A/N: When I started this plot idea I never realised how utterly detrimental to my lack of a good synonyms bank in the English language it was to have two Johns and multiple Sherlocks. [Have you ever noticed characters, in books at least, need to say each other's names so much more than we do in real life conversation? I have been fascinated by that ever since I was a child.] Now, whenever I say "John", everyone's raising their hand to ask "which one?"

The premise of the plotline was to explore lives not lived by the characters, so I wanted to play with alternative realities where Sherlock and John still met and gravitated towards one another, as if predestined, two halves to make a whole. [I don't believe in predestined myself, hence global strategist Sherlock never got his John.]

This may have got out of hand, there are so many curious plot threads to plant and grow that I must be making a mess of all this. [Ugh... sorry about that!]

I promised 7 Sherlocks and I still have a narrative plot to follow to tie them together and make all this madness work. And I suppose there's so much to do, that I ended up creating more of an interlude, to remind us all of our Sherlock and John pair. So here we have it. -csf


V.

The new John in the flat is a bit messy, I notice, as he softly snores on the long sofa, by the leftovers of a pre-case kebab and my purloined fiction novel. I know his Sherlock gets along with the mess just fine, as if they're constant threads of information to deduce from his flatmate's everyday litter. The rest of us, non-genius material as we are, can't possibly find the appeal of a used, empty water bottle, for instance. I crush it mindlessly, my mind wandering back to Mrs Hudson's recycling bin. Can it truly be an universal gateway into other dimensions, or are we being lead by our strange guest's grand delusions?

Sherlock trusts me, of course he'd be inclined to trust anyone's incredible story if they looked like me.

A lot like me. Do I really have tiny freckles on my eyelids? I should go to the fireplace mirror and check it out by closing my eyes in turn, that could work.

'John, the torchlight batteries are gone!'

I blink and turn to the maniac detective that has been pacing the flat impatiently for the last couple of hours, hoarding bits and pieces that may perhaps be of assistance in our quest – but probably not.

'Check the back of the cupboard yet?'

'Of course, John!' he huffs, indignant.

Bet he really hasn't.

'Shall I get Mycroft to bring us some?' I mock, as he's still pointedly looking at me.

'You could get me some juice', he tries, demandingly. I scoff immediately.

'Yeah, right! I'm not going to go out for batteries. What do you even do with the batteries, why have you taken off all the batteries in the flat?'

He rolls his eyes as if it were obvious. 'I had to build an electronic circuit for a lie detector, John.'

'Yeah? Well, tough! Your turn to get the batteries... or just write them down on my shopping list in the fridge door', I add despite myself. 'I'm doing a run to the shops tomorrow.'

Sherlock's glee is near palpable, but his frenetic hyperactivity is greater than his victory.

'I'm going out, John!'

'For batteries? It's midnight, mate, and we've got a case soon!'

He huffs something or other as he grabs his beloved coat.

'Fine!' I huff back. 'Call me when you're done putting together enough gear to compete with Ken doll, the explorer version, will you? I'll be upstairs in my room.'

.

Sherlock is in his bedroom, broodily plucking at the violin strings at a meditative pace when I come downstairs. His high energy episode quickly deflating to a dangerous low.

I guess Mrs Hudson is still up at nearly one in the morning. We can't raid her bins until she retires. She threatened us and any other trespasser with a good old-fashioned egging. And she'll do it too.

The detective's bedroom door is wide open; he never makes an effort of closing it anyway. Sherlock rarely indulges in his body's needs by sleeping, and his entire system shuts down from reality altogether in the exhausted power failure he refers to as the occasional cat nap, he's too foregone to notice if the fire alarm goes off in the flat because another of his experiments caught fire spontaneously. More than that, closing a bedroom door for the detective with very little notion of privacy towards himself or others, would be tantamount to wilfully holding himself back from possible goings-on and clues happening just outside his resting state. That wouldn't do, Sherlock is not a detective purely out of love of mental puzzles, he's a nosey, controlling flatmate with busybody needs.

'Sherlock? Are you awake, mate?'

I know I'll get teased for this, and sure enough—

'I could be sleepwalking and talking to you in my sleep, John.'

I smirk, leaning on the doorframe to sneak my head in and supply: 'It's been a boring dream, going by the way you're picking on your violin.'

He lowers the instrument harshly against the soft mattress. 'Yes, I shall leave the sleepwalking to you, John, you give me far more interesting conversation in your sleep anyway.'

I try to protest, I don't sleepwalk and talk in my sleep – do I? Before I can get myself together, he's already briskly off the bed and brushing past me on his way to the kitchen.

'Tea?' he demands monosyllabically as he reaches the kitchen and inspects the cold kettle.

'What do you mean, barking orders for tea? You bloody well know how to make your own tea!' I protest, at once. 'What the hell is wrong with you tonight?'

He stalks up to me and confronts me. 'How do I know you're my John?'

I blink and let go of a puff of hot air. Right, hmm. I raise my fist between us, he never reacts at it as a gesture of war, I notice belatedly. Full trust. In both Johns, I suppose.

'Acid burn on my hand, from a month ago, still hasn't faded. Someone left their dangerously corrosive chemicals out, without a care in the world?'

He lowers his eyes to the healed burn, and says, levelled: 'I see the burn you're referring to.'

I groan at once. 'You deleted it? You programmed your mind to forget your negligence and my burn when I tried clearing up after you?'

He shrugs. 'Must have. Why would I store that information? Your hand received proper medical care, case closed!'

'Oh-I-don't-know, so it won't happen again?' I raise my voice.

'I trust you won't be so careless again, John.'

'What the heck is wrong with you? One moment you are ready to strangle anyone who so much as looks at me funny, and the next you call second degree acid burns my careless action?'

He raises his chin. 'You are needlessly emotional right now, John', he tells me flatly.

I'm barely an inch away from socking him when a well-known voice comes up the stairwell:

'John, is that you? Who else is there?'

There's honest concern in this other Sherlock's voice. I open my eyes wide to the one I've got right in front of me.

I realise he's pushed me away only as I lose my balance and collide against the kitchen table. The structure gives in and I land painfully on the kitchen floor. I still see the Sherlock I thought I knew rush for the small kitchen window and jump towards the fire escape and into the dark night. Damn it. I groan as I try getting up in pursuit but my bummed shoulder gives in, and I drop back on the floor like a sack of potatoes on the verge of losing consciousness.

The second Sherlock glances back from the kitchen window, and seeing me on the ground forfeits pursuit at once. 'John!'

He rushes to descend upon my side.

'It was the alternative John's Sherlock', I gasp, painfully clasping my shoulder. The detective helps me to sit up, reading my intentions easily. You can't stay down in battle or you're taken for dead.

'Did you talk to him, John?'

'A bit, yeah.'

'Think, John, what information did you give away?'

My brain is hazy with the receding pain. 'I— I don't know.'

Sherlock presses his lips thin, either in anger or concern, I don't know.

'Painkillers and the sofa?' he deduces me.

'Armchair, the sofa's taken.'

'Of course', he says, already looping my good arm behind his neck and pulling me to my feet. 'Easy now.'

As we near the living room I can confirm our time and space traveller is still asleep on the sofa. Possibly drooling against a herringbone cushion.

'Sherlock...'

'Later, John, it can wait.'

'No, you'll want to know', I let out as a tight whisper. 'You'll be pissed with him.' The avenging detective snarls at once, assuming the worse. His eyes go flinty grey. 'He touched your violin, mate.'

Sherlock chuckles at that. I try to giggle, as much as my bruised ribcage allows me. 'I'm alright now, mate. He just knocked the wind out of me. You're quite strong for a skinny guy.'

'Rest now, John', my friend requests, softly, lowering me to my chair. He waits until I look at him, to look me straight in the eyes and assure me: 'I've got you covered, you are in no danger. I won't let him come near you again.'

I shake my head. Callous, yes, but not out to hurt me, he wasn't. He was still a Sherlock. And he was just as confused as I was as to which flatmate he had in front of him at first.

What the heck is going on?

'He asked for tea as a test, when he saw the kettle had signs of frequent use by a left-handed person or some other vestigial trace of me on it, I'll bet. He's you, Sherlock, of course he'd pick up on the kettle. And I just told him to get tea himself! That's not the answer his John would ever casually throw back at him, so he knew. I'm not the John he's after.'

My detective friend smirks at the familiarity of the reported conversation, as he hands me a glass of water and some painkillers. I drink the water and put the medication away. Sherlock gives me a long suffering look; oh, what does he know? It's my shoulder and I'll be just fine without meds.

'Did he know about my bummed shoulder?' I ask the Sherlock I've got.

'Know? How could he know?'

'Deduce, then. Did he deduce it?'

The lanky man seemed to expect that question, for he takes a pondered seat in his own armchair and steeples his fingers as he watches me over.

'Possibly.'

'You didn't know, though. Not at first. You asked me.'

'I had been mislead. A soldier gets shot in the shoulder and his leg hurts; you are fascinating, John Watson.'

I glare at him. 'The two events weren't related. You're mixing sniper bullets and roadside explosions, mate.'

His cautious eyes break from their studied act for the slightest fraction of a second, where they uphold so much concern and care that it could choke us both; immediately they return to the cold, distant act that benefits us both right now.

'Take your meds, John. You are in obvious pain.'

'I'm fine. Tea will sort me out.'

He growls, knowing he's being lead, but unable to refuse me my request.

'Stay there, I'll make the tea, John.'

'Ta. Just making sure you're my Sherlock, mate. You understand.' I flash him a boyish grin.

He grumbles under his breath, as he goes past me into the kitchen: 'Better burn those tea leaves, then?'

Hey, I heard that! I flinch as I've just pulled my shoulder turning to glare at him.

'Meds, John!' he insists, from the kitchen, as I dive into slow breathing exercises headfirst.

'Don't you dare dissolve them in my tea!' I hiss warningly. 'I may be damaged but I can still knock you on your nose if you drug me intentionally!'

'Interesting', he comments, blasé. I know it's an act. He's breathing too fast, nearly panicking now, as he clanks about kettle and cupboard doors. Damn it, he was going to spike my tea. Now he needs a new approach.

'What's so interesting then?' I growl.

'You, John. You are about to fold, we both know it, you're just too proud to do it until your pain gets a notch higher. Which, going by the way you're losing sensation in your extremities from hyperventilating in your useless breathing exercises, should be relatively soon.'

'Damn you! Think you're so clever?' I hiss.

'Ah, yes, the dark moods, we couldn't do without those, could we?' he asks with a theatrical chuckle. 'Anytime now, John. You've got your meds with you.'

'I don't need them!' I shout angrily. It just pulls on my shoulder the more and I wince, swallowing a grunt.

'I beg to differ.'

'I'm not leaving you alone to face this case!' I insist, I don't care if I'm shouting now, I don't care if on the sofa the other dimension John is stirred awake and perplex.

'I'm not alone. I've got another John', he tells me, impossibly cool.

That breaks my heart and I just let myself crumple in two in the broken springs armchair.

I'm suddenly shocked as I feel a cool hand cover my forehead and flick back the sweaty hair off it. 'John, you need your meds. Now.' It's meant as an order, it sounds as if he's begging me. 'I will call an ambulance, John', he threatens nonetheless.

His hand lingers on the side of my face, gently but inexorably guiding my head to face his worried green eyes.

'I just hit my shoulder, mate', I try to reason. Or bargain.

'You crash landed on the kitchen table. The kitchen table is no more.'

Really? Mrs Hudson won't be pleased. Why haven't I noticed that? Maybe I am a bit groggy. How am I supposed to protect Sherlock in this state? Maybe a quick nap. Could do me a world of good.

I finally nod, he knows what a simple nod means. Captain Watson gives in, he will take the drugs now. He's resigning from battle.

Sherlock helps me to that glass of water again, as I chuck a couple of strong painkillers in my mouth. I wash them down with bitter defeat.

'Come, John.'

What now? Sherlock... I've done what you've asked of me.

He helps me to my feet and guides me to the nearest available flat surface, his bed, with utmost gentleness. I welcome the cool crisp bedsheets and barely notice the extra pillows he's arranging around my torso and shoulder, locking me in place, keeping me from turning over my sore shoulder in my sleep. And sleep it is, I feel its weight dragging me under.

I'm useless as a sidekick right now.

'Sleep, John. You'll feel a lot better when you wake up.'

I look at his honest eyes – all clear and crystalline and I can see for miles in their depths – before I notice our guest hanging discreetly behind him, hovering over his shoulder.

I turn my face, burning with shame, away and towards the far wall.

Sherlock seems to notice nothing. He just promises:

'Shout if you need me, John. I'll be right outside.'

Then an uneasy slumber takes control of all but my autonomic responses. Morphine is a bitter relief.

.

'Take your meds, John. You are in obvious pain.'

Sherlock's tone of voice is a study in control and graceful response to the situation, as only a learned musician could master. It's levelled, unrushed, neutral and put out there for John Watson to accept in full dignity.

'I'm fine, tea will sort me out' is the response it gets instead, from a stubbornly independent former soldier. It could be endearing, really, if it wasn't so serious. Sherlock watches his friend further damage his old wound, by insisting on ignoring the obvious. His doctor instincts leaving his short, compact body and mind as soon as his fighter's pride got jeopardised.

Really, John, must we do this yet again? You are in pain, it's clear as day – but you refuse to accept the facts; why?

Sherlock growls, acquiescing to the redirection by clasping at the last straws of politeness left in him.

'Stay there, I'll make the tea, John.'

There. Tea. Because tea fixed that Afghani bullet hole right up, didn't it? Not surgery, blood transfusions, antibiotics, or round the clock care. Just simple tea will do.

'Ta. Just making sure you're my Sherlock, mate. You understand.'

John flashes Sherlock a boyish grin, and the detective's self-righteous anger melts instantly. A John grin lights up the haggard face, smoothens all the lines of age and hardships, rounds those huge blue eyes, and tilts that square jaw up with just the right amount of defiance and complicity. Sherlock feels the foundations of his argument waver perilously at that smile.

'Better burn those tea leaves, then?' he defends, a touch prickly, as he finds himself mechanically reaching for the requested tea.

As soon as the detective's back is turned, John altogether skips one of his harsh breaths. Pain then. Holding back any sound of discomfort from his flatmate's ears. Seriously, John? Think you can deceive me?

'Meds, John!' the detective barks.

'Don't you dare dissolve them in my tea!' John hisses through gritted teeth. 'I may be damaged but I can still knock you on your nose if you drug me intentionally!'

Damaged? No, John, not you. Ever.

It's only the start of the dark cloud overhanging John's head, and the man's self-neglecting need to pretend, cast away any help, any witnesses, and spiral deeper and deeper into the claws of his physical and emotional pain.

'Interesting', Sherlock comments, as evenly as he musters it. Still mechanically proceeding with the tea making for John's benefit. If John carries on bristle and tense he's risking severe nerve damage on his already mangled shoulder nerves.

'What's so interesting then?' the soldier challenges. Good. Keep John's attention on a tight lead.

'You, John. You are about to fold, we both know it, you're just too proud to do it until your pain gets a notch higher. Which, going by the way you're losing sensation in your extremities from hyperventilating in your useless breathing exercises, should be relatively soon.'

Sherlock couldn't help it. The deduction spilled out.

'Damn you! Think you're so clever?' John's angry now. Just a moment ago he was grinning. He's lost control too. Control of his emotions, blanketed in one amorphous mass by relentless pain. The damaged nerve endings on John's shoulder exposed like electric wires yanked out of the wall, and short-circuiting on contact.

'Ah, yes, the dark moods, we couldn't do without those, could we? Anytime now, John. You've got your meds with you.'

Go on. Please. You don't have to do this to yourself, John.

'I don't need them!' he shouts and grunts. He's losing grip, spiralling on his way to his crash landing and all Sherlock can do is watch him crash and burn.

'I beg to differ.' John.

'I'm not leaving you alone to face this case!' Again he shouts and it sounds not like John, but like his pain taken over his body.

'I'm not alone. I've got another John', Sherlock says, a counterpoint in coolness to the crashing mess of John's Icarus flight.

John's up-till-now steady gaze wavers, and he allows himself the first signs of defeat. Slumping on his armchair, an arm slung across his body to hold his crumbling shoulder together, or the last action in holding himself together.

Sherlock slumps to the rug in front of John, ready to hold him up, to pull him together, or to hug a man in desperate need for relief. His fingers extend timidly to the damp brow line, wishing to clear away the signs that are so obviously present of John's pain and discomfort. John is losing his battle, but Sherlock still needs to insist. Soldier to the bitter end.

'John, you need your meds. Now.' Do it. Please. 'I will call an ambulance, John.'

Sherlock tilts his face gently so their eyes focus on each other.

'I just hit my shoulder, mate', he tries one last time.

It takes all Sherlock's got in him not to huff, not to laugh or to cry.

'You crash landed on the kitchen table. The kitchen table is no more.'

He didn't seem to be aware of that fact. And facts are important for John whenever his mind is spiralling out of control and he reaches out to Sherlock to keep him together. Sherlock blames himself for not having started with the simple fact that they need to replace their kitchen table.

John nods. A quiet, defeated, small, spent nod. And Sherlock lets out a sigh of relief. Once declared, John will tenaciously keep to his forfeit as he once did to his fight.

Sherlock helps the battered doctor to that glass of water again, and watches over as he swallows the medication at last. He looks aged, tired out, lost.

'Come, John.'

He helps the compliant doctor to unsteady feet and guides him to the bedroom. John follows like a will-less ragdoll. The heavy duty painkillers quickly wiping off his essence along with the first bitter signs of tension on the throbbing, bulging neck veins. They enthral Sherlock, who wants to touch them, stroke them, ease them back into the soft vulnerable skin on John's neck.

A genius can make quick haste of efficiently nestling a drug addled flatmate to a cradle of pillows and bathroom towels, where he will be kept safe from hurting himself in his sleep.

'Sleep, John. You'll feel a lot better when you wake up.'

He blinks, words slowly trickling through, and then turns his face away.

Sherlock feels shame. He's brought defeat to the worthy soldier, even if only to help him, it's still bitter betray. The consulting detective accepts the weight of the decision he hounded on John. He can only ensure John recovers from his perceived humiliation with as much use of his damaged shoulder as he had before a dark self from another reality shoved John against a table and left him out on the cold kitchen floor.

Sherlock wants to exact revenge.

'Shout if you need me, John. I'll be right outside.'

Sherlock hears the rustle of clothes before he recognises the alternative John leaving the bedroom silently. He frowns. How did he miss the familiar yet alien presence there?

.

TBC