"Famous, right," Sherlock murmurs into the wood, pressing his forehead against the warmth of the Police Box. Famous is not something he ever wanted to be, and the grimace on his expression (just visible from the other man's perspective) is pained and miserable, just for the flash of a second. The expression drains out of his face as quickly as it came, and it's back into precisely schooled nothingness.
He's listening though, listening with those too-sharp ears, his heightened senses picking up on the soft hum that would be just outside of the edges of his hearing normally. He flattens a hand out on the door, both because it's warm (and the nights here are damnably cold), and because he's picking up on the vibrations. Like engines at idle, like a cat purring, the hum of a poorly grounded electrical connection... Then he's speaking again.
"I'm only famous in twenty-first century England, 2009 if you must know, and barely that. If you'd been keeping up with the news to know that I'm famous you'd also know that my career is largely ruined by shoddy journalism and that I'm supposedly dead. I was in the process of hunting down a crime ring run by a dead insane genius when this damned place decided it would be a good idea to add me to the asylum. Bringing up the idea that I'm famous is rather in poor taste then, wouldn't you agree?" Sherlock levels a fierce, cold stare on the man, and he's not done yet, not at all, his voice dropping into a growl.
"The Doctor. Second time I've heard that name, and the question is always the same. Doctor of What? Doctor Who? You know, I've met the Doctor. Tall, skinny fellow in a long coat with spiky hair. Didn't have a ... box with him, last I recall. I inferred from our conversation that he is a time traveler, ancient and impossible. Pleasant enough conversationionalist, intelligent enough, I might add, but you are not tall, nor spiky haired, nor do you smell faintly of satsumas." Sherlock narrows his eyes over at the man standing in the doorway. "So either two possibilities exist. Either you're lying, and that's boring and you can leave now. Or you're telling the truth." Sherlock pauses for breath, and it's a spare one.
"If you're telling the truth then there are multiple possibilities that can stem. The first Doctor I met said he traveled through time, evidence put forth in our conversation seemed to support that claim, so I must only assume that you are either the same person with highly advanced plastic surgery, or that the Doctor is more like a title than an actual name. It is not past the realm of possibility that the Doctor could be a perfectly acceptable name in the future, something like Paul or John is now, but I doubt that. There's more to it than that. The inflection with which you introduce yourself, and the way that the first Doctor introduced himself as well. So title it is. Now, why would a man call himself the Doctor? To be a doctor one must first be a student, an a particularly admirable one at that, a student of everything and anything that falls across his past, to be an expert in his field, or in the case of time travelers, perhaps many fields. Secondly, Doctor. Doctor as in literally a physician, a healer, someone with a kind heart and gentle hands and absolute precision. Most of them are not nice, but they are good, at least the ones I've encountered, certainly my own Doctor Watson is a venerable example of what a good healer should be."
Another pause for breath, as spare as the last few.
"So. A time traveler who calls himself the Doctor who has more than one face, or the same face that's been modified over time. Reincarnation isn't out of the picture but I very much doubt anything like that exists in our world, so, perhaps metamorphosis of some kind, which would mean you're not human, either. Likely, given the level of technology that could have anything feasibly called a perception filter, that could land silently and be mostly invisible if you didn't want to see it, so, alien technology, or from a time far past my own."
Sherlock's pacing now, not too far from the police box or the man though, he's not about to give them the opportunity to vanish again. He's not smiling, but at least he's not bored, and that's a start.
"So. Doctor," and Sherlock's laser gaze lands on the Doctor all the same, intense and cold all at the same instant. "Explain."
no subject
He's listening though, listening with those too-sharp ears, his heightened senses picking up on the soft hum that would be just outside of the edges of his hearing normally. He flattens a hand out on the door, both because it's warm (and the nights here are damnably cold), and because he's picking up on the vibrations. Like engines at idle, like a cat purring, the hum of a poorly grounded electrical connection... Then he's speaking again.
"I'm only famous in twenty-first century England, 2009 if you must know, and barely that. If you'd been keeping up with the news to know that I'm famous you'd also know that my career is largely ruined by shoddy journalism and that I'm supposedly dead. I was in the process of hunting down a crime ring run by a dead insane genius when this damned place decided it would be a good idea to add me to the asylum. Bringing up the idea that I'm famous is rather in poor taste then, wouldn't you agree?" Sherlock levels a fierce, cold stare on the man, and he's not done yet, not at all, his voice dropping into a growl.
"The Doctor. Second time I've heard that name, and the question is always the same. Doctor of What? Doctor Who? You know, I've met the Doctor. Tall, skinny fellow in a long coat with spiky hair. Didn't have a ... box with him, last I recall. I inferred from our conversation that he is a time traveler, ancient and impossible. Pleasant enough conversationionalist, intelligent enough, I might add, but you are not tall, nor spiky haired, nor do you smell faintly of satsumas." Sherlock narrows his eyes over at the man standing in the doorway. "So either two possibilities exist. Either you're lying, and that's boring and you can leave now. Or you're telling the truth." Sherlock pauses for breath, and it's a spare one.
"If you're telling the truth then there are multiple possibilities that can stem. The first Doctor I met said he traveled through time, evidence put forth in our conversation seemed to support that claim, so I must only assume that you are either the same person with highly advanced plastic surgery, or that the Doctor is more like a title than an actual name. It is not past the realm of possibility that the Doctor could be a perfectly acceptable name in the future, something like Paul or John is now, but I doubt that. There's more to it than that. The inflection with which you introduce yourself, and the way that the first Doctor introduced himself as well. So title it is. Now, why would a man call himself the Doctor? To be a doctor one must first be a student, an a particularly admirable one at that, a student of everything and anything that falls across his past, to be an expert in his field, or in the case of time travelers, perhaps many fields. Secondly, Doctor. Doctor as in literally a physician, a healer, someone with a kind heart and gentle hands and absolute precision. Most of them are not nice, but they are good, at least the ones I've encountered, certainly my own Doctor Watson is a venerable example of what a good healer should be."
Another pause for breath, as spare as the last few.
"So. A time traveler who calls himself the Doctor who has more than one face, or the same face that's been modified over time. Reincarnation isn't out of the picture but I very much doubt anything like that exists in our world, so, perhaps metamorphosis of some kind, which would mean you're not human, either. Likely, given the level of technology that could have anything feasibly called a perception filter, that could land silently and be mostly invisible if you didn't want to see it, so, alien technology, or from a time far past my own."
Sherlock's pacing now, not too far from the police box or the man though, he's not about to give them the opportunity to vanish again. He's not smiling, but at least he's not bored, and that's a start.
"So. Doctor," and Sherlock's laser gaze lands on the Doctor all the same, intense and cold all at the same instant. "Explain."