In the morning, Watson woke to find himself alone in Holmes's bed. He sat up and looked about, quite disconcerted and disappointed until he found a note on the night-stand from Holmes: "Mind that you don't oversleep and get caught by Mrs. Hudson on the way back to your room."

Watson quickly rose and searched for his clothes, glancing at the clock on Holmes's mantle. Seven and thirty after eight. Fortunately, Mrs. Hudson was well used to both Holmes and Watson sleeping late, save on the mornings that Holmes paced all night concentrating on a case and then would not eat breakfast no matter how much Watson implored him. It was an unhealthy habit that Watson still hoped to wean from Holmes--especially now that they had become ... so much closer.

Sufficiently decent now, Watson went to the door and opened it, only to find Holmes on the other side of it.

The amused surprise on Holmes's face, as much as his faultless grooming and attire, made Holmes look quite striking indeed. Holmes smiled, his eyes bright. "I came to check upon you, my sleeping prince," he murmured. Taking the doorknob from Watson's hand, Holmes stepped inside the room and quietly shut the door behind him.

Smiling softly, Watson came close to him and lightly touched his face. "Good-morning," he said warmly.

"Good-morning." Holmes met his gaze for moment with pursed lips, then kissed Watson's cheek lightly and straightened Watson's dressing-gown collar absently. "I have had a busy morning," he remarked.

"Mmm, busy," Watson concurred, leaning Holmes back against the door and trying to kiss Holmes's lips.

Holmes turned his head from him and laughed. "No, I mean after leaving bed, my dear." Holmes wrapped his arms around Watson and kissed him briefly to make it up to him, then left Watson's embrace and headed toward the bed, starting to tidy up. He ripped apart the note on his night-stand and threw it away. "What I mean is that I examined the evidence that I gathered at the house last night."

"Oh?" Watson answered, then accepted Holmes's invitation to sit with him on the edge of the bed.

[H explains the microscope findings matter-of-factly. **Detail, detail, detail** scrapings of skin, blood, and wood.]

Watson blinked at hearing these findings and frowned, touching Holmes's hand. "Holmes," he pressed, "you spoke of those men at the house as acting suspiciously. Do you believe that they are outright villains--have they committed some horrible abduction or murder? Are they actual criminals--um, other than the obvious illegal activity--from whom we should protect ourselves?"

Holmes reassured Watson with a squeeze from his own hand and shook his head. "No. In fact, there is a distinct possibility that our young aristocrat may have disappeared of his own free will, for his own furtive purposes. If I find that such is the case, I am inclined to tell him of his relative's warning and then to leave him be. --After all, we mustn't be hypocrites." He smiled and kissed Watson.

Watson nodded, but grasped Holmes with a concerned pressure upon his arms. "You know that I often worry, if ever you are in danger." He lowered his eyes and voice, "And if we were to be in a vulnerable position, distracted by other..."

"Other things?" Holmes arched an eyebrow knowingly. "You have always safeguarded me well." Kissing Watson's hand fondly, he shrugged casually, "If we act convincingly enough, anyway, we shall not be in danger or arouse suspicion at all." Relaxed now, Holmes put his arms around Watson's waist. "Might we ... practice a bit more this morning?"

Watson chuckled. "Practice? Is that what you're calling it now?" Then he whispered more seriously, "What about Mrs. Hudson?"

"No need to worry; she won't be upstairs for some time yet. I told her we would not breakfast until half past ten."

Watson raised an eyebrow at him. "Very presumptuous."

He responded with a sly smile, "Where would I get, if I were not presumptuous?"

Watson answered him with a passionate kiss, and lost no time in sliding Holmes's dressing-gown off his slender, agile body.

Holmes soon pressed Watson down onto the bed and began disrobing him in return. "Such a waste in getting dressed prematurely," he sighed and blinked against his lover's throat.

"You ought to have stayed in bed then," Watson divested Holmes of his waistcoat, "and not left me with only a note."

Holmes smiled, pausing to shrug off his right brace from his shoulder, and then the other one. "I could not help it, my dear. I had work to do." He ran his fingers inside Watson's shirt and caressed his old war wound, while his other hand kept unbuttoning him. "Even now, you and I still have to coordinate important details for our case."

Watson stripped Holmes of his shirt and chewed on his delicious lips. "Mmm, what details?"

Holmes kicked off his shoes and lay against Watson's bared chest, nuzzling the pink edge of his scar. "Oh," he murmured idly, "details like where Lord Severton got this wound from, if somehow he should be caught shirtless in one of those disreputable rooms...."

"Oh," Watson realised, "Jack wouldn't go to war."

"Not with his estate to look after," Holmes replied. "The military is what second sons are for. However," he was more encouraging, "a grisly hunting accident is certainly in the realm of possibility for Jack."

"What kind of hunting?" Watson frowned, certain that he did not know enough of the habits of the leisured class.

Holmes gave him a quick sketch of the accident, while nibbling indulgently on his scar. **Detail, detail, detail**

Watson sighed. "I didn't think acting would be so complicated."

Laughing warmly as he undid Watson's pyjama bottoms, Holmes shook his head. "It's not all tedious details, Watson. There are fun details, too." He slid the bottoms off to the floor and licked Watson's left nipple, eliciting a soft gasp from him. Holmes continued toying with it and whispered alluringly, "Did you know, for instance, that Adam brazenly flirted with Cresley last night to make Jack aware that he was not the only lord that Adam might win?"

Watson sat up a little, enjoying Holmes's playfulness. His hands opened Holmes's trousers and started pushing them off the angular hips that he loved. "How naughty!" he kissed his neck and pulled him quite near now. "Does Adam not fear making Jack furious enough to drop him?"

Holmes gasped with Watson's close embrace, and shook his head. "Adam does not fear anything but his Jack taking him for granted." He ran his hand along the inside of Watson's thigh, continually taunting him for long moments before at last applying his "extraordinary delicacy of touch" to Watson's smooth phallus. "And did you know," Holmes made him moaning and mad with arousal, "that the reason the host's room was in such curious disarray last night was that Jack had been chasing Adam around the room in a display of mock-anger and jealousy? The minx enjoyed every minute of it."

Watson exhaled and smiled faintly with half-closed eyes. "The minx delights in wrecking rooms wantonly?"

Holmes bent down to tease Watson's navel with his tongue. "Anything to keep things exciting."

Watson writhed with the pleasure of how easily Holmes controlled his body and his desires. "Does Jack bore so quickly?" He caressed the sleek thighs that remained new to him, at least in the morning light instead of the grey darkness of last night.

"Jack has been his for years," Holmes reminded him, "and is away from him too often. Always in Dornby Groves, instead of the London flat he bought for Adam."

"Bought for him?" Watson arched an eyebrow insolently, "Adam is surely a spoiled tart living in the lap of luxury."

Holmes bit Watson for that and slid back from his arms. Looking careless and smug, he draped himself out of reach against his pillows.

Watson sat up and followed Holmes, embracing and kissing him coaxingly.

Ever a tease, Holmes turned aside again and only continued speaking in a bored manner while Watson kissed and adored his neck. "The flat is a fairly modest, quiet place, for a lord's second residence. They must be discreet, after all, and Adam is Jack's only London guest there, for reasons of privacy."

Watson plied attention on Holmes's nipples and groin with a determination to break his composure. "A 'guest' only?" he asked. "What is their relationship exactly?"

He would not be distracted by Watson's rogue tongue and hands, and simply smiled as if telling an amusing bedtime tale, "Well, they met years ago, at Jack's grand estate, of course. Some obligatory social function in which the disinterested host must let idle guests overrun his home for a weekend. Adam came along with the fashionable crowd."

"Ah, Adam." Watson slid between his legs and, with smile behind his tickling mustache, licked along the length of his flushed organ. "A dark prince and lover come into his life?"

Holmes laughed, but also exhaled with Watson's touch. "Something more pragmatic," he said, brushing his fingers through Watson's hair. "I told you, he's a hanger-on, a gigolo."

Watson stopped to pout. "Oh, and who did he belong to then?"

Holmes shrugged mildly. "No one. He liked to think of himself as independent and free. He befriended rich men for enviable invitations and seduced their wives for monetary, and other, gifts. He lived by his charms--as I by my wits. Does he not sound disreputable to you?"

"A little too much," Watson frowned, meeting Holmes's eyes again. "Why, Jack is not merely another conquest, is he?"

Holmes shook his head, tracing the texture of his lips with a finger. "No, Jack conquered him. Jack was... unexpected."

Watson watched Holmes's blinking eyes, seeing that his resolve to be aloof was failing at last. He took the opportunity to kiss Holmes possessively again, leaving him breathless. "Was he?"

Holmes warmly sighed against him, and after a moment, found his voice, "Jack had... a devastating gaze. He could be almost frightening in his way, and one night, when Adam found himself caught alone with him, being kissed and smothered with his passionate advances, he was too overwhelmed for words of protest. And when he was irresistibly carried off to bed, he succumbed as he had never done so before."

Watson smiled suspiciously at Holmes's rapturous tone, "Succumbed? That doesn't sound like a gigolo. That sounds like a man in love."

Holmes blushed a little and dismissed it with a nonchalant shrug "Well, he has not completely changed since then." He slid his arms around Watson's waist. "Adam admits to Jack that he spends his allowance freely and crawls the seedy clubs for companionship when Jack is away."

"Yet he strives for Jack's jealousy," he pointed out.

Holmes nodded. "Must hold his attention, after all." He kissed Watson's lips with a delicate softness. "He cannot live without his Jack."

Watson growled deeply in his throat. "Show me... how he succumbed."

They made love again with fire and intensity. By breakfast-time, they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves and restored their appearance to irreproachable respectability.

[ Look at the scrapings again. More research on the topic. Later, return to the house.]