Where We Started

Everybody Loves Sherlock

They filled up their buckets without another incident and walked back to the house. The water was ridiculously heavy, John struggled with it as he walked and splashed it over the rocks.
"Careful with that." Sherlock said with a laugh. He didn't seem to be having trouble with his at all, but considering he had carried the entire bag of food one handed it wasn't that big of a feat. Finally they walked out the woods, John struggling to simply keep his buckets from scraping the ground as he walked.
"How do you do this twice a day?" he asked in amazement.
"Twice if I want a bath." Sherlock added.
"You poor soul. In 2015 we have these things called taps, and you turn a knob and fresh water comes out instantly." John pointed out.
"Well aren't you lucky?" Sherlock said in a high pitched, playful voice.
"Yes." John agreed.
"Alright, I'll take these up to the house and then come back down to get dry, you don't need to change if you don't want to, I imagine all my clothes would be a bit big anyway." Sherlock shrugged. "Drop your water off at my door; I'll get it when I get there." John nodded, waddling away with the water, his arms practically screaming for a break when he could finally set it down at the door and walk in. He took off his shoes first, not wanting to leave a big mess around for Sherlock to clean up. He found a dry towel over by the tub in the corner, drying off his skin the best he could, but not willing to change out of the clothes he was wearing and into some of Sherlock's. They may be friends, but they weren't on the share clothes level. The door opened and Sherlock walked in, looking like a curly dog that just got a bath, but he looked a lot happier.
"So I doubt this will take long, after I'm done in the house we can go to town." Sherlock decided, not hesitating to peel his wet shirt off and start digging through the drawers. John immediately looked away, feeling extremely awkward and pretending to be fascinated by the sink.
"Should I wash my breakfast dish?" he asked, not turning around to look at Sherlock as he spoke.
"I'll just get it after dinner, speaking of food I'm starving." He decided. When John was sure it was okay to look he turned around, now Sherlock was dressed in an equally shabby pair of jeans but with a new red tee shirt on, digging though his cabinets.
"Are you hungry, or don't future people eat lunch?" he asked sarcastically.
"Starving." John agreed.
"Well I'm a bit low on food, I'll have to stop at the store myself." He decided, grabbing a loaf of bread and two apples, splitting the bread in half and throwing both an apple and bread to John, which he caught easily.
"I guess I'll see you later, make sure not to go anywhere." Sherlock decided, biting into his own apple and leaving the shack with a wave of farewell. John sat in the chair, feeling guilty about being so wet, but, like him, the chair would dry. John ate his makeshift lunch with a sigh, already starting to feel over heated dispute the swim in the creek. Even though the bread had probably been sitting in Sherlock's cabinet for ages it was homemade and unpackaged, some of the best bread John has ever had and it was even a bit stale. When his lunch was finished he busied himself with work around the small hut, cleaning his plate even though Sherlock had told him not to, making the bed so that the blankets laid strait, hung the wet clothes Sherlock left in a pile on the door to drip dry, and even found a dustpan and broom, sweeping up small bits of mud and a whole lot of dust from the wooden floor. In the end the shack looked better than he had seen it previously, and he felt like he had done something to pay for the burden of having him around. He waited around for a little bit over an hour when Sherlock returned, smelling heavily of perfume and covered in white cat hair.
"I hate that cat." He announced, his way of saying hello apparently. "What happened in here?"
"I was bored, thought I'd live a day in the life of Sherlock and tidied up." John shrugged.
"Thank you John, that's nice of you." Sherlock decided with a smile. "So we're done for the day, if you want to go down to the town."
"Ya, if I look acceptable." He added. His clothes were pretty much dried from sitting in the sun, but they were still damp against his skin.
"You look fine." Sherlock assured, grabbing some of the odd silver coins and shoving them in his pocket.
"Okay then, I guess I'm cool with it." John shrugged.
"You use the oddest expressions." Sherlock observed.
"Part of the 2015 in me I guess." John shrugged.
"Apparently." Sherlock agreed. He opened the door and led the way outside, poking his head around the door frame to make sure no one in the house was watching.
"Clear." He decided, walking farther out of the hut and down the driveway. John followed, walking side by side, his shoes still slopping around with water filling the soles.
"So, this angel, do you still have that camera thing on you?" Sherlock asked.
"No, it's in the barn; I could go get it if you wanted it..." John decided.
"No, it's fine, I'm sure you'll know it if you see it." Sherlock shrugged, trudging off of the driveway and into the dirt road.
"Don't you have a horse and buggy or something? I'm sure this walk gets really boring." John guessed.
"No I don't, but I like walking, it keeps me in shape." Sherlock shrugged. John didn't want to point out that Sherlock was in a way better shape than pretty much every one in 2015.
"What do you do in your free time, before I came I mean?" John asked, a reasonable question really.
"Well, sometimes I go swimming, sometimes I take runs or walks, go to town, read, play violin, all sorts of things." Sherlock shrugged. "What about you?"
"Video games, TV, play on my phone, do stupid stuff with Mike." John shrugged.
"I only understood one of those things, who's Mike?" Sherlock asked.
"Oh, he's a friend of mine from back home." John clarified.
"Who else do you have back home then?" Sherlock asked.
"Mom, dad, family, Mike. That's pretty much it; I don't have too many friends." John shrugged.
"I have no idea why, if I could make friends with you I'm sure anyone could. What about a girlfriend huh, got a weeping widow back there?" he asked.
"No, not at all. I can barely make friends much less get an actual girlfriend." John said with a laugh.
"When you get back you can tell everyone you time traveled, I'm sure you could pick from the whole school if you wanted to." Sherlock said, but he didn't sound all that thrilled to be encouraging it.
"Everyone will think I'm crazy. Heck, I think I'm crazy, this is probably all some wild dream." John pointed out. But as he looked around he knew that even his dream self couldn't be this creative in detail. He could smell the flowers, hear the bees, see the veins on the tree leaves; it was much too real to be fake.
"I think we both know that's not true Mr. Watson." Sherlock decided.
"Don't call me that, it's way too formal, Mr. Watson is my dad, I'm just John." John decided.
"Your dad isn't here, so I can call you Mr. Watson if I so desire." Sherlock insisted.
"It's very intimidating like you're Mr., um, something to do with houses right?" John guessed, and Sherlock just laughed.
"Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, and as you said I don't like to go by my last name, not just because it's too formal but it links me to the people I was only too happy to leave behind." Sherlock pointed out.
"Oh stop, I'm sure you loved them." John debated, but Sherlock just looked at the ground and was silent. The rest of the way to the town they were silent, but upon entering the streets Sherlock seemed to get over his little hissy fit and started to get back to his cheery scheduling self.
"Okay, so we'll go to the library for a while, at least until dinner, then we'll stop at the pub for some dinner, they always give me a discount, and then head home I suppose, unless there is something on your bucket list that you'd like to do." Sherlock decided.
"Sounds good." John agreed with a smile. Sherlock led him to the library, the cheeriest looking building in the entire town. It had lit lamps outside the door even though it was sunny out, the painting was fresh and bright, and there were people streaming in and out, all looking like the friendly book nerd type people that would hold the door for everyone until their arms fell off.
"This is the place." Sherlock decided, hoping up the three mini steps outside the door and opening the door. It looked like any modern library really, except it didn't have computers or electric lights. Apparently books don't change over time, except in 2015 everything is a horrible dystopian future book about a rebellious teenager, John wondered if they had those in stock.
"So, where should we start?" Sherlock asked, looking around the tall shelves that stretched to the other wall. There were two stories and not an inch of wooden wall to be seen, only bookshelves stuffed to the maximum with books of all different shapes and sizes.
"I don't know, is there a time travel section?" John asked, spinning on his heels to see everything and almost bumping into a woman in her twenties, who apologized for him three times.
"Oh, she works here, Molly, hey!" Sherlock called at the woman who was walking over to the counter. She turned around and started blushing immediately, but walked over and smiled.
"Oh, hi Sherlock, what can I do for you?" she asked, tucking her hair behind her ears nervously. Obviously she shared Irene's views on Sherlock.
"I was wondering if you have any books on time travel?" he asked. She looked momentarily confused, as if he were playing some sort of joke on her.
"Not a lot no, but I think there's an old one up in the G section, I'll go look." She decided, walking over to the back of the library and browsing a large section. After a while of searching she pulled down an old blue book, which had dust all over it and a peeling leather front.
"I'm afraid it's not much, but here you go." She decided, handing it to Sherlock with more blushing and smiling.
"Thank you." He muttered, turning away from her a bit to face John, as if he didn't like standing in the view of a flirting girl. Sherlock flipped a while in the pages and sighed with disappointment.
"It's a story, fictional." He announced, shutting the book with a snap.
"What were you expecting?" Molly asked a little bit nervously, as if worried her crush was a nutter. Sherlock looked at John questioningly, as if asking his permission to tell. John just shrugged, it couldn't hurt, and Molly seemed like the type of girl who would help a distressed rock.
"John here is from 2015, and we need to somehow send him back." Sherlock said with a sigh. Molly stared at him for a little while with a worried smile on her face.
"I'm... I'm sorry what?" she muttered.
"You heard me." Sherlock pointed out, as if he was annoyed with the stupid people in this town.
"It's true, hate to say it." John admitted.
"Well I'm sorry, but I don't know much about time travel..." she muttered, looking around the rows as if to see if anyone was watching. "But there was that guy, Henry I think, Henry Knight, remember him? He would walk around pretty much every month trying to convince everyone the world was ending, that God was mad at us, you could try asking him." she suggested. Sherlock nodded, that was a pretty good lead.
"Do you know where he lives?" Sherlock asked.
"Not really, you could ask around I suppose, and there's a map up on the second floor, he's probably going to live in a secluded area don't you think?" she guessed.
"Well, it's a start." John shrugged. The two followed Molly, who now was walking like she was being held hostage by two gunmen or something. She obviously thought they were crazy, but really who wouldn't think they were crazy? John was claiming time travel in the 1600's, they couldn't even imagine electricity, this was before sliced bread even, and nothing was better than that! Molly led them through another sea of book shelves towards the back of the room, where there was a large map of the whole town spread out on a table, protected by a dusty sheet of glass.
"So you're looking for Henry Knight then." Molly muttered. "Because you time traveled." John doubted she realized she was saying what she was, but she was just trying to believe it herself. Both of them just ignored her, looking at the map and frowning slightly. The only thing John was able to find on the map was the Hudson's house, complete with Sherlock's little shack and the barn he called home. But there was no neon sign announcing the town nutter's house, and that was a bit disappointing.
"I'll see if there are any records of him, felonies and what not." Sherlock decided, going over to yet more filing cabinets. John and Molly were left awkwardly looking at the map, not knowing what to do except pretend to be interested in the map in front of them that they already come over a thousand times.
"I'm sorry to tell you, but I don't think Sherlock is going to fall for this much longer." Molly guessed.
"What?" John asked, kind of surprised about how fast her tone changed once Sherlock left.
"It's an act right? Just an act to get him on a date?" Molly pointed out. Immediately John went beet red, stammering out an excuse.
"No, absolutely not, no! I have no interest in him, I'm really from 2015, and I have no idea how I got here." John pointed out.
"That doesn't make sense, time travel is just made up." Molly debated.
"Apparently not." John shrugged. "I can prove it too, if I had my camera, which I left in the barn."
"What barn?" Molly asked immediately, obviously taking on the jealous girlfriend roll.
"Oh, I sort of live in the barn in the Hudson's property; Sherlock let me stay there until I get home." John pointed out.
"But you're not together right?" Molly clarified.
"No, no way, he's all yours." John assured, which made Molly do the blushing now.
"I don't want to be with him either, I'm just looking out for him, he's a friend, that's all." She said quickly, but she avoided eye contact as she said it.
"Okay then." John muttered, not believing it for one second.
"How can you be from 2015?" she asked after a while of silence.
"I don't know, I was in an old house, and I saw this angel statue, I ran, and then I ended up in an alley outside of Baker Street Pub, where I met Sherlock." John said, summing up the most important events in a sentence.
"How'd you meet him then?" Molly asked.
"Well he plays violin, and I was sitting in a booth while he was playing, and then he came down and sat next to me and we just talked for a while." John shrugged, realizing he left out the parts when they didn't exchange their love and snog over the table. Molly seemed disappointed with that, obviously she thinks that John and Sherlock were a couple, which was the most ridiculous accusation ever.
"I seriously don't like him, really, and I'm sure he's perfectly into...girls." John shrugged. To be honest he didn't know if that was true or not, he never bothered to ask but he seemed perfectly disgusted with Irene's interest in him. Molly just sighed, as though she wished it were true.