Reminiscence
I was awoken by a light chuckle in my ear. Slowly, as I regained consciousness, I became aware of the warmth of the man who lay behind me, with an arm around my waist. I turned my face around to find Holmes staring at me with affectionate eyes and a gentle smile gracing his lips.
"What’s so amusing?" I said in half a whisper, my voice heavy with sleep, turning back to my previous position. Holmes’ arms tightened around me, and I felt him smile even more broadly against my neck.
"It seems I have grown more sentimental with age,” he said against my skin. “The result of prolonged exposure to a contaminating agent, no doubt.” In spite of the ironic remark, there was a tenderness in his voice which even nowadays was rare. His fingers were brushing through my now almost completely gray hair, and I couldn’t help but feeI said tenderness multiplied tenfold inside my chest, my heart momentarily almost in pain because of such strong emotion. I turned around fully to be able to look at Holmes’ face and his arms quickly circled around my back.
“And what prompted such a fit of sentimentalism on your part?”
“Why,” he said, a hand moving to caress my cheek, his eyes fixed on mine. “You, of course.”
His hands moved along my face, slow and precise, almost calculating. My eyes fluttered shut, and a slight sigh escaped my lips. I could feel his fingers mapping my skin, tracing the shell of my ears, moving softly down the bridge of my nose and upon my parted mouth. Suddenly I was reminded of the first time he had touched me like this. A long time had passed since then, and yet he continued to do it with the same fascination and awe he had expressed then.
“I see,” I said, my eyes still closed and my voice only the barest of whispers. “You were reminiscing.”
I felt him nod against my neck, his lips continuing the pattern his fingers had begun. I knew what he was thinking, and yet I couldn’t think of any particular reason why he had begun reminiscing about our first time sleeping together in the first place. I told him as much—with some effort, since his mouth had moved upon my stomach in the meantime, and all coherence I had possessed merely moments ago had disappeared. Holmes obviously knew this, and, much to my despair, his attentions to my body promptly ceased. A moment later, his face was next to mine again. His eyes shone the same way they did every morning since our retirement: full of contentment and an inner peace that, thirty years earlier, I would not have thought possible. Not this far from London, at any rate.
“You really don’t know why?” He asked me, a beat later, maneuvering both of us into a sitting position, as if to look at me more closely, surprise evident in his eyes and even a hint of amusement colouring his voice.
I felt myself blush with some embarrassment and even more annoyance when Holmes threw his head back and began laughing heartily, letting me go. It was then that I set my still fogged with desire brain to work out what it was that I was supposed to know. It took only ten seconds of reflection. Holmes was still laughing when I threw my pillow square on his face.
“Happy anniversary,” I said, with mock bitterness, a smile breaking through my wavering scowl. “You know I am terrible with dates.”
Holmes wiped his eyes, which had overflown with unshed tears, sighed and then looked at me again, his lips pressed in a tight line that kept wavering with the threat of yet another fit of laughter at my expense.
“The great John “Trail of broken hearts in three continents” Watson forgot an anniversary!” exclaimed Holmes, his tone one of absolute delight. “Anyone who heard you now would think I was the hopeless romantic, not you.”
Instead of answering the way any other man would in my position, I did the most sensible thing one could do to shut Sherlock Holmes up: I kissed him. Immediately, the smirk that curved his lips disappeared as I softly grabbed his bottom lip between my teeth, drawing a growl from the back of his throat. His hands pressed insistently against my back once more, drawing us closer. Our mouths opened and I pushed my tongue against his, this time swallowing the moan that escaped between Holmes’ lips. A moment later, in very much the same abrupt manner he had employed earlier, I broke the kiss.
It was my turn to laugh at his betrayed expression.
“You little devil,” he mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his face away from me, with all the theatricality only he could muster. His voice was cold, but the small smile upon his face turned his performance into no other than that of annoyed fondness, one we were both exceedingly familiar with.
“All yours,” I whispered, moving to caress his upper arm. For an instant I was mesmerised by the sight of Holmes in our bed, much like I had been the first time I was granted the opportunity to witness it. And yet, this moment could not compare in the slightest.
We had been young then—for being forty three and forty years old respectively was not being old. Not considering the life we led. We had been young, and we had suffered, and we had lost—I had lost the two people I had loved the most. I had been ripped apart by grief; the best parts of me had been stolen away by the unwavering hand of Death. To this day, I cannot say what it was that stopped me from grabbing its hand too. Perhaps, a part of me had known I was meant to wait a little longer. Nevertheless, nothing could have prepared me for the gift I received three years later. The public is already familiar with those events, but there is much that they don’t know. That they can never know.
They could never know how I had been put back together almost as painfully as I had been torn apart.
During the day—and indeed, part of the night—of Holmes' return it had been easy. I felt whole again. I had Holmes by my side, all in one piece! It had been hard to believe then, but the fact that both Lestrade and Mrs Hudson had acknowledged his presence as well had comforted me enough to put any doubts about my sanity to rest. That night, I had gone to bed in my old room in Baker Street feeling a new man. I was certain I would have the best night of rest I had had in years, and many days of happiness would follow.
Instead, I woke in the middle of the night, with Holmes’ name stuck in my throat. I was suddenly convinced that all the events of the day before had been a delusion. A deep anguish overcame me, and I sobbed and begged God to at least spare me the madness, since I was already destined to die alone. I begged for mercy and for forgiveness for what felt like an eternity stuck in front of paradise, the entrance to which I was being denied. My throat had gone sore and every sob had felt like a part of me being newly ripped away. I could not see anything beyond my tears. I could not hear anything beyond my screams. At some point I became aware of a pair of painfully thin yet strong arms that had circled around me; I became aware that foreign tears had joined my own. I could hear only a broken whisper, repeated like a sacred chant, although I could not understand it at the time.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. God, John, I’m sorry.
I cannot say how long we remained in that position, for the exertion of the previous day caught up with me yet again, and I fell into a deep sleep, surrounded by the heat of the body that held me in its arms like a child.
I blinked into the present, and found Holmes looking at me, his eyes full of worry. One of his hands had moved upon my face, which, I distantly noticed, had become wet with tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, in the same broken whisper from our past. I smiled and covered his hand with mine, delighted at the simple feeling of his own aged skin against my own. I took it away from my face and held it between my own hands for a moment. My mind was still seeing the Holmes he had been then, the one who had welcomed me into consciousness after that terrible night. His face had been stricken with the very same grief I had experienced the night before.
I had touched his face too, then—I couldn’t help myself—marvelled at the trace of tears, marvelled at the sight of naked emotion that his eyes could barely contain, feeling for the first time the undeniable reality of the touch of his flesh under mine, of the blood rushing through his veins. Of the heart that beat inside his chest. Young, alive.
His hands had held mine, exactly as I did now. Our bodies were older, but the feeling was the same.
I let go of his hands to grab his face. I kissed his forehead, feeling Holmes’ lips doing the same on my own skin thirty years earlier. I kissed his brow, and his nose, and his cheekbones, retracing the path Holmes had traced upon my face that morning in Baker Street.
“I love you.” I whispered to his lips, as he had then.
“My John...” Holmes whispered in return, a sweet smile curving his lips. And then, as if this too was a sacred chant: “I love you.”
He closed the remaining gap between our mouths with delicacy, his lips brushing mine almost cautiously. He too, was remembering. But we were no longer in Baker Street, the sun was not just barely rising upon our windows. We were not longer fearful of Mrs Hudson waking up to start her day and discovering our secret (although she had known, bless her). And this was not the first kiss we had shared. I pulled Holmes closer, forcing my tongue inside his mouth, and tried to convey precisely that. I pressed my hands up and down his back, mentally cataloguing every scar, knowing the exact location of each mole without needing to see them.
The first time we had touched like this he had had less scars and less moles. His skin had been pale as the snow, and still taut with youth, although already showing signs of the passing of time. His hands had wandered over my skin, slowly, fearfully. He had said nothing but my name, over and over, like a wretched man’s prayer, his heart too heavy with repentance to love me freely. But I had loved him for the both of us. My hands wandered over his now slightly darker skin—a gift from his morning swims—instinctively, knowingly. I heard his breathless laugh in my ears, the gentle teasing, the infinite adoration, freely given and freely returned.
“John,” he said, and it was nothing at all like the first time he had said it—except for one thing: the adoration was the same, even stronger. “Oh, John,” he sighed. “I’m—”
A loud growl interrupted him, and I couldn’t help but smile when his face turned pink, and he stared at his stomach with bewilderment, as if he had forgotten about his own humanity. (And knowing him as I did, he probably had).
“Hungry?” I finished for him, placing a final kiss on his cheek. “Come, let’s have breakfast” I said, pulling him out of bed with me. “There will be plenty of time to reminisce later.”