Response to LyricalSinger's throw down using the words "trilobite", "quiche", "Abbess" and must take place in a hot air balloon.
Adrift
A stiff, cold wind ruffled Sherlock's curls as his thumbs furiously flew across his phone. "She could make the most amazing spinach and cheese quiche, that Abbess." He rambled distractedly, rocking on his feet to keep his balance. "It was her collection of trilobite fossils that attracted my attention, however. Very few fossils have jet embedded in them and the only jet worth mentioning is from Whitby. The area is full of the stuff. That helped me to solve a rather strange burglary case involving a curio cabinet made from Whitby jet..."
Sherlock!" John grated out between clenched teeth. "I don't care about quiche and fossils!" His hands clenched the edges of the basket gondola so tightly his knuckles were white. He desperately tried to remain still, to keep them from rocking further in the stiff breeze. "Quit rambling and do something!"
"Turns out the Abbess herself was the thief." Sherlock replied, ignoring John as he hit 'send' on his phone. He looked at the back of John's head, a smile of satisfaction on his face. "There, help is on the way." He peered over the edge of the hot air balloon as it wafted lazily over the spectacular ruins of Whitby Abbey. "Shouldn't take too long to get here."
"What shouldn't!?" John snapped, glaring daggers at his fellow stranded passenger. "We're adrift in a hot air balloon neither one of knows how to steer or land! The only one that just happens to have a malfunctioning burner!"
"No need to repeat the obvious." Sherlock said with a sniff. "Be warned though, we may get a bit wet..."
John's eyes widened as he stared at the retreating cliff face they just elegantly drifted past. He turned his head, fixing Sherlock with a murderous glare. "Wet?!" he snapped.
For a split second a look of uncertainty flitted across Sherlock's eyes as he saw the anger rising in his flatmate.
"You didn't!" John growled.
"How else do you get a balloon down?" Sherlock asked. "The RAF base is at Scarborough, just there, down the coast. Mycroft has scrambled a fighter..."
The local rescue squad, once they picked up two drenched men from the downing of a runaway balloon, discretely did not ask about the taller of the two men sporting a split lip with a very suspicious knuckle-shaped bruise forming around it. Neither men said a word.