Wholock Fan-Fiction: Great Minds Think Alike
(Set between Baskerville and Reichenbach)
John hadn't wanted to admit it at first, but Sherlock had been acting a little oddly recently, if 'oddly' could cover it. Ever since the experiment that Sherlock stole from Baskerville, he seemed to have acquired the ability to annoy John twice as much as he used to.
John hadn't even noticed that Sherlock had stolen it until Sherlock revealed the little test tube from under his coat when they got back from Baskerville. John knew it was pointless to ask him to return it, because he had a fair point on his side; the lab was over three hours away, and it was already getting late. John was never told why Sherlock had bothered with that particular test tube of rather gross, creamy looking stuff. When Sherlock put over some heat, it started bubbling grotesquely.
For the next few hours, Sherlock prodded and poked the strange substance with all sorts of utensils.
"Found anything interesting?" John asked when Sherlock was looking at a sample under the microscope. There was a pause before Sherlock replied.
"I'm not sure," he said slowly, not focusing on what he was saying at all. John nodded, and leaned on the table, where he knocked Sherlock's utensil set over. Sherlock looked at this for a moment, and then glared at John.
"Sorry," John said, backing away from the table again. Some tweezers had fallen into a Petri dish that had a few blobs of the stuff in it. Sherlock swiftly lifted the tweezers out of it as John picked up the utensils on the floor. Some of the sample had gotten onto Sherlock's finger, and he wiped it off on the edge of the Petri dish with a slight look of disgust as John got up from the floor and placed the fallen metal objects on the table.
John decided not to ask whether that was going to kill him- Sherlock probably wouldn't reply anyway.
It had been a few days later that Sherlock had started acting weirder. Things had started moving into really odd places; something only Sherlock would and could do - because it wasn't John - but when John asked him, he said he didn't know, or said that he did move it, but when John checked where he said he moved it to, it wasn't there.
Another thing was that Sherlock kept complaining that someone kept tampering with his experiments, but John hadn't touched them, so it must've been Sherlock. Also, the flatmates kept running out of milk, quicker than often.
Weirdly, Sherlock had also started changing clothes more than once a day, and when John asked, Sherlock informed him that he wears his shirts for a day, and his trousers for two, and the fact that John would think otherwise was absurd.
It was a Friday when John received a text at work from Sherlock saying he needed to come and it was a matter of urgency. As John was nearing the end of his shift anyway and he knew that Sherlock probably wouldn't stop nagging him until he came. He signed out of St. Barts and hailed a cab home.
"Sherlock?" he called as he climbed the stairs of their flat and covered two steps with each stride. There was no reply. That was usual, but John always got a loose knot in his stomach.
John pushed the door, which was already open, and looked around 221B for anything out of the ordinary.
He spotted it almost instantly.
Next to the fireplace, sitting facing eachother were two Sherlocks. John frowned, only showing a minority of confusion and panic that was flying around inside him. The knot in his stomach got much tighter. He blinked, and honestly thought for a moment he was going delusional. But when John looked again, both Sherlocks were still there, hands clasped, staring intently at eachother.
"Sherlock?" John asked again, a little more questioningly.
Both of the Sherlocks, without looking away from eachother, replied, "John," plainly. That made John realise with a start that only one of them could be the actual Sherlock, but he had no idea which one was which because he couldn't remember what Sherlock was wearing this morning. All the weird activity lately seemed to make sense now.
Then John had an idea.
"Which one of you texted me?" he asked, and the Sherlock on the right held up his phone, displaying the text he sent John. "Right…" John said. He was the original Sherlock, then. Hopefully. "Ah, Sherlock, why are there two of you?"
Sherlock inhaled deeply before finally looking up at John. "He's been sleeping in 221C for days now-"
"Hardly difficult to pick a rusty lock," the other Sherlock finished. Great. Now they were finishing each other's sentences.
"Yes, but how..?" John stuttered, still trying to wrap his head around what he's just come home to. Sherlock sighed.
"Apparently, when I touched the chemical I've been testing, it copied my DNA and- What's that noise?" Sherlock interrupted himself, frowning.
"What noise?" John asked, completely perplexed. He couldn't hear anything except the dish washer in the kitchen. The other Sherlock was frowning as well.
"I hear it too," he said, looking through the flat door which John left open.
A few moments later, it became loud enough for John to hear. It sounded like someone sawing wood methodically slowly, combined with someone grinding metal against metal. It gave a sort of whirring sound over all.
"It's coming from 221 C," said Sherlock, and he launched from his chair and raced down the stairs, swiftly followed by the other Sherlock. John blinked before hesitantly following the pair.
Chapter 2
John traipsed down the stairs behind the duo, and when they got to the door of 221C, Sherlock announced the door was, indeed, already open, He swung it wider and they filed in through the door.
On the other side, in the middle of the otherwise empty room, stood a big, blue box.
"That wasn't there earlier," commented the other Sherlock as John stared in awe at the box. A police box from what must've been from the 1950's at least, was suddenly in their basement, which was impossible, because it was too big to fit through the door.
"What-"John started, but then was cut off when the door to the box opened, and a man stepped out. John presumed the man was a young professor, in what must've been in his late twenties, and rather peculiar clothing, which included a bowtie. The man's face was childish and wise at the same time, and he was holding a weird machine with wires and prongs coming off of the front. It was emitting a high pitched beeping sound, and as he held it up to Sherlock, it started beeping faster, and the man grinned. Sherlock frowned back.
Seeing them next to eachother like that made John think that they were sort of two sides of the same person. There was Sherlock, tall, dark and with a certain aspect of wickedness; and then there was this man, bright and ecstatic and different, but they both had the same mysterious and secretive eyes.
"Amy, we've found him!" the man shouted. Before John could question who this 'Amy' was, a young woman stepped out of the box. The first thing that struck John was her hair. It was a really bright ginger.
"Excuse me, who are you?" Sherlock asked spitefully, looking through all the metal wiring that was being shoved in his face.
The ginger girl piped up. "Sorry, he's not very good at introducing himself. I'm Amy, and this is the Doctor." Amy smiled. She had a Scottish lilt to her voice, and bright eyes.
Sherlock was still staring harshly at the man, probably trying to hint to him to get his machine out of his face. The Doctor didn't seem to notice, because he was too busy tweaking with the bulk of the machine. John frowned.
"What do you mean the 'Doctor'? Doctor who?" he asked Amy. The Doctor side-glanced at him when he said this and John thought he saw him smirk. Amy shrugged.
"He's just the Doctor," she said. John blinked.
"But how did you get in here? If Mrs. Hudson finds out you've put that there, she'll flip out."
Amy seemed to almost laugh at that. "Don't worry, we'll move it soon. But if you want to know why we're here, then ask him," she said, pointing at the Doctor, "because I have no clue."
John looked at the Doctor, who was now looking around at them, smiling. "You seem to be having a bit of a Ganger problem," he said to John, almost merrily.
"Sorry, what?" John frowned, the man not seeming to make much sense.
"Doppelgangers! You know what that means, right? Yeah, I thought so. This one is a Doppelganger," he said, looking up at Sherlock, "or a Ganger for short. Made out of the Flesh. I'm surprised you got your hands on some of it, it's very hard to come by, especially on Earth…" he said drifting off into what was probably a very complex thought process.
John couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Doctor was mixing up the real Sherlock for his… Ganger? "Sorry, but that's the real Sherlock's face you've got your machine in."
The Doctor looked up at him, almost challengingly. "Oh, really? Are you completely sure? It's very hard to tell, you know. The Gangers are identical to the actual person; features, thoughts, even memories. My friend Amy here – my best friend – couldn't tell the difference between me and my Ganger."
John swallowed. They were obviously some sort of professionals if they had witnessed this before, but in honest truth, John wasn't one hundred percent certain.
"I… don't know", said John slowly. The Doctor smirked.
"Precisely," he said, "I mean, I don't know about you but I trust my timey-wimey detectors very much, they're pretty much always right." He paused. "Usually."
The Sherlock –whether he was the real one or not now, John wasn't sure – finally shoved the machine out of his face, which got a 'hurt' look from the Doctor. John looked between the two Sherlocks. I suppose he couldn't tell, but the one he previously thought to be the Ganger was looking a little guilty.
"Ah, John, I'm Sherlock," he said. John's eyes widened.
"So why the hell did you lead me to believe that he was you?" John exclaimed, frustrated. Sherlock mumbled something. John stepped a little closer, almost intimidating in his stance, "Sorry, what?" Sherlock was looking at him warily now.
"It was for an experiment, John! To see if you could tell the difference between me and him!" Sherlock yelled back, "But obviously, your simple mind couldn't!"
John just stood there, dumbfounded. "Oh," was all he could mumble as Sherlock stalked off to what was probably the darkest corner in the room, and stood there, facing the wall. John didn't think Sherlock would be one to care about things like that.
The Doctor was standing in the middle of the room still, a little awkwardly now. "So…" he started slowly, glancing back at Amy, who shrugged, "By the sounds of it, your name is John," he said, pointing at John, "and those two are.. Sherlock…" he said slowly, gesturing at the other two. Suddenly the Doctor spun around, grinning at Amy. "Amy, private talk. Now," he said, shooing her into the police box and following, shutting the door behind them.
This left John and the Sherlocks alone. John looked at the shut TARDIS doors for a moment, wondering what they were talking about before turning to Sherlock, who was still standing stubbornly in the corner. He sighed. "Sherlock.." John started, and put his hand on his shoulder to turn him around. He didn't budge. John looked exasperated at him. "Look, I'm sorry okay? But the Doctor said there was no way in telling the genuine from the Ganger!" he said desperately.
Sherlock turned his head to glare at him. John had seen him give that look to other people but rarely to John. It made him feel quite uncomfortable. "Then the Doctor is wrong," he snapped. John was taken aback a little by this. "I could easily tell differences between us."
John sighed. "But I'm not you, alright? No one else has your amazing intellect or observation skills," John reasoned. He wished Sherlock wasn't so offended by it. Sherlock didn't say anything to that, but he'd stopped glaring at John, he was relieved to see. Instead, Sherlock had turned it on the wall. John sighed. "Sherlock…"
But John didn't have to say anymore because he was interrupted by the Doctor and Amy coming out of the TARDIS, wearing grins on their faces. John was about to ask what they were so happy about when the Doctor's face fell. "Where's the Ganger gone?" he asked, the Doctor looking around the empty room.
Because Sherlock's Ganger wasn't anywhere to be seen, John realised. He looked over at Sherlock mutely. He had turned away from the wall and was looking in the direction of the door. John followed his gaze and saw that it was open, swinging slightly on its hinges.
"What do you mean you 'don't know'?!" the Doctor exclaimed once John had said so. "He means: he wasn't looking at the Ganger when he left, so therefore is not aware of where the thing has gone," Sherlock said drily. Amy smirked. The Doctor stared at him for a moment. John figured he wasn't used to Sherlock's sense of humour. Few people were.
"We need to find him! Do you know how dangerous it is to let your Ganger walk around? He could mess up the order of things- this is not good," the Doctor interrupted himself, turning to Amy, who looked back at him blankly.
"Why- what's the worst that could happen?" Amy asked. The Doctor gave her a wide-eyed, how-can-you-not-see-the-obvious look. "Sherlock Holmes isn't exactly enemy-less. What if his Ganger stumbled across one of them?"
AN: I don't have much motivation for this one anymore so I think I'll just leave the poor story as it is.