Normal people collect normal stuff. Coins. Pictures. Fridge magnets and stamps (though Joan's slightly hesitant to class that last one as 'normal stuff').

Sherlock is not a normal person.

Joan did not expect him to collect normal things.

Still, he seemed to be collecting pets, and his choices were highly irregular, even for Joan's elevated criteria of 'irregular'.

The bees were here before she was, though they can't have been for long. She'll never resent their presence though, not since Sherlock has taken to making their extra wax into a balm for her hands.

Clyde was another unexpected addition, but she couldn't very well turn him away after being orphaned. It was all she could do not to snatch him up and clutch him against her chest when Sherlock threatened to turn him into soup.

But the chickens (ehe hem)? They smelled funny, and they made a ridiculous amount of mess, and were too loud and disruptive. And there was no way Joan was going to learn how to tell them apart (even if she had to perfect Sherlock's technique of deleting information from her brain, she refused to humour Sherlock in this).

She didn't succeed. Romulus cooed feebly the one time she referred to him as Remus, and even though she knew (she knew) that it wasn't deliberate… She couldn't quite convince herself that Sherlock's brilliant smile when she addressed them properly wasn't completely worth it, even if it was likely deliberate.

(It definitely was. Watson might have been an enigma within a puzzle locked in a room with no doors, but Sherlock had her number.)

She much preferred Clyde's stoic affection, bought with lettuce leaves given and abrupt stimuli avoided. Joan took to carrying him around with her, taking him into whatever room she was in, as though proximity to one of Sherlock's pets would absolve her of responsibility to the others.

That was when she realized that she was playing favourites with Sherlock's non-pets.

Maybe it was time to pick up another 'normal person' hobby...

Or, maybe, she would bring home a puppy in retaliation.

(She names him Gladstone, because nothing annoys Sherlock quite like British politics, so having to look up Gladstone's namesake in order to understand the reference is just the level of irritation she revels in causing him.)

[Hello dear readers! It's been a while - how are you? Hope you enjoy this little snipet as we wait with bated breath for the premiere of our favourite show... It hasn't aired yet, right? I have been living under a literal rock of midterms and research. I'm not even sure I know what year it is. On a completely unrelated topic, I'm really bad at cross-posting things to this series here, because I forget to do so after putting them up on AO3. If anyone's interested in faster updates, I'm there under the same username. I also post more fics there, because does not allow the posting of NC-17 rated works, and I, well. Have some of those.]