So Watson found himself condoning Holmes's relationship after all. He continued to visit, and even accompanied Holmes on his cases once more. On the nights that Watson came only to find their rooms empty, he knew that Holmes had an assignation at Emile's villa because Holmes would leave a note at his desk saying, "Thank you for your patience. Out until --" Any other disappearance for a case or such, Holmes would not note.
Watson sometimes waited for Holmes then, sitting by the fire and trying not to think about where Holmes was. Yet he found himself imagining it against his will. Holmes in bed with Emile, doing who knew what wicked and sinful things not just willingly but with a laughter and pleasure that Watson could not understand. Sometimes Watson would also recall Emile's words, accusing Holmes of loving Watson. There had been no jealousy in his accusation, only an amused fascination it seemed. Watson wondered if Emile still insisted on not believing Holmes's protestations even now; if so, it must be a difficult relationship.
One night Watson waited at Baker Street for Holmes, who was half an hour late according to the time he had indicated on his note. He probably should not have stayed so long, but Watson could not force himself to be rational and go. Finally Holmes stumbled in, looking very flushed and quite unlike himself. When he saw Watson, he started somewhat and murmured apologetically, "He kept me rather too distracted to keep track of time."
There was a warmth behind his words, and Watson fancied that he could smell a musky scent of perspiration from Holmes. They must have been rather vigorous tonight. Holmes quickly poured himself a drink at the tantalus and then excused himself to change his clothes in his bedroom.
Watson waited silently in the sitting-room, wondering if he should go. What was so urgent that he had to see Holmes tonight, anyway? Better to let him recover from his exertions and face him in the morning light. He just missed Holmes, that was all. Found himself irritated to know that Holmes's time did not always belong to him anymore. But it had never been that way, apparently. This had been going on for years, and some of those strange disappearances that Holmes had continually made in the past must surely have been trips to see his lover. The thought made Watson shudder with a kind of pain and outrage.
Finally Holmes emerged from his room again, wearing fresh clothes. He also must have taken the opportunity to run a washcloth over his skin, to remove the more obtrusive traces of his activities. Despite knowing Holmes to be cat-like in his cleanliness, Watson imagined that had he not been present, Holmes might well have simply basked in the scent of his passion the way that Watson sometimes basked in being next to Mary in the mornings.
"Watson?" Holmes noticed his unusual silence and frowned, sitting in his armchair opposite to Watson. "Would you--would you rather go?"
Watson took a breath and faced Holmes. He found himself strangely asking, "Do you ever spend all night with him?"
Holmes blinked, surprised at the resumption of a topic that they had not even mentioned for weeks now. He shrugged mildly and replied, "Sometimes. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know," he said honestly. After a moment he continued, "You know, the time that I walked in on you, it was the middle of the day, not night."
"Yes," Holmes admitted. "I had grown increasingly careless and reckless in your absence."
"Who is he?"
"Who?" Holmes pursed his lips pensively. "I assume that his full name does not interest you. Emile is a convenient and often amusing Frenchman whom I choose to make my companion. Beyond that, I am not certain what you want me to say."
Watson persisted. "What does he do? How did you meet? Why do you want... such things from him?"
Holmes found Watson's repeated questions puzzling. Why did he wish to continue on a topic that clearly made him uncomfortable? "If you truly wish to know... I can tell you." He paused, but Watson did not change his mind and tell him no, so he reluctantly exhaled and carried on.
"To answer your first question, he is an art dealer from outside of Paris who occasionally has business here in England. We met through a case some years back, in which I needed to investigate the international art trade, so that I could trace the links to the black market that operates beneath and alongside the legitimate one. Of the many art experts I consulted, Emile was rather more accessible, and as I found out once my case ended, quite charming. He enjoyed that we shared some of the same interests in music and art, and so sought me out to continue our entertaining conversations. I soon learned that he was attracted to me not only intellectually, but physically as well, and we came to an arrangement amicable to us both."
"You speak of it like a business transaction."
He sighed impatiently. "Watson, would you rather I describe with intimate detail the passion of our romance and the overtures we made to each other until we consummated our flirtation and, more than that, agreed to extend both the pleasure and the risk by becoming habitual paramours?"
Watson blushed unhappily and could picture again the indecent things he had seen through Holmes's keyhole. He repeated, almost angrily, "Why do you want such things? How can you let him... touch you?"
Offended, Holmes responded coldly, "I am sorry that you find my proclivities so distasteful, but it is really none of your business, Watson, and you would do better to drop the matter."
A logical enough warning, but Watson was not feeling very logical. "I cannot drop the matter! I cannot forget..." He swallowed on his words and jumped to his feet, starting to pace around the room in frustration. "He has been in your bed, in these rooms--the whole place is tainted."
Holmes rose as well. "Tainted! But he was never--" Changing his mind, he shook his head and protested, "I have taken the greatest care for years that my outside life should not trespass here, and the moment that I felt some small weakness, some freedom to live as an independent man doing as he pleases, I am at fault! I am not to have a household of my own as you have in Paddington."
"I never asked you to banish him from here. You volunteered. I would have gladly just not come back at all and left you to your self-destructive vices."
Holmes stepped nearer with his fists clenched, barely keeping his voice below the level of shouting, "Then why did you come back?"
"Why did you volunteer?" he spat back.
"Indeed, it was idiotic for me to succumb to sentimentality about your emotional welfare. I rescind my promise. Give me back your key."
Watson promptly dug into his pocket and detached the key from the chain it occupied with his house keys. He then held it out, and Holmes reached to snatch it from him.
But then, at the contact of their hands, palm against palm, he froze suddenly. Standing there together, both upset and fuming, their hearts were pounding and their breaths strained. Holmes felt stung by the warmth of Watson's hand, and he stepped back a little, his face uncommonly flushed.
Then he looked up and glimpsed the state of Watson's own face. He realised it then, meeting his eyes. He whispered, almost in horror, "Oh God, he was right. I am in love with you."
Watson was not panicked by that admission, nor did he withdraw his hand from Holmes's.
"I never--" Shaking his head, Holmes started to back away, but Watson pulled him near again, grasping both his arms and heedlessly letting the key fall to the floor.
He kissed him. "Holmes," he whispered passionately. Watson drew him close and kissed him as if he had always done so, always wanted to.
They could not help themselves and clung to each other, kissing ever more warmly and fiercely.
Their sitting-room door opened suddenly and Emile entered. He quickly shut and locked the door once he saw them. "You are careless again!" he admonished.
They pulled back from each other and turned to him with embarrassed confusion. "I--we weren't--!" Holmes stammered.
Emile raised his eyebrows, chuckling a little. "What, you would deny what I see with my own eyes? You silly English."
Watson sank upon a chair and swallowed, most distressed about what he had just done. "I--I'm sorry."
Emile smiled at him. "Why do you apologise? I am happy for you both, to see the truth now." He turned to Holmes. "Your repeated denials were growing so tiresome."
Holmes asked him sharply, "Why are you here?"
He smiled. "I wished to convince you to come spend more of the night with me, or perhaps allow me to stay here again. And what surprise do I find? You have another lover waiting for you here."
"Now that's--"
"Not true, not true. As you like," he sighed dismissively.
Holmes objected, "I told you, you should not come here again. You had no right."
"Yes, for the sake of your dear, dear Watson." Emile tsked with disapproval, "If I did not come tonight, who would have found you? Madame Hudson? A client? A policeman?" He smirked playfully, "For someone so concerned with avoiding scandal, you are behaving with reckless abandon--and love." Chuckling, he went over to the tantalus and began pouring drinks. "Let us celebrate. You know, doctor," he gestured toward Holmes, "I ask him sometimes that if he does not believe in love, then why does he believe so strongly in you, a shining example of love? He never has an answer."
Holmes was not amused, and frowningly did not accept the drink that Emile offered to him. Watson, however, looking pale and troubled, took the brandy readily to try to steady his nerves. Now he knew the taste of Holmes's hungry mouth, the sound of his half-moaning sigh, and the sight of him wearing nothing more than his dressing-gown many weeks ago. Why, he could imagine himself in bed with Holmes, striving to elicit every groan and halting breath that he had yielded so easily to Emile.
Holmes perched on the arm of the sofa, trying to decide what to do, while Emile stood with both hands full, sipping his drink and gesturing with the one that Holmes had refused. "You English are so gloomy at times," he spoke in his airy, exuberant French. "Why do you both sit there looking so serious? Come, tell me, Watson, is he not the most brilliant kisser? A marvellously rich tobacco flavour, don't you agree?"
Watson could not respond with more than a blush before Holmes spoke sharply in English, "Oh, why don't you get the hell out of here?"
Emile laughed and responded with vehement French curses, none of which he meant apparently, as he seemed to enjoy picking fights with Holmes. He even had the impudence to suggest that Holmes make it up to him with another round of "those naughty things we did tonight."
Holmes could not help from blushing himself then. He cleared his throat and softly rebuked in French, "Don't you dare mention those things in front of him."
Emile smiled, glancing at Watson with arched eyebrows. "Oh, he has such innocent ears does he? Such an unsullied imagination?"
Holmes caught hold of Emile and covered his insolent mouth with his hand to prevent more intimate details from escaping. The muffled Frenchman playfully bit him and fought him off with amusement, spilling his drinks upon the both of them in the process. Holmes growled irritably and splashed what remained of his drink into Emile's face.
Putting down his glass, Watson felt a pang of jealousy to witness them together like this. Why did he think he could be with Holmes, when Holmes had long ago thrown him over for Emile? Not that he had known of course, but it stung.
Holmes pulled away from Emile's grasp as soon as he saw Watson get up and turn to leave. "No, Watson, please don't go."
"How can I stay? You're with him."
"But I don't--" the word choked in his throat, "--love him. Not as I love you." He whispered the last sentence faintly and with a frantic urgency in his eyes.
Emile finished drying his face with his handkerchief and came over to them, shrugging. "And I am certainly willing to accommodate you in our affair, if that is what you fear."
They both turned to him bewilderedly. "Accommodate?" Watson asked, blinking.
"Certainly," he replied with a grandiose generosity. Then he looked with surprise at the grimace that he observed on Holmes's face. "What? You would end us for him? I discover the truth for you both, and yet I am not allowed to taste of fruits of my assistance? Well, of all the selfishness--!"
Holmes shook his head sternly, holding onto Watson's hand. "He is not a object to be shared and passed around."
"Not to be shared!" Emile scoffed. "Why, you are already sharing him with his wife!"
Watson suddenly let go of Holmes's hand, no longer finding his grasp comforting. He turned pale at remembering his wife and went to sit down again, putting his head in his hands and murmuring to himself with realisation, "Oh God, Mary!"
Holmes nearly struck Emile, but restrained himself. He settled instead for knocking down a chair and seething in his sharp French again, "You! Sometimes I don't know why I stand you, Emile."
Emile for once bit back his tongue on a cheeky retort and looked concerned at Watson's turmoil. "What is the matter?" he asked Holmes. "Does he love his wife?"
Holmes jabbed him with an elbow, and then knelt down near Watson. "Watson?" he spoke quietly. "I am sorry, for everything. If you--"
Watson interrupted him, brushing Holmes's shoulder and remembering how he had grasped it when kissing Holmes so ardently. He furrowed his brow. "You know, I was actually asking myself just that--do I love my wife?" He winced and was silent.
Holmes stayed near and kissed Watson's hand tenderly, wondering why he had never known enough to reach for him before now, before other commitments came into their lives--first Emile, then Mary. Probably it was wariness of love, or fear of rejection, or disbelief that someone like Watson could move him so, stir such emotions from him.
Watson broke the silence abruptly. "Talk to me," he began softly, "tell me in French..."
Holmes peered up into his eyes while he hesitated.
"Tell me how you love me."
Holmes did, reaching to stroke his face and hair as he confessed in the beautiful tones, "I love you, my dear, dear Watson. I cherish you, more than I can help myself."
Watson smiled bittersweetly at these words, and held onto Holmes's caressing hand. Pulling him close and kissing Holmes impulsively again, he replied with inelegant English, "I think I love you too." But in the next moment, Watson let go and rose from his chair, speaking sadly but firmly, "I should go now."
Holmes stood also, but did not protest, as he knew it would do no good. Watson went to get his coat, and then remembering it, he picked up the key that he had dropped on the floor earlier and looked at it in the palm of his hand. He placed it in his pocket, murmuring to Holmes, "I'll come back." Then he left, shutting the door behind him.
Emile had watched this performance with his arms crossed, and he spoke now with great dissatisfaction. "I do not understand you English. If he loves you, he should remain."
"And to hell with his wife?" Holmes returned to the tantalus and poured himself another drink.
Emile retrieved from the end table the empty glasses whose contents he had spilled. "I do not mean that. Surely some arrangement can be made for her? There are households enough in which the spouses lead separate lives."
"This is not an expedient household such as you are used to. This is Watson, and his wife."
"I see. He is a complete romantic, then? An interesting contrast to your cynicism, and my pragmatism."
"Indeed." Holmes gulped down the last swallow of his brandy and frowned to himself, lost in thought.
Emile stroked his shoulder and leaned near to him. "And you, my dear," he whispered coaxingly, "Do you need me to stay tonight?"
"I'd rather you not."
"Why? Because you are thinking of him?" He smiled. "Are you becoming romantic as well?"
Holmes shrugged him off. "Emile, you have many charms, but you take for granted that I would welcome your intrusion into my private thoughts."
"Such intrusion you have only permitted your doctor." He shrugged, and withdrew. "Very well, I shall go. Though I wonder how you shall sleep tonight." He strolled to the door, then turned back for a moment. "You still have your key to my villa."
Holmes did not respond, and Emile left at last.