Chapter 5
Cold Comfort
The front door banged open as I carried my plate through to the living room, and Sherlock strode in with a flourish. It was an ability I envied; doing perfectly ordinary things like walking through doors with a flourish, one that Sherlock pulled off effortlessly.
"Hello", I greeted him calmly, as I couldn't always be pandering to his ego with exclamations of surprise. I then looked at him more closely. "Why are you so dusty? You have cobwebs in your hair. And - ugh, Sherlock, you actually smell horrible - like you've been left at the bottom of a damp PE bag for a week."
"Thanks", he said, making for the sofa. I leapt to my feet to pre-empt him, hurriedly putting my ginger snaps out of reach.
"No you don't! Change first!"
I went to push him in the small of his back towards the bathroom, which was when I noticed he was damp as well as dusty, and absolutely freezing. From the brief contact, I could feel him shivering.
"Seriously, Sherlock, what have you been doing? You're heading towards hypothermia!" I grabbed his hands (blocks of ice) and pressed the back of my hand to his right cheek (cold and clammy) as I spoke, feeling his teeth chattering as I did so.
"I've been in the air conditioning system at Darkwood Warehouse."
"Why?" I asked, as I hustled him in into the bathroom and started the bath running. He sat on the toilet seat and treated me to one of his light speed, blink-and-you-miss-the-punchline style speeches.
"I told you there was something a bit odd about those 'canaries'. The beak was all wrong for a seed-eater. They were small Galapagos finches; insect feeders. They dyed their feathers to conceal them; they're very valuable. Lewis was a fence for an illegal exotic animal smuggling ring, that's why Trafford was killed. I guessed there was something odd going on when I noticed the yellow pigment under his finger nails. He worked originally with a major chemical company developing dyes for food; non-toxic, permanent. There was a tiny feather caught up in his cuff button hole, yet Lewis said he didn't work in the shop. He left a well paid job, yet had erratic but large deposits paid into his bank account - online banking, left his emails logged in and emailed his own details to himself to help him remember his username and password, not the careful type. I checked his car too, parking tickets for the NCP just down the road from Darkwood. I checked all possible premises in the area, only Darkwood seemed blandly unsuspicious enough to be suspicious. Bit difficult to get in, but there was an ancient air vent. Bit cold and musty in there, obviously not serviced for years, but they've started running it again recently; why? Because they have deliveries of animals in there that require a narrow range of ambient temperature. Unfortunately, this week it was snowy owls; very popular apparently, but not the most comfortable setting for me - waited for hours for them to turn up, but they did in the end. Called the police, but had to wait until they'd gone, as strictly speaking I shouldn't have been in there."
"Bloody hell, Sherlock. Brilliant and all, but idiotic as well." My flatmate was now shivering so hard he looked as if he was in soft focus. "Why, on this one occasion, did you not have the bat-cape?"
"If you mean my coat, it's at the cleaners. As is your best suit."
"What? Why? What did you do?"
"Unimportant. I'm fixing it", he said, evasively. I sighed, then recollected that he was beginning to turn blue.
"Right, clothes off."
"Thought you'd never ask."
"Less smart arse, more stripping."
He smirked at me, standing and moving his hands to the buttons on the jacket. I turned away, arms folded, with a scowl. I wasn't about to let him get distracted and just rinse off under the shower; I was making sure he raised his core temperature. He was taking ages. I heard a little huff of frustration, and turned to see him still struggling with the second button.
"Er, John."
"Oh, for... your poor hands. It's not good you know, getting so cold you can't manage your own buttons properly. You could have got frostbite."
"Rubbish."
"Doctor, remember", I muttered, starting to undo his jacket and shirt for him.
"So you should know better."
I stripped his top half off, moved on to his shoes and socks, and make quick work of his belt and flies.
"Right, you can take it from here."
"Aren't you going to leave? Nazi interrogation technique, watching people undress, you know."
"I'm not watching. I'm hovering and supervising, there's a difference."
"You just can't resist my musk."
I grabbed the damp hand towel from the rail and thwacked him hard across his naked bum with it.
"Get in the bath, Holmes!"
"Ow! I'm not one of your juvenile rugby friends you know."
"No, you're my juvenile solving-crime friend, and don't whine, you probably went to boarding school."
"Aah, that's nice!" he sighed involuntarily as he slid into the water. "You might actually be right that this was a good idea." He dunked his head under the surface, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. I tossed him another towel as he emerged.
"Wrap this around your head. Conserve that heat. Tea, coffee or hot chocolate?"
"Chocolate, please. May as well add to my girly air of decadence."
"An ordinary warm bath when you're unhealthily cold's hardly girly. I could've insisted on bubbles – you really do stink, you know."
"Yes, you did mention. Got any Matey? That was de rigeur the last time I used bubble bath."
I started to giggle. "How have you not deleted that? That's as 80's as white dog poo, and about as relevant."
He was grinning happily. "I used to like making myself a foamy white beard. It must have sparked off my interest in disguises, so I somehow misfiled it under 'useful'. Anyway, it seems deletion of anything pre-fifth birthday is more difficult – primitive CPU, I suppose." He disappeared underwater again, and I wandered off, still chuckling, to the kitchen.
As I filled the kettle, I used my own little mental filing system to store this rare nugget of Sherlock's past. He'd always been cagey about it; it was partly why Moriarty's final scheme had been so effective. Must be the rapid changes in temperature making him so loquacious; whatever the cause, I relished knowing a little more about the child that maketh the man, especially when he revealed he had done something as ordinary and childish as make bubble-bath-beards.
I made an enormous mug of Cadbury's drinking chocolate for my icy friend, and a tea for me, then headed back to the bathroom. I found Sherlock with thick lather in his hair, and a flannel draped creatively to keep it out of his eyes. It was obviously his second shampooing; the residue of the first clouded the water. He took the chocolate with an appreciation he didn't often show for sustenance, and grimaced at me.
"I'm hoping leaving the shampoo in for a while will get rid of the smell."
"It's less offensive in here already."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Feeling warmer yet?"
He sipped at his drink, a lot of cat-like pleasure at the warm steam wafting up at him crossing his face.
"Getting there. It's highly unpleasant, being that cold."
"That would be your body warning you not to freeze to death."
He snorted into his mug. I gave up on the lecture, but popped two Paracetamol caplets out from their foil packet and handed them to him.
"Take these too. It's common to get a bit of an inflammatory response after hypothermia. So, this case all sounds very fascinating. How about you tell me about it at a sensible speed, without leaving out all the steps your super-computer brain passed through to solve it?"
He visibly preened at the compliment; sufficiently compensated not only to swallow the caplets without complaint, but to go through the "boring" process of explaining himself to mere mortals. As ever, I was more impressed once I'd had the explanation than I'd been when it all seemed like a magic trick. The logic's always so beautiful; simple yet elegant – it's what's always made those who know him best remain utterly loyal to him even when he's an obnoxious prick.
I topped up the bath with more hot water whilst he was still in mid-stream, and was satisfied he should be properly warmed up by the time he finished his narrative.
"Right. I'm going to make chorizo omelette and sautéed potatoes with runner beans. It'll be a culinary masterpiece, so you'd better come and eat some of it. Ready in fifteen minutes."
"Alright. I'll just shower off this water, and hopefully I'll be a bearable flatmate again."
"Unlikely, but you'll smell nice."
His laugh followed me out of the door.
He joined me downstairs just as I was taking the beans out of the microwave and tipping them onto the plates, clad in pyjamas, thick socks, and one of my biggest jumpers under his dressing gown.
"Hope you don't mind. It's warmer than anything I've got."
"Not at all. I'm amazed you even bothered to mention it. You never do with my laptop."
He grinned and padded to the cupboard to fetch the cutlery and ketchup, as well as drinks for us both. Sherlock is somebody who prefers actions to words, and I suppose his helpful behaviour was in lieu of a thank you.
After dinner, he began to look hot and sweaty, and started losing layers. He grumbled about not feeling well, I replied that this was the inflammatory response I had spoken about, and only what he could expect after his reckless behaviour, he pretended to sulk, and we watched a crap detective programme on the telly together, which he ruined the end of.
Normality restored.
At least until three days later. Five days later, I was scared in a way I hadn't been since I stared up at a small figure on the roof of Barts' Hospital.
-oOo-
Before you leave, does anyone recognise this photo of Sherlock and John (fill in the spaces on the web address)?
http :/ www . digitalspy. co. uk / ustv / s129 / sherlock/news/a360768/elementary-cbs-develops-modern-day-sherlock-holmes-pilot. html
I can't picture having seen it in any other episode. It looks like they're standing in an… empty house, doesn't it? Or maybe it's really obviously from an episode that's already been on and I just can't remember it!
-oOo-
I felt I needed to get the boys back to normal life after all the heartache of Reichenbach! We've had plenty of fics about linen trucks, lines of sight, screaming little girls, cyclists, squash balls, pulses, Irregulars, masks, dummies or dead bodies (nah! You can see his arms flailing!), Molly's secret role, Mycroft's secret role, Sherlock's out of character moment, John in varying stages of distress and so on, and yet I still can't decide which clues are red herrings and which aren't!
(If you want my feelings though, I'd subscribe to a variant of the soft landing and pulse blocking theory. I'm fairly certain Moriarty is dead, as Moffat and Gatiss usually do stay true to the theme of the original stories, and I sincerely hope they'll make both Holmes boys look less puppety and more proactive in the new season – at present, I don't see much sign of the cunning that the original Holmes painstakingly dismantled Moriarty's network with, and Mycroft seems a buffoon! Ah well, won't know for sure until series 3. Roll on, the Empty House!)
Anyway, the one thing that seems certain is that Sherlock will come back to John eventually, and will continue being Sherlocky and getting himself into trouble. Next chapter will look at how much trouble…. you see, I want my normal Sherlock fics back! If you do too, spur me on with a review please!
Thanks so much to those of you who've sent me such lovely reviews already! You cheered me up, so I'm glad I was able to perform the same service for some of you.