Shkinkmeme fic #1
My first fic for shkinkmeme.
Martha Hudson has been lodging boarders for nearly two decades now, and while each of the five pairs before her current tenants were upright and respectable, none of them engendered such a feeling of motherhood as the private detective and the loyal doctor. Running a household is not an easy task, but between cleaning broken glass from yet another shattered window (the fourth this month) and trying to decide whether hot or cold water will best get that unidentifiable stain out of Doctor Watson’s waistcoat, she finds herself contemplating her boys upstairs.
The Good Doctor (as she refers to him in her head, capital letters and all) is the more outwardly demonstrative of the two. He’s always the first to tender his gratitude, the first to offer apologies, and the last to complain if the roast doesn’t come out quite the way she expected. His partner, while not as outwardly effusive, is equally courteous, in his own fashion. Oh, Mr. Holmes may rant and rail about her poisoning the food and make snide comments about her upkeep of the house, but she has never once been cheated by any worker she’s called and the pair of them are always (almost suspiciously) absent for the week of the anniversary of her husband’s death. And Heaven help the customer who is rude or belittling to her in the foyer. Mr. Holmes seems to be in tune with everything that goes on in the house, and no matter how interesting the case, the supplicant will soon find themselves out on the front stoop with an admonition to “Mind your manners around a lady.”
It is because of her attachment to them that Mrs. Hudson begins to pick up on certain signs of the success or failure of Mr. Homes’s cases. Thus, after arriving home from her knitting circle on a cold and wet November evening, when she sees slush from outside in her foyer and only Mr. Holmes’s coat and hat dripping water on the floor, she merely hangs up her shawl and goes to the kitchen to start two kettles-the largest she owns for bath and cleaning water and the other for tea. There is not much in her opinion (and the Doctor’s, if his constant entreaties to Mr. Holmes are to be believed) that can’t be fixed with a nice cup of hot, sweet tea.
Twenty minutes later, carrying a tray of hot water, her oldest towels, and all the necessaries for tea, she enters the sitting room. She doesn’t immediately see the two men, but she can hear them bickering as if they’d lived together all their lives instead of just the past year.
“Hold still, Watson” is the first thing she hears. But there is no fear in Mr. Holmes’s voice, just a large amount of frustration and the tiniest bit of that particular tone that is especially effective in calming wild horses, young street urchins, and wounded doctors. “I promise I’ll be done as soon as I can.”
As she carefully makes her way to the detective’s bedroom, she is brought up short by the childish, utterly exhausted voice of the doctor. “Holmes! You’re not making it tight enough. You’ll never stop the bloodflow that way! And you’ll never keep the dressing on with that knot.”
The sharp tone with which the detective replies belies his frustration. “Well, this would be a lot easier if you would stop wriggling like some child who’s fallen and scraped his knee. How am I supposed to fix this with you moving about and complaining all the time? Now, hold still while I rewrap your arm.”
“You know, I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself. I did attend medical school and have more than enough practical experience to take care of a knife wound. Especially one as trifling as this is.” Doctor Watson is not about to give up without a fight.
Mrs. Hudson has to hold her breath to keep from laughing at the loud, expressive snort the great detective gives at this pronouncement. It is only the knowledge that this banter serves as much to calm their nerves as to vent frustration that prevents her from interrupting them. Whatever traces of amusement she feels, however, are completely dissipated the instant Holmes rejoinders with “And the broken fingers on your other hand, my dear fellow? How exactly do you propose to deal with those? The only thing more useless than a doctor with one damaged appendage is one with two.”
The silence that follows that statement makes her think that the Doctor has taken offence, because while the two of them seem to have no boundaries on what buttons they allow the other to push they each seem to have subconsciously written rules for their own behavior. Taunting a man who only just regained his sense of worth after a stunning defeat, grievous injury, and incapacitating illness seems to her beyond the pale. She steps forward to intervene on the Good Doctor’s behalf when Holmes calls out to her.
“I would be grateful, Mrs. Hudson, if you would enter rather than skulking about outside my door.”
She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised that the detective knows she’s out there, but she is slightly startled. Quickly, she composes herself and enters the room, making a point not to look at those awful pictures above his bed. Once she steps over the threshold, the startling scene of near-domesticity is enough to take her breath away. The doctor’s coat and jacket are tossed haphazardly across Mr. Holmes’s desk chair with his hat balanced precariously on top. The doctor himself is sitting on the bed, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, slumped forward with his head leaning on Holmes’s shoulder. Mr. Holmes looks at her over Doctor Watson’s bowed head and raises just one eyebrow in a silent warning not to wake him. She gives him a minute nod and merely places the tray on the nightstand within easy reach. Pitching her voice low, she asks, “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, this should be quite sufficient for the night.” Holmes replies, effectively dismissing her and turning his attention back to his careful work of bandaging the six-inch gash on the doctor’s arm. Mrs. Hudson turns to go, but in the process knocks over one of the myriad jars the detective keeps around the rooms for what he calls “specimen collection.” The falling glassware makes only a small sound and does not shatter, but it’s enough to startle Watson out of his doze. The glare Holmes gives her as she turns back to apologize would be enough to stop the most hardened criminal in their tracks, but is merely a mild reproof to a woman who’s raised three boys nearly on her own.
She quickly apologizes to the doctor, but armed with his assurance that she’s done no harm and his thanks for the supplies, she retreats back through the sitting room. A sudden thought strikes her as she passes the settee, covered in stacks of papers and books, and she pauses to clear the sofa itself and a path from it to the bedroom door.
“You are not staying to attempt to eavesdrop. You are merely acknowledging the most likely scenario.” This rationalization does not do much to reduce the slight shame she feels at listening to two such private individuals, but she cannot help herself all the same. Besides, they might need something further and it would be a terrible thing for them to be unable to reach her in such a case. Almost immediately, her diligence is rewarded when she hears the argument start up again as if it had never paused.
“Holmes!” she hears the doctor exclaim. “Now it’s too tight! I can barely feel my fingers at all.”
There is a long-suffering sigh from the detective as he evidentially begins to re-rewrap the bandages. “My apologies, Watson. However, you must make some allowances for someone who has an accurate but unsystematic knowledge of anatomy.”
The small barb strikes home. “Wherever did you read that?”
The detective snorts again, “When you leave sheets of paper with your random scribblings about on every flat surface, it makes them public property. I am, therefore, well within my rights to read them. Especially when I find myself the subject of their oft unflattering descriptions. “
With a slightly lower, calming pitch to his voice, Watson replies “Holmes, those were just amusing anecdotes. They are not intended for public consumption. Nor did I mean to demean your not inconsiderable knowledge. I was merely endeavouring to illustrate that while your brain holds a considerable store of facts and data, you have so honed your skill as to be the ultimate thinking machine in all matters criminal.”
His fellow-lodger seems appeased by this, but refrains from further comment. Instead, he focuses on his completed bandage job. “There. How is that, friend Watson?”
The “Much better, thank you, Holmes” is followed by the smallest of sighs. Mrs. Hudson nearly relaxes until she remembers the broken fingers. True to form, Mr. Holmes seems to be reading her mind. “Now, about those fingers. How would you prefer to handle them? Quickly or with warning?”
There is a quick pause of silence and then Mrs. Hudson nearly jumps out of her skin with the muffled squeak the doctor emits. “Holmes! I hadn’t even processed the question properly yet.”
Holmes’s “I know, Watson. I had already deduced that you would prefer to handle this quickly before the pain grew much worse. The question was merely to distract you as your usual quick wit seems to have deserted you.”
There’s the sound of quiet grumbling which she can’t quite make out and a bit of shuffling around, so she goes back to industriously clearing up the detritus in the sitting room. With the last book neatly placed on the doctor’s bookshelves and the papers finally cleared away Mrs. Hudson starts to retreat down the stairs. She hears the door to the bedroom snick shut quietly and she looks up to see Mr. Holmes. He does not immediately look at her, but the pained expression on his face is nearly enough to break her heart. Walking over to him, she gently places her hand on his arm. The small startle he gives indicates far more than any words could ever hope to his distress. For him to be so far inside his own thoughts as to not hear her approach speaks of a trying day and a likely sleepless night.
“Come sit down, Mr. Holmes. I’ve enough hot water downstairs for a bath, if you’d so desire.”
Her lodger shakes off her concern and moves to the sideboard, pouring a brandy and silently offering her the same. Shaking her head, she gently guides him to the newly-cleared sofa and says, “He’ll be fine. A good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast in the morning and he’ll be right as rain. He won’t take kindly to you neglecting yourself, though.” Eventually, she stops making words and resorts to soft hushing noises as his head falls to the back of the sofa and his eyes slip shut. His fingers grow minutely slacker, and she is forced to grab the glass before it falls to the floor. With much prodding and pushing, eventually he slides sideways, stretched out on the cushions with his head on a pillow she’d conveniently placed there earlier.
Looking around for the afghan she leaves in the room for just such a purpose (although, if asked, she’d swear it was for decoration), she finds it in the chair the doctor prefers. A sleepless night last night as well, then. The mother-hen in her clucks gently and settles the blanket over the sleeping detective who promptly burrows under it with a small sigh. She can’t help herself and gently lays her hand on top of the sleek black hair before heading back downstairs for the night. Once she reaches her room, she sets her alarm for slightly earlier than she’s used to. The pastries Doctor Watson prefers (and Mr. Holmes is the least reluctant to eat) take a bit longer than normal. Eventually, she forces herself to stop planning for tomorrow and get some much-needed rest. Her boys will need her in the morning.
Martha Hudson has been lodging boarders for nearly two decades now, and while each of the five pairs before her current tenants were upright and respectable, none of them engendered such a feeling of motherhood as the private detective and the loyal doctor. Running a household is not an easy task, but between cleaning broken glass from yet another shattered window (the fourth this month) and trying to decide whether hot or cold water will best get that unidentifiable stain out of Doctor Watson’s waistcoat, she finds herself contemplating her boys upstairs.
The Good Doctor (as she refers to him in her head, capital letters and all) is the more outwardly demonstrative of the two. He’s always the first to tender his gratitude, the first to offer apologies, and the last to complain if the roast doesn’t come out quite the way she expected. His partner, while not as outwardly effusive, is equally courteous, in his own fashion. Oh, Mr. Holmes may rant and rail about her poisoning the food and make snide comments about her upkeep of the house, but she has never once been cheated by any worker she’s called and the pair of them are always (almost suspiciously) absent for the week of the anniversary of her husband’s death. And Heaven help the customer who is rude or belittling to her in the foyer. Mr. Holmes seems to be in tune with everything that goes on in the house, and no matter how interesting the case, the supplicant will soon find themselves out on the front stoop with an admonition to “Mind your manners around a lady.”
It is because of her attachment to them that Mrs. Hudson begins to pick up on certain signs of the success or failure of Mr. Homes’s cases. Thus, after arriving home from her knitting circle on a cold and wet November evening, when she sees slush from outside in her foyer and only Mr. Holmes’s coat and hat dripping water on the floor, she merely hangs up her shawl and goes to the kitchen to start two kettles-the largest she owns for bath and cleaning water and the other for tea. There is not much in her opinion (and the Doctor’s, if his constant entreaties to Mr. Holmes are to be believed) that can’t be fixed with a nice cup of hot, sweet tea.
Twenty minutes later, carrying a tray of hot water, her oldest towels, and all the necessaries for tea, she enters the sitting room. She doesn’t immediately see the two men, but she can hear them bickering as if they’d lived together all their lives instead of just the past year.
“Hold still, Watson” is the first thing she hears. But there is no fear in Mr. Holmes’s voice, just a large amount of frustration and the tiniest bit of that particular tone that is especially effective in calming wild horses, young street urchins, and wounded doctors. “I promise I’ll be done as soon as I can.”
As she carefully makes her way to the detective’s bedroom, she is brought up short by the childish, utterly exhausted voice of the doctor. “Holmes! You’re not making it tight enough. You’ll never stop the bloodflow that way! And you’ll never keep the dressing on with that knot.”
The sharp tone with which the detective replies belies his frustration. “Well, this would be a lot easier if you would stop wriggling like some child who’s fallen and scraped his knee. How am I supposed to fix this with you moving about and complaining all the time? Now, hold still while I rewrap your arm.”
“You know, I’m perfectly capable of doing this myself. I did attend medical school and have more than enough practical experience to take care of a knife wound. Especially one as trifling as this is.” Doctor Watson is not about to give up without a fight.
Mrs. Hudson has to hold her breath to keep from laughing at the loud, expressive snort the great detective gives at this pronouncement. It is only the knowledge that this banter serves as much to calm their nerves as to vent frustration that prevents her from interrupting them. Whatever traces of amusement she feels, however, are completely dissipated the instant Holmes rejoinders with “And the broken fingers on your other hand, my dear fellow? How exactly do you propose to deal with those? The only thing more useless than a doctor with one damaged appendage is one with two.”
The silence that follows that statement makes her think that the Doctor has taken offence, because while the two of them seem to have no boundaries on what buttons they allow the other to push they each seem to have subconsciously written rules for their own behavior. Taunting a man who only just regained his sense of worth after a stunning defeat, grievous injury, and incapacitating illness seems to her beyond the pale. She steps forward to intervene on the Good Doctor’s behalf when Holmes calls out to her.
“I would be grateful, Mrs. Hudson, if you would enter rather than skulking about outside my door.”
She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised that the detective knows she’s out there, but she is slightly startled. Quickly, she composes herself and enters the room, making a point not to look at those awful pictures above his bed. Once she steps over the threshold, the startling scene of near-domesticity is enough to take her breath away. The doctor’s coat and jacket are tossed haphazardly across Mr. Holmes’s desk chair with his hat balanced precariously on top. The doctor himself is sitting on the bed, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, slumped forward with his head leaning on Holmes’s shoulder. Mr. Holmes looks at her over Doctor Watson’s bowed head and raises just one eyebrow in a silent warning not to wake him. She gives him a minute nod and merely places the tray on the nightstand within easy reach. Pitching her voice low, she asks, “Is there anything else you need?”
“No, this should be quite sufficient for the night.” Holmes replies, effectively dismissing her and turning his attention back to his careful work of bandaging the six-inch gash on the doctor’s arm. Mrs. Hudson turns to go, but in the process knocks over one of the myriad jars the detective keeps around the rooms for what he calls “specimen collection.” The falling glassware makes only a small sound and does not shatter, but it’s enough to startle Watson out of his doze. The glare Holmes gives her as she turns back to apologize would be enough to stop the most hardened criminal in their tracks, but is merely a mild reproof to a woman who’s raised three boys nearly on her own.
She quickly apologizes to the doctor, but armed with his assurance that she’s done no harm and his thanks for the supplies, she retreats back through the sitting room. A sudden thought strikes her as she passes the settee, covered in stacks of papers and books, and she pauses to clear the sofa itself and a path from it to the bedroom door.
“You are not staying to attempt to eavesdrop. You are merely acknowledging the most likely scenario.” This rationalization does not do much to reduce the slight shame she feels at listening to two such private individuals, but she cannot help herself all the same. Besides, they might need something further and it would be a terrible thing for them to be unable to reach her in such a case. Almost immediately, her diligence is rewarded when she hears the argument start up again as if it had never paused.
“Holmes!” she hears the doctor exclaim. “Now it’s too tight! I can barely feel my fingers at all.”
There is a long-suffering sigh from the detective as he evidentially begins to re-rewrap the bandages. “My apologies, Watson. However, you must make some allowances for someone who has an accurate but unsystematic knowledge of anatomy.”
The small barb strikes home. “Wherever did you read that?”
The detective snorts again, “When you leave sheets of paper with your random scribblings about on every flat surface, it makes them public property. I am, therefore, well within my rights to read them. Especially when I find myself the subject of their oft unflattering descriptions. “
With a slightly lower, calming pitch to his voice, Watson replies “Holmes, those were just amusing anecdotes. They are not intended for public consumption. Nor did I mean to demean your not inconsiderable knowledge. I was merely endeavouring to illustrate that while your brain holds a considerable store of facts and data, you have so honed your skill as to be the ultimate thinking machine in all matters criminal.”
His fellow-lodger seems appeased by this, but refrains from further comment. Instead, he focuses on his completed bandage job. “There. How is that, friend Watson?”
The “Much better, thank you, Holmes” is followed by the smallest of sighs. Mrs. Hudson nearly relaxes until she remembers the broken fingers. True to form, Mr. Holmes seems to be reading her mind. “Now, about those fingers. How would you prefer to handle them? Quickly or with warning?”
There is a quick pause of silence and then Mrs. Hudson nearly jumps out of her skin with the muffled squeak the doctor emits. “Holmes! I hadn’t even processed the question properly yet.”
Holmes’s “I know, Watson. I had already deduced that you would prefer to handle this quickly before the pain grew much worse. The question was merely to distract you as your usual quick wit seems to have deserted you.”
There’s the sound of quiet grumbling which she can’t quite make out and a bit of shuffling around, so she goes back to industriously clearing up the detritus in the sitting room. With the last book neatly placed on the doctor’s bookshelves and the papers finally cleared away Mrs. Hudson starts to retreat down the stairs. She hears the door to the bedroom snick shut quietly and she looks up to see Mr. Holmes. He does not immediately look at her, but the pained expression on his face is nearly enough to break her heart. Walking over to him, she gently places her hand on his arm. The small startle he gives indicates far more than any words could ever hope to his distress. For him to be so far inside his own thoughts as to not hear her approach speaks of a trying day and a likely sleepless night.
“Come sit down, Mr. Holmes. I’ve enough hot water downstairs for a bath, if you’d so desire.”
Her lodger shakes off her concern and moves to the sideboard, pouring a brandy and silently offering her the same. Shaking her head, she gently guides him to the newly-cleared sofa and says, “He’ll be fine. A good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast in the morning and he’ll be right as rain. He won’t take kindly to you neglecting yourself, though.” Eventually, she stops making words and resorts to soft hushing noises as his head falls to the back of the sofa and his eyes slip shut. His fingers grow minutely slacker, and she is forced to grab the glass before it falls to the floor. With much prodding and pushing, eventually he slides sideways, stretched out on the cushions with his head on a pillow she’d conveniently placed there earlier.
Looking around for the afghan she leaves in the room for just such a purpose (although, if asked, she’d swear it was for decoration), she finds it in the chair the doctor prefers. A sleepless night last night as well, then. The mother-hen in her clucks gently and settles the blanket over the sleeping detective who promptly burrows under it with a small sigh. She can’t help herself and gently lays her hand on top of the sleek black hair before heading back downstairs for the night. Once she reaches her room, she sets her alarm for slightly earlier than she’s used to. The pastries Doctor Watson prefers (and Mr. Holmes is the least reluctant to eat) take a bit longer than normal. Eventually, she forces herself to stop planning for tomorrow and get some much-needed rest. Her boys will need her in the morning.