"Tea, gentlemen?"

Watson gave a vicious start and turned to watch Mrs Hudson pick her way through the mess of the sitting room with a tea service balanced carefully on one arm, navigating obstacles with the sort of experience that betrayed just how long ago she had given up on complaining about Holmes' housekeeping habits. She reached the table and flicked random detritus away to clear a space, though her gaze kept straying to the forlorn figure that Holmes cut, sitting in his chair beside the hearth fire. Watson had been standing some sort of guard over him for the better part of fifteen minutes, waiting for a crack to spiderweb its way out from the center point of the silence, like the pattern caused by a soft impact on a window pane. "Thank you, Mrs Hudson. We're expecting Lestrade shortly, and Clarke with him."

Mrs Hudon gave a curt little nod and straightened to cock her head at Holmes' rounded back. "I thought I spotted someone on the stoop."

Watson offered her a noncommittal smile. "The Constable was kind enough to escort us home."

From her expression, Mrs Hudson clearly wanted to know why a police escort had been called for, not to mention wondering where Watson had been all day and what had occurred to leave Holmes so shaken and silent in his chair, completely unaware of her scrutiny. Of course, she could hardly demand an explanation, not only because of the inopportune moment, but because it was not her place to express curiosity at the private activities of her two gentlemen lodgers. Not that such rules of propriety often stopped her, but this was not just another of Holmes' harebrained schemes to decimate his living space; it was an intensely private matter that Mrs Hudson was not supposed to have any knowledge of. "Well. Two more cups, then."

"If you please," Watson replied. He shook his head at the concerned look that Mrs Hudson offered – a pointed flickering of her eyes from Watson to Holmes, and back. Mrs Hudson replied with a dubious arch of an eyebrow but whisked herself politely away just the same. Once the sitting room door had clicked shut – Mrs Hudson had adopted Watson's newfound gentle habits in that regard – Watson tensed one side of his mouth and looked down at the back of Holmes' head. "Tea, old boy?"

Holmes twitched and then finally roused himself from his inwardly-focused stupor. He remained as he was, however – perched on the edge of his chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands worrying at his loosely entwined fingers, shoulders hunched and back rounded so that Watson could just make out the knobby line of his spine beneath his clothes. Though he maintained the subdued air in which he had taken refuge, he seemed more himself than he had in a long time. Watson watched him scratch at a cuticle, and then Holmes sighed and lifted his head to stare past Watson's hip. "You must think me pathetic."

"Hardly," Watson snorted.

Holmes turned his head away to scowl, and then he suddenly grew twitchy and agitated. "That isn't how it happened, you know. All those…things he said – that's not how it was."

"I know." Watson started to grasp Holmes by the shoulder and then stopped himself. At the moment, Holmes was a bundle of nerves in the worst possible way, and very likely still walking a tightrope between passably unsettled and an outright fit, no matter how much he sounded like himself; his words did not compliment the context of his mannerisms. So Watson closed his fist around the space between them and drew it back. "Tea?" he repeated.

Holmes grunted nonspecifically and took to glaring at the coal scuttle. "I didn't beg. They made me ask, but I did not beg. And I certainly didn't – didn't crawl anywhere. They dragged me off the damn street."

Watson bit the tip of his tongue behind tightly closed lips and examined his house shoes before skirting behind Holmes' chair. On his way to the tea tray, he gave in to the mostly self-serving impulse to run his hand over Holmes' back in a gesture meant to convey support and comfort.

Holmes twisted his shoulder away the moment Watson touched it, and continued fuming impotently at the fireplace. "And he told those – those lies in front of bloody everyone, Watson. Did you see them? Did you see their faces? They feel sorry for me."

"Why don't we speak of something a little less inflammatory."

Holmes wrinkled his nose in disgust, thought about it, and then muttered darkly, "I will not be pitied; I won't stand for it."

Watson poured two cups of tea and then finally caught sight of the second tray on the sideboard to his left: the cold supper that Mrs Hudson had prepared before Holmes went out looking for him. The thought of eating anything now nearly tore a morbid laugh from Watson's throat, but he strangled the urge and absorbed himself in adding cream to his tea, and then an obscene amount of sugar to Holmes' cup. Holmes' affinity for cocaine left him with a constant sweet tooth. As Watson crossed the sitting room with two teacups balanced precariously on Mrs Hudson's patterned china saucers, Holmes launched himself from his chair and stalked to the windows, totally ignoring Watson's exasperated sigh and the cup of tea that Watson followed him with. "Holmes, come now and have a drink of this. It will calm your nerves."

Holmes glanced askance at the tea and then scoffed at it. "I will not drink her potions."

That wrung an involuntary flash of a fettered grin from Watson, but he sobered immediately. "It's only tea, Holmes. Look." Watson made a show out of taking a huge gulp of the stuff for Holmes' benefit. Keeping a straight face in light of all the sugar bombarding his taste buds was a feat with which he had long years of practice. Watson swallowed, scrubbed his tongue across his gums, and then held the cup out again. "You really need to stop being so suspicious of poor Mrs Hudson. People will begin to think you're paranoid."

"She has it out for me," Holmes insisted. The usual banter, though often delivered deadpan, fell a shade short of levity in the air between them.

Watson snorted anyway. "She has not."

"Mm," Holmes grunted, his mouth dragged down in a dubious frown that captured half his face in its sternness as he finally accepted the tea. He wrinkled his nose as he deigned to sip at it, and then he grudgingly pronounced it passable as he stalked back to his chair. After Watson sat down across from him, Holmes eyed him and then engrossed himself in a study of the way the tea sloshed against the inner surface of the china. "Watson?"

Watson delayed answering by pretending that he desperately needed a nice, deep sip of his own tea. Then he lifted an eyebrow in appreciation and set the cup and saucer on the table beside his chair. "Yes, Holmes?"

Apparently, Holmes had been waiting like a crossbow catch to spring, because the second Watson finished speaking, he blurted out, "What if he was right?"

Watson's mouth turned down in dour disapproval. Though he suspected the answer, he still felt it necessary to ask, "Who?"

"You know who," Holmes mumbled.

Watson scowled. "He was not right at all. About anything." He picked up a book and turned it over to peruse the spine. "The man is a troglodyte. I would hardly trust him to so much as shine a pair of shoes, much less pass judgment on the inclinations of civilized gentlemen."

Holmes nodded, but to the sideboard; he seemed not to have actually heard Watson's words, only the tone of his voice. "They say that inverts can recognize one another. And he said – "

Watson slammed the book down, effectively cutting Holmes off and drawing his startled attention at the same time. "You are not an invert, Holmes; we have been over this a dozen times, and I will not suffer this ridiculous reasoning from you any longer."

"But Watson, I – "

"Enough!" Watson shoved himself to his feet, one leg weaker than the other, which showed in his stance as he stalked across the diminutive space of the tiger skin rug between them. Planting his hands on the armrests of Holmes' chair, Watson crowded Holmes back against the cushions and hissed, "I won't put up with this talk from you, Holmes. You will cease tearing yourself down, do you understand me? Nothing they said about you is true."

Holmes gaped at Watson, the whites of his eyes showing as he drew one knee up against his chest as a transparent and useless barrier against Watson's well-intentioned if too fervent fit of temper. "We share a bed, Watson." His voice shook apart at the very edges where the sounds of each syllable began to unravel into silence, or into the start of the next word.

With perhaps too much force, Watson countered, "As brothers. Has it ever seemed otherwise to you?"

"No." Holmes shook his head but he also wilted under Watson's hard stare and tried to shrink into the seat as he found that he could draw back no farther. "But it seems so to other people."

Watson clenched his jaw to aid in reigning in the temper that threatened to leak even further out, and then exhaled slowly through his nose. "Are you going to quote Lestrade again? Because I can promise you that he understands our sleeping arrangements."

Holmes hesitated, and the suggestion of fear marring his features actually pained Watson. "There are other things."

Watson failed to suppress the twitch at the juncture of his cheek muscles, where a dimple might show in times of mirth. "Then by all means, lay it out for me."

For whatever reason, rather then backing down at the open challenge, Holmes obliged him. "We often eat from the same plate. You know exactly how I take my tea, and I can tell how much discomfort you are in by the amount of pain that does not show on your face. You press my hand when we take hansom rides, and even though the bench is wide enough for us to maintain a seemly distance, we always touch in the middle. When the nights are cold, we bathe together to save the hot water. You put up with me when no other would, and you profess to love me as a brother, yet what I see in your face is in no way reminiscent of what I see in Mycroft's. You worry yourself sick over my wellbeing, and you forgive even the most grievous trespasses that I make against your person or property. And recently, you have taken to kissing my cheeks or my hair, and rather than maintaining your accustomed boundaries at night, you encourage me to lie against you."

Watson was not certain what he had expected. The calm listing of evidence still took him faintly by surprise; he had expected irrationality and misconstrued emotional evidence and bastardized quotes from various know-nothings, not a dissection of their lives together and corruptions of their innocent affections and comfort at each other's presence. Watson had no concerted refutation at the ready, but some sort of protest seemed in order, so he rolled his eyes and snapped, "Holmes, really."

"It wasn't always so. Before I left Switzerland, you behaved towards me in a manner very similar to Mycroft's. I could recognize friendship in it. But your regard for me has changed."

"Of course my regard has changed," Watson snapped, but he did not care to dwell on the reasons for it.

Holmes simply changed tack and pressed on. "I have never lain with a woman; they hardly even interest me."

"Lack of interest in carnal pursuits does not make you a deviant. It makes you celibate."

Holmes blinked, made a face as he summoned both saliva and some intangible brand of gumption, and then he said, almost too softly to carry in spite of the fact that Watson's face still hovered disconcertingly close to the top of Holmes' head, "You mourned me longer than you mourned your own wife. Your stories were the most extensive eulogy ever written."

Watson's gaze fell to Holmes' knees and then he briefly shut his eyes. "It was too sudden. I wasn't prepared for it."

"I know," Holmes breathed back. "That's why I did it."

Watson's breathing faltered, as if his lungs had filled with a vapor that crowded out breathable air. "What? Holmes, I know that you have often been irate with me, but I cannot believe that you would ever make a concerted effort to harm me that deeply."

"You give me too much credit." Holmes shook his head and slid sideways in the chair, putting a few additional inches between their faces, though he had trapped himself inexorably between the armrests by doing so. "I wanted to blindside you because that was what it felt like when you left me to marry her. I wanted you to hurt like that."

All Watson could think was a formless denial. They did not talk about this, about Reichenbach. Ever. Holmes receded in Watson's vision as he stood and backed away to fall into his own chair again. "If you value our friendship at all, you will drop this subject and never bring it up again."

"But don't you see what that means?" Holmes demanded, his eyes alight with fervent energy. "It took me years to realize my own intentions by doing that – why I wanted to wound you so deeply. I've seen it often enough in clients, in criminals – "

With his eyes firmly shut to block out the ramifications of this conversation, Watson bit out, "You are confused. You have said before that I am the only intimate friend you have ever had, and as for brotherly affections, I would hardly hold Mycroft up as the standard for expressions of fraternal love. You simply have no experience of these things, Holmes, and it has addled your perception." Good god, did Holmes actually realize what he had just said? That he had felt scorned at being abandoned, as if he had been traded away by a lover? "And if you will permit me to observe, you are not very well acquainted with your own 'softer' side. You don't handle it well. Being part of a healthy and intimate friendship was no doubt unsettling to you in some ways, and you could not properly react to my inevitable marriage. Your immaturity in that arena led you to behave the way a child would when rebuffed by a playground friend, and I don't hold it against you. I have forgiven you for it a dozen times already, no matter that I spent three years thinking you dead and blaming myself for allowing it to happen."

Holmes looked up and pierced Watson with a gaze that could have skewered someone less well acquainted with the sort of scrutiny with which Holmes treated all things. "Do you really think that?"

Watson stared at him, not because Holmes had caught him out for a dissembler, but because Holmes hadn't. What Watson had just said should have insulted him at the very least, but Holmes looked grateful for the unflattering estimation of his character. No…Holmes had no idea what he had basically confessed. He had said the words, but he did not truly know. And the last thing Watson wanted was to be the one to explain it to him. "Yes," Watson breathed. He hoped that the doe-eyed expression on his face did not betray him. It struck him that this one lie alone could be the one that sent him to hell, assuming that he had ever been bound elsewhere. "Yes, that is what I think."

Holmes' face started to crease into a smile, eyes shining in relief, but then his gaze flickered off to one side in sudden thought and his mouth hovered on the verge of a frown.

Desperate now to curtail any further reflection on these issues, Watson said, "I do not wish to speak of Reichenbach again, Holmes. I want your solemn word."

The curt statement wrenched Holmes back to the present, and after some befuddled contemplation of Watson's posture and complexion, he gave a hesitant nod. "Of course. I apologize for distressing you."

Watson moistened his lips and nodded acceptance of the apology. What now? What should he do now?

A moment later, Holmes offered, "A brandy?"

"Yes, that would be very welcome," Watson replied, his voice like a cascade of gravel.

Holmes returned after an interval of time that Watson apparently passed with a mind perfectly empty of all thought. "John…good heavens. You have gone white as a sheet." The brandy glass clanked against the edge of the tea saucer as Holmes set it down. "Are you ill? Have I upset you so much? I should not have mentioned the falls; I know you despise speaking of it."

Watson swallowed hard and shook his head, Holmes' face swimming into focus before him. "No, it's…a delayed reaction to tonight's events."

"Are you certain?" Holmes' gaze moved spasmodically over Watson's body. "You weren't injured, were you? I should have asked."

"Enough," Watson breathed on a tremulous exhale. "Just stop, Holmes. Stop. Now. And let me be for a moment."

Holmes looked stricken but he nodded and backed away across the tiger skin rug until he could lift himself back up into his chair. "I'm sorry."

Watson closed his eyes for a moment and simply begged, "Please. Can't you let anything alone?"

Holmes dropped his eyes and then hugged his legs to his chest as he bit his lip and tried to find something captivating about the disheveled bookshelves and clutter strewn across the far side of the room. A moment later, Watson heard him mutter scathingly to himself, "Really need to learn when to shut up." A dark, hateful snort followed and Watson looked up to find Holmes glaring intently off to one side though his contempt was obviously self-direction. Holmes gnawed at the lip caught between his teeth tightened his grip on his own legs as he apparently fought with himself over whether to be furious or resigned at his own ineptitude. Neither seemed likely to win out any time soon.

"Did it really hurt that much?" The words were out before Watson could reconsider them. Though the clarification probably was not necessary, Watson added, "My moving out of here, I mean. Getting married."

Holmes sniffed and resolutely closed his mouth, his head ducked in opposition to the question and all that it implied – not only that leaving had caused Holmes pain, but that it had not occurred to Watson until now that the hurt and sense of betrayal could have truly run that deep. The fact that Holmes refused to answer said more than any words could have.

At the time, Watson had read Holmes' jealousy and possessiveness as a childish form of selfishness – he always had. Apparently, so had Holmes…until he had been given cause to doubt his own inclinations, and by extension, the motivations for his past actions. "You do realize that I never meant to hurt you by marrying. You have always been my dearest friend, old fellow."

Holmes appeared as if he would have preferred to maintain his silence, but instead, he spit out, "Is that how you justified such spite?"

Watson straightened in his chair, and a flare of indiscriminate temper lent color back to his face. He knew that he should keep his own counsel for now, as both of their normally cool temperaments had been worn raw by recent events, but Watson had never been good at tamping down his anger once it flared, and he had needed an outlet for weeks now. "You did not just imply that I sought Mary out simply to spite you."

"No," Holmes replied, his tone clipped and edged in steel. "But that did not stop you from constantly rubbing in my face how much better your life would be the moment you moved out and no longer had to deal with me."

Watson bristled in spite of the warning floating through his mind that they should not be having this argument now. Or ever, for that matter; surely enough time and mutual hurts had passed to render the issue unworthy of further pursuit. "I was excited and in love. Forgive me for expressing such."

"You did not express excitement," Holmes countered, his voice raised to the point that Mrs Hudson might soon take notice. They had not argued so heatedly in months, if then. "You repeatedly enumerated all of my shortcomings and every annoyance you had to put up with by lodging here, and then after you escaped these accommodations, you didn't speak to me for four months! I had to seek you out and practically beg your assistance on a pittance of a case just to spend an afternoon with you. Do you know how humiliating it is to realize that you've become the beggar scraping for a shilling's worth of your dearest friend's precious time? You only sought me out in turn when Mary was cross with you and you needed a respite from her oppression. Then, I was good enough to be seen with. How was I not to resent you for that?"

Watson merely stared, speechless. …resent you…how was I not to resent you… And faking his own death had been escape and revenge, both? Watson could not credit that. Perhaps Holmes' decision to run away from his own life had been suspect and not entirely rational, but Watson could not believe Holmes capable of such simplicity and pettiness.

Holmes coiled himself more tightly into his chair and made certain that his gaze did not intersect Watson's. "There are times when I wish I could live up to your literary depictions, Watson. That man was never so pathetically dependant on a friend who could hardly stand him."

The bottom dropped out from Watson's stomach with such force that the resulting shortness of breath left tears of shock filming over his eyes. "You don't mean that."

Holmes shrugged and tucked himself more firmly into the chair's contours. "It doesn't matter anymore, does it. You came back, and now you reside in my bed, so I can hardly claim that I am not the better for it."

Watson aborted an urge to shake his head and counter that Holmes was the one who came back. But perhaps to Holmes, it was Watson who disappeared first. As for the rest of that statement, Watson had no idea where to begin addressing the obvious note of continued resentment. "If you wanted me to sleep elsewhere, all you ever had to do was ask."

"I never suspected otherwise."

Any further discussion had to be abandoned at the chime of the bell. Watson glanced over his shoulder to listen as Mrs Hudson answered the door, followed by the polite murmur of Lestrade's voice as he greeted her. The man had horrible timing; if he had only arrived ten minutes earlier, they could have avoided this entire disquieting argument. No doubt, once suitably distracted, the subject would have slipped Holmes' mind entirely, and Watson would not have had to worry at the repercussions of rehashing old grievances on top of the present situation. For both their sakes.

Holmes remained sullen and silent in his chair throughout Lestrade's visit, and outright refused to provide a statement for the official record. After much cajoling, Holmes simply confirmed that Watson's statement matched his own recollection, and absorbed himself in an old newspaper that he had cast aside just that morning as holding nothing of interest. The lie as to the source of the contusion on Redding's skull became the truth from that point on; Lestrade read off a number of 'eyewitness' accounts to the fact just to confirm Watson's 'alibi.'

After Lestrade had concluded his official business, he folded his notebook and then peered impassively at the mop of black hair protruding above the edge of the newspaper. "Mister Holmes, I just want you to know that the boys don't believe a word he said."

The newspaper inched downward until Holmes' eyes appeared, two smoldering pits of displeasure. "I believe that you are mistaken as to my need for reassurance."

"You may be correct, Mister Holmes," Lestrade returned without inflection.

Watson cleared his throat and gestured toward the sitting room door. "Thank you, Inspector. But as the hour is quite late, I am sure that you are eager to get home. We don't want to keep you."

A finer request to get lost could not have been crafted by the Queen herself. Lestrade offered a smile in response and politely stood. "Indeed, I am rather exhausted. Shall I stop by tomorrow afternoon to let you know how things progress?"

Watson opened his mouth to thank Lestrade and accept his proposal, but Holmes interjected neatly, "A telegram will suffice, Inspector. You need not put yourself out on my account."

Lestrade retained his stoicism with little difficulty, though he noticed how Holmes' attitude nettled Watson. "Very kind of you, Mister Holmes. I would be delighted to stop in for tea."

Holmes crumpled the newspaper in his lap, his mouth opening to deliver some form of retort, but Watson hustled Lestrade out the door before it could come to fruition. He granted Lestrade a covert smile of gratitude and then retreated to the sitting room while Lestrade recovered his coat and hat from Mrs Hudson in the downstairs foyer.

The click of the lock on their door drowned out the last of Lestrade's farewells, and Watson slid his shoulders along the wood paneling as he turned to wearily gaze at Holmes, his back propped against the doorjamb. Eventually, a sigh seemed the only option, and Watson mashed a hand over his eyes as he vented such, various fingers gouging at his brows. "Holmes, for whatever it's worth, I should not have grown angry with you earlier, and I apologize for it."

A series of flutters and clicks, then creaks of the chair betrayed a few hurried, uneasy movements, and then the soft thumps of footsteps prompted Watson to lower his hand. Holmes wasn't looking at him but he was approaching, his entire manner downcast, not to mention where he put his eyes. When he came within an arm's breadth of Watson, Holmes stopped, fingered his lip while he shifted his weight, and then he pushed himself up into Watson's grasp the way an insistent dog might.

Watson pulled him in and rested his chin against Holmes' temple, allowing his eyes to drift shut. The faint odor of cheap ale and public house clung to Holmes' person, but being so hard to detect, it only just made Watson's notice at all, and so was not particularly unpleasant. "Steady on, dear fellow," Watson murmured into his hair.

"I'm sorry I said all those things," Holmes replied forlornly. "I don't want to fight with you anymore – I never wanted that."

"Same here, on all counts."

Holmes angled more firmly against him and burrowed his way into Watson's chest, his nose coming to rest against Watson's collar. Into the fabric, Holmes mumbled, "I don't want to make you leave again."

Watson tightened his grip and promised, "There is no 'again', Holmes. You did not make me leave before, and there is nothing you could ever do to make me go now."

"I made you leave," Holmes argued, but it was only a flat remark. "You found someone better and it made you leave."

Watson bit his lip, wondering how such notions had ever entered the head of someone as devoted to logic as Sherlock Holmes, and knowing that in some way, he was himself at least partly to blame for it. Then he merely said, "I am going to mix you a tonic, alright old boy? Something to help you sleep."

Holmes did not react right away, and Watson felt rather than saw the moment when Holmes opened his eyes, for he stiffened minutely. "Would you tell me if you wanted to leave again?"

Beyond troubled, Watson inscribed a few circles over Holmes' scapulae and then gently disentangled himself. "You will feel better in the morning."

"Then you would not," Holmes concluded. "Why? Has it already happened? I have imposed too much again, haven't I."

"What?" Watson grasped Holmes by the elbows to hold him in place. "Holmes, do be sensible."

Trapped at arm's length by the hands gripping his forearms, Holmes squirmed slightly to one side and flung his gaze to the corner where the umbrella stand resided.

Watson gave him a light shake, and Holmes raised his hands as he cringed. "That is enough," Watson enjoined sternly.

Holmes started to shake his head, and the stuttering uncertainty of it grew to a concerted effort that seemed designed to deny absolutely everything. "I don't mean to be such trouble."

"I know you don't. Holmes, I am begging you to stop thinking these things."

"But I cannot!" Holmes wailed. "Watson, they are everywhere. Everything they said, and I can feel them, and smell the rot on their breath, and they won't go away. They say that I am an invert and that I am corrupting you by it, and for the life of me, I cannot prove them wrong."

"That is ludicrous – Holmes, to think that you of all people are corrupting me – "

"There is nearly twenty years worth of evidence to support it. You were respectable before you met me, and now even Lestrade thinks that your regard for me is a sin. And they saw it, Watson – somehow, they knew. They saw something that even I could not, and they knew."

"I will not listen to any more of this filth, Holmes. To have an intimate acquaintance is not a sin. To be your friend is not evidence of corrupted morals!"

"But we sleep together. Watson, don't you see? Normal people don't do that."

Watson flared his nostrils, his head shaking of its own accord. "Soldiers do that all the time, Holmes. To share warmth, to protect each other – "

"I am not a soldier, and neither one of us is at war."

"War is a subjective state of mind," Watson countered, his fury a mask for a dawning sense of horror at the method by which Holmes was systematically destroying the very foundations of both their lives. "We have never crossed a line of indecency with each other, Holmes; you have never tried to tempt me to such. And I need to know that you are still with me. If that means that we share a bed, then so be it. I will not risk you slipping away again."

"Don't you see, Watson? That is half the problem. Your insistence that I was not truly dead bordered on delusional. You hardly noticed your own wife's decline because you were too obsessed with immortalizing me in print. If someone had not announced her death to you, I am not certain that you would have even noticed her missing, and I relished it. I had become the most important thing to you – against your will, I finally mattered more than anyone else."

One hour, Watson thought. Oneblasted hour in the company of the lowest scum that London had to offer, and one questioned assumption about his own inclinations had led Holmes to this? Watson shook his head and then in a snarl of rage, he barked, "Stop it!"

"I am trying!" Holmes pressed his palms flat against Watson's chest and then attempted to simultaneously shove him away and twist closer. "I don't want to think these things, Watson – I don't want to think that I could be so horrible and never even know it. But they put it there, and maybe they're wrong, but I can't prove it. They could be right; I could be just like them."

"You are nothing like them!" Watson yelled.

Holmes did not seem to even register Watson's outburst. "They deny their inclinations and then indulge their baser needs by assaulting men on the street, and I indulge mine by stealing your affections from your innocent, dying wife and using them to corrupt you into the sort of man who doesn't even know that what he's doing with his friend is wrong." He contorted himself in such a fashion that his expression became obscured in the crook of Watson's elbow, and then a vague whisper of words reached Watson's ears. "I think I am going mad."

Nothing but their breathing could be heard for several seconds, occluding all else. Then Watson's own trembling voice broke the silence, strained far beyond his ability to censor. "No. I won't allow it. You have been used in the most grievous manner, and you are confused by it and… I am going to fix you a tonic, and you are going to drink it, and we will have no further talk of madness. Do you understand me?"

Holmes grasped a handful of Watson's waistcoat where it wrapped over his flank and wiped the side of his face over Watson's other sleeve.

Watson did not realize just how shaken he was by Holmes' final pronouncement until he had drawn Holmes too close for friendly intent. With no comprehension of what he was doing, Watson shook him hard enough to elicit a startled cry, and shouted, "Do you understand?"

A panicked bleat tore itself from Holmes throat and he wrenched himself toward the floor.

Watson hauled him back up by his shirtfront and shook him again, even harder this time. "Answer me!"

Holmes stilled so abruptly that it shattered Watson's sudden terror-born fury.

As if Holmes had burned him, Watson released him and backed away, his back thumping against the wall. "Dear god. Holmes, I apologize. I don't know what came over me."

Holmes straightened slowly that he might have been moving underwater, against a current. He tugged his clothes back into their proper shape, his eyes fixed blindly on a number of random points near Watson's right shoe, and then he warily met Watson's gaze. His voice came too frightfully calm for Watson's liking when he finally replied, "I understand." Then he wandered away in fits and starts, glancing at Watson every few seconds as if to be certain that he would not follow to offer more violence.

Watson's legs buckled and the crumpled as he slid down the wall in a rustle and thump of slackening limbs. His face came to rest against one shivering palm, and he fought merely to breathe for a great while. He longed for the days when Holmes had the gall to strike back at such infractions – for the small number fistfights they had gotten into over the years. Anything but this meek obedience.

Somewhere on the other side of the room, Holmes continued walking about, picking things up and setting them down again. Eventually, a clink of china reached Watson's ears, and then Holmes shuffled along the perimeter of the room toward him. Watson looked up to find Holmes offering him a fresh cup of tea, his features schooled into an impenetrable mask that nonetheless betrayed a certain anxiety at how Watson might react to his olive branch. They stared at each other in like kind for many long seconds, and then Watson relieved him of the teacup.

Before Holmes could rise from his half crouch, Watson reached up to cup the back of his neck. The moment froze and then Holmes practically fell into his embrace. Watson clutched him as tightly as his trembling limbs allowed and Holmes climbed into his lap, his arms wound around Watson's torso with the same aim.

"We will get through this," Watson vowed in a voice devoid of every last shred of strength, though a startling kind of conviction can rise from the lack of it. He received no response, but he hadn't expected one. He had not meant it as a promise to Holmes, but rather as a thinly veiled threat to himself. "I will get you through this."

Eventually, Holmes nodded, but his words struck Watson hollow inside. "You were ever the last martyr to my cause, dear fellow."

The next morning was strange for both of them. Holmes seemed intent on pretending that the previous day had not taken place at all, and Watson kept staring at him, awaiting Holmes' next attempt to prove himself some kind of monster – to show their long and intimate association for an offense against nature that somehow owed its existence to Holmes' own perversions. Things settled instead, and Watson let himself believe that the verbal altercation the night before had been nothing more than a moment of confusion on Holmes' part, born of mental exhaustion and the stress of the past month and a half. In fact, Holmes seemed to come out of the fog that he had existed in to varying degrees since the attack, and even consented to answer all of the correspondences that had piled up over the weeks.

But the burgeoning closeness that Watson had been steadily growing used to evaporated. Holmes forcibly reverted to the sorts of habits he had been wont to affect before his false death – a dearth of casual touches, a marked formality of speech that sounded even colder for having been absent so long…solitary rending of the violin in place of intimate conversation. They continued to share a bed out of some mutually silent accord, but the invisible line down the center of the mattress returned, and Holmes made every effort not to stray so much as a pinky finger past it. It sorely tried Watson's nerves, knowing that the warmer version of his friend that he loved so dearly had been subsumed once again, and that he had to respect that boundary.

Simply to preserve his own sanity, Watson found himself behaving as he had during the so-called Great Hiatus. He took to scribbling half the days away, lost in cases set in comparatively happier times when neither of them had ever been given cause to doubt that their unusual bond was an innocent thing. It was not a new revelation to Watson that many of their joint habits could easily be viewed with suspicion, but the attack had evidently been a catalyst for them both. Watson now skimmed his case notes with a fresh and jaundiced eye, his gaze catching over unnecessary lyricisms and florid phraseology, all pertaining to some part of Holmes. It had come as a shock the first time that Watson had noted his literary confessions obscured within detailed case notes, late in the year 1892, more than 18 months after Holmes' supposed death. He had loved Holmes very deeply, though in perfectly chaste innocence; that much could not be denied by anyone.

Now, Watson looked over his own cramped penmanship in light of the year since Holmes' return, and wondered if there truly weren't indecent inclinations concealed behind their regard for each other. Holmes evidently thought that there were, and that they were an ugly truth. Watson could not be sure, himself. And he did not want to be; he only knew that losing whatever they had gained by three years' parting was not a price he wanted to pay for peace of mind. He needed his own Holmes back, and not the one who had coldly left him to mourn an absent corpse. He needed the kinder, more open one who had come back to him – the one who made the effort now to show his appreciation for a friendship that before, he had heartlessly taken for granted. It pained Watson to watch the old, aloof Holmes strangle that softer fellow.

As such, Watson was relieved to receive a message from Lestrade several days later; the sitting room had grown oppressive under the weight of their shared attempts to return to a superficial routine of normalcy.

Watson picked Lestrade out of the crowd with ease and then threaded his way through the pub. It was located in Whitehall, a few blocks from Scotland Yard, and Watson had come at Lestrade's request to meet somewhere other than the official headquarters. It seemed a little queer, but Watson was well accustomed to oddness in the transaction of certain types of business, courtesy of having been educated on the subject by Holmes himself. Perhaps it involved the gentleman Fourth Man. If the bastard was classed, then a certain degree of tact and subterfuge would naturally be involved in bringing him to justice.

"Inspector." Watson extended a hand as Lestrade rose to greet him, and they shook politely. "You seem perturbed. Is the interrogation going poorly?" If Lestrade answered in the affirmative, Watson had every intention of volunteering to go a round with the foul frigger himself. It had been four days, after all; they must soon have something to show for their efforts.

"No, actually," Lestrade replied. "It went surprisingly well, if you can call it that." He breathed out pensively as he reclaimed his seat and slid a pint of ale across the table for Watson. "He confessed with surprisingly little prompting." A disgusted upturn of the corner of his mouth betrayed his feelings on the subject as he added, "In lurid detail, I might add. As if he were proud of it. Which I imagine he is, considering the object of his crime." He scowled at the tabletop and thumped the blade of his hand on the wood. "You realize we can't keep this completely quiet, right? Not after that display in front of the men. And word is starting to circle the underground already; it seems that his crew took no pains to keep this one hushed up."

Watson pressed his lips firmly together and then elected on a long drought of the draft in front of him. The ale slid thickly down his throat, rich and dark and brewed quite near to perfection. In spite of the subject matter, Watson gave the pint an appreciative look as he set it down. "I know, Inspector. Much as it pains me."

Lestrade nodded and peered off to the side, askance. "A few of my men had to leave the room. The way he talked about it… It turned my stomach, I don't mind telling you. But we got the whole account down."

It took a moment for Watson's reaction to settle on resigned and indifferent – a long enough moment to be noticeable as such. "That is all that matters."

"Yes," Lestrade breathed, clearly in doubt as to the merits of that statement. "We put him in solitary to try to contain his…bragging."

Again, Watson needed a few extra seconds to contain his initial reactions. "Well, if he confessed, then I see no reason for your obvious displeasure."

Lestrade nodded; he had expected the observation. "Redding even happily named his accomplices. We scooped them up first thing this morning."

Watson gave a start and then had to ask, "Are you serious? But that's perfect!"

With a pointed grimace, tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, Lestrade nodded. "Both of his accomplices." Then he met Watson's eyes, awaiting a reaction.

"Both…" Watson frowned. "Which one is still missing?"

Lestrade inhaled through his nostrils, biting the inside of one lip behind his closed mouth, and shifted uneasily in his chair. "Doctor…there is no one still missing."

Watson blinked in complete ignorance. "I don't understand. You say that you have only caught three of them."

"Yes," Lestrade replied. He flared his nostrils, his expression retaining a measure of both distaste and reluctance, and then listed off, "Josiah Redding – Top Man. Dale Kirkpatrick – Left Arm Man. Smitty Williams – Right Arm Man." He stopped then, not in hesitation but more as if his vocal chords had been severed. "They all, independently, claim that there was no fourth man involved."

Watson aborted a knee-jerk exclamation of contempt, and then asserted, "Then they are lying. Obviously, they are afraid to reveal the identity of the fourth, which would make perfect sense if they were hired by this man. He probably wields power of some sort, or else he paid them enough for their involvement to cover the possibility of their being caught. There have been instances where a hired criminal is compensated well enough that they would hold to the deception even then. In fact, being caught and going on record as the sole culprits may have been the plan from the start, to close the case and save the real perpetrator from being named at all."

Lestrade waited calmly until Watson had finished, and then shook his head once, an apology and a negation rolled into one terse motion. "We also located several of their previous victims, doctor. None of them will allow a formal complaint because it would draw attention to their lifestyles – they are all practicing sodomites, you see. But they did consent to describe their assailants briefly on the condition that we would leave them out of the official investigation."

A curious sinking feeling invaded Watson's innards, wrenching knots in his esophagus somewhere midway to his navel. In a voice that sought to shake, Watson demanded, "And?"

"And they all verify that there were only three men involved." Lestrade clasped his hands around his own pint of ale and peered sadly into it. "Their descriptions match those of the men we already have in custody."

Watson shook his head, paused, and then leaned back in his chair to wave his hands between them as if to swipe away the implication that Lestrade had just laid out. "No. You have Holmes' statement – or enough of one. You know that there were four men involved, that a gentleman appeared to have hired this trio – "

"Doctor, please." Lestrade sagged back in his chair and shot Watson a doleful look. "Do you think that I have come to this conclusion lightly? There is no evidence of a fourth man. No witness to attest to his existence – the perpetrators themselves claim that he does not exist! Even upon promise of leniency, of a reduced sentence, of monetary compensation, they swear that they acted alone that night. They boast of that fact."

Watson shook his head to one side as he straightened. "So you take the words of three rapists over that of Sherlock Holmes?"

Being a police inspector, Lestrade did not react to the blunt terminology. "Not easily," he replied softly. "Think about this as he would. If this were someone else's case – "

"This is not someone else's case."

Lestrade ignored the interruption. "If this were someone else, what would Mister Holmes say now?"

Watson fumed at the sense of betrayal pervading his chest at Lestrade's assertion, but at the same time, he could feel a telltale prickling in the corners of his eyes, and he clenched his jaw hard enough to elicit a subtle tremble of one lip. "He would investigate further. He would not dismiss the victim. He would look for a conspiracy. You know he would! Think of the sorts of cases he has taken – all the times he has taken the long shot and been right."

"I have looked for a conspiracy, Doctor Watson." Lestrade leaned forward across the table, his elbows splayed on the wooden surface. "I want there to be a conspiracy more than you know. I canvassed the entire block searching for a witness, and I even ended up finding a few eventually. There was an unfortunate, a flower girl, who saw Redding's band leave the alley with their spoils. And an old blacksmith who holds a beggar's cup at the end of the street saw Mister Holmes run past not ten minutes after that. He had the alley in sight from where he stood, and he has a hawk's gaze. He says that he would have noticed a gentleman of Fourth Man's finery because those sorts, walking through the slum of that neighborhood, always toss a coin his way. But no one saw a gentleman all night. No one. There is no other way out of that alley, Doctor. There are no doors into the buildings flanking it, no ladders or fire escapes, no back outlet. It is a dead end. And no one saw a gentleman leave it that night."

"You're wrong." Watson set his mouth into a grim line and furiously shook his head. "You are wrong, Inspector. Just because no one else saw him, it does not mean he does not exist. You are playing directly into whatever conspiracy they are trying to build."

"Have some sense, Doctor."

"No. I reject your theory."

"I am not telling you this because I am glad of it," Lestrade snapped. "But the facts cannot be argued against. I have no cause to believe that those three are lying. Their stories match. There are no inconsistencies – "

"Considering the amount of time you have spent dawdling about on this case, I am not surprised that they were able to synchronize their lies."

Lestrade drew a forceful breath through his nose to reign in the flare of temper that Watson could see simmering in his irises. "Where is the evidence, Doctor? The facts, the data? I am using Mister Holmes' own methods."

"Then you are doing a piss poor job of it."

Another deep breath signified Lestrade's efforts to remain calm and avoid making a scene in public. "Doctor Watson, I have looked at every angle of this case. I have not slept all night for agonizing over what this means. But I cannot deny what is laid out in front of me. There was no Fourth Man, Doctor Watson."

"But Holmes described him – he rendered a likeness for Clarkie – "

"Do you know what that description was, Doctor?" Lestrade demanded. "Mister Holmes told Clarke that Fourth Man kept himself hidden in shadow. He could not give us the color of his hair, the tint of his complexion, the shape of his face, the scent of an aftershave… This is Mister Holmes; what are the odds that he would have nothing to tell us?"

"It was dark," Watson growled, "and he was being attacked, for god's sake!"

"We also found no footprints that could have belonged to a man sitting on a crate against the wall."

"The lack of footprints alone accounts for nothing!" Watson seethed. "The crime scene was probably well enough trampled or rained upon or otherwise corrupted by the time you got to it." But he could recall Holmes saying that the night of the attack – that he could not accurately describe Fourth Man on account of the darkness. And such a statement had not jived then either; Holmes always noticed something.

Lestrade glanced down in silent apology, and then remarked, "I can see from your face that you have doubts of your own."

Watson glared at the half-full pint in front of him and then pushed his chair back. Without so much as giving Lestrade a dirty look, he snarled, "I will not be a party to making a mockery of my friend after he has endured such a trying experience. He did not imagine it, Lestrade."

"I know." Lestrade glanced around and made a shushing motion that doubled as plea for him to resume his seat. "The attack was real. The injuries are real."

"Then why do you seek to discredit him?"

Lestrade shook his head and appeared on the verge of breaking some poorly held façade of his composure. "I don't seek that, Doctor. I would never seek that. But I saw him that morning; he was not himself – not even close. For god's sake, he was convinced that we would arrest him just for being a victim! It is not inconceivable to think that for some reason, his mind invented the spectator gentleman, perhaps because the hint of conspiracy lent the incident meaning. Perhaps because if there was a reason, a real and logical reason for the attack, a mystery to focus on, then he could maintain his sanity long enough to get home. It is not a reflection on his character that he would need that to survive."

Watson licked his lips, a task made difficult by the tense line of his mouth. Then he hissed, "Sod your damn theories, Lestrade. And stay the hell away from Holmes; I will not have him subjected to such ludicrous, insulting drivel. If you do not believe him, then he does not need you. And in that case, you are not welcome at Baker Street anymore."

Lestrade tried to stop him from storming out, but he could hardly grab Watson's arm and drag him back with an audience of off-duty Yard men and various locals crowding around. As it was, Watson made it out unmolested and stalked several blocks, driven by rage and betrayal and stark terror. When he made it halfway to Baker Street, he had to stop and duck into an alley to catch his breath, leaning against the brick façade of a telegram office, his arm shaking where it braced his weight on his cane. He found himself covering his mouth to hold back some nonspecific sound that tickled and threatened to breach the back of his throat. There had to be a Fourth Man. Holmes saw a Fourth Man. He could not have imagined him. It simply wasn't possible.

Watson shut his eyes and apportioned more of his weight to the building at his back. There was no evidence. Holmes attributed no marks on his body to Fourth Man, the silent spectator. The one who lingered unnoticed after the other three left. Who, by the bare account that Holmes had given, did not actually touch him at all other than to rifle his pockets. Who no one had seen leaving the alley, who Holmes could not even describe beyond the observation that he had worn fine clothes. Redding and his men were habitual offenders who targeted inverts wandering their bit of London alone at night. Holmes did occasionally look a bit like a toff, jaunty and flamboyant, wearing his clothes loose and open. He was fair skinned and smooth, lithe in form on account of his thinness, which leant him subtle curves of figure perhaps more suited to a woman or a nancy boy. He would have been their ideal sort of mark – Holmes fit their profile to a tee.

As for knowing who he was, for targeting him, it would have been easy for them to find out his real name; more people than Holmes realized were probably well aware of his identity. Look at Thomas. And Holmes said that they had lost bets against him, that they were angry over it. The only reason to think that there were motives other than revenge was Fourth Man's presence – he threw every theory out of alignment. But if there was no Fourth Man, there was no mystery – no inconsistency to be explained and resolved. The crime became petty – revenge and humiliation, and the satisfaction of perverse desires. It became simple. And there was no actual, physical evidence that the crime was other than horribly, appallingly simple.

"Holmes did not imagine him," Watson whispered to himself, the words held safe behind his hand where his breath was permitted to tremble just a little bit. "He would not have imagined him." He could hear the lack of conviction in his own tenuous words. Holmes had been so disoriented that night when he got home, so scared and small and…broken – going on about rent money and Watson's ruined shirt – counting buttons, but apparently not Fourth Man's buttons, as if Fourth Man were an add on to his memory of the event, something that occurred after he counted everyone else's buttons, an accidental inconsistency that he had realized on the sitting room floor and sought in a fit of distraction to rectify. And it had to be thought suspicious that England's most observant man could not even recall the color of Fourth Man's hair…whether he had worn a hat, whether or not he had boasted a mustache or a beard or used a scented soap or aftershave…nothing save the descriptor of his clothes as being richer than the others'.

Watson shook himself harshly and pushed away from the bricks at his back. He could not believe Holmes capable of losing so much of his composure that he could invent a perpetrator. If there was no evidence, then Watson would find some. For Holmes' sake, he would prove that Fourth Man existed because the alternative did not bear contemplation. Watson scrubbed his handkerchief over his face and then tucked it into his sleeve, neglecting to fold it as neatly as he normally would have done. As he limped back out onto the sidewalk, he entertained vague notions of how to go about his task, and even as plans formed halfway to fruition in him mind, he could not shake the impression that he was hunting a figment, and he imagined the he might spend his life in pursuit of a man who he knew full well could never be found. And if that were the case, then so be it; he would chase figments until the ground took him, because if Sherlock Holmes said that there were four men involved, then there were most certainly four men to be found.

Why, then, could Watson not shake the aura of hopelessness that clouded his convictions? And for that matter, why did he feel such desperation to find even a shred of evidence to render Holmes' account of the crime true? As if finding that evidence denoted a line of survival for both of them, that he should be so terrified that there may be no evidence to find? That there never had been evidence to find?

Watson arrived home to the sound of a nocturne played with heartrending, skillful abandon on a violin. He had barely stepped through the door before he had to stop and listen to it more closely, which led to his notice of Mrs Hudson hovering in the kitchen doorway. Her ear was also cocked to the muted filigree of sound that wafted down the seventeen stairs. Holmes had a bad habit of torturing his Stradivarius, but when he actually paused in his reckless, obsessive drives to play it correctly, he often ended up torturing his listeners instead. And not because he played poorly. On the contrary, Holmes – the aloof, dignified, sloppy and arrogant man with a self-professed lack of need for his own humanity – could rend bow to catgut the way other men died of solitude.

"Now, I know that look," Mrs Hudson drawled, her voice seeming to weave through the strain of music. "Care to tell me what's got you so bothered that you didn't even use the umbrella you're carrying?"

Watson blinked first at her, then to the window beside the front door where streaks of rain ran in rivulets down the glass. Finally, he confirmed that his umbrella was indeed in his hand, unopened. "I seem to have tracked water all over your rug."

Mrs Hudson took the nonsequitor as the polite rebuff that Watson had intended, and inquired no further as to the source of his distraction. "Well, there's little enough harm done. Why don't you give that here and go put on something dry." She gestured for his great coat, and Watson obediently fumbled it off. "I'll just hang this by the kitchen fire and then fix you a nice hot pot of tea."

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson." Watson shook out his shoes as well – a pointless endeavor as he had not worn his rubbers that morning, and his socks were practically swimming beneath his laces. He sighed and merely tromped up the stairs, shoes squelching on every step, his hair dripping in strings over his ears and forehead.

As he passed the sitting room door, the violin wailed into an unnatural suspension of a single note, and then the instrument fell silent. "Watson?"

"Yes, Holmes." Watson leaned on the banister as he rounded it to the next flight. "I'll be down shortly."

Through the closed door, Holmes observed, "You are soaking wet."

"How very clever of you to notice," Watson quipped. Things had been marginally better since their mutual breakdown the night of Redding's arrest. He felt more able to risk some of their old friendly banter than he had in over a month, and that was a decided sign of improvement in his book.

"Why did you not use your umbrella?"

Watson did not pause on the stairs, but the ache in his leg assured that his pace had slowed considerably. "You assume I had it with me?"

"It is missing from the rack."

Of course it was.

"You obviously failed to open it."

"How do you know I was not simply splashed by an inconsiderate omnibus driver?"

"Because that would have left you muddy as well as wet, and Mrs Hudson is not screeching that you have ruined her carpeting."

Watson chuffed softly and discovered a grin forming on his face. He did not bother challenging Holmes' logic. "I'm going to change into something a bit less apt to leave me with a spring chill."

"A wise precaution." Holmes spared the time to check the tuning of his violin strings, and then he broke into some sort of gypsy waltz.

By the time Watson emerged in fresh clothing and his dressing gown, Holmes had moved on to Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre. Watson had not heard him retune his violin to accommodate the scordatura, but he rarely did; Holmes could make the keying of a string seem like part of an embellished song transition. The tea service had already been delivered and sat beckoning him from the sideboard, but Watson paused in the doorway to absorb the familiar sight of his friend wandering around with his violin tucked under his chin – a harbinger of home, if ever there was one. Then his eyes caught the total disarray of Holmes' desk. His crime scrapbooks were scattered all over it, spilling over onto his chair and on in haphazard rows and columns to cover the surface of his chemical table. Most of them were open to certain articles, and all of them contained several bookmarks to additional articles.

Watson sidled up to the chemical table and glanced over Holmes' shorthand scribbled across the margins beside some of the newspaper cuttings, his head tilted to one side. "Holmes. Are you working on something?"

Without breaking either his stride or the rhythm of the song, Holmes replied, "Is that not obvious?"

Watson hardly dared to hope, but he could not keep the brightness from his voice when he inquired, "Is it for a case?"

Holmes replied with a quick, furtive wink as he spun away through the room, still coaxing complicated stanzas from his bow and fingertips.

"Ha!" Watson quelled the urge to bounce on his toes in a most ungentlemanly fashion, but his excitement would not be dampened. "Are you going to tell me about it, or do I have to guess?"

"Deduce, Watson; deduce," Holmes chided over the music. "We never guess."

For no good reason, Watson frowned at Holmes' exuberance. A return to good-natured jibes was exactly what Watson had been longing for, but to see it happening set him on edge. It felt wrong somehow. "Holmes, is everything alright?"

"Never better." Holmes paused at the mantle with his violin pinioned between chin and shoulder, his fingers snaking down to a tuner even as he continued bowing. "By the by, why were you so intent on subjecting yourself to a downpour?" The strings thus adjusted, Holmes tripped off in a new direction.

This time, Watson saw the false cheer for the mania that it was. He sighed in disappointment, but he could hardly claim that it came as a shock. A cursory scan of the surrounding clutter yielded Holmes' Morocco case open on the floor, a freshly used needle discarded carelessly beside it atop the swirl of a silk cravat that Holmes had probably used as a tourniquet. He padded across the room and crouched before the damning evidence without touching it.

A second later, the violin fell ominously silent. The clatter of bow to wooden body indicated that Holmes had transferred both objects to one hand, and then uneven footsteps came to rest just opposite the chair to Watson's left. "I beg you, Watson…do not be too terribly cross with me."

"I am not angry, Holmes." And for once, he truly was not. His fingers extended of their own accord to caress the length of the needle, and the tip of one finger came back stained with a tiny smear of Holmes' blood. "I only wish that you didn't believe you need this so badly."

"I do need it," Holmes countered sharply. "It is clarifying, Watson. I have told you – "

"I recall what you have told me," Watson interrupted calmly. "I simply beg to differ."

Holmes huffed and then retreated in a flurry of angry footsteps, his mood made more changeable under the influence of the cocaine – more apt to fits of pique. "You are being unreasonable."

"I am speaking from medical experience, Holmes." Watson pushed himself upright and dusted his knees off.

From the other side of the room, Holmes retorted, "That is rich, Watson, coming from someone who has never tried it. Your text books are not accurate representations of a lot of things, this included."

Watson nodded, but not in concession. "I will not argue with you while that poison is influencing your mind."

Holmes subsided, but only after a childish snort of resentment. Watson watched him pick up a cloth and begin to scrub at the rosin stains dusted in pale clouds around the bridge of his violin. "And where have you been all afternoon?"

"Having a drink with Lestrade." Watson picked his way around yet more scrapbooks laid out in a line on the floor, and then gingerly lowered himself into his chair by the fireplace. His leg ached with the chill of his walk in the rain and he regretted his sojourn both for that, and for the distasteful conversation he had bourn on account of it.

Several minutes passed in deceptive silence, and then Holmes appeared in Watson's periphery. "Here." He held out a towel. "For your leg."

Watson accepted the offering with a faint smile at the singed edges; Holmes had evidently warmed it for him by holding it over a bunsen burner.

"You should know better than to go out in this weather," Holmes rebuked. His concern poked tiny holes in his lingering petulance over Watson's comments on the cocaine.

It was probably cruel and definitely unfair of Watson to do so, but he glanced covertly at Holmes' retreating back and remarked, "You do realize that your dependence on the needle is one of the things that most grieves me about living here."

Holmes froze with his hand poised to pick up his violin and then slowly straightened.

"It puts you in the most disagreeable moods."

Holmes threw a hooded glance over his shoulder and then turned his back again. From the movements of his shoulders and his right arm, Watson could tell that he was picking his lip in thought. As if he regretted the words prior to saying them, Holmes asked, "How so?"

"Your temper, for one," Watson offered, endeavoring to be kind even as he did so. "And after that, the cruelty you display toward me." It gratified him to see Holmes flinch. "Perhaps you don't realize how it prompts you to say the most hurtful things in defense of it, Holmes. You lash out at me, insult my writing, my medical skills…my character and intentions. Anything to drive me from the room so that you no longer have to deal with my disapproval of it."

Holmes fussed in place and then apparently elected to ignore him. A second later, he had recovered his violin, but his cleaning of it took on an angry edge; his self imposed moratorium on speaking ended soon after. "If you do not wish to see it or deal with me when I take it, then you are of course perfectly able to go elsewhere until my company is suitable again."

"It is not your company I object to, Holmes. It is the detrimental effect that the drug has on you. Your mind is a great thing – too great to waste on a passing fix. Do you truly think that it is not corrupting you as surely as drink would an alcoholic?"

Holmes glared at him past the fingerboard of the Stradivarius and then took to ignoring him altogether.

Watson expelled a silent sigh and arranged the hot towel over the aching muscles of his thigh. If Holmes did not wish to consider his opinion, then Watson could not force him to. And what else was new about that?

Nearly ten minutes passed before Holmes ventured to speak again, his voice surly and put off but still curious. "What did Lestrade have to say over drinks to so upset you?"

Suddenly, Watson wished that they could continue arguing pointlessly over Holmes' cocaine use. "It hardly matters," Watson mumbled. He leaned back in his chair and squirmed in a vain effort to find a position that would leave both his leg and his shoulder in a modicum of comfort. "You know how thick he is when he thinks he's got a case solved."

Holmes' frown was evident in his voice when he said, "You went to see Lestrade about a case?"

Watson had already closed his eyes in an effort to relax, but he took the trouble of quirking an eyebrow as he retorted, "Now who's being thick?"

"It was my case, wasn't it."

Watson gave a noncommittal grunt. "It's been four days. I wanted to know what they'd discovered from Redding."

A loaded pause, and then Holmes hesitantly prodded, "And?"

And now they come to it, Watson thought to himself. The investigation had been concluded. He was certain that Holmes would see through the deflection when he simply replied, "Lestrade has deemed the case closed. Redding confessed and gave up the names of his accomplices. They will be sentences shortly; they aren't denying anything."

"Oh."

Watson peeled his eyes open and then twisted to see past the back of his chair. Holmes had sat down in front of his open violin case, wringing the rosin cloth between his hands. "Are you alright, old boy?"

"Fine," Holmes clipped out.

"Can I get you anything? A drink?"

Holmes sucked his lips in between his teeth and lifted his head to glare at the items laid out on the table before him. He seemed to debate saying whatever truly lingered on his mind, but the need to have it out prevailed. "I want to see them."

Watson could actually feel himself pale. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"You seem to be laboring under the impression that I was asking your permission."

"Holmes… As your doctor, I think it would be better to simply put it out of mind."

Holmes' very posture grew suspicious, and he gripped the edge of the table as he swiveled to sit sideways in his chair. "My method of putting things out of mind has been a point of contention ever since we met."

Watson indulged in a glare. "There are dozens of methods of doing so that do not entail borderline poisoning yourself."

"And none of them are effective for me," Holmes rebutted. The furrows between his eyes deepened. "What are you hiding?"

Watson balked, which was as good as admitting that he was being dishonest in any one of a hundred manners. "I'm not hiding anything."

"How many lies are you going to present me with before this conversation reaches its natural conclusion?" Natural, of course, being Holmes proving himself right.

Watson decisively shut his mouth, but Holmes had scented him out already. He had to offer at least a grain of truth, so he blurted out, "They confessed."

Holmes' face crinkled in confusion because he could see that Watson had not lied by that statement, and yet it did not clear anything up.

"To everything," Watson added. "In detail."

That did it; Holmes' face went slack, and then he spun away to face his discarded violin again. "How much detail?"

Watson swallowed and hated himself for doing this – for saying such things – but this truth was far safer than the other. "Enough to make several officers ill, and to justify putting put Redding in solitary to censor him."

Holmes shifted himself in several different directions where he sat.

"It's not worth prolonging the affair," Watson pressed. "Just let it be; they're behind bars. Isn't that good enough?"

Holmes hunched down a bit and studied his hands where they sat restlessly in his lap; it could have been agitation or simply an effect of the cocaine that made his fingers twitch. "What are their names?"

Watson fumbled his own tongue up behind his teeth, and then stammered, "What?"

"Their names," Holmes repeated, louder and with better diction this time. "I want to know who they are."

Watson blinked a few times in rapid succession, and then asked, "Does it really matter? They've been caught out."

Holmes threw his shoulders back, but a moment later, his posture lost definition. He fingered the violin bow and then blew out a defeated sigh. "I suppose not." He slumped further in the chair and lowered his voice even farther. "Did they say why they did it?"

"They're habitual offenders," Watson hedged. "And they had lost a large sum of money on you." Not a lie, really; simply a misdirection.

Holmes seemed to consider this explanation, and then he glanced over at Watson with a doleful look. "That's all?"

The way Holmes asked, all but begging for some other, less trivial purpose, nearly shattered Watson's resolve. It also bolstered his private determination to find the real reason for it, and to prove Fourth Man's existence in the process. He couldn't lie, though; not to Holmes' face, not about this. So he merely gazed steadily back and waited for Holmes to break eye contact first.

It wasn't long in coming. Holmes sat in perfect stillness for nearly a minute after he turned away, and then he flung himself to his feet and all but wrecked his way across the room. "I have been looking into a string of jewel thefts." He flipped through one of his scrapbooks and pointed at an article even though Watson had not moved from his chair. "They show an evolution of technique over several years' time and then cease altogether approximately a year ago. None of the jewels were ever recovered, but I cannot believe that the crew is finished; they were too successful to simply break off their venture. That, and no one else seems to have drawn the connections between any of the thefts."

Watson pretended to find Holmes' assertions fascinating, but he was too busy cursing himself for a coward and a liar to mark much of what Holmes said after that.

-tbc