Chapter Text
Sherlock Holmes was the type of fellow who had spent the broad majority of his life being summarily ignored by the female sex, and the recent development of lady callers to our rooms who sought his hand instead of his professional assistance weighed heavily upon his nerves. Indeed, I could not fault them for trying, even aside from his fame—in no small part due to me, a fact which I only brought up when he was being particularly obnoxious—he was a fetching chap, tall and lean with an aristocratic, intelligent face. As graceful as any actor in his movements and often as theatrical in his conversation—it was no great wonder that he had admirers. He bore it with grace, a gentleman through and through, even though to me his annoyance was apparent whenever some young, hopeful lady threw herself at him in the misguided hope that she might be the one to melt his heart.
Holmes was not a heartless man, and he turned no one away roughly who did not deserve it. To the world, and indeed, to his callers, he put up the admirable front that he would make a dreadful husband, what with his untidy habits and vacillating moods. His work was dangerous, he lamented, and he could not, in good conscience expose any woman to that danger—to the long, dreadful nights and days spent waiting for word from him, or the weeks between cases where his lethargy was only rivaled by his pique.
Of course, those were the reasons he put forth for the benefit of society. The real reason that Holmes took no interest in the fairer sex was as simple as it was incomprehensible to me; Sherlock Holmes simply found nothing at all appealing about any woman, and to tie himself permanently to one should have surely been torture.
It was something about my friend I had accepted—with no small difficulty, I might add, especially in my earlier days with him when I was still a young and hot-blooded man—and now it was just another of the great pattern of strange patches that made up the quilt that was Sherlock Holmes.
"What a very attractive woman," I said, more to myself than to him, gazing through the window at the receding back of his most recent client.
He gave a little snort of derision and settled down deeper in his chair, closing his eyes and folding his hands over his stomach in the picture of relaxed bliss.
"My dear fellow, I do believe if I had a penny for every time you said that, I could have retired some years since."
I cast a glare at him, though it held no heat, and he lazily opened an eye to observe me through his lashes.
"You are positively inhuman at times," I grumbled, and he laughed in his strange, silent way. It was an old argument of ours, one we kept up now more out of habit than disagreement.
"Is that a touch of jealousy I note in your voice, Watson? It doesn't become you."
"Jealousy? Hardly!" I said, crossing to the sidebar and pouring a few fingers of brandy into a pair of glasses. He took the one I offered to him with a nod that I took as thanks. "I'll have you know, Holmes, that my experience with women is no small one."
He hummed over his glass, raising a haughty eyebrow at me.
"You are humble through and through," he murmured, and then, before I could retort that he was the least humble man I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, "I've received an invitation, old man, to Scotland Yard's Christmas celebration. Of course, I have little interest in such affairs," here he yawned and drew his knees up to his chin. "-but I have some remembrance of your enjoying socializing with your fellow man. Care to join me?"
I rolled my eyes and eased the empty glass out of his hand.
"Of course I will, Holmes. I'm sure that Hopkins will be overjoyed to see you."
He grimaced and absently began to pack his pipe.
"Perhaps I'll be struck down by a cab on the way," he muttered.
We sank into an easy silence after that—he puffing at his pipe and I watching pensively out the window as the passerby below walked to and fro. December in London was bitterly cold, wet, and icy, and what had that morning been a fine blanket of white snow had been trod into a fine grey sludge that stuck to the boots of pedestrians and made the streets a treacherous nightmare to navigate. I had always been the one out of the two of us to enjoy the holidays more—Holmes pretended, at least, to be too aloof for such things—but this year I simply didn't feel up to the cheer and goodwill of the season.
I suppose I had much to be grateful for, then. Holmes had returned from the some years ago, and I, once again, had found myself in my old rooms at Baker Street, sitting by the fire with a man I had thought never to speak with again. With the reunion, there was tension, though—the aching knowledge that he had been alive and not contacted me, never thought to send word along of his survival.
And, of course, there was the matter of my wife and child, dead and cold and buried. Time did not ease the throbbing pain of grief that took hold of me at inopportune times.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and glanced up to him. Holmes, as always, was poised and graceful, and his manner was casual, even as he gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. He followed my thoughts better than I did sometimes, but he would have never done me the great humiliation of looking on me with pity.
"Chin up, man," he said softly. "The chill is trying, but in only a few days we shall have one of Mrs. Hudson's most excellent roast geese to chase off the melancholy of the season. Shall I play something?"
--
The days before Christmas passed slowly and without event. Holmes, in reverence for the season, had gracefully allowed a combination of Mrs Hudson's cajoling and my own well-planned arguments (bullying, if he were to be believed) to convince him to let me decorate our rooms, and so, amidst the clutter of his commonplace books and well-thumbed newspapers sat a homely pine sapling that I thought was merry and he decided was 'pleasant enough'. Despite his continued insistence that he cared not a jot for the holiday, Holmes was positively brimming with seasonal spirit, and it did not pass my notice that a few of the wrapped parcels under the tree were labeled in his long, languid hand.
As the days passed, though, and the date of the Scotland Yard party drew nearer, he became decidedly irritable in a fashion that besets a man with such a Bohemian soul as he. Holmes, never-mind how easily his genial politeness was adopted when he required it, thoroughly loathed the company of all of his fellow man excepting me. Many times, I had seen him come home from some social function more thoroughly drained than he was even at the end of his more taxing cases. Indeed, he was getting positively anxious about it, if a man such as Sherlock Holmes could ever be described as having anxiety.
"You don't suppose," he murmured one evening through a cloud of tobacco-smoke so thick that I could barely make out his gaunt, white face. "That if I failed to show up at this...event that Lestrade would stop bringing me his cases?"
"Really, Holmes!" I cried, tossing aside my newspaper.
He hummed.
"You're right, of course. He relies too heavily on me to ever think of such."
"Not that," I said. "What's gotten you so worked up over this? Don't tell me that the great Sherlock Holmes is afraid of a night of idle conversation and a few drinks among friends."
"Not afraid," he remarked sullenly. "Never afraid. No, I only find that the idea of a 'night of idle conversation' tries my patience."
"You know," I said. "It would be a pretty trick for you to pull, to invite me along as your plus one and then decide you won't attend yourself."
He grimaced and blew out another blue cloud of smoke.
"Don't tell me you actually want to attend this thing, Watson."
I cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Pardon me for enjoying spending time out with you when we aren't being pursued by murderers or extortionists or what have you."
He pinkened a bit and gazed down awkwardly at his hands.
"I apologize," he said finally. "I don't mean to imply... That is... Of course I'll go, old man. Your presence alone will save the night from the agonizing monotony it would no doubt become without you."
"Good," I said, only a bit smug, and took back up my newspaper.
He gazed off into the fire for some time, occasionally opening his mouth as if to speak and then, apparently thinking better of it, closing it again. After some time of this--and a few quizzical glances in his direction--he gathered his nerves.
"Watson," he said, rather suddenly. "I... Hm. It strikes me that I've treated you rather coldly, in the past."
I glanced up at him. He reddened and averted his gaze, once more becoming more interested in his hands than me.
"That is," he said. "I'm sorry, old man. I really am...very fond of you. Of our friendship."
"By Jove, Holmes," I said. "I believe you're going soft on me."
He scoffed disdainfully, but his ears were burning like twin coals on either side of his face. Taking pity on him, I rose, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm very fond of you too, Holmes," I said. "And of our friendship."
He glanced up to me, something young and vulnerable flickering briefly on his face before it was gone in an instant, like a match snuffed out in a dark room.
"Thank you," he said softly. "Thank you."