Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock Holmes or the Fairly Odd Parents.

Greg's Helpers

By Random Flyer

Greg Lestrade didn't know what he had done to deserve this…whatever it was. He hadn't yet decided if it was a blessing or a curse, punishment or reward. On the one hand, his career had never been going better. He'd gotten a commendation just last month for capturing a serial killer and he was quickly becoming known for a fast and accurate closure rate. On the other hand, however…

"Really? Could this case be any more boring?"

He had to deal with those two.

Greg turned to glance at the space just above and to the left of his ear and there they were, his two "helpers". If it had been anything else, even an overly dramatic man strutting about in a long belstaff insulting everyone on site, he would have taken the help unflinchingly maybe even happily, but it had to be these two.

Standing up, Greg turned toward a corner of the room, ostensibly taking notes as he kept his head down, pen moving across the page of his notebook. He knew they were following him. He could feel the two gazes, one helpful and friendly if reserved, the other bored and petulant. Greg forced himself not to look, though, not until he reached the far corner of the room, mostly draped in shadows with a good vantage point of everyone working the scene.

"I mean, really, could it be any more obvious?" the petulant one, Sherlock, said.

"But just last night you were complaining how there hadn't been any cases lately." The other one, John, blond and wearing a striped jumper, crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'm not sure this even counts as a case considering how easy it is," Sherlock rolled his eyes.

Greg heaved a sigh. He'd heard of fairy godparents before, in books, fairytales, and stories. Imaginary things that children believed in when they were young and then grew out of when they found the world, fairies were either small woodland creatures dressed in flower petals or old grandmothers with magic wands. Or at least that's what he thought until these two showed up in his office late one night.

Greg had been working, sorting through a case and lost in all of the twists and turns of the baffling triple murder. Everyone had gone home already and the few nightshift workers were at their desks on the other side of the office. The place was at half light with islands of brightness cast by desk lamps and the silence stretching out like the sea between them.

Then Greg heard it, two faint voices bickering somewhere behind and above him.

"We're not supposed to show ourselves to humans, at least no one but our human!" The voice sounded exasperated, but resigned at the same time.

"Don't be ridiculous, John, We're not showing ourselves to anyone, we're just taking a look at the case he's working on," a second haughty voice replied, making Greg frown. If this was a practical joked from one of the other guys in the division, Greg was not going to put up with it. He was tired and frustrated and not willing to sit through an immature gag that would only add hours on to the time he had to spend at work.

Turning around, Greg was fully prepared to tell his fellow detective off for bothering him, only to stop when he realized there wasn't anyone there stand, sitting, or hiding. His frown deepened as he turned back to his paperwork and froze. There, in front of him leafing through his triple murder were two small people…floating…with wings on their backs.

"What?" Greg gasped, pushing his chair away from his desk. The sudden clatter of plastic wheels across tiled floor drew the gazes of the few others on the other side of the room. Greg's gaze cut away from the two floating beings hovering over his desk and over to the nightshift workers. He gave a tentative smile, not sure how to explain or even how to respond. When he looked back to his desk, though, the two were gone and so was his case file.

Greg got to his feet forcing himself to move slower than he wanted. This was not the time to attract even more attention from the bored inhabitants of the night shift. The last thing he needed on his record was that he lost the file for a high profile murder case. He very carefully searched his desk, across the top, through the drawers, and under it. Then he began to search the surrounding desks, just in case it had fallen and slid across the floor. He was beginning to lose hope and become truly panicked when he heard the two voices again.

"Oh this is delicious," the second voice said, relish dripping from every syllable. "Locked room, three dead, most ingenious way of killing them…This is exactly what I needed."

Greg followed the sound of the voice, crawling across the floor with careful, slow movements. The voice came from under a desk in the back corner, dimmed from the half light and away from all others working that night. Peering around into the leg space, Greg saw the two beings again. One wore a dark coat with blue scarf wrapped around his neck and a mop of unruly black curls while the other sported a very ordinary striped jumper, jeans, and a blond head of hair. Above each of their heads was a crown, floating in the air. As before, they both had a set of wings and floated a foot off the ground while they read through the file.

They were so engrossed in the file neither took notice of Greg's arrival until the dark haired one spun around to confront Greg face to face. They stared at one another for a moment, the blond one, John, looking between the two with tense expression.

"Sherlock," John said, half a warning half a plea.

"What?" Greg said again, unable to think of anything else at the moment. Greg knew he had to be hallucinating, small floating people with wings and crowns simply didn't happen in real life. Perhaps he had been working too hard, had fallen asleep at his desk, maybe this case was just getting to him, or there could be a gas leak somewhere in the building and it was affecting his brain.

This simply could not be happening.

"Wait," Sherlock said holding up his hand to stop John from speaking. A sudden gleam appeared in his eye as his gaze swept over Greg Lestrade with a growing sort of hunger. "I have an idea," and though he was looking at Greg, Greg know he was talking to John.

"What are you?" Greg managed to get out, finally finishing the question that had been knocking on his teeth.

Sherlock smirked, a look of smug superiority as he pulled out what looked very suspiciously like a magic wand. He swept it through the air and the case file that had been lying on the ground floated up next to him.

"You want to know what we are?" Sherlock asked, "I would think it would be obvious, but of course for one with limited brain power we can't assume anything. As you can tell by my wings, crown, and wand, I'm a fairy. "

"But there are no such things-" Greg never got to finish the sentence since John zipped over and clamped a hand down on Greg's mouth.

"Let's just not jinx us, shall we?" Sherlock said waving his wand around. "Now, let's get down to business," He picked the file folder out of the air next to and brandished it under Greg's nose. "You want this murder to be solved, but are too thick to do it yourself, correct?"

Greg thought calling him thick was taking it a little too far but over looked it considering the impossibility floating right in front of him. Instead, he simply nodded, wide eyes still fixed on the …..fairy. "I could use some help with it, yeah."

Sherlock's smile grew wider, almost predatory though his small size, wings, and crown made the impression ridiculous, as he looked over Greg. "I'll help you solve this crime and you can take all of the credit, but only on a few conditions."

Greg stared at the being mouth partly hanging open. He'd been spending too much time at work. He KNEW he had been spending too much time at work. His wife had said so on multiple occasions. The late nights, early mornings, working weekends, and general stress of his job had all accumulated into a nervous breakdown and now he was having delusions.

"You're not delusional," Sherlock said, twirling his wand around in his hand, with each pass it flashed between magic wand complete with a star on one end and a magnifying glass. "This is very real, as is my offer."

"What sort of conditions?" Greg asked, eyes narrowing. Perhaps humoring the hallucinations would ease the troubled portion of his mind that had conjured them and then he could continue on with his work in peace.

"One, you have to allow us access to the crime scene, all of the evidence, and the bodies," Sherlock said a glint in his eye that spoke of anticipation as much as desperation.

"Why can't you just go there yourself?" Greg asked. If these were delusions they had already seen all of those things since Greg had already seen them and…well…if they WEREN'T delusions, what was to stop them from going on their own?

John floated over next to Sherlock "Technically, there are rules about fairies coming into the human world." Sherlock scoffed at the statement, glaring at the underside of the desk at the mention of rules. "We're not supposed to stay very long, not unless we have a human and then we can stay around them or where they give us permission to be."

"And that leads us to our second condition," Sherlock jumped in, almost cutting off John in his eagerness. "If we're going to help you, you have to agree to be our human."

"WHAT?" The word burst out of Lestrade's mouth before he could think about it or his volume. He quickly checked behind him, looking over to the nearest nightshift worker and hoping they hadn't heard. The man's desk was empty, the other detective must have gone off to someplace while Greg had been entertaining his delusions."You want what?"

"Do pay attention," Sherlock said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, "John already explained the situation. If we want to stay around long enough to fully enjoy this case we need to have a human of our own to let us."

John shrugged an apology. "Normally, fairies are assigned godchildren to take care, you know grant wishes or something, but Sherlock well..." He shrugged again as if that explained it all. "And before you ask, we're not a couple. No one else will work with him."

"That's because they're all idiots," Sherlock mumbled.

Greg only stared at them both, jaw lax in shock and confusion.

"You don't see many children around crime scenes, do you?" Sherlock said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "You, however, a workaholic detective with a failing marriage? You'll be divorced within a year, estranged at best and then you'll throw yourself into your work to avoid going home to an empty house. You're perfect. If you were our human we could see as many crime scenes as we want."

"Oi," Greg said, glaring at the smug face bobbing up and down before him, "What do you know about my marriage?"

Sherlock rolled his and opened his mouth even as John said behind him, "Not now, Sherlock, alienating him is the last thing we need to do."

The warning didn't stop the bored reply, though. "Well, what ELSE would you be doing on a Friday night when everyone else on your shift, even those working with you on the same case, have gone home to their families. You've fiddled with your wedding ring at least four times in the last half hour and your clothes obviously haven't been looked after beyond a basic wash in the machine for quite some time. Not to mention-"

"Alright, alright," Greg held up his hands in resignation, hardly able to deny the claim that his marriage was in dangerous waters. The reasons behind it were genius, though, even if it was his own mind conjuring these two delusions. Greg sighed, he'd hit a block with this case. Nothing seemed to help him make heads or tails of it. Maybe if he let this delusion play out, the part of his brain that could list all the evidence pointing to the state of his relationship with his wife, however circumstantial, could also find a new perspective on the triple homicide. It was a daft idea, indulging his subconscious in hopes that it would have some insight into the case, but Greg was getting desperate.

"Alright," Greg heaved out in a sigh. "I'll let you claim me as your human if you help me with the case."

"And all access to whatever we want," Sherlock quickly cut in.

"Yes, yes, of course," Greg nodded only to pull back when a long paper with an official seal and ribbon popped up in front of him.

"Sign this," John said, pushing it closer, almost right into Greg's nose.

"What is – Is this a contract?" Greg tried to read over the fanciful script but found the over looping, cramp writing next to impossible to make out.

John shrugged, pressing a ridiculously long and fluffy quill pen into Greg's hand. "Normally, children don't have to sign contracts, but they're children and it's normal for them to get fairy god parents. You're an adult and we're going to need this if the others are going to believe us."

"Good thinking John," Sherlock said, pushing the contract farther into Greg's face, "Sign it and take me to the crime scene."

Greg rolled his eyes, wondering if he should go visit the department shrink after this case was all over. His subconscious was getting out of hand. "Fine, Fine," Greg swept up the quill pen and scratched his name at the bottom of the document. The contract disappeared in a poof of smoke leaving behind two broadly grinning fairies.

"Excellent, now what are we waiting for?" Sherlock thrust the case file into Greg's hands and bolted for the door, John bobbing after him at a more sedate pace.

"Cracking up," Greg sighed to himself, shaking his head as he slowly followed out the door. "Have to be to start following figments of my imagination around."

Thinking back on it, Lestrade had to shake his head. He'd been so sure the two floating figures were figments of his imagination, brought on by stress and lack of sleep or a healthy meal.

But they weren't.

Sherlock and John kept showing up, every case that was difficult, that no one could crack, John and Sherlock were suddenly there, whispering so only Greg could hear them. It wasn't until John had used magic to stop a suspect from killing Greg that Greg really believed the two were real. The suspect screaming about bullets stopping in midair helped a little, too.

Part of Greg wished he could get rid of the two magical beings. He knew there was a way to do it. You had to say an exact phrase, but he didn't know what that was and the two buggers would not tell him. Apparently it was in the contract, what Greg would have to say, but Sherlock wouldn't let him see the contract to find out. No, Sherlock wasn't going to lose his chance for as many cases as possible because Greg took offence to something Sherlock said.

Greg sighed. He was stuck with them. Even if he knew the phrase he needed to say to get rid of his two "helpers", Greg didn't know if he could manage to utter it. He was desperate and he'd come to rely on them. What's more, he was starting to enjoy their company. It was almost like some magical version of Stockholm Syndrome, but he couldn't completely deny that as the cases went on and the two magical beings began appearing more and more, Greg was starting to view them as more than interlopers, but also friends.

"Really, Graham, you need to come up with better puzzles than this if you want us to keep helping you," Sherlock sniffed, though his eyes lingered on the body, just waiting for a chance to examine it.

That still didn't changed the fact the Greg wished he could strangle Sherlock at times, most of the time. Looking at the way Sherlock eyed the body, though, and how John smiled at him eagerly, the true nature of this thing they had going struck Greg. Really, when he looked at it from all sides, Sherlock and John needed Greg just as much as Greg needed them. They were stuck together, one way or another.

THE END

Author's Note: Just something fun I wrote a couple months ago. I wanted to post something, but haven't finished the next chapter for Looking Glass, yet. I've never tried a crackfic before, and I don't have a lot of practice with short stories so tell me how I did. Please R&R.