Fandom(s): BBC Sherlock/The Borrowers Crossover

Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes

Genres: Humour, gen, friendship

Rating: Depends on the drabble, but a PG-13 as a blanket rating for now...

Warnings: I have not read the books of The Borrowers series, only seen some film adaptions, so there are bound to be faults. English isn't my first language either :)

Notes: This is going to be a collection of connected drabbles following borrower!John and human!Sherlock; just a bit of silliness. It started out as a sort of comic over at my deviantart, then I decided to put it up as a more proper story. Let's see how it goes :)

Oh and I want to thank my dear friend EclecticRegard (Shizuka-Ame) for kindly proof-reading my sloppy work to correct the most glaringly obvious typos :)

221B Borrower Street

1. The Story of John

John H. Watson considered himself quite a decent Borrower. He knew his way around humans, only borrowed that which would not be missed, and never from any human who would suffer the absence of whatever he got away with. He even did, on occasion, help the humans he cohabited with. Or, that is to say, the humans he had cohabited with. He was between humans at the moment.

He had begun with an old lady, pushing her eighties, in the Scottish countryside. Born into the family of Watson burrowers, John had his mother – a petite, blonde and sensible, mild-tempered woman. Then there was his father, a sturdy red-head with the Scottish temperament to match, and his boyish sister Harriet (or Harry, as she had insisted for as long as he could remember), with whom he never seemed to be able to get along with. The Watson children were a curious mix of mother and father; John had his mother's sense and intelligence, but was quite unfortunately cursed with his father's temperament, something he tried very hard to keep under wraps. Harry, however, did not bother to try. She was strawberry blonde (where he was all sand and earth and beige), hot-headed and stubborn (pig-headed, their mother said; John learned at an early age to match his sister in this, or be run over). She was the first one to leave, as their parents had left before them, for a new world.

The wild backpacking, from home to home, followed by heartbreaks and alcohol and marriage, divorce, and depression, felt like it all happened at once, but was truly over a number of years. John suspected his own sense of time got rather muddled once he left shortly after, heading for the grand Edinburgh (a young human woman, small apartment, too many cats) before almost immediately making his way to London to shack up with the hard-working, if slightly dull, med-student Mike Stamford. He pursued medical textbooks with keen interest, and it became a rather enjoyable sport to try and get around undetected in University and Hospital for further explorations when his curiosity demanded it (operations were fascinating, if a bit daunting for the amount of blood humans seemed capable of containing).

However, the time came to move on. He had yet to find a place where he could truly settle down (settling down was for families, kids, security, plans, of which he had neither). For a few years he found himself dragged down to Under London, a maze of Undergrounds and sewers which attracted all kinds of things. There were whole establishments of rouge borrowers and the occasional mixed groups of humans and borrowers in equal quantities. It had started out with the rumor which had brought him there ('we can live together, there's a proper network of us there, our own London in the making'), where he then found himself just as fascinated as scared out of his mind. It was a storm brewing, and he found himself thinking 'this is war', like on the telly, on the History Channel and the news. He barely got out of there alive.

What followed was a desperate search for quiet, away from London but not too far; he couldn't. Too much was a part of him now. So there was another old lady – they were the easiest, the best for quiet and security, just what his wounded body and mind needed – and a few months of nothing. Other than Ella, the borrower woman who liked to listen and help (a bit too much), and her husband, Joseph, who had lived there three years already before his arrival.

But peace and quiet never lasted long. It seemed he was destined to be on the move, to always head forward onto the next phase in life, whatever that might be and whatever it might bring him.

And so this is John H. Watson. Having been forced to find a new home yet again, as the latest one had been flattened to the ground in favor of a new road, he has relocated. The new one is a small bachelor flat, with another one of those nice human tea ladies who always makes too many biscuits, and a young human man who keeps the flat wonderfully messy. This suits John's purposes perfectly, because surely no one would be surprised if a few things went missing around here, right? Not with the state it was in ever since the man moved in, anyway.

John had come across him as he'd gone back to St. Bart's for some familiar scenery, following the slightly rounder back of Stamford in hopes to find a place to stay. A trip in the man's pocket (risky, but humans moved around so much quicker with their longer legs) took him to an unfamiliar lab (so much had changed) and what turned out to be his new flatmate. The conversation had been a bit one-sided for Stamford, but John had gotten the gist of it. Sherlock, as the man was called, had his eye on a flat, the perfect flat. He had not been able to find a flatmate yet, no, but he was willing to explore other resources for the sake of getting this flat (the man had pulled a sour face at this; John wondered what those resources were, but figured the flat must indeed be rather spectacular if the man was willing to go to some extra lengths to get it).

He had been unable to switch transport, so to speak, without risking being seen, and so had instead memorized the address mentioned and resolved to make his way there as soon as possible (Sherlock seemed to have keen eyes; he had loudly observed a lighter in Stamford's pocket, which was true, only it was in the other pocket. He thanked whatever force was out there that Stamford hadn't thought to check, only chuckled guiltily and said he was trying to quit).

Now he was well on his way to settling in, having made himself quite at home in the walls and behind and under the furniture and floorboards of 221B Baker Street (or Borrower Street, as he put on a little sign on the entrance he'd made himself for the space he'd claimed his own). Sockets became doors at discrete places, he carved himself some holes in the wall too, loose wallpaper protecting the entrances and exits. Within two weeks his home was built (bits of fabrics, like socks, became curtains and carpets and towels; pieces of wood from inside the walls made up furniture, and cups and thumbnails were put to good use) and he now had time to start building up a storage of food and other necessities as well, so he would not need to venture out as often. An important rule: never spend too much time in sight. It does you nothing but harm to be detected, with nowhere to run.

Which perhaps should've prevented him from landing himself in a situation like this, had he remembered those keen eyes and not let himself be lulled into a sense of security in the mess his newest human was prone to leave in his wake. As it was, however, John was very much detected, and very much without a place to run.

"So this is where everything is disappearing to! Fantastic!"

"Bullocks…!"

End notes: That was the first drabble to start this off, more to come! :) Thanks for reading, please review! :)