John awoke to the blur of a familiar, posh, bored voice. It was indeed Mycroft Holmes, crouched inelegantly and displaying a bright smile. He was not wearing his usual suit garb, but wore a greatcoat and a multicolored scarf around his neck. John had to admit it was strange to see him in such casual clothing. He didn't think the man owned any.

"Tsk tsk, Martin, what have you been doing to look so utterly debauched? Actually, I don't want to know. I'm just here to tell you that Benedict wants to speak with you." He stood up, impossibly tall compared to John's position on the grass, and held out a hand to hoist John up. In lieu of accepting the kind gesture, John just blinked stupidly, staring up at the man in disbelief.

Alright. He didn't remember much about how he got to this point. The very last thing he remembered was the act of being throttled inside a box. A blue, telephone box, if he recalled correctly. Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten a look at the assailant, and must have passed out?

Mycroft frowned when John ignored him. "Where are we? Where's Sherlock?" John paused, rewinding what Mycroft had said to him, "and did you call me Martin?"

The frown turned into an amused smile. "Ah, very funny."

"Mark!" someone cried in the distance and Mycroft turned to acknowledge the voice, waving an "I'll-be-there-in-a-second" gesture.

Mycroft—or Mark, rather—shot John a doubtful look and said, "Take a minute to recuperate, alright? Have to deal with some issues. Coming, Sue, darling!"

John raked a stressed hand through his hair as he watched Mycroft strut away.

It took a moment for John to realize he was sitting against a tree, exposed to a large field, little cottages, and a grand, Victorian-styled mansion in the far distance. Scattered within the field were a plethora of camera crews. He was certainly not in London anymore.

John pushed himself to his feet, stumbling dizzily. He shook his head to right himself, and noticed an unmistakable billowing greatcoat, blue scarf and dark, wavy hair in the distance. His eyes lit up and he bound determinedly in that direction.

A woman was dabbing at Sherlock's face. When she finished doing her job (she was applying makeup!) she said something inaudible to John's ear, smiling at John, and Sherlock promptly whirled around and also smiled brightly at him. A bit too brightly.

Before John could open his mouth, Sherlock spoke first, "Ah, there you are. God, you look terrible. What have you been doing for the past half hour?"

John was suddenly very angry at Sherlock's nonchalance. "What have I been doing? Oh, you know. Woke up not knowing how the hell I got here, where you were, and what was going on around me. The usual. What have you been doing?"

Sherlock looked surprised for a moment, but recovered and chuckled. "Sounds like a hell of a break. I've been reviewing the script and just wanted to run through of couple of lines in which I thought we could interpret a different way—I wasn't sure if the way we'd rehearsed it was the best. Hold on let me find it…" he leafed through what must have been a script. A bloody script!

John scoffed incredulously. "So you signed us up to be in a movie or something? Thanks for telling me, really nice of you. I am completely lost here, you know. I don't even know where I am. I think I was drugged, and possibly even abducted. We both were. Why the hell are you acting like things are so normal?"

Sherlock leaned in, as if he didn't hear correctly. "Sorry?"

John was positively seething so he closed his eyes tightly in order to block out Sherlock's infuriating face from his mind. "You—Oh, don't play stupid. You heard me. Did you plan all of this? Is this for a case?" He opened his eyes, and they were set aflame with frustration.

Sherlock was examining him curiously until a wave of understanding crossed over his features. "Oh. Good, very good, in character and all that. But seriously, Martin, this line here—"

"Wha—you can't be serious!" John yelled, face boiling hot with fury, "You are an insufferable bastard sometimes, really!"

"What's going on here? I heard yelling," a man with a Scottish accent cut in, looking amusedly between John and Sherlock.

"Martin's improvising," Sherlock said matter-of-factly.

"For god's—my name is not Martin!" John cried indignantly.

"We apologize, Dr. Watson," said the stranger smugly.

"Thank you," John huffed, satisfied, then jerked toward to stranger. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

The man laughed, pat John on the shoulder like an old mate, and engaged a cameraman as he said, "He's too much, this one. I love it. Carry on you two." Then he walked away.

So, when Sherlock started going on and on about lines and delivery John just stood there staring at the man in absolute disbelief. Finally, he couldn't deal with it anymore and stormed off into the field.

It was then that a gloved hand reached out, covered John's mouth to stifle his protests, and pulled him (with great struggle) to the side of a cottage, hidden from everyone's view.

John's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when he saw his captor's face.

"John. Do not make a sound. I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth," warned Sherlock bloody Holmes.

John pushed himself away from Sherlock, stumbling backwards. "Oh my god," he hissed.

"I know," said Sherlock coolly, understanding.

"But you're…over there," John said softly, and pointed absent-mindedly behind him. "I just gave you a piece of my mind."

"I'm not and you didn't. I'm here. I am Sherlock Holmes, not that man over there. He simply plays me in a show."

John was taken aback. "You're mental!"

"Am I? Do you know we are on of a set of a television show called 'Sherlock?' Do you know what that means, John?"

John felt his heart sink and clenched his fists. "No I really don't because you're speaking like a madman."

"That means we're not real in this world. We are fictional characters."

"How…how is that possible? I saw Mycroft—"

"Mycroft's fictional too. Though, that's something I'm not too disappointed with. Do you remember the blue box?"

"...vaguely."

"It must have been some kind of parallel-world device. We are now in a world where John Watson and Sherlock Holmes are characters from a novel, written nearly 150 years ago by a man named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. We are actually celebrated literary characters. I am listed as one the most famous literary characters in the world." The afterglow of the phrase 'most celebrated literary character' was grafted onto Sherlock's face. John was not finding this information pleasurable in the least. Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "I think you're somewhere on the list too."

John was stunned for a second or two, but quickly shook himself out of his stupor and threw his hands in the air. "You're making this up…you've finally done it. You've finally lost your mind."

"Please. I'm perfectly sane. And do I look like I have the time to play games? I nicked one of the camera crew's mobile phones and Googled it while you were being useless and unconscious. Google never lies. Look." Sherlock held the mobile up to John's face, and John squinted to read the text for several moments. Everything Sherlock said was there. John's heart started racing.

"Well, then. Glad to know you're the same arrogant twat in this world," John spat. Sherlock scoffed. "But I don't understand. We are completely real!" John pinched the skin of his arm hard. His eyes watered. "Christ, see! I can feel pain."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "You watch too many films. We are real, of course. We are living, breathing people with lives all our own. We're just not supposed to be real while we're living in this world."

John looked up to the sky and shook his head in disbelief. "This is absolutely ridiculous."

"Believe me, I am as appalled as you are," he said, but it didn't sound too convincing. The demented sod seemed positively enthralled by this situation.

"That would explain why people keep calling me Martin. The name doesn't really suit me." A long pause. "What do we do now?"

"We need to find that blue box."