Crossover Fanfic: An Unintended Walk in the Wood (Sherlock(BBC)/Winnie the Pooh, G)
Title: An Unintended Walk in the Wood
Crossover/Fandoms: Sherlock/Winnie-the-Pooh
Alternate Postings: AO3
Rating/Content: G. Crack. Crossover. Silliness. Fluff, literal and otherwise. Ridiculous.
Word Count: 3300
Disclaimer: Neither of these worlds or their characters are mine.
Notes: Started writing this in 2011, and lo, it's now as done as it's ever going to get. Inspired by an old meme prompt, but doesn't answer any of the specific queries posed in that prompt. (Sorry.) Summary is written in the style of A.A. Milne chapter titles.
Summary: In which there is a lab explosion, but then things get weird.
-.-
An Unintended Walk in the Wood
-.-
"This is ridiculous." John tried to cross his over-stuffed ragdoll arms and huffed his yellow yarn hair out of his blue button eyes.
"At least you can bend, I'm stuck in parade mode." Lestrade swung one leg out, knee unbending, lurching forward a step with a clank.
"I always thought you'd do well as a palace guard, Inspector, but the hat really doesn't suit you," Mycroft planted his yellow plastic umbrella in between his webbed feet, and stroked his orange felt bill.
They had been in Bart's lab; John assumed they still were, despite the perceptions they apparently shared now. That bush must be a microscope station. That tree, a chemicals cupboard. That rotund and implausibly fluffy duck, Mycroft Holmes.
All they had to do was wait out this shared hallucination nonsense and hope no one else came into the lab and got caught up in it. It was Molly's day off, and the relief pathologist had stormed out after a particularly withering comment from Sherlock, so he hadn't been there for the explosion.
"What exactly was in that exploding beaker, Sherlock? How long's this hallucination nonsense going to last?" John's stuffing rustled as he turned his head and upper torso this way and that, looking around. "Sherlock?"
Something sinuous and furry wove around the roots of a nearby tree. Storage cupboard. Whatever.
"Sherlock?"
"Endlessly fascinating." The sinuous thing stopped and stood on its hind legs. Sherlock, John's perceptions were telling him, had become some sort of stuffed ferret or stoat, one with enormous eyes and ears and a long thick tail, made all the more comical by having a stoat-sized felt version of Sherlock's coat and scarf.
"Mass hallucinations are something you're experimenting with now?" Lestrade queried, shoulder joints squeaking as he tensed. "This had better not involve any class A drugs, Sherlock, or you'll very much regret it."
Sherlock made a rude noise and lolloped around the group, coat fluttering over his long back and tail. "No drugs. It's not a hallucination, can't you see?"
"Right. So we've really been toys all along?" Lestrade creaked irritably. "This isn't a Disney movie!"
"Not originally Disney at least," Mycroft murmured, prompting a brief and bemusing bit of pondering as to how a person could murmur through a duck's beak.
"Of course you'd have seen Toy Story," Sherlock snapped.
"Wrong again, brother mine, and frankly I'm actually surprised by that. After all, I wasn't the one dragging that pitiful bear through every hedge and thicket in the neighbourhood."
Standing tall on his hind legs, Sherlock peered around the ridiculously pastoral woodland. "Ah. Of course."
In lieu of crossing his arms, John held his over-stuffed hands together in front of his over-stuffed chest. "Would either of you please start explaining? Anything?"
Sherlock turned to face John, moving like a furry ocean wave. "Simple. We're not hallucinating. We've all been transported to a ludicrously unrealistic version of Ashdown Forest, or as most common people would call it, the Hundred Acre Wood."
Bemused, John blinked his shoe-button eyes; it involved squishing bits of his face together in lieu of eyelids and felt so weird he resolved never to do it again. Lestrade continued to mutter dire things about drug busts.
Mycroft tapped his yellow umbrella on a rock. "The explosion in the laboratory has ripped a hole in the dimensional barrier. It happens all the time, but no one believes such things are possible so it doesn't become common knowledge. Or rather, it doesn't become common knowledge as fact. Fiction, however, covers a multitude of sins."
Sherlock snorted and rolled his entire head instead of rolling his unrollable glossy black eyes.
"The Hundred Acre Wood is real?" asked Lestrade.
"Yes."
"And we're in it?" asked John.
"Yes."
"And we're toys because...?"
"Because adults do not exist in the Hundred Acre Wood. However, we are adults, and we are in the Hundred Acre Wood. Transuniversal laws of matter and consciousness dictate-" Mycroft coughed in a quack-like manner. "Hm. Well, never mind that. We are here, and since we couldn't exist here as we were, the transition adapted us to the world, rather than adapting the world to us which would require rather more inversion of entropy than any universe is comfortable providing."
"You've lost me," Lestrade said, looking like he was desperately wishing he could bend his arm to scratch his currently-tin head.
"I'm astounded," Sherlock said with great sarcasm.
"Look, shut it, alright? Just tell us when this is all going to be over so we can find a pub and forget all about-"
"Shh!" Sherlock slunk in behind John, gripping the top of John's arms since he didn't really have shoulders at the moment. "Listen."
A soft whumping noise echoed through the wood, growing louder, and occasionally accompanied by cries of 'Oof!'
"It's coming from-" John looked up in time to see a fuzzy red and yellow something falling fast towards them and tackled Sherlock out of the way.
"OOF!" the something said on hitting the ground, before sitting up and saying, "Oh bother."
Sherlock made a rude noise and squirmed out from under John's protective stuffed limbs, sliding off to investigate a picturesquely rotting log.
Mycroft smiled slowly. "Mister Sanders, I presume."
The rotund yellow bear wearing a red t-shirt looked up. "Why yes. How do you do?"
"Th-that's." Still sitting on the forest floor, John pointed a stubby arm. "That's Pooh bear. Winnie the Pooh."
The bear chuckled warmly. "Hello. That's me as well, I only live under the name of Sanders, after all."
"That's actually Winnie the bl-" Whatever was currently serving as John's speaking mechanism - which he didn't think too hard about given his throat was literally stuffed with cotton at the moment - seized up on attempting to say the word 'bloody' as a pejorative. He gave up and said "Pooh" again with rather more vehemence than he'd originally intended. With some effort at limb coordination, John stood up.
"Mister Sanders," said Mycroft. "We have gotten lost in your lovely wood and require assistance in returning home."
"Oh dear!" Pooh Bear said with great concern. "Of course I'd be happy to help!"
"We arrived via something that would appear ...odd or unusual." Mycroft-the-fuzzy-duck's beak tilted in a grimacey way at giving the vague description. "Would you be able to help us find it?"
With an assisting squashy hand up from John, Pooh bear got to his feet. "I know everything in these woods, and if I don't my friends know the rest."
"Ah." Mycroft tapped the tip of his umbrella in the loam. "It would be best if we don't bother your friends with this if at all possible."
"Oh. Well. We'll find it some other how then. Follow me!" Pooh trudged off between the trees, leaving the rest to trail behind.
"That little introduction of yours sounded rather practiced," said Lestrade, lurking squeakily up behind Mycroft.
"Just the standardized script."
"What?" John waved a stuffed arm to encompass the breadth of the watercolour forest. "This sort of thing happens often enough that there's a standardized script!?"
Mycroft simply smiled as enigmatically as a fuzzy duck could.
"John." Lestrade called past Mycroft's shoulder. "When we get out of here, pints, yeah?"
"Fu- Chr- Blo-!" John took a breath. "Indeed. So many pints."
"Pints of honey?" Pooh asked with interest, having returned to see what was keeping his dawdling guests.
"No," John and Lestrade chorused.
"Oh," said Pooh dispiritedly.
Paced by a broad-ranging Sherlock who seemed determined to poke his nose into every shrub, tree and meadow available, the odd group continued down the tree-shaded path.
-.-
The very good thing about the Hundred Acre Wood was that it was almost always a lovely day for a walk.
John amused himself by watching Mycroft, who seemed about to explode at every new thing Pooh bear brought them to see which he considered to be odd, and Sherlock, who explored the landscape, his lithe form sliding over hillocks and dips in the verdant forest, twining up trees like a fuzzy vine.
Mycroft made discrete noises of discontent, like a kettle heating up to boil as he waddled after the yellow bear. Pooh bear - not too disheartened by the constant rejection of his offers to stop and play 'pooh-sticks' every time they crossed the river - was happily babbling about the next odd thing which was near Kanga and Roo's place. "I think there might even be a chance to stop for a smackerel of lunch, if Kanga and Roo are at home?"
"No." Mycroft scowled across the landscape at his ever-exploring brother.
"Oh," said Pooh, deflating.
John attempted to hiss disapprovingly through his own fluff, failed miserably, and instead elbowed Mycroft in the wing-area with all the force of an over-stuffed cushion.
Mycroft sighed. "I apologise. I'm sure you can go back and visit with your friends later once we've gone, but we really must be going home."
"Oh! Well, we should hurry then!" Pooh bear's portly ambulations sped up in an almost unnoticeable way.
Mycroft sighed and waddled.
"I never realised how much being a stuffed duck really suits Mycroft," John whispered to Lestrade.
Lestrade giggled.
"You're one of the Palace Guard, Lestrade," muttered Mycroft. "Even though you're made of tin, you could show some decorum."
Lestrade laughed outright. "This coming from a stuffed duck who, may I point out, isn't wearing any trousers or pants."
"You're showing a lot more than your decorum, mate," John said with a fabric-crinkly smirk.
"Hey!" said Lestrade, patting John with a stiff tin arm in lieu of an elbowing. "He's showing his duck-orum!"
John snickered. "Don't you mean his duck-o-rump?"
John and Lestrade burst into giggles. Mycroft looked thunderous for a moment before sniffing derisively and turning to follow their guide-bear.
Sherlock eeled up over a dilapidated fence. "You're both laughing and Mycroft looks livid, what did I miss?"
Lestrade kept snickering as John waved Sherlock off. "It involves juvenile humour and bad puns."
"Oh," said Sherlock, "never mind then." He dropped to all fours and scurried off into a nearby hedge to rustle around.
If we've all gone mad, John thought, now stuck in a giggle-loop with Lestrade, some of us might as well have fun with it.
-.-
"How exactly is it possible to lose sight of the bright yellow stuffed bear you are following, Mycroft?" Sherlock sniped, scrambling up a tree for a broader view. "I hope you realise this doesn't speak well for your fieldwork capabilities."
Mycroft cleared his throat with a semi-quack and glared into the distance. "Your... compatriots were being a distraction."
"A distraction?" Sherlock descended the tree with far more grace than was fair. "Really Mycroft. You can't follow a target who is aware you are following and in fact wants you to follow him, because two grown men are being juvenile idiots?"
Manfully suppressing another fit of giggles, John looked up innocently at the perfectly green leaves on the tree branches above them. Beside him Lestrade fidgeted, joints squeaking.
Sherlock jerked a short stoaty forepaw toward a branching in the path behind them. "The bear took a side path. He's not currently moving, just standing and staring off into space. D'you think you can catch up with him, or shall I call a cab for you?" With a scornful huff, Sherlock scampered back up the path to the turn off.
Mycroft muttered about 'leg work' and followed, trailed by John and Lestrade.
When they caught up, Pooh was standing on the trail in a patch of sunlight, staring at a butterfly that had landed on his nose. The men looked at each other a moment, until Pooh bear puffed the insect away with a gentle 'pooh' sound. The butterfly flapped off into the meadow as they all watched.
Pooh hummed.
John stood next to Lestrade and watched the Holmes brothers staring at the stuffed bear.
Sherlock loomed as only a stuffed ferret could. Mycroft's fuzzy duckish grip on his umbrella made the handle creak. After a few seconds passed in silence but for the humming of a stuffed bear, Mycroft grated out, "Well?"
"Hm?" hummed Pooh bear, looking up at the assembled adults-turned-toys. "Oh! Right, I'm helping you look for the odd thing that will take you home!"
"Yes," Mycroft said, voice practically dripping icicles of disdain.
"Yes. I needed to stop and think which one was next." Pooh turned to watch the butterfly dancing in the sunlight over the meadow. "Did you ever stop to think, but then forget to start again?"
"No," chorused the Holmeses. John gave up and laughed outright, quickly followed by Lestrade, netting a glare from Mycroft.
"Oh," said Pooh with a quickly vanishing disappointment. "Well, you ought to try it sometime. It's how I get all my best thinking done."
Mycroft sighed. Sherlock made a rude noise and undulated off into the meadow after the butterfly.
-.-
After several hours of exploring the Hundred Acre Wood, trudging along behind Winnie the Pooh and examining everything he considered to be odd or peculiar (and watching Mycroft twitch in frustration after the fifth viewing of some odd-coloured shiny rock or a branch that was growing in just the right shape for napping in or the unusually enormous turnip in Rabbit's garden, all while Sherlock's sinuous form flowed over the landscape, poking his nose into everything and muttered about rationality) Pooh finally lead them to a glade near where they had appeared where a swirly sparkling light danced in mid-air.
Mycroft sighed. "I do believe this is the odd thing we are looking for."
"It's the newest one! I saw it from up the tree and that's why I fell down."
A pained silence fell.
"Right! Well!" John strode forward with as much stridefulness as his stuffed legs could manage, holding out his vaguely-shaped hand. The bear's grip was soft and a little sticky from some honey he'd managed to find somewhere along the path. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Winnie the Pooh, but there's a pub on the other side of that thing where I intend to sit for several hours."
"Me too," said Lestrade, holding out a stiff tin arm. "Sitting. Amazing thing, sitting, bending, knees, elbows, all that. Don't appreciate it nearly enough."
"Sherlock!" John called. "We're going through the strange wibbling thing now."
Sherlock's furry head popped out of a patch of grassland several hundred meters away, then disappeared; a snaking line of disturbed grasses traced his progress through the field towards them, jerking side to side as he detoured to get in some last minute exploration.
John leaned over and whispered towards Lestrade. "I'm just glad we didn't encounter Tigger."
"Ooo..." said Lestrade speculatively.
"No," said Mycroft. "We are going home." He turned to the rotund yellow bear. "Thank you for your assistance. We must take our leave now."
"Please do visit again!"
Mycroft opened his mouth, but John jumped in first. "Yes, of course, if we get a chance."
"It's been a pleasure to meet you all." Pooh said, turning and offering a paw to Mycroft.
Mycroft stared down at the paw before smiling at it tightly and gripping it loosely. "Mr Sanders. It has been a... hopefully unique experience."
Winnie the Pooh hummed in a pleased manner, and continued on to exchange goodbyes with Sherlock.
While absorbing the bemusing sight of Winnie the Pooh shaking hands with stuffed-stoat Sherlock Holmes in his felt coat and scarf, John muttered in Mycroft's direction. "I hope you realize I'm mentally writing this entire experience off to another secret government drugs experiment."
"Hm, yes," murmured Mycroft. "Probably for the best."
"But it was my explosion!" protested Sherlock, disengaging his hand from Pooh's paw.
Lestrade raised both tin arms. "In the interest of not having to file anyone's confessions of culpability, or in fact any sort of report at all involving any of this, I strongly suggest you get me through that portal thing and into the nearest pub sooner rather than later."
"And me as well," chipped in John.
They turned to the sparkly swirly thing. Mycroft looked dyspeptic. Sherlock flowed around it in a quick circle, then snorted. The thing continued to swirl and sparkle in a very thing-like way.
"Do we just jump in?" asked John.
"Or topple in in my case, since jumping requires knees?" Lestrade added.
"Essentially, yes," Mycroft said.
"One at a time or all together?"
"All together would give the least margin for error." Mycroft side-eyed his brother who was giving the portal a sudden speculative appraising look.
"Should we hold hands then?" asked Lestrade with a grin.
The combined look of horror the Holmes brothers turned on Lestrade threatened to send John into giggles again.
"Jump in on three, then. One, two-"
From far up the path Pooh bear called back to the group. "Watch out for Heffalumps and Woozles!"
"Watch out for what?" Sherlock pivoted towards Pooh and away from the sparkly swirling thing.
With both his mitten-like hands John grabbed Sherlock by the collar of his ferrety felt coat. "Oh no you don't!"
"Three!" shouted Lestrade, and they all jumped back through the portal, John dragging Sherlock behind him.
-.-
They landed on the floor of the lab in a heap. The sparkly swirly thing collapsed with a soft 'foop'. The only sign of something unusual having happened in the lab aside from the tangle of grown men on the floor was a row of shattered beakers on the lightly scorched lab bench and the faint scent of burnt honey.
Mycroft seemed to almost levitate to a freshly-starched standing position, as though he'd been magnetically repulsed by the floor. Sherlock stood and straightened his coat, looking far too innocent.
"Oh thank christ," Lestrade said, bending every joint he could find to bend as he stood, letting out an alarming series of creaks and pops.
"Absolutely," said John as he remained sitting on the floor, fully aware he was sitting on the floor and grinning stupidly at his own wriggling fingers. He sighed with relief.
Glaring at a patch of floor dust on the leg of his trousers before evidently trying to ignore it out of existence, Mycroft turned to the group. "Needless to say of course, but none of that ever happened."
"Nope," said John.
"Not at all," said Sherlock, stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking slightly on his toes, watching as his brother left the lab.
"Come on," said Lestrade tugging on John's sleeve. "Pub. Now."
"Right behind you." John started after Lestrade, but then turned back to Sherlock who was still standing alone in the disrupted lab. "I know you probably won't, but you're welcome to come to the pub with us if you'd like, Sherlock. That was an awful lot of nonsense for anyone to cope with for one day."
"Nooo, I'll be fine, just fine. Toddle off now, don't keep Lestrade waiting." Sherlock jerked his head towards the door, keeping his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"You're sure?" John looked around the damaged lab.
"Go!" Sherlock flashed a quicksilver smile. "Enjoy your inebriation."
John shrugged and left, but then stopped and turned around to peek back in through the lab door's window. In the lab alone, Sherlock was pulling fistfulls of leaves, twigs, stones, berries and feathers from his capacious pockets. With an intent grin he set them into tidy, categorised piles on the hastily-cleared test bench.
"Ah, of course," John said, grinning to himself. How else would Sherlock cope than by analysing data? He turned and jogged down the hall after Lestrade, heading for the pub.
-.-.-
(that's all)
Crossover/Fandoms: Sherlock/Winnie-the-Pooh
Alternate Postings: AO3
Rating/Content: G. Crack. Crossover. Silliness. Fluff, literal and otherwise. Ridiculous.
Word Count: 3300
Disclaimer: Neither of these worlds or their characters are mine.
Notes: Started writing this in 2011, and lo, it's now as done as it's ever going to get. Inspired by an old meme prompt, but doesn't answer any of the specific queries posed in that prompt. (Sorry.) Summary is written in the style of A.A. Milne chapter titles.
Summary: In which there is a lab explosion, but then things get weird.
-.-
An Unintended Walk in the Wood
-.-
"This is ridiculous." John tried to cross his over-stuffed ragdoll arms and huffed his yellow yarn hair out of his blue button eyes.
"At least you can bend, I'm stuck in parade mode." Lestrade swung one leg out, knee unbending, lurching forward a step with a clank.
"I always thought you'd do well as a palace guard, Inspector, but the hat really doesn't suit you," Mycroft planted his yellow plastic umbrella in between his webbed feet, and stroked his orange felt bill.
They had been in Bart's lab; John assumed they still were, despite the perceptions they apparently shared now. That bush must be a microscope station. That tree, a chemicals cupboard. That rotund and implausibly fluffy duck, Mycroft Holmes.
All they had to do was wait out this shared hallucination nonsense and hope no one else came into the lab and got caught up in it. It was Molly's day off, and the relief pathologist had stormed out after a particularly withering comment from Sherlock, so he hadn't been there for the explosion.
"What exactly was in that exploding beaker, Sherlock? How long's this hallucination nonsense going to last?" John's stuffing rustled as he turned his head and upper torso this way and that, looking around. "Sherlock?"
Something sinuous and furry wove around the roots of a nearby tree. Storage cupboard. Whatever.
"Sherlock?"
"Endlessly fascinating." The sinuous thing stopped and stood on its hind legs. Sherlock, John's perceptions were telling him, had become some sort of stuffed ferret or stoat, one with enormous eyes and ears and a long thick tail, made all the more comical by having a stoat-sized felt version of Sherlock's coat and scarf.
"Mass hallucinations are something you're experimenting with now?" Lestrade queried, shoulder joints squeaking as he tensed. "This had better not involve any class A drugs, Sherlock, or you'll very much regret it."
Sherlock made a rude noise and lolloped around the group, coat fluttering over his long back and tail. "No drugs. It's not a hallucination, can't you see?"
"Right. So we've really been toys all along?" Lestrade creaked irritably. "This isn't a Disney movie!"
"Not originally Disney at least," Mycroft murmured, prompting a brief and bemusing bit of pondering as to how a person could murmur through a duck's beak.
"Of course you'd have seen Toy Story," Sherlock snapped.
"Wrong again, brother mine, and frankly I'm actually surprised by that. After all, I wasn't the one dragging that pitiful bear through every hedge and thicket in the neighbourhood."
Standing tall on his hind legs, Sherlock peered around the ridiculously pastoral woodland. "Ah. Of course."
In lieu of crossing his arms, John held his over-stuffed hands together in front of his over-stuffed chest. "Would either of you please start explaining? Anything?"
Sherlock turned to face John, moving like a furry ocean wave. "Simple. We're not hallucinating. We've all been transported to a ludicrously unrealistic version of Ashdown Forest, or as most common people would call it, the Hundred Acre Wood."
Bemused, John blinked his shoe-button eyes; it involved squishing bits of his face together in lieu of eyelids and felt so weird he resolved never to do it again. Lestrade continued to mutter dire things about drug busts.
Mycroft tapped his yellow umbrella on a rock. "The explosion in the laboratory has ripped a hole in the dimensional barrier. It happens all the time, but no one believes such things are possible so it doesn't become common knowledge. Or rather, it doesn't become common knowledge as fact. Fiction, however, covers a multitude of sins."
Sherlock snorted and rolled his entire head instead of rolling his unrollable glossy black eyes.
"The Hundred Acre Wood is real?" asked Lestrade.
"Yes."
"And we're in it?" asked John.
"Yes."
"And we're toys because...?"
"Because adults do not exist in the Hundred Acre Wood. However, we are adults, and we are in the Hundred Acre Wood. Transuniversal laws of matter and consciousness dictate-" Mycroft coughed in a quack-like manner. "Hm. Well, never mind that. We are here, and since we couldn't exist here as we were, the transition adapted us to the world, rather than adapting the world to us which would require rather more inversion of entropy than any universe is comfortable providing."
"You've lost me," Lestrade said, looking like he was desperately wishing he could bend his arm to scratch his currently-tin head.
"I'm astounded," Sherlock said with great sarcasm.
"Look, shut it, alright? Just tell us when this is all going to be over so we can find a pub and forget all about-"
"Shh!" Sherlock slunk in behind John, gripping the top of John's arms since he didn't really have shoulders at the moment. "Listen."
A soft whumping noise echoed through the wood, growing louder, and occasionally accompanied by cries of 'Oof!'
"It's coming from-" John looked up in time to see a fuzzy red and yellow something falling fast towards them and tackled Sherlock out of the way.
"OOF!" the something said on hitting the ground, before sitting up and saying, "Oh bother."
Sherlock made a rude noise and squirmed out from under John's protective stuffed limbs, sliding off to investigate a picturesquely rotting log.
Mycroft smiled slowly. "Mister Sanders, I presume."
The rotund yellow bear wearing a red t-shirt looked up. "Why yes. How do you do?"
"Th-that's." Still sitting on the forest floor, John pointed a stubby arm. "That's Pooh bear. Winnie the Pooh."
The bear chuckled warmly. "Hello. That's me as well, I only live under the name of Sanders, after all."
"That's actually Winnie the bl-" Whatever was currently serving as John's speaking mechanism - which he didn't think too hard about given his throat was literally stuffed with cotton at the moment - seized up on attempting to say the word 'bloody' as a pejorative. He gave up and said "Pooh" again with rather more vehemence than he'd originally intended. With some effort at limb coordination, John stood up.
"Mister Sanders," said Mycroft. "We have gotten lost in your lovely wood and require assistance in returning home."
"Oh dear!" Pooh Bear said with great concern. "Of course I'd be happy to help!"
"We arrived via something that would appear ...odd or unusual." Mycroft-the-fuzzy-duck's beak tilted in a grimacey way at giving the vague description. "Would you be able to help us find it?"
With an assisting squashy hand up from John, Pooh bear got to his feet. "I know everything in these woods, and if I don't my friends know the rest."
"Ah." Mycroft tapped the tip of his umbrella in the loam. "It would be best if we don't bother your friends with this if at all possible."
"Oh. Well. We'll find it some other how then. Follow me!" Pooh trudged off between the trees, leaving the rest to trail behind.
"That little introduction of yours sounded rather practiced," said Lestrade, lurking squeakily up behind Mycroft.
"Just the standardized script."
"What?" John waved a stuffed arm to encompass the breadth of the watercolour forest. "This sort of thing happens often enough that there's a standardized script!?"
Mycroft simply smiled as enigmatically as a fuzzy duck could.
"John." Lestrade called past Mycroft's shoulder. "When we get out of here, pints, yeah?"
"Fu- Chr- Blo-!" John took a breath. "Indeed. So many pints."
"Pints of honey?" Pooh asked with interest, having returned to see what was keeping his dawdling guests.
"No," John and Lestrade chorused.
"Oh," said Pooh dispiritedly.
Paced by a broad-ranging Sherlock who seemed determined to poke his nose into every shrub, tree and meadow available, the odd group continued down the tree-shaded path.
-.-
The very good thing about the Hundred Acre Wood was that it was almost always a lovely day for a walk.
John amused himself by watching Mycroft, who seemed about to explode at every new thing Pooh bear brought them to see which he considered to be odd, and Sherlock, who explored the landscape, his lithe form sliding over hillocks and dips in the verdant forest, twining up trees like a fuzzy vine.
Mycroft made discrete noises of discontent, like a kettle heating up to boil as he waddled after the yellow bear. Pooh bear - not too disheartened by the constant rejection of his offers to stop and play 'pooh-sticks' every time they crossed the river - was happily babbling about the next odd thing which was near Kanga and Roo's place. "I think there might even be a chance to stop for a smackerel of lunch, if Kanga and Roo are at home?"
"No." Mycroft scowled across the landscape at his ever-exploring brother.
"Oh," said Pooh, deflating.
John attempted to hiss disapprovingly through his own fluff, failed miserably, and instead elbowed Mycroft in the wing-area with all the force of an over-stuffed cushion.
Mycroft sighed. "I apologise. I'm sure you can go back and visit with your friends later once we've gone, but we really must be going home."
"Oh! Well, we should hurry then!" Pooh bear's portly ambulations sped up in an almost unnoticeable way.
Mycroft sighed and waddled.
"I never realised how much being a stuffed duck really suits Mycroft," John whispered to Lestrade.
Lestrade giggled.
"You're one of the Palace Guard, Lestrade," muttered Mycroft. "Even though you're made of tin, you could show some decorum."
Lestrade laughed outright. "This coming from a stuffed duck who, may I point out, isn't wearing any trousers or pants."
"You're showing a lot more than your decorum, mate," John said with a fabric-crinkly smirk.
"Hey!" said Lestrade, patting John with a stiff tin arm in lieu of an elbowing. "He's showing his duck-orum!"
John snickered. "Don't you mean his duck-o-rump?"
John and Lestrade burst into giggles. Mycroft looked thunderous for a moment before sniffing derisively and turning to follow their guide-bear.
Sherlock eeled up over a dilapidated fence. "You're both laughing and Mycroft looks livid, what did I miss?"
Lestrade kept snickering as John waved Sherlock off. "It involves juvenile humour and bad puns."
"Oh," said Sherlock, "never mind then." He dropped to all fours and scurried off into a nearby hedge to rustle around.
If we've all gone mad, John thought, now stuck in a giggle-loop with Lestrade, some of us might as well have fun with it.
-.-
"How exactly is it possible to lose sight of the bright yellow stuffed bear you are following, Mycroft?" Sherlock sniped, scrambling up a tree for a broader view. "I hope you realise this doesn't speak well for your fieldwork capabilities."
Mycroft cleared his throat with a semi-quack and glared into the distance. "Your... compatriots were being a distraction."
"A distraction?" Sherlock descended the tree with far more grace than was fair. "Really Mycroft. You can't follow a target who is aware you are following and in fact wants you to follow him, because two grown men are being juvenile idiots?"
Manfully suppressing another fit of giggles, John looked up innocently at the perfectly green leaves on the tree branches above them. Beside him Lestrade fidgeted, joints squeaking.
Sherlock jerked a short stoaty forepaw toward a branching in the path behind them. "The bear took a side path. He's not currently moving, just standing and staring off into space. D'you think you can catch up with him, or shall I call a cab for you?" With a scornful huff, Sherlock scampered back up the path to the turn off.
Mycroft muttered about 'leg work' and followed, trailed by John and Lestrade.
When they caught up, Pooh was standing on the trail in a patch of sunlight, staring at a butterfly that had landed on his nose. The men looked at each other a moment, until Pooh bear puffed the insect away with a gentle 'pooh' sound. The butterfly flapped off into the meadow as they all watched.
Pooh hummed.
John stood next to Lestrade and watched the Holmes brothers staring at the stuffed bear.
Sherlock loomed as only a stuffed ferret could. Mycroft's fuzzy duckish grip on his umbrella made the handle creak. After a few seconds passed in silence but for the humming of a stuffed bear, Mycroft grated out, "Well?"
"Hm?" hummed Pooh bear, looking up at the assembled adults-turned-toys. "Oh! Right, I'm helping you look for the odd thing that will take you home!"
"Yes," Mycroft said, voice practically dripping icicles of disdain.
"Yes. I needed to stop and think which one was next." Pooh turned to watch the butterfly dancing in the sunlight over the meadow. "Did you ever stop to think, but then forget to start again?"
"No," chorused the Holmeses. John gave up and laughed outright, quickly followed by Lestrade, netting a glare from Mycroft.
"Oh," said Pooh with a quickly vanishing disappointment. "Well, you ought to try it sometime. It's how I get all my best thinking done."
Mycroft sighed. Sherlock made a rude noise and undulated off into the meadow after the butterfly.
-.-
After several hours of exploring the Hundred Acre Wood, trudging along behind Winnie the Pooh and examining everything he considered to be odd or peculiar (and watching Mycroft twitch in frustration after the fifth viewing of some odd-coloured shiny rock or a branch that was growing in just the right shape for napping in or the unusually enormous turnip in Rabbit's garden, all while Sherlock's sinuous form flowed over the landscape, poking his nose into everything and muttered about rationality) Pooh finally lead them to a glade near where they had appeared where a swirly sparkling light danced in mid-air.
Mycroft sighed. "I do believe this is the odd thing we are looking for."
"It's the newest one! I saw it from up the tree and that's why I fell down."
A pained silence fell.
"Right! Well!" John strode forward with as much stridefulness as his stuffed legs could manage, holding out his vaguely-shaped hand. The bear's grip was soft and a little sticky from some honey he'd managed to find somewhere along the path. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Winnie the Pooh, but there's a pub on the other side of that thing where I intend to sit for several hours."
"Me too," said Lestrade, holding out a stiff tin arm. "Sitting. Amazing thing, sitting, bending, knees, elbows, all that. Don't appreciate it nearly enough."
"Sherlock!" John called. "We're going through the strange wibbling thing now."
Sherlock's furry head popped out of a patch of grassland several hundred meters away, then disappeared; a snaking line of disturbed grasses traced his progress through the field towards them, jerking side to side as he detoured to get in some last minute exploration.
John leaned over and whispered towards Lestrade. "I'm just glad we didn't encounter Tigger."
"Ooo..." said Lestrade speculatively.
"No," said Mycroft. "We are going home." He turned to the rotund yellow bear. "Thank you for your assistance. We must take our leave now."
"Please do visit again!"
Mycroft opened his mouth, but John jumped in first. "Yes, of course, if we get a chance."
"It's been a pleasure to meet you all." Pooh said, turning and offering a paw to Mycroft.
Mycroft stared down at the paw before smiling at it tightly and gripping it loosely. "Mr Sanders. It has been a... hopefully unique experience."
Winnie the Pooh hummed in a pleased manner, and continued on to exchange goodbyes with Sherlock.
While absorbing the bemusing sight of Winnie the Pooh shaking hands with stuffed-stoat Sherlock Holmes in his felt coat and scarf, John muttered in Mycroft's direction. "I hope you realize I'm mentally writing this entire experience off to another secret government drugs experiment."
"Hm, yes," murmured Mycroft. "Probably for the best."
"But it was my explosion!" protested Sherlock, disengaging his hand from Pooh's paw.
Lestrade raised both tin arms. "In the interest of not having to file anyone's confessions of culpability, or in fact any sort of report at all involving any of this, I strongly suggest you get me through that portal thing and into the nearest pub sooner rather than later."
"And me as well," chipped in John.
They turned to the sparkly swirly thing. Mycroft looked dyspeptic. Sherlock flowed around it in a quick circle, then snorted. The thing continued to swirl and sparkle in a very thing-like way.
"Do we just jump in?" asked John.
"Or topple in in my case, since jumping requires knees?" Lestrade added.
"Essentially, yes," Mycroft said.
"One at a time or all together?"
"All together would give the least margin for error." Mycroft side-eyed his brother who was giving the portal a sudden speculative appraising look.
"Should we hold hands then?" asked Lestrade with a grin.
The combined look of horror the Holmes brothers turned on Lestrade threatened to send John into giggles again.
"Jump in on three, then. One, two-"
From far up the path Pooh bear called back to the group. "Watch out for Heffalumps and Woozles!"
"Watch out for what?" Sherlock pivoted towards Pooh and away from the sparkly swirling thing.
With both his mitten-like hands John grabbed Sherlock by the collar of his ferrety felt coat. "Oh no you don't!"
"Three!" shouted Lestrade, and they all jumped back through the portal, John dragging Sherlock behind him.
-.-
They landed on the floor of the lab in a heap. The sparkly swirly thing collapsed with a soft 'foop'. The only sign of something unusual having happened in the lab aside from the tangle of grown men on the floor was a row of shattered beakers on the lightly scorched lab bench and the faint scent of burnt honey.
Mycroft seemed to almost levitate to a freshly-starched standing position, as though he'd been magnetically repulsed by the floor. Sherlock stood and straightened his coat, looking far too innocent.
"Oh thank christ," Lestrade said, bending every joint he could find to bend as he stood, letting out an alarming series of creaks and pops.
"Absolutely," said John as he remained sitting on the floor, fully aware he was sitting on the floor and grinning stupidly at his own wriggling fingers. He sighed with relief.
Glaring at a patch of floor dust on the leg of his trousers before evidently trying to ignore it out of existence, Mycroft turned to the group. "Needless to say of course, but none of that ever happened."
"Nope," said John.
"Not at all," said Sherlock, stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking slightly on his toes, watching as his brother left the lab.
"Come on," said Lestrade tugging on John's sleeve. "Pub. Now."
"Right behind you." John started after Lestrade, but then turned back to Sherlock who was still standing alone in the disrupted lab. "I know you probably won't, but you're welcome to come to the pub with us if you'd like, Sherlock. That was an awful lot of nonsense for anyone to cope with for one day."
"Nooo, I'll be fine, just fine. Toddle off now, don't keep Lestrade waiting." Sherlock jerked his head towards the door, keeping his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"You're sure?" John looked around the damaged lab.
"Go!" Sherlock flashed a quicksilver smile. "Enjoy your inebriation."
John shrugged and left, but then stopped and turned around to peek back in through the lab door's window. In the lab alone, Sherlock was pulling fistfulls of leaves, twigs, stones, berries and feathers from his capacious pockets. With an intent grin he set them into tidy, categorised piles on the hastily-cleared test bench.
"Ah, of course," John said, grinning to himself. How else would Sherlock cope than by analysing data? He turned and jogged down the hall after Lestrade, heading for the pub.
-.-.-
(that's all)