Drowning.
“...Scrubbing your floors, if the state of her knees is anything to go by,” even now, sitting in the flat that, until a few hours ago, he shared with his wife, Heather, Anderson’s fists clench. The flat smells faintly of Heather’s perfume, and he watches her ghost in the dimly lit apartment. She’s laughing, drinking wine, napping, reading, shouting, throwing a plate, throwing Sally’s underpants on the table like a snake between them. Packing, leaving. He growls. It was too much. The freak must have tipped off his girlfriend, what would she be doing going through his underwear drawer anyway? Anderson kicks a chair, and it hurts. There's the smell of old sex in the bedroom, the smell of the lasagne they were going to have for dinner in the oven, and her moisturiser lingers in the bathroom. She’s left some things behind. A pair of earrings, a scarf on the back of the door. Heather’s presence suffocates in the quiet flat. Sally’s underwear is a silent accusation on the coffee table. He slams the front door behind him.
In the club, he drinks too much vodka, spins round the heaving dance-floor. Then someone offers him ‘a little something’, snorted through a ten-pound note off a table. A long white line. Why the hell not? Heather wouldn’t approve, but to hell with her. His synapses sparkle, on top of the world, ma! He giggles and sits back. He’s the sexiest man in the room, he knows it, and they know it. He texts Sally ‘How about it?’ A reply: ‘Not tonight. Go jerk off or something’ Anderson growls. How dare he? He takes another hit, smiling foolishly as the drug lifts him up again, but it is short-lived when he sees the text from Sally. Something must be done; he bangs his fist on the table. A glass breaks, and he feels the sharp sting and a trickle of blood. It’s all that freak’s fault, that Heather left, that Sally doesn’t want to. The only thing for it, he decides, is to have it out with him. Find the freak, and tell him exactly what he thinks.
John went out for dinner with some friends, so Sherlock has the place to himself. He feels grubby; the sewers were not the most pleasant place he has ever visited. The gentleman he went to visit was also a bad host- slamming your visitor into a wall to get away is not an accepted social protocol, as far as he is aware. His shoulder aches. A bath then. The water fills the tub, reluctantly. It’s quiet in the flat, deafeningly so, except for the sound of the water rushing in the pipes. Sherlock calculates how long it will take for the bath to fill, how much water he will displace, how long he would have before the water goes cold, how many- he shakes his head, but the calculations keep buzzing round his skull. He sighs, and casts his mind briefly to the bottom drawer of his bedside table. One dose? No, he's promised himself never again... The pipes clunk and groan- haven’t been replaced since the nineteen thirties, partial repairs carried out more recently... He turns off the taps, drops his dressing-gown and steps into the bath. The water ripples, and Sherlock dunks his head under the warm water. His muscles unknot and he scrubs his hair with John’s shampoo. He won’t ever tell John this, but the smell of his no-nonsense shampoo is comforting at the end of a long day. He disappears under the water again, and scrubs his hair till the grime and clinging smell of the sewers is gone. Lying back in the old tub, he lifts a lazy hand and watches water droplets off the ends of his fingers. His ears are full of water, the clanging goes some way to silence his mind, which is working out how many of the tiles will be covered in steam when he gets out of the bath.
Anderson gets into the apartment easily enough (key under the mat, must be the landlady or the freak’s friend) some of the drug is wearing off, but he’s bought a bottle with him and he takes a healthy slug as he goes up the stairs. There’s no one in the living room, and he slips through to the bathroom.
“What the hell?” The freak is sitting in the bath, pale and vulnerable. His hair is plastered to his head.
“She left me,” Anderson offers through the spinning in his brain. “And and you told her!”
The freak blinks, and sits up, apparently unaware of his nudity. “Who?”
“You told- you told Heather,” Anderson snarls. His fingers flex. The freak merely looks at him, as though he doesn’t have the faintest idea. His eyelashes are clumped together.
“Look, Anderson-,” he moves to get up, he’s going to attack him, he’s laughing at him. Anderson leaps first, and they go down with a splash. A confused moment of fists and limbs and water and then Anderson is holding the freak’s head underwater, watching silvery bubbles come up as he tries to grab purchase on the slick tiles or the edge of the tub-
Sherlock was never sure how it would have ended. Anderson was on some sort of drug, and drunk, that much was clear. He can’t gain a purchase on anything, Anderson has the advantage. He can see his life bubbling away above him, and his lungs scream for air in a consistent and nagging whine. Suddenly the pressure comes off his head and he surfaces, gasping, soap stinging his eyes. As the water runs out of his ears he can hear shouting coming from the hall and the sounds of a fight. His head hurts, he must have banged it, and he feels light-headed... He leant against the side of the tub, the water has mostly slopped out and he notices with some detachment the remaining water has turned a pinkish colour. Blood. Whose? For the first time that night, Sherlock’s brain stutters, and stops.
John is glad he came home early, and not just because dinner had been dull. He hauls the man standing over the tub out of the bathroom by the back of his jacket and then thumps him across the face, closed fist. The man reels back, clutching his jaw, and John avoids his wild haymaker. He drives a fist hard into the man’s side, and he lets out a cough of air and stumbles back to the opposite wall.
“Anderson? What the hell are you doing?” The other man’s eyes are wide and the pupils are dilated. “Are- are you high?” John is appalled.
“She left- had it coming,” he mumbles, and throws up on the carpet. John gives him a look of disgust.
“I can’t believe you,” he said. Anderson crumples, which lands him in his own puke. John goes back into the bathroom, where Sherlock is still in the tub. The floor is sopping wet, and John notes that Sherlock’s favourite dressing-gown is lying in a pool on the ground. His eyes are shut, and blood mingles with the water dripping from his hair. John pulls the plug and the rest of the water drains out the tub. He can hear movement outside, then the door slams. That’s not important right now, though. What’s important is the job in front of him.
“Sherlock? Can you hear me?”John shrugs off his jacket and throws it outside the door so it won’t get wet. He kicks off his shoes as well, and kneels by the tub. “Sherlock!”
The taller man mumbles something. John gets up with a slight grunt, and steps into the tub. His socks are soaking, and his jeans are heavy and wet. He moves Sherlock’s head forward. No fracture, but a nasty bang, probably from the side of the tub. He looks at the watery blood on his fingers and swears under his breath. Just knocked out, but the head wound needs looking at. John leans his friend’s head back again, gently, and steps out the bath. Moving swiftly, he grabs the towels that live over the door, and wraps one round Sherlock’s shoulders, the other round his waist.
“Come on, Sherlock, time to get up,” he wraps his arm round the taller man’s waist and fits his shoulder under Sherlock’s arm and lifts. Sherlock lolls, like a rag-doll.
“Come on,” John steps out of the tub, carefully pulling Sherlock behind him. Sherlock’s eyes flutter.
“John?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Can I get a little help?”
“Tried to drown me, John. Can’t think...” Sherlock, with John’s help, starts to move to the living room. A concussion, probably, John thinks.
“Yes, I know,” he says grimly, and deposits him on the sofa. He fetches the medical kit he keeps in the living room (easier than going upstairs every time he needed it), and uses cotton wool to clean the blood from the back of Sherlock’s head. Sherlock winces, but allows John’s ministrations.
“I’d just washed my hair,” he whispers as John applies a stinging antiseptic and allows him to sit up again.
“You used my shampoo again. Why don’t you buy your own?” John keeps his voice mild, but Sherlock has a bruise coming up on his shoulder, on his knees and another on his arm. Anderson has a lot to answer for. He fetches Sherlock’s pyjamas, and the orange blanket that is only used when either of them are sick. He lets Sherlock lie on the couch.
“He was going to kill me, John,” Sherlock mutters and John feels something clench inside. He holds Sherlock’s hand, and Sherlock grasps it back. “’M tired, can’t think,” he opens his eyes, and John can see the panic in his eyes for the first time.
“You’re okay, it’s just, it’s just a concussion. You’ll feel fine in the morning,” John says. He feels helpless, and the something clenched inside starts to burn.
“Will you stay?” Sherlock shuts his eyes again. The entreaty sends an icicle through his gut and John doesn’t know what to do. He tucks the blanket round his flatmate and says “Of course. Go to sleep,” Sherlock doesn’t say anything more, and after a while, his breathing evens out, though his brow is still furrowed. John smoothes his damp hair from his forehead, and carefully disentangles himself. He knows he said he’d stay, but he has a matter to attend to first.
Anderson can’t quite remember how he got home, but he has. He falls onto the bed, clothes and all. All he wants to do is sleep; most of the night seems like a strange dream-
There’s someone in the flat. Maybe Heather has come back, but Anderson is too drunk to care. He stays where he is. Maybe she’s sorry, and she wants to make up. He rolls over onto his back and then someone is straddling him. A man, judging by the rough voice. He slaps Anderson twice, almost negligently, and Anderson cries out.
“Shut up!” A gun is pressed to his chin, and the man puts his face close to his ear, hisses: “This is just a friendly chat, right? Between you and me and the wall, okay?”
Anderson whimpers. His shoulder-blades dig into the bed.
“Don’t come near Sherlock Holmes again. Understand? Don’t even speak to him if you don’t have to. If you so much as look at him wrong, I’ll come back. Do you hear me?”
Anderson swallows and nods. He’s feeling pretty damn sober. The man sits back, and punches him hard in the side. He chokes. The man puts the gun up. Tears run down the side of Anderson’s face, and into his hair and ears.
“Coward,” the man sneers and gets off the bed. Points his gun at Anderson. “Next time... Next time, the gun will be loaded,”
Sherlock is still asleep on the couch when John gets back, the blanket tangled round his long limbs. He’s dreaming, sighing in his sleep. John sits down like he never left.
“John?” Sherlock rolls over.
“Just checking,” John carefully probes his hair, and Sherlock grimaces and flinches away. “Don’t be such a wuss. You’re going to be fine, you just need rest,”
“My head hurts,” Sherlock sounds grumpy as he tries to pry himself upright. “Ow...”
“You’ve got some bruising too. Honestly, can you not even take a bath without someone trying to kill you?”
“Oh, ha ha,” Sherlock lies back down, and rolls over, curling up. There’s silence for a moment. “I’m glad you came,” Sherlock says, abruptly, though John can hear sleep sucking at the edges of his voice.
“So am I,” John pats Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock takes it, long fingers curling round his. “Don’ go,” he slurs, almost asleep.
“I’m not going anywhere,” John says. He makes himself comfortable in the hollow that Sherlock’s knees have left, and still holding his hand, falls asleep.