Archive of Our Own ^beta

The front door closed as quietly as it could. Mrs Hudson looked up from her knitting, her finely tuned instincts acutely aware that to have entered so quietly, one of her tenants was certainly doing something he shouldn’t be. She finished the row, and retrieved the ball of yarn from where it had rolled away from her. She listened as she rewound it, whichever tenant it was creeping up the stairs. He avoided the seventh step, the creakiest in this sort of weather, which confirmed her hunch. She gave Mr Holmes as much time as he would need to reach the landing before creeping herself into the corridor and peering upwards. He was carrying something that looked suspiciously like a cage. What in hell had he brought home now?
The last time, it had been a dead woman’s talking budgerigar, which flapped around in the sitting room and chewed on the ornaments for three days before it finally said something to provide a clue to her murder. There was never to be another living bird, domestic or otherwise, under her roof. She still expected to be swooped at by something green and yellow every time she entered the upstairs flat, and it had had a deeply upsetting habit of landing on her head. The bird had eventually gone to its late owner’s sister, who bred the things, and Mr Holmes had kept some of its dropped feathers as a souvenir. She shuddered at the thought.
The hall clock gave her a fright as it chimed, and in an odd way she was almost relieved. She did not have time to find out what was that her tenant had brought home, she needed to make a start on dinner. 

She dreaded what she would find as she climbed the stairs with the dinner tray, even more so when it took longer than usual for her knock to be answered.
“Come in, Mrs Hudson,” Dr Watson called. He sounded tired, though he often did three days into a case and certainly in this weather, which had gotten worse since Mr Holmes had crept into the house an hour earlier.
Reluctantly she opened the door. Nothing swooped at her or appeared to be making a noise. Mr Holmes was sat in his chair, fingers steepled under his nose, deep in thought. Dr Watson rose to meet her with the tray, and she stared when she turned to face the dining table.
“Mr Holmes,” she said, “is that a rabbit?”
He did not reply, or seem to have noticed her at all. Dr Watson ran a hand across his face.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “It’s for the case.”
Mrs Hudson looked between the two men and the floppy-eared creature sat in a cage much larger than the one she had seen Mr Holmes sneaking up the stairs. She paled a little.
“He’s not going to dissect it, is he?”
To her relief, Dr Watson shook his head. 
“He wants to observe its behaviour. More than that, I’ve reason to believe he’s borrowed it.”
“So it isn’t staying then?” she asked.
“Only until it has served its purpose, then Flopsey will go back to whence it came.”
“Where is that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know of any friend or acquaintance who would be disposed to lending Sherlock Holmes a bunny rabbit.”
“He has his connections I suppose,” she said, dragging her eyes away from Flopsey and forcing them to return to the tray. “I shall count my blessings that I changed my mind on what to serve tonight, even if the dining table is occupied.”
She could see in his face that Dr Watson caught her meaning.
“...yes,” he said, “that is fortunate.” He hummed, “I suppose we might eat on the coffee table?”
Mrs Hudson’s knees ached sympathetically.
“Or,” she suggested cautiously, “we might leave Mr Holmes to watch Flopsey, and you could come down and eat at my table instead?”
“I shouldn’t like to impose, Mrs Hudson…”
“It’s only temporary, on account of your…” her eyes darted back to the cage as its occupant hopped to the other side, she cleared her throat. “...houseguest.”
Dr Watson nodded, “Thank you, I would appreciate that very much.”

She laid Mr Holmes’s dinner on the coffee table to be ignored, and Dr Watson followed her back downstairs. Over dinner -- which did not feature rabbit -- he explained that he had been conveniently sent on an errand around noon, while she was also away from the house, and the large cage must have been delivered in his absence. He apologised profusely for Flopsey’s presence in the flat, insisting that when Holmes had said he needed to observe a pet rabbit, he had assumed he would go somewhere to do so, not bring one home. His strength of insistence was such that Mrs Hudson felt obliged to offer him a drop of brandy before he returned upstairs to Holmes and Flopsey.
He was glad she had. Holmes was stood looking into Flopsey’s cage, holding a vegetable from his otherwise untouched dinner.
“Well, my dear Watson,” he said, “I can confirm that rabbits do not like string beans.”
“I would hesitate to make such a bold statement on a sample size of one, Holmes.”
“You’re right,” Holmes mused, “a larger sample may prove beneficial…”
“I think Mrs Hudson would object to that, old boy,” Watson said, sinking into his chair. “Remember her reaction when you filled this room with frogs?”
“...I wonder if results would be different raw?” Holmes said, seemingly not hearing him.
“I hardly think rabbits eating string beans is relevant to the case…” he replied wearily.
Holmes hummed and wandered to the window, pushing the bean into the rabbit's cage as he went. Out of his sight and outside of Watson’s notice, Flopsey proved him wrong.
Rabbits do not typically display the confidence to eat from a stranger's hand.