Chapter 54

"It was zombies. Obvious." Sherlock was lounging in his armchair, sipping from a wineglass full of tomato sauce. He put the glass down and stood up. "Come, Watson. We're going to the morgue."

John stood up. "But I thought you already solved the case?"

"We're not going for detective reasons."

"Nice!" John grabbed his coat and the two left.

Mary sighed and sat down in the vacated armchair, staring into the fire.

Mrs Hudson walked over and handed her a card. "This came for you in the mail, dear."

"I don't even live here." Mary took the card. She looked down at it. "It just says M."

"Turn it over."

She did. "It just says immediately. Still not helpful."

"Well, perhaps it was just a prank." Mrs Hudson left.

As soon as she was gone, Mary looked down at the card again. Her face broke into a grin. She jumped up and left the room.

-The Morgue-

Sherlock and John walked into the room where the dead bodies were kept.

"Jesus." Lestrade was lying on one of the slabs, staring into space. "What the hell were you guys doing? You were in there for an hour."

"Watson's writing a book about it. You'll find out when he publishes it." Sherlock turned and looked at one of the dead bodies, which had been chained to a slab. "All right, which idiot did this?"

"We had to take precautions," Anderson stepped out of the shadows.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I was kidding about the zombie thing, you know. Emilia clearly didn't come back from the dead and kill her husband."

"Stranger things have happened."

"Like what? And if you say a little boy disappearing, I"ll strangle you."

A new person walked in and pointed at Anderson. "You, get back to work."

Sherlock turned to the newcomer and narrowed his eyes. "Hooper."

"Holmes."

"Maybe it was twins," John said, pointing at the body. "One twin killed herself, and the other went and murdered the husband."

Sherlock stared at him. "That's…"

"Dumb," Hooper finished for him.

"Hey, did you show them that yet?" Lestrade asked, pointing at one section of the morgue wall. There, painted in blood, was the word You.

And then underneath, in chalk: Crank that soulja boy

"Awesome case. I'll let you know when I solve it." Sherlock left.

John turned back to the others. "Obviously she died from a gunshot wound to the head, but there's also signs of consumption. Might be worth a postmortem."

Hooper crossed his (her? their?) arms. "Well, isn't he observant now that Daddy's gone?"

"Oh, I can be quite observant." He gave Hooper a onceover. "Amazing what one has to do to get ahead in a man's world." He started walking away. "And for the record, Sherlock calls me Daddy."

Anderson blinked as John walked away. "What was that about?"

Hooper pushed her fake mustache back onto her face as it began to peel off. "Get back to work."

-Several Months Later-

Sherlock was pacing back and forth in his kitchen. Lestrade was digging through his dirty dishes, trying to find a relatively clean glass to drink out of.

"We're up to five murders, now. All of them the same." Lestrade pushed aside a pile of dishes. Sherlock's favorite mug, which had Oscar Wilde's face on it, fell to the ground and shattered. "Oops."

Sherlock did not look up from the book he was reading. "Shut up, this is a matter of extreme importance."

"What is?"

"The obliquity of the ecliptic. I have to understand it."

"Oh, you mean the term used by astronomers for the inclination of Earth's equator with respect to the ecliptic, or of Earth's rotation axis to a perpendicular to the ecliptic? It is about 23.4° and is currently decreasing 0.013 degrees (47 arcseconds) per hundred years due to planetary perturbations."

"Of course, I wouldn't expect you to understa—" Sherlock dropped the book and looked up, his eye twitching. "How do you know about that?"

Lestrade shrugged. "I'll tell you if you give me some brandy."

"Bullshit. I have other matters to attend to. Let's go, Watson!" He started for the door.

"Didn't he move out a few months ago?"

"...Right. Liquor's in the cabinet above the sink." Sherlock left the room and threw himself onto his bed, sobbing.

-The Watson Household-

John sat at the dining room table, alone, reading some of his old Johnlock fanfiction. He looked up, looked at his watch, and then rung a bell.

After a moment, the maid, Jane, walked in.

"Where is my wife?"

"She's gone out, sir."

"At this hour of the morning?" John grumbled and slipped his fanfiction back between the pages of a newspaper. "She's always going out and about these days."

"Not unlike yourself, sir," Jane said. When John glared at her, she added, "Just observing, sir."

"Well, no one asked you to be observant."

"You can't spell observant without servant. Sir." Before he could start yelling, Jane shoved a telegram in his face. "This is for you."

Watson was about to give her a piece of his mind, but then he noticed who the telegram was from and quickly opened it.

I am at "drum practice" right now. Bring some "peacock feathers" and we can "conduct the pit orchestra." -SH

"The Gay Code," John whispered to himself, and rushed out of the room.

-A Cab-

"So…" John drummed his fingers on his knee. "What have you been up to?"

"You know I despise small talk," Sherlock said. "Let's talk about the obliquity of the ecliptic."

"No, that sounds boring as hell."

"I thought me being smart turned you on."

"Yeah, well, we're in a cab, not doing it in your room!" John side-eyed the detective. "Unless you want to do it in the cab…"

"Nope, sorry we're already here."

John looked out the window to see a sign that read: The Diogenes Club. "Oh, for fuck's sake."

They went inside and met Wilder, the...secretary?

Good morning, Wilder. Is my brother in today? Sherlock signed.

Of course, sir. Wilder signed. Doctor Watson, I very much enjoyed your new story.

John struggled to sign, Thank you. You are very ugly.

Wilder blinked, then signed, I beg your pardon?

You're ugly as potato. Fuck you.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Needs work, Watson. Too much time spent on— He made a sign that was so nsfw that Wilder's nose started bleeding.

They walked away and into a room that had a shit ton of food in it. Mycroft was sitting in the middle of the food, except this time he was really fat, which I guess is funny if you're two dumbass British writers who are running out of ideas.

Sherlock went to stand in front of his brother, his posture pin-straight. "Good morning, brother mine."

"Tater tots!" John pointed at the dish of fried potato goodness. "Can I have some?"

"No," Mycroft said.

John took some anyway.

"Fuck you."

"I solved the Manor House case last week," Sherlock said. "Of course it was the brother—"

All three of them jumped as they received an electroshock from wires in the floor.

"What the hell?" John shouted.

Moffat's voice blasted from a loudspeaker somewhere: "STICK TO THE SCRIPT! WE NEED MORE FAT JOKES!"

Mycroft winced. "Fuck, that hurt my ass. Okay, since we've got maybe a minute before that psychopath shocks us again, I'm gonna get to the point. Our way of life is under threat from an invisible enemy, one that hovers at our elbow on a daily basis. These enemies are everywhere, undetected and unstoppable."

"Who?" Sherlock asked.

"Found one!" John reached under the chair and pulled out a gremlin.

"Put him back, he eats the food I drop under the table," Mycroft said.

Reluctantly, John put down the gremlin. It flipped him off and walked away.

"So who are these enemies, if they're not…" Sherlock glanced at the floor. "Those things?"

"I won't tell you in order to create manufactured suspense. But you should still investigate. When Lady Carmichael gives you her case, take it."

"But how are we supposed to beat these enemies if we don't know who they are?"

"We don't. We must certainly lose to them, because they are right and we are wrong."

"I AM FEMINISM!" Moffat screamed into the loudspeaker, shocking them all again.

You're going to have to pry that soulja boy joke from my cold, dead hands. Also rt if you love tater tots as much as John loves them.