Though I knew he had left it unlocked, I lingered briefly at his closed door, savouring the moment before I turned his knob and felt it yield to me. When I opened the door, he was sitting expectantly on the edge of his bed, and he put out his pipe and knocked out the ashes when he saw me.

I came inside and shut his door, locking it; he had already drawn the curtains on his window. As he awaited me, I untied my dressing-gown and advanced slowly towards him, hanging up my gown on the near bedpost. Then I joined him on his bed and we embraced.

He kissed me, and I pushed him down onto his back, poising myself over his lank body. It had been so long.

He tried to free his mouth from mine for a moment. "How do you want me?"

I silenced him with more kisses. Then I started untying the sash of his gown, and we began undressing one another. He unbuttoned my shirt and dragged it off my shoulder, making me wince and halt abruptly.

"Watson?" He looked concerned.

I tried to dismiss my pain. "It's my wound. I forgot it. I haven't had someone since before Maiwand."

"Here." Turning me over gently, he lay me flat beneath him and then leaned close, kissing and massaging my scar so attentively. He eased the rest of the shirt off my shoulder, then traced his lissom hands down my naked chest. Years in Afghanistan had darkened my skin in places, which were only beginning to fade.

I watched his eyes. "I have changed much?"

"No more than I."

It was a lie; these five years have worn me far more roughly than he.

I ran my fingers along his scarred arm and he nuzzled my shoulder again. He asked me curiously about my wound, the battle, and the later fever that wore me so thin and haggard. I answered him absently, pushing off the bottoms of his pyjamas and tangling his slim legs with mine.

He has not changed much; he did age a little, but the overall shape and strength of his figure are much like I remember. Still, the dark of the closet had been so complete that I discovered much by simply being able to see him now. He in turn explored me as though I were full of secrets to uncover, like some mysterious clue from his case, or like a child's new and fascinating toy.

Seeing one another certainly helped us to avoid bruising each other, but Holmes kept turning us about in his desire to reach inaccessible parts of me. "Don't wear me out," I warned breathlessly. "We haven't begun yet."

So he broke off wrestling with me and lay back on his bed, watching me with his grey eyes and waiting.

I smiled and dug into the pockets of my dressing-gown. At his query, I replied that I had brought my cream for the sake of comfort and my other precautions for the sake of health.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You have had many since me?"

"No, just the one. He had very many partners, though, so we took care. I believe I did not catch anything, but symptoms can occasionally be so mild so as to go unnoticed."

So I instructed him with the cream and the protective sheathes, to allow us to indulge freely. Again he seemed surprised at my new skill and deliberateness in lovemaking, so different from our rough-and-tumble crudeness before, when I had lacked for experience, but not lust. I had not realised that it would seem such a drastic change to him. He appeared chagrined at finding himself out his depth.

"I never made a special study of it," he excused awkwardly.

"Of course not." I sucked his long fingers one by one to relax him.

In this subject at least, Holmes was the apprentice instead of the master; the lack of guile in his grey eyes reminded me that he was in fact years younger than I, and I truly felt it in his deference to my experience. Pressing my advantage, I was able to surprise, tease, and seduce him as if he were an ordinary man with feelings; the incisive and cold-blooded reasoner had faded from view, and was supplanted by a human being at last.

I hungered to have him in a million different ways. As I coated him inside and out with my fingers, Holmes caught his breath and grew ever more passionate for me. He parted his legs with wonderful flexibility and I started to penetrate him, but he tensed up considerably and I had to withdraw; it was too much too soon.

After some experimentation, I found a method he liked much better. He clawed at me and moaned "John" like a madman until he came, spilling into the sheath inside me; I could feel his spasms of ecstasy and recall how I had felt when Murray first rode me like this.

He was still biting his lip as I bent to kiss him; I eased myself off and discarded his sheath for him. He did not say anything when I lay down close between his legs, and I was tempted, but I did not try penetrating him again just yet. I anchored myself at his thigh and thrust against him while he held onto me.

Then I discarded my sheath carelessly to the floor and rolled over. We lay there resting, disinclined to clean up after ourselves at the moment.

Holmes turned to me, running a hand through my hair. "Tell me, about him. About you."

I shifted and met his eyes.

He leaned near, laying his head against my shoulder, while his fingers fondly traced my wound once more.

So I started from the beginning. "The first man that ever awakened my passion was a 'Varsity team-mate of mine whose touch I craved madly, but he did not realise the nature of my passion and reciprocated only my friendship. Still I hung about him and fantasised about him night after night alone. After a while, I thought perhaps that it was best to stick to my private sin, and thereby not risk either rejection or being caught.

"When I took my Bachelor's degree and began working at Bart's, I tried to court women and save money for a private practice, just as my family expected me to, but I kept hungering for many of the young medical students surrounding me, especially one who expressed his admiration and awe of me after I put off a practice by signing up to obtain a doctorate instead. I was so frustrated and lonely, I thought I'd go mad! That was when I came to your university and found you. I wonder that you enjoyed it at all, I was so desperate and awkward."

He smiled and closed his eyes, nuzzling my cheek. "It was all right."

I kissed him and remembered how long ago it was. "After that day, you served as my fantasy for a while and I managed to last another two years. I entered Netley and then the Army in hopes that either I'd be disciplined into overcoming my weakness or else that some soldier would make me his own.

"There I met Murray, my orderly. At first I felt guilty to take advantage of my position, but he was eager and bold, pouncing on me without a trace of innocence. He'd been with many men, and he taught me... everything."

Holmes nodded, pursing his lips. "Perhaps," he suggested, "we will explore more of what he taught you."

I thought about that, and also about how different Holmes was from Murray. "The last I saw of him was at the battle of Maiwand. Then I woke up at the hospital and was told that he had been commended for his bravery in rescuing me, and afterward was transferred to another regiment. He was no doubt chasing some other man already, though I had occasional letters from him asking if I was well. I answered him until I fell ill and was lost to months of delirium and fever. I suppose it was my punishment for my unbridled wickedness with him," I sighed. "When I returned to London, I made inquiries with friends still in the Army, but could never learn Murray's whereabouts. So I have been alone, polluted only by myself until now."

"Suffering," he said, and sucked gently on my fingers.

I took his hand in mine and kissed it, exhaling morbidly. "I wonder what my punishment shall be for this?"

He raised his head and smiled with that cool confidence of his. "Do not wonder about such things, Watson. Just enjoy it while we are here." Then he chuckled. "Perhaps I can even steer you from further dangers. If not for me, you might have resorted to some rent-boys off the street, or have got into the clutches of some blackmailer by now."

"So you are my safety net, then." I suppose that he did not know I had once mistaken him for such a scoundrel, when his net of safety had appeared to be a web of peril. It did not matter anymore, and I lay there with him, listening to his quiet breathing until we fell asleep together.

He woke me in the early hours before dawn, and we cleaned up our mess. I tied on my dressing-gown and he threw the rest of my clothes to me. I hurried back to my bedroom while he put on his own gown and discreetly unlocked the sitting-room door.

I suppose he is still in his bed now. I think I left my cream in his room, but no matter; I will be there again.

---

As we breakfasted this morning, I learned what Holmes had meant on the night he said he would not be able to "recover" quickly from sex with me. He attempted to be his usual aloof self, and he seemed to succeed whenever we were not alone, but then his discipline would lapse the moment that the servant departed. I would catch Holmes gazing at me in a fond, wistful way that could not be attributed to a merely innocent, friendly interest.

I smiled at him and asked whether he needed me to close the curtains on the windows.

He cleared his throat and stubbornly returned his attention to his food. But his grey eyes found their way back to me soon enough, and I did rise and close the curtains then.

Holmes blushed and appeared chagrined by his weakness, his humanity. He shook his head and whispered, "You do not know, Watson, how long it took me to return to the laboratory, after our time in the closet."

He looked so serious, and I was too ecstatic from last night's pleasures to keep from teasing him naughtily. I started to ask Holmes if he had ever got back his handcuffs from Scotland Yard, but was interrupted by a knock on our door.

"A Mr. Cooper to see you gentlemen," our landlady informed us.

It surprised me that anyone besides Gregson and Lestrade would call upon us both, and neither I nor Holmes recognised the name given.

We thought it must be a client, and Holmes, believing he was not recovered enough yet, claimed that we were too busy to receive Mr. Cooper; the fellow might try back another day, or else take his business elsewhere. Holmes's response surprised me, especially since he had said before that work must always come first for him, but perhaps he was feeling secure due to his recent success. I myself did want to be alone with Holmes, but I also realised that a case would probably forestall Holmes's next depression--although I hoped to do that myself with more nights spent in his bed.

Mrs. Hudson began to withdraw to send our visitor away, but the visitor, who had probably been eavesdropping behind her, pushed impatiently past her.

"You must see me, sirs!" the impetuous young man pled with us from our doorway. "I mean, please receive me, after you have finished your breakfast of course. I shall not take up too much of your time."

"You should learn some manners," I rebuked him.

He acknowledged his rudeness with a bowed head and a contrite voice. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I understand that you and Mr. Holmes are possessed of information that is important to me, and it has made me too eager." He also turned to Mrs. Hudson and made humble apologies to her, which she accepted disdainfully before turning away and descending the stairs with dignity.

The fair-haired young man remained in an earnest, penitent posture by our door, looking to each of us for some decision.

Holmes eyed the fellow piercingly and assessed the risk of allowing him to stay. Then he cleared his throat. "Close the door behind you and take that seat there. Now, state your name and business."

"Robert Cooper. I'm a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. You won't know me, of course, for I am still too junior on the staff to get any by-lines yet."

"You do look rather young," Holmes observed. "Scarcely twenty, if that."

The young man smiled awkwardly, quite aware of his boyish, almost delicate features. He hardly looked older than any newsboy selling papers on a street corner. "It's the persistence and energy they want in a reporter," he explained, "and they hope to sort of 'raise me' in the profession. Meanwhile I'm paying my dues as they say."

"And what, pray tell, do you want with us?" Holmes appeared distinctly amused.

"It's about this Brixton Mystery, sir. I understand that you were both involved in the official investigation, the Doctor by advertising for the ring and you by arranging the capture of Jefferson Hope in these very rooms."

"And do you want a scoop?" Holmes raised his eyebrows sceptically. "The Brixton Mystery is surely old news now."

"Yes, but it's all I can get at present, and some readers might still be curious to read more about it. Yesterday, for example, the reports in the papers mentioned that there was a long history behind it all, involving Mormons or something. I should like to do a piece on that if I can, and also hear your own accounts of the investigation. The Scotland Yard detectives would be less inclined to tell me about it themselves; they'd scoff at me for my youth."

I admit I felt a little peeved that this brash youngster intended to put forth an account of the case, making my own plans to do so redundant. Yet I could not blame him, either. He looked so frightfully boyish with those long eyelashes, and he seemed not unlike Holmes in his struggle to be taken seriously in his profession. So I gave in. "You might indeed have a scoop, young man, for despite what was printed earlier, Mr. Holmes here was actually responsible for the solving of the mystery, not Gregson and Lestrade."

"Was he?" Cooper's brown eyes brightened with interest.

Holmes fairly scowled at me for my remarks.

"Yes, and he deserves public recognition of his merits. Here, you can borrow this." I rose to retrieve the Mormon manuscript I had left at my desk; I knew my private journals would need substantial editing before I could allow anyone to read them.

"Watson, don't--"

I ignored Holmes's protest, feeling glad of my magnanimous gesture. "This gives the Mormon history of the affair," I said, handing the manuscript to Cooper, and you can ask me anything about the investigation itself."

The blond youth smiled at me and took out his notebook eagerly. "Thank you, Doctor. I am curious first to know what occurred after Mr. Jefferson Hope's arrest on Tuesday. Do you have any idea of his exact statement to the police upon his capture, and what has been done with his remains and possessions since his death?"

Holmes laughed out loud, startling us both. "You surprise me," he said. "You surprise and interest me a great deal, Mr. Cooper." He folded his hands and looked the reporter squarely in the eye. "You are Jefferson Hope's secret ally, are you not?"

The accused dropped his pencil, and I sat dumbfounded.

Holmes sprang up from his chair and locked the sitting-room door, slipping the key into his pocket. "Do not think," he shook his head sternly, "that because I am but a few years older than yourself, Mr. Cooper, that you can fool me the way you did the last time. I cannot be caught off my guard twice!

"You recognised my friend Watson here and called him 'Doctor,' before either of us had introduced ourselves to you. You believed that Watson advertised for the ring, an impression you could have easily obtained by noticing the advertisement that I placed using his name. But the incident of the wedding ring was not a part of the official investigation, as you suppose; Gregson and Lestrade saw no significance in the clue, disregarding it entirely, and the ring was never mentioned in any journalist's account of the Brixton Mystery. You could only have known of our unofficial pursuit of the ring, and believed it to be significant to the investigation, by having been here yourself, as Mrs. Sawyer.

"No, Mr. Cooper, you may give plausible excuses about your low rank in the press and your scrounging for scraps, but what really brought you here was Jefferson Hope, not your supposed article."

Cooper still sat frozen and unnerved while Holmes smiled, immensely pleased that his state of recovery from me had not hampered his ability to deduce. "I'll admit you confused me when I observed that you did indeed possess all outward signs of being an actual reporter. Nor could I detect any trace of greasepaint or makeup on you at present, but then I realised that your ingenious disguise this time was to wear no disguise at all, to show us the person that had been hiding behind the 'Mrs. Sawyer' persona all along. A clever trick, but not clever enough!"

I gazed at the cringing youth with astonishment. Could this slight, callow creature truly be the cunning accomplice of Jefferson Hope? I could not imagine his motives.

Holmes perched on a nearby chair and interrogated Cooper closely. "You might well have disappeared yesterday, young man, so why did you risk returning to our rooms today? Why come without our having coaxed you at all?"

"Does it matter?" the fellow spoke at last, his voice quite small and faint.

"Of course it does!" Holmes grew impatient. "Do you want the ring? Has it some further duty to perform for you or Hope? You cannot want the manuscript, for that document would be so precious to you that you surely sent Watson only a copy of the original. Or is it information you desire? Do you wish to know Hope's exact statement at his capture so that you can be sure he did not betray you to the police?"

"He--he wouldn't. He wished to protect me and he would have to admit..." Cooper swallowed uneasily and shook his head. "I don't care if he did. I just want to know if he mentioned... if he said anything for me. If he had any last words before he died." He seemed disconcertingly on the verge of tears, glancing at both of us with pleading eyes. "What will you do with me? Turn me in? But will I be able to see him again? Just once, before they give him some anonymous, pauper's grave? Please?"

I found the poor wretch's despondency and attachment to his friend unsettling.

Holmes was unmoved. "Explain yourself first, Mr. Cooper, and then we shall decide whether or not to reveal you to the police. As you are young and perhaps impressionable, you might deserve mercy for your part in this affair, so long as you stay out of further trouble."

"I don't care about myself!" he declared, breaking down suddenly. "It's just as well that you found me out. What is my life worth now? What would I do without him?" Cooper buried his head in his hands, weeping.

Though I hardly knew him, I felt an urge to put an arm around the youth and hush his tears. He seemed so fragile; no wonder Hope had felt an obligation to protect his friend.

"Control yourself!" Holmes admonished. "You are young, yes, but no schoolboy, and I will not be manipulated with ploys for sympathy!"

Cooper quieted after the rebuke, but did not cease, huddling against the chair's arm.

Holmes scowled and folded his arms.

I discouraged Holmes from scolding the lad further, and spoke gently instead, "Will you not tell us, at least, why you were loyal to Jefferson Hope? Why you condoned the two murders he committed?"

Sniffling and slightly raising his head, Cooper timidly indicated the Mormon manuscript. "Did you not read it?"

Holmes interrupted me. "Yes, but facts are what we need, sir. Facts. You ought to know better, being a journalist. You are not old enough to have witnessed any of events that you relate in that account, so I assume that you relied on Hope's memory of things he witnessed and things the Ferriers told him of their past. One man's fading memory, twenty years since, hardly makes for unimpeachable testimony."

"He was a good man! A noble man seeking justice for horrible crimes--"

Holmes waved away Cooper's protests. "You sympathised with him, clearly, but I reserve judgment in the absence of reliable facts. Now why did you trust this man? A man you could not have met until he arrived in England a few weeks ago? Why did you compose this lengthy tract in defence of him? Why did you risk yourself again and again?"

"Why did you trap him, you busybody?" Cooper flung back with sudden fury. "Why did you interfere when you're not even the police? How dare you set traps for him, when I forgot to warn him against you! I should have saved him. I should have--" He choked on his emotion and sunk back into his chair, moaning softly as he wept again.

Holmes glanced at me, puzzled as much as I was by this indecent display of emotion. So much feeling, for someone he knew so briefly.

As the youth sobbed without control, I awkwardly attempted to comfort him, pouring a brandy and patting his shoulder. "Calm down, please. Have a drink to steady your nerves."

He only shrank away from me.

Holmes impatiently grasped the fellow's shoulders and tried to shake some sense into him. "Stop it, Mr. Cooper! Stop this bawling and compose yourself!"

I put down the drink and made Holmes let him go; the shaking was not helping anyway. Cooper only folded his arms around himself and whimpered, before returning to his laments about not having done enough for Jefferson Hope.

Holmes stared at Cooper crossly, no doubt regretting that he had ever allowed the young man to stay. We had learned little about his association with Jefferson Hope, and the hysterical tears were fraying our nerves.

I stood by Holmes and rubbed his shoulders.

"Watson!" he whispered irritably, trying to refuse my touch.

I continued anyway, and as the young man was not looking, and the curtains were all closed, I risked planting a kiss on Holmes's cheek.

Holmes squeezed my hands, but then firmly pushed me away, clearing his throat.

"Well, what should we do?" I said, going to retrieve my medical bag. I opened it and motioned to Holmes, silently asking whether we ought to sedate the fellow, since he still had not exhausted himself with tears.

But Holmes was not looking at me, his eyes narrowly focused on Cooper with a new fascination and understanding. He leaned nearer to the sobbing lad, his dark brows deeply furrowed. "You loved him, didn't you? You loved Hope."

That whisper caused Cooper's wracking tremors to subside. He choked down a few more sorrowful gasps and then raised his fair head slowly, turning to look at Holmes. I realised as I looked into his swollen, red-rimmed eyes that Holmes's intuition was correct; this young man had indeed been mourning over Hope as one would over a lost lover.

Cooper stared at Holmes with shock, unable to deny it or to defend himself. He finally spoke with defeat, "So you know." Then he frowned and glanced at both of us accusingly. "You think I'm sick, don't you? You'll stick me in some horrid institution to cure me of my perversion. More like torture me. I won't go with you," he got up from his chair and began to back away from us. "I won't go. I'd rather rot in prison, or drown myself in the Thames. Don't you dare touch me!"

"Calm down, please!" I urged, trying to look as friendly as possible. I feared that he might try throwing himself out the window like his friend Hope, if he could not escape by the door.

"You should listen to the Doctor, Cooper," Holmes attempted to soothe him with his reasonable tone of voice.

"Why?" he scorned us both. "Is he one of those alienists? Or the director of a looney bin?"

"No, he's not. He's the same friendly chap he was when you retrieved the ring as Mrs. Sawyer. He's the same doctor who patched up Hope's many injuries when he was captured in these rooms--"

"Injuries?" Cooper turned to me with horror. "What injuries? What did you do to him? He had a heart condition!"

"We did not know," I answered. "He only told us afterward. Believe me, he was strong as an ox then, and we barely captured him at all."

Holmes shrugged indifferently, "Hope had not long to live anyway."

That unfortunate remark made Cooper despondent once more. "I know," he whispered. "The doctor said so. I just thought, I could keep him alive as long as possible. I thought--" He gave a choking sob again.

I quickly approached and offered him the brandy again. Shaking all over, Cooper acquiesced as I sat him down on the sofa. He was about to sip from the glass, when he stopped and looked up sharply. "Wait, you're drugging me, aren't you?" he pushed away from me, spilling the drink, and started to rise again. "You'll cart me off somewhere."

Holmes halted him with his iron grip. "No, we won't. In fact we can keep your secret safe from the authorities, whether medical or legal."

"And why would you do that?" he demanded.

"Because I could not care less about whom you wish to sleep with! Any man's deviance is his own business as far as I'm concerned. I care about murder, theft, blackmail--real crimes worthy of detection and punishment. I don't give a damn about your taste in lovers!"

"Why should I believe you?" He was still afraid.

Holmes smiled suddenly. "You don't have to believe me. Watson will do, won't he? Why did you trust Watson, Mr. Cooper? Is there something sympathetic about him? He's the man you sent your Mormon story to you; he's the man you asked to have mercy on Hope."

Cooper said nothing, looking at me then.

I searched for something to say. "Do trust us. We only wish to help."

He pondered that awhile, and contritely whispered, "I'm sorry I spilled that drink on you, Doctor."

"That's all right," I said, still trying to dry myself and clean up the broken glass.

Cooper sat down then.

Holmes found the young man's calmness quite encouraging, and he pulled up a chair, gesturing for me to come join them. "Leave that, Watson. A maid can get it."

"We'll forget about it," I protested, "as we did all the mess the other day."

"Watson!" he was mildly irritated.

I saw Cooper gaze at Holmes's face for a moment, perhaps seeing some tenderness there that suggested our intimacy to him. We were friends yes, but I was not sure if he saw that we were lovers too, if Holmes's face seemed that transparent to me alone. Indeed, I wondered if my own face were transparent at the moment.

I rose at last and sat beside young Cooper on the sofa.

"Thank you, Watson. Now, Mr. Cooper, are you in a proper frame of mind to speak to us rationally?"

He nodded, glanced at me, and then addressed Holmes quietly. "You asked me before, why I trusted Jefferson Hope, when I knew him so briefly." He shrugged. "I just did. It's the same way that I trust Dr. Watson here. I don't doubt my judgment about Jefferson. You can think I'm impressionable, gullible, if you like, but I sensed such a good heart in him, such a noble heart." He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

Holmes feared the return of hysterical emotion, but I gestured to him that it was all right.

"Tell us about him," I prompted. "How did you meet him?"

Cooper hesitated, swallowing. "I don't know if you'd understand. Maybe you'd think I was more sick. Maybe you wouldn't want to protect me anymore, Doctor."

I was not sure what to say, and Holmes tried to be helpful, venturing a theory. "Did Hope arrive in England, know his health was failing, and realise he needed assistance to accomplish his vengeance? Thus he sought out someone to write his story for him, in order to gain sympathy for his cause."

Cooper stared at Holmes as if he were mad. "He never knew I wrote that for him! He told me the whole thing one night, and I--" he shook his head. "You don't know anything about how it happened."

Holmes was peeved. "Well, tell us, then."