when he allowed it. I was deeply impressed, not only by his split-second reaction time, but by the immense power he could instill in the closest of hits. He would never cease to surprise me.
After we had gingerly donned our shirts and jackets, we emerged from the close room into the cool night. I handed Holmes a cigarette as we paused a moment just outside the door to the building, savoring the quiet, open air; when he placed it between his swollen lips I glanced into his clear gray eyes, ringed by swiftly-developing bruises. “My dear fellow,” I exclaimed. “I believe I burst a blood vessel in your left eye. I am --”
“There is quite no need to apologize,” Holmes cut me off. “We were boxing, not taking tea with your grandmother. I would frankly be disappointed if I came away unscathed, especially against such an opponent as yourself.” I felt some strange pride at this, my guilt a little alleviated as I cupped a lit match to the end of his cigarette.
* * *
Two weeks later our bruises had mostly abated, with only a faint tenderness to betray the damage our skin and blood and muscle had taken. I retained, however, the acute mindfulness I had developed of Holmes’s impressive physicality. Whether he dove to the floor to examine a discarded pair of shoes or grappled with some dangerous criminal, I noticed the exceptional control he constantly held over all of his actions, the way he balanced his weight carefully and dictated each movement of his muscles with a precise awareness.
I dared not, however, make the suggestion that we return to Alison’s rooms for a second match. Boxing was solely Holmes’s territory, and aside from my possibly impudent recent encroachment into it I had not half the experience nor stake in it which my friend had. This is not to say that when he himself made the suggestion I found it at all unwelcome.
“I should be delighted,” I told him, unable to keep my anticipatory excitement off of my face. Holmes smiled slowly.
“Tonight, then? Or have you some pressing engagement elsewhere?”
“Holmes, you know what little of a social life I have is spent entirely with you.”
“Are you at all suggesting that interacting only with me makes your social life insignificant? Simply because I am moody, arrogant, uncommunicative, subject to fits of depression and periods of passionate unflagging energy…”
“I would never even think such a thing, you indefatigable narcissist.”
“Tonight at eight, then?”
“I would be delighted.”
The time passed slowly until we left our rooms together, advising Mrs Hudson not to wait up for us. The night was warm and the walk companionable, but behind our casual conversation my nerves were already tingling with adrenaline. This was another slow night at Alison’s, the regulars all absent, and we were the only boxers on the list. I shed my clothing with deliberate carefulness in the dimly lit back room, and was joined shortly by Holmes. He took little time to undress, arching his back and pressing outstretched arms across his chest by way of stretching. My eyes gravitated to his lean form, the pale glow of his skin against the darkness, the faint curves of his ribs and sharp lines of his hipbones. I quickly looked away, though I was unsure as to exactly why I felt as though I shouldn’t be looking.
“Let me,” Holmes said as I picked up a pair of gloves. His elegant fingers laced them carefully, brushing the skin of my wrist, and I tried not to shudder at his touch. The blood vessel in his eye had almost healed, appearing now as only a faint speck of red next to his clear gray iris; I noticed it when he glanced up at me, expression impenetrable.
Smoke choking, crowd deafening, air oppressive, and we squared off against each other, hunched into defensive curls. The first round was closer than either of our either bouts had been. We traded jabs and blocked each other’s hooks with as much ease as if we were dance partners. My left eye had been hit but had not begun to swell yet, though a series of bruises were blossoming on one side of Holmes’s ribcage. He licked his lips, and this slight movement distracted me enough that I failed to block the same mean half-hook which had floored me after our last fight. I reeled, and when I threw a jab he blocked it with his elbow and employed a powerful cross that knocked me to the floor.
Round one was over; I sprang to my feet and straightened my back for a moment, feeling the dust stuck to my skin shift with every movement. The referee left the ring and we faced one another once more. Instead of holding me away from him with jabs, as he usually began bouts, Holmes drew me close to him, simply defending himself from my short straights to his torso. After he bruised my jaw with two quick uppercuts, I stepped back and began to feint more than actually hit. By drawing his defense out I slipped a cross to his own jaw; he smiled as he gingerly opened his mouth to test the injury.
Round two ended in a draw. Holmes arched his back again, catlike, and the sheen of sweat on his chest shone in the lamplight. He smoothed back an errant lock of hair with a gloved hand, meticulous as always, then smiled some inscrutable smile at me. The bruise on my cheekbone was beginning to swell now, but it hardly obscured my vision and I hoped it would get no worse before we were through. I gritted my teeth and tasted dust on my lips; we began.
I moved in close to Holmes before he even began his pattern of jabs. He blocked my close punches with little difficulty, though I was pleased to force him back several steps, his feet shuffling a cloud of dust around us. He feinted a cross with his right hand, and hit me with one from his left, and I stumbled back from the blow which, for all I knew of him, still surprised me with its strength. He hit my torso with a few straight punches before I could recover, and by the time I did aim a blow at him he was ready to defend himself and incur no damage. Though I got in a good uppercut or two, Holmes finally undid me with a simple jab-cross combination, throwing me back to the floor. I stayed down.
Two other contenders approached the ring as we left. Holmes’s gloved hand sent a little shock across my skin as he placed it on my back. “Well done, old chap,” he said when we had reached the back room. His pupils were huge in the darkness, teeth bright as he bared them to untie his gloves’ lacing. He helped with mine, then, but only after lighting one of my cigarettes, leaving it dangling between his lips as he worked on the knot he had tied. “We’ll have to put a cloth on that when we return home,” he said, glancing at the rapidly swelling bruise over my eye. My vision had narrowed to a slit on that side.
“It’s a good thing I’m not in practice at the moment,” I said. “Nobody wants a doctor who gets into fights.”
“But such delicious fights!” Holmes exclaimed with a dark intensity. “They should want a doctor who knows what it is to experience pain.”
“Of that I have had, I think, more than my fair share.” I meant this in jest but his brow furrowed for a moment. “And somehow I seem more than willing to incur even more.”
“Yes,” he said, regaining his humor, “it is a curious phenomenon, is it not, that we should return again and again to that which causes us such visceral pain? Such undeniable trauma? The mysteries of humanity, Watson.”
At this he doused his entire form with water from the basin, glancing over a glistening shoulder as he said my name. I could only answer, “Indeed,” unexplainably flustered.
“Come, my dear fellow, don’t tell me you intend on putting such a fine shirt atop all those layers of dust,” Holmes continued, grabbing a towel off of a hook and running it over his face. “My fastidious grooming habits have not used up all the water.”
I rinsed the worst of the dust off of my face and torso, apprehensive to acknowledge the gaze I could sense Holmes had fixed upon me. When I finally did look at him, he was half-dressed, but absently, long fingers paused on the third button of his waistcoat. He recovered with a quick, teeth-baring smile. “Shall we be going?” He asked, closing his shirt and shrugging into his waistcoat. I dressed quickly and followed him into the street.
We sat up for a while in our sitting room, filling the air with smoke as though the congested atmosphere of Alison’s rooms had not been enough for one evening. “I am afraid I quite habitually underestimate you, my dear Watson,” Holmes mused after a slight pause in our meandering conversation.
“I am sure I am not so difficult a read, especially to one with such acute powers of observation as yourself.”
“No, no, no, you underestimate yourself even more than I do.” Holmes had fixed his most thoughtful gaze upon me. “You really don’t know how extraordinary… how often you take me completely aback.” But for all I tried to get his true meaning out of him, Holmes remained opaque on the issue, and I gave up (slightly frustrated, I must admit) and ascended the stairs to my bedroom. That night it was not the soreness of my jaw, nor the dull pounding of blood around my swollen eye, which stayed me from sleep.
Less than a week later, in spite of the fact that the skin around my eye had not lost its tenderness nor purplish hue, I found myself again thinking of facing Holmes in the ring. It took him only a day or two to recover the ability drape himself into his favorite armchair without some degree of caution in the treatment of his ribcage, and though it took slightly longer for the soreness in my own bruised limbs to diminish, my desire to fight seemed stronger than ever.
“Holmes,” I said as casually as I was able to over breakfast one day, “how would you respond to the suggestion that we go another round over at Alison’s?”
Holmes flashed a quick grin at me over the rim of his teacup. “I myself would suggest that we wait until your black eye has healed to a greater degree, but I know my Watson well enough that I will not press the issue.”
“I am a doctor, Holmes,” I reminded him with a grin of my own. “One would think that even you would trust my judgment in the matter.”
Holmes affected a bow as best he could while still seated at the breakfast table. “To your superior acuity in all matters medical. Alison tends to hold bouts on week-ends, so I shall send him a wire to expect us tomorrow evening. I trust you can wait one more day?”
I assented to this typically sarcastic remark and returned to my newspaper with that now-familiar anticipation already curling in the pit of my stomach.
The next day I dined at my club, unsure as to whether I could stand the drag of the evening while cooped up alone with Holmes. I played a few games of billiards with Thurston, who regaled me with tales of his travels in South Africa, so the time passed quickly until I met Holmes outside the door of Alison’s. His eyes were dark and sparkled with excitement, and when he clasped my hand in greeting his skin, usually cool to the touch, was hot against mine.
The reek of sweat and smoke had somehow ceased to seem noxious to me, and worked merely to heighten my arousal. A few regulars clapped Holmes on the back as we crossed to the back room, and we stripped quickly and with few words. His slim figure radiated tension. “Well?” He said simply when we faced each other, naked from the waist up.
“Let me.” Echoing his words of the last time we had prepared for a match, I offered his gloves and binding fabric to him. He extended his hands, palms up, and I bound his knuckles with a strip of white fabric, first his right hand, then left. His elegant fingers curled slightly in and my thumbs brushed them when I tied off each strip. I pulled his gloves onto his hands, then, pulling the laces tight at the pale insides of his wrists. He stood perfectly still and I worked to give my movements the precision which had made me such an excellent surgeon; my hands only trembled the slightest bit when they brushed his warm smooth skin.
I bound my own knuckles and met Holmes’s eyes only once, when I looked up from knotting the second strip. He was staring at me with eyes dark and unreadable. I had to look away.
The referee laced my gloves just before we entered the ring, his swift movements exactly unlike Holmes’s own slow and deliberate ones when he had done the same for me. Then we were facing each other in the muted yellow glow of smoke-obscured lamps, and the first round began.
Holmes began cautiously. He kept me at a distance without trying to take me down, feet constantly kicking up plumes of dust. I got in the first hit, a straight to his chin, which clicked his teeth together as it threw his head back. He did not attack, even then; though his jabs kept me moving he did not attempt his own favored cross or half-hook. This taunting put me on edge, and after a few minutes of waiting I dodged a final jab and moved in close to hit him with a short-range punch. I aimed a hook at him with my rear hand but he dodged underneath it and used my own momentum, aided by a well placed hit behind my right ear, to knock me almost to my knees. I recovered, dragging one hand through the dust to steady myself as I stood, and turned to face him. The first round was over. Holmes smiled his predatory grin at me.
At the start of the second round Holmes continued to keep me at bay with his leisurely jabs. I blocked most of them, though one unexpected cross did snap my head to the side, send a tingle of pain to radiate across my jaw. Instead of just turning back to face him I used my turning momentum to throw a half-hook with my rear hand, slightly blind from the hit I had taken but successful enough for the element of surprise that it connected with his jaw. I dove in to hit his ribs with a few short straight-punches, which after a moment he fended off and countered with a few uppercuts, forcing me backwards. I dodged radically to one side when my heel touched the wall, and he followed, the split second he took to turn just enough for me to set up a jab-cross which hit him over the left eye just as the second round ended. During the short break I seemed unable to look away from the sheen of sweat on the tense muscles of his stomach or his rhythmically flexing biceps. He rolled his shoulders and we faced each other again.
The third round was ruthless. Neither of us even bothered to tease or feint. Holmes opened with a half-uppercut which my late block could not keep from knocking me a step to the side. We locked eyes as I regained my stance and his eyes were dark, all pupil, the dark tint around his left eye serving only to make him look more dangerous. I felt a drop of sweat slide down my throat to pool above my shattered left collarbone, and Holmes’s gaze dropped to follow it. I threw an uppercut; it grazed his jaw near where the first hit of the fight had, and he took not a moment for recovery before countering with his half-hook. I blocked it poorly and his glove connected with the flat back of my arm with a dull slap. This he followed with a half-step jab; it hit my nose and I started bleeding.
“Fuck,” I spit out. He licked his lips. I threw a left uppercut, against my usual habit as my old wound makes that my weaker arm, so Holmes was caught off guard and left open for a right hook. He dodged at the last minute, sloppily, so I hit only the end of his chin, but his backwards stumble allowed me to knock him off balance with a final right uppercut. His fists hit the floor behind him for only a moment and he sprang forwards with catlike grace, feinted a cross and caught me with a hook which dragged dirt across one cheekbone, sent a spray of blood from my still-bleeding nose in a wide arc as my head snapped to the side.
I returned with a left hook. It sent a painful jolt through my damaged shoulder but threw Holmes to the side in a little arc, the foot with which he braced himself throwing a fresh cloud of dust over us. He tried a jab-cross combination but I dodged it, throwing my own half-uppercut which split his lower lip open on his teeth. He wiped his mouth in the crook of one bare arm, leaving a dark smudge of blood on the pale skin there, never taking his eyes off of me. With a sudden flash of movement he was on me, dodging my wild jab and throwing rips into my stomach before I knocked him away with an uppercut.
“HEY!” The referee stepped in between us and my attention suddenly snapped back to reality. The little room was louder than ever, and the bright, metallic smell of blood cut through the cigar smoke and sweat. My moustache and upper lip were wet and my glove came away dark when I dabbed at them; on the other side of the referee’s stocky form, Holmes spit blood and ran a wrist over his disheveled hair.
“I think that should be it for us, old chap,” he said to the referee between hard breaths. “Call it a draw, all bets off.” The referee began to argue but Holmes thanked him curtly, took me roughly by the arm and led me to the back room. He stepped behind me as we passed, in the opposite direction, the next two fighters on the docket for the evening, keeping one glove in contact with my arm. Sweat still slid down my backbone and my nerves were raw from having been interrupted in the midst of so heated a fight. I wanted, I realized with a jolt, to hit Holmes again, just to feel the give of his skin under my knuckles. Or, even more awful, I wanted to kiss him, to bite at his swollen lip and tug at his disheveled hair, to drag my blunt nails across his sweat-sticky skin.
Hardly had my back hit the door to the back room when Holmes kissed me. His hands, still in his gloves, held my shoulders in place as our mouths met; he bit at my lower lip a little and I opened my mouth to his tongue. Our teeth clicked and the taste of blood from his split lip curled sharply into my mouth. He pressed the length of his body against mine, and I could already feel his arousal through the layers of our trousers. I slid one leg between his and tilted my hips up a little, to gain more friction, and he growled a little in the back of his throat and drew his head back just enough to bite at my lip again, more slowly this time.
“The gloves,” I managed to say, and Holmes removed his own, baring his teeth to the laces, but after he had pulled them off he made no move towards mine. He brought one hand up to the side of my neck, threading his fingers into my sweat-damp hair, and with the other he set to work unbuttoning my trousers. His hands were steady, somehow, in spite of the adrenaline that set his heart pounding so hard I could feel it. He popped the last button out of its hole and, pausing once to spit saliva and blood into his palm, took me into his hand.
He had not removed the fabric binding from his knuckles, and it created an almost painful friction against my sensitive skin. I made some incoherent syllabic noise in my throat before he once again covered my mouth with his own. When our noses bumped I almost cried out in shock, as mine was still sore, but the flash of pain served somehow to amplify the pleasure I felt at Holmes’s ministrations and my hips bucked involuntarily into his hand. The dust on our skin ground uncomfortably into our chests where they pressed together; Holmes’s hips thrust rhythmically against mine. My hands curled into fists in my gloves.
“Watson,” Holmes growled, and it was enough to undo me. I cried out against his mouth and came, suddenly, my body shuddering as I blacked out into ecstasy.
Holmes wiped his hand on a towel hanging from a hook next to us, and mostly fastened my flies while still supporting my limp body against the door. We both breathed heavily and I felt his exhalations hot against the sweat on my neck.
I pivoted us, then, pushing off the wall with one arm and flipping Holmes so that his back hit the door with a hollow thud. “Unbutton,” I said, unsure as to whether I could even finish the sentence should he ask. Fortunately his quick fingers made short work of his trouser flies and he pulled himself out as I dropped to my knees in front of him.
I rested my gloved hands on either side of his hips as I took him into my mouth. Though it had been over a year since I had given pleasure this way, I retained the abilities I used to have, and swallowed him completely. He tasted like sweat and musk, and as I pulled my head back to run my tongue down the bottom of his cock he curled both hands into my hair. I pulled almost off, swirled the tip of my tongue around his head, and then swallowed him again. As I did so he held my head in place and thrust into my mouth, warning me with a cursory “Fuck, Watson,” before he too reached orgasm, fingers tightening in my hair. After I had swallowed all, I rose to my feet beside him again.
“Where in God’s name did you learn that,” Holmes breathed after a moment. His eyes flicked over my face as a faint smirk spread over his lips. His left eye was surrounded by a purple bruise, his chin was still dark with blood from his mouth, and blood from my nose had smeared across his upper lip.
“You look absolutely ghastly, my dear fellow,” I told him. In response he kissed me again, quickly but deeply. I felt his tongue curl against the roof of my mouth. He raised one hand to the cheek he had hit with the dirty glove, and as the rough binding across his knuckles brushed my skin I realized the dirt must have burned the top layer of skin off.
“We must be a well-suited pair, then.” He only then directed his attention to my gloves. When he had removed them I ran grateful hands up the slick skin of his waist, careful of the bruises I had inflicted there, and grasped at the nape of his neck as I kissed him again.
“It is not solely for the danger of our being discovered in such morally dubious pursuits that I will now suggest that we return home,” Holmes said after we had broken for air. “I also think that the privacy of our rooms will afford us ample opportunity to engage in even more morally dubious pursuits than those just experienced.”
“I begin to see, though only dimly, that at which you hint.” I (albeit reluctantly) backed away from Holmes, and we rinsed blood from our faces and dust from our bodies with veritable thrills of eagerness to return to our rooms, feeling sparks of arousal every time our hot skin touched. When we had clothed ourselves to morally unimpeachable standards and I had finally worked all of the blood out of my moustache, we left the little room arm in arm.
“I’m glad to see you gents ‘ave made up whatever it was, was troublin’ you,” the referee said as he saw us leaving together. “That seemed a nasty dispute you were settlin’ there.”
I glanced at Holmes while he gave the referee his most amiable smile. “I don’t think you should worry about us bringing it here any longer,” he said.
“Good to know. Well, you chaps ‘ave a nice evening!”
“And to you as well.” As we stepped out of the smoky room into the cool night air, Holmes snaked one hand around my waist.
“You don’t expect us to return any time soon?” I asked him.
“My dear fellow,” he murmured, leaning close to my ear, “I don’t think I could ever again stand the sight of you bare and sweating without mercilessly ravishing you. As it was I have had quite the trouble containing myself, you know.”
“I should hate to disappoint your best endeavors to break our Queen’s laws, so I suppose I shall have the honor of frequently shedding my clothing when in your company.”
We glanced at each other under a streetlamp; we almost looked gentlemen, though the bruise developing around his eye and the cut on his lip belied some darker impulse in his nature. “I anticipate every occasion.”
Holmes/Watson, R, 7400 words.
The Prompt, found here: Holmes/Watson: Boxing matches of increasing sexual tension! Watson decides to challenge Holmes to a fight at the boxing club. They both rather enjoy the experience of being all shirtless and sweaty and violent so it happens again. And again. And again, until they can barely stand the overwhelming urge to fuck instead of fight. SUPER BONUS POINTS for them finally cracking and booking it out of the ring after a particularly frustrating match to finish what they started just out of range of the crowd.
Warnings: LOTS OF VIOLENCE, lots of sexual tension, some blood. Dudes gettin' other dudes off.
Notes: This is more or less in pastiche style, with references to minutiae in SIGN re: boxing. I planned on filling this prompt with a few thousand words, but it sort of exploded and ended up eating two days of my life. It is not beta-read, so all mistakes are mine. Credit is due to featherfish for cheerleading and hand-holding.
The Fill:
It started because we were low on rent. I knew of my friend’s skill at the sweet science, and his resulting small fame within those albeit limited circles. Though I had never been to a match, upon returning to our rooms some nights he occasionally explained, with his usual lack of modesty, how he had that evening gotten the better of some crowd favorite, how a right hook or well-timed cross had left his opponent reeling and the crowd puzzling.
I found it difficult to believe that he had never once bet on himself, though for all I knew he had never lost a match. When I put the question to him, he simply shrugged. “It is merely a hobby, my dear fellow. I look not to earn a living off of it, only to improve my own gifts in that particular realm.”
Nevertheless, it was almost a year after Holmes and I had taken rooms together, and several months after he had revealed his remarkable vocation to me, that we found ourselves in dire monetary straits. I had not yet recovered enough from my experiences overseas to practice medicine, and as Holmes’s fame had not achieved the renown that it would in the years to come, we lived on my meager salary and whatever my flatmate could earn within the month with his cases. The summer had gone by well enough, but the autumn weather had cooled down the hot tempers of evildoers and Holmes had sunk into both an emotional and a monetary depression.
Again, I brought up the idea of putting money on my friend’s talent at boxing.
“I am sure that any indication that I was humoring your penchant for gambling would be naught but detrimental to your finances, Watson,” he responded with his usual stagnation-induced irascibility.
“I am serious, Holmes. Until your singular profession gains some greater notoriety, I don’t see how you plan to keep up your half of the rent payments.” I confess I myself was feeling just as peevish as he; poor weather had kept us both locked indoors for nearly a week, and stress built as the end of the month approached and we were still as poor as ever.
Holmes heaved a long suffering sigh around his pipe. “I have,” he admitted, “been toying with the idea of making another appearance at Alison’s rooms, and if you would like to place money on the chance of my winning, it is hardly upon me to complain.”
I agreed, and several hours later we set out together with Holmes’s gloves slung over one of his shoulders and what little money we could pool together, towards whatever settlement fate would have of us.
Alison’s rooms, one venue in a small but reputable circuit of underground boxing, was really just one room, of medium-size and filled with cigar smoke and the shouts of men. What could be smelled underneath the cheap cigars was rather execrable but somehow stimulating all the same, sweat and musk laced through with the sharp bite of blood. At one side was a bar, with a man in a slightly crushed bowler hat standing at the side waving white sheets of paper and calling for bets. I glanced around; in the middle of the room was a regulation 24-square-foot ring, sunken to a lower level in the floor and surrounded by a six-foot wooden wall, on which onlookers leaned their elbows and set their beers. Holmes disappeared and I laid down everything we had, praying that his talk of his talents was unexaggerated. The first match started, then, and I stood near the back of the crowd as I watched three bouts between a terribly ill-matched pair of opponents. A smallish in-fighter (whose name I didn’t catch) was utterly pummeled by a huge slugger appropriately named “Knock-Out Nick”, and my excitement was piqued in spite of my medical judgment. I counted broken ribs and burst blood vessels, marked recovery time in my mind as the crowd cheered and clamored.
After the little swarmer was thoroughly knocked to the ground, Holmes stepped up against the massive brawler. I realized he was not unheard of in this circle, as some onlookers did cheer as his name was called, but Knock-Out Nick held the crowd’s palpable favor. The referee called the first round to action.
Holmes circled his opponent, who was about his height but quite larger in girth. His quick feet threw clouds of reddish dust into the air; his movements had an elegance which seemed to take the brawler off-guard. He started out defensive, throwing only the occasional jab while sizing up his opponent’s graceless and uncalculated method of fighting. Holmes easily dodged Nick’s predictable combination of hooks and uppercuts, and when he finally began to attack he threw enough of his own clear jabs to throw Nick into a discernible daze. The fight was over in two rounds, Holmes finally swarming close and overpowering Nick with a unexpected cross to the jaw. The crowd’s reaction was decidedly mixed, but not altogether negative, for which I was thankful (I was sure I could not stand by silently while my friend was maligned, though I was equally sure I could not stand up unharmed to an angry group of boxing fanatics).
Holmes left the ring with a wink at me, and I went to collect our winnings as he disappeared into some back room for his discarded shirt and coat. He appeared at my side as I counted notes. “Mrs Hudson would no doubt be horrified at how we are paying our rent this month,” he said. “But we will surely be able to pay.” He smelled of sweat and, though he favored the shoulder where he had taken a powerful jab, he could not keep an exhilarated grin off of his face. I, likewise, betrayed some of the excitement I felt at this whole excursion -- not only at the bet, which gave me the same guilt-tinged thrill I had always felt when gambling, but the cheering of the crowd and the sight of two men so primally at war with one another was more than enough to stir the adventure in my blood.
It was raining lightly outside, each streetlamp in a halo of luminescence. Holmes’s hair had fallen out of its usual slicked-back order and had been matte with dust, but now shone again with water drops. He spoke animatedly about his theories and strategies of boxing, holding his hat in one hand and gesticulating wildly with it, and after a few minutes I couldn’t tell whether the shine on his forehead was sweat or rain. When he looked at me sidelong it was with a curious little half-smile, which I could have written off as my own imagination had my senses been less heightened from the adrenaline racing through my system.
“What are you smiling at, Holmes?”
“I confess, my dear Watson, I had thought little of your gambling scheme, but it appears to be a remarkably satisfactory way to supplement our meager income. As much as I may disapprove of your only vice,” he added with a rakish twinkle in his eye which took me completely aback, “it seems sensible to indulge it just a little while longer, does it not?”
“Well, this is just enough to cover the rent, so if you want any money for sundries…” I mentally berated myself for enabling both of our potentially detrimental habits, but was unable to keep a sly grin from mirroring his on my own lips.
We spoke no more of this promise, though, for the next few days. Mrs Hudson got her rent on time, and Lestrade brought Holmes a new case within the week. It was “an intellectual pittance,” my friend complained, but as he laid down his syringe and took up his magnifying glass I was contented.
“I received a telegram from William Alison with the morning post,” Holmes said over luncheon one day. “I believe I will be returning to the ring this evening.” He had just finished the case for Lestrade (it had been the countess’s maid’s brother, after all) and so had not yet sunken back into that black depression which had so recently had him in thrall.
“I suppose I should not insult your vast intelligence by reassuring myself that you are sufficiently recovered from your last bout there?”
Holmes barked a short laugh. “I assure you, doctor, my bruised ribs are quite sound, and my shoulder was better within that same evening.”
“If you don’t mind, I should like to accompany you,” I put forward somewhat cautiously, loath to infringe upon his territory.
“I was about to suggest that same thing,” Holmes said with a smile. “Eight o’clock, then? I have a few errands to run today, so if I do not return by then, should I assume you remember your way?” I nodded my assent, and he left our rooms in a swirl of coat-tails.
Sure enough, by a quarter to eight he had not yet returned, so I picked the lock on his desk to extract my cheque-book. One does not spend all one’s time with Sherlock Holmes without learning some unorthodox skills.
The boxing room at William Alison’s was less crowded than it had been on our last visit, but seemed somehow to be as loud and smoke-filled as ever. I approached the man taking bets, recognizing his dusty and battered hat from last time, and casually enquired as to who would be fighting that evening.
“Mister Holmes versus Tweedy Anderson, for the first round, as a sort o’ cursory go-round. But Left-Hook Mickey ain’t shown up yet, so we might have to cut th’evening’s entertainment short, as it were.”
Although the odds were nowhere near as profitable as last time, I laid down a few pounds on Holmes. Easing through the crowd, I attained a spot close enough to the sunken-in ring to lean my elbows on its wall and lit a cigarette while I waited for the match to start. I had not long to wait, however, for before I had finished smoking my friend and his opponent squared off.
It was more evenly matched than either of the two fights I had seen before. Holmes’s opponent was, like himself, wiry and rather tall, playing it close to the chest with quick unexpected jabs and a painful-looking half hook. By the second round Holmes was developing a nasty-looking black eye and had taken a few near-debilitating blows to the stomach, while Tweedy Anderson worked his bruised jaw back and forth and clearly favored a possibly dislocated lead arm. They went four long rounds before Holmes knocked Tweedy down, both bruised and panting, looking balefully yet respectfully at each other. As Holmes backed close to where I watched, I saw a fine coating of dust sticking to the sweat on his pale skin, smudged on the outside of his arm where he had just barely blocked a cross-counter. His breath came hard, and he shook tension out of his arms as the referee (Alison, I presumed) proclaimed him victorious.
“Now comes the sad truth, gents, that Left-‘Ook Mickey’s got ‘imself locked up in Newgate for the time bein’, on account of some trouble with a pinchcock, so we’re sorry to say there ain’t going to be a second bout this evening.” Boos and hisses echoed through the room. “Well, unless one o’ you fellows wants to step up…”
“I’ll do it.” I almost didn’t recognize my own voice at first, my rational mind divorced as it was from the insane part of me which thought that this was a good idea.
A cheer went through the room. There was no backing out now.
I was led to a back room where I shed my jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. I left my stick and hat upon this little collection and emptied my pockets with no little trepidation. The referee bound my knuckles, then handed me a pair of gloves which he laced up with competent, economical movements, and my apprehension was slowly replaced with adrenaline-fueled eagerness. I had fought a few bouts in my spare time while in the army, and had been considered (if I may say so myself) no weak opponent. Having not engaged in anything of the sort in months, however, I was unsure as to how long I would last with such a capable opponent as Holmes. I glanced down at my body, and knew that it was far less substantial than it had been in my heyday (though I was not yet thirty, my experiences in the war had aged me considerably beyond my years), more marred with scars now than before. Yet I was more muscular than Holmes, having kept up a certain amount of exercise during a year of inactivity, and trusted that we would be evenly matched in weight if in no other arena.
The crowd seemed more interested than exactly thrilled, I assumed because most people would not have placed bets on a match between a little-known and unknown contender. This made it easier for me, somehow, knowing that few people favored one of us over the other. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, took a breath, and stepped into the ring.
Holmes’s sweat had dried but the dust remained stuck to his skin. His slim frame was tense, each muscle standing out in sharp relief, breathing now slow and steady. His expression was as bemused as it could be, underneath the focused, almost predatory look that was typical for him in such situations. A little smile crossed his thin lips as he moved into a semi-crouch, angling his torso half-away from me. I approached him, also assuming a semi-crouched position.
“I knew you were going to --”
I hit him in the mouth before he could finish speaking. I still hold that it was not unsporting so much as aiming the interaction in a certain direction.
He smiled, almost feral, and used his glove to wipe away a little of the blood that spilled from his split lip. “Oh yes,” he murmured.
He opened with a quick jab, which I dodged and followed with a cross-counter. He blocked this easily; of course, he had expected it. His uppercut was quick and caused a flash of pain in my jaw, and as I stumbled backwards a step he aimed a few blows at my midsection. I just barely blocked them, and responded with a cross that he dodged so closely he had to take a step back to catch his balance. I recovered quickly from his next jab and weaved in close, hit his diaphragm with a well-placed short straight-punch. Though his breath caught in his chest, he smiled at me, blood still trailing a thin line down his chin. He feinted a cross with his rear hand and caught me off-guard with one from his left hand, crowding so close to me that even when I blocked his hook I was hit with my own hand. So he was not a straight out-fighter, I mused: he could just as easily hold his own at very close range. A dangerous opponent.
By the end of the first round, my hair was plastered to my forehead with sweat. My ears were ringing from a half-hook I had taken to the side of the head, my torso gritty with dust kicked up by our constant maneuvering. My jaw was bruised, my ribs and forearms sore. And I was somehow happier than I had felt in a long while.
Round two started with a few halfhearted jabs from each of us, each trying to calculate the other’s next move. Holmes had used the first round to gauge my style of fighting, and I had tried to gauge his, but I was afraid our success was unequal. He feinted more often this round, and his feints were masterful, earning me a nearly dislocated jaw and what could have been a fractured rib had he not held his hand back at the last moment. For some reason this little mercy incensed me, and I attacked him with even more vigor than before. I blacked his other eye and he actually laughed, grin stretching his split lip open again. He spit blood onto the floor.
At the end of the second round I stayed on the floor where his final half-hook had laid me. Panting, both eyes bruised, lip dark with blood, Holmes was again proclaimed winner. He leaned over me as the referee called his name and the crowd cheered, extending one gloved hand and pulling me to my feet. “Excellent rounds, old boy,” he said, but his voice was rough and dark and still sounded dangerous. “I extend my sincerest apologies that I did not think I would be so well-matched.” Here he regained some of his usual composure, throwing me his customary aloof but still warm smirk.
“You are a masterful opponent,” I responded in all honesty. We went to the back room together and attempted to rinse some dust and sweat off of our bodies before putting our clothing back on. Holmes carefully washed his face, so all that remained of my first jab was a little dark cut on his lower lip. I watched him with a new appreciation for his body -- whereas before he had been simply tall and slim, with elegant hands and regal posture and a disregard for all things physical, I felt a little how deeply rooted in physicality his psyche could be when he allowed it. I was deeply impressed, not only by his split-second reaction time, but by the immense power he could instill in the closest of hits. He would never cease to surprise me.
After we had gingerly donned our shirts and jackets, we emerged from the close room into the cool night. I handed Holmes a cigarette as we paused a moment just outside the door to the building, savoring the quiet, open air; when he placed it between his swollen lips I glanced into his clear gray eyes, ringed by swiftly-developing bruises. “My dear fellow,” I exclaimed. “I believe I burst a blood vessel in your left eye. I am --”
“There is quite no need to apologize,” Holmes cut me off. “We were boxing, not taking tea with your grandmother. I would frankly be disappointed if I came away unscathed, especially against such an opponent as yourself.” I felt some strange pride at this, my guilt a little alleviated as I cupped a lit match to the end of his cigarette.
* * *
Two weeks later our bruises had mostly abated, with only a faint tenderness to betray the damage our skin and blood and muscle had taken. I retained, however, the acute mindfulness I had developed of Holmes’s impressive physicality. Whether he dove to the floor to examine a discarded pair of shoes or grappled with some dangerous criminal, I noticed the exceptional control he constantly held over all of his actions, the way he balanced his weight carefully and dictated each movement of his muscles with a precise awareness.
I dared not, however, make the suggestion that we return to Alison’s rooms for a second match. Boxing was solely Holmes’s territory, and aside from my possibly impudent recent encroachment into it I had not half the experience nor stake in it which my friend had. This is not to say that when he himself made the suggestion I found it at all unwelcome.
“I should be delighted,” I told him, unable to keep my anticipatory excitement off of my face. Holmes smiled slowly.
“Tonight, then? Or have you some pressing engagement elsewhere?”
“Holmes, you know what little of a social life I have is spent entirely with you.”
“Are you at all suggesting that interacting only with me makes your social life insignificant? Simply because I am moody, arrogant, uncommunicative, subject to fits of depression and periods of passionate unflagging energy…”
“I would never even think such a thing, you indefatigable narcissist.”
“Tonight at eight, then?”
“I would be delighted.”
The time passed slowly until we left our rooms together, advising Mrs Hudson not to wait up for us. The night was warm and the walk companionable, but behind our casual conversation my nerves were already tingling with adrenaline. This was another slow night at Alison’s, the regulars all absent, and we were the only boxers on the list. I shed my clothing with deliberate carefulness in the dimly lit back room, and was joined shortly by Holmes. He took little time to undress, arching his back and pressing outstretched arms across his chest by way of stretching. My eyes gravitated to his lean form, the pale glow of his skin against the darkness, the faint curves of his ribs and sharp lines of his hipbones. I quickly looked away, though I was unsure as to exactly why I felt as though I shouldn’t be looking.
“Let me,” Holmes said as I picked up a pair of gloves. His elegant fingers laced them carefully, brushing the skin of my wrist, and I tried not to shudder at his touch. The blood vessel in his eye had almost healed, appearing now as only a faint speck of red next to his clear gray iris; I noticed it when he glanced up at me, expression impenetrable.
Smoke choking, crowd deafening, air oppressive, and we squared off against each other, hunched into defensive curls. The first round was closer than either of our either bouts had been. We traded jabs and blocked each other’s hooks with as much ease as if we were dance partners. My left eye had been hit but had not begun to swell yet, though a series of bruises were blossoming on one side of Holmes’s ribcage. He licked his lips, and this slight movement distracted me enough that I failed to block the same mean half-hook which had floored me after our last fight. I reeled, and when I threw a jab he blocked it with his elbow and employed a powerful cross that knocked me to the floor.
Round one was over; I sprang to my feet and straightened my back for a moment, feeling the dust stuck to my skin shift with every movement. The referee left the ring and we faced one another once more. Instead of holding me away from him with jabs, as he usually began bouts, Holmes drew me close to him, simply defending himself from my short straights to his torso. After he bruised my jaw with two quick uppercuts, I stepped back and began to feint more than actually hit. By drawing his defense out I slipped a cross to his own jaw; he smiled as he gingerly opened his mouth to test the injury.
Round two ended in a draw. Holmes arched his back again, catlike, and the sheen of sweat on his chest shone in the lamplight. He smoothed back an errant lock of hair with a gloved hand, meticulous as always, then smiled some inscrutable smile at me. The bruise on my cheekbone was beginning to swell now, but it hardly obscured my vision and I hoped it would get no worse before we were through. I gritted my teeth and tasted dust on my lips; we began.
I moved in close to Holmes before he even began his pattern of jabs. He blocked my close punches with little difficulty, though I was pleased to force him back several steps, his feet shuffling a cloud of dust around us. He feinted a cross with his right hand, and hit me with one from his left, and I stumbled back from the blow which, for all I knew of him, still surprised me with its strength. He hit my torso with a few straight punches before I could recover, and by the time I did aim a blow at him he was ready to defend himself and incur no damage. Though I got in a good uppercut or two, Holmes finally undid me with a simple jab-cross combination, throwing me back to the floor. I stayed down.
Two other contenders approached the ring as we left. Holmes’s gloved hand sent a little shock across my skin as he placed it on my back. “Well done, old chap,” he said when we had reached the back room. His pupils were huge in the darkness, teeth bright as he bared them to untie his gloves’ lacing. He helped with mine, then, but only after lighting one of my cigarettes, leaving it dangling between his lips as he worked on the knot he had tied. “We’ll have to put a cloth on that when we return home,” he said, glancing at the rapidly swelling bruise over my eye. My vision had narrowed to a slit on that side.
“It’s a good thing I’m not in practice at the moment,” I said. “Nobody wants a doctor who gets into fights.”
“But such delicious fights!” Holmes exclaimed with a dark intensity. “They should want a doctor who knows what it is to experience pain.”
“Of that I have had, I think, more than my fair share.” I meant this in jest but his brow furrowed for a moment. “And somehow I seem more than willing to incur even more.”
“Yes,” he said, regaining his humor, “it is a curious phenomenon, is it not, that we should return again and again to that which causes us such visceral pain? Such undeniable trauma? The mysteries of humanity, Watson.”
At this he doused his entire form with water from the basin, glancing over a glistening shoulder as he said my name. I could only answer, “Indeed,” unexplainably flustered.
“Come, my dear fellow, don’t tell me you intend on putting such a fine shirt atop all those layers of dust,” Holmes continued, grabbing a towel off of a hook and running it over his face. “My fastidious grooming habits have not used up all the water.”
I rinsed the worst of the dust off of my face and torso, apprehensive to acknowledge the gaze I could sense Holmes had fixed upon me. When I finally did look at him, he was half-dressed, but absently, long fingers paused on the third button of his waistcoat. He recovered with a quick, teeth-baring smile. “Shall we be going?” He asked, closing his shirt and shrugging into his waistcoat. I dressed quickly and followed him into the street.
We sat up for a while in our sitting room, filling the air with smoke as though the congested atmosphere of Alison’s rooms had not been enough for one evening. “I am afraid I quite habitually underestimate you, my dear Watson,” Holmes mused after a slight pause in our meandering conversation.
“I am sure I am not so difficult a read, especially to one with such acute powers of observation as yourself.”
“No, no, no, you underestimate yourself even more than I do.” Holmes had fixed his most thoughtful gaze upon me. “You really don’t know how extraordinary… how often you take me completely aback.” But for all I tried to get his true meaning out of him, Holmes remained opaque on the issue, and I gave up (slightly frustrated, I must admit) and ascended the stairs to my bedroom. That night it was not the soreness of my jaw, nor the dull pounding of blood around my swollen eye, which stayed me from sleep.
Less than a week later, in spite of the fact that the skin around my eye had not lost its tenderness nor purplish hue, I found myself again thinking of facing Holmes in the ring. It took him only a day or two to recover the ability drape himself into his favorite armchair without some degree of caution in the treatment of his ribcage, and though it took slightly longer for the soreness in my own bruised limbs to diminish, my desire to fight seemed stronger than ever.
“Holmes,” I said as casually as I was able to over breakfast one day, “how would you respond to the suggestion that we go another round over at Alison’s?”
Holmes flashed a quick grin at me over the rim of his teacup. “I myself would suggest that we wait until your black eye has healed to a greater degree, but I know my Watson well enough that I will not press the issue.”
“I am a doctor, Holmes,” I reminded him with a grin of my own. “One would think that even you would trust my judgment in the matter.”
Holmes affected a bow as best he could while still seated at the breakfast table. “To your superior acuity in all matters medical. Alison tends to hold bouts on week-ends, so I shall send him a wire to expect us tomorrow evening. I trust you can wait one more day?”
I assented to this typically sarcastic remark and returned to my newspaper with that now-familiar anticipation already curling in the pit of my stomach.
The next day I dined at my club, unsure as to whether I could stand the drag of the evening while cooped up alone with Holmes. I played a few games of billiards with Thurston, who regaled me with tales of his travels in South Africa, so the time passed quickly until I met Holmes outside the door of Alison’s. His eyes were dark and sparkled with excitement, and when he clasped my hand in greeting his skin, usually cool to the touch, was hot against mine.
The reek of sweat and smoke had somehow ceased to seem noxious to me, and worked merely to heighten my arousal. A few regulars clapped Holmes on the back as we crossed to the back room, and we stripped quickly and with few words. His slim figure radiated tension. “Well?” He said simply when we faced each other, naked from the waist up.
“Let me.” Echoing his words of the last time we had prepared for a match, I offered his gloves and binding fabric to him. He extended his hands, palms up, and I bound his knuckles with a strip of white fabric, first his right hand, then left. His elegant fingers curled slightly in and my thumbs brushed them when I tied off each strip. I pulled his gloves onto his hands, then, pulling the laces tight at the pale insides of his wrists. He stood perfectly still and I worked to give my movements the precision which had made me such an excellent surgeon; my hands only trembled the slightest bit when they brushed his warm smooth skin.
I bound my own knuckles and met Holmes’s eyes only once, when I looked up from knotting the second strip. He was staring at me with eyes dark and unreadable. I had to look away.
The referee laced my gloves just before we entered the ring, his swift movements exactly unlike Holmes’s own slow and deliberate ones when he had done the same for me. Then we were facing each other in the muted yellow glow of smoke-obscured lamps, and the first round began.
Holmes began cautiously. He kept me at a distance without trying to take me down, feet constantly kicking up plumes of dust. I got in the first hit, a straight to his chin, which clicked his teeth together as it threw his head back. He did not attack, even then; though his jabs kept me moving he did not attempt his own favored cross or half-hook. This taunting put me on edge, and after a few minutes of waiting I dodged a final jab and moved in close to hit him with a short-range punch. I aimed a hook at him with my rear hand but he dodged underneath it and used my own momentum, aided by a well placed hit behind my right ear, to knock me almost to my knees. I recovered, dragging one hand through the dust to steady myself as I stood, and turned to face him. The first round was over. Holmes smiled his predatory grin at me.
At the start of the second round Holmes continued to keep me at bay with his leisurely jabs. I blocked most of them, though one unexpected cross did snap my head to the side, send a tingle of pain to radiate across my jaw. Instead of just turning back to face him I used my turning momentum to throw a half-hook with my rear hand, slightly blind from the hit I had taken but successful enough for the element of surprise that it connected with his jaw. I dove in to hit his ribs with a few short straight-punches, which after a moment he fended off and countered with a few uppercuts, forcing me backwards. I dodged radically to one side when my heel touched the wall, and he followed, the split second he took to turn just enough for me to set up a jab-cross which hit him over the left eye just as the second round ended. During the short break I seemed unable to look away from the sheen of sweat on the tense muscles of his stomach or his rhythmically flexing biceps. He rolled his shoulders and we faced each other again.
The third round was ruthless. Neither of us even bothered to tease or feint. Holmes opened with a half-uppercut which my late block could not keep from knocking me a step to the side. We locked eyes as I regained my stance and his eyes were dark, all pupil, the dark tint around his left eye serving only to make him look more dangerous. I felt a drop of sweat slide down my throat to pool above my shattered left collarbone, and Holmes’s gaze dropped to follow it. I threw an uppercut; it grazed his jaw near where the first hit of the fight had, and he took not a moment for recovery before countering with his half-hook. I blocked it poorly and his glove connected with the flat back of my arm with a dull slap. This he followed with a half-step jab; it hit my nose and I started bleeding.
“Fuck,” I spit out. He licked his lips. I threw a left uppercut, against my usual habit as my old wound makes that my weaker arm, so Holmes was caught off guard and left open for a right hook. He dodged at the last minute, sloppily, so I hit only the end of his chin, but his backwards stumble allowed me to knock him off balance with a final right uppercut. His fists hit the floor behind him for only a moment and he sprang forwards with catlike grace, feinted a cross and caught me with a hook which dragged dirt across one cheekbone, sent a spray of blood from my still-bleeding nose in a wide arc as my head snapped to the side.
I returned with a left hook. It sent a painful jolt through my damaged shoulder but threw Holmes to the side in a little arc, the foot with which he braced himself throwing a fresh cloud of dust over us. He tried a jab-cross combination but I dodged it, throwing my own half-uppercut which split his lower lip open on his teeth. He wiped his mouth in the crook of one bare arm, leaving a dark smudge of blood on the pale skin there, never taking his eyes off of me. With a sudden flash of movement he was on me, dodging my wild jab and throwing rips into my stomach before I knocked him away with an uppercut.
“HEY!” The referee stepped in between us and my attention suddenly snapped back to reality. The little room was louder than ever, and the bright, metallic smell of blood cut through the cigar smoke and sweat. My moustache and upper lip were wet and my glove came away dark when I dabbed at them; on the other side of the referee’s stocky form, Holmes spit blood and ran a wrist over his disheveled hair.
“I think that should be it for us, old chap,” he said to the referee between hard breaths. “Call it a draw, all bets off.” The referee began to argue but Holmes thanked him curtly, took me roughly by the arm and led me to the back room. He stepped behind me as we passed, in the opposite direction, the next two fighters on the docket for the evening, keeping one glove in contact with my arm. Sweat still slid down my backbone and my nerves were raw from having been interrupted in the midst of so heated a fight. I wanted, I realized with a jolt, to hit Holmes again, just to feel the give of his skin under my knuckles. Or, even more awful, I wanted to kiss him, to bite at his swollen lip and tug at his disheveled hair, to drag my blunt nails across his sweat-sticky skin.
Hardly had my back hit the door to the back room when Holmes kissed me. His hands, still in his gloves, held my shoulders in place as our mouths met; he bit at my lower lip a little and I opened my mouth to his tongue. Our teeth clicked and the taste of blood from his split lip curled sharply into my mouth. He pressed the length of his body against mine, and I could already feel his arousal through the layers of our trousers. I slid one leg between his and tilted my hips up a little, to gain more friction, and he growled a little in the back of his throat and drew his head back just enough to bite at my lip again, more slowly this time.
“The gloves,” I managed to say, and Holmes removed his own, baring his teeth to the laces, but after he had pulled them off he made no move towards mine. He brought one hand up to the side of my neck, threading his fingers into my sweat-damp hair, and with the other he set to work unbuttoning my trousers. His hands were steady, somehow, in spite of the adrenaline that set his heart pounding so hard I could feel it. He popped the last button out of its hole and, pausing once to spit saliva and blood into his palm, took me into his hand.
He had not removed the fabric binding from his knuckles, and it created an almost painful friction against my sensitive skin. I made some incoherent syllabic noise in my throat before he once again covered my mouth with his own. When our noses bumped I almost cried out in shock, as mine was still sore, but the flash of pain served somehow to amplify the pleasure I felt at Holmes’s ministrations and my hips bucked involuntarily into his hand. The dust on our skin ground uncomfortably into our chests where they pressed together; Holmes’s hips thrust rhythmically against mine. My hands curled into fists in my gloves.
“Watson,” Holmes growled, and it was enough to undo me. I cried out against his mouth and came, suddenly, my body shuddering as I blacked out into ecstasy.
Holmes wiped his hand on a towel hanging from a hook next to us, and mostly fastened my flies while still supporting my limp body against the door. We both breathed heavily and I felt his exhalations hot against the sweat on my neck.
I pivoted us, then, pushing off the wall with one arm and flipping Holmes so that his back hit the door with a hollow thud. “Unbutton,” I said, unsure as to whether I could even finish the sentence should he ask. Fortunately his quick fingers made short work of his trouser flies and he pulled himself out as I dropped to my knees in front of him.
I rested my gloved hands on either side of his hips as I took him into my mouth. Though it had been over a year since I had given pleasure this way, I retained the abilities I used to have, and swallowed him completely. He tasted like sweat and musk, and as I pulled my head back to run my tongue down the bottom of his cock he curled both hands into my hair. I pulled almost off, swirled the tip of my tongue around his head, and then swallowed him again. As I did so he held my head in place and thrust into my mouth, warning me with a cursory “Fuck, Watson,” before he too reached orgasm, fingers tightening in my hair. After I had swallowed all, I rose to my feet beside him again.
“Where in God’s name did you learn that,” Holmes breathed after a moment. His eyes flicked over my face as a faint smirk spread over his lips. His left eye was surrounded by a purple bruise, his chin was still dark with blood from his mouth, and blood from my nose had smeared across his upper lip.
“You look absolutely ghastly, my dear fellow,” I told him. In response he kissed me again, quickly but deeply. I felt his tongue curl against the roof of my mouth. He raised one hand to the cheek he had hit with the dirty glove, and as the rough binding across his knuckles brushed my skin I realized the dirt must have burned the top layer of skin off.
“We must be a well-suited pair, then.” He only then directed his attention to my gloves. When he had removed them I ran grateful hands up the slick skin of his waist, careful of the bruises I had inflicted there, and grasped at the nape of his neck as I kissed him again.
“It is not solely for the danger of our being discovered in such morally dubious pursuits that I will now suggest that we return home,” Holmes said after we had broken for air. “I also think that the privacy of our rooms will afford us ample opportunity to engage in even more morally dubious pursuits than those just experienced.”
“I begin to see, though only dimly, that at which you hint.” I (albeit reluctantly) backed away from Holmes, and we rinsed blood from our faces and dust from our bodies with veritable thrills of eagerness to return to our rooms, feeling sparks of arousal every time our hot skin touched. When we had clothed ourselves to morally unimpeachable standards and I had finally worked all of the blood out of my moustache, we left the little room arm in arm.
“I’m glad to see you gents ‘ave made up whatever it was, was troublin’ you,” the referee said as he saw us leaving together. “That seemed a nasty dispute you were settlin’ there.”
I glanced at Holmes while he gave the referee his most amiable smile. “I don’t think you should worry about us bringing it here any longer,” he said.
“Good to know. Well, you chaps ‘ave a nice evening!”
“And to you as well.” As we stepped out of the smoky room into the cool night air, Holmes snaked one hand around my waist.
“You don’t expect us to return any time soon?” I asked him.
“My dear fellow,” he murmured, leaning close to my ear, “I don’t think I could ever again stand the sight of you bare and sweating without mercilessly ravishing you. As it was I have had quite the trouble containing myself, you know.”
“I should hate to disappoint your best endeavors to break our Queen’s laws, so I suppose I shall have the honor of frequently shedding my clothing when in your company.”
We glanced at each other under a streetlamp; we almost looked gentlemen, though the bruise developing around his eye and the cut on his lip belied some darker impulse in his nature. “I anticipate every occasion.”