Sherlock sat at John's laptop. John was in his room, having mentioned something about a long day at work. Sherlock had his own phone on one side of the laptop, and the pink cased one from "The Great Game" as John dubbed it on the other. It has remained silent for months, with Sherlock occasionally using it if he needed to text or call someone from an anonymous number. Which is why the detective was surprised, actually surprised, when it received a text. He opened it to hear a blip, just a small one, not a full-sized one, he looked to see no picture, just two words, 12 hours.
He didn't know what to think. He waited a few moments for a call, but none came. All the same, he knew that there was someone else strapped to a bomb somewhere.
"John!" Sherlock cried up the stairs, and heard footsteps as another text came in, this time from Lestrade.
A package just arrived for you. We haven't opened it yet. -GL
"What is it?" asked John as he entered the room.
"I just got a text." said Sherlock, holding up the pink phone. John's face paled.
"Where is it?" Sherlock said, striding into Lestrade's office a few minutes later.
"Here." said Lestrade, holding out the package. It was fairly small, and cube-shaped with no return address, only the words "having fun yet?". "We checked and it's safe, but we haven't opened it." Added Lestrade, but Sherlock was already walking away, John trailing behind, slightly confused as to what could be in the package.
As soon as they arrived in 221B again, Sherlock ripped open the box. He had wanted to do so in the cab, but John had pointed out that the driver might not be friendly, remembering the cab driver who had originally held the pink-cased phone.
Join was trailing slightly behind, having to pay the driver, and when he walked upstairs, he found Sherlock was so still he could be mistaken for stone. But he wasn't thinking, he always sat to think. He was standing perfectly still, the box from Lestrade in pieces on the ground, and whatever was inside supposedly clutched in his hands, clearly the cause of his shock. John couldn't see what it was.
"Sherlock?" the detective didn't respond. "Sherlock what is it? What did Moriarty send?"
He turned around slowly, his normally pale face now pure white. In his hands he held… a rubix cube, a scrambled one, which he was holding at arm's length as though it were a slug, or something else disgusting.
John was confused. Was it explosive? Was it going to seep gas? What was the big deal?
He opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock beat him to it. "Twelve hours, John, I have twelve hours to solve this!"
John was tired of Sherlock. He often grew weary of the things that Sherlock makes him do to solve crimes, but this is just ridiculous. He had been sitting in his armchair, with the rubix cube, still hopelessly scrambled, sitting before him.
"I don't understand." John said after two hours of this.
"Hm?" was Sherlock's only reply.
"How can you not be able to solve a rubix cube?"
"It's so boring. I always lose interest before I finish it."
"Well, in this case you should be able to solve it, right?"
"What do you mean?"
"Now that it's important, and it's part of defeating Moriarty, you can solve it, right?"
"No."
"... I still don't understand. Why not?"
"Because it's still boring."
John decided not to question it, and just went back to watching Sherlock.
At some point John went out on a date, having grown bored of Sherlock, which was a he returned he saw that Sherlock was still in the same position, with the cube having little to no progress done on it, and half of their time now gone.
"Sherlock, it's been six hours, why don't you just look up how to solve it?"
"First of all Jeanette doesn't like Italian food, don't take her there next time. Second of all, it's not that I don't know how, it's that it's too boring, and third of all, even if I did, Moriarty wouldn't count it because I didn't do it myself."
"I suppose you're right." says John, yawning.
"Go to bed."
"What?"
"I don't need your assistance with this, so don't feel obligated to stay, just go to bed."
"Alright, thanks, Sherlock."
John got a few hours of sleep, but he was still worried about Sherlock and his rubix cube, so he came out after only four hours. As expected, Sherlock still sat, now with half of the sides showing the correct color on then
"I see you've made progress." John said, trying hard to keep the grin off his face. Finally, something Sherlock can't do!
"Shut up, John." Sherlock replied, having obviously seen through John's thin mask, and he picked up the cube to work on the next side.
Time was running out. There was less than half an hour left, and Sherlock still only had four sides solved. There was no way he could get the rest solved in time. As the time limit came closer and closer, Sherlock seemed to get an idea. That is, he started moving more than just a single turn of a side a minute, or so as he had been doing. He started moving so fast, in fact, John was startled awake. He sat up and watched Sherlock intently. It seemed as if he'd gotten the solution. He was slowly gaining a manic grin on his face.
But when he stopped, it was scrambled again, as if he'd never solved a single side. Sherlock just stared at it for a minute, like he did when he first got it. Then he started shaking a bit, his face growing hard, and John could see the detective was two seconds away from a full-blown tantrum. Not just a tantrum, but a Sherlock tantrum.
"Oh, give me that." Said John, feeling annoyed with his friend's stubbornness.
He held it for what seemed like a few seconds to Sherlock, and it was solved. Suddenly the pink phone rang, and Sherlock answered it to hear several children's voices in the background of a young woman begging for help. A daycare, apparently. There was also a text.
You cheated, but at least it wasn't boring, so I'll let it go, Sherlock.
Sherlock immediately took down the address and sent Lestrade down. He then returned to his armchair, and contemplated the now solved rubix cube. John is pleased to see that for once, he was the one who had surprised Sherlock.