"Pass the salt."

Sherlock doesn't look up from his microscope, and thus the command is directed at the glass slide below him. John will be there – if not right now, then eventually – so it seems a waste of energy to make the extra effort of getting up himself.

As it happens, his flatmate is there as a voice replies. "Why?"

John does not usually question him. Sherlock raises his head from the science equipment and says "This experiment," somewhat absently, as the observations are mounting up in his mind.

A phone on the table reads 07:16 AM, screen reflecting the white kitchen ceiling. John's face is set in a grim expression, mouth tight and brow furrowed, wrinkles more pronounced than usual, dark bags under eyes suggesting at least three nights' bad sleep, concurrent with his restarted trips to the therapist, indicating that one has caused the other, most likely the sleep causing the trips, so there is some new stress in the doctor's life-

Faster. Sherlock's mind is not cold and logical, it is a blazing whirr of information.

-A faint line of steam rises from the kettle and a sense of dampness is pervading the air – looking downwards – dark stains on the hems of John's trouser legs and mud-water residue along the edges of his shoes and marks on the floor where he stepped means he went out for a walk earlier this morning to clear his mind - also means it rained last night but this is fact is irrelevant and –

"Why don't you get the salt?" John looks jumpy. He's leaning heavily on his cane.

"You're closer. It's behind you."

Still the man doesn't move. "I think we should save it."

"What on earth for?"

Sherlock has lost interest in the experiment by now, but take care not to show it. He was only completing a disregarded one from long ago as an attempt at a distraction. (He's still having the recurring dreams, of overcoats and a strange man whom he never manages to see the face of).

"Well. You know," John throws a deliberately careless arm about. "Food. Chips. Normal things." He retracts the arm in order to massage his left shoulder. "I'm just saying, maybe we should be more conservative with things. These things – food and salt and everything – they cost money, you know. My money! Perhaps you could do the grocery shopping now and then."

Sherlock gets up and moves to the sitting-room, shoes squeaking on the kitchen tiled floor and then suddenly muted by carpet.

"Sherlock, are you even listening to me?"

The room is bright with morning sunlight, everything starkly clear, down to the layers of dust on the bookshelves. Picking up his Stradivarius, Sherlock flops down onto the sofa and is stopped when his back encounters something solid and bulky.

He extracts the object. It is the Bible from the other day, open at a random page, now crinkled from impact with the consulting detective.

'For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? 7. 144,000 Sealed. After this I saw four…"

That is the moment John chooses to enter.

"I take it Lestrade hasn't called, going from the frosted ear in the box," he's saying.

"No."

John spots the book Sherlock is holding and stills very subtly, as if every muscle has tightened beneath his green-grey jumper. It is a strange reaction. Maybe Sherlock should comment – but he has been reprimanded before for 'intrusive' observations.

"You're still thinking about Heaven and – and Hell, then." John adopts a veneer of calm. Why should it be a veneer?

"Um, no."The consulting detective tosses aside the tome. "I'm not 'interested' in anything. The crimes are dull, the world… is dull. There is nothing of interest to me anywhere. In the world."

(Perhaps the relentless boredom is the reason his mind keeps dwelling on insignificant dreams).

"You could update your blog," John suggests, ever constructive.

Sherlock has done this. He has also hacked John's laptop. He's also reread his blog posts of their cases, not to mention reading a stream of texts on his mobile from a drunken Harry claiming that the world had forgotten her so she'll forget John too if that's what he wants, but Sherlock decides it would be unwise to mention this to the doctor.

"Or you could go outside. When was the last time you left the flat? Be good for you, a bit of fresh air." John pauses to yawn. "Heard anything from Mycroft?"

That doesn't dignify a response. John gives up and leaves the room.

The leather of the sofa squeals as Sherlock budges to reach for his gun. He's turning the safety off when his flatmate's disembodied voice shouts "And don't start shooting the wall!"

Boring. The gun drops to his side, warming the longer he holds it. Boring boring bored.

Time passes. Or at least, Sherlock hopes it does because nothing much seems to be changing as he lies there staring at the broken-plaster ceiling.

There's a distant creak as somebody walks up the stairs and knocks on the door behind him, regardless of the fact it is wide open. Going by the artificial rose perfume and the slightly tentative knocks (Mycroft taps the door with his ridiculous umbrella, Lestrade doesn't knock at all, and that's about it for recurring visitors), it's Mrs Hudson.

"Come in," says Sherlock.

"I – oh!" She starts at seeing him with the gun, then tuts. "You'd better not be ruining the walls, Sherlock, it's seven in the morning. People are sleeping."

John re-emerged from the kitchen with his cane. "Hello, Mrs Hudson."

"What is it, Mrs Hudson?" Sherlock says. He lifts the gun (the landlady flinches) and rests it on the table.

"Well," she says. "I was making my morning cup of coffee when I looked out of the window and I noticed that there's this man in the street, he seems to be lost or waiting, but he keeps looking at our door, so I thought maybe he's someone you know, but I'd better come and ask before-"

In one movement, Sherlock leaps from the sofa and rushes to his landlady, clutching her arms. John raises his eyebrows.

"What did this man look like?" Sherlock says.

"Oh gosh, I don't remember, he-"

"It's important, Mrs Hudson! Think!"

She wrings her hands a little. "He's quite formally dressed-"

At that, he moves her to the side and races down the stairs, almost falling which he's never done before. It's irrational, it's so irrational-

Undoing the latch, he all but flings open the front door. It is humid suddenly, and the air feels thick. There is a figure across the street, nearly stepping into a puddle as he fidgets indecisively.

Sherlock's adrenaline pours away in an instant. It is the man, of course it isn't.

A rustling indicates that the other two have come up behind him. John appears at his side.

Despite his disappointment, Sherlock walks down and across the gleaming tarmac. The man (late fifties, marketing industry, divorced, a smoker) is nobody.

"Can I help you?" Sherlock says.

"Oh! No…" The man gives a sheepish smile. "I'm looking for my cousin's house and I thought it was here but now I see I got the number-"

Boring. Sherlock turns around and leaves the man mid-sentence. He closes the door of 221B and returns to the flat. With a loud sigh, John trails up behind him.

"What was that about?" says John.

Sherlock frowns, as if John is stupid for asking. "Nothing." He walks over to the window and watches the marketing salesman amble down the road, past a woman on her phone and a man in a beige–

"Sherlock!" But he's halfway down the stairs again, and Mrs Hudson's saying "All this rushing up and down, I don't know-"

He barrels down the street, heedless of people's indignant exclamations and the roar of traffic and the blinding shine of the clouds off the buildings, down to the corner, but the man's moved, and looking round he sees the corner of an overcoat walking past a coach and pursues it, getting closer…

Whereupon the coach door opens and starts unloading a heavy stream of Asian tourists, cameras held aloft among a throng of excited chatter.

The man is disappearing, getting further away. Sherlock gives a low noise of frustration and forcibly pushes two girls out of his way, struggling around them, but there's too many milling around.

"Wait!" he says for no real reason, the distance too great for him to be heard.

Even so, the man, the man in the overcoat, a familiar stranger, stops in the centre of the pavement and turns. Though his features are indistinct by distance, it seems to Sherlock that he sees him. The detective stares and the man stares back, head tilting slightly.

And then he is gone, and Sherlock's being shouted at by an angry Japanese woman, and his socks are cold and squelch in his shoes.

"Oh, don't mind me, I'm Sherlock Holmes, and I can run off whenever I want to and leave someone else to fetch the keys…" John has caught up, edging around the dissipating crowd.

"John." Sherlock takes a few steps towards where the man had vanished, squinting against the harsh cloud-light. London. Just London around him and nothing more.

"Sherlock…? Sherlock, what is it?"

The younger man turns and briefly meets the eyes of John Watson. "I think I'm going mad."

The doctor hesitates. "Only just noticed?" He is sweating in his jumper, face gaining a shine. He observes Sherlock. "Come on – come back to the flat."

"There was a man, another man I've been seeing…"

There's a sudden gasp to his right. Both men turn. A woman, dressed to all intents and purposes as a human pomegranate, judging by the shade of her dress. She colours when they look at her, serving to complete the resemblance.

"Sorry-" She starts to bustle off but pauses to wink at Sherlock. "He's a keeper."

"We're not…" John cuts himself off and sighs. "Are you coming?"

Back in the flat, Sherlock is torn between staying at the window like a daytime vigilante, and the knowledge that doing so would be irrational and would be to let his brain stagnate and get stuck on a loop. "Have you noticed something, John?"

"What?"

"These last few days, even weeks, have been remarkably similar. The weather – the same. No cases, no new news. The same arguments, you and I. As if we're stuck."

"So we're on the Truman show now?"

Sherlock stares. "What?"

"Never mind." John massages his right shoulder. "This is life, Sherlock. Most people don't battle criminal masterminds to stay entertained."

Drumming his fingers on the windowsill, Sherlock muses on the concept of normal. "Life has a pattern."

"Yes!" John checks the mantelpiece and then his pocket for the house keys. "Get up, do your job, go to sleep. I've got up, and now…" He disappears down the stairs. "I'm going to do my job." He is gone.

Sherlock waits.

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It is, Sam thinks, a bit of overkill.

Not that he should point that out to Dean, whose eyes are so wide he looks like a freaking owl.

"Okay." He shifts gingerly and swings his feet over the side of the bed. "Don't freak out."

"Freak out?"

The room – well, the space between their beds, and all over Dean's covers, and his bedside table – is full of paper. Sam's (new) notebook has practically been shredded, small slivers in places and a whole bunch of pages crumpled up in others. And, just like last night, every last scrap has got Dean's muddled scrawl on it: mainly one or two words, but Sam sees a sentence here and there.

He picks one up and carefully un-scrunches it. Dean does the same.

No hope.

Dean looks around again. There's a measured pause. "I didn't write these."

"Dude, you kind of did." Sam glances at the paper and at his brother and thinks: Dean is not Dean?

"Do they all say the same?"

For the next five minutes the room is filled with the crackling and crinkling of balls of paper being unrolled, again and again.

No hope

There is no hope

No hope

Hope

There is no hope no hope

Without. Sam puts this one to the side.

There can be no hope.

Hope.

"This one's different." Dean holds it up to the light. "'son there is.' That mean anything to you? And one here says 'Without J.'"

Sam bends to check under the bed for any extra scraps of paper. "Check your pockets," he says, straightening up as he lifts his pillow.

Dean gives him a What-Are-We-Smoking Look, but does so. He pulls out one piece from his denim pocket and frowns at it, before passing it to Sam.

ohn Wat

There's a moment of flummoxed silence.

"On what?" says Sam, mystified. "On what?" The penny drops, slowly. "Dean – the pieces, they must match up. Make a sentence."

He clears a space on the bedside table.

No hope

There is no hope

ohn Wat

Without J

son there is

Without J – ohn Wat – son there is – no hope

Without John Watson there is no hope.

"John Watson?" says Dean. "Who's that?"

Sam blinks. "You don't know? Dean, you wrote this."

"I didn't write this." His brother gestures around.

"Well, I don't know."

Sam thinks he wrote it but he didn't write it. Dean is not Dean.

"You could have written them in your sleep," Sam suggests. "Like sleep-walking."

"Yeah, but sleep-writing? I don't even sleep-talk, why would I suddenly want to write?" A cloud passes outside and blocks part of the light streaming in around the edges of the crappy blinds. "Maybe it wasn't me, just someone who wanted to leave a message."

Yeah. Right. "It's your handwriting." Sam gives Dean a look and pushes some of the paper on the ground into a careful pile.

"You're saying I'm possessed?" Dean shoves the scraps off his bed so they flutter onto the floor. "Sam, I would know if some demon or whatever decided to crash out in my brain."

Somehow Sam is not reassured. He fiddles with a piece in his hand which says No hope, turning it over and over until the creases are worn smooth. "Do you remember waking up at all? During the night?"

"Just in case you didn't hear me the first time… I didn't write this." Dean attempts to seem annoyed but it fails. He's worried. Scared, even. "I don't… remember writing all this."

He's not looking at Sam but Sam's looking at him, wondering if he should ask him if he's okay. (He sure as hell isn't okay but addressing the issue directly has never been the Winchester way).

Apparently having recovered from his initial shock, his brother stretches out and heads to the bathroom. "First thing's first – I'm having a shower. Then we'll find this 'John Watson' guy." A shadow crosses his face.

"But Dean, we don't even know if he's a real-" The bathroom door shuts and the reverberation travels through the floor.

It smells of cigarettes again, smoky and sharp. They should really invest in air spray.

Sam runs a hand over his face and sighs. Then he heads over to the table, where he starts up his laptop. He doesn't know what the hell's wrong with Dean and it's freaking him out. John Watson, who is that? A prophet? Or what – a figment of Dean's fragmented subconscious?

He types the name into search and goes to open the window to wash out the nicotine smell, but there's no wind and the scent hangs in the room, as if contained.

When Dean emerges from the bathroom he's favouring one leg, very slightly. "Find anything?"

Sam gives a little huff of frustration. "Dean, there's probably hundreds of people with that name. It's not much to go on."

"Oh okay, I'll just take a nap and see if I can summon up a zip code to go with it."

There are many words to describe his brother's wit, and sparkling is not one of them.

"Maybe we should-" call Cas, Sam was going to say, but the angel's been pretty out of whack too. He runs a hand through his hair. "What does it even mean, 'without this guy there's no hope'?"

His brother's watching him but this time Sam's not looking at him. The first breeze rattles the blinds. "You think it's the apocalypse?"

Sam shrugs.

Going over to the bed, Dean stares at their makeshift sentence arranged on the bedside table for a long moment. "Could just be some kind of really melodramatic…. calling card?"

"Yeah, that you wrote." Worry gnaws at Sam's stomach as he turns back to the screen, glancing up at Dean intermittently.

"Dude, stop looking at me like I'm dying," says Dean. "I'm fine." It comes out a little too forcefully. "Fine. Just… keep searching."

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Sherlock's phone reads 01:42pm and he has no plans for lunch when he casually saunters past the window for the thirty-eighth time.

He thinks he might be going mad. He's not himself. He's been seeing The Man all morning, in his mind: when he shuts his eyes, in the mirror just as he's turning away, the sense of being watched – though that may just be Mycroft's 'secret' surveillance. He's acting like some kind of jilted lover over a stranger who may or may not exist.

He allows himself to look through the windowpanes, through his own reflection. He freezes as a rush of excitement surges through him to rival any drug.

He's there, The man is there, that strange man, outside 221B with a puzzled expression.

As if sensing Sherlock, his gaze rises and trails up over the door and bricks to the window and he meets the eyes of the detective.

Sherlock snaps into action. He sprints for the stairs (again) and to the front door, flings it open as before and –

The man is gone. Again.

Excitement ebbs away, replaces by the much less pleasant fear, twisting around his chest and windpipe. Can it be that he, Sherlock Holmes, is losing his sanity, the calculated and clear logic he depends on? Him… hallucinating his dreams into real life?

The street and air and sky are still and peaceful as Sherlock gets thrown into an unsettling kind of chaos.

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Sam rests his head in his hands with a small groan. It's been four hours, and Dean has phoned six John Watsons, only to rule them out as unlikely heroes, including Watson, the Pennsylvanian farmer, 'Johnny' the investment banker in Ohio, and a two-year-old boy whose parents had threatened to come after Dean with a variety of kitchen utensils.

Dean is sat with the chair tilted back, throwing the phone in the air and catching it again thoughtfully. He sits up.

"'M gonna get lunch," he says, and all but leaps for the door. Sam listens to the door snap shut and footfalls getting further away, and then leans back.

"So, uh… Castiel, could use some help here. We're looking for a guy who might help Dean, I don't know. It's really weird. So if you fancy coming down, man, that'd be great. You know, if you can."

A cool wind sweeps through the room but the blinds don't move. "Hello Sam."

Sam twists round, almost unbalancing the chair. "Cas!" Dammit, why does he always sound so surprised?

The angel looks tired, as before. His whole face seems darker, but he's not worse. Not visibly, anyway. Is that good? Or is he hiding stuff with his mojo? Sam can never tell with Cas.

Maybe he's getting a bit paranoid.

"Castiel," says Sam again. "Uh, hi, listen, do you-"

"You need to go to London." The man takes a step towards the window and turns to fix Sam with a Look.

"What? Is that… Dean… why?"

"You have been noticing Dean's erratic behaviour."

"Well, yeah. In fact –" Sam goes to show Cas some of the pieces of paper but the angel doesn't seem interested. Maybe he already knows, or guessed. "This guy called John Watson-"

"It's unclear what the source is, but something's happening in London that's affecting Dean." A pause. "And me."

"Is it… is it dangerous?"

"I don't know."

"Right. So… what do we do?" In the back of his mind, Sam noticed how he always sounds so brainless around Cas. It's kinda intimidating, talking to an ancient celestial being. Not that it bothers Dean. (Dean says he has a crush on knowledge, because 'you always act like a damn girl in a library'. No doubt something similar applies here).

"We need to go. Where's Dean?"

"He went out to get lunch."

Cas gives a frown – no, not even that, just a crinkling of the brow – which somehow manages to convey mixed fascination and exasperation at the mundane aspects of humanity.

A silence descends. And yeah, it's a bit awkward. Sam attempts to send his brother a telepathic message telling him to hurry the hell up. Crap, maybe something happened, maybe Dean's been brain-hacked and is searching the city for scones and jam.

"Why would he do that?" says Cas.

Sam blinks. "Uh, Cas, it's kinda creepy when someone listens to your thoughts."

"It is… socially inappropriate," says Cas slowly, as if repeating a phrase someone taught him. Probably Dean. He went through phases of trying to 'domesticate' the guy.

"…Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Castiel considers this. "My apologies." Then there's the Look again. "Sam, your intellect and knowledge are far greater than I would have expected from someone such as yourself."

"Uh, okay, thanks I guess." A pause. Sam tries not to think too loudly and then feels like an idiot for it. "So how are things? In Heaven, that is – And with you."

"Delicate." His shoulders drop slightly. Sam is about to pass this off as the angel's typical brusqueness, but catches a glance at the guy's drawn face. Maybe it's difficult subject for him, Sam realises. He sure as hell wouldn't feel great about having to avoid his own home.

"Hey Cas, you know, if you ever want to talk-"

The door opens. "Alright sasquatch, I've got two Mega Burgers with extra barbeque sauce and your precious Samantha salad because I – Cas!" Dean drops the heap of food on the table by Sam's laptop. Sam gets hit by the waft of junk food and… that is not beef. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello Dean," says Cas. "We have to go to London."

He raises his arms to their foreheads but Dean swerves out of the way. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, now? Like right now? Can I at least have lunch first?"

Sam notices that he isn't questioning the need to go, or the location.

Without waiting for an answer, Dean picks up a burger. "So this John Watson guy lives in London?" He munches. "Figures."

"What do you mean, 'figures'?" says Sam.

Dean swallows and stares at him. "What?"

Oh, Jesus. If Sam wasn't so damn worried, he'd find the whole situation plain infuriating.

After another bite, Dean looks up. Cas is waiting and seems as close to impatience as his facial muscles appear to allow, and Sam is likewise staring at his brother.

Dean tosses the burger back onto the wrapper with some regret and wipes the grease off his fingers. "Okay, chill guys. You can beam me up, Scotty." He stands.

Cas frowns. "It means he's ready," Sam supplies. Dean rolls his eyes.

Moving towards them, the angel reaches to their foreheads and Sam-

(a thousand-mile split-second rushing like a flash in the sky)

"-was like, oh my days, you cannot be serious, but then I spoke to Nick, yeah? And he said it was, so…"

For a few seconds the sense of disorientation is so great that Sam can't make sense of his surroundings. His head is spinning, bile rising in his throat, some woman is shrieking into a cell phone and there's a pervasive smell of Indian takeaway.

He blinks hard several times, and the world begins to settle into place.

"Dude," says Dean to convey his awe.

They're in an alley in – well, London, apparently, amongst some grimy rubbish bags behind a deli. The woman with the cell phone fades away as she steps out of the alley into some bustling street.

"This is London?" says Sam, as if somehow Cas could have made halfway stop in Helsinki. It's humid without being hot, and already Sam's shirt begins to stick unpleasantly to his skin.

Castiel seems preoccupied. "Yes."

"Well. I'd thank you for the ride," says Dean. "Except I think my stomach just ruptured."

The angel tilts his head and says: "You are physically well, Dean," which prompts an eyeroll from the hunter.

"Okay, so now what?" Dean starts peering around the alley, hunter-style.

Sam realises they have no guns, no weapons, not even any money except two dollars which is about as useful as…as… something not very useful. Maybe they were kind of hasty in coming here. But Cas can get anything we need, Sam reminds himself.

Cas frowns. He's doing that a lot recently. Frowning. "This is not where I intended to land. We are… some streets away." He circles as if employing some internal radar.

"From what? You mean you know exactly where this guy is?"

The back foor of the deli swings open and there's a snatch of a shouting, sizzling and a gust of Indian-food air. A small girl watches them with wide brown eyes, half-obscured, and then the door shuts again.

Sam feels, irrationally, a prickling of fear which grabs him in a rush and then slowly abates.

"Follow me," says Cas, and strides out of the alley into the – sweet Jesus that's a busy street.

Dean and Sam struggle to keep track of the angel as he blends into the massive wave of people and noise and colours they just got hit with. It's so… British: there's a tall guy with messy hair and a shorter friend leaping into a freaking cab, and Dean's now fangirling over a postbox ("Hey, check it out, it's red and… is that a doubledecker – sorry, sorry, 'scuse me-").

Meanwhile, the holy tax accountant – Sam hopes it's still Cas and they haven't started trailing a random businessman, anyhow – is steaming ahead.

A while later they stop, under a sign that reads Baker Street. It's quieter, a few cars parked a cab just rumbling off. Cas looks as if he's concentrating, raking over the tall brick buildings. More worryingly, Dean is doing the same, but with more confused blinking, half-attempted gesticulations and a confounded expression.

"Dean?" says Sam. He rolls up his shirt sleeves. Gotta let the pores breathe.

"I know this place," says Dean in a rush. He sounds like he's on drugs.

Sam raises his eyebrows. "What do you mean? You saw it on TV or something, right? Dean?...Cas? Castiel?...Guys?"

His brother visibly and suddenly relaxes, like Play pressed on a DVD remote. "Dude, I've got some freaky déjà vu. Check it out – goosebumps." He sticks his arm in Sam's face. What the hell? Sam can feel sweat on his own hairline.

Cas gives Sam a grave look. Dean is not Dean. The words pop into his head unbidden and for a moment Sam wonders if that was Cas, sending some kind of divine telegram, but dismisses it.

"So where do we go?" says Sam.

"There is a man," says Cas. "In two two one B." ("Two two one B," Dean echoes.)

"Can he help us? Is that it? Is that where John Watson lives?"

There is no response.

It is only when they've rung the doorbell (this is all happening so fast, faster than usual, and Sam feels like something's different) that it occurs to Sam he has been willingly following around someone that may or may not be having their brain messed with, which wasn't too smart, but before Sam can worry about the potential repurcussions of this the door opens.

There's a woman, in her fifties, with a tired but not weary face, and emitting waves of flowery perfume. Probably not called John. "Hello," she says. "Have you come to speak to Sherlock?"

Sam resists the urge to exchange a look with Dean. Cas looks like he's going to say something so Dean clears his throat and says "Ma'am, we're FB-"

"Scotland Yard," Sam interjects.

"…Yes. We were wondering if we could speak to-"

"Oh yes, of course. Very nice to ask, the last lot just barged straight in." The woman wrings her hands and steps back to make space for them. "Apart from that nice Detective Inspector, what was his name?" Sam is about to suggest 'Hopkins' but she goes "Ah, Lestrade, yes, always in and out. Well, I'll just tell him you're here. Sherlock'll be glad of another murder." She sets off up some stairs.

Well. Whatever Sam had been expecting, this wasn't it. He wonders if this is the wrong address, and if they should make their escape before being forced to invent a tale for this Shylock? Sherdock? guy.

Dean and Cas push past him and follow her up the stairs like magnetised zombies. Sam sighs and does the same.

The door at the top of the stairs is half ajar and he can hear the woman saying "Some men to see you. I didn't know they recruited Americans. I suppose the rules have all changed now."

The door opens further to let them in. Sam finds his heart is thudding fast for some reason.

The apartment is… Sam would say disordered, but it appears to have some sort of organised system, if an unfathomable one. He sees The Guardian, a violin, a gun, and a tall, vaguely familiar man in an armchair: mid-thirties, Sam reckons.

His face is long and slender and he has messy brown hair. He's also reading The Bible and doesn't look up except to glance when Dean enters first.

"You're not Scotland Yard," he says – no, drawls. His voice is enunciated, posh, but Sam doesn't know enough about British accents to judge.

"Err, yes we are," says Dean, but it's a weak lie because they have no ID.

A small, almost shiver-like smirk passes over the man's lips. He turns the thin page with a flick and seems poised to say something, but he looks up from the book and his expression drops. "You!"

Sam follows his gaze. The man has half-risen from his seat, staring at Castiel, who is staring back with his head tilted.

The man gets up fully and stands before him. Castiel's doing the full-blown Deep Soul-Searching Look. Moments pass.

"Sherlock Holmes," the angel says finally. "The falling man."

"You know this guy? He a hunter?" says Sam.

"Who are you?" says Sherlock, desperately, and gives Cas a onceover that would be weird if it weren't for how intent it was. "Wait – American accent but the clothes of a businessman rather than a tourist, so working in Britain. Shoes and clothes almost untarnished, so you haven't been out long today. Tie back to front suggests a hurry – the journey was short and sudden, but you know how to return and that you won't stay long, or you didn't have time to take anything with you. And you were married." He pauses to breathe. Sam tries to process what the hell just happened.

"That is James Novak," Cas replies. "I am Castiel."

Sherlock's eyes have a way of moving, flitting around and then fixating. "I've seen you," he says. "In my dreams. You've been there."

Dean's mouth shuts suddenly as he connects the dots, but all he says is "Sorry, should we leave you two alone for a while?"

"Who are you?" Sherlock turns to them with rather less interest, just as Sam says "Sorry, who are you?" and Dean says "Who is this guy?"

There's a pause.

"I'm Sam Winchester," Sam offers awkwardly. He wonders if he should extend a hand but decides it's not worth the risk.

"And this is your brother."

"Yeah. Dean." Dean goes for a cheery smile. Wait. What. "How'd you know-"

"Earlobes," says Sherlock.

"Oh," says Sam. "Sure. Okay."

Sherlock watches them and something about him, again, is vaguely familiar, but Sam can't immediately place it. "Sherlock Holmes," says Sherlock. "Consulting detective. Only one in the world."

Oh. The woman's comment about murder suddenly isn't quite so ominous.

Dean looks suspicious and a hand reaches where there would be gun only to meet with air. "Okay, 'consulting detective,' wanna tell me why Cas here is hopping into your dreams? And how come you know so much about us? What are you? A witch? Angel? Mutated wendigo?"

"What on earth are you talking about?" says Sherlock. "It's called the art of deduction."

Dean scoffs. "Right, like that answers anything."

"Well, it does."

There's a growing tumult of confusion so Sam stops. "Okay. I think we all should… sit down and have a talk."

Silence. Sherlock stares at them one at a time. "Fine."

They arrange the various chairs and sofa with barely repressed haste, and settle into an uneasy quiet.

The downstairs door slams.

"Ah," says Sherlock. "That'll be John."