Winter Fic I
Aug. 14th, 2009 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elabyThis is the first of two ficlets I have planned that feature Holmes and Watson in the winter :) I thought it would be very short, but it ended up a bit longer than I intended. Otherwise, though, it turned out the way I hoped.
Title: Musica Universalis
Rating: G. Oh, so very G. And fluffy.
Character(s): Holmes and Watson
Summary: Temperatures dip below freezing, and the town is transformed.
Warnings: None whatsoever.
Words: 1,627
Author's Notes: This was inspired by contemporary accounts of a snowbound London. It takes place in early 1896, probably - after "The Bruce-Partington Plans," at least.
It was the third morning in a row that I had awoken to find the water in my basin on the washstand frozen solid. As I was quite sure Mrs. Hudson would take exception to my smashing her pottery in an attempt to break up the ice, I dressed as quickly as humanly possible and wrapped myself in a housecoat. I could ask her for more water after breakfast, if indeed there was any to be had.
My bedroom window was so decorated with plumes and ferns and paintbrush-strokes of frost that I almost neglected to notice, as I passed, that there was a great deal less black-and-grey in proportion to white outside it. I stopped, rubbed a small circle and got a frozen palm for my curiosity, and discovered that last night it had snowed.
There were about six inches of it on the ground, and great fluffy flakes continued steadily to fall, looking the slightest bit grayish against the flat white sky. I did not linger, because the view from our sitting-room windows would be better, and there would be a fire in the grate down there in any case.
In the sitting room I could see my breath less, and although it was very early still Mrs. Hudson had already brought up breakfast. Holmes was hunched in his chair, ignoring it apart from a steaming cup of coffee around which he had curled his long fingers like a beggar's around a match. He looked up when I entered, gave me a brief smile, and then, as I gathered from his grimace, burnt his mouth on the coffee.
"How are you feeling?" I asked. Holmes had been confined to our rooms with a miserable cold for three days - those same three days that the temperatures had plummeted so that water-pipes all throughout the parish had burst, and there was now a constant line at every pump. Ours had been one of the lucky houses so far. I would not have recommended going out in such weather even if he were not feeling poorly, but as much as my friend was inclined to periods of reclusivity, he does not take well to involuntary confinement.
"Quite improved," Holmes answered bitterly, "naturally."
"I take it this displeases you?" I asked, seating myself at the table and tucking into the eggs – they were piping hot, God bless the woman.
Holmes shot me an annoyed glance and tried his coffee again. "It displeases me that I've been cooped up here for the better part of a week and now that I feel better, we find ourselves snowed in."
"I would hardly call half a foot on the ground 'snowed in'," I replied. "Are you going to have anything to eat?" He made a cross, noncommittal sound and huddled down further in his chair.
I finished my breakfast some minutes later and paused by the frost-covered window on the way to my desk. Snow was still falling steadily, but it was hardly a blizzard. I glanced at Holmes, still curled dejectedly in his chair, and tapped my fingers for a moment on the sill. Then I went to him and took his cup and saucer.
"Watson, I wasn't finished--"
"Come on," I said, putting the coffee aside. "Up you get." Holmes has perfected a certain glare to non-verbally express 'you're wasting my time,' but I have had sufficient experience in dodging it, and in any case it held no water here as his only current occupation was sulking. I held out both my hands and twitched my fingers in imitation of one of his more frequent impatient gestures. When he didn't move, I took his elbows and hauled him out of the chair. "We're going out."
"Where?" Holmes asked, but he shed his dressing gown and replaced it with a heavy coat and scarf.
"It doesn't matter. For a walk. If you feel well enough to be up and about, there's no reason we should let a little snow stop us." I attired myself similarly, pleased to see his energy so returned by my suggestion. Bundled in our winter clothes, we descended the stairs and emerged into the transformed world.
The first thing that struck me was the silence. The snowfall had made impossible any wheeled transport, and the street was devoid of cabs, carriages, wagons, and all other forms of large conveyance. Even the pedestrians were scarce; here and there, people passed soundlessly through the snow, wrapped to the nose with their hats pulled down. On any other day, at this time in the morning in Baker Street, the noise is substantial – hooves clattering, wheels rumbling, omnibus drivers shouting, bustle and motion, conversations being held at higher and higher volume to be heard over the lot of it. And added to all that are the clouds of dust kicked up by wheel, hoof, and foot alike. Now, everything was still, everything was clean, and as we stood there on our front step, a far off church-bell sounded, marking the hour.
We strolled down the street for a time, the only leisurely pair amongst the scanty foot traffic. A man scraped the pavement a few hundred yards ahead of us, and we stopped to look up at the snow-flecked sky.
"You have heard, Watson," Holmes said after a time, "of the musica universalis?"
I thought for a moment; the term recalled my far-off school days, but it had made a deep enough impression upon me to remember it. "The music of the spheres?"
"You know your Pythagoras, of course," Holmes said with a definitive nod.
I smiled. "I know my Dante." He favored me with a sidelong glance and a quirk of his lips, the scientist to the author acknowledging mutual territory.
"The continual lack of silence in London has precluded my thinking of it for years, but when I was a boy in the country, quiet was not such a commodity - instead we suffered an overabundance of it, and I had more than ample chance to get to know its nuances. Only in absolute silence like this, when all else is muffled, or in the noise-canceling rush of a downpour, did I entertain the notion that I could hear it: somehow toneless and in perfect harmony at the same time, all notes blending to make one note in the same way all colors blend to make white, just at the edge of audibility..." He paused to draw and exhale, and his breath unfurled in the snowy air. "The music of the spheres."
I said nothing. In truth, I was a little awestruck; not only did Holmes normally disdain the poetic, I had never before thought him capable of thinking via those pathways of imagery so familiar to my brain. That he had discovered this idea as a boy was tantalizing – Holmes never discussed his childhood, and I therefore had to piece together my picture of him from the few passing mentions he granted me. Though, I reconsidered, if anything could birth such poeticism in him, it was music.
When the wonder subsided, I found myself still silent, because I was listening. After a few moments, beneath the silence and very close to me, I detected a high rushing, almost reminiscent of the ocean. My physician's instincts immediately suggested several explanations, but for just a moment I ignored them and listened. It could, if I perceived it correctly, resemble music.
I glanced over at Holmes to see him with his face angled up at the sky, his eyes half-open and his gaze inward, attention focused. He apparently felt my gaze on him, for he gave a little tilt of his head toward me and the skin around his eyes crinkled. "You're listening."
I chuckled. Holmes knew me well enough by now that he needn't even to have asked. "This is all a rather romantic idea for you, Holmes."
"I suppose it is, but the idea is fascinating nonetheless: that the very movement of celestial bodies millions of miles away could create a music so omnipresent that no one hears it. To discover it myself - that is, to recognize the extraordinary in what others cannot distinguish from the trifles of everyday life, is not a foreign concept in my chosen profession." I smiled. It was amazing, and very suggestive of the way my friend's mind worked, that he could link the hard science of deduction to ancient philosophy and make it sound - well - elementary. Holmes joined me in smiling and returned his gaze to the sky, his shoulders relaxing. "I could never tell anyone else, you know. Mycroft would only laugh. And Lestrade... well, I dare say that he would either be excited beyond imagining that I had finally lost my grip on reality, or the poor fellow would do himself harm trying to work out what on earth I meant and why he couldn't keep up. The music of the spheres hardly falls into the realm of the 'practical,' after all."
"That leads me to ask: however did you notice it in the first place?"
"My brain works very busily, Watson," he said, "so busily that sometimes I must force it to be silent in order that I might stay sane."
It was curious; as much as I admired and studied Holmes's methods of thought, I seldom wondered what it would be like to constantly live with them in my own head. "Thank Heaven for snowy days, then."
Holmes regarded me with a warmth in his expression which, I am pleasantly surprised to note, I see with more frequency now-a-days. He slipped his arm into mine. "Indeed. Thank Heaven for them."
Title: Musica Universalis
Rating: G. Oh, so very G. And fluffy.
Character(s): Holmes and Watson
Summary: Temperatures dip below freezing, and the town is transformed.
Warnings: None whatsoever.
Words: 1,627
Author's Notes: This was inspired by contemporary accounts of a snowbound London. It takes place in early 1896, probably - after "The Bruce-Partington Plans," at least.
It was the third morning in a row that I had awoken to find the water in my basin on the washstand frozen solid. As I was quite sure Mrs. Hudson would take exception to my smashing her pottery in an attempt to break up the ice, I dressed as quickly as humanly possible and wrapped myself in a housecoat. I could ask her for more water after breakfast, if indeed there was any to be had.
My bedroom window was so decorated with plumes and ferns and paintbrush-strokes of frost that I almost neglected to notice, as I passed, that there was a great deal less black-and-grey in proportion to white outside it. I stopped, rubbed a small circle and got a frozen palm for my curiosity, and discovered that last night it had snowed.
There were about six inches of it on the ground, and great fluffy flakes continued steadily to fall, looking the slightest bit grayish against the flat white sky. I did not linger, because the view from our sitting-room windows would be better, and there would be a fire in the grate down there in any case.
In the sitting room I could see my breath less, and although it was very early still Mrs. Hudson had already brought up breakfast. Holmes was hunched in his chair, ignoring it apart from a steaming cup of coffee around which he had curled his long fingers like a beggar's around a match. He looked up when I entered, gave me a brief smile, and then, as I gathered from his grimace, burnt his mouth on the coffee.
"How are you feeling?" I asked. Holmes had been confined to our rooms with a miserable cold for three days - those same three days that the temperatures had plummeted so that water-pipes all throughout the parish had burst, and there was now a constant line at every pump. Ours had been one of the lucky houses so far. I would not have recommended going out in such weather even if he were not feeling poorly, but as much as my friend was inclined to periods of reclusivity, he does not take well to involuntary confinement.
"Quite improved," Holmes answered bitterly, "naturally."
"I take it this displeases you?" I asked, seating myself at the table and tucking into the eggs – they were piping hot, God bless the woman.
Holmes shot me an annoyed glance and tried his coffee again. "It displeases me that I've been cooped up here for the better part of a week and now that I feel better, we find ourselves snowed in."
"I would hardly call half a foot on the ground 'snowed in'," I replied. "Are you going to have anything to eat?" He made a cross, noncommittal sound and huddled down further in his chair.
I finished my breakfast some minutes later and paused by the frost-covered window on the way to my desk. Snow was still falling steadily, but it was hardly a blizzard. I glanced at Holmes, still curled dejectedly in his chair, and tapped my fingers for a moment on the sill. Then I went to him and took his cup and saucer.
"Watson, I wasn't finished--"
"Come on," I said, putting the coffee aside. "Up you get." Holmes has perfected a certain glare to non-verbally express 'you're wasting my time,' but I have had sufficient experience in dodging it, and in any case it held no water here as his only current occupation was sulking. I held out both my hands and twitched my fingers in imitation of one of his more frequent impatient gestures. When he didn't move, I took his elbows and hauled him out of the chair. "We're going out."
"Where?" Holmes asked, but he shed his dressing gown and replaced it with a heavy coat and scarf.
"It doesn't matter. For a walk. If you feel well enough to be up and about, there's no reason we should let a little snow stop us." I attired myself similarly, pleased to see his energy so returned by my suggestion. Bundled in our winter clothes, we descended the stairs and emerged into the transformed world.
The first thing that struck me was the silence. The snowfall had made impossible any wheeled transport, and the street was devoid of cabs, carriages, wagons, and all other forms of large conveyance. Even the pedestrians were scarce; here and there, people passed soundlessly through the snow, wrapped to the nose with their hats pulled down. On any other day, at this time in the morning in Baker Street, the noise is substantial – hooves clattering, wheels rumbling, omnibus drivers shouting, bustle and motion, conversations being held at higher and higher volume to be heard over the lot of it. And added to all that are the clouds of dust kicked up by wheel, hoof, and foot alike. Now, everything was still, everything was clean, and as we stood there on our front step, a far off church-bell sounded, marking the hour.
We strolled down the street for a time, the only leisurely pair amongst the scanty foot traffic. A man scraped the pavement a few hundred yards ahead of us, and we stopped to look up at the snow-flecked sky.
"You have heard, Watson," Holmes said after a time, "of the musica universalis?"
I thought for a moment; the term recalled my far-off school days, but it had made a deep enough impression upon me to remember it. "The music of the spheres?"
"You know your Pythagoras, of course," Holmes said with a definitive nod.
I smiled. "I know my Dante." He favored me with a sidelong glance and a quirk of his lips, the scientist to the author acknowledging mutual territory.
"The continual lack of silence in London has precluded my thinking of it for years, but when I was a boy in the country, quiet was not such a commodity - instead we suffered an overabundance of it, and I had more than ample chance to get to know its nuances. Only in absolute silence like this, when all else is muffled, or in the noise-canceling rush of a downpour, did I entertain the notion that I could hear it: somehow toneless and in perfect harmony at the same time, all notes blending to make one note in the same way all colors blend to make white, just at the edge of audibility..." He paused to draw and exhale, and his breath unfurled in the snowy air. "The music of the spheres."
I said nothing. In truth, I was a little awestruck; not only did Holmes normally disdain the poetic, I had never before thought him capable of thinking via those pathways of imagery so familiar to my brain. That he had discovered this idea as a boy was tantalizing – Holmes never discussed his childhood, and I therefore had to piece together my picture of him from the few passing mentions he granted me. Though, I reconsidered, if anything could birth such poeticism in him, it was music.
When the wonder subsided, I found myself still silent, because I was listening. After a few moments, beneath the silence and very close to me, I detected a high rushing, almost reminiscent of the ocean. My physician's instincts immediately suggested several explanations, but for just a moment I ignored them and listened. It could, if I perceived it correctly, resemble music.
I glanced over at Holmes to see him with his face angled up at the sky, his eyes half-open and his gaze inward, attention focused. He apparently felt my gaze on him, for he gave a little tilt of his head toward me and the skin around his eyes crinkled. "You're listening."
I chuckled. Holmes knew me well enough by now that he needn't even to have asked. "This is all a rather romantic idea for you, Holmes."
"I suppose it is, but the idea is fascinating nonetheless: that the very movement of celestial bodies millions of miles away could create a music so omnipresent that no one hears it. To discover it myself - that is, to recognize the extraordinary in what others cannot distinguish from the trifles of everyday life, is not a foreign concept in my chosen profession." I smiled. It was amazing, and very suggestive of the way my friend's mind worked, that he could link the hard science of deduction to ancient philosophy and make it sound - well - elementary. Holmes joined me in smiling and returned his gaze to the sky, his shoulders relaxing. "I could never tell anyone else, you know. Mycroft would only laugh. And Lestrade... well, I dare say that he would either be excited beyond imagining that I had finally lost my grip on reality, or the poor fellow would do himself harm trying to work out what on earth I meant and why he couldn't keep up. The music of the spheres hardly falls into the realm of the 'practical,' after all."
"That leads me to ask: however did you notice it in the first place?"
"My brain works very busily, Watson," he said, "so busily that sometimes I must force it to be silent in order that I might stay sane."
It was curious; as much as I admired and studied Holmes's methods of thought, I seldom wondered what it would be like to constantly live with them in my own head. "Thank Heaven for snowy days, then."
Holmes regarded me with a warmth in his expression which, I am pleasantly surprised to note, I see with more frequency now-a-days. He slipped his arm into mine. "Indeed. Thank Heaven for them."
