"Holmes, have you been sleeping at all? You look tired, and pale." comes near and sits with him.

"I have felt ... somewhat unwell," he whispers, nodding slightly.

W frowns sympathetically and ventures closer, touching H's face slightly. "That's why you sent for me, then?" He gently sits H back against the pillows and feels him for a fever.

H blinks faintly. "I also," he sighs, "missed you."

W looks up, unaccustomed to such words from H. "Really?"

H nods.

Squeezing H's hand for a moment, W opens his watch and takes H's pulse at the wrist.

"Watson," he interrupts, "I doubt you shall find much physical cause for my symptoms. I am fairly confident that this malady arises from mental distress."

W put away his watch. "Mental?" he blinked anxiously. "Why, what's wrong?"

H cast down his eyes, taking hold of both of Watson's hands. He murmured, "Do you remember how you helped to wean me from my former habits some weeks ago? --I have not thanked you enough, I think, for your efforts and particular care of me."

"Holmes, I don't need this--" Watson dismissed his words.

H shook his head, insisting. "You stayed with me constantly. Rubbed the soreness from my back and the tension from my fingers. You even stayed up late telling me your confounded stories and debating with me the merits of numerous medical reports on the harm of cocaine use, simply so that I would not be desperate with boredom." He gazed into W's eyes. "It was most kind of you."

"Holmes, I will not hear another word of this. Now tell me, why are you sleepless?" He brushed Holmes's arm with concern. "What troubles you?"

H did not answer, but sat grasping W nearer by the shoulder. "Do you remember what you said to me one night, when I asked you tiredly if your patience would have no bound?" He whispered, "You said you'd do anything for me. You'd come to me any night that I needed you and stay again."

W nodded. "And in the meantime, I'd study up on Ceylonese Buddhism, just to be prepared with a topic to discuss." He half smiled and caressed H's face.

"Did you mean what you said?" H spoke even lower. "Anything for me?"

W blinked. "Of course I did. How could you doubt that? I'm here now, am I not?"

H nodded, stroking W's shoulder in an assuring manner.

"Is this why you sent for me tonight, Holmes? Why didn't you just say so? I'm here," he stressed. "What do you want me to do?"

"Shh," H shook his head. "I am afraid," he hesitated, "that you shall dislike what I want you to do."

"Holmes! Don't be silly." W shrugged. "What does my possible dislike matter, when you are unwell?" He began unbuttoning H's shirt. "Are you having recurrences of withdrawal? Shall I massage and distract you until you can sleep?"

H moved at first to refuse, then stopped. He swallowed and let Watson continue undressing him. "I... yes." Sighing, H lay down on the bed such that Watson had to lean over him.

W got H out of his shirt and rubbed gently at his shoulders. "I should get to your back," he commented, reaching to turn H over onto his stomach.

H stopped W and touched his face. "No," he shook his head, gazing deeply into W's eyes. "There's something else I want you to do first."

"What?"

"This." H leaned forward and kissed W's lips. Despite resistance, his hands tightly held W near for several moments to prolong the kiss.

Finally, W pushed away and looked at H with disbelief and alarm. "I--" he blinked with realisation. "Holmes, you want--want me to...?"

"I want you." H drew W close again and kissed his mouth more intensely.

W tugged H's arms off him. He distastefully regarded H as if he were mentally unwell. "Holmes, do you even know seriously what you're doing?"

"Please, Watson," H clung to W's hands imploringly. "You have been on my mind continually since you left." He caressed W's lips with his fingers, whispering, "It would greatly comfort me."

W averted his eyes from H. "That--that sort of comfort is unhealthy. Unnatural."

"How many things about me are unnatural? About us?" H brushed his fingers down W's neck until he shivered. "About the way you touch me?"

Sitting up, W pushed H further away and turned his back to H. "You--misunderstand me." W gulped and lost himself in disturbing thoughts of what he had done to encourage this.

H sat up too and wrapped his arms insistently around W, breathing at his ear. "Please. I do not ask much--only a bit of your time...." He kissed W's neck, intoning, "You said you would do anything for me."

W disengaged himself from H's embrace. "You knew what I meant," he said sternly. "I can give you anything but this."

"But I don't want anything else," H voiced plaintively. "I need you."

W would not be sympathetic, shocked that H could even ask such a thing. "I said that to you, trusting you to not abuse it--"

"What of my trust in you?" H retorted. "And how you overstepped our bounds?"

W turned to face him, and H continued quietly, almost sadly, "I have felt this way for some time, and known how you felt also. So I have silently kept such things to myself, for your sake. --I do have basic decency." H drew away, lying down again and looking tired. He shut his eyes, "But how can you expect me to control my heart when you're in my bed?" He shivered. "When you're coming to my side in the darkness, speaking your sweet voice and promising me you'd be here whenever I need you? It was all I could do then to not yield to temptation."

W softened somewhat, reaching towards H tenderly and opening H's eyes with a caress. "I thought I was comforting you." He looked apologetic.

H sighed. "I have thought all these nights of having more of your comfort. More of you."

W hovered close, gently touching H's hands. "I--I meant--" W could not find the right words to explain what exactly he had meant on that night. He must not be misunderstood, in trying to explain. He did love H, W was certain of that, but tenderly and rightfully and nobly--the way that one should admire and cherish a dear companion, of course. W had often felt an awe at how well they complemented each other's needs. There were just times when merely sociable, affectionate words of friendship would not do, and...

H oddly regarded W's silent pause, staring as if trying to read his thoughts.

W cleared his throat and shook his head. Why, surely no one had ever reasonably looked askance at their relationship, after all? Heartfelt love was not unnatural. W had been expressing a connection of their souls with physical closeness, with devoted words, yes, but his motives were not to seek something so, so ... dirty.

"Make love to me," Holmes voiced low, not quite looking like himself. He lay there blinking beneath W, seemingly entranced by W's touch and his continuing hovering.

"Holmes, I could not ... do such a thing to you. We could not just--" He backed away, at a loss for words.

"Then why come here at all?" H protested impatiently.

"Because I lo--I care for you. Deeply."

H's eyes flickered at W's stumbling correction.

W turned and would not meet H's gaze.

After a pause, H spoke softly, "Then, if you care for me, you care for my sanity. You'll understand that I cannot go on this way, with such a tormenting ambiguity and ... untested possibility. Either you love me physically, or you never come near me again."

"Holmes!" W turned around in shock.

"Leave me be. I can grieve all at once, if we part company permanently, but I cannot bear these endless little deaths of my hope every night, wondering if I might ask you tonight and you might not refuse this time."

"But, Holmes, I--"

H shut his eyes, interrupting. "I should still hope anyway, if I were able to see you occasionally. If I heard your voice, or smelled your scent..."

W swallowed and considered the implications of having to never see H again, for the good of his mental health. "This is hardly fair--"

"Fair!" H laughed dryly to himself, the first real brightness he had shown all evening.

W knew he would miss that laugh, most sorely. And that dreamy air H had when playing his violin, and that cool arrogance about his ratiocinative superiority, and that excited relish for a case...

W returned to H's side, leaning close over him again and prompting H to meet his gaze.

H blinked, waiting. "Is this good-bye?"

W stared in his eyes, then seemed shy. His voice finally came through, barely audible. "Holmes," he hesitated, looking away, "by 'make love', what exactly do you mean we would do?"

H did not answer for a moment, touching W's shoulder lightly until the doctor braved glancing into H's eyes again.

"I mean," W blushed, "I should, um, be able to refuse ... c-certain things?"

"Yes," H assured. "I should do nothing to hurt you." He grasped W closer, caressing him with a look of wonder in his eyes. "I have no wish to harm you." He kissed W tenderly, then whispered, "We could do anything."

"I--see." W took a moment to prepare himself, then returned the kiss softly onto H's more than receptive lips. W faintly repeated in his mind that this was not all that much more than his massaging and caressing H to comfort him. He could do this.

H pulled W nearer, into his arms, and held him prone against his body.

W half gasped for a moment, and then they kissed more deeply. W sighed and thought of his late wife, trying not to be awkward. They kissed and undressed each other further by steps. W got used to the feel of H's tongue on his skin, trailing a passionate path down his chest.

H breathed out a sigh. "Would you really agree to this? Would you come here and stay all night when I call you?" He held W tighter in his arms. "I need you so."

W nodded, exhaling roughly. "All night," he consented, realising oddly enough that his servant, neighbour, and even his late wife, had all gotten well used to W making sudden disappearances back to Baker Street for H's cases, such that he would need no excuse for unexplained absences. W kissed H's neck and rubbed his back, determined to focus his concentration. He had difficulty imagining, though, that his wife, or any genteel woman, would make love as boldly as H did.

H stripped W of his last garments and handled all the warm, bare muscles of W's body as if to learn every inch of him. H kissed and bit into W's shoulder desirously. "You ... beautiful...."

W withdrew somewhat. "I, um-- Not so, so...."

H met his gaze, then nodded. "Of course." He kissed W's lips with tenderness, then caressed down W's side reassuringly. "I only want ... to please you." With an unexpected motion, H shifted W back onto the bed and reached down to W's groin, stroking and kissing his sensitive organ.

"I--" W at first had begun to protest in alarm, but he became still and closed his eyes while H lay between his legs and lavished wet, meticulous attention on him with mouth and hands. W felt a distinctly potent stir of his body, and W's mouth went dry. He didn't know how to resolve this with his attempts at imagining himself with a woman. Indeed, W found himself at the moment to be the rather passive partner.

After a time, W no longer fought against the conflicts of his mind and body, relaxing into their motions and asking occasionally if he were not too awkward at doing this, or that. W hardly gave it a second thought when, as W recovered from having exhausted his passion, H kissed him and asked in a whisper to begin a reciprocation. W just returned to H's arms, asked him what he wished, and did it.

. H had never seemed so utterly content as he did when W finished making love to him that night.

Finally, W closed his eyes and settled into a comfortable sleep beside H. W stayed until morning.