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1.
The cobblestone streets of London lay covered in thick, icy sludge. The whole of Cavendish Place seemed empty of cabs for once, for only a fool would risk horses and coach for the small profit to be made. Only doctors and madcaps would brave the streets in such weather. Watson examined the treacherous ground in dismay before he slowly made his way down the steps. The heavy doctor's bag in his left hand upset his balance, and with his sword cane at the blacksmith's and its replacement lost in the clutter of their rooms at Baker Street, he feared that his bad leg would give out under him sooner rather than later.
Were he a betting man, he'd wager that he wouldn't make it to the corner. Luckily, his cheque book resided in Mary's drawer now.
"Good morning, Watson." Holmes dragged on his pipe and dropped the match into the snow, where it was snuffed out with a dwindling hiss. He then stepped away from the wall against which he had been leaning, the collar of his black coat reaching nearly to his ears. "You will not believe what our dear Mrs. Hudson said to me this morning." He offered his arm with a polite half-bow.
"She's not our Mrs. Hudson," Watson said mildly, trying not to betray his surprise. He accepted Holmes's support, relieved to have some weight taken off his leg as they walked along the sidewalk.
"Have you cut all ties with her then? Disavowed your former acquaintance in favour of your lovely new home, which no doubt comes with a formidable keeper?" Holmes expostulated, offended on behalf of abandoned landladies all across the Empire.
Watson rolled his eyes at him. "Of course not."
"Then you'll forgive me the use of a perfectly respectable figure of speech." Holmes's voice slid smoothly from accusing to regretful as he added, "One would expect an educated man such as yourself to be familiar with the most common colloquialisms. Take, for example –"
"Holmes," Watson interrupted the building lecture, "what did Mrs. Hudson say to you?"
Holmes sniffed. "She said," he began in the tone of someone imparting a great confidence, "she could no longer tell me from the dog were she rely on her sense of smell alone, and ordered me to take a bath. In December! I swear to you, Watson, that woman has been plotting my death from the moment she laid eyes on me."
Watson frowned in puzzlement. "What dog?"
Gladstone had been enjoying a life without chemical experiments for several weeks now, at home with Mary and himself. Had Holmes already replaced him?
"That," said Holmes darkly, "is the mystery." He stopped at the street corner and took a quick look at Watson. "Did you plan on starting the day with Corporal Jameson's embarrassing rash?"
"I thought I might check on Mrs. Welling's influenza."
"Ah." Holmes turned right without further hesitation, and Watson found that he could restrain his smile no longer. On the next step, he allowed his bad leg to fold slightly beneath him, so that his shoulder brushed against Holmes's. Holmes said nothing, but he dragged on his pipe with a satisfied smile.
Watson cleared his throat. "How on Earth do you know about the corporal's rash?"
"Simplicity itself," Holmes said, and Watson listened to the outrageous explanation as they walked, trusting Holmes to keep their balance.
2.
Mrs. Hudson's note arrived on Christmas Eve.
"Go to him," Mary said over the polite but firm protestations of her mother, "take some of the pudding with you," and Watson marvelled once again that such extraordinary woman was to become his wife.
"I'll return as soon as I can," he promised, and she sent him away with a kiss and a smile.
He was lucky enough to find a cab this time, thankful to arrive at Baker Street before the bells had finished tolling the ninth hour. The upper floor windows were dark, curtains drawn against even the meagre light of the streetlamps. Watson sighed, gripped his cane, and went to knock on the door.
Mrs. Hudson was wringing her hands as she opened. "I am so sorry to call you away from your home, Doctor," she began, but Watson shook his head in negation.
"Please, say no more," he told her gently, and found himself rewarded with a tremulous smile. "What has he done this time?"
Her face fell as she took the carefully wrapped plate of pudding from him and preceded him up the stairs. "Oh, that's just it: he has done nothing! For days he has been sitting in that chair of his and staring at the wall in one of those moods of his. He wouldn't even look at me when I made sure he was still breathing." She stopped in front of the sitting room door and handed back the plate. Her features bore an all-too familiar expression of faintly worried disapproval as she asked, "Will he be all right?"
Watson, holding the plate, his bag and his cane, couldn't give her hands the comforting squeeze he wanted. However, he could incline his head in reassurance, so that was what he did. She opened the door and took the cane from him, offering to prepare some tea for him. He declined politely, took a fortifying breath, and stepped into near-absolute quiet.
The room was dark save what light came from the fireplace. The wood burned with a crackle, but no other sounds stirred the quiet. Holmes was seated in his armchair, clad only in trousers and shirtsleeves with his coat thrown carelessly across the chair's back, his hands lying listlessly in his lap. His dark eyes glittered in the firelight, but he made no move to acknowledge Watson's presence. Watson's heart jumped in his throat but he kept his calm, setting the plate on the wooden side table and his bag on the rug beside the chair. This was far from the first time he'd returned to find Holmes in a fugue state, even if this one seemed yet too deep to shake him out of it.
"Holmes," he murmured, unsurprised when he received no answer. He took Holmes's pulse and found it to be unsteady but strong. An empty syringe lay between Holmes's feet, its shadow as sharp as the needle's tip. Watson picked it up with two fingers and placed it on the side table as well. "This is exactly why I moved out."
Not that he thought Holmes would understand, responsive or not. Holmes had never understood why his habit angered Watson so, or why every time the wait for him to be lucid enough to be roused from his stupor was harder than the last.
Meeting Mary had been a relief in more ways than one.
Watson sat down on the rug and shifted until he could rest his back against Holmes's legs. He kept his eyes on the grandfather clock, watching the minutes tick by. Back at Cavendish Place, Mary and her parents were finishing a Christmas dinner to which he had invited them, while he himself had but a plate of pudding and his own worry for company.
"Why am I doing this to myself?" he asked tiredly. No one replied, but then, no one needed to.
The clock showed half-past ten by the time Holmes drew a shuddering breath, one of his hands clenching painfully on Watson's shoulder.
"Slowly," Watson murmured, and was rewarded with a shaking sigh.
"Watson," Holmes rasped, his fingers still digging into Watson's flesh as if he were afraid a torrent might sweep him away. Watson did not flinch.
He pulled in a deep breath, his hand trembling with relief as he patted Holmes's leg. They continued to sit in silence, waiting for the world to make sense once more.
3.
"Watson, my old cock! What pleasant happenstance to meet you here!"
Watson's smile was slightly pained as Stamford rolled towards him, but he imagined the man noticed nothing of it. Stamford had obviously done well for himself, his girth approaching that of Jumbo the elephant. His jovial face shone red from the exertion of simple forward motion. Watson aimed an imploring look at Mary, but she was caught in discussion with several former classmates and merely smiled mischievously when she noticed his predicament. Watson resigned himself to yet another round of aimless chatter.
Much as he valued the music, he couldn't help but find the opera rather tedious at times.
"Stamford," he said, "how long has it been, five years? You look well."
"Going on six!" Stamford reached out and vigorously shook Watson's hand. "Are you still keeping your private practice?" At Watson's affirmative answer, Stamford clapped him heartily on the shoulder. "Good, good, delighted to hear that, old friend. But tell me," and now Stamford leaned forward, a curious gleam in his eye, "is it true what I hear? You have finally cut your ties with Sherlock Holmes?"
Watson blinked at him, aghast at the very idea. "Wherever would you hear such a thing?"
Certainly, he no longer accompanied Holmes on his various cases, but that hardly meant he had given up on him altogether. The mere idea was appalling.
"Are you not engaged to be married then?" Stamford inquired, a confused expression on his face.
"I am." Before Watson could add his own inquiry as to what his impending marriage had to do with the matter at hand, Stamford was already clapping him on the back with overabundant cheer. Watson's shoulder twinged in protest.
"See? Congratulations, old boy!" Stamford's impressive chin wobbled as he tilted his head to the side. "I never quite understood how you suffered that man for so long. It contests you admirable patience, I must say, but I imagine it to be rather trying to share lodgings with a lunatic. The way he went on about his deductions, one would have to assume he expected people to take them seriously. I frequently regretted introducing you to him."
Watson stared at him, struck dumb at this unexpected revelation. Then he said, "I see. Tell me, dear Stamford, does your wife know of your visits to Broad Street?"
He watched with some satisfaction as the colour drained from Stamford's face. No wonder Holmes took such a delight in provoking that reaction, for it felt quite vindicating.
Stamford's voice seemed close to failing him altogether. "H- How…?"
"Simplicity itself," Watson assured him with an absurd sense of delight. "The dirt on your shoes exhibits a reddish tint which is particular to the district of Soho and its brick houses. Furthermore, its presence indicates a certain hurry to reach the opera house on time. The beer stain on the lapel of your coat," at this Stamford craned his neck to see the damning evidence, "has dried with a greenish edge, indicating your consumption of an ale brewed from water that was drawn from a fairly new copper pump. Such a pump can be found on Broad Street, right outside the public house on the corner of Cambridge Street. Incidentally," Watson added, fuelled by Stamford's growing discomfiture, "this pub is situated right next to a well-known establishment whose very nature does not lend itself to further description in polite company."
Stamford's face had turned a ghastly white, so Watson gave him a reassuring pat on the arm.
"A simple deduction," he said cheerfully, "quite basic, I'm afraid. I shan't bore you any longer."
He left the spluttering Stamford behind and went in search of a glass of port.
The night had turned out more entertaining than he'd hoped.
4.
Mary had her heart set on a spring wedding, something in which Watson was only too happy to indulge her. It was therefore some two months to their wedding day when their breakfast was interrupted by a loud thumping against their front door.
"Would you care for a wager, my love?" Mary asked, her blue eyes shining with amusement.
"I believe I would not," Watson replied, finding himself quite torn between the eggs on his plate and the commotion at the door. "Unless you were going to bet that the noise was Corporal Jameson, distraught at the return of his unfortunate condition."
Mary laughed at him. "No." She smiled tolerantly as the doorbell began ringing wildly. "Should we let him in?"
"Oh, he'll be joining us shortly, no matter if we ask him to or not." Watson rose to bestow a gentle kiss upon his fiancée, a gesture of both gratitude for her understanding nature and apology for the events he anticipated. He had barely taken his seat again when the door burst open and Holmes stormed in, his hair as much in disarray as his clothing was dishevelled.
He really did look gorgeous.
"Watson!" he declared, "You may congratulate me! I have single-handedly apprehended the band of ruffians who were responsible for the recent abductions of the old masters from London's museums!"
"Congratulations," Watson said as dryly as he could manage, a feat which earned him a reproachful glare.
"Please, Mr. Holmes, will you not join us for breakfast?" Mary asked quickly. "I would very much like to hear how you managed such accomplishment."
"Ah," Holmes said, momentarily diverted, and then, to Watson's surprise, added, "Thank you, dear. You are being too kind."
"Nonsense," she replied, and rang the maid for another place setting.
Holmes immediately fell into a tale of danger, intrigue, and brilliant deductions. Watson hid his smile inside his teacup, interjecting at the appropriate moments to keep his friend from winding down like a toy soldier.
"I noticed instantly, of course, that the blue petal where the day before had hung a priceless painting could mean one thing, and one thing only," Holmes expostulated, his words accompanied by a sharp gesture and, Watson noticed with a falling heart, the slightest wince.
"John," Mary said, distressed, and he nodded at her.
"Yes, indeed," he said before Holmes could take another breath. "Holmes, do raise your right arm."
"I believe you mistake me for our dog, which you have also failed to train," Holmes said indignantly. "As for the petal, a member of the genus cymbidium, it clearly signified –"
"Holmes."
"– the involvement of at least one member of the higher society, for –"
"Raise your arm, Holmes!" Watson's tone, borrowed from his time as a military man, forbade all argument, for all it caused Holmes to lean back in stiff disapproval. He lifted his right arm in silence, reaching as far as shoulder height before he stopped again, a grimace of pain flickering across his features. A small wet patch spread across the front of his coat.
"Mary, dear, will you get my bag?" Watson asked, and proceeded to first examine and then treat the bullet wound far to the right of Holmes's chest.
"Will you stop that damnable prodding?" Holmes snapped at length, after Watson had denied him a dose of morphine for fear of what might already be coursing through his veins. "You are worse than a butcher's apprentice."
"No butcher worth his trade would touch meat as foul as yours," Watson returned, deftly finishing the last of his stitches. "There. You must be the luckiest man in the world," he added. "A little more to the left and the bullet would have pierced your lung."
"Luck is a concept more suited to those without skill," Holmes said haughtily. His eyebrows raised as Mary returned, one of Watson's soft-collared shirts in her hands. "Miss Morstan," he said, feigning shock, "not even married and already you are giving away your fiancé's belongings?"
"I'd never dream of it," she assured him. "However, I do believe there to be a barter system?" She aimed at Holmes the sweetest smile. "What a lovely neckerchief you are wearing today."
The expression on Holmes's face was one of such startled bewilderment that Watson would laugh about it for days later.
5.
For all their shared vices, and there were a few, it had always been Watson who would venture out during the dark hours to collect Holmes from whatever cheap establishment he had chosen to drink himself out of consciousness. It was unprecedented, therefore, that it should be Holmes's hand to wrestle away the third bottle of wine and settle the night's tab; unheard of that Watson should be dragged into a cab and propped into the corner for fear he might spill from the seat.
"Where're we going?" Watson asked after several minutes of the hansom's movements rattling his bones, intending for the question to break the silence more than get him a reply. He didn't much care about their destination, so long as it wasn't that place. Or the sewers. He did not believe his stomach would endure the sewers; indeed, the mere thought made him ill.
"Home," Holmes said shortly. There was something in his voice, an undertone that seemed to be of some importance, if only Watson could decipher its meaning. All these years of learning to observe, and he was no closer to interpreting Holmes's cues when he delivered them like this.
"I've no home left." He listed slowly to one side, cut again by the finality of pulling the door shut behind him as he left the house at Cavendish Place. It had been this very recollection which had sliced at his composure all through the night.
"Baker Street, then," said Holmes, half-rising from his seat to prod Watson back into his corner. Watson started to nod, but then he remembered and shook his head.
"The bed's gone," he said mournfully. He had no home and not even a bed to sleep in. The settee was far too short for his height, a fact Holmes had to be aware of. "You're a terrible friend, Holmes."
Why would Holmes torture him so?
To Watson's vague surprise, Holmes made no attempt to refute that accusation. In the dim light of the streetlamps, his face looked pale, his lips compressed into a line so thin a papercut would cover them.
The cab bumbled to a stop and Holmes climbed out to pay the driver before he assisted Watson out of his seat. Neither of Watson's legs wanted to hold him up, it seemed, and he stumbled, caught only by Holmes's swift grip on his arms.
"Whatever have you done to yourself, old boy?" Holmes murmured, low enough that Watson didn't think he was supposed to have heard. Watson opened his mouth to tell Holmes he should know, since it had been his machinations which set into motion the events leading to Watson's present state: out of a home and less one fiancée. However, Holmes was already dragging him to the door.
Mrs. Hudson had obviously had someone alter the layout of the house since Watson had last been there, for there were now a hundred steps leading up to the first floor. Holmes kept Watson from breaking his neck, if barely, but they created an infernal racket.
"Holmes, do keep quiet," Watson said, for if Holmes kept quiet he would at least leave Mrs. Hudson to her sleep and one person in this house would spend their night undisturbed.
If Holmes had kept quiet, his brother would have seen no reason to wire the Lieutenant-Governor of Burma and inquire after Mary's dead fiancé. Neither would there have been any reason for him, upon learning the poor wretch wasn't so much dead as a Burmese prisoner of war, to use his considerable influence on the government to demand a rescue to be mounted.
If Holmes had kept quiet, the heart-warming reunion between Mary and her former fiancé, the reunion that Watson had fled so hastily, would never have occurred.
"'t was a kind thing you did, still," he slurred as Holmes settled him on the settee. Holmes's hands stilled in the motion of unbuttoning Watson's coat. "For them," Watson added, in case Holmes had failed to grasp his meaning.
Holmes's hands appeared to be shaking as he straightened, which was no doubt an illusion brought on by the alcohol. Holmes's hands never shook.
"I didn't do it for them," he said shortly, and strode across the room before Watson could say another word. The bedroom door fell shut behind him, but the silence was soon broken by the dissonant plucking of the violin.
"I know," Watson told the empty room. He'd likewise known that Holmes hadn't anticipated to be found out, just as he knew that neither of them would mention the matter again.
"I know," he said again, and settled down to sleep on the rug.
6.
Spring brought with it a stretch of truly abysmal weather, the first shoots of green, and the marriage of Miss Mary Morstan to the honourable Bernard Lorrington. Watson deeply regretted his acceptance of their wedding invitation, for it meant that he was wearing his best clothes as he crept through what amounted to a vast and well-filled coal cellar.
"I must have been dropped on my head as a child," he whispered furiously. "It's the only possible explanation for why I still follow you around like a puppy."
"Hush, Watson," Holmes returned in an equally lowered voice. "Listen, and observe."
Watson huffed out a breath, but he followed Holmes to the nearest corner. Lamplight flickered beyond, and several male voices seemed to be locked in argument.
"They've realised that Sutton won't be joining them tonight," Holmes murmured. "No doubt their nerves are quite strained."
Cautiously, they peered around the corner. A large crate had been placed into the middle of a storage room, a cheap oil lamp sputtering on top of it. Four men sat around it, while two more stood propped against a wall. None of them appeared too happy.
"Which one of them is Carter?" Watson asked quietly.
The click of a handgun being cocked disturbed the relative silence around them.
"The one behind us, I presume," Holmes said in a normal voice. Around the corner, the ruffians exclaimed their surprise, and then chaos broke loose. Watson pivoted and swung his cane at Carter's revolver just in time to make the first shot miss its mark, the bullet burying itself deep in the wall six inches from Holmes's head. The gun clattered away and Holmes sent Carter to the ground with a well-aimed blow to the jaw. They weren't able to make sure he stayed down, for the entire band of blackguards now joined the fray.
Watson had no time to draw the sword inside his cane, but used the cane itself to disable one of the men before he was forced to drop it in the melee. He ignored the ache in his bad leg and used his fists to knock another man clear off his feet. Beside him, Holmes was taking equally gentle care of his adversaries, but Watson lost sight of him as his third opponent sent him crashing into the wall around the corner before Watson got the better of him and went to rejoin Holmes.
He froze when he felt the cold barrel of a pistol press against the side of his neck.
"'ere now, Doctor," Carter said jovially, "I wonder what'll happen when I pull the trigger. From an anatomical standpoint."
The cellar fell into sudden darkness as the lamp broke with a clangour. The pistol jerked in response, but no bullet left its chamber.
"Sherlock Holmes will kill you," Watson said with the calmness of one who knows his words to be the utter truth. "From an anatomical standpoint."
Around the corner, a body met the floor with an audible thump. Silence reigned, broken only by Watson's breathing and Carter's dirty chuckle.
"That's-" He broke off with a gurgle, and pistol scraped along Watson's neck as Carter's body fell away to hit the ground with quiet finality.
"Astutely observed," Holmes said. His fingers brushed across Watson's shoulder as if to ensure themselves he stood still upright.
"I do try."
The fingers squeezed briefly, then they were gone. Holmes cleared his throat and asked, "You wouldn't happen to carry a match, old boy?"
Watson reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a matchbox. He rattled it briefly, and Holmes's hand found his to take the box from him. A match was struck, and within moments they found themselves standing in the light of a small candle Holmes had procured. Watson spared Carter but a glance as the man was indeed quite dead with his throat cut wide. Watson nodded towards the unconscious ruffians strewn across the floor. "What of them?"
"Lestrade may keep them. I'm afraid they've provided all entertainment they were capable of." Holmes tilted his head and raised the candle to inspect Watson's visage. A curious smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he said, "My dear Watson, you look like a raccoon."
Watson gave him a disbelieving stare. "You," he said slowly, almost in wonderment, "drag me out of the cab, talk me into creeping through a coal cellar, in my best clothes, no less," his voice rose, "nearly get me shot to death, and now you call me a raccoon?" He shook his head, furious at himself for never learning to say no, and at Holmes for being so utterly, unchangeably, inescapably Holmes. "I should be at a wedding right now!"
Holmes looked him up and down, still wearing that peculiar smile.
"You are most welcome," he said finally, leaving Watson to blink at him as he bent down to retrieve Watson's cane. He handed it over with a flourish. "Are you quite ready to leave?"
He turned without waiting for an answer. Watson followed him, his fingers clenching around his cane. "Holmes, I wanted to go," he said, but his voice lacked conviction even to his own ears.
"Of course you did," Holmes agreed. "What man would not stand to watch another one be chained by the shackles of marriage in his stead?"
Watson drew a sharp breath, but he was lost for an answer. Holmes didn't seem to be expecting one, in any case.
They had dinner at The Royale, later. Holmes paid, took great care to dissect their fellow patrons in the most entertaining manner, and didn't mention Mary with a single word.
7.
Holmes was torturing his violin again. He had a beautiful Stradivarius locked in a case beneath his bed which he could play with such speed and clarity to have driven Paganini to tears, but more often than not he preferred to pluck incomprehensible nonsense on the cheapest fiddle Watson had ever laid eyes upon. The notes he struck never rang true, never achieved harmony, nor found any recognisable rhythm.
He was driving Watson mad. Even more so since he had been going at it all day and it was now approaching nine in the evening. Summer had progressed far enough that dusk was only just beginning to darken the streets outside, yet Watson was already contemplating retiring for the night. The day's Police Gazette held very little which might distract him from the noise, and his ears, at least, would thank him if he fled.
Sometimes, he wondered if Holmes didn't mean for him to complain.
Strangely, there appeared to be no outward reason for Holmes's restlessness. Several days had passed since their last case, but Holmes was yet to show the first signs of his returning depression. The weather remained pleasant, they'd had two altogether enjoyable walks through the Heath, and the daily correspondence held no more malice than a daisy in a warm breeze.
It was quite the mystery. Luckily, Watson had spent the last handful of years studying the universal remedy against all kinds of puzzlement: deduction.
He lowered one edge of the newspaper enough to allow him observation of his friend. Holmes was sitting on the window seat, staring moodily out the window as his fingers jerked and slipped on the strings. A slight frown marred his features, but it did not seem directed at anything outside. An internal matter then, most likely an emotion Holmes found himself ill equipped to deal with. The occasional glance in Watson's direction, but never at Watson directly, attested his relation to the aforementioned emotion. Finally, Holmes's pipe had been lit throughout the day, indicating that he was either deep in thought, or nervous, or both.
Watson swallowed, but took great care to keep his outward demeanour calm. His observations strongly suggested that Holmes had just recently discovered within himself an emotion, pertaining to Watson, which made him nervous. Furthermore, he had apparently spent most of the day calculating one scenario after the next, unable to reach a satisfying conclusion on his own.
Watson drew a deep breath, and made the largest wager of his life.
"'The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,'" he offered casually, "'are of imagination all compact.'"
Holmes peered at him over the violin's neck. "Are you calling me a madman?"
Watson lowered his eyes to the paper and hid his burning face behind the pages. "About as much as I am calling you a poet, which is to say, not on most days."
The plucking stopped abruptly, a last dissonant twang left hanging in the air for a few moments. Watson pretended his heart was not pounding like mad as he stared at the paper without giving it any attention.
"You aren't joking," Holmes said finally, in a tone akin to awe.
"I am not," Watson agreed. He was proud of his hands remaining steady.
Holmes kept his silence for an interminable moment during which Watson's fear he might have mis-deduced grew exponentially. Then the violin clattered to the ground, no doubt collecting yet another scratch, and Holmes crossed the room in four long strides to snatch the Police Gazette from Watson's grasp and toss it blindly to the side. His eyes were wide, his gaze searching Watson's face as if he were the last clue to a mystery of hitherto unknown proportions.
"Watson," he said, his voice filled with urgency, "if you have any objections to my kissing you presently and on the spot, you must say so immediately. Else I shall refuse all responsibility on the matter."
"I have none," Watson said happily, for while he had no doubt that allowing Holmes this next, largest, piece of him was utter madness, he was also very aware that he had left sanity behind no later than the second time he moved into Baker Street. He reached to pull Holmes down to him, not surprised at all that in this, as in all other things, they fit together with consummate ease despite their differences in temper.
"Tell me, my dear Watson," Holmes murmured against his lips an indefinite amount of time later, "'what dances shall we have, to wear away this long age of three hours between our after-supper and bed-time?'"
Watson grinned at him. "'What revels are in hand?'" he asked, giving the revels in question a squeeze that had Holmes shuddering against him.
"They are quite priceless, I assure you," Holmes said breathlessly, and stole Watson's laughter from his mouth.