Eliminate the impossible

Island life is not as stimulating as life in London. Even with the variety of people here and the strange occurrences, Holmes finds himself feeling idle much of the time, and the lack of food of any substance or flavor or worth has left him quite unhappy and in need of a good, absorbing distraction. The best answer he could think of was to recall some of his pastimes in London and find a way to recreate or adapt them to the island.

Solving a mystery would be difficult. Seeing an opera would be impossible, but acting would perhaps be something doable. Surely there's some pool of talent, but when he begins considering whether he would like to endure mediocre talents, he becomes less excited about the idea. Maybe he could don a costume and wander about the island, pretending to be someone else. Occasionally that yields interesting results.

And from there it isn't a very difficult leap at all as to how he ought to spend the afternoon.

He waits until Watson leaves for a walk with Nell, which means he has roughly 20 minutes at minimum to get together a scruffy outfit not unlike what a sailor would wear own at the docks. It takes him slightly longer to decide how much makeup he ought to apply, how severely he ought to change his appearance. To make himself completely unrecognizable seems... odd, and he isn't sure how Watson would like that anyway. But if he looks just the same, the game is lost.

He leaves his nose largely the same and arranges his hair differently, adds a scar or two, settles on a way to set his shoulders, and gives himself a more weathered appearance. He wouldn't be recognizable immediately, but once Watson identifies him, he ought to be able to see that the man before him is what Holmes would look like had he been a sailor.

After that it's a matter of coming up with a cover story, which is quickly done, and then he must somehow find a way to wait patiently until Watson arrives, testing out his character, selecting the appropriate accent and inflection for his words.

Continued from here.

Oh, but he likes being the object of that gaze, very much, not to mention the object of such fantasies. He takes a measured breath to keep another, more revealing reaction slip and he lets it out slowly, enjoying the prolonged tension it's produced as he stares right back at Watson. Holmes doesn't generally assume the position Watson's proposing but he certainly doesn't object to taking it when the mood strikes him, and it's striking him now.

"I'm tempted by it too," he says, his voice thicker now. "The table seems most convenient, but we would have to clear it off first. Are we nearly finished eating?" he asks, not without a trace of hope. And perhaps to persuade Watson into being ready, Holmes spreads his legs a little wider, under the pretense of wiping his fingers against the napkin laid across his thigh, and he may stroke his fingers against his leg a little more than strictly necessary.