Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Not beta read so all mistakes are mine. Thanks for their reviews go to Analena and shazzykins, hope you enjoy...

~ STRONG AND SWEET, THROUGH COTTON AND BROADCLOTH ~

They do not sleep afterwards, this time.

Perhaps it is the earliness of the hour, perhaps it is the aftermath of their mutual, antagonising days, but they do not.

Neither of them appears able to settle into rest.

Rather, they curl on their sides and look at one another. Speak. They whisper of the days they've had. Hooper's sore face, Anderson's punishment for his disobedience. The older cases Holmes was looking at today when he was in Scotland Yard.

They don't raise their voice above whispers, for all the know that they're alone; There's a curious, quiet sort of confidence between them which Holmes has only once before experience, with John. The thought, he understands, ought to bring alarm, but it does not: While he has always been aware- and tried to shield his friend from the effects- of others' assumptions about their relationship, those assumptions have never upset him-

After all, he always knew what he felt for John, even if nobody else seemed willing to accept it.

And as Sherlock Holmes, other people's willingness to accept his decisions (or lack thereof) has never been something about which he allowed himself to fret.

And yet…

This intimacy with Hooper, its reminding him of Watson… He finds it disquieting- Or rather, he thinks perhaps he should do. It's not that he has never entertained the notion that his interests might lie with men- He went to university, and a public school before that; He has seen plenty of his fellows and where their interests lead them. And Hooper has, after all, come to him every time dressed in masculine garb. He got to know her, thinking she was a man, for heaven's sake. For all the beauty of her bare female form, and all the lust it rouses within him, he would have to be wilfully blind to think that her being dressed as a man does nothing to him, and has nothing to do with their attraction and his willingness to yield to it-

And yet… He doesn't believe that his interests lie in his own sex.

And he doesn't believe that his interest in her are down to her masquerading as a man.

In fact, he doesn't believe that his interests lie in either gender, now that he thinks about it, but rather (it would appear) in the person who inhabits that gender. The body is mere housing, not lure or bait, and oh but that is an interesting notion…

When he tells Hooper she smiles, nods. She presses a kiss to his bare chest, still slicked slightly in sweat, and sighs out that she thinks she knows what he means.

"It's never about the physical body with you, is it?" she muses.

He cocks an eyebrow. "How so?"

She shrugs, her eyes far away as if recalling another place and time entirely. Her fingers trace soothing, gentle patterns upon his breast. "I have seen you with men and women, Holmes," she's saying. "Some of them beautiful, some of them handsome. All of them different and quite a few of them interested in you."

He feels his cheeks heat, surprised. While he has occasionally noted a woman or man's flirtations, he has never really let himself think about their attraction towards him. He finds it easier to assume they are merely impressed by his intellect or fame. The notion that they might, well, lust after him bodily is something he finds slightly… disconcerting.

At this thought Hooper raises her head, looks at him. "What have I said that makes you uncomfortable?"

He shakes his head, not sure how to put it. Not wanting to admit to such vulnerability. And yet… Whenever else will he have such an opportunity to ask? "Surely I'm not looked at with such lust regularly?" he says. "I- I know that women in particular seem to find me oddly attractive, but I can't believe that they, that they…"

"That they think about fucking you?" she asks wryly. He winces at her choice of terminology and her eyes light in mischief. "Or should I have used a more ladylike phrase?" she continues, moving so that she's straddling him again. She looks down at him with bright, laughing eyes. "Do you think they imagine tupping you? Being taken by you? Making love to you-?"

He frowns. "You're teasing me."

She nods. Presses a playful kiss to his nose before nudging it gently with her own. "Indeed I am," she says. "And you deserve to be teased, if you imagine the women of London so blind that they don't see how handsome you are."

He pouts. "But that's precisely the point." He looks away, trying to find the words, wishing he'd never started this conversation in the first place. "Surely I am not an… object of lust?" he says quietly.

Her laughter stills. "Would it bother you, sweetheart, if you were?"

He shrugs, still unsure what he wants to say. This is not a conversation he would ever have imagined having with anyone, even John. "I am not beautiful," he says after a moment. "I'm perhaps handsome, but only just. And I'm not… nice, or kind, or gentle, or charming, or good, or reliable, or anything else a woman finds attractive in a man." He snorts. "I'm not even anything a man finds attractive in a man."

Again he shrugs. "I'm me, and that is more than enough- Isn't it?"

He meant that last to come out as a statement but it ended up sounding like a question. A question he never really lets himself ask, being far too happy with being Sherlock Holmes to ever really let himself think about who else he could be. How others might view him. For a moment Hooper's silent though and he wonders whether something he has said has upset her- His capacity for opening his mouth and landing both feet inside is, after all legendary- But then-

She takes his face in hers. Tilts it upwards until she's looking him in the eye.

Hers are filled with compassion, and disbelief, and a queer sort of righteous anger for which he can't conjure a source.

"Listen to me, William Sherlock Scott Holmes," she says tightly. "And listen well, because what I am about to tell you is the absolute and utter truth. You are a vain, self-obsessed, overly-indulged, utterly mad, completely brilliant and painfully wonderful human being."

He opens his mouth to correct her and she rushes on with nary a pause.

"You are clever, and fierce, and loyal, and utterly odd and unique. You are always interesting and sometimes infuriating and always, always beautiful in every way that matters.

And I will not have you speaking of yourself as if you are not."

She presses another kiss to his nose.

"So there."

He blinks at her, surprised. He hadn't expected that. "Thank you," he says, nonplussed. "But you really didn't have to say all that."

"Didn't I?" And she sighs, rakes a hand through her hair before belatedly realising that she's still wearing her wig. With a quick tug she pulls it loose and tosses it aside, to join her similarly dismissed-in-the-throes-of-passion moustache on the floor. "Have you always thought like that about yourself?" she asks shortly; this time his tone is measured.

"I've always known I was a freak-"

"That's what the boys in school called you-"

"That's what everyone calls me-

"That's not what I've ever called you," she counters. "Or Watson, or Mrs. Watson, or Mrs. Hudson, or Inspector Lestrade."

He clears his throat. "Yes, well, they're my friends," he points out. "And we've already seen that you're, well, rather… fond of me-" He makes a show of frowning at her, trying to lighten the mood. "You are rather fond of me, aren't you, Hooper?"

A small smile lights her face. "I am. I don't just tie up every handsome man I meet."

Looking at her through his lashes, he brings one of the hands at his cheeks to his mouth and kisses her knuckles.

"I am also, as you may have gathered, rather fond of you," he says and this time she laughs.

Something tight and uncomfortable inside him loosens. It makes what he wishes to ask easier, for-

"So why has this upset you so?" He keeps his voice quiet, mild, as he would if he were talking to a nervous client.

Now it's her turn to frown, her expression shuttering as if she means not to answer him.

Holmes tries not to let such a withdrawal hurt- though he must concede it does- but before he can decide how to move ahead she sighs again. Lays her forehead on his and closes her eyes.

Her arms tighten possessively about him.

"My husband, Tom," she says quietly. "He was like you-"

"A detective?" Holmes frowns, realising the silliness of that question. "No, you mean that he preferred- He preferred-"

"He liked a woman to take the lead," she supplies quietly. "What aroused him was a woman taking her pleasure of him and commanding he do the same."

Holmes presses a small kiss to her cheek. "So," he says. "Just like me," and she again nods.

"He spent much of his life thinking there was something wrong with him," she explains quietly. "He was ashamed of his desires for so long that we were married nearly a year before he finally admitted to me what he wanted in a wife."

She shakes her head at the memory, and Holmes tries not to let his gut tighten in anger at the thought of her with someone else.

They both lived a life before each other, he knows this, and yet the jealousy is still there.

"By the time I got him to admit it," she's saying, "he was thinking of doing something drastic. He was so convinced I'd be disgusted that he didn't think he could bear to tell me what he wanted."

Holmes slides his hands up over her arms, trying to soothe her. Even with his jealousy, he doesn't like to see her troubled. "But he did?" he prompts.

"He did," she acknowledges. "And once he did- once we both realised how happy it made us- Well, then we had a very happy marriage. A very happy marriage indeed."

Sorrow chases across her face, her eyes seeing somewhere long ago.

"But he spent years tormenting himself with the thought that there was something wrong with him," she's saying, "and I don't want- Oh, I couldn't bear to have you think-"

She sighs again, frustrated this time, and looks up at him.

This time her eyes are in the present, no thoughts of the past that he can see.

"I don't want you to think ill of yourself, is all," she says eventually. "There's nothing wrong with you, and there's nothing wrong with me."

He nods, presses a kiss to her nose this time.

"I believe you are correct," he says. "But then I always believe that I'm in the right, Hooper."

Something flashes in her eyes, something gentle, and in a quiet voice she says, "You could, if you wished, call me Molly."

"Molly?"

The word sounds odd on his tongue. Luscious. Exotic. A secret thing.

She looks at him and he looks at her, the tension of her admission hanging in the air, but then-

"Molly," he repeats. "Molly… Hooper?"

She shivers, to hear him say it. Nods.

"Molly Hooper," she murmurs. "And you are Sherlock Holmes." This time it's his turn to shiver. "Now come and let me take you, Sherlock Holmes, let me make you moan and sigh and come for me…"

And she kisses him as she says it, moving her body atop his until she's pressing down against his cock.

It doesn't take long until she has him panting and moaning, and he's done the same to her.

He presses inside her, her pulling them both onto their sides and then the world narrows to a palace of slow sighs and gentle touches. Of shallow, thrusting and bitten lips, and of voices (one slowly becoming familiar) breathing out familiar names.

When Holmes spills inside her she gasps, legs wrapping tightly around his waist and pulling him to her.

They kiss and kiss in the pale evening light and never think to pull away.

A/N Since a couple of people have asked about chapter titles, the one above is suggested by Whitman's "Body Electric." "Sed Non Satiata," ("Never Satisfied,") and "Delicate Monsters," are both references to Baudalaire's "Flowers of Evil." "The Chambers of the Heart," was suggested by the famous poem 221b by Vincent Starrett while "The Celibate's Progress," is a reference to Hogarth. The others I just made up, with the exception of "Puer Defututus," which you should definitely try to translate, heh heh heh...