It had been less than 36 hours since their last case together and in that time alone Sherlock had dismantled the toaster, set the smoke alarm off twice, and fired six more rounds into the already bullet ridden wall, all in attempt to keep his unrelenting mind occupied until a new case presented itself. John supposed he should be grateful that Mrs Hudson was still on vacation in the Caribbean because she would not be pleased.
There was always a small part of John that dreaded closing a case because he knew what was sure to follow; he would have to babysit a very bored consulting detective. The worst thing was that John could never anticipate what kind of low Sherlock might stoop to just to pass the time. Things such as eating and sleeping started to become even more inessential to Sherlock when he wasn't on a case and so John took it upon himself to look out for his flat mate, because well...someone had to.
John peeked up from behind his laptop to see Sherlock lounging on the sofa with his long legs outstretched and eyes closed. Unfortunately he wasn't sleeping, as he should be. He was merely thinking, about God knows what. Sherlock was still in his pyjamas, despite the time closer to being considered the afternoon than morning. He had his left hand clasped over his right arm as he had two – no, now three nicotine patches on. It was evident that John needed to distract Sherlock urgently or else more harm was bound to come to the flat and eventually the world's only consulting detective if he didn't act soon.
"Hungry?" John asked, breaking the silence.
"No." Sherlock shot back, not even bothering to look at John.
"You have to eat. Despite what people say, you're not a machine. Oh and while we're on the subject, when was the last time you ate, or slept for that matter?" John asked.
"Fret not John. I'm not going to waste away anytime soon."
John opened his mouth to reply but closed it quickly, realising that anything he had to say would go intentionally unnoticed. He drummed his fingers lightly on the top of his keyboard as he thought about how he could convince Sherlock to do something even remotely productive.
John was stumped. Inspiring Sherlock to do anything that didn't involve inspecting dead corpses, chasing armed offenders around London, or performing morally questionable experiments was no mean feat. John's train of thought was interrupted when Sherlock hoisted himself up off the couch and began to pace back and forth. John had to act quickly.
John closed the lid to his laptop. He had been reading a series of news articles in the hopes of stumbling across something worthy of Sherlock's deductive skills but to no avail. One article had looked promising but when John mentioned it Sherlock simply scoffed and mumbled something about it not only being a waste of his talents but also an insult to his self assigned title. He refreshed the website in the hopes that a worthy distraction just might present itself in his time of need, but alas, no such luck. It seemed that London was functioning just fine without Sherlock, for now at least. Unfortunately, it was Sherlock who wasn't functioning too well without London.
John turned round to see that Sherlock's pacing had become more erratic. John could see from his furrowed brow and clenched jaw that he was very irritable. He could tell that he was struggling to remain composed. It wouldn't be long until Sherlock would lose it and storm out the flat in search of an escape from his unrelenting mind. That escape could be a whole manner of things. John could see it in Sherlock's eyes that he was on the verge of an outburst and that made John very desperate.
He had to act now.
John stood up and said, "I have an idea."