Depositing his lax, unresponsive burden on the worn green Chesterfield sofa, John straightened and dusted off his hands. Flicking on the gaslights, he surveyed his burden.
The man was lying prone where John had unceremoniously dropped him, glowing gaslights throwing the bones in his face into high relief. He looked like a statue, elegant even in unconsciousness.
John bent down to check his pulse-elevated, but steady- and to try to unravel the mystery of this dark stranger.
Good quality, but worn cream linen shirt, no ascot, top three buttons unbuttoned. Trousers in charcoal gray wool, too tight for fashion. He'd lost his frock coat and waistcoat somewhere during the evening. His boots were black and, when John peered closer, of astonishingly good make. Stolen?
John's eyes narrowed. Tight trousers, provocatively cut shirt, high quality accessories… Was this man he'd rescued a worker at a maison du tolerance? He wished he could check for a license, but searching the man's pockets seemed incredibly invasive.
With a sigh, John knelt, shouldered the dead weight, and groaning, staggered into his bedroom. After depositing the man more carefully onto his bed, made as usual with military precision, he hesitated. He had already decided to let the man sleep off the ill effects of the absinthe in his rooms, but what if he was dosed with something more illicit?
Telling himself that the thrill that ran through his veins when he touched the wrists of the stranger was just embarrassment, he gently lifted the sleeves. The pale ivory skin was marred very slightly with faint, pale track marks. John's breath whooshed out in shock and mild horror.
Alright. Maison de tolerance employee was looking more and more probable.
Carefully, John unlaced the man's well made boots, pulling them off and placing them by his bed neatly, through force of habit. Pausing to remove his Modele 1874 Chamelot-Delvigne revolver from under his pillow and tuck it into his waistband, he pushed and pulled the man until his head was flopped on the pillow and he had stuffed the man's long, octopus like limbs under his blanket.
Breathing a little heavily, he surveyed the scene, fetched a glass of water for his bedside, drew the curtains in the room so the early morning sunlight wouldn't wake the stranger, and blew out the light. He paused in the doorway and looked back. The man snuffled in his sleep, alabaster skin still dewy, hair tousled on John's pillow.
He didn't know why he was fussing so much over this man, anxiously taking care of a drunk he found in an alley. Memories of Harriet swam to the surface of his mind. Was he perhaps compensating for his inability to save his sister from the bottle?
He dismissed the thought as sentimental tosh, but he couldn't shake the persistent feeling that caring for this stranger was right, and felt natural and easy. John shook his head, and lay down on the Chesterfield with his gun in easy reach. Just because he instinctively felt that the man passed out in his bed wasn't a threat didn't mean he should abandon his military training.
He slept with one eye open that night.
Dust motes floated lazily on the sunbeams that drifted through John's smudged windows, and danced over the scuffed wooden floors, serviceable furniture, and beige walls. The room would have been unremarkable but for the exuberance of the colors splattering all surfaces, the stacks of canvas, and the smell of turpentine that lay thickly around the room. Stretching sleepily, he wondered thickly why he was lying on the sofa. Late night, perhaps?
He padded into the tiny kitchen on autopilot, beginning to potter around with the gas range and the kettle. While rummaging about for the tea, he suddenly froze. The man! In his bed!
Abandoning the morning ritual, he catfooted, avoiding the floorboard that had developed a squeak with the damp, to his bedroom door. He peered in breathlessly.
One solitary sunbeam broke free of the confines of the curtains, and fell devastatingly on this face of this stranger. His thoughts skittered guiltily past thoughts of the sheer beauty of his face and the sweet vulnerability of sleep-he looked so young!- and fell on picturing how he would paint the scene.
Warm caramelized light, dusky shadows, golden cheekbones, inky hair. In a Neo-Classical style, perhaps. Model it as a sleeping Narcissus, or a slumbering Cupid before Psyche. A painting half as beautiful as the scene that met his eyes would assure his admission into a exhibition, perhaps even into the Academy! No matter that Monet, Renoir and Degas disdained the Academy, John had to side with Manet here. Once one was admitted, one had the pick of patrons as well as recognition most artists sought. With a painting as beautiful as this, perhaps he would even win the all expenses paid year in Italy.
Telling himself that it was not strange to do this, not terribly intrusive, John crept back to the room that served as his studio, grabbed a sketchbook and some charcoal, and perched at the edge of the door.
With broad strokes of the pencil, he outlined the proportions of the scene, one and a half units from top of head to collarbone, the same from collarbone to bottom of the hips, the wall, the bed, the window. John had always been a good draftsman, and it showed as his pencil began to flick across the paper faster, filling in details, the curls of the hair, the elegant sweep of the arm, the sheet thrown carelessly across legs sprawled over far more than half the bed.
Finishing the initial study, he focused on the face, instinctively knowing it would be the hardest part of the man to draw. He mused to himself that he'd never seen a more beautiful man, and as an artist, John considered himself a connoisseur of beauty. He wasn't even a sodomite and he found the man attractive!
Turning to a new page, he carefully recorded the high forehead, devastating cheekbones, cupids bow lips, sooty sweep of eyelashes, strong chin.
After a good forty minutes, he had a likeness. As he studied the drawing he'd created, John realized that it was perhaps the best piece he'd made for months, if not years. It had felt so effortless, so natural, he'd forgotten what it felt like to be exhilarated by drawing.
Around an hour had passed, and John's stomach gurgled unpleasantly. Sighing, he got up, shook the stiffness out of his leg, and limped to the kitchen. There wasn't much food there, he would need to sell another painting soon. Gritting his teeth as he made a mental note, he began to assemble a lunch.
The scent of turpentine and soap was the first thing to penetrate the fug of Sherlock's hungover mind.
He snapped instantly into consciousness as he always did, brain lighting up like one of Mr. Edison's new electric prototypes. Rough sheets, some sort of coarse linen, he estimated. Not as soft as his own, but after the week he had spent in squalor, delicious. And he wasn't alone in the unfamiliar place, there were faint noises of someone moving around in the room over, trying to be quiet.
Opening his eyes, he saw a plain beige room with a single window facing a brick wall. Afternoon light, so he had been asleep for around nine hours, he estimated. Carefully, as to not upset his stomach or throbbing head, he sat up.
An unexpected kindness: a glass of water sat on his bedside table. Not the gesture of a kidnapper. He drained it in one gulp, setting it down and wiping a hand over his mouth.
Sherlock ran a quick check up and down his body, well used to waking up with no memory of the night before. Bruises on heels, consistent with being dragged, limbs aching, dry mouth, faint nausea, pounding in his head as loud as a locomotive. No cuts or bruises. Gingerly, almost afraid, Sherlock checked his inner arms for new track marks. Nothing. Excellent.
Sherlock frowned when he realized that his brain wasn't working as fast as it usually did. Given, he was quite hungover.
It seemed that he'd finally managed to get taken home. This was something Sherlock had been actively trying to avoid, so he was a little disgruntled. Posing as a prostitute to catch a serial killer was worrying enough without worrying about syphilis as well. Or an emotional connection, which would almost be worse.
Granted, he was mostly dressed, and not sore in any inappropriate places. No waistcoat, frock coat or boots though. Pity, his wallet had been in his coat. He would have to drop by his real house or steal something, or… he could take what he was owed from the man he had spent the night with.
He groaned quietly. He never liked waking up in strange beds, and hated gaps in his memory. It hadn't happened in a while, he had successfully avoided most mind altering substances for at least a few months.
Sherlock scrubbed at his face disgruntledly. This particular serial killer was leading him on a very merry dance indeed, and he was frankly getting tired of it. Sherlock was nothing but dedicated to solving this case, but the week he'd spent so far posing as a prostitute had been taxing to the point of driving him to drink.
A new throb of his head arrived punishingly. That's it, he was never drinking again. Opium and cocaine were far more palatable. A draft hit his thinly clad shoulders, and he winced.
There was no point in stalling, Holmes, he told himself. He would have to go confront the man he'd slept with.
Swinging his legs out from the warm shelter of the blankets and easing himself to his feet, he crossed the bare floorboards and took in the other room with his practiced gaze. Ten by twelve, he estimated. Another smudged window, south facing. For the light, he assumed, noting the stacks of canvasses and easel leaning against the wall. Ah, an artist, and this was his studio.
He lived alone, the green Chesterfield sofa was worn especially in one, obviously accustomed spot. There was a rickety wooden table with some correspondence, a few letters. One or two faded calling cards, several bills, and one or two envelopes that were clearly from a woman, judging by the handwriting. A wife? Fiance? By the state of the rooms, he suspected sister. If a mother or fiance ever called he would have made more of an effort to clean. Not that everything wasn't pin straight and tidy, interesting.
Possible military career? Sherlock had noticed his boots were carefully lined up where he could yank them on if he was summoned from bed. Habit? Yes, everything was neat and orderly in one half of the room, but the other half was clearly devoted to art. A spattered drop cloth, dried paint on a palette, an easel with a half finished sketch of Paris, Rue St. Michel, if he wasn't mistaken, and some of the newly invented paint in tubes.
Was he one of those dreadful Impressionist fellows? Sherlock hadn't been keeping up in the news in the art world as well as befitted someone of his station, but granted, he'd been busy for the past month hunting down a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes.
There was a faint humming coming from the kitchen, and Sherlock curled his mouth distastefully. There was nothing for it, so he effortlessly dropped into his persona.
Shoulders hunched submissively, languid spine, eyelashes low, head ducked, hips sinuously swaying he crossed the room silently, heading for the source of the humming, planning to get his money and get out.
Notes:
So as a historical interpreter and artist's model, this is going to be as historically accurate and period correct as possible. If I deviate, I shall declare.
Maison du tolerance: brothel. In France in the 1870s, there was rampant prostitution, and John is taking Sherlock for a midrange type of prostitute. Unfortunately, there isn't much scholarly literature (or any information at all hardly) on male prostitution in this time period, so I'm settling for a melange of what I can find and genderswapping the history a bit... And yes, they were licensed which gives me a bit of the giggles.
John's gun, the Modele 1874 Chamelot-Delvigne, is a typical officer's pistol from the Franco-Prussian War.
As far as historical terms for homosexuality go, sodomite is the most used one here. I could go with invert, but that never caught on in France... Pedant, but that's not quite right... I wanted an English word as to not interrupt the flow of the story... Apologies.
Fine okay Edison invented the lightbulb in 1878...
I love having John namedrop his Impressionist buddies deal with it.
I promise they'll meet in the next chapter!