A/N: As this lockdown situation prolongs itself we are becoming accustomed and, at the same time, the more restless. I believe a little craziness will get us through. Keep safe and keep being strong. -csf
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'Sherlock, have you seen my work ID? I'm trying to get my stuff together before tomorrow as my shift is really early and—' I stop short at the sight of the engaged detective. Immobile, with cat-like eyes staring after me, sizing me up. 'You took them.' It's neither a question nor an accusation. It's a statement of fact.
'Yes', he agrees just as quietly. 'We didn't have chocolate eggs.'
'What?'
'Easter eggs hunt, John. Thought it would amuse you.'
'Easter was days ago!'
He shrugs. 'Was it? Let's face it, since most humanity has been quarantined in one form or another, we all lost track of time anyway.'
I groan and sigh at the same time. It's sort of a doctor Watson's speciality.
'What else did you hide around the flat, Sherlock?'
'Your wallet, oyster card, lucky condom (it's out of date, John!) and keys. All very predictable, John, by the way. The keys are the real highlight of the hunt, as you'll guess, for without them you can't be liberated from 221B.'
'What do you mean? We always keep our bloody door open in case clients show up!' I point behind me. 'It's open right now.'
He cranes his neck to look behind me. 'Oh', he acknowledges with some surprise. '221's front door downstairs, then. Mrs Hudson locks it.'
'Right.'
'John, does that mean you sleep outside our flat?'
I stop short. 'Technically, yeah, I suppose. But we're not fitting another door on the landing, are we?'
'It's incongruous, John, I don't like it. I'd much prefer you'd move your stuff downstairs.'
'Where to? There's only the one bedroom!'
'How many do you need?'
He's already distracted, I can tell, as he dismissively waves me off. I sigh. No wonder the bloody rumours never die down. Sherlock feeds the trolls by the spoon full.
Right. I rub my face as I try to wake myself up some more. Sherlock just took my work ID, wallet, oyster card and keys, and hid them all somewhere inside 221B as a treasure hunt, the escape room variety. I slowly break into a good humoured chuckle.
I could blame the lockdown, but Sherlock has always been the eccentric flatmate with no sense of private property.
I surmise to double-check:
'No destruction of property, including but not limited to, shredding, melting and dyeing. No permanent defacing of my picture on the ID or demagnetising of my credit cards. No covering with toxic substances, no sub-culturing with toxic moulds, and no dipping in annoying glitter, correct?'
He grimaces. 'The glitter was just once, to demonstrate how far trace contact can carry evidence. All your conditions were met, John. Thus making it a rather dull exercise. In order to recompense me of all the effort I put into the hunt, I will sit here and observe you.'
I smirk.
'Right. I know that trick and I hope you have hid the other stuff somewhat better, Sherlock.'
'Hmm?'
'The Chicken And Egg method. You can hand it over now. Whichever you've sat on top of to keep me from finding it.'
He quickly disguises the emergence of a fleeting proud smile, and disentangles his long limbs to rescue my oyster card.
'Nice touch', I say, pocketing it. 'Oysters lay eggs. You sat on it, as if hatching it. Am I to expect lateral logic to all the other missing items?'
Sherlock raises an eyebrow in a simile of innocence and dazed confusion. 'Would I do that?'
Nicely played, mate. But I've got a tactic for this. First I'll play nice, by the rules. If you made it all too hard I'll have you lose your patience. You brought this on yourself, I'm a Watson, I don't give up.
'You're circling me, John, how interesting', Sherlock narrates. 'But you'll notice all the other objects are in the flat. I haven't ate them.'
I smile. 'That's one up on my sister Harry. Sherlock, I'm rather good at this, I'll make you regret messing with my stuff.'
'Really? Look at you now. Engaged, curious, alive. You love this game.'
'I put up with my flatmate.'
His smile widens. 'You love me for it.'
'You are too smug for your own good.'
'Am I now?'
I stop staring down Sherlock and dive towards the cold ashes on the fireplace. Sure enough, buried in the burnt wood remnants I find my work ID. Undamaged, if a bit dirty.
The detective huffs, annoyed. 'How did you know?' he asks, despite himself.
'My work. You hate me going to work. That's a tiny bit obsessive, by the way. You'd find all fiery destruction for my work ID.'
Sherlock rolls his eyes at that.
'You've finally switched sides, have you?' I ask naturally as I run the ash dust on my jeans, to an acceptable level.
His eyes narrow. You're goading me, John. How amusing.'
'Yes. You said you'd watch me search, didn't say we couldn't talk.'
'Sides, you say?'
'Yes. You're creating mysteries instead of solving them. But, of course, there's one ultimate mystery of yours that I will never solve', I say, slowly pacing the room.
'Just one? I highly doubt that.'
I mirror his flashed smile.
'I will never figure out how your incredible brain works', I state in one go, as I reach inside the skull to fetch my wallet. 'You shouldn't trust I would forget my own hiding places, mate. Lots of times skully here kept your cigarettes.'
'You know what they say. "Dead men don't talk".'
'And "money talks", clever. Again, playing with concepts and associations. See, Sherlock? That's your downfall. Everything needs to be rational, neat, clever. Random occurrences are the hardest to figure out. All else can be traced. Your life mission solving mysteries has taught you that... One item to go. My set of keys. But have you really got them? Or will I find them in my jacket's pocket?'
'Keys on a bad taste keychain. This one, in fact?' he trails a hand from his dressing gown's pocket to bring up a battered keychain. No keys in sight. 'Five keys, John. Why would you keep hold of your MoD's sponsored temporary accommodation bedsit for army veterans, I wonder? You live here now. Why would you possibly want to go back? Which, of course, you can't, as it now houses someone else?'
I sigh. Figure he'd notice. He's Sherlock Holmes.
'It keeps me humble. It's not easy to explain. I... am aware of how lucky I am. That having 221B I still carry a key from a moment in time, somewhere I got out of in a stroke of chance, having had the luck to meet you, Sherlock.'
We both look away at the same time.
'So... keys', I remind him.
'And a condom.'
'No, you can keep it for your experiments, Sherlock.'
'Thank you, John.'
'Just please don't unroll it and hang it out of the living room's balcony again.'
'I was conducting important data collection on the predominant winds on compact urban settings, John. Improvised wind sleeve of miniature size.'
'That was not its size according to the box.'
'John, enough. Keys, remember?'
I nod. Keys. One last item and freedom is nigh.
Well, freedom to go across an unlocked door to the stairwell and then back. Not going anywhere, we're in a bloody lockdown.
That makes this the lamest escape room ever.
On the other hand, Sherlock imagined this. And it has been surprisingly easy for the love child of a bored kleptomaniac detective with too much time to spare. I can hardly expect him to give up my purloined keys without a real fight.
If he does, we're setting up home-schooling for the detective to relearn his skills under his own deductive method, and to learn to create mysteries instead of just solving them.
Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Mysteries Maker? A nicer twist on criminal mastermind. We can hide your family's heirloom and give you leads to insert in your will. We have a boot camp to train you to run away from kidnappings (I've got loads of experience there), and a whole semester's worth on applied criminology to help you find out how long that leftover curry has been living in your fridge. Any of those, and more, should keep us busy a while, until the lockdown is over.
'You have been doing surprisingly well, John. You excel with riddles. It's therefore amazing how bad you are with proper investigative work.'
I roll my eyes at that. Anyone is crap when compared side by side with Sherlock Holmes. You need thick skin to survive the sidekick post.
Randomly, I open the floppy disks box, the filing cabinet's drawers, the teapots on the shelves behind Sherlock's chair. As I near the kitchen, the detective has the grace of shaking his head, to nudge me away. And no, he wouldn't lie, Sherlock plays by his own set of rules, but outright lying is beneath him. So I feel inside the Union Jack pillow, lift the rug's corner and peek behind the skull picture on the wall. Still nothing. Throughout I try to get a reading on my impassive friend, but he blocks me out with a blank expression and remains fully immobile apart from breathing and blinking. I try harder. I look under the sofa, behind the curtains, and even approach his violin.
'Not in there, John', he quickly volunteers. His beloved violin, he allows me to touch it and a few rare other people, but always tries to avoid it. So I give him his space and leave the musical instrument alone. I can always swap it for my keys if tomorrow I'm running late for work without success in this treasure hunt.
Work. As an essential worker of the medical kind, it's one of the rare reasons I leave the house nowadays. But as there are too many cases in London and the UK, it gets harder by the day to face work. One patient at a time, is all I can do, I fight for each with all my energy and determination. I return exhausted and haunted. The loyal support of one Sherlock Holmes the only thing that differentiates my days at the moment.
'John, you are distracting yourself from your quest', my friend warns me.
'Not at all. I got it now.'
'I highly doubt that. Your keys are still hidden, they are in my possession.'
I smile pleasantly as I lift my extended first aid kit, a duffel bag full of medical supplies. We usually keep it hidden at the end if the sofa. Too many times we returned hurt from our outings in London, chasing criminals. Best to keep it at hand. But now I admire the layer of dust gathering on the surface of the duffel bag. It's been a while.
'Where, Sherlock?'
He sighs, defeated.
'With the epi pens.'
'Well, you're wrong.'
'Wrong, John?'
'Yeah. It's not the adrenaline rush that keeps me here. Don't get me wrong, I like the danger, and the cases, the unexpected and eccentric, even this odd Easter hunt. But that's not the key to why I'm here.'
He squints. 'You make no sense. Just drop it, John. You won, you found them all. So what now?'
'I'm only following your line of thought. Your choices have revealed more than you bargained for. Sherlock, I stay because 221B feels like home. These keys were in the right place from the start, as long as they were in 221B. Get that?'
I blinks in the most indignant manner he can muster. I shrug and join those keys with the other stuff on the coffee table. 'Anyway, Sherlock, this is not over.'
'You have gathered all the objects', he corrects me.
I nod. 'Yes, I have. But have you found all your laboratory glassware yet?'
He jumps off his chair as of by electric shock, gunning for the kitchen.
'John, I will kill you in your sleep!'
I chuckle. He will not. It will take him all night to find his test tubes, beakers and microscope slides inside the dishwasher, all clean and ready to be put away.
'Good night, Sherlock!'
'John!'
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