It had been a fairly uneventful afternoon when John had spotted it. The sun had beat down on them heavily and the desert sand whipped around their vehicle so that he had to lean forward and squint to make anything out. There, in the distance he could swear had stood a bloody great dog. Larger than any breed he had ever seen, with such a dark coat he nearly dismissed it for a shadow. Its eyes had glowed blue and when it opened its jaw, huge teeth glinted in the sunlight.

Before John could do more than consider the possibility of heat stroke, there was the deafening sound of an explosion and the world span. The car in front had hit an IED and that party had been ambushed, coming under heavy fire from somewhere within the maze of broken down buildings they had been passing though.

Barking out orders, John ran for cover before radioing in for an extraction. A few paces out of cover he saw Davies go down from several shots to his side and John was moving again before he could think. One of his men had already been taken out by the explosion and he'd be damned if he'd loose another. He could trust the rest to protect his back.

Davies wound was messy but John quickly got to work keeping his guts in place where they should be. It was a fairly close call but if the extraction team got there quick enough, John was confident he'd make it.

A shout ahead made John glance up from his task briefly, and pause when the same dog from before stood now only a few yards away. Someone yelled his name but it was too late, a shock of pain shattered its way through his shoulder. The ache was all consuming, reverberating through him until the very core of him throbbed in agony. Logically John knew the pain he was experiencing was too much for a bullet wound, but by the time he hit the ground his mind was solely concentrated on the pain lancing its way through him.

Murrays face appeared before him, the sound of a helicopter in the distance as he sank into a darkness that not even a pair of glowing eyes could penetrate.

The days and weeks following were passed in agony. Murray had managed to get John out but a fever had set in fairly rapidly, much to the perplexed medical staffs chagrin as they had ensured the wound had been kept clean and sterile, yet had still somehow become infected.

When John finally emerged from fever induced dreams of strange creatures and monsters back into consciousness awareness, it was to find Bill Murray stationed at his bedside, but now sporting a pair of blue-grey horns which sprouted from his hairline.

John understandably attempted to go right back to sleep again, but was stopped by Murray who insisted he sit up and have some water.

"Listen, this may seem a bit strange but do you know what I am?"

John squinted at the water suspiciously.

"I didn't drug the water, this is really happening." Murray shifted a bit in his seat, "Now don't take this the wrong way or anything but are you a bit out of place in your family? Different coloured hair or the like?"

John's eyes stayed narrowed, this time directed a Murray.

"What's that got to do with anything?" He croaked, the fever having made a mess of his throat.
It was true that his parents and sister did not have the same blond hair like him, but one of his great grand-parents had had the same colour. It wasn't that odd, and it wasn't something he usually thought about.

Murray nodded, leaning back and scratching at his stubble thoughtfully.

"You know much about changlings? Or folklore in general?" He asked eventually.

"Not much, why? What the bloody hells going on? If this is some sort of joke, trust me, you're not going to find it very funny in a minute". John was steadily reaching his breaking point, the wound in his shoulder having drained the last of his patience.

Murray simply shook his head, ignoring the explicit threat.

"I think, no I'm pretty sure you are one. A changling that is. A fairy child left in place of a human one. Usually they collect the child back again. You must have got a bit…displaced" He winced, "Not that that isn't common nowadays".

John forced a laugh.

"A fairy?!" He asked incredulously. "Look mate, I know I let slip that I'm a bit gay but that doesn't mean I'm an actually real-life bloody fairy. For one thing I'm a bit big don't you think? I'm also missing some crucial appendages"

"Fairies are all sorts of sizes and none of them of wings of any sort". He snorted, "Where that came from I don't know".

Murray glanced back at John who was staring at him as if he'd grown a second head. Or horns. Murray sighed and regarded John with a serious tone.
"You may not believe me about what you are, but you do at least believe me about everything else? The existence of things that aren't strictly normal or human? You saw the black dog out in the desert and well…" He gestured towards his head and skin, which John only just noticed was slightly grey in tone.

"Yeah, what was that?" John decided it was best to swallow his scepticism for now.

"A black dog is a spirit, an omen. Usually it's only seen at night, very unusual for it to come out in the daylight like it did". His gaze took on an edge, "It means death. Honestly when it appeared and you saw it I though it meant you were done for. But, well, with Davies passing away I thought maybe you'd be in the clear"

John clenched his hand a few times, ignoring the shooting pains. This was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous, and using the soldier's death as some kind of explanation was low.

"I realise it may take you while to come round to the idea. God only knows what I'd think if I was brought up human and all of this was shoved at me. I'll bring you some books, our sort mind, and you can read up on it yourself in your own time?"

John tightened his jaw and stared fixedly at the wall.

Murray eventually sighed and left, horns now conspicuously absent.

True to his word, a day or so later Murray returned with a pile of books and promptly left when John made it clear he still wasn't up for a conversation.

Despite having told himself that he wouldn't read any of them, the boredom of bedrest eventually set in and with nothing else to do he picked up one of the books. In the beginning he scoffed at everything he read. Dragons and elves and dwarfs? This wasn't a Tolkien novel.

When he searched for and subsequently read the chapters on changlings his attitude soon changed. So many aspects of his life and childhood now slotted into place. The sections on fairies completely upended his world view, and although still a bit dubious, John was taken in. It was probably also partially due to all the pain medication they were pumping him with.

He'd tried searching for something that would explain what Murray was, but this soon turned out hopeless with the sheer amount of beings with horns and oddly coloured skin. So the next time Murray visited, John asked, and being a lot more open minded they discussed a few things.

Murray was apparently a troll with bogle ancestry, which honestly explained a lot. The horns and general unsociability before this for one thing, and well, Murray wasn't the best looking of blokes. He joked that his grandmother was apparently an ogre, and that's where he got the coloured skin from, but said he didn't put much faith in that as it came from rumours from his dad's side of the family and they were notorious for feuding with his mum's.

They talked about a few of the things John had read about, and while he was still dismissive of some things, it was progress.

Eventually they got round to hashing out what occurred when John got shot. Although he was reluctant to relive the experience, he needed to understand what had happened to him.
Murray had shrugged.

"Not entirely sure. It's likely one of them was using bullets endued with something."

"What, like cold iron?" John laughed.

"Maybe" Murray considered seriously, not understanding it as a joke. "Whatever it was it obviously shook loose some of the magic that had been concealing you. Not all of it mind, it was a pretty powerful spell. You still barely register as fae at all, and that's saying something, elves and fairies are usually easiest to spot, even for humans without second sight."

The weeks passed in a haze of folklore, physiotherapy and medication. It soon became clear however, that the tremor that had developed in John's left hand was permanent and he could no longer function as a surgeon. Murray had insisted he keep the books, saying that they'd do him more good than they would gathering dust as they'd been before. It gave John a small thrill to secret the books away in his belonging, pages containing things which for all intents and purposes should have been impossible. Or improbable.

It wasn't until John had made the journey back to England, standing in his, hopefully temporary, bland bedsit, still in his army fatigues with rucksack over his shoulder that the reality of what had happened caught up with him. The career and livelihood he had mapped out for himself was over. His life until that point was based on lies and now cut off from his army friends and Murray, his only connection to this odd secret society, he was devastatingly alone. There was Harry, but Harry was still drunk despite John paying for her to go through rehab and he had zero desire to contact her again after the disaster that was their reunion.

The gloom of his sombre bedsit seemed to seep into him then, settling deep inside his bones and weighing him down heavily. The world had dulled and everything seemed more pointless than it had before. The black dog had foretold death, not only the death of the other soldiers, but the death of his old life.

His hand began to shake and his leg twinged in sympathy, becoming the start if a limp which would plague him for several weeks to come. It made Ella, his therapist, pressure him all the more to open up about what he was feeling, to the point where she insisted he start a blog about his life. He'd agreed if only because that's what he was supposed to do.

"How's the blog going?" She'd asked in the next session

"Yeah, good." John cleared his throat, deciding to try again to sound more convincing, "Very good."

Ella, raised her eyebrows, seeing right through him.

"You haven't written a word, have you?"
It wasn't entirely his fault. While writing about his life in a blog seemed like a good idea in theory in practise is was something else entirely. Trying to explore his feelings with a bunch of strangers online about why he felt like his life was a lie, an invention, a mere shadow of living, was understandably difficult without sounding schizophrenic. Which he wasn't. Most likely.
Other than this John was left with a constant feeling of apathy which wouldn't leave. Sure the discovery was fantastical and brilliant when it happened, but now back from Afghanistan…John was still John and his life was left feeling grey and empty with the purpose he'd carved out for himself absent.

Ella sighed, "John, you're a soldier, and it's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life. Writing a blog about everything that happens to you will honestly help you."
John looked at her despairingly. "Nothing ever happens to me."

The truth. He'd sit alone in his bedsit and only when the walls became suffocating and the books stacked under his bed weighed heavier than usual on his mind, would he leave. Sometimes he went for shopping, most of the time he liked to escape for a brisk walk around the city, despite the pain in his leg.

Normally John would have felt self-conscious of his newly acquired cane, but he was too busy noticing everyone, more to the point, what other people weren't noticing. They glanced over horns, hooves and protruding teeth, seeming to miss other creatures entirely. There was no denying their existence for John now. The first time a hulking Lobber fiend had stomped his way past John was baffled how he passed so many people unnoticed.

Eventually the knowledge of all the creatures outside became just as daunting and disconcerting as his bedsit and John would return to begin this routine again.

Almost 2 months since John's return, his outlook was still as bleak as it was the first day back. In an effort to liven his day somewhat, he took an unusual route through a park he didn't usually pass by.
Keeping up an internal dialogue to stop him noticing all the odd coming and goings around him, he nearly missed his name being called from somewhere behind him. When John turned around it was to find a, thankfully, regular rounded man with glasses and the face of his old lab partner, smiling at him expectantly.

John's brain promptly froze. It had been such a long time since he'd had a proper conversation with someone other than his therapist he wasn't sure where to start.

"Mike? Mike Stamford? We were at Barts together?" The man, Mike, seemed to take John's silence in his stride.

"Yes, sorry, yes, Mike." He shook the offered hand, "Hello, hi." God he was out of practise.

Mike misunderstood John's awkwardness, grinning wider he gestured to himself. "Yeah, I know. I got fat."

"No." John attempted to sound convincing, but Mike didn't seem to mind.

"Anyway, I thought you were abroad somewhere getting shot at. What happened?"

Much more than what should have.

John thought about how his whole life had been upended out there in the desert and replied sombrely.

"I got shot."

After a few more awkward exchanges, they decided to grab a couple of coffees and returned to the bench Mike was seated on before.
John, wanting to make up for before, tried to start a conversation.

"Still at Barts then?"

"Teaching now. Bright young things like we used to be. God I hate them." They both laughed. University had been a good time in John's life.

"What about you? Just staying in town 'till you get your things sorted?"

Now that was the million dollar question. John thought minute about how to go about answering.

"I can't really afford London on an army pension."

"Ah, and you couldn't bear to be anywhere else. That's not the John Watson I know." Mike had unfortunately stumble his way into striking the nerve John had been attempting to ignore for months now.

"Yeah, I'm not the John Watson…" He trailed off, clenching his fist in an attempt to stave off the likely tremor before it arrived. Did anyone know the real John Watson?

The air between them had become awkward again, and Mike looked away, staring down at his coffee cup.

"Couldn't Harry help?" Mike asked, trying to make amends.

John scoffed. "Yeah, right."

"I don't know" Mike shrugged, "Get a flat share or something?"

John thought about how he'd blundered through this conversation and looked at Mike incredulously.
"Come on, who'd want me for a flatmate?"

Mike chuckled, shaking his head. That wasn't the expected reaction.

"What?" John asked, there was a sparkle to Mike's eyes which he wasn't entirely comfortable with.

"Well, you're the second person to say that to me today."

John's curiosity for something, anything, different from his routine reared its head, and although he thought he might regret it, he asked,

"Who was the first?"

The question had ultimately lead them to Barts, where Mike insisted he introduce him to the bloke this afternoon. John assumed he must be a colleague of some sort. Mike led them past several labs but couldn't seem to find who he was looking for. Eventually he steered them towards the morgue and John's eyebrows rose.

"This guy a friend of yours?"

"No, no. He often comes to Barts to conduct his experiments."

"So he's a student?" Not his first choice of flatmate by far.

"No, he just has an avid interest in forensics…as well as other things" Mike replied, turning to knock on the door and missing John's perplexed expression. Well if that wasn't ominous.

They entered to find an unassuming young women with a high pony tail putting away several surgical tools.

"Ah Molly, is Holmes about?" Mike asked from near the doorway.

"Oh, Mike!" She startled slightly, a blush high in her cheeks. "Yes, he was here a few minutes ago actually. He left for his usual room in the library."

Mike thanked her and they left.

"Seems a bit of a grisly job for someone so young and soft-hearted" John remarked as he limped next to Mike at his usual pace.

"Molly's made of tougher stuff than most. Doesn't always seem that way but well, people aren't always what they appear to be"

Quite, thought John self-depreciatively.

As they neared the room where this 'Holmes' supposedly was, John felt a distinct humming under his skin. The air felt charged and restless and something tingled down his spine. It wasn't unpleasant but something was definitely…there.

By the time they reached the door the humming was a distinct presence, made all the more apparent by the mumbled voice they could hear beyond in the room.

Again, Mike knocked on the door and entered, followed closely by John whose curiosity was fit to bursting,

Inside they found a man, a very good looking man, in an expensively tailored suit who sat cross legged on the floor in the centre of the room, his hands in a prayer-like position under his chin, eyes closed. The desk and chairs had been pushed to one side, and across the floor and some of the walls was scrawled a myriad of symbols and diagrams, the like John had never come across. The mumbling they heard was in fact rapid fire speech in some foreign language.

Although John couldn't understand what was spoken, he found himself entranced, the words flowing through and around him in counterpoint to the humming which had become an intense buzz under his skin.

Abruptly, the man stopped, and there was silence. Strangely John found he missed the deep tones of the stranger, they were somehow comforting.

The silence grew and so did the awkwardness, neither John nor Mike wanting to interrupt whatever the man was doing. Mike shifted a bit, walking further into the room, when the man in the centre suddenly took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He blinked a few times, coming back into himself, before directing his gaze to Mike.

"Can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine" He spoke, his voice a deep tone and soothing cadence even in everyday conversation.

"And what's wrong with the landline?" Mike replied.

"I prefer to text." Not that unusual.

Mike made a show of checking his pockets. "Sorry it's in my coat."

Knowing this to be lie, John still fished around in his pocket before pulling out his own.

"Er, here, use mine." John had seen stranger things these last few weeks and he didn't think this man would damage it. He wasn't particularly sure he'd care if he did.

"Oh. Thank you" The man said turning his gaze towards John. He jumped up from his sitting position and walked towards him. Subtly he looked John up and down before taking the phone, sending a warm, different kind of tingle through him.

"This is an old friend of mine, John Watson" Mike said from his position a few feet away.

The man flipped open the mobile, glancing briefly back at John before he began to type.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

John frowned and looked towards Mike, who had that same damn sparkle back in his eyes.

"Afghanistan. Sorry how did you know?"

Ignoring him, Holmes finished typing and returned the phone, turning back around and walking towards the desk at the side of the room.

"How do you feel about the violin?"

John glanced back at Mike who now had a full on grin smugly painted across his face. The bastard.

"I'm sorry, what?" John asked again.

The man began putting on his suit jacket. "I play the violin when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end and I perform various sorts of spells and magics" He gestured around the room before he turned back to John, "Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worse of each other, and people aren't always very open minded" He said throwing up a fake smile.

"Mike…told you about me?" John asked knowing full well he hadn't, but feeling at a loss to any other explanation.

"Not a word" Mike chimed in, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall. John was going to kill him.

"Then who said anything about flatmates?" The man strode past him to the door where he picked up a great big coat before putting it on.

"I did. Told Mike this morning that I'm a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is, just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap."

John narrowed is eyes, steadfastly ignoring the growing grin from Mike in his periphery.

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" He questioned, but was ignored like before as the man continued putting on his scarf.

"Got my eye on a nice place in central London. Together we might be able to afford it." He proceeded to pick up his phone and check it. No signal my arse, thought John.

"We'll meet there tomorrow evening, 5 o'clock. Sorry have to dash, I left my riding crop in the mortuary." He replaced the phone and opened the door, intending to leave. However, Johns patience was about at its end and be barked out a response before he could get out the door.

"Is that it?"

It seemed to have the desired effect as he walked back towards John.

"Is that what?"

"We've only just met and now we're going to go look at a flat" Was John's terse reply.

"Problem?"

John looked at him with disbelief.

"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name."

It was Holmes' turn to narrow his eyes at John.

"I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him. Possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. I know your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic. Quite correctly I'm afraid." A Smug grin made its way on to his face to match the one of Mikes.

"That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" He walked out the door but leaned back in slightly. "The names Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221b Baker Street." He then had the audacity to wink.

Despite his best efforts, a blush still made its way onto Johns face.

"Afternoon" Sherlock Holmes addressed towards Mike, before leaving.

John turned to Mike.

"Yeah, he's always like that" was Mike's response.

John looked at him despairingly.

"Well you can't tell me he's not your type" Mike said.

"Sod off."