A/N: This hit me. Literally. I *needed* to write it. Inspired by an idea I left myself for Sherlock ficcies, which I re-found. Was going to drag it out more, but I'm technically supposed to be REVISING :O !
This was way more fun ;) Lots of silliness awaits!
DISCLAIMER: I OWN IT ALL! MWAHAHA!
... that was a lie.
Kingdom of the Sherlock Skull
"Average" wasn't a word John was particularly familiar with anymore. Sherlock had seen to that, and henceforth John had lost most of his ability to be surprised at any situation he could even remotely stumble upon when he returned home to 221b after a long but comfortingly familiar day at the hospital.
Boring, Sherlock would say. And did, when he'd somehow spurned the motivation he sorely lacked when not on a case, to move from the house and visit him at the hospital. Visit being the predominate word, as John could get little done with Sherlock insulting - yes, insulting was the right word; John refused to believe that pointing out embarrassingly personal details about his patients was anything but insulting to them, especially how all but three of his fifteen patients had stormed out during the duration Sherlock had been present - and he wasn't even going to try to ask how Sherlock had managed to get that doctor's uniform.
He literally did not want to know.
That had been a few weeks back, and John reckoned that Sherlock's peculiar way of making an odd situation seem the daily norm was long overdue for a showing.
The fact that there was Indiana Jones music playing - from that damned CD Sherlock had made him buy "for an important study" (otherwise known as "personal amusement") the other night - did not really surprise John, but did make him hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, hand mid-way to hanging up his coat, arm outstretched and keys jingling a little as he steadied his breathing so he could better listen.
But damn it all, he'd been at work all day and nothing Sherlock had constructed could keep him out of the tea jar. No severed heads could stop him from using one of the new bottles of milk from yesterday, which Sherlock had been dearly warned not to explode - again - and no chaotic mess could prevent John from sinking into his favourite chair with said mug of tea, to have some - relative - peace before he was commissioned out of negligent-guilt to cook something for Sherlock and him, and before he found Sherlock ordering more expensive take-aways or else not eating at all, and then John would have to nurse him back to health... again.
John finalised his coat-hanging, dumped his keys in the designated key-holding dish - someone had to be organised - and bounded in an undignified manner up the stairs towards the living room door... where he was greeted by a high-ish coffee table, most certainly not theirs, pressed into the gap between the door frame and piled high with cushions and blankets and what looked suspiciously like a dog basket. It was tightly packed so that it filled the doorframe entirely, except for the gap beneath the coffee table, which was barely large enough for a grown adult to slink through, though John guessed Sherlock's lean form could achieve it.
"Sherlock?" He called out cautiously, giving the blockade a tentative prod. "Sherlock, you there?"
The Indiana Jones music rang out still, and he recognised parts of it as the themes from "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Feeling an apprehensive tug inside him, John eyed the gap under the coffee table suspiciously.
"Sherlock?" He yelled again, a little irritably this time. Damn him and his Indiana blockade.
John backtracked a little and tried the other door to the kitchen, which was - unsurprisingly - locked. What looked a little like a duvet was spilling out from beneath the door and John sighed, running a hand through his hair thoughtfully. He could just order out or scrounge around upstairs, but...
The coffee table loomed invitingly before him.
Sherlock was right, in a way. As comforting and familiar as the hospital was, not everyone there got to go home and face this. It was far more interesting.
Feeling like a right idiot - but a little like a soldier in an assault course, unwelcome memories flashing back to him - John lay flat, head beneath the table, and wriggled forwards slowly. About half-way through, he began to feel a little trapped, like claustrophobia, but he determinedly continued onwards, partly expecting to see Sherlock waiting for him with a bemused "I'm examining human behaviour" smirk. Because Sherlock could really pull those smirks off.
However, upon emerging (victorious!) at the other end, John found himself surrounded by yet more cushions, pillows, sofa-sections, duvets, various assorted chairs and tables, and even a headboard and a bike. They were all arranged in an organised manner, each with just enough room between them, just large enough for John to-
Oh no.
It was an assault course.
It was a bloody assault course of the living room.
"Sherlock..." John growled, unsure whether to be admiring the man's obvious skill in "handiwork" during his few hours' absence or annoyance over the state of the once reasonably clean living room.
He scanned the room, trying to find any clue as to why this maze of contraptions and bed-ware had been set up in the first place. There was, of course, no sign of Sherlock, and the only thing that could possibly lead to answers seemed to be the various holes littered about the place. John summed up his options. He was no great knower of Indiana trivia, and assumed that Sherlock was doing this more out of mockery and boredom than genuine fan amusement, so that ruled out potential film-related clues as in which hole to first take.
So, random guessing then?
On an impulse, John chose the furthest hole to the right, also vainly hoping that Sherlock had removed his once-again-hostaged laptop from the room before his assault on it had begun. He wriggled between a sofa-cushion and a duvet-pillow combo, only to find a mug in there as well. (When was the last time that'd been washed? He couldn't remember seeing it after the last major wash-up of Christmas last year... oh. Alright then, he'd remember that later, when this mess had gone. Somehow.)
He popped out in a secluded area with no visible ways of escaping. John frowned and made a disgruntled noise, turning to slide back through the hole before he spotted the small cave-in on the opposite pillow-wall. Ah, it seemed there was a way over after all. Bracing himself, John attempted to escalate the wall, first with prowess (which failed), then with tact (which was useless) and then with brute force, which resulted in John flinging himself over the wall, taking a pillow and a wooden wheel (what the-?) with him.
This effort (and the resulting crash) dislodged a cushion in the opposite wall - aha! And there was a sign. Something, almost like a casket, lay gleaming against a mattress, propped up with bags of marshmallows and rolls of bubble-wrap.
Focusing on this fetching combination, John surveyed the scene. To get to the casket, he'd have to crawl over a precarious bike, wriggle past two teetering towers of pizza boxes, and wrestle with a table-chair mutant. Well, at least nothing had exploded yet.
John positioned himself precariously across some bed-ware, and slid himself past the bike, one side leaning on the pillows and the other lifted above the bike, like some sort of ninja-gymnast.
Wincing as he lowered himself back down, John wasted no time in tip-toeing past the precarious pizza boxes and attacking the threatening table-chair mutant with gusto.
A little bit bruised, and a little bit proud, John stood at his destination and grinned. He'd made it. The casket - and whatever was inside it - was his. (Figuratively. It probably was owned by him in some way or another already.)
It occurred to him briefly that Sherlock may have somehow folded himself inside the casket, like those illusionists could sometimes do; but he shook away the thought and prised open the casket with considerable difficulty, the lock being magnetized and acutely heavy.
Of all the things he'd expected to find, of all the effort, of all the tea-deprived rage, a skull, Sherlock's prized skull, was not one of them.
Though, as John picked it up to the tune of Indiana Jones - and the slightly worrying rumble of some large boulder-like thing - he probably should've guessed.
A/N: My original idea, in all its glory:
"John returns home one evening to find the door to the living room blocked by a table pile high with stuff. After crawling under it, he has to navigate through the assault-course of the living room, on the hunt to find the lost Skull... XD"
Agh, ending is very abrupt. But I honestly thought that was a good place to stop. Wondering why Sherlock set up such an assault-course? Well, I had the answer, but I'm not going to tell you here... ;3
Maybe I should do drabbles... I'd never keep it up, but it's an idea :D