Every eye in the room was fixed on Sherlock, who was quickly rambling, taking in every detail as he spoke. The words tumbled out of his mouth as he deduced simultaneously, hoping to create a distraction while he texted Lestrade.
"Janine! What about this one?" he asked Janine, who looked at him, a wide-eyed expression on her face as he moved behind a male guest he had picked at random. "Acceptably hot? More importantly, his girlfriend's wearing brand-new uncomfortable underwear…" He switched his deductions to autopilot, pulling out his phone discreetly behind his back and rapidly typing a message.
"…They're always tremendously grateful – really put the hours in. Geoff, the gents."
It took Lestrade a moment to realize that Sherlock was talking to him now.
"The loos, now, please," Sherlock said, with a meaningful jerk of his head in the general direction of the loo.
"It's Greg," the detective corrected for what was probably the hundredth time now. Honestly, with a brilliant mind like Sherlock's, just how hard could it be to remember a simple name of someone he'd known and worked with for close to ten years?
"The loos, please," Sherlock repeated.
"Why?" Lestrade asked, as his phone beeped with a text alert.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's your turn."
Greg pulled his phone out and saw that there was a message from Sherlock. What? What's that supposed to mean? He squinted down at it, trying to make out what the message said.
Luoikl thfds p?dwedoqnn.
He looked up at Sherlock, his face the picture of confusion.
Sherlock inwardly cursed and carefully began to retype the message, his fingers hovering over his touchscreen in what felt like the correct position. This part was easy – it was no difficult task to discern where every button was on the screen – but the problem was that no matter how delicate of a touch, his fingers sometimes managed to hit the other neighboring letters. And that was when he was looking at his phone. Now this was normally where proofreading, and autocorrect, came in, but he remembered, with a sinking feeling, that he'd disabled that function a week ago in a huff, after it tried to correct what was supposed to be an innocent message to Mary about serviettes into something else entirely different. He'd only barely caught it in time before he'd sent it, saving him from the teasing that John's fiancé-now-wife would have certainly given him.
Sherlock finished typing the message and sent it, again, hoping that it was at least barely readable this time. The guests were starting to get antsy, mumbling amongst themselves and glancing about. Mary glanced from John to Sherlock, brows knit together, and John had an eyebrow raised as he tried to read Sherlock's expression. Something was wrong, but he didn't know what.
"Uh, Sherlock?" he began, slowly.
Sherlock distractedly waved John off, listening for the beep of Lestrade's phone, but it didn't come. Instead, a couple meowing noises emanated from next to where the detective inspector sat, and Molly flushed as she fumbled for her phone, from whence the metallic-sounding meowing had come.
"Sorry…" she mumbled. "Must have forgotten to turn it off…"
Oh, this was getting ridiculous.
Now Molly, after a glance at her phone while Tom peeked over her shoulder, was giving him confused looks. Apparently the message he'd accidentally sent her instead of Lestrade made as much sense as the last one.
The crowd's restlessness continued to grow.
Finally, after a fake coughing fit while cupping his phone in his hand, he peeked at his latest message, corrected it manually, and sent it to Lestrade.
Comprehension dawned on Greg as he read the now legible text: Lock this place down.He cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, actually, now you mention it…" Sherlock pocketed his phone as Lestrade stood, and, smoothing down his suit, he cleared his throat, regaining his composure.
He swore he would never leave his phone's autocorrect off again.
A/N: Because come on. Have you ever tried typing out a text without looking…not to mention while holding your phone behind your back? Go on, try it. Even the great Sherlock Holmes has got to have trouble with this sometimes, right? I suspect autocorrect had a hand in it in the episode. :P