A/N: Second verse, same as the first.

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II. The Sure Bet

"By my calculations," says Holmes four months from then, "if we each skip a meal on alternating days, we should be able to make rent his month."

Watson blinks over his teacup. "What?"

"Say, we can halve our meals. You don't really like jam, do you?"

They are sitting at breakfast together, Watson with his tea and Holmes with his pipe, as the morning sun shines through the curtains and the day finds them both in unusually high spirits. It's been some time since Watson's mistake, and he's ceased dwelling on it with every movement Holmes makes, though he still sleeps poorly. Holmes on the other hand is as energetic as he ever is, as they have just concluded a case -- a peculiar one concerning a horse named Silver Blaze -- and have not yet sailed into the doldrums that are inevitable between cases, unless the clients come quickly and close together. Watson is seated straight-backed in his chair. Holmes has tipped his chair back and is likely to fall if so much as tapped on the shoulder, but Watson has given up on prevailing upon him to utilize chairs like a civilized human being. There are scones set out on the table, and jam, which, yes, Watson does not particularly like. But that is beside the point.

"I didn't know we were so behind on rent." Watson didn't. He had some idea that they were low on money of late, but it hadn't occurred to him that low could mean parched dry. "Surely your payment from Colonel Ross...?"

Holmes tips his chair back further. "Our payment from Colonel Ross," he observes, "is to go to the previous month's rent, which is late." He lights his pipe. "Doesn't anybody need a doctor any more? I tell you, Watson, our modern age is far too healthful. O, for a muse of fire. And lower standards of sanitation."

"Holmes," says Watson, perturbed. "What on earth are we going to do about this?"

There is the sound of a match striking and the faint whoosh of a flame as Holmes lights his pipe.

He says, "You're going to place wagers on boxing matches." Holmes takes a long, contemplative drag off his pipe as grey-white smoke spirals neatly out of it. "Clearly."

"That's funny, I don't remember stating my intention to do any such thing. Thus I have no idea how you derived such a conclusion. I wonder if any hospitals require any more on-call staff," remarks Watson, lifting his teacup again. "It's ugly work, but it is work."

"Hear me out. The practice of betting is normally a terrible endeavor, best left to men who have more skill at wishing than they do at thinking. However! The practice of winning your bets is contigent either upon chance or upon knowing something that the crowd doesn't know, thus enabling you to collect their money. Now, this is normally accomplished through cheating, of course," Holmes gestures with his pipe, "but failing that -- not that I've ruled it out --"

"Holmes."

"-- failing that, it can be accomplished through achieving victory under positively unlikely odds."

Holmes finishes off, takes another drag and is silent. Watson takes this to mean he is pleased with himself.

"You don't always win," says Watson.

Holmes blinks. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, you don't always win. This plan of yours would be contingent upon you winning. And you don't. You're not even as tall as I am," Holmes gives him a look, Watson raises his eyebrows, "and I'd make a dreadful boxer. You're clever, but boxing is not a clever man's game." Watson picks up the newspaper and unfolds it in front of him; it's become his favorite shield against uncomfortable situations, the Times, sturdier than a Germanic targe. "And in the case that you do lose, we will lose the rest of our partial rent payment and Mrs. Hudson will throw us out on the street for being degenerates. And I can't say I'd blame her! I'm not a gambler, Holmes!" This is actually a lie. Watson has actually gotten in the habit of lying a fair bit, though he's not entirely certain how it came to be that way. "Haunt Lestrade for a new case and I'll pick up some sort of work. We'll miss our meals if we must."

"I never had any impetus to win before. Now that our hearth, our home, and the happiness of my very dear friend are riding on it," Holmes pokes the air with his pipe at the word 'very,' "I'm certain that losing will no longer hold such an allure."

"What?"

Holmes blows a smoke ring in Watson's face, which Watson has told him not to do approximately thirteen times before. "I said I'll win."

"I don't believe you." Watson's tea is getting cold; later, he decides, he will contemplate why this always seems to happen when he breakfasts with Sherlock Holmes.

"I'll bet you that I'll win."

"Holmes."

"I will."

"Holmes, that is entirely contrary to the point."

"I will wager you," Holmes says, exacting, "precisely one deed of your choosing if I lose, and precisely one deed of my choosing if I win."

Watson is no fool, so he has assured Holmes many times, so he's not fool enough to fall for that sort of devil's bargain. Even so, it heats up his face a little to consider the possibilities and he props up the Times a little higher. Trusty old Times. "That's an awful wager," he says, and drinks his tea. "I'm not nearly as inventive as you."

"Oh, but I can assist you. Allow me to demonstrate," he holds up a hand against Watson's objections, "Suppose you win our wager and I lose my brawl. You could then, obviously, demand of me anything you like, so long as it is one singular deed. There's no time limit on this, Watson. For example, your demand could be 'No more bees in the house.' Ever. And I'd have to adhere to it -- I would adhere to it. No eyebrows, Watson, I mean it. 'Violin playing ceases at midnight, no matter what current cases demand.' That's a generous offer, Watson! 'Hair must be kept at an even length all round.' 'Thorough moratorium against Gladstone as an experimental subject.'"

"You are not going to adhere to a single one of those."

"-- 'Must ask you before borrowing any of your items of clothing.' 'Must explain to you each clue I see as I find it and where it fits into my larger picture of things before embarking' --"

"Holmes."

"'Surrender to the same treatment that I received this past January 5th, at eleven o'-clock at night, under the influence of the Turnera diffusa toxin.'"

Watson chokes and spits his tea all over the Times.

"Or I could assent never to bring dead --"

"Holmes. Holmes, dear God, I didn't know you had any recollection of that, I -- Holmes, you have no idea how unbelievably sorry I am." Watson is reeling. He is not a man who normally speaks quickly, except when agitated or angry, and he, well, he's certainly agitated. "I have no excuse for my conduct. There is no excuse possible for my conduct. I -- I'm sorry, I don't know what I can even -- I'm sorry. I don't know what I could -- Holmes, I can't, I don't know what I could --"

"-- persons into the house. But that might prove," Holmes notices his pipe has gone out, and he frowns and re-lights it, "very inconvenient to the both of us in our casework, I'm afraid. Can you think of an alternate place in which to store corpses? A long table would be preferable. For post-mortem work. I remember when you did it on the parlour table, you complained."

"Holmes!"

Holmes takes his pipe out of his mouth, bats down the damp edition of the Times, leans across their parlour table and kisses him.

Today Holmes tastes like tobacco, which helps Watson break away from him faster this time, though the kiss has traveled through his mouth to his stomach like a red hot molten stream. His teacup is still in his hand, so he puts that down. His copy of the paper is in ruins, though he doesn't really care. He stares at Holmes -- who is staring back at him, in all his disheveled, nine-o-clock-in-the-morning glory -- and puts his hands out like this will stop him from kissing him again. Like this stopped him the first time. This time there is no Caribbean shrub affecting Holmes's judgment, and he is still doing this. This is a mystery beyond the faculties of Dr. John Watson.

"So if I win," Holmes raises both of his hands and puts them over Watson's, and laces their fingers together, "I can demand anything from you, such as a cessation of all commentary on the timing of my musical interludes," he pulls them closer to him and kisses him again, "and if I lose," and again, "you have the same rights of me. Don't you care for my proposal? It's a sure bet to benefit one of us. Both of us, if I have my way. And I intend to."

Watson opens his mouth and tries to say something that will bring this whole disaster to a halt. What comes out is, "It's nine in the morning. Holmes, this is a decent hour."

"You're a decent man," says Holmes, and kisses him and opens his waistcoat buttons all at once in the next moment, and Watson goes under.

The morning sun is bright through the window. Mrs. Hudson is moving around downstairs. Altogether there is nothing of the furtive in the atmosphere that might be appropriate to the fact that what he and Holmes are doing is wrong.

Watson pulls away from him and gets to his feet. For a moment it looks like he's resisting, about to go and put on his hat and declare he is about to go downstairs until Holmes comes to his senses: that is the little fantasy he's having, anyway. But Holmes gets up after him and steps around the table and kisses Watson again, and instead of doing any of that he wraps his arms around Sherlock Holmes and kisses him back. This is terrible. This is more than terrible. This is disastrous. This is -- warm, and responsive, and this time Holmes pulls his waistcoat off his shoulders with no resistance from him.

"No," says Watson. Holmes starts on his shirt, industriously.

"No," says Watson again. Holmes tugs at his belt, and then tugs his belt loose entirely. The buckle hits the floor with a heavy clunk.

"Holmes," says Watson. "You can't do this. I can't do this. In good conscience I can't do this."

"Then go to church this Sunday," says Holmes, and undoes Watson's trousers, and kisses him again.

Holmes has about as much respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury as he does for Allan Kardec's Ouija tables. Watson is about to say something to this effect, except that Watson has broken the buttons on Holmes's shirt in his endeavors to separate the shirt from its wearer. Then he tosses the shirt aside in a movement that appears to amuse Holmes -- he's making that face again, Watson can just see it -- and Watson kisses him to shut him up. It's effective.

Holmes, Watson thinks in a blur, is handsome. He goes to watch him box for precisely this reason, that and that unshakeable devil, concern for his blasted well-being, but that was one thing that Turnera diffusa-addled Holmes was correct about -- well, really he was correct about a number of -- never mind. He's handsome (and that word is dishonestly mild for it). Watson places his hand flat on the skin of Holmes's chest, just intending to do that, but he runs it over his skin and Holmes arches his back. He kisses him; he kisses him on the lips, and then in the hollow of his neck. Thank God Holmes wears less clothing than he does. Thank God for how Holmes's boots never fit him quite, and so come off with ease when they both stagger to the floor. Thank God for how Holmes drags his fingernails across Watson's back when he presses his mouth to his collarbone or his chest or his ear. Thank God for so many things -- Thank God for Sherlock Holmes.

He's on top of Holmes again, and he's a bit embarrassed of it; embarrassed of how his love and admiration for him has so often run to the carnal, and the carnal of this nature, like he ought to be more generous in some way. Watson kisses him to make up for it, somehow, and Holmes laughs into his mouth -- does he read his damned thoughts, or does he just near-constantly amuse himself? -- never mind which, not all of Holmes's clothes are off. This is a problem that requires immediate attention.

Holmes squirms under his touch, with no pretenses to stoicism. Watson's hand is in his hair (how did that happen?) and his other arm wrapped around him. Holmes bucks his hips up into his, which he takes as an invitation -- frankly he feels about as hard as he's capable of being, so -- except: he remembers their first night together, abruptly, and feels a singe of guilt. And of awkwardness, of all the things that remain to be done that he really has no idea what to do. He pulls away from Holmes a little, though he laces their fingers together, and opens his mouth to say something.

"Really, now," says Holmes, a little breathless, "do you really think this is the first time I've done this?"

-- leaving John Watson with that deeply disturbing thought as he bends down to kiss him again, reeling a little.

He doesn't come up for breath for several more moments, not that he has anything to prove. But once he does Holmes speculates further, "Had. Had done this. That is. Considering our previous --"

"Be quiet," Watson, well, he wouldn't say he snaps, but, err, and spits into his hand again. This time more thoroughly. His mouth is bothersomely dry.

But this time he takes a cushion from one of the chairs they've just abandoned and pushes it under his friend's hips before he climbs back over him again and kisses him. That is the one thing he never sickens of. There's less urgency than there was, though he feels the urgency of the heat in his body and how desperately hard he is anytime he touches Holmes. Or looks at him, or hears him speak.

He wants to say something again. But he hasn't taken leave of all his senses. Instead he smooths Holmes's hair (Holmes has his eyes closed) and kisses him again and pushes into him again, carefully this time, as if he might say no -- he doesn't, in fact, he moves his hips down to meet him, and Watson thinks that when he imagined this there had never been so much heat. There is so much heat between them, not uncomfortable but searing; it intensifies when he moves and Holmes tries to say something, and he moves sharply and Holmes doesn't manage.

He feels sick with the heat, so sick as to take him hard and not feel a taste of satisfaction until he cries out: but he doesn't cover his mouth this time, he just kisses him. He just kisses him hungrily, and kisses him hard, and the floorboards creak and Mrs. Hudson's kettle goes off somewhere, and their mouths are together this time when Watson finishes and digs his shaking fingernails into the oak flooring.

It is nearly inevitable: "I will win," says Holmes promptly.

Watson has absolutely nothing to say to that. So that is precisely what he says. He wraps his arm around Holmes and brushes his hair back again, and kisses him a little absurdly on the forehead.

"I am taking this," Holmes continues, taking advantage of Watson's fatal error in kissing him on the forehead, "to mean that you accept my wager. Which is excellent and I think will be better all around for the both of us, really. Let's review this arrangement: I prevail, you perform a deed of my choosing, I'm defeated and I perform a deed of yours. Are you well familiar with the terms? I'd hardly like to spring an agreement on a man unawares, and I would like your assent to this to be beyond question."

"Holmes," he says, low -- feeling wrung-out like a dishcloth, but also covered in his own sweat and Holmes's and very still. "You know that we can never do this again."

Holmes is just as still under him, but warm and just as handsome to look at. Watson can hardly bear to lever himself off him to set about making himself decent. "Is that an assent?" says Holmes.

"We can't," says Watson. "I won't. I don't have to explain this to you."

"I am taking this as tacit assent unless you indicate otherwise. Consider this a binding agreement."

"Holmes."

"Kiss me before my match, for luck."

Watson does not. He comes uneasily to the match to hover at the ring and imagine in his head their ruin and destitution as Holmes's terrible idea comes to terrible fruition. Mrs. Hudson's horrified, disappointed face looms in his head. His patients' swift flight to other doctors is not long after. However, the guilty thought flits in and out of his head of what he might ask Holmes to do in that instance (not that he would) -- or, in the happy if unlikely case of victory on Holmes's part, what Holmes might demand of him. Watson chides himself for thinking this way and decides to cease. Somehow this will not seem to work.

Holmes wins. He demands that Watson, in his words, "completely abstain from using my name in conversation for the span of one month, including to third parties."

Watson should not be surprised.

They are never doing this again.