Chapter Text
Upon awakening it takes Moran a moment or two to remember what is so special about today. Initially he feels only a strange tingle of excitement but he is unable to place its cause. He turns onto his back and glances at the still-sleeping form lying beside him in the gloom, smiling to himself as he watches Moriarty’s chest rise and fall, before at last he remembers: they are alone in the house. No housekeeper, no maids, no servants at all. Perhaps other men, those used to a pampered existence, might be daunted by this realisation (‘One must do everything for oneself? But how?’) but to Moran this recollection sends a thrill through him. Alone together they may indulge themselves in whatever games they desire without fear of being interrupted, terrifying the maid or being chastised by the housekeeper for making too much noise or not coming to dinner on time.
It had been Moriarty’s idea to send the servants away for the weekend, telling them they deserved a little trip to the seaside, his treat. “It shall be our reward for seeing the Colbert plan come to fruition,” he had told Moran, who needed very little convincing indeed. “A little time to ourselves, time to play some of our little games together, hmm?”
No of course they must not worry about him and the colonel, he had explained later to the servants; they are grown men, both of them not unused to doing some menial tasks at least, and both perfectly capable of surviving for a couple of days by themselves. Moran saw the servants off at the station the previous afternoon, before returning home to change into something more suitable for fine dining out, and they had certainly dined out sumptuously.
Upon returning home after dinner Moran had tried his best to quickly coax Moriarty into bed (or perhaps onto the tiger-skin rug before the fireplace), but the professor was having none of it. “There is no rush my boy, we have the whole weekend ahead of us,” he had reminded the colonel, and Moran, with only a small sigh of resigned amusement, had accepted this. So all that happened in bed last night was sleep but now… now Moran has awakened with the sense that today something more will certainly happen, secure in his belief that Moriarty cannot possibly have wanted to send the servants away only to waste their precious time alone. After all sex may not be Moriarty’s primary concern but he certainly enjoys indulging in it regularly with Moran and given such time to themselves surely he must have something rather more creative than the usual in mind.
There is a certain amount of nervousness in Moran too, although of the undeniably erotic kind that stirs his blood. Moriarty, as he invariably does, has the upper hand here. Moriarty knows what he has in mind for their weekend; Moran does not. There are of course limits to what Moriarty could and would do to him – Moran’s faith in that knowledge has occasionally quavered but never been fully shaken. His professor would never try to cause him harm, nor would he ever inflict any act upon Moran that he had not discussed with him at least hypothetically if not in detail at some point in the past. Still… that leaves a great many things that Moriarty could decide to do to him this weekend and Moran can do no more than speculate as to what particular game the professor has in mind. Still asleep, Moriarty is giving nothing away.
Moran decides to let him sleep a while and slips quietly from the bed. With the household staff away there are certain tasks that can safely be left until their return but there are others in need of consideration. Unless the pair wish to indulge themselves in an unpleasantly cold house, lighting the fires downstairs is most certainly something that requires attention. As he goes to retrieve his dressing gown from the hook on the door and slides the gown over his naked skin, it occurs to Moran that today he need not cover his modesty for the sake of the servants. He could parade around the whole house naked if he wished without fear of evoking any girlish shrieking or a more womanly roar of disapproval. It is rather chilly though so he wraps the dressing gown around himself and ties the cord around his waist, then pushes his feet into his slippers before going downstairs to deal with the fires.