elaby | Ficlet for janeturenne

The second result of that meme! A ficlet for

janeturenne, who could not have possibly given me a better prompt if I begged her. She asked for Holmes/Watson and Shakespeare, with extra points if I got Holmes to call Watson his Horatio. I had such fun with this, and I really hope it's everything you wanted :)

Pairing: Holmes/Watson, possibly the slashiest thing I've ever written. Predictably, the slashiest thing I've ever written turned out very mild indeed.
Rating: I dunno. PG for cuddling Victorians?
Warnings: Mushiness. Gratuitous Shakespeare.

Word Count: 834
Author's Notes: I have found that I love writing literary allusions into other fictional universes quite beyond reason.

A few weeks into the autumn of 1894, I came home to find Holmes curled in his chair with his knees up to his chest, reading over the top of them a copy of the Strand Magazine. It was almost a year old, and I recognized it immediately – December 1893.

I never hated an issue of the Strand so much as I did that one.

It is nerve-wracking enough for an author to see someone read his works. It is even more so when the man reading it is the one for whom it was written, and the author never in his wildest fantasies expected him to get the chance. I settled in my chair and tried to take no notice, however, until Holmes himself broke the silence.

"'And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain...'"

To tell my story, my mind supplied automatically, but I could hardly trust myself to believe the parallel he was drawing, and all I said was "Sorry?"

"I recall I briefly mentioned your account of my death on the day I rendered said account fictional, but since then... somehow the topic hasn't come up." I had not forgotten so much of my friend's ways not to recognize that, oblique as it was, he was referencing his previous criticism of my writing. Naturally I'd had more than enough of his opinion in that area and I had not been eager to resume the dispute so soon after I got him back. Understandably, then, this whole conversation caught me quite off-guard. "I know I've been dreadfully lax in keeping up with your literary career, even when copies of the Strand were readily available... but don't believe I've read any of your other stories so often as I have this." I was certainly dismayed to hear it, but I soon forgot: Holmes leaned his head back against the chair and regarded me with that penetrating gaze I swore cut straight through my soul. No one can make eye contact quite like he. His expression softened but grew no less intense. "John Watson. My Horatio."

I am not accustomed to being compared to the denizens of great literature – I'm far too average – and I warred equally against self-consciousness and pleasure at so unsuitable a compliment. "I fear I cannot lay claim to that level of stoicism," I said. Holmes held my eyes for another brief moment and then turned back to the page open before him.

"He was not so stoic, I recall, when his prince lay dying in his arms."

I felt myself flush. "Few who love a friend so deeply would be." He had been there, I knew now, to witness my display at the Reichenbach Falls. How much could he read on my face from such a distance? Here's yet some liquor left... But he had not been there to strike the goblet from my lips. That I was obliged to do on my own.

"It was not, in fact, his stoicism I had in mind when I likened the two of you," Holmes said, with a certain quickness that made me think he'd picked up on my discomfort. "Steadfastness, patience... uncomplaining devotion in what must have a thankless position."

I admit this affected me far more favorably than any of his declarations of apologies owed. I came over to stand beside his chair, reluctant as I was to glimpse the thing printed in his magazine. In spite of the warm glow he had kindled with his comparison, the necessary other half of Holmes's analogy worried me. "The logical extension, then," I said, "would be that you believe yourself to resemble Hamlet. I rather hope you don't; his is not a burden I would wish on anyone, you least of all."

Holmes tilted his head up thoughtfully, and his eyes lost focus above the top of the page. "I have already borne a piece of it, having died."

"But you came back. I have played Horatio's lonely part once already; I don't care to do it again."

His eyes shifted, flickered swiftly to me and away again. I wondered if I mistook the spark of tense impetuous resolution beneath the gesture. "Be that as it may, I find it possible to see something of myself in him - or something of he in me. Certainly not Hamlet, the prince. Not even Hamlet, the actor. But I do admit affinity with at least one facet of his identity."

"Which one is that?"

He let the magazine drop from his fingers, and I heard the thump of it hitting the floor as he slid his arm past my hip. His hand pressing the small of my back, curling in the fabric of my jacket with unexpected dependency, caused my heart to somersault. With his ever-excellent diction only barely thickened, Holmes turned his face into my waistcoat and said:

"He that thou knowest thine."