A/N: "Duck egg blues". Two parts, I think. -csf
First.
'What can you possibly be doing?' I huff, with a smirk. Here we go again. Without even a word or a gesture, Sherlock's got me wrapped around his finger, reeling me into his mad, whimsical world.
The detective is blasé as ever, as he glances towards the kitchen oven, where I just found a few speckled blue eggs nestled on a towel. As if it was the most commonplace occurrence he elucidates me:
'Hatchery, John. It occurred to me your nurturing gifts are going to waste. Ever since my gap year... years', he quickly adjusts that one, referring to the time the world believed he was dead, and buried, as if it was an inconsequential delay, 'I am more independent and you have been left feeling somewhat purposeless, my dear John.'
The detective faces me straight on as I'm speechless just as he expected. He picks up the violin, cradles it under his chin and gently caresses those taint strings with the bow, creating a soft melody. Even his words soften as he speaks over the violin. 'I believe this pet project of mine is a brilliant idea to exercise those nagging caring-unto-others needs you experience too often, due to your easy giving in to emotions and feelings.'
'That characterisation of me is plain absurd, Sherlock.'
'But then who will take care of those orphan ducklings?' He just about pouts with sad puppy eyes, lowering his bow. Wait, was he lullabying the hatching eggs? No, can't get distracted. I know when I'm being manipulated...
But, damn, those ducklings won't fend for themselves. They won't survive without some help.
I suppose the bathtub will have to do as a pond, then. No clue on how to teach them to fly, I'm not chucking them out of a window...
So much for a soak tonight, after work!
Feeling frustrated, I haul my backpack over my shoulder and grab my NHS identification badge.
'Sherlock', I call out as I pull up a chair by the oven door. 'Your eggs are hatching. You better take the first shift watching them. I'm off to nurture my patients.'
As I expected, he rushes forward with almost comical haste. He doesn't want to miss nature's miracles in action.
And he had the nerve of claiming he was doing this for me. I chuckle quietly under my breath as I get going to work. Don't want to be late.
.
As I return at the end of the day, I find the kitchen table submerged under books, magazines, print outs and a few odd encyclopaedic volumes opened in specific pages. I half expected that. Even a genius needs to learn how to nurture the younglings of a different species.
I'm not entirely sure Sherlock would know how to change a dipper to his own species either.
What I didn't count on was seeing Sherlock in one of my nicest, warmest jumpers. Really? Pilfered without remorse by a practiced kleptomaniac.
And I just don't have the heart to reproach him as I see him cradling two young ducklings in the warm folds of my sweater.
It's a very endearing picture altogether.
'Sherlock, I—'
'They're orphans, John. Isn't it terrible?'
Reality seems to have hit him hard, and his generally steely grey eyes are rounded and damp. The ascetic genius is a self-induced mess right now. All nurturing and no common sense.
Right. This kitchen seems to be 221B's kitchen, and not an alternative parallel universe. The man standing in front of me seems to be the same dark avenging angel that often looms over the city of London, desperately seeking and picking up on crimes to amuse himself. A man who can dissect a three weeks old rotting corpse on a hot day and stroll outside the morgue for an ice lolly with a smile on his face. Or take up a bloody fight with a criminal gang to stop a drugs lord, before I even get there to be his backup. The man whose name makes hardened criminals think twice about their career prospects is now teary eyed as he protects a duo of croaky ducklings in his arms. Hardly more than fluffy, downy yellow balls with big webbed feet and a jutting beak, flapping tiny wings that wouldn't hold them up if they stumbled on the folds of my sweater, searching for warmth. Oh, brother...
'You really missed your calling, mate.'
He looks after me, seriously confused, I'm off to the shower.
Sherlock ducks towards the opened oven door. Inside another little creature must be hatching. He better not have any snake eggs mixed in there or the night might end badly.
.
Right. Well, then.
Someone has filled the bathtub with murky pond water, aquatic plants, and reeds protruding at the surface, and a general "not clean but only just starting to decay organic matter" scent hangs in the warm stuffy air. I notice the small bathroom window is tightly shut, other than that I perceive this corner of our flat's only complete bathroom as a perfect riparian habitat study micro-ecosystem. Trust Sherlock to excel in every available way.
I carefully detour the quagmire-to-be and find my own way to the shower. Good thing we have a shower, and that my flatmate is so considerate as it's been left untouched, deemed of little use to the young orphans.
Sherlock would make a great dad.
I wonder when will the detective introduce the ducklings to the water.
.
After the first week things reverted to a warped but effective sense of normality. The ducklings are taller, stronger and excel in making their constant racketing noise of contentment. Often during the day they can be seen sprawling around the living room's rug, as I'm not one to keep them confined to the bath room's riparian environment. Sherlock now needs to keep his bedroom door closed because it turns out they chewed an edge of the period table on the wall (I'm not entirely sure how). They also mangled one of his dress shirts, but the detective is not bothered. He probably secretly co-owns a bespoke tailor's store.
Whatever mischief they do, the ducklings usually do it in a pack; like a devilish trio of little misdemeanour trolls.
Of course that, in order to avoid flat sharing animosity, I have been feeding Sherlock the idea that the little rascals abscond the bathroom perimeter on their own, mysteriously so. Sherlock is a mere few hours away from lifting all the floor tiles to figure out their trick. It helps the illusion that the cute feathery yellow and brown creatures with big feet and tiny wings have little bandit lines across their yellow heads and over their eyes.
I don't suppose Sherlock actually believes in the deception, but he bitterly wants to. That's the way to deceive emotionally uptight geniuses like my friend.
Anyway, he's much too busy with this lighthouse case to have much rationality left in him. As it stands, the only possible solution to the mystery would be that someone had carefully dismantled a whole lighthouse, stone, brick and mortar, one piece at a time, and re-erected it forty yards further down the coast line, causing a major maritime accident between a private speedboat and jagged rocks, and releasing to assaulting smugglers a shipwreck load of precious uncut diamonds.
Lestrade asked us for our help, and DI Lestrade got this case, lets face it, because it's the quickest and surest way of getting Sherlock Holmes on board to solve it.
And for all the cases that Sherlock can work on, just fine, independent of my assistance – such as I work for the NHS without the detective – this time I've volunteered to help with the boring background research. Just me, a cup of tea and a heavy volume on the coastal edifications of the last centuries. Well, not just me. The three ducklings have been playfully pecking at the folds of my sweater, searching for food or cleaning their beaks. My jumpers seem to be of magnetic attraction to the little things, as this always happens when I pull one on.
'What?' I growl at a snickering Sherlock, as he crosses the room. Mind your own business.
'Nothing', he lies.
'Say it', I dare.
'Mother goose comes to mind', he says as he's already moving away.
I'm left glaring after him.
.
It's at the weekend that it happens. I come home from a long shift, smelling of hospital grade disinfectant and eager to shed the clothes in which I braved a long underground tube journey with, adamant that those ducklings are going to have to learn to share the bathroom as I shower. Like I say, that's when I notice it.
The bathtub mysteriously disappeared from the bathroom. Just gone. An empty space where it once stood, and a permanent discoloration in the floor tiles.
'Sherlock?'
'Busy, John!' is the muffled answer from across the flat.
'Where's the bathtub?'
I'm quite sure there's an empty void space right in front if me at the moment.
'Rooftop, John.' I start at Sherlock's sudden conjuring act, appearing right beside me.
I groan as I realise I'm actually asking: 'Why?'
He shrugs as if it was obvious.
'Better pond, less risk of contracting Legionella disease. And at some point we must teach the ducklings to fledge. Make a note of that on the diary, please.'
Obviously there is no diary, but he wouldn't know, he's got a perfect memory, or so he says.
'Why not get a second bath?' I ask as he's leaving.
'Wouldn't that Mrs Hudson cross? John, you read the tenancy contract, are we allowed a second bathtub?'
'As opposed to the one currently on the roof?'
'Really, John, you are a terribly inconsiderate tenant!'
I decide I'm too tired for this insanity.
Shower. I need a very long shower.
.
I really, really, should have drawn a line. I mean... Seriously? I'm all for protecting innocent creatures, but taking the ducklings on a cab ride to Scotland Yard?
Sherlock does not do things by halves.
I'm a little bit proud of his protectiveness. it suits him.
Of course, Sherlock would protect just as easily a venomous snake, or a serial killer, given half the chance. He's not one to make such moral judgments.
The detective alights the cab long before I settle pay with the driver. Something about new mysterious stains on the seat. By the time I make my way inside the building, I don't really know what to expect. I mean... We all know Sherlock Holmes is unconventional, creative, with his own notion of normalcy, but this? I must try to protect my innocent friend from the harsh judgments of the fellow man in society. He does not deserve them. Yet all is life he has been chased for being different. Brilliant I should say. All that is different tends to be misunderstood. And I will not have that. My friend deserves a lot more.
I come out of the lift still looking for Sherlock. I know he's been this way. There was a trail of shed tufted feathers in there. I may not be a world renowned detective but I can get an itch in my nose just like anyone else.
Glancing across the open office full of desks and work stations, my eye is immediately drawn to the water cooler across the floor. No, it's not possible! I sigh, rub my face and zoom in on Donovan and another sergeant who seem to be deep in conversation over a difficult case, and totally oblivious to the duckling perched stop the water cooler's drum.
'Excuse me', I interrupt politely. 'Don't mind me, just getting my duck...' I have to stretch between the two officers to grab the yellow downy ball, that protests with a grating quack.
I manage to stuff the duckling in my pocket before anyone notices. All the potential witnesses pay me no attention.
You're safe, little one.
The two sergeants keep yapping cheerfully about their latest bust.
Now where's the mad genius? I have his lost property.
Zooming in for Lestrade's glass partitions office, I find the overpowering dark haired figure standing – looming? – by the only door, and the older man patiently trying to listen and take notes on the detective's tirades. They are both seemingly negligent to the filing cabinet with the top drawer open, from where two little ducklings are spring boarding inside the drawer, quaking amusedly as they play. I hurry up with a deep groan.
'What the – hell – are you two thinking?' I protest at once, as I barge into the regrettably not soundproof office. I immediately go rescue two more endangered ducklings, right under their watch. I glare at the inspector, he really should know better, and do not mind at all the mess the little ones seemed to be making of the exposed top files. I glare to Sherlock just the same. At least my flatmate has the decency to look chastised. And interrupted in his deductions relaying. I can tell by the frantic sudden loss look in the grey haired inspector, pen poised over notepad.
'John, Sherlock was just telling me about the Lighthouse Smugglers, he—'
Sherlock takes a deep breath, taking in the dark looming energy in his demanding partner. He swiftly scoops the two ducklings, glances at my pocketed duckling, and makes his quick excuses to leave.
'Pressing matters, inspector...'
'But Sherlock!'
'Now, Sherlock!' I demand to the genius, marching first out of the glass office. Several Yarders looking on our way in mild amusement.
'I'll text you from the cab, Lestrade', Sherlock still promises as he keeps pace with me and out of this duck-hazardous, unfriendly place.
.
TBC
