Unfortunate Stereotypes
By Alone Dreaming
Rating: K+ or PG (for injuries)
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Sherlock Holmes. If I did, this would not be under fanfiction.
Warnings: Let the crack ensue!
Author's Note: Written on a particularly insomnia ridden night after watching a little too much of the new Doctor. The words came and then they fell onto this page... I apologize in advance.
"Oh, brilliant," the young man next to him cries, looking fairly pleased about their situation instead of utterly frustrated as he is. "Oh lovely. Look at them! Look! Hiatt 115 adjustable darby handcuffs! Same style as-" A moment of blessed silence as his head thunders and he leans it against the wall. "-oh, how silly of me. Look! Stamped with England and everything. Sillies, as though you already know who's going to take over later. I say, is that a one, too? First in the batch? How marvelous!"
"Shuddup in there!" A face appears in the slot of the door, eyes narrowed down at them. "Or I'll give you a reason to yell!"
The young man- in his strange suspenders with bizarrely tailored jacket, an awkward bow about his neck- does not listen. "Rather rude, are we? Oh, sure, just sneak up behind some odd bloke and bust his melon, and then beat up his rescuer. Hardly the friendly sort of thing to do. Not to mention, not terribly clever of you. Do you know who this chap is?"
He really hoped that they wouldn't cover this, has already recognized a few of these people as the extremists Holmes has tracked for several days now, and he makes a shushing noise which the young man utterly ignores. No, he doesn't just turn a deaf ear to the hushing, he positively beams up at their captors as though the world's bright and sunshiny. His hair is ridiculously long and styled up with some sort of wax, rather reminiscent of Holmes's when he goes into a dark mood and doesn't bathe for a few weeks, and it flops this way and that as he tilts his face back and forwards. It laughs with that face and he knows it makes him angry; he doesn't think the man on the other side of the door needs as much of an excuse as he does.
"Doctor John Watson," the young man states with utter authority. "Biographer of the great Sherlock Holmes, a man who will be remembered for his unusual ability to sit with his legs folded up to his chest in a chair and his immeasurable intellect. Thousands of years in the future, they will still quote what this man," he has decided that this young man escaped from Bedlam and if they survive, he'll make certain of his return, "penned- and, unfortunately, a few awkward phrases which only appeared in the film editions but somehow stuck better in popular culture than, "My mind rebels at stagnation" or "I am lost without my Boswell"," how odd. Holmes had just said the latter of the two to him a few days before and he had yet to publish it. "But, rest assured, anything horrendous which befalls him at your hands will make you look quite terrible for many, many years to come and you don't want your children's children's children's children's children's children looking at the page and thinking you buggered their name, now, do ya?"
"I warned you," the man grumbles, and the door swings open with a thud. This man has to duck to fit in, his girth well exceeding the six foot tall, two feet wide door frame. He has a cudgel in his hand and thumps it heavily in his hand. "Now, I have to shut it for ya."
"And I warned you," the young man replies. "But you didn't listen. That's the problem with you humans. You never listen. Oh, and your odd obsession with not repeating the past when it's really inevitable. Luckily, you also have a tendency to create multiples of things you find useful which allows me to do this."
He misses what happens here but somehow, someway, the young man sheds his cuffs and proceeds to take down the giant. Doesn't even muss his hair or get any fresh dirt on his face as he does it, merely tilts his bow tie slightly and he fixes it as he turns to Watson. The cuffs swing jauntily from his left wrist, a key hooked between his forefinger and thumb. When this strange, strange person squats in front of him, their eyes meet very briefly and he's very disturbed by the depth, the age and the utter lack of craziness he beholds. Yes, this man is not like him; yes, this man has a fair amount of off-putting, stylistic and linguistic wrongness; yes, this man appears to have a lack of attention span; but, all the same, he doubts that this man is even remotely insane.
"Who are you?" he gasps, feeling dreadful from a concussion and surprise.
The young man's good mood has not dampened. "An unfortunate non-person interrupting your otherwise exciting lifestyle, Doctor Watson. Please note, that you never did see me, that in two minutes your friend-an amazing man, might I say, though I suggest getting him off that seven percent solution before he rots away his brain. He doesn't know it but half the reason his... never mind, no revelations, or spoilers- will burst in here, save the day and take you to where you can receive some appropriate medical care for that awful contusion you've suffered. No doubt, my Amy's found a way to alert him by now so upon their arrival she and I will head off to a different planet, I think, and leave you to your work."
"I..." And he lacks words, something he's not used to.
"You?" the young man prompts, sitting back on his heels, his hands crossed. He does not offer to unlock the cuffs or hold a handkerchief to the bleeding wound.
"You aren't human," it flows from his lips before he can stop it and he feels a little embarrassed about it.
The young man grins. "Quite right, Doctor Watson. Though I wouldn't repeat that to anyone you know until Mr. Holmes discovers his true identity and then, only in proper company."
"Doctor?" Scottish voice, female, unfamiliar; the woman attached to it arrives seconds later, garbed so oddly that Doctor John Watson assumes he's hallucinating.
"Amy Pond!" the young man shouts and his head rings. "Look! Darby Handcuffs! My very own pair! I've always had the key but I never found the exact matching cuffs! Look at how shiny and new they are! Perfect, lovely, don't you think?"
Amy Pond isn't fazed by the oddities. She looks around him at Doctor John Watson and frowns. "Aren't you going to unchain him?"
"No, no," the young man- Doctor, she called him- dismisses. "Sherlock Holmes will do that and he," he gesticulates in Doctor John Watson's general direction, "will write this all off as a mass hallucination brought on by head trauma."
"Oh," she sounds a bit disappointed. "Well, he's far more handsome than I ever imagined."
"Unfortunate stereotype of the film renditions of him, I'm afraid," the young man agrees. "And, he knows I'm not human just by the look of me! Far more intuitive than anyone ever gave him credit for."
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it, again.
"Have you ever considered your unusual actions leading people to think you're an alien?" she barbs.
"What are you talking about?" he sniffs. "I fit with you humans beautifully. I bowl and everything."
What happens after this also befuddles him. Later, after Sherlock Holmes arrives and sweeps him away, he recalls the pair of them exiting arm and arm, arguing about whether they should visit the Roman Empire or go twenty thousand years into the future to another planet's peak vacation time. Regardless, he does just as the young man suggested he might; he writes it all off to brain injury and makes certain he notes every detail of it in his most private scribble book.