It had been over a week since the last case, as far as John could recall, and John started to notice that Sherlock was slowly receding into his bedroom. Sometimes he wouldn't come out for hours. Once he only came out for a cup of tea for the whole day. It wasn't until Sherlock didn't reply when John knocked on the door with a cup of tea for him a few days later that John realised what he was doing in there.
Of course John was worried about him; when wasn't he? John couldn't convince Sherlock to eat when he emerged from his bedroom. John had only seen Sherlock eat a biscuit over the entire week. And he had no clue as to what Sherlock was doing in his bedroom, either, which he was certain was slowly driving him insane. So, he decided to bring Sherlock some tea and biscuits to his bedroom, not only for the chance for Sherlock to eat something, but so maybe he could glimpse the reason Sherlock kept himself shut up in that room.
"Sherlock?"
John waited for a response. None came. "Sherlock?" He asked again, placing a hand on the door knob. After hesitating for a moment, John opened the door. "Are you al-" John cut himself on as he looked into the room. He stood, dumbfounded, in the doorway, unsure what to say for a long moment.
"Sherlock, what the hell?" The detective was sat on the top half of bed, cross-legged and facing the wall on the left side, where he seemed to be scribbling incoherent sentences onto the paintwork. In fact, no; he was scribbling sentences over more graphite. John looked around the room in awe.
Covering virtually almost every length of Sherlock's walls were masses of grey words, written in Sherlock's hurried yet surprisingly neat handwriting. Sentences overlapped other sentences at all sorts of angles and John could barely make out a word here or there, let alone entire sentences.
His gaze returned to the man on the bed, who was just finishing a sentence. Sherlock turned to John with a blank expression. "Is there a problem?" He asked.
"Yes, Sherlock, there is a very big problem!" John exclaimed, taking a few steps towards the bed. "If Mrs. Hudson sees this…"
Sherlock sighed exasperatedly. "She didn't mind much when I shot the wall in the living room; I don't see how this is a problem."
John stared at Sherlock in disbelief. "She did mind, Sherlock, a lot! I really can't imagine she's going to take this well-"
Sherlock silenced John by placing a slender finger against John's lips. There was a long pause before Sherlock took it away again, and John started to form his next sentence, "Sherlock-" And the finger was replaced.
"John, I'd honestly appreciate it if you could keep that," he said, tapping John's lips, "shut." John rolled his eyes and waited for Sherlock to take his finger away again before placing Sherlock's tea and biscuits on his bedside table. John noticed Sherlock glance at it before returning to his work on the wall.
"What are you doing, anyway?" John asked, ignoring Sherlock's glare as he spoke. Sherlock sighed.
"Writing out case notes," Sherlock muttered and turned back to his writings.
"Case notes? But we haven't had a case for a week," John pointed out.
"Old case notes, John. Stored in my mind palace," he said, and John rolled his eyes. "I find I can remember words better than images. They take up less space in here," Sherlock explained, motioning to his head. "So, I'm writing out all the details from previous cases I have observed and resaving them as such," Sherlock said flatly, as if it were obvious.
John sighed. "Of course you are," he muttered, looking around the room momentarily. John could never get to grips with how exactly Sherlock could treat his brain like a storage device for a computer, but he found simply agreeing and not asking questions was the best way to go about anything to do with Sherlock Holmes."If I leave are you going to have your tea?" John asked, his main concern right now other than Mrs Hudson chasing Sherlock down with knives being Sherlock starving himself to death.
"Probably not," Sherlock muttered quietly. John huffed.
"Sherlock, you need to eat something!" John said, frustrated. He wished Sherlock wouldn't be so stubborn for once.
"I ate something two days ago!" Sherlock said back at him, in the same frustrated tone as John was using. The doctor couldn't quite believe that, since he hadn't seen Sherlock do so. "Can't you see I'm a bit busy right now?" He huffed, pausing for a moment before scrawling on the wall again.
John folded his arms. "Fine, fine," he muttered irritably, and only noticed Sherlock didn't seem to acknowledge him as he left his room and went into the living room to do something to pass the time. Probably reading the newspaper.
John heard movement coming from Sherlock's bedroom about two hours later, and he looked up from his armchair to see Sherlock emerging from the backroom, mug in hand. John narrowed his eyes sceptically at Sherlock. "Is that mug empty?" He asked, deliberately loud so Sherlock wouldn't ignore him.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Partially," the detective murmured before placing the mug in the sink. John smiled; the fact that Sherlock had drunk any tea at all was a good thing. And John noticed there were no biscuits in sight.
Sherlock was heading back into his bedroom. "Wait!" John called, and Sherlock turned around, a look of slight annoyance on his face. John paused, realising he had nothing else to say; he just didn't want Sherlock to stay in his bedroom for the rest of the day. Again. He coughed awkwardly to buy time. "Um… I thought maybe we could go out," John said slowly, saying the words as they came to him. "We could go down to Scotland Yard; see if Lestrade has anything for you," John said.
Sherlock simply looked at him for a moment, as if analysing his words and why John was really saying them. He inhaled before speaking. "Lestrade doesn't have any cases for me. If he did, he would've contacted me," he said, then smiled politely at John (which John knew was Sherlock trying to hide the fact someone was annoying him) and turned to the bedroom again.
"Sherlock," John called again, a pleading tone to his voice. "Please," he said. "Don't stay in your room all day. I'm fed up of it, honestly; it's like I don't even have a flatmate anymore," John said. He realised after he said it that that was how he actually felt about all this.
Sherlock turned around again, an eyebrow raised in interest. "Why do you care?" Sherlock asked sceptically. John's eyebrows raised in surprise at that.
"Why do I care? Sherlock, you're my friend, of course I care! I also know that, as a doctor, not getting out of the same area for over a week is bad for you!" John pointed out, frowning at him with a concerned look on his face.
Sherlock stared at him a moment longer, looking a little surprised at the announcement. He sighed heavily. "Fine," he muttered. "What do you want to do?" He asked, resigned. The taller man headed into the living room and sat down in his chair, looking at John intently.
John smiled. "Thank you," was the first thing he said. "Now, we could go to the park," John offered. "You need to get some air and stretch those legs."
Sherlock gave him his best unimpressed look. John sighed. "Okay, well," John thought about it some more. He was surprised at how difficult he was finding thinking of something to do. "How about we just go out for lunch? We could walk to Angelo's," John offered. Sherlock seemed to think about this.
"Okay."
"Great!" John exclaimed, and then frowned at Sherlock. "Um, you might want to get dressed," John said, realising Sherlock was just in his pyjamas and dressing gown. Sherlock rolled his eyes and mutely hauled himself from his chair again, disappearing into the backroom.