Whumptober 2025 Day 9: Touch

[rosanicus]

No 9: "We'll make it alright to come undone."

Touch | Flashbacks | Scalding

Thanks to Tweague I've developed a Max Carrados interest! This is based on the episode of the Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and its featured physical affection between Carrados and Greatorex, but I have also been reading the short stories from the beginning and enjoying the Max Carrados ride while it lasts (there's not quite as much canon for this as Biggles, lmao).

It had been ten days since Max effected his escape from the underground cell in which he had been imprisoned, and in that time he had spent easily seven or eight days seeking contact with his surroundings.

There was an unpleasant suggestion in his mind that his captivity had somehow altered his perception permanently; he was constantly convinced that the slick stone of the cell walls was just beyond his fingertips, such that he had to rub them against some nearby surface, or the longsuffering Parkinson and Greatorex, in the hope of overriding the incorrect input.

A malfunction of the senses was, to Max Carrados, a disaster. He had learned to thrive without visual input, to intuit the world with what remained to him and expand the reach of his senses so far as to seem almost superhuman, and to remove a quarter of that in favour of rough stone constantly at the edge of his awareness was infuriating.

He rubbed his hand against the textured brocade of his waistcoat. Greatorex paused in his reading; they were mid-way through a longer article on a brewing scandal surrounding the Megatherium Trust.

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Greatorex, painfully correct in the way which Max knew meant he was about to be impertinent. "Are you quite alright?"

"Of course, my dear fellow," replied Max. The subtle variation in the weight of the threads had neatly muffled his unpleasant recollections. It had been a good choice of fabric, he thought, and congratulated the taste of his former self. "Never better."

"It is only," his secretary continued. "That you have rubbed your fingertips nearly raw, this past week, and I fear that even Parkinson's best concoctions might struggle to remove blood from cream silk brocade."

"You exaggerate," Max snapped. With some effort, he tucked his hand into his pocket. It was more difficult than he would have liked.

"Perhaps," allowed Greatorex. But he did not return to his recitation. Max felt the man's gaze on him, and appreciated the scrutiny. He had trained him well, of course, and he knew that Greatorex would observe more than most other men.

After a few moments, Greatorex hummed thoughtfully. Max catalogued the noise, as he did all of his non-verbal utterances, and decided that it was more than usually contemplative.

The touch of a hand on his wrist almost made him jump, half from surprise and half from the wound-up feeling that had sat in him since the first night that dinner didn't come, down in that damp, miserable cell. He suppressed the urge with only a little effort; he knew whose hand it was at once.

The callous on Greatorex's middle finger where his pen sat; the slightly raised scar along his thumb where his sister once stabbed him with a set of compasses; the softness of his palms in contrast to the roughness of his fingertips — it was all perfectly familiar. Max let their fingers tangle together and sighed deeply.

Warmth was what he had missed most. Stone set beneath the streets of London is not meant to retain heat, and by the third or fourth night Max had been childishly convinced he'd never be warm again.

Returning to the surface had put paid to that idea, in the midst of one of the hottest summers in living memory, but his hands had struggled to catch up with the rest of him. Now he could feel the beat of Greatorex's pulse in the meat of his thumb, could appreciate the subtle whorls of his fingerprints. With practice, Max had learned them by heart.

He raised Greatorex's hand to his mouth, and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles. "The case?" He prompted.

Greatorex smiled. Max could hear it in his voice when he resumed his reading, one-handed.

Comments

[tweague]

AHHHHH SO HAPPY THAT I HAVE AFFLICTED ANOTHER WITH THIS PAIRING <3 <3 <3 You targetted this with *laser-like precision* and I couldn't be happier <3 Absolutely adored Carrados convinced that he has everything *totally under control* he is coping with his trauma like a *pro* <3 And *incredible* hand-kink, WEJ would be so happy - I loved the tiny physical details that Max uses to orient and anchor himself (esp. the Moya-inflicted compasses injury, she *so* would), the moment that Greatorex startles him with the physical contact and how Max uses it to ground himself. Loved this so muuucchhhh.