Eliminate the impossible

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This is an AU 'verse that armydoctor and I started up with the premise that Holmes and Watson shacked up shortly after becoming friends, which means no marriage to Mary, etc. etc. It starts out with the boxing match that changes everything~ and quickly grows to epic, canon-rewriting proportions.

IT NOW HAS ITS OWN COMM AND IT'S PRETTY EPIC: 221better

It's been four days since the criminal responsible for the theft of a lady's necklace -- by means of disguise, distraction, and a stuffed dodo bird -- and Holmes hasn't moved from his chair except to obtain more tobacco (and then he moved his Persian slipper nearer to him, and he wouldn't have gotten up at all except it was four in the morning and Watson was asleep). He hasn't eaten anything of consequence, nor had he a few days leading up to the utter failure that was the end of that case.

The criminal had gotten away. The fact that he'd stabbed Holmes in the thigh during the fight doesn't really even mean anything to Holmes; the bleeding's stopped, he bandaged the wound, and he doesn't really feel it -- not over the feelings of loss and defeat, anyway. He hasn't mentioned it to Watson, but honestly the thought hasn't even crossed his mind. His mind is too dark a place, at present, to entertain such thoughts about what his lover would like to know, or what his doctor might like to know.

When Holmes starts to turn ill, he barely notices. It's only when he starts to shiver does he notice that he's broken into a sweat; even still, he barely pays it any mind. The dizziness is almost welcome. He leans into his fever and leans his head back against his chair, letting his eyes fall shut.

Island life is not as stimulating as life in London. Even with the variety of people here and the strange occurrences, Holmes finds himself feeling idle much of the time, and the lack of food of any substance or flavor or worth has left him quite unhappy and in need of a good, absorbing distraction. The best answer he could think of was to recall some of his pastimes in London and find a way to recreate or adapt them to the island.

Solving a mystery would be difficult. Seeing an opera would be impossible, but acting would perhaps be something doable. Surely there's some pool of talent, but when he begins considering whether he would like to endure mediocre talents, he becomes less excited about the idea. Maybe he could don a costume and wander about the island, pretending to be someone else. Occasionally that yields interesting results.

And from there it isn't a very difficult leap at all as to how he ought to spend the afternoon.

He waits until Watson leaves for a walk with Nell, which means he has roughly 20 minutes at minimum to get together a scruffy outfit not unlike what a sailor would wear own at the docks. It takes him slightly longer to decide how much makeup he ought to apply, how severely he ought to change his appearance. To make himself completely unrecognizable seems... odd, and he isn't sure how Watson would like that anyway. But if he looks just the same, the game is lost.

He leaves his nose largely the same and arranges his hair differently, adds a scar or two, settles on a way to set his shoulders, and gives himself a more weathered appearance. He wouldn't be recognizable immediately, but once Watson identifies him, he ought to be able to see that the man before him is what Holmes would look like had he been a sailor.

After that it's a matter of coming up with a cover story, which is quickly done, and then he must somehow find a way to wait patiently until Watson arrives, testing out his character, selecting the appropriate accent and inflection for his words.

Continued from here.

He bites back another sigh. His mental image of a diagram of the female sex flickers as Watson shifts against him, further confirming that Holmes is rather trapped against Watson. God, but he smells good. With Watson's head against him, his nose is practically in Watson's hair. He catches himself inhaling Watson's scent and abruptly stops, exhaling instead. Giving Watson's hand a squeeze, he directs his gaze to the floor of the bathroom.

"I think after too long I would start to feel like a cucumber in a stew," he says, realizing belatedly that he'd chosen a rather phallic image for himself. He bites the inside of his cheek and starts remembering the various smells, colors, and densities of the mud in London.