Alternate Ending 2: Another Experiment

"Sherlock?" John asked, both shocked and angry. Sherlock's hands had several small cuts on them. There were little lamp pieces in his hair and his clothes were dusted with tiny particles.

"John." Sherlock said almost terrifyingly calm. "Two hundred lamps, John… I broke them all."

"Sherlock! I don't know what your problem is with lamps or maybe you're just obsessed with driving me insane, but enough is enough." Sherlock blinked up at John, and then went back to staring at the wall. "Are you even listening to me?"

There were footsteps on the stair. "Are you boys having a little domestic? I thought I'd just pop up and fix us all a cup a tea since I heard you boys were up and about." When Mrs. Hudson entered the room, her eyes nearly fell right out of her head. "Sherlock! Look what you've done! Are those lamps? Did you break all of these lamps? Is this some sort of experiment?"

Sherlock couldn't help but smirk. He was in the middle of a very interesting experiment and all Mrs. Hudson cared about was the cleaning.

"Sherlock," John said irritated. "Are you going to respond to either of us or are you going to just sit there smirking all night?"

Sherlock sighed and folded his bloody hands together. He very calmly said, "They're just lamps, John."

"Just- Just lamps? Two hundred lamps, Sherlock!"

"If you didn't want me to break two hundred lamps, why did you buy two hundred lamps?"

"He has a point, Dr. Watson. That is an awful lot of lamps," Mrs. Hudson said.

"I thought it might solve the problem, not make it worse. This is ridiculous. Look at this mess," John said. "I didn't buy them anyway, Mycroft did."

"All the more reason to break them."

John sighed. "Fine, fine, buying two hundred lamps was stupid, I'll admit it, but you are the one who broke them all."

"I've been awfully bored, lately. I thought lamp breaking would be an interesting new hobby."

"Well," Mrs. Hudson said. "You had better stop breaking lamps and get all of this cleaned up, young man." She turned and walked back downstairs shaking her head.

Sherlock pulled John's laptop out from where he'd stashed it under his chair, opened it up and started typing. John's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. "Sherlock."

"Hm?"

"This was all an experiment, wasn't it?"

"Clearly."

"What for?"

"I was bored."

"What exactly was the experiment? The lamp breaking or me?"

"Both. I needed to know the various ways in which one might break a lamp using ordinary household items. I was right, it was the jealous sister-in-law," Sherlock said looking pleased with himself.

"So this was for a case?"

"Yes, obviously."

"What about me?"

Sherlock glanced at him over the lid of the laptop. "That was my own personal experiment."

John sighed. "You know, you're getting blood all over my keyboard."

"It's mostly dried, I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'll want to look at your hands in the morning. I'm too exhausted for it just now." John went upstairs to bed leaving Sherlock alone to type his experiments.