There was a strange knock at the door, and that made John nervous. If it were Mrs. Hudson, a timid knock would have been followed immediately with a small "Boys?" It wasn't heavy enough to be Lestrade's, nor was it the two clipped knocks frequently used by Mycroft. And God knew Sherlock wouldn't knock on anyone else's door, let alone his own.

In fact, the knock had a silly rhythm to it, something he'd heard before -

KNOCK KNOCK-KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK... KNOCK-KNOCK.

"Yeah, coming," John said, setting down his newspaper and circling round the armchair to come to the door.

By the time John had his hand wrapped loosely around the door handle, it was already being pulled open.

"Hello," a man said brightly, holding a Scotland Yard ID badge far too closely to John's face. "DI Smith, err, no, what's this say? James? James, then, DI James, can I use your phone?"

John closed his hanging jaw with a click, trying to sort all the words out in his head.

"Excellent," the man said, striding into the flat and looking around.

"I'm sorry," John said to the other man's thin back, closing the door behind him. "Do I know you?"

The strange man - DI James - turned round, grinning ear-to-ear. "Aren't you going to offer me tea?"

John blinked. "Yeah, okay," he said. He walked into the kitchen, looking over his shoulder as the DI flopped down on Sherlock's couch and let out a dramatic, contented sigh.

"So, you know Sherlock, then," John called from the kitchen, pouring tea into cups and setting the sugar dish on the tray he reserved for the rare visit from Mrs. Hudson, or perhaps Mycroft.

"Oh, yeah," James said casually. "I've met him before. Not exactly recently, but in London. Well, a London..."

John sat opposite him and set the tea tray on the sitting table between the two.

"How many sugars do you take," John asked with a thin smile.

James looked up from John's newspaper with surprise. "Hmm? Oh! Yes, sixteen, thank you."

John looked at him blankly. "Six, ahem, sixteen?"

"Sixteen, yeah, thanks," he said.

John rose his eyebrows, but started adding sugar into James' cup.

"So," James said, tapping his hands rhythmically on the armrests. "John Hamish Watson."

John paused in his application of sugar. After a moment, he resumed spooning sugar into the cup.

"Read the papers, do you," he asked, looking up and smiling.

"Oh, no," James said, standing up and sniffing - really sniffing - around the room. "I'd know a Watson anywhere! Strong, sturdy, brilliant - no matter what timeline you're in."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Without warning, James jumped over the couch and stood before John, all lanky legs and floppy hair. John didn't stand. He thought back and realised that the badge the DI had flashed him was the wrong colour.

"Ahh, yes," James said, rubbing his hands together. "John Watson, the faithful, loyal John Watson. You," he said, pointing to John from where he stood, "are exactly what I need." He crossed over to where John was sitting, bending at the waist and gripping the armrests of John's armchair until their faces were merely inches apart.

"Oh, I'm sorry," John said dryly. "Afraid I lost count."

The DI's brows knitted together, then he looked down at the teacup.

"Was that fourteen or fifteen," John asked, their eyes locked.

Suddenly, the door to the flat crashed open and both men's heads snapped toward the sound. The door banged against the wall and whipped back into the leather gloved hand of the man who'd entered. Sherlock slammed it closed and leaned his back against it, gulping for air. His face was flushed and his eyes were closed. He stayed like that a moment, catching his breath.

"What were you running from," John asked, his voice a bit edgy. "What's out there?"

Eyes still closed, Sherlock replied, "nothing, John, nothing. Just a bit of... Russian... mafia business, nothing." Sherlock opened his eyes and saw the lanky, strangely dressed man with his lips inches from John's, and his back straightened.

"Oh," he said, blinking. "I didn't realise I was interrupting, I could-"

John narrowed his eyes in confusion, then remembered how close he was to the DI.

"No," he said, shaking his head quickly to dispel any such thoughts. "That's not - he's not - no, hang on, Russian mafia? Did you say Russian mafia?"

James sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Who is this," Sherlock asked, inclining his chin toward the DI.

"You attracted the Russian mafia," John said, not listening. He was furious, and stood up, gently pushing the DI's chest away from him so he could step forward.

"John, there's a strange man in our flat who you clearly don't know by the way your body was tilted ten degrees away from his, and all you care about is a minor case?"

"Minor case?" John put his hand to his forehead and laughed disbelievingly. "Sherlock, Russian mafia does not correlate to minor case. Did they follow you here?"

An excited shout from the DI squashed the reply Sherlock was about to make, and both men looked toward him.

"Sherlock, you said? As in Sherlock Holmes?" James jumped over the couch and crossed the flat to take Sherlock's jaw in his hand and tilt his face back and forth like the head judge at a dog show. "Oh, brilliant," he murmured, inspecting the dark hair, pale eyes, raised cheekbones, so much youth-! "Just brilliant."

Sherlock snapped out of his shock and grabbed the other man's wrist, expertly twisting it until the man was on his knees, his arm above him. In one fluid motion, James shifted and twisted on the ground and popped up to his feet, holding his wrist with Sherlock's hand on it in front of him. In his other hand, he held out a square of paper.

"Relax," he said. "I'm a Doctor."

Sherlock looked from the paper to the man. He stared him straight in the eyes and dropped his wrist.

"Hang on, I thought you were a DI," John said, crossing over to the threshold and attempting to take the paper out of the strange man's hand. Before he could reach for it, the man slipped it back into his inner coat pocket.

"I was," he replied cooly. Then he looked distant. "I mean, I have to've been, at one point." He shook his head to clear it. "Anyway," he said, clapping his hands in front of him -

"That paper is blank," Sherlock said in five clipped syllables.

The Doctor looked at him. A grin slowly split his face. "Brilliant, he's brilliant," he said to John, gesturing to Sherlock.

"I am," Sherlock agreed, slowly walking circles around the visitor, "Brilliant enough to know that you're not a Detective Inspector nor a doctor - you don't carry your stress in your shoulders, characteristic of someone in a law enforcement position, and the way you can't stop moving your hands leads me to believe that you find it nearly impossible to stay in one place too long, much too long for surgery."

The Doctor just kept grinning. "Very good, almost perfect," he interrupted.

"And I know you aren't human."

The Doctor's smile faltered a bit.

John scoffed, stepping back and looking at the DI - Doctor - whatever. "Sherlock, come on."

"John, whatever this man is, he is not human."

"Are you taking the piss?"

"When I held his wrist, I could feel an irregular heartbeat. His blood pressure was high, dangerously, fatally high for a normal person. High blood pressure, so an unusually strong heart. But that quick of a pulse? No, that's not possible short of cardiac arrest, that's not human." Sherlock sneered at him.

Instinctively, John surged forward and took the man's wrist into his hand, looking at his watch to measure his pulse. Almost instantly, he dropped the wrist with a sharp intake of breath, as if it were hot.

"Christ," he whispered, looking wide-eyed at the Doctor. "What are you?"

Something heavy crashed against the door, and a deep male voice groaned.

"You idiot, it's locked!"

"How was I supposed to know!"

There was a mechanical whistling. The Doctor patted all of his pockets, turning round in circles.

"You've GOT to be kidding me - AMELIA POND!"

The door burst open, the doorknob taking another chunk out of the wall it banged against. A pretty red-haired woman and a man with a large nose stood in the doorway.

"Oh, come off it," Amelia said, a playful smile on her lips. "You agree to let us pop by the Tesco and you expect us to believe it's just that easy? Insurance," she said, tossing a metal cylinder at the Doctor. He scrambled to catch it. He looked it over, poking and prodding at buttons. Satisfied, he looked up to glare at the man next to her.

"Russian mafia," the Doctor asked, his voice dangerously low. Rory held his hands up in front of him, the international symbol of I had nothing to do with this. Amy avoided eye contact, contenting herself to walk over to the mantle, looking at the skull with a curious gleam in her eye. Sherlock caught her and crossed the room swiftly, inserting himself between Amy and the mantle, arms crossed.

John had had enough. A whole room full of Sherlocks, God help him.

He snatched the cylinder out of the Doctor's hands and held it behind his back. The Doctor reached for it, and John took a step back.

"No, not until you tell me exactly who you are and what you want."

The Doctor carded a hand through his floppy hair. "If you give me my screwdriver, I can show you," he said. John could hear the echo of his own exasperated voice in the Doctor's. He held his ground.

"Talking's fine," he said, smiling. But the screwdriver slipped from his hands. He whirled around and saw Sherlock walking off with it, pressing buttons and twisting pieces around.

"Sherlock," John chided, but the Doctor was on Sherlock's heels. He stretched one of his gangly arms around Sherlock and grabbed the screwdriver, wrenching it from Sherlock's hands.

"Now!" he said firmly, dusting off his blazer. "If you could be patient for just one moment-"

"Not likely," Sherlock drawled, inspecting his fingernails, and John bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

The Doctor pulled a sour face and lifted the screwdriver into the air, the mechanical whirring filling the air again. Every light in the flat turned on simultaneously, the telly blaring, the kettle's start-up beep sounding, the microwave crowing. Both John and Sherlock's mobiles both started ringing, and John could even hear his alarm clock going off upstairs.

With a smug smile, the Doctor lowered the screwdriver and the flat fell silent.

John's jaw fell open, and Sherlock merely scoffed.

"We'll send you the bill at the end of the month," he said. He was cut off by John's loud, "How did you do that!"

The Doctor grinned again and slipped the screwdriver into his inside coat pocket.

"Care to come on a little trip?"

Alright, here's the deal. Tear this story a new arsehole. I want all of your criticism; I want to know exactly when and how the characters became out of character. I want to know exactly when it was boring. This story is awesome in my head, but that won't stop me from treating it like a red-headed stepchild.

(If that offends you, I'll have you know I'm a red-headed stepchild.)

-sdez