guess i lost my way
firstly
Watson took his detective home.
Holmes had a knot on the side of his head that likely bespoke concussion. The thin membrane over his eyes flickered, his kinetic dreams mewed up, encrypted. Watson held up his slumping insensate body in the cab, an arm around Holmes's shoulders, Holmes's head dipping and bumping his chin.
Watson kept pressing his fingers under Holmes's jaw, sliding his thumb down Holmes's rough cheek. His friend's pulse was thready, distractingly present, and Watson found it again and again, touching the concealed beat of Holmes's heart like a talisman.
Holmes resurfaced as Watson wrestled him out of the cab. He jerked in Watson's hold, an instinct towards flight drawing his muscles taut. Watson stiffened his arms in resistance, letting Holmes twist against him ineffectually.
"Settle, settle, it's all right," Watson said under his breath, and Holmes mumbled his name, his head lolling as heavy as a sack of flour on Watson's shoulder. "Yes, Holmes, it's me, I have you. It's all right now."
The gentling sounds appealed to Watson, soft edgeless shapes in his mouth, so he continued to murmur and cajole as he half-carried Holmes into 221B. Holmes woke up enough to get himself up the seventeen steps, and then they were in the sitting room and Watson deposited his friend on the settee, where Holmes slouched, strings cut and legs akimbo. Watson straightened, and his hands itched for Holmes, but he held back. He went to pour himself a drink.
When Holmes awoke, Watson thought, things would regain their solidity, the concrete nature of reality reasserting itself. This shaded half-world would not stand the detective's scrutiny, and once Holmes could see clearly again, then Watson would too. There was light on the other side of this, or so the doctor had to believe. It had been an exceedingly difficult adventure.
Watson yawned into the glass, more tired than he realised. He sat down next to Holmes's untidy form and let his head fall back, his eyes closing as sweetly as clover. Watson let out a long graduated sigh, feeling the endless day seep out of his body. He could hear Holmes breathing beside him and it poured into the empty space in his chest like cool clear water, like a witnessed miracle.
*
Holmes was dreaming of Corsica.
The pictures in his mind were of medieval fortresses on long shores, cliffs and ragged juts of stone, the ocean water a chemical blue colour reminiscent of verdigris. Holmes was sitting on a beach of pale skin-like sand. He was barefoot, his trousers rolled up like a kid's, and the wind pushed his hair hard to the side.
Holmes was comfortable and warm, watching the narrow-bodied boats slip through the waves like blades. He knew where he was in numbers, latitude and longitude, so many miles from London, so many feet away from the ocean. He knew it was Corsica even though that was a place he had never been.
Away on a cliff, Watson was waving at him. Holmes squinted to see him standing like a punctuation mark against the sky, and he wished for Watson to be nearer and in the next breath Watson was, sitting beside him on the beach with his toes dug into the sand. Watson put his chin on his knees and smiled at his friend, and it was such a perfect thing that it startled Holmes awake.
He was home. Baker Street fell into being around him, the placement of the walls and the clutter packing every horizontal surface. He was on the settee, his head throbbing like an echoless pit, and Watson was asleep beside him, a glass of brandy balanced on his knee with limp precarious fingers.
Holmes subsumed the ache in his head, buried it in a tide of observation. He studied Watson, the dirt on his cuffs and the matchlight burns at the tips of his fingers, the stain of old blood on his trousers. Holmes wove together the noctivagant narrative of Watson's night, everywhere he'd been and everything he'd seen, and once the detective had that set in his mind, he just looked awhile longer.
Watson was ordinary, and remarkable, and impossible. He was a knight as a child would conceive it, brave and righteous and true with hair of gold, eyes blue as the sky. Sometimes Watson hardly even seemed real. Holmes wanted to break him open and study every piece. He wanted to bring Watson forcibly into the physical world, down to his own wretched level, and the thought sent a frisson of heat through him. Holmes carefully lifted the glass off Watson's knee and finished the drink himself, considering his friend over the curved rim.
Eventually Holmes set the glass aside and nudged Watson.
"Doctor."
Watson's face creased as he frowned in his sleep, rolling his face away from Holmes. Holmes half-smiled, poked him harder. "Watson. John Watson, wake up."
A shimmer passed over Watson's face, that blur of returning awareness, and his eyes blinked open. Holmes watched avidly as Watson first just lay there smiling at him vaguely, and then clarity swept across his face and he sat up, reaching for Holmes.
"Are you all right?" Watson asked, and Holmes thought, no, but he didn't say it.
He kissed Watson instead.
*
Watson closed his eyes and kissed him back.
It was only for a moment or two or five. Holmes's hand rose and settled lightly on the side of Watson's face, his raw fingertips brushing on Watson's temple, the slightest pressure to keep Watson tilted into him. Watson was conscious of the heat scratching in his stomach, and the rough drag of Holmes's mouth against his own, and the goosebumps racing across his skin, and then all the clues fell into order and he realised what he was doing. He ripped away from Holmes, a gasp torn between them.
"Holmes," Watson said, a frenzied question in it. Holmes still had a hand bent on his face, and Watson took his wrist but didn't pull him away.
"You must allow me this," Holmes said. He sounded hurried and dark, a corrupted edge to his voice that made want curl thickly in Watson's stomach. "I know I am not--I know you feel as I do."
Before Watson could answer, Holmes leaned forward and kissed him again, kissed him hard with his tongue swiping in, Holmes's teeth catching on the underside of his lip. Watson jerked, a shocking burst of arousal pulling through him. His hands were twisted in Holmes's filthy shirt, and somehow he managed to push him away.
"Don't, don't," Watson stammered, fingers convulsing, head afire. "Why are you-"
"You know why," Holmes interrupted, a brilliant certainty glowing in his face. His lidded eyes were locked on Watson's mouth. "It's been between us, every day of our acquaintance--every minute. I would simply prefer to acknowledge it, for once."
Watson was shaking his head even though it was true, of course it was true. Holmes was insane and he was a genius and somewhere between the two he was the most beautiful thing Watson had ever seen, and that wasn't something you mentioned in polite society. It stopped the breath in his throat to hear Holmes say it so plainly now, the taste of him still sharp and unfamiliar on Watson's lips.
"Why now?" Watson asked. His voice was like splinters.
Holmes's hand slipped to the back of Watson's neck, wild flashes of calculation skittering through his eyes. "I have had an appalling week. I am attempting to remedy that."
He swayed in again, but Watson's mind was clearing and he was able to press Holmes back.
"You, you have concussion. You are in no condition-"
Holmes laughed, a crooked humourless thing that smuggled a chill up Watson's spine. "Some hours ago you laid claim to my soul, and now a bump on the head is enough to deter you? O faithless man," and Holmes darted in to steal a kiss off him, a surprise attack.
Heat stained Watson's face, his mouth feeling swollen, and he stared at his hands fisted in Holmes's shirt so he would not have to look at the man himself.
"Any other epithet I will take from you, but there is no justice in that one," Watson said quietly.
There was a pause. Holmes's fingers moved thoughtfully through Watson's short hair, sending subtle trembles through his body. Watson wanted to close his eyes, but he knew he could not trust Holmes if he did.
"You're right," Holmes told him, and tipped forward, touching his forehead to Watson's with the utmost care. "Will you forgive me?"
Watson broke then, a tangible feeling like a harpstring snapping in his chest as he lifted his chin, fit his mouth against Holmes's and kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. He curled his hands in Holmes's hair and bore him down on the settee, covering Holmes's body with his own and kissing him until they were both weak and starry-eyed and breathless.
*
There was no air. Watson was on top of him, weighing him down. Holmes had one leg pulled up and half-bent around his friend's back. His hands on Watson's face tried to guide him to a better angle, but the doctor would have none of that, kissing Holmes deeply and without grace. Holmes licked against Watson's tongue, pressing up slow and intentional with his hips.
Watson hissed in a breath, and thrust back against him, and Holmes felt him hard through his clothes. A maddening rush of heat went through Holmes, skittering along the knife edges of his nerves, and for a moment he was senseless, just a body moving and drugged by desire. One hand spread out wide on Watson's neck, Holmes pulled his head back and affixed his mouth to the wild running pulse in his jaw, and it made Watson groan.
Holmes sucked a bruise just where Watson's collar would cover, and then lifted his head.
"What will you do?" Holmes asked, sounding distant and eager to his own ears.
Watson looked down at him with a wonderfully complex expression on his face. His hands were bunched up on Holmes's chest, knuckles stony and round, eyes blown black with desire. He hesitated, hovering above, and said in a hoarse tone, "Anything you wish."
A shiver rattled through Holmes, and his eyes went wide. He was not used to his body reacting with so little input from his mind. Watson saw his look and smirked, lowered his head to nip at Holmes's jaw.
"What shall I do for you?" Watson whispered, low and full of promise, and Holmes shivered again, his back arching.
"There are--many things," Holmes managed, his mind a useless wreck. His hands pulled Watson's waistcoat open and tugged his shirt free of his belt, slid underneath to find warm skin, and then they were both shivering.
"Name one," Watson said, and Holmes had to close his eyes, fiercely marshalling his control.
"Watson," he said, teeth gritted. "I must ask you to stop talking."
Watson grinned, unutterably wicked man. "Must you?"
It was somehow terrifying. Watson was letting him do this, and that was one of the impossible things, like the moon falling out of the sky or the ocean turning to dust. Watson was more than just letting him, bitten-lip and joyful as he flushed and ran his hands over Holmes's body. Watson wanted Holmes in the same way that Holmes had always wanted him, hard against each other and laughing, and that fact struck an off-key note in the detective; instinct told him that it did not belong.
Holmes hooked his leg firmly around Watson's hips, and rolled them so the doctor was pressed against the back of the settee and Holmes was pressed against his friend. Watson's shirt was rucked up, half the buttons popped off, and Holmes couldn't stop staring at the pale spread of his hands on Watson's chest, how strange and out of place they seemed. His fingers iced across the top of Watson's trousers and Watson bit back a gasp, the muscles in his stomach trembling.
"Please," Watson said, voice cracking, and Holmes buried his face in his friend's neck, knowing that he did not deserve this. His fingers worked Watson's flies open, pushed inside where Watson was stiff and hot and aching. Holmes took hold of him with his eyes closed, his mouth open against bare skin, and Watson's moan vibrated on his lips.
*
There was not room enough in Watson's body for the wave of sensation that broke over him at the touch of Holmes's hand. Eyes pasted shut, he moaned helplessly, and rocked his hips into Holmes's grip, and did not care about the picture he must be making.
Holmes was bringing him off slowly, long careful strokes with his thumb rolling over top. He was learning Watson, playing him into a symphony of groans and cut-off oaths, and Watson felt like he was being dismantled, broken down piece by piece. Holmes's lips moved silently against his throat, keeping count, and Watson thought that he would like to go to his knees for this man. He would like Holmes to have him in every way.
Watson had one hand in Holmes's hair, cupped around the base of his skull. His other hand was restless and grasping, moving over Holmes's back and down the sturdy curve of his shoulder, feeling the rhythmic tension of Holmes's arm. All the while his hips kept rocking, dizzying bursts of heat scattering through him. The world was Holmes's hand around him, and Holmes's mouth on his throat, and Holmes's legs against his own, this too-small settee with the frayed silk threads at its edges and nothing else.
He finished suddenly, without warning. His fingers clenched in Holmes's hair as he came wet over the detective's hand, and Holmes choked on a breath as if shocked. For a long minute, Watson knew only pleasure and peace, an elysian field stretching before him under a powder blue sky.
Then he regained his better senses, and processed the warmth of Holmes against him, Holmes's hands still curious under his clothes.
"My dear fellow," Watson said, his voice rusty and stupefied. He ran a disbelieving hand down the back of Holmes's head.
Holmes sighed, and kissed Watson's collarbone, and pushed away from him. The detective sat up, gingerly cradling his head. He was turned away from Watson, and the doctor fixed his trousers, levered up to rest his chin on the back of Holmes's shoulder.
"Allow me to repay that debt," Watson said into Holmes's ear, and slipped an arm around his friend's waist. Holmes shivered, some sort of conditioned response, and put his hand on Watson's arm, stilling him.
"I. I do not require-" and then Holmes stopped short, a strange hitch in his chest.
Watson rubbed his face on Holmes's shoulder, breathing deep of his friend's muddled scent, tobacco and char and river water and blood. A growing sense of calm had lodged in Watson, and he was able to appreciate the smallest elements of the moment, the coarseness of Holmes's hair against his forehead and the slick feel of shirt buttons like pebbles under his fingers.
"I wish to do you a kindness," Watson murmured, and kissed the back of Holmes's neck.
Holmes pulled away from him. He got to his feet and stood with his back to Watson, his shoulders as hard as a bridge. Watson blinked up at his friend, a confounded fog settling over him. Things made much less sense when he didn't have his hands on Holmes.
"Thank you, Doctor," Holmes said tonelessly, setting loose a frozen spider to skitter along Watson's nerves. "But I believe I will retire. It. It has been a very long day."
To the doctor's astonishment, Holmes moved for his bedroom, which was still sporting its splintered door. In a blink, Watson was on his feet and across the room, barring the passage with his arm. Bewilderment worked through him like a narcotic, making him slow and stupid.
"You would leave me?" Watson asked, disbelief rife in his voice. "Now?"
Holmes shook his head, but he was not looking at his friend. "A man is owed his night's rest."
"Not when he has just made criminals of himself and his dearest friend," Watson said sharply. "I should think the guilt would prove a rather substantive distraction."
It was a ploy, and a good one. An irascible shadow passed across Holmes's face, and he met Watson's eyes with a furious lost gaze. The doctor's heartbeat quickened, knowing he would have the fight he wanted.
*
Holmes spoke without thinking.
"I have made you into nothing you were not before."
And he marvelled at his own stupidity, a rather novel sensation. Watson laughed out loud, his face bright with jeering malice for an instant. Holmes grimaced, fisted his hand at his side. Watson was still too close to him.
"I won't waste the breath needed to refute you there, old boy," Watson told him, a tinny sound to the familiar endearment. "I'm sure you know even better than I the extent of the changes I have suffered under your companionship."
"Suffered, now?" Holmes said, too quick again, too damned quick. "I would consider you much improved."
"Oh yes, I am quite, what with my increasing experience in the areas of housebreaking and fisticuffs and now evidently sodomy."
Watson's mouth warped horrifically around the word, and Holmes flinched like he'd been slapped, a bolt of antsy heat scraping through him. He couldn't help the images that flickered through his mind, Watson bent over the side of the bed with Holmes's hand on the back of his neck, Watson's legs over Holmes's shoulders, and he had to look away, swallowing hard.
"I, I," Holmes attempted, and he didn't know what was wrong with him, every good word having absconded to higher ground. "I would never presume-"
"You already have, Holmes. You have presumed far beyond what a gentleman's conscience might bear."
Holmes jerked his head up, a shredded-wire smile on his face. "It's a happy thing neither of us can claim that title, then."
Watson stepped forward, closing the space between them to an inch or less. It was unambiguous, startling in the intensity of its effect. A breath stuck in Holmes's lungs, a heartbeat stalled in his chest so that his blood felt thinned, watered-down. Holmes's body understood everything about Watson's proximity, unsatisfied and yearning, his back itchy-hot under his shirt. What his skin wanted was Watson's skin.
"If we are not gentlemen, then I may speak plain," Watson said in that roughened low tone that did such awful things to Holmes. "You are not currently in your right state of mind. In your right state of mind, you would not reject me."
"In my right state of mind, I never would have touched you in the first place," Holmes said, brittle and cutting.
Watson's eyebrows flicked that away dismissively. He leaned closer to Holmes, one hand on the doorframe above the detective's shoulder.
"You would still desire the privilege," Watson told him without a shred of doubt. Holmes kept quiet, his face dull red. "And it would still already be yours."
Holmes looked up in shock, and Watson kissed him. His head thunked against the door and Watson tasted deeply of his mouth before pulling away as quickly as he'd come. Holmes noticed that his hands were on Watson's hips, traitorous fingers curled tight.
"All right?" Watson asked. His hand slipped through Holmes's hair, snagging and soothing.
Holmes shook his head, but he was leaning into Watson, his mouth aching from not having the doctor's upon it. Watson was looking at him softly, singularly, like all the world had paused for the two of them, and Holmes could not see that, he could not bear it.
He said too fast, too loud, "I did not turn him."
A slow blink was Watson's first response, and then, "I beg your pardon?"
A mad laugh scrabbled in Holmes's throat but he choked it back. "The boy. The unlucky Philip Townshend. I had not--I did not expect to find him there. I had tracked Melchiori to that room but I believed the boy was being held somewhere farther out of town. I was chasing Melchiori, do you see?"
Holmes had a hard grip on Watson's elbow, and Watson nodded silently, eyes watchful and wide.
"And when I came in, I saw him bound on the floor, and Melchiori was going out the window. I did not, I, I cut the boy's bonds and he woke up, he, he. He was awake, Watson. I checked his head, and I felt his arms and legs for fractures, but I did not turn him. I did not see the wound in his back, and the blood--I observed the blood but I did not see. It was so much. Too much, and I. I was thinking about Melchiori. I was trying to deduce the direction in which he would run, and the boy was awake, he was conscious. I told him I would return for him, and then I left him there, I left."
The final word broke on his tongue. Holmes dug his fingers into Watson's arm because his legs were shaky, his whole being throbbing with remorse. Watson made a faraway sound, almost a hush, but Holmes was not looking at him anymore.
"I was certain he would live," Holmes said hoarsely. "I was certain I would be back in time."
"Holmes," Watson said, pressing his hand to Holmes's cheek. The gesture spooked Holmes, and he shook it off, drawing away from his friend.
"So you see," Holmes continued, blind now and hardly recognising his own voice. "I do not deserve you tonight. And I--if we are speaking plain, I do not deserve you at all. That is only a fact. We must leave this thing here."
He wrenched himself away from his friend. Watson said his name again, in that insupportable way that Watson always said his name, like they spoke two separate languages and that was their single common word; it had to stand for everything.
Holmes wished to be away from here. The room had become suffocating, overfull with cries and curses, all the dreadful things that had passed between them. He slipped into his bedroom and saw that Watson had kicked in his door, which was unfortunate but not much of a surprise. The doctor had always had a temper.
Holmes sat on the edge of the bed, clasping his hands between his knees and ordering his extremities to cease shaking, his heart to slow to a more sustainable rate. In the corner of his eye, he could see Watson leaning in the doorway, watching him. It made invisible ants crawl on the back of Holmes's neck, his mind obsessively showing him a heat-soaked memory of Watson pressing him onto his back and kissing him like he would never stop.
Closing his eyes, Holmes pushed a hand into his own hair and twisted hard, whispering beneath the gasp of pain, "Stop it."
*
Watson was stuck against the doorframe, and for a long moment all he could do was watch.
Moving with the tardigrade care of an old man, Holmes pulled the braces off his shoulders, his back in a sorrowful curve. He jerked at his hair a few more times, that odd tic of his that tugged at something in Watson too, and took off his belt and boots. Holmes was pretending Watson wasn't there, and Watson did not like the feeling at all.
Holmes thumbed open the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off, sat there in his undershirt for a moment with his head bowed. Watson looked at the clean line of Holmes's neck disappearing into the black chaos of his hair, and he thought that it must have been days and days since his friend last slept.
Watson stepped out of Holmes's bedroom, and went to turn down the lamps and lock the sitting room door. He stripped out of his waistcoat and shirt as he did, leaving them fallen like leaves on the carpet. Fearful anticipation rioted in his chest, his heart sounding a rataplan.
Holmes had his head in his hands when Watson returned to the room, but he looked up as the doctor entered, a momentary expression of surprise immediately banished. Holmes registered Watson's change in attire with a wary lowering of his eyebrows.
"What are you doing?" Holmes asked, aiming for that casual authority he wielded so well but missing badly in the tumult of the moment.
"I would apologise about your door, but that would be disingenuous, as I am not actually sorry," Watson said. "I'll call someone in about it tomorrow."
He sat down next to Holmes's on the edge of the bed and began picking at his shoelaces. Holmes stared at him, clearly suspecting a trick.
"Hang the door," the detective snapped. "Please explain what you're doing right now."
"I am removing my shoes," Watson replied.
"Do not toy with me, man," Holmes said fast, his voice rising on a jagged scale. He was panicked, Watson realised. It was strangely comforting to think: at least they were together in this as well.
"Lie down, Holmes," Watson told him, and stood to turn down the lamp. Holmes became ethereal in the muddy light, his eyes like wet ink, his mouth a flawless shape. He did not move, and so Watson took his shoulders and pushed him down on the bed.
"Don't-" Holmes began, pitched high with tension, but Watson wasn't interested in anything that started with that.
"I shall do as I please," the doctor told his friend, and climbed over him to the other side of the bed.
Holmes gaped at him for a moment, and then said in a reined-in tone, "Watson, get out of my bed."
"Thank you, but I'm quite comfortable."
Watson punched the pillow into a more amenable shape, and ignored the scattershot feeling of anxiety pumping through him. He risked a glance and Holmes was staring at him, baffled, sick with exhaustion and strain.
"Are your faculties impaired?" Holmes asked. "Did your hearing lapse when I said we must leave this?"
"No, I heard you very well. I did not in any way agree, of course, but I did hear you."
"You cannot just, just insinuate yourself," Holmes said, blustering, striving for some level ground on which to fight.
Heart in his mouth, Watson rolled up to his knees, swiftly straddling Holmes's body and riding out the compulsive buck of his hips. Holmes's hands came up to grab Watson's arms, and Watson braced to be thrown off, but it never happened. Holmes was shaking, his noiseless mouth open.
Watson told him, "You will not save every life."
Holmes stiffened, and Watson stroked a hand down his throat, calming and keeping him from bolting. Everything felt incredibly delicate, just now.
"On occasion, the outcome will not be as you've predicted it," Watson continued, watching a dark storm batter in Holmes's eyes. "Some of your schemes, Holmes, some small number of them are going to fail spectacularly."
He couldn't help himself, running his fingers down the neat line of Holmes's nose, scuffing his knuckles over the detective's rough cheek. Holmes made a vaguely strangled sound, staring at him with a blackening gaze.
"This is the way of the world," Watson said, secretive and hushed. "No man is allowed more than his meagre share of perfection. It does not make you any less than what you are."
Holmes's face twisted, and he turned his head aside, the muscle in his jaw flickering with tension. Watson curved his hand around Holmes's chin and drew his attention back; he didn't feel wholly visible unless Holmes's eyes were on him.
"And you must understand," Watson said, a hitch of breath interrupting him. "It does not matter if you deserve me--though of course you do, you bloody great idiot, what an utterly absurd thing to think--it doesn't matter, it's irrelevant. I am already yours. I am going to fix your door and sleep in your bed and follow you into every danger, because I am yours. And that. That is the other way of the world."
Watson stopped, hauled in a ragged breath. Holmes had gone still beneath him, wide-eyed. A fraught moment passed, the span of seconds between lighting the fuse and hearing the deafening roar of a cannon. Watson became self-conscious of his position, his knees pressing into Holmes's sides, but he did not move. It seemed unspeakably important that he not move.
"You are a fool," Holmes said. Watson flinched, a spasm of dark feeling rattling through him.
"I know that."
Holmes shook his head, a frantic light growing in his eyes. "You are a fool," he said again, harder and with all the surety he could summon, and then he reached up and took Watson's face in his hands, pulled him down into a kiss that went on and on, through the straits and trials of this world and into the next.
*
Holmes woke up under the doctor's arm.
Sunlight fell in distorted patches across the floor, hosting a miasmata of dust motes like minute fairies dancing. Out the window, a shard of the sky showed crystalline and clear over the slanted tarred roofs, fleeced of clouds. Holmes's head hurt a great deal less than it had. The weight of Watson's arm over his waist was strange and not entirely welcome.
Holmes shifted, and felt the moment Watson awoke, the slight tightening across his whole body. Watson's eyes came open, foggy and oceanic and blinking dumbly like a blind man seeing the colour blue for the first time.
"Good morning," Watson said, and did not move his arm.
Closing a solid fist in the sheets, Holmes said by rote, "And to you."
Watson yawned, bumped his head into Holmes's shoulder. They were both still wearing their trousers, lying atop the blankets like children sent for a midday nap. Watson radiated heat, his hair a mess of tawny spikes, his arm barred across Holmes's stomach.
"It is early yet," Watson said in a sleep-muffled tone. He curled a hand around Holmes's hip, tugged him closer. "We might sleep a few hours more."
"Lazy," Holmes said, speaking as if from a script. Watson smiled, unconcerned.
"I can hardly be blamed for that."
Holmes shifted again. He wanted to get up, escape this room. He wanted a cup of tea and a pipe and the chair by the window. He did not want Watson beside him because someday Watson would not be.
"That brain of yours is an absolute curse, you know," Watson told him. Holmes chanced a look at him and Watson's eyes were closed. He was still smiling, the faintest curve.
"I am aware that there are disadvantages," Holmes answered. He sounded hollow, stunned.
"It will be the great work of my life," Watson mumbled absently. His hand on Holmes's hip felt like the only thing connecting them to the material world. "It will take years, likely decades. On my deathbed they will ask of what was I most proud, and I will tell them that I knew Sherlock Holmes."
A sinking feeling happened in Holmes's stomach. He closed his eyes against the tyranny of the light, and found that his arm had slipped around Watson, his hand moving slow on the doctor's back. Watson sighed against his neck, content and already half-asleep again.
All the mysteries in the world, Holmes thought in a daze, all the secrets and riddles and cryptograms, and nothing could compare to this. Some things were too vast, too inarguable. The ocean required no explanation. It simply was, as it had always been, and with Watson against him in the gathering strength of the morning, Holmes understood at last that they had both drowned long ago.
THE END