Blind Aversion, Holmes/Watson, 'Sherlock Holmes'
Title: Blind Aversion
Summary: They’re fooling no one but they all turn a blind eye for them, anyway.
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Adler, Hudson, Mary
Pairing: Holmes/Watson
Rating: M
Sherlock Holmes thinks Lestrade is an ignorant idiot and doesn’t try to hide this fact but Lestrade didn’t make it to Inspector by being stupid, despite Holmes’ beliefs.
For years he’s watched the odd couple - Holmes’ eccentricity paralleled by Watson’s realism - and he doesn’t need genius level powers of deduction to discern a few things.
When Holmes gets injured - which, considering his observational skills is remarkably frequent - Watson doesn’t outwardly react. Lestrade watches the calm facade slip into place and the doctor is calm and efficient with his cleaning and suturing and if the doctor’s hands linger a little too long on Holmes’ body, Lestrade shifts uncomfortably and averts his eyes.
When it’s Watson that is injured, or even if he’s just put too much strain on his leg, Lestrade watches with something akin to glee as Holmes’ composure flees. He doesn’t flap about - he not that unsubtle - and it’s not the same calm exterior the doctor exudes; instead, he hovers. He orbits the doctor, hands resting sporadically on forearms, shoulder and sometimes even hips (and it’s that last one that makes Lestrade hail them a hansom cab and send them on their way). His eyes dance across the doctors’ face, his body then back to his face, no doubt searching for any sign that the good doctor is ready to keel over and when the eyes linger a little too long, say a little too much, Lestrade barks out orders to break the duo up.
Because as long as Holmes, along with the good doctor, continue to clear up London’s toughest cases, Lestrade will turn and blind eye and feign ignorance.
It’s the least of can do for the people of London.
--
She’s not so naive as to believe that Sherlock Holmes would have a long interest in her. And while she’s glad that it lasted as long as it did - five years is a long time for someone as flighty as Holmes - she cannot help but feel more than a little jilted by the detective’s continued, intense focus on the good doctor Watson. When she had first met Holmes and Watson, she had been fascinated by Holmes’ fascination with his housemate. She had watched for weeks the way that the two skirted one another while staying in the same orbit; Holmes the satellite, drawn by Watson’s gravity.
Even when Holmes’ erratic interest shifted to her, she could sense the reluctance behind it - Watson’s gravity tugging Holmes back. She knows Holmes’ interest in her would last only until he figured her out, so she kept herself mysterious - interesting - to him because he wants to be, Sherlock Homes can be very... well...
So when she returns to London after a two year sabbatical, she expects the natural orbit of Holmes and Watson to be intact and she’s not entirely disappointed. Because while Holmes’ interest in her is still there, it has waned even though he hasn’t figured her out yet. So as she watches them - at dinner in Baker Street one evening - she deduces that the natural phenomena known as Holmes and Watson has shifted. No longer is it Holmes drawn to Watson but rather a symbiosis - one the moon, the other the tide. Cause and effect. Intertwined. There cannot be one without the other.
But she takes the scraps he throws her way for the remainder of the evening and decides to bring up her departure date. When she leaves, she thinks it might be the last time because she was never one for futile ventures.
And she knows enough to know a lost cause when she sees it.
--
Mrs Hudson sees a lot of things she knows her two residents think she’s oblivious to. Sherlock Holmes may be the genius of the house but she’s no short straw either. She pretends she doesn’t hear the arguments or the suspicious silences that follow; she pretends she doesn’t register their closeness when she interrupts their afternoon with tea and she pretends she doesn’t see the silent glances of subtle touches.
Because as much as she has her moments of reservations about Mr Holmes, she has a great deal of respect for Doctor Watson. And that respect, she’s found recently, has been extended - if somewhat grudgingly - to Holmes.
So when she knocks on Doctor Watson’s door to rouse him for his practice in the morning, it doesn’t surprise her when a sleep rumpled and decidedly underdressed Holmes opens the door to shoo her away. She hands him the tray and reminds of the doctor’s obligation to the people of London.
She lingers outside the door a moment, listening to the quiet murmur of sleepy voices until she hears the springs of the bed squeak as Holmes lowers himself back onto the mattress.
She smiles slightly and moves away knowing that she does a better job at pretending than the two sodomites beyond the door.
--
As Mary lies in her marriage bed alone, for the sixth night this month and it’s only the tenth of February, she can’t help but berate herself for thinking it would be any different. She had known before she had married John Watson - goodness, even before she known him - that there was something special about his relationship with Sherlock Holmes. But the novels she had read, the articles in the newspapers, the whispered warnings from Mrs Hudson - none of it had prepared her for the reality that Sherlock Holmes would always come first to her husband.
And she knows he tried so very hard to extract himself from Holmes for her but even in his absence, Sherlock Holmes was a third person in their marriage. John would read the newspapers in the morning, his face paling as he read of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the plethora of injuries sustained in the pursuit of justice. He would insist that he didn’t need to visit Sherlock, until one day it got too much and John had fled their parlour - ashen and trembling - for the sick bed of his dear friend.
That was when he started doing cases with him again. It had been gradual, over the course of the year but often times Mary wondered if her husband had moved back into Baker Street and neglected to inform her.
She turns to the empty space on the bed beside her and reaches out to touch the cold sheets forlornly wondering when she had become so complacent - or was it complicit? She couldn’t ask John to leave Sherlock again - hadn’t she tried that before, with results that almost destroyed her husband? She could ask him to leave her but that would surely destroy her.
So she doesn’t ask anything of him, other than that he stay alive and not make her a subject of gossip about town. And he complies because he promised he would, when he promised himself to her.
In a marriage with three people in it, Mary wonders why she is the one who is always alone.
--
When Holmes takes Watson in his mouth, Watson cannot help but gasp aloud at the warm deliciousness and drop his hands to twine in Sherlock’s hair. The sensation of Holmes’ teeth and tongues is ludicrously intense because it has been far too long since he’s been with Holmes this way. And he vows, as Sherlock hums in response to John’s hip thrust - that he will never go that long ever again.
Because he couldn’t, even if he wanted to.
Holmes shifts his attention to Watson’s sensitive ad John can’t help but arch his back and thrust himself deeper into Sherlock’s mouth. Holmes bats away the hand Watson is using to keep him in place as he nears his release and Watson almost weeps aloud when Holmes pull away, leaving his aching cock to cool in the chill air of the room.
“Holmes...” he groans and when he opens his eyes, Sherlock is grinning down at him smugly, his head cocked to the side. “What are you doing?”
“Watching you,” Holmes responds thickly, indicating with his head Watson’s lap. Because sure enough, in his desperation for release Watson has grabbed his cock and is stroking himself with languid thrusts. Holmes nibbles his lip as he watches and Watson speeds up his pace and he can see Holmes’ cock twitch at the sight. He grins. “Are you quite finished?” Sherlock asks a few moments later, his lip twisted in a bemused smile.
“Only if you’re ready to finish me off.”
Holmes practically jumps into his lap, turning so his back is to Watson’s chest and lowers himself slowly. They moan in tandem as Watson fills him, using his fingers on Holmes’ hip to guide him. Holmes is tight from under-use and Watson’s already heightened senses spiral into overdrive and they quickly find a fast, relentless pace, the room echoing with sighs and moans and the ridiculously erotic sound of skin against skin. Watson can’t get enough. They move and they are on the floor, Watson behind a bent over Holmes and the sight the still of the most remarkable things that he has ever seen. He doesn’t last long and Holmes comes apart in just a few strokes, both shuddering with their release.
Minutes later, after they’ve caught their breath and untangled themselves from the other, Watson turns to Holmes’ with a satiated smirk.
“I do hope Mrs Hudson is asleep.”
Sherlock smirks and his eyes flick over to the door, dancing with mirth.
“She has been standing outside of that door for quite some time now.”
There’s a muffled cry of indignation and then a hasty shuffling of feet as their land lady scurries away.
Holmes doesn’t do humility and Watson is sated enough that he doesn’t even try. He closes his eyes and can feel sleep tugging at him from the darkness but he jerks away when Holmes presses a quick kiss to his lips.
“To the bed, old boy,” he says and helps Watson to his feet. “We can give Nanny a spring quartet later...”
Watson manages a laugh but drops quickly to the bed, sighing as Holmes slides in behind him, fixing the covers over their bodies.
“Holmes?”
“Hmm?”
“We are fooling no one, you know?”
Holmes wraps an arm around Watson’s waist and his lips dance over Watson’s shoulder.
“I know, dear boy. I know.”