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I took my Underground ticket back from the conductor and gave Holmes a rather ungracious shove as we moved toward the escalator. “You were insufferably rude,” I hissed in his ear, which only earned me an even stiffer, colder shoulder. “Rupert was just being friendly.”
“Oh, you’re on a first name basis with Lord Finnsworth are you?” Holmes growled under his breath. His scorn was tempered somewhat by his awkward step onto the moving platform of the escalator, and he ruined the effect entirely by grabbing for my sleeve to steady himself. He let go a moment later and turned his back on me once more.
“Lord Finnsworth was at University with me,” I said. “You know that perfectly well.”
Holmes’s countenance was like ice, but I detected the slightest narrowing of his eyes.
“His diploma was hung over his collection of ridiculous dog statues on the sideboard,” I said. “You didn’t see it?”
He licked his lower lip, as if to protest, but said nothing.
“You didn’t--” I stared at him. “Dear God, Holmes,” and here I had to lower my voice again, because we were surrounded by people, but not so much that I couldn’t be heard over the whine and rumble of the escalator, “you’re jealous.”
"Jealousy," Holmes snapped back immediately over his shoulder, "is a trait reserved for fourteen year old girls, as I should have thought you would know full well, Watson." The long-fingered hand took firm hold of the bannister and I stifled a laugh, inching myself towards him on my step so my mouth was in close proximity to his ear.
"I hope you don't mean to suggest," I said, not really meaning it, "that I've a propensity for adolescent young ladies. After all, you of all people --"
"Oh, do shut up!" Few things delight me more than startling a curt declamation like that out of Holmes; the expression on his face, of put-upon irritation, is so charming. Once upon a time, I might have cowered at it, but now as he half-turned to look at me, I only smiled serenely.
"My apologies," I said mildly. He glowered back.
"Any road," he muttered darkly, "Finnsworth is an absurdity, as far as I can detect. I cannot imagine what you ever saw in him. What sort of grown man collects dog statues; honestly, John."
I stifled the amusement that threatened to bubble up in my throat and made myself reply, quite severely, "You're right, of course. The statue-collecting seems to have been a recent development." I couldn't resist adding, "When we were students together --"
"Watson!" The word rasped out, and he did see the grin on my face this time when he turned to look at me. It was only unfortunate that the hard ground finally reared up just as he turned, causing him to stumble onto it as the stairs came to an end; I caught him by the arm, and he let me lead him reluctantly out of the path of the mass of humanity spilling off the staircase and into the tunnels leading to the various platforms. Subtly, where I was sure it could not be seen, I touched his lower back.
"Finnsworth is an absurdity," I told him softly. "You needn't get so worked up about it, you know."
I heard him snort in derision. “You were very friendly with the man, Watson,” he said as we reached the platform. The air down in the tunnels was hot and oppressive, and I could taste the oily residue of the trains’ exhaust at the back of my throat. Holmes had a bead of sweat making its way down the side of his face. I couldn’t have been looking much better myself: the week had been a long one so far, and with Holmes only a few months returned from his lengthy trip to America, I was loath to give up any private time with him. Nevertheless, his arrest of Von Bork had only been a plaster on a much deeper international problem, and there was no time for us to rest. We’d come back to London almost at once, our villa in Sussex shut up as if for a very long winter, and the pace of the great city, which once used to buoy me up, now weighed upon my heart.
“It is a surprise, sometimes,” said I, “to find that the member of the peerage with whom one is corresponding is, in fact, an old friend.”
For some reason, that didn’t help. Holmes’s expression darkened again. “That’s right,” he said, “you’ve been writing letters for a few months now.”
“At your brother’s behest,” I protested.
“Did you talk on the telephone?” he demanded.
The train arrived, and we were pushed inexorably towards the doors on the tide of commuters behind us. Holmes and I managed to stay close together as we boarded, but there were no seats available. We had to stand, crammed in with everyone else, and I ended up with my back against the wall and Holmes more or less plastered against my front. We both reached up to hold the ropes that would keep us on our feet, and the train lurched into motion. The electric lights flickered. Gone were the days of the first class Underground car, I lamented inwardly.
“Yes,” I said, answering Holmes’s question. “We did. I even sent him a wire on two occasions. Does it matter?”
“Yes,” he snarled, and I felt his other hand come up and grip my waistcoat underneath my jacket.
Holmes and I have been lovers for many years. Together, we have weathered the Wilde scandal, the Black Book debacle, and more, and managed to make it out the other end unscathed and undetected, despite his general protests about my narrative obsession with his hands. (I challenge anyone to write about Holmes without focusing in upon his beautiful, slender hands.) Largely, our success in avoiding detection has been based in caution when in public places. But something about the Underground, its mass congregation of people, its dirty clamour -- somehow, the more people there are, the less open an arena it seems. And so, when Holmes's fingers twisted into the fabric of my waistcoat, what I felt was not so much anxiety but interest of the darker sort, feeling him tug my body towards his, as if it could even make a difference among the press of the crowd.
"Your brother," I said to him carefully, "is a very important figure in the sphere of British Intelligence. I should hope you were not suggesting that I should avoid his recommendations, simply in order to ensure that his younger brother's hackles are not raised."
"Hackles," he spat, disparagingly. The hand on my waistcoat slipped beneath, from cloth to flesh, flattening against the bulk and muscle of my stomach (sadly no longer as flat as it once was in times past). I leaned into him, feeling his palm push against me, half-holding me up. "Hackles, Watson. My only concern is that this chap --"
"Is what, a German spy?" I was needling at him shamelessly, now, and he knew it; flickered his grey eyes up to meet mine and pulled a face worthy of an irritated ten year old boy. Somehow, the older he gets, the more attractive such faces are on him.
"I do not like," he muttered, "to find that my helpmeet has been in frequent correspondence with a person of whose integrity I am not assured; is this a crime?" The hand flexed warmly against my waist. In the crush of the crowd, it made no odds, and I let myself lean into it; let the heel of my hand brush against his straining wrist in the confines of the compartment.
Our faces were very close together, hampered by the brims of our hats. “Insecurity does not suit you,” I said quietly. “My ‘frequent correspondence’ with Finnsworth is purely the result of Mycroft’s influence. I am sorry that it was he to whom I could write my letters, and not you. You know that.”
Holmes bit his lip, not quite mollified.
The train stopped and the crowd shifted, was replaced. Our little pocket of privacy remained. The doors closed once more, and we moved on.
“What will it take?” I asked. I pressed against him, my thigh slipping between his, almost by accident, and I felt the soft bulk of his groin against my quadriceps. He shifted in surprise and rubbed against me, warm and tempting through the layers of his clothing.
His voice was barely above a whisper. “You’re mad,” he said.
“You’re the one,” I replied, and with my elbow pressed his bare hand against my bare belly.
“Watson, I’m not going to--”
“Hush,” I said. “You’re only going to draw attention.”
The electric lights flickered again, and the train slowed. We came to a stop in the dark tunnel. I flexed my thigh.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Holmes protested, but his hand on me tightened, pulling me in even further, and I felt his hips move. He was not so soft now, his prick swelling in his drawers. He looked defiantly into my eyes. I couldn’t help smiling. While he was gone, I hadn’t forgotten what he looked like. But to witness the flicker of emotion across his face, or to see his sly little smile, or to simply observe the dilation of his pupils with my own eyes, was a gift.
“You have seven stops,” I said.
We began to move again. "Is that so?" He was smirking, one corner of the well-known mouth tugging up. Behind him, a lady in a long skirt was poised with one arm over her head, hand barely an inch from Holmes's; I could read the flinch in her entire body as she struggled to remain both upright and out of contact with the stranger behind her. The stranger -- Holmes -- was meanwhile entirely uninterested in intruding upon her space, being pressed nearly full length against me.
It is a curious thing, the London Underground. The tendency of its proprietors to remain utterly silent, whatever the incident that may have occurred, is one I have never seen echoed anywhere. Now, as we bided our time in this tunnel, I could hear nothing but the caught breath of our fellow travellers, while the warmth of Holmes's soft exhalations fell readily upon my cheek. Against my thigh, I felt his cockstand flex and fill a little; reactively, I lifted my knee, giving him something to press against. He bit his lip.
"Watson --"
The smirk, as I had hoped, was gone, and I smiled back at him in the twilight of the carriage, shifting my weight so that I rubbed him firmly, feeling the way he twitched.
"Don't worry," I told him, sweetly. "I'm sure the conductor will get us there on time."
Holmes snorted. I expected him at this point to close his eyes in an attempt to block out our surroundings, the crush of people, the stifling air of the tunnel, but he rubbed his thumb against my skin and kept his eyes fixed on mine. The fall of his coat hid most of what we were doing, while the movement of the train did most of the work. The flush in his cheeks could be explained away by the heat. I watched it suffuse his cheeks as I rubbed him slowly, deliberately, through his trousers. We were in perhaps the least arousing place I could imagine, and yet I wanted nothing better than to crush him against the doors and kiss him until he melted in my arms. I glanced at his mouth and he bit his lip, able to read my desires as plainly as if I’d spoken them aloud.
We reached another stop, and this time the crowd thinned and did not replenish. There was space around us, and if we did not separate we would look very suspicious indeed. Holmes pulled away. There was still nowhere to sit, so we remained standing, staring at one another. A careful observer would have noticed the distorted line of Holmes’s trousers, and the hopeful cant of my knee, but I didn’t care. Six stops.
“I missed you,” I said. “Surely I haven’t neglected to tell you that.”
Holmes adjusted his grip on the rope overhead and dropped his eyes to the floor. His breathing was still somewhat rapid. “No,” he said, “You have not.”
“Your brother gave me a copy of every report you sent. I have them in a box at home.”
He smiled sadly. “I am glad to hear it.”
Another stop, and once again we were surrounded. Holmes shifted us out of the way of a woman with a pair of enormous shopping bags, and as the train moved away from the station I found myself pressed against him once more. Only now he had shifted his foot and drawn me astride it, and we were practically entwined, our simulacrum of congress just barely hidden by our coats. His cockstand was rigid agaisnt my hip.
“Do you remember,” I said in his ear as I slipped my hand around his waist and flirted with the top of his trousers, “how we used to get a cab?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes,” he said.
“No, I mean, when we used to-- get a cab.”
His eyelashes fluttered, and I knew he’d got my meaning. "The Underground was less...reliable in those days," he murmured. I bit my lip on a laugh, smoothed my fingers across his arse, and felt him twitch against my body.
"Undoubtedly," I said. "One could never be quite certain of what one might encounter on the journey home."
"Whereas now, of course --" Holmes's breath caught; I watched with some satisfaction as he rocked up onto his toes, grinding himself against me -- "it is all far less of a gamble." His eyes met mine, eyebrows raised. It was all I could do not to laugh; the clench of want in my chest went some way towards this end. Holmes like this, full of levity and anticipation, had always been a delight to me.
"Predictable, always, is the Tube," I agreed. I drew my hand back and slipped it between us, in order to fondle him directly. I ran my thumb over the defined ridge of his cockhead, outlined through the fabric of his trousers where it pushed out the placket; the buttons were straining, distended by the shove of his dick. He watched me, heavy-lidded, and I pointedly slipped my thumb between two buttons and pressed, testing the weight of him through his underwear alone.
"Predictability is only sometimes something to be celebrated," he told me, breathless. His hand clenched reflexively at my waist, but I could still feel him swelling, his body sure where his mind and sensibilities may have been uncertain. "Watson --"
"Shhhh." Like this, I could feel the heat wet between us, the warmth of the sweat on his face. My lips almost brushed his jaw as I leaned into him, and meanwhile his prick thickened fiercely hot against my fingers. I sought the slit of his underthings, and when my fingertips grasped him bare underneath his drawers, we both of us gasped, he coughing to cover the sound of it sharp in the thick air of the Tube.
“Get off at the next one,” Holmes said, pushing his hips into my hand. The delicate skin of his prick was hot and smooth under my fingers. His tip was wet with desire. We were still three stops from our destination, but I didn’t argue. I pulled back, and when the doors opened next I squeezed my way apologetically through the crowd with Holmes at my back. We joined the throng moving on foot through the passageways, up the stairs, and Holmes handed our tickets over to a confused collector who made to protest that we hadn’t completed our journey. We ignored him. Holmes took the lead and, with only a slight limp, guided me along the subway to the gents’ toilet.
“You’re not serious,” I said.
“Deadly,” said he, opening the door for me. There were six urinals and two stalls inside, all unoccupied. There wasn’t even an attendant.
I went in the second stall and locked the door behind us. “This is very unwise,” I said, taking off my hat.
Holmes grabbed me by the back of the neck and crushed my mouth to his. “What is truly unwise,” he said, fumbling open the buttons on my trousers, “is feeling up your male companion on a public train, but I’ll let it pass.” He opened his open and spread his legs for me, and I fit so neatly between them, shoved up against the door, his prick against mine, hot and stiff in the space between our bodies. Holmes groaned into my mouth, biting my lip, and I closed my fist around us both. He shuddered, so I slipped my other arm around his waist to keep him steady. He clung to me, pushing his hands into my hair, trying to grip me with his knees. He tasted strange, metallic, like the air underground, but a few more kisses and he was familiar again, sweet and slick and mine.
“Make it quick, John, for God’s sake,” he said, breaking the kiss so that he could bite his way along my jaw. His teeth scraped my day’s-end stubble, and I moved my hand as well as I could with both of us in my grip. Holmes was squirming; I could feel his desperation, hear it in the shallowness of his breath, the soft whine of need he made in my ear as he pulled uselessly at the back of my coat. I changed my grip to hold him alone, to jerk him quickly, my hand sliding easily with the help of his own slickness, and he bit down on my pulse to stifle a moan.
Holmes and I had done many unwise things in our life together, but this must surely count among the top two or three. We were neither of us noisy, but still, Holmes was not silent either as he bucked into my hand, the fat swell of his prick sliding wetly between the crux of my thumb and forefinger. I could feel the pulse of him beating in his cock, smell the fierce raw scent of him between us, and when he leaned up, groaning into the hollow of my throat, I reached up my free hand to fist in his hair, tugging in warning.
"Holmes --" My own voice pushed hotly between my teeth, and he groaned, brought his own hand down to circle the tautness of my wrist. His hand there was loose, not forcing, but guiding, and I let him hold me as I fisted us back and forth, my thumb catching the flesh of his foreskin and slicking it over his crown and then back again, letting myself be guided by the pulse in his flesh. I could feel him like hot silk against my own straining need, the wet kiss of his pricktip nudging my own.
"Watson," he muttered, "they employ special policemen to guard against reprobates like you -- oh --"
I shivered, jerked him harder in response, and he clutched at me, pressing the flats of his knees against mine in the limited space of the toilet stall. He was quite right, of course, but the thought of distressing the Met has sadly heated my blood for far longer than it's made me wary, and Holmes doubtless knew as much, growling softly in my ear as he rocked into my hand.
His crisis was swiftly approaching; I could feel it in the grip of his hands, the throb of his cock, and the staccato rhythm of his breathing. I nudged aside his collar to press kisses to his neck and slid my unoccupied hand down to cup his backside. Pulling him against me had a most encouraging effect: Holmes’s back arched and he cried out in distress.
“Anyone could come in here,” I warned, my heart pounding at the thought of it, and Holmes laughed, almost manic. He reached behind himself, pulled my handkerchief out of my sleeve, and shoved it between us, just in time. He came with a shudder and a moan, his eyes closed and his mouth open in bliss. I felt him stiffen and pulse in my hand, and my own need was suddenly unbearable. Watching his climax has always had a profound effect upon me.
Holmes knew this, of course, and before he had even stopped shaking he was pushing my hands away to return the favour. He sagged back against the wall and pulled me with him, his long fingers wrapped around my prick, stroking me quickly.
“Come on, John,” he muttered, “before you get us caught, you wicked man. Anyone could have seen us on the train. Imagine it. What would they have said if they’d spotted you with your hand down my drawers?”
My breath caught in my throat, lodged there with the burst of illicit pleasure, and I spurted, without much warning, over his fingers. He sighed, working me through it, and kissed my face as I recovered. I nuzzled into his caress, finally meeting him for a tender press of lips. We lingered there a little while, trading gentle reassurances. Then Holmes gave me a nudge, I staggered back from his embrace, and we tidied ourselves up.
We almost bumped into a chap coming in as we left, and I had to put my hand over my mouth to stifle my mirth. Holmes fared better, but we were both laughing when we reached the street. We were in Trafalgar Square, I discovered.
“Come here a moment,” I said, catching Holmes’s sleeve and drawing him toward one of the fountains. We leaned against the stone rim, amicable as friends, and I pulled out my pocket book.
“You’re not going to reimburse me for the fare, are you?” Holmes teased.
“No,” I said, and he stilled at my seriousness. In the smallest pocket I’d managed to keep, for nearly five years, a small token. A whim. A ridiculous idea at the time. I took it out. I’d bought it before Holmes had been summoned away: a plain gold ring, similar to my own wedding band which I wore on my right hand, but not identical to the one my wife had worn.
"John." His voice was hushed, now; I had rendered him almost speechless, and when he raised his eyes to mine they were wide with wonder. It is not easy, surprising Sherlock Holmes. Gently, the action shielded by our coats and bodies on one side and the fountain on the other, I took his hand and squeezed it.
"Don't say anything, my dear fellow. I am quite aware that I'm being ridiculous, and if you care to laugh me out of court, I shouldn't blame you; I only thought --"
"Watson." He lifted an eyebrow, and we both smiled; I having been fairly assured already that he would not reject me, and he being quite aware that the contrition in my voice was something of an exaggeration. He turned his hand in my own, lacing our fingers.
"You couldn't wear it in the usual place, I suppose," I told him, with a pang of regret; "for the world, God knows, would have noticed if Sherlock Holmes had taken a wife --"
He cut me off with a smirk. "Really? I rather thought I'd taken one decades ago, and everybody seems to have missed it."
"Ass." I nudged him reprovingly with my knee. "If you can be serious for more than twenty seconds at a time, I am trying to impress upon you the fact that, whether you are with me or not, there is no need to worry about my...fidelity. Much as I would prefer to have you with me."
He lowered his eyes, apologetic, and then lifted them again. "I do know that," he said softly. "Forgive me if it still strikes me as inexplicable, your continuing and devoted attachment to me, but I know it to be true."
"Still," I said, "a reminder might not go amiss. They wear them on the right hand in Paris, I believe."
Holmes’s smile returned, and he put out his right hand. “You should have waited until we were somewhere private to do this,” he said. “I feel a very strong urge to kiss you.”
“I thought the public convenience appropriate for some things, but not all of them,” I said. He laughed. I took his hand. His strong, nimble fingers straightened in my grip. His skin was somewhat wrinkled, and spots of age had begun to appear on the back of his hand. He had a scar near his wrist bones from a chemical splash that must have been thirty years ago or more, and yet I could still trace the pale, round mark with my thumb. His nails were short, neatly kept. I had all but memorised the feel of his fingerprints against my scalp.
The ring slipped onto his fourth finger easily, and nestled snug against his third knuckle. I’d only guessed the size at the time, but it appeared that I had judged rightly. Or perhaps it was just meant to be that way. It looked strange on his normally-unadorned hand, but as he pulled away to admire it, the band caught the light and all at once it suited him perfectly. My vision blurred.
“Oh, my dear fellow,” Holmes said, reaching for me. He brushed away the tear that had escaped to run down my cheek, and gathered my hands in his. I felt the ring against my fingers.
"For once," I said, striving for levity, "we're almost in keeping with the rest of the populace, Holmes. A ring for my departing soldier…"
He squeezed my hands, a firm, fierce grasp. "It is you who are the soldier, John. And I…" He stopped, and smiled. "Well, I may be departing at some juncture, I suppose, depending on what the powers that be have to say on the subject. But I will be back again, you may count upon it."
The powers, I supposed, meant Mycroft and his network of busy little worker ants, bringing home their secret dispatches from all over the globe. That Holmes, with his particular skills, could be useful to them was a subject that had been discussed repeatedly, but I didn't wish to dwell upon it in this moment. Already the gold band was warming between our fingers. I recovered my composure forcibly, and we let our hands fall.
Holmes glanced about us out of long habit, but there was nobody to pay any mind to two older gentlemen in intimate conversation in the square.
"That urge I mentioned earlier," he said under his breath, "if anything has only increased. Do you suppose we could prevail upon the conductor to let us finish our journeys, or would you prefer to walk?"
"Oh, walk, I think," I said, hooking an arm through Holmes's. "It's only a little distance, and I've had enough of that smoke-ridden rabbit warren for one day, I think."
Holmes raised an eyebrow, sly. “Or we could get a cab.”
I laughed. “I don’t think my heart could handle the strain.”
Holmes squeezed my arm. His ring glittered on his finger. “Very well,” he said. “Faces to the north, my dear boy.”
“North-west,” I suggested.
“Bugger off,” Holmes replied cheerfully. “Let’s go home. There’s a bottle of Beaune hidden somewhere in Mycroft’s cellar, and I want to celebrate.”