Chapter Text
I have little doubt that this might shock some of my readers, however I cannot find it in my heart to omit the truth that some of my favorite moments in sharing lodgings with a man such as Sherlock Holmes have not been those filled with active excitement and roaring energy, but those where that energy is tempered, warming contently by the crackle of our sitting room fire.
It is those seemingly moderate, serene moments shared between the two of us or the occasionally welcome addition of a third, that I find outweigh the others in number, were I to begin recalling them in order.
I am able to share one such dearly held memory here, as I have found myself mirroring my position when it happened, an event that is to blame for this very chunk of text I am in the process of writing.
Sitting in front of the writing desk, I am greeted with the image of Holmes puffing his pipe, silent, having contorted his long body to fit onto the armchair in that so characteristic way of his, where his legs are not touching the floor and his knees are instead bunched up under his chin. He is occasionally blowing rings of smoke, which in turn are lazily floating on the air above him before they start to gently disperse.
I am reminded of one of many such similar occasions which took place sometime in '88, on the night before the solving of a case I have not yet recorded for Holmes’ faithful readers.
London was cold as it is now and there was nothing useful to do before the morning was to come, and so we found ourselves quiet in the sitting room after supper, Holmes curled up in his armchair and myself across from him, going through my notes on the case thus far at my writing desk.
I found myself lost in the notes, making clearer work of some hastily scribbled information, until at some point my mind seemed to remind itself that it was indeed attached to a physical body, and I set down my pen looking up with the intention of stretching my sore muscles. It was upon doing so that the scene and my presence in it took on something more, and I found myself mid-stretch, following the lazy trail of those same circles of smoke my friend was producing. It was quiet but not eerily so, the crackle of the firewood accompanying the barely audible sound of our breathing.
Holmes looked content as I’d seen him, though his face itself was obscured, but to me, who had learned to read him in the years of our co-habitation, the relaxed posture of his shoulders even as he held himself in an otherwise not unstrained sort of position, spoke of his utter tranquility in the moment.
It feels like a privilege, one I am often protective of sharing, to get to see the great detective in those moments where his brilliant mind is not a source of constant nervous energy. I have often described Holmes as akin to a machine or a hound, but the man next to the fireplace that night was simply that, only a man like any other.
I finished my stretching, and the admittedly embarrassing popping of my joints seemed to bring him back to reality, from wherever that brain of his had retreated. He twisted his neck to look at me and I sheepishly smiled. Holmes simply took a drag of his pipe, keeping eye contact.
The glitter in those eyes is something I will never tire of, tangible proof of his brilliance, and he showcased it in that moment once again, before he turned back to gaze at the fire.