A/N: Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, I'm just visiting around with them
The burning sun beat down upon him as he slowly walked through the dirt. He was so irritatingly thirsty. Stupid transport, he hated being thirsty. They were lost and it felt as if he had walked for days. As he looked up he thought he could see the birds, buzzards to be exact, circling above him, expecting him to drop on his face at any moment. And just as he thought he couldn't move another step through the very dirty and red dirt, he heard a voice calling his name and he squinted at the heat waved figure ahead of him and the voice jolted him out of the edge of death that he knew was coming for him in the mirage of a pool of earl grey.
"Oh come on, Sherlock! Grow up and keep walking, I told you we are not going to die and we are not lost."
"John." Sherlock called to the figure walking in front of him "We are lost and there are those things," He waved a bony hand up in the air at the feathered shapes flying above them, "I don't think we'll make it." Exasperated, John turned to look at the wilted figure staring down into the red dirt and looking miserable and quite cross with everything.
"Sherlock, we just started walking not ten minutes ago, come on I told you it's almost 5 miles to the town we passed on our way here, let's go, you are not the only one suffering here and the more we stop just so I can listen to you complain the longer it will be for us to get to a phone and a car."
"Whose bright idea was it to take this case anyway?" Sherlock asked as he slowly caught up with John and they started to walk along the bare and deserted road.
"Yours," John calmly replied and wiped sweat from his eyes. "You wanted to take this case; you thought it would be a grand adventure and that we would regret not taking it.
"I regret a lot of things, John," Sherlock sighed as he pushed his damp curls away from his forehead and gazed up at the sun. "Right now I regret not shutting the door in Mycroft's face when he came to us with this case."
Sherlock scowled viciously at a lizard that darted past him. "Who knew Texas would be a special part of hell where they grow bushes, have no cell phone reception and make something that resembles tea but has nothing to do with tea, but!" Sherlock flung a hand out into the air to emphasize his speech. "Is in fact a sweetened motor oil." John could hear Sherlock rambling under his breath as he fell to walking behind him again.
John knew that when Sherlock's body- transport - gave him trouble, Sherlock was going to give John much more. "It's your fault we are stuck out here Sherlock, if you hadn't insulted that woman, I wouldn't have a bullet hole in my hat and we wouldn't be having to walk in this… whatever place it is we are lost in because the suspects stole our car."
"So you admit that we are lost?" Sherlock's head perked up "And who knew 'Bless your heart' was an insult around here, I was just saying what many of the citizens here addressed me, besides, John," Sherlock paused and shook some dirt out of his shoe; "It's a lovely bullet hole."
"Only you would say that, Sherlock, only you." John muttered. And as they kept on walking, and complaining, they came across a farm, or was it a ranch, John didn't know, it all seemed the same to him.
An idea struck John as he saw the house and it looked like someone was home. "Come here," he said as he suddenly grabbed Sherlock by the shirt sleeve and led the complaining and sweaty detective to a stump by the roadside. "Sit." he ordered. Sherlock opened his mouth to retort but John cut him off. "Stay and I'll be right back."
Praying that the detective was too tired to disobey, John left the indignantly squawking Sherlock and walked up to the house. Sherlock kept to his tree stump and tried to keep his mind busy and off of the mirage of earl grey and seemed to be following him and messing with his mind and transport ridiculously. Just as he was counting backward from a thousand in French for the third time did Sherlock looked up to see John walking toward him leading a somewhat chubby grey horse.
"John Watson! Sherlock's voice cracked with surprise with his exclamation and he stood up like he had been shocked. "You didn't …"
John patted the horse's neck. "I did, and you know, for a brilliant man you can be so stupid, Sherlock." he retorted. "They didn't have a working telephone, and the truck was out of petrol, wouldn't you know, but after a few solid minutes of haggling I think I got a fairly good price on him."
Sherlock scowled at John and turned, then directed the scowl at the horse, which seemed to be scowling right back at him. "It doesn't even have a saddle, how are we supposed to ride and drive this thing without the proper standard equipment?"
John grinned proudly at Sherlock from under his hat. "His name is Judd and we'll ride him bareback, so come on." He motioned for Sherlock to move to the side of the horse. "He looks more like Mycroft," Sherlock observed and they both burst into a fit of laughter. "He rather does, doesn't he?" John agreed, trying to get control of himself.
After a bit of wrangling and a leg up from Sherlock, John managed to board Mycroft Judd and, for the tall and athletic man that Sherlock was, graceful was not always his middle name and after it finally taking John grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him like a sack of potatoes, he managed to pull the undignified and annoyed detective up behind him.
"Alright then," John stated with a sigh of relief as they both tried to regain their dignity and composure the best they could. "Let's be off then." He picked up the reins and turned Mycroft Judd to the road and after a lot of creaking and scolding, the horse decided to give in.
"Are you sure you know how to drive one of these things, John?" Sherlock asked warily. John could feel him growing more tense with every move of the horse and John could feel Sherlock try not to hold onto him but failing miserably.
"Have you heard the expression 'Fake it till you make it,' Sherlock?" John asked as he clutched the reins and Sherlock clutched him. "No I haven't and it doesn't sound either logical or safe." Sherlock answered back somewhat despondently.
"Well that's what we are doing." John replied and adjusted his beautiful bullet holed hat, touching his heels to Mycroft Judd's sides and trying to ignore the ever increasing grip of his slightly panicked companion as the horse broke into a slow trot.
They went on this way for awhile. Mycroft Judd liked to veer off the road now and then after a tasty looking clump of weeds but with a lot of pulling on the rains from John and loud exclamations from Sherlock they managed to pull the horse back on the road and back on course.
"Your ridiculous hat keeps getting in my way and assaulting me, John." Sherlock irritatingly exclaimed after getting hit in throat for the hundredth time. "My cowboy hat stays, and the driver gets to wear it," John said calmly as he pulled Mycroft Judd away from a particular weed he was veering for. "You're just jealous because you turned down your hat they offered you back at the station."
"Oh please, John, you have been out in the sun for far too long, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a hat like that, not to mention it is a jinx, the case was going along nicely till you attached yourself to that thing. If you ask me you should throw it overboard before we end up on what they call boot hill."
John rolled his eyes and shifted his weight slightly, for a fat horse, Mycroft Judd had a bony backbone. "My hat is not a jinx; you were the one that made the case go downhill. And caused us to get shot at and my hat had nothing to do with it and it stays." he stated firmly and as if to prove the statement he gave it a little tap.
Sherlock gave a deep, groaning sigh and tried to look as dignified and British as he could, while seated behind a decidedly not British looking companion, and seated on the back of their very undignified steed, which was, at the moment, turning his attention to a large weed. "Oh come on!" John exclaimed as he fought to pull the horse away from his snack. "It's not tea time, I tell you."
"I saw a movie one time about people in Texas who caught travelers like us and ate them." Sherlock observed as Mycroft Judd ambled off, losing the battle with John. "And," Sherlock continued. "I do believe now that was actually more of a documentary just by the evidence we have seen of the inhabitants of this place so far."
John shook his head and laughed slightly. "Those people back there were not trying to eat you, Sherlock, shoot us and steal our car, yes, but they didn't look like the people eating kind of people, and if they were, Sherlock," John paused and a smirk filled his voice. "No one would be willing to eat a walking scarecrow who talks too much, it's bad on the digestive system."
Sherlock snorted and he flicked the sacred hat and was reward by a jab in the stomach by John's elbow, irritated and not thinking as clearly, and forgetting their precarious position, Sherlock retaliated the elbow jab with a punch to John's side and the next thing they knew, they both had ungraceful toppled off their steed and were lying side by side in the dirt.
"Well that escalated quickly…" Sherlock gasped after he remembered how to get his transport breathing again. "Sherlock," John stiffly said in the dirt beside him, "When I start breathing again you better start running because I will shoot you."
After they had stiffly gotten to their feet and John reclaimed his hat from a nearby bush they were both relieved to see Mycroft Judd had not wondered off and was happily eating a patch of grass. When they had haphazardly boarded their mount again, they set sail with a jinxed hat and a sullen Sherlock aboard and the rest of the trip was pleasantly quite.
After they made it back to civilization and the police station, and had stiffly dismounted and given the details of their adventure to the Sheriff, they found that the suspects had been arrested at something called a "Seven-Eleven and were now in jail and the car returned.
As they got ready to leave they remembered Mycroft Judd who was busy happily eating the Sheriff's potted fern. John patted the horse on the neck and Sherlock scowled at him. "You know, even though we had our troubles he was a pretty good horse, don't you agree, Sherlock?" John asked Sherlock and in reply Sherlock shrugged, and after a moment he replied, "He did fairly well for an overweight equine."
"Let's take a picture of him shall we? As our last goodbye to Mycroft Judd." Sherlock was going to refuse but something stopped him and, smiling to himself, he readily agreed and handed the sheriff his phone to take the picture with.
A few days later, Mycroft received an envelope in the mail and on opening it he found two pictures and a note that said.
Notes of the Texas case, these pictures were worth it all. One picture was of John and Sherlock with a horse standing between them and Sherlock and John looking very dusty and worse for wear but both trying to look serious and dignified. John's hat, which he proudly wore, was adorned with a very large bullet hole. And the back of the picture stated. John and Sherlock, who survived Texan cannibals, sweet tea and boot hill with our unfaithful steed, Mycroft Judd. This is the Judd part in this picture
In the second picture they both were smiling wildly and they were standing on either side of the horse's very large rear. They each had an arm draped across it and John's hat was perched on it at a jaunty angle. The back of that picture only said. This is the picture with the Mycroft part, we think the hat did wonders for it. Christmas is coming. Thanks for the memories.
