Sherlock Holmes Fic: History, Repeating Itself (Chapter Two; Holmes/Watson; R)
Title: History, Repeating Itself (Chapter Two)
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson (currently pre-slash)
Warnings: Alcohol and marijuana use, general debauchery, copious use of coarse language
Spoilers: None, except for Chapter One of this story.
Author's Notes: This is a fill for an AWESOME prompt at shkinkmeme; both the prompt and the fill thread can be found here. I will continue posting the chapters bit-by-bit there and then archiving them on my journal for the duration of this story.
Chapter Summary: John Watson observes his new roommate in his natural habitat, falls victim to some decidedly unwelcome dreams, and really needs a fucking beer.
Chapter Two: On The Pitfalls of Observing Insanity Once Escape Is No Longer Possible
Two days later, I got back from a meeting confirming my transfer, laden down with my class schedule and sixteen different forms I had to fill out by Monday. I was feeling pretty good about myself when I walked through the door to our apartment, where Holmes, predictably enough, was sitting on the couch, surrounded by crap. His favorite bowl, never far from his side, was sitting idle on the coffee table, and he appeared to be playing Dawn of the Dead on his Wii with one hand and typing on his laptop with the other. A cigarette was hanging from his mouth, the ash threatening to drop on to his leg at any time.
I crossed the room in two steps, pulled the cig from his mouth, ashed it into an empty cup and took a drag. "Hey."
"I was smoking that," he said, jerking his wrist to behead a particularly bloodthirsty onscreen zombie. Then he seemed to realize I was there, and hit pause. "Hey! How'd your meeting go?"
"I'm in," I told him, handing the cigarette back. He grinned and gave me a thumbs up, then took it, watching me drop my bag and head towards the kitchen. "Did you get the chance to go to the grocery store? I'm starving."
"Yeah," he said, turning back to the game. "Fuck, man, these zombies are gonna be the death of me."
"You might have better luck if you stopped with the computer."
"Multitasking!" he called. Smiling despite myself, I opened a cupboard, wondering what he'd bought.
I closed the cupboard. I opened the fridge.
"Holmes," I said slowly, "what the fuck?"
"What the fuck what?"
"You said you went to the grocery store."
"I did!" he replied, twisting around on the couch to face me and still playing the game. "There's stuff in there!"
"As far as I can see," I said, glaring at him, "you bought four different kinds of beer--and one of them says 'raspberry' on it, what the hell, man--"
"I was intrigued!"
"--six kinds of cereal," I continued, ignoring him, "a container of fruit punch and three things I've never heard of. Did you buy toilet paper?"
"Shit, no."
"Coffee?"
"I knew I forgot--"
"Milk?"
"Yeah!" he said, brightening. "But I drank it."
I stared. "You drank an entire gallon of--"
"Don't be stupid," he cried, laughing a little. "I only bought a pint. I had cereal for lunch."
"You only bought--" I stopped. Repeating the facts to him would not make them any less insane. "Okay. I know you must have been dropped on your head as a child or something, but this? This is not grocery shopping."
"Why not?" he said. Something on the screen growled and he waved the WiiMote behind his back, killing an approaching zombie with perfect accuracy. "I bought food!'
"Get up," I said.
"No."
"We are going to the fucking grocery store."
"You just got into medical school! We should celebrate with--"
"You are learning to grocery shop."
"Can I at least smoke a bowl before we--"
"I was at that restaurant with you the other day," I snapped, "do you think I am so quick to forget? The solution to this problem is not to let you get high and buy everything in the goddamn store. This is not that hard. Come on."
"I don't want to," he muttered sullenly.
"Yes, well, I don't particularly enjoy having to play babysitter to a guy who's supposed to be my roommate--"
"Fine," he snapped, "but I get to drive."
--
"This is your car?" He glared at me, but I couldn't help myself. It was ridiculous. "You've got a complex about being named after a detective, and this is your car?"
"Shut up," he muttered. I laughed out loud.
"Holmes, this is the fucking Mystery Mobile!"
"No it's not!" he cried. "I know it's a little...van-ish...and a little, um, green--"
"It's not a little 'van-ish,'" I corrected, choking on my own mirth, "or a little green. It's a fucking turquoise van! Where did you even get it?"
"It used be Miles'--it was cheap, ok? Fuck," he added, swinging into the driver's seat. "Just get in, alright?"
I did. The inside of the car--of the van, of the turquoise fucking van--was decidedly less horrifying, mostly because of the tricked-out speaker system adorning it. Holmes caressed it lovingly.
"Installed her myself," he said, pulling his iPod out of his pocket and putting on a song I didn't recognize. It was loud, and I would have protested, but that's when he pulled out of the parking space.
A note: the craziest thing about Holmes? Yeah, that'd be his driving.
We screamed the fuck out of that parking lot--and look, I've been shot at and I've seen shit blow up and there is shrapnel embedded in my goddamn leg. I know from terror, okay? That said, you've never been in a car with this asshole. He laughs in the face of stop signs, he scoffs at pedestrians, and he keeps the music all the way up while he does it. I saw my life flash before my eyes as we made the first turn.
"Jesus Christ," I snapped--no, that's not right.
"Jesus Christ," I fucking YELLED, because it was the only way to be heard over the--I swear to god--subwoofer he had lounging in the back of the van. "Drive much?"
"Live a little," he cried back, cranking the volume up another two notches. I gripped the door handle and felt my knuckles go white.
"This is not a recipe for life, Holmes! Decidedly the opposite!"
"Yeah, yeah," he laughed. "C'mon, Appleseed, a little danger never hurt anyone. You love it."
I didn't even bother dignifying that with a response.
--
We made the fifteen minute drive in eight minutes flat; given city traffic, that should give you some idea of what it was like in that death trap. Still, without any guidance he ended up at the cheapest grocery in town, for which I could only give him points.
"I'm driving back," I said, slamming my door and resisting the urge to kiss the ground. He just shrugged and wandered toward the store, and--
Okay. I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention that I'm not, uh, particularly interested in sex of the heterosexual variety. It's not for lack of trying--believe me, it's not for lack of trying. My family would be horrified if they were still around to find out, and the military isn't exactly tolerant, but there's nothing to be done about it. I like cock. I try not to let it run my life.
Which is why it was really fucking disconcerting to notice that I was staring at my crazy new roommate's ass. My crazy new roommates' very nice ass.
I shook off that ridiculous thought and followed him into the store, where he immediately reached for a basket. I grabbed him arm to stop him, and was surprised when he jumped at the touch.
"No no," I said, trying to ignore my own reaction at how warm his skin was under my palm, "not one of those."
"Why not?" he asked, honestly confused. "I always--"
"Shop with one?" I finished dryly. "Because you buy enough food to last you six hours? Yeah, I kind of figured." I grabbed a buggy and wheeled it over, bumping him with it.
"This is a cart," I told him, exaggerating my pronunciation a little--well, maybe a lot. "People use this when they need to buy more food. It has wheels--"
"I know what a cart is," he snapped, scowling. "And you suck."
"Awwww, did I ruffle Forest's little feathers?"
"Stop calling me that."
"Stop calling me Appleseed."
"You're already in my phone that way," he said, grinning triumphantly. "So it's much too late--ooh, starfruit. What do you think that tastes like?"
It took us twenty minutes to get out of the produce section. I wanted to buy bananas and apples and clementines, normal, regular food--he spent an inordinate amount of time making a case for a coconut. I was already regretting bringing him along (he has to learn, I told myself, he has to learn) when we turned the corner and ended up in the freezer section.
"I forgot to buy ice cream earlier," he said, his tone shocked and bordering on horrified. "Watson, I forgot to buy ice cream. What--I--I don't know who I am anymore."
I thought about his driving, and his wide eyed horror over ice cream, and his dirty habits, and a horrible thought occurred to me.
"Are you high?" I demanded. He looked up at me, dazed, and then smiled brilliantly. And I--well. It distracted me for a second. I might have blushed, a little. It doesn't matter, he didn't see it.
"You're right," he said, "I can't be blamed for forgetting the ice cream. I was stoned before, that's not my fault."
I was still reeling, unexpected attacks of libido being more than a little crippling, so he'd turned around to stare lovingly at the frozen confectionaries again before I processed that.
"You DROVE to the store while you were HIGH?!" I yelled. He whipped around and glared at me.
"Yell a little louder, why don't you," he hissed, furious. "I'd love to get arrested--"
"Well I'd love it if you didn't fucking kill someone--"
"Maybe if you'd gone to the store yourself I wouldn't have had to--"
"Nobody has to drive stoned--"
"Okay!" he said, throwing his hands up. "We're arguing in front of the ice cream, that's not right. To answer your first question, no, I am not currently high. To present you with a second question: Rocky Road or Moose Tracks?"
"We're not done talking about how fucking stupid it is to--"
"You're right," he said, turning away and opening the freezer case, "we need both."
--
The deli section. How do I begin to explain Holmes in the deli section?
"Braunswager is not a food, it's a byproduct."
"It's a food," he said, picking up the tube and eyeing it speculatively. "They sell it in the grocery store, it has to be edible."
I despaired of my life. "They sell dishwashing soap at the grocery store."
"That could be edible," he said, poking at the tube of pinkish horror. "Given enough time in the lab--"
"I mean without chemically redesigning it."
--
"But I like pig knuckles!"
"Have you ever tried them?"
"I could have tried them, you don't know."
"But have you, in fact, tried them?"
"Well, not in so many words--"
"Leave them, Holmes."
"You're no fun."
--
"Watson. Watson, look."
"Is that....what is that?"
"I think it's some kind of...um. I think it's supposed to be a hamburger."
"But...but there's...there's olives in it."
"I know. Disgusting, isn't it? And look, bleu cheese chunks."
"That's horrifying."
"A crime against god and man, no question. Do you want to buy it?"
"You are high, aren't you?"
--
Then there was the thing with the checkout girl. I shouldn't say girl--I should say woman, because she was 40 if she was a day, and wearing a wedding ring, and obviously thought we were as crazy as we were gay. But the whole drive home, with Holmes happily changing the music every fifteen seconds from the passenger seat, he talked about her--how into me she'd been, how everyone could see it, how I was blind to the call of love--
"Shut up," I snapped finally, and it's a sign of how pissed I must have sounded that he did. We didn't talk for the rest of the drive, but when we got home he flicked a seed from the apple he'd bitten into in the store at me.
He's lucky I was so quick to understand his language. No one sane would have taken that for the peace offering it was.
We split the load going up the stairs; even then, I appreciated the way he didn't pander to me, or treat me like I was a fucking cripple. He laughed at me when I stumbled trying to unlock the door with twenty pounds of food hanging from my arms, and he smiled when I smacked him on the back of the head as he was unloading the vodka.
"You wanna watch a movie?" he said, and I did.
♟
It was about two weeks later--well, shit. Before I tell you about that I should probably contextualize this story, huh? I should have done that first--look, I'm not a writer by nature, okay? And anyway, when you room with a guy like Holmes you learn to live without context, and sometimes I forget people need it.
But, anyway. When I met him it was--September? Yeah, that's right. I'd been in Iraq until I got shot in March, and then I spent a couple of hellish months at Walter Reed in DC, being treated by doctors who couldn't find their own asses with both hands. I knew I wanted to go to med school, but my grandfather, who'd pretty much raised me after my parents died, got sick in June, so I went back home to take care of him. I took classes there until the end of August, he died the first of September, I got the fuck out of dodge a week later, and that about catches you up.
So, yeah--where was I? Right, two weeks after the grocery store. Well, no--two days after the grocery store, I guess, would be more accurate, because that's when the dreams started. They were innocent enough at first--Holmes and me playing video games, Holmes and me eating chicken wings.
And then they got...less innocent.
First it was his hands. I had dreams about his hands, just his hands, hours and hours of these dreams, unavoidable. And then it was his cheekbones, and then it was his hands on my cheekbones--and then it was the dip of his stomach and the curve of his ass and his cock and mine and--
Well, I'm sure you get the picture. It's not like you have much time to sleep as a first year med student, especially when you're catching up on two weeks of missed material and living with Sherlock Holmes, but what sleep I was getting was, uh, fitful. Which is why, two weeks after--see, I knew we'd get here eventually--two weeks after the grocery store, I was sitting on the couch at 5 AM, playing online poker.
Oh, shut up. You try having gay dreams about your roommate every time you fall asleep. See if you can keep yourself from your vices.
Anyway, I was sitting there, right? And suddenly Holmes' door opened, and instead of Holmes tumbling out it was Clarkie, the little redheaded fraternity pledge that followed Lestrade everywhere. His hair was mussed and there were bitemarks on his neck and he was smiling, the way you do after you've been fucked rotten.
With a sinking sensation, I remembered Holmes saying how much fun this one was stoned.
He froze when he noticed me, the smile slipping off of his face. "Fuck," he hissed, "fuck, man, please don't Lestrade, he's a real dick about this kind of thing--"
"Relax," I said, turning back to my game. "I'm not really interested in outing you. You might want to cover up those hickeys before you see him, though."
Clarkie's hand flew to his neck, and he blushed a brilliant crimson. "Uh, thanks," he said. "And, uh, I have to go before Holmes--"
"Wakes up?" I finished. He blushed deeper, and I rolled my eyes at him. "Maturity in this kind of situation is advised, kid."
"Right," he said faintly, and ran.
I was still sitting on the couch, trying to convince myself that I wasn't jealous--because that would have been ridiculous, Holmes was my roommate and that was all--when the devil himself emerged from the bedroom. His hair too was tousled, and he was whistling cheerfully to himself, moving toward the fridge. It was clear the he hadn't seen me.
I thought it was high time I corrected that.
"Sleeping with undergrads? Classy, Holmes."
He jumped about a foot in the air. "Shit, man, you scared the crap out of me!"
"Sorry," I said, not meaning it. He eyed me warily, and then sighed and flipped on the light, moving to the fridge.
"I guess it's just as well," he said. "Better now that later, all things considered."
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I watched him unscrew the top on the orange juice bottle, confused. "Use a glass," I said, "that's my orange juice."
He laughed a little bitterly. "Like you're not moving out this afternoon. Might as well take what I can get."
"Moving out? Why would I--" And then it dawned on. "Dude. You think I'm going to move out because I caught you scoring some underage tail?"
"It's more that he has a dick," Holmes said. "And anyway, he's not underage, I checked. He turned 18--ew, god, I can't believe I'm having this conversation."
"Neither can I," I said, laughing. "Let me be more precise--I don't really give a fuck who you're screwing, male, female or otherwise."
He eyed me speculatively. "Pretty much just male," he said, like a test. I shrugged. "Entirely male, actually."
"Is there a way to be clearer than 'I don't give a fuck'?" I wondered aloud, and he cracked a small smile and took a swig from the orange juice carton. "Hey! I do give a fuck about you using a glass."
His smile widened into a full-fledged grin. "No you don't," he said easily. I rolled my eyes and went back to my game, and I heard the fridge door shut and a few quick footsteps before I felt the couch sink under his weight next to me.
And then--well. I don't know why I did it, but I know that I didn't glance up from my screen, and I pitched my voice firmly in the realm of casual inquiry. "So. Are you dating the ginger underling?"
Holmes laughed. "No, man, fuck that. I don't date, really."
"Why not?"
I felt the back of the couch move with his shrug. "Waste of time, I think. People just want things from you; you have to call them and buy them shit and spend all your time with them--it's overrated. Fucking is all well and good, I go a little nuts if I don't get laid on the regular, but I don't see the point in doing anything more."
The sinking sensation in my stomach reached critical mass and exploded. On the one hand, it was a good thing--the army teaches you pretty fucking quick not to shit where you eat, and so the whole thing had been stupid anyway. Still, I had been thinking--
--but it didn't matter. I'm a commitment guy, always have been, and you can't have a one night stand with your own roommate.
"So," he said, "how about you? I've usually got a pretty good read on these things, but you've got the whole army-brat thing going for you. Jams up my gaydar."
"That's not what army brat means," I told him, exasperated, for the tenth time since I'd met him. "And I think the party line on the topic is 'don't ask, don't tell.'"
He grinned at me, his eyes going terrifyingly bright. "Weeeelll," he said, looking me over, "we're going to have to take you to the clubs."
♟
I lived in fear over the next month, waiting for him to pounce and drag me out dancing, but I shouldn't have worried. Schoolwork, the bitterest of burdens, came upon us like something really fucking awful, and neither of us had time to think about anything else. And let me say this--Holmes without a ton of work? Terrifying. Likely to get into all sorts of trouble. Takes apart necessary electronic appliances. Blows things up.
Holmes with a ton of work? Entirely as terrifying, for entirely different reasons.
"That's my shirt," I told him on Tuesday. It was peeking out under his sweater and over his favorite cargos, the crisp white corner revealing its true owner. Holmes doesn't buy nice white button downs. I've learned that doesn't mean he doesn't wear them.
He shrugged. "I'm borrowing it."
"You're going to get explosion on it."
"Watson," he said, smiling at me, "that sentence didn't even make sense. You've got to start sleeping."
"No time," I said, groaning and grabbing an apple from the counter. "I'm going to fail out of med school if I don't stay awake for the next--uh--five days. Design me a chemical stimulant?"
"No tiiiiiiime," he sighed, taking my apple and giving me a banana instead. I wanted to argue, but he gave me a look that spoke extensively about potassium and electrolytes, and I didn't want to have that argument with him again. "I've got to get four classes full of fucking idiots ready for the midterms I refuse to dumb down for them, and if I don't have the backup research to show Moriarty by Friday he's going to eat me alive."
"I still can't believe you work for a Professor Moriarty," I said, taking his backpack from him and adjusting the strap. He rolled his eyes at me, but I'd seen bigger guys hurt themselves with lighter bags by being idiots. "Jesus Christ, are you trying to give yourself scoliosis? What do you have in here, bricks?"
"Yes," he said, "bricks, that's right, to torment you for insisting on fixing the damn thing. And I told you before, I didn't know about the Holmes connection when I got accepted here."
"How is that even possible?" I asked, as he pulled the bag back from me, settled it over one shoulder, and gestured for me to follow him through the threshold. "Didn't you read them?"
"The Holmes books?" he asked, aghast. "Of course not!" I turned around the second I got outside, realizing I'd forgotten my cane, but he was already locking the door and bounding down the stairs. I sighed, decided not to make a thing of it, and followed him, albeit slowly.
"You never read the books?!"
"If your kind but bordering-on-sadistic parents had named you Beezlebub," he said, throwing a scowl back at me, "would you have read Milton? I don't think so."
"Still, they're--" I stumbled, let out a harsh breath and winced. It was raining; my leg was killing me.
Holmes took one glance back and raised his eyebrows at me. "Idiot," he said gruffly, and he was up the stairs and back down with my cane before I could stop him. "You're really fucking stupid in the mornings, you know that?"
"Yeah, well, that's still my shirt."
He threw me one of the strange half smiles that I'd learned meant he was pleased with himself. "Looks better on me," he said, "and I won't get explosion on it. Much, anyway."
"Riiiight," I sighed, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
He grinned at me, then grimaced at the light outside and hastily pulled on his sunglasses. "Fuck, I need coffee. Give me a ride on your way to the library?"
"You're buying me some dark roast," I told him. He flipped me the finger, but he did buy me the coffee, so that was all right.
--
I didn't see him again until the following night. I'd been alternating between the library and the coffeeshop, popping the occasional pilfered Adderal to keep myself awake, so it was kind of a relief when I got a text.
Then I actually, y'know, read it, and was considerably less relieved.
From: Forest Holmes
Appleseed. Meet me @ this study session or bail me outta jail when i snap, your call. Gonna kill one of these fucking spawn. Just got asked to explain valence electrons--WTF??? Starved for intelligent convo, and i got your shirt dirty. Bring coffee.
I considered ignoring it, but there was always the possibility the crazy fuck actually would kill someone. I sighed, packed up my shit, walked across campus, and settled myself down in the back of Holmes' classroom. A student was standing in the front of the room, tremulously reciting an answer to a problem. She looked--well, she looked terrified.
Granted, that could have been because her TA was sitting at the desk behind her, beating his head against the wooden surface.
"Is that right?" she finished, when she'd gone through all the steps. Holmes rested his head against the desk and sighed.
"Yes," he said, "by some unholy coincidence, yes, though your reasoning was entirely wrong and I can't imagine--aaaaargh. You know what? Home. Go home. All of you go home, I can't do this any more today, come to tomorrow's review session if you'd like to continue torturing me. "
They shuffled out, the 25 dedicated students who'd stuck it out this long, and I made my way up to Holmes' hunched form. He didn't look up, so I put the coffee down next to him and rested my hand on his back.
"Oh, Appleseed," he said, remaining entirely still, "you brought me coffee, you do love me."
"Don't read in to it," I advised. "How'd you manage to get the back of my shirt this filthy?"
"I made a miscalculation," he admitted, rolling so that his cheek was flat against the desk and he was looking up at my with one eye. There was a florid burn gracing the side of his face, and when my hand moved from his back as though to touch it, I realized I needed to put it in my pocket. He didn't seem to notice, though, just started rambling about experiments gone awry and physical damage sustained and how there was nothing that could have been done--
It took me a minute to realize that, in his roundabout way, he was trying to apologize. I smiled at him.
"It's okay," I said. "I don't even really like that shirt."
"Of course it's okay," he returned snidely, "I did it for the good of science. Fuck, my face hurts."
"Have you had anyone look at it?" I asked. He shrugged and sat up, gesturing at his face like he was Vanna fucking White.
"You're the doctor," he said. I sighed, dropping my bags.
"That's just not true," I told him, but I took his face in my hands and took a look at the burn anyway. "You're lucky this didn't get you in the eye."
"Would've," he muttered. "Googles."
"Useful things," I agreed, trying to keep my breath in check. It had suddenly occurred to me that being this close to a man I'd been fantasizing about for five weeks was probably not the best decision ever. Every time he breathed his jaw moved slightly, and I tried to focus on the burn, on what he was saying, on anything but tilting his chin up and kissing him.
It wasn't exactly easy, I've gotta tell you.
"I think you're going to live," I said, after a long minute. My voice was even, thank fucking god. "Second degree, it looks like--we'll stop and grab you some ointment. You should get it checked by a real doctor, though."
I released his face and stepped back. He smiled at me, pulled a long drink from his coffee cup, and said "I think I'm good. You wanna head home?"
"God, yes. There are so many fucking people in that library now--"
"Underspawn," Holmes agreed darkly. "Midterm season is such a bitch."
"They're so loud," I moaned. "At least in the apartment I'll be able to hear myself think."
We made our way back to the apartment--I think he drove my car, but I can't be sure. We climbed the stairs, discussing the benefits of a quiet and distraction free environment all the while, and then I stepped in front of him and opened the door.
"Oh my god," I said, faintly. Then: "Holmes, oh my fucking god."
"What?" he said behind me, elbowing me. "What is it? Have we been robbed? Let me see, you stupid--gigantic--"
He stood on tiptoe and put his head over my shoulder to peer in. "Oh my god," he said. Then: "Watson, oh my fucking god."
There was the television. The Wii. The Xbox. Holmes' collection of zombie movies. My collection of $5 dollar DVDs. The bong. The beer.
"How do we live like this," he managed, aghast. "Oh fucking--we'll never get anything done."
"I know," I said, unable to step forward. "Fuck, we've got the DVR recording--"
"Don't talk about it," he moaned. Then he straightened and took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay. We can't panic about this. There's a logical solution. We'll just--okay. I'll use the desk in your bedroom, and you'll use the desk in mine. It's not our stuff, right? So we'll be fine. It'll be fine."
"You're a fucking genius," I told him, and made a beeline for his door.
Sixty seconds later, I met him in the living room.
"You have a bed in there!" he cried. "A bed, do you know how long it's been since I slept--"
"There's one in your room too," I returned, feeling terror itch its way past the exhaustion underneath my eyelids. "At least, I think there is, there was a lot of stuff on it--"
"We have to get all the stuff out of here," he said, ignoring me. "You take the Wii--no, you'll use it, you can't start beating me at MarioKart, I'll take the Wii--"
"You think I have time to play the fucking Wii?!" I cried.
"Right," he said, dazedly. Between the circles under his eyes and the burn on his cheek and the hair everywhere, he looked about ready to snap. I was torn between the desire to punch him in the fact and the desire to pull him close and hold on to him until he looked more sane, or until one of us fell asleep.
Admittedly, that's kind of my general state, but it was particularly strong that night.
"I'll take the Wii," I said. "You take the Xbox, the DVDs can go under the sink and I'll throw a sheet over the TV. Do you think Clarkie'll run and buy us cigs if we let him borrow your bong for the night?"
"But--but my baby," he said, looking at it longingly.
"Your baby can't be here," I told him sternly. "It'll only distract you. Do you think we should padlock the fridge?"
"I'd just pick it," he said. "I need a fucking beer anyway."
"Point," I said wearily. "So--moving time?"
"Yeah."
We made quick work of it. When we were done--when Clarkie, looking like he couldn't believe his luck, had pulled the bong from Holmes' resisting fingers and handed me a carton of Camels, when the kitchen table had been turned into a makeshift lab, we settled down on the couch with books and laptops and highlights and beer.
"Wake me if I fall asleep," he told me.
"Ditto," I said, and we began.
Rating: R
Pairing: Holmes/Watson (currently pre-slash)
Warnings: Alcohol and marijuana use, general debauchery, copious use of coarse language
Spoilers: None, except for Chapter One of this story.
Author's Notes: This is a fill for an AWESOME prompt at shkinkmeme; both the prompt and the fill thread can be found here. I will continue posting the chapters bit-by-bit there and then archiving them on my journal for the duration of this story.
Chapter Summary: John Watson observes his new roommate in his natural habitat, falls victim to some decidedly unwelcome dreams, and really needs a fucking beer.
Chapter Two: On The Pitfalls of Observing Insanity Once Escape Is No Longer Possible
Two days later, I got back from a meeting confirming my transfer, laden down with my class schedule and sixteen different forms I had to fill out by Monday. I was feeling pretty good about myself when I walked through the door to our apartment, where Holmes, predictably enough, was sitting on the couch, surrounded by crap. His favorite bowl, never far from his side, was sitting idle on the coffee table, and he appeared to be playing Dawn of the Dead on his Wii with one hand and typing on his laptop with the other. A cigarette was hanging from his mouth, the ash threatening to drop on to his leg at any time.
I crossed the room in two steps, pulled the cig from his mouth, ashed it into an empty cup and took a drag. "Hey."
"I was smoking that," he said, jerking his wrist to behead a particularly bloodthirsty onscreen zombie. Then he seemed to realize I was there, and hit pause. "Hey! How'd your meeting go?"
"I'm in," I told him, handing the cigarette back. He grinned and gave me a thumbs up, then took it, watching me drop my bag and head towards the kitchen. "Did you get the chance to go to the grocery store? I'm starving."
"Yeah," he said, turning back to the game. "Fuck, man, these zombies are gonna be the death of me."
"You might have better luck if you stopped with the computer."
"Multitasking!" he called. Smiling despite myself, I opened a cupboard, wondering what he'd bought.
I closed the cupboard. I opened the fridge.
"Holmes," I said slowly, "what the fuck?"
"What the fuck what?"
"You said you went to the grocery store."
"I did!" he replied, twisting around on the couch to face me and still playing the game. "There's stuff in there!"
"As far as I can see," I said, glaring at him, "you bought four different kinds of beer--and one of them says 'raspberry' on it, what the hell, man--"
"I was intrigued!"
"--six kinds of cereal," I continued, ignoring him, "a container of fruit punch and three things I've never heard of. Did you buy toilet paper?"
"Shit, no."
"Coffee?"
"I knew I forgot--"
"Milk?"
"Yeah!" he said, brightening. "But I drank it."
I stared. "You drank an entire gallon of--"
"Don't be stupid," he cried, laughing a little. "I only bought a pint. I had cereal for lunch."
"You only bought--" I stopped. Repeating the facts to him would not make them any less insane. "Okay. I know you must have been dropped on your head as a child or something, but this? This is not grocery shopping."
"Why not?" he said. Something on the screen growled and he waved the WiiMote behind his back, killing an approaching zombie with perfect accuracy. "I bought food!'
"Get up," I said.
"No."
"We are going to the fucking grocery store."
"You just got into medical school! We should celebrate with--"
"You are learning to grocery shop."
"Can I at least smoke a bowl before we--"
"I was at that restaurant with you the other day," I snapped, "do you think I am so quick to forget? The solution to this problem is not to let you get high and buy everything in the goddamn store. This is not that hard. Come on."
"I don't want to," he muttered sullenly.
"Yes, well, I don't particularly enjoy having to play babysitter to a guy who's supposed to be my roommate--"
"Fine," he snapped, "but I get to drive."
--
"This is your car?" He glared at me, but I couldn't help myself. It was ridiculous. "You've got a complex about being named after a detective, and this is your car?"
"Shut up," he muttered. I laughed out loud.
"Holmes, this is the fucking Mystery Mobile!"
"No it's not!" he cried. "I know it's a little...van-ish...and a little, um, green--"
"It's not a little 'van-ish,'" I corrected, choking on my own mirth, "or a little green. It's a fucking turquoise van! Where did you even get it?"
"It used be Miles'--it was cheap, ok? Fuck," he added, swinging into the driver's seat. "Just get in, alright?"
I did. The inside of the car--of the van, of the turquoise fucking van--was decidedly less horrifying, mostly because of the tricked-out speaker system adorning it. Holmes caressed it lovingly.
"Installed her myself," he said, pulling his iPod out of his pocket and putting on a song I didn't recognize. It was loud, and I would have protested, but that's when he pulled out of the parking space.
A note: the craziest thing about Holmes? Yeah, that'd be his driving.
We screamed the fuck out of that parking lot--and look, I've been shot at and I've seen shit blow up and there is shrapnel embedded in my goddamn leg. I know from terror, okay? That said, you've never been in a car with this asshole. He laughs in the face of stop signs, he scoffs at pedestrians, and he keeps the music all the way up while he does it. I saw my life flash before my eyes as we made the first turn.
"Jesus Christ," I snapped--no, that's not right.
"Jesus Christ," I fucking YELLED, because it was the only way to be heard over the--I swear to god--subwoofer he had lounging in the back of the van. "Drive much?"
"Live a little," he cried back, cranking the volume up another two notches. I gripped the door handle and felt my knuckles go white.
"This is not a recipe for life, Holmes! Decidedly the opposite!"
"Yeah, yeah," he laughed. "C'mon, Appleseed, a little danger never hurt anyone. You love it."
I didn't even bother dignifying that with a response.
--
We made the fifteen minute drive in eight minutes flat; given city traffic, that should give you some idea of what it was like in that death trap. Still, without any guidance he ended up at the cheapest grocery in town, for which I could only give him points.
"I'm driving back," I said, slamming my door and resisting the urge to kiss the ground. He just shrugged and wandered toward the store, and--
Okay. I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention that I'm not, uh, particularly interested in sex of the heterosexual variety. It's not for lack of trying--believe me, it's not for lack of trying. My family would be horrified if they were still around to find out, and the military isn't exactly tolerant, but there's nothing to be done about it. I like cock. I try not to let it run my life.
Which is why it was really fucking disconcerting to notice that I was staring at my crazy new roommate's ass. My crazy new roommates' very nice ass.
I shook off that ridiculous thought and followed him into the store, where he immediately reached for a basket. I grabbed him arm to stop him, and was surprised when he jumped at the touch.
"No no," I said, trying to ignore my own reaction at how warm his skin was under my palm, "not one of those."
"Why not?" he asked, honestly confused. "I always--"
"Shop with one?" I finished dryly. "Because you buy enough food to last you six hours? Yeah, I kind of figured." I grabbed a buggy and wheeled it over, bumping him with it.
"This is a cart," I told him, exaggerating my pronunciation a little--well, maybe a lot. "People use this when they need to buy more food. It has wheels--"
"I know what a cart is," he snapped, scowling. "And you suck."
"Awwww, did I ruffle Forest's little feathers?"
"Stop calling me that."
"Stop calling me Appleseed."
"You're already in my phone that way," he said, grinning triumphantly. "So it's much too late--ooh, starfruit. What do you think that tastes like?"
It took us twenty minutes to get out of the produce section. I wanted to buy bananas and apples and clementines, normal, regular food--he spent an inordinate amount of time making a case for a coconut. I was already regretting bringing him along (he has to learn, I told myself, he has to learn) when we turned the corner and ended up in the freezer section.
"I forgot to buy ice cream earlier," he said, his tone shocked and bordering on horrified. "Watson, I forgot to buy ice cream. What--I--I don't know who I am anymore."
I thought about his driving, and his wide eyed horror over ice cream, and his dirty habits, and a horrible thought occurred to me.
"Are you high?" I demanded. He looked up at me, dazed, and then smiled brilliantly. And I--well. It distracted me for a second. I might have blushed, a little. It doesn't matter, he didn't see it.
"You're right," he said, "I can't be blamed for forgetting the ice cream. I was stoned before, that's not my fault."
I was still reeling, unexpected attacks of libido being more than a little crippling, so he'd turned around to stare lovingly at the frozen confectionaries again before I processed that.
"You DROVE to the store while you were HIGH?!" I yelled. He whipped around and glared at me.
"Yell a little louder, why don't you," he hissed, furious. "I'd love to get arrested--"
"Well I'd love it if you didn't fucking kill someone--"
"Maybe if you'd gone to the store yourself I wouldn't have had to--"
"Nobody has to drive stoned--"
"Okay!" he said, throwing his hands up. "We're arguing in front of the ice cream, that's not right. To answer your first question, no, I am not currently high. To present you with a second question: Rocky Road or Moose Tracks?"
"We're not done talking about how fucking stupid it is to--"
"You're right," he said, turning away and opening the freezer case, "we need both."
--
The deli section. How do I begin to explain Holmes in the deli section?
"Braunswager is not a food, it's a byproduct."
"It's a food," he said, picking up the tube and eyeing it speculatively. "They sell it in the grocery store, it has to be edible."
I despaired of my life. "They sell dishwashing soap at the grocery store."
"That could be edible," he said, poking at the tube of pinkish horror. "Given enough time in the lab--"
"I mean without chemically redesigning it."
--
"But I like pig knuckles!"
"Have you ever tried them?"
"I could have tried them, you don't know."
"But have you, in fact, tried them?"
"Well, not in so many words--"
"Leave them, Holmes."
"You're no fun."
--
"Watson. Watson, look."
"Is that....what is that?"
"I think it's some kind of...um. I think it's supposed to be a hamburger."
"But...but there's...there's olives in it."
"I know. Disgusting, isn't it? And look, bleu cheese chunks."
"That's horrifying."
"A crime against god and man, no question. Do you want to buy it?"
"You are high, aren't you?"
--
Then there was the thing with the checkout girl. I shouldn't say girl--I should say woman, because she was 40 if she was a day, and wearing a wedding ring, and obviously thought we were as crazy as we were gay. But the whole drive home, with Holmes happily changing the music every fifteen seconds from the passenger seat, he talked about her--how into me she'd been, how everyone could see it, how I was blind to the call of love--
"Shut up," I snapped finally, and it's a sign of how pissed I must have sounded that he did. We didn't talk for the rest of the drive, but when we got home he flicked a seed from the apple he'd bitten into in the store at me.
He's lucky I was so quick to understand his language. No one sane would have taken that for the peace offering it was.
We split the load going up the stairs; even then, I appreciated the way he didn't pander to me, or treat me like I was a fucking cripple. He laughed at me when I stumbled trying to unlock the door with twenty pounds of food hanging from my arms, and he smiled when I smacked him on the back of the head as he was unloading the vodka.
"You wanna watch a movie?" he said, and I did.
♟
It was about two weeks later--well, shit. Before I tell you about that I should probably contextualize this story, huh? I should have done that first--look, I'm not a writer by nature, okay? And anyway, when you room with a guy like Holmes you learn to live without context, and sometimes I forget people need it.
But, anyway. When I met him it was--September? Yeah, that's right. I'd been in Iraq until I got shot in March, and then I spent a couple of hellish months at Walter Reed in DC, being treated by doctors who couldn't find their own asses with both hands. I knew I wanted to go to med school, but my grandfather, who'd pretty much raised me after my parents died, got sick in June, so I went back home to take care of him. I took classes there until the end of August, he died the first of September, I got the fuck out of dodge a week later, and that about catches you up.
So, yeah--where was I? Right, two weeks after the grocery store. Well, no--two days after the grocery store, I guess, would be more accurate, because that's when the dreams started. They were innocent enough at first--Holmes and me playing video games, Holmes and me eating chicken wings.
And then they got...less innocent.
First it was his hands. I had dreams about his hands, just his hands, hours and hours of these dreams, unavoidable. And then it was his cheekbones, and then it was his hands on my cheekbones--and then it was the dip of his stomach and the curve of his ass and his cock and mine and--
Well, I'm sure you get the picture. It's not like you have much time to sleep as a first year med student, especially when you're catching up on two weeks of missed material and living with Sherlock Holmes, but what sleep I was getting was, uh, fitful. Which is why, two weeks after--see, I knew we'd get here eventually--two weeks after the grocery store, I was sitting on the couch at 5 AM, playing online poker.
Oh, shut up. You try having gay dreams about your roommate every time you fall asleep. See if you can keep yourself from your vices.
Anyway, I was sitting there, right? And suddenly Holmes' door opened, and instead of Holmes tumbling out it was Clarkie, the little redheaded fraternity pledge that followed Lestrade everywhere. His hair was mussed and there were bitemarks on his neck and he was smiling, the way you do after you've been fucked rotten.
With a sinking sensation, I remembered Holmes saying how much fun this one was stoned.
He froze when he noticed me, the smile slipping off of his face. "Fuck," he hissed, "fuck, man, please don't Lestrade, he's a real dick about this kind of thing--"
"Relax," I said, turning back to my game. "I'm not really interested in outing you. You might want to cover up those hickeys before you see him, though."
Clarkie's hand flew to his neck, and he blushed a brilliant crimson. "Uh, thanks," he said. "And, uh, I have to go before Holmes--"
"Wakes up?" I finished. He blushed deeper, and I rolled my eyes at him. "Maturity in this kind of situation is advised, kid."
"Right," he said faintly, and ran.
I was still sitting on the couch, trying to convince myself that I wasn't jealous--because that would have been ridiculous, Holmes was my roommate and that was all--when the devil himself emerged from the bedroom. His hair too was tousled, and he was whistling cheerfully to himself, moving toward the fridge. It was clear the he hadn't seen me.
I thought it was high time I corrected that.
"Sleeping with undergrads? Classy, Holmes."
He jumped about a foot in the air. "Shit, man, you scared the crap out of me!"
"Sorry," I said, not meaning it. He eyed me warily, and then sighed and flipped on the light, moving to the fridge.
"I guess it's just as well," he said. "Better now that later, all things considered."
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I watched him unscrew the top on the orange juice bottle, confused. "Use a glass," I said, "that's my orange juice."
He laughed a little bitterly. "Like you're not moving out this afternoon. Might as well take what I can get."
"Moving out? Why would I--" And then it dawned on. "Dude. You think I'm going to move out because I caught you scoring some underage tail?"
"It's more that he has a dick," Holmes said. "And anyway, he's not underage, I checked. He turned 18--ew, god, I can't believe I'm having this conversation."
"Neither can I," I said, laughing. "Let me be more precise--I don't really give a fuck who you're screwing, male, female or otherwise."
He eyed me speculatively. "Pretty much just male," he said, like a test. I shrugged. "Entirely male, actually."
"Is there a way to be clearer than 'I don't give a fuck'?" I wondered aloud, and he cracked a small smile and took a swig from the orange juice carton. "Hey! I do give a fuck about you using a glass."
His smile widened into a full-fledged grin. "No you don't," he said easily. I rolled my eyes and went back to my game, and I heard the fridge door shut and a few quick footsteps before I felt the couch sink under his weight next to me.
And then--well. I don't know why I did it, but I know that I didn't glance up from my screen, and I pitched my voice firmly in the realm of casual inquiry. "So. Are you dating the ginger underling?"
Holmes laughed. "No, man, fuck that. I don't date, really."
"Why not?"
I felt the back of the couch move with his shrug. "Waste of time, I think. People just want things from you; you have to call them and buy them shit and spend all your time with them--it's overrated. Fucking is all well and good, I go a little nuts if I don't get laid on the regular, but I don't see the point in doing anything more."
The sinking sensation in my stomach reached critical mass and exploded. On the one hand, it was a good thing--the army teaches you pretty fucking quick not to shit where you eat, and so the whole thing had been stupid anyway. Still, I had been thinking--
--but it didn't matter. I'm a commitment guy, always have been, and you can't have a one night stand with your own roommate.
"So," he said, "how about you? I've usually got a pretty good read on these things, but you've got the whole army-brat thing going for you. Jams up my gaydar."
"That's not what army brat means," I told him, exasperated, for the tenth time since I'd met him. "And I think the party line on the topic is 'don't ask, don't tell.'"
He grinned at me, his eyes going terrifyingly bright. "Weeeelll," he said, looking me over, "we're going to have to take you to the clubs."
♟
I lived in fear over the next month, waiting for him to pounce and drag me out dancing, but I shouldn't have worried. Schoolwork, the bitterest of burdens, came upon us like something really fucking awful, and neither of us had time to think about anything else. And let me say this--Holmes without a ton of work? Terrifying. Likely to get into all sorts of trouble. Takes apart necessary electronic appliances. Blows things up.
Holmes with a ton of work? Entirely as terrifying, for entirely different reasons.
"That's my shirt," I told him on Tuesday. It was peeking out under his sweater and over his favorite cargos, the crisp white corner revealing its true owner. Holmes doesn't buy nice white button downs. I've learned that doesn't mean he doesn't wear them.
He shrugged. "I'm borrowing it."
"You're going to get explosion on it."
"Watson," he said, smiling at me, "that sentence didn't even make sense. You've got to start sleeping."
"No time," I said, groaning and grabbing an apple from the counter. "I'm going to fail out of med school if I don't stay awake for the next--uh--five days. Design me a chemical stimulant?"
"No tiiiiiiime," he sighed, taking my apple and giving me a banana instead. I wanted to argue, but he gave me a look that spoke extensively about potassium and electrolytes, and I didn't want to have that argument with him again. "I've got to get four classes full of fucking idiots ready for the midterms I refuse to dumb down for them, and if I don't have the backup research to show Moriarty by Friday he's going to eat me alive."
"I still can't believe you work for a Professor Moriarty," I said, taking his backpack from him and adjusting the strap. He rolled his eyes at me, but I'd seen bigger guys hurt themselves with lighter bags by being idiots. "Jesus Christ, are you trying to give yourself scoliosis? What do you have in here, bricks?"
"Yes," he said, "bricks, that's right, to torment you for insisting on fixing the damn thing. And I told you before, I didn't know about the Holmes connection when I got accepted here."
"How is that even possible?" I asked, as he pulled the bag back from me, settled it over one shoulder, and gestured for me to follow him through the threshold. "Didn't you read them?"
"The Holmes books?" he asked, aghast. "Of course not!" I turned around the second I got outside, realizing I'd forgotten my cane, but he was already locking the door and bounding down the stairs. I sighed, decided not to make a thing of it, and followed him, albeit slowly.
"You never read the books?!"
"If your kind but bordering-on-sadistic parents had named you Beezlebub," he said, throwing a scowl back at me, "would you have read Milton? I don't think so."
"Still, they're--" I stumbled, let out a harsh breath and winced. It was raining; my leg was killing me.
Holmes took one glance back and raised his eyebrows at me. "Idiot," he said gruffly, and he was up the stairs and back down with my cane before I could stop him. "You're really fucking stupid in the mornings, you know that?"
"Yeah, well, that's still my shirt."
He threw me one of the strange half smiles that I'd learned meant he was pleased with himself. "Looks better on me," he said, "and I won't get explosion on it. Much, anyway."
"Riiiight," I sighed, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
He grinned at me, then grimaced at the light outside and hastily pulled on his sunglasses. "Fuck, I need coffee. Give me a ride on your way to the library?"
"You're buying me some dark roast," I told him. He flipped me the finger, but he did buy me the coffee, so that was all right.
--
I didn't see him again until the following night. I'd been alternating between the library and the coffeeshop, popping the occasional pilfered Adderal to keep myself awake, so it was kind of a relief when I got a text.
Then I actually, y'know, read it, and was considerably less relieved.
From: Forest Holmes
Appleseed. Meet me @ this study session or bail me outta jail when i snap, your call. Gonna kill one of these fucking spawn. Just got asked to explain valence electrons--WTF??? Starved for intelligent convo, and i got your shirt dirty. Bring coffee.
I considered ignoring it, but there was always the possibility the crazy fuck actually would kill someone. I sighed, packed up my shit, walked across campus, and settled myself down in the back of Holmes' classroom. A student was standing in the front of the room, tremulously reciting an answer to a problem. She looked--well, she looked terrified.
Granted, that could have been because her TA was sitting at the desk behind her, beating his head against the wooden surface.
"Is that right?" she finished, when she'd gone through all the steps. Holmes rested his head against the desk and sighed.
"Yes," he said, "by some unholy coincidence, yes, though your reasoning was entirely wrong and I can't imagine--aaaaargh. You know what? Home. Go home. All of you go home, I can't do this any more today, come to tomorrow's review session if you'd like to continue torturing me. "
They shuffled out, the 25 dedicated students who'd stuck it out this long, and I made my way up to Holmes' hunched form. He didn't look up, so I put the coffee down next to him and rested my hand on his back.
"Oh, Appleseed," he said, remaining entirely still, "you brought me coffee, you do love me."
"Don't read in to it," I advised. "How'd you manage to get the back of my shirt this filthy?"
"I made a miscalculation," he admitted, rolling so that his cheek was flat against the desk and he was looking up at my with one eye. There was a florid burn gracing the side of his face, and when my hand moved from his back as though to touch it, I realized I needed to put it in my pocket. He didn't seem to notice, though, just started rambling about experiments gone awry and physical damage sustained and how there was nothing that could have been done--
It took me a minute to realize that, in his roundabout way, he was trying to apologize. I smiled at him.
"It's okay," I said. "I don't even really like that shirt."
"Of course it's okay," he returned snidely, "I did it for the good of science. Fuck, my face hurts."
"Have you had anyone look at it?" I asked. He shrugged and sat up, gesturing at his face like he was Vanna fucking White.
"You're the doctor," he said. I sighed, dropping my bags.
"That's just not true," I told him, but I took his face in my hands and took a look at the burn anyway. "You're lucky this didn't get you in the eye."
"Would've," he muttered. "Googles."
"Useful things," I agreed, trying to keep my breath in check. It had suddenly occurred to me that being this close to a man I'd been fantasizing about for five weeks was probably not the best decision ever. Every time he breathed his jaw moved slightly, and I tried to focus on the burn, on what he was saying, on anything but tilting his chin up and kissing him.
It wasn't exactly easy, I've gotta tell you.
"I think you're going to live," I said, after a long minute. My voice was even, thank fucking god. "Second degree, it looks like--we'll stop and grab you some ointment. You should get it checked by a real doctor, though."
I released his face and stepped back. He smiled at me, pulled a long drink from his coffee cup, and said "I think I'm good. You wanna head home?"
"God, yes. There are so many fucking people in that library now--"
"Underspawn," Holmes agreed darkly. "Midterm season is such a bitch."
"They're so loud," I moaned. "At least in the apartment I'll be able to hear myself think."
We made our way back to the apartment--I think he drove my car, but I can't be sure. We climbed the stairs, discussing the benefits of a quiet and distraction free environment all the while, and then I stepped in front of him and opened the door.
"Oh my god," I said, faintly. Then: "Holmes, oh my fucking god."
"What?" he said behind me, elbowing me. "What is it? Have we been robbed? Let me see, you stupid--gigantic--"
He stood on tiptoe and put his head over my shoulder to peer in. "Oh my god," he said. Then: "Watson, oh my fucking god."
There was the television. The Wii. The Xbox. Holmes' collection of zombie movies. My collection of $5 dollar DVDs. The bong. The beer.
"How do we live like this," he managed, aghast. "Oh fucking--we'll never get anything done."
"I know," I said, unable to step forward. "Fuck, we've got the DVR recording--"
"Don't talk about it," he moaned. Then he straightened and took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay. We can't panic about this. There's a logical solution. We'll just--okay. I'll use the desk in your bedroom, and you'll use the desk in mine. It's not our stuff, right? So we'll be fine. It'll be fine."
"You're a fucking genius," I told him, and made a beeline for his door.
Sixty seconds later, I met him in the living room.
"You have a bed in there!" he cried. "A bed, do you know how long it's been since I slept--"
"There's one in your room too," I returned, feeling terror itch its way past the exhaustion underneath my eyelids. "At least, I think there is, there was a lot of stuff on it--"
"We have to get all the stuff out of here," he said, ignoring me. "You take the Wii--no, you'll use it, you can't start beating me at MarioKart, I'll take the Wii--"
"You think I have time to play the fucking Wii?!" I cried.
"Right," he said, dazedly. Between the circles under his eyes and the burn on his cheek and the hair everywhere, he looked about ready to snap. I was torn between the desire to punch him in the fact and the desire to pull him close and hold on to him until he looked more sane, or until one of us fell asleep.
Admittedly, that's kind of my general state, but it was particularly strong that night.
"I'll take the Wii," I said. "You take the Xbox, the DVDs can go under the sink and I'll throw a sheet over the TV. Do you think Clarkie'll run and buy us cigs if we let him borrow your bong for the night?"
"But--but my baby," he said, looking at it longingly.
"Your baby can't be here," I told him sternly. "It'll only distract you. Do you think we should padlock the fridge?"
"I'd just pick it," he said. "I need a fucking beer anyway."
"Point," I said wearily. "So--moving time?"
"Yeah."
We made quick work of it. When we were done--when Clarkie, looking like he couldn't believe his luck, had pulled the bong from Holmes' resisting fingers and handed me a carton of Camels, when the kitchen table had been turned into a makeshift lab, we settled down on the couch with books and laptops and highlights and beer.
"Wake me if I fall asleep," he told me.
"Ditto," I said, and we began.