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William noticed the smell far before the feeling of Sherlock crawling into bed beside him. Normally he could stomach the faint whiff of nicotine that seemed to follow the detective wherever he went, but now he smelled strongly of ammonia, and oil, and had the traces of something burnt underneath it all. It seemed someone had been playing with his chemicals again.
He groaned when Sherlock snuck his arm over him, the scent practically assaulting his nostrils as he snuggled in close.
“Sherly…” he moaned tiredly, drawing out the y , for added effect in getting his disgruntlement across.
“Mmph.” Sherlock sighed heavily into the back of his neck, sounding just as tired; evidently the reason he'd chosen the bed before a bath. There was nothing wrong with staying up late for a hobby, William supposed - he often found himself falling asleep with a book in hand - but there needed to be some discretion when one's hobby included the use of rather…pungent…materials.
William tapped into his exhaustion for a moment, hoping it would win out over the stench.
…but no such luck. His nose scrunched up in an involuntary scowl the longer he stewed in it, and in the next few minutes, it cemented that something would need to be done.
Sighing forcefully, he rolled out from underneath Sherlock's hold, and hopped off the mattress.
The detective made a noise of disapproval, and blinked wearily up at him with a pout. It would not surprise William if the man's nose hairs had burned off and rendered him scent-blind, truly, but it was no excuse for smoking out the apartment with a smell equivalent to a wet rat dragged through the city's sewers.
“Up,” he said, beckoning with his finger. “Now.”
“Aw, c'mon, Liam…” Sherlock protested through a yawn, and when he rolled over it made William cringe with the thought that his poor, newly-washed sheets were taking the brunt of the punishment. Huffing with tired frustration, he made his way to the other side of the bed, grabbed Sherlock by the ear, and pulled.
It was nothing if not effective, and the man yelped and immediately conceded to the gesture, though his hisses and moans made his unwillingness rather clear.
William led him unceremoniously to the washroom, and released him to light the oil lamp. Sherlock was scowling, and cursed under his breath, but obeyed William's motion to sit as he began to draw water.
When the tub had filled, Sherlock was curling forward on the stool, looking ready to pass out again until William snapped to get his attention. He gave a simple command with a flourish of his hand: “Strip.”
Sherlock gave him his best delinquent expression. “Sheesh, Mum.”
With a hint of a smirk, William summoned his most authoritative tone and retorted, “You'd best watch your mouth or you'll be getting spanked, too.”
The response was unperturbed, and more than a little flirty. “You know, I might actually enjoy that.”
“Sherlock.”
“Alright, alright…”
When in doubt, the full name drop never failed. Their banter was fun, but he wasn't about to let it get in the way of the work that needed to be done here.
As Sherlock started to shimmy out of his clothes, William walked to the cabinet to peruse their most aromatic soaps. By the time Sherlock lowered himself into the water with a deep sigh, William had already planned out a full treatment, and padded back to the head of the tub with a bundle of items in his arms.
He pulled forward the stool that Sherlock had been sitting on, and brushed the man's arm aside to dip a large sponge in the water, which he had sudsed up with a floral- scented soap. Then he nudged it back against his arm expectantly.
Sherlock turned as much as he could to look back at him, befuddled. “What? Not going to do it yourself?”
William almost laughed in disbelief. “No? You're hardly a helpless maiden.”
Begrudgingly, the man accepted the sponge, leaving William to focus on the oily tangles in his hair. “Yeah, well, right now I feel like some dirty stray you picked up off the street.”
“Sometimes I hardly notice the difference,” William responded, his lips stretching into a line as he worked, all while wondering how on Earth Sherlock had managed to ruin his hair this thoroughly. The outermost layer was oily, but underneath there were places where some sticky substance clumped it together; he could imagine Sherlock getting his hands dirty in the thick of his experiment and getting too lazy to wipe them before readjusting his hair. The man under him winced as he pulled through another tangle, leaving a handful of strands stuck to his wet fingers. As if to prove his point, he said, “You do shed something awful already.”
Sherlock made an exaggerated hand gesture, momentarily pausing in scrubbing himself clean. “You’re the one that told me to grow it out!”
“I merely said I liked the length - you were the one that made that decision.” In added response, William sharply tugged through a particularly heinous rat’s nest, and whatever retort that was about to be made was lost with a hiss of pain. It did make him feel guilty - but only a little.
Going forward, he showed Sherlock a sample of mercy and treated his poor hair a touch more delicately - as he was, truthfully, rather fond of it - and when most of the knots had been freed he filled a bucket with clean water and ran it over the man’s head until his raven locks were sopping wet.
There was a shampoo that he’d picked out, which smelled of lavender, and he poured a generous helping into his palm, rubbed his hands together, then began massaging it through Sherlock’s layers. He grunted, and tilted his head backwards; pleased by the touch.
In the midst of this, William wondered how familiar such a sight would have been to his brother, when it was the two of them. He smiled in fondness, remembering the gentle way Louis would lather the shampoo through his bangs and into his scalp. But Louis fretted, often, and so he never quite knew whether the man truly enjoyed taking care of him so tenderly. If there was one thing he did realize now, though, it was that being the caretaker came with its own sense of indulgence.
He was lucky Sherlock couldn’t see his expression from this angle - God forbid he go and give the man any more ideas.
A short time later, he hummed in satisfaction at the lather and filled the bucket again to rinse. The suds caught in the grooves of Sherlock’s back, outlining his impressive muscle as they drained down to the soapy water. But he didn’t linger on it - as much as he did appreciate them - and instead busied himself with the final step: dragging a comb through Sherlock’s hair. This time, the knots gave way easily, splitting with satisfactory grace as the comb’s teeth passed through them.
By the time he was done, Sherlock had also finished scrubbing himself down - which struck William as odd, as he could still detect a faint whiff of the scent.
Frowning, he lifted his arm and inhaled deeply, then immediately grimaced. Sure enough, the scent lingered on him now, likely from where Sherlock had curled his arm around his waist.
“Ugh, Sherly. Now you've got me smelling awful.”
“Welp, my bad,” Sherlock answered, his voice conveniently lacking any trace of regret.
With a disdainful sigh, William relinquished himself of his nightshirt, then figured he might as well go through the extra effort of cleansing himself as well, and so stripped down to nothing. The tiles were cool under his bare feet as he passed to the other end of the tub, and it didn’t surprise him to catch Sherlock’s triumphant smirk out of the corner of his eye, as Sherlock’s own rather pointedly followed him.
“I suppose you had this all planned out from the beginning, did you?” he asked, disgruntled, as he lowered himself into the bath across from him.
“Didn’t even cross my mind.” Sherlock watched him with a searing interest, his eyes following every bend of muscle. Their legs brushed together, and he made a slight move to accommodate, without looking away.
William motioned for the sponge, and met his gaze with a sly glare of his own, accompanied by a dangerous smile. “You’re a terrible liar. Now, hand me the shampoo, won’t you?”
Their bath was short, free of any hijinks thanks to their shared exhaustion, and they emerged fresh and clean. Sherlock dried himself and went to fetch clean clothes, while William threw on a robe and tidied very minimally, eager as he was to get back to bed.
But when he retreated back to the bedroom, he was faced with another conundrum: the sheets. It only took a step toward the bed and one sniff for him to come to a conclusion. He sighed. “Well…these are a lost cause.”
Sherlock at least had the sense to look somewhat guilty.
In the end, he decided it wasn’t worth the effort either way. The most he did was strip the bed, then he dropped the sheets into a pile with the other dirty clothes. He didn’t bother finding something else to line the bed with; as such, the couch became the next best option.
As they filed into the main living space, William was now too tired to offer more than a disappointed shake of his head while he waited for Sherlock to settle down into the cushions. Then he was content to follow him, all but dropping his weight over his body. It did give him some satisfaction to hear the grunt and feel the wince of pain as all the angles of his body suddenly pressed sharply into the man under him.
They settled as comfortably as they could, with Sherlock nudging out his leg to allow William’s to slot between his, and William himself snuggled up so that half of his body was laying over Sherlock’s, and the other half was supported by the edge of the couch. The detective pressed a hand over William’s head, played with his soft hair, pulled him close so that his nose was pressed into his neck. He hummed contentedly, soothed by the damp, fragrant sensation of his skin. There was a pleasant vibration as Sherlock spoke. “One of these days, I’ll stop making messes for you, love.”
William was already falling asleep, his fingers twitching over Sherlock’s chest. As he drifted off, he couldn’t help but think that Sherlock and his messes were more than he deserved already.