Unfortunately, as a result of the incident on the roof-tops, Sherlock Holmes became much more wary of Watson and anything he touched.

Granted, there had been prank wars in Baker Street before (one of which had begun on April Fool's one year and escalated well into the last week of May, until Mrs. Hudson had demanded a cease-fire or that they both could jolly well find other lodgings), but never had the Doctor felt such distrustful eyes upon him at all hours of the day (and night, too).

Perhaps he was losing his nerve, or at least the heart and stomach for the business.

Luckily for the bet's sake, Holmes realised this fact and, with a few well-chosen snide remarks (the chiefest of which was a nasty jibe regarding one of Watson's as-yet unpublished stories) provoked the Doctor into squashing what sympathy might have reared its head and raising the standard again for the remaining three days' battle.

The clashed swords for the eighth time that evening.

Earlier in the day, Watson had finally called in a few favours that Scotland Yard owed him, and Inspectors Lestrade and Gregson were only too glad to work together in compliance, to get the better of the man who had so often publicly humiliated them both.

That afternoon, the Doctor returned from the post-office to find both Yarders about to leave with Sherlock Holmes on a case; the bet and their verbal warfare of earlier apparently forgotten, he was promptly bundled into his hat and coat and the waiting four-wheeler.

The case was legitimate enough, save that it had been solved five hours previously and been carefully recreated this evening, with a few key details altered to throw the detective off the scent. While Watson was usually not capable of making Holmes's deductions for himself, he did know what kind of minutiae would completely alter the trajectory of the detective's conclusions, and between his knowledge and the Inspectors' willingness to re-do paperwork, they had created quite a little miniature conspiracy.

In consequence, Sherlock Holmes solved the case in less than a half-hour, whereupon he calmly shot down any and all arguments regarding his conclusions, negating the possibility of the Yarders' theories, and stalked arrogantly off toward Baker Street.

Two hours later, the Evening Standard was published with an account of the case, with the exception being that the theory which Gregson had been postulating the entire afternoon to deaf ears was proven beyond doubt to be correct.

Watson almost – not quite, but almost – regretted that particular fear's consummation when Holmes stared at the article, promptly raced out to get every other evening paper on the streets, and then spent two hours morosely pondering their contents, pacing the floor, and generally kicking anything that got in his path.

However, though the Doctor knew Holmes's self-confidence had been seriously damaged, he could not in all actual fact truthfully say that his friend was afraid of being proven wrong. In fact, he looked more heartbroken than anything else, and were some of his earlier offensive remarks not still stinging in the Doctor's ears Watson might have almost felt sorry for the man.

He left the detective that night in the sitting room, wailing disconsolately upon his violin until well after dawn.

Only two fears left…he only had two chances left.

Not good.

--

However, when the ninth day came and went, with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening, even the detective's nerves of steel had thinned to a close snapping point. After sixteen waking hours of treading carefully in the flat, watching the Doctor every moment he was in the room (and having him followed when he went out, thanks to Alfie who was far more concerned with the color of Holmes's shillings than with complete loyalty to Watson's cause), and generally living on a needle's edge every moment, the consultant was keyed up to a tension so high Watson wisely said not a word to him the entire evening.

Finally, after he had ascertained that his opponent had truly had gone to bed, Holmes at last went into his own bedchamber and locked both doors, placing a chair under the hall door-knob, and tying one end of a muffler round the sitting room door-knob and the other around the leg of his wardrobe.

No one, and nothing, would get in his room without his knowing.

Why was that not encouraging?

Changing rapidly into his night-shirt and slippers, he wondered for a moment why Watson had not tried to frighten him at all today? Surely that meant he would shortly be slipping downstairs to make his ninth – next to last, thank heaven above – attempt.

Well, two could play at that game, and he smirked into the candlelit darkness before removing the chair from the hall door and pushing back the lock. Then, lighting his darkest pipe in the candle (actually he had just located the pipe at the bottom of his wardrobe, still with tobacco in it from where it had been lost a week ago in the tarantula fiasco), he slid between the cool, inviting sheets; sitting with his back against the headboard, and waiting for the Doctor to, as he had instructed mockingly, do his worst.

Moonlight shone silvery through the crack in the blinds, filling the room with more shadows than light, and each creak of the house and settling of furniture in his room was cause for false alarm; when one of his jackets fell suddenly from a hanger in the wardrobe he nearly embarrassed himself by yelping, covering the sound only just in time.

To pass the ghostly minutes, he allowed his mind to wander on a controlled track, back through some of his early cases. Of course the most unforgettable one of those had been the Stoke Moran affair, with Grimesby Roylott and his horrible pets.

Holmes shivered and puffed furiously at his pipe until his nerve quieted and he could hear above the heartbeat in his ears once more. Then, sighing, he extinguished the pipe so that Watson would think he was fast abed, and after setting it on the bedside table scooted down and laid his tense head on the comforting softness of his pillow.

A pillow which, he suddenly realised, he was sharing with something.

Something that hissed. And slithered.

--

The Doctor had, through the stress of the last few days (and the toll upon his pocketbook), been working overtime in his capacity of locum for a Paddington practitioner, and as such had been rather exhausted that next-to-last night.

After preparing the ninth fear, and feeling not a twinge of remorse whatsoever due to Holmes's provocation earlier ('a child in the fourth form could do a more intelligent job' of writing Holmes's cases, indeed!), he had retired calmly to his bedroom, and soon was asleep despite his intent to listen for the sounds of Holmes's discovering what loving elder brother had said was his second greatest fear.

In consequence, although the reaction that woke him was certainly that of terror, he had not been present at the time to prove that it had been and Holmes insisted he had merely reacted out of reflex, not out of fright.

The all-out scream that had woken both Watson and Mrs. Hudson (and the neighbours on either side, probably) told differently, as did the fact that while explaining his 'shocked, not scared' reaction to a skeptical landlady and slightly remorseful Doctor, Holmes's hands were shaking so badly that he dropped his seventh cigarette four times (which was an improvement upon the first six).

Mrs. Hudson glared at the both of them, muttered about being glad when the 'ridiculously juvenile bet' were over with, and toddled back off to bed.

After one last offer to call off the wager for the very last fear, and being brusquely refused for his trouble, Watson shrugged and turned to do the same.

Holmes eyed the closed door of his bedroom with its harmless – but still ghastly – occupant, and sighed mournfully, his pride most definitely refusing to ask Watson to remove the dreadful reptile. Then he stuffed towels from the bath against the cracks under the doors to block both room exits, and dozed miserably in his armchair the rest of the fitful night.

--

It was not until the next morning, the dawn of the tenth day, that Watson finally took a look at the very last – the greatest – fear; so busy had he been that he had only really checked the next one on Mycroft's list along the line.

He frowned now, seeing that the last fear had apparently been left blank at the bottom of the page, with the inscription if by now you have not succeeded, come see me for one final idea.

Half-past nine found him ringing the bell of Mycroft Holmes's flat somewhat nervously (since the man had been suspended from the Diogenes, he had been a veritable bear, especially this time of a morning). The man himself opened the door, and after a grumpy scowl allowed him entry.

"I take it you've had no success, then?" the elder Holmes inquired dryly, helping himself to a liberal portion of eggs and ham. "Breakfast?"

"Er…no, thank you," Watson replied quickly, standing ill-at-ease in the man's dining area. "And no, none to speak of. Your brother insists I carry out the last one, come hell or high water. He will not believe the wager to be won otherwise."

"In that case – pass me the marmalade, there's a good fellow – you have only one recourse left. Unless you wish to drop the whole affair?" Mycroft Holmes's eyes flicked sharply across the Doctor's face. "You look as if you no longer have the stomach for the business."

Watson flushed darkly. "I have never yet done what the fellows at the club call welching, on a bet, thank you," he retorted stiffly.

"Good." Mycroft smirked around his fork. "Then I do have one last idea for you to try, and one that is a positive guarantee for you to win and Sherlock to lose. But you must be ruthless enough to try it, Doctor."

"Frankly, I cannot see how anything either of us could come up with would cause your brother to be afraid, Mr. Holmes. It simply isn't possible; there is nothing he is truly frightened of!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"No, it is not impossible, and there is one way you can get him to admit, or else get inarguable evidence that, he is indeed frightened," the older man answered calmly, draining his coffee-cup.

"How, then?"

Mycroft lumbered to his feet and reached for his hat, his eyes fixing disconcertingly upon the Doctor, who suddenly felt a chill at the indifference in those frozen depths.

"You simply lead Sherlock to believe that you have been killed, or at least grievously injured, Watson. That, I daresay, will suit your purpose perfectly."