Inspired by a line in John's blog entry for The Geek Interpreter. Oh, how I'm enjoying those in-between cases and the comments by various characters. So much potential for plot bunnies and comedic fodder.

Disclaimer: Yeah, I totally own all of this, don't I?

"I need you to do some research for me."

That short, innocuous-sounding phrase uttered from the great Sherlock Holmes was the reason why John Watson had suddenly found himself perusing a comic shop in the West End with some of the freakiest people he had ever seen. He should have just refused.

He hadn't been in a comic shop since he was ten years old, but the layout of such places didn't seem to have changed much. There were shelves and shelves of comic books, or graphic novels as Chris Melas called them, for children, adults, and everywhere in between. The people, on the other hand, made John wonder if perhaps he had accidently stumbled onto a film shoot in progress. He had expected things like the cluster of boys in the corner with their Spider-Man and Wolverine T-shirts, the group of adolescents in another corner who were experimenting with the geek chic fashion trend that was becoming so popular, and even the pair of goth girls with a couple of emo boys who were discussing the differences between their respective subcultures. What he hadn't expected was the groups of people who appeared to have recently escaped from a circus sideshow.

A teenage boy with lime green hair and spiky leather wristbands leaned casually again one of the shelves, trying to flirt with a girl wearing a Slytherin House scarf but garnering little success. One young man who appeared to have more ink than skin was arguing whether or not global warming was nothing more than an elaborate hoax with another man who had so much metal on his body it was probably hazardous for him to venture outside in anything less than a mild rainstorm. A woman somewhere between the age of nineteen and thirty wore a skintight costume of black leather and spandex which left very little to the imagination, and was skimming through a comic that didn't even look like it should be in print, if the cover was any indication.

John sidled past the environmentally-conscious ink man, which put him dangerously close to a pair of university-aged students who were engaged in a very heated discussion. The pair was almost at each others' throats.

"No, he wasn't," one of them insisted vehemently.

"Yes, he was," the other asserted, equally incensed.

"No, he wasn't. Didn't you ever read the books?"

"I saw the movies."

"And of course that includes everything Tolkien ever wrote about the history of Middle-earth, doesn't it?" the first one asked derisively. "I'll say it again: Gollum was a hobbit."

"No, he wasn't! He was a man."

"He was a hobbit."

"No, he bleedin' wasn't," the ink man interjected. "He was a Stoor."

John quickly skirted around them as the argument progressed into what a Stoor was and whether or not it could be considered a hobbit. Didn't these people have lives? How did they ever pass their classes? He stopped a few yards away at the cashier's counter. A young woman with a stud in her nose and spiky hair that was a shocking shade of fuchsia was manning the register.

"Pathetic, isn't it?" she asked, nodding to the students, one of whom was getting quite red in the face. "They've been here all morning and that's all they've talked about."

"Could be worse," John told her.

"Yeah, that's true, I suppose. They're in here every week, and they always buy something. As long as they pay, it doesn't really matter what they talk about." Suddenly remembering her job, she fixed a salesman smile on her face. "Can I help you find something?"

"Uh, no, thanks. I'm just sort of browsing." He glanced around the crowded room. "Business seems to be good," he observed.

"Yeah, past couple months've been great. Astronomical, out of sight. It's amazing how much one comic can sell."

"So it's just one comic that's generating all this," he gestured to the crowd, "interest?"

"Yeah, KRATIDES, you ever heard of it?" She produced a copy of the latest issue from behind the counter when he shook his head. "People've been going absolutely batty for it; it's incredible. You'd never think to look at it, though." She tapped the rather corny-looking cover. "I mean, six months ago no one had even heard of it. We practically had to pay people to buy a copy, and now we can hardly keep it on the shelves. They snap 'em up as soon as we put 'em out. Want to know where the next event's taking place so they can get good spots, I suppose."

"What do you mean, 'next event'?"

"Oh, a lot of these fans have got it in their heads that the comic's alive somehow." She rolled her eyes for dramatic emphasis. "They read through the newest issues, and then run off to the locations in London where they take place and camp out on the streets, waiting for Professor Davenport and Sophy the Wolflady to come to life. Bunch of loonies, I think. Still, I keep my phone ready, just in case." She waved the phone in front of him, and then stuffed it back down the front of her shirt with a cheeky grin. John focused on the bridge of her nose, deciding that was probably the safest place to look.

"Uh-huh. Well, thank you for all your help. It certainly answered a few questions." He added, under his breath, "And it raised about a hundred more."

He beat a hasty retreat toward the door, slipping past the black-leather-and-spandex woman, who was trying very hard to make eye contact with him. The Slytherin girl had gone, leaving her would-be suitor looking dejected. Metal man had given up on his ink friend, who was still arguing with the university students. John reached the door just in time to hear one of them loudly exclaim, "You're out of your tree, Bern. Hobbits can't grow beards!"

"Good-bye," John muttered to himself, stepping out onto the street and starting back to the safety and relative sanity of Baker Street.