Sherlock Holmes Fic: History, Repeating Itself (Chapter Four, Holmes/Watson, R)
Title: History, Repeating Itself (Chapter Four)
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, Chapter Two and Chapter Three 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 goes camping and makes a declaration.
Chapter Four: On the Oddly Revelatory Nature of Wooded Areas
The storm that started the night at the club lasted for the next month. My eleventh grade English teacher would've called that pathetic fallacy, and my grandfather would have called it a sign of my damned poetical streak, and when Holmes eventually finds and reads this he'll laugh at me for being an exaggerating fucktard. Of all of them, he's the most right; it didn't rain for a month straight. Still, almost all of my memories are tinged with that sense of chilled October and icy November, the rain that's not quite snow sneaking in around my collar and making our apartment feel more like home than ever.
Then again, maybe that growing sense of comfort had less to do with the weather and more to do with my roommate. Things between Holmes and I had gotten--odd. For a lot of reasons, I think; partially because you can't exactly go through a full-scale psychological breakdown in front of someone and not get closer. Partially because Holmes was under a lot more stress then he'd ever mentioned to me, and had a lot fewer friends than I'd ever realized, not that I knew any of that then. Partially because the longer you live with someone, the better you get to know them.
Partially--well, mostly, really, if I'm honest--because I'd let myself see how I felt about him, and it colored everything he did.
And oh, what he did. He was still Holmes, Holmes to his core, obnoxious and impossible and stoned off his ass and pissing me off, but he was also...kind. In ways I couldn't argue with him over, in ways I couldn't resent. It was like he'd been tailor fucking cut to deal with me in the tender weeks after, when I was ashamed to look at myself, when I couldn't sleep without nightmares.
God, the nightmares. How many times did he shake me awake on the couch and just--look at me? Look at me, and when I told him that I was dreaming about the zombies from the movie or the undergrads taking over the earth, he pretended to believe me but didn't leave, just looked at me. Some nights, he looked so long that I opened my mouth and told him things, stories I'd heard from other guys and things I'd seen, and he listened, for once in his life.
And then in the morning he'd be eating my Cheerios in handfuls and drinking milk from the carton and laughing hysterically about how my hair was sticking up. Like nothing had happened. Like I hadn't turned into a pathetic mess the night before.
There were other things too. I got sick the first week of November, sick enough that I should probably have been in bed and wasn't--class was class, and it was just a cold. But he met me after each lecture, telling me ridiculous lies about how he didn't know how he'd gotten so stoned that he'd ordered himself tea instead of coffee but did I want it? And also, you know, he'd totally grabbed too many oranges this morning and would I please just fucking eat one, and "Hey man, I'll finish that cigarette--no, dude, not because you're coughing, because I want a cigarette."
It--god, it really didn't help my situation. Because, you know, I loved him when he was driving me up a fucking wall, I loved him when he was taking apart the air conditioner and duct taping "mysterious pieces" to the fridge. This other side of him, this side of him I was beginning to suspect was actually him--it was hard to bear. Where before I'd wanted to slam him into the door and kiss him quiet, I found myself longing to press against him in the frigid November squalls, covering my lips with his for long, tender minutes.
And look, the damned poetical streak after all.
But, I guess the other thing is this--it wasn't all one-sided, the strange soft kindness. When he got sick a week after I did, the same thing that I'd had but worse, I found myself in the grocery store at 4 AM, choosing between brands of canned soup. And then I found myself dragging him out of class when he almost collapsed--which I saw because I went to his class to make sure he wouldn't collapse--and putting him to bed on the couch, where I could make sure he wasn't working experiments. He said silly, half-mad things to me that day, feverish and crazy, while I played movie after horrible fucking movie and ignored all my schoolwork to talk to him.
When he got better, he changed all the passwords to my online poker accounts. "I don't want to watch you waste your money, dude," he told me, when I freaked the fuck out about it. "And you can have your email password back when I've figured out how to hack into the 'forgot your password' coding. You're welcome!"
He's a little bastard, right? I'm not crazy, right? He's a little bastard and I hate him, except when I don't, and at least I had the excuse of being hopelessly fucking in love with him to make my madness understandable. It got worse, you've got to understand, it got worse with every minute I spent in his company. Because--
Goddamn it. I can't explain him properly. I keep trying and I'm fucking it up, but I guess the best way is--he's like a car wreck, sort of, in the sense that you can't look away because he's such a disaster. But he's also like...like thinking you've stepped in dogshit only to lift up your shoe and find $20 instead. Because he surprises you, and actually even when he's impossible he's not, because he's smiling and smiling at you, and all you can think about is how to make him keep doing that, only closer. Much closer. Dangerously close.
But look, the point of all of this is: we went camping after I forgave him for the thing with my passwords and he forgave me for throwing out all of his socks in a fit of impassioned revenge. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Okay, I lied. I am not a stupid man, regardless of my choice in roommate, and so I had known it wasn't a good idea at the time. Going camping in November is never a good idea, no matter how freakishly warm the day. Going camping for one night only is never a good idea, no matter how limited your time.
Going camping with Sherlock Holmes is never a good idea, and I knew it well.
But when he pushed his way into the apartment on Saturday afternoon, he looked--defeated. Worse, he was clearly trying not to, forced smile firmly in place, head held high. It was only because I'd come to know him so well that I was able to see the hard line to his jaw, the knotted curve of his shoulder. The fucking circles under his eyes, ever-present and worrying.
"I want to go on vacation," he said, flopping down on the couch. "Immediately."
"It's Saturday," i reminded him. "No class, that's almost a vacation, right?"
"I want to get out of town," he complained. "I can't think of a single thing to do in this city except waste away in my lab or waste away on this fucking couch."
"You usually like wasting away on this fucking couch," I said, grinning softly. He caught my eye and smiled a little himself, a real smile, which was encouraging. "Besides, we're broke as shit. Where would be go?"
"Camping!" Holmes said at once, and I groaned.
"Holmes, it is November."
"It's like 70 outside!"
"Yeah, for today. But tomorrow it could go back down to--"
"Oh, don't be a pussy," he snapped, the hard line coming back to his jaw again. I stopped myself wincing at the expression just in time; he'd hate that.
"I'm not being a pussy," I said, in what I thought was a reasonable voice.
I expected him to reply with some variety of his usual snark, or sulk at me, or pack a bowl, or flip on the T.V. and mutter. Instead he looked at me, and replacing his normal slate-grey nonchalance was--fear? Fear or something decidedly like it, clouding his normal expression.
He opened his mouth and said, "Please," and he sounded--desperate. And, yeah, scared, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. What was I supposed to do?
I sighed and threw up my hands, and was rewarded with a full grin. I realized it was the first one I'd seen him give me in a couple of days, and started to wonder in earnest what the fuck was wrong with him. He was still a little bit sick, carrying the last dregs of that cold with him, but I didn't imagine that would freak him out. He hadn't been freaked out when he'd had a fever of 104, after all. I had been freaked out, and he'd called me a ninny. Stupid little shit.
"We don't have a tent," I told him. He dug his phone out of his pocket.
"No problem," he said, "Miles loves to camp."
Miles didn't love to camp. Miles hated to camp. I discovered an hour later, loading the car at the Clearinghouse. Irene loved to camp, and so Holmes had enlisted her help.
"I don't even know why I own a tent," he complained bitterly, helping me shove it into the tiny trunk of his convertible. That would have been a lot easier without all the alcohol in there. "I certainly don't own a tent to take it out in November."
"It'll be fun!" Irene cried from the passenger seat. She was filing her nails and calling helpful instructions to us occasionally. Holmes had been helping, and then he'd said "I have this theory," and Miles and I had shooed him away at once. He'd gone back into the bar to get more alcohol.
"Hey," Miles said, pitching his voice low, "before he gets back. Is everything okay? He looks kind of--"
"Crazed?" I returned, equally soft. Miles smiled sadly and nodded.
"Not that he doesn't always look that way," he returned, "but, yeah."
"I think he just needs to get out of town," I said. To my extreme surprise, Miles' face froze.
"Did he--say why?" he said, slowly. I stared at him.
"Noooo," I replied, equally slowly. "Well, actually, yeah--something about being bored with everything on the planet--"
"Oh!" Miles laughed, his face unfreezing. "The normal stuff, yeah, he gets that way. Just--just keep an eye on him, would you?"
"I always do," I returned, without even thinking about it. Under his sudden sharp stare, I blushed bright red; I could feel myself glowing like a goddamned tomato. "Uh, I mean, you know. Because we live together and stuff. No other reason."
"Right," Miles said, managing to keep a straight face about it, and discontinued his line of questioning.
We managed to get the tent into the trunk the same moment that Holmes came back out of the bar, holding two bottles of champagne.
"Veuve or Moet?" he asked.
"Neither," Miles snapped, at the same time Irene laughed "Both."
They glared at each other for a second. Then Miles sighed and waved a hand. Grinning, Holmes hopped into the car, tossing me one of the bottles. "Let's go," he said, leaning his head against the back of the car. "It's November, you know. This weather might not last."
His prediction turned out to be apt. By the time we reached the campsite the sun had gone down, and it was freezing--still warm for November, but freezing all the same. Miles and I wanted to head back, but Irene and Holmes blazed forward.
"You know, this hike would be easier in my own socks," Holmes complained, a mile from the car. "I mean, which I would have, if someone hadn't--"
"Shut up," Miles said, smacking him across the head. "You totally deserved it."
"I can't believe you're taking his side," Holmes grumbled. "Aren't you supposed to be my brother?"
"You're kind of a shithead, though," Miles said, his tone measured and reasonable. "I like him."
"Traitor," Holmes spat. "Going against your fraternal duties--"
"I don't think my fraternal duties extend to supporting you being ridiculous," Miles laughed.
"And I did replace the socks," I reminded him, poking him in the shoulder. "I thought we'd decided to let bygones be bygones." He glared at Miles and then smiled at me.
"You know," he said, "in the face of this new betrayal, I'm actually totally cool with you now. Miles is the common enemy."
"Hey!" Miles protested. He looked ready to put some more force into that protest, but then Irene was calling his name from up ahead.
"I found it!" she cried. "The perfect spot. Come on."
She was right--the place was perfect. There was a little stream and a hill within walking distance, a large flat space that would be perfect for a campfire. Holmes glanced over it, nodded his approval, and then turned to Miles and Irene.
"Right," he said. "Are you two planning on fucking on this trip?"
"No," Miles said, at the same time Irene said "Yes."
Miles' eyebrows shot up in surprise. They stared at each other, Irene grinning faintly.
"Are we?" Miles asked, sounding hopeful. Irene laughed and nodded. "But I thought--"
"No, I dumped him," Irene purred, stepping close. "He snored."
"I snore," Miles pointed out, putting his hands on her waist anyway. She snorted indelicately.
"You're built like a linebacker," she pointed out. "It's normal when you do it."
"Maybe you just don't like another man snoring," Miles said, reasonably enough. "I mean, a new snore would be hard to adjust to. Especially after you've gotten used to my…snore."
Irene blushed, Miles grinned, I looked away hastily, and--
"Um, ew," Holmes snapped. They broke away from each other at once, grinning and flushed. "Thus my point. You go set up tent over there. Way over there. I don't need to hear you grunting and groaning all night, and neither does Appleseed here."
"We don't--" Miles started.
"'Ohhhh, Miiiiiiiles,'" Holmes mocked, doing a dead-on impression of Irene. "'Yeah, like that, haaaaaarder--'"
"Hey!" they snapped together.
"I lived on your couch for two week, brother dear," Holmes said, eyeing Miles with distaste. "I know what you're like. Over there."
"Brat," Miles said. "You get the small tent."
"Like you weren't going to give me that anyway," he said snidely. Then Miles tossed it at him; he caught it by the stomach and started coughing. I rolled my eyes and snatched it from him.
"Camping in the cold still sound like a good idea?"
"Y-yes," he managed, glaring at me. "Just--winded me. I'm fine."
"Right, genius," I said, deciding to ignore everything else for now. "Do you have any idea how to set this thing up?"
Holmes had no idea how to set it up. He did have an idea of how to get both drunk and high while setting it up, which largely involved tossing a bottle of schnapps between the two of us and occasionally hitting the first of several joints he'd pre-rolled for the trip. I took a hit or two, partly to appease him and partly to assuage the fear already creeping up my back at the memories that came along with sleeping on the ground.
Yes, I know that it's ridiculous, but there you go.
We were still done before Miles and Irene, but I think that's because they'd been fucking while we'd been drinking. The tent didn't look much like it was supposed to--Holmes had decided to do some "functional redesign" with a large stick and a length of rappelling rope--but it held up, at least. We smiled proudly at our handiwork and then I went to build a fire.
"I think," he said, fifteen minutes into this endeavor, "that you're doing it wrong."
"Really?" I snapped. "Do you think that because of the lack of fire or because of the lack of fire?"
"Think it's the lack of fire, actually," he said idly, moving to try for himself. The laws of the universe being what they were, the damned sticks sparked immediately for him. He smirked at me and smirked at me, insufferable bastard. He smirked at me and I was, as always, moved to rip the expression right off his stupidly beautiful face.
Admittedly, my preferred methods of doing so probably wouldn't have done much to make him less cocky, but I could live with that if I had to.
Irene and Miles tumbled out then. Her hair was mussed and he was grinning, looking a lot like his brother despite their extensive differences. And in that moment I begrudged them both their happiness, my jealousy was so strong. In that moment I think I would have killed someone, to have the younger Holmes smiling that way at me.
Then I remembered that I was going to be sleeping approximately five inches from him when we went to bed, and promptly finished the bottle of schnapps. And a beer. And some more of that joint. It wasn't wise--I know that, I do. But it was all I had, man.
Holmes tells me that we smoked a lot of weed that night. Holmes tells me that I stripped naked and danced with the wolves, too, so it's hard to know what to believe. I remember roasting marshmallows with him leaning over me, shouting directions: "No, not like that, you'll burn it!" and "Waaaaatson, you're not doing it evenly!" and "Haven't you ever practiced this on a Bunsen burner before?"
I remember Miles jumping into the river on a dare and coming out with his lips blue. I remember realizing that we hadn't brought any food except marshmallows. I remember Holmes' face across the campfire, bright at laughing at a hideous hour of the morning, looking for all the world like he was part of the forest itself. I remember wanting him, wanting him with an aching, blazing yearning so deep I thought I was going to going to fall over in the throes of it.
And I remember when it was just the two of us, Holmes and me, huddled together close to the dying embers of the fire. I remember telling him, haltingly, about my family--about how my parents had died when I was a kid. About how my grandfather had raised us. About my brother, so deep in the heroin hole that he hadn't come to Granddad's funeral. About how much I hated the holidays, how much I was dreading them. I don't recall what brought it up. I don't recall what he said. I just remember feeling better, afterwards; better and worse, because I had him, but would never have him.
I woke up to the sound of birds chirping, two inches from Holmes' face.
"Fuck," I hissed, though I managed (barely) to keep my voice to a whisper. My head was pounding with hangover and it wasn't light out yet--probably just before sunrise, if I was any judge. I rolled myself carefully away from him, resisting the urge to close my eyes and give in to being so close for a little longer. We're in sleeping bags, I reminded myself, slipping out of mine and crawling toward the front of the tent. It's not like you'd actually be touching. That's just creepy behavior with no reward.
Reeling with the headache, I walked blindly toward the hilltop. What I wanted to do was go for a run, but that was out of the question, so I thought maybe I'd watch the sun rise and clear my head. It was viciously cold, but that actually felt good. Cleansing.
I had to get hold of myself, I thought, climbing the hill carefully to avoid sliding in the dew-damp grass. This was getting out of hand--if I couldn't go camping with him how the hell was I supposed to live with him? If all I could think about was kissing him and sucking him and taking him roughly from behind then how the fuck was I supposed to--
"Hey, kid," Irene said, and I must have jumped about a foot in the air. She was sitting at the top of the hill, arms curled around her knees, red hair knotted behind her head loosely. "Didn't mean to scare you, sorry."
"No," I said shakily, "no, you're fine. Do you mind if I--" I gestured broadly at the ground, and she smiled.
"Please," she said, patting the spot beside her. I sank down onto it, crossing my legs.
"You come to catch the sunrise?" I asked. She sighed, pulling a cigarette out of her sweatshirt pocket and lighting it.
"Kind of," she said. Then: "The Holmes men are complicated creatures."
"Really," I said dryly. "You shock me."
She laughed, tired circles under her eyes. "Some days I think I love him," she confessed, after a long moment of silence. I had no idea how to process this new piece of information, but I'd always been a good listener, so I waited her out.
"He just--" she sighed again, pulling another drag from the cig. "He's so--"
"Inscrutable?" I offered, admittedly talking about the wrong Holmes. "Irritating? Really fucking confusing?"
"Impossible," she decided, ignoring me. "Yesterday he was--excited, you know, to be with me. And then last night when we went to bed he--"
She sighed again, and then she looked up at me with too-bright eyes.
"You must think I'm stupid," she said, her voice going sharp. "Sherlock does, I know he does. And I'm not, I'm not stupid, I call half the shots in our--whatever it is, I just can't help but--"
"Irene," I interrupted, taking a ridiculously unnecessary risk but full of too much fellow-feeling not to, "if I were to call you stupid, I'd be an awful hypocrite."
She looked stunned for a second. Then she smiled, a slow, knowing thing, but a sad one too--like she pitied me my lot. Or…no, not pity, I guess. Like she empathized.
"We should run away together," she offered, looking out over the hill. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was hinting at its arrival, shooting beams of pink and orange into the sky as a warning. "We'd be better off."
"No we wouldn't," I said, sighing and playing at a blade of grass.
"I guess you're right," she said, after a long moment. We didn't say anything after that; eventually she stood up, stretching. I glanced up at her quizzically.
"You've got company," she said, jerking her head and grinning. Behind her Holmes was climbing the hill. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear him muttering.
"Hey," I said, "thanks."
"You too," she grinned, and then she was gone.
He plopped down next to me a second later, wearing a sweatshirt that had once been mine and the glasses he usually never let anyone see him in. "Whose idea was it to go camping in November?" he grumbled, curling into himself. His voice was hoarse. "It's fucking cold, did you know that? I'm going to freeze to death before we make it home."
"It was your idea," I said, slinging a friendly arm over his shoulder. "It's always your idea."
"Not always," he muttered, scooting closer to me for the body heat. He moved like he was going to put his head on my shoulder, and then stopped himself. I wished, absently, that he hadn't. "I'm tired."
"Why didn't you sleep?"
"Couldn't," he said shortly. "Birds. Going home. You know."
"Holmes," I said, after a minute.
"Mmmm?" Even his voice was exhausted, strained and a little sick and hungover. I hesitated, but plowed ahead.
"Was there a--a reason you wanted to get out of town?"
He jerked his head up from where it had been drooping forward. Then he stilled, and I thought he was going to yell at me. Instead:
"You know," he sighed. "I was a weird kid."
That didn't answer my question and didn't surprise me, but I held my tongue. He was holding himself taut, all his muscles thrumming with the energy of it, and so I just sat there, waiting, my arm still around his shoulder.
"A name like mine," he continued, his voice detached. "A family like mine--well. Mycroft got off okay because he's always been huge and he cared less, but I was this little scrawny kid in glasses, and I was sick most of the time, and I was--heh. I was smarter than everyone and bad at hiding it."
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
"Oh, don't be," he returned scathingly. "They teased me, I got over it. And I was fucking smarter than those little bastards, so it doesn't really matter. But--well. Some days, when it was really bad, when I just needed to get out…Miles had this pup tent he'd gotten for Christmas one year. He'd set it up in the backyard, and we'd go camping."
My heart, as fucking cliche as it sounds, was in my throat. Partially because of the idea of Holmes as a kid, the butt of a thousand jokes, and partially how ridiculous and horrible it was to hear him dismiss years of teasing as the price he paid for being brilliant. Before I could even think about it, I drew my hand into a fist and ran my knuckles down his back. He sighed and relaxed, if only marginally.
"Moriarty asked me to get him some data," he said softly. "And I wouldn't--I couldn't do it. And my experiments are going wrong and there are things I should have been paying attention to that I haven't been, and I--fuck. I just needed--"
"To get out," I finished quietly. He nodded mutely; when I chanced a glance over at him, he was biting his lip, carefully looking away from me. I thought about all the things I wanted to do in that moment--none of my desires, myriad though they were, were as strong as the urge to pull him against my and fight off whatever was eating at him until he could breathe again.
"Thank you," he said, startling me.
"What for?"
He sighed. "For agreeing to come with me. Most people wouldn't have."
I actually laughed; it was a sad, strange little chuckle, but a chuckle all the same. "Most people don't have PTSD breakdowns in front of their best friends. You give what you get, man."
He stiffened again, all the tension that had seeped out of his shoulders jumping back to life. I glanced over, wondering what I'd said wrong, and he met my eyes; there was such an open, vulnerable expression on his face that I almost jumped.
"I'm your best friend?" he asked, his voice cracking on it, like he honestly didn't know the answer. But that's Sherlock Holmes for you--not even fucking me, still managing to break my heart.
"Holmes," I said, stunned, but he'd already turned away.
"Never mind," he spat viciously; there was spot of color growing on his cheeks. "Never mind, what a stupid thing to say, you've only known me a few months--"
"Yes," I interrupted him vehemently. "Yes, Holmes, of course you are. Don't be ridiculous."
The sun crested the hill then, but I missed it. He was smiling at me, smiling like he meant it, his eyes sparkling and happy and bright. When he put his head down on my shoulder a minute later the frames of his glasses dug into my flesh, but I could feel that grin, warming me from the inside out. I rubbed my hand down his back and inhaled, taking in the scent of him: cigarette smoke and campfire, spilled beer and home.
On the drive home his head fell onto my shoulder again, this time because he was fast asleep. Miles was snoring away in the passenger seat and Irene was driving, humming absently along with the song playing and smoking a cigarette. I didn't figure anyone would notice when I quietly pulled his glasses off his face and sneaked one small, soft kiss, pressing it into his hair as we bumped along. But Irene met my eye in the rearview mirror, smiling sadly at me.
"Complicated," she said, flicking the end of her cigarette out the window.
"It's the fucking truth," I agreed, settling back against my seat and letting the road, the feeling of him breathing against my neck, lull me into sleep.
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, Chapter Two and Chapter Three 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 goes camping and makes a declaration.
Chapter Four: On the Oddly Revelatory Nature of Wooded Areas
The storm that started the night at the club lasted for the next month. My eleventh grade English teacher would've called that pathetic fallacy, and my grandfather would have called it a sign of my damned poetical streak, and when Holmes eventually finds and reads this he'll laugh at me for being an exaggerating fucktard. Of all of them, he's the most right; it didn't rain for a month straight. Still, almost all of my memories are tinged with that sense of chilled October and icy November, the rain that's not quite snow sneaking in around my collar and making our apartment feel more like home than ever.
Then again, maybe that growing sense of comfort had less to do with the weather and more to do with my roommate. Things between Holmes and I had gotten--odd. For a lot of reasons, I think; partially because you can't exactly go through a full-scale psychological breakdown in front of someone and not get closer. Partially because Holmes was under a lot more stress then he'd ever mentioned to me, and had a lot fewer friends than I'd ever realized, not that I knew any of that then. Partially because the longer you live with someone, the better you get to know them.
Partially--well, mostly, really, if I'm honest--because I'd let myself see how I felt about him, and it colored everything he did.
And oh, what he did. He was still Holmes, Holmes to his core, obnoxious and impossible and stoned off his ass and pissing me off, but he was also...kind. In ways I couldn't argue with him over, in ways I couldn't resent. It was like he'd been tailor fucking cut to deal with me in the tender weeks after, when I was ashamed to look at myself, when I couldn't sleep without nightmares.
God, the nightmares. How many times did he shake me awake on the couch and just--look at me? Look at me, and when I told him that I was dreaming about the zombies from the movie or the undergrads taking over the earth, he pretended to believe me but didn't leave, just looked at me. Some nights, he looked so long that I opened my mouth and told him things, stories I'd heard from other guys and things I'd seen, and he listened, for once in his life.
And then in the morning he'd be eating my Cheerios in handfuls and drinking milk from the carton and laughing hysterically about how my hair was sticking up. Like nothing had happened. Like I hadn't turned into a pathetic mess the night before.
There were other things too. I got sick the first week of November, sick enough that I should probably have been in bed and wasn't--class was class, and it was just a cold. But he met me after each lecture, telling me ridiculous lies about how he didn't know how he'd gotten so stoned that he'd ordered himself tea instead of coffee but did I want it? And also, you know, he'd totally grabbed too many oranges this morning and would I please just fucking eat one, and "Hey man, I'll finish that cigarette--no, dude, not because you're coughing, because I want a cigarette."
It--god, it really didn't help my situation. Because, you know, I loved him when he was driving me up a fucking wall, I loved him when he was taking apart the air conditioner and duct taping "mysterious pieces" to the fridge. This other side of him, this side of him I was beginning to suspect was actually him--it was hard to bear. Where before I'd wanted to slam him into the door and kiss him quiet, I found myself longing to press against him in the frigid November squalls, covering my lips with his for long, tender minutes.
And look, the damned poetical streak after all.
But, I guess the other thing is this--it wasn't all one-sided, the strange soft kindness. When he got sick a week after I did, the same thing that I'd had but worse, I found myself in the grocery store at 4 AM, choosing between brands of canned soup. And then I found myself dragging him out of class when he almost collapsed--which I saw because I went to his class to make sure he wouldn't collapse--and putting him to bed on the couch, where I could make sure he wasn't working experiments. He said silly, half-mad things to me that day, feverish and crazy, while I played movie after horrible fucking movie and ignored all my schoolwork to talk to him.
When he got better, he changed all the passwords to my online poker accounts. "I don't want to watch you waste your money, dude," he told me, when I freaked the fuck out about it. "And you can have your email password back when I've figured out how to hack into the 'forgot your password' coding. You're welcome!"
He's a little bastard, right? I'm not crazy, right? He's a little bastard and I hate him, except when I don't, and at least I had the excuse of being hopelessly fucking in love with him to make my madness understandable. It got worse, you've got to understand, it got worse with every minute I spent in his company. Because--
Goddamn it. I can't explain him properly. I keep trying and I'm fucking it up, but I guess the best way is--he's like a car wreck, sort of, in the sense that you can't look away because he's such a disaster. But he's also like...like thinking you've stepped in dogshit only to lift up your shoe and find $20 instead. Because he surprises you, and actually even when he's impossible he's not, because he's smiling and smiling at you, and all you can think about is how to make him keep doing that, only closer. Much closer. Dangerously close.
But look, the point of all of this is: we went camping after I forgave him for the thing with my passwords and he forgave me for throwing out all of his socks in a fit of impassioned revenge. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Okay, I lied. I am not a stupid man, regardless of my choice in roommate, and so I had known it wasn't a good idea at the time. Going camping in November is never a good idea, no matter how freakishly warm the day. Going camping for one night only is never a good idea, no matter how limited your time.
Going camping with Sherlock Holmes is never a good idea, and I knew it well.
But when he pushed his way into the apartment on Saturday afternoon, he looked--defeated. Worse, he was clearly trying not to, forced smile firmly in place, head held high. It was only because I'd come to know him so well that I was able to see the hard line to his jaw, the knotted curve of his shoulder. The fucking circles under his eyes, ever-present and worrying.
"I want to go on vacation," he said, flopping down on the couch. "Immediately."
"It's Saturday," i reminded him. "No class, that's almost a vacation, right?"
"I want to get out of town," he complained. "I can't think of a single thing to do in this city except waste away in my lab or waste away on this fucking couch."
"You usually like wasting away on this fucking couch," I said, grinning softly. He caught my eye and smiled a little himself, a real smile, which was encouraging. "Besides, we're broke as shit. Where would be go?"
"Camping!" Holmes said at once, and I groaned.
"Holmes, it is November."
"It's like 70 outside!"
"Yeah, for today. But tomorrow it could go back down to--"
"Oh, don't be a pussy," he snapped, the hard line coming back to his jaw again. I stopped myself wincing at the expression just in time; he'd hate that.
"I'm not being a pussy," I said, in what I thought was a reasonable voice.
I expected him to reply with some variety of his usual snark, or sulk at me, or pack a bowl, or flip on the T.V. and mutter. Instead he looked at me, and replacing his normal slate-grey nonchalance was--fear? Fear or something decidedly like it, clouding his normal expression.
He opened his mouth and said, "Please," and he sounded--desperate. And, yeah, scared, which didn't make a lot of sense to me. What was I supposed to do?
I sighed and threw up my hands, and was rewarded with a full grin. I realized it was the first one I'd seen him give me in a couple of days, and started to wonder in earnest what the fuck was wrong with him. He was still a little bit sick, carrying the last dregs of that cold with him, but I didn't imagine that would freak him out. He hadn't been freaked out when he'd had a fever of 104, after all. I had been freaked out, and he'd called me a ninny. Stupid little shit.
"We don't have a tent," I told him. He dug his phone out of his pocket.
"No problem," he said, "Miles loves to camp."
Miles didn't love to camp. Miles hated to camp. I discovered an hour later, loading the car at the Clearinghouse. Irene loved to camp, and so Holmes had enlisted her help.
"I don't even know why I own a tent," he complained bitterly, helping me shove it into the tiny trunk of his convertible. That would have been a lot easier without all the alcohol in there. "I certainly don't own a tent to take it out in November."
"It'll be fun!" Irene cried from the passenger seat. She was filing her nails and calling helpful instructions to us occasionally. Holmes had been helping, and then he'd said "I have this theory," and Miles and I had shooed him away at once. He'd gone back into the bar to get more alcohol.
"Hey," Miles said, pitching his voice low, "before he gets back. Is everything okay? He looks kind of--"
"Crazed?" I returned, equally soft. Miles smiled sadly and nodded.
"Not that he doesn't always look that way," he returned, "but, yeah."
"I think he just needs to get out of town," I said. To my extreme surprise, Miles' face froze.
"Did he--say why?" he said, slowly. I stared at him.
"Noooo," I replied, equally slowly. "Well, actually, yeah--something about being bored with everything on the planet--"
"Oh!" Miles laughed, his face unfreezing. "The normal stuff, yeah, he gets that way. Just--just keep an eye on him, would you?"
"I always do," I returned, without even thinking about it. Under his sudden sharp stare, I blushed bright red; I could feel myself glowing like a goddamned tomato. "Uh, I mean, you know. Because we live together and stuff. No other reason."
"Right," Miles said, managing to keep a straight face about it, and discontinued his line of questioning.
We managed to get the tent into the trunk the same moment that Holmes came back out of the bar, holding two bottles of champagne.
"Veuve or Moet?" he asked.
"Neither," Miles snapped, at the same time Irene laughed "Both."
They glared at each other for a second. Then Miles sighed and waved a hand. Grinning, Holmes hopped into the car, tossing me one of the bottles. "Let's go," he said, leaning his head against the back of the car. "It's November, you know. This weather might not last."
His prediction turned out to be apt. By the time we reached the campsite the sun had gone down, and it was freezing--still warm for November, but freezing all the same. Miles and I wanted to head back, but Irene and Holmes blazed forward.
"You know, this hike would be easier in my own socks," Holmes complained, a mile from the car. "I mean, which I would have, if someone hadn't--"
"Shut up," Miles said, smacking him across the head. "You totally deserved it."
"I can't believe you're taking his side," Holmes grumbled. "Aren't you supposed to be my brother?"
"You're kind of a shithead, though," Miles said, his tone measured and reasonable. "I like him."
"Traitor," Holmes spat. "Going against your fraternal duties--"
"I don't think my fraternal duties extend to supporting you being ridiculous," Miles laughed.
"And I did replace the socks," I reminded him, poking him in the shoulder. "I thought we'd decided to let bygones be bygones." He glared at Miles and then smiled at me.
"You know," he said, "in the face of this new betrayal, I'm actually totally cool with you now. Miles is the common enemy."
"Hey!" Miles protested. He looked ready to put some more force into that protest, but then Irene was calling his name from up ahead.
"I found it!" she cried. "The perfect spot. Come on."
She was right--the place was perfect. There was a little stream and a hill within walking distance, a large flat space that would be perfect for a campfire. Holmes glanced over it, nodded his approval, and then turned to Miles and Irene.
"Right," he said. "Are you two planning on fucking on this trip?"
"No," Miles said, at the same time Irene said "Yes."
Miles' eyebrows shot up in surprise. They stared at each other, Irene grinning faintly.
"Are we?" Miles asked, sounding hopeful. Irene laughed and nodded. "But I thought--"
"No, I dumped him," Irene purred, stepping close. "He snored."
"I snore," Miles pointed out, putting his hands on her waist anyway. She snorted indelicately.
"You're built like a linebacker," she pointed out. "It's normal when you do it."
"Maybe you just don't like another man snoring," Miles said, reasonably enough. "I mean, a new snore would be hard to adjust to. Especially after you've gotten used to my…snore."
Irene blushed, Miles grinned, I looked away hastily, and--
"Um, ew," Holmes snapped. They broke away from each other at once, grinning and flushed. "Thus my point. You go set up tent over there. Way over there. I don't need to hear you grunting and groaning all night, and neither does Appleseed here."
"We don't--" Miles started.
"'Ohhhh, Miiiiiiiles,'" Holmes mocked, doing a dead-on impression of Irene. "'Yeah, like that, haaaaaarder--'"
"Hey!" they snapped together.
"I lived on your couch for two week, brother dear," Holmes said, eyeing Miles with distaste. "I know what you're like. Over there."
"Brat," Miles said. "You get the small tent."
"Like you weren't going to give me that anyway," he said snidely. Then Miles tossed it at him; he caught it by the stomach and started coughing. I rolled my eyes and snatched it from him.
"Camping in the cold still sound like a good idea?"
"Y-yes," he managed, glaring at me. "Just--winded me. I'm fine."
"Right, genius," I said, deciding to ignore everything else for now. "Do you have any idea how to set this thing up?"
Holmes had no idea how to set it up. He did have an idea of how to get both drunk and high while setting it up, which largely involved tossing a bottle of schnapps between the two of us and occasionally hitting the first of several joints he'd pre-rolled for the trip. I took a hit or two, partly to appease him and partly to assuage the fear already creeping up my back at the memories that came along with sleeping on the ground.
Yes, I know that it's ridiculous, but there you go.
We were still done before Miles and Irene, but I think that's because they'd been fucking while we'd been drinking. The tent didn't look much like it was supposed to--Holmes had decided to do some "functional redesign" with a large stick and a length of rappelling rope--but it held up, at least. We smiled proudly at our handiwork and then I went to build a fire.
"I think," he said, fifteen minutes into this endeavor, "that you're doing it wrong."
"Really?" I snapped. "Do you think that because of the lack of fire or because of the lack of fire?"
"Think it's the lack of fire, actually," he said idly, moving to try for himself. The laws of the universe being what they were, the damned sticks sparked immediately for him. He smirked at me and smirked at me, insufferable bastard. He smirked at me and I was, as always, moved to rip the expression right off his stupidly beautiful face.
Admittedly, my preferred methods of doing so probably wouldn't have done much to make him less cocky, but I could live with that if I had to.
Irene and Miles tumbled out then. Her hair was mussed and he was grinning, looking a lot like his brother despite their extensive differences. And in that moment I begrudged them both their happiness, my jealousy was so strong. In that moment I think I would have killed someone, to have the younger Holmes smiling that way at me.
Then I remembered that I was going to be sleeping approximately five inches from him when we went to bed, and promptly finished the bottle of schnapps. And a beer. And some more of that joint. It wasn't wise--I know that, I do. But it was all I had, man.
Holmes tells me that we smoked a lot of weed that night. Holmes tells me that I stripped naked and danced with the wolves, too, so it's hard to know what to believe. I remember roasting marshmallows with him leaning over me, shouting directions: "No, not like that, you'll burn it!" and "Waaaaatson, you're not doing it evenly!" and "Haven't you ever practiced this on a Bunsen burner before?"
I remember Miles jumping into the river on a dare and coming out with his lips blue. I remember realizing that we hadn't brought any food except marshmallows. I remember Holmes' face across the campfire, bright at laughing at a hideous hour of the morning, looking for all the world like he was part of the forest itself. I remember wanting him, wanting him with an aching, blazing yearning so deep I thought I was going to going to fall over in the throes of it.
And I remember when it was just the two of us, Holmes and me, huddled together close to the dying embers of the fire. I remember telling him, haltingly, about my family--about how my parents had died when I was a kid. About how my grandfather had raised us. About my brother, so deep in the heroin hole that he hadn't come to Granddad's funeral. About how much I hated the holidays, how much I was dreading them. I don't recall what brought it up. I don't recall what he said. I just remember feeling better, afterwards; better and worse, because I had him, but would never have him.
I woke up to the sound of birds chirping, two inches from Holmes' face.
"Fuck," I hissed, though I managed (barely) to keep my voice to a whisper. My head was pounding with hangover and it wasn't light out yet--probably just before sunrise, if I was any judge. I rolled myself carefully away from him, resisting the urge to close my eyes and give in to being so close for a little longer. We're in sleeping bags, I reminded myself, slipping out of mine and crawling toward the front of the tent. It's not like you'd actually be touching. That's just creepy behavior with no reward.
Reeling with the headache, I walked blindly toward the hilltop. What I wanted to do was go for a run, but that was out of the question, so I thought maybe I'd watch the sun rise and clear my head. It was viciously cold, but that actually felt good. Cleansing.
I had to get hold of myself, I thought, climbing the hill carefully to avoid sliding in the dew-damp grass. This was getting out of hand--if I couldn't go camping with him how the hell was I supposed to live with him? If all I could think about was kissing him and sucking him and taking him roughly from behind then how the fuck was I supposed to--
"Hey, kid," Irene said, and I must have jumped about a foot in the air. She was sitting at the top of the hill, arms curled around her knees, red hair knotted behind her head loosely. "Didn't mean to scare you, sorry."
"No," I said shakily, "no, you're fine. Do you mind if I--" I gestured broadly at the ground, and she smiled.
"Please," she said, patting the spot beside her. I sank down onto it, crossing my legs.
"You come to catch the sunrise?" I asked. She sighed, pulling a cigarette out of her sweatshirt pocket and lighting it.
"Kind of," she said. Then: "The Holmes men are complicated creatures."
"Really," I said dryly. "You shock me."
She laughed, tired circles under her eyes. "Some days I think I love him," she confessed, after a long moment of silence. I had no idea how to process this new piece of information, but I'd always been a good listener, so I waited her out.
"He just--" she sighed again, pulling another drag from the cig. "He's so--"
"Inscrutable?" I offered, admittedly talking about the wrong Holmes. "Irritating? Really fucking confusing?"
"Impossible," she decided, ignoring me. "Yesterday he was--excited, you know, to be with me. And then last night when we went to bed he--"
She sighed again, and then she looked up at me with too-bright eyes.
"You must think I'm stupid," she said, her voice going sharp. "Sherlock does, I know he does. And I'm not, I'm not stupid, I call half the shots in our--whatever it is, I just can't help but--"
"Irene," I interrupted, taking a ridiculously unnecessary risk but full of too much fellow-feeling not to, "if I were to call you stupid, I'd be an awful hypocrite."
She looked stunned for a second. Then she smiled, a slow, knowing thing, but a sad one too--like she pitied me my lot. Or…no, not pity, I guess. Like she empathized.
"We should run away together," she offered, looking out over the hill. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was hinting at its arrival, shooting beams of pink and orange into the sky as a warning. "We'd be better off."
"No we wouldn't," I said, sighing and playing at a blade of grass.
"I guess you're right," she said, after a long moment. We didn't say anything after that; eventually she stood up, stretching. I glanced up at her quizzically.
"You've got company," she said, jerking her head and grinning. Behind her Holmes was climbing the hill. Now that I was listening for it, I could hear him muttering.
"Hey," I said, "thanks."
"You too," she grinned, and then she was gone.
He plopped down next to me a second later, wearing a sweatshirt that had once been mine and the glasses he usually never let anyone see him in. "Whose idea was it to go camping in November?" he grumbled, curling into himself. His voice was hoarse. "It's fucking cold, did you know that? I'm going to freeze to death before we make it home."
"It was your idea," I said, slinging a friendly arm over his shoulder. "It's always your idea."
"Not always," he muttered, scooting closer to me for the body heat. He moved like he was going to put his head on my shoulder, and then stopped himself. I wished, absently, that he hadn't. "I'm tired."
"Why didn't you sleep?"
"Couldn't," he said shortly. "Birds. Going home. You know."
"Holmes," I said, after a minute.
"Mmmm?" Even his voice was exhausted, strained and a little sick and hungover. I hesitated, but plowed ahead.
"Was there a--a reason you wanted to get out of town?"
He jerked his head up from where it had been drooping forward. Then he stilled, and I thought he was going to yell at me. Instead:
"You know," he sighed. "I was a weird kid."
That didn't answer my question and didn't surprise me, but I held my tongue. He was holding himself taut, all his muscles thrumming with the energy of it, and so I just sat there, waiting, my arm still around his shoulder.
"A name like mine," he continued, his voice detached. "A family like mine--well. Mycroft got off okay because he's always been huge and he cared less, but I was this little scrawny kid in glasses, and I was sick most of the time, and I was--heh. I was smarter than everyone and bad at hiding it."
"I'm sorry," I said quietly.
"Oh, don't be," he returned scathingly. "They teased me, I got over it. And I was fucking smarter than those little bastards, so it doesn't really matter. But--well. Some days, when it was really bad, when I just needed to get out…Miles had this pup tent he'd gotten for Christmas one year. He'd set it up in the backyard, and we'd go camping."
My heart, as fucking cliche as it sounds, was in my throat. Partially because of the idea of Holmes as a kid, the butt of a thousand jokes, and partially how ridiculous and horrible it was to hear him dismiss years of teasing as the price he paid for being brilliant. Before I could even think about it, I drew my hand into a fist and ran my knuckles down his back. He sighed and relaxed, if only marginally.
"Moriarty asked me to get him some data," he said softly. "And I wouldn't--I couldn't do it. And my experiments are going wrong and there are things I should have been paying attention to that I haven't been, and I--fuck. I just needed--"
"To get out," I finished quietly. He nodded mutely; when I chanced a glance over at him, he was biting his lip, carefully looking away from me. I thought about all the things I wanted to do in that moment--none of my desires, myriad though they were, were as strong as the urge to pull him against my and fight off whatever was eating at him until he could breathe again.
"Thank you," he said, startling me.
"What for?"
He sighed. "For agreeing to come with me. Most people wouldn't have."
I actually laughed; it was a sad, strange little chuckle, but a chuckle all the same. "Most people don't have PTSD breakdowns in front of their best friends. You give what you get, man."
He stiffened again, all the tension that had seeped out of his shoulders jumping back to life. I glanced over, wondering what I'd said wrong, and he met my eyes; there was such an open, vulnerable expression on his face that I almost jumped.
"I'm your best friend?" he asked, his voice cracking on it, like he honestly didn't know the answer. But that's Sherlock Holmes for you--not even fucking me, still managing to break my heart.
"Holmes," I said, stunned, but he'd already turned away.
"Never mind," he spat viciously; there was spot of color growing on his cheeks. "Never mind, what a stupid thing to say, you've only known me a few months--"
"Yes," I interrupted him vehemently. "Yes, Holmes, of course you are. Don't be ridiculous."
The sun crested the hill then, but I missed it. He was smiling at me, smiling like he meant it, his eyes sparkling and happy and bright. When he put his head down on my shoulder a minute later the frames of his glasses dug into my flesh, but I could feel that grin, warming me from the inside out. I rubbed my hand down his back and inhaled, taking in the scent of him: cigarette smoke and campfire, spilled beer and home.
On the drive home his head fell onto my shoulder again, this time because he was fast asleep. Miles was snoring away in the passenger seat and Irene was driving, humming absently along with the song playing and smoking a cigarette. I didn't figure anyone would notice when I quietly pulled his glasses off his face and sneaked one small, soft kiss, pressing it into his hair as we bumped along. But Irene met my eye in the rearview mirror, smiling sadly at me.
"Complicated," she said, flicking the end of her cigarette out the window.
"It's the fucking truth," I agreed, settling back against my seat and letting the road, the feeling of him breathing against my neck, lull me into sleep.