Greg knocked on the door, and John called that it was open, so we walked in. Greg and I had stopped in some closet and now he was wheeling some type of cart around, with brooms and mops and stuff sticking out.
“Guess what time it is?” Greg called.
“Yippee.” John said sarcastically.
“I thought you wanted company.” I pointed out.
“I do, but you spray stuff and it smells weird and Greg always make sure to mop before telling me to leave so I’m stranded.”
“I’m not mopping today, that might be a tomorrow thing.” Greg pointed out.
“Whatever.” John muttered. Greg threw me a spray bottle a roll of paper towels.
“Clean the windows.” He instructed. I nodded, going over to the first window I saw. It was (so conveniently)right next to where John sat on the bed, so I made sure to stand up straight and look good, although I had no idea if I did or not. I pulled the lever on the bottle, covering my nose and eyes for when the chemical actually came out, but nothing happened. I tried again, but there was no spray coming out.
“Greg why isn’t it working?” I asked across the room. He was dusting off the table at the moment.
“Ask John, I’m busy.” He pointed out. I knew he wasn’t busy, he just wanted John and I to interact more. I knew what I had to do, taking a deep breath.
“Hey John, the squirt bottle isn’t working.” I said kind of quietly to him. He was still reading, so he just looked up.
“I’m sorry what?” he asked.
“The squirt bottle isn’t working, sorry.” I said quickly.
“It’s fine, give it here.” he said, holding out his hand for it. I gave him the bottle, and he twisted something on the top of it.
“You just had to turn it to open.” he pointed out. “And when you’re done, turn it to close.” I nodded, even though I wasn’t quite sure what ‘it’ was.
“Thank you.” I muttered. This time when I pulled the lever it squirted stuff that smelled really bad, but I cleaned all of the windows anyway. They looked pretty good if I do say so myself.
“Okay then, clean off the table and take the sheets off of the bed.” Greg insisted, lightly dusting a flower pot decoration in the corner with what seemed to be a dead bird.
“What do I use to clean the table?” I asked.
“Green bottle.” He said, pointing to the cart of chemicals in the cart. I nodded, cleaning off the table with whatever was in that bottle and wiping it up with paper towels. Now I had to take the sheets off of the bed, which I really didn’t know how to do, and there was a John in the way, sitting on the bed still.
“Excuse me sir?” I asked, standing at the end of the bed. John looked up again.
“I need to take the sheets off of the bed.” I added shyly. He nodded, getting up and relocating a couple of books from the bed to the top of the dresser.
“Go ahead.” He said with a breath taking smile. I wanted to glance back at Greg, I didn’t know if that a flirt or him just being a nice person, so I just smiled back and went to the side of the bed. I had no idea what were the sheets, but I assumed if I was supposed to take them off it had to be the blankets and stuff. I ended up taking every layer of stuff off the bed until just a mattress and two pillows sat on  the bed frame, everything else was in a pile in the middle of the room. Greg and John weren’t paying attention to me, so I hoped I did it right. When Greg actually turned around and saw what I had done he looked so done with life that I was worried he’d follow in John’s footsteps off of the dock.
“Sherlock, what did you do?” he asked. John, who had been trying to help dust, looked at me, and I felt both pairs of judging eyes on me, as if challenging me.
“I didn’t know which ones were sheets.” I explained in a bit of a mutter.
“Didn’t know or didn’t want to ask?” Greg asked, dropping the dead bird thing and coming to help.
“It’s okay Greg, I’ll help him.” John assured.
“But Sir, this is kind of our job…” Greg pointed out.
“But I feel like a jerk if I’m just watching you two work.” John pointed out, walking over to the pile of blankets and things and pulling out a stretchy cloth thing.
“Here we go, let’s put the mattress cover on.” John decided. We put the bed back together, leaving off a couple of things, but putting all the blankets and stuff back on. John was very helpful, he seemed to know what he was doing even though I doubted he’d ever done this in his life. He seemed to smile at me every time I looked up, so I smiled back and tried to be more elegant with everything I did. I hoped Greg was right about this whole flirting thing, because if not I probably looked like more of an idiot than ever. When that was done Greg was finally finished with the dusting and John sat on the bed while we swept the floor with brooms, collecting all of the dust and stuff into a pile which Greg swept up and dumped in the trash.
“There we go, that looks very good, now Sherlock get the sheets and I’ll get the cart, we’ll be back sir!” Greg called, and with that we left the room. I held the sheets in my arms with difficulty, the corners kept falling around and it was quite annoying.
“Totally likes you.” Greg exclaimed.
“That’s good.” I decided.
“So make another move, this time I’m sure he’ll play along.” Greg assured.
“No, Greg, absolutely not, I did my part I won’t embarrass myself again, because watch you be wrong, and this time he punches me and fires me.”
“I thought we already decided he can’t fire you?”
“Not the point, if he wants to kiss me than he has to.” I defended.
“Whatever then, I hope you’re not making a mistake though.” Greg sighed.
“I’m not, trust me.” I assured. He rolled his eyes, leading me down to the wash room to dump the sheets in the wash. Then we put the cart back, going down to the kitchens to get John’s dinner. Greg picked out an assortment of foods for him and I picked out the drink, same old same old. I still smelled like window cleaner or whatever was in that spray bottle, so I hope it didn’t poison him or anything because that would be both awkward and heartbreaking. Greg left the room without me, heading up to John’s room again. We knocked twice before entering without waiting for an answer, it’s not like he wasn’t going to let us in. John was now doodling a picture of something in a notepad, the book he was reading before was lying on the bedside table.
“Haven’t seen you two in a while.” He said.
“But we were just here.” I pointed out.
“Sarcasm you idiot.” Greg hissed. “Here’s dinner.” He said, plopping the plate on the table carelessly.
“When do you two even eat?” John asked.
“When we’re done working.” Greg said.
“Do you cook for yourselves?”
“No, we eat whatever the royals don’t.” Greg rolled his eyes, as if John was being a complete idiot. I thought they were reasonable questions though.
“You guys should come up here and eat after you’re done working, I’m lonely.” John pointed out, closing the notebook and fastening a strap around it, coming up to the table.
“You being lonely isn’t our problem, make friends, get a significant other.” Greg pointed out. That made me suddenly very interested in the carpet at my feet, feeling my face get hot. Good job Greg, brilliant job at making everything a lot more awkward than it should be.
“There are almost no reasonable people my age; I thought we went over this before.” John pointed out. “Go get yourself food, under my orders, and come eat with me.” he said in almost a demanding voice.
“I don’t like your tone.” Greg pointed out, crossing his arms with a pathetic smile on his face.
“Good, that’s how we’re supposed to treat our servants, so go.” John demanded. Greg rolled his eyes, but I was perfectly okay with this opportunity, opening the door for both of us and walking to the kitchens with him.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“I guess we’ll find out won’t we?” Greg said with a laugh. It felt very wrong to be picking up the food when there were still servants loading plates for whoever they were serving. I smiled at Clara, who smiled back, but she was having a little bit of trouble loading spaghetti onto a plate with one arm. Thankfully no one questioned us, so we were able to make it out without using the ‘prince’s orders’ card. When we got back John was sitting at the head of the table, poking at his food. He had been very odd today, I had no idea why, Greg claimed it was flirting, but I couldn’t name it. My guess was that he was upset about his mother’s death and didn’t want to feel alone any more. If that was the case than it broke my heart.
“Hello sir.” Greg muttered, taking the first chair on the right and glaring at me to take the one opposite.
“So nice of you to join me.” John said sarcastically.
“I feel like they’re going to hunt us down and make us give this food back.” I said, taking a seat.
“They have enough food there, they’ll be fine.” John shrugged. I nodded, picking at whatever it was I had picked from the selection. Greg was already digging into his food happily, as if he’d never had the luxury of picking whatever he wanted to eat. His plate was almost overflowing while I barely got anything out of pure guilt. John seemed quite satisfied at what we had picked out for him, but he had waited for us to actually start it. I felt like we were a small, makeshift family, just with serious issues. Greg started talking about nothing really, and I doubted John was listening because I certainly wasn’t, but we did have sort of entertainment as Greg laughed. Soon the complete story of Lucifer the donkey came up, and I just laughed along as he pointed out yet again how my scream sounded like a squirrel that got hit by a shovel. 
“So, where do you go during the days?” I asked suddenly, since I’d be curious if I didn’t already know.
“Usually I go to the dock, where my mother used to take me.” John said truthfully, his voice drifting off a little bit.
“See any fish?” I asked again.
“Sometimes.” He admitted. I nodded, but for some reason that answer didn’t satisfy me. I wanted to know if he knew about me, if he had ever seen a merperson or even just a tail.
“Remember that one night you actually fell asleep down there? Scared me to death.” Greg pointed out.
“That wasn’t even that long ago.” John pointed out. “But ya.” I wasn’t going to say that I remembered that too, looking at him for the first time, the one moment when I knew that there was no hope of me living on without doing something about this strange obsession.
“Since I go to the docks, how come I didn’t see your ship sinking? Or at least a flare or something?”
“It was during the night, I thought I told you that.” I pointed out.
“Oh yes, sorry.” John said, twisting his fork in his fingers.
“You don’t believe me?” I asked, I took it as an insult even though he really shouldn’t believe me. 
“No, I believe you, don’t worry Sherlock.” John assured. He gave me a bit of a smile, which I returned of course, thinking of what Greg had said.
“Well, you know, I should probably go get dessert, since we’re having a bit of a house party.” Greg decided.
“Are you done with your plate sir?” I asked, starting to stand up to help him. But Greg took John’s empty dishes and mine before I could do anything about it.
“You work too hard Sherlock, let me take this.” He said. I glared at him, trying to point out that I didn’t want to be left alone with John, but he just smiled at me.
“But I’m sure you’ll want a hand with those dishes.” I pointed out.
“Sherlock, sit.” He demanded. I glared at him yet again, knowing that John was watching the entire thing so I couldn’t be too obvious. Defeated, I sat back down in my chair, slouching on the table with my elbows.
“Now stay…” Greg said, backing out the door without taking his eyes off me, as if I was about to bolt out the door once he turned his back. He kicked open the door, holding it open with his foot in some type of weird stretch and let it fall closed after he disappeared.