Chapter 1

The one thing that John Watson heard when he came back to consciousness was bickering and creaking. Blinking multiple times, all of his senses began to ease back to life again as he felt the ache in his shoulder start up. The deep chill that set in his bones made his leg twinge and a shiver to travel down his spine.

"Sherlock?" John murmured, looking around for any source of light. Minimal streams from who knows where barely did any help. Curling his fingers into a fist and releasing, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He winced as he felt his back pop. His eyes finally used to the terrible lighting, John inspected what he was in. The floor was cold hard metal, and so were the bars surrounding him. He noticed that it all met at a point above him, almost like.. a cage. "Oh, bloody hell."

A huff escaped his lips before John let his thoughts and actions die down to listen for anything else. Voices. He heard voices. They were bickering in a hushed manner, one on the verge of starting to really shout than just whisper it.

"Have a little fun, Jack said," an Australian muttered sarcastically. "It'll be fine, Jack said. Well, look where we are now!" Another voice followed up.

"It's not my fault Pitch followed us," a teenage sounded voice snapped.

"Is it also not your fault that those two blokes are stuck here with us too?"

"Now, now, Bunny," a Russian voice scolded. "They're just unfortunate bystanders. Do not bring them into this." There was another voice, one of a woman, but no words could be made out. John turned a full 360 degrees, not seeing too much close by, but even more cages. Why would someone even have these?

"Wait, shh, shh," the woman quieted the other three down. "One of them's awake."

John gripped onto a bar as he hauled himself up, standing to his full 5"6' height. "I could hear you three," he announced, his British accent strong in his voice as usual. "You are aware of that, right?"

"Ha! Another Aussie," the teenager teased, the grin being heard in his words.

"He's British, idiot," Australian scoffed. The voices were traced back to a cage a little further away than most, but was crystal clear to see. "We were in England."

"Uh, yeah, what he said.." John trailed, eyes landing on the three- no, five. One giant rabbit, a teenage boy, hummingbird-woman, tall Santa-like man, and a golden man as well."Dear mother of god-"

The teenage boy had only a blue sweatshirt and tattered brown pants that looked to be pretty old, but kept somewhat decent. He was balancing on the crook of a shepherd's staff, which was oddly frosted over. His ice blue eyes widened a bit before a pale, slender finger pointed towards himself. "You can see us? You can actually see us- North! An adult can see us!"

North, the tall gentleman who looked like Santa Clause, glanced over at him and back to John. "Yes, yes, Jack. Very rare, but not impossible." He turned towards the man in the other cage who was gazing at them, starting to speak to him. "Did we wake you?"

John blinked. "No, no, you didn't.." He trailed off, thoughts wandering. If only Sherlock had a good look at this, his mind would be in complete overdrive for a week. Wait- Sherlock! Eyes darting back and forth, another creaking brought everyone's attention to the source.

"Dear Lord," a deep voice groaned, soft shuffling and footsteps coming from one of the cages closest to John. "John?"

"Sherlock," John acknowledged, crossing his arms over his chest. "Did you drug the tea again?"

"I was about to ask you that," Sherlock replied matter-of-factly. "But no, I didn't. Not this time."

"So they're-" John gestured towards the five, "-all real?" There was a few long moments of silence, Sherlock staring. His thoughts ran at a million miles per hour, trying to make of this situation. The tall man ran a deduction through each person, gathering very little of what they were, but a bit of their work habits.

The teenager worked with children and was most likely a nomad, he'd calculated. He was closer to younger children's age and obviously traveled quite a lot. Sherlock didn't get much off of the rabbit - only that he worked with paints due to the bright colors smudged against his paws. The tall Russian man was an engineer of some sort, perhaps mechanics? There was some grease on his black trousers. No, no, he's much to gentle. Toys, maybe? A toy maker, yes. The hummingbird-woman was an odd one despite the obvious. Sherlock couldn't find anything relating to work on her, and neither did he find anything on the golden man besides him being mute.

"...Apparently," the detective finally spoke up, his own answer surprising him.

"Of course we exist," the silver-haired boy said, hopping off of the crook of his staff and onto the ground with such grace it seemed inhuman. "Why would you be talking to us if we didn't?"

"Well," Sherlock drawled out, sucking in a breath to prepare for the long speech ahead of him. "Hallucinations being the number one possibility, however-"

"I am not going to listen to one of your hour long lectures again," John snapped. Sherlock blinked, but kept his silence. John was not a person anyone would want to piss off, even if they were several meters away from each other. The solider soon cleared his throat and began to speak again. "Where are we?"

"Pitch Black's dungeon of his," the rabbit answered, his ears twitching in irritation as he glanced around warily.

"And who exactly is he?"

"Who exactly are you?"

"I'm John Watson," John introduced, then gestured towards the detective. "Over there is my colleague, Sher-"

"Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective," Sherlock interrupted. "Your turn." He gave a light tug at his scarf, pulling it off from around his neck as he waited for the others' introductions.

The taller man decided to speak. "I am North," he began and gestured towards the respective person. "And this is Jack, Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy. We are the Guardians of Childhood."

"If I'm not mistaken, that is a series of books.." Sherlock rose an eyebrow, dropping his scarf onto the discolored cage floor, his folded coat following. "Mycroft used to read them to me when I was just a young child." He gave the mention of his brother a scowl. "Whoever wrote them-"

"William Joyce," John offered.

"Yes, sure," Sherlock cast a side glance, "-was quite foolish. I'm not quite sure why they were in Mummy's possession."

"Hm," Jack shrugged. "Never heard of it. Sandy?" He glanced over at the dream maker, who only shrugged.

Tooth hummed quietly, her wings' buzz drowning it out. "Either way, we still are the Guardians. We protect the children of the world from anything that hurts them. For instance, Pitch."

"What were you two doing out in the middle of the forest in Baskerville?" Bunny questioned, leaning against the bars at his full height while he ran his paw over a boomerang. Where he'd gotten it, neither John or Sherlock knew.

"We were on a case," John explained, letting Sherlock fill in the details.

"A while ago, we accepted a client's case, in which he claimed that his father was killed by a 'hell hound,'" Sherlock started to continue on, his words starting to lower to rambles as he focused on the details around him. The place they were all in was obviously a dark and unclean place, showing signs of neglect and almost absolute desertion. But no, not completely. Something was keeping this old, broken down palace up by threads. Keeping it barely livable, and not even that. "If you five weren't there, I probably would've had the case solved hours ago! But, no."

"Sherlock!" John hissed, scolding the younger man.

"What?" Sherlock snapped. "It's true. It's something to do with the sugar, I know it is!"

To be short about it, the rest of the night continued on like this. The two bickered, Sherlock being an insensitive, careless, sociopathic pain in the ass. The Guardians, instead of growing to like the company they were forcefully given, began to slowly become annoyed of Sherlock's droning. At one point, though, all became quiet with the soft and gentle pulls of sleep and soft snoring.

Spare Sherlock, of course.


Hello! This is my first writings in a long, long while. Has to be close to half a year, gives or take a few weeks or months, that I've actually written something chapter-wise. This was originally an RP idea I had with my close friend, except Watson and Holmes were genderbent until they woke up. Buuuuut, I found that quite hard to start out, so I decided to just leave it to its canon characters. Gotta love the post-hiatus laziness.

I'm not really sure if I meant this to be a crack!fic or not, but either way, it kind of sounds like it. I just really liked the idea, seeing that I am a big fan of both Rise of the Guardians and Sherlock. So, yes, probably a crack!fic.

I'm not meaning this as a long, full-fledged fanfiction. I was originally thinking of it being a one, maybe 2 paged one-shot thing, but it looks like it might become longer than I expected. However, the update for it depends on my ideas being cooperative with me, my time, and of course, if you guys want it or not.

I don't own any of Rise of the Guardians or Sherlock, though I wish I did sometimes. Bleh. :/

Please review!

Until then, my little Guardians.

Thedogzoo signing off.