A Broader Blade (John, Sherlock, shaving)
Trying to write anything, just to get moving again. This was the first thing I finished. I tried to post this as an anonymous fill on the kink meme, but I'm not sure I succeeded.
John, Sherlock, general crankiness. And shaving, of course.
***
“It’s a Mühle!” said Sherlock, sounding odd. Odd on the edge of surprise or sarcasm or superciliousness John couldn’t say. His Sherlock-sensor was crap, with other sensibilities, since their fall from the...iron strut-y building thing. Tuesday. Or it was the meds. Prob’ly the meds. His head buzzed. His knee twinged, from the stress of standing.
“Stay out of my things. I’m not telling you again.”
“Good.” Sherlock tried to open the razor one-handed, twisting his wrist to flip the blade from the scales. John hissed.
“Stop. Drop it...give it here. Closed, you badger.” Badger? Blackguard, bustard, blogger, budgie... But Sherlock had levered it open somehow, unblooded, and stood looking down at it, angling the blade to the light, turning his right shoulder and arm in the sling to John. He pursed his lips, John noticed. He swallowed twice. John could swear there was moisture in the corner of his mouth. Salivating. Over an old razor (old but not without value, and John hopelessly tried to keep his face opaque). Bastard. Sherlock turned his head and the sight of him, keen and pale, dried John’s mouth. Damn the meds.
“My father’s,” he said, before Sherlock could begin. “Bought five years before he died, that’s twelve years, now. Used regular, by a steady hand, and no damn enigma to it. Put it back.”
“But not recently.” Sherlock sniffed the blade. “You thought about it, though. 13/16ths of an inch, round point, hollow ground blade, celluloid handle. Adequate, not showy.”
“Not as fine as yours.”
“Broader than mine. Suits you.”
“Him.” Square and broad, his father was, without rounded edges. Hollow-ground...he didn’t like to think about it.
Sherlock pressed on. “No brush, no strop. Why did you stop using it?” John shaved, as Sherlock well knew, with a chrome safety razor, a Merkur double-edge. Sensible. Heavy. Solid in his grip. Its offer was rejected by his limping, fuzz-faced, querulous flatmate as a tool fit for paint scrapers and minor civil servants. How the pest knew about the other razor, boxed in the top drawer of John’s bureau, was a pissing mystery. Maybe he smelled it out. John, point of pride, had shaved and washed himself that morning, with his own two functioning hands, the scorned razor, a flannel, and a loofah on a stick.
“My father’s,” repeated John. “Put it down. You can’t use that now any better than your own.”
“But you can,” said Sherlock. He turned and gestured with the blade open in his hand, and John backed a step. “Arm,” he demanded.
“Get off. Put it down.”
“I have to test it.”
“It was put away ready. But I’m not...” He stopped and sucked in a breath as Sherlock licked the thumb of his hand holding the razor, then drew its pad across the blade edge. Long fingers, nimble fingers; and his hand shaking with the strain. “You idiot!”
“It’ll do. Best you use a blade you’re familiar with,” said Sherlock, stumping past with his cane and boot. “Come along.” His dressing gown brushed across John’s kneecap, the hairless dome of skin exposed by the brace. John shivered. Sherlock had on the gray woolen one, the ratty mouse colored gown with the mended pocket and the white blotch on the hem. Was Sherlock above appearing pitiful? John shook his head. Pain rattled like peas in his skull. Time for another dose. He followed Sherlock, instead.
***
“Call a barber,” said John, leaning against the bathroom door. “Mycroft must have one on staff. Or you’ve done a man a favor.” His knee screamed in protest and his bruised thigh ached. Keep off the leg, he’d been told, same as Sherlock with his ankle, yet here they were both, standing, quarreling, hurting, with cane and crutch.
“You'll do.” Sherlock had the medicine chest open and his soap dish and brush laid on the sink edge. The hot water tap was full open and steam rose from the cloth soaking in the basin. His hair...John squinted against a lancing pain behind his eye...tendrils of hair curled on his forehead, his forehead sickly white and damp. His hair was tangled and dull. The beard he was so fussed about was little more than a shadow, an unfamiliar but not unpleasant stipple along his jaw and chin, above his upper lip. Sherlock turned the brush in the water, then shook it, watching it bloom. Not at all like a badger tail, thought John. He needed to sit down. He waited, to see how Sherlock would accomplish making lather one-handed.
Not well. The bowl bounced and spun and ended clattering against John’s foot. Sherlock snapped at him to pick it up and John’s knee and thigh (and skull and elbow and shoulder and abraded hip and patience) had had enough. “I can’t shave you.” I can’t bend over you. I can barely stand. He wouldn’t plead weakness or injury; so much was surely obvious, so much should have been deduced. “I’m back to bed. Clean your own mess. Try not to bleed to death.” He turned and hobbled across the corridor. Something squelched against the door, behind him.
***
Sherlock had a guest bed in John’s room, an accommodation that pleased neither of them; but the bath was up here, a kettle was provided, and Mrs. Hudson was running food to them at needful intervals (“Just for the week, mind”). John half-fell onto the edge of his mattress, barking his shin on the metal end of the intruder bedframe. He caught his breath before bracing his arm here and his hip there and twisting just so, to lift his legs one at a time onto the bed with the minimum of discomfort. Sherlock had a shattered wrist, sprained fingers, a hairline fracture of his ulna, a cracked elbow, two broken ribs, and a delicately pinned together ankle and foot, all on his right side. His demands on John’s services were incessant, peremptory, and ill-tempered. His nicotine patches had run out; his violin (thank God!) was locked away downstairs; Lestrade was on well-earned holiday, Mycroft was abroad, and a vibrating Mrs. Hudson had put her foot down absolutely last midnight, barring entry to the vagrants Sherlock had summoned with notes flung from the hall window. Notes, John bitterly reflected, that had been wrapped around John’s tooth mug, John’s shampoo bottle, John’s hairbrush, and John’s right boot, before Sherlock had properly gauged the ballast and trajectory with his left arm.
They had a radio, no telly, one semi-functional laptop without internet; one electrical outlet alternately providing for the lamp, radio, clock, two phone chargers, said laptop, and the kettle; a plate of sandwiches deconstructed, reassembled, and rejected by Sherlock, a tea caddy, a tin of shortbread, and a bag of grapes; and forty-seven books littering Sherlock's bed and the scant surrounding floor.
John hesitated over the blister pack of stronger sedatives; beyond the bedroom door, Sherlock bellowed for Mrs. Hudson down the stairwell, in vain hope that she had returned from the shops (and a long lunch with Mrs. Johnson, John suspected). John sighed and dropped the pack. He swallowed two co-codamol tablets with cold tea and closed his eyes.
***
“You’re not asleep,” said Sherlock. The mattress dipped next to John’s knee. “You needn’t stand. I’ve worked it out. Get up!” Something jabbed John’s stomach. Something wetted John’s cheek.
“I know seven ways of inflicting mortal harm from this position.”
“Eight,” said Sherlock. “You forget the pencil with which you stirred your tea. Up.”
John opened his eyes. Sherlock had achieved lather. He held the frothy dish and brush in one hand. The closed razor protruded from his sling. His pyjama jacket was soaked under his dressing gown from neck to hem and two towels were draped around his neck. One dripped on John’s face. He looked demented, determined, and lethally alert. He looked like the gray buck squirrel who had rained havoc on his uncle Walter's bird table.
“You sit on the bed, facing the chair...”
John struggled up. “Shut up shut up shut up.” He spread his legs, wincing, and took the bowl and brush thrust under his nose. He rescued the razor and set it on the bedside table, carefully. “Shut up. Change your shirt. Get dry and I'll do it.”
Sherlock blinked. He considered his chest, where the damp was spreading to his dressing gown. He knelt on his bed (John envied him the movement) and stretched across it to open a bureau drawer, from which he fished an outsize T-shirt, and turned back. “Help,” he demanded. The towels were dropped on John’s lap; the dressing gown slid off unaided, and Sherlock could just manage the jacket buttons. His chest was...John had seen his body before, seen the scars and the meager flesh. The latest bruises were vivid and ugly. He was whiter and thinner than ever, and clammy to the touch. John gathered the shirt in his fists and slid the neck over Sherlock's head, holding the sleeve for his left hand, pulling the body over the sling. His knuckles grazed Sherlock's cheeks and arm and side. Sherlock was surprisingly tractable, as if being dressed were commonplace. It made the next bit easier.
“Turn around. No. Like...like so. Stretch your leg; mind the knee...that...there.” Sherlock understood; he smiled, possibly. John nudged and settled him sitting on the bed, back to John’s chest, between John’s legs. John sat up against the headboard, on both pillows, raising him a bit. He took up the soap dish and whipped the lather back, to a thick, creamy foam, and handed the brush around to Sherlock’s left hand. “You can do that yourself.” The soap was colder than he’d like, and so was Sherlock’s face, but the skin had been steamed and wet enough. While Sherlock swirled and pressed the brush across his jaw...his cheeks, his throat, under his nose, and John thought it might have been pleasant after all to do that duty himself... John took the palm sized mirror from the table drawer. He traded Sherlock the mirror for the brush. He draped the dry towel around Sherlock’s neck. And then and only then, he picked up the razor and opened it. He turned it in his hands.
“Any time,” said Sherlock.
John put his palm on Sherlock’s forehead and pressed his head back; waited until his body relaxed and adjusted against John’s chest; moved the mirror in Sherlock’s hand to the proper angle; and put the blade against Sherlock’s jaw.
He needed him close, to reach around, to stretch the skin taut with one hand as he drew the razor with the other, without crowding the injured arm. The angle was easier to judge this way, like shaving himself. Like he’d done before. His father liked the broad blade that would carry more soap on it. Stroke and wipe the blade against the towel, and stroke again. Short ones along the jaw, with the grain. Sherlock’s beard was fine. His skin was thin and gleamed where the razor had passed. His head was heavy. His hair smelled like smoke and sweat and sandalwood, and John might have dipped his nose, might have closed his eyes. He caught Sherlock’s gaze in the mirror and adjusted his hand. Silent, Sherlock had to be, while the razor was at his throat, while John’s fingers pressed his face. Sides, with short strokes; careful around the chin (John first slid his fingers over Sherlock’s chin, through the slippery foam, pressing into the shape of it, learning by touch as well as sight) with small, curving moves; long, sweeping draws with the blade reversed, up his throat; and a quick kiss of the blade to the small space below his nose, at the end.
“Done,” he said, and handed Sherlock the damp towel, to wipe his face.
Sherlock wiped, and touched his face, and turned the mirror to see himself. “Pocket,” he said, pointing at the dressing gown out of his reach, and John should have known. There was a small tube of aftershave cream in there. John squirted out a dab and liquefied it between his palms. He spread it, two handed, across Sherlock’s face, smoothing the skin, caressing it, sliding around his mouth, across his jawline, over his throat. The balmy citrus scent rose between them. Sherlock slouched back against John, as into the couch.
“You did that well,” he said, quietly. He seemed disinclined to move.
“I was a surgeon,” John reminded him.
“Then barbering follows. You did this for your father?” His voice was still quiet. His body felt warm.
“Shut up.” At the end. Only at the end, when he clung to things, when he wanted to be held. Sherlock dragged the dressing gown across himself and John helped settle it. He left his arms around Sherlock, cradling him and the gown loosely.
“John,” said Sherlock, in a gentle growl.
“Sherlock?”
“Wash my hair.”
*
John, Sherlock, general crankiness. And shaving, of course.
***
“It’s a Mühle!” said Sherlock, sounding odd. Odd on the edge of surprise or sarcasm or superciliousness John couldn’t say. His Sherlock-sensor was crap, with other sensibilities, since their fall from the...iron strut-y building thing. Tuesday. Or it was the meds. Prob’ly the meds. His head buzzed. His knee twinged, from the stress of standing.
“Stay out of my things. I’m not telling you again.”
“Good.” Sherlock tried to open the razor one-handed, twisting his wrist to flip the blade from the scales. John hissed.
“Stop. Drop it...give it here. Closed, you badger.” Badger? Blackguard, bustard, blogger, budgie... But Sherlock had levered it open somehow, unblooded, and stood looking down at it, angling the blade to the light, turning his right shoulder and arm in the sling to John. He pursed his lips, John noticed. He swallowed twice. John could swear there was moisture in the corner of his mouth. Salivating. Over an old razor (old but not without value, and John hopelessly tried to keep his face opaque). Bastard. Sherlock turned his head and the sight of him, keen and pale, dried John’s mouth. Damn the meds.
“My father’s,” he said, before Sherlock could begin. “Bought five years before he died, that’s twelve years, now. Used regular, by a steady hand, and no damn enigma to it. Put it back.”
“But not recently.” Sherlock sniffed the blade. “You thought about it, though. 13/16ths of an inch, round point, hollow ground blade, celluloid handle. Adequate, not showy.”
“Not as fine as yours.”
“Broader than mine. Suits you.”
“Him.” Square and broad, his father was, without rounded edges. Hollow-ground...he didn’t like to think about it.
Sherlock pressed on. “No brush, no strop. Why did you stop using it?” John shaved, as Sherlock well knew, with a chrome safety razor, a Merkur double-edge. Sensible. Heavy. Solid in his grip. Its offer was rejected by his limping, fuzz-faced, querulous flatmate as a tool fit for paint scrapers and minor civil servants. How the pest knew about the other razor, boxed in the top drawer of John’s bureau, was a pissing mystery. Maybe he smelled it out. John, point of pride, had shaved and washed himself that morning, with his own two functioning hands, the scorned razor, a flannel, and a loofah on a stick.
“My father’s,” repeated John. “Put it down. You can’t use that now any better than your own.”
“But you can,” said Sherlock. He turned and gestured with the blade open in his hand, and John backed a step. “Arm,” he demanded.
“Get off. Put it down.”
“I have to test it.”
“It was put away ready. But I’m not...” He stopped and sucked in a breath as Sherlock licked the thumb of his hand holding the razor, then drew its pad across the blade edge. Long fingers, nimble fingers; and his hand shaking with the strain. “You idiot!”
“It’ll do. Best you use a blade you’re familiar with,” said Sherlock, stumping past with his cane and boot. “Come along.” His dressing gown brushed across John’s kneecap, the hairless dome of skin exposed by the brace. John shivered. Sherlock had on the gray woolen one, the ratty mouse colored gown with the mended pocket and the white blotch on the hem. Was Sherlock above appearing pitiful? John shook his head. Pain rattled like peas in his skull. Time for another dose. He followed Sherlock, instead.
***
“Call a barber,” said John, leaning against the bathroom door. “Mycroft must have one on staff. Or you’ve done a man a favor.” His knee screamed in protest and his bruised thigh ached. Keep off the leg, he’d been told, same as Sherlock with his ankle, yet here they were both, standing, quarreling, hurting, with cane and crutch.
“You'll do.” Sherlock had the medicine chest open and his soap dish and brush laid on the sink edge. The hot water tap was full open and steam rose from the cloth soaking in the basin. His hair...John squinted against a lancing pain behind his eye...tendrils of hair curled on his forehead, his forehead sickly white and damp. His hair was tangled and dull. The beard he was so fussed about was little more than a shadow, an unfamiliar but not unpleasant stipple along his jaw and chin, above his upper lip. Sherlock turned the brush in the water, then shook it, watching it bloom. Not at all like a badger tail, thought John. He needed to sit down. He waited, to see how Sherlock would accomplish making lather one-handed.
Not well. The bowl bounced and spun and ended clattering against John’s foot. Sherlock snapped at him to pick it up and John’s knee and thigh (and skull and elbow and shoulder and abraded hip and patience) had had enough. “I can’t shave you.” I can’t bend over you. I can barely stand. He wouldn’t plead weakness or injury; so much was surely obvious, so much should have been deduced. “I’m back to bed. Clean your own mess. Try not to bleed to death.” He turned and hobbled across the corridor. Something squelched against the door, behind him.
***
Sherlock had a guest bed in John’s room, an accommodation that pleased neither of them; but the bath was up here, a kettle was provided, and Mrs. Hudson was running food to them at needful intervals (“Just for the week, mind”). John half-fell onto the edge of his mattress, barking his shin on the metal end of the intruder bedframe. He caught his breath before bracing his arm here and his hip there and twisting just so, to lift his legs one at a time onto the bed with the minimum of discomfort. Sherlock had a shattered wrist, sprained fingers, a hairline fracture of his ulna, a cracked elbow, two broken ribs, and a delicately pinned together ankle and foot, all on his right side. His demands on John’s services were incessant, peremptory, and ill-tempered. His nicotine patches had run out; his violin (thank God!) was locked away downstairs; Lestrade was on well-earned holiday, Mycroft was abroad, and a vibrating Mrs. Hudson had put her foot down absolutely last midnight, barring entry to the vagrants Sherlock had summoned with notes flung from the hall window. Notes, John bitterly reflected, that had been wrapped around John’s tooth mug, John’s shampoo bottle, John’s hairbrush, and John’s right boot, before Sherlock had properly gauged the ballast and trajectory with his left arm.
They had a radio, no telly, one semi-functional laptop without internet; one electrical outlet alternately providing for the lamp, radio, clock, two phone chargers, said laptop, and the kettle; a plate of sandwiches deconstructed, reassembled, and rejected by Sherlock, a tea caddy, a tin of shortbread, and a bag of grapes; and forty-seven books littering Sherlock's bed and the scant surrounding floor.
John hesitated over the blister pack of stronger sedatives; beyond the bedroom door, Sherlock bellowed for Mrs. Hudson down the stairwell, in vain hope that she had returned from the shops (and a long lunch with Mrs. Johnson, John suspected). John sighed and dropped the pack. He swallowed two co-codamol tablets with cold tea and closed his eyes.
***
“You’re not asleep,” said Sherlock. The mattress dipped next to John’s knee. “You needn’t stand. I’ve worked it out. Get up!” Something jabbed John’s stomach. Something wetted John’s cheek.
“I know seven ways of inflicting mortal harm from this position.”
“Eight,” said Sherlock. “You forget the pencil with which you stirred your tea. Up.”
John opened his eyes. Sherlock had achieved lather. He held the frothy dish and brush in one hand. The closed razor protruded from his sling. His pyjama jacket was soaked under his dressing gown from neck to hem and two towels were draped around his neck. One dripped on John’s face. He looked demented, determined, and lethally alert. He looked like the gray buck squirrel who had rained havoc on his uncle Walter's bird table.
“You sit on the bed, facing the chair...”
John struggled up. “Shut up shut up shut up.” He spread his legs, wincing, and took the bowl and brush thrust under his nose. He rescued the razor and set it on the bedside table, carefully. “Shut up. Change your shirt. Get dry and I'll do it.”
Sherlock blinked. He considered his chest, where the damp was spreading to his dressing gown. He knelt on his bed (John envied him the movement) and stretched across it to open a bureau drawer, from which he fished an outsize T-shirt, and turned back. “Help,” he demanded. The towels were dropped on John’s lap; the dressing gown slid off unaided, and Sherlock could just manage the jacket buttons. His chest was...John had seen his body before, seen the scars and the meager flesh. The latest bruises were vivid and ugly. He was whiter and thinner than ever, and clammy to the touch. John gathered the shirt in his fists and slid the neck over Sherlock's head, holding the sleeve for his left hand, pulling the body over the sling. His knuckles grazed Sherlock's cheeks and arm and side. Sherlock was surprisingly tractable, as if being dressed were commonplace. It made the next bit easier.
“Turn around. No. Like...like so. Stretch your leg; mind the knee...that...there.” Sherlock understood; he smiled, possibly. John nudged and settled him sitting on the bed, back to John’s chest, between John’s legs. John sat up against the headboard, on both pillows, raising him a bit. He took up the soap dish and whipped the lather back, to a thick, creamy foam, and handed the brush around to Sherlock’s left hand. “You can do that yourself.” The soap was colder than he’d like, and so was Sherlock’s face, but the skin had been steamed and wet enough. While Sherlock swirled and pressed the brush across his jaw...his cheeks, his throat, under his nose, and John thought it might have been pleasant after all to do that duty himself... John took the palm sized mirror from the table drawer. He traded Sherlock the mirror for the brush. He draped the dry towel around Sherlock’s neck. And then and only then, he picked up the razor and opened it. He turned it in his hands.
“Any time,” said Sherlock.
John put his palm on Sherlock’s forehead and pressed his head back; waited until his body relaxed and adjusted against John’s chest; moved the mirror in Sherlock’s hand to the proper angle; and put the blade against Sherlock’s jaw.
He needed him close, to reach around, to stretch the skin taut with one hand as he drew the razor with the other, without crowding the injured arm. The angle was easier to judge this way, like shaving himself. Like he’d done before. His father liked the broad blade that would carry more soap on it. Stroke and wipe the blade against the towel, and stroke again. Short ones along the jaw, with the grain. Sherlock’s beard was fine. His skin was thin and gleamed where the razor had passed. His head was heavy. His hair smelled like smoke and sweat and sandalwood, and John might have dipped his nose, might have closed his eyes. He caught Sherlock’s gaze in the mirror and adjusted his hand. Silent, Sherlock had to be, while the razor was at his throat, while John’s fingers pressed his face. Sides, with short strokes; careful around the chin (John first slid his fingers over Sherlock’s chin, through the slippery foam, pressing into the shape of it, learning by touch as well as sight) with small, curving moves; long, sweeping draws with the blade reversed, up his throat; and a quick kiss of the blade to the small space below his nose, at the end.
“Done,” he said, and handed Sherlock the damp towel, to wipe his face.
Sherlock wiped, and touched his face, and turned the mirror to see himself. “Pocket,” he said, pointing at the dressing gown out of his reach, and John should have known. There was a small tube of aftershave cream in there. John squirted out a dab and liquefied it between his palms. He spread it, two handed, across Sherlock’s face, smoothing the skin, caressing it, sliding around his mouth, across his jawline, over his throat. The balmy citrus scent rose between them. Sherlock slouched back against John, as into the couch.
“You did that well,” he said, quietly. He seemed disinclined to move.
“I was a surgeon,” John reminded him.
“Then barbering follows. You did this for your father?” His voice was still quiet. His body felt warm.
“Shut up.” At the end. Only at the end, when he clung to things, when he wanted to be held. Sherlock dragged the dressing gown across himself and John helped settle it. He left his arms around Sherlock, cradling him and the gown loosely.
“John,” said Sherlock, in a gentle growl.
“Sherlock?”
“Wash my hair.”
*