Part Two: Swish-Smack

On the next Wednesday, John fell asleep on the sofa. He usually knew better than to do this, because his Thursday dreams were bad enough without a crick in his back in the bargain, but he was tired, and (this was the clincher) he was trying to finish a DVD. One of the other doctors at the surgery had lent it to him, and he'd never gotten around to watching it, even though it had been skulking around the flat for about a month. Its owner was starting to make noises about wanting it back in the foreseeable future, and John, perhaps unwisely, had promised to return it on Friday. He started on it the minute he got back to the flat, not even bothering to put away his new iron skillet (the first step in a small quest to acquire a more advanced set of cooking skills) or the two loaves of whole wheat bread he'd bought on the way home (the baker, about to close up for the day, had sold them to him for the price of one, promising that each loaf was filling enough to feed a ravenous hound).

He kept meaning to tidy up, to go to bed properly, with pillows and sheets and a mattress, but he never managed it. One minute he was taking issue with a bit of dialogue, sitting up to correct the television ("'When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east'? Thanks, but I don't intend to wait that long."), and the next he was continuing his conversation with the baker, who was rather shorter than he'd been this afternoon, and, come to think of it, looked a bit like Peter Dinklage.

"I'm sorry," said John, because he was also coming to terms with the fact that he had a fat loaf of bread under each arm and his iron skillet in his right hand. "What was that again about the time?"

The man gave him a mildly impatient look, and repeated himself. There are rules, and there are rules, and this time John was told that he had to be out of the gates by the time the clock struck six, or they would close and he would be shut in forever.

John nodded, thanked the man, and was about to go on his way when it occurred to him that there was something that didn't fit here, something absurdly out of place. "Hang on," he said. "'When the clock strikes six'? Don't you mean 'twelve'?"

The dwarf shrugged. "Normally I would," he admitted, "but it's half past twelve already."

That felt deeply unfair (there were two twelve o'clocks in a day weren't there?), and the doctor opened his mouth to argue, but stopped himself, on the grounds that doing so might not be in his best interests. The dwarf saw this and nodded in what seemed to be approval.

"Off you go!" he said, waving John onwards. "And don't forget what I said about the bread!"

John Watson walked on, carrying his bread and his skillet, through a landscape that looked steadily more familiar the further he went. Eventually he came to a road, and he followed it with a warm West Wind blowing at his back (so warm, in fact, that he wished he'd left off his jumper) until he came to the gates of Baskerville. There was something in there that he needed, more than a magical cure-all and a kingdom in its entirety.

At this point, John decided that the universe was definitelyplaying silly buggers with him.

Nevertheless he stood at the gate and called to be let in, as polite as he could manage in a raised voice. When nobody took any notice, he tried again, louder this time, promising that he'd be quick and no trouble at all, and he wasn't trying to trick anybody into anything this time, besides that had been Sherlock, he'd used his own ID (though admittedly he had played the role that Sherlock had needed of him to the hilt), and still the gate remained shut.

Keenly aware that he was working against a deadline, John shouted once more and knocked on the gate with his iron skillet – once, twice, and three times. The metal links rattled and clanged, and the gate slid open, as smooth as you please, and the doctor stepped right through.

No sooner had he done so than two gigantic hounds came bounding at him. Each was the size of a horse, with fur aglow and great, round, red eyes as big as any of the faces on the Clock Tower of London. They growled and barked fit to make the ground shake, and they bared their teeth, all very white and very sharp.

It would have been impressive if John hadn't seen the like before. He held his ground, and, remembering what the backer had said about his bread (and also praying to any god who might be listening that the man was right), he threw a loaf to each dog as they leapt at him. Great jaws closed around the bread, and the dogs immediately fell to eating.

With the hounds of Baskerville thus pacified, John went on with no further trouble (as he walked past, he saw that one of them had 'Lyons' on its collar, and he wouldn't have been surprised if the other one turned out to be named 'Barrymore'). It wasn't until he reached the main building that he realized that perhaps the reason for his unhindered progress was that everyone in the military base was asleep, right down to the rabbits glowing softly in their hutches and the fruit flies resting on the walls of their jars.

He picked his way, as quiet as a reasonably conscientious mouse, through a long line of rooms. In one of them, there was an impressive display of jewelry, mostly rings, that he certainly hadn't seen the last time he was in Baskerville, and another was filled with arms and armor. John dawdled among those for a bit, tempted to take something (there was nothing that said he couldn't), but decided against it in the end. None of them were what he was looking for, he didn't know how to use a sword or a battle axe, and, when it came to firearms, he had a perfectly serviceable Browning at home, which he knew inside and out. Besides, if anything came up now, he had his skillet.

He did, however, stoop to pick up what turned out to be a crumpled coupon for more bread that had been left lying on the floor.

In the next room, he was met by a woman who reminded him, in various ways and varying degrees, of everywoman he'd ever found attractive. It was a little disconcerting, not least – and John would wrap his head around this, give him a minute – because she was the only person he'd seen awake in all of Baskerville.

"Hello," she said, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a friendly kiss on the cheek, like Sarah used to do at the surgery. "Got any plans for tonight?"

"Er, I do, actually," said John, fingers curling tightly around the handle of his skillet. "I need something from in here and I haven't found it yet."

"Yes, I don't think you know where to look. It's in the courtyard beyond the room after this one," said the woman, and she kissed him on the mouth, lightly, like Beth had before she shyly insinuated that he didn't need to take her home all that early after their first date when they were both fifteen. "You're sure you don't want to stay a while?"

John wet his lips. On any other day of the week, this would have been a very good dream indeed. "Sorry," he said quickly, before he landed himself in trouble. "I can't. I've got-"

"A time limit. I know, six o'clock." She tossed her head, exactly like Jeanette and slightly (terrifyingly) like Lena Headey. Then her face softened, and she sighed like Clara so often had over Harry. "Well, if you change your mind, give me a ring," she said, and she plucked the coupon from his fingers and scribbled what was presumably her phone number on the back of it. She shoved the clip of paper deep into the back pocket of his jeans, fairly groping him like that girl in the club on his last night out before deployment. "You look tired, though," she added, sounding the tiniest bit like Cate Blanchett. "Why don't you rest for a bit? I'll let you kip at the end of my bed."

John was about to protest, but she led him to the next room (that's where he was headed anyway, wasn't it?) where there was a beautiful bed, freshly made with white, white sheets and a small army of pillows. It looked so inviting and there was such a nice breeze coming in through the West-facing window that he decided that no harm would come from just sitting on it. And once he'd sat on the bed, he found that it was so soft that he simply had to lie down, just for a while. And as soon as he'd lain down and pulled the wonderful down-stuffed duvet up to his chin, he thought that there would be no trouble with his closing his eyes, just for a second. It was just starting to drift through his brain, slowly, as though his thoughts were mired in treacle, that falling asleepwhilehe was asleep might be more than a little problematic, when he went and did exactly that.

The doctor would have stayed there for a very long time – perhaps forever – if a vigorous West Wind hadn't blown in through the window and lifted the duvet right off of him. John swore sleepily and reached for the duvet, swore again when he came to his senses and realized just what he should be doing, and he swore a third time when he realized he was wasting time by swearing. He sprang up immediately and ran for the courtyard.

A fountain stood in the middle of that grassy space, and it was adorned with marble statues frolicking under the spray of clear, bright water. The said frolicking could politely be called lascivious, urns or no urns, and just looking at the thing made John blush to the tips of his ears. One of the statues – a marble maiden – was standing apart from her fellows. She was holding a black silk cushion (and John knew he'd seen that fabric in the wash, once upon a time) and on that cushion was a golden riding crop.

"You've got to be joking," said John in stark disbelief, and he picked it up and ran. He hurried away through this strange, sleeping version of Baskerville, looking neither to the left nor to the right, clutching the riding crop and the skillet close to his chest as he went. An alarm began to sound just as he reached the gate, and it banged shut so quickly that it took off a bit of his heel as he went through.

John awoke to the din of an alarm that he knewhe hadn't set, because it was a thrice-damned Thursday, henever set his alarm on Thursdays. Blinking blearily, he reached for his phone to make the thing stop screaming at him, and discovered, with no little discomfort, that his left ankle was badly scraped. His mood was not improved by the fact that his bread had gone missing, or that what had last night been his nice, new skillet was now all scratched and battered.

There was nothing to be done about either bread or skillet, however, so John set himself to finding the remote so that he could turn off the television and get himself what sleep he could in his bed. The device had wedged itself deep in between the cushions of the sofa, and when he pulled it out of its hiding place, a riding crop came with it.

This riding crop was a good deal more fanciful than the one Sherlock had, or even the one he'd seen at Irene Adler's house: its handle and the little fold of leather at the business end were colored a deep yellow with a dull shine to it, and if that wasn't meant to evoke gold, then John Watson was an idiot for true. He took it with him to the bedroom, and set it on the little table so it could keep last week's apple company.

As he undressed, a coupon fluttered out of the pocket of his jeans. It promised him a 50% discount at the local bakery for a week, which seemed rather extravagant, but John resolved to try it anyway. What he wouldn'ttry was the phone number written in a distinctly feminine hand on the back of it. Apples and riding crops and coupons were one thing, but he wanted no truck with strange phone numbers, thank you very much.

"You're definitely warmer now," creaked the dry voice.

"Sod off," said John as he got into bed (which was ever so slightly less satisfactory after the one in last night's dream). "And if you don't let me sleep, I swear to God I'll use you for football practice."

Notes:

This chapter is mostly built around The Water of Life from the Brothers Grimm, but:
1. Baskerville and the hounds seemed to fit better than the original lions, and, well, we did have a Corporal Lyons, didn't we? The dogs' description is from The Tinderbox.
2. Since the Brothers Grimm weren't clear on what they meant by 'enchanted princes' I stole the sleeping people and animals from Sleeping Beauty.
3. This is a very minor point and has nothing to do with fairy tales, but as far as I know, rabbits - things - with the GFP gene spliced into them wouldn't actually glow in the dark. They'd glow under UV light. /science (Sorry.)
4. John, of course, fell asleep watching a Game of Thrones DVD.