Fic: Like a light on cold winter evenings
Title: Like a light on cold winter evenings
Author: Eiben
Fandom/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson
Words: 1894
Disclaimer: It's all ACDs. Nothing is mine. :(
A/N: This is my first English Fanfiction, so please so not be too hard with me.
Thanks to tweedisgood for the beta-reading and her patience.
It is cold.
It has to be cold because outside the window, the snowflakes keep on falling on the windowsill, building small castles of snow until we can see nothing but the white darkness when the moon shines through them.
We are lying between the warm blankets and the sheets - all wrinkled and spread across the bed, my feet beside his head, my eyes lingering on the outside world, on the branches of the tree, a black shadow against the glass and the deep night blue sky. There are no noises exept our breath and the sound of the cabs driving onwards.
Winter has finally come in mid-December. The days are so short I feel like I am barely awake before it gets dark again.
There are still a few days left until Christmas, but everything seems already to be quiet and waiting,somehow thoughtful. Everything seems to be slower than it was in summer and so is this evening.
I will take some time to explain the circumstances to you, because you should not think that this incident happened out of the blue, even if I have to admit that it depended on moment and occasion.But I dare to doubt that I will ever regret my thoughtlessness, because it fits so well the mood of the wintery world.
It has only been a short time since I realised that I had strong feelings for my friend, which seemed to grow stronger in the direction of love than friendship. It was no news to me that I was attracted to men but I never thought it would happen between Holmes and me. Until that very moment I had no idea what I would actully do about it.
We were both writing. Actually we had wanted to go out for dinner, but it was so uncomfortable outside that we chose to live on the few supplies we still had at home. We were both writing, he apparently busy with a new article on a subject I knew nothing about, I was working on my notes, trying to fit them together to make something worth publishing one day.
We worked in silence for about an hour before I finally looked up, trying to remember a significant detail of a conversation that had taken place a few days before. I glanced out of the window for a few seconds before Holmes made a sudden movement, a vague gesture of his hand, as if he wished to wipe away something terribly unwelcome.
I cannot say that what I saw was beautiful or anything but usual. But he had a grace I cannot express with the written. There are no words for the sight of his bare ankles, or the way he held his pen, and there is nothing that needs to be told. It is beauty of a rare profound sort, and only visible for those who search for it.
I did not realise how long I had stared at him until he met my gaze. I actually wanted to say something, to give some reason for my distraction, but suddenly understood that it was not the time for speaking.
Living with Holmes is often quite difficult and sometimes it is hard to tell what he has in mind in a particular moment. He often does things without any obvious reason. Therefore it is necessary to develope a certain understanding for the change of moods when he is around.
In this case it was important to be quiet. I already knew this look of absence, when he seems to see everything and nothing at the same time, his mind racing.
We therefore sat in silence, looking at each other for some long seconds until I finally turned around and faced my papers again, still having not the least idea about what had just passed between us.
It was just then the thought hit me that we never experienced anything like that before.
From this moment we both went on working as if there had been no interruption. But I could no longer concentrate. My mind was heading to never known places, fantasies I never allowed myself to have, even in the darkest nights when I thought myself completely alone and unseen. Hope, so long lost and forgotten, rose in my chest and filled me with a hint of yearning, just enough not to be unnoticed but not enough for me to leave.
I knew nothing about the sexual preferences of my friend then, and I did not dare to think about it because the mere thought that he could be attracted only to women, or, even worse, to another man, was hard to bear. There was the possibility that he had no interest in such matters at all, but that, too, held too many disappointments for me. So as not to experience the loss of the only tolerable feeling I let myself slide into my imagination.
If I had only known then what was going to happen later that evening! Had I only recognised his look when I was about to close the door of my room! It was fixed and desperate in a way I had never expected to see in him, not knowing that his decision was already made, that his mind could not stop him from standing up.
Had I seen his hasty, clumsy steps, as if the rest of his body had no idea what his feet were doing; his grip on my wrist when he tried to pull me close - how could he not have noticed that I would come freely and without hesitation?
Our first kiss, so real and slow, as if neither one of us could believe that we were doing this. The feeling of his lips brushing against mine was so intense, like I was dreaming, and if someone had stepped in this very moment and watched our escapade, I would scarcely have noticed. I have to say that we took our time, seconds passing until he finally opened his mouth, letting me in to taste him, what I thought was his taste perfectly mixed with his strong tobacco.
I could not leave him alone, I could not withdraw. My left arm lingered around his waist, as if I had to assure myself for his presence, my right moved to his face, twining in his hair, helpless and needy.
And it was passionate, more than any first kiss should be. It should have been exploring, weak, just feeling and not forcing as we did, he pressing me against the hard wood of the door behind me.
I do not know who took the first step back, but suddenly we were both walking, still entwined, careless and stumbeling. I fell against the door of my room, trying to open it with my elbow without turning my head from Holmes, his hands busy unbuttoning my shirt.
The handle gave way and the door fell open under my weight. My bed, our bed for this short amount of time, was just a few steps away, and we were more falling than walking, just fighting our way foreward to what seemed to be our salvation.
I could not help but smile.
The act itself was slow, too. As soon as we reached our destination, we seemed to realise we had all the time in the world, or at least this evening and noone would disturb what was about to happen.
Holmes changed, from the desperate man who had kissed me without saying a word, to Sherlock Holmes, watching me, noticing every sound and every movement, deducing what I felt.
Perhaps, I thought before I denied every thought for pure emotion, I should be annoyed.
But, for some reason, it just felt natural.
The room is still dark, two lights are burning but they cannot light the room poperly. I cannot see his face, there are just mere shadows.
Smoke lingers between us like a ghost, unreal and unseen. It wavers from him to me and the scent of cigarettes and sex is both new and equally familiar to me. My breathing is deep and regular and tiredness makes me dizzy with promises of future dreams.
But I cannot sleep. Not yet, when we are both rich with satisfaction and I can still taste the wine in my mouth, heavy and lush. I want to smoke myself, but can not ask, we still have not spoken and I am not willing to destroy the silence that shields us from understanding. As long as it is required but as long as I do not know any reasons for Holmes present attitude towards me (even though it pleases me more than I want to admit), I want to keep us safe.
Sometimes I actually think Holmes can read my thoughts. He holds out the cigarette for me and waits until I drag the smoke in, bitter and sharp, my lips touching the wet space where his lips have been just seconds before.
Now we are sharing absolutely everything and it is not as I used to fear - a rapture- but rather the conclusion of what has been before. I consider whether to tell Holmes and then decide I will wait until later. He would like that, I am certain.
My limbs feel heavy. The warmth of his body drags me deeper into laziness and I lean against the edge of the bed, wood pushing against my bare neck. Oh, how I never want to leave this place.
Holmes uses something for an ashtray that I can not identify and leans back as well, I can feel him watching me. Certainly he enjoys this, or he at least thinks about enjoying it, because I do not know yet what has driven him to me, even if I would pay any price to be told. Sleep clings to me with claws of steel but I do not want to give in, not now. What if Holmes is gone when I wake up and we go back to our routine?
I watch his hand (his perfect hand which touched me just minutes before - I still can feel it on my skin, burning as if it was on fire) grip the glass of wine next to the bed, taking a sip and then put it down again. He seems to have no intension of leaving but I can never be sure.
And still, outside of this room, nothing has changed and everything is still the same frozen London. The snow grows heavier and I can see the flakes stirring in the bleak air.
He moves and suddenly I can see his face, entirely warm and relaxed for the first time in too many days. He must have something in mind but I only understand when he reaches for my hand and pulls me forward, right next to him so that our faces are in front of each other, almost touching.
Holmes smiles and there is no sign of regret but of absolute assurance as if he might have sensed my doubts. There is nothing that can destroy this utterly beautiful moment, not even words, and I may tell you, that his smile, his smile is like the lights on these cold winter evenings which will enlighten these gloomy days of winter and have finally found me, too.
Author: Eiben
Fandom/Pairing: Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson
Words: 1894
Disclaimer: It's all ACDs. Nothing is mine. :(
A/N: This is my first English Fanfiction, so please so not be too hard with me.
Thanks to tweedisgood for the beta-reading and her patience.
It is cold.
It has to be cold because outside the window, the snowflakes keep on falling on the windowsill, building small castles of snow until we can see nothing but the white darkness when the moon shines through them.
We are lying between the warm blankets and the sheets - all wrinkled and spread across the bed, my feet beside his head, my eyes lingering on the outside world, on the branches of the tree, a black shadow against the glass and the deep night blue sky. There are no noises exept our breath and the sound of the cabs driving onwards.
Winter has finally come in mid-December. The days are so short I feel like I am barely awake before it gets dark again.
There are still a few days left until Christmas, but everything seems already to be quiet and waiting,somehow thoughtful. Everything seems to be slower than it was in summer and so is this evening.
I will take some time to explain the circumstances to you, because you should not think that this incident happened out of the blue, even if I have to admit that it depended on moment and occasion.But I dare to doubt that I will ever regret my thoughtlessness, because it fits so well the mood of the wintery world.
It has only been a short time since I realised that I had strong feelings for my friend, which seemed to grow stronger in the direction of love than friendship. It was no news to me that I was attracted to men but I never thought it would happen between Holmes and me. Until that very moment I had no idea what I would actully do about it.
We were both writing. Actually we had wanted to go out for dinner, but it was so uncomfortable outside that we chose to live on the few supplies we still had at home. We were both writing, he apparently busy with a new article on a subject I knew nothing about, I was working on my notes, trying to fit them together to make something worth publishing one day.
We worked in silence for about an hour before I finally looked up, trying to remember a significant detail of a conversation that had taken place a few days before. I glanced out of the window for a few seconds before Holmes made a sudden movement, a vague gesture of his hand, as if he wished to wipe away something terribly unwelcome.
I cannot say that what I saw was beautiful or anything but usual. But he had a grace I cannot express with the written. There are no words for the sight of his bare ankles, or the way he held his pen, and there is nothing that needs to be told. It is beauty of a rare profound sort, and only visible for those who search for it.
I did not realise how long I had stared at him until he met my gaze. I actually wanted to say something, to give some reason for my distraction, but suddenly understood that it was not the time for speaking.
Living with Holmes is often quite difficult and sometimes it is hard to tell what he has in mind in a particular moment. He often does things without any obvious reason. Therefore it is necessary to develope a certain understanding for the change of moods when he is around.
In this case it was important to be quiet. I already knew this look of absence, when he seems to see everything and nothing at the same time, his mind racing.
We therefore sat in silence, looking at each other for some long seconds until I finally turned around and faced my papers again, still having not the least idea about what had just passed between us.
It was just then the thought hit me that we never experienced anything like that before.
From this moment we both went on working as if there had been no interruption. But I could no longer concentrate. My mind was heading to never known places, fantasies I never allowed myself to have, even in the darkest nights when I thought myself completely alone and unseen. Hope, so long lost and forgotten, rose in my chest and filled me with a hint of yearning, just enough not to be unnoticed but not enough for me to leave.
I knew nothing about the sexual preferences of my friend then, and I did not dare to think about it because the mere thought that he could be attracted only to women, or, even worse, to another man, was hard to bear. There was the possibility that he had no interest in such matters at all, but that, too, held too many disappointments for me. So as not to experience the loss of the only tolerable feeling I let myself slide into my imagination.
If I had only known then what was going to happen later that evening! Had I only recognised his look when I was about to close the door of my room! It was fixed and desperate in a way I had never expected to see in him, not knowing that his decision was already made, that his mind could not stop him from standing up.
Had I seen his hasty, clumsy steps, as if the rest of his body had no idea what his feet were doing; his grip on my wrist when he tried to pull me close - how could he not have noticed that I would come freely and without hesitation?
Our first kiss, so real and slow, as if neither one of us could believe that we were doing this. The feeling of his lips brushing against mine was so intense, like I was dreaming, and if someone had stepped in this very moment and watched our escapade, I would scarcely have noticed. I have to say that we took our time, seconds passing until he finally opened his mouth, letting me in to taste him, what I thought was his taste perfectly mixed with his strong tobacco.
I could not leave him alone, I could not withdraw. My left arm lingered around his waist, as if I had to assure myself for his presence, my right moved to his face, twining in his hair, helpless and needy.
And it was passionate, more than any first kiss should be. It should have been exploring, weak, just feeling and not forcing as we did, he pressing me against the hard wood of the door behind me.
I do not know who took the first step back, but suddenly we were both walking, still entwined, careless and stumbeling. I fell against the door of my room, trying to open it with my elbow without turning my head from Holmes, his hands busy unbuttoning my shirt.
The handle gave way and the door fell open under my weight. My bed, our bed for this short amount of time, was just a few steps away, and we were more falling than walking, just fighting our way foreward to what seemed to be our salvation.
I could not help but smile.
The act itself was slow, too. As soon as we reached our destination, we seemed to realise we had all the time in the world, or at least this evening and noone would disturb what was about to happen.
Holmes changed, from the desperate man who had kissed me without saying a word, to Sherlock Holmes, watching me, noticing every sound and every movement, deducing what I felt.
Perhaps, I thought before I denied every thought for pure emotion, I should be annoyed.
But, for some reason, it just felt natural.
The room is still dark, two lights are burning but they cannot light the room poperly. I cannot see his face, there are just mere shadows.
Smoke lingers between us like a ghost, unreal and unseen. It wavers from him to me and the scent of cigarettes and sex is both new and equally familiar to me. My breathing is deep and regular and tiredness makes me dizzy with promises of future dreams.
But I cannot sleep. Not yet, when we are both rich with satisfaction and I can still taste the wine in my mouth, heavy and lush. I want to smoke myself, but can not ask, we still have not spoken and I am not willing to destroy the silence that shields us from understanding. As long as it is required but as long as I do not know any reasons for Holmes present attitude towards me (even though it pleases me more than I want to admit), I want to keep us safe.
Sometimes I actually think Holmes can read my thoughts. He holds out the cigarette for me and waits until I drag the smoke in, bitter and sharp, my lips touching the wet space where his lips have been just seconds before.
Now we are sharing absolutely everything and it is not as I used to fear - a rapture- but rather the conclusion of what has been before. I consider whether to tell Holmes and then decide I will wait until later. He would like that, I am certain.
My limbs feel heavy. The warmth of his body drags me deeper into laziness and I lean against the edge of the bed, wood pushing against my bare neck. Oh, how I never want to leave this place.
Holmes uses something for an ashtray that I can not identify and leans back as well, I can feel him watching me. Certainly he enjoys this, or he at least thinks about enjoying it, because I do not know yet what has driven him to me, even if I would pay any price to be told. Sleep clings to me with claws of steel but I do not want to give in, not now. What if Holmes is gone when I wake up and we go back to our routine?
I watch his hand (his perfect hand which touched me just minutes before - I still can feel it on my skin, burning as if it was on fire) grip the glass of wine next to the bed, taking a sip and then put it down again. He seems to have no intension of leaving but I can never be sure.
And still, outside of this room, nothing has changed and everything is still the same frozen London. The snow grows heavier and I can see the flakes stirring in the bleak air.
He moves and suddenly I can see his face, entirely warm and relaxed for the first time in too many days. He must have something in mind but I only understand when he reaches for my hand and pulls me forward, right next to him so that our faces are in front of each other, almost touching.
Holmes smiles and there is no sign of regret but of absolute assurance as if he might have sensed my doubts. There is nothing that can destroy this utterly beautiful moment, not even words, and I may tell you, that his smile, his smile is like the lights on these cold winter evenings which will enlighten these gloomy days of winter and have finally found me, too.