"So here's the tortoise's display," said the museum curator, fiddling anxiously with his battered cufflinks as he led them through the darkened corridors. "And as you can see, the glass is perfectly intact. No one tampered with it in any way. Our security cameras caught no one here after hours. And yet, the display's empty. It's as if…where is he going?"
Sherlock had wandered away sometime in the middle of the curator's sentence, and was currently attempting to climb up on top of a guardrail, his coat tangling around his feet.
"Does he know how much that tortoise is worth? Darwin himself brought it back from the Galapagos!" The curator was growing increasingly agitated, raking his hands through his thinning gray hair.
"Yes. Right. I'll go fetch him then, shall I?" John gave him a weak smile then started down the corridor towards Sherlock, who had somehow managed to pick one of the display's locks and was standing face to face with a (thankfully stuffed) tiger.
"Sherlock."
"Just a minute, John. You'd think that these exhibits would be dull, all these long dead animals stuffed and posed so that fat tourists can come in and gape at them. But they're oddly interesting."
"If that's your way of telling me that you're taking up taxidermy, the answer's no."
Sherlock made a soft noise of annoyance, and then jumped down from the display case, landing neatly on his feet.
"No, taxidermy as a hobby doesn't interest me," he said, locking the display glass and then turning his eyes on John. "I have other things to occupy my time when I'm not working, things that are much more interesting and much more alive than stuffed tortoises."
Sherlock's tone was light but his hand had somehow managed to curl into John's hair and suddenly he was leaning down, his face angling towards John's.
John's mouth went dry and he tilted his face to meet Sherlock's. His eyes started to sink shut and-
"D'you think someone might've taken it and stashed it in one of the sarcophagi in the Egyptian wing?"
The curator's voice echoed from the opposite end of the corridor and they jumped away guiltily.
"Good lord, it's a giant tortoise. It's not going to fit in there," Sherlock called back, his voice dripping with condescension. "Try and think before you speak, yes?"
John cleared his throat and Sherlock looked back towards him.
"Let's go help him before he gets lost in his own museum."
"Agreed."