John finds himself at the door to 221B Baker Street a half hour later, confused more than anything. He had called Sarah to let her know he was halfway to the clinic but she claimed no extra help was needed today and nobody had been called into work. So John turned around and trudged right back to the flat, more than a bit frustrated with the situation.
Stopping when he reaches the door to the living room, he takes in the scene before him. Sherlock is sitting, legs sprawled out in the center of the carpet. The chairs had been shoved aside with cushions and blankets re-stacked onto both and the table turned at an angle perpendicular to Sherlock. The table is littered with papers covered in numbers and charts and countless wads of paper wrappers. Scattered around him on the floor are dozens of opened packs of chewing gum.
"Thirty different flavors to be precise."
At the comment, John's looks up to meet Sherlock's gaze. "Do I want to know why? The smell in here from those is God awful, Sherlock." To punctuate his statement, John wrinkles his nose and scrunches his eyebrows comically. "Hnnm." is all Sherlock offers in response and returns his focus to, whatever it is he's doing.
John makes his way over to the detective, stepping around the detritus and shuffles through a few of the papers. There are tables with flavors down the left column and characteristics in the top row. John reads some aloud as he scans the list, "Flavor duration, scent strength, elasticity, deterioration... Sherlock are you experimenting on gum?" 'At least it's not my sodding chair and nothing is on fire' but John keeps that though to himself, not wanting to give his crazy flatmate any ideas. He takes another look at the wads of wrappers and notices the chewed gum stuffed in them. "You could at least throw those in a bin."
John drags the small bin from under the sink towards Sherlock and goes to sweep the gross, used gum into the it but finds a surprisingly strong hand wraps around his wrist before he can blink. "No, I need those for the follow up experiment."
"Sherlock, they're all over the place, you can't possibly know which one was which flavor, and let go of me." Sherlock blinks up at John and releases his grip.
He huffs out an annoyed breath and John has to suppress a giggle. "John, I've said this three times before, and I do hate repeating myself. Eidetic memory. As long as you don't touch anything, I know where everything is." Apparently confident that John will not attempt any further interference, Sherlock returns to his experiment.
John observes Sherlock hard at work. hovering his hand above a row of unwrapped rectangles of gum contemplating before selecting one. It isn't until Sherlock is chewing thoughtfully that the doctor realizes what his flatmate did. "HEY!" Sherlock sputters and coughs hard, spitting the gum into his hand. His head snaps around to let out a stream of abuse at John but the ex-army doctor is quicker. "You," John squares his shoulders and points down at the infuriating man, "had someone phone me in to the clinic so you could go out and buy gum?"
Sherlock's mouth opens to protest but John barrels on, "No, you didn't buy it, you're still in your dressing gown and I wasn't gone long enough for you to have made it to Tesco and back." John narrows his eyes. "That homeless man with shopping bag I passed as I left the flat was part of your network and you paid him to buy you gum. Jesus Sherlock, literally, all you had to do was ask me to get you more gum." 'Wow' John thinks, and pinches the bridge of his nose. "If it meant you were no longer bored, I would have marched to the store myself without protest instead of embarrassing myself over the phone to Sarah. You make everything so bloody complicated!"
John finally lets out a slow breath to allow Sherlock to respond. Instead, the man had crossed his legs and taken up his thinking pose, his head is tilted slightly atop steepled fingers and he is looking at John as if he had sprouted a third arm. John is not as amused. "What?" John snaps.
The corner of Sherlock's mouth quirks a bit and he simply replies, "You continue to surprise me, John." Sherlock's eyes soften and he tips his head further to the side. "It's... those were good deductions."
John feels the irritation drain from him instantly and he clears his throat, unsure of how to react. This is one of those rare moments where he is on the receiving end of praise, even rarer coming from Sherlock. John realizes he has been staring a bit too long. "Um... Ta, Sherlock. Just uh, just let me know if you need anything."
John grabs the newspaper from the kitchen counter and one of the sofa cushions from Sherlock's chair to sit on said sofa. He resigns himself for a long evening and opens the newspaper. 'If he has his mouth full, maybe I can actually- Oh come onThe crossword was already filled out in Sherlock's messy scrawl. John rolls his eyes and flips to the sports section instead.