Fic: Anniversary: G

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Title: Anniversary
Rating: G
Length: 500
Content Notes: Holmes/Watson (one-sided); pining!Holmes; POV Holmes
Summary: Holmes and Watson journey back to Baker Street after a concert and dinner.
Author's Note: For the May prompt.

In the glow of the streetlamp, I study your features for the hundredth time. Tonight’s concert programme was fortuitous, full of the romantic airs you favour, lacking even a single bar of Rhineland introspection. The dinner was to your liking as well as mine. When prepared properly, a duck may, in fact, rival its distant cousin, the woodcock. The wine was excellent and plentiful, a veritable wedding at Cana’s worth.

You have enjoyed yourself, my dear Watson.

Good.

Travelling by hansom from acoustical feast to culinary feast, we passed Baker Street, and I reflected that the journey from first acquaintance to fellow lodger was not a long one, only slightly longer than the one, say, from St. James’s Hall to Simpson’s.

And the journey from residential companion to boon companion? Well, it can be measured in years. One, to be exact, counted from the day you chose to make 221B your address until this very day, such few hours that are left of it.

It is a special day for us.

Too bold. And false, judging by the lack of any signs, subtle or gross, of the day’s significance on your part, though I have been studying your face for changes in the weather since breakfast.

So more precisely, and I am ever the slave to precision, it is a special day for me. And I choose to celebrate the passing of this year by endeavouring to keep a smile on your lips for the whole of the evening.

And I have succeeded. And we are destined for Baker Street once again, side by side, in a hansom as it clip-clops its way through this cesspool of idlers and loungers, as you so colourfully describe it.

You know that I prefer a hansom for its expediency. In this city, it is very often the quickest method of transport, and in my work delay is libel to be more calamitous than for most.

But we are not working now.

And now I arrive at a hidden truth, I prefer a hansom because, with the shifting and swaying of the wheels, with the skilful manoeuvring required to keep it upright, with my stature and your girth, it means that my knee brushes yours.

Often.

It is the only intimate touch of another that I allow myself, and more often than not, it is my reward for victory over villainy, and my consolation when wickedness prevails.

And so you see, my dear Watson, the journey from boon companion to, well, I’m not even prepared to name the destination, is one that I do not allow myself to contemplate. It would mean risking for nights like this.

Anniversaries.

And thus, the fare is far too costly.

And so, let us return home and alight from our shared palanquin, you still humming, still heavy on your feet, and curl into our respective beds. I cannot deduce what your dreams will be made of, my dear friend, but mine will go clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.

Comments

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

Ah, poor Holmes. It breaks my heart a little to see Holmes marking the day while Watson remains oblivious. (Though naturally Watson values their friendship.) Celebrating an anniversary is of course a reflection of what Holmes would like to happen in their relationship - friends don't generally celebrate the anniversary of the day they met. And it completely breaks my heart that Holmes knows he will never say anything - he can never risk losing Watson as a friend.

I love your parallel of the journey in the hansom cab, and the journey through steps in a relationship. And I love the gentle but intense eroticism of their knees brushing in the intimate setting of the cab.

Some favourite lines:

Travelling by hansom from acoustical feast to culinary feast...
And the journey from residential companion to boon companion?
...it is my reward for victory over villainy, and my consolation when wickedness prevails.
And so, let us return home and alight from our shared palanquin, you still humming, still heavy on your feet, and curl into our respective beds.

And I see the woodcock got a cameo ^^

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is what I had in mind for the prompt before small hobbit distracted me with the bull pup. Yeah, sad. I seem to write quite a bit of pining!Holmes in ACD 'verse. Yeah, Holmes has this whole 'date' planned, but only he knows it. And the woodcock!! Yes, it always makes a cameo. I love it so.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I like the introspection - sad, but not maudling, which suits Holmes well. Whilst he regrets what cannot be, he is too practical to let it ruin his life.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Yes, I think his practical nature and his stiff-upper-lippedness will keep him from acting on it but also from wallowing.

[debriswoman]

A study in missed possibilities
Nicely done.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[tripleransom.livejournal.com]

Poor Holmes!

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no happy ending here. BTW, I thought about you the other week, wondering how far-fetched it was that Colonel Ross didn't recognise Silver Blaze with the black paint. Still strikes me as a bit implausible. I mean, you got your fortune riding on an animal, it seems like you would be more familiar.

[tripleransom.livejournal.com]

Well, you'd be surprised. If Col Ross was not a hands on kind of owner, but left most things to his trainer, he might have known the colt largely by his markings. "Look, there's SB, because he has that white face."

BTW, did you catch that the horse who played SB was not the same horse that JB washed the black dye off of? ;)

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

That's what the 60 folks said, too. I guess I just wanted to hear it from a horseperson's mouth.

And no, I wouldn't have noticed it. But I re-watched it today, and maybe the nose of the painted one is rounder (fatter) and he's browner. Maybe. Guess, I'm a bit like Colonel Ross.

[tripleransom.livejournal.com]

Well, see to a horseperson, it's pretty plain.

In this ep, Granada were very careful to be authentic. The horses are really Thoroughbreds, including SB. It's a real racetrack (which has modern safety railing, but oh, well).

I gather there was some controversy when it was filmed, b/c the producers wanted stunt me to ride the horses, but the trainers wouldn't agree. They wanted their own exercise riders. So if you look closely, a couple of the jockeys are girls.

Probably because SB was a real Thoroughbred 3 year old in training, they didn't want to use him in the face-cleaning scene, so they used a quieter horse instead.

The horses are pretty interesting throughout the series. There's one particularly hard-working chestnut "cab horse" that seems to turn up all over England! And poor Edward Hardwicke can't ride for shucks. ;)