The first episode starts so suddenly with John having a nightmare in his bedsit. Both men cringe, Watson because of the reminder of how horrible and frequently they used to occur, Holmes because – while he clearly is aware that his PTSD used to be worse than it currently is – he has never seen a depiction such as this.
It only gets weirder from there.
"Theme song. There's a theme song," Holmes points out needlessly.
"Well, it's a TV show, isn't it?"
"Are you not weirded out by this? I mean, that man looks exactly like a clean-shaven version of you."
"I…yeah," he admits, "I still don't understand what this is. Is it a documentary of sorts? Is this based off my blog?"
"I was under the impression we were watching these to find that answer."
The theme song ends and the case begins.
"Ah, A Study in Scarlet I think you called this one," Holmes states pompously to which Watson merely rolls his eyes. A minute later, however, Holmes continues indignantly, "A Study in Pink? What, was Scarlet too sophisticated a color? Too many letters? Do you think they're even aware that pink and scarlet are not synonymous?"
Watson takes secret enjoyment from this outburst, seeing as how Holmes typically belittles any title he gives their case write-ups.
"This is so twisted," Watson says towards the end of a scene where a familiar Lestrade and Donovan are holding a press conference regarding the killer. Holmes merely hums in agreement.
"Oh yes, the riding crop experiment," Holmes smiles fondly, "that yielded a lot of good information for future cases, as well as this one."
Watson laughs, "What other case have you used your riding crop database for?"
Holmes' smile turns into a mischievous smirk, "None yet."
They smile at each other until the scene changes and they watch Sherlock and John's first meeting play out before their eyes. It's an uncanny depiction, unfolding precisely the way their own first meeting went, Mike Stamford, St. Bart's, and all.
Watson shifts uncomfortably on the couch once more, an eerie feeling of being watched creeping over him, "Holmes, what the hell is this?"
"I still don't know," he admits, his unease also increasing significantly.
"How do they know this? How could they possibly…" He can't finish the frightening thought, but Holmes picks it up.
"Get every little detail right?"
There's no answer for it, so they simply watch in rapt trepidation, no words exchanged for many minutes.
"You didn't ask me to call you Sherlock," Watson observes next as John gets out of the car to meet Sherlock at 221B.
"I didn't ask you to call me 'Holmes', either; it just felt natural to go by our last names, didn't it?"
"Extremely," he agrees.
"And really, 'Holmes and Watson' sounds classier than 'Sherlock and John'."
Watson looks at him with mirth, "We live in a flat owned by a woman who paradoxically claims not to be our housekeeper but spends every interaction acting like she is, we deal with dead bodies on an alarmingly regular basis, we order in most of our meals, and you often wander around the flat in nothing but a bed sheet. Tell me again how classy we are?"
"It's about pride, Watson, honestly," he feigns haughtiness but his small smirk gives him away.
They watch Sherlock spruce up the apartment after John makes an off-handed comment about the clutter. They watch Sherlock celebrate another murder – not an uncommon thing for Holmes to do – before waltzing out the door.
"Husband?!" Watson asks, looking offended, "Why does Mrs. Hudson assume we're gay?"
"That Mrs. Hudson assumes Sherlock and John are gay," Holmes stresses, then adds lightly, "our Mrs. Hudson simply thinks it, but never vocalizes it."
"What? She does?" He looks honestly thrown by that.
Holmes nods sagely, nodding to the telly, "Since day one, just like this portrays."
"Bloody hell," he grumbles refusing to say more.
They both laugh at Sherlock's deduction about Donovan and Anderson once they reach the crime scene, but then Holmes gasps.
"That building…that room."
"How did they get in to the actual murder site to film about the actual murder?" Watson asks, but knows – just as with the few times before already – that there is no answer to be had.
"Sherlock left him at the crime scene?" Watson asks, offended for John.
The longer they watch, the easier it is for them to disassociate with the characters being portrayed on screen; there are enough differences to accomplish it successfully.
"And you thought I was bad," Holmes answers.
They watch as John limps his way to find a cab, phones ringing as he passes them. When a black car pulls up to take John to see Mycroft, Watson can't help but chuckle.
"Well at least Mycroft is just as set on being mysterious as ours is."
"I do not insist on being mysterious," comes the pompous, slightly offended reply from the doorway.
Both men turn in surprise, having been so caught up in the show that they didn't hear his entrance.
"I was hoping that I had been wrong; that you wouldn't succumb to the temptation to watch these DVDs," Mycroft continues while grabbing the DVD remote and pausing the episode on John and other Mycroft talking in the warehouse to ensure that he has their full attention.
"You know about them?" Watson asks in shock.
"We detected a significant disturbance within your premises and our surveillance told us what we needed to know."
"You detected a disturbance? How?" Watson continues asking, because Holmes seems fairly unsurprised by the news.
"The government has its ways," Mycroft says cryptically.
"Some sort of conspiracy?"
"Oh, nothing like that. Don't be so common, Watson; you're better than that," he says with an air of genuine disappointment.
That stops his line of questioning, caught off guard by the unexpected praise.
"Where did the DVDs come from?" Holmes asks.
Mycroft sighs before turning Holmes' chair to face them and sitting down, "As far as we can tell, they're from an alternate 2015."
"I'm sorry, a what?" Watson asks.
"There is proof - well guarded, mind you - of multiple dimensions existing at once, having branched off from each other at different points."
"Alright, let's just assume that your Sci-Fi story is true," Holmes says.
"It is," Mycroft asserts calmly.
"You're telling us that these are from…another version of ourselves in another dimension?"
"From what I've gathered, it is just a small piece of evidence in a case against the Moriarty of their time, a section of the case dealing with his stalking of their Sherlock Holmes."
Both men flinch at the memory of Moriarty and all of the hardships they endured because of him.
"He's still alive there?" Holmes asks in horror.
"Yes, he is."
"But ours dead, isn't he?" Watson asks with trepidation.
"Without question," both Holmes brothers reply in tandem, to which Watson nods in relief.
"Now, I know it will matter little to you both, but I do not condone you continuing to watch these DVDs," Mycroft says as he stands up and straightens his suit.
"You're right: it matters little," Holmes confirms.
Watson merely rolls his eyes and asks legitimately, "And why is that?"
Mycroft turns in the doorway, never being able to resist a touch of the dramatic, "You have no idea how this could change things."
And with that he's gone, leaving Holmes and Watson to exchange confused looks before laughing.
"Shall we continue, then?" Holmes asks as he grabs the remote and pushes play a second after Watson agrees.
They watch in amusement as John refuses to help Mycroft, Sherlock's own brother joining in on implying that they might be gay, and Anthea blatantly turning down John's advances in the car. When John enters 221B, Watson speaks again.
"Ah-ha! Sherlock has stopped smoking, why can't you manage to do it?"
"He managed it by placing what is surely an unhealthy number of nicotine patches on his skin. Would you rather I tried that?"
"Just one patch at a time, please," Watson admonishes.
"Then intermittent cigarettes it is," He smiles triumphantly, to which Watson merely gives a half-hearted glare.
They watch as John has what seems like his first conversation with what they would both consider to be the real Sherlock, with his outlandish demands and making John text a murderer without so much as an explanation first.
"John isn't even questioning Sherlock, why is that?" Holmes asks curiously, not looking from the telly.
"If he's anything like me, he's trusted Sherlock since the moment they met."
Holmes looks towards Watson briefly in shock before turning back to the telly with a contemplative, "Hmm."
Then there's the scene at Angelo's.
"Why does everyone keep insinuating that they're gay?" Watson asks, cheeks flushing a bit in second-hand embarrassment.
"Maybe they are," Holmes says, looking completely unfazed at the prospect.
"Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way."
"I know it's fine."
"So you've got a boyfriend, then."
"No."
"Right. Okay. You're unattached. Like me. Fine. Good"
"John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work and while I'm flattered by your interest, I'm really not looking for any…"
"No, no, I'm not…asking. No."
Watson groans and buries his face in his hands. Watching – essentially – himself get turned down flat by two people, one man and one woman, in the span of 20 minutes is just too embarrassing. The point that the male also happens to be his best friend that he has, in fact, been slowly falling in love with over the course of their friendship does not make it any easier to watch.
Holmes merely glances over at Watson and can't help but laugh at his reaction to the scene, feeling a bit smug. Truthfully, he also considers himself married to the work as Sherlock does, but over the years he has found Watson becoming more important than that. If he has to be in love with someone, there's no one else it could be but him, really, and he's content in that knowledge.
The scene moves swiftly on to the taxi sitting outside the address, and Watson finally uncovers his face.
"Well, at least we didn't go through that," he says lightly, smiling sheepishly at his friend next to him.
"Small mercies," Holmes agrees with a smile.
They enjoy watching the portrayal of the chase of the cab, the laughter as they return to 221B, and then the fake drugs bust.
After watching Sherlock and John's intense non-verbal communication, Holmes speaks up again.
"You stood up for me, too," he says quietly.
"Of course I did," Watson replies equally as quiet, as though the answer was obvious, neither of them looking at each other.
"We had just met."
"But look at all we had been through already; how much you had changed my life in such a short amount of time. This may not be us – what with Sherlock's disheveled hair and John's baby face – but this is very close to our beginning, too."
Holmes turns to look at Watson's face, but the older man does not return the gesture, simply stares resolutely at the screen. They watch as Sherlock asks John what he'd say if he were dying, the genuine – if quick - look of regret afterwards, Sherlock's belittling of an entire room as he explains his findings, and then as he follows the murderer out of the flat without so much as a code word to anyone.
"I still can't believe you followed him without telling me," Watson says, the scenario exactly the same as they experienced.
"I state again for the record: we had just met. I wasn't entirely certain I could trust you yet, or how much you wanted to be involved."
"Yeah, but…"
"Shhhh," Holmes cuts him off, feeling something different about what's playing out but he can't yet put his finger on it.
The cabbie drives them to the school, but he did have to lead Holmes in by gunpoint. Then the bottles appear.
"A good pill and a bad pill laid out like it's The Princess Bride?" Holmes asks in outrage.
"Didn't he simply have a good pill and a bad pill in a tin and force you to choose one?" Watson asks, wracking his memory for the details he had later shared on his blog.
"Yes, there was no skill to it like this shows, he was merely hoping for fate to keep him safe. It worked many times before, and I am glad you came along for me."
"Well, I had no idea what had been happening since you ran off and left me, I just knew I couldn't let you take that pill."
"I do think about it sometimes," Holmes whispers, unsure why he's admitting to it, "which pill it was and if I would have died that night."
There's a lengthy pause as they watch the scene play out before Watson admits in his own whisper, "Me too."
They watch the last scene with lighter hearts as Sherlock and John interact the same way they do, giggling at crime scenes and all.
When the end credits roll, they both stretch a little.
"If this really is stalker evidence in a case, that would imply that all of this footage is real, not acted," Holmes says with a crease to his brow, signifying that he's attempting to figure out a puzzle.
"Yes," Watson agrees.
"Then why are there credits as though it were a legitimate TV show?"
"Well," Watson says slowly after a time, "maybe Moriarty was trying to sell it off as one, or thought it was less suspicious this way."
"That man is completely psychotic, and I feel extremely fortunate that he is no longer a factor in our lives."
"Agreed. Poor Sherlock and John," he says with genuine pity.
After a few minutes of silence, Sherlock grabs the remote and selects the next episode with a heavy sigh.