The Art of Thinking

Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson rightfully belong to the brilliance of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A big thankyou to the BBC, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss for updating a classic. I make no money from this, but if you are so inclined please tip the writer with reviews.

Doctor John Watson loosened the knot of his tie as he hurried up the stairs to the flat he shared with the rather enigmatic consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. Balling the pin-striped apparel up, he thrust it into his jacket pocket as he unlocked the door.

'Sherlock?' he called out.

Silence greeted him.

'Sherlock!'

No whirlwind of a man suddenly appeared from one of the rooms demanding attention. No depressed almost comatose amateur detective lay sprawled on the sofa bemoaning the lack of interesting cases to pass his time and magnificent intellect. In short, no Sherlock Holmes.

John sighed in relief as he shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it over the back of his favourite armchair. Glancing at his watch he noted that he had about forty-five minutes before he was to meet Julie for drinks. That should give him enough time for a quick shower before dashing downstairs to catch a taxi. Hopping on one foot he pulled off a brown loafer, laughing slightly as he did so. Eight months ago he wouldn't have even contemplated doing such a thing, what with his leg and all.

'Psychosomatic limp,' he muttered. 'Oh how he must have laughed at that one.'

When Sherlock had 'deduced' the army doctor the first time they met, John thought he must have either been in the presence of a madman or sheer genius, turned out it was both and the best thing that had even happened to him. But as much as he admired the man Sherlock was a huge dampener on John's love life. It seemed every time John tried to set up a date Sherlock had to derail it with some last minute demands for attention, usually in the form of a case that had to be solved right there and then.

Honestly, John thought as he pulled off the other shoe and hurried to his room, some days it was like living with an only child spoilt beyond redemption. It was like parenthood without the benefits.

Several minutes later John emerged dressed only in a tatty bathrobe and slinging a towel over his shoulder. A quick shower and a clean shirt and he would almost pass as a normal human being, not someone who had just spent almost three days on his feet chasing Sherlock about London then had to go straight to a shift at the clinic. Sarah had been very understanding and she had, rather surprisingly, set John up on this blind date. So all things considered John had had worse weeks.

The bathroom door was closed; this made the stocky doctor hesitate for a second. The last time the door had been closed John had walked in to find a pig hung up on the railing gently bleeding all over the linoleum. Something about blood pools and coagulation Sherlock had explained around Mrs Hudson's horrified wailing at the state of the floor and she wasn't their housekeeper you know so someone else was going to clean up the mess. Guess which poor sod ended up doing that, but no, John had been in the bathroom very early that morning and he was faintly hopeful that not even Sherlock Holmes could recreate that mess again. Once an experiment was done it tended to stay done, the valuable information stored in Sherlock's vast intellect. It should be safe to enter.

As he pushed open the door two things flashed through John's mind. The first was since when did they have a bloody great big bath sitting in the middle of the floor taking up all the room. The other was the flash of dark curls at one end of the tub and the large finely boned feet poking out the other end.

'Bloody hell . . . Sherlock?' John Watson spun on his heels in a smart about face.

Silence echoed about the tiled room behind him. He thought he was out; John had been convinced Sherlock wasn't home; it had been too quiet for one thing.

It was too quiet now. Maybe it was another experiment being conducted. That wasn't Sherlock, just some sort of mannequin. Still nothing, had someone snuck a tub into the flat and drowned the world's greatest detective? No, no be reasonable. John risked a small peek over his shoulder.

Brown curls, slightly damp with moisture from the bathtub, fingers steepled against his lower lips and eyes drooped close. He looked almost angelic if you ignored the presumed general all round nakedness, the bubble bath and was that a . . . ?

'Sherlock?'

One steely blue eye snapped open and glared at John.

John whipped his head back around and stared at a stain halfway up the opposite wall. 'Uh,' John cleared his throat, 'what are you doing?'

'I thought that would be rather obvious, John, I'm taking a bath.'

'Right, obviously, uh since when do we have a bathtub?'

John heard the water slosh gently around said bathtub.

'I had it bought up out of storage.' Sherlock said.

'We have storage?'

'No, John, I have storage. You have a room that you can barely fill. Now would you close the door, you're letting all my heat out.'

Against his better judgement John took two steps backwards and closed the bathroom door. Unfortunately this lined him up with the wall mirror. Now if he glanced to his left he had a perfect view of Sherlock Holmes in a bathtub.

The silence was getting awkward think of something to say. 'What's wrong with the shower?' he asked.

'Nothing, do you want to use it?'

He could hear the bloody smirk in Sherlock's voice. John's eyes slid sideways, yep there was that smirk staring right back at him in the mirror.

'I don't mind,' said Sherlock.

'I bloody well do!' John tore the towel off his shoulder any thought of making his date fast receding into the distance. 'Why are you in the tub?'

Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes again. 'Cogitating.'

'Thinking?' John considered turning around but refrained. 'What's wrong with your armchair, or the sofa?'

Sherlock's deep voice echoed about the room. 'That's armchair thinking.'

'And this is?'

'Really, John, don't be thick,' Sherlock sat up in the bathtub causing small waves to slop over the lip of the porcelain. 'This is bathtub thinking.'

Bare chest covered in soap suds, there was definite nakedness going on. John found himself slowly wringing the towel between his hands, like it was a certain someone's neck. Why couldn't he have a normal roommate?

Deep breath, act normal. This sort of thing happens everyday. 'And what kind of thinking is bathtub thinking?'

'Armchair thinking is detective thinking,' Sherlock explained. 'Bathtub thinking . . .'

'Yes?' It was unnerving like seeing a dangerous wild beast taking tea in your kitchen. Sherlock Holmes in a bathtub, no one would believe him. John felt his eyes slowly creeping sideways.

Sherlock was sitting upright staring at his fingers. 'Twenty three minutes,' he stated.

'What?'

'Judging by the skin slippage on my fingers I've been in here for twenty three minutes.'

'You can tell how long you've been in the tub by how pruney your fingers are? Hang on,' John half turned, 'how did you even get water into the tub in the first place?'

'Mrs Hudson helped,' Sherlock replied absently.

'You did not have her lugging hot water upstairs did you?'

'What if I did?'

'Sherlock' John turned around fully now to berate his friend. 'She has a bad hip!'

'The mind controls the body, not the other way around.'

'She's not you.'

'Don't be ridiculous, no one is me.'

'You never answered my question, what is bathtub thinking.'

Sherlock sank back down into the bathtub. His feet disappearing into the depths and his bony white knees rising up like some sort of damp phoenix soaring above the bubble bath. Speaking of suds, all this movement was thinning them out . . . a lot!

John spun back around and addressed the door. 'What is bathtub thinking?'

'Four months, one week and six days.'

John tightened the grip on his towel, definitely someone's neck.

'Four months, one week and six days.' Sherlock repeated. 'Until your birthday.'

John blinked and did a quick calculation, 'How did you, never mind.'

'Armchair thinking is detective thinking, bathtub thinking,' there was more sloshing coming from behind John, 'well when I was a child I would spend hours trying to think of the perfect gift for Mummy . . . or Mycroft. But if I spent it in my room Mummy would chase me out, try to make me socialise. But if I was in the bath –'

'Bathtub thinking is personal thinking,' said John beginning to understand.

'The water is cold, if you're not going downstairs to get Mrs Hudson pass me a towel.'

John held his towel out behind him and started carefully walking backwards. His legs bumped against the foot of the tub.

'Thank you, John.' Sherlock's voice was full of amusement as the towel disappeared from John's hand. 'For an army doctor you can be quite squeamish.'

'Not at all, if you were naked and injured I would be perfectly fine. You're problem is you're not injured.' John sniffed the air, 'Why can I smell oranges?'

'Mandarin,' Sherlock corrected, 'it was the only bubble bath Mrs Hudson had.' There were the soft sounds of cloth being folded. 'You can turn around now, John.'

Taking a deep breath John Watson turned around to see Sherlock with the towel wrapped about his hips.

'Better?' Sherlock asked as he stepped out of the tub.

'Much,' John nodded with relief.

'Good, now be a good fellow and empty the bath, will you?'

'What, what's wrong with you?'

'John,' Sherlock admonished his friend. 'I'm wet; you wouldn't want me to catch a cold.'

John took a deep breath, counting to ten as he looked down into the tub, 'Did you get the rubber ducky from Mrs Hudson too?'

Sherlock turned back from the doorway. 'Don't be ridiculous,' he walked back and scooped the toy out of the water. He squeezed the duck.

SQUEEEE

'It's Mycroft's.'

'Of course it is.' John just shook his head at the thought of the older Holmes brother ever playing with a bath toy.

Sherlock waved the duck as he walked out of the bathroom. 'Water, John.'

Forget the blind date John was going out and getting blind drunk. 'It had better be one hell of a present,' he yelled.