Holmes often contemplated having Watson as a lover. The theoretical possibility had occurred to him increasingly, especially as their closeness lately and the penetrating looks that they gave each other at times betrayed how much interest that they both had in such an adventure. Sharing a mere flirting interest was one thing, though; pursuing it was another. They were sensible men, after all, who knew the risks of such an imprudent dalliance.

Men were certainly allowed private weaknesses in this society, but not public ones. Not indiscreet ones. Given how often Holmes and Watson associated with policemen, the risk of exposure seemed especially imminent to them. Holmes's spreading fame due to Watson's writing also kept them rather too often in the public eye. They both knew that fame could turn so easily to notoriety.

So they restrained themselves; they stayed a step back from danger's edge. As was customary, all their late-night, desultory conversations in the sitting-room continued to end with both parting and retiring to separate bedrooms. Neither Holmes nor Watson stopped the brief touches of each other's hand or clothing that daily life brought about, but whatever physical contact they permitted to happen remained infrequent and governed by clear-headed propriety. So the stiff, artificial dance went on day after day. Now and again, when the burden became too much, they teased each other verbally to relieve the tension; afterward, though, they only smiled off such playful innuendo and conducted themselves as they should.

Yet on a still and clear night, their self-control started to unravel. Watson began it, catching Holmes close to him late that night and not letting him slide beyond his bedroom door yet. Watson stood with him for several silent moments, staring at Holmes with a breathless intensity while the detective only blinked his grey, piercing eyes in return. Then Watson finally kissed him softly, almost chastely. With the faintest caressing of their lips. When his caution returned at last, Watson stepped back from Holmes with a sadness in his eyes and slowly turned away, departing for his own bedroom.

Nothing further happened between them that night, but that brief kiss had unlocked the gates of their mutual desire. On other occasions afterward, they surreptitiously stole more guilty kisses with each other, and next compounded the sin with lingering caresses and embraces. Moreover, Holmes increasingly toyed with Watson as if, on any one of these nights, he might permit a much more serious trespass.

---

One reckless night, they both seemed especially inclined to give in to temptation. They had lingered together for a few too many night-caps in the sitting-room, and the drinks had made Watson's advances bolder than usual. Crossing to where Holmes listlessly stretched out upon his armchair and ottoman, Watson set aside both their drinks on the nearby table. Then he cornered Holmes there, kneeling close by on the floor and covering his face with passionate kisses. Holmes responded quite freely, undoing Watson's collar and cravat in order to have a taste of his warm throat.

Watson groaned from long frustrated desire and whispered, "Why don't I just toss those damn stories in the fire? What do we need of fame and fortune?"

Holmes smiled, chewing on Watson's ear lobe now. "But what would you tell your curious readers?"

"I'd tell them that you'd retired--remarkably young," he added quickly when Holmes chuckled at the thought. "Or that you were killed in the course of a perilous case."

Holmes kissed Watson's flushed and inebriated face with a pleased grin on his thin lips. "Ah, brought down in a blaze of glory! You are acquiring my touch for the dramatic, my dear."

Watson half begged and half groaned, "You'd give it up for me, wouldn't you?"

Holmes blinked his somewhat hazy grey eyes, "Give up my own career just as you would give up your writing?" He purred softly against Watson's cheek. "I might be talked into anything just now."

Watson kissed Holmes more desperately, pulling him closer in his arms and wrangling with his tongue. It seemed that their mingled breaths could intoxicate each other even more.

Holmes's nimble fingers were unfastening Watson's waistcoat at the moment. "I don't know how serious you are in this state," he whispered, "but we need not be so very--final." Holmes gasped as Watson firmly climbed on top of him, then continued, "You could say that you have married, and can no longer spend as much time chronicling my cases. Then you could still write, on occasion."

Watson moaned appreciatively at this concession and kissed harder. Holmes next pulled out Watson's shirttails from his opened trousers, and his slender fingers climbed inside to Watson's tender and responsive flesh below. They tangled and toyed pleasurably with each other for a while on the cramped chair and ottoman, before Holmes halted them with difficulty and warned that they needed to part again, to avoid discovery.

The maid's faint footsteps on the stair outside their door had informed them that some of their desirous sighs and moans could attract unwanted attention even at this late hour. Holmes went to his own bed feeling distracted, but certain that they would have to make arrangements to indulge themselves elsewhere, where they could be undetected.

---

The early light of day was filtering into Holmes's room on the next morning as he lay alone in his bed pondering last night's indiscretions. Remembering every guilty detail, his sobering mind was considerably surprised by what his uninhibited heart and body had almost done. Wincing a little, Holmes slowly sat up and stared at his reflection in the mirror upon his dressing-table; exhilarated and unsettled at once, he found himself blushing like some adolescent upon recalling just how intimately he and Watson had kissed and touched. He almost didn't know himself anymore.

Holmes frowned and swallowed. His escalating flirtation with Watson having thus progressed this far, he gravely considered that circumstances now warranted--indeed, obligated--him to have a full trial of his abilities before committing to any plan proposed in a drunken heat. Surely a test, a practical experiment, could no longer be put off, whatever his aversion to the idea? Holmes shook his head and let out a breath, feeling rather out of place.

In his life, he had found himself possessed of little interest in sexual experimentation prior to Watson, so Holmes's experience in serious lovemaking was confined to Watson and a brief encounter he had once undertaken for the sake of "scientific research" and his own completeness of knowledge. It seemed that the very thing that Holmes had long ago concluded was unnecessary to his life had now come back to haunt him and make him feel ridiculous.

So, on this almost morning after, with his head still fighting the hazy ache induced by alcohol, Holmes felt compelled to ascertain whether he could fully consummate his relationship with Watson, and not ultimately find himself as repulsed and cold as he had been with that obliging female of his past. He had to know. Thus Holmes came to an uneasy decision, and, instead of waiting for Watson to wake and discuss last night with him, he quietly dressed and departed while the dawn was still arriving. The other residents of their Baker Street house remained largely asleep at this hour, so he was not observed in going.

On the pavement outside their door, Holmes found the street still quiet too, and the lamplighters had only begun to extinguish all the street lights that they had lit the night before. He knew that the bustle would come to the metropolis soon enough, though, and being in the fresh air would do good for his headache. So Holmes turned and discreetly made his way on foot through many winding streets and hushed neighbourhoods, in varied districts that he had committed to his precise mental map of London. Finally, in the full morning light, he arrived at an establishment where such indelicate tastes could be met and went inside. Thereupon, Holmes engaged himself a partner and a private room for their use. He chose a man similar in build to Watson, but not too close in appearance.

As it happened, Holmes found this experiment to be less loathsome to him than the previous one, but he could not yet settle himself comfortably into what he still thought to be an overly messy and crude act. This was all too much like his discouraging experience with the woman before; he had managed to satisfy some personal curiosity and feel sporadic pleasure, but achieved no great desire or ultimate gratification.

Holmes recalled that Marjorie had persisted with him for a while after he already knew the situation to be hopeless. Whatever her many winning attributes, he had been simply unable to involve himself and had continually felt like an observer from afar witnessing his own actions, and his partner's more rapturous reactions. Indeed, Holmes remembered that this frustrating division between his brain and his body had ironically led to his distracted mind finally observing the very clue that proved this calculating vixen to be guilty of the poisonings. It was fortunate that Holmes had formed no significant attachment to Marjorie.

At the very least, no similar unpleasantness would result from Holmes's current experiment with a disinterested professional, but the experience could hardly be said to be successful. Even after being shown a variety of methods, Holmes could not enjoy anything they were doing and was still left with an unhappy distaste in his mouth. Giving up on the venture at last, Holmes nonetheless paid a generous tip to the man for his efforts, and then the fellow remarked softly in return, "Perhaps you have still not let go of a sense of shame."

Holmes said nothing to that and left the place, shaking his head. He knew quite well that shame was not at all what held him back from intimacy with Watson. Holmes had long operated on a personal, unconventional, and highly subtle set of morals that could encompass both his ethical convictions against crime and his occasional circumventing of the law in the name of justice. Life, he considered, often came down to a matter of relative harm; God, if he existed, surely knew humanity to be imperfect creatures at best and must surely judge based upon a very broad, eternal view of the world that must be quite beyond the power of mere humanity's commonplace morality to grasp.

Holmes had come to believe that his being attracted to such an ideal companion and counterpart as Watson could not be more than a minor failing in the great scheme of the universe; it caused no harm to others. If such a belief were not actually warranted, though, Holmes still did not mind being deeply guilty of an astonishing, inscrutable thing that concerned no one but themselves. So what if Watson was kept from the sanctioned love of a woman and the raising of children? He had done much already for the welfare and preservation of the species through his medical services in war and peacetime, and through his capable assistance in the unravelling of many a terrible crime. In Holmes's opinion, those things weighed more than whether it was morally right to enjoy a man's companionship in a more than friendly way.

Watson seemed to feel the same, as he had consented to participating in many illegalities with Holmes before this latest breach motivated by guilty love. With a sad sort of aching in his breast, Holmes wished that he could share with Watson as much pleasure and reward as his faithful love deserved. If only he could.

---

Watson sat waiting for Holmes at the breakfast table when he returned at last from his long, troubled walk through London. Besides the ill effects of last night's drinking that left their marks in Watson's tired eyes and drawn face, he looked anxious and tense, more so than he usually did whenever he found Holmes gone without explanation. No doubt Watson suspected that Holmes had begun to regret their passionate embraces last night.

Holmes frowned and knew that suspicion to be true. He sat down across from Watson uneasily and did not say anything at first. He folded his thin hands on the table and looked down at them.

Watson cleared his throat and spoke softly, "I won't hold you to any particular promise you made, or implied. Drunken utterances aren't to be trusted."

"Yet they are revealing," Holmes replied with a dry mouth. He tried to face Watson directly. "I... I would still mean them now, if not for--"

Watson held his breath and stared at him with eyes that already anticipated some crushing blow about to fall.

Holmes decided to break the news bluntly. He sighed, "I don't believe I could be your lover anymore, Watson."

"Why?" his voice broke then, and his eyes were deeply wounded.

Holmes confessed softly, looking apologetic, "I was never sure I could be intimate with you, Watson. You ... drew me to you, remarkably. But if we tried to, if we came that close--" He broke off for a moment and grimaced with the distasteful memory of this morning's experiment. "I frankly believe that we would be a disaster together. Our intimacy would only be fraught with disappointment and heartache--a heartache so profound as to poison even our friendship, which I very much wish to preserve."

Watson responded cynically, "Haven't we gone rather too far for that already?" He winced unhappily, then rose from the table and began to pace, becoming more distraught with each step. "So what are you saying, Holmes?" he shrugged. "That we should return to what we were before--as if I can even remember what that was like?" He shook his head. "We've both had doubts for a while. I may have gone too far that last time, but I can take things slowly again, I can do what you need to feel comfortable with me."

"It is not what you have done; it's that I simply cannot be comfortable with you. I am sure of it now. If I were capable of loving you that way, I would do so."

"Capable?" Watson whirled around with disbelief and frustration. "Capable? You weren't capable when you were drinking me in with your kisses? You weren't capable when you half undressed me at my door to touch my scar?"

Watson returned to the table and knelt on the floor before Holmes, peering appealingly into his eyes. He lowered his voice to a faint whisper, "You weren't capable when you played those games with me in your bedroom?" He stroked Holmes's wrist and sighed as he continued, "Letting me undress you and touch you just a little... letting me expose your skin and feel your heartbeat... Mutually pretending that I was your doctor, though we both knew that you never heeded a word of my advice."

Swallowing as Watson described those intimate moments, Holmes remembered them in painful detail, and he looked away with deeper regret and guilt. "I am sorry. I want--"

"You are capable!" Watson spoke with new conviction, angry now. "You can learn to be with me! I know it from how you've touched me; I've known it with every step we were learning to take together. If you won't even try, then you're a cruel and manipulative tease."

"Watson!" Holmes was shocked at such unfairness and tried to touch his shoulder.

"What else am I to think?" Watson accused and shrank away from him. He started to rise from the floor, as though to retreat into his room or pace again, but he quickly changed his mind. Watson turned back and vehemently grasped Holmes by his forearms, pulling him nearer and refuting anew, "We've already gone past the point where any truly 'incapable' man would have retreated, Holmes. Long past. If you would break off our association entirely because of the risks involved, then say so; don't tell me that you lack passion for me."

Holmes sighed unhappily, not wanting to hurt him, but pleading for understanding, "It's not a lack of passion for you. It's myself, it's--" He took a breath and confessed further, "I have gone onward to the point where I find that I am incapable after all. That is how I know that we cannot be successful beyond our present state."

Watson blinked at him. "You told me you hadn't been further with a man than with me." Then his face changed as he realised Holmes's meaning, and Watson released him with shock. His eyes clouded over with bitterness, and he was silent for a moment. Finally he grimaced. "So you'd rather try it out on someone else, not me?"

"Watson..." Holmes sought to comfort him again, starting to caress his face tenderly.

Withdrawing once more into himself, Watson closed his eyes and kept shaking his head as he struggled to believe it. Then he peered up into Holmes's eyes again and swallowed.

"What," Watson betrayed his jealousy and hurt in his hoarse voice, "what makes you think that your experience with some stranger or trollop could be anything like what we would be? What makes you think that you cannot continue the same desire you have shown me all this time?"

Watson could no longer fight off his tears now, which impaired him for some moments while Holmes watched with pain and helpless uncertainty about what he ought to do. Finally regaining his composure and his voice, Watson took fierce hold of Holmes's shoulders now and insisted forcefully, "You cannot set me aside now!" Thereupon he kissed Holmes harshly.

Not given a chance to protest, Holmes still wished to continue explaining his difficulty and to discuss why Watson clung so much to stubborn, useless hope, but Watson persisted in kissing him again and again; he could not be deterred. After a time, Holmes stopped fighting him not from weariness or apathy, but from the way that Watson's familiar burning kiss could erase some of the distasteful memories that lingered from his partner of this morning. Indeed, Watson's kiss was probably the most absorbing, arousing thing that he had ever done to Holmes, and Holmes had always enjoyed returning in kind.

They were inexcusably reckless to be engaged in such immoderate kisses at this time of day, at their dining table, with visitors or a servant bound to discover them, but Watson remained determined to purge Holmes of his fatalistic doubts. "Bed," Watson deeply sighed into Holmes's neck, when he had a moment to breathe. "You cannot deny me a trial, after all this time. You cannot doom us without breaking me of hope myself."

Holmes, who was leaning precariously out of his chair already, nodded and only murmured uneasily, "I'll try."

So they rose to their feet, and Watson pulled them urgently to Holmes's bedroom, holding him near and still kissing him intensely to make their chemistry persist. Once inside, Watson paused to lock the door behind them, while Holmes traversed the room and perched on the edge of his bed.

Then, still standing at the door, Watson turned around to stare at Holmes on the bed. His bed. Soon to become their bed. Watson inhaled slowly and started to undress where he stood, doffing his coat and collar first. He attempted to be matter-of-fact about what they intended to do. "You can't use the excuse anymore," he remarked, "of being unprepared, too new and inexperienced to be bold enough. You weren't timid in seeking out someone else."

Watson came forward, stepping out of his shoes now. "I suppose that you remembered to protect yourself from disease?" he inquired.

Holmes nodded, watching Watson's steady approach and having nothing to say. He did not undress himself as yet.

"If you hadn't, I would think you'd become foolish, not just reckless." Down to his shirt-sleeves and trousers now, Watson sat down beside Holmes, gazing at him closely to assess the anxiety and tension in his face. He touched Holmes's arms lightly, then murmured, "Did you think it would matter less with someone else? Would be less hurtful should it disappoint?"

Holmes replied quite softly, "I don't want to fail you."

Watson caressed Holmes's face and blinked with great emotion. "You can only fail me if you don't try. If you don't let me..." he leaned closer, "love you." He resumed kissing Holmes intimately and pulled him very close.

Holmes kissed him back and ran his hands along Watson's shoulders, thinking of how close they had come already to consummation. How would things change today after they finished? If they finished at all. He found himself brooding apprehensively and losing his concentration.

Watson began undressing Holmes slowly and sensuously. He was fond of Holmes's lean figure and the sinuous curve of his back, so he sought to free Holmes of his upper garments first.

Holmes exhaled to relax himself and slid his hands inside Watson's own shirt.

Kissing Holmes's neck and thinking of the stranger that Holmes had been with just today, Watson sighed and tried to be accepting. "That I had a wider experience," he whispered, "and backed away once from the unfamiliar, does not mean that I have expectations to fulfil. I only want you, anyway that you'll come to me."

Holmes remained uncertain. "What if I cannot be fully yours?"

Watson shook his head and pressed his hand to feel Holmes's heartbeat as he had done previously during their mock examinations. "You already are," he asserted. "Every part of you." Watson kissed Holmes's bared shoulder, speaking softly, "Your skin, white as alabaster. Your lips..."

Holmes squirmed and cut him off sharply. "Don't enumerate my charms."

Watson looked up and saw Holmes's tense discomfort. So he stroked back Holmes's hair and murmured simply, "I want you ... like a madness." He kissed Holmes with just such a madness, and let his hands show Holmes other physical signs of adoration meanwhile.

As Holmes wanted, Watson fell into silence, focusing closely on his actions and on what reciprocations Holmes gave while they continued undressing. Soon their ardent embraces came more naturally, with more sureness and ease. Watson revelled in this extended trespass of their nude bodies among the bedcovers, quite beyond the toying games that they had had before. For his part, Holmes freely covered the familiar territory that they had already explored and now traversed into new frontiers.

Yet the thought of where Holmes had acquired his new precise knowledge of lovemaking kept drifting back into Watson's mind to irk and pain him. Breaking the silence at last, he asked Holmes what he had done with the prostitute, and, hearing the reluctant and halting answers, some measure of jealous fury and hurt began to mix in with his lovemaking. Watson held Holmes bruisingly tighter, kissed him more fiercely, and scratched his fingernails into the white skin that he had once cherished for its look of innocence.

He clearly wished to claim Holmes as solely his own, his personal prize in a way. Watson had not allowed this bold possessiveness to surface before in their relations, for fear that it might scare Holmes off or offend him to be regarded as an object to possess and hoard, but he allowed it now. Biting into Holmes's sensitive lips, Watson demanded somewhat severely, "If I cannot have you, surely no one else can? No one else ever again."

Holmes could sense the urgency in Watson's tone and demeanour; he chose not to protest any of this rough treatment, for he perceived that this sort of heightened obsession seemed to give fire to Watson's passion for Holmes, making it truly a passion rather than chaste love alone. Holmes nodded and kissed Watson assuringly. He had never enjoyed anything near these touches with anyone but Watson, so he knew that he would not desire another's embrace anyway.

Watson became more heated and aggressive, as on the armchair last night; although this time, he did not have the excuse of drunkenness for his impatient, forcible advances. Holmes found himself having to keep up with Watson's wants, instead of expressing his own wants. Watson was already tasting his groin hungrily, pressing apart his legs with his hands.

Holmes lay beneath, breathless and perspiring. "You're--you're going to take me like a violent intruder, aren't you?"

Watson barely raised his head to reply. "Yes," he growled in a low voice, his eyes half-closed like the cat that Holmes often resembled when he toyed with Watson.

Holmes swallowed. "Then hurry, before I change my mind about letting you do it."

So Watson advanced. Holmes gasped as Watson hastily slid a moistened finger inside Holmes's body, as he had done occasionally before when they experimented. They had never gone much farther than a mere tickling sensation before Holmes would capriciously change his mind and want to do something else. Certainly Watson had never pressed more than one finger inside Holmes, as he did now to open him, and certainly Watson never before received permission to press his larger erection inside, as he intended to do presently.

Holmes closed his eyes and had difficulty relaxing with the anticipation of what he had agreed to. He was not entirely sure why he had consented; it seemed vaguely reasonable considering his past history that taking a passive position in sex would rely less on his ability to focus his mind and involve himself.

Watson advanced again. Holmes could feel him now, pressed at the entrance with a flushed, swollen phallus to replace the withdrawn fingers, and Holmes tensed even more. He was not sure if he should breathe, or look, or change his mind.

Watson took the last option away by entering at that moment; he was well aware of Holmes's fickleness, and he heeded the suggestion to "hurry". Holmes's reaction was incoherent and unsteady; he trembled in both voice and body. Pausing, Watson kissed and caressed Holmes to calm him and open his eyes. Holmes exhaled and looked up at last, moaning somewhat faintly as Watson continued to push deeper into him. Holmes found that conscious cooperation made the penetration go more smoothly, so he strove to concentrate.

Before long, Watson was fully buried inside him, and they both stopped for a breath. Was it pain or rapture that Holmes felt now? He was not sure. Maybe both. Certainly never was there so much heat and fullness straining him from within. Certainly Holmes had never gripped the crisp, white sheets beneath him so much.

"Relax," Watson coaxed and tried to soothe Holmes by massaging along his sides. He also helped shift Holmes's legs a little, to place him in a more comfortable position.

Holmes still glanced somewhat anxiously at Watson and considered the implications of becoming a man's possession and allowing him free rein with one's flesh, whatever the result might be. Holmes grimaced and was forgetting to breathe.

Reclining towards Holmes's chest, Watson chewed further upon an already reddened nipple and stroked the semi-erect phallus that rested between their abdomens. Then he pulled back a little and began to establish the rocking, rhythmic motion of his loving. As Watson emitted low groans from this interior action, his hands and mouth also sought all the exterior places that he had learned could stimulate Holmes to pleasure. His fingernails and teeth played as much of a role as his fingertips and tongue did. He remained attentive yet harsh, loving yet fierce; complex.

It seemed that the mix of emotions along with the touch made a difference to Holmes. He found to his surprise that he could continue to truly feel, and respond to, their intercourse. For once, he could be absorbed by the intense look in Watson's half closed eyes, by the moist heat of Watson's body pressed within and upon him. For once, Holmes could focus his usually distracted mind well enough to involve himself in both the physical actions and the emotional intimacy of their exchange. Holmes could feel again a wonder at this astonishing, inscrutable love between them.

So they went on. Between his gasps for air, Holmes vaguely wondered if he should worry about the turbulent severity in Watson's naked display of his raging emotions. He seemed determined to literally pound the message into Holmes that he alone could make him this vulnerable, could own him somehow. These were murky, unexplored depths to Watson, indeed. Holmes found that some part of him was more enticed by, than afraid of, such dark unknowns.

Their passion built higher and higher, until Watson could no longer hold back, and with a deep-throated cry, he released all his feverish desire in a tremendous shudder that Holmes seemed to feel reverberating all through him while he clutched the sheets.

After Watson quietly withdrew from him, Holmes blinked his eyes open and still ached inside as he lay pondering how thoroughly Watson had ravished him. Holmes wondered vaguely if he could continue to simply give Watson this, if it would be enough to satisfy his love. Already his intrusively analytical mind had come to a coldly succinct assessment of what they had just done: a vast improvement, but not a complete success.

Not surprisingly in Holmes's opinion, this attempt had turned out to be not so different from previous times. Holmes had experienced sometimes intense flashes of pleasure during the lovemaking, but he had not finished, nor did he even expect to ever achieve true ecstasy. It had proven impossible before, and he did not think that Watson could break that trend.

However, after his brief and silent recovery of his breath and energy, Watson came quite near to Holmes again, proving himself persistent though Holmes protested softly to him that further trying was unnecessary. Watson shook his head against such discouragement and just reached for him, manually stimulating his erection again and kissing him warmly.

It took some time and persuasive repetition, but despite himself Holmes slowly began responding, melting with the sustained touch. He was surprised, overcome... amazed even. Gradually he gave his lingering doubts over, letting them be driven away by Watson's patient efforts. Sharply inhaling, Holmes sat up somewhat, his fingernails digging into Watson's shoulders. He uttered fevered, uncontrollable sounds past Watson's fond kisses. Finally Holmes was as wordless, yet expressive, in his cry as Watson had been earlier. Then they lay against each other on the bed, and Holmes limply caught his breath.

He swallowed and knew not what to say.

Watson blinked against Holmes's warm chest. "Convinced now?"

He was. Holmes stroked the old wound on Watson's shoulder and remembered the first night he'd touched it, consumed with curiosity and desire as he'd pushed aside Watson's shirt. Watson understood and listened to Holmes's heartbeat in the silence.

After a few more moments together, Watson shifted and started to rise finally, aware that their long absence from the sitting-room at this time of day would be noticed if continued. He kissed Holmes, asking him if they could meet in Watson's bedroom later tonight, if they were not occupied by some case. Holmes agreed and said goodbye for the time being.

Then he lay back and watched Watson gather up his clothes and leave quietly for his own room. As the door closed after him, Holmes realised now that contemplation had ended, and that Watson was his lover at last.