Sherlock Holmes sat in his flat. Stagnating.
It had been only a weeks since his last case, but already he could feel his mind slipping from its usual intricate, delicately-tuned precision, and becoming just so much soft cheese.
John was out buying groceries. Or a new table. Or something. He'd heard him leave, but that could have been hours ago. Months, even. He sluggishly turned on his television. House was on. Sherlock sighed, and then went back to stagnating.
John Watson had intended to buy groceries, or a new table, or something, but had then realised that he had nothing to buy them with. There'd been an incident in the case before the last one involving the destruction of a bridge and a train full of stolen ferrets. He pinched the bridge of his nose just thinking about it.
Sherlock was likely still back at the flat. He probably knew John would have come here to the fountain, as he'd taken to doing when there was nothing else to do and Sherlock was in an... interesting mood. Actually, John found himself looking around in a fairly suspicious manner; Sherlock was nowhere to be seen, and while there was a homeless man sat just across the street, he appeared to have dozed off. Besides, what would be the point in following him? If anything –
John felt his train of thought scream to a halt as he noticed a security camera doing that thing they sometimes did around him: turning away to ridiculous angles, and leaving him out of sight.
Really, Mycroft might as well have them wink at him.
Back in the flat, Sherlock hadn't moved. Eyes closed, he sat with an intent expression on his face, as though he were trying to summon a new case through sheer force of will. Something interesting, something he hadn't seen before, something even he couldn't solve. Well, maybe not that last one, but something exciting, anything at all, something bizarre, something unheard of, something to break him out of this damned boredom! If only for the sake of the walls.
Happily, with John in a black car on the other side of London, on his way to a warehouse of some sort, something was pretty much exactly what happened.
Sherlock Holmes yawned, and a zebra walked into the room.