It was 10:30 p.m. when the door buzzer sounded, and already snowing heavily outside. Even more of a nuisance, the hall carpet was soaked with snow melt and Gregson was in his stocking feet. Opening the glass-paneled inner door and finding Holmes bouncing on his toes in the vestibule was that last thing he needed that evening.

"What's up?"

"You're home," Holmes informed him, unnecessarily. "Good."

"Where else would I be?" Gregson said, as Holmes and blast of arctic air blew into the building.

Out of habit he checked the street, as Holmes stomped the snow off of his boots. No dark figures lurked by the stoops. No cars were making their way slowly up the street. There was just snow and lots of it, silvered in the streetlight, falling heavily and piling up in drifts. "Did I forget we had plans?"

"We did not." Holmes gave a few more stomps. "Nonetheless, I thought we could go waltzing Matilda tonight."

"What do you mean waltzing Matilda?"

"Engage in a little intimate tussling, a bit of cross-stick work, a spot of frottage…"

Gregson took a grip on Holmes above the elbow. "Will you get inside?!" he said, shoving him into the apartment, and slamming the door. "I don't need the whole world knowing my business! The hell are you on about, anyway?"

"What I said. Mutual pleasure. You. Me. Seventy-one on the sofa."

"What's—? Stop that!" Gregson unhooked Holmes' hands from his belt loops. "Seventy-one?"

"Sixty-nine, with two of my fingers up your ass." Holmes twiddled the most likely digits in Gregson's face. The distraction worked. He was able to seize the belt, draw Gregson into the orbit of his arms, and hold him for the length of two kisses, long enough for the snow in his hair to melt and drip down his neck.

"No!" Breathless, Gregson pushed them apart. "Can't tonight. Go home."

"You wouldn't put a dog out in that." Holmes stropped his cheek against Gregson's, blowing softly in his ear. "It's a blizzard!"

"And you're the poor little match girl." Gregson caught the hand that was insinuating itself into his fly. "All right. You can stay, but none of that. I have to finish the report for the budget meeting with the commissioner tomorrow." He gave Holmes a push. "Go dry off before you catch cold."

Padding back to his desk, he sat down, put his glasses on, and located his place on the screen.

Holmes disappeared down the hall and returned shirtless, shoeless and toweling his hair.

"You don't understand! It's the McGruder Case. I'm close to a breakthrough! I can feel it, just out of reach."

"Well, good. It'll come to you."

"You don't understand," Holmes said. "I'm blocked!"

"Yeah?" Gregson, entering figures into a table, ignored the hint. "Sleep on it."

"I need to clear the mental pipes, so to speak."

"Mmm…?"

"Get the blood flowing."

"Mmm…"

"I need to get laid!"

"Not tonight, darling." Gregson finally swiveled around in his chair and looked over the top of his frames. "I have a headache. So to speak."

"It will only take a few minutes. You can get right back to that report. The computer won't even have time to hibernate."

"Thank you Casanova. I'm moved. Truly." Gregson swiveled back around.

"I don't understand." Holmes planted himself on the sofa.

"Yeah, well… Think about it."

"I have been. All day. If I can figure out why the dog didn't bark, McGruder will be facing twenty to life."

"That will be just as true tomorrow."

"You're being unreasonable. My mind functions at peak performance when my bodily needs have been dealt with."

"My bathroom is at your disposal."

"It's not the same."

"I'll give you that." Gregson picked up his glass, held it shoulder high in salute, and took a swallow of his hot scotch and lemon.

"You'd deny water to a thirsting man?" Multiple Holmes squinted at him from the panes of the window beside the desk.

"You're not thirsty."

"The principle's the same."

"Yeah? All those cartoons of men crawling across the desert towards a distant mirage... What's that mirage, again? An oasis with palm trees, or some guy's dick?" He made the mistake of actually glancing at Holmes, who twiddled two fingers at him. He shook his head went back to work.

After scowling into the middle distance for a more few minutes, Holmes slithered bonelessly to the floor. He stretched on his front, and began to drag himself across the carpet by his elbows, as if he were crawling through the sands of the Sahara. "Water, please. Water…."

"The kitchen is in the other direction."

Holmes reached for Gregson's ankle, took hold of it, and raised his face in appeal, the image of beseeching.

Gregson snorted. Holmes groaned, collapsed, rolled over, and lay as if dying, mouth open, still reaching. "I perish," he moaned.

Dipping the tip a finger into his scotch, Gregson flicked a tiny drop into Holmes' mouth.

"Missed," said Holmes.

"Did not."

"Did, too."

Dipping his finger deeper, Gregson meant to take better aim this time, but as he was poised to flick, Holmes rose like a great white, grabbed hold of his wrist, and absorbed the wet finger into his mouth. He sucked, hard, and Gregson succumbed to the doctrine of correspondence (In that one stiff member embraced in a hot wet mouth inspires another). The chair went over backwards as he fell on top of Holmes.

That didn't last long.

Gasping mouths and tongues, grab-ass and frottage, urgent grinding and rolling, over and over, until both jeans and cords could be unzipped and then on bluntly, blindly, to a little cross-stick work and laughter. Finally, Holmes turned them round at last, head to thigh, sixty-nine, and sucked like a wet-vac, until Gregson gave it up into his mouth, crying and thrashing, and crying in blessed release.

Done, but not done.

Gregson lay panting around Holmes' salty stiffness still flexing in his mouth, and tried his damnedest to finish him off. Holmes' hand in his hair held him back, though. Sleepy and hobbled as he was, he still gave it his best shot, only to discover how amazingly long one stubborn man can resist another man's talented tongue. Especially if that man has determined previously how many times, and in what way, he's is going to enjoy his lover's body. Two fingers, well lubricated well spit and pearl jam, inserted slowly, seventy-one. That will raise a wilted stalk and bring it to a glorious second seeding. Mutual seeding, in that Holmes came along with him this time and he was in no condition to work afterward.

He awoke in bed in Holmes' arms, much later. Holmes must have been awake to feel the subtle flutter of eyelashes against his skin. "Mmm…?"

"Water," Gregson ordered, because one battle is not the war. "My mouth tastes like a cat box."

The warmth and weight of a grown man's body pressed him pleasurably into the mattress, securing him, unnecessarily, delightfully, as the objects on the night stand were groped, top of a water carafe clattered, and liquid poured. "I'll hold it."

The cool rim of a glass introduced to his lips. He gulped the faintly iodine tasting water. "Thanks."

The glass went, and the weight retreated, as well, to his regret. He rolled, following the heat to the source, stretching and flexing against the length of the man, hinting at possibilities.

"Now you're interested?"

There was room for negotiation. "You had better have had that fuckin' breakthrough."

A kiss was impressed on his forehead. "While you were asleep..." Another on his mouth.

There was room for leverage. "My report's not done."

"Quiet. There's twenty inches of snow on the ground, and it's still coming down. The city's closed. We can sleep in..."

Finish 2/16/2014