Chapter Text
It was in the seventh year of my acquaintance with my dear friend Sherlock Holmes that I first witnessed him cry – an occasion that has not been repeated since. A man crying in and of itself is a shameful thing, though in my time served in Afghanistan I have seen many a brave man break, and I myself have shed tears upon losing a beloved comrade in battle. For Sherlock Holmes however, crying was to debase himself to such a level of emotion that he felt only women were capable of. On this particular occasion however, even he could not hold back sentiment.
This extraordinary evening began in and of itself ordinary, we had both retired before the fire after an insignificant case – a cheating husband and a righteously murderous wife – and were contently sipping our drinks, a pipe wandering between us. The winters’ cold dampness had quite saturated both our bones. And though some may still call us men in our prime, truthfully we were both not young anymore and so the warmth seeping into our weary bones from the fire was welcome to soothe the aches coming with age and injuries never quite healed.
With a sigh, I sank deeper into my armchair. I had been feeling contemplative for some time now and this seemed the perfect occasion to give in to the urge.
“You’re quite thoughtful this evening, my dear Watson.” Holmes drawled lazily, yet his eyes and focus turned to me, warming me in the glow of their intensity. “How unusual for you, a man of action.”
After the years of our acquaintance, I no longer felt the urge to rise to the bait my dear friend dangled before my nose.
I turned my gaze from the fire and smiled at him, weary as I was.
“I just thought how I never imagined this in the army, as I was picturing my autumn years.” To his affronted gaze I said: “Yes, Holmes, autumn years. Yours as well, even if you don’t want to accept it.”
Turning my face back to the fire I lost myself a time in the writhing flames and glimmering ambers. “No”, I said slowly. “I never could have imagined this, living as a confirmed bachelor together with another. I never could have imagined someone like you by my side, or rather, I could never have imagined you.” I chuckled. No, Sherlock Holmes was so unique that the possibility of his existence could never have crossed my mind: I was simply not creative enough.
“I sometimes pictured in the army that I may come home and find a wife, have a brood of children, a house in the country eventually. Life as a country doctor, treating as many sheep as patients.” I snorted.
So deep into my mind was I, that I almost missed how Holmes had tensed up.
“You may yet have that, Watson.” He responded coldly. “I surely won’t keep you from your peaceful dream of family and sheep with my crimes.” He looked rather miffed, as though a sulk with his violin might be coming on later.
“Oh no, dear fellow, you misunderstood!” I sprang from my chair to throw myself at my friend’s feet. I gently took his hands in mine, laying prostate before him as a sinner before God. I sought his gaze with mine to find his handsome eyebrows drawn tightly together, a frown marring his full mouth, his eyes the grey of a storm cloud.
“Don’t you understand, my dearest Sherlock, that you saved me?” I looked imploringly at his eyes, piercing them with mine. “Had I not met you, I would not live anymore. I’d lie in an unmarked grave before the graveyard’s door more likely. I was down on my luck and desperate, you gave me hope and more importantly, you gave me action. Even if I had survived those desperate times, I surely would not have grown old as a husband, the only excitement some complication in surgery. Going home at five to a moderately intelligent and pretty wife, my moderately behaved children under foot, a mediocre sort of life. I’d have ended up as one of your cases, be the body mine or my wife’s.”
I chuckled, looking at him adoringly. His brow still hadn’t smoothed, and he looked at me puzzled, so I reached up a hand. Gently I swept a hand over his high forehead, stoking at the wrinkles, then sliding my hand down to cup his cheek, my eyes never leaving his. He turned his cheek into my palm, not unlike a cat, instinctually leaning into soothing contact.
“You saved me, Sherlock Holmes. You gave me life as much as my dear mother, may she rest in peace. You revived me from the broken husk I was after the war. You healed me, more than just my leg and tremor, you healed my mind. And you gave me your companionship as well as the closest friendship possible. You shared your most intimate parts with me, and I with you. How could I adore some inane fantasy more than you? How could I ever love someone more than the man who gave me life?”
It was then that I noticed a wet spot in my palm where it rested upon his cheek. With rapt attention I watched as a second tear slipped down his face, sparkling as a diamond in the fire’s light. I leaned up to kiss it away, but he caught my mouth in his before I ever reached his cheek. He pulled me up to level our faces and further still until I was perched upon his thighs, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, mine around his shoulders. Salt was still invading our kiss, though if it came from only him, I cannot say.
Finally, he broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against mine, his hands cupping my face intimately.
“You love me, John? Despite my faults?” He waited not for my answering nod, but instead kissed me again, laughter bubbling out of him as I have rarely heard. “Oh my John, my stupid, wonderful, beloved John, what did I ever do to deserve your devotion? How can I have saved you when you are saving me every day we live?”
He pulled me against him again, his lips bestowing soft, tender, loving caresses upon mine. Then the tone changed and his hands came up from my waist where they had lain, to play my body as though it was his Stradivarius.
Eager fingers unbuttoned my waistcoat, pushing the garment of my shoulders. As I had not worn a coat sitting before the fire, this left me only in my shirt, collar, and necktie which my darling Holmes discarded with lightning speed. I was left sitting on his lap in only my undergarments and trousers, practically bare before his inquisitive gaze. As he raised his hands to start unbuttoning the upper part of my combinations, I felt as though he was peeling away not only clothes but my very skin, to reveal my innermost workings to him, and him alone. I shivered not due to cold, but to the rapt attention with which he followed his progress down my torso, quickly reaching my waist.
He unbuttoned my trousers and then continued onto my undergarments, opening buttons until he reached the end of them, unveiling my manhood to his scrutiny. He gently cupped me in his long-fingered hands and an appreciative moan escaped my lips. My head fell back of its own accord and I felt gentle lips pressed upon my bared neck.
Gently, my dearest friend nudged me upwards to standing, so that he may strip me of the remainder of my garments. Finally naked, he pulled me back upon his lap and hugged me tightly to him. He gently began kissing down my neck, murmuring all the while into my skin.
“You are a marvel, my John, a miracle that you should allow me not only to share your life, but to love you. That I am able to love you and touch you amounts to a sign of Gods absence, for otherwise how could He not have stricken me down already to corrupt an angel like you thusly. I do not know how I deserve you, how you could possibly want to spend your live with me of all people, but I am a greedy man and I shall hold you close to me until the day that you wish to leave me or that I breathe my final breath. I cannot promise you an easy life, or children, or even a marriage band upon your finger, but I can promise you, that I shall love you and treasure you forever more. I am yours, my John, and I shall remain it.”
I could do naught but shiver under his lips and from his words ringing in my ears. This sweet blasphemy… who’d have thought that a poet hid behind those clear grey eyes and within that razor sharp mind?
“Oh my darling Sherlock, I do not need anything but you. Can’t you see that your vow here to me holds much more value than the vow of any other could ever hope to attain, even be it blessed by the church? You bring me alive; you hold my heart. For however long you will it, it remains yours. And know that I will be yours until my last breath leaves me.”
I murmured these vows into his charcoal locks and felt him hide his face into the crook of his neck. Then I felt teeth biting into my shoulder and any thought I might have held vanished into the inferno of lust he ignited within me. I moaned and he took that as a permission to bite harder, to wind his arms around me until I was pressed against him almost painfully tightly. I scrabbled at his clothes, desperate to feel his skin against mine, to bare him as I was bared before him. My dearest Holmes however had different plans. In an impressive demonstration of strength he pulled me up and stood himself, holding me cradled in his arms like a bride on her wedding day being carried into her new home.
He started to purposefully stride towards his room, seemingly unbothered by my not inconsiderable weight. While I had not lost all of my army trained muscles, life in London and age had made me grow soft around the middle adding only to my naturally stocky build. But Holmes didn’t seem to notice, no bead of sweat marring his brow. I found that his improbable strength aroused me against reason. He must have felt or seen my manhood twitch as he looked down on me with burning eyes and quirked a mocking eyebrow.
“So impatient, my dear Watson.” He smiled, but there was something delightfully sharp in his grin that made me shiver with anticipation.
Finally, we reached his room. I opened the door, so that we might pass through, and he thanked me with a searing kiss, before kicking it shut behind us and lowering me unto his bed, crawling over me in an instant and locking us together in a kiss once more.
In this position I was finally able to reach his clothes and I started unbuttoning and tugging at his clothes until he too had shed his garments and lay bare upon me. I moaned when I finally felt all his glorious body pressed against me, his bony, yet muscular frame against my softer and more compact one. I felt as though I was going out of my mind with need to tug him closer still, to feel us melding into one as I felt our souls entangled from that fateful first glance at Bart’s.
With difficulty I tore my mouth from his, panting against his reddened and swollen lips. “Take me, my dearest Sherlock, take me and meld us together as close as we may get.” My voice was embarrassingly breathless and rough as though I had just awoken. I felt him shiver against me at hearing my words, his manhood twitching where it lay pressed against my thigh.
“Are you sure, my dearest John?” Uncharacteristically thoughtful, he leaned his forehead against mine, gently regarding me, searching for the truth. “You do not need to, you know that?” All the while I could feel his muscles bunching and tensing against me, as though he could barely keep himself from thrusting against me, demanding entrance into my body as he usually demanded my attention and time for a case.
“I am sure, my darling man.” I reached up to gently stroke his cheek. “I want you as close as possible to me. We made our vows, let us consummate them.” I smiled cheekily at him.
He groaned low in his throat. “You, John Watson, will be the death of me, of that I am certain.”
He kissed me hard and thoroughly, thrusting his tongue into my mouth in a delightful foreshadowing as to what was to come. Then he reached over onto his nightstand to search for oil to ease the way, almost smothering his fingertips in the viscous substance. He retook possession of my mouth, while his slick hand moved behind my already tight testicles, over the perineum towards the tight furl of my hole. As the first finger breached me, I could not repress a whimper into his mouth, that he swallowed with relish. Ever attentive to detail, he prepared me thoroughly but tenderly for our impending consummation, ravishing my mouth and face with attention at the same time. Finally, he retracted his fingers and coated his manhood with another helping of the oil.
When he looked down at me, I saw an unspoken question and ever so much loving tenderness in his normally sharp and analytical eyes. I reached out my hand to gently brush a fallen lock of raven hair behind his ear. “I’m sure, my beloved Sherlock. I’m sure.”
He looked breathless for a moment, gazing at me as though he couldn’t believe this to be real. Then he smiled, really smiled as I have seldomly seen him smile and leaned down to press a gentle kiss against my brow, my cheekbones and finally my mouth. “I love you”, he murmured against my lips. Then he took possession of my mouth once more, as the tip of his engorged penis pressed against my loosened hole. I gasped as I felt the hot press there for the first time, feeling him stretch me ever so slowly, farther and farther, until the head was submerged within my flesh and his length followed behind smoothly. When he was finally fully imbedded within me, I felt so full, I was sure to feel the tip of him within my very throat. He waited until I had accustomed myself to the stretch and then began to gently rock his hips against me, brushing against a point within me that had me seeing stars and throwing my head back in ecstasy. I felt more than heard his victorious grown and then he was hitting that spot again and again until my vision whited out. He quieted my scream with his mouth, shuddering above me, still driving into me, but losing his rhythm, thrusting like a man possessed until he too fell, shuddering above my prone body, before falling against me, covering my body as he covered my insides in his hot essence.
As we both slowly recovered, I gently pressed my lips against his forehead. “You do know that you will never get rid of me now?”, I gently jested. “That would be my deepest desire, my dear John. Or should I call you my dear unlawfully wedded wife now?” He grinned down on me, exuberant and more liberated than I had ever seen him. “Don’t you dare!” I responded and pocked him into his exposed side. We laughed and tussled like boys until we eventually fell asleep laughing.
The next morning, the bed beside me was empty, but on the pillow next to me lay a note and a small box. Written in an unexpectedly sentimental way for my dear friend, the note read: To my dearest husband. Inside the box I found cufflinks embossed with my initials on the one and his on the other.
And if in following years I was rarely seen without these cufflinks and if my dearest Holmes wore similar ones until his death despite them going out of fashion, well who’d dare judge two old bachelors on their fashion savviness?