Corrupted Data

Though he had just finished a rather interesting string of serial murders, Sherlock Holmes, just exiting the cab which had brought him and John home, was even more irritable than usual. For once, his limited knowledge of current events and cultural references had been a frustrating disadvantage, though how someone in Scotland Yard hadn't managed to pick up on the connections between the three corpses he'd never know. In the end, it had been down to John to take the leap in deductive reasoning and provide Sherlock with the necessary data to track down the murderess, a twenty-one year old pharmacist's assistant with an extreme obsession with certain characters from a popular book and movie saga; the case now known forever on the ex-army-doctor's blog as "The Twilight Murders". The detective had had no difficulty in either finding the cause of death nor approximate size and stature of the culprit, but it had taken John's woefully advanced understanding of the subject (supposedly a former girlfriend had been particularly taken with the series) to track down the killer's whereabouts and confirm her identity as a disturbed, jealous, and obviously violent, fangirl.

Indeed, every victim had been found face-up in a bitterly cold chamber of some sort, showing all signs of having frozen to death (though Sherlock took great delight in explaining that the cadavers had really all died of a drug-induced heart attack, something Anderson was most displeased to hear) and bearing an uncanny resemblance to the stars of the modern vampire-related media. They had been dressed and made up (post-mortem) to portray the actors and actress even more closely, even going so far as to equip one of the males and the woman with hazel-gold contact lenses and the last with a tattoo not unlike the one seen frequently on the usually-topless werewolves. The case was disgustingly simple in the end; the only reason it had taken four days to solve was the almost depressing incompetence of the Yarders and Sherlock's own lack of usable and useful background information.

Despite Holmes's slight embarrassment over the circumstances, it was not the unexpected role reversal of him and Watson that so irked him; Sherlock knew John was much smarter than he tended to let on, and was actually quite proud of him for taking the initiative on this particular case. No, it was the apparent gap in his knowledge of murder-inspiring literature that had him so riled up. He took the stairs up to 221B two at a time, John not far behind. The taller man paced and mumbled to himself in the sitting room while the other made tea, then darted through and shut himself in his often-unused room, leaving an amused and slightly exasperated John Watson (standing with mug in hand) in his wake.

Shaking his head fondly, John finished his tea in silence, listening to the continued grumbling and frantic pacing of his flatmate coming from the nearby bedroom he knew would probably continue well into the night. With any luck the man would wear himself out, getting a few hours' sleep and staving off the incessant boredom until the next time John would have to deal with him; tomorrow, after work.

…

I think I'm dying. –SH

Return to Baker Street immediately. –SH

Not funny, Sherlock! I really don't need this crap today. I'll be home in a few hours. –JW

It's important. –SH

Very important. –SH

Life critical, even. –SH

Is this about a case, or are you just bored? –JW

Yes. –SH

That doesn't really answer my question, Sherlock. –JW

… -SH

… Fine. I'll be home as soon as I can get out. Shouldn't be more than an hour or two; try not to blow up the kitchen while I'm gone. –JW

…

Sherlock smiled at John's reply. It really was too easy to convince the man to drop everything for him, but with the wealth of information stacked on the floor beside him it was hard for Sherlock to feel too terribly guilty; he could always revisit the idea of appearing so later on in his mind palace. John had said he'd be leaving in one to two hours, meaning something closer to two-and-a-quarter once his boss (Sadie? Susan? Something beginning with an S at any rate) was done annoying him about leaving so soon. Then there was the drive, another good ten minutes if traffic was decent, plus paying the cabbie, coming upstairs, and bracing himself for whatever chaos Sherlock had in store for him this time- at least six extra minutes of waiting. Two hours and thirty-one minutes!
Sherlock glanced over at the DVDs, lying there with their somber background colors and the subjects' contrastingly pallid complexions. He was going to wait for John, thinking it'd be handy to have his friend's experiences and observations on hand as well as his own, but... still two hours, twenty-nine minutes to go. He wasn't that patient; this was torture! Ah well, thought Sherlock as he popped in the first disc, he could always ask John about it some other time.

…

John sighed and returned the battered phone to his pocket. He'd been counting on the lull between cases to catch up on work, but evidently that really wasn't going to happen any time soon. Sarah would not be pleased with this new update to his schedule, but at least he was nearly done with his remaining patients for the day. The last time a situation like this occurred he'd only been at the clinic for a few hours, and then he was running after a jewel-thief-turned-murderer by what should have been his lunch break. John told Sarah of his plans to leave early and she nodded tiredly; their relationship, professional or otherwise, had been severely strained by their surprisingly civil (and, if John was honest with himself, entirely mutual) break-up from a few months previously, and was almost shocked that he'd been given leave to do so at all.

The doctor finished up what he could, diving into the vast mountains of paperwork once his last client had gone. On his way out the door John promised his boss he'd try to make up the hours lost this weekend, provided Sherlock managed to avoid taking any major cases in this time.  She waved him off tiredly and he left without another word.

The day was surprisingly pleasant with hardly a cloud in the sky, a rare sight, so John decided to walk back to Baker Street; it wasn't that far, and his damned flatmate probably didn't need his assistance too badly- he probably just wanted a bloody pen or something anyway. Looking up nearly thirty minutes later at the windows of 221B, the doctor sighed in resigned relief; the exterior of the flat was intact at any rate. Whether the inside was or not was a whole other story. He cautiously unlocked the front door, hearing nothing but the sounds of Mrs. Hudson puttering around in her own flat; their own rooms seventeen steps above was conspicuously silent. John climbed them quickly, the squeaky one triggering a strangled moan from behind their door. Mumbled curses escaped his lips as he fumbled with the lock, anxiety rising. After a hard jiggle the key finally turned and John darted inside.

"Sherlock!" The groan sounded again, originating from the floor at the base of the sofa. On the floor lay the world's only consulting detective, curled up tightly in a foetal position and facing the still-flickering television. "Sherlock? Come on, talk to me, are you alright?" John ran to his friend's side, the doctor's instincts immediately taking over as his flatmate stared up at him with abject horror in his eyes. The taller man squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered.

"I was going to wait, but I had to know… had to fill the gap… How do you people live with this? I'm so sorry…" Sherlock whispered. Holmes shivered again, his entire frame trembling from the tremor. Even at the awkward angle John could see the man's hands shaking, tucked as they were to his chest. The sight of his friend so frightened and vulnerable made John's heart ache, but nothing appeared to be physically wrong with the detective; still, the fear etched into Sherlock's face made for a scene at least a dozen times worse than his breakdown on the Baskerville case.

"Sherlock," the doctor said firmly. "What's. Wrong." Sherlock shook again, but reached out a pale hand to wrap his dexterous fingers tightly around John's wrist. The blonde man held it bracingly, and was not at all startled to feel Sherlock's pulse pounding strongly through his veins.

"I needed to know, John. I saw it, that- that thing!" His eyes suddenly snapped open to flicker back and forth between John's own and an unknown object behind him.

"Sherlock, what the hell are you-" John craned his neck around to see what his friend was looking at in such terror; realization dawned as his eyes alighted on the small stack of DVD's on the floor a few metres away. There was a pause as the source of Sherlock's trauma registered in his mind. Then John couldn't help it; he laughed, earning an icy glare from his flatmate, still stubbornly tucked into himself on his side.

"It's not funny, John. That is truly the single most dreadful thing I have ever had the displeasure to experience. How on earth is torture this painful even legal?"

Eventually John quieted and leaned over to pick up and examine the topmost case, chuckling under his breath as he did so. "Jesus, Sherlock, if you thought Twilight was bad, just wait 'til you finish New Moon!"