Guns, Murder, and Romances

TITLE: Guns, Murder, and Romances
GENRE: Sherlock Holmes
PAIRING: Eventual Holmes/Watson
WARNINGS: None yet. ;)

A/N: I've decided to post this, it was written a pretty long time ago with my friend. That's why, in some of the later chapters, it skips from centering on Watson back to Holmes, to Watson, to Holmes, etc. :)

Hope you all like this. Eventual Holmes/Watson action. 3


He knew it was far too late to travel out into the London streets. But, knowing him, he of course did it anyway. He grabbed his overcoat briskly as he passed mounds of soiled clothes (most of which were not his), crumpled newspapers holding the typical London headlines, and many, upon many, idea sheets and notes that were important at the time and now long forgotten. As he descended the stairs with an agility that only he, himself, possessed and slipped on his coat while doing so, he had a small little thought in the back of his head.

"John told you not to do this, you know..." it reminded him with a small hint of sarcasm. He merely rolled his eyes at it and pushed away back into the other, in his opinion, insignificant thoughts.

Besides, he was invincible. Nothing could touch him.

The landlady of his apartment building said something to him faintly as he passed her, putting on his hat. He took no notice. Whether or not he was particularly irritable that evening or just buzzed off of whatever needle he could possibly find, the woman did not know. Nor, did she care.

He stepped out into the streets, his wrinkled but still rather nice-looking dress pants worn for about the seventh time that week. His chocolate-colored, slightly wavy hair was tucked behind his ears, and he scratched the stubble on his chin as the London air whipped into his overcoat, threatening to send a chill down his spine. He had a very fierce, indignant face and an expressive one, too, with the deepest, most swimming chocolate eyes that anyone had ever seen. He was smaller in frame for a man, but not by any means small in character or strength; he could take out men ten times his size if he so desired.

That being said, he had muscles to prove it. He was toned all over, and his confident, long stride and charismatic demeanor was instantly respected. Once known, however, it was quite the opposite with most relations.

He glanced across the street where two interesting-looking, shifty characters were watching him pass. He let a breath of hot air make steam around him as he turned another corner. He knew from experience that acknowledgement only provoked a London beggar even more.

A carriage pulled down the narrow streets and almost knocked him into the gutter, causing him to finally walk on the sidewalk, next to the small apartments and bakeries, all closed and dark. He checked his pocket watch and turned a final left, ending up right in front of a large, nondescript building with lots of boisterous noise emitting from its belly.

The lights were dim inside the old warehouse, and a makeshift ring had been set up where men and women, mainly prostitutes, watched the happenings with excitement. Bills and coins flew everywhere as they screamed in their drunken stupors, watching with almost an impressive intensity.

The man snaked his way into the crowd, picking out the burgundy top hat immediately. He grasped the man on the shoulder, turning him around and shaking his hand.

"And look who it is!" exclaimed the top hat man in his heavy Cockney accent, shaking the man's hand a little too hard than necessary. "The star of the hour!"

If it wasn't for the man's excellent hearing skills, he wouldn't have picked up any of that over the clamor around him. "Yes," he replied, giving a rather unenthusiastic smile. "And I suspect you'll be treating yourself to dinner tonight, thanks to me." Although it was his choice to be there, he didn't like to interact with the man... Well, basically anyone, if he could help it.

The man with the top hat, Richard Norton was his name, beamed. "Quite right, sir. Would you like the next round?" he asked with a knowing smile.

"Yes," the man said, slipping off his coat and handing it to Norton. He took of his hat, too, and revealed a slightly grimy, off-colored white flannel shirt that had been ripped in various places, rolled up to the elbow, and half-way buttoned. One suspender was triumphantly on his shoulder, and the other fell lazily, sadly to the side. "The next round."

"How many tonight, pray tell?" Norton asked, rather nonchalantly.

"Six," the man responded, not even looking at the man with the top hat as he replied. The man turned to him, rather surprised.

"Six! Well, I wish you the best of luck."

"No, you don't. You just want your money."

After an uproar about ten minutes later, the man began to push his way deeper into the crowd. The bets began. He slung his legs over the low wall and into the pit, a cloud of dirty, London-esque dust rising around him like a curtain. Another man, at least a hundred pounds heavier (and most of that being muscle), entered the ring, as well. He was mean-looking, strong, and snarling like a mad dog.

He made the man look like a little girl. The man, however, began to smirk a knowing smirk. "My boy," he said softly, knowing that the other man would most likely not comprehend what he was saying over the uproarious yelling. "Meet your maker."

...Illegal, underground boxing.

Money. Drugs. Alcohol. Sweat. Blood.

The bell rang. The fight began.

The larger man, and the man that almost everyone had bet their money on, began to circle the dusty ring, cracking his oversized knuckles. He began to scowl deeper when he saw the 'shrimp' just standing there, watching him calmly.

"Are you sure you don't want to give up when you have the chance?" the smaller man said with a hint of sing-song in his voice, raising a dark eyebrow. When the obvious answer was no, the smaller man held up six fingers. "Six, my boy. Six is the lucky number tonight.

Crunch. The larger man gave the smaller a mean, right hook in the jaw, sending his whole frame ratcheting backwards into the hard wall of the ring. The men yelled stupidly, raising their fists, filled with betted money, in the clammy, overheated air.

The smaller man cracked his neck back into place, blinking. "I don't think that you should—"

Plack! The larger man's fist connected with his stomach, causing him to double over in pain as the oxygen failed him, leaving him slightly lightheaded and the room spinning.

The large man began to get cocky. "He's all talk, eh, boys?" he laughed towards the crowd, who responded happily. They were all just merely excited about the possibility of bloodshed and their seemingly guaranteed extra rum money.

Everyone in the crowd who had betted on the smaller man (which was a ground-breaking total of two out of the whole some two hundred of them), looked angry and worried. The man in the burgundy hat, however, just watched calmly, slowly and methodically shaking his head back and forth. "What a shame..." he whispered to the ring, over the greasy heads surrounding him. "What a pity, what a shame, what a shame..."

What the other man (and basically everyone else in the large, musty room) did not know was that he was already caught. Already unconscious. Already lost.

Check mate. Winner. Loser.

The man's mind was like a large, complicated, magnificent machine, and it was this that he relied on heavily. Anyone who knew him would swear he had one of the most brilliant minds in London. And that very brain, the high-powered, deductive machine, was plotting every move before his opponent even considered it.

His mind was in overdrive, thinking about exactly what he was about to do before he did it. Suddenly, and without warning, the unsuspecting opponent began to realize the tables had turned.

Hit him in the abdomen, lower right side, block out his main defenses and get him doubled over...

BAM! The smaller man made an impressively hard punch into the larger man's abdomen, sending him doubling over and hearing the air whoosh out of his lungs like a well-oiled lamp being blown out.

Next the chest, send him against the wall for strategic purposes.

And before even a hint of hesitation, a round-house kick in the chest, sending his opponent flying towards the wall and hitting it with a sickening crack.

The upper jaw.

And while he was down, the man came up from under him, hitting him on the jaw and almost seeing things in slow motion as blood gushed everywhere from the now dislocated, broken, bleeding mouth.

The face.

Crack! There went the nose.

The groin.

He finally kicked him right where it counts and sent him falling, defenseless to the ground, twitching in the dirt. His opponent's eyes fluttered, trying to keep a grip on the black that was sure to be engulfing him.

The stomach.

"Six blows, you bastard. No more, no less," the man said in a low, controlled voice. And the sixth blow came. He delivered a sharp, painful blow in the stomach, sending him over the edge into the sea of darkness that the smaller man knew too well.

The winner.


The crowd was as silent as the Grim himself. The man's muscles heaved and so did his chest, a single scratch of blood running down his forehead. But other than that, he was completely unharmed. The crowd stared at him angrily, their money gone, their hope for that night gone, and their bets lost. The man looked around the ring before catching his coat and hat from Norton and exiting the rink with not even a backwards glance.

Back out into the streets, the dirty, dark London streets, the man walked; his coat and white shirt over his shoulder and his suspenders hanging dejectedly by his side. His muscles would twitch every now and then, and he rotated his shoulders as he walked back through the narrow runways, adrenaline rushing through his body like the drugs he clung to when he had no one there with him.

Which was, he admitted, not a lot of the time.

But still, he thought to himself as he walked briskly, letting the cold air raise the dark hair on his arms and his pale skin almost glowing in the moonlight. They help you. You know they all help you...

He crossed the street and into the main foyer of his building, seeing the woman he had ignored earlier. "Ah, good evening Mrs. Kennedy," he said with a hint of underlying unpleasantness, tipping his hat to her.

"Ah, good evening yourself, you brute!" she responded with venom, waving him upstairs. They stared at each other for a beat, and then they both gave out and smiled. "You need to go upstairs, m'lad, you got the Doctor here. He didn' look so happy, neither."

The man's face fell. "He's not supposed to be here until—" He couldn't help but sigh. Of course the good Doctor would know what he was up to. Because even though his deductive reasoning skills were the sharpest in the whole world, most likely, and his mind like a sharp blade, the Doctor was quite the competition.

Besides, he had taught John everything he knew, anyway, and now it was coming back to haunt him.

He ascended the stairs, struggling to get his grimy shirt back on and slipping on his coat haphazardly, dropping his hat. He scooped it up in one fluid motion and finally arrived at his apartment, 221b.

He pulled out a key out of his pocket and began to push it up to the lock.

He fell forward slightly when the door was wrenched open by none other than his faithful companion and Doctor. He kept his hand outstretched with the key, turning it as if the lock was still there.

"Well! How incredibly nice to see you here tonight, Watson," he said fakely, smiling all the while the smile that the Doctor knew so well.

Watson looked as if he had been furious only a moment before, but when he saw his friend's swollen jaw and the blood slowly flowing down his face, he sighed and said nothing, allowing him to enter his apartment and plop down into the armchair by the fire.

"You know I don't approve of that, Holmes..." he said quietly, leaning against a relatively free wall (a.k.a. one that had only a broken record player, about a dozen books, a dried brown liquid stuck to it, and at least seventy papers all tacked in various positions on top of each other, ripped and stained).

Yes, for Sherlock Holmes, that was a relatively free wall.

"At least you're still alive, for God's sake!" Watson sighed, puffing on his pipe as he examined his friend, looking a little more pale and sickly than usual. But who could really tell? he wondered with a small exhale. You just worry too much. He's a grown man, for Christ's sakes, not a child!

"I behave much like a reckless child, correct?" laughed Holmes from his spot by the fire, almost mocking his friend, and lighting a match and striking up his pipe like his friend had done moments before.

"What?" Watson stammered, looking startled.

"You were just chastising yourself, I could tell from your expression. And from the way you were biting your cheek in slight frustration, I knew it had to do with me. And what would you chastise yourself about me? Caring too much. And you always say that I am a grown man, not a child."

"And so, my dear Watson, I have upped you again. Better luck next time."

Watson bit down on the pipe, smiling at his friend and shaking his head. "You perplex me, Holmes."

"I perplex most. Now, were you just coming to see if I was alive or not, or do you have news?" he asked, crossing his legs and looking into the fire.

Watson said nothing.

"Come sit, Watson."

The Doctor felt relief for his comrade's instant change of subject. He crossed and sat in the mismatched armchair across from his friend and sighed. Watson almost always ended up spending most nights in Holmes' apartment, working on cases or being kept awake by the screeching of an out-of-tune violin or laying awake watching his friend's silhouette as he paced the ragged, dusty floorboards of 221b.

"Holmes, you shouldn't be involved in such reckless things."

Sherlock turned to gaze at him with his deep, chocolate eyes. "What do you call what we do every day? Is that not more reckless?"

"Yes, but that is for a reason, Holmes, not merely for fluctuating your own ego!" Watson exclaimed.

"I don't think we quite see eye-to-eye on this subject," Holmes said calmly, taking another breath of his pipe.

Watson scowled. That was Holmes's way of ignoring a comment of question: Stating the obvious. He only did it when around Watson, and when they were in an argument.

"Of course we don't see eye-to-eye on this, otherwise we wouldn't be fighting! Besides, you could've been—" Watson suddenly stopped talking, getting up and examining Holmes's forehead. Holmes raised his eyebrows, which caused the Doctor to click his tongue in annoyance and drag his friend towards the fire, the only proper light source in the whole apartment. He squinted as he scrutinized it.

"Whatever bastard you were fighting this time got a fingernail lodged into the tissues of your flesh, Holmes..." he said, sighing heavily. "And now it's become infected and is bleeding even more than usual. Do you see how this could be a very significant—"

"Just go get the tweezers, Watson."

Watson straightened and blew air out of his nose. "And where the hell are the tweezers in all of this mess?" he snapped, looking around the broken bottles, flasks and jars along with papers, rotten food, and old pictures and trinkets that once meant something to Holmes.

"Oh, that's right. I don't think I own any tweezers. Ah, nonetheless."


Comments are loved! Thanks for reading! ~3 Shannon