Hard Case by Elizabeth Lapthorne

dry.
    It was only as the water turned cool that they moved. Troy gingerly withdrew his limp cock. Quickly—for the heat had definitely waned—they cleaned themselves and each other then escaped only just as the water turned icy.
    “Damn,” Troy swore as he dug under the basin for fresh towels for them both. “I need to invest in a bigger water tank.”
    Steve laughed.
     
    * * * *
     
    Troy couldn’t help himself. He paced the length of his small home office, prowling like a man possessed. Every few seconds he glanced out of the large window and down onto the street, as if by some miracle he’d be struck by inspiration.
    Or perhaps he just hoped something would happen. His skin itched with the need to be moving, to be in action. It was almost as if he could feel the weighty press of time ticking by, the sands of the case slipping through his fingers while he waited here, idle.
    It had hardly been an hour since the delights of his shared shower with Steve, but already it felt like years ago. Time stretched before him, mocked his enforced inactivity. Aside from waiting for something new to happen, Troy wasn’t sure where to turn to next.
    “Not the most patient of men, are you?” Steve looked up from the morning paper. He softened his words with a warm, caring smile.
    Troy shook his head. The corner of his mouth twitched in a partial grin, pure response to the warmth emanating from Steve. Troy wasn’t mad at his partner—far from it—but his mood was decidedly agitated nevertheless.
    Troy glanced out of the window again and continued to pace.
    “Out there.” He waved randomly onto the street. “Whatever plot is underway is moving, progressing. People are meeting, planning, gathering their forces. I’m sitting here, useless.”
    “Your arse has barely touched the chair since we entered the room,” Steve replied mildly. He turned the pages of the newspaper.
    “Figure of speech,” Troy replied, though he strongly guessed Steve knew that full well and was simply letting him vent. Troy’s respect and growing love for the man hiked up a notch. “We should be chasing someone down, questioning a witness, hell…scouring the library or Internet for information. We should be doing something, not sitting here.”
    “Very well then,” Steve folded the paper and set it aside on a small coffee table beside the large, well-padded chair he’d plonked down into earlier. Steve threaded his fingers together and stared expectantly at Troy. “What would you have us do? Who shall we question? What lead have you neglected to follow to its limit?”
    “I—well…” Troy stopped. He turned to Steve, part of him expecting a bunch of suggestions to come rattling off his tongue, but none came to him.
    He had to think.
    “Well for starters, I can hack into one of the databases and run James’ face through the system,” Troy stalked over to his desk and booted up his laptop. When that was ready, he brought it over to the coffee table so Steven could watch the progress with him.
    “Won’t Fin or someone have already done this?”
    “Probably, yeah,” Troy agreed. “But that’s not the same as us personally checking all the similar matches ourselves. Sometimes a probability might only be in the mid eighty percent range, but when you look at it, the resemblance is clear. If the profile is at a poor angle or the shot is low res and grainy, it can really shoot the percent match.”
    “Okay, that sounds reasonable,” Steve sat forward in his chair, seeming convinced.
    Troy opened a few windows, keyed in some passwords and set numerous simultaneous searches off and running. He had to admit he felt better, but that itchy ‘not-doing-enough’ feeling was creeping back up on him.
    Getting up he then started once again to pace. With nothing else coming to mind, Troy decided to go back to square one and review everything. They might have missed a clue earlier, or even just refreshing his memory might help show things in a