37 Things you don't know about Anderson

1. His first name is Mark. Why does everyone insist on calling him Anderson? Even friends call him Anderson. Even his wife calls him Anderson. His first name is Mark, and it’s a good name, and he wishes that people would give it a try.

2. He isn’t all that crazy about dinosaurs. Don’t get him wrong, they –are- pretty cool; but he’s not obsessed. The thing is: he brought his nephew to his office one day as a favor to his brother-in-law, and his nephew left some of his toys on his desk, a plastic brontosaur and T-rex.  To his horror, he left to drive his nephew home and when he came back Sherlock Holmes was in his office, grinning manically, almost laughing. He wouldn’t believe that they belonged to his nephew, and now he’s been receiving dinosaurs from an anonymous poster for weeks. He thinks that it’s not only Sherlock, but all of his division sending him toy dinosaurs and laughing behind his back.

3. He loves chicken. He knows almost one-hundred ways to cook it, two hundred ways to prepare it, and if he wasn’t married he’d eat it every night.

4. His wife has learned to hate chicken. Among other things.

5. He doesn’t love his wife. When he’s alone at night in an empty house, he’ll walk up and down and look at each photo on the wall in the hallway. In the hallway is where she insisted on hanging the pictures of their first few dates, their wedding, and their honeymoon. He’ll look at the pictures and see himself, smiling, happy, and wonder where the sunlight went in his wife. She just doesn’t bring him joy anymore. When he starts thinking about sunlight, he’ll listen to the hum of the air conditioning and think about her fireman in Brixton, and think to himself caustically: “at least I have the decency to wait until she’s out of town.”

6. He’s happy that he doesn’t have kids. When he lies down beside his wife, on those rare nights when they both muster up enough courage to pretend to be a functional couple again, he watches her breathe, he watches the soft rising and falling of the moon-dyed bed sheets and think to himself: “This used to be arousing. I used to watch this for house and think it was as wonderful as watching the tide roll in on a moonlit night. I used to grab her and kiss her when she slept like this, unable to help myself. Now…” he might watch her for hours, fascinated by how uninterested he is or willing his love to come back, like a sudden swell. Or he might turn over and stare at the wall, thinking about how wretched he is to fall out of love like that and what a terrible person he is not to mention it to his wife. But then again, isn’t she just as bad as him? They both know it; they both feel it, but neither one will admit to it. It’s on nights like these Anderson is glad he doesn’t have any children. He is glad he doesn’t have to tell someone that he doesn’t love his wife anymore. Glad that there is no one to answer to for infidelity.

7. Sally was a surprise. It had been a long night of celebration; Lestrade had taken them to a bar to celebrate solving a particularly vexing case without Sherlock Holmes. Anderson had found and matched a fingerprint which had led them to track down and arrest the serial killer known as the Vampire of Winchester. They toasted him early in the night, but drank themselves into a stupor before midnight. After midnight, Sally said she had lost her car keys, when in reality Lestrade, in his drunken wisdom had taken them from her when she had tried to jump on the bar and sing to the song that had been playing softly on the radio at the top of her lungs, loudly and off-key. Anderson said he’d walk her home. Or tried to. But she got the message. So there they were: stumbling together from streetlight to streetlight when all of a sudden he wanted her. In his ethanol haze he wanted her badly. Before, at work he’d always thought she was beautiful, high-strung, but fun to be around, and witty; but now she was stunning and perfect. And clinging to his arm. His wife was gone, he knew, but he had never cheated on her before. All of his better senses inhibited, he brought Sally to his apartment, still laughing and burping alcohol vapors at each other. He doesn’t remember exactly what he said, but he thinks he used some kind of poetry to seduce her. In the morning they were sore, angry, groggy and back to normal. And a bit horrified, but both kind enough not to show it on their faces. They simply agreed that it had never happened. When Sherlock Holmes ousted them, in front of a stranger no less, it was all Anderson could do to keep from melting into a puddle. In reality he went and hid behind the Forensics van and buried his face in his hands. It took a long time to restore a normal relation with Sally, but after a while they could stand to look each other in the face.

8. If she regretted it the first time, she didn’t the second time.

9. He was bullied in school. Badly. Don’t ask him to show you the scar on his knee, because he won’t. He didn’t realize he was bullying the consulting detective until Lestrade called him out on it. After that he went and sat in the forensic van for a long time, thinking about his life. He hardly ever sees Sherlock, since the Freak (as he is formally known in the labs among the scientists) does his own lab work and experiments, but when Sherlock does show up Anderson makes sure that he’s either far away, or tries to keep his comments limited to only actual bursts of anger. Old habits die hard though.

10. He’d always wanted to be a forensic scientist. Even discovering that it was radically different from the forensics on the telly didn’t crush his spirit.

11. The idea of there being a Moriarty out there somewhere scares him. The world is just a crazy enough place to produce something like that. Which is why he attacks the notion so vehemently.

12. His brother-in-law punched him in the face. When he came to he asked his wife what for, but she couldn’t say. Not Anderson wonders if his brother-in-law was psychic.

13. He met his wife in elementary school. She had stuck her gum in her hair, and Anderson had just read a book on how to get it out. After elementary school she moved away and he met her again at a bar somewhere in central London. He never realized that they had gone to the same elementary school until they had been married for two years.

14. He thinks Lestrade knows about Sally. He’s not sure, but every so often Lestrade will give him a sad look or an angry glare when nothing is going on, and Anderson will wonder. He is sure of it when Lestrade catches him twisting his ring around his finger, and opens his mouth to say something. That something is choked off mid-sentence, and he strides off, very purposely to his office.

15. He enjoys musicals. He just wishes they weren’t so expensive.

16. He is beyond excited for the Les Miserables movie coming out. But his wife refuses to go and see it on Christmas.

17. When he flips through the telly, and sees shows about cheaters he gets a tight feeling in his chest. Even if you rationalize something, the guilt has a way of gnawing at you.

18. He has dreams about being beaten up. Sometimes it’s his brother-in-law, sometimes it’s a stranger, sometimes it’s his wife’s fireman. At least once it has been Sherlock, Lestrade, Sally, his wife, and even that Rich Brook guy. No matter who it is, he wakes up in a cold sweat, usually alone, he’ll get a drink of water, and he’ll avoid that person for the rest of the day. Just to be safe.

19. His favorite flower is an orchid. They’re like colorful stars, and there are so many varieties, it’s impossible to go wrong. He used to bring home orchids for his wife only on birthdays and anniversaries, and then he started bringing them only after Sally. Now he only brings them home only after she returns from her Brixton ‘business trips’. It’s passive-aggressive and he knows it.

20. His dad abandoned his mom when he was four. There isn’t a year that goes by when Anderson doesn’t ask himself if it would have killed the man to give him one more year to get to know him. Just one.

21. Anderson doesn’t see what his mom thought was attractive in his dad in the first place. He was a goofy looking guy.

22. He just realized he isn’t one to talk.

23. The most embarrassing thing he’s ever done? Slipped on a banana peel. Why was it embarrassing? It was in front of Sherlock Holmes. Reputation= ruined.

24. When he was fourteen, his friend committed suicide. They wanted him to talk at the sermon and say a few words on his friend’s behalf, but he told them he couldn’t speak up for someone dumb enough to take their own life and ran off. In truth he spent the funeral up an oak tree crying. It wasn’t fair that his friend abandoned him. It wasn’t fair that his friend didn’t confide in him. Didn’t they share everything? Apparently not, because Anderson had school tomorrow while his friend got to sleep in.

25. When he was twenty-one he helped his friend steal two-thousand pounds worth of alcohol from the convenience store where he worked. Don’t tell Lestrade.

26. When he was twenty-eight he got his first job as a forensic scientist and helped catch that same friend for murdering a shop-clerk in a robbery. Same store. Don’t tell Lestrade.

27. His friend never ratted him out. Even when they offered him a deal. Of course, he didn’t know who had helped catch him, but Anderson always felt guilty for putting away such a good friend, yet also, a swell of pride in making such an impression. His friend didn’t think of him as just another thief, he wouldn’t sell out just anyone, he thought of him as someone who had his back, someone to protect. Hypocrisy aside, he was glad to have made such a friend. Don’t tell Lestrade. Or Sherlock for that matter.

28. Sour cream and onion flavored chips are his red light food. If you give him a bag he can guarantee that you will never see it again.

29. Sally likes chicken. Anderson doesn’t believe in destiny, but come on!

30. He doesn’t leave his wife because when he looks in the mirror every morning and sees his goofy face and thinks about everything that has ever been said about him he realizes he probably won’t get a second chance. He knows it’s selfish, but he’s scared of being alone. Maybe the wonderful thing about Sally is that she chooses him. She’s like the breeze in the London streets; cool on your neck when she wants you, gone in a flash when she decides no.

31. He’s not going to propose to Sally even if he finally musters up the courage to leave his wife. He knows what kind of person he is, and he doesn’t want to make her unhappy.

32. He finally found a way onto the internet forum where the DIs talk and he realized that everyone knows about Sally. They all think that she could do better.

33. He reluctantly agrees.

34. Whenever Sherlock tells him that his face is putting him off and Lestrade agrees and makes him turn around he gets a lump in his throat. At first it was just anger and indignation, but after all that has happened to him it feels like he’s breaking down. Last time he had to blink back tears. He can’t help but feel like he deserves it for being so stupid. At times like these, a breeze could cut through him like a knife.

35. He will never let himself cry in front of Sherlock Holmes of Detective Inspector Lestrade. Ever.

36. When he looks up at this, he sees thirty-five reasons why he’s so stupid.

37. If you gave him another day, he could site one hundred.