FIC: Unraveled
Title: Unraveled
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Length: 10,600 words
Summary: Holmes takes a knock to the head, and assumes he and Watson are together due to his friend's overt concern over said knock. When Holmes starts acting all touchy and loving, as one would with a partner, yet gets not much in response, he begins to worry about the state of the relationship he thinks he has with Watson. Cue Holmes trying to win back Watson's affections.
Originally posted for the Sherlockkink Meme
I awaken slowly, my mind moving frenetically to piece together the events leading to my being on the settee, in the early evening judging by the slant of the sun against the floor, with an afghan tightly encasing me and my temples aching. I see a quite familiar sight off to the side, of my dear Watson fallen asleep at his desk, pen on the floor from where it's fallen from his slack hand.
I attempt to say, "Watson," and to ascertain the situation which yet alludes me, but I mange only to croak out something unintelligible instead. Watson still leaps up as if electrified, and hurries to my side.
"Holmes!" he says, quite joyously. "I'd begun to fear you wouldn't awake." I see in the lines around his eyes that he is only half-joking. He smooths the back of his hand over my forehead, assessing my temperature initially, but his hand lingers for a peculiarly satisfying moment. He begins a tediously long line of inquiries into the state of my being, to which I answer in simple nods or shrugs, my attention more focused elsewhere. In particular, on the slant of the good doctor's eyebrows, the gentle glide of his eyes over my face, the smile his lips form when he finds I am in better health than he'd feared.
With his assessment complete, he wraps both his hands around one of mine, and says warmly, "Though I do not doubt you're beside yourself to be moving about, I wonder if you could humor me by resting a while longer. It was a nasty knock to your head, Holmes."
"What happened?" I ask, only an oddly distant part of me annoyed that I've yet to remember. I feel that under usual circumstances this lack of information would be most pressing indeed, but I find there is something present in the form of Watson's gratifying attention that intrigues me more.
"You don't recall?" Watson asks, and once more worry overtakes his features.
I quickly assure him, falsely, "In bits and pieces, yes, but the time line itself eludes me. Do indulge me."
Perhaps I am more tired from the fight than I'd thought, if my lie was so poor that Watson looks not even remotely convinced. But he nevertheless tells me of a quite incidental fight between myself and three ruffians that should have been unremarkable except for the sudden appearance of a fourth. He himself had not been witness, but one of my Irregulars had been nearby and hastened to bring help. By the time Watson arrived the fight was quite over, and I was collapsed in an alley, blood leaking from my temple.
As I instinctively attempt to move my hand to feel the wound, I find that Watson is still holding onto it. At the same time, I notice a strange despair in his eyes, as he no-doubt recalls the exact image of my likely life-less seeming body, crumpled and bleeding.
We are lovers, I realize. Friends, even great friends, do not hold such depth of feeling in their eyes. He continues to hold my hand in his gentle ones - in fact has not lost physical contact with me since first I awoke him and he hurried over. He fell asleep at his desk in order to stay near me rather than retire to the comfort of his own room. We are lovers, without question. The fight was, on second thought, most important indeed, if it has rattled me enough that I cannot remember it at all, that I cannot convincingly lie, and that I cannot recall the intimacy between myself and Watson.
He continued to gaze at the floor quite miserably, and I wonder at my own behavior. He must've thought he lost me, and all I have done is stare dumbly at his profile. He does not seem distressed at my callousness. Perhaps we have been lovers for so long that he is no longer perturbed by my distant behavior, for surely not even a man as great as Watson can change me so fully? Or perhaps we are newly lovers, and he is not confident enough to rebuke me?
"Watson," I say, my voice by this point recovered enough that the name emerges clearly. I reach up to cradle his cheek with my free hand, the stubble strange but wonderful under my sensitive fingers. I wait for him to lean down to kiss me, but he appears frozen. "I am fine," I say after a moment, still waiting.
After another long pause, in which he does nothing but stare back at me, he carefully uncurls his hands from around mine and straightens, allowing my other hand to fall from his cheek. "I am," he stumbles over his words, then continues, "I am glad to hear it, though I do insist on more rest. Here - you must be famished. I'll call Mrs. Hudson to prepare you something." With a vague smile in my direction, he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
I study the closed door, attempting to make sense of his behavior in light of my recent realizations. Perhaps I am not usually so forward? Or perhaps we fought verbally, which led me to pick a physical fight in some dark London alley? No matter the precipitating event, as I had somehow won Watson's deepest affections, I could not allow myself to lose him over such a trifle as a temporarily faulty memory.
I settle back into the settee, confident that once I'd the inclination to move to my own bed, Watson would be there to join me.
When Watson reenters the sitting room, complete with a tray filled to capacity and a recovered composure, he says, “Mrs. Hudson is relieved to hear of your rapid recovery. She wished to deliver this herself, but I thought perhaps you were not presently in the mood for company.”
That he is so thoughtful towards one as callous as I, and that he almost instinctively knows that he is not “company,” but rather a necessary element in any room I am in also, is as heady a rush as a syringe of seven-percent solution. I cannot stand that he seems reluctant to come any nearer, likely due to my earlier behavior. To engender a more intimate atmosphere, I say, “You know me well, John.” As by this point I have managed to sit upright, I hope he will take the initiative and sit down beside me.
To say he he is shocked by his Christian name is a grave understatement. His cheeks flush a charming red, and although he does take the invitation to sit down on the settee, he looks nothing less than alarmed. He places a hand against my forehead.
“Holmes,” he says falteringly. He moves his hand to the wound on my temple and searches his carefully done stitches. Five, I count silently, as his fingers move from one to the next.
For a terrible second I fear that I am mistaken, that he and I are not intimate. But his face is near to mine, and at such a distance his eyes - already well known to me - are ever clearer. Underneath his consternation he is unmistakably pleased.
He turns away from me to fetch the tray of food, and feeling uncommonly pleased myself, I eat what he hands me. We are silent, though I find the silence companionable, and when I've finished to his satisfaction, I stand and stretch. Before he can protest, I say, “I believe a bath is in order. I can stand this filthy state not a moment longer.”
Watson smiles, looking unaccountably relieved. “I'm surprised you lasted this long, to be honest, Holmes.”
I head to the washroom, and deliberately leave open the door. As I fill the bath, I keep glancing at the door, waiting for Watson to enter, vexed when he does not. Did he require a spoken invitation? Whyever would a person announce a bath in such a deliberate manner unless it was itself an invitation?
I spend a long hour soaking. I hear him, but not once does he acknowledge the open door between us. When I can stand it no longer, I call out, “John!”
I hear the thud of a book falling to the ground. A moment later he appears in the doorway, but makes no motion to enter further. “Holmes?” I see his eyes fall to my bare chest and then quickly dart away.
“You are all right?” I ask.
He does not answer, and is looking everywhere but at me. I know this because I do not take my eyes off of him. “The water is most soothing,” I say.
Watson says something noncommittal, and then excuses himself. I watch him leave thoughtfully, sinking below the water until only my eyes are not submerged.
The situation is more dire than I'd originally thought.
The next morning I awake early, my mind spinning as if in that wonderful moment of absolute drunkenness when everything is clear and pure, hovering on the precipice of terrible depression without ever once tumbling over. I am soon quietly entering Watson's bedroom with a tray of breakfast. I place it on the bedside table and then casually cajole Watson's sleeping form into moving to one side with a series of gentle nudges and pushes.
Once I am seating and have moved the tray onto my lap, I announce, “Mrs. Hudson has quite outdone herself this morning,” despite every item on the tray having been specifically chosen by me and accompanied with strict instruction so as to complement Watson's preferences. Mrs. Hudson had been quite offended that I thought her unaware of Watson's preferences, but needs must, after all, and I could not afford a misstep.
I watch as Watson's eyes open slowly, his gaze turning my way and then back to the ceiling. His voice is surprisingly alert when he says, “You're in my bed, Holmes.”
I am pleased he has noticed and that he is not averse.
“Here,” I say, before he's gathered more of his wits, and place a piece of fresh fruit at his lips. Still staring at the ceiling - and I would be tempted to look that way also to see what is so fascinating if not for the fact that there is no sight more fascinating than Watson's sleep-dazed countenance - he accepts the fruit and chews mechanically.
Watson, after a few more hand-fed bites, sits up and takes hold of a fork, seeming content to share this generous meal with me - not that I eat more than a single piece of toast, quite full merely sitting here on Watson's remarkably comfortable bed. Every four bites or so, Watson pauses to rub his eyes one after the other with his free hand, and to then stare first at the tray, then at me, and then at the room in general.
The poor fellow must be exhausted from anxiety over my well-being. Over-worrier that he is, he'd probably buried me in his mind already and was half-way into grief when he'd found me initially, and is still unable to fathom that I would ever be hale enough to spend breakfast in bed with him again. Done with my toast, I decide to reassure him of my being here and alive by nudging even closer until our sides touch from shoulder to knee, and place one hand companionably on his thigh nearest to me.
My Watson is so relieved he forgets himself and chokes on a mouthful of eggs.
After spending a long moment inspecting the specs of eggs he's spewed across the comforter, he pushes the tray away and sinks back down until he's flat on the bed. He does not, I note, seek to place even an inch of space between us.
Confident that this trying period is now behind us, I clean up the mess, smooth a hand over his hair, and leave him to sleep.
I am not at all upset that he has not deemed it necessary to say even one word throughout the entire meal - our intimacy is such that no words are required.
Three days later and I am forced to conclude that Watson is, indeed, put out with me. Despite inviting him to accompany me on all my errands; imploring Mrs. Hudson to cook only his more preferred meals regardless of my own tastes; taking every opportunity to lay a familiar hand on his shoulder or thigh and to guide him with a hand at the small of his back; playing him to sleep every night with his favorite violin sonatas; and leaving my door open whenever I dress and the washroom door open whenever I bathe, he persists in merely giving me pained looks and then hastening away. It is clearly a trial for him to remain upset with me, and I wish dearly I could recall what I'd done - for I have no doubt at this juncture that I am to blame - so that I could undo my wrong.
This afternoon, I spy him sitting on his armchair, reading the paper. I casually perch on the arm of the chair with my own paper, and over the course of a measured seven minutes, I carefully sink down - affecting, I believe, a convincing unawareness - until I sit practically in his lap. Just when his knuckles have attained an alarming pallor from gripping the paper, I reach the point where I feel his unmistakable interest. Not a second later he shoots up, leaving me to sprawl gracelessly across the chair. Throwing me a scathing look, he makes to leave. Frustrated and beginning to despair, I shout a string of most unforgivable insults at his back. He turns around to face me, and a wonderful relief fills his features.
“You are trying to get a rise out of me,” he says.
I consider informing him that, given my observations of the past few days, I have quite successfully given him a rise several times not even counting the present, but my outburst aside I must remember I am in the wrong and I mustn't unduly vex him.
“I am,” I say instead, as it is true in the strictest sense.
Watson shakes his head, looking more in control of himself than he has since this mess began. “Your ideas of what constitutes an appropriate pastime never ceases to amaze me, Holmes. We really must find you a new case, so that you can redirect your attentions to a more productive end.”
There are so many replies I have for this statement I could hardly be expected to choose. As I fumble for one that at least has the guise of respectability, I see him smile, and I realize that he is enjoying this. He is enjoying me sprawled awkwardly on the armchair, my desperate attempts to win back his affections, my humbling myself day in and out for his benefit. This must be a game to him!
I admit in the past he has rarely had the upper hand in our dealings, so I do not begrudge him for taking advantage of the current reversal of our roles. I do not begrudge him, but I do not like it, either.
Shaking his head and once more turning away from me, I say to his back, “Just because I don't have a case does not mean I don't have much to occupy my mind.”
Again this only amuses him, and with his shoulders set in fond exasperation, he takes his newspaper to read in a different room. I already miss the warmth of his presence.
Another two days and my mood is most black indeed. Watson is again attempting to interest me in a new case, reading to me from several newspaper clipping as if I have the slightest desire to hear about a sudden string of missing jewelry.
“John,” I say warningly, already on my second pipe and it not yet noon.
“What I find most intriguing, Sherlock, is where the articles note that -”
“I've no interest in hearing more.”
I am, for once, clear across the room from him, pacing in front of the windows while he ignores me and continues his sorry efforts at deduction. I let his deep voice pour over me and blanket me while I think.
It would be better if Watson outright rebuffed my attempts to endear myself to him, or in any way showed his infamous temper. Instead, he continues to regard me as something of a ... nuisance. He allows my hand on his thigh but acknowledges it only with a long-suffering sigh. The breakfasts in bed he now treats as an unremarkable occurrence, but he has become more vocal in his displeasure at the crumbs he finds on his sheets. He throws pillows at me when I bring my violin into his room at night to serenade him to sleep. Whenever I call him by his Christian name, he accordingly refers to me as Sherlock, with no recognition of the intimacy involved in such an act. When I switch back to his surname in the middle of a conversation, with hardly a blink he switches back also. The only thing which truly vexes him, in fact, is my refusal to entertain the idea of a new case.
I could hate him if I did not adore him.
As I pace I keep my eyes firmly closed. I am quite certain my memory is repairing itself adequately, for although I still don't recall the events leading to my injury or the rift in our relationship, every moment I recall more and more feverish memories of Watson and I; of him bent over every piece of furniture in our rooms, of his handsome face flushed and myself curved against his back, of the muscles in his shoulders flexing most distractingly. Of myself kneeling before him as he sits in the armchair, knees splayed, his newspaper tossed carelessly to the floor and his fingers twined deep in my hair. Of countless more encounters between us, sometimes still half-dressed and other times bare, but always joined in some primal way and both of us slick with sweat. They are memories I'm certain, but a step removed, as if I can see them clearly but not touch or taste them.
I should be more forward, I know. Watson, bless him, cannot read clues like I can, and perhaps truly does not fathom how mad with want of him I am. He would relent if he knew, for as displeased with me as he is, he is not a cruel man. But I won't. I can't. He's already rejected my most innocent advances. If he were to reject a more obvious one - if I were, for instance, to lean my head down to press my lips against his and find his head turned so my lips brush his cheek - I would break. I would give completely.
He must move first. I will make every effort to uncover what wrong I'd done that created this rift in the first place, but he must move first.
“I'm going out, Watson,” I say, unable to withstand another moment in his company without acting.
He merely stops reading and places the clippings aside. “As you wish, Holmes.”
As I make my way through the London streets, I am a trifle concerned that I am losing my mind. It took me nearly a week to think to retrace my steps and to begin piecing together events in a more systematic manner. Once I have repaired my relationship with Watson, I shall have to research more fully into the issue of head wounds and memory loss. But as I find myself to be suffering no other ill effects, this is at best a secondary concern.
I should've already questioned Mrs. Hudson in order to see if she knows the content of any serious argument between Watson and I, but I shelve that for now. Although Mrs. Hudson has been a most gracious landlord, granting me outrageous allowances in my conduct from chemical explosions and bullet holes in her walls to violin symphonies at near four in the morning, I cannot be certain that her list of accepted liberties extends to the inconveniently illegal nature of my relations with Watson. I have been discreet when she is present, naturally, and as Watson's aloof behavior is surely not of the norm, I have been unable to satisfactorily infer whether she is aware of our intimacy or not.
I shall also have to question the Irregular, Thomas, who witnessed the scene and subsequently called upon Watson. Watson's version of events was likely romanticized, as is his wont, and in any case I pay the Irregulars, not him, to keep note of the most minute details of any happening.
I reach a particular alleyway and know, without question, that this is the one in which I was found. I carefully circle the area, sometimes on foot, and sometimes on hands and knees. Most of the obvious signs - footprints, pieces of material, and the like - are of course gone by now. Blood stains tend to linger, and I see several drops scattered over the area. I don't believe they are all mine.
As I work, I studiously ignore Watson, who had made absolutely no effort to hide his following me and is now leaning against the brick wall, watching me. That is to say, I sincerely hope he had been expending no effort, because the result was abysmal to the point of embarrassment.
Seventeen minutes pass in this fashion before Watson says, “Holmes, I do hate to intrude, and I know I am not always the most clever fellow, but perhaps you could enlighten me - what in the good God's name are you trying to accomplish?”
“In what terms?” I ask. I stand up and brush down my clothes to get off the worse of the dust. I then walk over to stand just close enough to him to tempt the line between decent and indecent. There is no one near us, and even if there were, there are benefits to having a reputation for inexplicable eccentricities. I am near enough that I can feel the heat from his body.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am trying to accomplish several things. Be more specific.” I am trying to piece together the fight, for instance. I may act strangely but I do not act randomly. I am trying to know whether I or the other fellows instigated the fight and the way in which it was instigated; I'll then know more about my state of mind at the time. I am trying to narrow the particular reason I left Baker Street that evening. I am trying to think clearly, for my head still spins, and the order of a methodical investigation is a balm to me. I am trying, through this information and above all, to coax Watson back into my bed where he belongs.
“This wasn't a crime! Unless there's more you haven't told me, this was an isolated incident of your once again picking imbecilic fights just because -” he trails off. “Sometimes you are impossible to understand.”
No! He must finish. I must know. I lean forward imperceptibly until I am outright invading his personal space. “Just because why?” I ask, more urgently than I'd meant.
“You know why,” he says. “Feigned ignorance doesn't become you.” He steps away from me then, and the sudden space between us feels absurdly empty.
He is still angry with me. I detest it. “Why did you follow me at all?”
For a moment, he looks lost. The muscles in my arms twitch with the effort of not enveloping him to me. “I really haven't the slightest idea. I'll see you at home, Holmes.”
This is unacceptable in every way. The image of his back turned to me - again! - as he leaves for Baker Street follows me while I continue following my own footsteps. I remember a little, now, and the rest is quickly being filled in by what I find. I am positive of the identity of three of the four of my assailants. That is, three of the four of the other men involved in the fight, since I have not yet ruled out the possibility that I myself was the assailant, and those men innocent bystanders to my anger.
They are all men known to me, as they frequent the same haunts as I. I spend the afternoon tracking them down one by one. The first man, Philip, I find eating lunch at an outdoor cafe. He has a black eye, only mildly faded, and the way he grimaces as he shifts suggests at least one leg is bothering him greatly. Under his clothes there are distinct wrappings - at least one rib bruised or broken, then. I am viscously pleased, for no discernible reason.
He is alone, and I sit across from him. He looks at me without recognition.
“What's this, then?” he asks when I don't speak first, voice gruff almost as a habit and not because he is specifically bothered by me.
“Do you recall the events of six nights previous?” I ask.
He looks at me more closely. “You're that fellow,” he says with some surprise. It is telling that he is, in fact, nothing but surprised; there is no residual anger or ill will towards me.
“You do, excellent. Would you do me the trouble of retelling the events as you remember them?” At his hesitation, I calmly slide a coin across the table. “A detailed account.”
He pockets the coin with a shrug and, in a rambling and tedious manner, tells me of his night in full.
Given my fortune as of late, it is of no great surprise to me that the man I'm forced to listen to for the next forty-three minutes has a remarkable memory for utterly unnecessary details while still managing to not have the least recollection of any details that might even potentially be useful to me. I don't care that he found himself alone at dinner that evening because he hadn't the courage to ask a particular lady to join him, nor the twenty reasons he lists for me as to why this particular lady is too good for him. He cannot - and I test this thoroughly to be sure - tell me any of the following: what he ate exactly (“Something with chicken,” he says), the name of the waiter who served him (“he was an annoying fellow, really”), whether it had been a chill enough evening to wear an overcoat (“Who knows?”), anything about the weather at all (“London weather, probably”), how many familiar faces he saw during his dinner (“There was Lee, maybe - no, that was the day before.”), or any estimate of how long he was there more precise than, “Not too over-long.”
I can answer at least three of these inquires myself from where I sit merely from what I see and what I know of him, and this man who was present for the occasion cannot. Good god, I need Watson here for this. He may not always follow my line of reasoning precisely but he would at least understand my frustration, and I would be able to roll my eyes at him when Philip looked elsewhere.
Oh, Watson. The longer this takes, the longer he has to think of more reasons to be upset with me before I've even begun rectifying the reasons he already has. In fact, given his penchant for crafting unflattering lists about me, I make a mental note to sift through his writing desk as soon as I return to see if he's already begun the list. I can only imagine it's at least several pages long if he has.
I reluctantly turn my full attention back to the unfortunate Philip, who is in the middle of a soliloquy on why he walked the roundabout route he did after dinner, having too often been tempted into the pub on the more efficient route, as he'd promised his recently departed mother to lay off the spirits.
Finally a point that may be useful! Before he can venture onto a tangent regarding his mother, a fine woman I'm sure, I say, “So you hadn't any alcohol that night?”
“Was completely sober, me,” he affirmed.
That's something! “When did you come across Nathan and Victor?”
“Who?”
My patience is thinning rapidly. “The other men! There were three of you at first! You, Nathan Carter, and Victor Stanton. How do you know them and when did you come across them that evening?”
Philip looks as confused as I feel, and slightly put out that I'd cut off his enchanting lecture on why he's better off without the alcohol and everyone else would be, too. “I don't know them at all.”
I resist - barely - placing my head in my hands. I say, slowly and carefully, “Very well. Please tell me, then, what happened when our paths crossed. You know that, do you?”
“Why do you want to know all this, anyway?” he asks, becoming suddenly suspicious at least twenty-five minutes after any sane person would have begun to question my motives.
“Because I'm paying you to,” I snap. When he appears to be considering leaving, I throw him an excuse, “Something important took place that evening outside of our altercation. You're in no trouble, but it's crucial that I know the evening from your perspective entirely, without my own memory coloring the events. Do you understand?”
“Well, then - you was pacing in some alleyway.”
Finally! “An alleyway. Was it where we fought?”
“No, that was a different one. Later.”
“What were the crossroads?” Of course he does not know. “The area. What do you recollect of the area?” He waves a hand in what I gather I'm supposed to understand means “about.” I do not sigh. “If you can tell me even the slightest detail - one of the stores nearby, or the number of a house, the type of cobblestone. Anything, and I shall know enough.” I know this man is not new to London.
He continues to look blank, before pointing off vaguely to the East. I do sigh, this time. “Continue, please.”
“You was pacing and you'd clearly drunk a bit too much. I was walking by, and you didn't notice me, I don't think. Wouldnt've looked at you twice, but then you threw the bottle you were holding, all sudden-like, and it hit me right in the head. Then you just kept back at pacing like you'd done nothing!”
As he speaks to a useful purpose at last, I try to picture the evening in my mind, but I still cannot. I can picture myself pacing, yes, and throwing things about, both of which are activities well in my usual repertoire, but they are abstract images and not actual events. “What happened next?”
“I got a glass bottle to my head! But I could see you was out of sorts, and I'm no blackguard. I don't think you'd even noticed what you'd done. So I said if you'd say you was sorry, very nicely, I'd keep walking along. A new leaf, me, you see?”
“And then?” I ask, though I know the answer.
“You did not apologize,” Philip says sternly. “So's I punched you right in the jaw.”
“Ah,” I say.
“Took it like a professional, too. Just spun with it, even drunk as you were, and then came back around throwing.”
Philip enjoys telling me of the fight step by step. I've seen him at many of the same fights I sometimes go to watch - and sometimes, though it's become rare, go to fight in. He clearly takes no less pleasure in a fight when he is a participant. As he lists the punches and shoves and kicks, I mentally check off the wounds both on my person and on his. He has a quite good memory for this, at least.
“That's when I threw you into the path of those other two fellows, Victor and whoever, I suppose. Banged you all into the brick wall nearest. Fell into a heap. But I was mad, then, and just kept right after you.”
Ah yes, Victor and Nathan. That point had been bothering me. I hadn't previously seen Philip in the acquaintance of those two, so when I determined they three were my assailants, I'd wondered how they'd first met. Through me, and on that very evening, as it turns out.
“That's when it got real ugly,” Philip says.
Philip is relishing this retelling. When he remains on course, he is not so terrible a story-teller. “Ugly?” I prompt.
“They weren't none too happy to be tossed about like that. Were just too eager to join in. Things got nasty since every body is hitting every other body and no one cares nothing for who started what. We're all having a grand time, but I think if it was just still you and me it woulda stayed that way, but with all of us ... well, that's when Barbell Williams shows up and joins in.”
Ah. Barbell Williams. No wonder I was so injured; even impaired as I was, I am no amateur with regards to this sort of pastime. But Williams has elevated the act of back-alley brawl to an impressive art, and one that he takes very, very, very seriously.
“Do you recall why he joined in?” I ask, to ensure I miss no nuances.
“There was a fight going on and he saw it.” This is said as if I am quite slow. “And there weren't yet no authorities involved, so's all the better. You start trying to run, once old William gets going.”
I'd thought as much. “How so?”
“What d'you mean, 'how so'? We was going towards each other and you tried going in a direction opposite. William wasn't having none of it, of course. Just followed you and kept swinging.”
“Of course,” I say. The evening is making sense to me, finally. I can almost see from beginning to end.
Philip continues explaining how the brawl moved along in response to my attempts at escape until arriving at the particular alleyway in which I was found, complete with more punch-by-kick analysis. He is becoming more expansive in his gestures, attracting the attention of some other cafe patrons, and is at his most dramatic when he says, “Then Barbell Williams hits you right across the temple with a barbell.” I do not insult either of us by asking just why Barbell Williams happened to have a barbell on his person.
“He whacks you what good and you, guv, are out. Completely, with a lotta blood splattered all over. Was just a friendly brawl up to that moment, but not one of us was looking for the gaols. Four of us were gone, fast, even Williams. No hard feelings,” he is kind enough to add. “Good to see you up and about, even.”
“And you also,” I say, as despite what Watson believes I do possess some social graces. Just because my conception of appropriate social conduct is slightly different from the normal conventions, does not mean the two are not ever parallel. “You've been a great help to me.” I rise, leaving him to finish his meal and return to mourning the lack of company in the form of that lovely lady of his.
He waves cheerfully, and says to my back that we should do this again sometime. “The chat or the brawl?” I ask, just for the satisfaction of already knowing the gist of the answer and being able to be proven immediately correct.
“Both, I'd say. The fight was a sure riot, but I did get paid for the chat.”
There is something to be said about a world with no surprises. “Thank you,” I say, and mean it.
I've gathered what I thought I could from Philip, and chats with Nathan and Victor would not yield any more useful information at the present time. I consider briefly tracking down Barbell Williams, merely to see if his perspective as a late-comer to the game uncovers any last details. But I suspect that, unlike the basically good-natured Philip, he will hold a grudge. Not for any harm done in the fight itself, but for the gall of my losing consciousness before he'd gotten enough of a fight to leave of his own volition. Besides which, Williams is not the most eloquent figure unless he is speaking with his fists.
The events of the night are quite clear to me, and I can even know my frame of mind at any step - but my initial motive yet eludes me. The initial act which led to my leaving Baker Street which led to my drinking which led to the brawl which led to my dear Watson stitching up my temple on our settee while the truly grievous wound in our relationship lay unheeded and bleeding.
There is only one location that can provide any answers at this point, and I return to Baker Street.
Watson, I quickly find, is not there, nor has he been for quite some time. I search all our rooms for any evidence of where he might have gone to. The most I can find is that at some point he once again rearranged most of my newspaper clippings by date, despite that I've explained to him on multiple occasions that I have a precise system incorporating dates, names of involved persons, and points of interest, and that if he cannot comprehend the system he has no business attempting to mimic it. He really should be here so I can lecture him this instant rather than having to wait for his reappearance. Then, once he is properly chastised, we can leave the incident behind us and I can return swiftly to winning back his regard.
Where is that man? I locate Mrs. Hudson, who informs me she has not seen Watson since he'd followed me out earlier.
“Do you know anything of his purpose?” I ask. She hesitates, and I press forward. “It could be very important.”
“Well - I gather he's rather displeased with you. He said as much to me when he left earlier.” She straightens as much as she's able, and somehow gives the impression of towering while still being significantly shorter than I. The overall effect is of a stern mother - an effect I'm quite familiar with, if I ever bother to think of my best-forgotten childhood. “What did you do?” she asks.
What did I do? She is asking me this? Rubbing my forehead with my index finger and thumb, I say, “I haven't the slightest notion.”
She is mildly appeased by my despair, to judge by the softening in her posture if not in her tone. “That's a first, isn't it, Mr. Holmes?” But her hand is kind when she pats me once on the shoulder before brushing past me to go about her day, leaving me to sulk alone.
Watson does not return for two more hours. When he does, I am laying on his bed, legs crossed and hands linked across my stomach. I have spent these two hours studying his room, and have come to the conclusion that I much prefer it to mine, but that I prefer it even more now that Watson is here also. The room is warmer than mine in most every way. I should move into this room with him, I decide, while Watson continues to stare wearily at me from the doorway. I should have moved into this room ages ago, in fact. I would be significantly happier here; that is to say, significantly less miserable, for I am rarely ever mistaken for a happy person.
I turn my head to look at him, my dear Watson returned to me, and my eyes consider him from polished shoes to dusty hair and back down again. By the time I meet his eyes, we are both of us aware that I've just mapped a quite adequate time line of where he's been and what he's done in between leaving me at the alleyway and arriving here. I wonder if it still bothers him, that I do this. I'd try to stop if he requested it of me, but it is something elemental in my make-up and I doubt I'd succeed. But then again, when I think of all I'd do for him if he merely implied to me it would please him, altering my very make-up seems a trivial request, indeed.
As he appears in no hurry to speak or move, I let my gaze linger over him. John Watson is a fine man to look at, a sturdy figure defined with the hint of military in every angle of him, from his elbows to the arch of his eyebrows, and the compassion of a doctor in every curve of him, from the tip of his nose to the shape of his thumb - and all held together by the strength and beauty that cannot be attributed to any profession or livelihood. I am familiar with every inch of him, would know his figure from any crowd. I want to remind him how beloved his angles and curves are to me by tracing every last one of them with my tongue, if he would only step a few feet closer. He must move first, I caution myself. He must, and if only he would before I burn into ashes with this unresolved want!
Wait. I am almost positive I know every inch of him, but upon meeting his eyes again there is a strange flicker to them. I cannot recall ever seeing such a flicker before, even as I flip through memories in my mind, trying to place this expression against ones known to me to see if I can tease out a meaning.
Before I can, he speaks finally. “I am not like you,” he says.
That much is self-evident. It could be deduced merely from the study in the differences in our rooms I conducted just now. Or in a comparative analysis of our physical forms. One would find that I am the weaker of us, in every feasible consideration except for the most obvious. Of course, in other ways we are very much alike, he and I. I suspect that these investigations are not what he intends. “How do you mean, Watson?”
“I mean that, unlike you, I have limits.”
I have only the briefest second to ponder this statement before all thought is arrested by the sight in front of me. Watson shrugs out of his outer coat and lets it pile on the floor. The carelessness of the action is so contrary to him that I am already undone. He unfastens his cuffs, and likewise lets them fall. He steps out of his shoes, and as he does so, closes and locks the door behind him. I breathe sharply at the solid click of the latch, as I'd quite forgotten to do so in the moments beforehand. He moves towards me with a purpose no less graceful for his slight limp, and together with his warm coloring the effect is like a lion - stalking me, just the thought of it, good God! - and he's more dangerous for his wound because he already knows intimately to his marrow how to battle and survive.
He's let his braces fall behind him, trailing after him like a swinging tail, and has undone only the top buttons of his shirt when he reaches me.
“John,” I breathe, and he shudders as if I've never breathed his name in passion before. He deliberately climbs onto the bed and kneels next to me, leaning down as I lean up onto my elbows. He stops just short of contact, and my hands are clenched in the comforter with the effort of not closing the distance. I find my mind blank except for the phrase, “He must move first,” chanted repeatedly. I can barely comprehend the meaning of the words for the heat of his body so near to mine.
“You've taken my limits and you've decimated them,” he says, nearly speaks into my mouth. “Do you even understand - you're in my bed, Holmes.”
“I -”
“No! No more words from you!”
He's over me, then, on hands and knees and I arch helplessly upwards to him even as he keeps distance between us. He entwines our fingers together, and I calculate the number of callouses he has and the likely origin of every last one as he places our twined hands firmly over my head. “No more words,” he repeats, clenching his fingers around mine in emphasis. No more words, I try to agree through the rapid staccato of my heartbeat that he can surely hear as if it were a series of knocks at a door. For you I will be mute from this moment on.
Watson leans just slightly down but not far enough, and does he not understand how I am utterly his? “No more from you,” he says again, and I'd believe those were the only words left in his vocabulary until he says, “Do you have any idea -” But cuts himself off and his lips are on mine, kissing me, consuming me, finally.
There is no finesse in what follows, in the frenetic ripping open of clothes just enough to reach skin, the clash of teeth against teeth, the grounding of his groin against mine even as I add scars to his back with my fingernails, but god there is beauty and satisfaction in it nevertheless.
He speaks throughout it all, a constant refrain that I can only half-comprehend in my state. “Every day!” he's saying. “Every day you're in my bed!” He's undone each of our flies just enough to release us, and I mindlessly count his callouses again as he pulls at us both together. “Bathing in front of me!” He continues tracing my chest with his mouth. I could reach completion merely from the rough brush of his beard against my collarbone!
“And touching me! You just kept touching me! And sitting on my lap!” And wasn't I going to use my tongue on him? I want to tell him that we're backwards, but I remember in time that I must be mute. Next time, my tongue next time, when I've wits to do more than writhe and undulate beneath his wonderful, sturdy, beloved form. “Wearing my clothes! My hats! My cufflinks!”
In his voice hoarse with unrepentant lust, he's reciting my torments of him like a litany of sins, I realize dimly. Speaking them directly into my skin, returning them to me but absolved, as they passed through him and he is above sin. We are all of us nonsensical beings with illogical thought-patterns, I think feverishly and pointlessly, as I buck to a change in rhythm in his moving grasp.
“My dear, sweet Holmes,” Watson cries, and it is my name said like that, said with a perfect mixture of lasciviousness and tenderness, that causes me to spend myself over his calloused fingers, just that quickly. He groans deeply and follows me but moments later, and then is a heavy but welcome weight on top of me.
There are so many things I want to say right now, to murmur into the curve of his ear. But perhaps I am still under an order of silence, and I am too utterly sated to risk inspiring Watson's ire after he's so thoroughly forgiven me.
He stirs briefly after a pleasant amount of time has passed. “I should move,” he says, voice still rough, but he does not in fact make any effort to do so. “I must be crushing you.”
I take this as an invitation to speak. “You don't have to,” I say. Moreover, I don't want him to.
The issue is completely settled. I will move into this room this very day. There's really no excuse that it's taken me so long to do so. Nothing outwardly will change, of course, as appearances must be kept. My possessions will remain in my room, and I'll retain a bed and wardrobe there. I'll spend most nights in my old room as well, most likely, after returning from Watson's. But I shall know that this is our room, and the situation will have changed in all the ways that matter.
I am about to share this decision with Watson, when he says against my shoulder, “This whole week - I'd thought ... it couldn't be, I thought I was going mad, but I'd thought to myself, 'I think Sherlock Holmes is trying to seduce me.' And that's just how you'd go about it, isn't it?” He chuckles softly against me, and I wonder that he cannot feel my blood drop to a temperature very near freezing. “I'm almost afraid to ask what minuscule detail gave me away. How long you've known about me.”
And then I can recall in absolute clarity the feel of Barbell William's barbell connecting with my temple. The past week plays itself out in my mind like a collection of photographs fanned out for my leisurely perusal, and I need merely choose one at random to see and know the events in full. But I am seeing them all at once, and then one after the other first forwards then backwards, and then in no specific order, and I have never felt such a complete, unmitigated, thrice-damned, imbecilic fool.
“Holmes?”
I have to leave. I have to think. I have to be away from him! Without conscious thought I push Watson off of me and leap out of the bed, shirt unbuttoned and my flies still open. I have thrown open the lock to leave his room and then am at the outside door with barely a moment's breath between the two. I have enough presence of mind left to grab a long coat to hide my indecency. I hear Watson stumbling to dress and I leave 221B entirely.
I do not run in any specific direction. That is to say, I most certainly am running, or walking more quickly than those around me, and that I begin and dismiss a dozen routes and destinations with every step. I think to hide and lick my wounds in any number of the bolt holes I've scattered across all of London and its outskirts, or to any one of a dozen bars to end this week as inebriated as it began, or even to - god save me - hide in the shelter of Mycroft's generously large shadow. But then I recall that under this long coat I'm wearing an unbuttoned shirt which belongs to someone much broader in the chest than I, and that there is come drying stickily on my stomach.
I press a hand to my stomach, and correct myself; there is a come already quite dried on my stomach, and my outer coat is now glued to me.
The end result is a sporadic pathway, compounded by my doubling back and retracing my steps only to go in a different direction every few minutes. I look in each reflective surface I pass and glance behind me every time I turn a corner in order to check for a trail. But unless Watson's stealth has increased exponentially in the past few days, I am left to conclude that he ... is not following me.
Why isn't he following me? I couldn't be on a broader and more obvious route. He should be able to find me even were he deaf and blind. Why isn't he two steps behind me, panting and out of breath and attempting to reach me before I hide myself somewhere he cannot hope to find? He should be there, a hand ready to grasp my arm to halt me, to tell me this has all been a desperate misunderstanding, and if I would just listen to him, there's a good fellow, all would be explained.
But there is nothing for him to explain! I'd had it backwards, completely. And I'd - I can barely complete the thought, it is so reprehensible to my comprehension of myself - I'd mistaken fantasies, fantasies, for memories. I'd twisted facts to transmute the sick imaginings of my mind into some mediocre semblance of reality, and dragged poor Watson down with me. That I could ever call myself a competent detective again...
I must circle the city for hours. I barely notice it begin to rain. I am exhausted in body, but my mind is sharper and clearer than it has been for a week. It is to no avail, however. I can recall and examine the events in minuscule detail, but I cannot seem to extrapolate from them an appropriate course of action.
Stopping finally at a random house number, I sit down on the entrance stoop. Whatever move I make next, it must be correct. Through my delusions this past week, I forced Watson into a most compromised position. He was too kind to reject me, even if I hadn't these stitches across my temple, and I then appealed to his basest instincts until he had no recourse but to appease them. A seduction. My actions were nothing so crude as a seduction, but with the fog cleared from my mind, I am afraid that is all it was. What must Watson think of me?
I hear behind me the door creak open, and an elderly woman peers out at me. “You poor thing,” she says. “I saw you just sitting here. You must be freezing. Why don't you come inside, take off that wet coat, and sit by the fire?”
Take off my coat? I have no wish to give elderly women heart attacks. “Your offer is appreciated, madam, but accepting it would not be ... prudent.”
“You'll catch your death out here! Don't you have somewhere to go? A home?”
“I do have a home,” I tell her. “Though I don't believe I'm welcome in it.” Melancholy does often make a man honest.
“A night like this? Who would turn you out? Go home, young man.”
For reasons not clear to me, her suggestion makes sudden, perfect sense. Watson would not turn me out. He may be furious at me, I may have damaged our friendship quite irreparably, he may never wish to look upon me again, but he would not - and of this I'm certain - turn me out.
I wish her a good evening, and then I head once more for home.
Watson, when I return, is still in his room. Now it is I who lingers by the doorway, a strange echo of just hours ago, watching him sit on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. He has cleaned and dressed himself and looks his respectable self once more. I want to undo the effort one crease at a time, but if I am ever to have that right again, I must explain myself first.
“The problem,” I begin, “is that we are not lovers.” He makes absolutely no move. I enter the room fully and start to pace, though the room is not made for pacing - or for someone pacing to have as long legs as I - and I must turn around after every four steps. “I'd been under the mistaken impression that the initial factor was significant, when it was in fact negligible. I was studying things from entirely the wrong angle. But I have remembered everything at last. You'd rearranged my clippings - or rather, you'd knocked an entire pile over, and reordered them hoping I wouldn't notice or be upset.” He snorts softly but still hides his face, and in any event I cannot let him pass judgment until I am through.
“I was upset. I was very upset. But I was not upset at you. Isn't that strange? It was not the first time it'd happened, though it remains inexplicable to me, but I have a quite solid contingency plan for when it occurs. You see, I was very upset at the disarray, and it follows that I should be upset with you, as you caused the disarray, but I found myself angry without a proper outlet. So I left - I stormed out, rather - to find an outlet.
“In order to do so, I needed first find myself inebriated. One is rightfully suspicious and weary of a stone-sober man instigating fights. He must have some motive. A drunkard, meanwhile, requires no motive for the instigating to make perfect sense. Once I'd enough alcohol to suit my purposes and a bottle still in my hand, I'd chosen to wait on a road that I know is frequently traveled by at least four suitable candidates. As it happens, my first choice, Philip Burner, appeared. He is a gentlemen, really, and I can't think of a better man to exchange fists with. I quite casually threw the bottle directly at his head, which is of course what I'd wanted to do with the man who first upset me, except I cannot fathom throwing bottles at your head, Watson. It is simply unimaginable.
“It worked well. We were soon engaged, but it is here that I miscalculated. I should have known enough to end the fight quickly before it escalated, but I was impaired and allowed Nathan Carter and Victor Stanton to join in. That was not itself a problem, except that it created an appealing enough brawl to tempt one Barbell Williams to join in.”
“Good god,” Watson mutters into his hands. His voice is strained. “No wonder.”
“I knew I was in actual danger at this point. I thus made several 'escape' attempts, in order to direct the fight to a crossroads I know is patrolled by several of my Irregulars.”
“Holmes -”
No, not yet. He must know all the facts before he speaks! “If one of them should see me in a fight with Barbell Williams, I had no doubt he would rush for aid and not make the foolish mistake of attempting to help me himself. And an Irregular did find me, and brought you to me. But this is where it gets complicated.”
“Holmes!”
“I'd been thinking of you during the fight, do you see? Perhaps that is why it was my memories of you which were so jumbled. When I awoke -”
“Holmes! Will you cease talking and let me apologize?” He lifts his face finally, and I am dumbfounded at the despair I see. I expected anger, or impatience, or disgust, or any number of more appropriate responses.
“Whatever would you have to apologize for?” I ask.
“What for? Should I list them? How about not recognizing that your head trauma was far worse than I'd thought?”
“I am quite adept at hiding -”
“And I am a doctor! Or how about impelling you to start fights with Barbell Williams because I am not a good enough friend that you feel comfortable throwing glass bottles at even when I'm in the wrong?”
“That is hardly -”
“Or, and here's a fine example of what I have to apologize for, for forcing myself on a man with a faulty memory who could not expect to be making informed decisions?”
“Watson, that's not -”
“And then forcing that same man to be silent, so he cannot protest, and in fact can do nothing but endure until I am distracted enough for him to run!” I am without words. Watson once again covers his eyes with a hand. “Holmes, I cannot apologize enough. I would understand if you don't wish to room with me any longer. I would've understood if you never came back, in fact.”
That is when I understand completely.
“I was right all this time!” I cry. I fall to my knees in front of him, gripping his thighs in my hands to force him to uncover his face and look at me. He appears stunned, but I will make all clear to him! I speak rapidly, as if this will encourage him to understand faster, as well. “We are lovers. We've been for most of our acquaintance! It is like how I share this room with you. We were stranded in the moment after our conception of the situation changes but before any physical change has the chance to follow. I'd despaired you thought my action something as meaningless as seduction, rather than, perhaps more accurately, a courtship. But if we've been courting for years, then a seduction is the logical progression rather than an isolated and altogether sad occurrence. We are lovers, Watson, you and I. I was right!”
Watson's jaws works silently, and I grip his knees tighter, willing him to follow me. He finally demands, “When did you move into my room?”
“Ages ago,” I answer. “But also just now.”
“And you wanted to? Even after -”
“Very, very much so, my dear fellow.”
"I did not force you?"
"You could not have found a more willing man."
“You're mad,” he says, but there is wonder in his eyes. I am pleased to have put that emotion there.
“There is one more problem,” I say. “But I believe it is easily fixed.”
Watson lifts one hand to cradle my cheek, just as I'd done to him a week ago while I'd been half-delirious on the settee. “How can I help?”
“It is most fortunate that you're willing, because you play a crucial role. In order for me to have been completely right, there are certain actions we must make reality.” I can feel myself blushing, a not usual occurrence for me, and Watson is appropriately fascinated by the changing color. “Part of my actions this week - that is to say, I'd imagined, and then mistaken for reality ... but so I am not wrong, we must -”
“You've thought of me,” Watson says, and his face lights up with a grin. “You think of me.”
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I did. And I do.”
He kisses me, then, and it's softer than before, when he was lost in the passion of a first kiss and I delirious in the passion of what I believed to be a familiar one. “I wouldn't want you to be wrong in any way, Holmes,” he says against my lips. “How would you have us proceed?”
I take in our current arrangement: Watson resting on the bed, and myself kneeling at his feet. “If you've no other present obligations,” I say, “I would imagine this is a most promising start...”
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Length: 10,600 words
Summary: Holmes takes a knock to the head, and assumes he and Watson are together due to his friend's overt concern over said knock. When Holmes starts acting all touchy and loving, as one would with a partner, yet gets not much in response, he begins to worry about the state of the relationship he thinks he has with Watson. Cue Holmes trying to win back Watson's affections.
Originally posted for the Sherlockkink Meme
I awaken slowly, my mind moving frenetically to piece together the events leading to my being on the settee, in the early evening judging by the slant of the sun against the floor, with an afghan tightly encasing me and my temples aching. I see a quite familiar sight off to the side, of my dear Watson fallen asleep at his desk, pen on the floor from where it's fallen from his slack hand.
I attempt to say, "Watson," and to ascertain the situation which yet alludes me, but I mange only to croak out something unintelligible instead. Watson still leaps up as if electrified, and hurries to my side.
"Holmes!" he says, quite joyously. "I'd begun to fear you wouldn't awake." I see in the lines around his eyes that he is only half-joking. He smooths the back of his hand over my forehead, assessing my temperature initially, but his hand lingers for a peculiarly satisfying moment. He begins a tediously long line of inquiries into the state of my being, to which I answer in simple nods or shrugs, my attention more focused elsewhere. In particular, on the slant of the good doctor's eyebrows, the gentle glide of his eyes over my face, the smile his lips form when he finds I am in better health than he'd feared.
With his assessment complete, he wraps both his hands around one of mine, and says warmly, "Though I do not doubt you're beside yourself to be moving about, I wonder if you could humor me by resting a while longer. It was a nasty knock to your head, Holmes."
"What happened?" I ask, only an oddly distant part of me annoyed that I've yet to remember. I feel that under usual circumstances this lack of information would be most pressing indeed, but I find there is something present in the form of Watson's gratifying attention that intrigues me more.
"You don't recall?" Watson asks, and once more worry overtakes his features.
I quickly assure him, falsely, "In bits and pieces, yes, but the time line itself eludes me. Do indulge me."
Perhaps I am more tired from the fight than I'd thought, if my lie was so poor that Watson looks not even remotely convinced. But he nevertheless tells me of a quite incidental fight between myself and three ruffians that should have been unremarkable except for the sudden appearance of a fourth. He himself had not been witness, but one of my Irregulars had been nearby and hastened to bring help. By the time Watson arrived the fight was quite over, and I was collapsed in an alley, blood leaking from my temple.
As I instinctively attempt to move my hand to feel the wound, I find that Watson is still holding onto it. At the same time, I notice a strange despair in his eyes, as he no-doubt recalls the exact image of my likely life-less seeming body, crumpled and bleeding.
We are lovers, I realize. Friends, even great friends, do not hold such depth of feeling in their eyes. He continues to hold my hand in his gentle ones - in fact has not lost physical contact with me since first I awoke him and he hurried over. He fell asleep at his desk in order to stay near me rather than retire to the comfort of his own room. We are lovers, without question. The fight was, on second thought, most important indeed, if it has rattled me enough that I cannot remember it at all, that I cannot convincingly lie, and that I cannot recall the intimacy between myself and Watson.
He continued to gaze at the floor quite miserably, and I wonder at my own behavior. He must've thought he lost me, and all I have done is stare dumbly at his profile. He does not seem distressed at my callousness. Perhaps we have been lovers for so long that he is no longer perturbed by my distant behavior, for surely not even a man as great as Watson can change me so fully? Or perhaps we are newly lovers, and he is not confident enough to rebuke me?
"Watson," I say, my voice by this point recovered enough that the name emerges clearly. I reach up to cradle his cheek with my free hand, the stubble strange but wonderful under my sensitive fingers. I wait for him to lean down to kiss me, but he appears frozen. "I am fine," I say after a moment, still waiting.
After another long pause, in which he does nothing but stare back at me, he carefully uncurls his hands from around mine and straightens, allowing my other hand to fall from his cheek. "I am," he stumbles over his words, then continues, "I am glad to hear it, though I do insist on more rest. Here - you must be famished. I'll call Mrs. Hudson to prepare you something." With a vague smile in my direction, he leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
I study the closed door, attempting to make sense of his behavior in light of my recent realizations. Perhaps I am not usually so forward? Or perhaps we fought verbally, which led me to pick a physical fight in some dark London alley? No matter the precipitating event, as I had somehow won Watson's deepest affections, I could not allow myself to lose him over such a trifle as a temporarily faulty memory.
I settle back into the settee, confident that once I'd the inclination to move to my own bed, Watson would be there to join me.
When Watson reenters the sitting room, complete with a tray filled to capacity and a recovered composure, he says, “Mrs. Hudson is relieved to hear of your rapid recovery. She wished to deliver this herself, but I thought perhaps you were not presently in the mood for company.”
That he is so thoughtful towards one as callous as I, and that he almost instinctively knows that he is not “company,” but rather a necessary element in any room I am in also, is as heady a rush as a syringe of seven-percent solution. I cannot stand that he seems reluctant to come any nearer, likely due to my earlier behavior. To engender a more intimate atmosphere, I say, “You know me well, John.” As by this point I have managed to sit upright, I hope he will take the initiative and sit down beside me.
To say he he is shocked by his Christian name is a grave understatement. His cheeks flush a charming red, and although he does take the invitation to sit down on the settee, he looks nothing less than alarmed. He places a hand against my forehead.
“Holmes,” he says falteringly. He moves his hand to the wound on my temple and searches his carefully done stitches. Five, I count silently, as his fingers move from one to the next.
For a terrible second I fear that I am mistaken, that he and I are not intimate. But his face is near to mine, and at such a distance his eyes - already well known to me - are ever clearer. Underneath his consternation he is unmistakably pleased.
He turns away from me to fetch the tray of food, and feeling uncommonly pleased myself, I eat what he hands me. We are silent, though I find the silence companionable, and when I've finished to his satisfaction, I stand and stretch. Before he can protest, I say, “I believe a bath is in order. I can stand this filthy state not a moment longer.”
Watson smiles, looking unaccountably relieved. “I'm surprised you lasted this long, to be honest, Holmes.”
I head to the washroom, and deliberately leave open the door. As I fill the bath, I keep glancing at the door, waiting for Watson to enter, vexed when he does not. Did he require a spoken invitation? Whyever would a person announce a bath in such a deliberate manner unless it was itself an invitation?
I spend a long hour soaking. I hear him, but not once does he acknowledge the open door between us. When I can stand it no longer, I call out, “John!”
I hear the thud of a book falling to the ground. A moment later he appears in the doorway, but makes no motion to enter further. “Holmes?” I see his eyes fall to my bare chest and then quickly dart away.
“You are all right?” I ask.
He does not answer, and is looking everywhere but at me. I know this because I do not take my eyes off of him. “The water is most soothing,” I say.
Watson says something noncommittal, and then excuses himself. I watch him leave thoughtfully, sinking below the water until only my eyes are not submerged.
The situation is more dire than I'd originally thought.
The next morning I awake early, my mind spinning as if in that wonderful moment of absolute drunkenness when everything is clear and pure, hovering on the precipice of terrible depression without ever once tumbling over. I am soon quietly entering Watson's bedroom with a tray of breakfast. I place it on the bedside table and then casually cajole Watson's sleeping form into moving to one side with a series of gentle nudges and pushes.
Once I am seating and have moved the tray onto my lap, I announce, “Mrs. Hudson has quite outdone herself this morning,” despite every item on the tray having been specifically chosen by me and accompanied with strict instruction so as to complement Watson's preferences. Mrs. Hudson had been quite offended that I thought her unaware of Watson's preferences, but needs must, after all, and I could not afford a misstep.
I watch as Watson's eyes open slowly, his gaze turning my way and then back to the ceiling. His voice is surprisingly alert when he says, “You're in my bed, Holmes.”
I am pleased he has noticed and that he is not averse.
“Here,” I say, before he's gathered more of his wits, and place a piece of fresh fruit at his lips. Still staring at the ceiling - and I would be tempted to look that way also to see what is so fascinating if not for the fact that there is no sight more fascinating than Watson's sleep-dazed countenance - he accepts the fruit and chews mechanically.
Watson, after a few more hand-fed bites, sits up and takes hold of a fork, seeming content to share this generous meal with me - not that I eat more than a single piece of toast, quite full merely sitting here on Watson's remarkably comfortable bed. Every four bites or so, Watson pauses to rub his eyes one after the other with his free hand, and to then stare first at the tray, then at me, and then at the room in general.
The poor fellow must be exhausted from anxiety over my well-being. Over-worrier that he is, he'd probably buried me in his mind already and was half-way into grief when he'd found me initially, and is still unable to fathom that I would ever be hale enough to spend breakfast in bed with him again. Done with my toast, I decide to reassure him of my being here and alive by nudging even closer until our sides touch from shoulder to knee, and place one hand companionably on his thigh nearest to me.
My Watson is so relieved he forgets himself and chokes on a mouthful of eggs.
After spending a long moment inspecting the specs of eggs he's spewed across the comforter, he pushes the tray away and sinks back down until he's flat on the bed. He does not, I note, seek to place even an inch of space between us.
Confident that this trying period is now behind us, I clean up the mess, smooth a hand over his hair, and leave him to sleep.
I am not at all upset that he has not deemed it necessary to say even one word throughout the entire meal - our intimacy is such that no words are required.
Three days later and I am forced to conclude that Watson is, indeed, put out with me. Despite inviting him to accompany me on all my errands; imploring Mrs. Hudson to cook only his more preferred meals regardless of my own tastes; taking every opportunity to lay a familiar hand on his shoulder or thigh and to guide him with a hand at the small of his back; playing him to sleep every night with his favorite violin sonatas; and leaving my door open whenever I dress and the washroom door open whenever I bathe, he persists in merely giving me pained looks and then hastening away. It is clearly a trial for him to remain upset with me, and I wish dearly I could recall what I'd done - for I have no doubt at this juncture that I am to blame - so that I could undo my wrong.
This afternoon, I spy him sitting on his armchair, reading the paper. I casually perch on the arm of the chair with my own paper, and over the course of a measured seven minutes, I carefully sink down - affecting, I believe, a convincing unawareness - until I sit practically in his lap. Just when his knuckles have attained an alarming pallor from gripping the paper, I reach the point where I feel his unmistakable interest. Not a second later he shoots up, leaving me to sprawl gracelessly across the chair. Throwing me a scathing look, he makes to leave. Frustrated and beginning to despair, I shout a string of most unforgivable insults at his back. He turns around to face me, and a wonderful relief fills his features.
“You are trying to get a rise out of me,” he says.
I consider informing him that, given my observations of the past few days, I have quite successfully given him a rise several times not even counting the present, but my outburst aside I must remember I am in the wrong and I mustn't unduly vex him.
“I am,” I say instead, as it is true in the strictest sense.
Watson shakes his head, looking more in control of himself than he has since this mess began. “Your ideas of what constitutes an appropriate pastime never ceases to amaze me, Holmes. We really must find you a new case, so that you can redirect your attentions to a more productive end.”
There are so many replies I have for this statement I could hardly be expected to choose. As I fumble for one that at least has the guise of respectability, I see him smile, and I realize that he is enjoying this. He is enjoying me sprawled awkwardly on the armchair, my desperate attempts to win back his affections, my humbling myself day in and out for his benefit. This must be a game to him!
I admit in the past he has rarely had the upper hand in our dealings, so I do not begrudge him for taking advantage of the current reversal of our roles. I do not begrudge him, but I do not like it, either.
Shaking his head and once more turning away from me, I say to his back, “Just because I don't have a case does not mean I don't have much to occupy my mind.”
Again this only amuses him, and with his shoulders set in fond exasperation, he takes his newspaper to read in a different room. I already miss the warmth of his presence.
Another two days and my mood is most black indeed. Watson is again attempting to interest me in a new case, reading to me from several newspaper clipping as if I have the slightest desire to hear about a sudden string of missing jewelry.
“John,” I say warningly, already on my second pipe and it not yet noon.
“What I find most intriguing, Sherlock, is where the articles note that -”
“I've no interest in hearing more.”
I am, for once, clear across the room from him, pacing in front of the windows while he ignores me and continues his sorry efforts at deduction. I let his deep voice pour over me and blanket me while I think.
It would be better if Watson outright rebuffed my attempts to endear myself to him, or in any way showed his infamous temper. Instead, he continues to regard me as something of a ... nuisance. He allows my hand on his thigh but acknowledges it only with a long-suffering sigh. The breakfasts in bed he now treats as an unremarkable occurrence, but he has become more vocal in his displeasure at the crumbs he finds on his sheets. He throws pillows at me when I bring my violin into his room at night to serenade him to sleep. Whenever I call him by his Christian name, he accordingly refers to me as Sherlock, with no recognition of the intimacy involved in such an act. When I switch back to his surname in the middle of a conversation, with hardly a blink he switches back also. The only thing which truly vexes him, in fact, is my refusal to entertain the idea of a new case.
I could hate him if I did not adore him.
As I pace I keep my eyes firmly closed. I am quite certain my memory is repairing itself adequately, for although I still don't recall the events leading to my injury or the rift in our relationship, every moment I recall more and more feverish memories of Watson and I; of him bent over every piece of furniture in our rooms, of his handsome face flushed and myself curved against his back, of the muscles in his shoulders flexing most distractingly. Of myself kneeling before him as he sits in the armchair, knees splayed, his newspaper tossed carelessly to the floor and his fingers twined deep in my hair. Of countless more encounters between us, sometimes still half-dressed and other times bare, but always joined in some primal way and both of us slick with sweat. They are memories I'm certain, but a step removed, as if I can see them clearly but not touch or taste them.
I should be more forward, I know. Watson, bless him, cannot read clues like I can, and perhaps truly does not fathom how mad with want of him I am. He would relent if he knew, for as displeased with me as he is, he is not a cruel man. But I won't. I can't. He's already rejected my most innocent advances. If he were to reject a more obvious one - if I were, for instance, to lean my head down to press my lips against his and find his head turned so my lips brush his cheek - I would break. I would give completely.
He must move first. I will make every effort to uncover what wrong I'd done that created this rift in the first place, but he must move first.
“I'm going out, Watson,” I say, unable to withstand another moment in his company without acting.
He merely stops reading and places the clippings aside. “As you wish, Holmes.”
As I make my way through the London streets, I am a trifle concerned that I am losing my mind. It took me nearly a week to think to retrace my steps and to begin piecing together events in a more systematic manner. Once I have repaired my relationship with Watson, I shall have to research more fully into the issue of head wounds and memory loss. But as I find myself to be suffering no other ill effects, this is at best a secondary concern.
I should've already questioned Mrs. Hudson in order to see if she knows the content of any serious argument between Watson and I, but I shelve that for now. Although Mrs. Hudson has been a most gracious landlord, granting me outrageous allowances in my conduct from chemical explosions and bullet holes in her walls to violin symphonies at near four in the morning, I cannot be certain that her list of accepted liberties extends to the inconveniently illegal nature of my relations with Watson. I have been discreet when she is present, naturally, and as Watson's aloof behavior is surely not of the norm, I have been unable to satisfactorily infer whether she is aware of our intimacy or not.
I shall also have to question the Irregular, Thomas, who witnessed the scene and subsequently called upon Watson. Watson's version of events was likely romanticized, as is his wont, and in any case I pay the Irregulars, not him, to keep note of the most minute details of any happening.
I reach a particular alleyway and know, without question, that this is the one in which I was found. I carefully circle the area, sometimes on foot, and sometimes on hands and knees. Most of the obvious signs - footprints, pieces of material, and the like - are of course gone by now. Blood stains tend to linger, and I see several drops scattered over the area. I don't believe they are all mine.
As I work, I studiously ignore Watson, who had made absolutely no effort to hide his following me and is now leaning against the brick wall, watching me. That is to say, I sincerely hope he had been expending no effort, because the result was abysmal to the point of embarrassment.
Seventeen minutes pass in this fashion before Watson says, “Holmes, I do hate to intrude, and I know I am not always the most clever fellow, but perhaps you could enlighten me - what in the good God's name are you trying to accomplish?”
“In what terms?” I ask. I stand up and brush down my clothes to get off the worse of the dust. I then walk over to stand just close enough to him to tempt the line between decent and indecent. There is no one near us, and even if there were, there are benefits to having a reputation for inexplicable eccentricities. I am near enough that I can feel the heat from his body.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am trying to accomplish several things. Be more specific.” I am trying to piece together the fight, for instance. I may act strangely but I do not act randomly. I am trying to know whether I or the other fellows instigated the fight and the way in which it was instigated; I'll then know more about my state of mind at the time. I am trying to narrow the particular reason I left Baker Street that evening. I am trying to think clearly, for my head still spins, and the order of a methodical investigation is a balm to me. I am trying, through this information and above all, to coax Watson back into my bed where he belongs.
“This wasn't a crime! Unless there's more you haven't told me, this was an isolated incident of your once again picking imbecilic fights just because -” he trails off. “Sometimes you are impossible to understand.”
No! He must finish. I must know. I lean forward imperceptibly until I am outright invading his personal space. “Just because why?” I ask, more urgently than I'd meant.
“You know why,” he says. “Feigned ignorance doesn't become you.” He steps away from me then, and the sudden space between us feels absurdly empty.
He is still angry with me. I detest it. “Why did you follow me at all?”
For a moment, he looks lost. The muscles in my arms twitch with the effort of not enveloping him to me. “I really haven't the slightest idea. I'll see you at home, Holmes.”
This is unacceptable in every way. The image of his back turned to me - again! - as he leaves for Baker Street follows me while I continue following my own footsteps. I remember a little, now, and the rest is quickly being filled in by what I find. I am positive of the identity of three of the four of my assailants. That is, three of the four of the other men involved in the fight, since I have not yet ruled out the possibility that I myself was the assailant, and those men innocent bystanders to my anger.
They are all men known to me, as they frequent the same haunts as I. I spend the afternoon tracking them down one by one. The first man, Philip, I find eating lunch at an outdoor cafe. He has a black eye, only mildly faded, and the way he grimaces as he shifts suggests at least one leg is bothering him greatly. Under his clothes there are distinct wrappings - at least one rib bruised or broken, then. I am viscously pleased, for no discernible reason.
He is alone, and I sit across from him. He looks at me without recognition.
“What's this, then?” he asks when I don't speak first, voice gruff almost as a habit and not because he is specifically bothered by me.
“Do you recall the events of six nights previous?” I ask.
He looks at me more closely. “You're that fellow,” he says with some surprise. It is telling that he is, in fact, nothing but surprised; there is no residual anger or ill will towards me.
“You do, excellent. Would you do me the trouble of retelling the events as you remember them?” At his hesitation, I calmly slide a coin across the table. “A detailed account.”
He pockets the coin with a shrug and, in a rambling and tedious manner, tells me of his night in full.
Given my fortune as of late, it is of no great surprise to me that the man I'm forced to listen to for the next forty-three minutes has a remarkable memory for utterly unnecessary details while still managing to not have the least recollection of any details that might even potentially be useful to me. I don't care that he found himself alone at dinner that evening because he hadn't the courage to ask a particular lady to join him, nor the twenty reasons he lists for me as to why this particular lady is too good for him. He cannot - and I test this thoroughly to be sure - tell me any of the following: what he ate exactly (“Something with chicken,” he says), the name of the waiter who served him (“he was an annoying fellow, really”), whether it had been a chill enough evening to wear an overcoat (“Who knows?”), anything about the weather at all (“London weather, probably”), how many familiar faces he saw during his dinner (“There was Lee, maybe - no, that was the day before.”), or any estimate of how long he was there more precise than, “Not too over-long.”
I can answer at least three of these inquires myself from where I sit merely from what I see and what I know of him, and this man who was present for the occasion cannot. Good god, I need Watson here for this. He may not always follow my line of reasoning precisely but he would at least understand my frustration, and I would be able to roll my eyes at him when Philip looked elsewhere.
Oh, Watson. The longer this takes, the longer he has to think of more reasons to be upset with me before I've even begun rectifying the reasons he already has. In fact, given his penchant for crafting unflattering lists about me, I make a mental note to sift through his writing desk as soon as I return to see if he's already begun the list. I can only imagine it's at least several pages long if he has.
I reluctantly turn my full attention back to the unfortunate Philip, who is in the middle of a soliloquy on why he walked the roundabout route he did after dinner, having too often been tempted into the pub on the more efficient route, as he'd promised his recently departed mother to lay off the spirits.
Finally a point that may be useful! Before he can venture onto a tangent regarding his mother, a fine woman I'm sure, I say, “So you hadn't any alcohol that night?”
“Was completely sober, me,” he affirmed.
That's something! “When did you come across Nathan and Victor?”
“Who?”
My patience is thinning rapidly. “The other men! There were three of you at first! You, Nathan Carter, and Victor Stanton. How do you know them and when did you come across them that evening?”
Philip looks as confused as I feel, and slightly put out that I'd cut off his enchanting lecture on why he's better off without the alcohol and everyone else would be, too. “I don't know them at all.”
I resist - barely - placing my head in my hands. I say, slowly and carefully, “Very well. Please tell me, then, what happened when our paths crossed. You know that, do you?”
“Why do you want to know all this, anyway?” he asks, becoming suddenly suspicious at least twenty-five minutes after any sane person would have begun to question my motives.
“Because I'm paying you to,” I snap. When he appears to be considering leaving, I throw him an excuse, “Something important took place that evening outside of our altercation. You're in no trouble, but it's crucial that I know the evening from your perspective entirely, without my own memory coloring the events. Do you understand?”
“Well, then - you was pacing in some alleyway.”
Finally! “An alleyway. Was it where we fought?”
“No, that was a different one. Later.”
“What were the crossroads?” Of course he does not know. “The area. What do you recollect of the area?” He waves a hand in what I gather I'm supposed to understand means “about.” I do not sigh. “If you can tell me even the slightest detail - one of the stores nearby, or the number of a house, the type of cobblestone. Anything, and I shall know enough.” I know this man is not new to London.
He continues to look blank, before pointing off vaguely to the East. I do sigh, this time. “Continue, please.”
“You was pacing and you'd clearly drunk a bit too much. I was walking by, and you didn't notice me, I don't think. Wouldnt've looked at you twice, but then you threw the bottle you were holding, all sudden-like, and it hit me right in the head. Then you just kept back at pacing like you'd done nothing!”
As he speaks to a useful purpose at last, I try to picture the evening in my mind, but I still cannot. I can picture myself pacing, yes, and throwing things about, both of which are activities well in my usual repertoire, but they are abstract images and not actual events. “What happened next?”
“I got a glass bottle to my head! But I could see you was out of sorts, and I'm no blackguard. I don't think you'd even noticed what you'd done. So I said if you'd say you was sorry, very nicely, I'd keep walking along. A new leaf, me, you see?”
“And then?” I ask, though I know the answer.
“You did not apologize,” Philip says sternly. “So's I punched you right in the jaw.”
“Ah,” I say.
“Took it like a professional, too. Just spun with it, even drunk as you were, and then came back around throwing.”
Philip enjoys telling me of the fight step by step. I've seen him at many of the same fights I sometimes go to watch - and sometimes, though it's become rare, go to fight in. He clearly takes no less pleasure in a fight when he is a participant. As he lists the punches and shoves and kicks, I mentally check off the wounds both on my person and on his. He has a quite good memory for this, at least.
“That's when I threw you into the path of those other two fellows, Victor and whoever, I suppose. Banged you all into the brick wall nearest. Fell into a heap. But I was mad, then, and just kept right after you.”
Ah yes, Victor and Nathan. That point had been bothering me. I hadn't previously seen Philip in the acquaintance of those two, so when I determined they three were my assailants, I'd wondered how they'd first met. Through me, and on that very evening, as it turns out.
“That's when it got real ugly,” Philip says.
Philip is relishing this retelling. When he remains on course, he is not so terrible a story-teller. “Ugly?” I prompt.
“They weren't none too happy to be tossed about like that. Were just too eager to join in. Things got nasty since every body is hitting every other body and no one cares nothing for who started what. We're all having a grand time, but I think if it was just still you and me it woulda stayed that way, but with all of us ... well, that's when Barbell Williams shows up and joins in.”
Ah. Barbell Williams. No wonder I was so injured; even impaired as I was, I am no amateur with regards to this sort of pastime. But Williams has elevated the act of back-alley brawl to an impressive art, and one that he takes very, very, very seriously.
“Do you recall why he joined in?” I ask, to ensure I miss no nuances.
“There was a fight going on and he saw it.” This is said as if I am quite slow. “And there weren't yet no authorities involved, so's all the better. You start trying to run, once old William gets going.”
I'd thought as much. “How so?”
“What d'you mean, 'how so'? We was going towards each other and you tried going in a direction opposite. William wasn't having none of it, of course. Just followed you and kept swinging.”
“Of course,” I say. The evening is making sense to me, finally. I can almost see from beginning to end.
Philip continues explaining how the brawl moved along in response to my attempts at escape until arriving at the particular alleyway in which I was found, complete with more punch-by-kick analysis. He is becoming more expansive in his gestures, attracting the attention of some other cafe patrons, and is at his most dramatic when he says, “Then Barbell Williams hits you right across the temple with a barbell.” I do not insult either of us by asking just why Barbell Williams happened to have a barbell on his person.
“He whacks you what good and you, guv, are out. Completely, with a lotta blood splattered all over. Was just a friendly brawl up to that moment, but not one of us was looking for the gaols. Four of us were gone, fast, even Williams. No hard feelings,” he is kind enough to add. “Good to see you up and about, even.”
“And you also,” I say, as despite what Watson believes I do possess some social graces. Just because my conception of appropriate social conduct is slightly different from the normal conventions, does not mean the two are not ever parallel. “You've been a great help to me.” I rise, leaving him to finish his meal and return to mourning the lack of company in the form of that lovely lady of his.
He waves cheerfully, and says to my back that we should do this again sometime. “The chat or the brawl?” I ask, just for the satisfaction of already knowing the gist of the answer and being able to be proven immediately correct.
“Both, I'd say. The fight was a sure riot, but I did get paid for the chat.”
There is something to be said about a world with no surprises. “Thank you,” I say, and mean it.
I've gathered what I thought I could from Philip, and chats with Nathan and Victor would not yield any more useful information at the present time. I consider briefly tracking down Barbell Williams, merely to see if his perspective as a late-comer to the game uncovers any last details. But I suspect that, unlike the basically good-natured Philip, he will hold a grudge. Not for any harm done in the fight itself, but for the gall of my losing consciousness before he'd gotten enough of a fight to leave of his own volition. Besides which, Williams is not the most eloquent figure unless he is speaking with his fists.
The events of the night are quite clear to me, and I can even know my frame of mind at any step - but my initial motive yet eludes me. The initial act which led to my leaving Baker Street which led to my drinking which led to the brawl which led to my dear Watson stitching up my temple on our settee while the truly grievous wound in our relationship lay unheeded and bleeding.
There is only one location that can provide any answers at this point, and I return to Baker Street.
Watson, I quickly find, is not there, nor has he been for quite some time. I search all our rooms for any evidence of where he might have gone to. The most I can find is that at some point he once again rearranged most of my newspaper clippings by date, despite that I've explained to him on multiple occasions that I have a precise system incorporating dates, names of involved persons, and points of interest, and that if he cannot comprehend the system he has no business attempting to mimic it. He really should be here so I can lecture him this instant rather than having to wait for his reappearance. Then, once he is properly chastised, we can leave the incident behind us and I can return swiftly to winning back his regard.
Where is that man? I locate Mrs. Hudson, who informs me she has not seen Watson since he'd followed me out earlier.
“Do you know anything of his purpose?” I ask. She hesitates, and I press forward. “It could be very important.”
“Well - I gather he's rather displeased with you. He said as much to me when he left earlier.” She straightens as much as she's able, and somehow gives the impression of towering while still being significantly shorter than I. The overall effect is of a stern mother - an effect I'm quite familiar with, if I ever bother to think of my best-forgotten childhood. “What did you do?” she asks.
What did I do? She is asking me this? Rubbing my forehead with my index finger and thumb, I say, “I haven't the slightest notion.”
She is mildly appeased by my despair, to judge by the softening in her posture if not in her tone. “That's a first, isn't it, Mr. Holmes?” But her hand is kind when she pats me once on the shoulder before brushing past me to go about her day, leaving me to sulk alone.
Watson does not return for two more hours. When he does, I am laying on his bed, legs crossed and hands linked across my stomach. I have spent these two hours studying his room, and have come to the conclusion that I much prefer it to mine, but that I prefer it even more now that Watson is here also. The room is warmer than mine in most every way. I should move into this room with him, I decide, while Watson continues to stare wearily at me from the doorway. I should have moved into this room ages ago, in fact. I would be significantly happier here; that is to say, significantly less miserable, for I am rarely ever mistaken for a happy person.
I turn my head to look at him, my dear Watson returned to me, and my eyes consider him from polished shoes to dusty hair and back down again. By the time I meet his eyes, we are both of us aware that I've just mapped a quite adequate time line of where he's been and what he's done in between leaving me at the alleyway and arriving here. I wonder if it still bothers him, that I do this. I'd try to stop if he requested it of me, but it is something elemental in my make-up and I doubt I'd succeed. But then again, when I think of all I'd do for him if he merely implied to me it would please him, altering my very make-up seems a trivial request, indeed.
As he appears in no hurry to speak or move, I let my gaze linger over him. John Watson is a fine man to look at, a sturdy figure defined with the hint of military in every angle of him, from his elbows to the arch of his eyebrows, and the compassion of a doctor in every curve of him, from the tip of his nose to the shape of his thumb - and all held together by the strength and beauty that cannot be attributed to any profession or livelihood. I am familiar with every inch of him, would know his figure from any crowd. I want to remind him how beloved his angles and curves are to me by tracing every last one of them with my tongue, if he would only step a few feet closer. He must move first, I caution myself. He must, and if only he would before I burn into ashes with this unresolved want!
Wait. I am almost positive I know every inch of him, but upon meeting his eyes again there is a strange flicker to them. I cannot recall ever seeing such a flicker before, even as I flip through memories in my mind, trying to place this expression against ones known to me to see if I can tease out a meaning.
Before I can, he speaks finally. “I am not like you,” he says.
That much is self-evident. It could be deduced merely from the study in the differences in our rooms I conducted just now. Or in a comparative analysis of our physical forms. One would find that I am the weaker of us, in every feasible consideration except for the most obvious. Of course, in other ways we are very much alike, he and I. I suspect that these investigations are not what he intends. “How do you mean, Watson?”
“I mean that, unlike you, I have limits.”
I have only the briefest second to ponder this statement before all thought is arrested by the sight in front of me. Watson shrugs out of his outer coat and lets it pile on the floor. The carelessness of the action is so contrary to him that I am already undone. He unfastens his cuffs, and likewise lets them fall. He steps out of his shoes, and as he does so, closes and locks the door behind him. I breathe sharply at the solid click of the latch, as I'd quite forgotten to do so in the moments beforehand. He moves towards me with a purpose no less graceful for his slight limp, and together with his warm coloring the effect is like a lion - stalking me, just the thought of it, good God! - and he's more dangerous for his wound because he already knows intimately to his marrow how to battle and survive.
He's let his braces fall behind him, trailing after him like a swinging tail, and has undone only the top buttons of his shirt when he reaches me.
“John,” I breathe, and he shudders as if I've never breathed his name in passion before. He deliberately climbs onto the bed and kneels next to me, leaning down as I lean up onto my elbows. He stops just short of contact, and my hands are clenched in the comforter with the effort of not closing the distance. I find my mind blank except for the phrase, “He must move first,” chanted repeatedly. I can barely comprehend the meaning of the words for the heat of his body so near to mine.
“You've taken my limits and you've decimated them,” he says, nearly speaks into my mouth. “Do you even understand - you're in my bed, Holmes.”
“I -”
“No! No more words from you!”
He's over me, then, on hands and knees and I arch helplessly upwards to him even as he keeps distance between us. He entwines our fingers together, and I calculate the number of callouses he has and the likely origin of every last one as he places our twined hands firmly over my head. “No more words,” he repeats, clenching his fingers around mine in emphasis. No more words, I try to agree through the rapid staccato of my heartbeat that he can surely hear as if it were a series of knocks at a door. For you I will be mute from this moment on.
Watson leans just slightly down but not far enough, and does he not understand how I am utterly his? “No more from you,” he says again, and I'd believe those were the only words left in his vocabulary until he says, “Do you have any idea -” But cuts himself off and his lips are on mine, kissing me, consuming me, finally.
There is no finesse in what follows, in the frenetic ripping open of clothes just enough to reach skin, the clash of teeth against teeth, the grounding of his groin against mine even as I add scars to his back with my fingernails, but god there is beauty and satisfaction in it nevertheless.
He speaks throughout it all, a constant refrain that I can only half-comprehend in my state. “Every day!” he's saying. “Every day you're in my bed!” He's undone each of our flies just enough to release us, and I mindlessly count his callouses again as he pulls at us both together. “Bathing in front of me!” He continues tracing my chest with his mouth. I could reach completion merely from the rough brush of his beard against my collarbone!
“And touching me! You just kept touching me! And sitting on my lap!” And wasn't I going to use my tongue on him? I want to tell him that we're backwards, but I remember in time that I must be mute. Next time, my tongue next time, when I've wits to do more than writhe and undulate beneath his wonderful, sturdy, beloved form. “Wearing my clothes! My hats! My cufflinks!”
In his voice hoarse with unrepentant lust, he's reciting my torments of him like a litany of sins, I realize dimly. Speaking them directly into my skin, returning them to me but absolved, as they passed through him and he is above sin. We are all of us nonsensical beings with illogical thought-patterns, I think feverishly and pointlessly, as I buck to a change in rhythm in his moving grasp.
“My dear, sweet Holmes,” Watson cries, and it is my name said like that, said with a perfect mixture of lasciviousness and tenderness, that causes me to spend myself over his calloused fingers, just that quickly. He groans deeply and follows me but moments later, and then is a heavy but welcome weight on top of me.
There are so many things I want to say right now, to murmur into the curve of his ear. But perhaps I am still under an order of silence, and I am too utterly sated to risk inspiring Watson's ire after he's so thoroughly forgiven me.
He stirs briefly after a pleasant amount of time has passed. “I should move,” he says, voice still rough, but he does not in fact make any effort to do so. “I must be crushing you.”
I take this as an invitation to speak. “You don't have to,” I say. Moreover, I don't want him to.
The issue is completely settled. I will move into this room this very day. There's really no excuse that it's taken me so long to do so. Nothing outwardly will change, of course, as appearances must be kept. My possessions will remain in my room, and I'll retain a bed and wardrobe there. I'll spend most nights in my old room as well, most likely, after returning from Watson's. But I shall know that this is our room, and the situation will have changed in all the ways that matter.
I am about to share this decision with Watson, when he says against my shoulder, “This whole week - I'd thought ... it couldn't be, I thought I was going mad, but I'd thought to myself, 'I think Sherlock Holmes is trying to seduce me.' And that's just how you'd go about it, isn't it?” He chuckles softly against me, and I wonder that he cannot feel my blood drop to a temperature very near freezing. “I'm almost afraid to ask what minuscule detail gave me away. How long you've known about me.”
And then I can recall in absolute clarity the feel of Barbell William's barbell connecting with my temple. The past week plays itself out in my mind like a collection of photographs fanned out for my leisurely perusal, and I need merely choose one at random to see and know the events in full. But I am seeing them all at once, and then one after the other first forwards then backwards, and then in no specific order, and I have never felt such a complete, unmitigated, thrice-damned, imbecilic fool.
“Holmes?”
I have to leave. I have to think. I have to be away from him! Without conscious thought I push Watson off of me and leap out of the bed, shirt unbuttoned and my flies still open. I have thrown open the lock to leave his room and then am at the outside door with barely a moment's breath between the two. I have enough presence of mind left to grab a long coat to hide my indecency. I hear Watson stumbling to dress and I leave 221B entirely.
I do not run in any specific direction. That is to say, I most certainly am running, or walking more quickly than those around me, and that I begin and dismiss a dozen routes and destinations with every step. I think to hide and lick my wounds in any number of the bolt holes I've scattered across all of London and its outskirts, or to any one of a dozen bars to end this week as inebriated as it began, or even to - god save me - hide in the shelter of Mycroft's generously large shadow. But then I recall that under this long coat I'm wearing an unbuttoned shirt which belongs to someone much broader in the chest than I, and that there is come drying stickily on my stomach.
I press a hand to my stomach, and correct myself; there is a come already quite dried on my stomach, and my outer coat is now glued to me.
The end result is a sporadic pathway, compounded by my doubling back and retracing my steps only to go in a different direction every few minutes. I look in each reflective surface I pass and glance behind me every time I turn a corner in order to check for a trail. But unless Watson's stealth has increased exponentially in the past few days, I am left to conclude that he ... is not following me.
Why isn't he following me? I couldn't be on a broader and more obvious route. He should be able to find me even were he deaf and blind. Why isn't he two steps behind me, panting and out of breath and attempting to reach me before I hide myself somewhere he cannot hope to find? He should be there, a hand ready to grasp my arm to halt me, to tell me this has all been a desperate misunderstanding, and if I would just listen to him, there's a good fellow, all would be explained.
But there is nothing for him to explain! I'd had it backwards, completely. And I'd - I can barely complete the thought, it is so reprehensible to my comprehension of myself - I'd mistaken fantasies, fantasies, for memories. I'd twisted facts to transmute the sick imaginings of my mind into some mediocre semblance of reality, and dragged poor Watson down with me. That I could ever call myself a competent detective again...
I must circle the city for hours. I barely notice it begin to rain. I am exhausted in body, but my mind is sharper and clearer than it has been for a week. It is to no avail, however. I can recall and examine the events in minuscule detail, but I cannot seem to extrapolate from them an appropriate course of action.
Stopping finally at a random house number, I sit down on the entrance stoop. Whatever move I make next, it must be correct. Through my delusions this past week, I forced Watson into a most compromised position. He was too kind to reject me, even if I hadn't these stitches across my temple, and I then appealed to his basest instincts until he had no recourse but to appease them. A seduction. My actions were nothing so crude as a seduction, but with the fog cleared from my mind, I am afraid that is all it was. What must Watson think of me?
I hear behind me the door creak open, and an elderly woman peers out at me. “You poor thing,” she says. “I saw you just sitting here. You must be freezing. Why don't you come inside, take off that wet coat, and sit by the fire?”
Take off my coat? I have no wish to give elderly women heart attacks. “Your offer is appreciated, madam, but accepting it would not be ... prudent.”
“You'll catch your death out here! Don't you have somewhere to go? A home?”
“I do have a home,” I tell her. “Though I don't believe I'm welcome in it.” Melancholy does often make a man honest.
“A night like this? Who would turn you out? Go home, young man.”
For reasons not clear to me, her suggestion makes sudden, perfect sense. Watson would not turn me out. He may be furious at me, I may have damaged our friendship quite irreparably, he may never wish to look upon me again, but he would not - and of this I'm certain - turn me out.
I wish her a good evening, and then I head once more for home.
Watson, when I return, is still in his room. Now it is I who lingers by the doorway, a strange echo of just hours ago, watching him sit on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. He has cleaned and dressed himself and looks his respectable self once more. I want to undo the effort one crease at a time, but if I am ever to have that right again, I must explain myself first.
“The problem,” I begin, “is that we are not lovers.” He makes absolutely no move. I enter the room fully and start to pace, though the room is not made for pacing - or for someone pacing to have as long legs as I - and I must turn around after every four steps. “I'd been under the mistaken impression that the initial factor was significant, when it was in fact negligible. I was studying things from entirely the wrong angle. But I have remembered everything at last. You'd rearranged my clippings - or rather, you'd knocked an entire pile over, and reordered them hoping I wouldn't notice or be upset.” He snorts softly but still hides his face, and in any event I cannot let him pass judgment until I am through.
“I was upset. I was very upset. But I was not upset at you. Isn't that strange? It was not the first time it'd happened, though it remains inexplicable to me, but I have a quite solid contingency plan for when it occurs. You see, I was very upset at the disarray, and it follows that I should be upset with you, as you caused the disarray, but I found myself angry without a proper outlet. So I left - I stormed out, rather - to find an outlet.
“In order to do so, I needed first find myself inebriated. One is rightfully suspicious and weary of a stone-sober man instigating fights. He must have some motive. A drunkard, meanwhile, requires no motive for the instigating to make perfect sense. Once I'd enough alcohol to suit my purposes and a bottle still in my hand, I'd chosen to wait on a road that I know is frequently traveled by at least four suitable candidates. As it happens, my first choice, Philip Burner, appeared. He is a gentlemen, really, and I can't think of a better man to exchange fists with. I quite casually threw the bottle directly at his head, which is of course what I'd wanted to do with the man who first upset me, except I cannot fathom throwing bottles at your head, Watson. It is simply unimaginable.
“It worked well. We were soon engaged, but it is here that I miscalculated. I should have known enough to end the fight quickly before it escalated, but I was impaired and allowed Nathan Carter and Victor Stanton to join in. That was not itself a problem, except that it created an appealing enough brawl to tempt one Barbell Williams to join in.”
“Good god,” Watson mutters into his hands. His voice is strained. “No wonder.”
“I knew I was in actual danger at this point. I thus made several 'escape' attempts, in order to direct the fight to a crossroads I know is patrolled by several of my Irregulars.”
“Holmes -”
No, not yet. He must know all the facts before he speaks! “If one of them should see me in a fight with Barbell Williams, I had no doubt he would rush for aid and not make the foolish mistake of attempting to help me himself. And an Irregular did find me, and brought you to me. But this is where it gets complicated.”
“Holmes!”
“I'd been thinking of you during the fight, do you see? Perhaps that is why it was my memories of you which were so jumbled. When I awoke -”
“Holmes! Will you cease talking and let me apologize?” He lifts his face finally, and I am dumbfounded at the despair I see. I expected anger, or impatience, or disgust, or any number of more appropriate responses.
“Whatever would you have to apologize for?” I ask.
“What for? Should I list them? How about not recognizing that your head trauma was far worse than I'd thought?”
“I am quite adept at hiding -”
“And I am a doctor! Or how about impelling you to start fights with Barbell Williams because I am not a good enough friend that you feel comfortable throwing glass bottles at even when I'm in the wrong?”
“That is hardly -”
“Or, and here's a fine example of what I have to apologize for, for forcing myself on a man with a faulty memory who could not expect to be making informed decisions?”
“Watson, that's not -”
“And then forcing that same man to be silent, so he cannot protest, and in fact can do nothing but endure until I am distracted enough for him to run!” I am without words. Watson once again covers his eyes with a hand. “Holmes, I cannot apologize enough. I would understand if you don't wish to room with me any longer. I would've understood if you never came back, in fact.”
That is when I understand completely.
“I was right all this time!” I cry. I fall to my knees in front of him, gripping his thighs in my hands to force him to uncover his face and look at me. He appears stunned, but I will make all clear to him! I speak rapidly, as if this will encourage him to understand faster, as well. “We are lovers. We've been for most of our acquaintance! It is like how I share this room with you. We were stranded in the moment after our conception of the situation changes but before any physical change has the chance to follow. I'd despaired you thought my action something as meaningless as seduction, rather than, perhaps more accurately, a courtship. But if we've been courting for years, then a seduction is the logical progression rather than an isolated and altogether sad occurrence. We are lovers, Watson, you and I. I was right!”
Watson's jaws works silently, and I grip his knees tighter, willing him to follow me. He finally demands, “When did you move into my room?”
“Ages ago,” I answer. “But also just now.”
“And you wanted to? Even after -”
“Very, very much so, my dear fellow.”
"I did not force you?"
"You could not have found a more willing man."
“You're mad,” he says, but there is wonder in his eyes. I am pleased to have put that emotion there.
“There is one more problem,” I say. “But I believe it is easily fixed.”
Watson lifts one hand to cradle my cheek, just as I'd done to him a week ago while I'd been half-delirious on the settee. “How can I help?”
“It is most fortunate that you're willing, because you play a crucial role. In order for me to have been completely right, there are certain actions we must make reality.” I can feel myself blushing, a not usual occurrence for me, and Watson is appropriately fascinated by the changing color. “Part of my actions this week - that is to say, I'd imagined, and then mistaken for reality ... but so I am not wrong, we must -”
“You've thought of me,” Watson says, and his face lights up with a grin. “You think of me.”
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I did. And I do.”
He kisses me, then, and it's softer than before, when he was lost in the passion of a first kiss and I delirious in the passion of what I believed to be a familiar one. “I wouldn't want you to be wrong in any way, Holmes,” he says against my lips. “How would you have us proceed?”
I take in our current arrangement: Watson resting on the bed, and myself kneeling at his feet. “If you've no other present obligations,” I say, “I would imagine this is a most promising start...”