Fic for Garonne: Something To Retire To
Jun. 15th, 2012 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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holmesticeTitle: Something To Retire To
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
garonne
Author:flawedamythyst
Characters/Pairings: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to. - Harry Emerson Fosdick. Watson contemplates the future while he and Holmes investigate the three Garridebs.
Includes some of the original text, which I am not claiming to be my own words.
Some stories have beginnings that are impossible to pinpoint, especially after so many years have passed. Should I be starting this one with Holmes telling me of the puzzle that Nathan Garrideb had brought to his attention? That would likely miss rather a lot of the essential backstory needed to explain the importance of the events that came after. Perhaps, instead, I should begin with the conversation with Gregson, and the mistakes I made in the wake of it. No, that would still require some explanation of why our situation at the time made those mistakes so grave.
I could go all the way back to when Holmes returned to me from beyond the grave, ending what had been the loneliest, most difficult parts of my life. Certainly, that marked a new start for us, after which we grew increasingly closer and I found that I was able to exert an influence over Holmes's health and habits that I had never had before his confrontation with Moriarty. This influence, and Holmes's own iron willpower once he had set his mind to something, was eventually enough to wean him off the drugs habit that I had spent so long despairing about.
Certainly that time left us more settled together than we had ever been. I think I shall start this story at the end of it though, at the point when our joint sense of companionship and regard for each other evolved into more, or at least at the point where I realised that it had done so. Holmes almost certainly had seen it coming for months, perhaps even years, before that.
The night in question was, at first glance, precisely like a thousand others that we had shared over the years. We were seated together on the sofa as I read a novel and Holmes went through a stack of evening newspapers for whatever scraps of information he deemed relevant to his work.
After the last had been cast aside, he sat in silence, staring into the distance and doubtless contemplating whatever he had learnt from them. After a few minutes, he shifted his body, stretching out along the sofa and resting his head in my lap as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
It must certainly have seemed so to me, because it was not until he spoke that I registered just how odd our position should have been.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked, and there was an uncertainty to his voice that I rarely heard.
Needless to say, I was taken aback when I realised that I had failed to notice how inappropriate his actions should have been. However, it did not take me much to realise that, not only was I more than comfortable, but that having him in such close proximity did not seem remarkable in any way.
Holmes was waiting for an answer, and there was only one that I could give him.
“Always,” I replied.
Holmes's head was heavy and hard against my thigh, but the warmth of his presence and the comfort of being physically close to one whom I felt so emotionally close to was more than enough to make up for that. Holmes made a contented, humming noise, but said no more as he went back to his thoughts.
I, on the other hand, had no more concentration for my book. I kept staring at its pages, but my mind was busy trying to recognise the signs that I must have missed, trying to spot the steps that we must have taken in order for this to strike me as no more unusual than a handshake.
After some time, I realised that it had come about so gradually that it was no wonder I had not noticed until we were long past the point of what would have been considered socially acceptable. What had been casual affection between two close friends had gently morphed into more in such tiny increments as to make finding the beginning of this story so difficult. I am sure that if I asked Holmes, he would be able to tell me the exact hour that we passed beyond what society dictates as normal, but I rather like leaving the boundaries of it as indistinct. Part of me – the part that Holmes would sneer at as unmitigated romanticism - likes to think that if there was no real beginning, there can be no real end.
That night, as I thought it over and failed to turn a single page in my book, I realised how I had been seeking out physical evidence of Holmes's presence since his return; resting my leg against his in carriages and brushing our shoulders together as we walked. Holmes, in return, had been just as eager to keep me close. He has never really spoken of his time away, but I strongly suspect he found the experience of being a stranger everywhere he went lonely and isolating. It seems strange that such a small handful of years should have left such permanent marks on both of us, but I suppose my time in the Army was equally short, and yet still has a strong influence on me.
As time had passed, and we grew more and more comfortable with the life we led together, it seemed only natural that we fell into various habits that I finally realised were not as innocent as they seemed. Holmes had always had an odd tendency to sit on the floor on occasion, papers spread out all around him as he updated his scrapbooks, but he started to sit at the foot of my chair, his back brushing against my leg as he moved. Rather than just taking my arm when the ground was unsteady, the weather inclement, or my leg being particularly stubborn, he took it whenever we were walking together, leaning in to me as he spoke as if concerned I would not hear him. Once or twice, on late night train journeys back from one case or another, I had fallen asleep and awoken to find myself resting against his shoulder.
We had never spoken of these things, and so I had never really thought about them. Perhaps I am as slow as Holmes always claims I am. At any rate, I considered them that evening, while Holmes rested his head on my lap and no doubt waited for me to reach a conclusion. He must have known what the thoughts that kept me from turning the page of my book were.
I suppose my natural inclinations as a respectable man should have been to reject the entire premise, and to put some distance between the two of us immediately, thereby regaining a sense of propriety. I had spent too many years as the associate of a man who believed that the tenets of respectability were meaningless to merely bow to that urge, however. Instead, I tried to work through just what it was that this represented, and whether it was more likely to harm us or benefit us in the long run. Both those questions were easily answered once I truly came to examine my emotions. I could see no harm in anything that made me feel so content and settled.
In the end, I decided to just continue letting it unfold as it had been. There seemed little point in causing trouble where there was currently none.
The clock struck midnight, and I realised with a start just how much time had passed since Holmes had moved. It was past time for me to go to bed.
“Holmes,” I said, and his eyes flew open, darting straight to mine and betraying just how fast his mind was working, despite his relaxed posture. I touched my fingers to his hair. “I should go to bed,” I said.
He nodded, the movement feeling odd against my leg, then he sat up, turning so that he was still facing me. “Good night,” he said.
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should acknowledge the revelation I had had. I wished I knew how to say, I have finally caught on to what we are doing, and I am more than fine with it, without sounding like a sentimental fool. After a moment, I decided that I would just have to trust that my actions would speak for me.
Holmes, of course, did not even need actions to understand what I was thinking. As I stood, he caught my hand.
“Watson,” he said, then seemed to find himself just as incapable of finding words as I had been. “Thank you,” he said after a moment.
I found a smile crossing my face and squeezed his hand, then retired.
From that point, the normal boundaries of friendship ceased to mean anything to us. In the evenings, once the door to our rooms had been locked, Holmes took to lounging across me as if I were no more than another piece of furniture, albeit one that he could shape to fit his needs. In return, I found myself reaching out for him far more often than I would have thought I'd ever want to, trapping one of his hands in mine as he explained some grand theory, or resting my foot against his under the table as we ate.
More than once I was reminded of how my hand and Mary's had found each other instinctively at Pondicherry Lodge, so very long ago. Love, it seemed, was something I was always to fall into without realising, although I did not let myself think that then. The idea of falling in love with Holmes was unimaginable for several reasons, and not just because it seemed a ridiculous thing to happen between two men. Even now, much later in life, I do not consider myself a lover of men. The associations with that do not match up to the reality of our situation, and I would not have engaged in such a relationship with any other man. Holmes alone could have called forth this depth of emotion in me.
In addition, there was never a sexual aspect to it, although I found images of Holmes intruding on my mind once or twice when I touched myself. When my mind was unclouded by arousal, I found it impossible to consider him as a sexual partner in truth. Even if I was not almost exclusively drawn to women, he had always been so untouchable in that respect, and still was, even with the new liberties I had been granted. The idea of a man like Holmes being laid bare in that manner, undone by lust, was so completely ridiculous that it made me uncomfortable to contemplate it as anything more than just a fantasy.
Several months passed in this fashion. I should make it clear that, other than a shared acknowledgement that we were beyond friendship, and the casual touch behind closed doors, things remained much as they always had been. Holmes devoted all his energies to solving cases, most of which I accompanied him on, and in between he caused terrible stinks with his chemistry sets, played his violin at all hours of the night, or languished in miserable lethargy, bemoaning that there were no puzzles to occupy his brain. I, in turn, visited those patients who had not yet grown tired of my unreliability, kept careful notes against the time when Holmes would let me write about his cases, and tried my best to keep Mrs. Hudson from losing her temper and throwing us both out in the street over Holmes's antics.
After a particularly long and involved case, the resolution of which was of great benefit to the British nation but which I am unable to talk about in more detail, we met Holmes's brother, Mycroft Holmes, at his club.
He congratulated Holmes on his resolution of the case, and then made another attempt to get Holmes to accept a knighthood in return for his services. Holmes was as unreceptive of the idea as he always was.
“It is more than deserved, and would be an excellent crown to your career,” said Mycroft.
Holmes let out an exasperated sigh. “I don't judge the value of my career by the prizes I get, as you well know. I prefer other rewards for my accomplishments.”
“Indeed,” said his brother, sliding a look at me that I suspect I was not meant to have seen. I cleared my throat and shifted my feet, wondering just how much his eagle gaze could see, or if he was merely referring to my role as Holmes's biographer. “Still, this would be a nice accolade to take into retirement with you, would it not?”
Holmes twitched, then unleashed one of his glares. “I have far more accolades than you do, Mycroft,” he said. “And yet you work just as hard for this country, if not harder. Why not award yourself with the knighthood, if you must find a Holmes to take it?”
Mycroft laughed that off and the matter was dropped. However, the mention of retirement stayed with me as we travelled back to Baker Street, and I found myself wondering just how much longer Holmes intended to pursue his profession. It had been nearly twenty years since he had taken me along with him to solve the case of Jefferson Hope, and while he was by no means decrepit, he was not the young man he had been then. Did he intend to keep chasing after criminals until he grew too slow to catch them, or too feeble to fend off an attack? It seemed unlikely.
“Have you thought much about retirement?” I asked as we drove.
Holmes sent me a sharp look. “Of course,” he said. “I plan for everything, Watson. You must have noticed that I have become more careful about collecting my fee from those of my clients who find it easy to pay. I know you will remember the impressive cheque from the Duke of Holdernesse last year. In a couple of years, I intend to buy a cottage, somewhere quiet and away from people.”
“I see,” I said, although I did not. The idea of Holmes leaving London seemed unnatural, possibly because the only time he had done so for a significant period of time had been when I had presumed him dead, when every street corner seemed to speak of what both I, and the country, had lost.
That was not the only problem I could envisage with the scenario. I had been subjected to the moods Holmes was prey to when there was no work to be had. How on earth would he survive retirement, with no cases at all? “I suppose you will spend the time adding to your series of monographs,” I hazarded.
“There are a handful of subjects on which I haven't yet had a chance to write my conclusions down,” he agreed. “However, I was rather thinking that I might try my hand at something new. Bee-keeping, perhaps. There is much still to be learnt about bees.”
I was not sure how to react to that at all. I formed an image in my head of Holmes, a few years older but not greatly so, dressed in all the finery of a bee-keeper, frowning at a hive with the incisive glare he used at particularly perplexing crime scenes. Oddly, the image seemed to fit.
It was not until I had thought about it for several minutes that I realised there was no place for me in the picture. Unlike Holmes, I had never contemplated my own retirement, and I realised then that that had been because I had assumed that I would always remain by Holmes's side, without ever considering the particular details of that. I realised the foolishness of that – what use would Holmes have for an assistant and biographer once he was retired?
We arrived back home, and I settled into my chair while Holmes poured us both a drink. I stared at the fire, and tried to decide what plans I should be making for my own life – would I remain in London after Holmes had gone? The idea of rattling around Baker Street alone was uncomfortable, but so too was the idea of finding elsewhere to go. Where could possibly feel like home, other than London? Mary had once or twice expressed a wish to move to the seaside when we grew old, but I did not relish the idea of doing so on my own.
I realised that was what it came down to. I did not want to be alone as I grew old. I wondered, with some desperation, if Holmes would mind if I moved into the cottage next to his, but even if he had not already stated that he wished to be away from people, I could not afford to buy myself a house. I had some savings left from selling my practice, but it was not enough for that. Whatever else I did, I would have to keep working in some form or another for at least a few years, or risk destitution in my old age. No doubt that would be easier without Holmes's cases to distract me, but I couldn't hide from the thought that it would also be rather dull. In fact, the whole lifestyle I was picturing for myself would be.
“You are worrying about money,” remarked Holmes, and I pulled myself out of my reverie to meet his gaze. He was frowning slightly. “The rent is not due until next week and, to my knowledge, you should have it. You haven't been gambling without my knowledge, have you?”
There have been times when Holmes has been able to deduce my train of thought, but even he was not entirely capable of reading a man's mind. It was a relief to me on more than one occasion that he was only able to see a tiny part of my thoughts, and from there was forced to guess.
“No,” I said, then cast around for an alternative to what I had been thinking. “I will be fine this month, but my circle of patients is growing smaller, and I was considering whether I should be applying myself to growing it a little.”
“Not necessary,” said Holmes, waving the idea away. “I have more than enough money for both of us these days, and if you had too many patients, I should lose your invaluable companionship on far too many of my cases.” He gave me a careful look. “You are not going to be stiff-necked about this, I hope? We share everything else, it seems absurd to make money the exception.”
That was true, and I nodded my acceptance of the fact, even as I wondered just how much we would share after he had retired and left me behind.
I went to bed not long after that, leaving him sat up with his pipe, staring at the smoke curling towards the ceiling and no doubt thinking thoughts I could not hope to keep up with. I put my hand on his shoulder as I said good night, and his gaze sharpened on my face for long enough to give me a smile before he was lost in contemplation again.
I did not sleep immediately, too unsettled by the thoughts running around my head, and I spent an hour or two falling in and out of a light doze rather than sleeping properly. This meant I was only half-asleep when Holmes entered my room, crossed the floor and sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Holmes?” I asked, opening my eyes just enough to take in his silhouette. I was expecting him to announce that a case had arrived unexpectedly and that I needed to dress and come with him, but after a moment I realised he was in his night clothes. He looked as if he had been to bed already and his usually neat hair was dishevelled enough to tell me he had already tried sleeping and had experienced the same difficulties that I was having. Whatever this was about, it was unlikely that he was about to announce we were leaving the house.
“Watson,” he responded, then he put his hand on my shoulder. “May I join you?”
It took my drowsy mind a moment or two to parse his meaning, but once I understood what he was asking, I shuffled over to make space for him, folding back the covers as an invitation. He paused for only a moment before sliding in next to me.
We had slept in the same bed before, when sleeping quarters had been in short supply on a case, but having Holmes in my own bed was far more intimate. He had sought this out deliberately, I thought, and risked reaching out to rest my hand on his chest. He let out a long breath, relaxing fully, and I smiled to myself, then shut my eyes. I found my way down into sleep far easier after that, soothed by his gentle breathing.
I woke up when he left early the next morning, blinking at him as he pulled himself free of my grip.
“Do let me go, old fellow,” he said in an amused whisper, “or the maid will get rather a surprise.”
The reminder was enough to make me release him. We had done nothing that was illegal, but to be discovered like this would have been more than enough to condemn both our reputations, as well as our careers.
I lay awake after he had gone, watching the sunlight grow brighter outside the window. The worries from the previous night seemed less important now. Retirement seemed a long way away, and I resolved to stop borrowing trouble. Whatever course of action I eventually took, I had at least a few years yet to contemplate it, and until then, there was still this.
The next night he returned to my bed, again waiting until an hour so late that the rest of the household were long asleep and then slipping out before the dawn. There was nothing more to it than companionship as we slept, but it left me relaxed, and appeared to have the same effect on him, if the easy smiles he gave me over breakfast were anything to go by.
A week or two passed, and we became embroiled in a particularly tricky kidnapping case. Holmes solved the case with one of his usual flourishes of brilliance, and we ended the case in Inspector Gregson's office in order for Holmes to explain the full details at length.
Once he had finished, I was unable to keep from voicing my admiration. “Magnificent.”
Holmes gave me a pleased look, as susceptible as always to compliments to his intelligence.
“Indeed,” agreed Gregson. “Mr. Holmes, it has been a pleasure to watch you work. I know that the Wilson family are as grateful to you as we are.”
“I merely followed the obvious clues,” said Holmes. “We were lucky that Harris was such an unkempt man.” He looked at me. “And now, what do you say to a celebratory dinner, Watson? I daresay Simpson's would have a table for us.”
“It is likely,” I agreed, pulling out my watch to check the time. “We still have an hour or two before a reasonable dining hour, however. That's more than enough time for us to go home first, so that you can clear the mess you have made on the dining table.” He had spent the previous night covering it with a detailed map of the area surrounding the Wilson's house, using whatever pieces of Mrs. Hudson's silverware he could find, and then marking all the footprints he had observed out in ink on her tablecloth.
Holmes blinked at me as if such a thing was unheard of. “Surely that can wait?” he said. “I have not eaten since yesterday, Watson.”
“That was your choice,” I pointed out. “The state of the table is neither my choice, nor Mrs. Hudson's, and there is no reason for us to have to live with it any longer than is necessary.”
“I will clear it after dinner,” said Holmes. “If we stroll over to Simpson's rather than getting a cab, we will arrive at a time that would allow for an early dinner.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “And if we get a cab home, and you are quick clearing up the mess, we will get there around the same time.”
Gregson laughed, pulling my attention away from Holmes's wounded expression and making me aware of how focused we had been on each other, to the exclusion of all else.
“I am sure I have had similar conversations with my wife, more than once,” he said. “I would have thought a bachelor establishment would be more laid back about such things.”
Holmes stilled, and I felt my shoulders tighten with tension.
“It is, in some ways,” I allowed, “But there is only so much mess a man can take.”
“Indeed,” said Gregson nodding. “A wife is rather useful at keeping these things under control.” He paused, then added in what it is possible he thought was a delicate voice, “Have you ever considered marrying again? It has been some years since your wife died, hasn't it?”
It had been nearly ten years, but that did not mean I was ready to contemplate replacing Mary, even if there had not been Holmes. I suspect the glare I gave Gregson gave my thoughts on the matter away.
“My apologies,” he said. “I do not mean to pry into your matters. It just sounded as if you were missing the comforts of married life. The freedom of the bachelor life is only tempting for so long, eh?”
I did not know how to reply to that. My situation with Holmes managed to combine all the comforts of married life that I was interested in with the freedom of a bachelor, giving us the best of both worlds. There was no way to explain that to a Police Inspector, however.
“It suits me well enough,” I said in what I hoped was a tone that would end this conversation.
“Ah,” said Gregson. “Can't say fairer than that, I suppose, and there's still time for a change later in life.”
“Possibly,” I allowed, then stood up, desperate to escape this conversation. Holmes leapt to his feet beside me, jamming his hat on his head and giving Gregson a nod of farewell that was so curt as to be rude.
We were silent as we left the Yard. I hailed a cab for us, and directed it to Simpson's. Holmes gave me a look, and I shrugged.
“I suppose the mess can wait. You have just solved an extremely tricky case, and saved that poor boy from a very unpleasant situation. A celebration seems to be in order.”
Holmes's face cracked into a grin. “We both solved a case,” he corrected me. “Your assistance was as invaluable as always, my dear Watson.”
I found myself dwelling on Gregson's words more than I should as the carriage rattled towards Simpson's. Finding a wife would be the easiest way to avoid growing old alone, of course. One or two of my friends had mentioned the matter before, but I had always told them that I was not yet ready. Perhaps I should take some of them up on their offers to introduce me to women of their acquaintance, and find one who was pleasant enough to set up a home with.
The idea did not please me. I looked out at the familiar shapes of London, and wondered why I could not grow old as I had been young, at Holmes's side.
I drank rather more than perhaps I should have. We had a drink or two at the bar, then Holmes got us a rather nice bottle of wine with dinner, claiming a proper celebration needed more than our usual vintages. Once it was finished, I bought a second bottle to match his, and then, when I really should have stopped, I finished the meal with two large glasses of brandy. Holmes had far less of the second bottle than I, and nothing at all after the meal, and so remained far more sober than I; he has never enjoyed having his head befuddled by alcohol.
I don't have much of an excuse for the amount that I drank. Evenings out with Holmes just after a case were always extremely engaging, as he talked out precisely how he had solved it, and gave his opinions on the people we had met along the way, but we had shared a hundred such nights before, and I had never descended that far into inebriation. I suppose that Gregson's comments had left me with an acute awareness that our lifestyle would not last forever, and that the time in which I could enjoy Holmes's company in a post-case jubilation was rapidly running out.
My memories of that evening become rather hazy once we left Simpson's, although I have pieced them together enough now to create a narrative. Holmes had to help me out of the carriage when we finally made it back to Baker Street, and I leant all my weight on him, pressing my cheek against the wool of his coat in order to feel the warm and movement of his body beneath it.
“Careful, old fellow,” he said, tucking an arm around me, then glancing up at the cabbie. “I think perhaps you should have given that last drink a miss.”
“Seems like he could have done with missing more than one,” said the cabbie, sounding amused.
“Possibly,” admitted Holmes as he paid him, then helped me stagger into the house and up the stairs to my room. He deposited me on my bed, then bent to remove my shoes, presenting the smooth shine of his hair to my gaze. I ran a hand over it, feeling how soft it was, and received an amused look for my trouble.
“Feels nice,” I said, not moving my hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “Although I suspect you are at the level of inebriation that means almost anything you touch would feel nice.”
“Feels nice when I'm sober as well,” I said. “I like the feel of hair. Mary's was nice too, do you remember?”
He returned his gaze to my shoes, pulling them off. “I don't believe I ever had cause to touch it,” he said. He stood. “Can you cope with your buttons, or do you need more assistance?”
I looked down at my jacket. The buttons seemed to be spinning, and when I attempted to do the first one, I found myself fumbling like a child.
Holmes sighed, knocked my hands aside, and started undoing them. His head was bent to his task, and I was able to inspect his hair again. “Still so dark,” I said. “I wonder when it will start to grey.”
“I may lose it before that stage,” he said. “It is already starting to thin. My father was completely bald by the time he was fifty-three.”
“That would be a shame,” I said, running my hand over it again, then tracing the line of it over his forehead. “I hope I get to see it, either way.”
“Why wouldn't you?” asked Holmes, carefully pulling my jacket off my shoulders and laying it to one side before starting on my waistcoat.
I shrugged without much coordination. “Gregson thinks I should marry,” I said. Holmes's fingers stilled on my buttons, and I should have stopped there and told him what it was I was really thinking, that I very much wanted to see all the changes age worked on his body, and that the idea of marrying again was a complete anathema. However, I was drunk and not paying attention, and I let my tongue continue without applying any thought to what it said. “I wonder if I should. Would another wife have hair like Mary's?”
Holmes's hands started moving again, with less care than before. “She would have older hair,” he said. “It seems likely it would not be as you remember Mary's, especially not once it had gone white.”
Again, I missed the obvious signs of the vicious edge to Holmes's voice and the way all the relaxed amusement had drained from him. I was far too gone to realise how dangerous this conversation was.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Older hair. We'd grow old together.” Such a stupid thing to say! It hurts me now just to write of it.
Holmes pulled my waistcoat off, then straightened. “I'm afraid you'll have to handle the rest yourself,” he said. “I should go to bed.”
I believe I stared at him with a foolish expression. “You're not staying?” I asked.
“I think not,” he said. “You are extremely drunk.”
I thought about that. I was extremely drunk, but that didn't seem a good reason for Holmes to go away. I reached out for his hands, then stood up, swaying as I did so. “You should stay anyway,” I said. “I like you being here.”
I felt I could sense some wavering on his part, and it prompted me to make my second error of the evening. I wanted to express my great affection for him to drive home my point, and it seemed only natural that the best way to do so was to lean forward and press a kiss to his lips.
His reaction was instant. “No,” he said, stepping back with a furious expression. “I should much prefer my own bed to staying here to be molested by a drunk who is missing the company of women.”
He turned and left while I was still blinking at him, wondering how he could possibly have reached that conclusion. He shut the door behind him, and I stared at it for a moment, then sank back down on to the bed, still half-clothed and feeling miserable. The room was spinning, I felt more than a little sick, and Holmes had rejected me. I curled up and let the heavy weight of alcohol pull me into unconsciousness.
I suffered for my indulgence the next morning. By the time I made it downstairs, Holmes had already picked over breakfast and disappeared. I managed a cup of tea, then spent the morning on the sofa, trying to piece together the events of the previous evening, and trying to tell myself that the heavy weight in my stomach was due to the alcohol, and not to Holmes's abrupt rejection of my affections. That moment stood out sharply in my memory, of course. The look on Holmes's face seemed to be the only clear recollection I had of the whole evening.
I knew I would have to apologise. I had pushed too far, and the delicate balance between us had shattered. An apology was the least I could do, I just had no idea how to go about such a thing.
Holmes didn't return until that evening, after dinner. He barely spared me a look before he disappeared into his rooms, and ignored my greeting entirely. He did not come out again, and eventually I gave up and went to bed. The apology would have to wait until the next day.
Except that the next day he didn't emerge from his room at all. By dinner, I was beginning to grow concerned, and tapped cautiously on his door.
“Holmes? Are you well?” I called.
“I'm fine,” came back his voice. “Leave me be.”
“Mrs. Hudson is laying the table for dinner,” I said.
“I'm afraid you'll be eating alone. I'm not hungry.”
I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “Holmes, I was hoping to have a word with you. I wish to apologise-”
He cut me off. “No need, it's already forgotten. Now, Watson, please stop disturbing me.”
I gave up. I ate alone, then sat in front of the fire with a book whose pages I barely saw. Holmes did occasionally spend days at a time holed up in his room, particularly when there were no interesting cases on, but I couldn't help but think that my conduct of the other night had prompted this bout, rather than one of his usual fits of ennui. I wondered how I was expected to apologise to a man who refused to speak to me.
Then, of course, there was the nagging part of me that felt I should not have to. I might have crossed a line, but it had been there, right in front of us, for a good deal of time by that point. Few grown men are naïve enough to think that sharing a bed as we had been doing wouldn't open up a whole realm of other considerations, of which kissing was just the tip of the iceberg. Holmes was not remotely naïve.
For several days after that, I barely saw him. He spent them in bed, giving sharp answers to my queries after his health and eating the bare minimum from the trays Mrs. Hudson sent up for him.
When he finally emerged, I am not ashamed to say that I was relieved. I had been worried that this time might be the one when he wouldn't emerge at all, or that he might fall back into the old habits which we had both worked so hard to put behind him.
“Good morning,” I greeted him cautiously. “Would you care for some breakfast?”
He cast his eye over the spread Mrs. Hudson had laid for us with disdain, but consented to sit and pour himself a cup of tea and take some toast.
“Feeling better?” I asked, wary of provoking him but incapable of not asking.
He waved the question away, and from that I could tell he was recovering his spirits. “I am fine. I have merely been having trouble sleeping.”
“If you ever need any help with that,” I started to say, and was shut off by a fierce glare. It took me a moment to realise how he must have taken that, although I had only been going to offer him a draught.
There was silence for a minute, during which I wondered how to explain the mistake without upsetting him, but in the end he was the one that broke it.
He had been reading a document that he had brought out of his room with him, and when he had finished, he looked up. “There is a chance for you to make some money, friend Watson,” he said, and I wondered if I should be reading anything into his use of the word 'friend'. “Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?”
That was the start of a case that I have detailed elsewhere, and so I will skip over the essentials of the case. I merely wish to go over those parts of the case that I had to edit for the public eye, and which ultimately ended with us resolving the difficulties between us.
We spent the day in visits both to and from various Garridebs, and I could see Holmes's mood lifting with every twist of the case. As was so often the case with him, all personal problems and consideration were pushed to one side in the interest of unravelling the thread of mystery and laying the facts bare.
He seemed to have recovered himself completely by the evening and dined with me rather than retreating to his room again. We discussed nothing that would have raised eyebrows, but I was content to think that our friendship would recover from my error.
We discussed the case after we had dined, in that part of the evening that always seems best suited to conversation with close friends in the company of a pipe and a brandy, although I made sure to only pour myself a small drink. It would not do to make the same mistake twice.
“Anyhow, he wanted to get this good old fossil up to Birmingham,” finished Holmes. “That is very clear. I might have told him that he was clearly going on a wild-goose chase, but, on second thoughts, it seemed better to clear the stage by letting him go. To-morrow, Watson -- well, to-morrow will speak for itself.”
“Indeed,” I replied. I hesitated, then added the thought I could not suppress. “He seemed very loathe to have to leave his rooms. Are you sure it is necessary for him to go so far alone, when we both know it is for nothing?”
“It will do him good,” said Holmes. “You heard him say that his doctor wants him to get more air. It does a man no good at all to grow old alone, shut up with his obsessions. A day out is what he needs.”
“Or the shock of such a change could cause his health to suffer,” I said.
Holmes waved that away. “Man is not meant to live shut up like that,” he said, standing. “He will be fine. Better if he had a companion to take with him, of course, but not every man is blessed enough to have such a person. Good night, Watson.”
He left the room rather abruptly, and before I could respond. I sat there for a while longer, thinking about old men being left alone with their obsessions. Those thoughts quickly led to others that were even more depressing. I finished my drink and resolutely put myself to bed rather than face them.
After only a handful of weeks with Holmes sharing my bed, it seemed strange that it was so cold and empty without him. I lay awake, wondering if he would come in once the house was asleep as he had used to, now that he had broken out of his hibernation. He stayed away, though, and when I eventually fell asleep, it was troubled and disturbed.
Holmes was up and out early the next morning. When he returned at lunchtime, I noticed that his face was very grave.
“This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson,” he said. “There is danger, and you should know it.”
“Danger has never put me off before,” I pointed out to him. “If you're heading into it, then I shall follow.”
“Yes,” he said with an affectionate smile that I had seen often enough in the past, but not at all in the last few days. “I should know my Watson by now.”
“You should,” I agreed, feeling warmed by the possessive pronoun. After all, whose was I if not his? “It will not be the first we have shared, Holmes.”
“No,” he agreed. “Danger does rather seem to have been a key factor in our friendship.”
I was not sure if he was referring to the times we had flouted common decency and so risked our reputations, or just the times we had faced armed and violent criminals. I suppose either proved his statement to be true. “What is the particular danger this time?” I asked.
“We are up against a very hard case. I have identified Mr. John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law. He is none other than 'Killer' Evans, of sinister and murderous reputation.”
I had not heard of him, of course. Holmes described his history, then handed me my revolver. As we left for Nathan Garrideb's building, I felt the familiar surge of excitement in anticipation of some rough business. I might be getting older, but I had not lost my taste for adventure.
Holmes made a rapid examination of the premises, once the landlady had let us in and then departed. There was one cupboard in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. He pulled me behind this and we crouched together. In many ways it was similar to a hundred other situations we had been through together, but there was one crucial difference. Rather than huddle in as close as he could get to me whilst he outlined his intentions in a whisper, Holmes left as much space between us as could be managed within the gap.
Once I had noticed that, I ran back through all that had happened since Holmes had emerged from his self-imposed exile the previous morning. He had avoided all physical contact with me since then, maintaining a distance that would have been unremarkable between any other set of friends, but which was unheard of for us.
As I was yet again heaping recriminations on myself for my behaviour the other night, there came the sound of the outer door opening and shutting, then the sharp, metallic snap of a key, and the American was in the room. He closed the door softly behind him, took a sharp glance around him to see that all was safe, threw off his overcoat, and walked up to the central table with the brisk manner of one who knows exactly what he has to do and how to do it. He pushed the table to one side, tore up the square of carpet on which it rested, rolled it completely back, and then, drawing a jemmy from his inside pocket, he knelt down and worked vigorously upon the floor. Presently we heard the sound of sliding boards, and an instant later a square had opened in the planks. Killer Evans struck a match, lit a stump of candle, and vanished from our view.
Clearly the moment for action had come. I put all other thoughts out of my head, although I did note that Holmes chose to signal me with a look, rather than his usual touch of the wrist. We stole across to the open trap-door, but as gently as we moved, the old floor must have creaked under our feet, for the head of our American, peering anxiously round, emerged suddenly from the open space. His face turned upon us with a glare of baffled rage, which gradually softened into a rather shamefaced grin as he realized that two pistols were pointed at his head.
“Well, well!” said he coolly as he scrambled to the surface. “I guess you have been one too many for me, Mr. Holmes. Saw through my game, I suppose, and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, I hand it to you; you have me beat and --”
In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came down on the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend's wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.
"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!"
The desperation in his voice was almost as much of a balm as the feel of his arms around me. In the published account of this case, I said that it was worth the wound to know the depth of his love and loyalty, and I stand by that statement. The distress on his face would have been obvious to even a casual observer, and I had never been a casual observer of Sherlock Holmes.
"It's nothing, Holmes. It's a mere scratch," I said, for I knew what a serious bullet wound felt like, and this was not even close.
Ignoring me, he pulled his pocket-knife out and ripped up my trousers to reveal where the bullet had grazed me.
“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. I am not prepared to lose him before I must. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”
I was in a bit of a daze after that. I could blame that on the injury, but it was far more to do with Holmes's reaction. Hearing those words from his mouth, giving away precisely how important I was to him, was something I had never thought to expect. After that, Holmes took care to keep me close, allowing me to lean on his shoulder as if there had never been any distance between us. I thought, with some amusement, that if I had known that a little blood would have prompted such a reaction, I would have taken care to get shot much earlier.
Evans was taken away by the police, and Holmes bundled me into a carriage and took me home. I had stopped the bleeding and bound the wound with our handkerchiefs, but I still looked rather a fright, especially given the state of my trousers. I thought the driver wouldn't take us, but he took one look at the police, then at my friend's face, which had become rather recognisable around London, and let out a gruff laugh. “Be reading about this in the newspapers tomorrow, will I?” he said.
“More than likely,” I said as Holmes helped me up into the seat.
“Although the story will likely be woefully inaccurate,” added Holmes, before hopping up beside me himself, settling next to me and directing the driver to Baker Street. His leg remained pressed against mine for the entire trip, and he spent far more time frowning at the side of my face than he did looking out at the streets we were passing through, as if I had somewhere managed to conceal the seriousness of my wound from him and might keel over at any moment.
Once at Baker Street, he instructed Mrs. Hudson to bring hot water, and insisted on tending to the wound himself, even when I pointed out that I was a doctor and more than capable of treating myself. He waved my objections away, settled me in a chair and crouched beside me to clean out the wound, frowning to himself as he did so.
His position was close enough to that he had adopted to remove my shoes when I had been drunk that when I looked down at the top of his head and the sleek shine of his hair, still neat despite the rigours of the afternoon, I was hit by an almost overwhelming memory of how it had felt to run my fingers over it.
I did not dare to make such a move whilst sober, and certainly not with the uncertainty of the last few days still hanging around us, but I did not need to. Holmes glanced up to gauge the effect his ministrations were having on me, and must have read my thoughts from my face.
He let out a quiet laugh. “We do seem to be ending up in this position rather more often than one would expect,” he said, looking back down at his work. “You may touch my hair,” he added, “if you wish to. I don't object.”
“Not to that,” I said, my hand already reaching for him. I could not pass up an invitation like that after all. His hair was just as soft and pleasing to the touch as my drunken recollection had it.
Holmes had tensed slightly at my words, and he said, “Not that, no,” in a quiet murmur.
I decided not to pursue the subject for fear of prompting another withdrawal, and we sat in silence for a few minutes while he finished cleaning my wound, then put a dressing on it, and I concentrated on memorising the texture of his hair.
When he had finished, he let out a weary sigh and then slumped against my leg, leaning his forehead against the undamaged part of my thigh at such an angle as to allow me free access to his hair.
“You are not to do that to me again,” he said, his voice muffled by my leg.
“My apologies,” I said. I found myself replaying his exact reactions, how he had leapt to my defence and then wrapped his arms around me to support me, the exact note of fear in his voice and the threat he had aimed at Evans.
If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.
There had been a hard edge to his voice that left me in doubt that he had meant it. If Evans had been a better shot, Holmes might easily have become a murderer today. The thought made me shudder and I ran my fingers all the way to the nape of his neck.
I am not prepared to lose him before I must, he had said afterwards. I frowned, then repeated the phrase out loud. “What did you mean by that?” I asked.
Holmes's head grew heavy against my leg. “I was emotionally overwrought. I would ask you to forget that. I do not wish you to feel constrained by me against doing as you wish and taking a wife.”
I stared at the top of his head, but it offered me no answers to the hundred questions that statement awoke. “I do not wish to grow old alone,” I said.
“I can't imagine that will ever be your lot,” said Holmes. “People have always been drawn to you, even ones as generally cold-hearted as me. You needn't fear Nathan Garrideb's fate.”
There was something about the way he spoke that suddenly made me wonder if he feared such a fate for himself. But surely being left alone with his obsessions was precisely what he had described as wanting for himself? “I would have thought that you would like the idea of becoming that kind of recluse,” I said. “You said you wished to be away from people.”
“People, yes,” said Holmes, then his head lifted so that he could fix me with a look. “You must know by now that I do not consider you to be people.”
Oh, I thought. I swallowed with a dry throat. “What do you consider me then?” I asked, well aware I was pushing my luck.
Holmes was silent for a moment, eyes fixed firmly on my face. “It would be easy to answer that flippantly,” he said. “You are my friend, and my assistant, and my biographer, after all. However, you should know that you are more than all of that to me. I am just unsure of how to classify it.”
I managed a nod. My fingers were still caught in his hair, and I brought them down to cup his neck. “I do not want a wife,” I confessed. “I have always been more than content with our situation. I have merely been contemplating my options for when it changes.”
“It doesn't need to change,” said Holmes immediately. “Watson. Wherever I go, you will always be welcome beside me.”
“Even in your cottage?” I asked.
“Especially there,” he said. “I had always assumed it would be our cottage.”
Then he must have thought I was rejecting him when I spoke of wives the other night. No wonder he had reacted as he did. “Then it will be,” I said.
His face creased into a smile, and then he surged up to embrace me, clinging to me with such strength that the air was driven from my lungs. I found it hard to care, as I was holding him just as tightly. I was going to be allowed to remain with him, right until the very end of our lives. There was nothing I could want more.
Mrs. Hudson brought dinner up whilst we were still pressed together, and we had to pull apart so that Holmes could let her in and I could escape to my room in search of some intact trousers. Our dinner together was as convivial as any we had shared and we stayed up late into the night, talking together and making plans. More than once the thought crossed my mind that if I had just spoken to Holmes about these things earlier, a great deal of trouble might have been avoided.
When it finally came time for me to retire, Holmes stood as well, then hesitated in an uncharacteristic fashion. “Watson,” he said, sounding rather formal. “I would- am I welcome in your bed tonight?”
I smiled, and repeated his own words back to him. “You will always be welcome beside me.”
He returned my smile with a little nod of acknowledgement, then went to his room to prepare for sleep.
When he had slid into bed beside me, I placed my arm around him and held him close. He let out a quiet sound that I suspect was involuntary, and relaxed against me. I shut my eyes, intending to sleep, but after a minute or two had passed, he spoke.
“Watson,” he said in a hushed voice. “It is just this. It is- I cannot offer you anything more, as a wife could.”
I tightened my grip on him. “I told you,” I said. “I do not want a wife. This is more than enough.”
I felt the movement as he nodded. I found myself smiling as I dropped off to sleep, content that I would not have to face life alone for a long while yet, if ever.
Recipient:
garonneAuthor:
flawedamythystCharacters/Pairings: Holmes/Watson
Rating: PG
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to. - Harry Emerson Fosdick. Watson contemplates the future while he and Holmes investigate the three Garridebs.
Includes some of the original text, which I am not claiming to be my own words.
Some stories have beginnings that are impossible to pinpoint, especially after so many years have passed. Should I be starting this one with Holmes telling me of the puzzle that Nathan Garrideb had brought to his attention? That would likely miss rather a lot of the essential backstory needed to explain the importance of the events that came after. Perhaps, instead, I should begin with the conversation with Gregson, and the mistakes I made in the wake of it. No, that would still require some explanation of why our situation at the time made those mistakes so grave.
I could go all the way back to when Holmes returned to me from beyond the grave, ending what had been the loneliest, most difficult parts of my life. Certainly, that marked a new start for us, after which we grew increasingly closer and I found that I was able to exert an influence over Holmes's health and habits that I had never had before his confrontation with Moriarty. This influence, and Holmes's own iron willpower once he had set his mind to something, was eventually enough to wean him off the drugs habit that I had spent so long despairing about.
Certainly that time left us more settled together than we had ever been. I think I shall start this story at the end of it though, at the point when our joint sense of companionship and regard for each other evolved into more, or at least at the point where I realised that it had done so. Holmes almost certainly had seen it coming for months, perhaps even years, before that.
The night in question was, at first glance, precisely like a thousand others that we had shared over the years. We were seated together on the sofa as I read a novel and Holmes went through a stack of evening newspapers for whatever scraps of information he deemed relevant to his work.
After the last had been cast aside, he sat in silence, staring into the distance and doubtless contemplating whatever he had learnt from them. After a few minutes, he shifted his body, stretching out along the sofa and resting his head in my lap as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
It must certainly have seemed so to me, because it was not until he spoke that I registered just how odd our position should have been.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked, and there was an uncertainty to his voice that I rarely heard.
Needless to say, I was taken aback when I realised that I had failed to notice how inappropriate his actions should have been. However, it did not take me much to realise that, not only was I more than comfortable, but that having him in such close proximity did not seem remarkable in any way.
Holmes was waiting for an answer, and there was only one that I could give him.
“Always,” I replied.
Holmes's head was heavy and hard against my thigh, but the warmth of his presence and the comfort of being physically close to one whom I felt so emotionally close to was more than enough to make up for that. Holmes made a contented, humming noise, but said no more as he went back to his thoughts.
I, on the other hand, had no more concentration for my book. I kept staring at its pages, but my mind was busy trying to recognise the signs that I must have missed, trying to spot the steps that we must have taken in order for this to strike me as no more unusual than a handshake.
After some time, I realised that it had come about so gradually that it was no wonder I had not noticed until we were long past the point of what would have been considered socially acceptable. What had been casual affection between two close friends had gently morphed into more in such tiny increments as to make finding the beginning of this story so difficult. I am sure that if I asked Holmes, he would be able to tell me the exact hour that we passed beyond what society dictates as normal, but I rather like leaving the boundaries of it as indistinct. Part of me – the part that Holmes would sneer at as unmitigated romanticism - likes to think that if there was no real beginning, there can be no real end.
That night, as I thought it over and failed to turn a single page in my book, I realised how I had been seeking out physical evidence of Holmes's presence since his return; resting my leg against his in carriages and brushing our shoulders together as we walked. Holmes, in return, had been just as eager to keep me close. He has never really spoken of his time away, but I strongly suspect he found the experience of being a stranger everywhere he went lonely and isolating. It seems strange that such a small handful of years should have left such permanent marks on both of us, but I suppose my time in the Army was equally short, and yet still has a strong influence on me.
As time had passed, and we grew more and more comfortable with the life we led together, it seemed only natural that we fell into various habits that I finally realised were not as innocent as they seemed. Holmes had always had an odd tendency to sit on the floor on occasion, papers spread out all around him as he updated his scrapbooks, but he started to sit at the foot of my chair, his back brushing against my leg as he moved. Rather than just taking my arm when the ground was unsteady, the weather inclement, or my leg being particularly stubborn, he took it whenever we were walking together, leaning in to me as he spoke as if concerned I would not hear him. Once or twice, on late night train journeys back from one case or another, I had fallen asleep and awoken to find myself resting against his shoulder.
We had never spoken of these things, and so I had never really thought about them. Perhaps I am as slow as Holmes always claims I am. At any rate, I considered them that evening, while Holmes rested his head on my lap and no doubt waited for me to reach a conclusion. He must have known what the thoughts that kept me from turning the page of my book were.
I suppose my natural inclinations as a respectable man should have been to reject the entire premise, and to put some distance between the two of us immediately, thereby regaining a sense of propriety. I had spent too many years as the associate of a man who believed that the tenets of respectability were meaningless to merely bow to that urge, however. Instead, I tried to work through just what it was that this represented, and whether it was more likely to harm us or benefit us in the long run. Both those questions were easily answered once I truly came to examine my emotions. I could see no harm in anything that made me feel so content and settled.
In the end, I decided to just continue letting it unfold as it had been. There seemed little point in causing trouble where there was currently none.
The clock struck midnight, and I realised with a start just how much time had passed since Holmes had moved. It was past time for me to go to bed.
“Holmes,” I said, and his eyes flew open, darting straight to mine and betraying just how fast his mind was working, despite his relaxed posture. I touched my fingers to his hair. “I should go to bed,” I said.
He nodded, the movement feeling odd against my leg, then he sat up, turning so that he was still facing me. “Good night,” he said.
I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should acknowledge the revelation I had had. I wished I knew how to say, I have finally caught on to what we are doing, and I am more than fine with it, without sounding like a sentimental fool. After a moment, I decided that I would just have to trust that my actions would speak for me.
Holmes, of course, did not even need actions to understand what I was thinking. As I stood, he caught my hand.
“Watson,” he said, then seemed to find himself just as incapable of finding words as I had been. “Thank you,” he said after a moment.
I found a smile crossing my face and squeezed his hand, then retired.
From that point, the normal boundaries of friendship ceased to mean anything to us. In the evenings, once the door to our rooms had been locked, Holmes took to lounging across me as if I were no more than another piece of furniture, albeit one that he could shape to fit his needs. In return, I found myself reaching out for him far more often than I would have thought I'd ever want to, trapping one of his hands in mine as he explained some grand theory, or resting my foot against his under the table as we ate.
More than once I was reminded of how my hand and Mary's had found each other instinctively at Pondicherry Lodge, so very long ago. Love, it seemed, was something I was always to fall into without realising, although I did not let myself think that then. The idea of falling in love with Holmes was unimaginable for several reasons, and not just because it seemed a ridiculous thing to happen between two men. Even now, much later in life, I do not consider myself a lover of men. The associations with that do not match up to the reality of our situation, and I would not have engaged in such a relationship with any other man. Holmes alone could have called forth this depth of emotion in me.
In addition, there was never a sexual aspect to it, although I found images of Holmes intruding on my mind once or twice when I touched myself. When my mind was unclouded by arousal, I found it impossible to consider him as a sexual partner in truth. Even if I was not almost exclusively drawn to women, he had always been so untouchable in that respect, and still was, even with the new liberties I had been granted. The idea of a man like Holmes being laid bare in that manner, undone by lust, was so completely ridiculous that it made me uncomfortable to contemplate it as anything more than just a fantasy.
Several months passed in this fashion. I should make it clear that, other than a shared acknowledgement that we were beyond friendship, and the casual touch behind closed doors, things remained much as they always had been. Holmes devoted all his energies to solving cases, most of which I accompanied him on, and in between he caused terrible stinks with his chemistry sets, played his violin at all hours of the night, or languished in miserable lethargy, bemoaning that there were no puzzles to occupy his brain. I, in turn, visited those patients who had not yet grown tired of my unreliability, kept careful notes against the time when Holmes would let me write about his cases, and tried my best to keep Mrs. Hudson from losing her temper and throwing us both out in the street over Holmes's antics.
After a particularly long and involved case, the resolution of which was of great benefit to the British nation but which I am unable to talk about in more detail, we met Holmes's brother, Mycroft Holmes, at his club.
He congratulated Holmes on his resolution of the case, and then made another attempt to get Holmes to accept a knighthood in return for his services. Holmes was as unreceptive of the idea as he always was.
“It is more than deserved, and would be an excellent crown to your career,” said Mycroft.
Holmes let out an exasperated sigh. “I don't judge the value of my career by the prizes I get, as you well know. I prefer other rewards for my accomplishments.”
“Indeed,” said his brother, sliding a look at me that I suspect I was not meant to have seen. I cleared my throat and shifted my feet, wondering just how much his eagle gaze could see, or if he was merely referring to my role as Holmes's biographer. “Still, this would be a nice accolade to take into retirement with you, would it not?”
Holmes twitched, then unleashed one of his glares. “I have far more accolades than you do, Mycroft,” he said. “And yet you work just as hard for this country, if not harder. Why not award yourself with the knighthood, if you must find a Holmes to take it?”
Mycroft laughed that off and the matter was dropped. However, the mention of retirement stayed with me as we travelled back to Baker Street, and I found myself wondering just how much longer Holmes intended to pursue his profession. It had been nearly twenty years since he had taken me along with him to solve the case of Jefferson Hope, and while he was by no means decrepit, he was not the young man he had been then. Did he intend to keep chasing after criminals until he grew too slow to catch them, or too feeble to fend off an attack? It seemed unlikely.
“Have you thought much about retirement?” I asked as we drove.
Holmes sent me a sharp look. “Of course,” he said. “I plan for everything, Watson. You must have noticed that I have become more careful about collecting my fee from those of my clients who find it easy to pay. I know you will remember the impressive cheque from the Duke of Holdernesse last year. In a couple of years, I intend to buy a cottage, somewhere quiet and away from people.”
“I see,” I said, although I did not. The idea of Holmes leaving London seemed unnatural, possibly because the only time he had done so for a significant period of time had been when I had presumed him dead, when every street corner seemed to speak of what both I, and the country, had lost.
That was not the only problem I could envisage with the scenario. I had been subjected to the moods Holmes was prey to when there was no work to be had. How on earth would he survive retirement, with no cases at all? “I suppose you will spend the time adding to your series of monographs,” I hazarded.
“There are a handful of subjects on which I haven't yet had a chance to write my conclusions down,” he agreed. “However, I was rather thinking that I might try my hand at something new. Bee-keeping, perhaps. There is much still to be learnt about bees.”
I was not sure how to react to that at all. I formed an image in my head of Holmes, a few years older but not greatly so, dressed in all the finery of a bee-keeper, frowning at a hive with the incisive glare he used at particularly perplexing crime scenes. Oddly, the image seemed to fit.
It was not until I had thought about it for several minutes that I realised there was no place for me in the picture. Unlike Holmes, I had never contemplated my own retirement, and I realised then that that had been because I had assumed that I would always remain by Holmes's side, without ever considering the particular details of that. I realised the foolishness of that – what use would Holmes have for an assistant and biographer once he was retired?
We arrived back home, and I settled into my chair while Holmes poured us both a drink. I stared at the fire, and tried to decide what plans I should be making for my own life – would I remain in London after Holmes had gone? The idea of rattling around Baker Street alone was uncomfortable, but so too was the idea of finding elsewhere to go. Where could possibly feel like home, other than London? Mary had once or twice expressed a wish to move to the seaside when we grew old, but I did not relish the idea of doing so on my own.
I realised that was what it came down to. I did not want to be alone as I grew old. I wondered, with some desperation, if Holmes would mind if I moved into the cottage next to his, but even if he had not already stated that he wished to be away from people, I could not afford to buy myself a house. I had some savings left from selling my practice, but it was not enough for that. Whatever else I did, I would have to keep working in some form or another for at least a few years, or risk destitution in my old age. No doubt that would be easier without Holmes's cases to distract me, but I couldn't hide from the thought that it would also be rather dull. In fact, the whole lifestyle I was picturing for myself would be.
“You are worrying about money,” remarked Holmes, and I pulled myself out of my reverie to meet his gaze. He was frowning slightly. “The rent is not due until next week and, to my knowledge, you should have it. You haven't been gambling without my knowledge, have you?”
There have been times when Holmes has been able to deduce my train of thought, but even he was not entirely capable of reading a man's mind. It was a relief to me on more than one occasion that he was only able to see a tiny part of my thoughts, and from there was forced to guess.
“No,” I said, then cast around for an alternative to what I had been thinking. “I will be fine this month, but my circle of patients is growing smaller, and I was considering whether I should be applying myself to growing it a little.”
“Not necessary,” said Holmes, waving the idea away. “I have more than enough money for both of us these days, and if you had too many patients, I should lose your invaluable companionship on far too many of my cases.” He gave me a careful look. “You are not going to be stiff-necked about this, I hope? We share everything else, it seems absurd to make money the exception.”
That was true, and I nodded my acceptance of the fact, even as I wondered just how much we would share after he had retired and left me behind.
I went to bed not long after that, leaving him sat up with his pipe, staring at the smoke curling towards the ceiling and no doubt thinking thoughts I could not hope to keep up with. I put my hand on his shoulder as I said good night, and his gaze sharpened on my face for long enough to give me a smile before he was lost in contemplation again.
I did not sleep immediately, too unsettled by the thoughts running around my head, and I spent an hour or two falling in and out of a light doze rather than sleeping properly. This meant I was only half-asleep when Holmes entered my room, crossed the floor and sat down on the edge of my bed.
“Holmes?” I asked, opening my eyes just enough to take in his silhouette. I was expecting him to announce that a case had arrived unexpectedly and that I needed to dress and come with him, but after a moment I realised he was in his night clothes. He looked as if he had been to bed already and his usually neat hair was dishevelled enough to tell me he had already tried sleeping and had experienced the same difficulties that I was having. Whatever this was about, it was unlikely that he was about to announce we were leaving the house.
“Watson,” he responded, then he put his hand on my shoulder. “May I join you?”
It took my drowsy mind a moment or two to parse his meaning, but once I understood what he was asking, I shuffled over to make space for him, folding back the covers as an invitation. He paused for only a moment before sliding in next to me.
We had slept in the same bed before, when sleeping quarters had been in short supply on a case, but having Holmes in my own bed was far more intimate. He had sought this out deliberately, I thought, and risked reaching out to rest my hand on his chest. He let out a long breath, relaxing fully, and I smiled to myself, then shut my eyes. I found my way down into sleep far easier after that, soothed by his gentle breathing.
I woke up when he left early the next morning, blinking at him as he pulled himself free of my grip.
“Do let me go, old fellow,” he said in an amused whisper, “or the maid will get rather a surprise.”
The reminder was enough to make me release him. We had done nothing that was illegal, but to be discovered like this would have been more than enough to condemn both our reputations, as well as our careers.
I lay awake after he had gone, watching the sunlight grow brighter outside the window. The worries from the previous night seemed less important now. Retirement seemed a long way away, and I resolved to stop borrowing trouble. Whatever course of action I eventually took, I had at least a few years yet to contemplate it, and until then, there was still this.
The next night he returned to my bed, again waiting until an hour so late that the rest of the household were long asleep and then slipping out before the dawn. There was nothing more to it than companionship as we slept, but it left me relaxed, and appeared to have the same effect on him, if the easy smiles he gave me over breakfast were anything to go by.
A week or two passed, and we became embroiled in a particularly tricky kidnapping case. Holmes solved the case with one of his usual flourishes of brilliance, and we ended the case in Inspector Gregson's office in order for Holmes to explain the full details at length.
Once he had finished, I was unable to keep from voicing my admiration. “Magnificent.”
Holmes gave me a pleased look, as susceptible as always to compliments to his intelligence.
“Indeed,” agreed Gregson. “Mr. Holmes, it has been a pleasure to watch you work. I know that the Wilson family are as grateful to you as we are.”
“I merely followed the obvious clues,” said Holmes. “We were lucky that Harris was such an unkempt man.” He looked at me. “And now, what do you say to a celebratory dinner, Watson? I daresay Simpson's would have a table for us.”
“It is likely,” I agreed, pulling out my watch to check the time. “We still have an hour or two before a reasonable dining hour, however. That's more than enough time for us to go home first, so that you can clear the mess you have made on the dining table.” He had spent the previous night covering it with a detailed map of the area surrounding the Wilson's house, using whatever pieces of Mrs. Hudson's silverware he could find, and then marking all the footprints he had observed out in ink on her tablecloth.
Holmes blinked at me as if such a thing was unheard of. “Surely that can wait?” he said. “I have not eaten since yesterday, Watson.”
“That was your choice,” I pointed out. “The state of the table is neither my choice, nor Mrs. Hudson's, and there is no reason for us to have to live with it any longer than is necessary.”
“I will clear it after dinner,” said Holmes. “If we stroll over to Simpson's rather than getting a cab, we will arrive at a time that would allow for an early dinner.”
“Indeed,” I agreed. “And if we get a cab home, and you are quick clearing up the mess, we will get there around the same time.”
Gregson laughed, pulling my attention away from Holmes's wounded expression and making me aware of how focused we had been on each other, to the exclusion of all else.
“I am sure I have had similar conversations with my wife, more than once,” he said. “I would have thought a bachelor establishment would be more laid back about such things.”
Holmes stilled, and I felt my shoulders tighten with tension.
“It is, in some ways,” I allowed, “But there is only so much mess a man can take.”
“Indeed,” said Gregson nodding. “A wife is rather useful at keeping these things under control.” He paused, then added in what it is possible he thought was a delicate voice, “Have you ever considered marrying again? It has been some years since your wife died, hasn't it?”
It had been nearly ten years, but that did not mean I was ready to contemplate replacing Mary, even if there had not been Holmes. I suspect the glare I gave Gregson gave my thoughts on the matter away.
“My apologies,” he said. “I do not mean to pry into your matters. It just sounded as if you were missing the comforts of married life. The freedom of the bachelor life is only tempting for so long, eh?”
I did not know how to reply to that. My situation with Holmes managed to combine all the comforts of married life that I was interested in with the freedom of a bachelor, giving us the best of both worlds. There was no way to explain that to a Police Inspector, however.
“It suits me well enough,” I said in what I hoped was a tone that would end this conversation.
“Ah,” said Gregson. “Can't say fairer than that, I suppose, and there's still time for a change later in life.”
“Possibly,” I allowed, then stood up, desperate to escape this conversation. Holmes leapt to his feet beside me, jamming his hat on his head and giving Gregson a nod of farewell that was so curt as to be rude.
We were silent as we left the Yard. I hailed a cab for us, and directed it to Simpson's. Holmes gave me a look, and I shrugged.
“I suppose the mess can wait. You have just solved an extremely tricky case, and saved that poor boy from a very unpleasant situation. A celebration seems to be in order.”
Holmes's face cracked into a grin. “We both solved a case,” he corrected me. “Your assistance was as invaluable as always, my dear Watson.”
I found myself dwelling on Gregson's words more than I should as the carriage rattled towards Simpson's. Finding a wife would be the easiest way to avoid growing old alone, of course. One or two of my friends had mentioned the matter before, but I had always told them that I was not yet ready. Perhaps I should take some of them up on their offers to introduce me to women of their acquaintance, and find one who was pleasant enough to set up a home with.
The idea did not please me. I looked out at the familiar shapes of London, and wondered why I could not grow old as I had been young, at Holmes's side.
I drank rather more than perhaps I should have. We had a drink or two at the bar, then Holmes got us a rather nice bottle of wine with dinner, claiming a proper celebration needed more than our usual vintages. Once it was finished, I bought a second bottle to match his, and then, when I really should have stopped, I finished the meal with two large glasses of brandy. Holmes had far less of the second bottle than I, and nothing at all after the meal, and so remained far more sober than I; he has never enjoyed having his head befuddled by alcohol.
I don't have much of an excuse for the amount that I drank. Evenings out with Holmes just after a case were always extremely engaging, as he talked out precisely how he had solved it, and gave his opinions on the people we had met along the way, but we had shared a hundred such nights before, and I had never descended that far into inebriation. I suppose that Gregson's comments had left me with an acute awareness that our lifestyle would not last forever, and that the time in which I could enjoy Holmes's company in a post-case jubilation was rapidly running out.
My memories of that evening become rather hazy once we left Simpson's, although I have pieced them together enough now to create a narrative. Holmes had to help me out of the carriage when we finally made it back to Baker Street, and I leant all my weight on him, pressing my cheek against the wool of his coat in order to feel the warm and movement of his body beneath it.
“Careful, old fellow,” he said, tucking an arm around me, then glancing up at the cabbie. “I think perhaps you should have given that last drink a miss.”
“Seems like he could have done with missing more than one,” said the cabbie, sounding amused.
“Possibly,” admitted Holmes as he paid him, then helped me stagger into the house and up the stairs to my room. He deposited me on my bed, then bent to remove my shoes, presenting the smooth shine of his hair to my gaze. I ran a hand over it, feeling how soft it was, and received an amused look for my trouble.
“Feels nice,” I said, not moving my hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “Although I suspect you are at the level of inebriation that means almost anything you touch would feel nice.”
“Feels nice when I'm sober as well,” I said. “I like the feel of hair. Mary's was nice too, do you remember?”
He returned his gaze to my shoes, pulling them off. “I don't believe I ever had cause to touch it,” he said. He stood. “Can you cope with your buttons, or do you need more assistance?”
I looked down at my jacket. The buttons seemed to be spinning, and when I attempted to do the first one, I found myself fumbling like a child.
Holmes sighed, knocked my hands aside, and started undoing them. His head was bent to his task, and I was able to inspect his hair again. “Still so dark,” I said. “I wonder when it will start to grey.”
“I may lose it before that stage,” he said. “It is already starting to thin. My father was completely bald by the time he was fifty-three.”
“That would be a shame,” I said, running my hand over it again, then tracing the line of it over his forehead. “I hope I get to see it, either way.”
“Why wouldn't you?” asked Holmes, carefully pulling my jacket off my shoulders and laying it to one side before starting on my waistcoat.
I shrugged without much coordination. “Gregson thinks I should marry,” I said. Holmes's fingers stilled on my buttons, and I should have stopped there and told him what it was I was really thinking, that I very much wanted to see all the changes age worked on his body, and that the idea of marrying again was a complete anathema. However, I was drunk and not paying attention, and I let my tongue continue without applying any thought to what it said. “I wonder if I should. Would another wife have hair like Mary's?”
Holmes's hands started moving again, with less care than before. “She would have older hair,” he said. “It seems likely it would not be as you remember Mary's, especially not once it had gone white.”
Again, I missed the obvious signs of the vicious edge to Holmes's voice and the way all the relaxed amusement had drained from him. I was far too gone to realise how dangerous this conversation was.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Older hair. We'd grow old together.” Such a stupid thing to say! It hurts me now just to write of it.
Holmes pulled my waistcoat off, then straightened. “I'm afraid you'll have to handle the rest yourself,” he said. “I should go to bed.”
I believe I stared at him with a foolish expression. “You're not staying?” I asked.
“I think not,” he said. “You are extremely drunk.”
I thought about that. I was extremely drunk, but that didn't seem a good reason for Holmes to go away. I reached out for his hands, then stood up, swaying as I did so. “You should stay anyway,” I said. “I like you being here.”
I felt I could sense some wavering on his part, and it prompted me to make my second error of the evening. I wanted to express my great affection for him to drive home my point, and it seemed only natural that the best way to do so was to lean forward and press a kiss to his lips.
His reaction was instant. “No,” he said, stepping back with a furious expression. “I should much prefer my own bed to staying here to be molested by a drunk who is missing the company of women.”
He turned and left while I was still blinking at him, wondering how he could possibly have reached that conclusion. He shut the door behind him, and I stared at it for a moment, then sank back down on to the bed, still half-clothed and feeling miserable. The room was spinning, I felt more than a little sick, and Holmes had rejected me. I curled up and let the heavy weight of alcohol pull me into unconsciousness.
I suffered for my indulgence the next morning. By the time I made it downstairs, Holmes had already picked over breakfast and disappeared. I managed a cup of tea, then spent the morning on the sofa, trying to piece together the events of the previous evening, and trying to tell myself that the heavy weight in my stomach was due to the alcohol, and not to Holmes's abrupt rejection of my affections. That moment stood out sharply in my memory, of course. The look on Holmes's face seemed to be the only clear recollection I had of the whole evening.
I knew I would have to apologise. I had pushed too far, and the delicate balance between us had shattered. An apology was the least I could do, I just had no idea how to go about such a thing.
Holmes didn't return until that evening, after dinner. He barely spared me a look before he disappeared into his rooms, and ignored my greeting entirely. He did not come out again, and eventually I gave up and went to bed. The apology would have to wait until the next day.
Except that the next day he didn't emerge from his room at all. By dinner, I was beginning to grow concerned, and tapped cautiously on his door.
“Holmes? Are you well?” I called.
“I'm fine,” came back his voice. “Leave me be.”
“Mrs. Hudson is laying the table for dinner,” I said.
“I'm afraid you'll be eating alone. I'm not hungry.”
I hesitated, then cleared my throat. “Holmes, I was hoping to have a word with you. I wish to apologise-”
He cut me off. “No need, it's already forgotten. Now, Watson, please stop disturbing me.”
I gave up. I ate alone, then sat in front of the fire with a book whose pages I barely saw. Holmes did occasionally spend days at a time holed up in his room, particularly when there were no interesting cases on, but I couldn't help but think that my conduct of the other night had prompted this bout, rather than one of his usual fits of ennui. I wondered how I was expected to apologise to a man who refused to speak to me.
Then, of course, there was the nagging part of me that felt I should not have to. I might have crossed a line, but it had been there, right in front of us, for a good deal of time by that point. Few grown men are naïve enough to think that sharing a bed as we had been doing wouldn't open up a whole realm of other considerations, of which kissing was just the tip of the iceberg. Holmes was not remotely naïve.
For several days after that, I barely saw him. He spent them in bed, giving sharp answers to my queries after his health and eating the bare minimum from the trays Mrs. Hudson sent up for him.
When he finally emerged, I am not ashamed to say that I was relieved. I had been worried that this time might be the one when he wouldn't emerge at all, or that he might fall back into the old habits which we had both worked so hard to put behind him.
“Good morning,” I greeted him cautiously. “Would you care for some breakfast?”
He cast his eye over the spread Mrs. Hudson had laid for us with disdain, but consented to sit and pour himself a cup of tea and take some toast.
“Feeling better?” I asked, wary of provoking him but incapable of not asking.
He waved the question away, and from that I could tell he was recovering his spirits. “I am fine. I have merely been having trouble sleeping.”
“If you ever need any help with that,” I started to say, and was shut off by a fierce glare. It took me a moment to realise how he must have taken that, although I had only been going to offer him a draught.
There was silence for a minute, during which I wondered how to explain the mistake without upsetting him, but in the end he was the one that broke it.
He had been reading a document that he had brought out of his room with him, and when he had finished, he looked up. “There is a chance for you to make some money, friend Watson,” he said, and I wondered if I should be reading anything into his use of the word 'friend'. “Have you ever heard the name of Garrideb?”
That was the start of a case that I have detailed elsewhere, and so I will skip over the essentials of the case. I merely wish to go over those parts of the case that I had to edit for the public eye, and which ultimately ended with us resolving the difficulties between us.
We spent the day in visits both to and from various Garridebs, and I could see Holmes's mood lifting with every twist of the case. As was so often the case with him, all personal problems and consideration were pushed to one side in the interest of unravelling the thread of mystery and laying the facts bare.
He seemed to have recovered himself completely by the evening and dined with me rather than retreating to his room again. We discussed nothing that would have raised eyebrows, but I was content to think that our friendship would recover from my error.
We discussed the case after we had dined, in that part of the evening that always seems best suited to conversation with close friends in the company of a pipe and a brandy, although I made sure to only pour myself a small drink. It would not do to make the same mistake twice.
“Anyhow, he wanted to get this good old fossil up to Birmingham,” finished Holmes. “That is very clear. I might have told him that he was clearly going on a wild-goose chase, but, on second thoughts, it seemed better to clear the stage by letting him go. To-morrow, Watson -- well, to-morrow will speak for itself.”
“Indeed,” I replied. I hesitated, then added the thought I could not suppress. “He seemed very loathe to have to leave his rooms. Are you sure it is necessary for him to go so far alone, when we both know it is for nothing?”
“It will do him good,” said Holmes. “You heard him say that his doctor wants him to get more air. It does a man no good at all to grow old alone, shut up with his obsessions. A day out is what he needs.”
“Or the shock of such a change could cause his health to suffer,” I said.
Holmes waved that away. “Man is not meant to live shut up like that,” he said, standing. “He will be fine. Better if he had a companion to take with him, of course, but not every man is blessed enough to have such a person. Good night, Watson.”
He left the room rather abruptly, and before I could respond. I sat there for a while longer, thinking about old men being left alone with their obsessions. Those thoughts quickly led to others that were even more depressing. I finished my drink and resolutely put myself to bed rather than face them.
After only a handful of weeks with Holmes sharing my bed, it seemed strange that it was so cold and empty without him. I lay awake, wondering if he would come in once the house was asleep as he had used to, now that he had broken out of his hibernation. He stayed away, though, and when I eventually fell asleep, it was troubled and disturbed.
Holmes was up and out early the next morning. When he returned at lunchtime, I noticed that his face was very grave.
“This is a more serious matter than I had expected, Watson,” he said. “There is danger, and you should know it.”
“Danger has never put me off before,” I pointed out to him. “If you're heading into it, then I shall follow.”
“Yes,” he said with an affectionate smile that I had seen often enough in the past, but not at all in the last few days. “I should know my Watson by now.”
“You should,” I agreed, feeling warmed by the possessive pronoun. After all, whose was I if not his? “It will not be the first we have shared, Holmes.”
“No,” he agreed. “Danger does rather seem to have been a key factor in our friendship.”
I was not sure if he was referring to the times we had flouted common decency and so risked our reputations, or just the times we had faced armed and violent criminals. I suppose either proved his statement to be true. “What is the particular danger this time?” I asked.
“We are up against a very hard case. I have identified Mr. John Garrideb, Counsellor at Law. He is none other than 'Killer' Evans, of sinister and murderous reputation.”
I had not heard of him, of course. Holmes described his history, then handed me my revolver. As we left for Nathan Garrideb's building, I felt the familiar surge of excitement in anticipation of some rough business. I might be getting older, but I had not lost my taste for adventure.
Holmes made a rapid examination of the premises, once the landlady had let us in and then departed. There was one cupboard in a dark corner which stood out a little from the wall. He pulled me behind this and we crouched together. In many ways it was similar to a hundred other situations we had been through together, but there was one crucial difference. Rather than huddle in as close as he could get to me whilst he outlined his intentions in a whisper, Holmes left as much space between us as could be managed within the gap.
Once I had noticed that, I ran back through all that had happened since Holmes had emerged from his self-imposed exile the previous morning. He had avoided all physical contact with me since then, maintaining a distance that would have been unremarkable between any other set of friends, but which was unheard of for us.
As I was yet again heaping recriminations on myself for my behaviour the other night, there came the sound of the outer door opening and shutting, then the sharp, metallic snap of a key, and the American was in the room. He closed the door softly behind him, took a sharp glance around him to see that all was safe, threw off his overcoat, and walked up to the central table with the brisk manner of one who knows exactly what he has to do and how to do it. He pushed the table to one side, tore up the square of carpet on which it rested, rolled it completely back, and then, drawing a jemmy from his inside pocket, he knelt down and worked vigorously upon the floor. Presently we heard the sound of sliding boards, and an instant later a square had opened in the planks. Killer Evans struck a match, lit a stump of candle, and vanished from our view.
Clearly the moment for action had come. I put all other thoughts out of my head, although I did note that Holmes chose to signal me with a look, rather than his usual touch of the wrist. We stole across to the open trap-door, but as gently as we moved, the old floor must have creaked under our feet, for the head of our American, peering anxiously round, emerged suddenly from the open space. His face turned upon us with a glare of baffled rage, which gradually softened into a rather shamefaced grin as he realized that two pistols were pointed at his head.
“Well, well!” said he coolly as he scrambled to the surface. “I guess you have been one too many for me, Mr. Holmes. Saw through my game, I suppose, and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, I hand it to you; you have me beat and --”
In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes's pistol came down on the man's head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend's wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.
"You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!"
The desperation in his voice was almost as much of a balm as the feel of his arms around me. In the published account of this case, I said that it was worth the wound to know the depth of his love and loyalty, and I stand by that statement. The distress on his face would have been obvious to even a casual observer, and I had never been a casual observer of Sherlock Holmes.
"It's nothing, Holmes. It's a mere scratch," I said, for I knew what a serious bullet wound felt like, and this was not even close.
Ignoring me, he pulled his pocket-knife out and ripped up my trousers to reveal where the bullet had grazed me.
“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. I am not prepared to lose him before I must. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”
I was in a bit of a daze after that. I could blame that on the injury, but it was far more to do with Holmes's reaction. Hearing those words from his mouth, giving away precisely how important I was to him, was something I had never thought to expect. After that, Holmes took care to keep me close, allowing me to lean on his shoulder as if there had never been any distance between us. I thought, with some amusement, that if I had known that a little blood would have prompted such a reaction, I would have taken care to get shot much earlier.
Evans was taken away by the police, and Holmes bundled me into a carriage and took me home. I had stopped the bleeding and bound the wound with our handkerchiefs, but I still looked rather a fright, especially given the state of my trousers. I thought the driver wouldn't take us, but he took one look at the police, then at my friend's face, which had become rather recognisable around London, and let out a gruff laugh. “Be reading about this in the newspapers tomorrow, will I?” he said.
“More than likely,” I said as Holmes helped me up into the seat.
“Although the story will likely be woefully inaccurate,” added Holmes, before hopping up beside me himself, settling next to me and directing the driver to Baker Street. His leg remained pressed against mine for the entire trip, and he spent far more time frowning at the side of my face than he did looking out at the streets we were passing through, as if I had somewhere managed to conceal the seriousness of my wound from him and might keel over at any moment.
Once at Baker Street, he instructed Mrs. Hudson to bring hot water, and insisted on tending to the wound himself, even when I pointed out that I was a doctor and more than capable of treating myself. He waved my objections away, settled me in a chair and crouched beside me to clean out the wound, frowning to himself as he did so.
His position was close enough to that he had adopted to remove my shoes when I had been drunk that when I looked down at the top of his head and the sleek shine of his hair, still neat despite the rigours of the afternoon, I was hit by an almost overwhelming memory of how it had felt to run my fingers over it.
I did not dare to make such a move whilst sober, and certainly not with the uncertainty of the last few days still hanging around us, but I did not need to. Holmes glanced up to gauge the effect his ministrations were having on me, and must have read my thoughts from my face.
He let out a quiet laugh. “We do seem to be ending up in this position rather more often than one would expect,” he said, looking back down at his work. “You may touch my hair,” he added, “if you wish to. I don't object.”
“Not to that,” I said, my hand already reaching for him. I could not pass up an invitation like that after all. His hair was just as soft and pleasing to the touch as my drunken recollection had it.
Holmes had tensed slightly at my words, and he said, “Not that, no,” in a quiet murmur.
I decided not to pursue the subject for fear of prompting another withdrawal, and we sat in silence for a few minutes while he finished cleaning my wound, then put a dressing on it, and I concentrated on memorising the texture of his hair.
When he had finished, he let out a weary sigh and then slumped against my leg, leaning his forehead against the undamaged part of my thigh at such an angle as to allow me free access to his hair.
“You are not to do that to me again,” he said, his voice muffled by my leg.
“My apologies,” I said. I found myself replaying his exact reactions, how he had leapt to my defence and then wrapped his arms around me to support me, the exact note of fear in his voice and the threat he had aimed at Evans.
If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.
There had been a hard edge to his voice that left me in doubt that he had meant it. If Evans had been a better shot, Holmes might easily have become a murderer today. The thought made me shudder and I ran my fingers all the way to the nape of his neck.
I am not prepared to lose him before I must, he had said afterwards. I frowned, then repeated the phrase out loud. “What did you mean by that?” I asked.
Holmes's head grew heavy against my leg. “I was emotionally overwrought. I would ask you to forget that. I do not wish you to feel constrained by me against doing as you wish and taking a wife.”
I stared at the top of his head, but it offered me no answers to the hundred questions that statement awoke. “I do not wish to grow old alone,” I said.
“I can't imagine that will ever be your lot,” said Holmes. “People have always been drawn to you, even ones as generally cold-hearted as me. You needn't fear Nathan Garrideb's fate.”
There was something about the way he spoke that suddenly made me wonder if he feared such a fate for himself. But surely being left alone with his obsessions was precisely what he had described as wanting for himself? “I would have thought that you would like the idea of becoming that kind of recluse,” I said. “You said you wished to be away from people.”
“People, yes,” said Holmes, then his head lifted so that he could fix me with a look. “You must know by now that I do not consider you to be people.”
Oh, I thought. I swallowed with a dry throat. “What do you consider me then?” I asked, well aware I was pushing my luck.
Holmes was silent for a moment, eyes fixed firmly on my face. “It would be easy to answer that flippantly,” he said. “You are my friend, and my assistant, and my biographer, after all. However, you should know that you are more than all of that to me. I am just unsure of how to classify it.”
I managed a nod. My fingers were still caught in his hair, and I brought them down to cup his neck. “I do not want a wife,” I confessed. “I have always been more than content with our situation. I have merely been contemplating my options for when it changes.”
“It doesn't need to change,” said Holmes immediately. “Watson. Wherever I go, you will always be welcome beside me.”
“Even in your cottage?” I asked.
“Especially there,” he said. “I had always assumed it would be our cottage.”
Then he must have thought I was rejecting him when I spoke of wives the other night. No wonder he had reacted as he did. “Then it will be,” I said.
His face creased into a smile, and then he surged up to embrace me, clinging to me with such strength that the air was driven from my lungs. I found it hard to care, as I was holding him just as tightly. I was going to be allowed to remain with him, right until the very end of our lives. There was nothing I could want more.
Mrs. Hudson brought dinner up whilst we were still pressed together, and we had to pull apart so that Holmes could let her in and I could escape to my room in search of some intact trousers. Our dinner together was as convivial as any we had shared and we stayed up late into the night, talking together and making plans. More than once the thought crossed my mind that if I had just spoken to Holmes about these things earlier, a great deal of trouble might have been avoided.
When it finally came time for me to retire, Holmes stood as well, then hesitated in an uncharacteristic fashion. “Watson,” he said, sounding rather formal. “I would- am I welcome in your bed tonight?”
I smiled, and repeated his own words back to him. “You will always be welcome beside me.”
He returned my smile with a little nod of acknowledgement, then went to his room to prepare for sleep.
When he had slid into bed beside me, I placed my arm around him and held him close. He let out a quiet sound that I suspect was involuntary, and relaxed against me. I shut my eyes, intending to sleep, but after a minute or two had passed, he spoke.
“Watson,” he said in a hushed voice. “It is just this. It is- I cannot offer you anything more, as a wife could.”
I tightened my grip on him. “I told you,” I said. “I do not want a wife. This is more than enough.”
I felt the movement as he nodded. I found myself smiling as I dropped off to sleep, content that I would not have to face life alone for a long while yet, if ever.
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Date: 2012-06-15 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-06-16 10:56 am (UTC)I feel a little like my heart has just grown three sizes. Well done!
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Date: 2012-06-17 12:12 pm (UTC)So thank you, anon! I'm very much looking forward to finding out whether you've written anything else in the same vein.
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Date: 2012-07-04 11:06 am (UTC)I've posted an edited version over at my LJ and on AO3 now, in case you're interesteed in a version with less typos and slightly better phrasing.
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Date: 2012-07-08 09:13 pm (UTC)P.s. really didn't notice any typos or bad phrasing ;)
Thanks again!
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