A/N: Chapter thirty six! Enjoy! :D
John woke up at exactly 07.32 to an uncharacteristically quiet morning. Usually at this time, Sherlock would have been playing his violin and Mrs. Hudson would be telling the detective about personal care and keeping the flat clean. But no stringed notes from Bach or Beethoven or Brahms or…anything from an instrument met his ears. There was no pleading voice of Mrs. Hudson trying to get Sherlock to eat something, or even a shower running. Was Sherlock actually sleeping?
Sleep was an activity Sherlock considered the type to be done only when absolutely necessary. John had come home from the supermarket once to find his flatmate slumped onto the kitchen table, several petri dishes stuck to his face, the neck of the microscope in one hand and a pair of forceps in the other. At first John had thought Sherlock had inhaled something toxic and was actually ringing the emergency services when he realised that the detective was snoring; he'd fallen asleep out of pure exhaustion. After Sherlock woke from a solid fifteen hours of sleep, John lectured him about the importance of getting a healthy amount of rest on a regular basis, but his flatmate had waved him off and complained about the ruined experiment.
John grabbed his dressing gown and put on his slippers before padding down to the living room, glancing into the kitchen to see if Sherlock was there. Oh, an experiment at my spot!
He immediately noticed the TARDIS standing in the middle of the room and the Doctor's coat on the sofa. No sign of his flatmate.
"Sherlock?" John went out the living room and into the kitchen, "Sherlock?"
He approached the experiment laid out where he would normally eat and recoiled once he realised what was in the beakers. Half-dissolved food. He checked the bottle of chemical for a label. In nitric acid. Lovely.
"What?" Sherlock said resentfully. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his chin resting on his fingertips. John had pushed open the door after getting no response from either of his calls.
"I didn't hear the violin and I thought…anyways. Where's the Doctor?"
"In his TARDIS; said he was going to the library. Oh…stupid. Stupid!" Sherlock scolded himself.
"What?" John was confused.
"How could I not realise? It's literally sitting right there!"
"What?"
"The TARDIS is blocking the way into the kitchen. There are cameras in the flat, John. I thought there might just be one, but now I know there are at least two." He muttered something after that that sounded quite like 'how could I possibly have missed it?!'
"How does the TARDIS rule out having just one?"
"The angle you would need to see into the kitchen and the living room? Well, that's impossible if you don't want people to notice."
"So, there are cameras in the flat. How do you know that?"
"These." Sherlock took out the iPhone and showed John the text messages, "We have to be careful."