"Come now, precious. Such a pretty little thing, you are."
Holmes opened his eyes and stared sightlessly at the pattern of shadows on the ceiling above him. Awake now, he told himself. Home and safe - much safer than before, in fact.
He had spent the majority of the day on edge for no other reason than that he knew exactly where those men were now. It should have been a relief, and yet if anything, his stomach had roiled even more violently at the odor of food than was his usual wont, and he had broken the A string on his violin from plucking it so hard. And this, now, was the third rude awakening so far that his mind had gifted him with since Watson had finally convinced him to retire, and it wore on him. At least the dreams were all mild, just foggy collections of sounds and vague snatches of phrases uttered by an amorphous series of shadows. Tame. He could deal with tame, except that it kept consistently waking him up. Probably a lingering effect of his earlier indulgence with the needle. Well…cocaine to wake, morphine to sleep. Just like university. Watson would not approve, but Holmes did not intend for him to find out.
Beside him, Watson's even breaths shuttled air into the pillow, sloughing in the darkness. Holmes turned his head in the direction of the dip in the bed beside him. Even in the dying shadows cast by the red embers in the fireplace, Holmes could make out the smudge of the fading bruise that he had inflicted on Watson in the sitting room, a brush of mottled gray on his jaw, easily visible now that the long years had finally stolen the tawny cast that Afghanistan had left on his skin. Careful not to jostle the bed, Holmes rolled toward him and gently moved Watson's left arm into a position unlikely to leave his shoulder aching by morning.
Watson mumbled an incoherent sigh of nonsense and consternation, then fell quiet again. Holmes wondered if he knew just how often Holmes had lain awake since Reichenbach, guarding his sleep. No doubt, he would consider it sordid. Holmes spent a long moment wondering if he had really meant it when he had told Watson that he only left to hurt him. In truth, he had been running from Moran, but Holmes could remember thinking even then that it would serve Watson right if he simply dropped out of Watson's life the way that Watson had dropped out of his. And it made him feel like a cad for even entertaining that notion, much less for following through with it. Even Mycroft had questioned Holmes' decision to let Watson keep on grieving for him as if he were truly dead.
A poor imitation of an owl's call floated through the glass panes of the window, and Holmes glanced out at his part of London. His Irregulars were changing the guard. Holmes did not have the heart to tell them to call off the vigil, and he doubted that the boys would consent even if he did. They took some odd brand of pride in watching him and following him, deluding themselves into believing that their attention made a difference to him. But then again, in some small and pathetic way, perhaps it did. Holmes scowled to himself in the dark when he realized the truth to that. Pathetic, relying on a cadre of star-struck unfortunates for his peace of mind.
It took but a moment to retrieve his Morocco case and to locate a phial of morphine hidden in the locked drawer of his desk. Watson's checkbook covered it, and the irony appealed to Holmes in an almost sadistic manner. He tied his arm off with a suspender strap that lay discarded under his chemical table – probably one of his own, since Watson did tend to clean up after himself – and then paused to crane his neck up over the arm of the chair that he was crouched behind. Sneaking about in his own home, hiding on the floor of his own sitting room… One would think that his intended actions were criminal. Holmes glowered at the encompassing darkness, but he had heard all he needed – Watson continued to breathe evenly in his slumber.
Holmes drew up a rather sloppily measured dose in the inadequate light that filtered in from the street, past half-drawn curtains. He had to feel for a vein due to the poor illumination, and then he cursed under his breath to discover his hand shaking as he tried to pierce it with the needle. A small sound of frustration leaked past his tightly pressed lips, and then the needle finally slid home. He exhaled in sheer relief at the sting of it, well aware of how it might look to a bystander – like an addict crouching on the floor in the dark…needed a fix real bad…shameful, really.
Several seconds passed in mortified stillness, and then Holmes looked down at the cast of shadows covering his own arm. As much in defiance as to banish the remembered taunting, Holmes drew the plunger up slightly. He could feel the pull on his vein, and in his mind's eye, he pictured the delicate threads of red that must be swirling about in the clear solution. Then he sucked a breath in through his teeth and began injecting the morphine. The chill spread into his arm and Holmes let his head drop back, eyes closed against the shadowed ceiling as his thumb continued pressing the plunger. The last of the contents of the needle trickled into his vein and Holmes opened his eyes as he bowed over his arm, the needle still in place as a dull rush infiltrated his body and spread outward – the numbing pressure of euphoria. Holmes heard himself breathing hard in the silence, his body shivering in the wake of the drug, and then he groaned softly as the relief finally hit, arching his back just slightly as the first wave crested in a splash of chemical calm.
It passed quickly and Holmes blinked several times, not quite overcome by the initial swirl of dizziness. It took an effort to withdraw the needle in light of the sublime tranquility settling over him like clouds. He tossed his paraphernalia back into the desk drawer but couldn't find his keys to relock it. No matter. If he did not return to bed soon, he would end up sleeping out here, probably on the floor, and he really did not want to wake up stiff and sore in the morning with Watson's slippered foot prodding him in the ribs.
A hansom clattered past a few streets over as Holmes curled himself back under the blankets and extended a hand to brush over Watson's arm. He did not particularly care to dream again, but before he could muster the energy to be concerned at the remembrance that morphine often heightened the vividness of dreams, the drug had already dragged him down.
Fourth Man rose from his perch on the packing crate as the others moved away, righting clothes and replacing belts. Top Man was boasting; Holmes could not make out the words past the ringing of blood in his ears and the rush of air as he struggled to fill his lungs with tatters of inexplicably thin air, but the tone of his voice gave it away. They were squabbling by the time they reached the street, and then distance carried them beyond Holmes' ability to distinguish them from a hundred other noises. He didn't even have it in him to be relieved at their leaving.
"Ah, Mister Holmes. How the mighty have fallen."
Holmes tensed and curled as far into himself as he could with his wrists still bound behind him and his whole body aching at the strain of just existing. He shuddered and then on a whim, he licked the dirt off the cobblestone that his cheek had been resting on because at least the ground didn't taste of rot and male issue. His tongue snagged on the scratchy stone but he kept at it like a cat to cream.
"Well. I have to say, I am rather impressed," Fourth Man told him. He could have sweetened tea with that voice. "You bore that with quite a bit of composure."
Holmes pressed his nose into a crack in the cobblestones and wearily closed his eyes as Fourth Man knelt over him, straddling his legs. Fine; one more to satisfy. He could do that – it was only another drop in the bucket. And afterwards, he could go home to Watson. Just go home to Watson – Watson with his sea novel and his ruffled mustache, the skin of his cheek creased from dropping off with his head canted onto his own shoulder, telling Holmes off for staying out so late when he had promised to be back before midnight. A quaver of the voice dancing around the edges of each word, so that Holmes could tell that Watson was not truly angry but merely terrified that he would go away again, perhaps forever this time.
Soft, manicured hands smoothed up Holmes' thigh and rubbed gently at his hip. Holmes started violently and tried to twist his shoulders as if he could have wedged himself far enough into the cracks in the ground to be out of reach. He could have handled insults or violence, another invasion upon his person, but not this; it felt too much like kindness assaulting his already frayed nerves. He could feel his muscles relaxing, lulled into a false state of calm by conflicting sensory input that played on the soul-sick exhaustion suffusing his entire frame.
"Mm…they're wrong, you know. Pale and soft, yes, but nothing like a woman." Fourth Man's hand came to rest against the ground, right in Holmes' line of vision. "No, sir. You are very much a man." He insinuated a hand between Holmes cheek and the ground and forced his head up. "Smooth, hard lines…the feral scent of sweat and fear and masculinity…cowed and used, and yet utterly breathtaking." Fourth Man kissed him, but not the way Top Man had. He feathered his lips over the bruises marking Holmes' jaw, grazing teeth over his cheek, oh so gentle. Wiped moisture from his face with one immaculately clean thumb and then nosed at his hairline, smelling him and making contented little cat-like sounds deep in his throat – the kinds of noises that normal men only bestowed upon a lover. Murmured endearments and soft, whispery ghosts of moans. Worship. A sick parody of worship.
Holmes didn't resist, but only because he couldn't think how to thwart something so soothing. Fourth Man's touch was so different from the others', and Holmes was so tired, and he hurt everywhere. Fourth Man crooned quiet things to him, wordless things and Holmes shut his eyes, too nearly defeated to care what he was saying, only that it was calm and peaceful in the wake of force and jeers and what must have been over an hour of constant, vain struggling. When Fourth Man rubbed circles over his belly, all Holmes could do was shift in mild protest, and that only because the dregs of his pride demanded some form of resistance. He didn't even notice when Fourth Man touched lower, but he did whine at the flash of pain that the contact engendered. Top Man had not been gentle with him, squeezing and pulling with too much force just to watch him wince. It took Holmes a moment to realize that he was still hard, that Top Man had managed to keep him hard the whole time and that it had not abated, and then he hissed and tried to curl more tightly around himself.
"Shhh…there now. That can't be comfortable." Fourth Man kneaded him gently. "Don't worry; I'll take care of it for you."
Fourth Man's hand moved too firmly over too-sensitive skin, rubbing and pressing Holmes' erection against his stomach so that he could stroke the underside of it. Pressure along flesh, a thumb at the head to dig in, and it really hurt – he was sore, too sore for this, and yet his body responded – Holmes could feel it, muscles contracting here and there, stomach tightening…. When Holmes moaned, it was half pain and half dejected humiliation. Fourth Man worked him slowly in one hand, his other running in soothing arcs over Holmes' body, his ribs, his shoulders, his thighs. It was all Holmes could do just to lay there and take it. He was too tired to fight, and it…it felt nice. Compared to the others, anyway, it felt almost like relief.
Holmes heard himself breathing, ragged and shallow, and he squirmed as Fourth Man closed his fingers to fist him gently. The grit rubbed painfully over his length and he whimpered a wordless protest. He suspected that his most sensitive places had been chafed nearly raw against the ground and in Top Man's rough, dry hands. Dear god…would he develop a rash from it? Not just from the dryness but from the disease that must have been crawling all over this alley and on those…those men themselves. Holmes twitched in a direction vaguely away from Fourth Man's hand, but other parts of his body betrayed him yet again.
"So beautiful," Fourth Man whispered. He leaned down to kiss Holmes' shoulder, lips light and reverent. While he was down there, he snaked his left arm under Holmes' body and splayed his hand over Holmes' chest. What resulted was a sort of embrace.
Holmes struggled, but so weakly that he would have done better not to bother. His restless shifting offered a beneficial resistance to Fourth Man, who wrapped himself around Holmes on the ground, held him as if they were lovers and braced him as Holmes unraveled quite without realizing what the hell was going on. All Holmes knew was that he felt light-headed, and then billows of heat rushed through him in a broken series of rapidly intensifying waves like clouds of heat in a burning room, or the shape of an explosion under water. He broke out in a sudden sweat and arched with a feeble whimper, muscles burning from the strain, pushing back into Fourth Man's arms without meaning to.
A tremble rose from Holmes' limbs, curled his toes and tightened into a writhing ball in his stomach while Fourth Man held him close and spewed comforting nonsense into his ear. Holmes opened his mouth but no sound came out. He did not convulse so much as tense up for a few seconds, and something was very wrong but he was too dazed to pinpoint what. He gasped then – he could hear it as if from afar, as if he weren't a part of his own voice anymore – a sheer and pitched inhalation like shards of glass scraping together. When the pressure condensed at the base of his spine to steal the remaining air from his lungs, he curled up until his forehead struck the ground. One of his feet scrabbled mindlessly against one of Fourth Man's legs. A wheeze filtered past his constricted throat and he clenched his teeth, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, head flung back. God, no, he thought with grotesque clarity. The heat blossomed in rippling waves through his groin and he gasped out a mangled plea to stop as he finally understood what was happening.
"It's alright, Holmes," Fourth Man whispered. "I've got you." And it sounded like honest, tortured affection, but he didn't want that from this man, he didn't.
Holmes twisted to hide his face as the aftershocks sparked through him, twitching his limbs as they passed. He cried then – loud, gut-wrenching sobs, the kind he had refused to give vent to throughout the entire rest of the ordeal. He gave up caring who saw it, listening to his own heart pulse to that beat, and smelling himself as he spent into Fourth Man's hand, warmth pooling low in his stomach to linger while Fourth Man cupped his softening member and whispered things to him that Holmes had only ever wanted to hear from someone like Watson. Because they weren't mumblings of a sexual nature; Fourth Man poured out praise for Holmes' deductive abilities, his stamina, his prowess in the boxing ring, his loyalty to his clients, his cleverness…
He even said that he was proud of Holmes – proud of him for making it all the way through. And he called Holmes "dear boy" the way Watson did sometimes in unguarded moments. "There now, dear boy. It's all over now." As if Holmes should be grateful to Fourth Man for stealing that last, tiny spec of his shattered dignity by making him come, just to put an end to it – as if it were a favor, finding him an end to it. And maybe it was; it almost felt like it should be. This warm haze that followed was supposed to be lazy and pleasurable, wasn't it? Watson said once that lying in bed with Mary after their marital exertions had been some of his favorite times with her. But this wasn't like that, was it? God, why didn't it hurt? His own body had just turned on him in the most humiliating way, and that should hurt – someone make it hurt!
Fourth Man sat up eventually, disentangling himself from Holmes' limp body. Holmes shut his eyes and shook when he heard Fourth Man opening his flies, just a few catches of fabric. He whimpered softly into the ground as Fourth Man straddled him and began to pump himself. All Holmes could think was that Fourth Man hadn't cleaned off his hand first – he was easing his own way with Holmes' issue. Holmes didn't look but he could hear it, a nauseating squelch and pull of flesh and that singular pattern of breathy grunts that signified a man finding his pleasure. When the hot spatters dripped onto his back, Holmes shrieked; he didn't know why, since it was hardly the worst thing that had happened to him that night.
A hand clamped over his mouth to muffle him as he kept on screaming, and he struggled too late to do himself any good, too exhausted to have any effect. Fourth Man held him down and Holmes didn't have strength enough to throw him off. He kicked the ground, harmless blows because the angle he was lying at prevented him from landing a solid hit, like a recalcitrant child throwing a tantrum. And then he did throw up. Finally. All over the ground in front of himself, sick from his own frantic and mindless exertions. Fourth Man barely got his hand out of the way in time to avoid soiling himself. The retching stole Holmes' voice and afterwards; all he could manage was to continue gulping air into his heaving chest, wishing he could pass out so that he wouldn't have anything else for his too-sharp mind to remember in abhorrent detail.
Fourth Man chuckled as if Holmes' complete deterioration were the most endearing thing that he had ever seen. He stood up long enough to set himself to rights, cleaned their mingled release from his fingers with that handkerchief he had flaunted earlier, and then he reached down to caress Holmes' hair. Holmes flinched and tried to slither along the ground away from him, but to no avail. He couldn't see past a flood of liquid in his eyes and his throat hurt, raw and worn from screaming and stomach acid, hoarse and useless. He had no energy left. None, not even to fight when Fourth Man forced a handkerchief past his teeth – the one he had just cleaned himself with, which Holmes only identified by the almost chemical taste of briny male issue – a taste he would not have recognized an hour ago.
Holmes let Fourth Man tie the cravat around his head again, gagging him, and then he cried quietly while Fourth Man set about fixing his clothes. Watson's shirt settled back up around his shoulders and Holmes shut his eyes over the sight of Fourth Man doing up the buttons. Then his trousers were eased back up over his hips, braces secured, waistcoat set to rights, frock coat folded and placed on the ground before him. Holmes cringed at his own complacency, silently begging the bare, filthy street to swallow him because he enjoyed the kindness of the act – he craved the gentleness of it and it disgusted him. Even the hands binding his ankles with his own belt were considerate and gentle, and Fourth Man shushed him and patted his hip when he squirmed and made a pained sound at the chafing of fabric over sensitive skin worn raw and bleeding.
"I know, Mister Holmes. But I can't have you trying to follow me," Fourth Man explained. "Someone will find you by morning, I imagine. Unless you free yourself before then."
Holmes mewled and tried to still, if only because moving hurt. The man was clearly an idiot; surely he could see that even if he left Holmes lying there unbound, he was in no frame of body to follow. He sniffed as hard as he could in the hopes of clearing his clogged nose to breathe more freely; it did not work, so he rubbed his cheek over the ground instead and imagined in a fit of momentary insanity, perhaps, that it was Watson's hand, and that he was wiping the grime away. He felt his eyes drift shut over the thought and pictured Watson waiting at home in front of the fire. Don't leave a body. Don't make him bury another body. Watson was still waiting for him. Years dead, and still waiting for him. Have to go back. Distract him with Catullus and cast aside the bookseller. He'll be so happy. Unless he faints again, poor chap.
"Here," Fourth Man murmured, and Holmes' eyes snapped open, jolted from the refuge of his own mind. Funny, he mused; his own mind was hardly a place for refuge on normal days.
Fourth Man crouched down and waved a handful of pound notes in front of Holmes' face before tucking them into his waistcoat pocket, just as he had done to Top Man with the watch. Holmes shied and made an indeterminate sound, to no avail, his limbs tense as he strained at the bindings. He knew that it was Watson's money – he had observed the bookie's mark on the corner of the note that Holmes had used to place the initial wager. Holmes looked up, scared and confused and not entirely certain what was going on anymore; he must have passed out. Or been concussed. Maybe he was still at the Punch Bowl, hallucinating in his bare rented flat above the ring; it would not have been the first time he had experienced a negative reaction to one of his chemicals.
Fourth Man quirked a smile, as if he knew what Holmes was thinking, and Holmes could see by that expression that this was very much real. It crystallized right there in the darkness, a grotesque and arid truth. "I am an honest man, Mister Holmes." He patted Holmes' ribs, right over the pocket he had put the money in. "You have to pay a whore."
The acrid taste of vomit hit Holmes first, and he nearly gagged. He was surrounded by fluff and blankets and the scent of Watson, but it took him a few seconds to realize that he was at home. The solid warmth behind him was only Watson, sitting up in bed and all but cradling him as he repeated, over and over again, that it was alright, dear boy, and that he was there, and had him. The subtle rocking reached Holmes senses a moment later, and then he blinked to find that he had thrown up all over the bedclothes, not to mention himself. And Watson was crying; his grief was dignified and understated, much like the man himself, but definitely there and dripping salt into Holmes' hair.
Holmes stared at the window in front of him; Mrs Hudson stood reflected in the glass, one hand covering her mouth. She had brought a candle into the room, perhaps drawn by his screaming. Or at least, his throat felt raw and abused, more so than vomiting alone could account for, so he concluded that he had strained his vocal chords doing so. He felt groggy and heavy, and managed to deduce that the drug still filtering though him had prevented Watson from waking him right away. Other subtle sensations clung to his limbs, an odd weight and the trembling wake of a rush of…something. And he ached in unfamiliar places. He thought at first that he must have fought Watson in his sleep again, but that made no sense because the dull throb seemed unlike the sort of ache that comes from that kind of exertion.
When the actuality dawned on him, a tiny, strangled sound worked its way from his throat and he drew his legs up toward his chest as if he still had a chance to ward it off. He had spent himself in his sleep, in conjunction with the dream. In the bed he shared with Watson. Probably while Watson was holding him – touching him and trying to wake him and calm him down so that he knew he was safe. He had –
"Noooo…" Holmes moaned, low and long and drawn out. He could feel the sticky, damp residue shift against his genitals as he moved, and his denial tipped up at the end of his wail into some sort of throttled squeak. Which parts had been real, and which the dream? Watson had been speaking to him – those had been Watson's arms, not Fourth Man's. And the reassuring whispers and the soothing touches, the embrace – he didn't know who those had come from. He didn't know because Fourth Man really had said and done some of those things, and soothed him and dripped honeyed words into his ear and called him a dear boy. "No, no…no…"
"Shh! Stay here," Watson enjoined, his voice laced with a trace of desperation. He easily contained the feeble struggle that Holmes offered as he tried to shy inward. "You're safe." He gathered Holmes closer and turned his face away from the window so that all Holmes could see was the cuff of Watson's night shirt next to his face, and a parade of stripes adorning the fabric that spanned Watson's chest. "It's okay. I've got you."
Unable to get away from this, Holmes muffled himself in Watson's arm and curled up as small and round as he could, his ankles nestled against Watson's leg and his knees holding him to Watson's side. Sharp tremors wracked his chest but he did not cry. He made other noises, though; gurgling whimpers and odd clicking sounds in the back of his throat. He noted that Mrs Hudson came to bundle away the soiled blanket and top sheet, but the whole of his focus had narrowed to Watson's quiet enjoinders to be still and calm and to breathe, and not to worry because it wasn't a big deal and it didn't matter. The scent of vomit lingered, but then, Holmes was covered in it and had, at some point, smeared it all over Watson's night shirt as well. Did Watson know about the other part? Did he know what Holmes had just done, did he realize?
"Mrs Hudson is drawing a hot bath," Watson told him at some point. Holmes merely laid there, furled up in a tangle of limbs in Watson's lap, still hiding in the crook of Watson's arm as he listened to the drone of Watson's voice babbling on. He watched his own hand curl like talons into Watson's collar, and as if in response, Watson's palm splayed warm and solid on Holmes' back to anchor him in place. "We'll get you cleaned up, and then we'll have a brandy. How does that sound? And a smoke. It's nearly morning anyway. Mrs Hudson can bring us up an early breakfast. Are you in a mood for eggs? I think I would prefer ham, myself."
And so it went on for the twenty minutes that it took Mrs Hudson and the maid to prepare them a hot bath in the middle of the night, until Holmes finally couldn't take the inanity anymore and croaked, "Stop."
Watson did. He broke off in the middle of some pointless monologue on the reordering of the books in their sitting room and took to smoothing down Holmes' hair instead. Vomit-covered or not, Holmes nearly fell asleep like that with Watson's arm around his back and his face pressed into Watson's chest while Watson pet his hair and rubbed gentle but firm circles all over his arm and shoulders. Unrecognized knots of tension eased from Holmes' limbs until he was floating in that semi-lucid state that teeters on the edge of waking dreams.
When Watson shook him, he grunted in displeasure to find himself awake again, disoriented for the time it took to focus his uncooperative eyes on Mrs Hudson, who was holding out his dressing gown, eyes politely directed at the ceiling, and telling him to strip so that she could get his ruined clothes into the wash before the stains set. No thought involved itself when Holmes fought them both on that – can't let Watson see what he did, can't let him know, it's depraved and disgusting, betrayed his friendship by coming in the bed they shared, and Watson would despise him if he knew, and call him an invert and a catamite and a filthy whore, and he'd be right, and Holmes was a genius but he couldn't disprove the truth –
But then Watson had him in a vice grip and he was naked and sobbing and crying and apologizing, and generally descending into hysterics as he curled his knees up to his chest to try and hide what he'd done. Holmes could hear himself, could see it happening, but he couldn't feel it at all and he didn't know how to stop it. Watson covered him with his dressing gown and held him still by sheer force until he stopped raving, then told him again that it didn't matter at all. Holmes had to believe him because Watson was a terrible liar, but he still waited for the assignations that never came.
Something important disconnected in Holmes' mind as Watson rocked him back and forth, and Holmes heard himself telling Watson about a letter he had received four weeks ago from a potential client who thought that her jeweler had replaced her most expensive diamonds with flawed specimens of less than half their value when she had taken a tiara to be cleaned and repaired, which was why he had started tracking the jewel heists yesterday afternoon. Watson stopped muttering and swearing, but he wore a haunted look that Holmes did not much care to see. Eventually, he closed his eyes so that he wouldn't have to, and told Watson that the crime was brilliantly clever. He meant to look into it. Things muddled after that.
Another hazy half hour found Holmes nodding off in the bathtub while Watson scrubbed him pink and cradled his head so that he wouldn't drown. All Holmes knew was that he was warm and clean, and that the air smelled pleasantly of pear soap and wet Watson, which for some reason reminded Holmes of Gladstone even though the canine had been dead for years now. He couldn't think anymore; the exhaustion had left him inebriated, his mind thick like porridge. Or like London fog. Watson's voice droned on like bees, calm and level, but Holmes did not comprehend a word of it even as it lulled him to complacency. It took the last of his ebbing strength to climb out of the bathtub at Watson's urging, and then all he recalled was curling up on the rug after Watson left to find more towels.
Sometime later, Holmes awoke on the settee, and when he let his head flop to the side, he found himself eye to eye with Watson. With his mouth still full of sleepy fuzz, Holmes mumbled, "You look awful."
Watson's mustache twitched, but little else.
Holmes stared blankly at him for a few more seconds, and then directed bleary eyes to the rest of Watson's person. He frowned shortly thereafter. "That cannot be good for your leg."
Watson remained as he was, in a cross-legged lump on the floor before the settee. "You're feeling better," he guessed.
"Yes." Holmes rolled his head back onto the throw pillow and made a feeble effort to stretch his cramped limbs, all the way down to his fingertips. Then he sagged back and licked his lips. "Watson. I find that I must request a favor of you."
"Anything," Watson assured him.
Holmes visually traced a line of powder burns along the ceiling above him. "You must promise not to lose your temper."
The frown was evident in Watson's voice when he cautiously agreed, "Alright."
Holmes nodded, unable to look over for fear of the disappointment he would see on Watson's face. He sucked his lower lip for a brief moment, and then drew a deep breath. "My desk drawer is unlocked. You will find my needle and a quantity of morphine in addition to my usual cocaine."
The only response that Watson offered was dead, weighted silence. Then he guessed, "You took morphine last night, didn't you. That was why I could not wake you."
Holmes pressed his tongue against the velvety inside of his cheek and nodded.
"Damn you – I thought you'd fallen into a fit!"
"I know," Holmes murmured, his eyes creased at the corners in an expression of pain at the way Watson's shouting grated the insides of his skull like broken glass. "Watson, I cannot apologize enough for frightening you like that."
"No, you can't," Watson replied. "But apparently, what you can do is ask me to bring you more of the vile – "
"I want you to destroy it."
Watson broke off his fledgling tirade.
His voice a fine and jagged whisper, Holmes repeated, "Destroy it."
A hand slid gently across Holmes' chest and then up to turn his face away from the back of the couch. Watson stared at him with wide blue eyes, as if he dared not hope that he had heard Holmes correctly. "Are you certain?"
Holmes nodded before he could talk himself out of it. The morphine…he never wanted to experience another dream like the one he had endured last night, and as for his other vice… If he truly became such a despicable character under its influence that Watson could not stand his presence, then perhaps he was better off without it. He could attempt other methods of regulating his black fits, and if none of them worked, then the cocaine would still be there afterward. It probably would not kill him to try. "All of it. Please, John – just keep it away from me."
Watson started nodding like a fool with a broken neck. "I will. Don't concern yourself about it any more; I'll dispose of it."
Holmes mouthed a silent thanks and then rolled away to huddle against the back of the settee. The naked relief on Watson's face…it looked the way Holmes felt every time he pushed the plunger down. He heard Watson scrambling around for several minutes, rattling desk drawers and ferreting out every last phial in Holmes' possession. Eventually, Watson hurried from the room, probably afraid to delay too long lest Holmes take the words back.
Holmes found himself wallowing in a wake of silence as sunlight gradually encroached on his curled body. He could not shake the picture of himself crouched on the floor in the dark with the needle curled into his flesh.
Need it real bad, don't you Mister Holmes. Crawling on the ground like a good little whore to get it…
"Stop," Holmes wailed under his breath. He freed his hands from the blanket that Watson had draped over him, and ducked his head under his arms. The two things were nothing alike.
"Holmes?" Broad hands tugged at his elbow, and Watson's voice reached him quietly through the gloom of the blanket he had stuffed his nose into. "Come out of there before you smother yourself."
Holmes consented to relinquish the blanket tangled about his elbows, and Watson rolled him over onto his back again. All Holmes could say was, "I need a case."
"What about your jewel thieves?"
Holmes followed the line of Watson's arm as he pointed to the mess of scrapbooks that Holmes had marked up the day before. "That isn't a pressing matter. It will take months to collect all of the necessary data."
"Then we'll find something interesting in the post," Watson declared.
Dubious but with no other recourse, Holmes grunted acceptance of the proposal. Lost cats and stolen pens…servants stealing silver tea spoons… He would prefer a good, honest double homicide. "I suppose we will have to make do."
"Good." Watson smiled at him, and it was that blinding one again. Holmes had to look away from it. The morphine must not have worn off yet, not entirely; he could still perceive crystalline edges to some of the objects he gazed at, including Watson's own person. But only when he smiled like that. "Breakfast first," Watson added. His hand smoothed down Holmes' arm and then briefly grasped his lax fingers before pulling away. "I'll fix up your plate while you dress."
Holmes listened to Watson's footsteps thump-shuffling across the room, and then he raised his fingers in front of his face – the ones Watson had just touched. The fresh morning sunlight caught on the pale skin of his knuckles and sent it fracturing into long talons of shadow that striped the back of the settee. Dust motes danced about his fingernails like diamond dust. His skin retained an imagined measure of warmth where Watson's hand had gripped him, and Holmes found himself thinking quite involuntarily of the solidity to be found in having Watson curled along his back.
"Ham?" Watson called from across the room.
The surrealism of the moment shattered and Holmes dropped his hand. "No. Just eggs."
"They're hardboiled. I could ask Mrs Hudson to scramble some for you instead."
"No," Holmes replied, his voice gruff with the vestiges of drugged sleep and too little actual rest. He rolled himself to his feet and caught at the arm of the settee as he stumbled under the surprising weight of his own body. Definitely still drugged, he concluded. Even as he came to that conclusion, various patches of his vision sparkled in a scintillating wave and then dulled again. "Hardboiled will suffice. And toast. I will be out in a moment."
Holmes took his time with his morning ablutions, a rather new habit that he knew was starting to worry Watson, but he could not help it. The concerted ritualization of scrubbing himself clean, of making certain that he smelled only of himself and perhaps of a hint of Watson, comforted him more than he cared to admit. If he caught a whiff of ammonia or sewage at any point during the day, he could tell himself with perfect confidence that the smell was not on him.
Once he had washed himself into a slightly itchy state of pink spotlessness, Holmes donned whatever clothes he had on hand, and detoured into the hall to retrieve the morning papers. He and Watson sat in companionable silence for a while after that, sipping at coffee and trading pages of the newspapers over the toast rack. The scene reeked of domesticity, and the mundane quality of it had ceased to irk him in recent weeks. On the contrary, the knowledge that this at least remained exactly the same brought him an embarrassing amount of comfort. Undoubtedly, he was growing soft and complacent, and that would simply never do.
Holmes quelled the comparison that his traitorous mind drew between domestic habits and housewives – delivered in a voice that he had grown to hate and fear in equal measures – and turned to the last page of the Morning Chronicle. He scoured the headlines and opening paragraphs of several articles, combing through in his usual fashion for anything that might have an impact on the criminal underbelly. A box of text in the bottom left hand corner arrested his attention even before he realized what had drawn his eyes to it in the first place. The headline read: Criminal trio apprehended. And somewhere below that, the name Josiah Redding swam up from a jumble of letters crammed together in badly smudged newsprint.
Holmes lowered his coffee cup back to the table, unsure of his ability to hold it without spilling anything. A glance at Watson confirmed that he had noticed nothing amiss, and Holmes bent himself to the task of deciphering the marred article. It appeared as if the corner of this particular page had snarled in the printing press, but not badly enough to justify scrapping it. In spite of the crinkled page and a few overlapping lines of text, Holmes had no trouble reading the article.
Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade of Scotland Yard confirms the arrest and confession of three gentlemen known to have perpetrated several armed robberies against English gentlemen. The three criminals – Messrs Josiah Redding, Dale Kirkpatrick and Smitty Williams – were apprehended after escalating to the most heinous assault of an unnamed London gentleman. The evidence in the matter is sound, according to Inspector Lestrade, and the three criminals are expected to be sentenced on Friday of this week.
Holmes blinked at the brevity of the article – three measly sentences? – and then he narrowed his eyes at it.
"Well then," Watson piped up, setting his empty cup aside to allow him a moment's stretch. "I have rounds until one this afternoon. Will you be here when I return, or do you plan to go out?"
Watson was well aware of the shameful fact that Holmes did not leave the house on his own anymore, but Holmes forbore to point out the uselessness of asking a question to which he already knew the answer. Instead, he queried, "You did say that you spoke to Lestrade yesterday afternoon, did you not?"
Watson dropped his arms and glared to the side in such a manner that Holmes did not think him aware of how much he was giving away, his shoulders settling into a tense line. "Yes, I did. He was most unhelpful."
"But he told you that he had apprehended the men responsible for…" Here, Holmes faltered quite unexpectedly and scrambled to find some suitable way of completing the thought. "…for my…me."
Watson actually looked at him that time, his forehead gathering fresh lines as he studied Holmes' guarded expression. "Yes. Why?"
Holmes wondered at the indecipherable ghost of worry lurking beneath Watson's politely concerned frown. "This article only mentions three perpetrators. Why is Lestrade censoring the fourth?"
Watson may have paled a bit, or else the vestiges of the morphine made it appear so. "There must be some mistake." He held his hand out for the newspaper and Holmes pointed out the offending article. A moment later, too soon for Watson to have actually read anything, he said, "Perhaps this reporter was misinformed."
Holmes took in the sickly twist to Watson's mouth, half hidden under the crinkled edge of his mustache, and then the sweat that seeped onto his brow in too fine a measure to bead and the nervous flutter of the finger that he traced beneath the lines of text in the article. "Watson…you are afraid."
Watson's head flew up and he snorted one beat too late to pass it off as contempt. "I'm sure there has simply been a mistake. In any case, it does not matter what the press hears of it, does it? The less said on the matter, the better, I think." He folded the newspaper into haphazard quarters and all but flung it aside.
Holmes tracked the crackle of newspaper catching drafts of air on its way to the floor, and then he looked to Watson again. Watson, who could not meet his eyes and sat drumming his fingers on the table, his elbow dangerously close to a smear of jam dripping over the edge of its jar. He almost called Watson out – demanded to know what he was hiding, why he looked ready to bolt – but he could not manage it past the confusion bubbling to surface in pinpricks of a formless panic that blossomed all throughout his chest. They had all been arrested – Watson had said so. They were in police custody.
"I am going to be late to my first appointment," Watson announced abruptly. He shoved his chair back and claimed his feet while Holmes sat dumbly staring at a mangled piece of toast still caught in the rack. "Do you need anything while I'm out? Tobacco?"
"Watson, what is going on?" Holmes hated the way his voice trembled and pled but he could do nothing about it now save continue to stare, transfixed, at the disfigured triangle of toast.
"Nothing," Watson snapped. "Are we still out of Port? I'll pick up a bottle on my way home."
A shivering stream of helpless words spilled from Holmes lips, beyond his ability to censor. "Why are you lying to me?"
From the vicinity of the fireplace, Watson made a choked sound and Holmes turned his head to see why. Watson had braced his arm along the mantle and even as Holmes watched, he dropped his forehead into the crease of his elbow. Softly enough that Holmes concluded he was not meant to hear it, Watson whispered, "God help me."
"Why would he need to?"
Watson nearly jumped out of his own skin, a troubling enough reaction under justifiable circumstances but even more so now. He turned wide eyes on Holmes, his expression too jumbled to read.
Holmes breathed, but the air did nothing to relieve the sense that he was suffocating. "What have you done?" Worst case scenarios played out in his mind, a rapid-fire sequence of possibilities cross-references with everything Holmes knew of Watson's character. Then he felt himself grow lightheaded. "Oh my god. Watson, you didn't." A flash of confusion passed over Watson's face, and then Holmes exclaimed, "You actually killed one of them? What were you thinking?"
"I…" Watson's face drew a blank. "Wait. What?"
Holmes' thoughts stuttered. "Then you didn't kill one of them?"
"I didn't…kill one of them?" Watson repeated, his tone betraying not only a hint of outrage but also some form of giddy relief. "That's what you think? That I went out and committed a cold-blooded, premeditated murder? I think I should be insulted."
"You did vow to see them dead," Holmes pointed out. "Repeatedly. And as I recall, you made a valiant attempt to brain one of them in front of Lestrade and a dozen of his men." He paused and lifted one shoulder in a failed attempt at a noncommittal shrug. "Not that I object."
Watson tilted his head as if to consider the sincerity of that statement, and then crossed his arms over his chest, still dubious. "Good."
"You still have not told me why that article affected you so."
Watson threw his arms up and stalked off to start disarranging the neat rows of pencils on his desk.
"If you don't wish to tell me, I can always ask Lestrade. He will undoubtedly have a theory or four to offer."
"No!" Watson dropped several pencils and ignored them until they clattered to the floor. Then he glanced down at them as if bewildered to find that they had rolled away only to shake himself a moment later and try to laugh the whole thing off. "Holmes – "
"There is a problem with the case, isn't there," Holmes deduced. "Is it Fourth Man? He would be the logical one to present difficulties."
Watson stopped himself long enough to blink, and then seemed to wilt even as he drew himself back up to his full height. "Let Lestrade handle it. For my sake – just stay out of it."
Holmes lips moved without a sound, and then he asked, "You are no longer eager for revenge?" He had not wanted Watson involved for fear that harm would come to him, either from the attackers or by his own rash actions, but to think that Watson's anger on his behalf had dimmed actually hurt. Had it ceased to matter? This affair had been going on for nearly two months now; of course, Watson would eventually grow weary of the strain of it.
"It's not that," Watson breathed fervently. "I swear, it's not that."
"Then what?" Holmes demanded, his voice rising in unexpected anguish. "What aren't you telling me? If there is an issue of evidence, then I can help."
Watson merely shook his head and sought refuge for his uncooperative hands by stuffing them into his pockets.
Of all things, that decided Holmes. Despite the pit rapidly forming in his stomach and the sense that something had gone too horribly wrong to fix – wrong enough to put such an expression of helpless fear on Watson's face – Holmes shoved himself to his feet and made for the door.
To the accompaniment of a startled footstep, Watson asked, "Where are you going?"
"To see Lestrade." Holmes flung the door open and took the stairs at an alarming pace, considering that half of them swam about his field of vision as he stepped on them.
Predictably, Watson pursued him. "Wait. Holmes, wait!"
"You have patients," Holmes called back as he landed on the ground floor. "Best not keep them waiting; you'll lose them to other doctors."
"Hang the damn patients! Holmes, I am begging you to stop – you don't know what you're doing."
Holmes snatched his coat from the hook beside the door without pausing to pull it on. That was true, but his pointing it out only confirmed that Watson was hiding something of import from him.
He made it all the way to the bottom step of the front stoop, one foot on the sidewalk, before he had to stop. Baker Street bustled all around him with morning traffic, paperboys hawking their trade at the corner of the street, laughter and footsteps and carriage bells occluded by a cacophony of little feet as a dozen boys ran after the street sweeper's cart catching the brooms he tossed them without reigning in his horse. His normal, busy, happy corner of London. Holmes could see Cartright in the extreme periphery of his vision; the lad had straightened in the doorway of the empty house across the street – the house that Moran had tried to shoot him from. But Holmes couldn't look up to wave him off. He could barely keep breathing – there were workmen coming his way, and they bellowed as they joked and jostled one another, rude language and coarse airs and the back alley accent of men acquainted with manual labor – men for hire to the highest bidder for an honest, or more likely a dishonest, day's work –
Two sets of hands caught at his arms and Holmes only barely flinched as they dragged him backwards to stumble up the steps and back into the foyer. His legs shook and bent like wet noodles as Mrs Hudson shut the door to block out the street and all of its attendant suffocating noise and bustle. Watson eased him to the floor since he couldn't seem to remain standing, then cupped his face and said something that sounded like the embodiment of worry. Holmes struggled to breathe and blink at him, but he felt as if his entire being had been struck like a tuning fork. Holmes could even hear the residual whine – it was a half-step below a perfect A. Watson said something about the morphine and yes – this happened sometimes as the morphine tapered out of his system. Did he nod? This was normal – unwelcome but normal. Holmes attempted to assure him as such, but he didn't think his slurry tongue had actually formed words. Watson frowned at him for his troubles and…checked his pupils? Yes. Holmes was disoriented, overwhelmed, anxious and…why wasn't Fourth Man's name in the paper? Whywhywhy –
" – et him upstairs. He'll be fine, Mrs Hudson."
"My goodness, but he's white as a sheet!"
"Such mild fits have been known to take place after taking a quantity of morphine, and he already had one bad reaction to it today. He just needs to lie down until it's completely out of his system."
Wait, that was a lie - Watson had grimaced as he said it. This wasn't the morphine, then. This was…his heart was going to pound its way straight out of his chest. But Watson knew that…fingers on his carotid, so Watson knew it was a lie when he said it…saving Holmes' pride, then, because he was just panicking, is all…nothing to get worked up about. Holmes turned his head, merely trying to swivel his way out from between Watson's hands, but his body canted in the opposite direction. Like an eel. He flung his hands out to grasp at Watson's shirt – steady on, old fellow –
Watson somehow kept him sitting upright against the wall. "Whoa. Holmes, be still. Just let me – "
"Why'sn 'ee in the paper?" Goodness…he sounded drunk, and his breathing had become terribly labored. Holmes ducked his head as it grew too heavy for him to support, and found a conveniently placed shoulder to lean it on. "…mng…" He was going to pass out.
Watson heaved a great sigh and Holmes felt himself move along with the expansion of Watson's rib cage. "You've really done yourself a deuced good turn this time, haven't you."
"I'm a…yeah…" Holmes' stomach lurched and he felt his throat vibrate as he emitted a feeble whine.
"Don't throw up on me, old chap. I haven't any other clean trousers at the moment."
"Wha'sin." Holmes licked his lips and tried to breathe more deeply so that he didn't sound so terribly winded. "Watson, thereza…men on thuh sidewalk."
One of Watson's hands crept from Holmes' arm to the nape of his neck. "I know. I saw them; they're just construction workers."
"He isn' in…the docks, is he?" Holmes twisted himself closer to the warmth that Watson offered – good stalwart old Watson…lied, he lied. "They couldn' get him. You said…you said they had 'em all, but they didn' have 'im…an' you lied…" Don't, don't do that…sniveling…just don't cry; get a grip. "You lied to my face, right…right to my face, Watson." And I didn't see it.
Watson's other hand relocated to Holmes' back and gathered a firm grip on a fistful of waistcoat. His fingers tightened across the nape of Holmes' neck too. "I'll handle it, okay? Just let me handle it."
"But he's out there." Count the buttons and look at the shoes and don't die. Forty two buttons but there were more than that, and –"You lied to me!"
Watson rocked with the force of Holmes' wrenching at his shirtfront. "I'll fix it. I swear, just…oh god, Holmes, please don't cry."
"…lied, you lied – " He twisted his fingers into Watson's shirt, caught a pearl button in his grasp, and then screamed, "Liar!"
Watson tighten his grip, arms all around him now, and Holmes planted his nose in Watson's elbow so that he could breathe. "I know," Watson whispered, and he sounded so haunted. The way Holmes felt all the time now. Watson gathered him closer and started to comb his fingers through Holmes' hair, but they were shaking so he ended up just clenching his fist around a few tufts, and it prevented Holmes from lifting his head. "I'll take care of it, Holmes."
"No, but he's still out there, and… You lied to me about it!" He didn't see it, he didn't even notice and there had to have been tells. He was slipping.
"Okay," Watson breathed. He tucked himself around Holmes' trembling body – solid, safe Watson – and pulled him mostly into his lap. "I lied. Okay? I wasn't trying to be dishonest; I just didn't want you to… This, I didn't want this, okay?"
Holmes shivered and felt a feverish sweat erupt throughout half his body and couldn't swallow properly, but he made no effort to pull out of Watson's grasp. Instead, he sagged forward and let Watson support the weight of his upper body as he moaned, "You're a liar."
"I know," Watson whispered. And from the tone of it, he really did. His lips moved against Holmes' scalp as he spoke, and his arms were probably the only thing that kept Holmes from shaking himself apart against the wall. "I'll make it better. I promise."
"You said it was better yesterday," Holmes wailed softly. Then he breathed a nearly inaudible, "Menteur," into Watson's shirtsleeve. Was Mrs Hudson still there? Blasted woman, snooping at keyholes. So what if this was her foyer? She should mind her own business. Holmes blinked at the lack of shadows cast against the wall over Watson's shoulder and decided that she must have left them alone after all.
"You have every right to be angry with me," Watson told him. His inflection implied a need to reassure Holmes that such an emotion would be justified.
"I'm not angry." The words surprised Holmes, coming as they were from his own mouth, but they were true.
"Do you know what you are, then?"
Of course, Watson knew to ask. They played this game sometimes when Holmes was out of sorts. Usually, it grounded him enough to allow the logic to take over again, but not this time. This time, Holmes felt…something. He didn't know what. Strong emotion had always confused and perturbed him; he didn't know how to identify most of the ones he felt, which was why he simply ignored them. But this one wouldn't go away, and for the life of him, he could only think of one way to describe it, and it horrified him to think it.
"Holmes? Are you still with me?"
He had to say something, but he didn't want Watson to know what he was actually thinking. So he said it in French instead, knowing full well that Watson would not understand. And maybe that made saying it out loud okay. "Je vous hais." The words fell hollow and empty into the still air and hung there, irretrievable.
Watson nodded, his chin digging lightly into the crown of Holmes' head, and Holmes knew that even though Watson had no idea what atrocity had just passed Holmes' lips, he was forgiven for it. Watson may have been the liar, but he had always possessed the kinder heart. "Let's get you back upstairs, alright? You could do with a spot of natural sleep, and once I return from rounds…we'll talk. If that's alright with you?"
No; it was not alright with him. How could he be sure anymore that what Watson told him was the truth? "Okay."
"Okay." Watson squeezed him briefly and then removed Holmes' arms from their vice grip around his middle.
They took the stairs slowly because Holmes still wobbled slightly from the rapid flare and passage of adrenaline through his body, and Watson's limp had become obvious in light of kneeling on the floor for a protracted period of time. Holmes didn't put up any sort of a fuss when Watson guided him to the bedroom, unwound his cravat and then removed his jacket and waistcoat for him. Holmes watched his fingers move over buttons, smoothing cloth, folding the garments over the footboard of the bed where they would be within easy reach later. Watson tucked him in and feathered his fingers through Holmes' hair, then gave him a smile of such profound sadness that all of the remaining sparkles imparted by the lingering morphine vanished in an instant.
Holmes waited ten minutes for Watson to gather his supplies into his Gladstone bag and descend the seventeen stairs. Then he waited another five, counting the seconds ticking by in his head, before he rose and dressed again. Mrs Hudson had thankfully made herself scarce, so Holmes met with no resistance when he snuck down from his room, skipping the squeaky ninth step and alighting in the foyer with nary a sound out of place. He lifted his coat and hat from the hook where someone – probably Mrs Hudson – had replaced them in the wake of the pitiful scene he had created on the floor.
This time, when he emerged onto the stoop, he took it slow, swallowing repeatedly as he berated himself for a damnable coward. It was broad daylight, he knew this street – it was perfectly safe. He still had to talk himself into shutting the door on the quiet darkness of his foyer, and then to look up as he descended to the sidewalk. No one so much as glanced at him, save for Cartright and his cohorts across the street. Holmes nodded to them because they were giving him puzzled looks in between frowning at each other. No doubt, they were surprised to see him making a second attempt to leave after that…horrid display of cowardice. No matter; let them think what they would.
Holmes waited in front of 221B, his feet frozen to the sidewalk, until an empty cab lumbered by. A quick shout secured it for himself and he darted up into it without bothering to excuse himself to the young married couple – recently wed, less than a month back from their honeymoon in a rather tropical clime, travelled overland for most of the journey rather than by sea as evidenced by the worn insteps of both parties, the wife approximately two months pregnant but the husband unaware of her state – that he narrowly avoided mowing down in his haste to reach the safety of the cab.
At the cabby's somewhat terse query, Holmes hesitated. He could still go back inside. The cabbie would probably shout a bit, but since Holmes had not really inconvenienced him overmuch, he would leave within two minutes. A conciliatory shilling would eliminate the shouting altogether. He didn't have to do this.
Holmes licked his lips and glanced at Cartright's little crew. If he chickened out now, they would see it. Holmes was not much for appearances, but he found himself more sick at the thought of folding while under their gazes, than at the notion of completing his errand. And Scotland Yard was crawling with people – safe and reliable people. It was probably even better than Baker Street, even with those men confined inside the same building that he intended to visit. He would not have to see them, though some morbid part of him wanted to, just to be certain that they were actually there. Just in case that was a lie too. In any event, Holmes intended to visit a different wing altogether.
"Oi, there! You goin' someplace or what?"
Holmes jerked and then forced himself to settle with a will that threatened to crumble at any moment. Just go. You're being an idiot. Say the words. "Scotland Yard, cabbie."
"Right, then," the cabbie grumbled. He added something unflattering under his breath as he whipped up the horses, but Holmes was too engrossed in white-knuckling the edge of the hansom's lap door to pay him any further mind. He did notice the boys running along the sidewalk to his left, however, struggling to keep the cab in site. It soured his stomach to admit as much, but Holmes was glad for them at that moment.
-tbc