(no subject)
long dormant
sherlock holmes (2009): sherlock holmes/john watson. // (2.990) // PG-13
thank you chaviola, I am forever indebted to you for your patience.
posted to holmeswatson09 and sherlock2009.
Picture London as seen from the sky on a bleak November day, like all November days are bleak. The heavens an unhealthy grey, the same colour of the Thames, its waters riddled with muck and excrement, human and animal alike. The stench rises over Westminster in the rain which drops down from the clouds in great big drops, hitting the top hats of the gentlemen and the bonnets of the ladies. Mud rules on the streets of London in November: mud, and rain, and sludge, and it doesn't take kindly to anyone.
Picture London from above in the rain, the colours dimmed and the sounds reduced to nothing but the rain, and picture its people bustling about the cobbled streets like so many ants, their garments as grey and as soaked as the buildings they pass.
And next, picture a street next to a park, quite the same as any other street next to any other park in London, a pub on the corner with warm and welcoming windows on a day as ill-tempered as this - but go past, despite the enticing smell of sausages and bubble and squeak emanating from it as the door swings open, and focus instead on the well-dressed gentleman rushing to the house which bears the number 221B, his cane rhythmically hitting the pavement as he walks. The ends of his trousers are splattered with mud as he raps the cane on the front door, and it opens for him. He turns to face the street once before entering. It is the face of a man who has seen the world, its ails and its goods; the face of a man who has chosen danger instead of a quiet, safe profession; the face of the man whom Sherlock Holmes would trust with his life, and has had to for many an instance.
The door closes behind him.
Doctor Watson was back home.
*
Watson tried to push the door, but it didn't budge. "Holmes?" he called, uncertainly.
"He's been shut in there ever since you left, Doctor," said Mrs Hudson, hovering next to him eagerly, like she couldn't wait for Watson to open the door so she could peer in. "Me and the Captain tried to come in, but he just shouted at us. I think he blocked it with something."
"Has he eaten?" asked Watson.
"If he has, it wasn't brought by me, Doctor," she said. "Wouldn't open the door, he said-"
"Yes, thank you," Watson cut her off. "If you could be so kind as to go down to the kitchen and get us some tea, I would be very grateful." Mrs Hudson bobbed a curtsey, looking slightly displeased, and vanished downstairs.
"Holmes?" Watson rapped on the door with his cane.
"Go away!" came a muffled voice.
"For God's sake, man, it's me!"
Watson listened. He heard some scraping and shuffling noises, the dog giving a yelp - he swore that there would be a reckoning, that dog shouldn't be treated like that despite what Holmes said - and then a sound like something very heavy was moved away from the door. "It's open," Holmes said from the other side.
Warily, Watson pushed the door and peered behind it.
There was no floor. It was all covered in note sheets, scribbled pieces of paper and various assorted junk that he had not the time nor the patience to name or observe. To think I tidied everything up before I left, he thought with a tinge of bitterness. He tried pushing the door a bit more, but it wouldn't budge. He soon identified the cause - the large chest of drawers appeared to have been pushed up against it in order to prevent anyone from getting in, or out. Perched precariously on top of it were filthy plates which Watson couldn't look at without his stomach turning unpleasantly, and on top of them, Holmes' pipe, looking quite abandoned. He squeezed through the narrow crack of the open door and stepped into the room, careful not to step on anything important - or living.
"Holmes?" he called. Looking around the room, his gaze fell on the armchair Holmes usually occupied. Save for some dirty linen and a mysterious bouquet of dead flowers, it was empty. He turned his head when he heard a scraping noise. It was the dog, and it was pawing at the door to the walk-in closet. Watson whistled, and it turned and came, slipping slightly over the scattered papers on the floor, skidding towards him. He let it out of the room and it happily went down the staircase and out of sight. Watson's nose wrinkled. He didn't want to consider the consequences of the dog being shut up in here for so long. As the dog had moved away, Watson noticed something he hadn't seen before -there was a piece of rough string, or some sort of very thin but durable rope, leading from under the closet door towards him. No, not towards him - he bent down to inspect, and saw that the end of the string had been tied to one of the legs of the chest of drawers. He straightened up, looking annoyed.
"You're in the closet," he said to the air.
"Are you naturally this quick-witted or is this a rare occurrence that I have been blessed with?" Holmes' voice came from the closet. "I am forced to conclude that your honeymoon must have blunted your senses slightly. That happens when one spends prolonged amounts of time in Bath. You haven't changed your suit yet either; the essence of smelling salts lingers on."
Watson grinned. Despite the sarcastic jabs, he had to admit he'd missed this. "Won't you come out?"
"No," Holmes said defiantly, just as Watson heard a knock at the door. "I'm working on an experiment."
Watson went to open the door, which revealed Mrs Hudson standing on the landing with a tray carrying a plate of sandwiches, a teapot and some cups, straining her neck as far as it would go in order to inspect the room as best as she could without actually setting foot inside it. He took the tray from her as fast as he could without being rude, and closed the door on her. After a moment's contemplation, he set the tray on a surface that looked most likely to withstand its weight, and pushed the chest of drawers back into place, blocking the door. He heard a faint thud from the other side, followed by a frustrated huff. Mrs Hudson was obviously displeased with his behaviour. That was going to be dealt with later. For now, he took the plate of sandwiches and Holmes' pipe and went to the closet door, opening it.
Holmes was sitting on the floor, on a pile of Watson's coats that he'd left behind because they had grown too small, or too frayed, or too out of fashion for his liking. Watson hadn't seen the man in three weeks, and now there was far less of him to see. He had grown visibly thinner and had a waxen look about him. His shirt was heavily stained with ink, sweat and inklings of blood, all covered by a layer of dust. He looked up at Watson and grabbed a sandwich from the plate, sinking his teeth into the bread with animalistic hunger. His violin lay across his lap, and Watson quickly removed it before any stray crumbs had a chance of falling on it.
It was obvious Holmes hadn't been eating. It was also obvious that he had been using cocaine again, and Watson didn't have to speculate long to guess that there haven't been any new or interesting cases since he'd left with Mary to Bath. They'd had a lovely honeymoon - or at least that was what Watson was trying to convince himself during its course. It was shameful to admit, but he'd missed Baker Street. The endless, pointless bickering, and Holmes borrowing his clothes without asking and soiling them with God knows what - but not this. Not Holmes sitting at the bottom of a closet, looking absolutely wretched and wolfing down a ham sandwich like it was the only food he'd seen in weeks. Which, Watson thought, it very probably was.
"I trust," he began, "that if I were to walk into the bathroom now, I would find the bottles of your 7% solution intact."
"Of course," said Holmes, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "All four of them, capped and untouched."
"There were five when I left, Holmes."
"Ah," said Holmes. "Well observed."
"I, furthermore, trust," continued Watson, "that asking you to explain, or to amend, would amount to nothing."
"As it always does," said Holmes.
"As it always does," Watson agreed. "I could punch you in the face," he added as an afterthought.
"But you shan't, my dear," said Holmes. "Your fists are not balled and there is not a single ounce of rage about your person. You are not even sufficiently annoyed for a slap. Au contraire, you are bursting with curiosity to know what I have been working on." Watson hated when Holmes was right about these things. "So come, sit with me," Holmes said, patting the floor next to him. "And do close the door; there is quite a draft."
Grudgingly, and with rather an amount of knee-bumping and excuses from the doctor's part, Watson sat himself beside Holmes and closed the closet door. Darkness swallowed them. Watson became increasingly aware of the tightness of the space they occupied, and of the increasing lack of fresh air within it. Holmes reeked of tobacco, and Watson himself was still slightly damp about the edges from the rain. There was also the distinct hint of mothballs, and a twinge of formaldehyde.
"Holmes..." Watson began, "what on God's Earth have you been doing?"
"Science," Holmes simply said. "I have been experimenting, Watson. Pushing my mind and my body to its very limits. I have broken the boundaries of physics and stitched them back together again."
"What, while in a closet?"
"I can sense the scepticism in your voice."
"Really." Watson's eyes had begun to adapt to the darkness. It wasn't as choking now that he was able to see the crack between the door and the floor, through which a scrap of light had managed to creep in. By aid of this Watson was able to see Holmes, barely outlined, sitting opposite him. Their calves were just close enough to be touching, and Watson was still holding Holmes' violin, his fingers resting on the neck. He felt that this was somehow an invasion of Holmes' personal space - even though it was ludicrous, really, to be thinking of personal space in confines as unfortunately tight as these.
"Indeed," Holmes continued. "I can see you have lost some of your previous appreciation for the minutiae of scientific experiments. That is only to be expected. After all, you are a married man now. And married men tend to get otherwise occupied." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Trinkets, presents, little walks in the park, shiny morsels of attention to keep the lady wife appeased."
Watson felt that Holmes was becoming increasingly unpleasant. He, Watson, was willing to listen to Holmes' ridiculous explanation for why he spent days shut in a closet, while all that Holmes was aiming at, at the moment, seemed to be making spiteful remarks about Mary and Watson's marriage to her. The harder Watson tried to familiarise Holmes with Mary, the less the detective liked her, and it irked the doctor to no end. What frustrated him more, however, was the fact that the more Holmes did this, the more Watson started thinking about Mary from Holmes' point of view. He knew Mary was not the type of woman who would get engrossed in flights of fancy, and yet every time she stopped in the street to admire something purely because of its aesthetics, Watson caught himself frowning, thinking about women and their superficial interests. Every time he had to remind himself that this was Holmes thinking, it was not him.
It was downright distasteful, the way the man got into Watson's head, even when he wasn't there. Especially when he wasn't there - although now, Watson could definitely argue that Holmes was in his head, or at least fighting a damned good battle to gain entry. The space in the closet was stuffy and disagreeable - not to mention that there was quite a small amount of it - and Watson was beginning to feel the repercussions of this manifesting through dull pain in his lower back.
Holmes shifted. He reached towards Watson. The doctor coiled back, still peeved about the detective's earlier remark, but Holmes' fingers just closed around the neck of the violin. He removed it from Watson's lap, carefully putting it to rest on an old box which Watson believed contained decomposing rodents, at least if the smell was anything to go by.
"You do not seem to be enjoying your life as a newly-wed, my good doctor," Holmes remarked.
"Pardon?" Watson's face remained impassive. And if it hadn't, he reasoned, there was not much that Holmes could discern in this darkness.
Holmes straightened up so that he was now kneeling, and touched his fingers to Watson's neck. For an instant, Watson thought that he was feeling his pulse for some absurd reason - which immediately made it race - but then Holmes spoke.
"Your shirt collar is not starched," he said, tugging loosely on it. "There is a tear on the left sleeve of your suit," he traced the tear, which was just above Watson's elbow. "You caught it on a sharp nail two days ago, no doubt due to the sleeves being too loose." Watson frowned, but Holmes, as always, ignored this. The detective leaned closer, taking a deep breath through his nose, sniffing. Watson felt his breath catch in his throat. Holmes' unkempt hair was in such proximity to his nose that it almost made him sneeze, and Holmes' mouth was by his ear, his lips making a slight smacking sound as he spoke. "Apart from the rain and the smelling salts, there is also an aroma of tobacco and low quality beer, which means that you spend more time in public houses and gentlemen's clubs than with the flame of your heart." Watson scoffed at the impertinent sarcasm in Holmes' voice. Holmes tapped his fingers on the doctor's cheek thoughtfully, taking a moment to brush them against his jawbone. Watson felt his heart thumping aggressively against his ribcage, and he mentally cursed his body for reacting in such a way when, clearly, his mental processes were not excited in the least - he was keeping a clear head. Unlike Holmes, whose pupils were blown, a grin playing on his lips (which were unnervingly close to Watson's face at the moment) as he said: "And you haven't shaved in five days."
"I've not had the chance," he said, surprised at the way his voice came out. It was far too quiet and gravelly for his liking.
"You know that I can tell when you are lying," Holmes said. He rested his arms on Watson's knees, leaning on him and looking at him intently. "You always carry a small shaving kit where you can access it on longer travels. You've told me yourself." He looked infinitely amused. "I am just wondering, you understand," he went on, "about when you are going to admit the obvious." When Watson clearly displayed that he had no desire to retort, Holmes simply went on. "Mary is not the right person for you, and the marriage was a mistake."
"Is that your opinion, or your deduction?"
"What do you think?"
"Both," Watson promptly replied, because he knew the detective too well. This did not mean that he liked what he knew about him. "I do not doubt that you have already concocted the perfect solution to my predicament."
"I was, in fact, hoping that you would have reached it yourself by now," said Holmes, sounding vaguely disappointed. "I suppose that your training has not paid off as well as I would have hoped."
"How do you expect me to think in here?" Watson protested, ego slightly bruised. "It's dark, it's airless, it smells something foul, and you're leaning right into me."
"My dear," Holmes said, "thinking is not the desired action you should be taking in this situation."
Before Watson was able to process what this information was supposed to mean, Holmes leaned in, and Watson's airflow was briefly cut off because the detective's lips were on his, but mostly because he was so shocked, so taken aback, so flabbergasted, that he breathed in and forgot to breathe out. He breathed in Holmes: the tobacco, the 7% cocaine solution, the stained shirt, the dust, the scribbled music sheets and the erratic notes that made up Sherlock Holmes. Guilt and desire fought a raging battle inside him, and the doctor felt that he really did not give a damn about the cocaine or the tobacco, not right now, not when there was Holmes. He didn't give a damn about the marriage which had ended before it had properly started, because there was Holmes, and his fingers, and the scratching of his stubble on Watson's chin, and - his tongue, yes, his tongue, first on Watson's lips, and then against Watson's tongue, probing, tasting. Inspecting, inquisitive, like Holmes himself, and Watson felt his toes curl in the exact way they did not do when Mary kissed him.
Then he realised something, and pushed Holmes away.
"You planned this," he spat, breath coming short. "You've been planning this." His fist closed around Holmes' shirt, pulling him close again, angry. "All the time that I've been away, you scheming- vile-"
"You don't have to go to such great trouble, Watson," said Holmes. "A simple thank you will suffice."
sherlock holmes (2009): sherlock holmes/john watson. // (2.990) // PG-13
thank you chaviola, I am forever indebted to you for your patience.
posted to holmeswatson09 and sherlock2009.
Picture London as seen from the sky on a bleak November day, like all November days are bleak. The heavens an unhealthy grey, the same colour of the Thames, its waters riddled with muck and excrement, human and animal alike. The stench rises over Westminster in the rain which drops down from the clouds in great big drops, hitting the top hats of the gentlemen and the bonnets of the ladies. Mud rules on the streets of London in November: mud, and rain, and sludge, and it doesn't take kindly to anyone.
Picture London from above in the rain, the colours dimmed and the sounds reduced to nothing but the rain, and picture its people bustling about the cobbled streets like so many ants, their garments as grey and as soaked as the buildings they pass.
And next, picture a street next to a park, quite the same as any other street next to any other park in London, a pub on the corner with warm and welcoming windows on a day as ill-tempered as this - but go past, despite the enticing smell of sausages and bubble and squeak emanating from it as the door swings open, and focus instead on the well-dressed gentleman rushing to the house which bears the number 221B, his cane rhythmically hitting the pavement as he walks. The ends of his trousers are splattered with mud as he raps the cane on the front door, and it opens for him. He turns to face the street once before entering. It is the face of a man who has seen the world, its ails and its goods; the face of a man who has chosen danger instead of a quiet, safe profession; the face of the man whom Sherlock Holmes would trust with his life, and has had to for many an instance.
The door closes behind him.
Doctor Watson was back home.
*
Watson tried to push the door, but it didn't budge. "Holmes?" he called, uncertainly.
"He's been shut in there ever since you left, Doctor," said Mrs Hudson, hovering next to him eagerly, like she couldn't wait for Watson to open the door so she could peer in. "Me and the Captain tried to come in, but he just shouted at us. I think he blocked it with something."
"Has he eaten?" asked Watson.
"If he has, it wasn't brought by me, Doctor," she said. "Wouldn't open the door, he said-"
"Yes, thank you," Watson cut her off. "If you could be so kind as to go down to the kitchen and get us some tea, I would be very grateful." Mrs Hudson bobbed a curtsey, looking slightly displeased, and vanished downstairs.
"Holmes?" Watson rapped on the door with his cane.
"Go away!" came a muffled voice.
"For God's sake, man, it's me!"
Watson listened. He heard some scraping and shuffling noises, the dog giving a yelp - he swore that there would be a reckoning, that dog shouldn't be treated like that despite what Holmes said - and then a sound like something very heavy was moved away from the door. "It's open," Holmes said from the other side.
Warily, Watson pushed the door and peered behind it.
There was no floor. It was all covered in note sheets, scribbled pieces of paper and various assorted junk that he had not the time nor the patience to name or observe. To think I tidied everything up before I left, he thought with a tinge of bitterness. He tried pushing the door a bit more, but it wouldn't budge. He soon identified the cause - the large chest of drawers appeared to have been pushed up against it in order to prevent anyone from getting in, or out. Perched precariously on top of it were filthy plates which Watson couldn't look at without his stomach turning unpleasantly, and on top of them, Holmes' pipe, looking quite abandoned. He squeezed through the narrow crack of the open door and stepped into the room, careful not to step on anything important - or living.
"Holmes?" he called. Looking around the room, his gaze fell on the armchair Holmes usually occupied. Save for some dirty linen and a mysterious bouquet of dead flowers, it was empty. He turned his head when he heard a scraping noise. It was the dog, and it was pawing at the door to the walk-in closet. Watson whistled, and it turned and came, slipping slightly over the scattered papers on the floor, skidding towards him. He let it out of the room and it happily went down the staircase and out of sight. Watson's nose wrinkled. He didn't want to consider the consequences of the dog being shut up in here for so long. As the dog had moved away, Watson noticed something he hadn't seen before -there was a piece of rough string, or some sort of very thin but durable rope, leading from under the closet door towards him. No, not towards him - he bent down to inspect, and saw that the end of the string had been tied to one of the legs of the chest of drawers. He straightened up, looking annoyed.
"You're in the closet," he said to the air.
"Are you naturally this quick-witted or is this a rare occurrence that I have been blessed with?" Holmes' voice came from the closet. "I am forced to conclude that your honeymoon must have blunted your senses slightly. That happens when one spends prolonged amounts of time in Bath. You haven't changed your suit yet either; the essence of smelling salts lingers on."
Watson grinned. Despite the sarcastic jabs, he had to admit he'd missed this. "Won't you come out?"
"No," Holmes said defiantly, just as Watson heard a knock at the door. "I'm working on an experiment."
Watson went to open the door, which revealed Mrs Hudson standing on the landing with a tray carrying a plate of sandwiches, a teapot and some cups, straining her neck as far as it would go in order to inspect the room as best as she could without actually setting foot inside it. He took the tray from her as fast as he could without being rude, and closed the door on her. After a moment's contemplation, he set the tray on a surface that looked most likely to withstand its weight, and pushed the chest of drawers back into place, blocking the door. He heard a faint thud from the other side, followed by a frustrated huff. Mrs Hudson was obviously displeased with his behaviour. That was going to be dealt with later. For now, he took the plate of sandwiches and Holmes' pipe and went to the closet door, opening it.
Holmes was sitting on the floor, on a pile of Watson's coats that he'd left behind because they had grown too small, or too frayed, or too out of fashion for his liking. Watson hadn't seen the man in three weeks, and now there was far less of him to see. He had grown visibly thinner and had a waxen look about him. His shirt was heavily stained with ink, sweat and inklings of blood, all covered by a layer of dust. He looked up at Watson and grabbed a sandwich from the plate, sinking his teeth into the bread with animalistic hunger. His violin lay across his lap, and Watson quickly removed it before any stray crumbs had a chance of falling on it.
It was obvious Holmes hadn't been eating. It was also obvious that he had been using cocaine again, and Watson didn't have to speculate long to guess that there haven't been any new or interesting cases since he'd left with Mary to Bath. They'd had a lovely honeymoon - or at least that was what Watson was trying to convince himself during its course. It was shameful to admit, but he'd missed Baker Street. The endless, pointless bickering, and Holmes borrowing his clothes without asking and soiling them with God knows what - but not this. Not Holmes sitting at the bottom of a closet, looking absolutely wretched and wolfing down a ham sandwich like it was the only food he'd seen in weeks. Which, Watson thought, it very probably was.
"I trust," he began, "that if I were to walk into the bathroom now, I would find the bottles of your 7% solution intact."
"Of course," said Holmes, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "All four of them, capped and untouched."
"There were five when I left, Holmes."
"Ah," said Holmes. "Well observed."
"I, furthermore, trust," continued Watson, "that asking you to explain, or to amend, would amount to nothing."
"As it always does," said Holmes.
"As it always does," Watson agreed. "I could punch you in the face," he added as an afterthought.
"But you shan't, my dear," said Holmes. "Your fists are not balled and there is not a single ounce of rage about your person. You are not even sufficiently annoyed for a slap. Au contraire, you are bursting with curiosity to know what I have been working on." Watson hated when Holmes was right about these things. "So come, sit with me," Holmes said, patting the floor next to him. "And do close the door; there is quite a draft."
Grudgingly, and with rather an amount of knee-bumping and excuses from the doctor's part, Watson sat himself beside Holmes and closed the closet door. Darkness swallowed them. Watson became increasingly aware of the tightness of the space they occupied, and of the increasing lack of fresh air within it. Holmes reeked of tobacco, and Watson himself was still slightly damp about the edges from the rain. There was also the distinct hint of mothballs, and a twinge of formaldehyde.
"Holmes..." Watson began, "what on God's Earth have you been doing?"
"Science," Holmes simply said. "I have been experimenting, Watson. Pushing my mind and my body to its very limits. I have broken the boundaries of physics and stitched them back together again."
"What, while in a closet?"
"I can sense the scepticism in your voice."
"Really." Watson's eyes had begun to adapt to the darkness. It wasn't as choking now that he was able to see the crack between the door and the floor, through which a scrap of light had managed to creep in. By aid of this Watson was able to see Holmes, barely outlined, sitting opposite him. Their calves were just close enough to be touching, and Watson was still holding Holmes' violin, his fingers resting on the neck. He felt that this was somehow an invasion of Holmes' personal space - even though it was ludicrous, really, to be thinking of personal space in confines as unfortunately tight as these.
"Indeed," Holmes continued. "I can see you have lost some of your previous appreciation for the minutiae of scientific experiments. That is only to be expected. After all, you are a married man now. And married men tend to get otherwise occupied." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Trinkets, presents, little walks in the park, shiny morsels of attention to keep the lady wife appeased."
Watson felt that Holmes was becoming increasingly unpleasant. He, Watson, was willing to listen to Holmes' ridiculous explanation for why he spent days shut in a closet, while all that Holmes was aiming at, at the moment, seemed to be making spiteful remarks about Mary and Watson's marriage to her. The harder Watson tried to familiarise Holmes with Mary, the less the detective liked her, and it irked the doctor to no end. What frustrated him more, however, was the fact that the more Holmes did this, the more Watson started thinking about Mary from Holmes' point of view. He knew Mary was not the type of woman who would get engrossed in flights of fancy, and yet every time she stopped in the street to admire something purely because of its aesthetics, Watson caught himself frowning, thinking about women and their superficial interests. Every time he had to remind himself that this was Holmes thinking, it was not him.
It was downright distasteful, the way the man got into Watson's head, even when he wasn't there. Especially when he wasn't there - although now, Watson could definitely argue that Holmes was in his head, or at least fighting a damned good battle to gain entry. The space in the closet was stuffy and disagreeable - not to mention that there was quite a small amount of it - and Watson was beginning to feel the repercussions of this manifesting through dull pain in his lower back.
Holmes shifted. He reached towards Watson. The doctor coiled back, still peeved about the detective's earlier remark, but Holmes' fingers just closed around the neck of the violin. He removed it from Watson's lap, carefully putting it to rest on an old box which Watson believed contained decomposing rodents, at least if the smell was anything to go by.
"You do not seem to be enjoying your life as a newly-wed, my good doctor," Holmes remarked.
"Pardon?" Watson's face remained impassive. And if it hadn't, he reasoned, there was not much that Holmes could discern in this darkness.
Holmes straightened up so that he was now kneeling, and touched his fingers to Watson's neck. For an instant, Watson thought that he was feeling his pulse for some absurd reason - which immediately made it race - but then Holmes spoke.
"Your shirt collar is not starched," he said, tugging loosely on it. "There is a tear on the left sleeve of your suit," he traced the tear, which was just above Watson's elbow. "You caught it on a sharp nail two days ago, no doubt due to the sleeves being too loose." Watson frowned, but Holmes, as always, ignored this. The detective leaned closer, taking a deep breath through his nose, sniffing. Watson felt his breath catch in his throat. Holmes' unkempt hair was in such proximity to his nose that it almost made him sneeze, and Holmes' mouth was by his ear, his lips making a slight smacking sound as he spoke. "Apart from the rain and the smelling salts, there is also an aroma of tobacco and low quality beer, which means that you spend more time in public houses and gentlemen's clubs than with the flame of your heart." Watson scoffed at the impertinent sarcasm in Holmes' voice. Holmes tapped his fingers on the doctor's cheek thoughtfully, taking a moment to brush them against his jawbone. Watson felt his heart thumping aggressively against his ribcage, and he mentally cursed his body for reacting in such a way when, clearly, his mental processes were not excited in the least - he was keeping a clear head. Unlike Holmes, whose pupils were blown, a grin playing on his lips (which were unnervingly close to Watson's face at the moment) as he said: "And you haven't shaved in five days."
"I've not had the chance," he said, surprised at the way his voice came out. It was far too quiet and gravelly for his liking.
"You know that I can tell when you are lying," Holmes said. He rested his arms on Watson's knees, leaning on him and looking at him intently. "You always carry a small shaving kit where you can access it on longer travels. You've told me yourself." He looked infinitely amused. "I am just wondering, you understand," he went on, "about when you are going to admit the obvious." When Watson clearly displayed that he had no desire to retort, Holmes simply went on. "Mary is not the right person for you, and the marriage was a mistake."
"Is that your opinion, or your deduction?"
"What do you think?"
"Both," Watson promptly replied, because he knew the detective too well. This did not mean that he liked what he knew about him. "I do not doubt that you have already concocted the perfect solution to my predicament."
"I was, in fact, hoping that you would have reached it yourself by now," said Holmes, sounding vaguely disappointed. "I suppose that your training has not paid off as well as I would have hoped."
"How do you expect me to think in here?" Watson protested, ego slightly bruised. "It's dark, it's airless, it smells something foul, and you're leaning right into me."
"My dear," Holmes said, "thinking is not the desired action you should be taking in this situation."
Before Watson was able to process what this information was supposed to mean, Holmes leaned in, and Watson's airflow was briefly cut off because the detective's lips were on his, but mostly because he was so shocked, so taken aback, so flabbergasted, that he breathed in and forgot to breathe out. He breathed in Holmes: the tobacco, the 7% cocaine solution, the stained shirt, the dust, the scribbled music sheets and the erratic notes that made up Sherlock Holmes. Guilt and desire fought a raging battle inside him, and the doctor felt that he really did not give a damn about the cocaine or the tobacco, not right now, not when there was Holmes. He didn't give a damn about the marriage which had ended before it had properly started, because there was Holmes, and his fingers, and the scratching of his stubble on Watson's chin, and - his tongue, yes, his tongue, first on Watson's lips, and then against Watson's tongue, probing, tasting. Inspecting, inquisitive, like Holmes himself, and Watson felt his toes curl in the exact way they did not do when Mary kissed him.
Then he realised something, and pushed Holmes away.
"You planned this," he spat, breath coming short. "You've been planning this." His fist closed around Holmes' shirt, pulling him close again, angry. "All the time that I've been away, you scheming- vile-"
"You don't have to go to such great trouble, Watson," said Holmes. "A simple thank you will suffice."