Proving himself too confident and melodramatic for his own good, H had mischievously decided to close his most recent case with a surprise capture of a criminal at Baker Street. This ambush, though, went much worse than it did with Jefferson Hope, who had been fairly formidable himself when cornered. This time the panicky criminal succeeded in stabbing H with a short knife that he had on his person.

Thankfully, Watson and the Scotland Yard officials managed to subdue the criminal and shackle him not too long after this damage was done. W then swiftly grabbed his medical bag and examined H's wound, finding it to be more painful than life-threatening. With relief, W just stanched the wound and finally obeyed H's demand to "stop fussing about me."

Hiding their smiles and expressing thanks to H for finding the notorious canary trainer, the Yard inspectors respectfully wished him a full recovery and departed with their prisoner. So now H and W were alone again. H was more mildly annoyed than chastised by his mishap.

chuckling "Shall I live, doctor?"

"Yes, Holmes," he sighed. "Mind that you don't laugh too hard, or you shall hurt yourself."

still smiling. "Then my faithful physician shall heal me."

"So far as I can. You take such frequent risks with your health."

"Ah, but where is the thrill without them?" H responded impishly.

Clearing his throat patiently, W propped H back onto some pillows. H watched with a bored look as W delicately peeled off H's blood-stained garments, tossing aside H's coat and waistcoat. Then W detached one brace and opened H's shirt, drawing it away from the wound on H's lower left side. "Hmm," W bent down and examined the region. "No, not too deep at all."

"Deep enough for my ruined shirt," H said wryly.

"If I can have you move just once more..." W pulled H further down on the bed and then turned him onto his right side.

H grimaced more evidently and bit his lip before glancing toward W again. "Careful with your fingers," H primly warned of W's bloody digits.

"It's your own blood," W tsked unconcernedly, freely brushing faint stains across H's skin and the sheets. Cat-like cleanliness could wait until W could see the wound more clearly in the light. "You would never have lasted in Afghanistan. It was a dusty, bloody, and rough war."

"Hmph," H sneered and started to turn around. "I think perhaps I'd like a civilian doctor from the hospital."

"Holmes!" W repositioned H and held him still. He briefly traced over the wound again before pausing. "Excuse me." W unbuttoned H's trousers and pulled one side of them down to H's hip in order to expose the full extent of the wound. "You shall certainly need stitches," he judged, reaching for his instruments. "About fourteen."

"How thrilling," H yawned.

W ignored Holmes's comment and carefully sterilised the wound.

H winced. "Pray remember that we are not on an Afghan battlefield."

"Simply being thorough," W smiled. "Now," he retrieved a hypodermic, "should you like a bit of local anaesthetic?"

"Why, I believe that I happen to have a seven per-cent solution of--"

"Holmes, I could just chloroform you senseless, you know."

H huffed. "You would take all the fun away."

W chuckled, shaking his head. He anaesthetised the injury and then began stitching up H, while the detective stared ahead of him with an attitude of disdainful weariness for the indignity of his position. W occasionally glanced up to see the imperiously impatient look upon H's face, enjoying its absurdity.

H turned somewhat and queried, "Will it leave a scar, do you think?"

"Holmes, hold still!" Watson shifted him back.

H protested again. "Surely such permanent damage to my appearance, if as evident as your own wound, shall make a difference to me in my line of work?"

W paused, then reached for H's left arm with his still bloody fingers. "Any more difference," he asked, rolling back the sleeve to reveal the innummerable marks left by H's own hypodermic, "than these scars?"

H half smiled and responded brightly, "With those, I consider the physical effects to be of less moment than the mental ones."

"As I have seen." Releasing H's arm, W shook his head and went back to stitching. Finally W stanched the wound and cleaned up after the blood.

"And when shall you come remove them?" H inquired.

W wrapped the wound in bandages. "I may be back for the stitches within a fortnight. We'll see." Finished, he rose from the bed.

H sighed, laying flat upon the mattress. "Could you assist me a moment in one more thing to-night?" He cleared his throat.

W turned back. "Oh yes," he realised and reached to remove H's trousers for him. "Shall I help you change into your sleeping attire, or will this do?" He assisted also in fully pulling off H's shirt, then tossed both blood-stained garments aside with the rest.

H shook his head wearily. "As trying a task as it is to even get me undressed in this condition, I should not bother with getting dressed again to-night. This will do." He lay back against the mattress. "Bed-covers, please."

W duly covered H and watched him close his eyes.

"Good-night," H dismissed.

"Good-night." W turned and left, taking the clothes.

---

In the morning, H wore a most annoyed expression when W entered. H scowled, "Do you know how infuriating it is to wake up and not be able to move for the pain, Watson? Having to wait on another's convenience to even rise from bed?"

"Holmes," W scolded cheerfully, coming to bed and helping H to sit up. "Do you know how fortunate you are to have a doctor in residence with you, willing to take the place of a valet for you, as if you were some lofty blue blood instead of a middle-class hired detective?"

H still frowned unappreciatively.

W shrugged and went to H's wardrobe to choose some fresh clothes. "After all," he continued, "what other private detective would have instant assistance should he ever be incapacitated in his often unsavory, dangerous profession?"

"Point taken," H remarked sharply.

W returned to the bed. He started to shift and dress H, but he found that H grimaced agonisingly at every movement.

"Chloroform me if you have to," H spoke low past his teeth, his eyes shut tight.

W stopped and gently sat H back again. "I apologise. It gives you more pain than I had anticipated. I should examine that." He rose and retrieved his medical bag.

H bit down when W undressed and probed his wound again, but he sighed with great relief when W injected an anaesthetic at last. "Thank you," he murmured, blinking.

Cleaning and then rewrapping H's injury with fresh bandages, W went back to dressing H, taking great care not to strain any of the muscles at or near the wound. "It looks all right," he explained, "but I'll not clothe you completely, so that I may have quick access to it later. I shall prescribe a pain reliever for you and try to monitor you regularly, with frequent examinations, until you recover."

H nodded.

W assisted H into his shirt and trousers, then his dressing-gown, and put away the other clothes. "I'll order breakfast and mix you an analgesic." He turned and exited for the sitting-room.

When W returned, they shared a leisurely breakfast in H's bed and discussed the rules of H's recovery in the presence of Mrs. Hudson as witness. H grudgingly accepted that this case could not, for the time being, be followed by any other excitement for a while. H would be quite useless in pursuing another investigation so soon, when any stray movement could aggravate his injury. The anaesthetic began to wear off and leave the excruciating pain to resurface; H sighed and at least was more pleasant when W administered the first dose of his prescribed analgesic to replace the anaesthetic. Even the anticipation of relief seemed a welcome distraction for H.

---

Over the next several days, W allowed H minimal movement and always assisted H as gently as possible. He also conducted close examinations both day and night in H's bed. H felt better with time, the pain lessening for him as his body recovered.

H took the examinations fairly well, as they had become routine, but sometimes H grew restless from perpetually having to cooperate with W's full instructions.

"Shall you be as imperious with me as I have been with you?" H asked with a sigh.

W smiled, looking up from H's wound. "We have an agreement."

"At least let me have a whiff of your own cigar when you smoke. Don't slip into your room and indulge yourself without me."

"I am not using up any of your tobacco or cigars, I assure you," W chuckled. "Simply making sure that you haven't been. You'll have them back at my discretion."

H pouted. "No cocaine, no tobacco, no cases. Will you leave me no pleasures, indefinitely?"

"Not for long," W answered patiently, glancing at H and brushing his arm. In meeting H's eyes, though, W paused vaguely and had a most aberrant idea cross his mind briefly. H frowned just as W did, seeming to detect that flutter in W's brain as well.

W cleared his throat and returned to what he had been saying, "I'll return your tobacco soon." He finished changing the dressing on H's wound and said little more.

---

During a later examination, as W removed H's dressings in preparation for extracting the stitches, H turned impatiently on the bed. "Let me smell your breath, just to be sure."

W raised an eyebrow. "Shall my breath tell you any more about my use of tobacco than the scent of my clothing?"

"Come here," H sat up stubbornly. He was ever more difficult since he had been gaining back his strength and health.

W let out a sigh. "Very well." He leaned nearer.

H sniffed at W delicately and indeed found him to be innocent. However, H paused and did not back away again, glancing in W's eyes for a disconcerting moment.

W cleared his throat and looked away uneasily; he placed H back into position and returned to meticulously studying H's stitches.

H lay silently for a moment, blinking. Then he ventured, "Watson? We have had quite idle conversations here these past several days, have we not? You have endured many hours of my restless teasing and atrociously bizarre humour. --May I now be serious for a moment?"

W turned slowly and his voice was hesitant. "Yes?"

"If I recall correctly, Stamford once offered you a partnership in his medical practise, did he not?"

W nodded, waiting.

"You turned it down. Tell me, was it because you considered me a resident patient for whom you had an invested responsibility?"

W blinked. "I--"

H interrupted, "I know that you said you were merely a young man not yet able to settle down to full-time medical work. I know that you said you wished to pursue my cases with me, and your avocation of writing them. Sometimes, though, I have wondered whether you have not thought me slightly mad, prone to breakdown if not carefully monitored and humoured."

"Holmes! Why, that's absurd!"

H shrugged. "I have an artistic temperament, and I am immensely eccentric. I see the reactions that I excite from other people. You, who see me on a daily basis and know me more intimately than most, might conclude after all your observations that I am simply not safe to be left alone to myself."

"Holmes, that is rubbish! I have never thought such things. You are quite sane, quite normal--"

H laughed heartily. "Normal?"

Pursing his lips, W reconsidered. "Well, you are ... extraordinary. That is why I stay. You are my very good friend, and I enjoy your company."

H smiled and blinked, almost blushingly. "You do?"

W brushed H's arm, nodding. "I do," he answered as if speaking a solemn pledge.

Again their eyes met and neither backed away. H took W's other hand from his wound and pulled it to stroke against his face. W hesitated, breathing softly. At last he bent near and kissed H's lips. They closed their eyes and opened their mouths to a deeper, longer kiss. H grasped W closer to him, running his hands through W's hair. W slid his own hands down onto the bare, warm skin of H's chest.

However, at the sound of footsteps approaching, W pulled sharply away and rose.

"Watson!" H called breathlessly, sitting up and reaching after him as W rushed away from the bed.

Still looking distressed, W halted his retreat and gazed back at H without a word, blinking at him. But he turned around again with renewed panic at a knock on the door.

"Dr. Watson?" Mrs. Hudson called.

they were both tense and silent for a moment

then W gulped down his anxiety. "Yes, Mrs. Hudson?"

"I've come with the hot water you asked for."

"Oh ... yes." He cleared his throat. "Would you leave it at the door, Mrs. Hudson? I'll be there in just a moment."

"Yes, doctor." They heard her set it down. "Do ring if you need anything else."

Looking back at H uncertainly, W went to the door slowly after she left. H said nothing and remained sitting up in bed, anxious that W might leave. W simply opened the door and retrieved the hot water, which was contained in a clean basin with a sponge. Bringing this setup inside and closing the door again, he carried it all back to the bed and set it down carefully. Then W paused and touched H hesitantly, stroking his face.

He took a breath. "Holmes," he whispered finally, "we shouldn't, shouldn't..." He shook his head and exhaled, "Perhaps I should just be a friend and doctor to you and not--"

H turned and rose from the bed, not wanting to listen.

"Holmes!" W caught and stopped him.

H pushed away W's touch and asserted fiercely, "I designate what role you will have in my life, not you, and I can choose my own physician, thank you."

W swallowed and looked wounded by this harshness.

H relented somewhat. "It is indeed inappropriate to consort with one's doctor," he said flatly, his eyes shining with cold reason. Then he sighed, frowning painfully and whispering, "But there are some things only you can do..."

W reached out for him again, but H averted his eyes and tried to retreat into the empty space behind the head of his bed, in which he liked sometimes to sit and meditate. W had often found H there, creating a fire hazard by smoking and curling up there for hours in silence.

"Holmes!" W stopped H's escape at the headboard and held on stubbornly. He paused, then slid his arms close around H, who shivered slightly. "Holmes, please, how can we even...?"

H did not respond, as stubborn as ever in his inclinations.

W shook his head finally and sighed, giving in. "Very well," he kissed lightly at H's cheek. "You win."

H said nothing but turned slightly as W pulled him slowly back to the bed. His grey eyes watched closely as W whispered, "So let me do those things that you want."

looking appeased at last, H faced W again and clung warmly to him. with uncharacteristic fierceness, he kissed W urgently, almost spilling the water in the basin near them.

W paused H for a moment and moved the basin to a safer place. Then he returned to H's embrace, laying H back with a long, sweet kiss as his fingers stroked H's jaw. W sighed into H's neck, kissing feverishly. "Let me be with you. Let me touch you." He caressed H's nearly healed injury and felt H breathe out softly.

Lowering his eyelids, H sneaked his hands into W's clothes, drawing his body closer and undressing him.

W reached for the basin and wet his fingers in it, brushing them tenderly against H's stitches. He was reminded of his duty. Kissing H's chest, W whispered, "Let me do this first. Then we can both..." he kissed H lovingly again.

H nodded and waited reluctantly but calmly while W slid back out of his arms.

Still watching H's facial expression, W cleaned him with the sponge and the water. He removed the stitches methodically and inspected the wound again just to be certain. Finally, W thoroughly sterilised everything, despite H's increasingly impatient look. How quickly that cat-like cleanliness could be sacrificed to tension and desire!

When finished, W returned to loving and kissing H, who was eager to hold W as near to him as he had before the interruption. With an idea, W dripped water against H's skin and licked the warm drops off of him. H's pleasurable groan made clear his profound appreciation, and they spent time discovering all the ways in which water could be useful and sensual. They fully undressed and proceeded to make love with a wet, hot, and passionate disregard for the mess that they made, or the rules they transgressed.