Letters, or the Case of the Cerulean Syringe, Part Four
Title: Letters, or the Case of the Cerulean Syringe, Part Four
Authors: sarisa_rahe and agaryulnaer86
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Holmes/Watson, pre-slash
Disclaimer: Still not ours.
Summary: The newlyweds return from their honeymoon. Watson is having some trouble adjusting. Also, murder.
Spoilers: Movie.
Warnings: Angst and marital problems. Alcohol. Gambling.
Word Count: ~6,300
Authors' Notes: Epic-fic, part 4/~14.
>> Part One
>> Part Two
>> Part Three
The stairs back down to the ground floor are a misery, as are those leading to the sidewalk, and he hires a cab without bothering to bemoan it even in his mind, entering the house at Cavendish Place just a few moments later and feeling as though he's stepping into someone else's home, three months living here or not.
Mary is in the sitting room when he follows the source of the lamplight, thankfully without her mother, and Watson sets down his overcoat, limping noticeably even with his cane as he makes his way across the green room to his wife. She doesn't look up from her novel until he lowers himself down onto his knees in front of her chair, guilt written all over his face.
He is nothing but an honest man, though, and when he takes her hand between both of his, he can't possibly lie or make an excuse. "I accompanied Holmes to a murder scene. It was entirely unplanned, and I apologize profusely for my neglect, Mary."
Her lips press together in a small grimace of displeasure, and he continues with a small wince. "I truly meant to return in the morning, or after lunch, but I passed out quite completely and slept until only an hour ago, whereupon Holmes required my services as a physician. Mary, I am so terribly sorry."
"Do you know how much I worried?" she asks quietly, finally looking up from her book and meeting his eyes. "You've been gone twelve hours, John. I presumed it had something to do with the case, but when you didn't return..." She trails off, clearly hurt, and he ignores completely that which is radiating up through his leg to his groin, feeling in exquisitely painful detail the tiny chunk of iron still lodged next to the bone.
"I beg your forgiveness, Mary--"
"But what will stop you from doing it again?" she interrupts, watching him with the piercing gaze that had so often reminded him a little of Holmes in female form, as though she can see right into his mind and can discern his thoughts. His back straightens, then, and he lifts his chin a bit, his pride bruised (though he is less and less sure of his ability to rise from this position without fainting, something he will never do).
"Because I will give you my word," he says firmly, meaning it completely and utterly as he stares up into her eyes, smiling hesitantly. "I shan't go on any more mad adventures. You are all I need." And yet, a separate pain from that in his leg suddenly takes up residence in the midst of his chest, somewhere near his sternum. He attributes it to a reaction to the fiery pokers that have replaced his femur, fibula, and tibula; the same goes for his sudden difficulty in breathing.
Mary stands, dropping his hands and moving closer to the fire. He remains kneeling, certain that he'll be in this spot all night. "John, I certainly don't wish to keep you from your closest friend, but whenever you are around Sherlock Holmes you become a different man, one not concerned with keeping appointments or causing others to worry over him. In his company you want nothing but to gallivant about London and ignore the fact that you have a wife at all."
Knowing the truth to that statement, if not in full than partially at least, Watson shakes his head. "Mary--" He cuts himself off, heaving himself back to his feet with an almighty shove, clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth grind to keep from crying out. When he's recovered enough to speak again, leaning half of his weight on his walking stick, he manages, "That's not the truth. I love you dearly, you know that." He swallows. "It's a habit to become so involved, and one that I have been trying very hard to break." Surely she has noticed that. He hadn't been back to Baker Street more than twice before their wedding, being so busy with his practice and with the wedding preparations, and had involved himself in no investigations whatsoever.
But now, of course, he slips once--twice, actually--and the act is unforgivable. Because that is an entirely fair amount of blame to place on him.
There’s silence for a moment as Mary considers the fire, but then she turns back to face her husband. She’d alternated between anger and worry all day long, or at least after the first few hours. After all, she had been there the last time he’d gone on such an adventure. He had come home to her wounded, could very well have died, and that was all she could think of as the day wore on. Holmes had told her that the case he was working on involved murder again, and so the only thing she could imagine with so little detail was her John, pitted against a merciless killer.
She had told herself several times over the course of the day that she would not simply forgive him, that she would not allow relief at seeing him returned and alive to overcome her displeasure at his having been gone without word in the first place. Her anger had grown to include Holmes over the course of the day as well, although she has learned quickly that anger at the man is as useless as anger at the weather.
But she has come to expect Mr. Holmes to do frightening things and not to care for anyone else as he does them. She has come to expect him to attempt to drag John along with him. But she has not come to expect or to accept that John should go along with him for twelve hours and not once think to at least let her know that he is safe.
She had never wanted to come between her husband and his friend; on the contrary, she has been trying to win over Holmes, and she thinks she has been marginally successful in earning his respect. She had wanted John to have time with his friend, even to continue his adventures when possible- but not at the expense of her sanity. And she’s learned that she is not quite as able to accept all of this as she might have thought she was, not when it comes to spending an entire day worried for her husband’s safety.
So to his last comment, she sighs, looking up at him. “I do know that,” she allows. “And surely it is also habit not to worry about anyone else while you are off with him.” She holds in another sigh, wanting so very much not to play the role of the jealous and demanding wife. “Simple word of your safety and whereabouts would have been enough for me, John. And you couldn’t even do that much in twelve hours.”
Closing his eyes as the guilt intensifies, Watson shakes his head. No, he hadn't been able to do that. True, eight of those hours he'd spent asleep. But he could have sent word after they'd left Chelsea, or after they'd left the Yard, or once they'd arrived at Baker Street once again...
He really is terrible at this entire marriage business. He hadn't even thought of her until he'd woken that evening. "You're right," he admits. "I became so caught up that I neglected your feelings. It was cruel of me." He thinks of Holmes, lying abed after passing out in the hallway, not having eaten in how many days, and is suddenly torn. He can't feel guilty for remaining; who knows how long his friend would have remained on the floor, unconscious, or when he would have finally remembered to eat?
But Mary's feelings he could at least have taken into account with a note. He reaches over with his free hand, the majority of his weight on his stick, and touches her cheek very gently, feeling warm, smooth skin beneath his fingers. His hands are far too large, far too calloused and accustomed to fighting to be obviously those of a doctor, but she has never seemed to mind.
"I love you," he says quietly. And that, he knows, is true. He does love her. But why does that statement provoke such an ache in his chest? Surely it cannot all be attributed to his leg, nor can he blame his old wound for the hollow feeling in his stomach. Could this all be due to guilt? Guilt for neglecting her, guilt for leaving Holmes lying alone in the dark with that expression in his eyes that Watson can never place, the one that always makes him feel lower than dirt for abandoning his friend for his wife. Because it's not anger or accusation, but simply... resignation. "Please forgive me?" He's not certain which of them he's apologizing to.
There is a short pause, but in the end Mary lets out another sigh, this one more yielding than upset. She leans into his hand for a moment before nodding. She hadn’t meant to forgive him so quickly, no. But she is relieved that he is home safe, and she can’t help but feel, looking at the horrible guilt written all over his face, that he will punish himself quite enough for this.
Besides, Mary is many things, but she is not given to fits of anger, and when she does get upset she overcomes it quickly. And it is very hard to remain angry with John, especially when he looks so very pitiful.
“All right,” she says quietly, reaching up to take his hand. “I love you as well. That is why I was so very worried.”
Watson smiles, relieved, but can't help the feeling that while he's fixed things with Mary (at least for tonight, as cheerful a thought as that is), that things with Holmes aren't fixed, and he doesn't know how to repair them. Doesn't know what Holmes wants from him, and right now, his leg hurts far too much for him to be able to consider it.
He knows it's going to give out soon, though, and rather than suffer the indignity of a fall he murmurs a quiet apology to Mary and sinks down onto the chaise with a quiet groan, the throb not diminished by the reclining position. He knows nothing but rest will help it recover and doesn't even attempt the stairs to the bedroom that night, banished to the couch as surely as he would have been had Mary not forgiven him. It's not a comfortable night, either; he goes through a stack of books, medical notebooks and other such, until he finally succumbs to the allure and begins to pen the Blackwood case, its events still burned into his memory.
He works through until morning when Mary comes downstairs, startled to find him already awake, and he doesn't question her assumption that he'd simply woken early, rather than having been awake through the night. But the number of pages he'd so carefully scripted are testament to his insomnia, and he closes the journal, sliding it beneath his patient files while she's in the kitchen.
She brings fresh clothes downstairs for him, a mercy, and he manages to dress in the downstairs water closet, spending most of the time sitting on the commode so as not to have to hop on one foot. By the time his first patient arrives at nine he's had some tea and prepared himself as well as is possible, refusing any sort of laudanum and also refusing to cancel his appointments when they'd been delayed already.
But by the time his last patient, Captain Phillips, departs after five, he can barely keep his eyes open, and Mary finds him fast asleep in his chair in his office, his head pillowed on the desk, patient file open and pen still in hand. The next few days are a blur of his Sunday suit, of surviving the church social and greeting all of their acquaintances and neighbors; he doesn't recall much of it save for trying not to show the pain in his leg, and by the time they return home on Sunday evening he's given in and takes a small dose of laundanum, spending that night and much of the next day in bed, well aware in a distant sort of way that he'd likely torn something in his thigh or he wouldn't be in nearly so much pain.
~~~~~
By Tuesday, however, he's returned to himself more or less, and though he's avoiding as much movement as he can, he's manageable. And he can walk again without such severe discomfort, though he doesn't dare try to run or to go without his walking stick for the next day or so. But he does a few of his upper-body exercises, keeping his arms strong and his shoulder flexible, and all in all feels much more himself. And during all of this, he's well aware that there is only a week and a day until the next murder will take place, and he has no idea what Holmes has been up to during all this time.
On Monday afternoon, with no response received from Holmes after sending several notes, Watson can bear the waiting no longer. Only two days until the deadline, and he has no doubt that Holmes has been following his man without cease for the time he'd been recovering and then attempting to catch up on all of his work. Mary is to go with her mother to visit family friends, and Watson makes sure to let her know, this time, that he is going to track down Holmes and may be a good while, but that he'll send word, this time.
He can no longer stand sitting idly by, dependent on his leg to recover, and hale once more he sets off to Baker Street to inquire after Holmes. Luck must be with him, because Mrs. Hudson informs him that the detective had returned only that morning after two days out on his case, and had in fact taken a large lunch and slept several hours. Startled, Watson climbs the staircase and rejoices silently when his leg does not complain, apparently back to its normal state.
He knocks once, not hearing any gunfire, and opens the door to the sitting room. "Holmes?" And there is the great detective, bent over the laboratory table in his bedroom and wearing no shirt... with none to be seen lying about, either. Deciding that he really doesn't want to know where the shirt (likely Watson's own) had gotten to, and quite comfortable seeing Holmes in various states of undress after seven years as flat-mates, the doctor makes his way around toppled furniture and Gladstone to climb the stairs to Holmes' bedroom, its doors flung wide open as always.
Holmes had always considered the sitting room to be an extension of his bedroom, Watson thinks, or perhaps the reverse is true. Either way, though, Watson is not surprised to find his notes on the corner of the laboratory table, opened with notes scribbled in the margins and on the backs of the papers. "These were meant to be responded to, you know," he says drily, setting them back down on the porcelain saucer. "You'd best put on a shirt or Mrs. Hudson will throw a fit."
“She already did,” Holmes says without looking up from his experiment; he is bent over the table, face nearly touching the glass beaker in front of him. Next to that, another glass container sits upturned, singed on the bottom, which (if Watson observes closely) does rather match the singeing on one of Holmes’ fingers.
A drop of something or other is carefully put into the upright beaker before Holmes continues, still without looking up at the doctor; he is clearly quite intent on the work before him, as he often is. Chemistry has always been a particular favorite pastime of Holmes’; it becomes even more so when the experiment relates to his work, as this does. But even when he has no case at all, at times it can be near impossible to drag him from whatever outlandish experiment he has gotten it into his head to perform.
The solution bubbles for a moment, and then abruptly sends a puff of smoke right into Holmes’ face. He coughs, and then sneezes, wiping his face off quickly with his hand before running the same hand through his already horrendously unkempt hair. “However, in terms of fits, that one was rather subdued next to the other she had thrown about said shirt being on fire, and so this seemed the lesser of two evils, you see.”
He pauses, and then coughs again, glancing up at Watson for the first time as the solution finally stops spouting smoke. “If I appear to be asphyxiating at any point in the near future, would you be so kind as to revive me? I‘ve a case to resolve and no time at all for dying.”
Watson just shakes his head, sitting down on Holmes' bed with a small sigh. "Yes, Holmes," he says patiently. "I might not have otherwise, but as it's a case you're worried about I shall be sure to resuscitate you."
Holmes doesn't even respond to the sarcasm, and Watson rolls his eyes, leaning back against the wall with his legs splayed comfortably out in front of him. There's no use in asking what he's doing until he's finished, after all. He won't get any sort of response, and there's also no point in asking if it had been his shirt that had caught fire. Undoubtedly it had been. But he normally parts with his clothes once Holmes has his hands on them, anyway, so it's not likely Watson will miss it.
He does manage to keep from having to revive the detective, and when there is finally a cry of triumph from the erstwhile chemist, Watson sits forward, curious despite himself. "What have you accomplished?"
He raises a brow. "And you might tell me what all you've learned from tailing the blighter." He obviously doesn't need confirmation that that had been what Holmes had been up to all week.
Carefully, Holmes lifts the beaker up to be examined by Watson; it now contains a light bluish-green solution, and Holmes seems quite pleased with himself as he observes this. In fact, as he holds it, he notes that the color does indeed rather match his hands now that the blue has begun to fade to a lighter color. Of course, that makes complete sense, considering, but he doesn’t bother explaining that.
“I have created the antidote, Watson,” he says. “A precaution. The paralytic can be deadly if given in a high enough dose, and with the amount of ingredients he took, the man could have made enough to kill ten grown men. Granted, the amount he brings with him is limited, but I’d prefer he not kill any grown or not grown men at all.”
And as such, antidote. He taps the beaker with his finger, putting it back down after another glance at the thing. He’ll test it on Gladstone later, of course. And perhaps on himself, although that will prove much more difficult to manage, what with the need for it to be administered after the paralytic...
Holmes ruminates on this for a moment before recalling that Watson had asked him another question. Tailing. Oh, of course. “Oh,” he begins. “I’ve learned a great many things as always, I’d say. Chief among them being that he lives alone, enjoys taking his breakfast at exactly seven-oh-two, sleeps very poorly, and has horrid taste in literature.” Holmes shakes his head as though disappointed. “I would have expected better than Poe.” Romanticism. Pah. And he had seemed at first so very nearly logical.
Watson frowns. "I enjoy Poe," he objects immediately. "You claim that my writings are romantic, as well. No reading material satisfies you save scientific publications."
He stands, moving closer to examine the antidote. With only two days left until the next murder is to be committed, he wonders what Holmes' grand plans entail, not that he'll be told until they're already occurring. But Holmes will have to convince Lestrade in the near future, will he not?
"And do you intend to follow him again this evening?" he asks after a moment, setting down the beaker and turning to face his friend. "Because I... have indeed taken the liberty of... removing myself from Cavendish Place. For... well, I shall just send Mary a note if I'll be over-late; she knows I'm assisting you." This time. He leaves that last unspoken, has not told his friend of the row... well, the very quiet row they'd had upon his return the week before.
“Your writings are romantic, Watson,” Holmes retorts immediately. “No matter. You can’t help but see the world through a haze of mild romanticism. It’s a product of society’s effects on you and hardly your fault.”
Watson is unamused, but Holmes carries on as though this wasn’t a mild insult regarding the doctor’s view of the world. Once again, he hears what Watson is not saying and takes more information from that than from what Watson had said; well, that and his notes, which had gone on for a week without a visit from him despite his obvious interest in this case. He’d obviously been in a great deal of trouble for being here so late the week before.
And yet, he’s returned. With Mary’s blessing. Holmes... doesn’t quite know how he feels about that, but as always, no matter what he tells himself when he is alone, with Watson here he does not waste his time on silly notions such as jealousy or indignity at his being shunted to the back of Watson’s life, now a pastime of sorts that is just barely allowable, and only with permission from his wife. No matter what fits of intolerable moods he might be in when left to his own devices, he shoves them aside when Watson appears because to do otherwise would be to indicate that his moods are related in some fashion to the doctor’s absence.
“I do so intend,” he says after a brief moment, during which he does nothing more than stare at the doctor, taking note of the pauses between his words, the slight awkwardness that indicates his distaste for the entire situation in general but also his desire to be included, to be invited, like old times. But in old times, Watson would never have had to inquire; Holmes would have assumed he would be there.
Holmes wonders if Watson ever considers his own psyche from an outsider’s perspective without prompting, decides quickly that he does not, and returns to the beaker, turning around after a moment to open the drawer to his bedside table, searching for a vial or a syringe to put his antidote in. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to inject this in me once I’ve taken the paralytic... no, I suppose not, never mind.” Watson’s expressions are, as always, quite easy to read.
~~~~~
That issue thus settled, Watson drags Holmes to dinner at a nearby pub, eschewing the Royale for one night as neither is suitably dressed (although Holmes does manage to clothe his upper half properly before they exit the rooms). After eating he follows Holmes in the direction, he assumes, of the bastard copper's residence, but after a few minutes he begins to notice the direction they're taking.
"Holmes," he says warningly, noting the crowd outside the run-down pub on the docks that doubles as a boxing ring. "I'm not going in there." He can't. He's given up gambling. There won't be any more of it, not for John Watson. And he's managed for months, now. He can't ruin all of that tonight.
"I thought we were going after the copper?" he asks a moment later, grabbing Holmes' arm as the detective heads for the alley door.
“We are,” Holmes says, as though that should be obvious. He does stop, however, when Watson grabs his arm, at least for now. He has been known to keep going, thus forcing Watson to follow him whether he likes it or not, but he also has been known to listen to Watson a bit more than he listens to... anyone else.
And so they stop, nearly to the door and a bit in the way. “But he is on duty until midnight, and I promised Carter I‘d be here tonight. As I have inadvertently neglected to appear the last three times I had promised, he may or may not be slightly displeased with me, and as such I feel it is my duty to apologize.”
Of course by apologize, he means play the same song and dance he always does and make the man good money. “You’re not required to place any bets, Watson. If you’re not permitted inside, I‘ll only be half an hour.” And with that, Holmes manages to (quite deftly) remove his arm from Watson’s grasp and duck into the crowd before Watson can stop him.
Watson is left standing in the alley with his mouth open slightly, but he closes it almost immediately, his jaw clenching. For a moment he turns away, obviously displeased, and starts to stalk back out to the street... but then he pauses slowly, looking back over his shoulder.
Holmes is right, of course. He's not required to place any bets; the hustling will be done entirely by Holmes and Carter. He could just go to watch; his friend is always quite a sight when taking down men twice his size, and Watson always enjoys watching him beat someone to a bloody pulp. It's... invigorating. In a primal sort of way.
Shaking off those sorts of thoughts, as he's not entirely certain where they'd come from, Watson turns back around and pushes his way through the crowd into the makeshift boxing arena. Not surprisingly, Holmes is just stepping away from Carter and is stripping off layers, tossing them behind the bar as the crowd starts to yell, already in a frenzy brought on by earlier bouts, no doubt. Watson nods to Carter, who looks rather startled to see him, before making his way to the top of the bleachers to lean against a pole and look down at the ring.
A burly dock worker is already there, half-naked and urging on the crowd when Holmes steps inside. His eyes tick sideways to Watson with some amusement, and the doctor shrugs. He hasn't bet a penny. What's the point in standing out in the alley?
The trick to these matches, as Holmes well knows after years of practice (and some swindling), is to keep it going for as long as possible before taking out his opponent. If the match is too short, the audience becomes disinterested, and the odds become too much in his favor. If he keeps each match going for as long as possible and yet wins every one, it works out in his favor, nearly always.
Of course, there is always the chance of a rogue boxer who is good enough, and more importantly, smart enough to outdo Holmes. But that rogue boxer is not this man, who leads first with a wild swing for Holmes’ head, which is dodged with such ease that Holmes briefly considers yawning. Instead, he returns the attempted punch with what appears to be almost an uncaring hit back to the other man’s head, ducking out and away from his grasp before the larger man can catch him.
And so begins the first match, during which anyone who knows Holmes and his fighting style well enough can clearly see that he is playing with the dock worker until he finally takes him down, some ten minutes later, to tumultuous applause, which he appears to ignore, but is really quite enjoying. The next match is much the same; though Holmes appears as always to be taking this less than seriously, occasionally making quips or taunts, practically bouncing out of the way of each successive attack, his eyes nevertheless betray the same intense concentration that he exhibits when his mind is fully on a problem set before him, and in the end he defeats his opponent soundly.
The next three matches follow in much the same manner, until Holmes, as per usual, is bleeding and covered in his own sweat mixed with the sweat and blood of the men he’d defeated, and calls an end to it after he sends the last man head-first into the ring surrounding them and knocks him unconscious. That seems like a good ending to Holmes, who finds that he is also quite horrendously thirsty. Convenient that he should have just made a hefty sum to pay for his drink, which he takes the liberty of grabbing from behind the bar himself, eschewing his shirt and the rest of his clothing for the bottle with a smile for the woman tending the generally home-brewed bottles of the sort of alcohol that might just eat a man’s liver alive. She glares at him. He is long past paying any attention to her, though, and instead finds himself searching the crowd for Watson.
Watson, meanwhile, had been behaving quite well. He really had. The way he'd figured it, if he placed no bets and hence had no ticket stubs, he'd be out in the night air long enough for the scent of this place to be gone from him and his clothes, and Mary would never know. And if he placed no bets, what was the harm? What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, correct? It wasn't lying so much as... not telling her everything he'd done with his night, and this isn't their most important stop by a long shot. It's exactly alike to the way he would not tell her if he'd gotten into some sort of scuffle. It would only worry her unnecessarily.
But he must admit that Mary hasn't been foremost in his mind for the past forty-five minutes or so, since Holmes began his bouts. In fact, since they'd begun Watson hasn't thought much about his wife at all, having moved closer to the side of the ring and beginning to argue with the man next to him about who will win. The last match is quite impressive, what with Holmes propelling his opponent into the wall, and he nods to his friend with a small smile when Holmes seeks him out in the crowd, following the other man over to the bar. He doesn't reach it, though, before he's stopped by Carter, who shoves a handful of papers at him, looking rather pleased with himself.
Wagers. Watson flips through them, the expression on his face tightening. Wagers in his name. Wagers totaling near one hundred pounds, and none of them in Holmes' name at all. He stares at the money for a moment, and then anger hits him, made all the worse by the shot of adrenaline he gets at having won so much, the thrill of succeeding at a gamble even if he hadn't been the one to place the wagers. That thrill that he'd resisted for months, now. Damn Holmes. Damn him.
"Would you explain this to me, please?" he requests in a cool voice as he approaches the bar, holding the papers up for his friend to see, but Holmes is already walking away from him, toward the stairs that lead to the next floor, where he rents a set of sparse rooms. "Holmes!" he barks, stalking after his friend and only becoming more irate when the detective does not pause until he reaches his destination.
Watson shuts the door to the rooms behind them, unreasonably angry. If not for these wagers, he would be attempting to get the other man to hold still long enough for him to see if there are any serious injuries, can see several painful-looking bruises on Holmes' sweaty torso already. But just now, he's not thinking about the injuries. "You made these in my name! I've told you repeatedly that I no longer have any interest in gambling! How am I to explain an extra hundred pounds?!" It's not as though Holmes has anyone to answer to, though, so why should he listen to Watson?! He can do whatever he wants, and Watson is powerless to stop him, as per usual!
Once the door is shut and they are alone, Watson's yelling becomes much more difficult to ignore, and Holmes has to pay attention, that or he supposes risk Watson bursting an artery or some sort of other ridiculous medical problem. And so Holmes turns to blink at his friend, somehow having expected this and at the same time appearing completely taken aback by the fact that Watson is angry and yelling at him, as though he has no idea why this should be so and in fact is rather baffled by the whole thing.
"Your interest in gambling is irrelevant, seeing as you didn't place any bets," Holmes points out. He doesn't see what this has to do with Watson's newfound and so-called complete lack of interest in gambling, since he indeed had placed no bets the entire night, which Holmes would readily tell anyone who asked.
Of course, no one is asking, but he suspects the person who would would be Mary. And of course Watson does not want Mary to realize he was here at all, which is the crux of the problem, Holmes supposes rightly. "If every source of income must be explained, you needn't take it at all. I do have rent to pay, you know, on my own."
Now inches from the other, rather angry man, Holmes spends a moment staring at him as though he's willing Watson to stop being so ridiculous. After all, he has half a bottle of what may or may not be whiskey to finish before he absolutely must begin to tail the murderer, and he hasn't even had time to consider what it is he had come here to consider in the first place. Not to mention, Watson's close proximity is not aiding his already overheated self; five matches and he's more sweat and blood than flesh, which is why he had forgone a shirt, but if Watson continues to stand there and shout at him he will never dry off.
But Watson remains there and angry, and so Holmes finally reaches to take the papers that Watson had shoved an inch or so from his face, but Watson pulls them back and away before Holmes can touch a single one of them. To that, Holmes can't help but raise an eyebrow, a common expression when he has observed something he deems interesting or had expected.
Watson glowers, shoving the notes into his jacket pocket. "You put my name on them without asking," he growls. "Why should I give them to you?"
Holmes' expression does not change, and Watson wonders if this is what the precursor to aneurysm feels like. "I can't win! I can't do anything right anymore, can I?" Still no response from Holmes. He throws up his hands, nearly knocking empty bottles from their precarious positions atop the stacked chairs. "Not with you, not with Mary, certainly not with dear bloody Mother."
He turns away, stalking a few feet towards the door and then spinning back about to point his walking stick at Holmes, nearly putting it in the other man's eye. "If I try to actually enjoy myself and spend time with you, if I bloody fall asleep and actually rest, I'm disappointing her, and if I stay home and play the good husband I'm disappointing you! And no matter what I do, that hag will always hate me!"
He's stalking closer to Holmes again, now, well into an impressive rant. He is not one to yell, in fact rarely does, but his hissed snarl is in fact much more disturbing, coming from such a quiet man, than would be a bout of yelling. "I'm so sick and tired of trying to please everyone! No matter what I do, if it's right or wrong, proper or not, someone is unhappy! And now you do this to me, you draw me right back into your mad... everything, and... and I'm not a gambling man anymore, Holmes!"
He's entirely worked up by this point, actually, and no longer really making sense. But it's clear that this has all been building up inside Watson for some time, and now the dam is cracked, and he's not sure how to seal it again. "I'm happy!" he snarls, as though Holmes had disagreed with him, despite the fact that the other man has not said a word since he'd begun his tirade. "I'm happy! I have a beautiful wife, whom I love, a wonderful new home, I have a successful practice and an excellent reputation as a physician, I'm making a good salary--I have everything I've always wanted! A peaceful, respectable life!"
Holmes still isn't saying anything, is merely watching him with that infuriatingly intense expression, and Watson nearly strikes him. "Aren't you going to bloody say something?!"
Holmes appears to consider this for a long moment, his expression unchanging except for an obvious show of deliberation on that question while Watson stands seething, having stalked towards Holmes and now leaving the detective cornered with the wall behind him. Watson shouting and snarling at him is to be expected, in one form or another. The man has an admirable hold on his temper, and yet Holmes has always taken great pleasure in his own equally admirable ability to break Watson's hold on said temper.
The upright, proper doctor would of course never dare loose his temper upon his more fragile-seeming wife or Mother dearest, and yet it is perfectly acceptable for him to loose it upon Holmes. Rather than finding this unfair (as he very well might) or annoying, Holmes finds this highly fascinating. Clearly a great deal of Watson's anger is directed solely at him- unsurprisingly, Holmes is not unaware of the reaction he produces in others- and yet, interestingly, for some of it Holmes is simply the only available target.
That doesn't bother Holmes, either. In fact none of these seems to bother him in the slightest, which no doubt infuriates Watson even further, but Holmes simply cannot help it. He's been watching Watson for years, after all, and more so than usual since he has returned from his honeymoon. All of the things Watson has been ignoring or keeping from himself, Holmes has observed. And it has all been very nearly as interesting as the case at hand. As he has often thought to himself, trying to put all of the things he had observed since Watson's departure in terms his mind would accept, there are two cases here and one of them is named John Watson.
"Well, then keep them," he says after a pause, his own tone and expression calm and a bit bewildered despite the doctor's anger and close proximity. He seemingly does not respond to the entirety of Watson's rant, imagines it invalid for some reason or another or assuming that it all has to do with the winnings, when Watson knows very well that Holmes could not possibly think such a thing. In fact, it seems more akin to when he has come to some conclusion on his own and refuses to discuss it until his point has been proven for all to see. "There are only two choices, keep them or don't. You needn't shout about it."
>> Part Five
Authors: sarisa_rahe and agaryulnaer86
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Holmes/Watson, pre-slash
Disclaimer: Still not ours.
Summary: The newlyweds return from their honeymoon. Watson is having some trouble adjusting. Also, murder.
Spoilers: Movie.
Warnings: Angst and marital problems. Alcohol. Gambling.
Word Count: ~6,300
Authors' Notes: Epic-fic, part 4/~14.
>> Part One
>> Part Two
>> Part Three
The stairs back down to the ground floor are a misery, as are those leading to the sidewalk, and he hires a cab without bothering to bemoan it even in his mind, entering the house at Cavendish Place just a few moments later and feeling as though he's stepping into someone else's home, three months living here or not.
Mary is in the sitting room when he follows the source of the lamplight, thankfully without her mother, and Watson sets down his overcoat, limping noticeably even with his cane as he makes his way across the green room to his wife. She doesn't look up from her novel until he lowers himself down onto his knees in front of her chair, guilt written all over his face.
He is nothing but an honest man, though, and when he takes her hand between both of his, he can't possibly lie or make an excuse. "I accompanied Holmes to a murder scene. It was entirely unplanned, and I apologize profusely for my neglect, Mary."
Her lips press together in a small grimace of displeasure, and he continues with a small wince. "I truly meant to return in the morning, or after lunch, but I passed out quite completely and slept until only an hour ago, whereupon Holmes required my services as a physician. Mary, I am so terribly sorry."
"Do you know how much I worried?" she asks quietly, finally looking up from her book and meeting his eyes. "You've been gone twelve hours, John. I presumed it had something to do with the case, but when you didn't return..." She trails off, clearly hurt, and he ignores completely that which is radiating up through his leg to his groin, feeling in exquisitely painful detail the tiny chunk of iron still lodged next to the bone.
"I beg your forgiveness, Mary--"
"But what will stop you from doing it again?" she interrupts, watching him with the piercing gaze that had so often reminded him a little of Holmes in female form, as though she can see right into his mind and can discern his thoughts. His back straightens, then, and he lifts his chin a bit, his pride bruised (though he is less and less sure of his ability to rise from this position without fainting, something he will never do).
"Because I will give you my word," he says firmly, meaning it completely and utterly as he stares up into her eyes, smiling hesitantly. "I shan't go on any more mad adventures. You are all I need." And yet, a separate pain from that in his leg suddenly takes up residence in the midst of his chest, somewhere near his sternum. He attributes it to a reaction to the fiery pokers that have replaced his femur, fibula, and tibula; the same goes for his sudden difficulty in breathing.
Mary stands, dropping his hands and moving closer to the fire. He remains kneeling, certain that he'll be in this spot all night. "John, I certainly don't wish to keep you from your closest friend, but whenever you are around Sherlock Holmes you become a different man, one not concerned with keeping appointments or causing others to worry over him. In his company you want nothing but to gallivant about London and ignore the fact that you have a wife at all."
Knowing the truth to that statement, if not in full than partially at least, Watson shakes his head. "Mary--" He cuts himself off, heaving himself back to his feet with an almighty shove, clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth grind to keep from crying out. When he's recovered enough to speak again, leaning half of his weight on his walking stick, he manages, "That's not the truth. I love you dearly, you know that." He swallows. "It's a habit to become so involved, and one that I have been trying very hard to break." Surely she has noticed that. He hadn't been back to Baker Street more than twice before their wedding, being so busy with his practice and with the wedding preparations, and had involved himself in no investigations whatsoever.
But now, of course, he slips once--twice, actually--and the act is unforgivable. Because that is an entirely fair amount of blame to place on him.
There’s silence for a moment as Mary considers the fire, but then she turns back to face her husband. She’d alternated between anger and worry all day long, or at least after the first few hours. After all, she had been there the last time he’d gone on such an adventure. He had come home to her wounded, could very well have died, and that was all she could think of as the day wore on. Holmes had told her that the case he was working on involved murder again, and so the only thing she could imagine with so little detail was her John, pitted against a merciless killer.
She had told herself several times over the course of the day that she would not simply forgive him, that she would not allow relief at seeing him returned and alive to overcome her displeasure at his having been gone without word in the first place. Her anger had grown to include Holmes over the course of the day as well, although she has learned quickly that anger at the man is as useless as anger at the weather.
But she has come to expect Mr. Holmes to do frightening things and not to care for anyone else as he does them. She has come to expect him to attempt to drag John along with him. But she has not come to expect or to accept that John should go along with him for twelve hours and not once think to at least let her know that he is safe.
She had never wanted to come between her husband and his friend; on the contrary, she has been trying to win over Holmes, and she thinks she has been marginally successful in earning his respect. She had wanted John to have time with his friend, even to continue his adventures when possible- but not at the expense of her sanity. And she’s learned that she is not quite as able to accept all of this as she might have thought she was, not when it comes to spending an entire day worried for her husband’s safety.
So to his last comment, she sighs, looking up at him. “I do know that,” she allows. “And surely it is also habit not to worry about anyone else while you are off with him.” She holds in another sigh, wanting so very much not to play the role of the jealous and demanding wife. “Simple word of your safety and whereabouts would have been enough for me, John. And you couldn’t even do that much in twelve hours.”
Closing his eyes as the guilt intensifies, Watson shakes his head. No, he hadn't been able to do that. True, eight of those hours he'd spent asleep. But he could have sent word after they'd left Chelsea, or after they'd left the Yard, or once they'd arrived at Baker Street once again...
He really is terrible at this entire marriage business. He hadn't even thought of her until he'd woken that evening. "You're right," he admits. "I became so caught up that I neglected your feelings. It was cruel of me." He thinks of Holmes, lying abed after passing out in the hallway, not having eaten in how many days, and is suddenly torn. He can't feel guilty for remaining; who knows how long his friend would have remained on the floor, unconscious, or when he would have finally remembered to eat?
But Mary's feelings he could at least have taken into account with a note. He reaches over with his free hand, the majority of his weight on his stick, and touches her cheek very gently, feeling warm, smooth skin beneath his fingers. His hands are far too large, far too calloused and accustomed to fighting to be obviously those of a doctor, but she has never seemed to mind.
"I love you," he says quietly. And that, he knows, is true. He does love her. But why does that statement provoke such an ache in his chest? Surely it cannot all be attributed to his leg, nor can he blame his old wound for the hollow feeling in his stomach. Could this all be due to guilt? Guilt for neglecting her, guilt for leaving Holmes lying alone in the dark with that expression in his eyes that Watson can never place, the one that always makes him feel lower than dirt for abandoning his friend for his wife. Because it's not anger or accusation, but simply... resignation. "Please forgive me?" He's not certain which of them he's apologizing to.
There is a short pause, but in the end Mary lets out another sigh, this one more yielding than upset. She leans into his hand for a moment before nodding. She hadn’t meant to forgive him so quickly, no. But she is relieved that he is home safe, and she can’t help but feel, looking at the horrible guilt written all over his face, that he will punish himself quite enough for this.
Besides, Mary is many things, but she is not given to fits of anger, and when she does get upset she overcomes it quickly. And it is very hard to remain angry with John, especially when he looks so very pitiful.
“All right,” she says quietly, reaching up to take his hand. “I love you as well. That is why I was so very worried.”
Watson smiles, relieved, but can't help the feeling that while he's fixed things with Mary (at least for tonight, as cheerful a thought as that is), that things with Holmes aren't fixed, and he doesn't know how to repair them. Doesn't know what Holmes wants from him, and right now, his leg hurts far too much for him to be able to consider it.
He knows it's going to give out soon, though, and rather than suffer the indignity of a fall he murmurs a quiet apology to Mary and sinks down onto the chaise with a quiet groan, the throb not diminished by the reclining position. He knows nothing but rest will help it recover and doesn't even attempt the stairs to the bedroom that night, banished to the couch as surely as he would have been had Mary not forgiven him. It's not a comfortable night, either; he goes through a stack of books, medical notebooks and other such, until he finally succumbs to the allure and begins to pen the Blackwood case, its events still burned into his memory.
He works through until morning when Mary comes downstairs, startled to find him already awake, and he doesn't question her assumption that he'd simply woken early, rather than having been awake through the night. But the number of pages he'd so carefully scripted are testament to his insomnia, and he closes the journal, sliding it beneath his patient files while she's in the kitchen.
She brings fresh clothes downstairs for him, a mercy, and he manages to dress in the downstairs water closet, spending most of the time sitting on the commode so as not to have to hop on one foot. By the time his first patient arrives at nine he's had some tea and prepared himself as well as is possible, refusing any sort of laudanum and also refusing to cancel his appointments when they'd been delayed already.
But by the time his last patient, Captain Phillips, departs after five, he can barely keep his eyes open, and Mary finds him fast asleep in his chair in his office, his head pillowed on the desk, patient file open and pen still in hand. The next few days are a blur of his Sunday suit, of surviving the church social and greeting all of their acquaintances and neighbors; he doesn't recall much of it save for trying not to show the pain in his leg, and by the time they return home on Sunday evening he's given in and takes a small dose of laundanum, spending that night and much of the next day in bed, well aware in a distant sort of way that he'd likely torn something in his thigh or he wouldn't be in nearly so much pain.
~~~~~
By Tuesday, however, he's returned to himself more or less, and though he's avoiding as much movement as he can, he's manageable. And he can walk again without such severe discomfort, though he doesn't dare try to run or to go without his walking stick for the next day or so. But he does a few of his upper-body exercises, keeping his arms strong and his shoulder flexible, and all in all feels much more himself. And during all of this, he's well aware that there is only a week and a day until the next murder will take place, and he has no idea what Holmes has been up to during all this time.
On Monday afternoon, with no response received from Holmes after sending several notes, Watson can bear the waiting no longer. Only two days until the deadline, and he has no doubt that Holmes has been following his man without cease for the time he'd been recovering and then attempting to catch up on all of his work. Mary is to go with her mother to visit family friends, and Watson makes sure to let her know, this time, that he is going to track down Holmes and may be a good while, but that he'll send word, this time.
He can no longer stand sitting idly by, dependent on his leg to recover, and hale once more he sets off to Baker Street to inquire after Holmes. Luck must be with him, because Mrs. Hudson informs him that the detective had returned only that morning after two days out on his case, and had in fact taken a large lunch and slept several hours. Startled, Watson climbs the staircase and rejoices silently when his leg does not complain, apparently back to its normal state.
He knocks once, not hearing any gunfire, and opens the door to the sitting room. "Holmes?" And there is the great detective, bent over the laboratory table in his bedroom and wearing no shirt... with none to be seen lying about, either. Deciding that he really doesn't want to know where the shirt (likely Watson's own) had gotten to, and quite comfortable seeing Holmes in various states of undress after seven years as flat-mates, the doctor makes his way around toppled furniture and Gladstone to climb the stairs to Holmes' bedroom, its doors flung wide open as always.
Holmes had always considered the sitting room to be an extension of his bedroom, Watson thinks, or perhaps the reverse is true. Either way, though, Watson is not surprised to find his notes on the corner of the laboratory table, opened with notes scribbled in the margins and on the backs of the papers. "These were meant to be responded to, you know," he says drily, setting them back down on the porcelain saucer. "You'd best put on a shirt or Mrs. Hudson will throw a fit."
“She already did,” Holmes says without looking up from his experiment; he is bent over the table, face nearly touching the glass beaker in front of him. Next to that, another glass container sits upturned, singed on the bottom, which (if Watson observes closely) does rather match the singeing on one of Holmes’ fingers.
A drop of something or other is carefully put into the upright beaker before Holmes continues, still without looking up at the doctor; he is clearly quite intent on the work before him, as he often is. Chemistry has always been a particular favorite pastime of Holmes’; it becomes even more so when the experiment relates to his work, as this does. But even when he has no case at all, at times it can be near impossible to drag him from whatever outlandish experiment he has gotten it into his head to perform.
The solution bubbles for a moment, and then abruptly sends a puff of smoke right into Holmes’ face. He coughs, and then sneezes, wiping his face off quickly with his hand before running the same hand through his already horrendously unkempt hair. “However, in terms of fits, that one was rather subdued next to the other she had thrown about said shirt being on fire, and so this seemed the lesser of two evils, you see.”
He pauses, and then coughs again, glancing up at Watson for the first time as the solution finally stops spouting smoke. “If I appear to be asphyxiating at any point in the near future, would you be so kind as to revive me? I‘ve a case to resolve and no time at all for dying.”
Watson just shakes his head, sitting down on Holmes' bed with a small sigh. "Yes, Holmes," he says patiently. "I might not have otherwise, but as it's a case you're worried about I shall be sure to resuscitate you."
Holmes doesn't even respond to the sarcasm, and Watson rolls his eyes, leaning back against the wall with his legs splayed comfortably out in front of him. There's no use in asking what he's doing until he's finished, after all. He won't get any sort of response, and there's also no point in asking if it had been his shirt that had caught fire. Undoubtedly it had been. But he normally parts with his clothes once Holmes has his hands on them, anyway, so it's not likely Watson will miss it.
He does manage to keep from having to revive the detective, and when there is finally a cry of triumph from the erstwhile chemist, Watson sits forward, curious despite himself. "What have you accomplished?"
He raises a brow. "And you might tell me what all you've learned from tailing the blighter." He obviously doesn't need confirmation that that had been what Holmes had been up to all week.
Carefully, Holmes lifts the beaker up to be examined by Watson; it now contains a light bluish-green solution, and Holmes seems quite pleased with himself as he observes this. In fact, as he holds it, he notes that the color does indeed rather match his hands now that the blue has begun to fade to a lighter color. Of course, that makes complete sense, considering, but he doesn’t bother explaining that.
“I have created the antidote, Watson,” he says. “A precaution. The paralytic can be deadly if given in a high enough dose, and with the amount of ingredients he took, the man could have made enough to kill ten grown men. Granted, the amount he brings with him is limited, but I’d prefer he not kill any grown or not grown men at all.”
And as such, antidote. He taps the beaker with his finger, putting it back down after another glance at the thing. He’ll test it on Gladstone later, of course. And perhaps on himself, although that will prove much more difficult to manage, what with the need for it to be administered after the paralytic...
Holmes ruminates on this for a moment before recalling that Watson had asked him another question. Tailing. Oh, of course. “Oh,” he begins. “I’ve learned a great many things as always, I’d say. Chief among them being that he lives alone, enjoys taking his breakfast at exactly seven-oh-two, sleeps very poorly, and has horrid taste in literature.” Holmes shakes his head as though disappointed. “I would have expected better than Poe.” Romanticism. Pah. And he had seemed at first so very nearly logical.
Watson frowns. "I enjoy Poe," he objects immediately. "You claim that my writings are romantic, as well. No reading material satisfies you save scientific publications."
He stands, moving closer to examine the antidote. With only two days left until the next murder is to be committed, he wonders what Holmes' grand plans entail, not that he'll be told until they're already occurring. But Holmes will have to convince Lestrade in the near future, will he not?
"And do you intend to follow him again this evening?" he asks after a moment, setting down the beaker and turning to face his friend. "Because I... have indeed taken the liberty of... removing myself from Cavendish Place. For... well, I shall just send Mary a note if I'll be over-late; she knows I'm assisting you." This time. He leaves that last unspoken, has not told his friend of the row... well, the very quiet row they'd had upon his return the week before.
“Your writings are romantic, Watson,” Holmes retorts immediately. “No matter. You can’t help but see the world through a haze of mild romanticism. It’s a product of society’s effects on you and hardly your fault.”
Watson is unamused, but Holmes carries on as though this wasn’t a mild insult regarding the doctor’s view of the world. Once again, he hears what Watson is not saying and takes more information from that than from what Watson had said; well, that and his notes, which had gone on for a week without a visit from him despite his obvious interest in this case. He’d obviously been in a great deal of trouble for being here so late the week before.
And yet, he’s returned. With Mary’s blessing. Holmes... doesn’t quite know how he feels about that, but as always, no matter what he tells himself when he is alone, with Watson here he does not waste his time on silly notions such as jealousy or indignity at his being shunted to the back of Watson’s life, now a pastime of sorts that is just barely allowable, and only with permission from his wife. No matter what fits of intolerable moods he might be in when left to his own devices, he shoves them aside when Watson appears because to do otherwise would be to indicate that his moods are related in some fashion to the doctor’s absence.
“I do so intend,” he says after a brief moment, during which he does nothing more than stare at the doctor, taking note of the pauses between his words, the slight awkwardness that indicates his distaste for the entire situation in general but also his desire to be included, to be invited, like old times. But in old times, Watson would never have had to inquire; Holmes would have assumed he would be there.
Holmes wonders if Watson ever considers his own psyche from an outsider’s perspective without prompting, decides quickly that he does not, and returns to the beaker, turning around after a moment to open the drawer to his bedside table, searching for a vial or a syringe to put his antidote in. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to inject this in me once I’ve taken the paralytic... no, I suppose not, never mind.” Watson’s expressions are, as always, quite easy to read.
~~~~~
That issue thus settled, Watson drags Holmes to dinner at a nearby pub, eschewing the Royale for one night as neither is suitably dressed (although Holmes does manage to clothe his upper half properly before they exit the rooms). After eating he follows Holmes in the direction, he assumes, of the bastard copper's residence, but after a few minutes he begins to notice the direction they're taking.
"Holmes," he says warningly, noting the crowd outside the run-down pub on the docks that doubles as a boxing ring. "I'm not going in there." He can't. He's given up gambling. There won't be any more of it, not for John Watson. And he's managed for months, now. He can't ruin all of that tonight.
"I thought we were going after the copper?" he asks a moment later, grabbing Holmes' arm as the detective heads for the alley door.
“We are,” Holmes says, as though that should be obvious. He does stop, however, when Watson grabs his arm, at least for now. He has been known to keep going, thus forcing Watson to follow him whether he likes it or not, but he also has been known to listen to Watson a bit more than he listens to... anyone else.
And so they stop, nearly to the door and a bit in the way. “But he is on duty until midnight, and I promised Carter I‘d be here tonight. As I have inadvertently neglected to appear the last three times I had promised, he may or may not be slightly displeased with me, and as such I feel it is my duty to apologize.”
Of course by apologize, he means play the same song and dance he always does and make the man good money. “You’re not required to place any bets, Watson. If you’re not permitted inside, I‘ll only be half an hour.” And with that, Holmes manages to (quite deftly) remove his arm from Watson’s grasp and duck into the crowd before Watson can stop him.
Watson is left standing in the alley with his mouth open slightly, but he closes it almost immediately, his jaw clenching. For a moment he turns away, obviously displeased, and starts to stalk back out to the street... but then he pauses slowly, looking back over his shoulder.
Holmes is right, of course. He's not required to place any bets; the hustling will be done entirely by Holmes and Carter. He could just go to watch; his friend is always quite a sight when taking down men twice his size, and Watson always enjoys watching him beat someone to a bloody pulp. It's... invigorating. In a primal sort of way.
Shaking off those sorts of thoughts, as he's not entirely certain where they'd come from, Watson turns back around and pushes his way through the crowd into the makeshift boxing arena. Not surprisingly, Holmes is just stepping away from Carter and is stripping off layers, tossing them behind the bar as the crowd starts to yell, already in a frenzy brought on by earlier bouts, no doubt. Watson nods to Carter, who looks rather startled to see him, before making his way to the top of the bleachers to lean against a pole and look down at the ring.
A burly dock worker is already there, half-naked and urging on the crowd when Holmes steps inside. His eyes tick sideways to Watson with some amusement, and the doctor shrugs. He hasn't bet a penny. What's the point in standing out in the alley?
The trick to these matches, as Holmes well knows after years of practice (and some swindling), is to keep it going for as long as possible before taking out his opponent. If the match is too short, the audience becomes disinterested, and the odds become too much in his favor. If he keeps each match going for as long as possible and yet wins every one, it works out in his favor, nearly always.
Of course, there is always the chance of a rogue boxer who is good enough, and more importantly, smart enough to outdo Holmes. But that rogue boxer is not this man, who leads first with a wild swing for Holmes’ head, which is dodged with such ease that Holmes briefly considers yawning. Instead, he returns the attempted punch with what appears to be almost an uncaring hit back to the other man’s head, ducking out and away from his grasp before the larger man can catch him.
And so begins the first match, during which anyone who knows Holmes and his fighting style well enough can clearly see that he is playing with the dock worker until he finally takes him down, some ten minutes later, to tumultuous applause, which he appears to ignore, but is really quite enjoying. The next match is much the same; though Holmes appears as always to be taking this less than seriously, occasionally making quips or taunts, practically bouncing out of the way of each successive attack, his eyes nevertheless betray the same intense concentration that he exhibits when his mind is fully on a problem set before him, and in the end he defeats his opponent soundly.
The next three matches follow in much the same manner, until Holmes, as per usual, is bleeding and covered in his own sweat mixed with the sweat and blood of the men he’d defeated, and calls an end to it after he sends the last man head-first into the ring surrounding them and knocks him unconscious. That seems like a good ending to Holmes, who finds that he is also quite horrendously thirsty. Convenient that he should have just made a hefty sum to pay for his drink, which he takes the liberty of grabbing from behind the bar himself, eschewing his shirt and the rest of his clothing for the bottle with a smile for the woman tending the generally home-brewed bottles of the sort of alcohol that might just eat a man’s liver alive. She glares at him. He is long past paying any attention to her, though, and instead finds himself searching the crowd for Watson.
Watson, meanwhile, had been behaving quite well. He really had. The way he'd figured it, if he placed no bets and hence had no ticket stubs, he'd be out in the night air long enough for the scent of this place to be gone from him and his clothes, and Mary would never know. And if he placed no bets, what was the harm? What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, correct? It wasn't lying so much as... not telling her everything he'd done with his night, and this isn't their most important stop by a long shot. It's exactly alike to the way he would not tell her if he'd gotten into some sort of scuffle. It would only worry her unnecessarily.
But he must admit that Mary hasn't been foremost in his mind for the past forty-five minutes or so, since Holmes began his bouts. In fact, since they'd begun Watson hasn't thought much about his wife at all, having moved closer to the side of the ring and beginning to argue with the man next to him about who will win. The last match is quite impressive, what with Holmes propelling his opponent into the wall, and he nods to his friend with a small smile when Holmes seeks him out in the crowd, following the other man over to the bar. He doesn't reach it, though, before he's stopped by Carter, who shoves a handful of papers at him, looking rather pleased with himself.
Wagers. Watson flips through them, the expression on his face tightening. Wagers in his name. Wagers totaling near one hundred pounds, and none of them in Holmes' name at all. He stares at the money for a moment, and then anger hits him, made all the worse by the shot of adrenaline he gets at having won so much, the thrill of succeeding at a gamble even if he hadn't been the one to place the wagers. That thrill that he'd resisted for months, now. Damn Holmes. Damn him.
"Would you explain this to me, please?" he requests in a cool voice as he approaches the bar, holding the papers up for his friend to see, but Holmes is already walking away from him, toward the stairs that lead to the next floor, where he rents a set of sparse rooms. "Holmes!" he barks, stalking after his friend and only becoming more irate when the detective does not pause until he reaches his destination.
Watson shuts the door to the rooms behind them, unreasonably angry. If not for these wagers, he would be attempting to get the other man to hold still long enough for him to see if there are any serious injuries, can see several painful-looking bruises on Holmes' sweaty torso already. But just now, he's not thinking about the injuries. "You made these in my name! I've told you repeatedly that I no longer have any interest in gambling! How am I to explain an extra hundred pounds?!" It's not as though Holmes has anyone to answer to, though, so why should he listen to Watson?! He can do whatever he wants, and Watson is powerless to stop him, as per usual!
Once the door is shut and they are alone, Watson's yelling becomes much more difficult to ignore, and Holmes has to pay attention, that or he supposes risk Watson bursting an artery or some sort of other ridiculous medical problem. And so Holmes turns to blink at his friend, somehow having expected this and at the same time appearing completely taken aback by the fact that Watson is angry and yelling at him, as though he has no idea why this should be so and in fact is rather baffled by the whole thing.
"Your interest in gambling is irrelevant, seeing as you didn't place any bets," Holmes points out. He doesn't see what this has to do with Watson's newfound and so-called complete lack of interest in gambling, since he indeed had placed no bets the entire night, which Holmes would readily tell anyone who asked.
Of course, no one is asking, but he suspects the person who would would be Mary. And of course Watson does not want Mary to realize he was here at all, which is the crux of the problem, Holmes supposes rightly. "If every source of income must be explained, you needn't take it at all. I do have rent to pay, you know, on my own."
Now inches from the other, rather angry man, Holmes spends a moment staring at him as though he's willing Watson to stop being so ridiculous. After all, he has half a bottle of what may or may not be whiskey to finish before he absolutely must begin to tail the murderer, and he hasn't even had time to consider what it is he had come here to consider in the first place. Not to mention, Watson's close proximity is not aiding his already overheated self; five matches and he's more sweat and blood than flesh, which is why he had forgone a shirt, but if Watson continues to stand there and shout at him he will never dry off.
But Watson remains there and angry, and so Holmes finally reaches to take the papers that Watson had shoved an inch or so from his face, but Watson pulls them back and away before Holmes can touch a single one of them. To that, Holmes can't help but raise an eyebrow, a common expression when he has observed something he deems interesting or had expected.
Watson glowers, shoving the notes into his jacket pocket. "You put my name on them without asking," he growls. "Why should I give them to you?"
Holmes' expression does not change, and Watson wonders if this is what the precursor to aneurysm feels like. "I can't win! I can't do anything right anymore, can I?" Still no response from Holmes. He throws up his hands, nearly knocking empty bottles from their precarious positions atop the stacked chairs. "Not with you, not with Mary, certainly not with dear bloody Mother."
He turns away, stalking a few feet towards the door and then spinning back about to point his walking stick at Holmes, nearly putting it in the other man's eye. "If I try to actually enjoy myself and spend time with you, if I bloody fall asleep and actually rest, I'm disappointing her, and if I stay home and play the good husband I'm disappointing you! And no matter what I do, that hag will always hate me!"
He's stalking closer to Holmes again, now, well into an impressive rant. He is not one to yell, in fact rarely does, but his hissed snarl is in fact much more disturbing, coming from such a quiet man, than would be a bout of yelling. "I'm so sick and tired of trying to please everyone! No matter what I do, if it's right or wrong, proper or not, someone is unhappy! And now you do this to me, you draw me right back into your mad... everything, and... and I'm not a gambling man anymore, Holmes!"
He's entirely worked up by this point, actually, and no longer really making sense. But it's clear that this has all been building up inside Watson for some time, and now the dam is cracked, and he's not sure how to seal it again. "I'm happy!" he snarls, as though Holmes had disagreed with him, despite the fact that the other man has not said a word since he'd begun his tirade. "I'm happy! I have a beautiful wife, whom I love, a wonderful new home, I have a successful practice and an excellent reputation as a physician, I'm making a good salary--I have everything I've always wanted! A peaceful, respectable life!"
Holmes still isn't saying anything, is merely watching him with that infuriatingly intense expression, and Watson nearly strikes him. "Aren't you going to bloody say something?!"
Holmes appears to consider this for a long moment, his expression unchanging except for an obvious show of deliberation on that question while Watson stands seething, having stalked towards Holmes and now leaving the detective cornered with the wall behind him. Watson shouting and snarling at him is to be expected, in one form or another. The man has an admirable hold on his temper, and yet Holmes has always taken great pleasure in his own equally admirable ability to break Watson's hold on said temper.
The upright, proper doctor would of course never dare loose his temper upon his more fragile-seeming wife or Mother dearest, and yet it is perfectly acceptable for him to loose it upon Holmes. Rather than finding this unfair (as he very well might) or annoying, Holmes finds this highly fascinating. Clearly a great deal of Watson's anger is directed solely at him- unsurprisingly, Holmes is not unaware of the reaction he produces in others- and yet, interestingly, for some of it Holmes is simply the only available target.
That doesn't bother Holmes, either. In fact none of these seems to bother him in the slightest, which no doubt infuriates Watson even further, but Holmes simply cannot help it. He's been watching Watson for years, after all, and more so than usual since he has returned from his honeymoon. All of the things Watson has been ignoring or keeping from himself, Holmes has observed. And it has all been very nearly as interesting as the case at hand. As he has often thought to himself, trying to put all of the things he had observed since Watson's departure in terms his mind would accept, there are two cases here and one of them is named John Watson.
"Well, then keep them," he says after a pause, his own tone and expression calm and a bit bewildered despite the doctor's anger and close proximity. He seemingly does not respond to the entirety of Watson's rant, imagines it invalid for some reason or another or assuming that it all has to do with the winnings, when Watson knows very well that Holmes could not possibly think such a thing. In fact, it seems more akin to when he has come to some conclusion on his own and refuses to discuss it until his point has been proven for all to see. "There are only two choices, keep them or don't. You needn't shout about it."
>> Part Five