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“Strip.” I ordered him curtly.
It seems Holmes, as always, was a step ahead of me - he shredded each article of clothing from his lithe body as if they were burning him. Perhaps that would have been better, for the legs of his trousers kept their shape even after he had kicked them across the room, and I noticed with a sort of mute horror that the dark fabric was beginning to cloud with ice.
“You are a fool!” I continued on my tirade even as I ducked into Holmes’s bedroom to retrieve clean towels. “A proficient fool!”
“I believe that is an oxymoron, Doctor.” Holmes said. Then he sneezed violently.
I returned to the living room to find Holmes sat on the hearth rug, as close to the roaring flames as he could possibly get, and completely bare save for the knitted grey blanket that he clutched around hunched shoulders.
I snatched it away, and he gave an indignant cry of protest before I wrapped him securely in one of the towels.
“You’ll get it wet,” I reasoned, “You can have it back when you’re dry.”
I left him grumbling into the flames to call down to Mrs Hudson with a request for a pot of hot tea, then returned to his side. I knelt behind him, took up a smaller towel and began to rub his hair dry. He shivered under my touch, and I could hear his teeth chattering.
“Well, you’re not in danger of hypothermia anymore, at the very least,” I said with no small amount of relief.
“Very good,” Holmes said, before letting out an even bigger sneeze than before. He shuddered and curled in on himself further, his knees drawn up to his ears. “Are you sure about that prognosis? I doubt I’ll ever be warm again.”
“You’re shivering - it’s a good sign,” but I took pity on him and began to rub the sides of his arms up and down, and he leant back gratefully into the touch. “You could really do with a bath, you know. I doubt that water was very clean.”
Holmes’s sniffed, “Just be thankful it wasn’t the Thames. And I would really rather not move away from the fire, preferably for a very long time.”
“The hip bath then. Ah, Mrs Hudson,” I turned to smile at our landlady as she entered the living room baring the tea tray, “Can you retrieve the hip bath for Holmes, please?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Mrs Hudson said briskly, paying no mind to Holmes’s current state of undress. A household containing Sherlock Holmes could not afford to be overly concerned with modesty. She bent down to retrieve Holmes’s abandoned clothes, tutting all the way. “Just what have you got yourself into this time?”
“The pond at St James’s.” Holmes flashed her a toothy grin from over his shoulder. Mrs Hudson shook her head, but there was a fond smile playing about her lips.
I set about preparing our tea, my anger quickly diminishing as the realisation that Holmes would be alright began to sink in.
It had started as a perfectly ordinary day; Holmes was unemployed, and had been for the past few days. Despite this, he was in an amiable mood and after luncheon the two of us decided to go for a walk. It was mid-January and the cold was biting, so we wrapped up in our warmest coats and set out, Holmes’s arm in mine.
Our stroll was mostly completed in contemplative silence, broken only by Holmes informing me on his studies into medieval tapestries, which was his latest fixation. We were walking through St. James’s park when all of a sudden a scream pierced the air.
We were both on high alert as a man ran passed us a great speed, away from the shrieks of a lady. “Thief!” She cried, pointing at the mans retreating back.
Before I could process what was happening, Holmes’s arm had left mine and he sprinted after the culprit. I was not far behind, but the cold had affected my leg, and I was unable to keep up with Holmes’s lengthy strides.
It was not long at all before Holmes caught up with the man. One long arm reached out to grasp the assailant by the scruff of the neck; but this man had lightning-fast reflexes of his own. Before Holmes could get a firm grip on him, the man had both hands on Holmes and pushed him firmly into the pond next to him.
Holmes fell backward and hit the surface of the water accompanied by the sound of splintering ice and then an almighty splash. At that moment, I lost sight of the pickpocket and only had eyes for my friend.
“Holmes!” I cried, and hurried to the waters edge.
Not a moment later, Holmes’s head broke the icy surface, his black hair plastered to his scalp by the frigid water. In his hand, he held the woman’s purse aloft triumphantly, and the assorted displaced water fowl chattered and squawked at him indignantly.
Sufficed to say, our walk was cut short. As soon as the woman was reunited with her purse, I had frogmarched Holmes to the nearest cab.
Mrs Hudson arrived with the bath, and it was filled with steaming water by the time Holmes had finished his first cup of tea. He reluctantly shed his robe of towels to scurry into the water and sank into it with a blissful sigh.
Once I had finished my own cup - for I too was fairly chilled - I picked up the sponge, lathered it with soap and began to scrub at Holmes’s thin shoulders.
“Watson, I can wash myself,” He chided me.
“I know you can,” I said shortly, “Arm, please.”
Holmes let me scrub him down without comment. In truth, he was not so disgusting, although the bath would smell faintly like a pond when I was done. We settled into a mediative silence as I worked.
Holmes only broke the silence when I was lathering soap into his hair. “I’m very sorry for worrying you, my dear chap,” he said softly.
I sighed, the remaining tension falling from my shoulders. “And I am sorry for getting so wound up.” I gently tugged Holmes’s head back so I could pour water over his head, guiding it with a protective hand on his high forehead so none spilt into his eyes. “You didn’t ask to be pushed into a pond.”
“Hmm,” he agreed, “It rather ruined what would have otherwise been a heroic moment.”
I snorted, then I caught his eye from where he regarded me from upside down, his head tilted back. He smirked.
Then we both fell about laughing at the absurdity of the situation and my reaction. “My goodness!” I chuckled, wiping at my eyes. “I have treated you for stab wounds!”
“The pond certainly pales in comparison,” Holmes sniggered.
Despite the proximity to the fire, the water was beginning to cool, and it did now smell fairly revolting. Holmes stepped out of the tub and into the waiting towel I held out. I enveloped him in its cushiony warmth, then pulled him forward by the back of the neck to place a firm kiss on his forehead.
Holmes smiled fondly at me, then he sobered somewhat. “I would like to make it up to you somehow,” He said, his tone still light, yet there was a hint of seriousness there too. “I cannot blame you for your reaction; if it was you who had been pushed, I imagine that I would not be very happy.”
“Hmmm,” I pondered. I got him sat in his chair before I began to once more rub at his dripping hair with a towel. “Well, if you insist. I would like to hold you for a while, if you find that agreeable.”
He smiled. “I do indeed.”
I helped Holmes dress in a fresh night shirt, for it had grown quite late, and got him wrapped up in his warmest dressing gown, which was the mouse coloured one. Mrs Hudson returned to take the bath away, and we were left alone for the evening.
I poured us two hefty glasses of brandy as Holmes shuffled the sofa closer to the fire. I sank down onto it gladly, and Holmes joined me after retrieving his blanket from where I had tossed it carelessly onto my chair and threw it around my shoulders. He tucked himself into my side and drew the remainder of the blanket around him.
It was blissfully silent for a while. Holmes was a comforting, and finally warm, weight at my side, and I rested my cheek upon the top of his head. He hummed happily and entangled our fingers as we both gazed into the roaring hearth.
It was all so wonderfully cosy - a stiff drink, a warm body next to me, a blazing fire and a soft blanket that was ever so slowly slipping off my shoulder. I looked down to Holmes, who was clutching it to his chest, his possessiveness over the garment evidently the cause.
“You are awfully fond of that blanket,” I murmured thoughtfully into Holmes’s hair.
“Hmmm?” His eyes flickered lazily down to where it was bunched between his fingers. “Am I?”
“You seem to take it everywhere.”
Holmes was a man who was constantly cold, and was very rarely seen in his shirtsleeves, even in summer, due to his lack of insulating fat. He was always wrapped in a dressing gown, and on colder days, the blanket made an appearance.
It wasn’t just the cold, though; Holmes would often pack the blanket in his case whenever we were to stay away from Baker Street overnight, though if it was cold enough, he’d wear it like a shawl for the duration of our journey. He slept with it in bed, regardless wether we had decided to share that particular night, and when he was ill it was never far out of reach.
Holmes shrugged. “It’s a good blanket,”
“Yes. But we do have better.”
It was true; we had accumulated many during the years we have lived together. They were useful when we had unexpected guests that had no other option but to sleep on the sofa, and I always appreciated them when my old wounds were giving me trouble. And as I previously stated, Holmes was always cold.
Holmes nuzzled further into my shoulder. “Perhaps.”
“Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift. From an old housekeeper.”
I was taken aback, “A housekeeper?”
“Mmm. She presented it to me just before I left for university. I was rather fond of her, and she of me. Which says more about her than of me, I fear, for I was a particularly petulant child.”
I laughed openly at that, for it wasn’t a surprise. I could imagine Holmes as a child; a scrawny, snot-nosed little thing, probably perpetually covered in muck and grime. Or as a teenager; gangly and awkward with limbs that grew too fast to get used to and a endless temper to match.
I felt Holmes’s smile against my shoulder, and I knew my assumptions were right.
“And, like I said, it’s a good blanket,” He stretched his limbs in his cat-like fashion before he slumped completely into my side. “And I, my dear, am quite done in. Would you care to accompany me to bed?”
I beamed, “I would like nothing more.”