AN: This is slash, meaning it displays two men in love and (although nothing heavy in this oneshot) pleasuring each other sexually. If this offends you, please leave.
I was listening to Astrud Gilberto while writing this, so that might already give you a warning for the mood of this piece of fiction.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters created by Doyle and adapted into the Sherlock Holmes film.
Rain tickled the glass panels of the high windows. Almost gently, the storm blew the occupants of the house awake. Its tousled coldness and soft-sung thunder whispered in the abandoned corners of the house, reminding the raw materials in the walls of their primal nature. The wood moulding, stone cold and humid.
With practiced ease, Mrs. Hudson prepared tea for her two tenants living above. She arranged two cups, a teapot with steaming Earl Grey and two saucers on a platter and went up the stairs. Her ears straining for any possible explosion or crash or heated shout alerting her not to come in, she carefully tried to avoid the steps that had suffered in some way of Holmes's experiments: the second one was entirely gone on the left side, and some of the middle steps were not to be trusted either. She shook her head in hardly repressed irritation. 'When they are gone, I will accept no more eccentrics who hardly pay any attention to society and good manners. Only gentlemen who appreciate me and my cooking, and who actually care for their pet animals.'
Such were her thoughts standing before Holmes' closed door, still shuffling her feet nervously after so many years. 'Too many years! Should I knock and hope his revolver is not within reach?' She was saved from making any decision by the arrival of Dr. Watson. He was drenched and his footsteps were watery reminders of the storm raging above London.
"Shall I take over here, Mrs. Hudson? I do believe Holmes will appreciate some hot tea." He moved to take the tray out of her hands and she, reluctantly, let him take her burden. "Alright. Please remind mister Holmes that rent is due soon. I will not tolerate his moods without getting paid for it." He nodded: "I will see to it, Mrs Hudson. Have a pleasant evening." He turned towards the door once more, and without knocking let himself in. For a single moment, he was lost within the darkness of the room. There was no sign from Holmes, or any human action at all really, except for the endless clutter scattered across the room. He gently put down the tea tray on a nearby semi-unoccupied desk (meaning that the papers and objects on the surface had a dust layer collected in more than three weeks, and were thus discarded by Holmes. For now anyway.) .
"Holmes? Are you alive in here old boy?" he called, while walking towards the heavy drapes. A firm tug and shake later, there was some clarity and yet Holmes had not let himself be seen. "Holmes? I will open all of the curtains and the windows if you keep hiding." No answer. 'Well, this certainly is odd. Perhaps he has gone out without alerting Mrs Hudson?' He immediately dismissed that thought. Holmes despised wasting energy on useless activities like taking walks or behaving like a sane person.
All of a sudden, a small sound escaped behind Watson. He startled and turned around, but saw nothing. From his right, in the deep shadows provided by the bookcases, he finally heard the telltale sound of a match being struck, followed by a small fiery glint of light. He listened to Holmes nursing his pipe for a while, observing him for afar rather than conversing with him. 'There is an uncharacteristic stillness upon him this evening, that I cannot place. Perhaps a combination of boredom and an off-amount of cocaine…' He sought out the too-familiar Moroccan case, but luckily it seemed untouched. 'Tea will probably have gone cold right now. I wonder – '
A cough and the scratch of a voice that has not been used in a while interrupted his thoughts. "Do you ever wonder, Doctor, if every man is destined to be born alone, and to die alone?" Holmes said, staring at the rain as if it were a mirror to his thoughts. It seemed to be, for melancholy they shared for sure. "From my medical point of view, Holmes, I can tell you it is impossible to be born alone." Holmes sighed. "Ah but my dear Watson, I'm not speaking of matters of the body today." He lit a lamp, revealing his figure occupying the green armchair near the unlit fireplace. His eyes were for once glassed over and not fixed on a certain point. He was still smoking his pipe, and this combined with a near Byronic stance created around him an atmosphere of dread. The nature of his question did not help in this.
"It would seem to me, that although man can find a companion for one night, a few months and even a lifetime, everyone is truly alone in their thoughts. Of course this is not a conclusion from an empty mind. Over the past few months, I have observed several persons with different marital statuses. First two unmarried men, brothers, who came to me after their mother had gone missing for two weeks. They spoke to me separately, as to not let them influence each other and alter the data. Apart from some details about the case, it also struck me how different these two bachelors were from each other. Even though they were brothers and close in age, they did not appear to know each other at all. One was eager to find himself a young lady and settle down, while the other was not yet ready to let go of his bachelor life."
At this, Watson decided to speak up: "Is this another way to convince me not to get married and move out, Holmes? Because if it is, it's not working." And even though he said it wasn't working, even now he felt a small twinge of guilt in the pit of his stomach knowing he would soon leave his quirky detective behind. Holmes seemed to burrow himself even more in his seat at this, reaching towards a pile of books to place his pipe upon, before grasping a small flask next to his feet and taking a long gulp. "I really hope that is not the laudanum that went missing from my room last week." Holmes kept silent. Watson moved closer to him, and stood behind his chair. He saw now that Holmes was clutching almost cuddling another one of his shirts to his chest, and decided it would be futile to even attempt to regain the item. The picture of Holmes in this unusually emotional state of mind slowly burned itself in his mind, and refused to let him think logically. Holmes was still vaguely ignoring the physical presence of his dear companion, in order to keep following the shadows of the raindrops on the wall. "You should not take that kind of drug in a condition like this, Holmes. It makes you behave very uncharacteristically."
"It is not I who is acting like a fool here, Doctor. It is not I who wants to break up something productive, something that works without a manual and bring another person into it. Which, we both know, will fail." He stood up and turned around to face Watson. His eyes were for once not entirely cold and calculating: there was warmth there that Watson had not seen before. It made his pulse quicken and he started to transpire a little under that heated gaze. An unknown coil made itself present in his stomach, and left a feeling of anxiety and trepidation. 'How can I be nervous around Holmes, I know him inside out. And yet, I have never seen him like this, it makes him look almost… Maybe I should… I should say something. He's expecting me to say something…' Looking into Holmes' eyes, Watson could not possibly remember what his friend had just said and how he should react. His eyes were tempting him to move closer and closer still, to drown and lose him in their insightful depths. To make up for his silence, he went into doctor mode (or what Holmes would call: mothering frame of mind):
"You are shaking and your cheeks are flushed, let me check your temperature. This must be a fever talking." Watson touched his cold, clammy hand to Holmes' forehead. He stepped a bit closer to the detective. This closeness instilled a strange urge in him to step even closer. 'Only so I can check more thoroughly if he is all right. Nothing else. These feelings… They are of the past now.' Holmes' breath puffed over his face while he performed the routine checks: pupils, normal; breathing, regular.
"Is there a medical explanation for me being right, Doctor? And will you finally stop listening to society's rules for once and being truthful to yourself and me?" Holmes taunted, trying to get a reaction out of Watson, a shout, a slap or heaven forbid a curse, anything but this silence.
"I… Holmes, you know as well as I do that we shouldn't. Not anymore. It wouldn't be fair to Mary and if anybody were to find out…"
"To hell with everybody else! Watson, you felt it. Those months we did some of our best cases, and our relation only benefitted from it. We were meant to cross that line, that evening everything fell into place. I know you still feel that way, as you know I do too." Holmes was taking a step towards Watson with each word he said. Soon he had him backed into a bookcase, spines of years old tomes digging into Watson's back. Watson knew what would happen next, and he also knew that once it happened, there was no escape out. His resolves were crumbling, and it would only take one small gesture of intimacy before his indignation was swept away by the tornado that was Holmes now.
He pushed him off. "I will not have us act like this any longer. The moment you decide to grow up and be an adult, Holmes, let me know. Until then, I will be – "
For the second time this evening Holmes interrupted him, but this time in an entirely different way. His lips were putting an insistent pressure on Watson's, and after a short struggle Holmes grasped his waistcoat and tugged him closer. The two men were kissing frantically now, lips only leaving each other for a short time to nibble on an ear lobe or kiss an uncovered patch of skin. Watson encircled his friend in a solid embrace, and after a couple – ten – fifteen kisses they broke apart. Watson was panting softly, and cursing the traitorous erection digging into Holmes' thigh. Holmes touched his lips to Watson's ear, licked the shell and blew on his drying trail of saliva, making the doctor shiver and dig his fingers into Holmes' waist. "I will not tolerate your erratic nay saying any longer. You are mine, my dear Watson, and if you in any way try to withhold this – he squeezed his bulge and Watson nearly lost it right there – any more, I will have to take preliminary action next time." He kissed him one last time, and then turned around, leaving Watson in a dishevelled state that could not be called proper even if you ignored his prominent erection.
"I… You… Come back here! This is no way to leave a man, high and dry!" Watson cried out, running after the detective.
Meanwhile, downstairs Mrs Hudson shook her head once more at the racket coming from above. 'Boys will be boys, always running around and making ado' she thought. Turning her head she caught the last of the clouds moving away, letting the sun break through them once more. The rain had stopped.