John plopped down on the couch, exhausted to the point of "I don't care where I just sat down and I'm not moving for another good three hours." After all, a day of chasing down a gang of Moriarty's men, locating a missing toothpick engraved with a secret military code, and asking various shopkeepers if they had seen a man with a toupee and a curly-Q mustache does that to a person.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!", went his phone, which happened to be conveniently located on the other side of the room, beside Sherlock's skull.

John cursed everyone, internally, mind you, as he stood up to receive the probably-life-or-death-matter text message.

"Don't forget to put the milk into the refrigerator from the sink.

-SH"

Slumping to the kitchen, John sighed melodramatically mid-step and continued on his long, winding journey toward the fridge. Wait- what was that? A… jar of jam? Raspberry? His favorite! Yes, yes, he should probably get on with the milk and all, but hey. Jam. John had his priorities in order, after all.

Fast-forward twenty minutes. John is sitting on the couch, buried in empty jam jars. Multiple blobs of raspberry substance covered the floor, topped with several hundred jar tops. He was viciously attacking a spoon which had previously adhered to one of the jars, therefore making it impossible for John to eat.

John could always use his hands, but come on, manners.

Wait-this jar. This particular jar. Something about it tasted not quite right. At this point, you may want to remind yourself that John was sharing a flat with a man who keeps human heads in the fridge and eyeballs in the microwave. Keep in mind, however, that John had just consumed about seventy pounds of jam, which may or may not have contained sugar.

John didn't care. Nothing mattered. Only jam.

Again, sugar.

Somewhere, halfway across London, Sherlock froze. Something was wrong, he could tell. Thinking back to recent events of importance, his mind raced, trying to remember a fact, a detail, anything, which might explain this new, unreasonable worry.

Hmm, what was it, maybe those new "herbal soothers" of Mrs. Hudson's? No, John had no use for those. Possibly the small army of poison dart frogs he had kept locked up under the floorboards? No, no, definitely not, come on, what was it!

Oh. Oh. Oh god. Oh god, no. The Jam. The Jam that he, himself, Sherlock, had injected with chemicals known for causing the man unlucky enough to have contact with it in any manner, for whatever reason, to develop a permanent love for The Jam. Not only that, but the love would multiply. And multiply, and multiply, until the victim had turned into a mindless jam zombie. The only thing the victim would want, for the rest of his life, would be jam. Nothing else, not adventure, not danger, not even unresolved sexual tension.

Nothing.

Grabbing his coat, Sherlock rushed out of the morgue, nearly jumped over a very startled Molly, almost bumped into her cat who for some reason was at the morgue with Molly, stole a car from one of Moriarty's men (Sherlock didn't have a car, it was always much easier to take one from Moriarty when need be, as he had spies situated everywhere, and if you doubt Sherlock's breaking-into-a-car skills by this point, well.), and was over at 221B Baker Street in less than fifteen minutes.

Banging the door open, Sherlock rushed into the room, his giant coat flapping dramatically, probably set to "Jam Zombie Movie Mode." John was sitting on the couch watching re-runs of some old reality show about an old woman who claimed that she had been her own parakeet in a past life.

"John! Are you okay? Are. Are you. Are you alright? Where's the jam! What happened Everything is starting to turn purple, isn't it!"

Sherlock looked around, noticing the jam-covered floor. Even a third grader could decuce what that meant. Holding on to the doorframe for support, he slumped down, in a sort of trance.

"There's not much time left, John. Soon, the chemicals will start acting up, and you'll become on of the jam zombies. The mindless, jam-eating dead.

John looked around, startled. He remembered the odd jar that had tasted a bit like an infusion of fruit and pasta salad, and stared, shocked, at his flatmate. This kind of thing wasn't unusual, you see, so John didn't yell, or panic, or scream. Instead, he just stood there, accepting his fate.

Ten minutes later, Sherlock snapped back into awareness, all trances of his comatose state gone. He could see "John", or the thing that had been John, sitting on the couch, staring mindlessly at his laptop.

The thing's head snapped up.

"Oh, hey, Sherlock, I don't know what happened, but for some reason, I'm just. here. Like this. Normal! Nothing's wrong, I'm fine! I honestly have no idea what's been going on, but, heh, yeah. I'm alright!"

"John...", Sherlock inquired, skeptically. "Did you feel any change at all after eating the jam? Besides the strange taste, I mean.

Seeing as how John shook his head, Sherlock's eyes widened in wonder as he realized the inevitable truth.

"John.. there is no possible way that your body could have completely ignores the chemicals. Unless, it was already used to them, and didn't have much need to alert you that their number has, in fact, expanded. You've been like this for a while, John. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but for as long as I have known you, and probably longer, you were, already, a jam zombie."

Sherlock looked positively fascinated.

"We'll start the lab testing tomorrow. And in the meantime, John, please try to eat as many jars of jam as possible, for science, as it would benefit my studies tremendously."

At that moment, the world shattered a bit from the high-pitched squeal which was emitted from John Watson's general direction.