Prompt: Bells (Riandra)
This is my third prompt about bells (and the second that's literally just "bells"), so I decided to take it as a bit of a free space - fair warning, it gets a little spicy, though nothing explict.
As Lestrade and the local officers led the self-proclaimed canary trainer away for further questioning, the shipyard bell rang out the beginning of the workmen's day, though it was still hours before the late December sun would deign to rise. Upon an unspoken agreement, Holmes and I hailed a cab for our own belated arrival at the hotel. Tired and sore, I absently leaned against Holmes's shoulder as we jostled along in the trap, and I wondered how his own bruises, now days old, were faring.
At the hotel, we were quickly shown up to our rooms, already furnished with our suitcases, which had been brought along the evening before—mere hours which felt like a day at least. When the maid had gone, I began the slow, stiff process of removing my outer layers to join Holmes's already discarded suit jacket, with some mind to catch some sleep in the remaining hours before dawn.
However, I was still in my shirtsleeves when I heard the sound of rushing water coming from our washroom. A brief investigation found Holmes bent over the tub.
"Ah, Watson, just who I wanted to see," he said with a quick smile as I approached. "I am afraid the hour is too early for a Turkish bath, but I expect the homemade article may begin to soothe your injuries."
"They are not so serious; I am only bruised," I insisted, though I had already begun to take off the layers which remained. "And what of you?"
He stood up straight, leaving the bath to its own devices, his intent gaze instead turned on me. "That would depend, my dear Watson, on whether you would object to company," he murmured, stepping toward me with a languid air; his hand settled about my collar.
I leaned toward him, my lips ghosting past his cheek to whisper in his ear, "Not at all, Sherlock."
My hands may have been stiff and clumsy moments before, but now it was with a remarkable speed and deftness that our remaining clothes were done away with, and we settled comfortably in the warm bathwater—the door securely locked. I leaned back against Holmes's chest, our legs intertwined in front of us.
His lips danced down my neck and out across my aching shoulder. Deft hands played across my back and sides, and down my stomach, stepping lightly over bruises I had not bothered to catalogue, and pressing gently into sore muscles, granting sweet relief. I breathed a sigh and leaned heavier against him, drowsiness threatening to win out once again as his touch soothed as much as it excited.
"If this is an advantage of old age," I whispered, "then perhaps it is not so bad after all."
Holmes's lips drifted up from the sensitive skin of my neck, to my ear. "If only our younger selves had known what we were missing."