Author's note: ok since ff.net doesn't make the italics show up, and since I'm sure you're all jumping up and down to read this here it is…
OK, so the symbol I wanted to use actually make the text enclosed in them to disappear (damn webpage things!) But I discovered how to make the italics show up!! YES!
And I always forget those disclaimers too…
Disclaimer: SH22 isn't mine. I don't know who it belongs to but it sure as heck isn't mine… Awe… The little beer pipettes are from "Miss Congeniality" I love those little multicolored pipettes! Yay! Ahem, on with the motley…
When Beth Lestrade said "slight hangover" she only meant for people who weren't newbies at the beer downing. Like she was. A consistent panging woke her up, and it made her head throb and her insides thrash. Her stomach felt like it was inside out; she wanted to throw up but nothing came out. What a scam… Lestrade thought as she tried to raise her head. But she felt a weight against her stomach. Great; now I can't even move. I am suing that beer company… But, looking down, she was shocked and horrified to see Sherlock Holmes' sandy-haired head resting against her front.
The bottom few buttons of her shirt were undone, leaving her stomach uncovered, and Holmes' cheek leaned against it, rising and falling peacefully with her breathing. With a gasp Lestrade straightened up and rolled out of the bed. Holmes groaned and turned over as well, but didn't wake. Lestrade looked down at herself as if she had become a different person without knowing it. Besides the buttons on her shirt she was (to her unutterable relief) fully clothed. She exhaled sharply with a hiss of disbelief, regained her reason, and looked around. Strewn amongst the numerous glass pipettes were Holmes' tie, vest, and belt. Lestrade lifted the blankets slowly: The Great Detective's shirt was completely unbuttoned in the front and at the cuffs, and he lay with one of his lanky arms hanging over the side of the bed and the other draped across his flat chest. A glass pipette was still in the hand that lay limply upturned over the bedside. Beth's drunken mind went into a panic.
Calming herself and distractedly picking up pipettes and tossing them into the fridge, Lestrade thought about her situation. Ok, so she had spent one night with the greatest detective in the world after they both got dead drunk off complimentary beer in pipettes that were now spread across the floor like that of an abandoned laboratory. Not to mention that the greatest detective in the world, who was at the moment lying half naked in her bed, didn't know it and would go crazy if he did. So far so good…
She picked up Holmes' crumpled tie, vest, and belt and placed them on the chair with his Inverness cape as if he had done it himself. Holmes would probably never remember the night before, except for the drinks. Even she herself could only draw a blank on what happened, seeing as they were both so zedding drunk… Lestrade twitched at the thought. She didn't have to tell him – he didn't have to find out. It would only scare him out of his wits, anyway… if she tried to explain how drunk they were and the stupid things drunken people did, he still wouldn't understand – he wasn't ready yet. She resolved not to tell Holmes anything about it when she heard him stir.
The great sleuth sat up with a pained groan and tried to retch over the side of the bed in vain. A cough slash choke emitted from his throat as he lay back down onto the sheets. Holmes lay wilted and Lestrade committed the mental picture to memory before drawing the covers over Holmes again and taking the last glass pipette away. Then she went to sleep in the other bed; to make the impression that she had slept there instead of… the other there.
Sherlock Holmes spent the day sleeping in the room, too sick to move. Lestrade, who was clueless as to what to do, and afraid of leaving a groggy Holmes alone and in a hangover, stayed with him. Finally, he was able to at least get up to go to the bathroom or to eat: necessities like that. A few mumbled words escaped his lips, although he hardly spoke to Lestrade. But his "supervising officer" decided they had better stay in the room a little longer after taking him to the downstairs restaurant of the hotel and seeing him vomit all of his dinner under the tablecloth. Naturally, they had to depart to their room after that anyways.
When Holmes insisted he was feeling better the day after, Lestrade wouldn't believe him, seeing as he was still in the same arrangement as the day before. Moriarty could wait, she said, because you can't stop him in a hangover. But it was too late, because they soon heard of a series of bank robberies in the immediate area, and the robber had escaped with a rented car. When Lestrade told this to him, Holmes nodded, tried to vomit again, but instead fell asleep lightly with a moan. Lestrade, having gotten over her hangover, moved to help him, when the room was shook as the door burst open with a bang to reveal William Burke, breathing huffily and with a ominous look in his eye.
"HOLMES!" He roared, shaking the Great Detective roughly, who sat up with a quizzical look. Sherlock was confused for a moment, seeing this big chunk of a man standing over him. But he comprehended soon, as the banker spoke, "I know you're Sherlock Holmes: the detective – don't you deny it! And I want you to find out where my money went and you're going to do it now! Y'all hear me? Just say the word and I'll pay you 20% of that stolen money! Well, say something!" Lestrade was too busy wondering about Holmes refusal to this plea to fear Bern. Bern suddenly realized with a double take that Lestrade was in the room, but he remembered his precious money, and turned to await Holmes' response. Sherlock's hand stole to his bruised cheek, which made him flinch, and looked at Bern with clear blue eyes, then stared at the ceiling with his fingers in a steeple.
"My dear Mr. Bern - let me assure you that I do the work for the work's sake, and if I choose to ask for a fee it remains fixed, and I add to it any money I might've spent in order to solve the problem. As for your problem, please don't bother me with anything besides the facts if I am to accept it. Which I… will not." Holmes decided the question with a nod to himself and Bern was dumbfounded – nobody ever refused him anything and now was not the time to start that. Lestrade was far from satisfied with this refusal – Bern deserved some butt whooping. The large man's eyes turned bloodshot as he screamed at the two of them: threats, pleas, bribes, and such vulgarism as would make Fenwick blush. Lestrade was beginning to get annoyed, even though she still feared Bern immensely. Holmes also seemed to be impatient with the man, and he drummed his fingers rapidly while his limbs, including the muscle underneath the lightened bruise, twitched constantly.
William Bern was just about to get rough with Holmes when the detective went into a spasm. Both Bern and Lestrade looked at Sherlock with raised eyebrows and confusion in their eyes. Beth was alarmed because she knew it could be a side effect of the beer, although it had never happened to her before, but then again, Holmes had a sensitive mind and system.
Her alarm grew when the detective groaned in pain and curled himself up, arms wrapped around his knees and rocking back and forth, muttering undiscernibly. She was about to speak up when Holmes lifted his face and displayed a totally different façade then before the seizure. It was contorted into an evil grin that gave Lestrade the willies, since the only place she ever saw that grin was on the face of Holmes' wicked nemesis, Moriarty himself. And Holmes fixed his grin on Bern, and with a tiger spring he had the man by the throat. Bern was lifted an inch – two inches! - Off the ground with amazing strength. Sherlock gnashed his teeth with a breathless, undertone snarl. "Get… out… now! Or I'll …come after you… and you never… know what accident …might happen then…" Holmes tightened his hold on Bern, who choked and clawed at his assailant's iron grip, which was slowly squeezing the life out of him! The feat was revolting to look at and Lestrade almost felt sorry for Bern as she tried to calm Holmes down. He had never acted like this before! What was going on?
But, irritated more than ever, Holmes shoved Lestrade into a table with a shout and Bern, taking the chance Lestrade's unintentional distraction gave him, scampered (like a bat out of hell) away from the room. Seeing that his quarry had escaped, the monster formerly known as Sherlock Holmes turned on Beth Lestrade, an almost cannibalistic look in his eye.
When he dashed away, William Bern had thoughtlessly and without a doubt, left the defenseless inspector alone in the room with a mad man. A mad man who had now, by some strange power, become a vampire.
Author's note: Yea, yea I know it sounds a bit corny but I tried my best to make it plausible and it is MUCH better than the original, trust me… Does it sound like the episode where Lestrade "and Holmes" went mad? I tried to not make it sound like I'm copying them… *grin. Anyway, Read and Review!