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It was very fitting that the night in which the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and I finally crescendoed was not spent in pursuit of a dangerous villain nor under duress of some seemingly insuperable problem, but in the heart of our sitting room surrounded by the evidence of our past.
I have often observed and even written at length about the effects the completion of a case had on Holmes, ranging from a state of intense exhilaration and smugness to the deflation into ennui that he could just as easily slip into. Over the past decade that I had spent sharing his rooms and in his company I have seen all of these moods and more, and have learned how best to weather each of them.
After the conclusion of a case involving a widow, a walking stick, and a wardrobe, I did not know what to expect, and it is not without dread that I awoke the next morning, and was disheartened to see that it was raining thunderously outside my window, providing either of us with no escape. Still, I dressed and descended the steps to a late breakfast, braving myself to the other storm that could be brewing behind the sitting room door.
Instead what I saw was - papers, everywhere. The room was dark even for the early hour due to the clouds, but from what light the lamps and the fire provided it seemed every inch of the room had been covered by stacks of papers. This had not been the case when I bid my friend goodnight.
In the epicenter of it all sat Holmes, on the floor by the drawers that held his files. They had seemingly been emptied, but for the life of me I could not see why. Breakfast had been laid out but was starting to become buried, and I stepped into the room to remove a few leaves from my own plate.
As I did so my friend finally turned to me, smiling broadly as if nothing was amiss. “Ah, Watson, here at last. Good morning.”
I could not let it stand, as he knew I would not be able to, judging by the light in his eyes. “Holmes, what is the meaning of all this?”
“It occurred to me early this morning, Watson, that I had been neglecting to reorganize and declutter my records for quite some time now, and thus in this negligence I have allowed them to fall into an inexcusable state of disrepair. As I have recently relieved myself of a case and there is no question of going outdoors today I felt it was as fit a time as any to rectify this mistake. It’s an ample opportunity to refamiliarise myself with all that I need to know in order to keep my profession.”
The records to which he referred to were his vast encyclopedia of London’s dangers, and were there to supplant any knowledge not readily available in his mind. They were built by notes and newspaper clippings compiled by both him and I and detailed information and particulars that helped him keep track of the ever-moving parts of the city’s criminal world. He was right, I was chagrined to realize, that in the months since he had returned from the dead we had yet to dedicate ourselves to properly reinstating it to its former glory.
“I see.” I said, and went to take my seat at the breakfast table, before having to get up to relieve my chair of its own stack of papers. “May I be of any help?”
I did not have any appointments today, as my patient list had dwindled low enough recently that this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. I had instead meant to spend the day writing, smoothing over a draft of a case that we had solved a month or so previous. Somehow going through an entire forest’s worth of paperwork seemed infinitely more enjoyable, if only as a result of Holmes being involved. But perhaps that says more about me than it does him.
Holmes had looked up at me in a way that made it worth it however, as if me agreeing to comb through old cases were surmountable to being a gallant knight. “That would be a grand help, old boy.”
I smiled back at him a little dumbly, I will confess, before tucking into my now cold breakfast. When I had finished I maneuvered my way closer to his side and sat back down in the chair usually occupied by a client, knowing that extended time sitting on the floor coupled with the rain would aggravate my old leg wound.
“What would you have me do?”
Holmes handed me the ledger he had been scribbling in. “Read back for me what is already written, and transcribe what I dictate. I’m updating and reviewing.”
I nodded, pulling out my pencil and beginning my task as he started to expound on the important details of one J. J. Binder who had instigated a number of assaults over the summer of ‘93.
We operated in this fashion for quite some time, me writing down his amendments and the room silent besides, when there was a knock at the door followed by the entry of Mrs. Hudson.
Her mouth fell open as she surveyed the damage, quite comically. “Mr. Holmes!”
“Mrs. Hudson!” he said, matching her tone wryly.
“Mr. Holmes, I was just coming to offer you both a late lunch but upon seeing the state of these rooms I am more than disinclined to do so!”
“Ha!” Holmes merely laughed, not even looking from the papers in his lap and I groaned internally knowing that mediation was once again on my shoulders alone.
“We’re dreadfully sorry, Mrs. Hudson, we will have it cleaned up by the end of the day, I promise. In that time we would greatly benefit from one of your delicious lunches. It will no doubt speed our progress.”
It was a bit much, I will admit, but it served its purpose in placating her, and she sniffed but agreed to bring us our meal before closing the door and descending back down the stairs.
“Bravo, Watson.” Holmes said, and I rolled my eyes, and gestured for him to continue dictating the report of one Mrs. E. Knightley, a gentlewoman jewelry thief whom I was eager to hear the details of.
Instead, his eyes didn’t leave me. “You have a talent for flattery, Watson, that I have observed on many occasions now. With your natural advantages, everyone in your proximity is your helper.”
I ducked my head, “You share this same talent, I suppose.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken, nodding to himself. “Indeed, you possess a certain charm that allows you to understand what people need from you at that present moment, which speaks to a great generosity and an open heart.”
At that, I had no response. It was rare that Holmes entreated me to the kind words he did now, mainly as it was not often in his nature to speak plainly of the friendship between us. When he did, however, it caught me as off guard as any of his actions did, and reminded me once again of his unpredictability. As such I tucked those words beneath my breastbone.
“Thank you, my dear.” I said as evenly as I could control my tone, holding his gaze as long as I could bear before I gave into the urge to look away down to the papers in my hands.
He gave one of those quicksilver smiles that I was often lucky enough to be privy to. “Anytime.”
And then he didn’t spare another breath before unraveling the tale of Mrs. Knightley’s thievery in his dramatic baritone, leaving me to play the enraptured audience once more.
The remainder of the day was spent in a similar vein, until finally the hour began to match the darkness of the sky outdoors. Holmes was still on the floor, though he now sat next on the other side of the room in front of the settee, and we had switched tasks sometime around the letter N. It was now I who read aloud, still from my armchair, while Holmes recorded.
We were nearing the end, I was pleased and relieved to see. While doing paperwork with Holmes was not nearly comparable to chasing villains in the dead of night in terms of daunting situations I had put myself through at his request, I was nevertheless grateful to see an end in sight.
Putting aside the lengthy but largely unextraordinary record of a F. Vogel, I then picked up the next form only to see to my surprise my own name. Before me was my own file, that before now I hadn’t known existed.
Watson, John H.
- army doctor (medically discharged from Afghanistan - wounded leg, shoulder, but still vigilant) pensioner
- nerves shaken - up at all hours (holdover of military service)
- gambler (largely unsuccessful - some insignificant outstanding debts)
- kind to his compatr
The list finished there. I will confess, I was rather taken aback at the brevity of my record. A small time gang of graverobbers that I had firsthand witnessed the arrest of had been given a lengthier annal and yet I, his friend of so many years, had been given not even a few measly inches.
I had turned wordlessly to Holmes, who was in quiet contemplation, staring intently at the file in my hand likely having deduced whose it was. “That record has not been updated in quite some time - not since the month of our first acquaintance I should think.” He cleared his throat. “I penned it with the viewpoint of you as a prospective fellow lodger rather than a friend or anything else.”
I nodded, still unmoving, remembering a similar list I had made in the same period. My list of his limits had been much longer however, I noted with some dispiritedness, though he did say I was adept at flattery.
“And had it been written now?” I asked.
It was not too often that I doubted my friend’s regard for me, but it does happen on occasion, and perhaps more frequently than I would prefer. Of course, to share rooms and even friendship with a mind like Sherlock Holmes’ was to expect some level of disillusionment to one’s own capabilities, but I had long known of my powers in comparison with his and been in admiration of it besides. How such a man could keep me as a constant companion, however, was a question that had weighed on me for as long as we’d been acquainted, but hadn't dared asked for fear of the reply. It had pressed even heavier during the years I believed him dead and unable to answer.
Again he was quiet, but he did raise his eyes to me, his expression blank. “I believe it would say much the same, as I’ve not much to update it with - although your nerves have much recovered since your time in active duty, and we have locked your chequebook away for some years now.”
This was not the answer I had expected nor wanted, it sufficed to say. “Is this what you make of me, Holmes?”
“No!” he said, though his tone turned cautious, “But at the time, yes.”
“Then if these words are all that I am to you, why bother? Why bother keeping me in your acquaintance as anything beyond a fellow lodger, and perhaps a biographer? Why bring me along constantly, in fact!” I had seized on the question that was at the center of this sudden diversion, “If this is what I was to you then, what possessed you to ask me to accompany you to Lauriston Gardens that day, and then every day since!”
For months I had perceived Holmes and I at being at a sort of precipice, with something further unsaid since his return from the dead and my subsequent forgiveness for his deception. I had no idea of what it was but believed us to be circling towards it regardless in our own time, unhurried. And yet tonight with those words having left my lips I felt that I had expedited our discovery immeasurably.
Holmes sniffed and stood up, taking a turn about the room and assuming a haughty countenance that I knew after much observation meant that he was about to reveal something sobering, or indeed even humbling. “What I could not put into words there is that you were interesting.”
“Interesting?” I repeated, quite stupidly.
“Yes. I had deduced all that I could from you in the six weeks that we had been acquainted and shared diggings, in addition to those three scant points, and yet it seemed something about you both eluded and intrigued me, no matter how much time I spent in your presence. I could tell that you were curious about me, and I you, so I thought by having you accompany me we could both satisfy ourselves.”
“And did you?”
Holmes stopped stalking about and glanced down before his eyes flitted back just as quickly back to my face, his voice holding some rebuke. “Did I what?”
I stared hard at him, suddenly very anxious to know the answer. “Did you find your curiosity satisfied?”
He smiled then, one that did not quite reach his eyes and made him appear almost saddened, “I confess, Watson, that I quickly came to realize that infinite time in your presence would not satisfy me.”
My mouth was quite dry, I found, as I tried to swallow.
“As you know I have in all our time together found you to be a comforting companion, due most of all to your predictability in habits and mannerisms. And yet you equally never fail to surprise me, and I never get your limits, even now. You bring a variety to my life that I value very highly, but that cannot be expressed in words, especially in the ledgers I catalogue criminals in.” His lip quirked.
“Nevertheless, Watson. I hold you very dear to me.”
He straightened, and his expression at once became controlled and very blank, and yet he did not move from in front of me, or remove his gaze. I realized that he was waiting for me to act - to determine where we went from here after he had just revealed a great deal of emotion, and put a great deal of himself on the line. I had always known him to be a brave man. My heart ached for him, words I would never have thought belonged out of the world of maudlin fiction, and I took both his hands into mine, pulling him in even as a proper response evaded me.
I took a breath, and looking up into his grey eyes decided to go with honesty. “Oh, my love.”
His eyes widened, and in all this there still left some part of me that felt joy at finally succeeding in surprising the great detective.
I continued. “Holmes, of course you must know how I love you. I do not know if there was a time in which I did not have but the highest regard for you. For you not to already have noticed is unfathomable!” I brought a hand up so as to wipe at my eyes, which had at once begun to fill with yet unshed tears that I found mirrored in his own, before returning my hand to his grasp. “But I suppose that if I have always presented like this, hopelessly at your disposal, there was nothing out of the ordinary for you to notice.”
He shook his head. “I did not even suspect - I thought I was alone in my affections, and as such employed my best efforts to disguise them.” He lowered himself to bend on one knee before me, so I was now looking down on him and our joined hands atop my knees. “But for years now I have identified it as such. It could only be love.”
Even as I am a writer myself by profession, I have discovered that there are certain experiences that cannot be likened to another, as they are so extraordinary and unique that they have no clear comparison. To identify the emotions that rose within me upon hearing Holmes say these words would do them a disservice, and thus I will not attempt to do so except to say that I have never been as astronomically happy as in that moment.
I loosened my grip on him in order to draw him into my arms as I had always wished, only for him to supersede me, breaking his fingers from my grasp.
However instead of pulling me in as I envisioned he went suddenly in the opposite direction, jumping up and standing to face the fireplace in a pose of frustration made familiar to me by many years of cases. For the life of me I could not understand why it appeared now.
“But then, Watson, I am a fool!” he intoned, turning back to me. “Indeed, I am no smarter than any of the idiots they staff at Scotland Yard these days! For I call myself a detective and yet for years-! Years ! I have failed to see what lay directly in front of me - what shared my rooms and breakfasted with me day after day.”
“Holmes-” I tried to interrupt, but imperious as ever he had not yet lost steam.
“How long have you lo- have you felt this way for me?”
I swallowed, and looked away to think. “I do not know, since soon after our first meeting I would think.”
That seemed to be the answer he was both looking forward to and dreading, as he slammed a fist against the mantle, jostling its many items.
“Don’t you see! But we have lost so much time! Since ‘81 you have felt this way and due to my own blindness in these matters I have allowed you to struggle in vain, not once letting you know that it was a situation that we shared and that I too could-”
Here he cut, as in the time he had been working himself into a strop I had crossed the room and now brought both his arms down, before raising mine to hold fast to his shoulders. “Holmes,” I said, plainly, and I felt more than saw him settle.
“My dear Holmes. I will only say this once, so I beg you to commit it to memory. Love is never a struggle. Every beat of my heart that went towards you, even while I believed it to be in vain and unrequited, was done consciously. In all those years spent I never once thought ill of the feelings themselves because to do so would be to think ill of you for causing them in me. And if I loved you as I do I could never bring myself to do that.”
I raised my hand to trace his sharp jaw and brushed a thumb along his high cheekbone where an impossible tear had fallen, and smiled. “Love is an inherently positive emotion, and if anything, my dear, the warm memories of it sustained me in the three long years of your absence, and it has rejuvenated me beyond belief in your revival. I had no hope that my love would be returned and therefore no despair, so to hear that it is after all requited- Well, it brings me nothing but joy.”
Holmes had not moved from my hold, except to lean into my touch. His face was warm and his expression was bright even as he asked the question: “But what of the time lost?”
“Lost?”
He nodded, as much as he could in my hands.
I should have expected this, had I ever let myself dream this far. From a logician’s view, to point out the time in which we had both spent loving each other but in secret, close to a decade and a half by my own count, was prudent and relevant, even to this matter of the heart. A subject which I, thankfully, have never deigned to apply logic to.
“Again my dear, I must remind you that love is positive, and that any time spent in love is not a loss at all! The time in which we circled this point, that was time spent molding us into the people that we are now, who are finally at a place in life in which we can express these sentiments as they are and act upon them.”
Holmes’ eyes raved over my face quickly, and in those seconds I almost lost all confidence I had presented in these past minutes, but I held firm in front of his gaze, determined for him to see what I believed, to deduce from what he saw that I loved him and did so unencumbered.
“John,” he said simply, my Christian name, before he reached for me and I completed his action by reaching for him, and our lips met the way they had been circling towards for hours, and in fact, years.
.
.
.
I will report as a matter of future notice, that Mrs. Hudson was quite cross with us when morning arrived and papers remained strewn about the sitting room, forgotten in our sudden disinterest the previous night. However, using our combined powers of flattery we were able to mollify her into bringing us a hearty breakfast that we shared as we did thousands of meals before, albeit this time with matching grins of contentment and resolution.