I must have dozed off after I had recounted the last three years as succinctly as possible. He woke me with one warm hand on my arm and the other stroking my hair back from my face. “Come, Holmes. I’ve finished up my work, there’s no call for you to sleep here. The girl has gone for the day, but I will find us a bit of supper. I’ll show you up to my bed, and you can rest there.”

          I considered telling him no, that I would continue to sleep just as well on the settee, but there was something in his eyes and the way his fingers tangled in my hair that caught my attention. It took me a moment to place his expression. After all, it had been three years since anyone had looked at me that way. Now that I was once again in his presence the bleakness of the last three years stood out to me all the more. I nodded, and he took my elbow as I rose.

All the way up the narrow stairs we stayed close to one another. Twice I noticed him begin to pause, glancing sideways into his peripheral vision as though he feared I might vanish while his back was turned. I cannot blame him. Twice I placed my hand lightly and needlessly against his back. I told myself that I was assuring him, but in all honestly I was assuring myself as well. After so long, it seemed almost strange to be once again in London, to be once again so close to the man from whom I had been parted.

          No sooner had I stepped into the room than he turned around, reaching behind me to shut the door as he hemmed me in with an arm on either side. We stared at one another for a long moment. “You know, Holmes. I have not yet decided whether to be very angry with you.”

I leaned back against the door. “I would certainly deserve it.”

“I thought you were dead. You let me,” and here he slammed both his palms against the door, “think you were dead.” I said nothing. His accusation was perfectly true. “You have no idea. I mourned for you, Holmes. I wore black. I watched them bury a casket with no body. I—and all the while you—and then Mary died and I didn’t even—I was still wearing black. I was still wearing black for you and she died and I was so numb already—I barely even…” He trailed. I could accept that I deserved his anger, but now he was beginning to turn his lens upon himself. I would not listen to him damn the only soul that I held dear. I put my hands on his shoulders and cut him off.

 “We cannot change the past. I’ve erred. Is that what you wish to hear? I’ve deceived you, but I have done so only in order to spare us both. You will not implicate yourself in my deception.” I was winding up for a further speech, but I was distracted by the sudden arrival of his hands at my face. He cupped my jaw and drew my head down to meet my lips.

Oh, how I remembered this: the press of his lips and the way that his breath and my breath suddenly become our breath. For an occupation that had been relatively new to me, I had been startled to realize how much I had missed it during our separation. There were times when I had considered whether others might be able to offer me a similar kind of solace in his place, but I never could bring myself to act on it. I did not merely want to be touched, I wanted to be touched by John Watson.

          I moved my hands from his shoulders to wrap my arms around him. Without a word, he began to undo my waistcoat. Between kisses he whispered my name as though he needed to conjure me.

He removed my jacket and waistcoat in one motion and ran his hands over my chest and arms, teasing my skin through the fabric of my shirt. Watson has always moved slowly with me. I have found it difficult to lose myself in the motions that seem to come so naturally, so unthinkingly, to the majority of the population. I have, however, made every effort to be as astute a student of the flesh as he has attempted to be in the field of deduction, and he in turn has shown me the same patience and understanding in this as in every other aspect of our lives together.

This time, his tempo was taking a decided turn for the allegro appassionato. He hurried through my cuffs and collar and divested me of my shirt as he herded me toward the bed. I fumbled with his braces, and together we made short work of our garments. We tumbled onto the bed, frantically trying to recall the terrain of the bodies we’d once mapped so casually. He left me for a moment to find some kind of salve at his bedside table. I shivered without his body heat and felt almost as nervous as I had the first time I laid naked before him. I paid attention to my breathing, forcing myself to steady it and remember the techniques I had learned in my travels to the East. When he hovered over me, I reached for him, but he took my wrists in his hands and pinned them effectively above my head. My pulse quickened. “Are you here?” he whispered. “Is this real? It is so like my dreams.”

          I leaned forward to take his lips, though the position of my arms hampered my efforts. “I’m here, my dear Watson. I am very much here.”

          He met my mouth roughly then took both wrists in one hand and applied the other to my person. There was little gentleness between us in those moments; which is not to say there was no pleasure. If there was pain as well, it only served to remind me of the reality of his body. The entire time, his hand gripped my wrists and his eyes never left my own. The steady blue gaze remained unbroken even as he followed me into the petite mort.

I think it safe to say that we were each fully convinced of the other’s presence by the time Watson collapsed onto my chest. I could not help but note how light he seemed. He could not weigh half a stone more than he had when we first took rooms together.

At first I thought the tremors that shook his frame merely an after-effect of our passions, but soon I realized they were something more. His face was turned resolutely away from me. No doubt he was ashamed to let me see him give in to one of those softer emotions I had so often belittled. He still held my hands pinned above me. I pulled gently against his grip, but he only tightened it. “John,” I whispered. “John, please. Let me hold you. Let me touch you.” His fingers loosened, and I quickly threw them off and took him in my arms. I held him as though he was in danger of being snatched away from me.

No, that is not true. I held him as though he might decide suddenly that I did not deserve his forgiveness after all.  When he finally stilled, I gently rubbed his back. I lingered over each vertebra and then traced the scar at his shoulder.

           I rolled us over, and shifted down whilst pulling him up so that our faces were even. I ran one finger over his cheek. He looked so tired and worn, but there was a hint of smile on his lips now that I was certain had not been there earlier.

He kissed me tenderly. “I believe I promised you dinner.”

I nipped lightly at his lip. “I had come to believe it was nothing more than a pretense.” I dragged my fingers lazily along his ribs, counting them silently. “You are as thin as the day I met you, though less brown.”

He shifted under my scrutiny and then reached out to pass his hand over my hip. “You are no better. You’ve missed more meals than you’ve taken, I daresay.” His eyes lowered. “You should have had a doctor with you.” His fingers found a new scar along my side, and he propped himself up to examine it. “Someone else has been stitching you. And doing abominably badly, I might add. There is no reason to—”

I pressed a finger over his lips. The stitches had been fine; the scar was not nearly as bad as all that. “John H. Watson, as long as you can thread a needle, I swear, I will never let another doctor near me.” I began in jest, but as his expression softened, I realized that I was quite prepared to mean it. I tsked and rolled my eyes at his pleased smile, but I could not help the corners of my own mouth tightening in a return grin.

 “Sherlock Holmes, I do believe you’ve just promised yourself to me.”

I furrowed my brow, though of course he would not be fooled by it. “Really, old boy, you apply needlessly romantic sentiment to a perfectly logical decision not to seek the medical care of lesser doctors when I have my own former army surgeon right here.”

“I am merely convenient to you then? Very well. I swear never to seek out the aid of lesser detectives. After all, I have my own private consultant so near at hand.” He scrambled on top of me then, shaking in laughter as he kissed my neck.

I sighed as though I was quite put upon. “I suppose I should be comforted by the fact that your humour is quite as pawky as ever.”

He laughed against my neck, his moustache bristling against my skin in a way that made me twitch away. He noticed my reaction and set about pinning me to the bed and brushing his moustache across my neck. I could not help but squirm underneath him. “Watson! You are incorrigible.” We tussled until we were a tangle of limbs and bedclothes.

We were both grinning when he clambered off me to fetch his dressing gown and check his watch. “Well, I think we have just enough time for a bath and some nourishment.”

I entwined my hands behind my head and stretched. There was work still to do, and before the evening was through I would once again drag him into danger. I would have liked to keep him home and safe, but there was no way that I could have convinced him. Even if I could, I do not think I could have convinced myself to let him leave my side.

He paused in the doorway and looked back at me. His eyes were serious, and there was something of the sadness I had seen in them earlier this afternoon. I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong, but he shook his head and smiled at me.

“It’s nothing. Except, well, I was simply thinking that I could not remember the last time I laughed.” With that, he disappeared around the doorframe.

I have often chided my Boswell for the romanticism with which he taints our adventures, and so it is with some reluctance that I say the first sight of him after my long absence caused my breath to catch and my chest to feel suddenly constricted.  I gaped for a moment. He stood there on the cobblestones, not four feet away from me, and he thought I was dead.

I had not thought it possible to miss his companionship more than I had over the last three years, but in London there was not a corner that I passed that did not remind me of a time when we walked there. There was not a hansom that went by that did not call to mind a time when we had shared one. In our old rooms earlier that afternoon, I had sat in my usual chair, and his absence had seemed palpable. It was not logical, of course. Watson had been married and the rooms had not truly been ours for some time before my false death. Despite this I discovered, much to my dismay, that all of my memories of them included him. His sudden appearance before me only served to solidify this point. I am a man given neither to rash action nor emotional displays, and yet it was all I could do not to rush to him and announce myself.

I took in as many details as quickly as I could. His coat was looser than it should have been. There was new silver in his hair. He was the closest to pale that I had seen him. I crept closer to him and caught a whiff of him then, all the little elements—the tobacco and the clean spice of his soap and a hint of medicinal chemicals—that made up the distinct scent of John Watson. I closed my eyes for a moment to hopes of catching his scent again, and in that moment he stepped back and bumped against me. My books scattered on the street. When he bent to fetch them, I allowed myself to stare openly at him. I had composed myself, of course, by the time that he was placing the books back in my hand. I scowled at him and hurried away, but not before I noticed the tension in his shoulders and the new fine lines that graced his brow. Certainly not before I noticed the pale band of bare skin on his left hand.

I followed him at a distance, uncertain what I would do. I did not hesitate for long though. It would be foolish for me to deny that the conspicuous absence of a ring helped me to make up my mind. There would be no Mrs. Watson to greet me at the door of his practice. Any apologies I had to offer, and there certainly were many of them, would be offered only to him. Our reunion, whatever form it might take, would be ours alone.  

            I was something of a cad in revealing myself to him. Where Watson is concerned though, I have never been able to resist showing off. The time I unbent the fire poker stands out as a particularly vain example of showmanship, but I could easily list half a dozen times when I purposely kept him in the dark so that I could thrill him with a sudden reveal. I was no better than any charlatan magician, but I performed only for an audience of one. I lived for the moment that his eyes lit up and he saw what I had seen all along. I welcomed his praise. I could not resist my greatest reveal of all.

I did not expect him to faint away. I had seen him, but clearly I had not observed him. If I had truly applied the methods I espouse, I would have realised the toll that the years had taken on him and dealt more gently with him. As it was, I rushed to catch him up in my arms and then tenderly carried him to his chair. I bent over him to undo his collar, and my fingers lingered unnecessarily on his skin. As I raised my flask to his mouth in order to rouse him with some brandy, I was caught up in other memories of those lips. The brandy awakened him as I stoked his forehead. He caught my hand, pressing it and then squeezing his way up my arm.

“My dear Watson, I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected."  

“Holmes! Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?”

His questioning had a frantic edge to it. “Wait a moment,” I said. I touched his face again, soothing his forehead. “Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance.” I could not believe that he could be so quickly recovered.

         “I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes. Good heavens! to think that you–you of all men–should be standing in my study.” His hands gripped my sleeves.  “Well, you’re not a spirit, anyhow. My dear chap, I’m overjoyed to see you. Sit down, and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm.”

I sat down in the chair opposite his and reached for a cigarette in order to buy myself more time. I had rehearsed this moment a hundred times in the last three years, but when Watson sat before me in the flesh, and not merely in my mind’s eye, I faltered. I needed him to forgive me. I could not imagine a world in which he did not. Another man might have knelt before him and begged for forgiveness.  I leaned back, stretched out my legs, crossed them in front of me, and lit my cigarette as casually possible. If John Watson loves me, and I believe he does in spite of what I might deserve, he loves me as I am. Let him write me as a heartless machine; he knows better, and he knows even when I am at my most practiced nonchalant.

I could tell he was watching me. He was not doubt taking note of just how much thinner and paler I was and making several deductions with regard to my health. I reached above my head, letting him take in my whole frame.“I am glad to stretch myself. It is no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end. Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations, we have, if I may ask for your cooperation, a hard and dangerous night’s work in front of us. Perhaps it would be better if I gave you an account of the whole situation when that work is finished.”

He frowned a little. “I am full of curiosity. I should much prefer to hear now.”

       I paused at his is insistence. Perhaps he was waiting to hear my reasoning before agreeing to take up with me once again. I stood and paced a few steps. My back was to him, and I rolled the cigarette nervously between my fingers. “You will come with me to-night?”

I heard him cross the floor and stand behind me. He gave a little exhalation that might have been a stifled sigh and placed a hand on my shoulder. “When you like and where you like.”

Watson is nothing if not steadfast. I daresay he would have followed me to the ends of the earth should I have asked him to, though I have repeatedly given him every reason to break with me. I caught his hand in mine and threaded our fingers together. I looked at them, linked together, and thought of how well they seemed designed for such purposes. Do all lovers find that they fit together so perfectly?  He ran his thumb up my forefinger, and I gave his fingers a slight squeeze. “This is, indeed, like the old days,” I murmured.

He crossed in front of me then tugged at my hand as he directed me toward his settee. I obliged, glad to let our hands stayed joined. “Well then,” I said, “we shall have time for a mouthful of dinner before we need go. About that chasm…”

            We did not discuss that evening. When I had awakened the following morning, he had been gone and only a shallow indention in the pillow and a stray hair, far too pale to be my own, indicated that he had been there. Our lives carried on in their familiar pattern. There were dinners and concerts and cases. There were evenings that I lulled him to sleep with Mendelssohn and late nights when I woke him with my own distracted scrapings.

To the trained eye, however, there were subtle differences to be detected. When Watson passed the salt cellar or a glass or a teapot, his fingers inevitably grazed mine. When I paced the room in thought, I found myself occasionally slowing to pass my hand over his shoulders as I went by him. Having been given permission to touch him once, I longed to touch him again.

One night we had spent a few hours crouched and cramped while hiding in wait for a particular blackguard. I had noted the careful, pained way he held himself as we walked home afterwards, and I had insisted on supper and perhaps a little too much wine in an effort to make it up to him. When I took up sawing the violin in a rather unsteady impression of Bach, he had finally begged off and headed up to his room. I do not recall what drew me up the stairs that night. Perhaps there was some detail of the case that I was not certain he had fully realized. Perhaps I was planning on drawing him back down to listen to a prelude I believed I had improved upon. Whatever it was, it left my head completely when I opened his door and found him half undressed.

He was standing stripped to the waist, and was attempting to rub some kind of balm onto his shoulder. This left him stretched around awkwardly, trying to reach his own shoulder blade. I hesitated, but there was nothing to do but offer to help him. I stepped towards him. “My dear Watson, let me.”

I dropped my cuffs on his dressing table and rolled up my sleeves. He handed me a little glass jar. The salve smelled strongly, and I found that the scent was familiar.  I’d noticed it on Watson before, but had never been quite certain what it was.  I’d mistakenly assumed it was some kind of soap. Just under the heady spice of cloves there was the fresh, clean scent of mint. I found it a pleasant smell, and did not mind as it grew stronger with the combined heat of our skin.

When he struggled to brace himself against the pressure of my kneading, I gestured towards the bed. “Why don’t you lie down?” He arranged himself face down, and I knelt beside him. His shoulder, not unlike tilled earth to the touch, was familiar to me now, but as I massaged the tense muscles around the scar I found myself tempted to explore skin which I had not yet felt.

When I first dug into the crevice below his scapula, he sighed. When my fingers found their way into the small of his back, he gave a soft grunt that turned into a quiet moan as I worked my way up his spine. I was intrigued. It was a new world of discovery. There were so many variables to consider: touch and place and pressure. Yes, this was field of inquiry which it would take me some time to exhaust. I marked each vertebra then dipped down to explore the hollows above his hipbones. He arched into my touch, and my breath hitched.

I was captivated by the quiet sounds he made and the movement of his muscles as he shifted under my hands. Soon I caught myself no longer massaging him and instead simply touching him. The skin on his sides was surprisingly soft, but when my fingers brushed him there he jerked and made a noise that I first took for a cough. He caught my hand and rolled onto his back to face me.

He was laughing. The corners of his eyes were creased. His smile was luminous. I do not know what my face must have looked like in that moment. I was lost in him. Watson is never more himself than when he is smiling. Even in my darkest moods, Watson’s mere presence is like a candle in the window to light my way home. But when he is laughing, he is as radiant as a beam of sunlight through dark clouds. It is an abysmally romantic thing to say, but it is also abysmally true. I should have devoted my life to making that smile appear. If I had been a different kind of man, I might have. It seems, however, that I have far more often given him cause for anger or frustration.

            I drew in a breath and was surprised to notice not only that it had been a moment since I’d done so but that it was rather shaky. He squeezed my hand. His eyebrows drew together slightly but his smile simply took on a gentle quality rather than fading. “What is it, my dear fellow?”

            I did not know how to respond, and so I did not. I am not sure that he expected me to. He lifted his other hand and placed it on my neck in such a way that his forefinger and thumb cupped my jaw. His third and fourth fingers pressed over my carotid artery. “Your heart is beating rather quickly.”

            “Yes.”

            “As a medical man, I can think of several explanations.”

            “You are a very good doctor. I would expect no less of you.”

            He moved his hand to my arm and pushed up my sleeve. His eyes raked carefully over the crook of my elbow then returned to my gaze. “I’m glad to see we can rule that out.”

             “What else do you think might be causing my condition?”

             “Well, we haven’t ruled out nerves. If, for example, you were a man given to certain inclinations, you might find our close contact…stimulating. Of course, we have been in close contact before, and I have always observed you to be a man who held his physical reactions tightly reigned. So there would have to be some more recent development. If you had discovered some new data though, something that led you to believe that I was a man who shared those inclinations, then that could explain your current state. Of course, you would still not have enough data to be certain, and considering the myriad of possible results should you be wrong, you would naturally be not only effected by our current proximity but by your own uncertainty.”

            I laughed, but what came out was deeper and more breathy than I meant for it to be. “Quite well-deduced.” I put my hand over his heart. “I’m afraid your heartbeat is elevated as well. Will you diagnose yourself?”

            “Oh, that is quite easy. I am terrified.”

            “Terrified?”

            “Yes. Because I am about to do this.” He grasped my face, pulled me down, and kissed me. Did I think earlier that I was lost in his smile? No, I had merely been distracted. His kiss was consuming. My arms trembled as I tried to support myself above him. There was a shuffle and a brief tangle as we rearranged ourselves so that we lay side by side on his narrow bed. We parted and lay together, our hands casually running along each other’s arms.

            He looked down at our chests and thumbed my buttons. “I’m afraid you’re a little overdressed for this venue, old man.”

            I leaned in to taste his lips once again before leaving the bed. It had been some time since I had been unclothed before anyone. As I unbuttoned my waistcoat, I self-consciously turned from him. I have no illusions about my figure. I was a thin and gangly child, and I am thin and gangly man. I like to think that I have managed a rather more dignified and graceful air than I had as a child, but I would be a fool to think that I am particularly attractive. There are many men who are much better specimens of masculine beauty, and my Watson is one of them. How I ever wound up in the bed of a handsome, strapping, former army surgeon is quite beyond my grasp.

           Fortunately for me, Watson does not seem to see the discrepancy between us. He perched on the edge of the bed and caught my elbow. “Turn around. Let me see you.” I did so, and he put his hands on my hips, drawing me towards him as I unbuttoned my shirt. He slipped his hands inside my shirt, slid them up and over my shoulders, and pushed my shirt down. I shivered, though whether it was from his touch or the cool air on my torso, I could not tell.

           As my shirt and waistcoat fell to the floor, his lips grazed my stomach. I took his face in my hands and kissed him again. His lips parted under mine, and I opened to allow his tongue to caress my own. I was bent awkwardly over him while he strained to reach me. He solved this by hooking two fingers in the band of my trousers, which caused me to gasp, and then pulling me with him as he leaned back onto the bed. We tumbled onto the bedclothes in a flurry of lips and hands. There was so much to touch and taste. Under my tongue, his scar took on new definition. Each little crevice and pucker was magnified. The balm made my mouth tingle slightly, and I could taste the clove and mint on his skin.

My body came to life under his skilled hands. I do not doubt that John Watson is more experienced in such matters than I am. There was no fumbling on his part; there were no tentative touches. He moved with a certainty and economy as befit a surgeon and a soldier, neither of which detracted from his warmth and tenderness as a lover. He insisted on arranging us so that he could see my face as I shuddered and bucked in his arms. Afterwards he kissed my forehead before fetching a dampened cloth from the washstand.

When he had cleaned us, he crawled back into bed next to me and drew me into his arms. “Of course, you would be welcome to stay here, since you are already occupying my bed.” His voice was deep with drowsiness and his eyes were closed, but there was a small, satisfied grin playing at the corner of his mouth that let me know he was quite pleased with himself at finding the opportunity to return my own words.

I rolled over and shuffled back against him as tightly as possible in an effort not to hang off the edge of the bed. He peppered my neck and shoulder with a few soft, pecking kisses. “One of us, my dear Holmes, is going to need a bigger bed.” I could feel his silent laugh against my back. I pressed the hand that had tightened around my waist and chose not to tell him that, currently, I thought this one’s charms far outweighed its inconveniences.

Caveat: Based loosely on the Granada series, since like them, I have clearly decided to simply pretend Mary does not exist. Advance apologies for any Americanisms or anachronisms. Also, I did not bother to do much research into what was actually playing in 1889. These certainly could have played at the time though, so I dropped them mercilessly into my little story.

I must admit that I can be quite single-minded during a case, and so it was not until after the events that Watson has named The Adventure of the Crooked Man that I truly noticed the effect this particular case had on him. Perhaps during the case he had been distracted enough that his darker thoughts had been held at bay.  Afterwards though, a certain melancholy stole over him. 

        It was Mrs Hudson who drew it to my attention. I frequently find myself somewhat withdrawn after an investigation has been brought to a close; I might not have noticed Watson’s new-found interest in moving food around on his plate rather than eating it had Mrs Hudson not remarked on it as she cleared the table.

         “I see your habits are rubbing off on the good doctor. Don’t know why I bother making up supper half the time.” She gave me the kind of disapproving look one might give a child who had convinced his brother to disobey as well in hopes of lessening his own punishment.

I glanced at the departing plate and then at Watson, who had retired to the settee with a medical journal. If he had heard her comment, he did not acknowledge it. I quickly reviewed the last several days and realized that Watson had been unusually distant. Of course, I would have to first ascertain whether or not he was truly affected before I could deduce what was affecting him. I would first need to attempt to lure him out of his despondency by ordinary methods. “Watson,” I said. “The Savoy is currently running The Pirates of Penzance. I was thinking of procuring a couple tickets. That is, if you are not otherwise engaged Friday evening.”

He did not so much as look up. “You don’t like The Pirates of Penzance, Holmes. I tried to get you to see it with me a fortnight ago.”

“Well, yes. I admit that I have said some rather disparaging things regarding Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan in the past; however, I know that you find their pawky humour entertaining, and there is a rather promising tenor performing in the role of young Frederick.”

He glanced up at me then, as though to assure himself that it was actually me who was speaking. “Oh, perhaps. I don’t know that I’m really in the mood for it.”

“You were certainly in the mood for it a fortnight ago. I nearly failed to convince you to see Rigoletto instead.”

He snapped the volume closed. “Two weeks have passed. You are not the only human whose moods vary, Holmes.” He dropped the digest onto the table near him and pinched the bridge of his nose.

          Yes, certainly affected then, but for how long? He had not been this way at Rigoletto, and I distinctly remembered sharing a quite lovely meal with him only a week ago, just before our most recent case. Even as the thought crossed my mind, the image of Mr Wood accompanied it. I watched as Watson stared into the fire and rubbed at his shoulder. His dear shoulder, where the Jezail bullet had very nearly taken him from all the world and had instead delivered him to me. I had been a fool, it seemed, but I was at a loss as to how to set any of it right.

          I poured two glasses of brandy at the sideboard and then crossed to the settee and handed him one. He rolled it in his hands, watching the amber liquor coat the glass. I sat next to him with one foot tucked underneath me so that I faced him. “It is our Mr Wood who troubles your mind, is it not?” He looked at me incredulously and opened his mouth as through to inquire how I knew, but then he thought better of it and simply drank from his glass.

          “You are thinking of his injuries and his capture. You are thinking, unless I am gravely mistaken, of your own injuries and wondering how close you came to falling victim to a similar fate.” His gaze was steady on my own, but as he drained the brandy I noted that his hand trembled. I covered his hand with mine briefly as I took the glass from him and then left to refill it.

          “It’s quite understandable, of course. Honestly, I should have made the connection before. I’m afraid that I can be abominably dense about some things.” I smiled at him as I turned around, hoping to defuse some of the tension by reminding him of my own shortcomings.

When I pressed the drink into his hand, he took a long drink from it before speaking. “It’s only a trifle. In a day or two I’ll forget it.” He turned from me as I sat down again.

I often find it difficult to plot a course through emotional terrain, and now I was trying to navigate not only Watson’s but my own. They were equally daunting landscapes. I drank deeply from my glass, and then I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Will you show me, John?”

He looked at me exactly as I should have expected him to look, considering that I had just called him, for the first time, by his Christian name and asked him to disrobe in our sitting room. I nevertheless found his expression disconcerting. “You are quite upset. I merely thought that having someone else see might help alleviate your concern.”

“And what concern would that be?”

“That you are disfigured.”

He pulled away from me sharply, his brow furrowed. I was certain that I had crossed a line and fouled things up even further. He drained his glass and stood to face me. I was struggling with how exactly to apologise for my faux pas and hoping that a faux pas was all it was, when he doffed his jacket, neatly folded it, and draped it over the settee arm nearest me.

          His waistcoat followed, then his cuffs and collar. As he shrugged out of his braces I felt a strange kind of constriction in my throat. I wished that Mrs Hudson had not stoked the coals when she’d come in, for the room seemed unusually warm. When he had slipped his shirt from his shoulders, I rose and took it from him. I carefully folded it and placed it alongside his other articles.  

          I had never seen him undressed before. Although I had known his shoulder was injured since the first day he walked into my lab, I had never before seen the extent of his injuries. I walked around him to see if the bullet had gone all the way through, and, indeed, there was a similar starburst of scar tissue there.  

          He inhaled sharply when I touched him. I had placed my finger on the thickest part of the scarring. “It went completely through, then.” It was not a question, but he nodded. I traced it, stepping closer to him as I ran over each broken line of tissue. He tensed when I reached around him to feel the front as well, but as I slowly rubbed the muscles around it, he relaxed against me. Being thrown into a lake without having ever had swimming lessons is, I am sure, a disorienting experience, but I cannot imagine that it is any more disorienting than having Watson half-naked and pressed against my chest.

His head tilted and rested on my collarbone. I gently cupped his shoulder. Then, tentatively, I reached down and lightly touched his thigh. “Your leg, as well, wasn’t it?” He nodded and stepped away from me, casting a glance around the sitting room as though suddenly aware of our compromising position. “Come,” I said. “It will be easier if you lie down.”

I led him to my room and turned down the sheets as he stripped off his trousers and small clothes. He slipped under the covers but left his bad leg outside the bedclothes. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the puckers and divots that marred the soft skin of his thigh.  I hesitated. Uncertainty loomed all around me. Would Watson mind if I touched him? Did I want to touch him? I needed time for analysis. I needed solid data to analyze, but I struggled to find any. Did Watson know, as he lay there before me, the fear and longing that threatened to dismantle me before I could decide to which I should acquiesce?

I did not realize that I had adopted my usual thoughtful stance, my eyes closed and my finger against my lips, until his hand gently took mine. “It’s quite all right, Holmes. You can touch it, if you want.”

I swallowed, a task that seemed both more difficult and more necessary than usual. I knew that the scars here ran deep. I tenderly kneaded the muscles beneath them, wondering how deeply the shrapnel had been embedded. I glanced up to find that he was watching me. I held his gaze as I moved slowly over his skin. I did not notice how my hand had strayed until he stilled my fingers with his own.

“Have you seen enough?”

I pulled back my hand and put it safely on his covered shoulder. “Yes. You are not Mr. Wood, Watson. You are not bent. Your life is not broken. Your scars attest to your bravery, your strength of will, and your patriotism. They add to, rather than detract from, your person.”  

I did not know how to read the expression in his eyes, but he reached up and squeezed my hand. We sat like that for a moment. “I suppose I should be getting to sleep.” Although he said this, he did not move.

“Yes." I did not quite know how to ask for that which I was coming to realize I wanted. "Of course, you would be welcome to stay here, since you are already occupying my bed.”

            He studied me for a moment before giving me a small smile and shuffling over. I was already in my nightshirt, so I added my dressing gown to the chair where his trousers were draped and climbed in next to him. He propped up on one elbow and reached over me to put out the light. In the dark I could still sense him. He was a warm presence hovering over me. For a beautiful, painful moment I thought how easy it would be to take him in my arms and pull him down to me. How easy then to find his lips and claim them.

The moment quickly passed as he lay down on his side facing me. I put my hand on his shoulder and rested the pad of my thumb against the raised tissue that had led us here. He took my hand and rolled over, drawing me along after him so that I was wrapped tightly around his torso. I moved closer to him to avoid having my arm extended at an odd angle, and he moved against me so that his bare back was flush against my chest. My knees fit against his. In no time at all we lay nestled together along all our bends and curves as easily as two spoons in a box.

The fact that he was quite nude caused a heat to rise in my cheeks, but I reminded myself of the look in his eyes as he had bared his flesh in our sitting room. The man under my arm was my friend. He trusted me, just as I trusted him. I tightened my arm around him. When his breathing was deep and the rise and fall of his chest was steady beneath me, I slowly leaned in and placed my lips at the base of his neck. It could scarcely have been called a kiss; it was the merest touch. For a that second though, his skin was against my lips, and it was with that thought that I followed him into sleep.