Chapter 1: Sherlock and The Egg
Sherlock is bored. He throws himself across his sofa, limbs asprawl, and glares morosely at the series of cracks in the ceiling that resemble arterial blood spatter patterns from a jagged knife wound to the femoral. He has that memorized, thank you. Rain sluices down the windows and the mid-afternoon sky is so dark he'll need a lamp if he wants to read. He doesn't want to read.
He jerks himself up, like a puppet with an unskilled and impatient puppeteer, and stalks over the coffee table to the windows. Nothing to do. No case in the past 10 days. His fingertips are raw from the violin yesterday, and he hadn't even played one piece of proper music, just sawed angrily at the strings until one finally snapped. He rapidly presses his thumb to each finger in turn, pressing hard against blood blisters, a finger dexterity exercise he does without even thinking about it anymore. He clicks his teeth. Energy radiates from him.
What to do, what to do. Not cocaine. Not anymore, since Lestrade has pointed out that he has to choose between his two favorite pastimes of deducing cases (which has the very satisfying side-effect of demonstrating how imbecilic the rest of the world is) and sliding the vivifying needle, filled with 7% cocaine, into the crook of his arm. He tightens the tie of his dressing gown and swirls dramatically away from the window, running his fingers through wild, dirty hair. Hmmm. Hygiene. No. He'd vibrate down the drain if he tried to shower right now.
"Sherlock! Sherlock? Woo-ooo," It is Mrs. Hudson. He continues his sweep clear to the door of the flat.
"What?" His voice is flat and irritated. He can hear her at the bottom of the stairs. Strange that she doesn't come up. Probably her hip is bothering her today. He doesn't bother to poke his head around to make eye contact.
"Would you do me a favor, lovey? I need a box from the basement, and it's a wee bit heavy. Perhaps you could bring it up for me?" She is manipulating the hell out of him, he knows. "I'll lay in a little tea for you. How about that?" Hmm. A bribe. Or barter, depending on how he looks at it.
He has nothing better to do, so he storms emotively (I don't want to do this, but will… only by the last shreds of social skill left to me) down the stairs and silently plucks the key to 221C out of her hand as he passes her.
He makes his way down the dank, close stairs, the clinging sour smell of mildew and stale air clinging in his nostrils, and pauses in front of the door to 221C. He is very glad it is as nasty and uninhabitable as it is, because it means he doesn't have to deal with any other human besides Mrs. Hudson (who usually doesn't count). He unlocks the door and steps inside.
Mrs. Hudson has the power turned off in this suite, and so his only light is what filters in through the tiny street-level rectangles of dirtied glass near the ceiling. Interesting that a good wash of rain never actually makes glass any cleaner. You'd think this phenomenon would bring the average joe to the realizaton that rain is quite dirty, but it really is amazing what passes the average joe by. Sherlock's eyes dart around the room, scanning for information.
He notices the box Mrs. Hudson has sent him to retrieve immediately. But it is preceded by something so unusual, so of note, that he doesn't properly register it at all, and actually forgets about it until much later, when Mrs. Hudson reminds him of it, having long since put away the cooling tea.
What is it Sherlock sees that so absorbs his attention?
An egg.
A giant egg. Larger by far than that of an ostrich, which he knows for a fact to be the largest egg extant. This must be the size of a dinosaur egg or something. Is it a prop? He approaches it swiftly, eyes narrowed for detail, sniffing the air for any telling odor. He crouches next to the behemoth. It is dark and mottled in the gloom. Must be at least a meter long from tip to tip, he estimates, and a meter in circumference as well.
His nose is telling him nothing. Mildew. Soggy cardboard (Mrs. Hudson's box). Old, damp carpet and ancient smoke, both wood and cigarette. Nothing he would associate with an egg. He leans his head forward and listens intently. No sound. His fingers twitch, and he lifts his hand and rests it, flat, on the smooth curve of the shell.
It is warm! Not hot, by any means, but certainly moderately warmer than the ambient temperature. He scratches his nail gently at the material. Feels like an egg, the crisp compressed feeling of calcium, almost perfectly smooth except for the irregular, almost invisible tiny pitting that would only be visible in higher light. He flicks his thumbnail against the shell to test for resonance. It does not feel solid at all, although he feels that the shell is perhaps a centimeter thick.
He pushes at it, rocking it slightly from side to side. The overshoot and resistance indicates a liquid content.
Fascinating. Sherlock sits back on his haunches and stares, bemused. Certainly it is no dinosaur egg. The fact that they've been extinct for some 65 million years would preclude that. Hmmm. Sherlock rocks the egg again. Everything in him screams that it is real. Not a prop, or a practical joke. He leaves his hand on the shell and absorbs the faint heat. Eggs need to be incubated, right? Certainly it shouldn't be left to hatch out in a London basement, in late autumn. He'd better get it up to his flat, so he can begin some research. Develop some experiments. Keep it warm.
It is an undignified struggle to lift the thing in his arms. It must weigh near 6 stone. It is sleek and ungainly and he finally has to cast his dressing gown around it and tie the sleeves, forming a kind of sling to give himself something to grip onto. Rather chilly in the basement in nothing but lounge pants and a t-shirt, he notes in passing. He holds the egg to him and staggers to the door (open, thank god) and up two flights of stairs. In the living room of his flat he hesitates. Experiments first? Or design some kind of nest?
He heads for his bedroom. It is right off the laboratory (kitchen), so shouldn't be too inconvenient. There is a space heater in there, and the bed is rarely used anyway. He lets the massive egg fall the last few inches and bounce on the mattress. He tucks the bedclothes around the base, to prevent it from rolling.
He spends the next hour measuring, weighing, getting temperature, designing tests for density, and reading up on egg incubation on the internet. While he's on the computer, he orders a stethoscope, too. Hopefully there will be something to hear: perhaps even a heartbeat! Mrs. Hudson calls up again from downstairs, and he answers her rudely and impatiently. Her stupid box will have to wait. He has something important going on. Mrs. Hudson huffs and says, in a tone every mother uses, "Sherlock! You come right down here and get that box, you!"
He stomps down the stairs. "Mrs. Hudson!" he rails back. But he ducks into 221C and hauls up the nasty box of what he assumes are old clothes, going from the weight and the smell of it. "Here," he thrusts it at her. "Now don't bother me again. I have a very important experiment going." He ignores Mrs. Hudson's offended glare and trots back up the stairs, this time being sure to slam the door shut behind him, locking it decisively.
Sherlock points several lamps at the egg, after running the space heater to bring the temperature in the room up as much as possible. The egg is a pale tan color, run throughout with darker brown curving comma shapes, and small black and white circles scattered irregularly and infrequently throughout. It looks like, could it possibly be, desert camouflage? The black and white circles certainly are reminiscent of a foot soldier's uniform. Afghanistan. He thought. Or Iraq. He turns the heater up a little more. Probably wouldn't hurt.
He has a halogen lab light, similar to what you'd see over a dentist's chair, and props it against the blunter end of the egg. He's just read up on this experiment, called "candling the egg". He should be able to determine if it is fertilized, if something is growing within it. The blunt end of the egg contains the air sac, and he can feel the pores on the surface getting larger and denser as he strokes from the pointy tip to the rounded end. Gas exchange.
He draws the curtains, turns the other lights in the room off and flicks on the halogen. The rounded side of the egg is transmitting a lot of light. That is good: the air sac shouldn't have mass to prevent light from traveling. A glowing red trace-work shows blood vessels running throughout, and the curled shape of an embryo is silhouetted near the top. Viable! Sherlock pumps his fist in the air and gives a dramatic leap off the floor. "Yes!" he shouts. "It's Christmas!"
Now what?
Author's Notes
**Inspired by this (tartancravat DOT livejournal DOT com SLASH 148453 DOT html) bizarre dream of TartanCravat on LJ, now forever to be worshiped as "Founder of the Hatchling!Fic / Egg!Fic Genres" (even if I did add wings).
**This is the first story I've put out for public consumption. I'd love criticism, I want to improve, but try to be kind. So please read, enjoy, and review!
**If anyone feels inspired to beta, or brit-pick, I'll happily take you on!
**I have published the first 5 chapters of this fic under the title "Sherlock and the Surprising Egg", and decided to change it. I hope this doesn't confuse or lose you!