The Universe's Mixer

With a forced stay in a mental institution by way of introduction, it was little wonder that Watson was still jumpy about being in the City. Not just disgruntled, not just angry or nostalgic for home - genuinely jumpy, as if trouble could lurch around the corner at any time. Sure, he was wearing proper clothes. His own, in fact, as the city had perfectly replicated a striped shirt and one of his favorite sweaters. He had on real shoes, and he was free to wander.

None of it made him feel more comfortable.

He was in the open, seated in the park with a coffee and the newspaper. If he were stuck in a strange place, he wanted to know something about it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in print - just a few articles about weekend events and a cover spread about a big gala opening at the local science museum. Frustrated, John crumpled the pages into a giant ball and dropped it unceremoniously at his feet.

He sipped his coffee and frowned.

Buffy tried to return to her regular schedule; eat, sleep, patrol. It was one unenthusiastic motion for her now, as if she were rehearsing who she was supposed to be. She hadn’t seen John, the man who tried to help her back in the hospital, since leaving that place with all its terrible associations. She thought about him often, if only because she was worried and weighted by guilt. What if he was still there? What if she had left him behind? She’d promised she wouldn’t.

So when she saw him on the park bench ahead it was the first real smile that had crossed her face in ages. Before she realized what she was doing, Buffy jogged toward him, just thankful to see someone she recognized.

“John!”

She almost shouted Dr. Watson! But doing so would have felt out of place-- even for The City. She still wasn’t sure how much of the Sherlock dreams she had were drug induced and how much of it was real. John looked far too modern-- and thin-- to be the television versions of the famous doctor she’d caught glimpses of.

Buffy was also thankful that on this particular patrolling mission she only carried a wood stake concealed in the sleeve of her jacket. ( A sword or an axe would have been hard to explain. )

Sherlock had a gun pointed at a coat packed with explosives about to do something very clever when he heard a soft click! Just a noise. Not a bang. Not a scream. Nothing. Just a small noise and then he was in The City.

No pool. Just a City. American, he thought at first. So he started to walk a straight line. Point A to Point B, attempting to deduce his location. But the steets refused to make sense. Twice he passed his own street address of 221B Baker Street. He didn’t go in, of course. That would be mad.

The scale of it all was what impressed him. And the moving streets. What would it take to pull something like that off? So Sherlock continued investigating. He caught glimpses of brochures from The City; bus routes with maps that didn’t connect, a newspaper, an advertisement for The City Hospital.

Sherlock wasn’t mad. He looked down at the impossible bus route map which already failed to match up with the street corner he was already on, mumbling to himself, “When you’ve eliminated the impossible...”

Not mad and not dead.

“...Then no matter how improbable, it must be the truth.”

Sherlock knew what this place wasn’t. But he hadn’t quite settled on what it was.

( There was someone else. )

John had never much gone in for television - oh, he watched it. During his brief period of unemployment, he’d watched quite a lot. Daytime talk, game shows, dramas and comedies and whatever else was being broadcast when he was home. ( He hadn’t enjoyed it, not really, but it was a pastime until something better came along. )