Work Text:
John Watson is ultimately a creature of instinct, of acting first and thinking later. Several times while out with me he has noticed someone following us not from the logical signs of their movement but from an uneasy sort of feeling, a prickle on the back of his neck.
This is why it is so extraordinary that, in our early days, he never seemed to notice the way I watched him.
Oh, I was good at hiding it, of course. As such a keen observer myself, I have always been aware of how easy it is to start noticing these little things. And I spent too much time around police officers for that to be an entirely comfortable prospect. So, I was generally discreet: when I was pleased it was no more than a flicker of the eyes, and when I was low, what longing looks I dared were generally only directed to the back of his head or his profile as he sat absorbed in a book.
Still, it was unaccountably odd that he had never looked up from his novel, or his examination of a body, or his notebook, and fixed those abominably blue eyes on me in a silent question. No, indeed, he was always easy under my gaze.
And it was always easy to look at John Watson. He had dark blond hair cut neatly, a square jaw, and an expressive mouth. In fact, his face was so easily read that I despaired of ever teaching him any form of disguise or deception. On me, this would result in constant and unpardonable rudeness; he was simply so correct in his feelings that he almost always failed to offend. When he read, he sometimes moved his lips silently with the words and always chuckled at the funny parts.
He carried himself with care and a certain military rigidity. The one thing his face didn’t express was pain or hurt. The distinction between those two very different emotions is something I was still learning to understand in those days. Instead, when his leg pained him or when I said something particularly monstrous, his face went very carefully blank. His mouth flattened, and his blue eyes emptied. He stood a little straighter. It was only in unobserved glimpses that I could catch the details I was missing.
My understanding of him was nearly complete within a day or two of moving in with him, but these details keep me looking. He nodded off over a novel one evening after we had been on our feet all day, and I stared at him for three quarters of an hour, fascinated by the way his face had relaxed by degrees. I had grown used to the tension in him, I realized, seeing its absence. Asleep, his forehead was smooth; his lips parted slightly; his eyelashes swept delicate shadows over his cheeks.
This was about the time I realized I was in trouble. That John Watson was loyal, courageous, and loving was never in doubt. That his fascination with me would hold very much was. Men like him were not made to always be following in the footsteps of men like me. There was a comfortable home waiting for him somewhere, once his health was a little more recovered, once he had given up the freedom and mayhem of my profession for the easier hours and more certain pay of his own. I had no doubt that he would consider me a friend for the rest of his life, but he certainly would not stay.
And so, for the most part, I allowed myself to look while I still had him.
#
It was the close of a rather ordinary case -- a matter of a stolen safe from a prominent politician’s house -- that I had taken from a combination of boredom and a faint desire to stay on Inspector Lestrade’s good side. Watson was, as usual, at my side, but this time he had taken more than his usual interest in the facts of the case and had put the pieces nearly together entirely on his own. He explained his understanding of it -- the signs pointing to the maid’s brother, the hastily scrubbed marks under the window -- and I couldn’t look at him. Not there, not then.
Inspector Lestrade was not an unobservant man; I wouldn’t work with him if he was. And the way I wanted John Watson was criminal.
I could feel Watson’s energy, the way he was poised at his conclusion, tensed, waiting for my verdict. I trained my eyes on the fire in the grate behind Lestrade. It burned merrily, playfully, throwing light onto the otherwise dim room. It was later than I would have liked, and I wanted to be back at Baker Street in front of my own fire.
“Very good, Watson,” I said. “You have only missed the lack of dust at the hem of the curtains, which indicates to me that it was not the brother who came back to clean the signs of his entry but the maid herself. She is certainly guilty of more than an accidental slip of the tongue.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “I would not have thought her capable of it.”
I allowed myself a half smile and looked at the rather drab painting behind Inspector Lestrade’s shoulder. “You are perhaps more willing to overlook the possibility of a pretty woman’s guilt, my dear fellow, but I assure you that beautiful people are as capable of criminality as the rest of us.”
He was silent for a moment, and I longed to see his face -- was he flushed with annoyance? Was his brow creased in thought? Knowing these things was as necessary to me as breathing, and yet Inspector Lestrade stood before us, calm and watchful, and I didn’t dare look.
“I trust, Lestrade, that you are satisfied,” I said at last. “Do let us know if we can be of any further assistance in the future.”
#
In the gas lighting of Baker Street, Watson was fully illuminated and anxious. I allowed myself to enjoy the way the light glinted off his hair as he took a few hasty notes in his notebook before we sat down to eat, but he did not seem to want to discuss the case the way he often did at the close of them.
He glanced at me now and again as we ate, and I had to drop my eyes from his face to my food in order to avoid catching his eye.
I stayed in the sitting room after dinner because the way Watson was fiddling with his pen and his watch chain meant he wanted to speak to me and didn’t know how to start on the subject. I had learned from experience that he found it more disconcerting than helpful when I pointed such things out to him directly, so I settled myself in my chair with a journal and waited.
“Holmes,” he said hesitantly nearly three-quarters of an hour later.
“Hmm?”
“Were you angry with me earlier? When I was explaining my understanding of the case to Inspector Lestrade?”
I put my journal down and looked at him. He was standing in front of his desk, forehead creased, looking not at me but at the fire.
“Not at all,” I said truthfully. “I was rather impressed at how much of it you had put together. You are learning my methods.”
He smiled, a quick acknowledgment, but his discomfort did not ease. He still didn’t seek to catch my eye. It appeared this was a grave business indeed.
“There is a sort of feeling I get sometimes,” he said finally, “of being observed. I had it sometimes in Afghanistan, when I knew that my fellows were keeping watch, and I could sleep easier.” If he noticed the way my hand jerked back for a moment before I returned it to the arm of my chair, he gave no sign of it. He continued. “I have often felt it here. And when we were discussing the close of the case this evening, I felt its absence just as clearly. I assumed it was a sign of your frustration with me for some error. Perhaps now you are not angry, but can you really say you were not then?”
My voice was remarkably steady, I think, when I replied. “My dear fellow, I promise you I was not.”
“Then why the change?” He did turn to me now, and I looked down at the journal on my lap, suddenly unwilling to meet his eye. I had a moment of indecision -- should I lie outright? Redirect him? I did not like dishonesty with the doctor, though necessity sometimes compelled it. But revealing all felt impossible, even cruel. I knew his loyalty and kindness; I knew his affection for me. It would be hard on him to cast me off.
The weight of his gaze was heavy on me. I cursed myself for thinking he had not noticed my own. “I can’t say,” I said. I meant to follow that up with something about the case distracting me, but the words died in my throat as he took a step toward me. He was focused now, and there was something unyielding in the set of his mouth. Tragically, he was only the more handsome for it.
“Why,” he asked quietly, “can’t you say?”
I stood and moved toward the fire. I suppose I should have poked at it or reached for my pipe, but instead I just stood there, leaning slightly against the wall, and resisted the urge to cross my arms over my chest. This was John Watson, I reminded myself; he would not hurt me.
I huffed. “I would rather not say.”
He came closer, then, walked until he was standing only a few feet in front of the fire. Thus illuminated, his hair was reddish-gold, and his eyes were bright, and I loved him hopelessly and helplessly.
His voice was low, and calm, and almost friendly. “Tell me anyway.”
It was, I admit, too much for me. Seeing him there, with the glow of the fire on him, the thrill of a successful case still running through me, and the low, steady sound of his voice was like an enchantment, like a window into a different world, where things were better and I could have what I wanted.
“Very well,” I said sharply. “I often watch you, look at you. You did not feel me looking at you today because Lestrade was there, and because I was delighted with your work. To look at you then would have been dangerous. You have been improving your reasoning, Watson -- I trust you can deduce the rest.”
It was not a very generous speech, but it was a terrifying one to give, and I couldn’t help watching to see its effects. As I spoke, color rose to Watson’s cheeks, and by the time I reached the word “dangerous” he was smiling. It was a very genuine smile, but one held in check -- not quite a grin.
“I think I can,” he said. “But I would hate to be wrong.” He walked quite casually to the window and pulled the curtains closed then returned to stand in front of me.
“If I am not wrong,” he said, “I think you had better kiss me.”
I had been trying to gauge how likely it was that I was going to have to move out of Baker Street entirely. My mental calculations came to an abrupt halt. I stared at him.
He looked at me uncertainly, clearly worried that he had in fact been wrong, but before he could say something stupid about misunderstandings, I took a step toward him and brought a tentative hand to his jaw. Everything felt hazy and a bit unreal, but his cheek was warm and real.
By the time I ducked my head to kiss him, he was rising up to meet me.
“Watson,” I started some time later, lying on the sofa with my head in his lap. He was running his fingers through my hair, and I allowed myself to lean into his touch. I was nearly giddy at the prospect of all the things that might be allowed to me now. “You really are the more courageous of the two of us. I don’t think I ever would have brought it up.”
“You may call it courage, if you like,” he said, amused. “I would say impatience. I liked to have you looking, and I hated when it stopped. I wanted it to be a settled thing.”
I reached for the hand in my hair and kissed the palm. His hand was warm, and there was a small scar on the inside of one finger I had never seen before. I smiled at the thought; there was so much left to learn.
“I’m happy to consider the matter settled,” I told him. “And I will look at you as much as you like, so long as there are no policemen around.”
And so I did, and still do, though I will admit that there is something proprietary to the look now, for he is mine, as I am his, and I intend for that to remain quite a settled matter.