[FIC]Shatter These Walls 2/?
Managed to escape the family craziness for a moment to post this. Have no idea if it's still the weekend or not, body clock is beyond messed up.
As usual, readability is in direct correspondence to the amount of awesome jg5799 exudes. All hail the beta goddess!
Anyway, this one's a slightly shorter chapter and also my first time writing Watson's POV. Be a little gentle with me, please- I know it's not the best and it's yet another expository shot but I hope it'll make for a fun read.
Title: Shatter These Walls
Author:
starlightshade
Beta:
jg5799
Pairing: Holmes/Watson, Watson/Mary mentioned (which is why I didn't tag it), everything else is up in the air atm.
Spoilers: for both movies.
Rating: NC-17 in the future, right now it's PG
Warnings: Plot. Talking. Flowery prose. Smut for later. More warnings will be given with subsequent chapters.
Prompt:: Watson likes rough sex but doesn't want to hurt Mary. Holmes offers to help out, pretending to like it.
X-posted? Yes.
Disclaimer: No money made. No ownership claimed. Fair use applies.
Missed the first one? Chapter 01!
Chapter 2
Holmes had lost weight, yet again. As a doctor, Watson couldn't help but be displeased with the fact. His friend not only looked thinner, though, nor had he just picked up a few scars; he looked... diminished, translucent somehow, and the natural fluidity of his motions had absconded for the moment leaving behind an abrupt jerkiness enhancing the alien feel of Holmes' fighting style.
He knew to accord these developments to Holmes' injuries, the broken bones and contusions suffered in the fall, just like the overall slack in the tone of his muscles, long unused. While truly ambidextrous (in typical Holmes manner, he didn't even care if someone saw him pick up a pen and write with either hand), Holmes tended to favor his right hand guarding when fighting; however, he seemed to protect that side more this time, contributing to the strange agitation befalling Watson as he was watching Holmes go against his third opponent of the evening. He'd placed his bet, of course, knowing that his friend would never deign to ask him unless he was in dire financial straits, but he wished Holmes would, for once, pick someone his own size to go against.
He winced as the brute got in a good shot to Holmes' ribs, anticipated and factored in, of course, for not a moment later Holmes shook the sweat from his wild, dark hair and raised glittering eyes up to Watson's position, motioning to signify he was going to go for just one more bout before he'd end the experiment for the day. Watson shook his head sharply, no, the winnings so far were more than enough, no need to risk himself more, but Holmes had never and would never listen to him on this.
He pinned his opponent to the circular wall of the pit with quick strikes of his fists, alternating between open and closed hands, leaving the giant not so much as a moment to regain his wits before gathering himself, all the muscles in his body contracting a moment before he unleashed the concentrated power of his entire being in a flying kick aimed at the other's solar plexus. The opponent, not quite as easily defeated as most, caught it on crossed arms barely raised in time, being thrown back a good three feet while also unbalancing Holmes enough to make him land awkwardly in a stumble a good distance away. Holmes seemed to frown, apparently dissatisfied with this result, and moved in with a haymaker, catching another punch on his guarding left shoulder before he somehow, in one motion Watson had never been able to decipher, threw him on his back using just a small, quick step, his one arm and a little shove of his left hand. Dazedly blinking up at Holmes, the larger man took his defeat rather gracefully for being humiliated by the much smaller fighter's prowess, shaking his hand and exchanging banter clearly geared towards gleaning some of Holmes' secrets. The detective grinned, baring brilliant white teeth and clapped for his next bout to begin. Watson shook his head in exasperation, this one had been too close for comfort already and Holmes was beginning to look exhausted, the sweat no longer just delineating his muscles as they warmed to the task but dripping to the floor where he was straining.
The man who vaulted over the barrier protecting the spectators from the violence of the men they were betting on for once wasn't a lot more massive than Holmes himself, even if he was half a head taller. The detective, however, took him in with a sharp and practiced eye, subtly raising his eyebrows at Watson, waggling his fingers and shaking his head to make sure the doctor would just throw down the minimum bet. So Holmes wasn't sure he could beat that one, then? Watson shook his head, nevertheless going with his friend's assessment. He could count the number of times Holmes had had an attack of... nerves, or whatever it was that took his usual confidence in his victory, and never once had the win been easy; more often than not he'd even been bested in these situations.
Watson tried to see the new man, who was announced as "Eddie Chung", come from the boat just a few months back, with the eyes of Holmes, or rather, William Scott, champion fighter and Holmes' alter ego in these parts. He was well-muscled in a way that didn't show immediate preference for a certain fighting style or attack. His one weakness, if one could get to employ it, would be the long braid of black hair hanging down the man's back, however, he was just now making a complicated knot of it at the back of his head. That would be hard to get to and even harder to unravel, so the advantage was gone for Holmes.
Thinking of Holmes, he was taking this one a lot more seriously than his previous bouts, limbering stiffened muscles by quickly shaking them out and acquiring a little Dutch courage by taking a swig from a bottle of who-knows-what swill offered to him by one of the spectators lining the ring. Eddie Chung was smirking at him, taking the opportunity to stretch as well though Watson was sure he'd have to have limbered up beforehand, his body contorted into otherwise impossible shapes.
Holmes shook his head again, cracking his vertebrae into place, eyes never leaving the opponent. This one was good, his entire demeanor seemed to say, and he was experienced.
Watson distantly noticed the announcer raising his voice, so entirely focused was he on his friend. Holmes looked almost like he did when he self-administered his seven-percent solution, pupils blown impossibly wide, eyes glittering and the sheer intensity of his incredible intellect focused on one matter alone.
Eddie Chung slid into a stance he'd almost attribute to Holmes' style, only deeper. He was nearly squatting on the ground, one hand held close to his head, the other almost stretched out in invitation. Holmes frowned in concentration before dropping into what Watson thought of as his "serious" style opening, hands held closer to his person than the opponent, more focused on protection than attack.
They met in a series of blows too fast for even Watson's capable eyes to distinguish. He thought he'd seen a thigh-block and several high kicks- as high as Holmes' head, certainly, and Chung was spinning like a top, flipping and bouncing head over heels while his hands and feet were striking from every angle. Holmes was countering with almost desperate speed.
He knew his friend would lose from that moment on. Holmes had not recovered all of his reflexes and technique, and since he wasn't that tall of a man, and rather slim, he relied on them more than anything.
Apparently, Holmes' opponent knew as well, for he stopped the devastating blow to Holmes' right shoulder a moment before Holmes could guard against it, standing with his leg impossibly extended as though gravity had no influence on his balance and he'd not just been a hair's breadth away from mortally injuring his tired opponent.
Holmes' wide eyes hid behind his hands as he wiped them across his brow. He bowed to Eddie Chung with his hands clasped together in front of his breast, acknowledging his loss. Watson thought he'd even heard him call the other man a master before he reached the ring to hear Chung speak in very much accented but clear English his wish for another bout with Mr. Scott once said man had fully recovered.
"Ah, so you noticed... I thought so," Holmes said, breathing hard, several deep bruises already visible on his naked torso.
"I did. I did not wish to injure you. You're a good fighter," Chung complimented Holmes.
"Same to you, old chap," Holmes said, grinning. "It'll be a while before we meet again. Thank you for the fight. Ah, there you are!"
Watson frowned at Holmes. His friend and brother in all but blood was a lot more pale than he preferred to see him, save for the bruising and two high spots of color on his cheekbones. His dancing eyes were growing duller by the second, and Watson was certain it was just the excitement of the fight keeping the detective upright at the moment.
"Room. Now." Holmes made no move to resist his command or the efforts to hoist him up the stairs towards the squalid little chamber he rented above the establishment. As usual when Holmes was fighting, there was a bowl of water, clean cloths and carbolic waiting for the fighter and his doctor.
"The last one was quite unusual," Watson commented as he cleaned out the shallow cuts and abrasions made by fists, watching Holmes' breathing finally deepening from the desperate gasping it had come in when he'd first sat down.
"He was very good, a master of a style I have very rarely encountered in England. He has promised to allow me to study his art," Holmes replied, voice soft and rough and laden with both the excitement and the pain of his fights.
"We made a good cut today," Watson said. Holmes merely nodded, appearing to be drooping now that his absolute concentration was no longer needed. Watson frowned. "You promised me dinner."
"And you shall have it, mother hen, once I actually look fit to grace the fine environs of the Royale," Holmes replied, hissing as his friend finally finished with the deepest of the grazes, a small cut on his eyebrow.
"No stitches today," the doctor announced. Holmes nodded his thanks, utilizing the wash basin in the corner and quickly pulling up a section of two loose floorboards to reveal one of his suits stored underneath.
"It was more and less than what I'd hoped for," the detective said and, sensing his friend's puzzlement, elaborated. "More in that I could go longer than what I'd extrapolated from the time I spent away from pugilistic pursuits, and less in that my technique has certainly suffered most grievously and I will need to spend some time readjusting it to suit this new... condition." He still wasn't willing to accept that his shoulder would pose a limitation on him. Moriarty would not have this win over him.
"I'll endeavor to do my best to aid you in whatever capacity I can," Watson promised, accepting Holmes' stubbornness for what it was, a desire to keep himself grounded in the old while exploring the new.
---------------
They did have a very pleasant dinner at their favourite restaurant that night. Holmes finished almost his entire plate in spite of his fatigue, something Watson felt a vague amount of pleasure at seeing. He knew Holmes was struggling only to placate him, but it was still rather satisfying to see the notoriously finicky-about-food detective take in a sufficient amount of nourishment. He had once made it his life's mission to see to the well-being of this brilliant but rather difficult man, and deny it as he might his mother-henning streak wasn't to be deterred by a simple inconvenience as said man dying and returning from the dead.
It wasn't the first time that had happened after all.
Watson closed his eyes as the acrid taste of gunpowder threatened to overpower the wonderful light creaminess of the millefeuille he was enjoying for dessert while Holmes was sipping his strong black Turkish mocha, barely sweetened. Those moments on the train to Switzerland had been horrifying for sure, but the real horror had lain in Holmes, pale, wan, face drawn and rather hard-pressed to even stay conscious, lying prone in his brother's chalet as Watson had done his very best to care for him with the limited first-aid supplies Mycroft Holmes had had readily on hand. His friend had not uttered as much as a single complaint, and that more than anything had told Watson just how badly he'd been wounded. A complaining, whiny Holmes was one he could deal with. The stoic man he'd had under his hands that night hadn't been, and he feared he'd been rather rash and harsh in treating him.
"Watson?" He tore his gaze from the past to meet deep brown eyes looking at him, analytically, of course, but also with a concern he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Holmes direct toward anyone but him.
"I wish you would stop those pointless trips to the Punchbowl," he deviated, hiding his remembered failings behind the ones that were more recent. "Surely you could just take on one or two of the more easily solved cases that come in the mail every day and gain the same monetary reward."
Holmes' frown was a barely detectable tightening of the corners of his mouth. Watson was sure that in anyone but his wife and his best friend, he'd simply have missed it or misread it as a swallow.
"You know very well I can't," the detective ground out. "I cannot bear to burden my mind with those... inane problems."
"Yet you would grant your body respite in doing so." Watson shook his head. "I'm never going to be able to persuade you to give up your fighting, just as much as I was incapable of ensuring your Moroccan case saw less use than it did."
"I have not indulged in that particular habit in all the time since my... since I left Switzerland," Holmes antagonized, eyes glittering with the challenge of Watson daring to comment on his words.
"I applaud your restraint." The sarcasm was thick enough to sour the last bite of the sweet dessert Watson had continued to partake of mechanically. Holmes had that effect of pulling every last shred of Watson's attention to himself, to the point where even the finer things in life grew stale and meaningless in comparison to standing within the light of that magnificent intellect.
Right now, Holmes' face was unreadable, which meant he felt offended by Watson's words. Watson braced himself for the counter-offensive, and certainly wasn't disappointed as the detective quickly emptied the last of the bitter, scalding hot beverage he had chosen for dessert.
"Isn't it time you got back to dear, sweet Mary?" he asked sardonically. "She will be waiting for you already at Cavendish Place to make reparations, or am I wrong?"
Watson shook his head. There was no way he was getting into that discussion with Holmes yet again. In fact, he was still wondering what kind of demon had induced him to talk to his friend about his... woes earlier. Holmes had been the exact opposite of helpful then, and right now, the sheer spite with which he was throwing him back into the frying pan had him ready to finish what Holmes' opponents had started in giving him a second black eye to match, no, outdo, the first.
Holmes wasn't wrong. He was certain Mary was waiting up for him, probably with an apology on her gentle lips, expecting to hear the same from him. Spending the day with Holmes had only delayed the inevitable.
Watson was also certain he had no desire to apologize. Mary had known the kind of man he was from the moment he'd been laid up in the hospital during the Blackwood case at the very latest. She had no right demanding him to change his ways, just as he had no right asking her to fulfill his every whim. She was a smart, independent woman, the very characteristics that had drawn him to her when other suitors had been put off by it. She was sheltering his heart in her very capable, very clever hands.
Maybe, just maybe, if he stayed out a little longer, she would have gone to sleep and he could slip into the house undetected, and the whole matter would have been forgiven and forgotten the next morning.
"You know what, Holmes?" he said, raising and eyebrow to match his friends', "I am not ready to go home yet. I will finish this very excellent tea, and then I believe I shall join you for a cigar and a sherry down in the lounge."
"You continue to astonish me, Watson. Here I thought you were devoted to your wife, always ready to defend her and her happiness... and you want to eschew her company for mine? My friend, she must have wounded you deeply." That was the last that Holmes would say on the matter, Watson acknowledged. The detective would project an uncaring face at the world, but he wouldn't hurt his friend unnecessarily and he'd realized that something about the fight he and his wife had had, had hurt him more than he was willing to admit.
"I was looking forward to a pipe in comfort and companionship." Holmes finished, watching as Watson carefully poured the last of his tea into the cup.
Not for the first time, Watson wondered why exactly it was that Holmes' attention never wavered from him whenever they were out in public together. It had unnerved him at first, the feeling of being an insect under a microscope in the focus of the detective's interest, but he'd grown rather used to it and now it was one curiosity among many where Sherlock Holmes was concerned.
He left the dredges and small bits of tea leaves in the cup, quite abruptly moving to stand only to find that Holmes had done so before he'd even completed the motion, as was to be expected with the close scrutiny he'd been subjected to.
"Let's end this evening with something good!" he enthused even as he offered Holmes his arm. It wasn't strange at all that he fit just as well on it as his wife did.
------------------
Chapter end notes: Nothing much to say, I'm a little too tired to think. I hope you're not too unhappy with this chapter, and I promise there shall be action and smut VERY soon (maybe as soon as next week).
I hope to have the third chapter out by next weekend, but I'm going to miss one day of work tomorrow and will have to make up for that so it might be a little late- sorry!
Thank you for reading, and see you soon!
As usual, readability is in direct correspondence to the amount of awesome jg5799 exudes. All hail the beta goddess!
Anyway, this one's a slightly shorter chapter and also my first time writing Watson's POV. Be a little gentle with me, please- I know it's not the best and it's yet another expository shot but I hope it'll make for a fun read.
Title: Shatter These Walls
Author:
starlightshade
Beta:
jg5799
Pairing: Holmes/Watson, Watson/Mary mentioned (which is why I didn't tag it), everything else is up in the air atm.
Spoilers: for both movies.
Rating: NC-17 in the future, right now it's PG
Warnings: Plot. Talking. Flowery prose. Smut for later. More warnings will be given with subsequent chapters.
Prompt:: Watson likes rough sex but doesn't want to hurt Mary. Holmes offers to help out, pretending to like it.
X-posted? Yes.
Disclaimer: No money made. No ownership claimed. Fair use applies.
Missed the first one? Chapter 01!
Chapter 2
Holmes had lost weight, yet again. As a doctor, Watson couldn't help but be displeased with the fact. His friend not only looked thinner, though, nor had he just picked up a few scars; he looked... diminished, translucent somehow, and the natural fluidity of his motions had absconded for the moment leaving behind an abrupt jerkiness enhancing the alien feel of Holmes' fighting style.
He knew to accord these developments to Holmes' injuries, the broken bones and contusions suffered in the fall, just like the overall slack in the tone of his muscles, long unused. While truly ambidextrous (in typical Holmes manner, he didn't even care if someone saw him pick up a pen and write with either hand), Holmes tended to favor his right hand guarding when fighting; however, he seemed to protect that side more this time, contributing to the strange agitation befalling Watson as he was watching Holmes go against his third opponent of the evening. He'd placed his bet, of course, knowing that his friend would never deign to ask him unless he was in dire financial straits, but he wished Holmes would, for once, pick someone his own size to go against.
He winced as the brute got in a good shot to Holmes' ribs, anticipated and factored in, of course, for not a moment later Holmes shook the sweat from his wild, dark hair and raised glittering eyes up to Watson's position, motioning to signify he was going to go for just one more bout before he'd end the experiment for the day. Watson shook his head sharply, no, the winnings so far were more than enough, no need to risk himself more, but Holmes had never and would never listen to him on this.
He pinned his opponent to the circular wall of the pit with quick strikes of his fists, alternating between open and closed hands, leaving the giant not so much as a moment to regain his wits before gathering himself, all the muscles in his body contracting a moment before he unleashed the concentrated power of his entire being in a flying kick aimed at the other's solar plexus. The opponent, not quite as easily defeated as most, caught it on crossed arms barely raised in time, being thrown back a good three feet while also unbalancing Holmes enough to make him land awkwardly in a stumble a good distance away. Holmes seemed to frown, apparently dissatisfied with this result, and moved in with a haymaker, catching another punch on his guarding left shoulder before he somehow, in one motion Watson had never been able to decipher, threw him on his back using just a small, quick step, his one arm and a little shove of his left hand. Dazedly blinking up at Holmes, the larger man took his defeat rather gracefully for being humiliated by the much smaller fighter's prowess, shaking his hand and exchanging banter clearly geared towards gleaning some of Holmes' secrets. The detective grinned, baring brilliant white teeth and clapped for his next bout to begin. Watson shook his head in exasperation, this one had been too close for comfort already and Holmes was beginning to look exhausted, the sweat no longer just delineating his muscles as they warmed to the task but dripping to the floor where he was straining.
The man who vaulted over the barrier protecting the spectators from the violence of the men they were betting on for once wasn't a lot more massive than Holmes himself, even if he was half a head taller. The detective, however, took him in with a sharp and practiced eye, subtly raising his eyebrows at Watson, waggling his fingers and shaking his head to make sure the doctor would just throw down the minimum bet. So Holmes wasn't sure he could beat that one, then? Watson shook his head, nevertheless going with his friend's assessment. He could count the number of times Holmes had had an attack of... nerves, or whatever it was that took his usual confidence in his victory, and never once had the win been easy; more often than not he'd even been bested in these situations.
Watson tried to see the new man, who was announced as "Eddie Chung", come from the boat just a few months back, with the eyes of Holmes, or rather, William Scott, champion fighter and Holmes' alter ego in these parts. He was well-muscled in a way that didn't show immediate preference for a certain fighting style or attack. His one weakness, if one could get to employ it, would be the long braid of black hair hanging down the man's back, however, he was just now making a complicated knot of it at the back of his head. That would be hard to get to and even harder to unravel, so the advantage was gone for Holmes.
Thinking of Holmes, he was taking this one a lot more seriously than his previous bouts, limbering stiffened muscles by quickly shaking them out and acquiring a little Dutch courage by taking a swig from a bottle of who-knows-what swill offered to him by one of the spectators lining the ring. Eddie Chung was smirking at him, taking the opportunity to stretch as well though Watson was sure he'd have to have limbered up beforehand, his body contorted into otherwise impossible shapes.
Holmes shook his head again, cracking his vertebrae into place, eyes never leaving the opponent. This one was good, his entire demeanor seemed to say, and he was experienced.
Watson distantly noticed the announcer raising his voice, so entirely focused was he on his friend. Holmes looked almost like he did when he self-administered his seven-percent solution, pupils blown impossibly wide, eyes glittering and the sheer intensity of his incredible intellect focused on one matter alone.
Eddie Chung slid into a stance he'd almost attribute to Holmes' style, only deeper. He was nearly squatting on the ground, one hand held close to his head, the other almost stretched out in invitation. Holmes frowned in concentration before dropping into what Watson thought of as his "serious" style opening, hands held closer to his person than the opponent, more focused on protection than attack.
They met in a series of blows too fast for even Watson's capable eyes to distinguish. He thought he'd seen a thigh-block and several high kicks- as high as Holmes' head, certainly, and Chung was spinning like a top, flipping and bouncing head over heels while his hands and feet were striking from every angle. Holmes was countering with almost desperate speed.
He knew his friend would lose from that moment on. Holmes had not recovered all of his reflexes and technique, and since he wasn't that tall of a man, and rather slim, he relied on them more than anything.
Apparently, Holmes' opponent knew as well, for he stopped the devastating blow to Holmes' right shoulder a moment before Holmes could guard against it, standing with his leg impossibly extended as though gravity had no influence on his balance and he'd not just been a hair's breadth away from mortally injuring his tired opponent.
Holmes' wide eyes hid behind his hands as he wiped them across his brow. He bowed to Eddie Chung with his hands clasped together in front of his breast, acknowledging his loss. Watson thought he'd even heard him call the other man a master before he reached the ring to hear Chung speak in very much accented but clear English his wish for another bout with Mr. Scott once said man had fully recovered.
"Ah, so you noticed... I thought so," Holmes said, breathing hard, several deep bruises already visible on his naked torso.
"I did. I did not wish to injure you. You're a good fighter," Chung complimented Holmes.
"Same to you, old chap," Holmes said, grinning. "It'll be a while before we meet again. Thank you for the fight. Ah, there you are!"
Watson frowned at Holmes. His friend and brother in all but blood was a lot more pale than he preferred to see him, save for the bruising and two high spots of color on his cheekbones. His dancing eyes were growing duller by the second, and Watson was certain it was just the excitement of the fight keeping the detective upright at the moment.
"Room. Now." Holmes made no move to resist his command or the efforts to hoist him up the stairs towards the squalid little chamber he rented above the establishment. As usual when Holmes was fighting, there was a bowl of water, clean cloths and carbolic waiting for the fighter and his doctor.
"The last one was quite unusual," Watson commented as he cleaned out the shallow cuts and abrasions made by fists, watching Holmes' breathing finally deepening from the desperate gasping it had come in when he'd first sat down.
"He was very good, a master of a style I have very rarely encountered in England. He has promised to allow me to study his art," Holmes replied, voice soft and rough and laden with both the excitement and the pain of his fights.
"We made a good cut today," Watson said. Holmes merely nodded, appearing to be drooping now that his absolute concentration was no longer needed. Watson frowned. "You promised me dinner."
"And you shall have it, mother hen, once I actually look fit to grace the fine environs of the Royale," Holmes replied, hissing as his friend finally finished with the deepest of the grazes, a small cut on his eyebrow.
"No stitches today," the doctor announced. Holmes nodded his thanks, utilizing the wash basin in the corner and quickly pulling up a section of two loose floorboards to reveal one of his suits stored underneath.
"It was more and less than what I'd hoped for," the detective said and, sensing his friend's puzzlement, elaborated. "More in that I could go longer than what I'd extrapolated from the time I spent away from pugilistic pursuits, and less in that my technique has certainly suffered most grievously and I will need to spend some time readjusting it to suit this new... condition." He still wasn't willing to accept that his shoulder would pose a limitation on him. Moriarty would not have this win over him.
"I'll endeavor to do my best to aid you in whatever capacity I can," Watson promised, accepting Holmes' stubbornness for what it was, a desire to keep himself grounded in the old while exploring the new.
---------------
They did have a very pleasant dinner at their favourite restaurant that night. Holmes finished almost his entire plate in spite of his fatigue, something Watson felt a vague amount of pleasure at seeing. He knew Holmes was struggling only to placate him, but it was still rather satisfying to see the notoriously finicky-about-food detective take in a sufficient amount of nourishment. He had once made it his life's mission to see to the well-being of this brilliant but rather difficult man, and deny it as he might his mother-henning streak wasn't to be deterred by a simple inconvenience as said man dying and returning from the dead.
It wasn't the first time that had happened after all.
Watson closed his eyes as the acrid taste of gunpowder threatened to overpower the wonderful light creaminess of the millefeuille he was enjoying for dessert while Holmes was sipping his strong black Turkish mocha, barely sweetened. Those moments on the train to Switzerland had been horrifying for sure, but the real horror had lain in Holmes, pale, wan, face drawn and rather hard-pressed to even stay conscious, lying prone in his brother's chalet as Watson had done his very best to care for him with the limited first-aid supplies Mycroft Holmes had had readily on hand. His friend had not uttered as much as a single complaint, and that more than anything had told Watson just how badly he'd been wounded. A complaining, whiny Holmes was one he could deal with. The stoic man he'd had under his hands that night hadn't been, and he feared he'd been rather rash and harsh in treating him.
"Watson?" He tore his gaze from the past to meet deep brown eyes looking at him, analytically, of course, but also with a concern he wasn't sure he'd ever seen Holmes direct toward anyone but him.
"I wish you would stop those pointless trips to the Punchbowl," he deviated, hiding his remembered failings behind the ones that were more recent. "Surely you could just take on one or two of the more easily solved cases that come in the mail every day and gain the same monetary reward."
Holmes' frown was a barely detectable tightening of the corners of his mouth. Watson was sure that in anyone but his wife and his best friend, he'd simply have missed it or misread it as a swallow.
"You know very well I can't," the detective ground out. "I cannot bear to burden my mind with those... inane problems."
"Yet you would grant your body respite in doing so." Watson shook his head. "I'm never going to be able to persuade you to give up your fighting, just as much as I was incapable of ensuring your Moroccan case saw less use than it did."
"I have not indulged in that particular habit in all the time since my... since I left Switzerland," Holmes antagonized, eyes glittering with the challenge of Watson daring to comment on his words.
"I applaud your restraint." The sarcasm was thick enough to sour the last bite of the sweet dessert Watson had continued to partake of mechanically. Holmes had that effect of pulling every last shred of Watson's attention to himself, to the point where even the finer things in life grew stale and meaningless in comparison to standing within the light of that magnificent intellect.
Right now, Holmes' face was unreadable, which meant he felt offended by Watson's words. Watson braced himself for the counter-offensive, and certainly wasn't disappointed as the detective quickly emptied the last of the bitter, scalding hot beverage he had chosen for dessert.
"Isn't it time you got back to dear, sweet Mary?" he asked sardonically. "She will be waiting for you already at Cavendish Place to make reparations, or am I wrong?"
Watson shook his head. There was no way he was getting into that discussion with Holmes yet again. In fact, he was still wondering what kind of demon had induced him to talk to his friend about his... woes earlier. Holmes had been the exact opposite of helpful then, and right now, the sheer spite with which he was throwing him back into the frying pan had him ready to finish what Holmes' opponents had started in giving him a second black eye to match, no, outdo, the first.
Holmes wasn't wrong. He was certain Mary was waiting up for him, probably with an apology on her gentle lips, expecting to hear the same from him. Spending the day with Holmes had only delayed the inevitable.
Watson was also certain he had no desire to apologize. Mary had known the kind of man he was from the moment he'd been laid up in the hospital during the Blackwood case at the very latest. She had no right demanding him to change his ways, just as he had no right asking her to fulfill his every whim. She was a smart, independent woman, the very characteristics that had drawn him to her when other suitors had been put off by it. She was sheltering his heart in her very capable, very clever hands.
Maybe, just maybe, if he stayed out a little longer, she would have gone to sleep and he could slip into the house undetected, and the whole matter would have been forgiven and forgotten the next morning.
"You know what, Holmes?" he said, raising and eyebrow to match his friends', "I am not ready to go home yet. I will finish this very excellent tea, and then I believe I shall join you for a cigar and a sherry down in the lounge."
"You continue to astonish me, Watson. Here I thought you were devoted to your wife, always ready to defend her and her happiness... and you want to eschew her company for mine? My friend, she must have wounded you deeply." That was the last that Holmes would say on the matter, Watson acknowledged. The detective would project an uncaring face at the world, but he wouldn't hurt his friend unnecessarily and he'd realized that something about the fight he and his wife had had, had hurt him more than he was willing to admit.
"I was looking forward to a pipe in comfort and companionship." Holmes finished, watching as Watson carefully poured the last of his tea into the cup.
Not for the first time, Watson wondered why exactly it was that Holmes' attention never wavered from him whenever they were out in public together. It had unnerved him at first, the feeling of being an insect under a microscope in the focus of the detective's interest, but he'd grown rather used to it and now it was one curiosity among many where Sherlock Holmes was concerned.
He left the dredges and small bits of tea leaves in the cup, quite abruptly moving to stand only to find that Holmes had done so before he'd even completed the motion, as was to be expected with the close scrutiny he'd been subjected to.
"Let's end this evening with something good!" he enthused even as he offered Holmes his arm. It wasn't strange at all that he fit just as well on it as his wife did.
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Chapter end notes: Nothing much to say, I'm a little too tired to think. I hope you're not too unhappy with this chapter, and I promise there shall be action and smut VERY soon (maybe as soon as next week).
I hope to have the third chapter out by next weekend, but I'm going to miss one day of work tomorrow and will have to make up for that so it might be a little late- sorry!
Thank you for reading, and see you soon!