Fic: Bel Canto - 7/16 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Bel Canto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
Op. 20, No. 11
Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
On his way to pick up Mrs Hudson from Baker Street, John looks like a right idiot. He can only be grateful for the shelter a growler provides, the closed carriage hiding him from public view. Is there anything more moronic in appearance than being alone in fancy dress? John’s uncertain but heavily leaning toward the negative.
Such a good decision in hindsight, not bringing a spear. Bad enough being ridiculous without being a ridiculous menace. He supposes he is a bit of a menace tonight, but not quite in such an obvious way.
He leaves his mask upon the seat as he collects Mrs Hudson from her door. His coat falls over most of his outfit, for which he is thankful. Mrs Hudson’s outerwear does the same, the long black cloak falling over her white dress with elegance and dignity even as she giggles. He really ought to have left the gauntlets in the carriage.
“You look so uncomfortable.” She pats his arm fondly. “Don’t worry, that will fade. You’re not used to fancy dress, are you?”
“I’ve never been much for it,” he answers, handing her up into the carriage. They settle side by side in the back, their masks sitting across from them. Both are helmets with visors, hers gold with a red plume, his silver with none.
As the carriage pulls away from the kerb, Mrs Hudson unpins something from the underside of her cloak. “Turn here,” she prompts.
John does. He opens his coat when she tuts and holds still as she pins on a silver broach, its shape that of a spear over a shield.
“There. Oh, wait, should it be at a different angle...? Hm, let’s see.”
Grinning a bit, John holds still as Mrs Hudson sorts out the final touches. The spear fixes to the white of his tunic, left of the red, central stripe. John’s belt over the tunic is wide and red, the same shade as the vertical stripe, and that completes the cross on this Saint George. His trousers and boots are plain enough in cut, but the metallic shimmer of his trousers is frankly embarrassing. The shirt beneath the tunic is much the same. The gauntlets are primarily leather, pieces of metal fixed along the back of the hands and fingers. They’re light, a borrowed stage prop Miss Hooper said wouldn’t be missed. They’re slightly too large, however, intended for a man larger than John. He imagines he’ll remove them soon enough, possibly sticking them through his tunic belt.
He doesn’t see Mrs Hudson’s costume in full until they arrive at the opera house. Tonight, the building shines with light, all aglow from within and without. The streetlamps beat back the evening fog. Lights from the roof as well as the windows illuminate the opera house facade, turning its familiar face into that of a more attractive stranger.
Inside, the lobby shines with tinsel and the good candles. The marble floor has been polished to within an inch of its life, and that is the least of the visible preparations. There are flowers, actual flowers, a true hothouse indulgence at this time of year.
Helmets on, Mrs Hudson and John wait in the cloakroom queue. It gives John time to look about. Though he’s attended the backstage festivities in other years, the drunken revelry in narrow wooden halls pales in comparison to this. Everyone about them is elaborately disguised, impeccably dressed. The only comparison seems to be the growing inebriation. Masked ushers play the parts of waiters, weaving through the crowd with trays laden with cups and morsels.
Above the grand staircase, the conductor stands in the main balcony wearing the horns and fleece of a golden ram. Mr Johnson’s motions direct the musicians positioned over the main door, situated on the wrap-around balcony over the lobby. His position is clearly intended to draw attention, a reminder of the quality of music which will accompany the Masquerade all evening. Such a reminder is hardly necessary. The sound is rich and full.
Though the evening is still young, the dancing is already underway across the lobby floor. John tries to catch sight of a familiar shape, if not a familiar face, and finds himself at a loss. Domino masks across the eyes, half masks down to the lips, full masks concealing the entire face, animal masks contorting the features: all prevent John from any sort of immediate recognition. Perhaps some of them are police. If John can’t tell, he sincerely hopes the same is true of their phantom.
Handing over his coat at last, John takes advantage of the moment to surreptitiously adjust the item tucked beneath his regular belt, beneath his tunic and red belt but over his shirt. Perhaps bringing along his revolver wasn’t the most prudent course of action-if his bullets did damage to the marble, he’d never be able to pay for repairs-but the risks inherent in leaving it at home seemed larger than those of bringing it.
Adjusting her shawl over her shoulders, Mrs Hudson doesn’t seem to notice. She has little in the way of sleeves, her flowing white dress elegant in its simplicity. Toga-like and belted in gold high above her natural waist, the outfit makes her every inch Britannia. The shawl serves in the stead of a shield, blue with white and red stripes. Her trident pendant glitters on its gold rope about her neck. When she grins out at him through visor of her plumed helm, the sense of timeless dignity somewhat abates, leaving beloved Mrs Hudson standing beside him once more.
“I’ve no idea what you’re so embarrassed about,” she chides, taking his arm. “You’re very handsome, Dr Watson. Let’s see where Sherlock’s off to: he did promise you that sword.”
The search proves more entertaining than fruitful. They ooh and ahh over more elaborate costumes and laugh at the clever. At the sight of a plain white mask, John nearly gives himself whiplash. On the second glance, the mask is clearly the wrong shape, covering too little of the cheeks and forehead. What’s more, the man wearing it is a healthy, robust weight.
After that, John simply can’t stop looking. The conviction seizes him, absolutely irrational, that Vernet must be in attendance. How could it be possible for so many masked faces to be within one building and none of them belong to Vernet? This line of thought hardly makes sense, but the absurdity of the emotion does little to prevent John from feeling it. There’s a fellow dressed as Red Death with a skull mask and flaming scarlet cape, but while his flair matches Vernet’s, his height falls sadly short.
Mrs Hudson pats his arm in obvious understanding. For an instant, a flitter of what might be guilt crosses her features, but surely that’s the visor distorting an expression of concern.
“Is he all right?” John asks softly, a question he’s not permitted himself to ask for nearly an entire month.
She nearly sighs, and John recognises that combination of sad resignation and fondness from his own heart. “He’s quite all right,” Mrs Hudson promises. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough, dear.”
John’s gaze snaps out over the crowd immediately, seeking the tall men, the thin men, the tall, thin men.
“Later,” Mrs Hudson adds.
Early January, John knows. Early January, Vernet had said. New Year’s Eve is hardly that. Rather than press, John asks her about how the chandelier repairs are coming along. Quite well, it seems, but she shushes him: that announcement is meant to come later tonight.
The current song ends, and the dancers turn to applaud the conductor and the musicians in turn. Securing his helmet with his left hand, John peers up at the violinists, then at the conductor. No, still no. Though the ram’s head thoroughly disguises the conductor’s features, the man’s gestures are entirely wrong as he starts up the next waltz. It’s Mr Johnson after all. When Mrs Hudson pulls John into the whirling crowd of dancers, John has no complaints, only distractions.
One dance is all they have time for. Possibly for the best with Mrs Hudson’s hip to be considered. When this waltz concludes, the following pause stretches distinctly longer than the others, certainly longer than the applause lasts.
“Oh, there he is,” Mrs Hudson murmurs to John. “He doesn’t usually come in with his brother.”
John turns to the grand staircase in time to see a party of four descending the stairs. Costumed as the sun, the Earl’s face is largely obscured by his mask, but the moon beside him is too petite to be Miss Adler and must therefore be the Countess. The structure of her dress conceals well any signs of her condition. It must not be public news yet.
Behind the Earl and Countess follow Holmes and Miss Adler. When the Earl stands at the landing of the staircase, clearly about to give a bit of a speech, his moon remains in orbit. His brother does not. Holmes and Miss Adler move aside to stand by the marble railing, her arm threaded through his.
The Earl speaks words of welcome, but John’s attention has already been thoroughly captured. Holmes dresses in black tonight, black with ample nuance and no relief. The satin of his waistcoat gleams darkly against the coal of his linen shirt. A fleck of silver is apparent in his cravat, silk and black. What the silver pin is, John cannot say from his position at the bottom of the stairs.
Another glint of silver comes from his hand where fingers gloved in black leather curl about the head of an ebony walking stick. Holmes wears a cape over his jacket, trimmed with feather rather than fur at each shoulder. The cape matches the mask, a black domino with something of a beak. The well-fitting mask reveals much of his pale face, turning the sight of his skin shocking. From the top of the mask, dark plumage forms a small crest over his sleek hair. Were it not for this flamboyance, his outfit would appear as one of deep mourning.
In comparison to Holmes’ dark shine, Miss Adler emits an eerie glow, ethereal in white. With her double-tiered dress thirty years out of fashion and her mask painted with waxen features, she’s clearly meant to appear dated, ghostly. Seen jointly, their theme becomes clear: the Raven and Lost Lenore. Had John not earlier seen the Red Death walking about, the Edgar Allan Poe reference might have been lost upon him.
Without warning, Miss Adler looks him directly in the eyes and smiles.
John nods politely, then shifts his gaze to the Earl. This happens to be the moment where the Earl concludes speaking, and John is left with a sense that he ought to have paid better attention.
“Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it?” Mrs Hudson asks, clearly rhetorical.
“Ah, yes,” John says. She means Holmes and Adler’s joint costume, doesn’t she?
“It’ll be good to get back to work,” Mrs Hudson continues. Apparently the speech touched on the new chandelier.
“What day did he say that was?”
Mrs Hudson gives him an odd look through her visor. “The third of January.”
“I meant day of the week,” John corrects before working through his calendar aloud. Mrs Hudson seems to accept this.
Before John can make any more verbal missteps in the relative safety of Mrs Hudson’s company, Holmes and Miss Adler descend the steps to join them. Polite greetings are exchanged. When John and Holmes fail to do more than stare at each other, Miss Adler and Mrs Hudson seize hold of the conversation on their own. Something about the choreography of a ballet John doesn’t think he’s heard of, but it’s a topic Mrs Hudson takes to fondly once Miss Adler asks after it.
From under his fitted mask, Holmes flicks a smile in John’s direction. John returns it. The silver cravat pin is a bird in flight. Possibly a raven. It’s still difficult to tell. The buttons upon his waistcoat appear to be jet. Designed specifically for this costume, or something elaborately dark already in Holmes’ wardrobe? John wonders.
“I tucked the sword away in one of the back halls,” Holmes murmurs.
“Oh!” He wasn’t staring too intently, was he? “Ah, thank you.” His stomach turns over. “Where...?”
Holmes gestures slightly with his cane. “Shall we?”
“No, you shan’t,” Mrs Hudson interrupts. She looks to Miss Adler. “Once he vanishes, he never comes back.”
Very much amused, Miss Adler looks at John rather than Holmes. “Oh, I hardly mind. Do what you like with him.”
“But he so seldom complies,” John replies, thinking of the envelope still upon his dresser. Somewhat crinkled around the edges by now, but he’ll manage to slip it onto Holmes’ person at some point in the future.
As it so often is, Miss Adler’s grin is absolutely wicked. She curls her hand about Holmes’ elbow. “I’m certain we could make him between the two of us.”
The raven mask is much too small to disguise the flush blooming across Holmes’ cheeks, let alone the pink rising up his neck. He no longer appears quite so aristocratically pale, and yet it’s remarkably fetching. Holmes clears his throat. “I believe I owe Mrs Hudson a dance first.”
“Yes you do!” Mrs Hudson agrees. She accepts his arm from Miss Adler. John accepts Holmes’ cane. The head of it is, of course, a silver raven.
“I don’t suppose...?” John looks at Miss Adler with a question in his eyes. When she shakes her head against a dance, he sighs in relief.
“I’d much rather we talk,” she says and takes his arm as if his limb is his leash.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself with Holmes,” John says.
“He’s so easy to tease. If it weren’t so delightful, it’d be an absolute waste. He doesn’t have your shameless ways of flirtation, Dr Watson.”
“That’s more a case of losing shame than gaining flirtation,” John replies, pleased to see her grin.
“You simply must teach him how.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They look at the costumes of those dancing past, their words those of quiet praise or quieter mockery. Miss Adler has no difficulty recognising the individuals behind the masks, a skill John wonders at.
“How do you see through them so well?” John asks after she identifies Mr Havill behind a full mask.
“I hardly need to see through them,” she replies, eyes upon the crowd. “A disguise is a remarkable self-portrait, don’t you agree?”
“I’m not sure I do.”
She points him toward the Earl. “All of us in orbit about him?”
John laughs. “Too true. But what about you?”
“What about me?” She gestures down her body, then back to her mask.
John dissects the literary allusion. “Ah. The unattainable woman. Much sought, much pined-after, but forever lost to man.”
Miss Adler’s raised eyebrow is more cutting than any accusation of John taking the piss ever could be.
“I’m hardly a saint,” John explains, indicating the red cross over his tunic.
“But you would love to slay dragons, wouldn’t you,” she muses.
When they’d first met, such a comment would have disturbed him. By now, her perceptiveness hardly flusters him. He hums something noncommittal.
Still dancing, Mrs Hudson and Holmes rotate in their direction, Mrs Hudson so small and delicate in Holmes’ arms that John is nearly concerned. Holmes’ costume is just as attractive from behind as it is the front, the cut of his jacket stylishly short above the waist, his cape fluttering with his movements.
“Mrs Hudson needs no explanation, but what of Holmes?” John asks Miss Adler.
“Really? I’d have thought that would be obvious.” A smile plays at her lips.
“Not to me.”
“He’s a giant preening bird.”
John laughs. It’s so absurdly true. Beak, feathers and posture combine into the perfect articulation of that masterful arrogance. “Oh, God, I can’t stop seeing it now.” He knows why he didn’t see it before, however. Holmes normally loathes being stared at by large numbers. Perhaps it’s the pretence of anonymity that brings out this side of him.
When Holmes and Mrs Hudson rejoin them, both flushed and smiling, John manages to keep from laughing. It’s a close struggle. Holmes’ eyes linger on John’s face before John remembers to return the cane to him. The gauntlets make him slightly clumsy, an effect only worsened by the festive atmosphere. Holmes hardly seems to mind.
“Now, if Mrs Hudson finds it acceptable,” Holmes remarks, “I expect to vanish.”
“Your vanishing, yes. Your stealing our John, no,” Mrs Hudson replies, a playful hand on John’s arm.
“What if he promises to return me?” John asks.
“I don’t,” Holmes answers bluntly. “That defies the point of vanishing.”
“That defies of the point of adding a sword to my outfit, then.”
Holmes sighs. “Yes, yes, you can come back later and let Mrs Hudson show you off.”
“We’ll entertain ourselves in the meanwhile,” Miss Adler promises. “It’s been ages since I’ve had someone to discuss politics with. Now off you go.”
Mrs Hudson passes from John’s arm to link her elbow with Miss Adler’s. “We’ll get along nicely, I think,” she says, patting Miss Adler’s hand.
Holmes steers John away before John can be tempted into the conversation. He thinks he knows their initial topic from the newspaper, but he must have read the matter with only half his mind. Too distracted by the attempt to remember the specifics, he doesn’t realise just how far away from the party Holmes is leading him until Holmes opens a door to the backstage area.
“You stored it back here?”
“I didn’t want anyone happening over it,” Holmes answers with a hushed voice. He gestures John forward. John finds his way through the darkness with an outstretched hand, navigating toward the glow of the ghost light upon the stage. Its sphere of illumination is small, turning all beyond the pit to shadow.
“This seems excessive!” John calls back into the dark.
Holmes has rendered himself practically invisible, black on black on black. Only the shine of his buttons and the gleam of feathers separate him from shadow. “Here we are,” he says, holding the sheathed sword. Where he picked it up or how he located it, John has no idea. “The slit in your tunic ought to be high enough that it can attach to your belt beneath.”
“Ah, thank you.”
John holds out his hand, but Holmes steps close, a creature of dark refinement. He has recently chewed mint, the scent lingering on his breath. “Allow me.”
“Ah,” John says. His head nods permission as his mind shudders to a stop. Beneath the scent of mint lies a heady cologne, reminding the nose of old books, the pleasing smoke of a crackling wood fire, and soft, deep leather cushions.
“Lift your tunic for me.”
John does so, bunching the fabric high. He tries not to think about how ridiculous his trousers must look, even in such little light. He remembers the helmet and promptly surrenders any hope of dignity.
Holmes makes quick, efficient work of it, the backs of his leather-clad fingers bumping against John’s shirt, his waist. As closely as he stands, it’s still a wonder he can see the task at hand. Belt shifting about his hips, pulled by the additional weight of the rapier, John holds his body as still as possible, abruptly concerned for the weapon already tucked behind his belt. He reaches behind himself to hold it in place and hopes Holmes won’t notice.
“There,” Holmes says, releasing him. When he pulls away, the air turns noticeably colder. “How does it sit?”
“Well.” His eyes having adjusted, John looks out into the house, out and up. The space is remarkable, empty, a skeleton awaiting its flesh. The curtains of the boxes slumber like so many closed eyes. “The new chandelier,” he notes.
“Nearly identical to the old one.” Standing at John’s side, he strikes a fearsome profile, harsh and majestic. A self-portrait, indeed.
“But more difficult to tamper with, I hope?”
Holmes hums. “Would you care to see the new arrangement?” He gestures to the shadows above the house.
For an instant, John thinks of Mrs Hudson. In the next instant, he thinks of how perfectly capable she is of amusing herself. Miss Adler hardly merits a concern on that front.
“I would, thank you.”
They locate a small lamp and light it with matches. There would be something sacrilegious about using the ghost light for such a mundane task. His steps confident, Holmes leads the way with the flame in his hand. He leaves his cane behind. He never hesitates in direction, never falters when navigating the low beams that begin to interfere with their progress.
“How much time have you spent up here?” John wonders aloud, careful to keep the sword and hilt from hitting anything. It takes some growing accustomed to.
“Recently? Next to none.”
“And not recently?”
“Several decades ago, as frequently as I could escape my brother’s eye. The dimensions of the place have changed considerably.”
John laughs quietly, a low chuckle that doesn’t much sound like him. He clears his throat.
They reach the great chain and the mechanism holding the chandelier aloft. Holmes explains the additional safety measures, the lock and key required, and so on. The sound of his voice is pleasant, light and soft, the way spring rain ought to be. It falls away into the darkness before and below them, swallowed by the whisper of music heard even up so close to the ceiling.
When Holmes finishes speaking, he seems to expect some answer. Lacking it, John asks instead, “Supposing someone tried to drop this one, how would they go about it?”
Holmes seems pleased to convey his thoughts on the matter. There are but two ways in and out to the lowering mechanism and the great chain, all of them leading back toward the way they’d come. Easily enough watched.
“Shall we circle around the other way, then?” John suggests.
Perhaps Holmes’ expression flickers. Perhaps the lamp does. “Are you forever on duty, Watson?”
“Not forever,” John answers, smoothing seriousness over a grin. “Every so often, I have a bit of a lie-in.”
“Do you, now?”
“Yes. Sometimes as late as six o’clock.”
Holmes ducks his head, his lips pulled in the stupidest of grins. Boyish and idiotic, a remarkable impression of a young fool.
“This way?” John prompts, pointing. Entirely rhetorical.
“This way.” Holmes leads him. He’s careful to hold the lamp so both of them might see where to set their feet, a considerate matter indeed when they reach the access stairway. As they descend, there’s some light through the old window, though very little.
Struck by sudden insight, John halts.
Holmes turns to face him, a question on his lips, and John points at the window.
“There. That. Can that open?” Even as John asks this, he strips off his gauntlets and tucks them through the red belt. He tries the grimy window and it opens smoothly. Not a creak, not a protest. “I know for a fact no one oils this window.”
“The puddle before the chandelier fell,” Holmes adds, present on John’s page, on his exact paragraph, upon his very word.
“That’s how no one sees him,” John realises.
“Each time he causes an accident, he escapes out the nearest window,” Holmes continues. “Or even returns inside, should the rain put him in danger of falling.”
“No one noticed a puddle here,” John says.
Holmes immediately drops to a crouch, holding the lamp low. John bends down to look as much as he can manage with the sword on his hip. “No signs of water damage,” Holmes says. “Not so much as a droplet. Check the window.”
“For?”
“Stick your head out and have a look around.”
“Right.” John opens the window as far as it will go, breathing in what passes for fresh London air. He deposits his helmet on to the stairs. With that secure, he sticks his head out and twists, thoroughly off-balance. His gun at the small of his back only makes the whole thing more awkward, to say nothing of the sword. Holmes secures him, a hand on John’s side to keep him from tumbling down the staircase with his head still out a window.
“There’s an overhang,” John reports, pulling back inside. “I don’t think we’d have any water in through this window unless the wind were blowing in this exact direction.”
“Or he could have snuck in through the other window, left his puddle there and proceeded here once he was dry.” Holmes closes the window one-handed. “Do you think you could fit through here?”
“It’s wider than I am, but not by much,” John answers. “I’ve no idea how I’d manoeuvre. If you want me to try that--”
“Hardly.”
“That’s a relief.”
Holmes nods, a flash of black feathers. “There’s no sense in you trying. We’re looking for someone highly skilled, practised.”
“What, a professional burglar?”
“Not quite what I had in mind, no. We need a better look at the walls from the outside.” Holmes takes a step before stopping, nearly making John walk into him. “Don’t forget that.” Holmes gestures to John’s helmet with the lamp.
“Right, thanks.” John grabs it up and follows Holmes down the stairs and through a narrow wooden corridor, the site of one of the major falls in November. Good God, it’s enough to make the ridiculous seem plausible.
Walking between beams, smelling paint and sweat and infused smoke, John matches his steps to Holmes’. His ears strain for sound other than those of their movements, of breath and rustling cloth. At an unexpected creak, John seizes Holmes by the arm. Holmes freezes on the spot. John’s free hand settles on his revolver. Neither of them breathes.
For a long, slow moment, silence reigns.
As gently as he can, John releases him. “Sorry,” he whispers.
Holmes nods curtly but otherwise does not move.
John remains stationary as well.
Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen. At last, Holmes nods a second time. He resumes his previous stride. Fighting the urge to drag Holmes away to a well-illuminated room full of masked policemen, John follows more closely than before.
Holmes opens the door to the balcony portion of the roof, and they exit beneath a brumous sky. The streetlamps set the fog beneath them aglow but fail to reach higher. The winter clouds form a grey barrier against the light of the street and opera house both. John pulls his gauntlets back on, their leather of some use against the chill.
Ripping his mask off, Holmes strides to the edge of the roof. He sets down both mask and lamp upon the stone railing there before standing in front of the light and gazing up at the opera house. Alert and still, he makes a study of the walls. Even with the feathered cape, he is remarkably as John first truly remembers him: a man of aristocratic features and morbid fascination, a man watching a stagehand hang upon a rope.
John moves to stand at his side, helmet in his hands. The face of the opera house is elaborately carved. It would provide ample handholds to any skilled climber.
“Can you see?” Holmes asks, moving forward. He points up and around, directing John’s gaze. “There are paths between the windows, if one is sure of foot.” When he moves too close to the edge, John catches him by the arm once again.
“I can see it,” John says. “Is there anything else we need before we tell the police?”
“A footprint would be lovely.”
“Anything else?” Too much rain this December, and it’s been weeks since the opera house was open to business and therefore attacks.
“Do you suppose he could also climb down from here?” Holmes leans over the edge. “Theoretically possible. He’d be hidden within the dark and the fog.”
“You don’t think he’s coming in through below? Or even the front door?”
“The front door is always a risk...”
“But...?”
“That’s not dramatic enough.”
John nearly laughs. “Not everything has to be dramatic.”
“Everything else in his pattern is,” Holmes counters. “The timing of the hanging and the chandelier crash, for a start. The horse thefts were a feat of slight-of-hand. The injuries among the staff have played into common superstition. If it’s not suitably dramatic, it won’t be done.”
“Then you think it’s a theatre type? A theatre type who climbs, so... an acrobat?”
“The puppet master is hardly going to be the one climbing,” Holmes dismisses. “The cabbie had a plan from someone. Our climber-possibly an acrobat, yes-our climber must also have his orders.”
“Yes, but it would still make the puppet master a theatre type,” John argues.
Holmes looks at him oddly. “How do you mean?”
John returns the look in full. “Who else in the world thinks like that?”
“Not army men, by your implication.”
“Not particularly, no.”
Holmes shrugs a bit as if not particularly bothered. He leaves John’s side to return to the lamp. He checks his pocket watch in its light. “Ah, we still have plenty of time.”
“Sorry?” John half-follows, half-hovers. He folds his arms over his front, fighting down shivers when the wind picks up.
His cape billowing out behind him, Holmes leans in close, his eyes shining. “A masquerade on New Year’s Eve? On the most significant midnight of the year, a room full of society’s finest will unmask themselves. How could he possibly resist?”
“He wouldn’t be the only one enjoying himself,” John notes.
Holmes smirks. “I doubt we’d be alone in our enjoyment. Or do you bring a firearm to every party?”
John could choke on his tongue. He nearly does. Instead he says, “Only the dull ones.”
Holmes laughs, a startled, delighted sound that tugs on John’s heart first, his mind second. John frowns, confused without reason to be.
“I promise an exciting finish to the evening,” Holmes replies. “One way or another.”
John laughs as well. “Ought I to be frightened?”
Playing his hesitation for show, Holmes pauses a falsely ponderous moment before shaking his head. Though charming, this too strikes John oddly. It’s nearly as if Holmes is doing an impression of someone else, and yet the motions are sincere.
“Is, um.” John wets his lips. The moisture dries almost instantly in the cold. “Is something else the matter?”
Holmes’ hesitation becomes jarringly real.
John blinks and stands straighter, his shoulder protesting. “Beg pardon. If you’d rather not--”
“I’d rather,” Holmes interrupts.
Nodding, John waits rather than presses. An unconscious movement, his hands move to fold behind his back. His left hand hits the hilt of Holmes’ sword on the way. His right hand holds his helmet. His arms tremble with a shiver. It’s as much Holmes’ intent gaze as it is the chill.
“How much do you remember of Christmas?” Holmes asks.
“I remember impressively strong eggnog, for the most part,” John admits.
“Mrs Hudson has led a remarkable life. Her liver reflects this. What else, Watson?”
“I... imagine we began to refer to each other more informally.”
Holmes nods. Though dressed as a raven, he gazes as a hawk.
“You brought me home. After that, it’s all a touch dreamlike.”
“In what way?”
In many ways. He knows from the morning that Holmes lit him a fire. He thinks he remembers Holmes removing his shoes, kneeling upon the cold floor. Though the sight is clear in his mind, it doesn’t seem real. “In that I don’t remember it clearly. I’ve never been a moody drunk, only a sleepy one.”
“I said there was something I needed to tell you. Do you remember that?”
John fiddles with the helmet behind his back. He forces himself to stop. “You... You needed to ask your lord brother first.”
Holmes nods. “I have. As loath as I am to ask permission, I do have it.”
“Should you--” John shivers. “Should you be saying it out here? The breeze might carry.”
“Yes,” Holmes says, the word oddly detached. Then: “Yes! Yes, inside.” He takes up the lantern and his mask. They close the door securely behind them. Though the air inside isn’t warm enough to make the contrast burn, the lack of wind is an obvious blessing. John still carries his chilled helmet rather than putting it back on. Holmes does the same with his mask.
Biting down any sound of complaint at the ache of his shoulder, John follows Holmes silently until he realises the man’s destination. Does Holmes truly not know how little privacy that would afford them?
“Where are you going?” John whispers.
“A box,” Holmes answers.
John stops immediately.
Holmes walks nearly five paces before turning around. The lamp flickers with his motion. “Problem?”
“Not the best place to be if you don’t want to be overheard tonight.”
Holmes frowns as if mystified.
John clears his throat out of delicacy.
Holmes’ frown deepens.
“Many of them will already be in use,” John explains. “In much the same way I imagine members of the staff are occupying several of the dressing rooms.”
Holmes blinks very slowly. A flush crawls up his throat.
“Unless you’d rather overhear some very intimate proceedings, I suggest somewhere else.”
“Privacy would be... Ah, this way.” Holmes walks quickly away. John fancies even his ears are red.
Holmes leads them back down to the stage area. Rather than approach the ghost light, Holmes keeps to the wings. “Close the door,” he whispers to John, and John does so more by feel than by sight. With the grand drape down, more light comes from Holmes’ lamp than the ghost light. Holmes dims it before setting it and his mask down on a tall stool by the side wall. He moves to stand between the backdrop and a groundrow. A leg curtain falls behind the groundrow, and it is this curtain to which Holmes gestures.
“Here,” Holmes whispers. If the background behind him weren’t that of a spring sky, Holmes would vanish into shadow. The lamp shines faintly along one side of him, his other half as dark as the unknowable side of the moon.
Intrigued, John complies. He leaves his helmet behind to stand with his back to the leg curtain, to the row of leg curtains and the grand drape, to the house beyond. The hanging fabric stirs when the sheath brushes against it.
“Can we be overheard?” John asks. The stage is meant to amplify sound, not conceal it.
Holmes shakes his head. “The curtain is very effective. I have to ask you to keep your voice low.”
John nods. Only the boxes high above ought to be occupied, and those have their own curtains drawn, their own sounds, soft and sighing. They ought not to be overheard and, if overheard, may be ignored for better, sweeter things.
Possibly thinking of the same, Holmes radiates discomfort. John tries to imagine Holmes’ reaction if they had drawn close enough to hear the wet, straining sounds of lovemaking from within the boxes. Perhaps his face would have turned a scarlet to match the box curtains. Perhaps he would have steadfastly carried on, appearing just as pained as he does now.
“There are two matters I am compelled to share with you,” Holmes begins. “Knowledge of the second is contingent upon your acceptance of the first. This is a matter of safety. Of mine and, by extension, my brother’s. Do you understand?”
Not in the slightest. “Yes,” John answers nonetheless, “but if it would be safer not to tell me, I feel you ought not to tell me.”
“This confidence is already drastically overdue, Watson.”
“Drastically?”
Holmes nods curtly. Sharp tension lines his body, nearly trembles within him.
“Then I accept the first. Whatever you need me for, yes.” When Holmes fails to relax in the slightest, clearly doubting John’s word, John asks, “How long has this been a problem?”
“Not a problem.” Holmes’ whisper is harsh. “A problem for Mycroft, not for me.”
John nods gently, willing to guide Holmes through his agitation. Compared to Vernet’s raging doubts over his score and libretto, this can hardly present a difficulty. “He refused you permission until recently?”
“I... lacked evidence to sway him. He refused to trust you.”
“What changed his mind?”
Holmes slips into the explanation with sudden ease. “On paper, you appear a quiet man. Your history here suggests you took the position out of grief and a desire for distraction. You permitted the opera house to consume you, as is its wont. You appeared content to remain static: loyal to the concept of the joint-enterprise of the stage, but truly attached to only a few.”
Voice barely a whisper, Holmes leans in closer, assuring John’s understanding of his words, if not his greater meaning. His cologne is distracting. “You prefer not to discuss your past and grow agitated when pressed beyond your self-imposed limits. Initially, I thought this was grief and you trapped within it. Or guilt, perhaps. But I was wrong. You live in your unchanging home without suffocation and think of your wife’s ghost with fondness, not loyalty: it is neither grief nor guilt.
“It is a hatred of pity. Cloying sympathy is anathema to you. It took me until Christmas to see that. I apologise for the delay.”
“I still don’t understand,” John whispers. “How does any of this impact your lord brother?”
“Only through me.” Holmes leans closer still, enough for John to feel the heat of his breath. The scent of mint has largely abated, but what is left is pleasant for more than merely its warmth. John’s mouth waters. He thinks fleetingly, irrationally, of indoor herb gardens and the way Holmes fingers might look plucking soft leaves from a sprig.
Holmes’ height and proximity bid John’s chin to rise, his head to tilt. Holmes’ face is little more than shadow in the dark, recognisable only through the prominence of his cheekbones and the angle of his jaw.
“To have you at all grief-ridden or guilt-bound would be... inconvenient.”
“To what--” John turns his head and clears his throat, surprised by his own sudden rasp. “To what end?”
“To whatever end.”
Too afraid of reaching the wrong conclusion, John’s mind shies away from his first resulting thought. “I... ah. What, er.” John wets his lips. “What particular destination do you have in mind?” He ignores his breathless voice. He attempts a smile.
Holmes looks down. Not at John’s mouth but at his own hands, clasped low between their bodies. Visible only by the sheen upon the leather, their grip is tight and slowly relinquished. The right hand rises. Holmes’ hand navigates the low barrier of the sword hilt before hovering over John’s arm, circling from elbow to forearm.
Holmes’ fingers dip between John’s arm and his side. They dip deeply, sliding between layers of fabric until Holmes’ palm lies against the curve of John’s ribcage. John continues to stare, to watch Holmes’ forearm even as he feels gloved fingers curl into him. All movement of his body has been claimed by his pounding heart. There is nothing left for any other part of him.
“I know you want me,” Holmes murmurs, “but will you have me?”
There is a kiss on those lips, one which would prove as easily claimed as rain upon an upturned face. There is warmth and good work and an earl-to-be willing to kneel at his feet. There is an increasingly crinkled envelope upon John’s bedroom dresser. There is so terribly much to be held in the darkness. There is so terribly little that may ever know sunlight.
“I don’t think I can,” John whispers.
Holmes releases his breath in a rush, nearly laughing in incomprehensive relief. “You can.” He presses his lips to John’s temple. “You can and you may. We’ve Mycroft’s permission, practically his blessing. For him, that’s much the same thing.”
His kisses to John’s skin are clumsy, rushed, so desperate is their sincerity. They demand John turn his face and answer them in kind. They demand John never move again and remain a stationary target to their tender onslaught.
John could. So very easily. He could look up. As simple as that. Instead, he shakes his head and feels as if he may die.
“No?” Holmes asks, indulgent and amused. “There are no barriers, John. Only discretion. We are each more than capable of that.”
“And if your nephew is born a niece?” John tries to pull back, but his hands traitorously remain anchored on Holmes’ hips. His back presses against the curtain. As Holmes pursues him, the fabric ripples and gives way, enveloping them in a soft, shifting alcove.
“I told you, I’ll never marry.” Holmes presses their foreheads together rather than seeking John’s mouth, a respite John mentally welcomes and physically resents. His body has no complaints, no need for sanity. Though terribly warm, he shivers at the touch of leather curling against his cheek. With that, the line of John’s trousers becomes absolutely ruined.
John shakes his head against Holmes’ brow, his palm. “Not even for your nieces? Not even if your brother cuts you off?”
“I’ve thought this through,” Holmes answers, irritation creeping into his quiet tone. His light voice grows tight.
“All right,” John whispers softly. “Then what will you do if it’s a girl and your brother cuts you off? You’d take poorly to being a kept man.”
“I’ve some investments. I’m hardly destitute.”
“How often would we see each other? On what pretences?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what, being reasonable?”
“We’ll find a way around it,” Holmes insists.
John shies away into the curtain. Guilt boils through his stomach, the fumes of it rising into his mouth. “I don’t...”
“You don’t what?” Holmes’ eyes narrow. “You don’t want to. You--” His hand jerks back from John’s face. “These aren’t concerns. They’re excuses.”
“I’m sorry,” John whispers.
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“And for what, pray tell, are you sorry?” Holmes practically spits the word, his voice never rising in volume.
For wanting someone else, John doesn’t say. Instead, John ducks his head and begins to free his belt of Holmes’ sword. Holmes stands before him without a word, without a sound, but so very far from silent. Not even the darkness can conceal the shaking of his hands or the contortion of his features.
Rather than risk handing it over, John leans down to the side and sets the sword upon the stage. He stands slowly, carefully. They no longer touch in any way.
“Tell me, Dr Watson,” Holmes bids him. “How far does your amenable nature serve? How many acts of perversion would you allow me to commit before disgust overcame your compliance?”
“I’m not disgusted. I...” There ought to be words for this. Surely they exist. “You’re a very attractive man. I stopped thinking.”
Holmes’ lip curls. “You didn’t. Not for one instant.”
“I was confused.”
“By what?”
“This not being all in my head,” John explains.
“You’re an extremely unobservant man.”
“Oh, good, we agree.”
A flippant response, a stupid response, and Holmes’ resulting rage is well-deserved. Such a wordless, towering rage. It blazes through his eyes and brings his tall stature to tremble. To look up at his face is to gaze upon the heights of a cliff when the ground begins to quake. John braces for a blow that never falls.
“Go,” Holmes growls.
John escapes from the curtain’s embrace, nearly tripping over the painted scenery of the wooden groundrow. The ghost light half blinds him as he emerges from behind the grand drape. His footsteps resound against the stage, against the stairs, and John is around the pit before he realises he’s left his helmet. It lies at the base of the stool with Holmes’ mask upon it.
With a quiet, unintentional curse, John stops. There’s no rejoining the Masquerade without his helmet. He thinks for a moment of hiding in one of the halls, but Holmes might also choose to hide there. He can’t remain in the house either, not with Holmes still upon the stage.
At the sound of footsteps upon the stage, John turns and immediately ducks behind the pit wall. His helmet smacks against the other side. John waits a moment, uncertain Holmes isn’t about to throw the sword at him as well. Rising slowly from his crouch, he peers over the pit wall.
Holmes glares down at him with tense shoulders and fisted hands. Proud even now, especially now, he holds his chin high. The cold footlights decorate the stage before him, as if reality willingly embroiders itself to better display Sherlock Holmes.
John is almost sick to recognise the moment for what it is: another opening, another chance. John can change his mind. He can apologise, can fall upon his knees and throw caution away with even more force than Holmes mustered on his helmet. Regardless of any observers from above, the opportunity beckons. John can do this, and Holmes will still have him.
Instead, eyes on the floor, John walks to the small gate in the pit wall, reaches inside, and unfastens the latch. He finds his helmet. He doesn’t inspect it, doesn’t put it on. He merely takes it and exits the pit. Turning to latch the gate behind him, he looks up. He knows he shouldn’t and he does it all the same.
Holmes is unreadable from this angle, the ghost light transformed into a halo, Holmes into a silhouette. John shifts to the side until he can make out Holmes’ face.
“What?” Holmes snaps.
Willing himself into the living embodiment of an apology, John shakes his head.
“If you’ve a question, ask it.”
Considering the number of policemen in the lobby and Holmes’ prominence upon the stage, that would be foolish in the extreme.
At the first sign of John’s continuing silence, Holmes bristles all the worse.
“You said two matters,” John mumbles as quietly as he can.
“I said knowledge of the second was contingent upon acceptance of the first.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Holmes mocks, arms folded across his chest.
John’s mind stumbles, repeating, wondering at a secret that could require acceptance of Holmes’ proclivities. A matter of safety. Inversion is a matter of safety, but what could possibly compound upon that?
The answer comes upon him with full and terrifying force. It falls from his lips in the merest whisper, a statement to be contradicted, an idea to be torn to shreds: “You’re in love with me.”
Holmes doesn’t reply, but his answer is plain. It resides in the fall of his arms to his sides, in the step backward into the light. It lives openly upon Holmes’ features in surprise and devastation. In no hyperbolic terms, the very moment Holmes’ heart shatters upon the stage is unavoidably, inescapably visible.
John’s first instinct is to step forward, to rush forward. To sweep the pieces up and assemble them between his hands. If he could press them together until they fused anew, if he could breathe upon broken flesh and mend it through heat alone, he would. Most readily, he would.
He steps forward, and his friend shatters in full.
Holmes does not shout or cry or find another object to throw. He does not gain in volume. Instead, he mutes himself. He becomes utterly, terribly silent in a way John has never before known him. He does not tell John to go. He doesn’t say anything at all.
“My mistake,” John whispers, because clearly it was. Because that was not something to be said, and because whatever pride Holmes retains ought to be salvaged.
Holmes continues to stand, utterly wordless. His mouth trembles. Be it from the force of a shout or the repression of tears, John doesn’t remain to discover. Helmet in hand, John turns and walks quickly up the long stretch of aisle. When he reaches the door, he risks a glance, but Holmes is already gone.
previous | next
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8k out of 123.5ishk
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character death
Op. 20, No. 1
Op. 20, No. 2
Op. 20, No. 3
Op. 20, No. 4
Op. 20, No. 5
Op. 20, No. 6
Op. 20, No. 7
Op. 20, No. 8
Op. 20, No. 9
Op. 20, No. 10
Op. 20, No. 11
Op. 20, No. 12
Op. 20, No. 13
Op. 20, No. 14
Op. 20, No. 15
Op. 20, No. 16
On his way to pick up Mrs Hudson from Baker Street, John looks like a right idiot. He can only be grateful for the shelter a growler provides, the closed carriage hiding him from public view. Is there anything more moronic in appearance than being alone in fancy dress? John’s uncertain but heavily leaning toward the negative.
Such a good decision in hindsight, not bringing a spear. Bad enough being ridiculous without being a ridiculous menace. He supposes he is a bit of a menace tonight, but not quite in such an obvious way.
He leaves his mask upon the seat as he collects Mrs Hudson from her door. His coat falls over most of his outfit, for which he is thankful. Mrs Hudson’s outerwear does the same, the long black cloak falling over her white dress with elegance and dignity even as she giggles. He really ought to have left the gauntlets in the carriage.
“You look so uncomfortable.” She pats his arm fondly. “Don’t worry, that will fade. You’re not used to fancy dress, are you?”
“I’ve never been much for it,” he answers, handing her up into the carriage. They settle side by side in the back, their masks sitting across from them. Both are helmets with visors, hers gold with a red plume, his silver with none.
As the carriage pulls away from the kerb, Mrs Hudson unpins something from the underside of her cloak. “Turn here,” she prompts.
John does. He opens his coat when she tuts and holds still as she pins on a silver broach, its shape that of a spear over a shield.
“There. Oh, wait, should it be at a different angle...? Hm, let’s see.”
Grinning a bit, John holds still as Mrs Hudson sorts out the final touches. The spear fixes to the white of his tunic, left of the red, central stripe. John’s belt over the tunic is wide and red, the same shade as the vertical stripe, and that completes the cross on this Saint George. His trousers and boots are plain enough in cut, but the metallic shimmer of his trousers is frankly embarrassing. The shirt beneath the tunic is much the same. The gauntlets are primarily leather, pieces of metal fixed along the back of the hands and fingers. They’re light, a borrowed stage prop Miss Hooper said wouldn’t be missed. They’re slightly too large, however, intended for a man larger than John. He imagines he’ll remove them soon enough, possibly sticking them through his tunic belt.
He doesn’t see Mrs Hudson’s costume in full until they arrive at the opera house. Tonight, the building shines with light, all aglow from within and without. The streetlamps beat back the evening fog. Lights from the roof as well as the windows illuminate the opera house facade, turning its familiar face into that of a more attractive stranger.
Inside, the lobby shines with tinsel and the good candles. The marble floor has been polished to within an inch of its life, and that is the least of the visible preparations. There are flowers, actual flowers, a true hothouse indulgence at this time of year.
Helmets on, Mrs Hudson and John wait in the cloakroom queue. It gives John time to look about. Though he’s attended the backstage festivities in other years, the drunken revelry in narrow wooden halls pales in comparison to this. Everyone about them is elaborately disguised, impeccably dressed. The only comparison seems to be the growing inebriation. Masked ushers play the parts of waiters, weaving through the crowd with trays laden with cups and morsels.
Above the grand staircase, the conductor stands in the main balcony wearing the horns and fleece of a golden ram. Mr Johnson’s motions direct the musicians positioned over the main door, situated on the wrap-around balcony over the lobby. His position is clearly intended to draw attention, a reminder of the quality of music which will accompany the Masquerade all evening. Such a reminder is hardly necessary. The sound is rich and full.
Though the evening is still young, the dancing is already underway across the lobby floor. John tries to catch sight of a familiar shape, if not a familiar face, and finds himself at a loss. Domino masks across the eyes, half masks down to the lips, full masks concealing the entire face, animal masks contorting the features: all prevent John from any sort of immediate recognition. Perhaps some of them are police. If John can’t tell, he sincerely hopes the same is true of their phantom.
Handing over his coat at last, John takes advantage of the moment to surreptitiously adjust the item tucked beneath his regular belt, beneath his tunic and red belt but over his shirt. Perhaps bringing along his revolver wasn’t the most prudent course of action-if his bullets did damage to the marble, he’d never be able to pay for repairs-but the risks inherent in leaving it at home seemed larger than those of bringing it.
Adjusting her shawl over her shoulders, Mrs Hudson doesn’t seem to notice. She has little in the way of sleeves, her flowing white dress elegant in its simplicity. Toga-like and belted in gold high above her natural waist, the outfit makes her every inch Britannia. The shawl serves in the stead of a shield, blue with white and red stripes. Her trident pendant glitters on its gold rope about her neck. When she grins out at him through visor of her plumed helm, the sense of timeless dignity somewhat abates, leaving beloved Mrs Hudson standing beside him once more.
“I’ve no idea what you’re so embarrassed about,” she chides, taking his arm. “You’re very handsome, Dr Watson. Let’s see where Sherlock’s off to: he did promise you that sword.”
The search proves more entertaining than fruitful. They ooh and ahh over more elaborate costumes and laugh at the clever. At the sight of a plain white mask, John nearly gives himself whiplash. On the second glance, the mask is clearly the wrong shape, covering too little of the cheeks and forehead. What’s more, the man wearing it is a healthy, robust weight.
After that, John simply can’t stop looking. The conviction seizes him, absolutely irrational, that Vernet must be in attendance. How could it be possible for so many masked faces to be within one building and none of them belong to Vernet? This line of thought hardly makes sense, but the absurdity of the emotion does little to prevent John from feeling it. There’s a fellow dressed as Red Death with a skull mask and flaming scarlet cape, but while his flair matches Vernet’s, his height falls sadly short.
Mrs Hudson pats his arm in obvious understanding. For an instant, a flitter of what might be guilt crosses her features, but surely that’s the visor distorting an expression of concern.
“Is he all right?” John asks softly, a question he’s not permitted himself to ask for nearly an entire month.
She nearly sighs, and John recognises that combination of sad resignation and fondness from his own heart. “He’s quite all right,” Mrs Hudson promises. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough, dear.”
John’s gaze snaps out over the crowd immediately, seeking the tall men, the thin men, the tall, thin men.
“Later,” Mrs Hudson adds.
Early January, John knows. Early January, Vernet had said. New Year’s Eve is hardly that. Rather than press, John asks her about how the chandelier repairs are coming along. Quite well, it seems, but she shushes him: that announcement is meant to come later tonight.
The current song ends, and the dancers turn to applaud the conductor and the musicians in turn. Securing his helmet with his left hand, John peers up at the violinists, then at the conductor. No, still no. Though the ram’s head thoroughly disguises the conductor’s features, the man’s gestures are entirely wrong as he starts up the next waltz. It’s Mr Johnson after all. When Mrs Hudson pulls John into the whirling crowd of dancers, John has no complaints, only distractions.
One dance is all they have time for. Possibly for the best with Mrs Hudson’s hip to be considered. When this waltz concludes, the following pause stretches distinctly longer than the others, certainly longer than the applause lasts.
“Oh, there he is,” Mrs Hudson murmurs to John. “He doesn’t usually come in with his brother.”
John turns to the grand staircase in time to see a party of four descending the stairs. Costumed as the sun, the Earl’s face is largely obscured by his mask, but the moon beside him is too petite to be Miss Adler and must therefore be the Countess. The structure of her dress conceals well any signs of her condition. It must not be public news yet.
Behind the Earl and Countess follow Holmes and Miss Adler. When the Earl stands at the landing of the staircase, clearly about to give a bit of a speech, his moon remains in orbit. His brother does not. Holmes and Miss Adler move aside to stand by the marble railing, her arm threaded through his.
The Earl speaks words of welcome, but John’s attention has already been thoroughly captured. Holmes dresses in black tonight, black with ample nuance and no relief. The satin of his waistcoat gleams darkly against the coal of his linen shirt. A fleck of silver is apparent in his cravat, silk and black. What the silver pin is, John cannot say from his position at the bottom of the stairs.
Another glint of silver comes from his hand where fingers gloved in black leather curl about the head of an ebony walking stick. Holmes wears a cape over his jacket, trimmed with feather rather than fur at each shoulder. The cape matches the mask, a black domino with something of a beak. The well-fitting mask reveals much of his pale face, turning the sight of his skin shocking. From the top of the mask, dark plumage forms a small crest over his sleek hair. Were it not for this flamboyance, his outfit would appear as one of deep mourning.
In comparison to Holmes’ dark shine, Miss Adler emits an eerie glow, ethereal in white. With her double-tiered dress thirty years out of fashion and her mask painted with waxen features, she’s clearly meant to appear dated, ghostly. Seen jointly, their theme becomes clear: the Raven and Lost Lenore. Had John not earlier seen the Red Death walking about, the Edgar Allan Poe reference might have been lost upon him.
Without warning, Miss Adler looks him directly in the eyes and smiles.
John nods politely, then shifts his gaze to the Earl. This happens to be the moment where the Earl concludes speaking, and John is left with a sense that he ought to have paid better attention.
“Oh, that’s lovely, isn’t it?” Mrs Hudson asks, clearly rhetorical.
“Ah, yes,” John says. She means Holmes and Adler’s joint costume, doesn’t she?
“It’ll be good to get back to work,” Mrs Hudson continues. Apparently the speech touched on the new chandelier.
“What day did he say that was?”
Mrs Hudson gives him an odd look through her visor. “The third of January.”
“I meant day of the week,” John corrects before working through his calendar aloud. Mrs Hudson seems to accept this.
Before John can make any more verbal missteps in the relative safety of Mrs Hudson’s company, Holmes and Miss Adler descend the steps to join them. Polite greetings are exchanged. When John and Holmes fail to do more than stare at each other, Miss Adler and Mrs Hudson seize hold of the conversation on their own. Something about the choreography of a ballet John doesn’t think he’s heard of, but it’s a topic Mrs Hudson takes to fondly once Miss Adler asks after it.
From under his fitted mask, Holmes flicks a smile in John’s direction. John returns it. The silver cravat pin is a bird in flight. Possibly a raven. It’s still difficult to tell. The buttons upon his waistcoat appear to be jet. Designed specifically for this costume, or something elaborately dark already in Holmes’ wardrobe? John wonders.
“I tucked the sword away in one of the back halls,” Holmes murmurs.
“Oh!” He wasn’t staring too intently, was he? “Ah, thank you.” His stomach turns over. “Where...?”
Holmes gestures slightly with his cane. “Shall we?”
“No, you shan’t,” Mrs Hudson interrupts. She looks to Miss Adler. “Once he vanishes, he never comes back.”
Very much amused, Miss Adler looks at John rather than Holmes. “Oh, I hardly mind. Do what you like with him.”
“But he so seldom complies,” John replies, thinking of the envelope still upon his dresser. Somewhat crinkled around the edges by now, but he’ll manage to slip it onto Holmes’ person at some point in the future.
As it so often is, Miss Adler’s grin is absolutely wicked. She curls her hand about Holmes’ elbow. “I’m certain we could make him between the two of us.”
The raven mask is much too small to disguise the flush blooming across Holmes’ cheeks, let alone the pink rising up his neck. He no longer appears quite so aristocratically pale, and yet it’s remarkably fetching. Holmes clears his throat. “I believe I owe Mrs Hudson a dance first.”
“Yes you do!” Mrs Hudson agrees. She accepts his arm from Miss Adler. John accepts Holmes’ cane. The head of it is, of course, a silver raven.
“I don’t suppose...?” John looks at Miss Adler with a question in his eyes. When she shakes her head against a dance, he sighs in relief.
“I’d much rather we talk,” she says and takes his arm as if his limb is his leash.
“You seem to be enjoying yourself with Holmes,” John says.
“He’s so easy to tease. If it weren’t so delightful, it’d be an absolute waste. He doesn’t have your shameless ways of flirtation, Dr Watson.”
“That’s more a case of losing shame than gaining flirtation,” John replies, pleased to see her grin.
“You simply must teach him how.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They look at the costumes of those dancing past, their words those of quiet praise or quieter mockery. Miss Adler has no difficulty recognising the individuals behind the masks, a skill John wonders at.
“How do you see through them so well?” John asks after she identifies Mr Havill behind a full mask.
“I hardly need to see through them,” she replies, eyes upon the crowd. “A disguise is a remarkable self-portrait, don’t you agree?”
“I’m not sure I do.”
She points him toward the Earl. “All of us in orbit about him?”
John laughs. “Too true. But what about you?”
“What about me?” She gestures down her body, then back to her mask.
John dissects the literary allusion. “Ah. The unattainable woman. Much sought, much pined-after, but forever lost to man.”
Miss Adler’s raised eyebrow is more cutting than any accusation of John taking the piss ever could be.
“I’m hardly a saint,” John explains, indicating the red cross over his tunic.
“But you would love to slay dragons, wouldn’t you,” she muses.
When they’d first met, such a comment would have disturbed him. By now, her perceptiveness hardly flusters him. He hums something noncommittal.
Still dancing, Mrs Hudson and Holmes rotate in their direction, Mrs Hudson so small and delicate in Holmes’ arms that John is nearly concerned. Holmes’ costume is just as attractive from behind as it is the front, the cut of his jacket stylishly short above the waist, his cape fluttering with his movements.
“Mrs Hudson needs no explanation, but what of Holmes?” John asks Miss Adler.
“Really? I’d have thought that would be obvious.” A smile plays at her lips.
“Not to me.”
“He’s a giant preening bird.”
John laughs. It’s so absurdly true. Beak, feathers and posture combine into the perfect articulation of that masterful arrogance. “Oh, God, I can’t stop seeing it now.” He knows why he didn’t see it before, however. Holmes normally loathes being stared at by large numbers. Perhaps it’s the pretence of anonymity that brings out this side of him.
When Holmes and Mrs Hudson rejoin them, both flushed and smiling, John manages to keep from laughing. It’s a close struggle. Holmes’ eyes linger on John’s face before John remembers to return the cane to him. The gauntlets make him slightly clumsy, an effect only worsened by the festive atmosphere. Holmes hardly seems to mind.
“Now, if Mrs Hudson finds it acceptable,” Holmes remarks, “I expect to vanish.”
“Your vanishing, yes. Your stealing our John, no,” Mrs Hudson replies, a playful hand on John’s arm.
“What if he promises to return me?” John asks.
“I don’t,” Holmes answers bluntly. “That defies the point of vanishing.”
“That defies of the point of adding a sword to my outfit, then.”
Holmes sighs. “Yes, yes, you can come back later and let Mrs Hudson show you off.”
“We’ll entertain ourselves in the meanwhile,” Miss Adler promises. “It’s been ages since I’ve had someone to discuss politics with. Now off you go.”
Mrs Hudson passes from John’s arm to link her elbow with Miss Adler’s. “We’ll get along nicely, I think,” she says, patting Miss Adler’s hand.
Holmes steers John away before John can be tempted into the conversation. He thinks he knows their initial topic from the newspaper, but he must have read the matter with only half his mind. Too distracted by the attempt to remember the specifics, he doesn’t realise just how far away from the party Holmes is leading him until Holmes opens a door to the backstage area.
“You stored it back here?”
“I didn’t want anyone happening over it,” Holmes answers with a hushed voice. He gestures John forward. John finds his way through the darkness with an outstretched hand, navigating toward the glow of the ghost light upon the stage. Its sphere of illumination is small, turning all beyond the pit to shadow.
“This seems excessive!” John calls back into the dark.
Holmes has rendered himself practically invisible, black on black on black. Only the shine of his buttons and the gleam of feathers separate him from shadow. “Here we are,” he says, holding the sheathed sword. Where he picked it up or how he located it, John has no idea. “The slit in your tunic ought to be high enough that it can attach to your belt beneath.”
“Ah, thank you.”
John holds out his hand, but Holmes steps close, a creature of dark refinement. He has recently chewed mint, the scent lingering on his breath. “Allow me.”
“Ah,” John says. His head nods permission as his mind shudders to a stop. Beneath the scent of mint lies a heady cologne, reminding the nose of old books, the pleasing smoke of a crackling wood fire, and soft, deep leather cushions.
“Lift your tunic for me.”
John does so, bunching the fabric high. He tries not to think about how ridiculous his trousers must look, even in such little light. He remembers the helmet and promptly surrenders any hope of dignity.
Holmes makes quick, efficient work of it, the backs of his leather-clad fingers bumping against John’s shirt, his waist. As closely as he stands, it’s still a wonder he can see the task at hand. Belt shifting about his hips, pulled by the additional weight of the rapier, John holds his body as still as possible, abruptly concerned for the weapon already tucked behind his belt. He reaches behind himself to hold it in place and hopes Holmes won’t notice.
“There,” Holmes says, releasing him. When he pulls away, the air turns noticeably colder. “How does it sit?”
“Well.” His eyes having adjusted, John looks out into the house, out and up. The space is remarkable, empty, a skeleton awaiting its flesh. The curtains of the boxes slumber like so many closed eyes. “The new chandelier,” he notes.
“Nearly identical to the old one.” Standing at John’s side, he strikes a fearsome profile, harsh and majestic. A self-portrait, indeed.
“But more difficult to tamper with, I hope?”
Holmes hums. “Would you care to see the new arrangement?” He gestures to the shadows above the house.
For an instant, John thinks of Mrs Hudson. In the next instant, he thinks of how perfectly capable she is of amusing herself. Miss Adler hardly merits a concern on that front.
“I would, thank you.”
They locate a small lamp and light it with matches. There would be something sacrilegious about using the ghost light for such a mundane task. His steps confident, Holmes leads the way with the flame in his hand. He leaves his cane behind. He never hesitates in direction, never falters when navigating the low beams that begin to interfere with their progress.
“How much time have you spent up here?” John wonders aloud, careful to keep the sword and hilt from hitting anything. It takes some growing accustomed to.
“Recently? Next to none.”
“And not recently?”
“Several decades ago, as frequently as I could escape my brother’s eye. The dimensions of the place have changed considerably.”
John laughs quietly, a low chuckle that doesn’t much sound like him. He clears his throat.
They reach the great chain and the mechanism holding the chandelier aloft. Holmes explains the additional safety measures, the lock and key required, and so on. The sound of his voice is pleasant, light and soft, the way spring rain ought to be. It falls away into the darkness before and below them, swallowed by the whisper of music heard even up so close to the ceiling.
When Holmes finishes speaking, he seems to expect some answer. Lacking it, John asks instead, “Supposing someone tried to drop this one, how would they go about it?”
Holmes seems pleased to convey his thoughts on the matter. There are but two ways in and out to the lowering mechanism and the great chain, all of them leading back toward the way they’d come. Easily enough watched.
“Shall we circle around the other way, then?” John suggests.
Perhaps Holmes’ expression flickers. Perhaps the lamp does. “Are you forever on duty, Watson?”
“Not forever,” John answers, smoothing seriousness over a grin. “Every so often, I have a bit of a lie-in.”
“Do you, now?”
“Yes. Sometimes as late as six o’clock.”
Holmes ducks his head, his lips pulled in the stupidest of grins. Boyish and idiotic, a remarkable impression of a young fool.
“This way?” John prompts, pointing. Entirely rhetorical.
“This way.” Holmes leads him. He’s careful to hold the lamp so both of them might see where to set their feet, a considerate matter indeed when they reach the access stairway. As they descend, there’s some light through the old window, though very little.
Struck by sudden insight, John halts.
Holmes turns to face him, a question on his lips, and John points at the window.
“There. That. Can that open?” Even as John asks this, he strips off his gauntlets and tucks them through the red belt. He tries the grimy window and it opens smoothly. Not a creak, not a protest. “I know for a fact no one oils this window.”
“The puddle before the chandelier fell,” Holmes adds, present on John’s page, on his exact paragraph, upon his very word.
“That’s how no one sees him,” John realises.
“Each time he causes an accident, he escapes out the nearest window,” Holmes continues. “Or even returns inside, should the rain put him in danger of falling.”
“No one noticed a puddle here,” John says.
Holmes immediately drops to a crouch, holding the lamp low. John bends down to look as much as he can manage with the sword on his hip. “No signs of water damage,” Holmes says. “Not so much as a droplet. Check the window.”
“For?”
“Stick your head out and have a look around.”
“Right.” John opens the window as far as it will go, breathing in what passes for fresh London air. He deposits his helmet on to the stairs. With that secure, he sticks his head out and twists, thoroughly off-balance. His gun at the small of his back only makes the whole thing more awkward, to say nothing of the sword. Holmes secures him, a hand on John’s side to keep him from tumbling down the staircase with his head still out a window.
“There’s an overhang,” John reports, pulling back inside. “I don’t think we’d have any water in through this window unless the wind were blowing in this exact direction.”
“Or he could have snuck in through the other window, left his puddle there and proceeded here once he was dry.” Holmes closes the window one-handed. “Do you think you could fit through here?”
“It’s wider than I am, but not by much,” John answers. “I’ve no idea how I’d manoeuvre. If you want me to try that--”
“Hardly.”
“That’s a relief.”
Holmes nods, a flash of black feathers. “There’s no sense in you trying. We’re looking for someone highly skilled, practised.”
“What, a professional burglar?”
“Not quite what I had in mind, no. We need a better look at the walls from the outside.” Holmes takes a step before stopping, nearly making John walk into him. “Don’t forget that.” Holmes gestures to John’s helmet with the lamp.
“Right, thanks.” John grabs it up and follows Holmes down the stairs and through a narrow wooden corridor, the site of one of the major falls in November. Good God, it’s enough to make the ridiculous seem plausible.
Walking between beams, smelling paint and sweat and infused smoke, John matches his steps to Holmes’. His ears strain for sound other than those of their movements, of breath and rustling cloth. At an unexpected creak, John seizes Holmes by the arm. Holmes freezes on the spot. John’s free hand settles on his revolver. Neither of them breathes.
For a long, slow moment, silence reigns.
As gently as he can, John releases him. “Sorry,” he whispers.
Holmes nods curtly but otherwise does not move.
John remains stationary as well.
Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen. At last, Holmes nods a second time. He resumes his previous stride. Fighting the urge to drag Holmes away to a well-illuminated room full of masked policemen, John follows more closely than before.
Holmes opens the door to the balcony portion of the roof, and they exit beneath a brumous sky. The streetlamps set the fog beneath them aglow but fail to reach higher. The winter clouds form a grey barrier against the light of the street and opera house both. John pulls his gauntlets back on, their leather of some use against the chill.
Ripping his mask off, Holmes strides to the edge of the roof. He sets down both mask and lamp upon the stone railing there before standing in front of the light and gazing up at the opera house. Alert and still, he makes a study of the walls. Even with the feathered cape, he is remarkably as John first truly remembers him: a man of aristocratic features and morbid fascination, a man watching a stagehand hang upon a rope.
John moves to stand at his side, helmet in his hands. The face of the opera house is elaborately carved. It would provide ample handholds to any skilled climber.
“Can you see?” Holmes asks, moving forward. He points up and around, directing John’s gaze. “There are paths between the windows, if one is sure of foot.” When he moves too close to the edge, John catches him by the arm once again.
“I can see it,” John says. “Is there anything else we need before we tell the police?”
“A footprint would be lovely.”
“Anything else?” Too much rain this December, and it’s been weeks since the opera house was open to business and therefore attacks.
“Do you suppose he could also climb down from here?” Holmes leans over the edge. “Theoretically possible. He’d be hidden within the dark and the fog.”
“You don’t think he’s coming in through below? Or even the front door?”
“The front door is always a risk...”
“But...?”
“That’s not dramatic enough.”
John nearly laughs. “Not everything has to be dramatic.”
“Everything else in his pattern is,” Holmes counters. “The timing of the hanging and the chandelier crash, for a start. The horse thefts were a feat of slight-of-hand. The injuries among the staff have played into common superstition. If it’s not suitably dramatic, it won’t be done.”
“Then you think it’s a theatre type? A theatre type who climbs, so... an acrobat?”
“The puppet master is hardly going to be the one climbing,” Holmes dismisses. “The cabbie had a plan from someone. Our climber-possibly an acrobat, yes-our climber must also have his orders.”
“Yes, but it would still make the puppet master a theatre type,” John argues.
Holmes looks at him oddly. “How do you mean?”
John returns the look in full. “Who else in the world thinks like that?”
“Not army men, by your implication.”
“Not particularly, no.”
Holmes shrugs a bit as if not particularly bothered. He leaves John’s side to return to the lamp. He checks his pocket watch in its light. “Ah, we still have plenty of time.”
“Sorry?” John half-follows, half-hovers. He folds his arms over his front, fighting down shivers when the wind picks up.
His cape billowing out behind him, Holmes leans in close, his eyes shining. “A masquerade on New Year’s Eve? On the most significant midnight of the year, a room full of society’s finest will unmask themselves. How could he possibly resist?”
“He wouldn’t be the only one enjoying himself,” John notes.
Holmes smirks. “I doubt we’d be alone in our enjoyment. Or do you bring a firearm to every party?”
John could choke on his tongue. He nearly does. Instead he says, “Only the dull ones.”
Holmes laughs, a startled, delighted sound that tugs on John’s heart first, his mind second. John frowns, confused without reason to be.
“I promise an exciting finish to the evening,” Holmes replies. “One way or another.”
John laughs as well. “Ought I to be frightened?”
Playing his hesitation for show, Holmes pauses a falsely ponderous moment before shaking his head. Though charming, this too strikes John oddly. It’s nearly as if Holmes is doing an impression of someone else, and yet the motions are sincere.
“Is, um.” John wets his lips. The moisture dries almost instantly in the cold. “Is something else the matter?”
Holmes’ hesitation becomes jarringly real.
John blinks and stands straighter, his shoulder protesting. “Beg pardon. If you’d rather not--”
“I’d rather,” Holmes interrupts.
Nodding, John waits rather than presses. An unconscious movement, his hands move to fold behind his back. His left hand hits the hilt of Holmes’ sword on the way. His right hand holds his helmet. His arms tremble with a shiver. It’s as much Holmes’ intent gaze as it is the chill.
“How much do you remember of Christmas?” Holmes asks.
“I remember impressively strong eggnog, for the most part,” John admits.
“Mrs Hudson has led a remarkable life. Her liver reflects this. What else, Watson?”
“I... imagine we began to refer to each other more informally.”
Holmes nods. Though dressed as a raven, he gazes as a hawk.
“You brought me home. After that, it’s all a touch dreamlike.”
“In what way?”
In many ways. He knows from the morning that Holmes lit him a fire. He thinks he remembers Holmes removing his shoes, kneeling upon the cold floor. Though the sight is clear in his mind, it doesn’t seem real. “In that I don’t remember it clearly. I’ve never been a moody drunk, only a sleepy one.”
“I said there was something I needed to tell you. Do you remember that?”
John fiddles with the helmet behind his back. He forces himself to stop. “You... You needed to ask your lord brother first.”
Holmes nods. “I have. As loath as I am to ask permission, I do have it.”
“Should you--” John shivers. “Should you be saying it out here? The breeze might carry.”
“Yes,” Holmes says, the word oddly detached. Then: “Yes! Yes, inside.” He takes up the lantern and his mask. They close the door securely behind them. Though the air inside isn’t warm enough to make the contrast burn, the lack of wind is an obvious blessing. John still carries his chilled helmet rather than putting it back on. Holmes does the same with his mask.
Biting down any sound of complaint at the ache of his shoulder, John follows Holmes silently until he realises the man’s destination. Does Holmes truly not know how little privacy that would afford them?
“Where are you going?” John whispers.
“A box,” Holmes answers.
John stops immediately.
Holmes walks nearly five paces before turning around. The lamp flickers with his motion. “Problem?”
“Not the best place to be if you don’t want to be overheard tonight.”
Holmes frowns as if mystified.
John clears his throat out of delicacy.
Holmes’ frown deepens.
“Many of them will already be in use,” John explains. “In much the same way I imagine members of the staff are occupying several of the dressing rooms.”
Holmes blinks very slowly. A flush crawls up his throat.
“Unless you’d rather overhear some very intimate proceedings, I suggest somewhere else.”
“Privacy would be... Ah, this way.” Holmes walks quickly away. John fancies even his ears are red.
Holmes leads them back down to the stage area. Rather than approach the ghost light, Holmes keeps to the wings. “Close the door,” he whispers to John, and John does so more by feel than by sight. With the grand drape down, more light comes from Holmes’ lamp than the ghost light. Holmes dims it before setting it and his mask down on a tall stool by the side wall. He moves to stand between the backdrop and a groundrow. A leg curtain falls behind the groundrow, and it is this curtain to which Holmes gestures.
“Here,” Holmes whispers. If the background behind him weren’t that of a spring sky, Holmes would vanish into shadow. The lamp shines faintly along one side of him, his other half as dark as the unknowable side of the moon.
Intrigued, John complies. He leaves his helmet behind to stand with his back to the leg curtain, to the row of leg curtains and the grand drape, to the house beyond. The hanging fabric stirs when the sheath brushes against it.
“Can we be overheard?” John asks. The stage is meant to amplify sound, not conceal it.
Holmes shakes his head. “The curtain is very effective. I have to ask you to keep your voice low.”
John nods. Only the boxes high above ought to be occupied, and those have their own curtains drawn, their own sounds, soft and sighing. They ought not to be overheard and, if overheard, may be ignored for better, sweeter things.
Possibly thinking of the same, Holmes radiates discomfort. John tries to imagine Holmes’ reaction if they had drawn close enough to hear the wet, straining sounds of lovemaking from within the boxes. Perhaps his face would have turned a scarlet to match the box curtains. Perhaps he would have steadfastly carried on, appearing just as pained as he does now.
“There are two matters I am compelled to share with you,” Holmes begins. “Knowledge of the second is contingent upon your acceptance of the first. This is a matter of safety. Of mine and, by extension, my brother’s. Do you understand?”
Not in the slightest. “Yes,” John answers nonetheless, “but if it would be safer not to tell me, I feel you ought not to tell me.”
“This confidence is already drastically overdue, Watson.”
“Drastically?”
Holmes nods curtly. Sharp tension lines his body, nearly trembles within him.
“Then I accept the first. Whatever you need me for, yes.” When Holmes fails to relax in the slightest, clearly doubting John’s word, John asks, “How long has this been a problem?”
“Not a problem.” Holmes’ whisper is harsh. “A problem for Mycroft, not for me.”
John nods gently, willing to guide Holmes through his agitation. Compared to Vernet’s raging doubts over his score and libretto, this can hardly present a difficulty. “He refused you permission until recently?”
“I... lacked evidence to sway him. He refused to trust you.”
“What changed his mind?”
Holmes slips into the explanation with sudden ease. “On paper, you appear a quiet man. Your history here suggests you took the position out of grief and a desire for distraction. You permitted the opera house to consume you, as is its wont. You appeared content to remain static: loyal to the concept of the joint-enterprise of the stage, but truly attached to only a few.”
Voice barely a whisper, Holmes leans in closer, assuring John’s understanding of his words, if not his greater meaning. His cologne is distracting. “You prefer not to discuss your past and grow agitated when pressed beyond your self-imposed limits. Initially, I thought this was grief and you trapped within it. Or guilt, perhaps. But I was wrong. You live in your unchanging home without suffocation and think of your wife’s ghost with fondness, not loyalty: it is neither grief nor guilt.
“It is a hatred of pity. Cloying sympathy is anathema to you. It took me until Christmas to see that. I apologise for the delay.”
“I still don’t understand,” John whispers. “How does any of this impact your lord brother?”
“Only through me.” Holmes leans closer still, enough for John to feel the heat of his breath. The scent of mint has largely abated, but what is left is pleasant for more than merely its warmth. John’s mouth waters. He thinks fleetingly, irrationally, of indoor herb gardens and the way Holmes fingers might look plucking soft leaves from a sprig.
Holmes’ height and proximity bid John’s chin to rise, his head to tilt. Holmes’ face is little more than shadow in the dark, recognisable only through the prominence of his cheekbones and the angle of his jaw.
“To have you at all grief-ridden or guilt-bound would be... inconvenient.”
“To what--” John turns his head and clears his throat, surprised by his own sudden rasp. “To what end?”
“To whatever end.”
Too afraid of reaching the wrong conclusion, John’s mind shies away from his first resulting thought. “I... ah. What, er.” John wets his lips. “What particular destination do you have in mind?” He ignores his breathless voice. He attempts a smile.
Holmes looks down. Not at John’s mouth but at his own hands, clasped low between their bodies. Visible only by the sheen upon the leather, their grip is tight and slowly relinquished. The right hand rises. Holmes’ hand navigates the low barrier of the sword hilt before hovering over John’s arm, circling from elbow to forearm.
Holmes’ fingers dip between John’s arm and his side. They dip deeply, sliding between layers of fabric until Holmes’ palm lies against the curve of John’s ribcage. John continues to stare, to watch Holmes’ forearm even as he feels gloved fingers curl into him. All movement of his body has been claimed by his pounding heart. There is nothing left for any other part of him.
“I know you want me,” Holmes murmurs, “but will you have me?”
There is a kiss on those lips, one which would prove as easily claimed as rain upon an upturned face. There is warmth and good work and an earl-to-be willing to kneel at his feet. There is an increasingly crinkled envelope upon John’s bedroom dresser. There is so terribly much to be held in the darkness. There is so terribly little that may ever know sunlight.
“I don’t think I can,” John whispers.
Holmes releases his breath in a rush, nearly laughing in incomprehensive relief. “You can.” He presses his lips to John’s temple. “You can and you may. We’ve Mycroft’s permission, practically his blessing. For him, that’s much the same thing.”
His kisses to John’s skin are clumsy, rushed, so desperate is their sincerity. They demand John turn his face and answer them in kind. They demand John never move again and remain a stationary target to their tender onslaught.
John could. So very easily. He could look up. As simple as that. Instead, he shakes his head and feels as if he may die.
“No?” Holmes asks, indulgent and amused. “There are no barriers, John. Only discretion. We are each more than capable of that.”
“And if your nephew is born a niece?” John tries to pull back, but his hands traitorously remain anchored on Holmes’ hips. His back presses against the curtain. As Holmes pursues him, the fabric ripples and gives way, enveloping them in a soft, shifting alcove.
“I told you, I’ll never marry.” Holmes presses their foreheads together rather than seeking John’s mouth, a respite John mentally welcomes and physically resents. His body has no complaints, no need for sanity. Though terribly warm, he shivers at the touch of leather curling against his cheek. With that, the line of John’s trousers becomes absolutely ruined.
John shakes his head against Holmes’ brow, his palm. “Not even for your nieces? Not even if your brother cuts you off?”
“I’ve thought this through,” Holmes answers, irritation creeping into his quiet tone. His light voice grows tight.
“All right,” John whispers softly. “Then what will you do if it’s a girl and your brother cuts you off? You’d take poorly to being a kept man.”
“I’ve some investments. I’m hardly destitute.”
“How often would we see each other? On what pretences?”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what, being reasonable?”
“We’ll find a way around it,” Holmes insists.
John shies away into the curtain. Guilt boils through his stomach, the fumes of it rising into his mouth. “I don’t...”
“You don’t what?” Holmes’ eyes narrow. “You don’t want to. You--” His hand jerks back from John’s face. “These aren’t concerns. They’re excuses.”
“I’m sorry,” John whispers.
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes.”
“And for what, pray tell, are you sorry?” Holmes practically spits the word, his voice never rising in volume.
For wanting someone else, John doesn’t say. Instead, John ducks his head and begins to free his belt of Holmes’ sword. Holmes stands before him without a word, without a sound, but so very far from silent. Not even the darkness can conceal the shaking of his hands or the contortion of his features.
Rather than risk handing it over, John leans down to the side and sets the sword upon the stage. He stands slowly, carefully. They no longer touch in any way.
“Tell me, Dr Watson,” Holmes bids him. “How far does your amenable nature serve? How many acts of perversion would you allow me to commit before disgust overcame your compliance?”
“I’m not disgusted. I...” There ought to be words for this. Surely they exist. “You’re a very attractive man. I stopped thinking.”
Holmes’ lip curls. “You didn’t. Not for one instant.”
“I was confused.”
“By what?”
“This not being all in my head,” John explains.
“You’re an extremely unobservant man.”
“Oh, good, we agree.”
A flippant response, a stupid response, and Holmes’ resulting rage is well-deserved. Such a wordless, towering rage. It blazes through his eyes and brings his tall stature to tremble. To look up at his face is to gaze upon the heights of a cliff when the ground begins to quake. John braces for a blow that never falls.
“Go,” Holmes growls.
John escapes from the curtain’s embrace, nearly tripping over the painted scenery of the wooden groundrow. The ghost light half blinds him as he emerges from behind the grand drape. His footsteps resound against the stage, against the stairs, and John is around the pit before he realises he’s left his helmet. It lies at the base of the stool with Holmes’ mask upon it.
With a quiet, unintentional curse, John stops. There’s no rejoining the Masquerade without his helmet. He thinks for a moment of hiding in one of the halls, but Holmes might also choose to hide there. He can’t remain in the house either, not with Holmes still upon the stage.
At the sound of footsteps upon the stage, John turns and immediately ducks behind the pit wall. His helmet smacks against the other side. John waits a moment, uncertain Holmes isn’t about to throw the sword at him as well. Rising slowly from his crouch, he peers over the pit wall.
Holmes glares down at him with tense shoulders and fisted hands. Proud even now, especially now, he holds his chin high. The cold footlights decorate the stage before him, as if reality willingly embroiders itself to better display Sherlock Holmes.
John is almost sick to recognise the moment for what it is: another opening, another chance. John can change his mind. He can apologise, can fall upon his knees and throw caution away with even more force than Holmes mustered on his helmet. Regardless of any observers from above, the opportunity beckons. John can do this, and Holmes will still have him.
Instead, eyes on the floor, John walks to the small gate in the pit wall, reaches inside, and unfastens the latch. He finds his helmet. He doesn’t inspect it, doesn’t put it on. He merely takes it and exits the pit. Turning to latch the gate behind him, he looks up. He knows he shouldn’t and he does it all the same.
Holmes is unreadable from this angle, the ghost light transformed into a halo, Holmes into a silhouette. John shifts to the side until he can make out Holmes’ face.
“What?” Holmes snaps.
Willing himself into the living embodiment of an apology, John shakes his head.
“If you’ve a question, ask it.”
Considering the number of policemen in the lobby and Holmes’ prominence upon the stage, that would be foolish in the extreme.
At the first sign of John’s continuing silence, Holmes bristles all the worse.
“You said two matters,” John mumbles as quietly as he can.
“I said knowledge of the second was contingent upon acceptance of the first.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” Holmes mocks, arms folded across his chest.
John’s mind stumbles, repeating, wondering at a secret that could require acceptance of Holmes’ proclivities. A matter of safety. Inversion is a matter of safety, but what could possibly compound upon that?
The answer comes upon him with full and terrifying force. It falls from his lips in the merest whisper, a statement to be contradicted, an idea to be torn to shreds: “You’re in love with me.”
Holmes doesn’t reply, but his answer is plain. It resides in the fall of his arms to his sides, in the step backward into the light. It lives openly upon Holmes’ features in surprise and devastation. In no hyperbolic terms, the very moment Holmes’ heart shatters upon the stage is unavoidably, inescapably visible.
John’s first instinct is to step forward, to rush forward. To sweep the pieces up and assemble them between his hands. If he could press them together until they fused anew, if he could breathe upon broken flesh and mend it through heat alone, he would. Most readily, he would.
He steps forward, and his friend shatters in full.
Holmes does not shout or cry or find another object to throw. He does not gain in volume. Instead, he mutes himself. He becomes utterly, terribly silent in a way John has never before known him. He does not tell John to go. He doesn’t say anything at all.
“My mistake,” John whispers, because clearly it was. Because that was not something to be said, and because whatever pride Holmes retains ought to be salvaged.
Holmes continues to stand, utterly wordless. His mouth trembles. Be it from the force of a shout or the repression of tears, John doesn’t remain to discover. Helmet in hand, John turns and walks quickly up the long stretch of aisle. When he reaches the door, he risks a glance, but Holmes is already gone.
previous | next