Chapter Text
John Watson was no stranger to the cold. His time abroad had not left his finances or his medical practice in good health, as it were, and his clothes were wearing a bit thin in places.
Accustomed as he was to the bite of winter, John knew to resist the natural impulse to tighten up, and to relax his muscles instead, settling into the cold rather than wasting precious energy fighting to keep it out. He crossed his free hand in front of him, tucking his hand under the crook of the opposite arm. Dusk was giving way to darkness by now, but John shuffled on determinedly. Thornfield was surely not more than a quarter mile farther down this road, and he had written to the housekeeper, one Alice Fairfax, that he would arrive on this date. Moreover, he was loath to turn back just to have to hobble all the way again in the morning. His limp was an inconvenience on most days, and downright treacherous on icy roads like this one.
John’s intent focus on his own feet, willing them to fall evenly on the hard ground, kept him from noticing the sound of hooves approaching. A dog’s bark roused him to his surroundings, and he looked up in time to see a gigantic hound flash past, a blur of long black and white fur. Registering the tramp, tramp of hooves, John hopped quickly to the side of the road, and not a moment too soon. The horse and rider careened past him, neither seeming to notice him at all.
“Pardon,” John muttered sourly. “Just an invalid doctor doddering along down the road, never mind me.”
He’d barely started to walk again when he heard a shout and a clatter at the bottom of the short hill he’d just crested. He turned, startled, to find the rider and his horse ungracefully tangled on a patch of ice. The unnaturally large dog seemed agitated by the sight and rushed to John, barking and nudging his elbows—good God, it could reach his elbows—with its nose. “All right,” he told the dog. “Yes, I see it, I’m coming.”
The dog seemed convinced by this and darted back down the hill to her master. John kept pace and arrived at the bottom of the hill just as the dark form on the ground managed to spring to his feet, swearing. John threw a hand out, predicting correctly that the man’s flailing arms would throw him off balance, as he was still standing in the center of a patch of dark, slick ice.
The strange man left off bellowing, seeming startled into silence by the sight of his hands instinctively grasping the proffered forearm.
“Careful,” said John.
The man turned a penetrating gaze on John’s face. His eyes were pale and sharp. “What,” he said, “the deuce.” His voice, throaty and deep, rang in the otherwise silent night.
John frowned. “Sorry?”
The man pulled with some force and simultaneously stepped toward the doctor, which brought their faces so close John could feel the brush of his breath. As in the presence of a wild animal, John decided it seemed best not to make any sudden movements. The strength of that stare, however, made him wish a little ruefully for the elbow-height dog again. The dog suddenly seemed the less likely candidate to bite him.
The man’s feral eyes matched his hair, which was like none John had ever seen: glossy, dark, clearly well cared for, and yet utterly unruly. It sprang outward from his head in whorls and waves, the ends of it trembling with the man’s barely controlled energy. He was filled with a kind of histrionic buoyancy, a tautness that might snap at any moment. His expression remained unreadable.
Pale eyes roved freely over John’s face, from his hairline to his chin to his ears. He dared not move more than the muscle in his jaw he could feel but not stop himself flexing nervously.
“What a tiny elf of a man has taken it upon himself to haunt my forest,” said the stranger abruptly.
At that, John prickled. “Look here,” he said, letting some anger bubble into his voice. “I don’t know who you are, and I hardly care to, given how you treat your horse, but I very much doubt that this is your forest. If you’re quite all right I’d just as soon be on my way.”
“It’s very unwise for a person to walk this road at night, as I am notorious for riding alone and recklessly at all hours.” The man continued as though John hadn’t spoken, whipping around and pacing, not bothering to step off the ice patch. “You, being unaware of that fact, must never have spent a day of your life in this town or any of the surrounding towns before this night. There is only one house along this road—too late for a stroll for pleasure, of course—so you are destined for Thornfield Hall. Destined for Thornfield Hall in the dark of night, never having been there before...” The man rubbed the side of his finger over the pad of his thumb in a way that John found oddly compelling. “Assassin?” he said curiously. “You don’t look much of one but perhaps that’s the entire point. Misdirection, with the ragged clothes and the cane.”
John glanced down suspiciously at his cane. “I’m afraid I don’t... are you asking—”
“If you’ve come to kill me, yes,” said the tall man. He fixed John with another disconcerting stare.
“Do people often send people to try to kill you?” John inquired, confused.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he said. “But he might. Probably thinks it would keep me sharp.”
John shook his head at that, for lack of anything else to do. “I am not here to kill anybody,” he told the man. “Ideally, I shall do the opposite. Though I suppose accusations of mercenary intrigue are the best I could hope for from the man who nearly ran me down with his mad horse and then called me an elf instead of thanking me for rushing to his side in a moment of distress.”
The eyes—damn those eyes; John couldn’t bring himself to look away—narrowed down to knife edges. The man loomed into John again, hunched forward so that puffs of breath fell and broke like waves on John’s cheek. John refused to flinch.
Then, the man straightened and it was as though he was entirely another person, all carefully composed lines. He ran one gloved hand over his head and somehow left behind a few ordered, smooth waves of dark hair. “I was not in distress.”
John raised an eyebrow. “My mistake. I came down because it seemed as if you were.”
The man looked offended. Offended. John silently called him a few things he would likely regret saying out loud.
“Your horse has gone,” he said instead. The look of surprise on the great prat’s face was endlessly gratifying.
“Damn!” he swore. John grinned.
After a beat in which neither of them said anything, the man shrugged as though conceding defeat. “Well, I suppose we may as well walk in company, then,” he said, as though changing the topic of conversation from tennis to tea.
“We’re going in opposite directions,” John reminded him.
The man gestured to his dog, waiting patiently behind him all the while, and started back up the hill. “Not without the horse, obviously,” was all he said.
John started up after him, watching carefully where he set down his cane. His bad leg giving out on the ice was the absolute last thing he wanted this new acquaintance to see.
The man was halfway to where they started before he realised John was lagging behind. He turned in place and stared at John’s progress. John braced himself for another onslaught, but the man said only, “Hm,” and walked at John’s pace for the rest of the way.
#
Thornfield Hall was tall, dark, and imposing. John thought it rather matched his now-silent companion.
“Do you know the family?” John asked as they approached the door.
“Mrs. Fairfax!” the man yelled, his voice booming in the quiet.
“My God, I hope you do know them,” John muttered. He took a step backward in the hope of dissociating himself from the presumptuous sort of man who walked up to dark houses in the night and simply yelled at them for entrance.
A few moments passed before there was the scraping sound of a lock and the door swung open to reveal a short, plump woman wearing a put-upon expression. “Mr. Holmes,” she said politely. “I did leave a key near your riding things, sir, so that you could come in at your preference.”
The man—Holmes, apparently—waved his hand dismissively, as though he couldn’t care one way or the other about keys and locks.
“I discovered a wee faerie prince on the road,” said Holmes, rounding on John, who had not yet figured out if he’d been invited in or not. “Materialized from nothing and bewitched my horse away,” he added solemnly. John studied his face for any sign that he was joking.
“Oh!” Mrs. Fairfax noticed John for the first time. John noted that she did not seem surprised in the slightest at Holmes’s behavior. “Might you be Doctor John Watson, sir?”
A kind of relief fell over John, as this woman seemed refreshingly direct in contrast to his erstwhile company. “Yes,” he said, stepping forward at last. “I am so sorry for my tardiness. Some trouble arose with my carriage on the journey from Lowood and I was forced to walk from town.”
“That’s quite all right, Doctor Watson,” said Mrs. Fairfax. Good nature tinged her cheeks with a rosy pink that John found quite comforting. “Will you take a little supper in your chamber, or would you prefer I light the fire in the dining room?”
“No, no,” said John gratefully. “Supper in my rooms will be fine.”
The housekeeper smiled. “Let me show you the way,” she said.
John opened his mouth to bid good night to his odd new acquaintance, but Holmes was nowhere to be seen.
Mrs. Fairfax glanced over her shoulder with a knowing look. “He does that,” she explained apologetically.