Chapter Text
'Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'
`I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, `—and I hadn't begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—'
`The twinkling of the what?' said the King.
`It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied.
For Holmes, it started with a single comment. Just a few words, strung together without thought. Holmes, relaxed at the end of a case, had given free rein to his sardonic wit. Just one comment, nothing at all really and yet—
And yet, when Holmes thought back over the long train of events triggered by his seemingly innocuous phrase, he wished he could have changed everything. It would have been so easy. To think before he spoke. To have not said anything, or to have said something completely different.
Holmes, with his unmatched powers of observation, liked to say that he could look at anyone and deduce not only his past behavior but also give a credible estimate about his likely future actions. He could see, with a keenness that was sometimes unnerving, the person’s hidden fears and desires.
And yet somehow he had lived with Watson for years and he had never known, had never guessed. There were times when he wondered, yes. Times when he was surprised by the oddities that were unique to the doctor. The neatness. The preoccupation with rules and standards and order. The way he always had to set out his meals the exact same way, at the same time (or as near to it as was practical) each day. The application of what (to Holmes) was an entirely unnecessary degree of attention to his personal attire. But Holmes had too many uncommon habits of his own to sneer at another man’s quirks and most of the doctor’s behavior passed before him, seen but not examined, noticed but not taken for anything more than another one of the little mannerisms that made Watson who he was.
And so, all unknowing, he had open his mouth, spoken without thinking, and broken open something dark and terrible within the doctor.
For Watson, it began on Sunday morning, shortly after the successful conclusion of the case of the purloined pineapple (a matter far too sensitive to the ruling families of Europe for Watson to even consider including in his writings). Breakfast, prepared by Mrs. Hudson, lay in front of the two men.
Watson bent forward in his chair, carefully arranging several pieces of toast on one of the plates before buttering a slice and placing it in his mouth.
The case had been one of Holmes’s more difficult problems. There had been late nights, when the sounds of Holmes’s violin playing didn’t cease until the early hours of the morning. There had been the false confession, the problem of the bishop’s daughter, and of course, the long and difficult chase after the thief down the dark and dirty London streets.
Neither man had eaten dinner the night before—they had both retired early to their bedrooms, too tired for even the simple exertion required to gain sustenance—and now Watson, having eaten one buttered slice of bread, was attacking the bacon and eggs on his plate with all the power of his long-delayed hunger.
Holmes paused in his casual perusal of the agony columns and lowered his newspaper, amused.
“Slow down, man!” he said. “You’d think you hadn’t eaten in a week.”
Watson placed his fork on his plate, his month still full of egg. He swallowed.
Before he could speak, Holmes continued. “If you continue in this vein, I wouldn’t be surprised if you put on half a stone in the next fortnight.” He made a show of running his eyes over his companion’s form. “Or perhaps you’ve already made a start in that direction? You’ve been looking as though you’ve enjoyed a few good meals recently.”
Watson looked down at his plate and for a long moment there was silence. Then Holmes moved to pour himself another cup of tea, and the sound of liquid flowing into the bone china of the cup was loud in the small sitting room.
“I haven’t,” Watson said slowly.
Holmes was deep in the agonies again, reading a query from an Irish governess seeking employment with a family with “children under eight and preferably a large house in the country.” She claimed that she specialized in “providing care to families suffering from recent maternal losses.” A fortune hunter then, and not an especially subtle one. Perhaps this column was worth saving for his files.
“Haven’t what?” Holmes asked, still reading.
“I haven’t been eating well lately,” Watson said. His cheeks were flushed and his voice was oddly defensive. “We didn’t even have dinner last night.”
“Really, Watson,” Holmes said. “You’re making rather much of this, don’t you think? I merely meant to suggest that you might want to leave some breakfast for the rest of us.”
At that, Watson, his face still flustered, stood and placed his napkin, folded into neat squares, on his chair. This was another of those odd little habits of his (along with creative bread arranging). He seemed completely unable to leave a finish a meal without first twisting his napkin into fastidious little shapes that reminded Holmes of the Japanese art of origami.
“I have to see to a patient,” he said abruptly.
“I thought you said you had a free morning today.”
“I forgot about Mrs. Underwood. I really should stop by and see how she’s recovering from that cold of hers.”
“Give the dear lady my best then,” Holmes said, absently, having moved on to the paper’s coverage of the recent scandal in Bohemia, a matter in which he was not completely uninvolved.
Watson was already up and out of the door, his footsteps fading echoes on the stairs, when Holmes finally looked up, and noticed the doctor’s uneaten meal slowly cooling on Mrs. Hudson’s china.
It was nothing, really, Watson said to himself as he walked quickly down Baker Street. Holmes hadn’t meant anything by his comment. He hadn’t even been listening to Watson, or really looking at him, even. Too focused in his bloody agony columns to even offer a word of congratulation or thanks for the way Watson had handily cornered the thief at the conclusion of their long chase the night before.
The sky was overcast, the air humid and wet, with the constant threat of rain—what passed for a nice day in London. Watson continued on his way without any particular destination in mind. The story about Mrs. Underwood was a lie, of course.
It was nothing. He would shake it off. After all, there was no way Holmes could have known, right?
For Watson, life was like walking on a tightrope. There was the constant threat of losing, of letting go, stepping off—
Falling.
And there were defenses, little things, he had to do all the time, just to make himself feel balanced. His clothing had to be perfectly laundered and pressed. There was justification for this, of course, since it wouldn’t do for a doctor to have a slovenly appearance. And his personal quarters—orderly, with everything in its place. And his food: never too much, meals perfectly weighed out in advance in his mind. If Watson overate at dinner, he would balance his indulgence with a light breakfast the next day. Every day, the same foods, the utensils clean and properly arranged on his plate, neat, small bites taken—these were small things, yes, but sometimes Watson felt like they were all he had.
There were patients who died, sometimes, whatever he did to help them, and Holmes’s cases he shown him that a judicious, careful life was no protection against the cruelty of chance.
But if Watson could take those careful, measured bites of breakfast, if he could make his weekly visit to the weighing machine at the Turkish baths to see that familiar number appear on the scale—well, then he knew that something was right in his world. That there was something at least that he could control.
It hasn’t always been like this. There had been a time once, long ago, when food hasn’t been something to weigh and measure. There had been a time when Watson had indulged with abandon—cake at birthday parties, pudding after supper, crisps bought from a food cart on the street—all consumed without anything but pleasure.
He had been a pleasant, easy-going child, but, as his father had never hesitated to say, he had also been a chubby child. Plump, stout—it didn’t matter what word one used, they all meant the same thing, really: fat.
One day he had come home excited from school. A guest speaker had come in to talk to his form about his work as an army medic and suddenly everything had together for the young John.
“I’ve going to be a doctor,” he had told his parents proudly at tea.
“You, a doctor?” his father had laughed. “I’d like to see that. Who would take advice from a fat doctor?”
John had already eaten one of the biscuits his mother’s maid had set out for the tea. Now he took another, and chewed noisily, trying to ignore his father’s words. He was used to hearing this type of criticism. He was lazy, his father reminded him at every opportunity, not interested enough in sport and in no way type of son his father had hoped for.
“You could stand to be a little more active, John dear,” his mother said.
John had looked up, surprised and hurt by her comments. Usually his mother had a ready defense if anyone found fault with him.
“Perhaps try to make a little more order in your life? You have to be organized and in control to work in medicine, not scatter brained and lazing about all day like you do,” she continued. “I can barely see the floor in your room for all the clothes and objects you have scattered about. As it is, I feel terrible even asking the girl to clean in there.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll clean it,” John had mumbled, shamefaced and looking down at his tea. He was used to his father thinking that he was not a good enough son. It was common knowledge around town that Mr. Watson could find fault with anyone and anything. But his mother? Well, if she also thought he was lazy, then it must be true. Did she think he was fat, too?
His father had said. “You’ll clean it now. Go on, you’ve had enough tea.”
“Yes,” his mother said. Her voice was full of laughter, her tone light, but her words had pierced him. “You might want to leave some biscuits for the rest of us.”
And so the young John had retreated to his room. The biscuit he had eaten felt heavy in his stomach as he had haphazardly straightened up his things. His mom had been joking, he told himself. He shouldn’t be so sensitive. But what if she had been speaking the truth? What if she agreed with the boys who teased him for his slow, clumsy walk and the way he asked for seconds at the school dinners?
That day hasn’t changed everything, but it had been a tipping point. Afterward things were different. His mother withdrew from him. She was still kind to him, but she defended him less, and while she didn’t often give voice to any disapproval of him, he could sense the disappointment between his words.
And so young John had eventually decided to set things right. And in trying to take control, he had lost it.
But Watson hadn’t consciously thought of that conversation in years. In fact, recently he had been feeling better. He was a successful doctor now, with a thriving practice. He had his own flat (well, a flat shared with Holmes). The drug mania that had threatened their early acquaintance has passed, and Watson no longer came home to find Holmes with the poison within him. Recently, they had settled into an easy pattern of cohabitation and collaboration, and Watson had started to look for the increasingly frequent moments when the detective would turn to him and, in a studiedly off-hand manner, ask for his thoughts on a case.
Watson skipped one weigh in at the Turkish baths, than a second. He bought a treat from a bakery one afternoon, and ate it while walking down the street, and found that all of his clothing still fit the next day. He left his coat lying on a chair before retiring to bed one evening instead of hanging it neatly in the closet and the word didn’t end before morning.
Only now, as he walked in the London gloom, he realized that his satisfaction was illusion. Holmes’s words echoed in his mind, in the detective’s high, mocking voice: you might want to leave some breakfast for the rest of us.
Watson had been slipping. He had been falling into his old, lazy ways. How could he have let himself slip this far without noticing? Holmes had noticed, clearly. Tall, thin Holmes, who had been annoyingly slender for as long as Watson had known him and who probably couldn’t even gain weight if he tried.
Holmes, who would never want a stout companion. Holmes, who wouldn’t want a fat friend assisting him on his cases.
There were adjustments, things he could do to fix this. Eating breakfast had been a mistake, Watson could see that now. He had not taken breakfast for years, and had only started fairly recently when, soon after he moved in with Holmes, he had realized that the meal was a good way to lure his friend out of bed in the mornings.
The indulgences would have to stop, Watson promised himself, until he had lost enough weight (how much? At least a stone that was how much Holmes seemed to know he needed to lose). He would need to weigh himself at the baths, get an idea of his starting point, and then…
The baths! Perfect. Watson would go to the baths and weigh himself right now. It would hurt to see how far he had sunk, yes, but at least he would know that he taking steps to correct it.
His stomach rumbled then, as if on cue. And he would not eat. The bread he had eaten already was enough—it wasn’t as though he deserved more food.
So Watson set off with renewed vigor. He felt empty inside, his stomach mostly hollow, and yet at the same time full of a new confidence and sense of purpose.
There was a reason why Holmes wasn’t often praised for his tact or courtesy. Several reasons, in fact. He had little patience for the polite gestures of civilized life, and worse, and an aversion to lying in mixed company. And while Holmes rarely set out to offend anyone, what he considered benign statements of patently observable facts were often taken by others as unforgivable intrusions of privacy. The worst were his jokes: Holmes’s attempts at humour were always hilarious to Holmes himself (who had the benefit of being able to make the leaps of logic that his comedy required) yet frequently fell flat when spoken out loud.
Such appeared to be the case with his earlier comments to Watson. Holmes had meant his criticism of the doctor to be a joke. Surely even the suggestion that Watson would have gained weight was absurd: the doctor’s appearance hadn’t varied at all since Holmes had met him. Likewise, Holmes’s “anger” at Watson’s eating was clearly not rooted in fact. Holmes was fully aware that both of them hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, and didn’t view Watson’s behavior as glutinous in the slightest respect.
As Holmes prepared the mixture for a particularly delicate experiment later that afternoon, though, he realized that not only had Watson taken his comments seriously, but he had actually looked somewhat put out by his words. What, exactly, about the conversation had so unnerved his friend Holmes was not sure. It was useless to theorize without data: he simply didn’t have enough information to know the motive behind Watson’s hurt feelings. Still, Holmes though with a sigh, he would have to apologize. If it were anyone else he wouldn’t have cared about the insult, but this was Watson.
The doctor didn’t return to their apartments until several hours later. When he made his entrance, Watson was wet and shivering from cold. Holmes, seated comfortably in the stuffed armchair, watched as Watson carefully took off his coat and hung it up on a rack by the door.
“Did you enjoy your visit to the baths?” Holmes asked.
Watson turned from the rack, where he had began straightening the coats Holmes had draped casually on the pegs. He seemed about to speak, and then, as if thinking better of it, turned his attention back to what he was doing.
“The mud on your shoes,” Holmes explained. “It’s of a dusty shade of red that only occurs in one place in London, as far as I’m aware: the alleyway behind the Turkish baths.”
“Oh,” Watson said simply, not looking up.
“Watson,” Holmes began, and then stopped. This shouldn’t be difficult. “Watson,” he started again. “I believe I owe you an apology.”
At this Watson did turn. The word “apology” was certainly not spoken often in their apartment—at least, not by Holmes.
“I realize that I made some remarks, earlier this morning, that appeared to upset you. I want to assure you that I didn’t intend at all to offend with my comments. I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit, after the difficulties of our case last night.” Watson looked back at Holmes, his face carefully blank. He said nothing.
“It was a joke,” Holmes continued, when he realized that Watson wasn’t going to say anything.
Watson frowned, and an emotion passed over his face and was gone too quickly for Holmes to read. “It’s fine, Holmes,” he said thickly. “We don’t need to discuss it any further.”
“Perfect,” Holmes said. That suited him. He didn’t wish to belabor the issue when it so obviously made Watson uncomfortable.
“Now,” he said, putting his hands together eagerly, “How would you feel about going to my brother’s club for dinner? Mycroft invited us both specially. He said he still owes us for our help with that business with the French consulate’s parrot.”
“I already ate.”
“No, you didn’t,” Holmes said.
“How do you know?”
“It’s obvious, Watson. You forgot your pocketbook at home—there it is on the table—and I know that you only have a few coins in the pocket of that coat. After you paid admission to the baths, you wouldn’t have enough left for anything more than a bun on the street. Certainly not enough for you to buy a full meal.”
“Fine,” Watson said. “You’re right. I haven’t eaten. If you must know, I am not really feeling up to one of Mycroft’s endless dinners, and I was trying to invent a polite excuse to refuse. Although of course, I should know that the notion of manners is wasted on you.” He smiled to let Holmes know that this last was not meant seriously, and some of the tension went out of his face.
Holmes smiled. “Are you sure? Mycroft told me that the cook is making those apple tarts you seemed to enjoy so much last time we ate with him.”
Watson stepped away from him, and returned to tidying the coats rack. “I’m sure,” he said, his voice distant again. “Enjoy your meal.”
In the carriage on the way to the club, Holmes wondered at his friend’s sudden moodiness. Obviously his comments at breakfast were not enough to cause such a change: something else had to be behind the doctor’s strange behavior. It was an interesting problem, certainly. Something to ponder over, time permitting perhaps, in the coming weeks between his cases.