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It is 3:00 a.m. exactly.
John knows this because he keeps checking his wristwatch (as if that will speed up the arrival of fire and rescue). But it’s something to do while he stands and shivers in his vest and robe in the brisk October air. It’s something to think about that isn’t the odds of him agreeing to flat-sit the weekend that the building next door catches fire. It’s something to look at that isn’t thick smoke pouring out of the open windows as if the sky were doing its level best at a French inhale.
“Christ, what a night,” John mutters.
A few neighbours mill about – faces John doesn’t recognise, voices he can barely hear. Everyone is murmuring to themselves and each other. Odd, that, John decides, but it does seem as if the residents of Montague Street are rather inured to this sort of early morning caper.
Still – “Hope everyone got out alright,” – John says, out loud, for whoever wants to hear that sort of thing. But there’s no screaming and no crying, so it’s more for the look and sound of it. John shrugs against the cold and the pervasive, damp feeling of uselessness: the night (no sleep), the fire (not even flames to speak of), John (first night as a flat-sitter and the bloody thing might burn down).
“You must be new.”
John blinks, tilts his head, replays the words in his mind’s ear. Silky, dark, the voice that utters those words is a billow of smoke on a damp breeze, smooth and somehow potent. John turns to face the source of the voice. “Sorry?”
“Can I borrow your phone?”
“I –”John’s words stutter to a halt as his eyes catch up with real time events. The man beside him is tall, slender but possessed of a refined musculature. His eyes are striking – almond shaped and a mercurial silver in the false dawn just this side of 3:00 a.m. The whole package is wrapped up in pale, pale skin. Flawless, John thinks, as his mouth blurts: “ – azzwasfig?” He shakes his head with a frown and adds, somewhat helpfully: “Um?”
The man quirks an eyebrow, the corner of his lush mouth – Jesus – lifting up into a bemused sort of expression. “Phone?” he repeats.
“Ah – I – yes –” John pats down his robe and hands it over.
The man accepts with something like a smile, glances down at the keyboard, then up again at John, and asks, “Afghanistan or Iraq?” His fingers dance and tap against the keys even without his needing to look down. John would be jealous if he weren’t busy being flummoxed.
“What, sorry – how? What?” John asks. It’s – John checks his watch – bloody 3:14 a.m. and there’d been sleep and then an alarm, so there’d been thrashing and half a memory and the mad scramble out the flat (all of which had jarred the hour or so of sleep he’d managed out of his system) and now here is this man asking – asking –
“Afghanistan or Iraq – a simple question really.” That voice is clipped and smooth as polished mahogany. Posh as mahogany, too.
“Afghanistan,” John answers, the word dropping from half-numb lips. Whether they’re numb from the cold or the surprise, he can’t tell. “How…?”
It’s a smirk that twists those lips this time, and the man flicks his eyes over John’s body. “Haircut, stance, tan lines,” he lists, almost blasé. “And the limp. Almost didn’t recognise you without it – saw you take up temporary residence yesterday, cane and rifleman jacket in attendance – and yet here you are, without any of those things, almost a completely different man. I say ‘almost’; the jacket suits you – but not the cane, and certainly not the limp. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“…Welcome?” Every coherent sentence in John’s mind is stuck in the treacle of his thoughts. It’s late – early – whatever – and there’s this man and that skin –
“Fire exposes truth and burns away excess. The alarm sounded, called you to your feet, urged you outside, and here you are. You remembered to grab your phone but not your cane, what does that tell you?”
Distraction and confusion provide John’s next sterling contribution to this conversation: “I - ?”
“Oh come now, Doctor, hardly an impressive observation or conclusion.” An elegant gesture displays long fingers and the angular swivel of a wrist.
“How…can you possibly know I am a doctor?” The question feels like slogging through thick mud or a raging river’s shallows. John’s legs ache in memory.
“Because of the stitching – or should I say ‘stitches’ – you used in mending the cuff of your robe.” The man shrugs. “Also the couple that owns that flat are finishing their studies soon – virology and pediatrics – and it makes sense they would have in their circle of acquaintances a colleague of whom to ask a favour.”
“Oh.” John blinks. “That’s” – he searches for the right word, gropes about in the gaping, gobsmacked expanse of his mind until it slots into place: “amazing.”
The man beside him blinks, mouth closing on a half-taken breath. “I – you think so?”
“Of course it was – it was extraordinary.” John flails about for something else to add, but exhaustion and his mouth settle for repeating, “Extraordinary.”
“That’s not what people normally say.”
“Oh? What do people normally say?” The knack of stringing sounds into words into sentences seems to be returning to John at last, little by little.
“‘Piss off’ – although I imagine after this incident it might involve something pithy involving fire and tossing myself in.”
John blinks. “You –” he glances about for eavesdroppers, swallows the rest of his shout, and ends in a furious whisper, “started the fire?”
The man huffs out a laugh. “Please, no need to subdue your voice – even the simplest cretin here knows where the smoke is coming from.” He sniffs. “Although, to my credit, there’s no actual fire this time –”
“This time?” John whisper-shouts –
“ – it was simply an experiment involving the active chemical compounds found in most smoke grenades. Quite manageable and safe – until the end there.” He frowns to himself, eyes darting side to side in thought. “Quite possibly the addition of that last titrand was a bit…ambitious.”
John boggles at his pale companion, lost for words – and it is at this point that John’s eyes finally explain, patiently and kindly, to his brain that there is a reason all that skin is so distractingly visible. “Wait,” he says, and for a moment he’s not sure who he’s asking patience from – himself, his firestarter conversation partner, or the universe at large. “Are you – are you in your pants?”
The man’s eyes narrow even as his shoulders hunch forward – almost protectively, it would seem. “A dazzling observation, simply astounding it should occur to you so quickly.” This time a sneer pulls at those lips. “Besides, I’m hardly the only one underdressed.”
Just then John realises that while he had grabbed a robe to throw over his vest, he had neglected to pull on trousers. His most comfortable pair of pants – a once brilliant shade of red – are currently doing a poor job of keeping John respectable. “I didn’t have time to coordinate a bloody outfit,” John shoots back, tugging his robe to better cover himself. “I thought there was an actual fire, as advertised by the actual fire alarm. Which,” and John frowns hard, “if you knew there was no fire, why’d you run out in next-to-nothing?”
“Smoke inhalation is responsible for more fire-related deaths than burns – surely I don’t have to tell you that?” Finally, the cold seems to get to the man – his skin has peaked into bumps, and he wraps his arms around his shoulders and shivers delicately. He curls in on himself even more, and it lends him the air of someone much younger, and much less sure of himself.
The sight cracks through John’s sleepiness, his vexation, his distraction – right down to the warmth of him. “Where the bloody hell are fire services?” John asks, taking off his robe and holding it out. After perplexed blink and a moment’s hesitation, the man accepts, wrapping it about his shoulders snuggly.
“Oh, they won’t be coming for some time.” The man shrugs. “I texted the dispatcher to let them know there was no actual fire. Nothing to do anyway besides wait for the smoke to clear.”
“Oh.” John shifts his weight back and forth as they watch smoke curl up into the sky. His toes are numb, his legs are cold, and every inch of his skin is breaking out in gooseflesh. For some odd reason, he finds the corners of his mouth keep creeping up into a grin. “Well in that case, no reason to stay out here, is there?”
With a sigh, the man starts to shrug off John’s robe. “You’ll be needing this back,” he says, and his voice sounds tired for the first time that John’s heard.
“Don’t be daft,” John says, turning to head back to his (temporarily, at least) flat. “Keep it on until we’re inside.”
“…Inside,” the man repeats, slowly, as if checking for some misunderstanding.
“Ye-e-es,” John says, stopping to face the man again, “inside. I’m not leaving you out here to shiver all night.”
“It’s morning already.”
John snorts. “Sod that. Come on, then. I’ll make us a cuppa – I sure as hell could use one, and so could you, I’m thinking. Also, since you’ve called off the fire response, someone needs to check your lungs.”
“You’re inviting me in. For tea.”
“And a lung exam, yes, and afterwards, if you’re tired, you can have the couch.” John feels like he’s rambling, wonders why he’s suddenly trying to convince this man he’s just met (who, according to all available evidence, causes enough trouble in his spare time that he’s on texting terms with fire services) to follow him home. All he knows is that his leg isn’t hurting for the first time in weeks and weeks and weeks – but what does hurt is the thought of climbing those stairs, closing the flat door behind him, sealing himself in with the silence and the emptiness again.
“What if I’m not tired?” The man’s eyes are insistent upon John’s, and his body is looming into John’s space, suddenly.
“I – uh –” John shakes his head, “I’m sure we’ll think of something.” I don’t even know his name, John thinks suddenly, and it’s as if those eyes miss nothing, because they crinkle in a smile, an actual smile, smooth skin belying the rarity of it. John’s breath catches in his throat.
“Sherlock Holmes,” the madman says, extending a hand. His fingers wrap comfortably around John’s as he takes the offered hand and shakes.
“John Watson.” He lets go, but not without a little squeeze first, which seems to catch them both by surprise. “Come on, let’s get inside and warmed up.”
Sherlock’s smile turns just a bit shy. “After you, John.”