Title: Simple Cures
Prompt: July 14 – TLC for Watson
Word Count: 1500
A/N: you can read their relationship here as good friends or pre-slash, just as you like. (Also, the remedy mentioned here doesn't really work; I tried it for the sake of research. Creative liberties!)
The accident that occurred at the corner of Wadsworth and White that August afternoon was a terrible one, involving no fewer than three carriages. It was mere good fortune for the victims that I was passing by with my bag newly restocked. One of the drivers died within twenty minutes from an arterial bleed not even a tourniquet could stop. Two passengers remained crushed beneath the twisted remains of a carriage for almost two hours until a group could be organized to free them. One woman with superficial cuts and scratches went into hysterics; another quietly collapsed with a nasty laceration crossing her entire hairline. And all the while came eddies of sound from the crowds, pierced by various screams of man and beast alike.
Finally the last patient was loaded onto the ambulance and the last living horse (one having died in the impact, the other mercifully shot) was led, limping, away. I realized from the shadows it was well into evening. Mrs. Hudson was, no doubt, keeping a supper ready for me but I had lost any appetite after working in such hot, gruesome conditions. And I had no desire to relive the afternoon by explaining my tardiness or my blood-spattered appearance. Instead, I retreated to the nearest pub.
Lemonade is often kept available for teetotalers. I knew that full well. Nevertheless, what I consumed that night was something a bit stronger. It did not keep back the memories of the afternoon – I knew that full well also – but it drew a pleasant curtain of numbness around me. It had been a long time since I had seen such bloodshed, and whatever mental calluses I had once possessed against horrors like that had softened and thinned. Thus I passed the time until the proprietor started to fidget and even the regular crowds began to depart. I came back to my full senses, more melancholy than ever. Baker Street was the only place I wished to be now.
Shortly thereafter I was hailing a cab and assessing the damage caused by my foolishness. Consuming alcohol on an empty stomach and spending hours in the sun without food or drink were chief among them. Soon, however, feeling my neck and face throb, I found another item to add to the list – sunburn.
In India and Afghanistan I developed a tolerance for high temperatures while my skin baked brown under the merciless sun. Of course, I had been far younger then. Even now I retained my tolerance for high temperatures, but more than a decade of English climes had worn away my tan. And, apparently, my very ability to tan. By the time I reached Baker Street I was nauseous and feverish with a pounding headache to boot. I had told Holmes I only meant to be gone an hour or so to refill my doctor's bag and I dreaded having to explain things to him.
It was a relief to see no lights on in our sitting room; the inevitable could be put off a little while longer. I left my jacket and hat at the door, and opted to carry my boots as I crept up the stairs. By the faint light of the lamp outside, I found a headache powder in my bag and emptied it into a glass of water.
"What's happened to your ear?"
I turned. Holmes stood in the doorway of his bedroom, clad in his nightshirt. How he could see the damage I could not say, for I could scarcely make out his features in the dark.
"Sunburn," I answered briefly.
He crossed over to me as I drank the bitter medication. "It looks severe."
I shrugged. "A few blisters."
He brought a hand up as if to assess my condition by touch but checked himself. "Wait here."
He was but a few moments. When he returned, he carried a glass of some kind of liquid which he handed to me. It was ginger water, wonderfully refreshing, that dispelled what was left of the nausea. However, it could not keep my head from pounding abominably or lessen the pain of the burns.
"Can you make it upstairs?" he asked, almost off-handedly, though his intent gaze never left my face.
"I think so." By virtue of gripping the railing and moving slowly, I found that I was able. Holmes followed me a step behind all the way until I was safely ensconced in my own room. With that, he left.
No doubt he meant to return to his bed. There was no reason for him not to. With a sigh I arranged myself on top of the coverlet and tried to sleep. Folly, of course. I could still hear the screams of the afternoon echoing in my mind.
A creak of floorboards and the gentle clink of glass against wood let me know I was not alone. I raised my head at the disturbance. It had grown darker and Holmes had lit a couple of candles. He had also brought up a small pitcher of what smelled like strong cider vinegar.
"What on earth -?"
"I thought it might help," he replied simply. "I have some personal experience with sunburn, you see, and found vinegar to be a most effective treatment."
"Vinegar," I repeated dully.
"It causes no harm, I assure you, unless it happens to run into one's eyes. Then it stings like the very devil."
"I can imagine."
"Would you care to try it?"
He asked the question in such a way that I was free to decline if I wished. I had little faith in the treatment, but Holmes had said he had used it to good effect and I could not believe that he would recommend vinegar unless it did indeed work.
"So long as I can keep it out of my eyes." I made to sit up but Holmes held up a hand.
"No, lay down. I can see where the worst of the sunburn is whereas you cannot."
"Perhaps not, but I can feel it," I muttered.
"I do not doubt that," he smiled. "Close your eyes now or what you will be feeling is even more pain." So saying, he dipped his handkerchief into the vinegar, squeezed it slightly, and applied it to my forehead in light dabs. Once that was finished, he moved on to my ears, nose, and cheeks. The vinegar stung initially but that soon subsided.
"I suppose you are wondering how I came to know of this remedy?" Holmes asked at length, continuing his ministrations.
"You suppose rightly."
At first Holmes said nothing. I heard the sound of his handkerchief being sloshed through the vinegar again and felt the wet, stinging touch of the cloth on my face.
"It was the summer before I began university," he said at last. "I went to visit my grandmother in France, along the coast, to both polish my French and reacquaint myself with my maternal family. I was scarcely more social in France than I was in England but there was one activity I enjoyed with the local boys: swimming. It was the Continental fashion of the area to swim in short trousers, bare-chested. I saw no reason not to emulate them.
"Of course, I was used to temperate English climes. Nor had I ever exposed such large portions of my skin to such direct sunlight. By the end of the day I looked and felt as raw and red as freshly butchered meat. I could scarcely hobble home and by the time I did I was covered in fearsome blisters.
"Grandmere sat up the entire night with me, sponge-bathing every inch of burned skin with her homemade apple vinegar. At dawn she let me sleep and I awoke feeling nearly myself again. The worst of the burns remained, of course, but the pain was gone. Grandmere waited until I was peeling to scold me for my utter foolishness. She was eminently practical that way."
"She sounds like a remarkable woman," I murmured, fighting drowsiness.
"She was that," Holmes agreed softly. "She was a daughter of the artist Vernet. Her brother was an artist of some renown as well but her own talents lay in wood carvings. Oh, yes," he laughed when I opened my eyes to look at him in disbelief. "Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms. I have a cane she carved for her father if you doubt her skill."
Holmes likely continued speaking after that but I confess I ceased to listen, the sound of his voice lulling me to sleep. I am quite sure he discovered I had attended the accident, although he never asked me and I certainly did not volunteer the reason. At any rate, I don't think it would have mattered much. He saw that I was distressed and in pain, and he sought, in his own way, to remedy that, regardless of the cause. It was a simple cure but an effective one.