Harry: Chapter Seventeen
Equilibrium
by Liederlady
Watson, pressed against the archway, wears a decidedly
hare-within-the-fox’s-jaw look. For reasons unknown, I take pity on the man and
turn to make my way to the sofa. He will either follow me or not.
I light the table lamp before arranging myself on the
sofa, leaving sufficient room for my companion. He continues to inhabit the
doorway a moment. When he closes the door and turns back toward me, he shows an
instant of hesitation. His blue eyes dart toward the passageway leading to the
bedrooms then back to the space on the sofa next to me. When they rise to
regard my face, I smile … not my usual … rather the genuine one, and I allow it
to linger. He returns it with a small one of his own.
But he still remains near the door.
“Perhaps a drink would break the tension?” I suggest.
Watson starts a bit.
“Do you wish one?” he asks after clearing his throat.
“I shall join you in one.”
He all but leaps to the sideboard.
“What would you like?” he asks.
“Whatever you choose to offer,” I reply in my most
invitational timbre.
However, Watson fails to interpret either tone or
entendre.
He pours unadulterated scotch and crosses the room. As
he proffers my glass, I graze his fingers twice with my own before taking it; his
twitch fractionally and clutch the crystal a bit longer than necessary before
relinquishing it. I glance up and hold his blue gaze longer than that.
“To delightful discoveries, Watson,” I toast and raise
my glass to his. He blushes.
As his eyes dart from mine to watch our glasses touch,
a frisson of pleasure jolts through my groin as even the part in his hair
flushes. Why should so green a prospect prompt such anticipation?
What is wrong with me?
I sip my scotch and he watches me do it. Again, longer
than necessary.
“More than adequate,” I say in a dismissive tone, as
though to a maitré’d intent on my approval. Watson simply stands there, his
drink untouched in his right hand, eyes wide and trained on me.
The tableau before me is inordinately pleasing.
“You may sit down, my boy.”
His hand jerks, sloshing some of the expensive liquid
from the rim of his glass to spill over his fingers. By reflex, his arm lifts
and he licks guiltily at the escaped scotch. Considering his apparent
background, I deduce Watson understands this is the finest scotch he shall ever
sample. Mycroft claims his retired Admiral merits the pick of Her Majesty’s
cellar.
“Watson, sit down.” This time it is demand rather than
invitation.
He starts toward the seat next to me then turns
abruptly and takes the stuffed chair across. I breathe an audible sigh of
disappointment that prompts him to finally take a generous swig of scotch. The
blue eyes blaze with liquid appreciation.
“You truly are ill at ease.” With such a guileless
creature, directness seems the best course.
“I-- by no means, you-- it--”
“Do you wish to continue what began in my bed?”
His jaw drops. Then Watson’s mouth closes abruptly,
his delightful moustache puffing out with his exhaled breath. When his lips
part again, they release something on the order of a strangled croak.
Should seduction be so complicated?
“Take another fortifying draught of your whisky, man,”
I say.
I knock back the balance of my drink, deposit the
glass rather harshly on the low table before me and abruptly rise, fixing
Watson with an appraising glare.
With any other novice, I would have long since
abandoned the contest. Sex holds few surprises for me now and markedly less
allure. Even the titillation of an uncertain and untested partner is proving
tedious. Unwillingness entirely dashes it.
My initial aim was sound. Simply indulge this raw
blighter with a prosaic sightseeing excursion, provide sup and spirits superior
to his heretofore deplorably banal experience and consider the debt damn well
paid. If my foot can bear the walk tomorrow, we can tour the castles, enjoy a
dinner out and Watson can be delivered to his precious, hulking Netley a day
early. Then I can dispense with any concerns regarding Moriarty.
“I bid you good night.” I deliver it with as little
asperity as is possible for me and hobble past the table toward the passageway.
“I-- I’m sorry. It-- I say, this is-- Blast! Doctor
Brett was right,” Watson grumbles.
I turn in time to see him toss back his own drink as
he rises then savagely wipe his chin with his sleeve.
“What has Doctor Brett to do with anything that has
happened here?”
He blinks at me. The light cast by the lamp is
sufficient to reveal the rich glow that suffuses his strong, handsome features.
The whisky, undoubtedly, accounts for some measure, but frustration fuels that
flush as well.
“He-- he said this would. Said I was too-- I did not
believe I-- Oh dash it!”
The man is babbling. He tries downing another draught
of whisky only to find the glass empty. I move forward to relieve him of it.
“I shall fetch you another.”
He looks up at me. White flecks glint amid the blue
pools, resembling myriad breakers on miniature seas. I contemplate whether an
erstwhile mariner has ever lost her way within them and find my fingers
clenching.
I almost chuckle over my uncharacteristically poetic
and envious musing. Could Mycroft have been right, that this trip, this gesture
may be folly? I conceded that physical desire is disquieting. But this …
I catch and correct my posture before my lips press to
Watson’s; I jerk back awkwardly. His hand darts forward, fingers curling
halfway round my bicep to steady me. And then they do more than steady me.
The Admiral’s scotch is rich and aged and luxuriant.
But its unquestionable excellence is enhanced a hundredfold by the flavor of
Watson’s mouth. The gods themselves never sipped such ambrosia as that which my
tongue now samples. Fingers weave through my hair, drawing me down for deeper
draughts.
Kissing has never proved a particular hunger,
previously serving as little more than an engaging appetizer and then only with
skilled gourmets who swiftly opted to gorge upon a more tantalizing repast.
Thus I am astounded that simply indulging in Watson’s mouth comprises a grand
and satisfying feast.
When we break, each panting the other’s name, I revel
within the secure and heated embrace of Watson’s muscular arms. The nape of my
neck is graced by his left massaging hand while the other applies firm pressure
to the small of my back. Before he notices his actions, his hips buck forward
to urgently rub his groin against my own as he moans my given name. His rough
voice somehow imbues it with a grace reminiscent of an achingly brief aria.
Until this moment, I hated the name my father chose
for me.
Watson’s stubble-roughened cheek earns a caress and
his closed eyes a grateful press of lips. When his eyelids lift, they reveal
alarmingly diminished blue irises, passion having engorged the man’s ebony
pupils as severely as his member, still grinding against mine.
Sudden awareness floods then widens those darkened
eyes and Watson’s body goes still. Disturbingly, my throat requires clearing
before words come. And when they do, my accustomed aplomb is quite blasted.
“My boy,” is all I manage to breathe.
“What am I?” he asks, his reddish brown brows
pinching, his eyes mirroring the troubled uncertainty of his words.
‘A marvel’ I wish to say. But such tenderness—and
confidence—elude me.
“A man with needs. No different than any other,” I
reply, hoping to sound blasé enough to banish his distress, initially oblivious
to the alternate and offensive allusion Watson might infer.
He flinches, his eyes snapping shut. Only then do the
carelessly chosen words echo back to me. My own arms, wrapped securely about
him, somewhat impede his deep intake of breath and effort to pull away.
A million souls perched atop each others’ shoulders
could not attain this man’s stature.
“Do not speak that way,” Watson says, still trying to
pull away. And I wonder if somehow I insanely uttered my thoughts.
“How?”
“As though you are some-- Edwards was wrong. Brett was
wrong,” he snaps.
I grasp his jaw, compelling him to look up at me.
“Brett again,” I snarl. “Did the man seduce you?”
Watson’s eyes widen and I tighten my grip. He tries
moving his head from side to side, but my hold prevents him.
“Am I completely blind?” he says in a wondering voice.
“Explain,” I demand.
What surfaces within his lust-glazed eyes is at once
familiar and alien. I have witnessed evidence of it with others, but never to
this depth. This man is placing his profoundest faith in me.
In that moment, I understand that I can wholly
dominate him. And I long to. Such influence does, after all, match both my
personality and training. Watson will do whatever I demand. My control can
range far beyond the carnal realm and he will comply, he will do anything.
I grasp his jaw harder and crush my lips to his, this
kiss even more violent than that from an hour earlier in my bed. My other hand
ranges to his buttocks to pull him impossibly closer. The press of his
continued arousal prompts my knowing smile even as my lips ravage his. I secure
my grip of the muscled flesh beneath the woollen trousers.
Watson writhes beneath my onslaught, managing to break
the kiss.
“Let me go,” he says tightly.
“No. Answer me. Did he seduce you?”
“I had no idea what he felt. I must be an idiot,”
Watson growls, twisting his head and trying to pull away from me again. I bend
again for a kiss, but he continues to struggle.
I immediately release him and am dazed by the impulse
to do so.
My carnal lessons equated reluctance with enticement
and entitlement. The assertive habit survives, but some alternate and unknown
force within me stays it.
“Nothing more than this need happen, Watson.” The
words spill from me, but both mind and body scream the opposite.
Yet another precedent shattered. I have never been
renowned for either a selfless or indulgent nature.
“What?” the man asks breathlessly.
“I never thought to want anyone again,” I whisper,
more to myself than him. Indeed, the fire coursing through me burns hotter than
the mere physical need over which I typically possess iron control. My
childhood disciplines taught me such control.
But those disciplines never addressed this … this
white-flame yearning kindled by the light within Watson’s eyes or the taste of
Watson’s mouth or the press of Watson’s body.
What is happening to me?
“Holmes?”
His voice is gentle. He is gentle. Compassionate. And
passionate. He helped me. Cared for me, yet expected nothing in return.
But shall he? If he learns of what I feel, whatever it
is, whatever it means. Will he use it against me? Will he try to sway me,
persuade, control me? Control.
“No.”
“Are you all right? Holmes?”
Never. Never again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The boy’s naturally pale complexion shot deathly
white. Then a dark flush colored his skin and fiery rage supplanted softer
passion within the grey eyes.
“No,” he suddenly said.
“Are you all right? Holmes?”
He whirled away and moved toward the entranceway but
his lame foot made him stumble. I darted forward, reaching out to steady him.
“Don’t touch me,” he said in a flat voice that belied
his tumultuous expression.
“Holmes, I only wish to help--”
“I warn you. Do not touch me.”
“My boy, I--”
I never saw his right hand. Nor can I honestly say I
felt the initial blow. I only recall the dimly lit room splintering into white
flashes before blackness enveloped me.
The blackness was sluggish, like some slumbering
laggard unwilling to quit his bed and greet a new day. Bits of light broke
through only to be snuffed out. Eventually, awareness attempted to intervene
wearing the guise of a sharp ache on the left side of my chin. It was
accompanied by an annoying ringing.
Then more bits of light assaulted my vision, blurry,
indistinct, until they formed a shape and the shape formed a face and the face
was pale with a trembling lower lip and wide, brimming grey eyes, the likes of
which could only belong to--.
Holmes. Holmes was troubled. Had stumbled. Holmes.
Holmes had punched me?
I blinked my eyes and my head reeled.
“Awful power within such beautiful hands,” I said.
Or I tried to say that. But something happened to the
words en route from my brain and they emerged frightfully slurred and garbled.
“Watssonnn.”
My name echoed to me from some distant canyon. But I
could not see the canyon. I could only see Holmes’s pale, frightened face.
Who had frightened him? Damn the blackguards! I would
thrash them sound--
“No, Watson, rest easy. Are you all right? No, lie
still, boy. Forgive me, please forgive me. I do not know what came over--”
“Holmes?”
“Yes, Watson. Are you all right?”
“Did you hit me, Holmes?”
He shuddered. I could feel him shudder. Suddenly,
heightened awareness spilled over me and I realized I was on my side, half
lying on the floor. Holmes knelt next to me, one hand clutching my shoulder and
his face pressed close to mine.
His left hand was cradling the right side of my jaw,
suspending it above the hard floor. I was very glad he was not touching the
other side of my jaw. I might have been compelled to hit him back if he was.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Watson. Dreadfully sorry,” he said.
His voice was shaking nearly as badly as his hands.
“Holmes, please let go of my face. You’re shaking me
and I’m dizzy enough.”
My words still did not sound right, but were better
than before. Holmes pursed his lips and for a moment, I thought I managed to
make them smile. But I had not. He drew away his left hand and pressed it to my
right shoulder, gently urging me to sit upright.
It was not the wisest urge. I instantly felt faint and
feared I would crumble to the floor which appeared alarmingly far away. But
then my head was resting on a firm, but yielding surface.
When I felt Holmes’s rapid-fire heartbeat and quick
breathing, I realized I was leaning against his chest. At least he was not
shaking so much anymore. His right hand carded soothing trails through my hair
and the gesture kindled my memory of being six years old, curled and wailing
within mother’s consoling embrace. I had just witnessed my brother’s old and
beloved spaniel, Freckles, horribly crushed under the wheel of an ox-cart. The
age-crippled girl had gamely tried to run across the hill road between the
rolling cart’s wheels, obediently answering my call to come and play.
It has taken Hamish many years to forgive me for his
lifelong friend’s cruel demise. I shall never forget the half-shriek the poor
creature voiced with her final breath.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Holmes flinched.
“You have nothing for which to apologize, my dear
fellow. I am the guilty party,” Holmes said softly.
“Just remembering something from long ago,” I murmured. But I did not wish to correct my mumbled words or explain further. I wanted to rest briefly and absorb the calming sensation of Holmes’s breathing and the motion of his hand and the security of his embrace. It had been a long time since I enjoyed such tender care.
