December 26: "Boxing" (from Domina Temporis)

A/N: Special thanks to Wikipedia and a couple of lengthy car rides for combining to provide me with way more boxing trivia than I'll ever need.

Mrs. Hudson was a tolerant woman, but there was one of Sherlock Holmes's activities that she never could stand: bare-knuckle boxing.

The day Holmes trudged up the stairs and into the sitting room with purple bruises around his eye and on his hands and a handkerchief—dripping blood—clapped to his nose, the worthy landlady decided that she would take no more.

"It's bad enough you come home broken and bleeding after hunting down horrid criminals, but to get blood on my rugs because you go and seek out a fight—"

"Fisticuffs is a genuine sbort!" Holmes insisted, wincing with pain. Watson made a hasty retreat up the stairs, though he could still hear the raging argument from the floor below.

"The Queen doesn't think so and neither do I!" Mrs. Hudson replied. The Doctor shook his head as he snatched up his medical bag from its place next to his bed, and headed back down the stairs, where Holmes was apparently beginning an unwelcome history lecture.

"Boxing dates back to the ancient Greeks and Roman tibes, and has had reasonable rules and limitations since 1867. Besides, it requires a good deal bore strategy than a street fight, as well as being buch bore civilized—"

"Civilized?" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed. "No mother would be able to take a look at her boy after one of those fights and agree with you!"

Holmes was now standing by the fire, and Mrs. Hudson had advanced several steps towards him, an accusatory finger jabbing in his direction.

"For heaven's sake, Holmes!" Watson broke in, "just agree to clean the blood out of her rug."

Holmes only growled, and threw himself down in his chair.

Mrs. Hudson threw her hands up in a gesture of despair, and stormed out of the sitting room.

"Let me take a look at that," said Watson.

"It's probably fine," Holmes growled.

Watson shrugged, but left his medical kit on a nearby table.

A few hours later, Holmes's injuries had been treated, and the blood had been cleaned from the rugs. Nothing more was said of the matter, and after several weeks had passed Watson and Mrs. Hudson began to think that Holmes had ceased to pursue that particular hobby.

That is, until the day Holmes brought home a portrait of James Figg, the first bare-knuckle champion of England, and hung it over the fireplace.