Lestrade looked up as Watson emerged, his brows drawing down as he realized that it was Holmes' bedroom Watson had been in, and that he appeared particularly rumpled, as if he had slept there. "Doctor. Is Mister Holmes in?" He flapped a telegram unnecessarily and declared with an air of irony, "We received the summons."
"Holmes is indisposed," Watson replied as he pulled the door shut behind him, his voice terse and quite unfriendly, though he sincerely did not mean for it to be. Lestrade had done nothing wrong, though Watson imagined that he was speculating in a rather offensive direction at this very moment. Watson spied the morning tea tray sitting innocuously on the table inside the sitting room door and gestured to it in an effort to be at least a little hospitable. "It's frightfully early, gentlemen. Can I pour you a cup?"
Clarkey nodded, clearly confused by this twist of events, but Lestrade declined. "He's not in, then?" Lestrade asked. Once again, he glanced at the closed bedroom door, and Clarkey's eyes followed, widening as he realized what Lestrade had assumed.
Watson poured a cup of tea for Clarkey, hesitated, then made up a cup for himself as well. He had no stomach for drinking it at the moment, but he figured that having his hands occupied with Mrs Hudson's china would be wise. Without turning around, Watson said, "Inspector, I would thank you to stop drawing ridiculous conclusions about our sleeping habits. You already know that we're accustomed to sharing a bed." Watson pivoted on his good leg to fix Lestrade with the hardest stare he could muster, which he imagined to be rather flinty indeed. "For practical and purely innocent reasons."
Lestrade pursed his lips and Clarkey cast his eyes downward in silent apology as he accepted the teacup that Watson held out to him. "Apologies, Doctor," Lestrade muttered. "It's simply a fair bit odd to me."
Watson nodded, but retorted, "You have clearly never been at war."
"No," Lestrade agreed. "But I do know what can happen in such shared accommodations."
Clarkey politely choked on his tea, but Watson paid him no heed. "I beg your pardon. I would never – " Watson choked himself off and imagined he could taste the sudden fury and outright disgust like tin in the back of his throat. "And Holmes wouldn't even know how!"
Lestrade opened his mouth just to blink and close it again.
Watson shut his eyes and held out his teacup as if it could serve to end the subject. "Never mind," he muttered, breathing in an effort to gather his frazzled nerves back together. He should not have lost his temper, and he certainly should not have revealed such a personal detail about Holmes' carnal experiences, or lack thereof. Then again, Watson had called Lestrade here for just that purpose, and Holmes had recently acquired quite a bit of carnal knowledge thanks to those damn bloody –
Watson cut his thoughts off there, because if he didn't stop now, he would only lose his temper anew. At least the outburst served to humble Lestrade into dropping his minor inquisition. "Doctor, forgive me, but I admit I'm confused. I assumed that this missive came from Mister Holmes, and yet I find only you here."
Watson took his customary seat by the fire and waited for the Yard men to perch themselves wherever they saw fit before explaining himself. "I asked Mrs Hudson to call you here."
"Indeed?" Lestrade cast Watson a sidelong glance and then glared at Clarkey for making a racket with his cup and saucer. With his eyes back on Watson, Lestrade said, "I think you'd better get to the point, Doctor. We're busy men."
Watson threw a shuttered glance at the bedroom door behind him before picking up the folder that he had earlier placed on the table next to his chair. He had finished the medical case notes in the washroom before the chloroform wore off. Without a word, Watson passed the papers to Lestrade, and though he appeared irritated at the cryptic nature of his welcome, Lestrade merely opened the folder and began to read. He blanched a moment later and slapped it shut. "Good god. Doctor, what is this?"
"A patient of mine had rather a nasty run-in with some unsavory types last night." Watson sipped delicately at his tea and relished the burn of the steaming liquid because it distracted him from the worst of his thoughts. "That is my report of his injuries."
"What patient?" Lestrade peeked in at the notes again, and then said, "There's no name on this."
"He wishes to remain anonymous."
Lestrade set the folder on his knees, and though he appeared sympathetic, he nonetheless had to point out, "You know that without a complaining witness in these sorts of crimes, I can do nothing. I can keep his identity confidential during the course of the investigation, but I will require his name."
Watson's eyelids drooped in a lazy manner, though he felt nothing akin to languid. "I have already told you that he is indisposed."
It took a moment for the implication to sink in, and then Lestrade looked down at the folder in his lap as if it might come alive and bite him. "Dear god." He raised his eyes again and asked, "Is he alright?"
With no embellishment, Watson simply replied, "No."
Clarkey peered into his teacup as if he regretted drinking it, then set it aside. "Forgive me, Doctor Watson. But what's happened to Mister Holmes?"
Lestrade glanced to Watson for permission before passing the folder to Clarkey. A few seconds passed and then Clarkey paled considerably, but he made a point to read the entire thing through, as Lestrade had not, and continued to study it with the most determined, if queasy, intent as Lestrade asked Watson, "Were you in the vicinity when it occurred?"
"I was here," Watson replied. He could hear the self-recrimination in his own voice as he spoke, chunks of lead in his stomach. "I did not feel up to a night out; the weather's been poor lately." He didn't bother adding that the damp air aggravated his war injuries; Lestrade knew him well enough to infer that. Far more softly, Watson added, "He ran home. Seven miles. It is a small miracle that his heart did not explode at the strain of it."
Lestrade silently extracted a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket and opened it to a fresh page before licking the end of the stylus. "Start from the beginning, if you please. Tell me everything that you know."
Watson swallowed hard and set his tea aside at that, not because he found the task daunting – which he did – but because his mind had automatically conjured up a vivid memory of Holmes criticizing his writing, remarking that Watson had the deplorable habit of relating events from the back end forwards. He mumbled an awkward apology for the delay but Lestrade waved it off and waited patiently until Watson could speak in a semi-level tone. Then he related all that he knew – when Holmes left their rooms the prior evening, his stated intentions to pass the night at the Punch Bowl… Watson left out mention of the boxing events because they were technically illegal and Holmes would no doubt be upset to learn that his own misfortune had rebounded on the comparatively innocent tavern keeper. About that, Watson said only that Holmes had engaged in some gambling, and that the losers had evidently not been pleased. He slipped up when he mentioned his own customary bet and Holmes' insistence that he had to pay Watson back because it was Watson's money he had lost, but Lestrade shook his head over it and Watson realized that the inspector already knew of the boxing ring. They did not mention it explicitly, because then it would have been part of the official record and Lestrade would have been bound by his office to pursue the matter, but Watson felt a small bit of relief at knowing that Lestrade's investigation would not be hampered by that small grain of untruth.
After explaining how he had come to understand what had happened on Holmes' way home, Watson paid special mind to repeating verbatim everything that Holmes had said about the actual attack, which was not much. Most of what Holmes had mumbled in his sleep had not been substantial observations or facts, but exhortations to himself and gasped pleas to his attackers. Of course, Watson left out any mention of the buttons because it simply wasn't relevant to anyone but Holmes, and he tried to censor parts of the previous evening to save Holmes' dignity, but he could only leave out so much. Still, Watson was left with little to tell the Inspector beyond the information detailed in his medical report. Holmes had said little about his attackers' appearances or distinguishing traits. Lestrade said nothing throughout this part; he merely jotted down copious notes and kept his eyes fixed on the scratch of his pencil. At some point, Clarkey finished his inspection of Watson's written report and set it aside with a faintly sick look.
The snick of the door behind him struck Watson silent in the middle of explaining that Holmes' pocket watch could probably be found by scouring pawn shops. He glanced over his shoulder to watch Holmes creep past him, so much like himself in the morning that Watson breathed a silent sigh of relief. Perhaps sleep had been all he needed. Or daylight. Holmes pawed through the mess on the mantle and came up with a cigarette, then froze with it between his lips when he finally noticed the other people in the room – the people not Watson, anyway. His head darted between them, quick and furtive like a bird, and then he faced the fireplace again, this time in search of a match, as if he could render himself invisible by ignoring them all.
Watson noticed Lestrade and Clarkey taking in Holmes' appearance while trying to appear to look elsewhere, then pushed himself to his feet. He fished his matchbox from his pocket and approached Holmes such that he wouldn't startle the man. "Here."
Holmes turned at Watson's voice and scuttled back a step, but when he noticed the matches, he seemed to recollect himself, drawing up to his full height as Watson cupped his hand around a lit match and held it out for him. Holmes leaned forward just far enough to puff his cigarette into a suitable state to smoke it, then stepped away just a bit too quickly. Lestrade and Clarkey probably did not notice anything hasty about the retreat, but Watson knew Holmes, possibly more than was healthy for either of them.
Before Watson could say anything in reproach about his being out of bed, Holmes turned to scrutinize their guests with faint interest. Watson waited for the inevitable deductions: that Clarkey had spent a hectic morning parading around his own house with his little son hanging off one arm, as evidenced by the tiny jam-print on the edge of his otherwise pristine collar, just below his ear where he would not have been able to see it in the glass; that Lestrade had spent the night somewhere other than his own home - likely his own office, actually, as his wrinkled sleeves spoke to having had a head pillowed on them, his rumpled trousers were twice-worn and he had shaved with a more blunt razor than his usual; that Watson was drinking his tea without sugar, which Holmes had probably smelt on his breath when he had leaned close for the match. Those, plus a half dozen additional statements too obscure for Watson himself to notice should have come streaming from Holmes' lips.
None of them did. Holmes finished his examination, blinked as if he had not noticed anything at all, and then turned to ask Watson, "Have we a case?" His voice rasped lightly on account of the abuse to his throat, but it could have just as easily passed for the gravel of early morning. "Splendid."
Watson stared. It wasn't like Holmes to pass up the opportunity to show off. That plus the vague smile twitching his mouth into an absent shape, mottled by the scabbed splits in his lips caused by the gag, left Watson speechless for a moment. Finally, he glanced at Lestrade – Clarkey had decided to find his boots fascinating for the moment – and then told Holmes, "You should be resting."
"Nonsense!" Holmes started to clap Watson's shoulder and then caught his hand abruptly in mid air. His fingers curled in as he dropped his arm, looking somewhat disconcerted at himself, and then he shook it off and grinned convincingly enough that Watson knew it was fake. "You know I cannot abide bed rest. Now." He put his back to Watson and regarded their guests with that same distant interest as before. The avid gleam to his eyes seemed even more surreal when taken in conjunction with the dark smudges that exhaustion had painted beneath them. And of course there were the finger marks on his jaw to contend with, their contrast to his otherwise pale skin heightened by the bright shock of sunlight that pierced the window facing Baker Street. "What have you brought me?"
"Um." Lestrade visibly wavered, and then cast Watson a silent plea for help.
Watson caught at Holmes' shoulder only long enough to regain his attention and then gently explained, "They're here about last night."
Holmes' expression went soft about the edges without fading altogether, and then he looked at his cigarette.
"Do you feel up to speaking to them?" Watson asked kindly.
Holmes' eyelids drooped a bit, and then he replied, "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about." It was the same tone he had used the night before, while standing in almost that exact same spot – the frightfully soft one.
Watson flared his nostrils, but otherwise managed not to react. "Holmes – "
"No," Holmes interrupted, his voice disarmingly serene. It could have been a belated answer to Watson's question, or simply another denial of the whole situation; there was no telling which. "Watson, where is the breakfast tray? I find myself quite famished."
Watson's throat clicked as he failed to find a suitable reply to that, and he watched Holmes flounce past the two Yard men, his movements determined and yet stiffly executed on account of hidden injuries. Holmes yanked the sitting room door open and hollered for Mrs Hudson, only to wince as the air grated through his swollen windpipe.
"Holmes, for god's sake." Watson picked up a blanket as he strode across the room to where Holmes had braced himself in the doorway with one hand to his throat and his lit cigarette singing the moulding beside the fingers that pinched it.
"Watson, I do believe I'm coming down with something."
Watson's arms stuttered as he shook out the blanket, and then he draped it across Holmes' shoulders with his eyes scuttling elsewhere. A fine thread of worry crept about Watson's stomach, irritating the tea that already resided there. "Please tell me that this is an act."
Holmes straightened only to flinch at his own movements and grip the doorjamb harder as he hunched again. His hand went to his lower back, to the bruised right kidney, and then he peered up at Watson through slightly panicked eyes.
Watson stared back, grateful for the mustache that hid the set of his mouth. "They've already seen my report. If you prefer not to speak them now, there's no harm done; they can come back whenever you're ready." He jerked his head toward the sofa. "Now come lay down before you tear the stitches."
Holmes' composure wavered. "What stitches?"
Watson screwed his mouth up to one side and flicked a pointed if apologetic glance down. "I had to stitch you up, Holmes." As the realization passed over Holmes' pallid features, Watson took refuge in the medical aspect of it. "Because of the placement, there's a marked risk of infection. The site will have to be kept scrupulously clean, and I'll provide Mrs Hudson with a strict menu that you're to follow for the next week, high fiber content to soften…Holmes. Holmes." Watson gripped Holmes by the shoulders and shook him gently to bring his wandering attention back before it went somewhere better left unexplored.
"Stop – " Not really a word, more a hollow breath and a soft grunt of sound uttered as an afterthought that only carried to Watson's ears because he was so close. Even though Watson was already letting him go, Holmes flung his arm up to knock Watson's hand away from his right shoulder.
Right. The bite mark. Watson held his hands up and took a step back, to put a more gentlemanly distance between them instead of remaining within that sphere that marked them as close and intimate friends. Holmes remained tensed for a bare second too long, and Watson felt his heart skip at the momentary lack of recognition on Holmes' face, at the way he raised his arms in a defensive stance the way he might in the boxing ring, calculating his next volley. As evenly as he could, Watson said, "Holmes. Stand down, old fellow."
Holmes' cheek ticked, and then he gradually lowered his hands, his movements abbreviated and jerky. He still breathed too quickly, though, in shallow pants the way he had the night before, when Watson had first noticed him.
The room had fallen far too silent, and Watson felt his neck prickle with the awareness of movement when he heard Lestrade rise slowly to his feet. More sharply now, Watson admonished, "Holmes. You need to lie down."
Finally, Holmes' gaze dropped, and his arms with it, his lips parting as he recovered himself and then cleared his throat. "Right. Quite. My apologies." He shrugged the blanket more securely over his shoulders and then held it closed over his throat as he wandered out into the hallway, then back into his bedroom through the side door out there.
Watson poked his head out into the hall to watch the bedroom door swing closed, and then he pulled back and ignored Lestrade's unspoken question. "A moment, gentlemen." Watson returned to the bedroom via the sitting room door, which was still open, and gently shut it behind him. He leaned back against it once they were alone and regarded Holmes where he stood unmoving next to the disarrayed bed. "Holmes, you'll burn yourself."
Holmes raised his head but only partway, like an old confused nag in a strange barn. The cigarette had burned down halfway and Holmes watched the ash fall from it as he raised it to his lips, grey flutters caught in indirect sunlight before the shadows obscured them against the floor. He inhaled deeply and Watson waited, observing Holmes the way Holmes observed everything else. His shaky stance, the way he kept his weight on the balls of his feet to compensate for uncertain balance, the fine tremor in the hand that held cigarette that could have been a tell for mere exhaustion if Watson had not known him better, the way his other hand clenched repeatedly at the blanket he had collared himself with.
"You needn't speak to them today if you don't want to," Watson reminded him. "They have enough to start."
"Right, yes." Holmes swiveled a bit on his feet in search of an ashtray, then froze to find Watson holding a saucer out to him. It seemed like Holmes might refuse the gesture, ridiculous as it sounded, but after narrowing his eyes at Watson and sniffing for no good reason, he ground his cigarette into the well-worn china and backed out of Watson's reach. "Yes. Watson, where is my mail?"
Watson crossed the room to lay the saucer on the mantle, then purposefully made a show out of crouching to stoke the fire. If Holmes wanted to feign this abstracted normalcy, then for the time being, Watson would oblige him. "It's in the sitting room, same as always – skewered to the mantle. Will you speak to Lestrade, or should I send them away?"
"Watson, I have no desire ever to speak to them, or to anyone else for that matter, as I believe I explained to you last night. Now, as it was you who so inconsiderately invited them here in the first place, will you kindly get them out of my home!"
Watson paused and then pulled the poker out of the fireplace. The sudden edge to Holmes' voice, that clipped and hurried manner he had of speaking when someone had tried his patience and actually angered him somehow, conspired to bring the thickness back to Watson's throat. Before last night, it had never failed to rile him up to equal levels. Watson kept his back to Holmes as he struggled to his feet with most of his weight on one leg, then hung the poker back in its place. He could feel the air flutter past his throat as he breathed, and then he rasped, "I apologize, then, for failing to respect your wishes. I will see them out."
Watson had nearly made it to the door before Holmes' grabbed his sleeve, and though he remained facing away, he did stop. Holmes released the already badly wrinkled fabric and smoothed it down Watson's arm as he withdrew his hand. Watson heard him take a few steps back, and then the mattress hissed as Holmes leaned against the bed. "I'm sorry. Watson, I don't…I should not have yelled at you. You've been…you don't deserve my anger; it was churlish of me." When Watson merely sighed and picked at his hands, Holmes' voice took on a more desperate, hopeless edge. "Watson, I don't know what to do. You must tell me what to do."
That brought Watson's head up, and he looked over his shoulder to find Holmes sucking his teeth behind closed lips and staring at him. Just…staring, and waiting for something, and silently begging him not to leave like this, hurt by Holmes' thoughtless if perhaps justified words. Watson wondered how long it would take for that look to go away, that frightfully open, slightly doe-eyed gaze that had been on his face since he had rescued Watson's book the night before, his lips pressed together as if he feared what might spill from them, were he to so much as open his mouth.
Watson swallowed and offered Holmes a tiny if easy sort of smile, just to convey that there were no hard feelings. It faded a moment later, and Holmes' eyelids drooped as it went, his gaze sliding down to Watson's braces as if he were disappointed to have managed only that reaction from Watson.
"Holmes…" Watson raised his hand and then let it flop back to his side, unable to come up with the right words for explaining that his own behavior was no fault of Holmes'. Eventually, he settled on, "I meant it. I'll see them out if you don't want them here."
Holmes sucked in a frustrated breath as he rolled his head to the side. Watson, I don't know if I can tell them. I don't even know if I can tell you. I'm confused, I'm scared, I don't want to see them look at me now, I don't want to know what they'll think, they know, how could you tell them… Any one of those statements would have been appropriate; Watson could practically see them already, weaving obscure patterns through the empty space between them. What Holmes actually said was, "You're making a big deal out of nothing."
Watson stopped himself from retorting as he would have liked – bollux, Holmes. I saw the marks – but his mustache ruffled as he made an irritated face behind it. With a deep breath thrown in for good measure, Watson merely replied, "If a client came to you looking as you do right now, what would you say to them? Shake it off, there's a good chap?"
"I would ask – " Holmes broke off and fidgeted with the blanket.
"What would you ask, Holmes?"
Holmes' eyes sidled over to Watson, and then he straightened imperceptibly. "I would ask if he were an invert."
Watson cocked his head to the side and then sought out his pockets to hide his clenched fists. "I already know that you are not an invert."
"Lestrade thinks we both are." Holmes seemed to shrink a little bit where he stood. "I heard you. I was awake when you left me."
Watson narrowed his eyes, his stance shifting into a more confrontational pose. He only meant to put himself at odds with the notion of it, but Holmes eyed him as if awaiting some sort of attack. Watson forced his shoulders back and ducked his head in the hopes of appearing less aggressive. "Irrelevant, either way. Even if you were an invert, it would hardly matter. Would a woman be blamed for her misfortune if she were attacked by her natural mate?"
"I was not…it is not natural, and dammit Watson, I am not a woman!"
His vehemence startled Watson into quickly soothing, "I know."
"And to answer your question, yes, on occasion, she would be blamed."
Watson's jaw dropped. "Holmes! I know that you incline toward misogyny, but really!"
Holmes fumed for a moment, then said, "Then you would not blame the whore who claimed mistreatment at the hands of a paying – "
"You are not some rent boy looking for an easy shilling! What the devil has gotten into you?"
"They paid me – "
"With the money they had already stolen from you! Holmes, I insist you stop this immediately."
Holmes paced for perhaps three steps, then declared, "Fine. But your comparison is ridiculous."
"On the contrary, it is quite sound. Holmes, no matter your inclinations, you did not ask to be attacked."
Holmes' lips thinned into a tight line, and then he spit, "Didn't I?"
"What – " Watson choked himself off into silence, though his mind conjured up all manner of foul language that he hadn't heard since his days in the military. Since Holmes seemed bent on defying reason, Watson asked plainly, "Holmes, are you an invert?"
The denial never came, but neither did a confirmation. Holmes shrugged and started to sit on the edge of the bed, then abruptly thought better of it. The resulting footwork almost made it seem that he had tripped without taking a single step. "I must be."
Watson's lungs skipped a breath, and this time, he couldn't help the incredulous air of contempt that fought to saturate his voice. "That's your conclusion? Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, thinks that because four men took him for a lark, it must be because he wanted it?"
"I didn't want it," Holmes bit back.
"Then what the deuce are you on about?" Watson demanded. "Is it them?" He flung an arm in the direction of the sitting room opposite the door behind him. "I don't bloody well care what they think, Holmes, first off. And second, that is not what they think, I assure you."
"But they will. And then they will arrest me for it."
Watson scoffed. "What the devil makes you think that?"
Holmes picked at his lip for a moment, examined the water pitcher on the side table as if he were at a crime scene, and then said, "They arrested Mister Wilde for making accusations."
Watson blinked, then blew an incredulous sound past his slightly parted lips. "Wilde accused a noblewoman of libel even though he knew damn well that he was guilty of what she said. He was being a pompous idiot."
"Nevertheless," Holmes insisted, "it led to his arrest and incarceration. And since I am also guilty of having engaged in devious acts with fellow men – "
"You were raped!"
Holmes cringed and seemed to seriously consider never breathing again. Even saying the word was taboo in polite society, and though Holmes could rarely claim gentility, Watson was normally the perfect picture of decorum. "Watson – I – that is uncalled for."
"Yes," Watson replied, crossing his arms, his eyebrows twitching. "It is. Are you finished being ridiculous?"
"You don't understand."
Watson shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "In that case, I await a logical explanation for why you think that seeking legal redress will lead to your imprisonment."
When he got no answer, Watson advanced on him, stopping short of removing his hands from his pockets because he was pretty sure he might attempt to throttle the sense back into Holmes' rattling skull. "Answer me!"
Holmes shrank back and grabbed the bedpost for balance. "Watson – "
"Why do you think that?"
"It's a simple chain of – "
"Why?"
"Because I enjoyed it!"
Watson's anger ground to a halt somewhere in the vicinity of his sternum, and then he hissed, "What?"
Holmes' breathed nonspecific syllables for a moment, and then as if he found Watson's disbelief confounding, he said, "I mean, I must have."
"No," Watson replied, his tone a study a restraint. "You did not." He felt as if he were explaining the concept of a lie to a prevaricating child.
"But…Watson, I… There is no other explanation." Holmes' face took on a fervid countenance, something like what Watson often saw on the faces of soapbox preachers screaming that the end of the world was nigh. "I've examined the facts, you see. And I have studied the literature on human sexual practices. Copulation consists of – "
"Holmes, are you saying that you reached orgasm?" He asked it as if they were discussing one of Holmes' incomprehensible leaps of logic in a trying case, but really, just saying it left a sour taste in Watson's mouth.
Holmes reddened slightly as he nodded, then curled a bit as if expecting Watson to strike him. "So I am correct – I must have enjoyed it. And if I did, then I have no real grievance. Pursuing it would only lead to my own arrest for acting on deviant tendencies, however unwittingly. The theft of my personal belongings is perhaps suspect, but that is a simple matter of mugging, and hardly worth anyone's time. I am sure the items will appear in a pawn shop shortly, and I shall simply recover them when they do."
Watson let his eyes skew out of focus as his lids fell in a farcically languid droop. "Dear god. Holmes, I can't even begin to tell you how wrong that is."
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and then Holmes pushed himself away from the bedpost to skirt around Watson, making for the fireplace. "You're quite right; it is reprehensible. I'll find new lodgings immediately, and I thank you for not reacting violently. Your restraint is admirable, my good fellow – yet another testament to your charitable character. I am certain that you're quite unsettled to learn that you have been rooming with someone of such loose morals."
With a perfect lack of inflection, Watson said, "You are not an invert."
Holmes paused in the process of aimlessly rearranging the items strewn across his shaving table. "Watson, I have explained. You cannot fault my logic."
Watson refrained from answering and smeared his hand over his face instead. "In this arena, I fault your logic very much, Holmes. You are theorizing in advance of the facts."
"No, I have gathered – "
"You have no frame of reference for any of this, Holmes. You haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about!"
Holmes sucked his lips between his teeth, his whole face pulled into a pensive frown.
Watson threw his hands up and then stalked over to where Holmes had propped himself facing the shaving table, his palms flattened amidst a scatter of toiletries and the contents of the makeup kit he used for donning disguises. "Holmes, look at me."
With obvious reluctance, Holmes pushed himself upright and turned to regard Watson, his stance akin to a cornered yet previously tame dog.
"Now think about this carefully. Did you, at any point, actually tell them that you wanted them to – god, to sodomize you?"
Holmes swayed his stance off to one side, wary. "No, not that. But…the other part."
Watson blinked. "What other part?"
"The…" Holmes' fingers played absently at the air, and then he pointed at Watson's face rather than his own. When he drew his hand back, though, his fingers touched briefly on his own lips before he dropped them as if they had been scalded.
Watson stood there for a moment, stunned, and watched Holmes shift his feet in a fit nerves that he had never had before. "Okay." Watson held his hands up, palms facing Holmes, and swallowed. "Did they have a revolver on you?"
"Knife," Holmes replied, his voice devoid of inflection. His hand trailed over the marks on his throat, a tell that Watson didn't think Holmes noticed. Holmes gathered up the gradually slipping ends of the blanket and once again pulled it tight about his neck.
Watson nodded once, spent a moment hating himself for making things even worse inside Holmes' muddled head, and then somehow compelled himself to say, "And they made you ask them for it?"
Holmes tucked his other arm up under the blanket and gave a despondent nod. "Watson, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't have, but – "
"You wanted to survive."
The reasonable tone that Watson employed only seemed to make matters worse, and Holmes fell altogether silent where he stood, staring at the floor and blinking at intervals too long for actual sight.
Watson shuffled forward and gripped the jut of Holmes' elbow through the blanket. "There is nothing wrong with wanting to survive."
"You would not have done it," Holmes pointed out.
Watson made a noise that sounded something like pha, then said, "Holmes, you can hardly assert that."
"You have more pride than I do," Holmes insisted. "And you would not have sunk so low."
"Whu... Holmes, you cannot think like that. And furthermore - look at me. Furthermore, I know you; if there had been another way to come out of that alive, then you would have found it."
Holmes let Watson hold his gaze for a few bare seconds, and then he took to speaking in the direction of the bedstead. "No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
Holmes appeared sickened by whatever thoughts crossed his mind, and then he reluctantly replied, "I panicked."
"Oh." Watson heaved in a fortifying breath, then sighed, "Holmes, there is no shame in that."
"You would have had a body," Holmes mumbled. Then his voice fractured even though he appeared more numb than anything else. "They would have called you to identify it."
Watson's breathing turned shallow. He recalled snatches of the broken phrases that Holmes had babbled against him last night. "Holmes, I…" He had no idea what to say to the intimation that Holmes only did it so that Watson wouldn't have to bury him. Thank him? Even in his head, it sounded cheap. What he wanted to do was draw Holmes to himself to somehow crush the entire incident straight out of his memory, but Holmes had leaned away before going rigidly still in response to the hand that Watson had already put on him. Reluctantly, Watson let him go and returned to the fireplace, watching as Holmes seemed to come out of a daze and pull the already suffocating blanket tighter about his shoulders. The banked rage that had been simmering in Watson's gut all night flared and then died down again. "Holmes, if you can relate nothing else, then at least give us descriptions of the men. As your friend, I am begging you."
Holmes came back to himself with a shudder and looked up at Watson, his eyes hooded. He appeared to weigh the request heavily, but finally gave a defeated nod.
Watson replied in kind and motioned to the hall door. "I'm going to get my notebook."
"I do not want you there."
As if anything could have hit him harder, that blow did so. Watson hid it as best he could, thankful at least that Holmes had ceased looking at him again and so would not notice the gleam that momentarily distorted his vision.
"You would try to find them yourself."
Watson nodded again and swallowed, saliva catching in his throat. "Yes," he replied honestly. "I would."
Holmes tucked his chin into the blanket and then he actually smiled – a small and depressing thing, but a smile nonetheless. "Such a temper, Mother Hen."
"Yes," Watson breathed wetly. "I have to go. Holmes, I have to… I'm sorry, I cannot be here right now."
To Watson's further shame, Holmes didn't even bat an eyelash at that, as if it were nothing more than what he had expected. "That's alright, Watson. You haven't slept, after all. I am well aware of how trying I have been today."
A labored breath fluttered into Watson's lungs, preparatory to uttering some other banality, but once he had that breath, Watson could only shift his feet and then escape the room as quickly as possible. He found himself upstairs in his own seldom-used bedroom without any recollection of climbing the steps to get there, and with no thought for it, he slammed his fist into the wall with all of the force he could muster. By the time Mrs Hudson appeared in the doorway to demand to know what the racket had been about, Watson was sitting on the floor beside his bed and staring at the smear of blood he had left behind in the dented plaster, his knees drawn up to chest, his anger soothed by the throbbing ache of his broken knuckles.
Watson remained cloaked in silence on the floor while Mrs Hudson tended to his cracked and bloodied knuckles, breathing in much the same manner as Holmes breathed now, rapid and shallow through an outward, fragile mask of calm. He could hear his heartbeat thrum in his ears, and the sound of water dripping in a vacuum as Mrs Hudson wrung out her towel in the basin she had brought for him, but little else aside from his own breathing.
Mrs Hudson sighed and the moment broke. "You've done yourself a good one this time, Doctor. It may not be my profession, but I know the need for a splint when I see it."
Watson held his hand up and rotated it without really seeing the damage. He noticed how his hand shook, though, and thought of Holmes holding a cigarette. The hand slid out of his vision and Watson let Mrs Hudson catch it before it hit the floor. "They may as well have murdered him." It wasn't his own voice that said that; the words cracked and skipped like a pubescent boy's.
"You don't mean that." Mrs Hudson fussed over his hand some more and then wrapped it in a towel before placing it in Watson's lap. "I'll find something to bind that with."
"Yes, I do mean it," Watson countered. He sounded as if he had been screaming for hours, his voice a hoarse and pitchy scratch assaulting his already tenuous grasp on his nerves. His gaze wandered aimlessly over the wall as he rolled his head back against the edge of the mattress, and he wondered idly if Holmes had screamed much. "They held a knife to his throat and made him say he wanted it. He thinks that makes it his fault. He thinks there's no real crime because he consented."
"Rubbish." Mrs Hudson gathered her skirts and stood up, then bent to collect the water bowl and the formerly white towels she had cleaned him up with. "That's not consent; it's coercion."
"He thinks it's consent." Watson shut his eyes over the harsh glare of sunlight invading his room. "He thinks it makes him a molly boy, and that Lestrade will arrest him for it if he tells. Like Oscar Wilde."
Mrs Hudson paused at the door, glanced out onto the landing, and then came back to crouch in front of him. "Hush, now. He'll come around. And if he doesn't, you'll talk the sense back into him."
Watson passed his towel-wrapped hand over his eyes and gave a mirthless laugh. More in self-mockery than anything else, he replied, "His logic is sound."
A rustle of skirts betrayed movement, and then Mrs Hudson declared, "That is the most obscene thing I've heard yet."
"Then you explain it to him," Watson muttered. He looked off to one side and rested his hand back in his lap.
"Don't you think I won't." Mrs Hudson stood back up, but Watson only noticed because her shadow fell on him before she moved back to the door. "Stay put until I get back, or I'll have it out with you."
Watson chuckled, but it was a singularly depressing sound. "Yes, nanny."
Mrs Hudson drifted out of the room, but she called back, "Don't you start with me." Her house shoes cushioned her footfalls as she descended. "I get enough of that from Mister Holmes."
Into the stillness that she left in her wake, Watson replied, "Not anymore." His head thumped softly back against the mattress edge, and Watson catalogued the items in his own lonely room. He hated it up here, alone with the sterile, long-settled dust. There was nothing of Holmes in this room, and as loath as he was to admit it, Holmes was the only real, solid thing he had left to him. No family, a gravestone for a wife… He didn't know what he would do if he lost Holmes too, and even though he knew that his fears were premature, he thought of the one occasion on which Holmes had spoken of his own mother, the passing mention that she had died in an asylum of "the family illness." Fits of lost sanity ran in Holmes' blood; all it needed was a catalyst, and really, Holmes had been all but half mad to begin with. He couldn't imagine Holmes in Bedlam unless it was to share Watson's own cell, and that was not something he could allow to happen.
A fresh tread on the stairs roused Watson from his morose mental wanderings, too heavy a plod for Mrs Hudson. A few moments' wait produced Lestrade in his doorway, and he cocked his head at the look on the man's face. "Inspector."
"Doctor." Lestrade rubbed a hand past his temple as he took in the surroundings with no more than the polite degree of notice.
"I apologize for my absence," Watson offered.
Lestrade nodded and indicated Watson's wrapped hand. "Not necessary. I don't imagine you've had it easy these past few hours."
Watson ignored that comment, well-meant as it was, and gestured to a chair. "Has Holmes come out yet? I know you're dreadfully busy, but he said he would. I do appreciate your waiting."
"Not a problem, Doctor. And yes." Lestrade heaved a long breath as he sat, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "He made me leave, though." With nothing else to occupy his hands, Lestrade clasped them and looked toward the window. "Thinks I'll arrest him for committing indecent acts."
Watson heard his own strangled breath before he realized he had made a sound at all.
"Clarkey's taking down their descriptions, though." Lestrade dropped his head to knock a few knuckles against his brow. "God in heaven."
Watson peeled his tongue from the roof of his mouth and took to an intensive study of the window sill.
"How are you holding up, Doctor?"
Watson raised his mangled hand in response.
"Right," Lestrade said, his voice gruff. "Well, save some of that for later. We'll find the blackguards if we have to dress up like dock slops and slog through the gutters all day."
Watson nodded, but with no real conviction. The odds of figuring out who had done this were actually quite low, and he knew it even if he could not quite give voice to it yet. "I saved his clothes for you. Probably not much use as evidence, but since I'd only have burned them anyway…" Watson flipped a hand in some random direction that vaguely denoted the bundle in the foyer two floors below.
"Yes, I saw it. Your good Mrs Hudson was kind enough to point it out to me." Lestrade sniffed as if just speaking of the business left the air polluted, and then said, "Eh, Mister Holmes' pocket watch… It'll be the one with the half-sovereign on the chain?"
"His initials are engraved on the inside cover."
"Well, that helps. What about the cigarette case? Any specific markings on that?"
"'To Sherlock Holmes, your dearest friend, John Watson.' It's on the inside, inscribed beneath the felt lining. Which is red, if it matters."
Lestrade grunted and pulled out a notebook to write that down. "Why beneath it? No one would ever see it there."
Watson's face pinched for a moment, and then he drolly replied, "Because we are two unmarried, middle-aged men sharing accommodations, and people already tend to get the wrong idea about it."
"Oh." Lestrade's pen ceased scratching, and then he acknowledged, "A wise precaution, then."
Watson snorted.
"And I hope you realize…about what I said earlier…" Lestrade paused to finish writing, then tucked the notebook away. "It was rude of me. Even so, I only meant it as a joke."
"Phht. No, you didn't." Watson glanced up, though, and tried to smile. "Still, the effort is appreciated."
Lestrade shrugged and wrung his hands. "Well, there are certainly worse things to be, is all. It's none of my business if you sleep together, no matter what you do in the process." When Watson bristled, Lestrade added a hasty, "I mean nothing by it, Doctor. It's just a comment."
Watson subsided, but darkly. He could only hold his peace for a minute, however, and finally had to say, "It's nothing like that."
A few more moments passed, and then Lestrade shifted to the edge of his chair, wrenching Watson back from a grim yet determined mapping of the streaks on the neglected window pane. "Is it too forward of me to ask what it is like?"
Watson scrutinized him for ulterior motives, not that he really thought Lestrade had any, and then looked down at his poor abused hand, his mind filled with the violent roar of water, so like a rush of silence. "He came back. Out of everyone who has left me, he's the only one who came back."
Lestrade said nothing to that, which was only fitting.
Holmes stared at the cold fireplace grate and decided that he had finally experienced the definition of 'oppressive silence.'
"Um." In the armchair opposite, Clarkey cleared his throat and licked his pencil. From the way his jaw twitched, Holmes deduced that the constable would much rather be chewing on it than using it to write. Some child in his household possessed similar inclinations, as Clarkey's right cuff link appeared to have been gnawed upon recently. "Mister Holmes, sir? Whenever you're ready."
Clarkey had been repeating himself like a drunken parrot for nearly ten minutes now, and yet Holmes could not seem to force himself into responding. He scratched absently at the scab in one corner of his mouth and then convulsively shifted position in the chair, his movements abbreviated and angry, and more than a little uncomfortable. Watson would probably tell him that his outward unease reflected his inward feelings as well, and he would be correct, but it didn't matter because sitting there in that chair caused him a very real degree of discomfort. Stitches, he reminded himself, and then found, regrettably, that his mind dawdled over the knowledge that he had been injured severely enough to require suturing. He could not recall feeling the skin tear, but so many myriad pains had been inflicted upon him last night that it did not surprise him to know that he had overlooked it.
"All I need are their physical characteristics," Clarkey prompted. His fingers crabbed about to itch his knee while his eyes raked over the sitting room walls. He looked even more embarrassed for Holmes' sake, which was just irritating; his cheeks had taken on a splotchy reddish hue that did not compliment an officer of the law. "You needn't tell me anything else, sir."
Holmes started to snap that he was well aware of that, but the exasperated intent left him in a quite inexplicably silent rush of air. A clock ticked somewhere in the room, and Holmes frowned as he realized that he had groped for his pocket watch. He relocated his traitorous hand to the arm of the chair, and then looked up at Clarkey. He could well imagine what he looked like: unkempt, bruised, dark…wary like a cornered animal that had recently been mauled. Guarded did not even begin to describe the wash of unaccustomed feeling that swirled about in the recesses of Holmes' mind. This was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous. And yet telling himself that did not help to snap him into some semblance of his usual self.
"Sir?" Just a breath of air, that. "Are you alright? Can I get you something? Tea?"
"A cigarette." A twitchy grimace ghosted over Holmes' face as he heard his own voice grating in the quiet room like that. Speaking hurt, and he rubbed absently at the dark ring that he knew mottled the skin across his throat. The flesh was tender and warm to the touch. Swollen. He attempted to hide it beneath the collar of his dressing gown, an act of concealment that made no logical sense under these circumstances.
"Of course!" Clarkey leapt to his feet and luckily failed to notice how the sudden movement made Holmes flinch. He found another stray cigarette on the mantle and extracted a box of matches from his own pocket to offer him.
Holmes leaned away, pressing himself back into the chair even as his hand extended to snatch the items from Clarkey's hand. He straightened and then winced at the pain engendered by the movement, sinking back into his original slouch. Stop shaking. You're pathetic. How many times have you been attacked? For god's sake, quit acting like such a...a woman about it. Quiver and tremble and blush and carry on like a damned simpering little soft –
"Sir?"
The hesitant, anxious tone cut through Holmes' inner diatribe and he looked up, startled. Clarkey had resumed his seat, but he sat perched on the edge of the cushion, his head tipped to one side like a worried bird. Holmes blinked, grunted, and struck a match without focusing his eyes on anything. The flame flickered in his cupped hand and he held it to the end of the cigarette, which seemed to dance away from the match. It burned down toward his fingertips and he shook it out with a muffled curse, all but hurling the diminutive thing from himself to reside amongst old newspapers, dust and perpetual clutter. He would come across it again months from now and probably still be able to recall the circumstances that had led to its being there. The matchbox rattled as Holmes struck another, and then Clarkey's shadow fell over him.
"Let me help you, sir."
Holmes went stiff as a board when Clarkey grasped his wrist, gently to spare the bandages there, but not before jerking in his chair as if attempting to throw himself out of arm's reach. His throat locked for a moment, which at least spared him the shame of whimpering. Clarkey stilled and Holmes panted gently into the wingback next to his face, eyes wide, trying to get a grip, just get a grip. It's Clarke for pity's sake, he's harmless.
Clarkey slipped the lit match from Holmes' tense fingers, and when Holmes plucked the unlit cigarette from between his lax lips, Clarkey took that too. Another match crackled, followed by a hint of sulfur on the air, and then Clarkey touched a finger to Holmes' shoulder. "Here." He held out the lit cigarette, his face as close to blank as he was probably capable of making it. Which was to say, not blank at all.
Holmes' eyelids fluttered as he reached up for the cigarette, and Clarkie turned away to resume his seat. It took several seconds for Holmes to convince himself to uncoil, and then he puffed intently on the cigarette and tried to act as if he had not just embarrassed Clarkie with that cowardly display. This would have to stop – he was home now, and it was over, and there was no rational reason for him to continue reacting this way with all of his nerves in a bunch.
"So, um. Shall we start with the one who is in possession of your watch?" Clarkie moistened his tongue without opening his mouth, creased his brow as he looked at the notebook where he had already taken some of Watson's information down, and then said, "I believe that you called him Top Man?"
Holmes wrapped his dressing gown more tightly about his throat and nodded.
"Was that his nickname, sir?"
"No." Holmes twisted sideways and drew one leg up to rest his heel on the chair cushion. It relieved some of the pressure on the sutured injury, so Holmes pulled his other leg up as well and balanced his weight partially on his feet. He could almost call his position comfortable now. "They did not address each other by any monikers at all."
Clarkey scribbled something with a pensive frown etched into every part of his face save his mouth, and then asked, "Why do you call him that, then?"
Holmes made a face at the wing of the chair. "Because he was on top of me."
Dead silence, and then a furtive scratch of pencil to paper. "And the others? Doctor Watson said that there were…four…sir."
Holmes nodded, sucked as hard as he could on the cigarette, cheeks hollowing...like last night, actually. He had done that last night, but not to a cigarette. His thoughts scattered and came back together rapidly enough to leave his stomach lurching in a singularly disconcerting manner, as if he had fallen from the roof of the parliament building. The sitting room dimmed and he lost focus of everything save his own hand. Holmes watched the lit end of the cigarette crackle and glow as the rolling paper flared and burned back. It tasted foul – Arcadia tobacco, Watson's brand – but it obliterated the imagined taste of something much worse that this conversation had conjured up for him. Trailing smoke as he spoke, Holmes named them, "Left Arm Man, Right Arm Man, and Fourth Man."
"Um…very good, then." Clarkey wrote that down, one foot tapping out a staccato betrayal of his discomfort. "Um. If you could, sir, can you describe Top Man for me?"
And so the interview went on in that manner – Clarkie coaxing and pressing, Holmes chain smoking and mumbling sullen, reluctant answers to perhaps half of the questions. It took Holmes a while to realize that not all of Clarkie's inquiries stuck to questions of the men's appearances, and he froze with his sixth cigarette – lit on his own, this time – a few inches from his mouth. He squinted at the unlit end and then slanted his eyes to Clarkie, who looked ridiculously innocent and beguiling where he sat.
"The fourth man?" Clarkie prompted to set the conversation back where Holmes had left it. "He remained behind after the others left. Why?"
Fourth Man. He had already rendered a description of Fourth Man; why was Clarkie still on about him? Holmes snuffed a contemptuous grunt at him and pushed himself to his feet.
Clarkie stood as well and swiveled as Holmes strode past him. "Sir?"
"Go to hell!" Holmes hurled himself into his bedroom and slammed the door on Clarkie, who actually had the audacity to try and follow him.
"Mister Holmes." Clarkie's voice filtered through the door, hollow and solicitous and kind.
Damn him, he didn't need kindness. Who did they think he was? He answered himself in the same heartbeat: a victim. They thought that he was a pathetic victim. Being labeled an invert would have been preferable - emasculating, yes, but at least they would not have thought him pathetic enough to warrant kindness of that caliber. Just like Fourth Man, waiting behind and being gentle and blasted bloody nice and complimenting him and touching him as if the last thing he wanted was to cause more pain -
"Have I said something wrong?" Clarkie rapped gently on the door and Holmes only realized that he was leaning back against it when the vibration trembled through his back. "Should I get Doctor Watson?"
Holmes pressed his palms flat against the door behind him, cool wood contrasting the rush of warm panic that he seemed unable to quell. Everything was fine. He was fine. He was home, Watson was upstairs, and Holmes was fine. Holmes pushed with his hands and then let himself thump back against the door. Breathe. Don't bloody panic. There was no reason for panic. Something bubbled up in Holmes' chest and he clenched his eyes shut as if that could stave it off. Just don't think about Fourth Man. Get a grip, get a grip… He drew his hands into fists and let his fingernails indent his palms, eight points of discomfort to focus on, but not pain, not oblivion, nothing drowned out –
Ah, Mister Holmes. How the mighty have fallen.
"Mister Holmes!"
A thin, muted warble escaped his throat and Holmes catapulted off the door. He shot across the room to his shaving table, hands clawing open drawers, scattering makeup and disguise paraphernalia, his straight razor, Watson's starched collars… Objects clattered to the floor outside of his notice and he scrambled across the room with no recollection of having fallen to his knees, hands sifting through the chaos of his bedroom floor – where is it?
Footsteps clattered through other parts of the house as Holmes' questing fingers finally alit on the soft green velvet of his Morocco case. He fumbled it open and calm descended as he beheld the glint of steel and the wink of glass. He could breathe again as he stared at it, rapt, his entire being expanding with each inhalation. He didn't even notice Watson until the man was kneeling in front of him.
"What have you got there, old boy?"
Holmes blinked at him, non comprehending at first. Then he narrowed his eyes at the speckles of blood littering the front of his shirt, and finally registered the towel wrapped around Watson's hand. "What happened to you?"
Watson glanced at his hand and then offered Holmes a quirky, self deprecating smile. "Lost my temper."
Ah. Yes, Watson was prone to doing that. The Doctor may have actually owned a bull pup when they had met, but that had not been his meaning when he had warned Holmes that he kept one.
Watson held out his open left hand, palm up. "Come now, old chap. You don't need that."
Holmes regarded Watson's palm critically, mapping the whorls on the pads of his fingers. Then he placed the needle in it with an overabundance of care, as if it were a fragile, living thing.
A nearly inaudible sigh worked its way from Watson's mouth as he closed his fingers around the needle and removed it from Holmes' sight. He may have whispered his gratitude, but Holmes could not be certain that he actually heard it. He felt drugged, though he had not had a chance to indulge in his seven percent solution before Watson's arrival. He heard Watson telling Lestrade and Clarkie that perhaps they should come back the next day, and Lestrade remarked that they had enough to start with in any case.
The voices reached Holmes as if he were underwater, listening to a conversation taking place through the hull of a rowboat bobbing on the surface. The sound of air cooling his lungs took up the majority of his auditory input, and he felt…unwell. Not sick per se, but as if his body were anticipating an illness of some sort. It left him rather drained of energy, almost the way he felt just before the onset of his black moods.
Watson's hand alit on his shoulder at some point and Holmes looked up from his haphazard position on the floor. "They're gone." Watson's face crinkled inward just the slightest bit – a subtle expression. He had attempted to hide it and failed. "I'm sorry. I should not have insisted that you speak to them, not yet. You were right to yell at me earlier."
Holmes blinked as the words washed over him and seeped in somewhere around his heart. "I don't mean to worry you so much, Watson. To be so difficult – "
"This is not a result of your contrary nature, Holmes. You have nothing to apologize for."
"But I have put that look on your face yet again." Holmes lifted a fatigued arm and traced his finger down Watson's nose. He wasn't sure why he did it; normally, he kept his affections in reserve.
Watson's features fell even farther as he sank down on his good knee, awkward to spare his old wound. "It was not you who put it there this time. I promise you."
Holmes frowned as he searched Watson's features for one of his many tells, but the face before him, though troubled, bespoke only honesty. Rather than continue in this vein of conversation – there was no need since he had seen all he needed to and deduced from it – Holmes said, "Nanny will be annoyed at the damage to her wall."
An unlikely smile creased Watson's face as he dropped his eyes, a tiny chuckle tangled in the upturned edges of his ruffled mustache. "I will not bother asking how you knew."
"It was obvious," Holmes returned, pleased. A tiny bloom of pressure invaded his chest at still being able, after all of these years, to surprise Watson with his deductions. He often felt it, though he was not sure what it meant; he never had been. "Watson?"
Watson raised his eyes but not his head, still smiling lightly where he probably thought Holmes could not see it for the way the shadows fell. "Yes, dear fellow?"
Holmes blinked while his thoughts fractured a little bit, beyond his control. He did not like feeling so disjointed, and he liked even less that Watson's expression would soon fade again. "I believe that Fourth Man may have carried the French disease."
Watson's expression did not fade so much as collapse entirely. He mouthed, "What?" but apparently could not lend the word any air.
To be helpful, since Watson seemed unable to comprehend him, Holmes clarified, "Syphilis."
"I know what the French disease is, Holmes!" Watson shifted his foot and fell heavily down to sit on the floor. One hand moved to cover his mouth. Through his fingers, Watson moaned, "I didn't even think to ask..." His eyes tracked sightlessly back and forth and then fixed on Holmes as he stammered, "Explain, please."
Holmes moved his shoulders to one side though he turned his head in the opposite direction. "There was blood in his issue."
Watson appeared stricken, and his breath quickened. "Did he…put…Holmes, did…oh god. Are you sure? You were bleeding yourself. It could have been your blood mixed with the…with his issue."
Holmes shook his head. "He was apparently not a sodomite, though his inversion is without question."
A tiny flicker of hope flared in Watson's eyes as he met Holmes' gaze again. "Forgive me, but I must ask. He did not penetrate you?"
"No," Holmes replied, the merest hint of a short syllable. Matter of factly, he elaborated, "He used his hand."
Watson dropped his fingers from his mouth and then laid them, trembling, over the back of one of Holmes' hands. "This is important. Did his issue come into contact with any open wounds?"
Holmes' vision darkened as his lids drooped heavily down to shutter his eyes. "I am not certain. I was not facing him."
"Alright." Watson sounded winded, his voice faint and yet suffused with an odd echo. "Where did it touch you?"
Holmes twisted an arm behind himself to indicate the place on his back where he could clearly remember feeling the hot, sticky substance spatter and sear into his skin.
Watson drew in a deep breath, but from the way his abdomen expanded with it, Holmes doubted that the air actually reached his lungs, if he had managed to inhale any air at all by that movement. "Then I would wager that the odds are in your favor. You have no cuts in that region."
Such genuine relief suffused Watson's features that Holmes could not bring himself to tell him about the other part – the handkerchief that Holmes had glimpsed and what Fourth Man had used it for afterward.
"We'll be alert for symptoms of it," Watson was saying as Holmes' thoughts and sight both wandered. "But it does not seem that you could have contracted it that way. Just leave it to me, alright old chap? I'll keep you…" Watson hesitated over how to finish that sentence, and then merely repeated with a sense of finality, "I'll keep you."
Holmes wrested his gaze from the floorboards long enough to nod, and then slumped back. By the movement, Watson's hand slipped away from his own, and his skin felt colder for the loss of it.