Title: There's a Fine, Fine Line
Rating: T+
Summary: There is nothing more confusing in the world than realizing you've crossed "The Line" and liked it.
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes © Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
A/N: Started writing the prompt during a biology test, and finished the rest of it in five minutes, thanks to the might invention – the computer. Originally, set to Marvel's Spiderman. Enjoy.
When it happens, it happens at a completely inappropriate moment. Sherlock has, miraculously, shown up at the front door after being missing for several days; he of course being the ever munificent benefactor of many a stomach pains to Dr. John Watson, stricken with worry.
"Hello, Watson. Is there tea on?" He's rewarded with a spooked look and punch to the nose. Sprawled right out on the street, Sherlock rights himself quickly, dabbing at his bleeding nose with a handkerchief he's produced from – seemingly – nowhere.
"I'm guessing that's a no then?" He says it with such a calm, it makes Watson want to strike him again. Yet this time, he hold himself. Barely.
Watson draws in a frustrated breath, "Holmes..." He starts.
"Oh please Watson, don't start on me. You have no idea the toils I've been put through over the past few fortnights." Sherlock moves to enter their apartment, yet is blocked by Watson nearly clotheslining him with a strong arm.
"Please then Holmes, enlighten me so I can sympathize with the toils you've been through." Watson can no longer control the his rude tone. He feels, however, that he has a right to be slightly sarcastically rude and makes no move to check his manners.
"I would, but obliviously your tone states that you'd rather be somewhere else." Holmes sniffs. "And frankly, if you're going to act in a completely unprecedented way, then so would I."
"You were gone three days Holmes! No post, no word, bed empty! Bobbies constantly knocking about, wondering where in God's name you'd clamored off to now!"
"I knew I would be back, Watson, and felt no need to involve you in such trivial matters." Holmes adjusts his tie before firing back, "And I do not clamor. I sneak. There is a difference."
"You were gone three days." He pauses for effect. "Three."
"My work took longer than expected, that's all."
"You couldn't have even warned us?"
"Again, I felt there was no need."
Watson slowly felt as though he was fighting a losing battle. "What if you, somehow, had become captured?"
"Impossible."
"Robbed and beaten?"
"Never."
"What if, somehow, you'd been killed!" Watson seethed.
"Then you'd just have to carry on, dear friend." He was being mocked. He could tell; and he didn't particularly enjoy it.
"Do you realize that people care about you, Holmes?" Watson folded his arms in front of his chest, looking very much like a regal, fierce, Mayan God, eyes alight with anger.
"Really?"
"Yes! Ms. Hudson, Irene, your brother, myself! Myself especially!" The words tumbled out of Watson's mouth before he realized what, exactly, he had just spoken. Suddenly the Mayan God look fell out from underneath the doctor, and he began to look like a schoolboy, caught by his mother with his hand in a jar of sweets.
"Especially, you say?"
Watson knew he had just crossed a line. A clear, defined line; such a line that gentlemen looked upon with a fondness – then kept their distance. Somehow, thought, he was feeling bold.
"Especially."
Holmes stood, if possible, even more erect than he had seconds before. "If you must know where I was, for the past three days," his hand disappeared into a coat pocket, unsheathing a velveteen rectangular box. "I had heard you lamenting over the loss of your pocket watch."
Watson remembered; it was the same pocket watch that had fallen into the Thames, after a goose chase with a pickpocket. Well, more like thrown. By said pickpocket. If he couldn't have it, Watson remembered complaining, then neither could I.
"Yes. The one from India..." He whispered. Holmes didn't – he couldn't have.
"I had, originally, set up one on mail order for you. It was a favor, a past client of mine owed me, nothing too hard to get he had said. Oh – load of bollocks. Thieves, larking about on the docks, waiting for shipments of jewelry – such as my order – to arrive. Greedy hands, all abound, down by the docks, you see. And I knew that a watch such as yours was bound to be snatched right up. So day one, I went down by the docks to wait, get the watch, and do a little sightseeing. I was to be back by the next day, and here by daybreak.
As it would have it, however, things took a turn. I awoke to find your watch missing. So I inquired to the lady of the house, who took me to a maid, who had been murdered by a vicious drug lord, who had your watch. And naturally - "
"You had to be the one to get it."
"Precisely. I paid good money for your gift, and I intended you to receive it."
Hesitantly, Watson took the box, relishing in the feel of the softness against his callused fingers. The box creaked open. "Holmes..." he whispered, gazing at the watch. "It's beautiful..."
"Like something else I know."
Watson looked up, soft smile painted upon his lips. Together, they had crossed a line; together, they were going to see where it lead.
"Lets see if Mrs. Hudson put tea on for your arrival, shall we?"