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"Arthur!"
"Oh, God." John slammed the door shut and leaned against it for good measure. Sherlock looked up at him, a curious tilt to his head.
Crap.
The door vibrated at his back from the force of the blows. "Arthur! Open up! It's me, Ford!"
"Do you know him?" Sherlock inquired, swinging his legs off the sofa, his body angled towards John, entire attention focused on him. Usually John didn't mind Sherlock's attention on him, but right now really wasn't the best time for it.
"No!" John quickly denied, too quickly really. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he'd said it, but then he'd never had been a good liar. Especially in front of Sherlock. "Never met him before in this life!"
"Arthur?" Ford pounded on the door some more. "Arthur! I know it's you! Let me in!"
"He appears to know you." Sherlock said, grey eyes glittering. John really hated him at the moment. Actually, right now it was a toss-up of who he hated more, Sherlock or Ford.
"No. He doesn't." John ground out, teeth clenched, wishing Ford would catch a clue and just go away.
Sherlock's mouth twitched. "You may as well let him in." He drawled. Thankfully, he did not add anything about being able to read John like a book. Which was no less true.
John wrestled with himself for a moment, then sighed, realising there really wasn't a way around it. Ford never knew when to give up, and neither did Sherlock.
He opened the door a crack, peering through. Ford grinned from the other side and John sighed, opening the door all the way. "Arthur!" Ford grinned, then did the most embarrassing thing possible.
Ford hugged him. Laughter and manly slaps on the back before releasing him, holding John out at arms reach. "Was starting to wonder if I was ever gonna find you!" Ford beamed at him.
John sighed. "Hi, Ford." He said wearily.
"Arthur!" Ford grinned back. "Got your towel?"
"Yes." John said, rubbing an eyebrow. It was an old, odd habit of his, to leave a towel nearby. Everyone thought it was just that he liked to make tea, which he did, but it also gave him anexcuse to make sure he had a towel at least one or less rooms away. Even if it was a tiny tea towel.
"Great. The Heart of Gold is waiting for us in orbit, we just-"
"Orbit?" Sherlock cut in, from just behind John's shoulder, interest shining from every pore. John let out a quiet meep, having not realised that Sherlock had stood up, or moved so close to them.
"Who're you?" Ford asked, gaze flickering towards Sherlock.
"Sherlock Holmes." Sherlock eyes were sparkling pale grey, eager like a greyhound's waiting for the chase.
"Sherlock Holmes?" Ford echoed. "The Sherlock Holmes."
"Yes." Sherlock tilted his head to the side. "Who are you?"
"Ford Prefect. And are you shitting me?" Ford grinned, glancing between John and Sherlock. "Sherlock Holmes? Really? Where's Dr. Watson then?"
"Me." John deadpanned.
"Seriously?" Ford looked at him, then around the obviously modern room skeptically. "This isn't exactly Victorian England."
"Yes, seriously." John snapped, losing his temper. "The damn Improbability Drive dropped me off in the middle of fucking Afghanistan in the middle of a war with bloody bullets flying everywhere and people calling me 'John Watson' and a head full of medical knowledge! And the best part? The BEST part?! No one here has ever heard of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes or Dr. John Watson, much less Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!"
Sherlock made a curious noise. "Who?"
"See?!" John waved an impatient arm at his flatmate. "Arthur Dent doesn't exist here! Neither does Ford Prefect, Tricia McMillan, Zaphod Beeblebrox, or the tiny talking white mice that rule the planet!"
"Mice?" Sherlock echoed.
"Yes, Mice!" John snapped. "Do keep up!"
Sherlock got that offended look like he didn't know why he dealt with lesser brains, really he didn't. Which was ironic, at least at the moment.
"That's cause you jumped dimensions." Ford explained. "It took us a while to track you down."
Permanent Improbability. That was his life.
"Ages." John grumbled. A few months, realistically. He'd gotten shot a few weeks after having arrived here. What the therapist thought was PTSD was him attempting to adjust to a whole new world, without Ford or the Guide handy to act as a safety net. He hadn't dealt well with the thought of complete isolation. "At least there's plenty of good English tea here."
"That's the spirit." Ford nudged him in the arm. "Ready to go?"
"Go where?" Sherlock jumped in, his tone just slightly alarmed.
Ford pointed up, towards the ceiling. Sherlock looked skeptical.
"Ford's not from this planet, Sherlock." John explained. "He's from somewhere around Betelgeuse."
Sherlock looked at him, blanked face for a moment before recovering. "Yes. Well. That would explain a few things. His accent for one, and-"
John tuned him out, turning back to Ford. "Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready to go." He admitted, pitching his voice towards his old friend. "I've gotten used to life here, as dangerous as it is. And there's-" He pointed over his shoulder at Sherlock.
"So take him along with." Ford shrugged. "It's not like we're short on space."
"You sure?" John raised his eyebrows. "He can be a bit of a handful."
"We'll introduce him to Marvin." Ford winked. John grinned back. Nothing like a permanently depressed robot to put things into perspective. And it wasn't like he hadn't dealt with aliens with worse personalities than Sherlock's moody inquisitive one before.
Oh God. The thought of Sherlock being subjected to Vogon poetry.
"Let me get my towel." John grinned. "Sherlock? You want to go?"
"Into space?" Sherlock stared at him in surprise. John's grin grew just a bit wider.
"Sure."
Sherlock didn't have to think about it very long. "Yes." He said, with a shrug, elegant hands out stretched.
"You sure?"
"Yes." Sherlock repeated, just a little bit more firmly this time.
"Okay." John nodded, backing up and pointing up towards the bedrooms. "Let me just get our towels and then we'll be on our way."
"Arthur! What about your bathrobe?" Ford called as John ran up the stairs, giddy energy filling him. Back in space! Finally!
"I switched over to clunky jumpers!" John shouted back. "All the warmth, not nearly as hard to keep clean." Well, as long as he didn't pour something all over himself. "And call me John! I'm used to it by now!"
"Bathrobe?" Sherlock inquired.
"Yeah, he used to wear one all the time." Ford said casually as John grabbed their towels from their rooms.
"Oh, yeah. Sherlock!" He bellowed down the stairs. "Leave a message for your brother, will you? The last thing we need is Mycroft getting Torchwood to follow us because he thinks we kidnapped you or something."
He really didn't want to think about 'Captain' Jack Harkness around Sherlock. The omni-sexual and the asexual. Harkness would probably take it on as a challenge.
Sherlock made some sort of affirmative noise back and John brushed past them into the kitchen, grabbing their tin of tea before returning towards the living room. He draped Sherlock's towel over the detective's shoulder. "Ready."
"I've also texted Lestrade and let him know I will be unavailable for a while." Sherlock said, hitting a button on his blackberry before shoving it into his pocket. "I am as ready as I shall ever be."
"Excellent." Ford grinned, sliding a familiar gold ring onto his thumb. "Now hold on tight, this is gonna be a bit of a bumpy ride."
John wrapped his arms around Ford's waist. He glanced back at Sherlock, who was looking at him strangely. "What? You coming or not?"
Sherlock awkwardly followed John's example, his side pressed against John's. "Ready." He said with dignity.
"Excellent." Ford thrust his hand up into the air, thumb sticking out. A gold beam of light shot from it, vanishing through the ceiling. "Roof should be thin enough not to be a problem." He added confidentially.
"Oh, good." John had enough time to mutter before the strange feeling of teleportation gripped him.
He couldn't wait to show Sherlock the Improbability Drive.
It was probably going to break the detective's brain.
-fin-