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Sherlock was sometimes erratic and often strange. From the beginning, as if the tone struck by the first abortive dinner set the entire melody, she found herself often forced to be sharper with him than she would normally have chosen to be. Otherwise, he drove over one like a steam-engine, and John was particularly bad at not being crushed.
It was not that Sherlock wished him harm. Indeed, Mary knew quite well that nothing was further from his mind, at least when he stopped to think about it. But Sherlock's mind could be like an agitated cat, and ran from room to room, puffing up and then leaping back and then darting forward after the slightest movement, and when in the grips of such (or, after a case or during a particularly bad one, in the grips of drug and drink together) he forgot about small, trivial details such as when John - or he himself - had last eaten, slept, been struck or injured by an evil-doer, arrested, or seen the inside of a civilized house.
John did not, of course, go on all cases. But the nature of such a decision was of course that he went on the worst of them, on the ones he could not trust that his dearest friend would otherwise survive. He had at first presented each new case as one last one or just this once, and she had murmured something like agreement and been amused as he went (amused, and worried, of course: always).
And then settled in with something particularly challenging to study, knowing she would see him only intermittently for days, and knowing that this time would never be the last, so long as Sherlock Holmes remained a detective and protector of righteous Mankind.
Now, of course: well.
Well.
But sometimes the racing train "Holmes" had to be stopped, for John's sake, for his own sake, and occasionally for hers. And "sometimes" was perhaps more often than not, and so they built between them a language of sharpness, teasing, and the unrelenting iron of her will (his words, once upon a time) when she set her mind.
When he was very angry with her, he would compare her to Irene Adler. That was generally when she refused to speak to him again until he managed his version of an apology, and she and John were the only sleepers in their bed.
Since she had broken her wrist, however, he was being almost irritating in his solicitude, and Mary found herself wanting to snap at him more than ever. It was utterly irrational. She ought not to be so short with him when he was, in point of fact, being more agreeable than was his ordinary wont. Her own reaction frustrated her, which in turn made her sharper, as such things always did when trapped in the whirl of her mind.
As such, it was almost comforting when she was confronted with him, apparently impatient with how long it was taking John and herself to make ready for the evening, with John in front of the washbasin. She didn't hear what they had been speaking of. John still had a razor in his hand, and had been gesturing with it.
The moment Mary came in - looking, as it happened, for one of her brooches and suspecting that she had left it somewhere odd - Sherlock's face assumed a remarkably critical expression. And that was nearly comforting. If also, given that he was looking her over, somewhat of an affront. Before she could decide whether she was insulted or bemused (and before John could do anything either), Sherlock made a tsking noise and said, "That will never do. Your maid is many things, my dear, including efficient, honest and orderly, if not somewhat timid, but she is decidedly inferior when it comes to managing your hair."
That decided her on insulted, and sharp, and she retorted, gesturing with her still-bound-up hand, "Not nearly so poor as I would be just now, thank you, so unless you have a solution - "
He took her uninjured arm, interrupting her, and guided her firmly away from the basin into the common space between her boudoir and John's wardrobe. He sat her down on one of the sofas, and sat down beside her, turned to the side.
She had recovered her tongue by the time he reached for her hair, enough to ask, "What on earth are you doing?"
"Saving you from incompetence," he replied, and turned her head for her, adding, "Just stay there."
Mary could see that John had followed them, looking slightly dubious. More from disbelief and confusion than anything, Mary stayed where she was, and realized that Sherlock had parted her hair, and was arranging it himself.
"I'm not sure I want to know how you learned to do that," John remarked, and then went in search of his own clothing. Mary felt she agreed with that, as far as it went, but found it hard to keep it in mind. She had never much enjoyed having people work at her hair, finding that they pulled in the wrong places and that their fingers scratched at her scalp. That was why, by and large, she took care of it herself - and truth told, she would have expected Sherlock to be worse than any, between the depredations of his employment and the work he did in chemistry, and, of course it went without saying, his sex.
Instead, his hands in her hair were . . . . gentle, truthfully. Gentle, but quite assured, without movement wasted. Strong fingers did press against her scalp, but nothing scraped and nothing pulled: less even than a comb. He gathered and twisted and braided and in the end she found herself above all fighting the desire to melt against him, like a housecat being pet.
When, with a final pat, Sherlock said, "There. Much better," Mary opened her eyes (finding that she'd closed them) to see John in his shirt and vest, his coat over his arm, and a peculiar half-smile on his face. Then he gestured to Sherlock behind her. "When we get back," he said, "you can brush her hair for bed, then. I can hear her suppressing yelps every time Sally has to do it."
The way in which his saying so brought anticipation made Mary blush, slightly, in spite of herself. Sherlock merely said, "It's a good thing Mrs Hudson has learned not to expect me," in an aggressively bland tone of voice, and Mary resolved to make him pay for that.
After he had, in fact, brushed her hair. The full hundred strokes. Or maybe a little more.