Night closed in early, now that it was autumn. The trees outside our flat in Baker Street were nearly stripped of their leaves, and when the wind blew, it rattled their naked branches like dry bones.

I'd arrived home early from my practice in Kensington, to find Holmes lying half-dressed on the sofa, wrapped in his ratty knitted blanket. Some time earlier Mrs. Hudson had arrived bearing a tray of tea and biscuits, but he'd touched none of it, and his unlikely posture worried at me. "Holmes...?" I cast my gaze about the flat for a sign of his syringe, but there was none.

"Good evening, Watson, and right on time as always." He propped himself up on his elbows and favoured me with one of his sardonic smiles. He was even paler than usual, and haggard-looking. "And how was your day? I do hope you managed to at least make a dent in the ever-flowing tide of illness that daily washes over your doorstep?" He made as if to say something else, but was wracked with a sudden fit of coughing: a deep-chested rattle that I didn't at all like the sound of.

"How long have you been like this?" I fumbled with the straps of my medical bag, took out my stethoscope, my thermometer. "This coughing, I mean."

"Oh, Watson, it's the same cold I've had for two weeks now. And with the close of the Wilson case, I--" He broke off, resumed coughing, arms wrapped around his torso; when he straightened, he was shaken and breathless. "--it just won't seem to go, and I've taken all that Mrs. Hudson has brought--" He swept the contents of a tray with his long, slender fingers, "--poultices and hot mustard and strange things that are supposed to blister me, I don't know what they're called--"

"Vesicatories," I interjected, "and nobody uses them anymore." I snorted derisively. "Old-fashioned medicine."

"You know, Watson, they say that Napoleon Bonaparte's doctor applied several of these things while he lay dying, and is it any wonder that he shuffled off the mortal coil?"

"I don't like the look of you," I said. His pulse was strong enough, but his cheeks burned with fever, and his eyes were unnaturally bright.

"Why, I do thank you, Watson, for your singularly backhanded compliment--"

"--you're not well," I continued, "and this thing with the Wilson case has worn you out." I pushed aside the closure of his shirt, applied the stethoscope directly to the pale skin of his chest, listened intently.

"You know, Watson, you might possibly consider warming that instrument before you apply it so carelessly to my skin, after all, I--"

"--stop talking! I want you to breathe for me. Take a deep breath in, and fill your lungs." I had detected a worrisome rattle, amidst Holmes's constant chattering. "In deep, as deep as you can and then let it out slowly." He did as I asked, and dissolved into another fit of coughing, this one worse than before.

"I say, Watson, am I going to live at all, or should I send Mrs. Hudson round to Trelwick and Company to order my coffin?"

"Don't even joke about that!" Holmes's morbid sense of humour irritated me at the best of times: now, when he himself was so very ill, it flicked me on the raw. "Open your mouth, I need to take a temperature."

"Now Watson, I don't feel that any of this is necessary--"

"Open your mouth or I'll take it rectally--" That did the trick, and while he was obligingly silent, I took the opportunity to question him: "How long have you been ill? All week? That cold that you caught in Devonshire, right?" He nodded. "And the cough has been hanging on longer, hasn't it?" Another nod. "Any soreness in your chest, any trouble breathing, dizziness?" A succinct head-shake. "Just the cough, correct?" I reached to remove the thermometer, held it to the light. "Just a very slight fever, and nothing more." I tucked the instruments into my bag and laid it on the table. "I think I know what's wrong with you," I said.

"Pray, do enlighten me." He twitched the blanket over himself peevishly, would not meet my gaze. "Is it a simple catarrh or am I about to slip the surly bonds of earth?"

I caught his chin between my thumb and finger and turned him to face me. "Now listen, Holmes: this condition is entirely the result of overwork, and not enough rest."

"That's nonsense--"

I would not release my grip on his chin. "You need a rest, or you are not going to get well, and this cough is going to develop into bronchitis." I released him and sat back. "Now, unless you want an extended stay in St. Bart's, I recommend a holiday!"

"A holiday!" He barked. "I do not have time to take a holiday, Watson!"

I stood up, shrugged out of my jacket. "That's rubbish, Holmes, and you know it. You earned a king's ransom from that Wilson case, and you've nothing new on the horizon. For pity's sake, man, take a holiday!"

His murmured response was so low that I nearly failed to hear it. "I've nowhere to go, and no one to accompany me, even if I did."

I was rather hurt but endeavoured to hide this fact. "You might have considered me," I said, "unless my company is too onerous for you."

"You have your practice."

"You are avoiding the question, Holmes." I gazed down at him for a moment. "Anyway, I can always get Parkes to take over my patient load for a few days. Nothing untoward that he can't handle." When there was no reply, I said, "Alright. I'm going to get changed and have a bath. You can consider it as you wish."

He pretended to be asleep, but I knew better. Having lived under the same roof with him for six years now, I knew that Holmes was steeped in another of his moods, and trying to elicit sympathy from me. Well, it wouldn't work this time.

---

"Holmes!" I dashed up the stairs and burst into our rooms. "You won't believe the piece of luck I've had!"

"Do close the door, Watson, there's a frightful draft." He was seated beside the opened window, wrapped in his dressing gown and his ratty blanket, and pretending to read the Times.

"You won't believe the piece of luck I've had!" I thrust the letter into his face, waited impatiently while he read it. "Isn't it the most wonderful news?"

"Watson, this letter states that your dear old Uncle Boris--"

"--Beauregard--"

"--that your dear old Uncle Beauregard--" Holmes trilled the 'r's, making the name ridiculous in the way that only he could, "--had just this past week died. Now tell me how that is possibly cause for celebration?"

I'd run all the way from Brook Street to tell it to him, and I'd be damned if he'd steal my thunder now. "He left me EVERYTHING he owns, Holmes! His estate in Dartmoor, his stables, everything!"

His eyebrows lifted, and a smile flickered on his sculpted lips. "Ah, Watson..." he reached to clasp my hand, "you are a man of means." He stood up, went to the mantlepiece and took down his pipe. "What do you intend to do with your newfound largesse?"

I'd been waiting for this. "Well, Holmes, since you did ask--"

"Hm, indeed."

I continued as if he hadn't spoken, "--I thought that you and I might make the journey to Dartmoor to inspect the house and ensure that it's in good condition."

"A journey to Dartmoor?" he screeched, "And I on my veritable death-bed?"

"You are not on your death-bed," I retorted--too late, as I realised that Holmes had once again been teasing me. "And anyway, the fresh air will do you the world of good. Especially that cough. What do you say?"

He waved the air as if brushing mosquitoes. "Alright, Watson, alright... since you are so very enthused about your inheritance, I must needs go along." He wandered to the sofa and sat down, gazing into the middle distance for a moment. "You know, Watson, it is but once in a lifetime that something of this nature happens to a man of your station. I would advise you to make good on it." His grey eyes softened as he looked at me. "I can think of no one else who deserves it more than you."

"Thank you." I stuffed the letter into my pocket. "Now then: I want to have another listen to your chest and see how things are coming along. Have you been taking the medicine I prepared for you?" I sat beside him on the settee and opened his shirt.

"I have, indeed, and at the urging of Mrs. Hudson, no less. You know, Watson, the woman is a veritable virago when it comes to such things. She no less than threatened me this morning if I did not swallow that vile potion you provided--"

"Sh!" I warmed the stethoscope between my palms, laid it against his skin, leaned close to him.

Holmes is very nice to be close to...even at the worst of times, when we are crouched together in some abominable cowshed or lying on the ground beside the railroad tracks, as we have so often been in our long association. In the first instance, he is fastidious about his personal hygiene, and in the second instance, he is just as fastidious about the rest of his personal maintenance. He smells wonderful: the spicy, Oriental scent of his aftershave lotion, the scent of his warm, clean skin, all overlaid with a slight patina of fine tobacco smoke. Up close like this, his skin has the texture of fine porcelain, and his grey eyes are remarkably clear and lucid, and when he smiles, there is a fine fan of wrinkles at their corners, that punctuate his good humour.

His breathing was very steady and very regular, and the sound of his lungs had improved considerably since several days ago. "Would you consent to take a holiday with me, Holmes? Or am I pushing you to accept my invitation?"

He turned his head to gaze at me, so close that I could have leaned into his embrace. "I want to take a holiday with you, Watson. And I can think of no finer locale than Dartmoor." The corners of his mouth curved into a smile.

"Do you mean that?"

"I mean it." He lowered his eyes, then flickered his gaze back at me again: if a woman had made such a gesture, I would know that I was being subtly seduced.

"We'll go tomorrow?"

"First thing." His smile reappeared. "You know, Watson, you've had that thing pressed against my chest for several moments now, and I fear it is burning a cold circle into my skin!"

"Oh, God, I'm sorry!" I hastily removed it, wondering what had happened to so jangle my nerves. I turned to look at him, sitting on the sofa like a contemplative Buddha, his gaze fixed upon the middle distance. "I hope the house is at least liveable. I'm afraid I didn't know Uncle very well."

There was no reply: Holmes had floated into another of his reveries, and was entirely lost in thought.

---

"Holmes...?" I nudged his shoulder with mine. "Holmes, wake up. We're pulling into the station."

"Hm...?" His dark lashes fluttered, and his grey gaze fixed me all at once. "What is it, Watson?"

"We're here, man! Wake up!"

We dispatched ourselves into the waiting carriage to ride the few miles to the estate, located on the empty fells of Dartmoor. The land itself was wild and untamed, subject to the winds and weather, and spectacular in autumn. Within moments, it seemed, we were disembarking before the house, a monumental late-medieval spectacle, done entirely in dark granite.

"Close the door, Watson, I'm freezing to death!" Holmes wrapped his ratty blanket around his shoulders, shivered inside his clothes. "Can we at least have a fire in this place?"

In short order, I'd stoked up the fire and coaxed the kindling into a warming blaze. I'd boiled the kettle and poured us both strong cups of tea: Holmes sat now, hunched towards the fire, his long, slender fingers wrapped around his cup. "This is lovely, Watson, thank you." He sipped in silence for a moment. "Are you up to an exploration of the house, Watson? I find that I am eager to discover what lies hidden in these dark ruins."

"You know, Holmes, this place has quite a history." I'd taken a lit candle to negotiate the dark staircase. "Uncle often told us how it was built in the 1400s by the Earl of Sussex, for his mistress, Helen of Ashton. History records that she was known about these parts as a great beauty, who could command men with merely a glance."

"Hah!" His derisive laughter echoed in the stairwell. "That is assuredly the particular wiles of the fair sex--to enchant and command whatever such men are subject to the rampant foolishness of the gentler emotions!"

I frowned. "I wouldn't know," I murmured. The landing at the top of the stairs featured several large doors, each of dark mahogany and intricately carved. "I say, that is beautiful..." I reached to run my fingers over it, smooth the patina of the fine old wood. "...Uncle lived here until the end of his life, you know."

"Then I expect we shall find his ghost stalking the hallways this very night!" Holmes turned the handle, pushed open the door upon what was a veritable palace of a room. "Good God!" he muttered. "Have you ever seen anything like it, Watson? It's like a whore's boudoir!"

"Holmes!" I edged him aside, stepped into the room. "This must have been Uncle's room," I murmured. "The bed looks as if it's just been slept in."

"What did he die of, your uncle? Did he die in this house?"

"Oh, dear God, no--Uncle died of a coronary occlusion, having supper at his club. He'd just dined upon roast fowl in cream sauce, I believe."

"Hmph. I trust you yourself are not subject to such gastronomic excesses, Watson?"

I ignored him, laid my candle by the bed. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" The bed was a huge four-poster, carved of oak; the mattress was thick and sumptuously stuffed with down, augmented with four huge feather pillows. The casement was in the medieval style, shuttered on the inside; the shutters, when opened, revealed a stained-glass window of surpassing beauty, which itself opened to the inner courtyard, now flooded with moonlight. "My God, it's lovely..."

"It is, isn't it?" Holmes's murmur at my shoulder startled me slightly; I hadn't heard him move across the floor. "Those trees, just beyond...and the moon...a scene replete with utter loveliness..." He moved away, and I heard a soft plop as he launched himself onto the bed. "Ahhhh, Watson, this is a bed fit for a king!"

I turned to see him lying flat upon it, arms and legs spread. As I watched, he reached to loosen his collar and tie, shrug out of his coat and fling it away. His boots followed, and then his vest, until he lay there in his trousers and shirt, the latter opened at the neck. The soft spill of moonlight into the room illuminated the beautiful planes of his face; a flicker of wind from the opened casement blew the candle out.

The entire room was awash in silver light.

"How are you feeling?" I asked. I moved to sit on the edge of the bed. "You know, you really ought to be resting, Holmes."

"But I am resting, Watson." He reached to yank on the end of my scarf, pulled it away and tossed it with his own clothes, on the rug.

"In fact, I believe a course of bed rest would be the best thing for your condition." I stood up and slid my coat off my arms, laid it upon a chair; moved to step out of my shoes and peel off my vest and shirt, until I stood before him in my trousers. "It's the only reason I brought you here, Holmes. To attend to you properly, as your personal physician."

His eyes widened with the shock of recognition, and I realised that he had accurately divined my intentions. There would be no going back from here, I knew: either he accepted my proposition, or...

"...oh Watson..." He arched his back sensuously on the bed, long fingers slipping inside the opened placket of his shirt. "...so this was all entirely an intention upon your part...and has very little to do with my illness...?" His smile was the smile of a courtesan.

"You know, Holmes, there are some illnesses that require extended bed rest." I unbuttoned my trousers slowly, slid them down my legs. "And there are other illnesses that benefit most from alternate treatments." I pulled the eiderdown from the end of the bed, drew it over us both as I lay down beside him.

"What type of treatments?" His gaze never left my face, his pupils wide in the dimness.

"Some sort of vigorous activity, that produces heat and causes the body to sweat. In fact, I'd highly recommend it for your case, Holmes." I reached for the placket of his shirt and yanked on it, hard, so that it parted in a shower of buttons, baring his pale body to my gaze. I had waited six years for this moment, and now that I was all alone with him, I intended to divulge the secret of my adoration a little at a time. "My God, you are beautiful..."

He arched against me when I bent to press my mouth against the hard point of his shoulder, flicker my tongue in the hollow of his throat. I tossed his shirt down upon the rug, unbuttoned his trousers and tugged them down-- "Holmes! My word!"

He was not wearing any drawers. He had been completely naked underneath his trousers.

"You see, Watson, this was not entirely unanticipated on my part." His hands slid up my chest, linked behind my neck, and he was smiling. "You will find no resistance to your plan. I pray you, continue."

I turned his face and claimed his mouth, but gently: this was the very first time of all, and the very sheltered nature of his regard impressed itself upon me. I clasped his chin in my hand and held his face to mine, kissed him softly, my tongue flickering around the edges of his lips.

"Ohhhhh...." His naked body, unbearably hot, pressed against me, the lean curve of his back cradled in my arms. "Oh, Watson, kiss me again..." His legs parted, drew up to clasp themselves around my waist, and he was murmuring as I covered his face and neck in kisses. "Oh, yes, please, yes..."

I slid my hand down his hard thigh, slipped my fingers up to clasp his scrotal sac, gently fondle his pendulous balls, rubbing them slightly in my grasp. His cock was hard, pressing against me, and when I turned my face to claim his mouth, he was moaning: a low whimper of absolute desire that transmitted his urgent need to me. He returned my kiss eagerly, his hungry mouth roaming over mine even as his long fingers sought and found my cock. I grunted as his clasp closed round me, thrust myself blindly into his hand. "God, I love you--"

"Oh, John, I love you, too..." His eyes were glazed, as if in the throes of fever, but this was a fever of another sort. "...I am going to burst out of my skin in a minute, I swear it."

I held his head back, my fingers clenched in his dark hair, and sucked against his neck, drew a livid bruise, a love-bite, in his pale skin. His nipples were hard, risen to small pebbles on his muscled chest, and I flicked at them with my tongue, was rewarded by his low, gutteral moan as his back arched, heels digging into the mattress.

I released my grip on his hair and bent to place a kiss on each of his hipbones; his thighs were shivering when I laid my hands on them, and the desire for him rose in me like a tidal wave. With a growl, I tossed the eiderdown away, rose above him and plunged down, swallowing his cock deep into my throat in one smooth motion.

He climaxed almost instantly, driving himself into my mouth, rising off the bed and pumping his hips spasmodically; his orgasm took him in its relentless steel claws and wrung release from him, and he cried out: a long, ragged moan that split the moonlit darkness.

He lay as if dead on the crumpled sheets, his dark eyelashes fanned against his sculpted cheeks, and I kissed the corner of his mouth gently. "Holmes..." My cock was distended, aching with my need; if he forebade me pleasure within his body, I would stroke myself to release. "May I...?" I whispered to him what I wanted to do, and he acquiesed, parting his legs and drawing his knees up, holding out his arms to me. "Come into my body, Watson...come inside of me, and love me...yes, that's it..."

In my haste, I inadvertantly hurt him, and he cried out. Immediately I stopped, suspended in an agony of unspent pleasure, but he urged me on.

"No, do it, I want you to do it."

I slid into him slowly, a little at a time, until I was seated deep inside his belly. "Relax your muscles," I whispered, "I'm not going to hurt you, I swear it." He did, and lay back on the bed, trusting me entirely.

He was tight, almost painfully tight, so much so that each tiny thrust and slide caused bright starbursts of pleasure to flicker around the edges of my vision. I was melting on him, I was melting into him, and we were becoming one flesh...I raised myself on my arms, supporting my weight, and plunged into him so that he grunted, pushed back towards me. He was obviously unaware that he himself might gain pleasure from this adventure; when he felt the first stirrings of it, deep inside his belly, his grey eyes opened wide, and his face displayed his wonder. "What is it? What's happening?"

"It's natural, it happens that way." It was creeping upon me, sliding warm hands up my back, drawing all my physical force down into that one place, my cock, and forcing it to an unbearable pleasure. Each thrust notched it higher and higher, so that I was ascending a spiral of incredible physical ecstasy; when I glanced below, I saw Holmes's face: beautiful and open, his expression filled with patent love for me.

"Oh, Watson, it feels--so--good--" He drew his legs up higher, and his eyes were pressed tight shut; I noticed that his fingers were clenched into the bedsheets. I dearly didn't want to hurt him, but it was taking me, and owning me, and demanding that I thrust with ever more vigor into him, exciting little grunts and moans as I fucked into his body.

There was a precipice, and I fell over it, and arched my back into an impossible rictus and pumped hard into him, loosing the hot tide of my seed, spending myself in long, ragged bursts as shivers of delicious agony splintered me in pieces. Holmes made a terrific shout, and thrust himself at me, just as his turgid cock jumped and spurted, his body writhing underneath my own, his head thrown back. He grabbed my waist and held so tight that his fingers were sunk into my skin; I pulled back and was impaled on an awesome aftershock that pounded into me, wrung the last drops of essence from my throbbing cock and left me limp and speechless in my lover's arms.

---

"I cannot believe..." Holmes was silenced by my mouth, turned languidly into my arms, his body a long, heated column of silk. "...that you brought me to your family seat to seduce me, Watson..." He turned aside and coughed gently: already the nasty rattle was lessening.

"I love you." I was lying beside him, raised upon one elbow, my fingers against his cheek. "I am in love with you, Holmes." I grinned. "I mean, Sherlock."

"I never cared for that name," he retorted, "so you are free to name me as you have always done." His expression softened. "You are the first, Watson." He was almost shy as he said this.

"The first what?" I asked, and could have kicked myself, for I divined it immediately. "You were a virgin before this?"

"Indeed."

"Then this is like a--"

"--a wedding, Watson." He clasped his hands behind my head. "Although I declare I am unwary as to which one of us is the bride." He rolled so that I was lying beneath him. "And if you think that I will always be the submissive partner, as I have been tonight, then you are wrong, Watson!"

"I would dearly love to submit to you, Holmes." The idea gave me delicious shivers.

"Now tell me, where on earth did you learn these things..." He would not look at me, but fixed his gaze upon the embroidery of the eiderdown. "These things you have done to me this night, and stolen my virginity, Watson, and utterly broken my maidenhead, and what am I to tell my brother--who is, after all, responsible for me now that my parents are gone--"

I laid my hand over his mouth. "Shut up," I said. "And kiss me."

He did.