after Jefferson Hope's morning arrest
  and his statement at the police station,
  H and W take a cab home to Baker Street.
have a brief, apologetic discussion
  with Mrs. Hudson about the broken window
  and clean up a little.
H gets out his chequebook to cover the cost.

going to the sideboard,
  W sighs and pours a glass of brandy,
  considering their strenuous morning.
rubs his sore shoulder under his coat.
remarks that Hope was incredibly strong,
  and the struggle a hard one.

H agrees, taking a drink himself.
"The instinct for escape can sometimes produce
  surprising vigour and power in a person.
  I had originally anticipated that my own grasp would be enough.
  You may have noticed that I have strong hands."

W nods, remembering H's solid grip
  when they had first shaken hands.
"I suppose that I wasn't of much help.
  Perhaps I was weaker than I should have been,
  due to my hardships in Afghanistan."

"You did fine."
he sets down his drink
  and exchanges his coat for his dressing-gown.

W considers H's lean figure and asks,
"What kind of exercise do you do?
  I have seen you lounge about here for days at a time,
  and I thought you as idle as myself."

H shakes his head.
"I don't exercise at all,
  and remain idle to conserve my energy
  whenever it is not needed.
  I do not believe in exercise for its own sake."

"That's foolish!
  To not use one's muscles is to have them go out of shape,
  and not have the full use of them when they are required.
  Why, I used to play rugby regularly at university,
  but when I was wounded in Afghanistan,
  and later struck down by enteric fever,
  my being bedridden caused me
  to be unable to stand or walk without some practice.
  The lack of use made a great deal of difference."

"I admit that I have not suffered the extremes
  that you have, Doctor.
  You had a illness, as well as your wound?
  Ah then, perhaps I imposed too much upon you
  by including you in my case."

"No, I--" W smiled a little
"To my surprise, I enjoyed extending myself as far as I did."

pursed his lips "Perhaps to complete your recovery,
  you would do well to keep extending yourself.
  It shall be an experiment:
  I shall see what happens with lack of use,
  and you what happens with regular use,
  and after a sufficient period,
  we shall see who retains the most strength."

laughs. "Stamford was right.
  You always want to experiment, especially on yourself."

shrugs "It keeps the brain busy, when I have no cases."
steps nearer and appraises Watson.
"You say you played rugby before.
  Well, I do not think we can easily put together a team
  for you to play in now.
  Do you object to taking up a more solitary sport instead?"

"No. What do you have in mind?"

"I used to box, back in the days that I was training myself
  for my current strengths and abilities.
  I could teach you how."

"Ah, so you did exercise at one point.
  Boxing? Where would I do that?"

sets down his drink again
"I have just what you need, in my room."
Beckoning, he turns and leads W back to his bedroom.
From a trunk, H gets out a pair of boxing gloves
  and, putting them aside for the moment,
  sets up a punching bag in an open area of his room.

Watson curiously inspects the gloves,
  which look like awkward leather mittens really.

"I'll show you how to tie them on later,"
  H comments, standing W to one side.
He takes off his dressing-gown
  and rolls up his shirt-sleeves to the elbows.
"Let me cover terminology first."
Takes a stance near the bag
  and demonstrates some boxing moves,
  throwing his punches into the air rather than the bag.

Putting down the gloves, W watches him
  and also undresses to his shirt-sleeves.
"That doesn't look too hard.
  I mean, if you keep missing..." he teased.

H rolled his eyes and folded his arms.
"I merely wish to begin with the basics--"

W came closer with a smile, continuing,
"Compared to rugby, this hardly seems a sport."
Before H could stop him,
  W ambled up and had a quick jab at the bag.
"Ow!" he cried sharply.
Finds the bag stiff and painful,
  not soft as it might appear.
Rubs his hand and winces, shaking his head.
"Ah, it stings!
  How could you have ever done such a thing
  to your hands, Holmes?"
glances at H's elegant hands.

H moistens a handkerchief in his basin
  and then gently pats it against W's knuckles.
"That is what the gloves are for, I'm afraid.
  I must apologise, Doctor.
  I did not think you would make such an attempt
  before I had shown you how to protect your hands."

Watson bit back his pain.
"I inspected those gloves.
  They could not give more than a little padding.
  I thought they didn't matter."

Looking a little guilty,
  H still gingerly attended to W's throbbing hand.
"By themselves, they hardly do," he shrugged.
"One's hands must first be wrapped in bandages
  before having the gloves tied over them.
  Some fighters consider such precautions unmanly,
  but in my bouts with such career prizefighters,
  I observed the long-term effects
  of brutalising one's hands without protection.
  Indeed, to answer your question,
  my hands are unscathed because
  I knew to quit while I was ahead."

"I think I shall do the same," W replied irritably,
"You might as well pack up that punching bag, Holmes,
  because I'm not taking it to my room."

"My dear doctor," H laughed, "don't be such a quitter.
  I never saw you shrink away from the challenges
  of my case, trying as it was."
He tied the handkerchief around W's hand
  like a bandage, careful not to hurt him.
"Perhaps instead you could confine yourself
  to shadow boxing. No equipment
  or protection necessary."

"Shadow boxing?"

"Yes, similar to my demonstrations just now."
H moved the punching bag out of the way
  and stood near his wall.
"Actually," he said, stopping to retrieve a candle,
"You may have to set up a lamp,
  if the sunlight in your room is not cooperative."
He lit the candle and placed it on a table
  so as to cast light onto the wall.
H then stood before his shadow and pointed to it,
"He's your opponent, you see."
H thereupon gave W a demonstration of shadow boxing,
  his quick and precise movements
  looking like some elegant and flowing ballet.
Finally H stopped and caught his breath,
  beckoning to W,
"Care to have a go?"

W, who had sat down on the edge of H's bed,
  started to rise again,
  but he winced at a sharp pain in his shoulder.
Frowning, H came over to him and stood near.
"Are you all right, doctor?"

W rubbed the aching shoulder and shook his head.
"Sorry, I think I must have strained it
  too much this morning.
  My war wound, you know."

"Is there something I can get you?
  A balm from your medical bag?"

"Yes, please. It's the--"
He groaned agonisingly.

H left to retrieve the bag from W's bedroom.
When he soon returned with it,
  W was still suffering both from his shoulder,
  and from the sore hand
  with which he tried unsuccessfully to soothe it.

"Allow me." Putting down the bag nearby,
  H sat with him on the bed
  and reached around to help undress him.

Trying not to strain too far and
  aggravate the searing pain in his shoulder,
  W pulled out the balm from his bag
  and set it aside on the bed.

Meanwhile, H disrobed him of his waistcoat,
  shirt, and undershirt, so that his chest was bare
  and his braces were hanging down out of the way.
Thereupon, H slicked his hands with the balm
  and began massaging W's shoulder muscles.
W sighed and closed his eyes.
Rubbing his still throbbing hand,
  he instructed H behind him, "Lower."

H complied, then said,
"It seems that I'm responsible for both your hurts.
  I am sorry, doctor, for asking too much of you today."

W shrugged slightly, more with his good shoulder
  than his wounded one. "My fault really.
  That will teach me to not be so impulsive."

"But impulsiveness and readiness to action
  are among your most charming qualities, doctor."

W smiled and laughed a little at that.
"Ah, that's better," he sighed again,
  as the terrible ache lessened.

H continued massaging him, and remarked,
"Do you know, this is the first time I've seen your wound
  since I deduced it at Bart's?"
He traced the scar with his fingers.
"It certainly is an arresting sight.
  Did it go through the bone?"

"Yes," Watson answered.
"Shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery."

"Hmm," H murmured
  as if he were mentally picturing
  the affected internal anatomy,
"quite severe.
  In what battle did you receive it?"

W arched an amused eyebrow.
"You don't want to deduce it for yourself?"

H pondered the suggestion briefly.
"I might, but why ignore an obvious source
  of information like yourself?"

"Well, all right..."
W narrated briefly what he could remember
  of the battle of Maiwand,
  how he had been wounded,
  and how his orderly Murray had saved him.
On further questioning,
  he then recalled his stay at the hospital,
  how he had contracted enteric fever,
  and how he had been ill for months
  before finally recovering and being sent home to England.

"Hmm, a harrowing string of adventures, indeed."
H scrutinised the wound more keenly
  while he massaged the surrounding muscles.
"Tell me, Watson, about these Jezail rifles,
  what calibre of bullets do they use?"

W turned slightly toward H
  and looked surprised at his curiosity.
"Why do you ask?"

shrugged "To get an idea of the bullet
  that did such damage to you."

"Well, I don't recall really.
  I was there as a doctor, not a soldier, Holmes.
  And when I was a patient,
  I was hardly ever lucid enough
  to think of asking those kind of questions."

"Can you not even describe
  the appearance of the Jezails at all?"

"Well I could hardly see much detail
  with all the confusion of the battle..."
He stopped H's hands and turned around to face him.
"Say, Holmes, do you have some sort
  of morbid fascination with weapons?"

H blinked.
"I apologise for my appearance
  of ghoulishness, doctor,
  but as I am a detective, I suppose I do tend
  to have undue interest in weaponry."

W laughed a little.
"Yes, but what are the chances of a Jezail
  being fired here in London?"

H shrugged and smiled in return.
"Well, if it were in London, it would certainly be
  the kind of bizarre and extraordinary case
  that I prefer, doctor. In any case,
  I strive for completeness of knowledge."

W challenged with a chuckle,
"Oh, and what about your crowded brain-attic theory?
  And the earth going around the sun?"

H had the grace to look chagrined
"Ah well, you've figured out my little joke, then?"

"I knew you couldn't be serious, I knew it!"

"If you knew," H returned,
"then why did you make up that little list about me?"

"List? What--oh!"
he averted his eyes in embarrassment
"I, um, I thought I threw that into the fire."

"I had furtively observed you writing it,
  and devised an excuse to get you out of the room
  before it had time to burn to ashes."

"And you fished it out?"
W looked somewhat hurt now.
"That was an invasion of privacy, you know.
  What if it had been personal,
  and nothing to do with you?"

H looked chastised. "I--I'm sorry, Watson.
  I had been observing you for weeks
  and had noticed that you wrote no personal correspondence,
  and wrote most often in private journals, which I never violated.
  The list not being a leaf from those journals,
  I thought I might have a peek."

W turned away from H,
  looking down at his hands and speaking quite softly,
"Well, I don't have any kith or kin to write to..."

"I'm sorry," H repeated,
  touching W's shoulder gently.

W shrugged and tried to compose himself again.
He inhaled and straightened his posture,
  striving to speak more normally.
"Well, I can understand some curiosity on your part,
  as I had my own curiosity about you, too."
He saw himself in H's full-length mirror
  and saw that his eyes, at least, had not dampened.

H still sat just behind W, and he looked concerned.
He followed W's glance across his room
  and met his eyes in the mirror.
"Perhaps," he said, "our initial interview at Bart's
  was too superficial, and left too much for
  new roommates to wonder about."

W watched H's grey eyes in the mirror
  and nodded. "Perhaps."

H reached to massage W's wound again
  and inquired casually,
"So, where is your bull-pup, anyway?"

W laughed heartily with him
  and, the tension broken,
  they soon relaxed into further banter,
  enjoying each other's company very much.

as they talked, W occasionally glanced again
  at the reflection of them in the mirror.
Himself naked to the waist,
  and H in his shirt-sleeves, leaning near
  and rubbing his shoulders and back methodically.
W's wound had ceased to throb,
  and the touch was meant now
  to be more of a general comfort,
  though perhaps W should have asked H to stop
  so that he could dress again
  and they might resume boxing
  or at least face each other and converse.
But he did not ask H to stop.

W felt, and could see, H pressing closer to him.
He could observe in the mirror every move
  that H made behind him,
  watch his face as H chose sometimes
  to chuckle or whisper softly near his left ear.
W could watch the tops of his shoulders glisten
  from balm that had been applied and reapplied.
He saw his own hands taking hold
  of H's slippery, more slender hands.
Grasping them and pulling them down upon his chest,
  tracing along the sternum and the ribs,
  tangling the fingers in his chest hair.
In return, H allowed his words to trail off
  and breathed upon his ear now,
  and kissed it lightly, and kissed W's neck.
W exhaled and half shut his eyes.
When his hands felt strange, tiny scars on H's forearm,
  he blinked and asked, "What are those?"

H answered, after kissing W's warm wound,
"Some... experiments of my idle youth."

W asked no more and turned around at last,
  kissing H's mouth deeply
  and taking him into his arms.
Long, penetrating kisses.
H reached to undo W's trousers
  and the buttons of his underwear beneath,
  sliding both down his hips with one expert hand.
W was stripping H of his waistcoat and shirt
  with the same eagerness.
Shoes, socks, a handkerchief,
  another set of trousers and undergarments...
  all discarded.

they were almost clumsy in their eagerness,
  remembering belatedly to move aside W's black bag
  and rest it upon their heap of clothing on the floor.
caught up in their passion,
  neither one of them seemed to notice
  that they had missed luncheon.
(fortunately, they had told Mrs. Hudson they would eat out,
  that the broken window could be repaired while they were gone.)
for now, they only concerned themselves
  with satisfying a more carnal hunger.

W groaned when H penetrated him with a well-slicked finger.
Pulling him nearer, W tasted his chest
  and smelled his musky scent.
"You know, you've broken a sweat, Holmes," he teased.
"Is this not a form of exercise?"

H laughed wickedly and kissed his insolent mouth.
"Yes, and it ruins our experiment, I'm afraid.
  Whatever will I do with my time, I wonder?"

"Oh, I could prescribe a regimen..."

They made love as if they'd both ached for it
  since the day they first met at Bart's.
W joked breathlessly,
"You musn't tell people I'm easy,
  sleeping with the first stranger I meet since coming home."

"Nor I," H smiled, "for having the first army man
  who came my way."

He arched an eyebrow.
"Oh, and would you like me to wear my uniform
  one of these days?"

"No," H sighed and kissed him, stroking his scar.
"Your wound is enough."

the candle on H's table had burned much lower
  before the flame of their passion had burned out...