AN: Hey guys, remember when I promised a sequel to the my Smauglock series? That's not what this is. This is the beginnings of what happens when that sequel, two other independent ideas of mine, and an innocent question in the comments section go Megazord on me and create this ridiculous thing. As such, I'm doing some reorganization - any new fics will be added to the series 'Many Intersecting Planes' not 'From the Ashes a Fire Shall Be Woken'.

Honestly, John should have realized it before. The only thing he could say in his defense was that he had only read all of those books once a very long time ago. And after he had finished, he had promptly put them away and tried to forget all about them, as they had given him a very odd feeling. In retrospect, that probably should have been his first clue.

As it was, John hadn't realized anything, and didn't until the day Harry showed up on the doorstep of 221B, carting a box of John's old stuff and an admonishment to 'Just make up with Dad already, Johnny. You're acting even more childish than he usually is.' John had taken the box, ignored the criticism, and gone straight upstairs to unpack his things, as though not putting it off could undermine the accusations of childishness.

The items in the box were the typical assortment of old memories and old junk a person found when they, or their dad's latest boyfriend as the case may be, went cleaning out the back corners of their closets. John was actually kind of enjoying sorting through it all when he pulled out four old books. The world abruptly tilted sidewise and John felt incredibly stupid, neither of which was as uncommon an occurrence as they should have been.

"Sherlock!" John called, running back down the stairs to the living room where Sherlock had been draped across the couch since… Tuesday, maybe? There was only about a fifty percent chance that Sherlock would actually hear him, but it couldn't hurt to try.

"Yes?" Sherlock said after a full ten seconds, his voice still sounding oddly distant. So it was going to be one of those conversations. Great.

"Did Mycroft write the Lord of the Rings books?" It was a bit of a stretch, but it was the only thing approaching a reasonable explanation that John could think of.

This time it took 27 seconds (John may have counted) for Sherlock to come out of his mind enough to reply. "Why do you even own books if you aren't capable of reading the author's name on the front cover?"

"I can actually read, thanks," John said. "What I have a harder time with is remembering the half a million different names Mycroft has. Is he J. R. R. Tolkien?"

It was another 13 seconds before Sherlock blinked, and John could almost see the resources being diverted so Sherlock was the one having this conversation with John, not whatever bits of Sherlock's mind that were not currently focused on… whatever it was. Thank God. "Oh, you mean those books."

"Yes, those books." What other books could there be that John would be that worried about the author of? "Did Mycroft write them?"

"Of course not. Who would want to read book written by Mycroft?" Sherlock scoffed, affixing John with his 'why must I be surrounded by idiots' look. John, who had found the expression far more impressive the first hundred times, crossed his arms and waited.

After a moment, Sherlock sighed melodramatically and explained. "As it turns out, events that happen in one universe have a way of lodging themselves into the unconscious minds of people in alternate universes; it's all horribly Jungian. I hear they've been having a lot of trouble with it over in America."

"They've been having trouble with stories being real in alternate universes in America?" John repeated before he could decide that, no, he didn't really want to know.

"In Maine, actually. Now do shut up John, I'm trying to think." Sherlock flapped a hand at him, waving John off, before he sunk so deep back into his thoughts it would take Lestrade with a serial killer to drag him out. John shook his head, then went back upstairs to find a safe place to store his books.

Next part is "Of Dragons and Detective Inspectors" (Story ID: 10212800)