AN: This is a SuperWhoLock crossover (Supernatural/Doctor Who/Sherlock). The timeline of the story will take place as follows: Supernatural post season 5 (seasons 6 on do not exist), Doctor Who: Anytime after season 5 (possibly after season 6), Sherlock: Post season 2. Spoilers will probably show up from all fandoms. Also, in order to rationalize all of these characters existing in the same universe, for the purposes of this fic, there have been no worldwide phenomena related to our heroes. That is, the Apocalypse was small scale, no Planets in the Sky, etc. We assume that none of the characters have heard of each other before the events of this story. As per usual, all characters, locations, copyrights, etc., are property of their respective owners. Hope you all enjoy!
The air smelled damp and fresh as the thick fog floated lazily around the trees and above the ferns. The pines stretched high like ancient sentinels, choking out the clouded sky with their reaching branches and soft-tipped needles. Dew collected on the leaves and twigs of the underbrush and crickets and frogs trilled gently as they hid among the growth. Sammy's jeans grew clammy against his skin as his legs brushed past the damp foliage. There seemed to be no path to follow, but, at this hour of the night, Sammy doubted he would have been able to follow it anyway. He didn't need a path, really, he knew where he was going, and the road should be just up ahead. Although the forest didn't seem to be thinning out at all.
'Maybe this is a bad idea,' Sammy thought as he rested his duffel bag against a fallen tree trunk, 'Dean will be really mad when he wakes up, and I don't want him to get in trouble with Dad. Maybe I should go back.' He shifted his bag back onto his shoulder and turned around.
Well, he thought he turned around. Did he come from the right, or from the left? Sammy's pulse quickened as he tried to remember exactly which root he'd tripped on or which tree he'd gripped as he walked past. Everything looked the same. Sammy took a few steps past his fallen tree; sticks and leaves seemed to crack louder under his feet than they had before. No, it just seemed louder because the frogs and crickets had stopped chirping. All of them. Sammy's blood chilled as a single sound ripped through the night. It sounded like the rustling of wind, the scrape of metal against metal, and a tidal wave breaking against a cliff, all at the same time. It was a sound he'd never heard before, but he knew that meant bad news.
Sammy dropped his bag and bolted. His grey sneakers thrashed the underbrush and his lungs chilled as they gasped for the foggy air. Desperate to stay ahead of whatever wraith or specter was haunting this forest, Sammy yelped as his foot caught on a rock and he tumbled into a shallow brook. He heard footsteps and turned around, expecting to see a gargantuan, winged creature capable of making such a terrible scream- … but it was a man. A very odd-looking man. He was skinny, with floppy brown hair, and he was wearing a bowtie like people from the movies.
"Hello there, are you alright? Sorry if I gave you a fright, just popped out for a bit of fresh air- love the Pacific Northwest, me- so I- dear me, you're in a ditch." He had a funny accent, like the people in the Mary Poppins movie Sammy had seen at school once, and he smiled a lot. He seemed kind of nice. The man reached in his jacket pocket and took out a weird silver pen. The pen's tip glowed green and it made a whirring noise as the man waved it around Sammy's legs. "No broken bones, excellent, although those bruises on your shins will probably smart in the morning. I'm called the Doctor, by the way," he man smiled warmly.
"Sammy Winchester," the boy worked out through chattering teeth.
"Winchester? Fantastic name! Pleased to meet you, Sammy… Oh, my, that won't do at all," the Doctor said as he pulled Sammy upright, "let's get you out of that stream, shall we?" The Doctor settled Sammy on a mossy bank and draped his tweed coat around the boy's shoulders. The coat smelled weird, like dried leaves and… fish fingers? But Sammy was glad to have the warmth. "Now, tell me, Sammy, what's a seven-year-old boy doing way out here in the middle of the night?"
"I'm running away," Sammy answered as he nestled into the coat.
"Running away? My goodness, that is a big business, isn't it? Why would you want to run away?"
"I never get to be normal like the other kids. I'm sick of moving all the time. I want a real bedroom, and a dog, and I want to play on a baseball team, and have the same teacher for the whole school year." Sammy paused, not sure whether or not to trust the stranger with the next bit, but the Doctor seemed really nice, "and, well, Dad's never home, and when he is he just talks to Dean, and Dean's always trying to boss me around." Sammy dropped his gaze to the moss growing at his feet.
"Dean is your brother, I take it?" The Doctor tilted his head to catch Sammy's eye.
"Yeah."
"Well, Sammy, running away is a serious business, and so are brothers, for that matter," the Doctor smiled, trying to cheer up the boy, "You know, I ran away from home once." Sammy didn't answer. "By the time I went back, everyone had left… It gets pretty lonely after a while."
"Is that why you're so sad?" Sammy asked. The Doctor's smile dropped and his eyes went hollow. His lips opened slightly, as if he wanted to speak, but had no idea of what to say. "You keep smiling, but it doesn't look like you mean it. Dad smiles like that a lot; I think it's 'cause he misses Mom. Is it because you miss people?"
"Yes," the Doctor murmured, "I do miss people."
"I think I would miss Dean if I ran away. Dad too, but mostly Dean. I would be sad if I never got to see him again, even though he is bossy sometimes." The Doctor looked even sadder than before, Sammy realized, so he tried an idea, "Do you want to be friends?"
The Doctor twitched a bit as he turned to Sammy, "Sorry, what? Not paying attention there for a moment."
"Do you want to be friends? I won't get to see you very often, 'cause we move a lot, but Dean told me that if you wish really hard to find someone, you will. So we could be friends, and if I'm sad, or if you're sad, we'll just wish really hard and we'll run into each other again." Sammy smiled wide, loose and missing teeth giving him a goofy, childish grin.
"Sammy, that sounds like a fantastic idea. Really, best one I've heard all year," the Doctor popped out his Sonic Screwdriver and set it on the flashlight setting, "now, let's get you back to base before your brother worries about you, shall we?" Sammy yawned and nodded.
The Doctor chattered away about the virtues of fish fingers and custard all the way back to the cabin, miraculously finding the way even though Sammy hadn't told him where it was or what it looked like.
"Here we are, right as rain," the Doctor grinned as the cabin came into view.
"I hope you find your friends," Sammy yawned as he shrugged the Doctor's coat off and returned it.
"Well, that should be easy enough, I know how to do it now. I just have to wish really hard, don't I?" The Doctor smiled, as he watched Sammy ease open the door and sneak back inside the cabin.
"Sammy, where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere." Dean rushed to Sammy as he came in the door. He was trying to make his voice go lower, so he'd sound more grown up, but it didn't really work.
"I heard an owl outside," Sammy answered, "I wanted to look at it."
"An owl, Sammy, an owl? Do you know what could have happened to you? You don't even know what's out there!"
"An owl's out there. I heard it."
Dean tried to think of a response, but gave up and scratched his hair before telling his brother, "Fine, well, Dad wants us to be able to leave first thing in the morning, so you'd better get to sleep."
Sammy crawled into his bed and nestled into the covers, about to fall asleep, when he remembered that he had left his duffel bag out in the forest. He peeled off the covers and was searching for his shoes when he very nearly tripped over the black canvas sack, safely nestled at the foot of his bed. Bewildered, Sammy rushed to the window to see if the Doctor was there, but he only heard the same noise from before. This time it didn't sound so scary; he knew there was no monster behind it.