It was a text that started it. A text in the wee hours of the morning when Sherlock was, for once, sleeping. He grunted and slid his hand out from under the warm covers to grope blindly on the bedside table. He managed to knock his mobile off onto the floor, where it lay with the blindlingly bright screen glaring up into his face. It vibrated once more for good measure before he grabbed it and squinted at the digital lettering.

Why was Molly Hooper texting him in the middle of the night? She had his number, yes, and used it periodically for informing him on experiments he was conducting in the mortuary – but as far as he knew, the last time he'd required her to perform an experiment checkup for him was last week. Mr. Holbruk's intestines had been a lovely shade of maroon by the time Sherlock and Molly had finished with him.

He grinned sleepily at the memory and opened the text.

You've got to see this. -MH

He got slightly excited. What particularly gruesome cadaver did Molly currently possess that required such urgent diagnosis? His fingers scrabbled at the screen of his mobile.

Please be specific. You have my undivided attention. -SH

A heartbeat later it vibrated in his hand.

They've made...a bit of crap telly based off of John's blog. It's interesting. -MH

He visibly drooped.

I admit at being rather let down. The nature and early arrival of your message led me to believe that you had something of worth to communicate. -SH

He slung his body back on its side and pouted at the opposite wall for a moment or two. He was almost asleep again when his mobile lit up.

This is definitely worth communicating. Turn on BBC 1. -MH

Sherlock groaned and flopped off the side of his bed.

John found him the next morning. He was curled on the sofa, still staring at the telly with a haunted look in his eyes. The telly had been turned off, but the remote lay conspicuously on the floor beside Sherlock's outstretched hand.

"Well then," John muttered. "Watch something you regret?"

When the detective spoke, it was with the voice of a man who had been deeply traumatised. "Yes."

John shuffled to his armchair and dropped in it with a contented sigh. "Spill."

In response, Sherlock rose and fetched John's laptop. John rolled his eyes at the ease at which Sherlock hacked in – he'd replaced the password and everything, but no, there was no deterring him, was there? – opened something on YouTube, and placed the device in John's lap as the video began to play.

Sherlock then slowly returned to his fetal position on the couch, staring at John as the doctor watched the first installment of the programme Molly had discovered. They both were completely still for the duration of ninety minutes, until the disgustingly dramatic end credit music began rolling. Then John closed the laptop with a quick, instinctive motion, as if it were a volatile trap that needed disarming.

He looked at Sherlock, sharing the haunted expression now. "And that is what the BBC has done with the inspiration from my blog?"

"Did you give them permission?" Sherlock spat.

"Well, yes, but it wasn't supposed to air for – "

Sherlock surged to his feet. "That was the most asinine, despicable, inaccurate representation of any work I've done to date! And that includes Kitty Riley's description of my career!"

"And apparently we're both gay."

"Of course I knew which pill it was!" Sherlock continued, for all intents and purposes deaf to John's comments. "And they portray me as an arrogant clotpole who doesn't understand sarcasm or innuendo and apparently cannot function without somebody to bounce ideas off of."

John snorted. "They got that bit right at least."

"The actor they chose looks nothing like me – "

"Exactly like you..."

" – he cannot deliver a good deduction without waving his hands around like an idiot, he completely neglected to portray my charisma and good people-skills – in fact he couldn't have done a better job if he had intendedto make me look like an unfeeling statue – and the way he sweeps around in that coat! I wear it better."'

John was trying his very best not to laugh, but ended up painfully worrying his thumb knuckle with his teeth and sniggering at the back of his nose.

Sherlock looked at him sharply. "And you! They made you look like some sort of cuddly, emotionally scarred sob-bucket that likes to look deeply into my eyes at inopportune times!"

This time John let loose a laugh that sounded more like a bark. "What, are you saying that there is an opportune time for that?"

"Of course not, " Sherlock dismissed him with a twitch of his hand. "Lestrade and Anderson were depicted accurately enough – their incompetence and stupidity well portrayed – and the woman who played the part of Donovan was, I admit, spot on. The cabby was badly done, however. I believe the writers wanted us, as the viewers, to sympathise with him slightly and feel revulsion when I employed unorthodox measures of data extraction."

"'Torture' would be a better word for it," John muttered.

"They felt the need to dramatise simple facts, also. I simply saw the data and made it clear to those who are incompetent or ignorant enough to not pay attention."

"You forget that you twirl around excitedly while 'explaining' the data," John snorted.

Sherlock sighed and looked up at the ceiling. John thought for a moment that he was expressing disdain in response to John's comment, but then he started up again in that rapid-fire way of his.

"There's one more thing I'm forgetting..." he mused. "One more discrepancy. Something to do with the riding crop..."

John rolled his eyes. "Are you talking about the stupid corpse-arse-whipping scene? The one with Molls?"

Sherlock whipped around, eyes and mouth wide. "Yes. Molly Hooper. That's what they got wrong."

Then, before John could react, the detective had dashed across the room and locked himself in his bedroom with his mobile phone.