Fic for our pinch-hitter: Douillet, PG
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acdholmesfestTitle: Douillet
Recipient: Our pinch-hitter for this round:ancientreader
Author:methylviolet10b
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,118
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Warnings: Happy retirement-era husbands, fluff.
Summary: The cold is getting to Watson.
Author's Notes: The title comes from a French word that means "cozy, soft, and warm". Your actions in springing to the rescue certainly have made us all more comfortable. Thank you, and we hope this suits!
I contemplated getting up from my nest of blankets on the sofa to add more fuel to the fire. The sun beamed weakly through the windows, doing its meagre best to help warm the room, only to find itself ultimately unequal to the task. So too was our little hearth, regardless of how much we fed it, and I burrowed a little deeper into my blankets. Villages and homes all along the Sussex Downs were suffering under a severe bout of cold weather, and I along with them. The cold ate into my sinews and bones, causing every old wound I had to ache incessantly. Worse, the extra stiffness the cold caused in my leg made me even more unsteady on my feet than I already was. I had nearly fallen twice the previous day, and had fallen once. Just into the wall, not onto the floor, but Holmes had been nearby to see it, and had nearly done himself a mischief trying to prevent my loss of balance.
We were neither of us young men, or even middle-aged, and this winter seemed determined to prove it to us both.
A particularly vicious draught heralded Holmes’ return from the garden before I heard the side door close. I hastily sat up and re-opened my book, which I had set on my lap before burrowing down. I heard him muttering to himself, undoubtedly wrestling with the thick overcoat and shoes I’d insisted he wear before going out to check on his hives. He’d wanted to throw extra rugs over them to try and preserve them from the chill, but he’d adamantly refused my help. I knew I wouldn’t have been much assistance, but I’d argued about it with him anyway. He’d won, as usual, but only with the concession that he would not remain outdoors more than half an hour or I would come right after him.
At last Holmes appeared. His high cheekbones and the tip of his nose were scarlet with cold, making the rest of his face seem all the paler in comparison. His once-dark hair was as frosted as the sere landscape beyond the window, but his clear grey eyes remained as keen and striking as ever. His thin lips curved into a fond smile as his eyes settled on me. “I am back as promised, my dear fellow, and well within time. How are you feeling?”
“Perfectly chagrined at having been left to laze about on the sofa like an invalid while you went out into that wretched cold and bundled up your hives. If I had come with you, we could have had the rugs on in half the time, and you wouldn’t be so cold now. Don’t you dare try and deny it,” I added as Holmes opened his mouth. “I can see you shivering from here, and your skin never goes so pale unless you’re cold – or facing down a venomous serpent. And I don’t think there were any serpents foolish enough to be about in this frost.”
Holmes huffed a quiet laugh. “No, no serpents, and I admit I am quite chilled.” He strode over to the fireplace, moving relatively swiftly, but with a stiffness to his movements that told me more than he ever would how badly his rheumatism was bothering him. He grimaced as he crouched to build up the fire, and could not help doing so again as he rose. “But had we both gone, we would both be overly cold. As it is, you have sensibly kept warm, and now you can help me warm up too.”
Our sofa is a wide, sturdy thing, large enough for two men to repose together, if they are willing to be friendly. In no time at all Holmes was next to me under the blankets, one long arm across my chest, with his head resting on my good shoulder. Even that joint ached, but I did not care. I brought his cold hand up to my lips long enough to kiss it, then carefully tucked it back under the covers, laced with my own.
I should have known that I could never really hide it from Holmes. “I know you are hurting, John. I will not pretend that I am not feeling the effects of this weather, too, but you have not suffered so badly from the cold since our first few years in London, and I would spare you what I can.”
I nestled against him a little more firmly. The chill of his recent outdoor venture clung to his clothes, and as thin as Holmes always was, he had to feel it down to his bones. As cold as I felt myself, I was warmer than he, and I would share every bit of my warmth with him.
Holmes made a pleased noise and squirmed to bring the edge of the coverings upwards to touch his chin. For a few minutes we simply lay quietly together, watching the fire, content.
“Do you remember the Dennis case? The one with Weston, the swindler?”
I started. It was unlike Holmes to bring up his past cases. Now that he was retired, he seldom spoke of them except when working on his own treatise, when encouraging me to write up a particular matter for the Strand (which he did far more often than my readers would have ever believed), or when some odd detail reminded him of a similar one in a case. “Vaguely,” I replied, moving my head and neck slightly so I could focus on his face. “Wasn’t Dennis a scholar of some kind?”
“Yes indeed, more so than the museum curator who bragged of his acquisitions to him.”
“Several of which were fakes,” I remembered. “And Dennis hired you to expose the man who’d sold them to the museum.”
“Who turned out to be a broker every bit as credulous as the museum curator, who wouldn’t know a Neolithic pot from a piece of Wedgwood pottery. I had a merry time running down the man who’d sold them to him – Weston, as it turned out. Who was rather a masterful artist in his own right. He could have done great good as a restorer and expert, but lack of funding to complete his studies and bad influences contrived to send him down a crooked, if more lucrative, path.”
“Hmm,” I agreed, and ran one hand over the woollen cap that still covered Holmes’ head. I would far rather have run it through his hair, but understood the need for warmth. My own head was covered with a similar knit cap. It did not particularly suit me, but it was blessedly warm and soft. “I believe that was the first time I realized you had such an interest in antiquities yourself.”
“You thought me interested in nothing unless it related to criminology.” Holmes’ voice was fond. “I remember your list.”
“You’ve never let me forget that list,” I grumbled.
”It is the most famous of your lists,” he said agreeably, his eyes full of mischief. “Although not my favourite of them. That honour is reserved for quite another. I believe you can surmise which one.”
It seemed I was not too cold to blush. “I believe I have learned enough of your methods over the years to solve the mystery.”
Holmes grinned and raised himself just enough to press a kiss to the base of my jaw. He resettled himself quickly. “You never have done yourself justice in your little tales. But I digress. Do you recall the end of the case?”
“You mean staking out the meeting between Weston and the agent for the Torquay Museum?” It had been the only bit of action in the case, after nearly a fortnight spent in Torquay. I had a vivid memory of chasing Weston across what had felt like half the town, after a clumsy constable had exposed that he was being observed. Between us, Holmes and I had managed to run him down, but it had been a near thing.
“You outpaced me several times in that chase,” Holmes remarked quietly. “And yet in London, three weeks before, you’d been scarcely able to make it to the tobacconists and back because the cold pained your wounds so severely.”
I stared. I must have known that in the sense that I’d lived it, but I’d forgotten it if I’d ever realized it as more than just a passing fact of my existence in those days. It had been a bitterly cold winter that year, I remembered now. And then the case had taken us to Torquay. I’d been struck by its beauty, and had remarked at how much warmer it had been than London, but I hadn’t really thought about it further. Holmes, however, clearly had. “I thought we stayed so long in Torquay because you’d drawn out the case as an excuse to visit the museum multiple times, and to visit the geological sites. And that cave,” I said wonderingly.
Holmes, too, was apparently not too cold to blush. “Well, yes, that did play a part. But when I saw how much better you were faring, my dear boy, I admit that I did not work quite as diligently as I might have in attempting to get official access to the areas I wanted to visit and artefacts I wanted to see. Nor was I too terribly displeased that it took Weston so long to set up his meeting with his mark. I could have tried to hasten things along, but I judged that the benefits of a longer stay were more important than any other trifling considerations. As it turned out, we might not have been able to build such a strong case against him without letting things develop in their own time. So really, our stay benefitted everyone in the end.”
I recognized the prevarication for what it was. I could scarcely breathe. The cases had meant everything to Holmes in those days, or so I had always thought. To realize now, with the hindsight of years and his own shy confession, that I had meant so much to him even then… It took me a moment to find words, and when I spoke, my voice was husky with emotion. “My dearest Holmes. I am, as always, astonished. And so very grateful.”
“You have nothing to be grateful for,” Holmes told me, his eyes shining. “I did it entirely for my own gratification. I never dreamed, then, that we could be anything more to each other than chance-met men who shared rooms to afford the rent, who happened to become friends through your unparalleled genius for friendship.”
“You could not know what I did not know myself. I could never have imagined this then, any more than you. But you saw me, Holmes. You saw me then, and you saw me the day I realized I loved you as truly and deeply as I had loved my Mary, and you have loved me every day. How could I not be grateful? I love you, Holmes. It has been the greatest honour of my life to have been by your side, and to love you, and to be loved so truly in return.”
I felt Holmes shiver, but not with cold. He turned and pressed a kiss into my shoulder, hiding his face. I held him tightly, hiding in my own fashion.
Finally he shifted again, and I loosened my arms, letting him turn. He brought his head up to look me fully in the face, and if I had thought his eyes bright before, now they shone like stars. “My dear Watson,” he said, reaching up to touch my cheek with one hand. He said nothing more, just gazed at me for long minutes. It was not until the fire shifted in the fireplace, making a noise against the grate, that he spoke again.
“It was this abominable weather that brought the Dennis case to mind.” It was entirely typical of Holmes not to mention the sentiments that had just passed between us. I was not surprised at the reversion of subject. “We are not so far here from the train line, as you know. And there is very little that needs to be done around our cottage at the moment. I believe we would both be the better for a little holiday to rather more temperate climes. We both enjoyed Torquay, the last time we were there. It might be novel to pay it another visit.”
I smiled, unable to help myself. “What a splendid idea, Holmes. I would be delighted to accompany you to Torquay. Or to anywhere else that might strike your fancy.”
Recipient: Our pinch-hitter for this round:
ancientreader Author:
methylviolet10b Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,118
Characters: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Warnings: Happy retirement-era husbands, fluff.
Summary: The cold is getting to Watson.
Author's Notes: The title comes from a French word that means "cozy, soft, and warm". Your actions in springing to the rescue certainly have made us all more comfortable. Thank you, and we hope this suits!
I contemplated getting up from my nest of blankets on the sofa to add more fuel to the fire. The sun beamed weakly through the windows, doing its meagre best to help warm the room, only to find itself ultimately unequal to the task. So too was our little hearth, regardless of how much we fed it, and I burrowed a little deeper into my blankets. Villages and homes all along the Sussex Downs were suffering under a severe bout of cold weather, and I along with them. The cold ate into my sinews and bones, causing every old wound I had to ache incessantly. Worse, the extra stiffness the cold caused in my leg made me even more unsteady on my feet than I already was. I had nearly fallen twice the previous day, and had fallen once. Just into the wall, not onto the floor, but Holmes had been nearby to see it, and had nearly done himself a mischief trying to prevent my loss of balance.
We were neither of us young men, or even middle-aged, and this winter seemed determined to prove it to us both.
A particularly vicious draught heralded Holmes’ return from the garden before I heard the side door close. I hastily sat up and re-opened my book, which I had set on my lap before burrowing down. I heard him muttering to himself, undoubtedly wrestling with the thick overcoat and shoes I’d insisted he wear before going out to check on his hives. He’d wanted to throw extra rugs over them to try and preserve them from the chill, but he’d adamantly refused my help. I knew I wouldn’t have been much assistance, but I’d argued about it with him anyway. He’d won, as usual, but only with the concession that he would not remain outdoors more than half an hour or I would come right after him.
At last Holmes appeared. His high cheekbones and the tip of his nose were scarlet with cold, making the rest of his face seem all the paler in comparison. His once-dark hair was as frosted as the sere landscape beyond the window, but his clear grey eyes remained as keen and striking as ever. His thin lips curved into a fond smile as his eyes settled on me. “I am back as promised, my dear fellow, and well within time. How are you feeling?”
“Perfectly chagrined at having been left to laze about on the sofa like an invalid while you went out into that wretched cold and bundled up your hives. If I had come with you, we could have had the rugs on in half the time, and you wouldn’t be so cold now. Don’t you dare try and deny it,” I added as Holmes opened his mouth. “I can see you shivering from here, and your skin never goes so pale unless you’re cold – or facing down a venomous serpent. And I don’t think there were any serpents foolish enough to be about in this frost.”
Holmes huffed a quiet laugh. “No, no serpents, and I admit I am quite chilled.” He strode over to the fireplace, moving relatively swiftly, but with a stiffness to his movements that told me more than he ever would how badly his rheumatism was bothering him. He grimaced as he crouched to build up the fire, and could not help doing so again as he rose. “But had we both gone, we would both be overly cold. As it is, you have sensibly kept warm, and now you can help me warm up too.”
Our sofa is a wide, sturdy thing, large enough for two men to repose together, if they are willing to be friendly. In no time at all Holmes was next to me under the blankets, one long arm across my chest, with his head resting on my good shoulder. Even that joint ached, but I did not care. I brought his cold hand up to my lips long enough to kiss it, then carefully tucked it back under the covers, laced with my own.
I should have known that I could never really hide it from Holmes. “I know you are hurting, John. I will not pretend that I am not feeling the effects of this weather, too, but you have not suffered so badly from the cold since our first few years in London, and I would spare you what I can.”
I nestled against him a little more firmly. The chill of his recent outdoor venture clung to his clothes, and as thin as Holmes always was, he had to feel it down to his bones. As cold as I felt myself, I was warmer than he, and I would share every bit of my warmth with him.
Holmes made a pleased noise and squirmed to bring the edge of the coverings upwards to touch his chin. For a few minutes we simply lay quietly together, watching the fire, content.
“Do you remember the Dennis case? The one with Weston, the swindler?”
I started. It was unlike Holmes to bring up his past cases. Now that he was retired, he seldom spoke of them except when working on his own treatise, when encouraging me to write up a particular matter for the Strand (which he did far more often than my readers would have ever believed), or when some odd detail reminded him of a similar one in a case. “Vaguely,” I replied, moving my head and neck slightly so I could focus on his face. “Wasn’t Dennis a scholar of some kind?”
“Yes indeed, more so than the museum curator who bragged of his acquisitions to him.”
“Several of which were fakes,” I remembered. “And Dennis hired you to expose the man who’d sold them to the museum.”
“Who turned out to be a broker every bit as credulous as the museum curator, who wouldn’t know a Neolithic pot from a piece of Wedgwood pottery. I had a merry time running down the man who’d sold them to him – Weston, as it turned out. Who was rather a masterful artist in his own right. He could have done great good as a restorer and expert, but lack of funding to complete his studies and bad influences contrived to send him down a crooked, if more lucrative, path.”
“Hmm,” I agreed, and ran one hand over the woollen cap that still covered Holmes’ head. I would far rather have run it through his hair, but understood the need for warmth. My own head was covered with a similar knit cap. It did not particularly suit me, but it was blessedly warm and soft. “I believe that was the first time I realized you had such an interest in antiquities yourself.”
“You thought me interested in nothing unless it related to criminology.” Holmes’ voice was fond. “I remember your list.”
“You’ve never let me forget that list,” I grumbled.
”It is the most famous of your lists,” he said agreeably, his eyes full of mischief. “Although not my favourite of them. That honour is reserved for quite another. I believe you can surmise which one.”
It seemed I was not too cold to blush. “I believe I have learned enough of your methods over the years to solve the mystery.”
Holmes grinned and raised himself just enough to press a kiss to the base of my jaw. He resettled himself quickly. “You never have done yourself justice in your little tales. But I digress. Do you recall the end of the case?”
“You mean staking out the meeting between Weston and the agent for the Torquay Museum?” It had been the only bit of action in the case, after nearly a fortnight spent in Torquay. I had a vivid memory of chasing Weston across what had felt like half the town, after a clumsy constable had exposed that he was being observed. Between us, Holmes and I had managed to run him down, but it had been a near thing.
“You outpaced me several times in that chase,” Holmes remarked quietly. “And yet in London, three weeks before, you’d been scarcely able to make it to the tobacconists and back because the cold pained your wounds so severely.”
I stared. I must have known that in the sense that I’d lived it, but I’d forgotten it if I’d ever realized it as more than just a passing fact of my existence in those days. It had been a bitterly cold winter that year, I remembered now. And then the case had taken us to Torquay. I’d been struck by its beauty, and had remarked at how much warmer it had been than London, but I hadn’t really thought about it further. Holmes, however, clearly had. “I thought we stayed so long in Torquay because you’d drawn out the case as an excuse to visit the museum multiple times, and to visit the geological sites. And that cave,” I said wonderingly.
Holmes, too, was apparently not too cold to blush. “Well, yes, that did play a part. But when I saw how much better you were faring, my dear boy, I admit that I did not work quite as diligently as I might have in attempting to get official access to the areas I wanted to visit and artefacts I wanted to see. Nor was I too terribly displeased that it took Weston so long to set up his meeting with his mark. I could have tried to hasten things along, but I judged that the benefits of a longer stay were more important than any other trifling considerations. As it turned out, we might not have been able to build such a strong case against him without letting things develop in their own time. So really, our stay benefitted everyone in the end.”
I recognized the prevarication for what it was. I could scarcely breathe. The cases had meant everything to Holmes in those days, or so I had always thought. To realize now, with the hindsight of years and his own shy confession, that I had meant so much to him even then… It took me a moment to find words, and when I spoke, my voice was husky with emotion. “My dearest Holmes. I am, as always, astonished. And so very grateful.”
“You have nothing to be grateful for,” Holmes told me, his eyes shining. “I did it entirely for my own gratification. I never dreamed, then, that we could be anything more to each other than chance-met men who shared rooms to afford the rent, who happened to become friends through your unparalleled genius for friendship.”
“You could not know what I did not know myself. I could never have imagined this then, any more than you. But you saw me, Holmes. You saw me then, and you saw me the day I realized I loved you as truly and deeply as I had loved my Mary, and you have loved me every day. How could I not be grateful? I love you, Holmes. It has been the greatest honour of my life to have been by your side, and to love you, and to be loved so truly in return.”
I felt Holmes shiver, but not with cold. He turned and pressed a kiss into my shoulder, hiding his face. I held him tightly, hiding in my own fashion.
Finally he shifted again, and I loosened my arms, letting him turn. He brought his head up to look me fully in the face, and if I had thought his eyes bright before, now they shone like stars. “My dear Watson,” he said, reaching up to touch my cheek with one hand. He said nothing more, just gazed at me for long minutes. It was not until the fire shifted in the fireplace, making a noise against the grate, that he spoke again.
“It was this abominable weather that brought the Dennis case to mind.” It was entirely typical of Holmes not to mention the sentiments that had just passed between us. I was not surprised at the reversion of subject. “We are not so far here from the train line, as you know. And there is very little that needs to be done around our cottage at the moment. I believe we would both be the better for a little holiday to rather more temperate climes. We both enjoyed Torquay, the last time we were there. It might be novel to pay it another visit.”
I smiled, unable to help myself. “What a splendid idea, Holmes. I would be delighted to accompany you to Torquay. Or to anywhere else that might strike your fancy.”
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Date: 2020-03-28 05:35 pm (UTC)And of course Watson's discovery of how long Holmes has loved him. Oh, that was so touching. Lucky pinch hitter!
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Date: 2020-03-28 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-28 07:37 pm (UTC)I loved the little glimpse in their past and how even then Holmes was sneakily looking after Watson.
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Date: 2020-03-28 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 09:57 pm (UTC)What a lovely fic, a throughoutly pleasant read!
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Date: 2020-03-31 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:08 pm (UTC)Thank you!
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Date: 2020-04-01 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-03 04:36 pm (UTC)