The morning had started off well enough, waking up in Emily's bed, getting up gently so as not to wake her, slipping into the kitchen to start the kettle, then one text from Sherlock and all thoughts of coffee evaporated.
He'd been living with Sherlock for just over a year (had it really only been a year since he met the detective who had turned his life around so completely?) and at this point he felt an almost physical response to these texts. A pull. The text said 'urgent.' Of course he knew with Sherlock that 'urgent' could range from 'can I borrow your phone?' to 'there's a man in our flat with a gun to my head' and that there was absolutely no way to find out where on the spectrum the particular 'emergency' fell until he arrived. John looked back at the text and knew he wouldn't be able to ignore it.
"Emily," he whispered, sitting down on the edge of her bed.
She stirred from sleep and saw him fully dressed, coat in hand. "You're leaving?"
"I'm really sorry, but I have to—"
"It's Saturday. You promised we'd spend the day together."
"I know, but—"
"You promised we'd spend last weekend together. You promised you'd call me last week. You promise a lot of things, John."
"I know, it's just—"
"Leave then," she said with as much venom as one can manage first thing in the morning. "And don't bother coming back. I mean it."
It really did nothing to improve his mood when he arrived back at Baker Street to find Sherlock in the shower.
In agitation he shouted through the door, "Well? You said it was urgent!"
"Right," came Sherlock's voice, muffled by the water. "Out in a minute."
Fuming, John went to sit in his chair. He grabbed the morning's newspaper and read impatiently. More than a few minutes later Sherlock was walking into the living room, overdressed in a smart suit as usual, and towelling off his hair.
John stood and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well?"
Sherlock tossed the towel onto the couch. His curls, which had been wanting cutting for a while now, stuck out alarmingly and John stifled a grin. He forgot for a second that he was angry with his flatmate, who looked at the moment like a big, wet, formally dressed sheepdog. But it really was only a second because Sherlock plucked a rolled measuring tape off the table and held it out toward him.
"I need you to hold this end."
John froze. Sherlock, however, wasted no time in grasping John's upper arms and walking him backward to a specific spot by the door. He placed the end of the tape measure into his hand, and tugged lightly to check that John, momentarily catatonic, had a grip on it.
As Sherlock moved away, unrolling the tape, John finally choked out, "Emily broke up with me for this."
"Why would she do that?" Sherlock asked, preoccupied by typing the measurement into his phone.
John glared. "Oh I don't know, why would someone dump a boyfriend if he leaves her in bed to go help his mad flatmate measure the living room? It was probably just a whim."
"You would do better," Sherlock said, moving several inches to his left, and scrutinising the new measurement, "to date girls who aren't so flighty."
"And on the day the pot called the kettle black," John mumbled.
"What was that?"
"There had better be some damn crucial information you're getting from these measurements," John said louder, watching Sherlock walk over the coffee table to stand on the other side of the room.
"Crucial, yes crucial," Sherlock muttered dismissively, using his phone again to record the numbers. "Keep your arm still."
John raised his eyes to the ceiling and let out a breath. Patience, patience. He waited while Sherlock darted around the room with his end of the tape. Finally, Sherlock dropped it and jumped across to his laptop. John re-rolled the tape and had just enough time to place it back on the table when Sherlock shouted, "YES! That's it!"
He typed furiously for a few moments and John went back to his armchair.
"Those idiots!" Sherlock sneered.
"Solved another one for Scotland Yard then?" John asked, waiting for what he hoped would be a satisfactory explanation for the abrupt end to his latest relationship. "Another threat to the citizens of London to be eliminated?"
"Should have been eliminated," Sherlock corrected. "If the case hadn't been handled by a bunch of incompetent amateurs." He shut his laptop and re-buttoned his suit jacket as he stood. "It seems the standards for Scotland Yard were even lower than they are today, if that's possible. I suppose in those days virtually anyone could walk in and say, 'Good morrow old chaps, by-the-by I fancy I'll be a detective today!'"
John, who'd got lost at 'should have been,' was rather taken aback by Sherlock's sudden impression of god knows what era he was going for.
"What on earth are you on about?" John asked, marvelling at his raving flatmate. And then more forcefully, "And what do you mean 'should have been?'"
"The infamous Frederick Davis case, 1902. Triple homicide: wife and children. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Apparently the inspectors handling the case were about eight years old; at least that seems to be the only probable explanation for such shoddy detective work."
John said slowly, controlling his voice, "Do you mean that you called me away from Emily's this morning to hold a tape measure for you in order to solve a case from 1902?"
"Yes, that's right," Sherlock said dropping down into his chair across from John. "When London's present criminals are being especially boring I like to revisit ones from the past."
John must have looked noticeably pained because Sherlock added, "The importance of history to my work cannot be overestimated. Crimes are rarely original. If I know the antecedent case then I can solve the repeat that much faster."
"Do you actually have any idea what the word 'urgent' means?"
Sherlock looked at him suspiciously. "It means, 'requiring immediate action or attention.' Why do you ask?"
John had no words.
That evening Sherlock was sulking. The satisfaction of proving the ruling on the Davis case wrong had, like all of Sherlock's previous successes, been short-lived.
"Bored. Bored, bored, bored. Bored. Bored—" Sherlock was orating.
John knew he should ignore it. He knew from experience that any words at this point would provoke an attack. However, he really wasn't in a pacifying mood. The break up with Emily was still fresh from the morning, and the reason she'd dumped him was petulantly stomping around the flat trying to make John as miserable as he was. So a fight had sounded pretty good right about then.
"My father used to say 'only boring people get bored," John hazarded, kamikaze style.
Sherlock didn't miss a beat. "Your father was an idiot."
"Oh, really?" John shot back, standing up from his chair to let his anger radiate further.
Sherlock stopped pacing. His eyes locked with John's across the living room and John pushed forward recklessly.
"Or maybe my father was right. You have that massive intellect and you can't think of anything to do with your time? Why don't you go out and win the Nobel Prize, or break the boundaries of human knowledge with string theory? I don't know; why don't you invent a bloody cure for cancer? There must be a better use of your talents than lying around here and whinging at me all the time. …You total prat," he added for emphasis.
Sherlock's response was amused. "John, while as usual your opinion of me is very flattering, you forget that though I may be godlike in many ways, I am not actually omnipotent. My mind's capacity, while still much greater than yours, is in fact limited. I only use that capacity for information which is actually important. Yes, actually important, don't give me that look."
John raised his eyes to the ceiling. On the one hand he wasn't aware of giving Sherlock any look, but on the other hand his mad flatmate had just blatantly deemed cancer research unimportant.
Sherlock continued, "I decided a long time ago that I would be the best detective in the world. I know nothing of string theory or cancer research, and if I learned it I'd have to delete things that I need in order to be the world's best detective. So the answer is no."
"Ok, Sherlock," John sarcastically repented, shrugging his shoulders and lifting his hands. "Forget my suggestions then. I'm just saying that even people with average intelligence find ways to entertain themselves. Since yours is slightly above average"—Sherlock made a strangled noise—"I figured you'd be able to think of something—"
Sherlock crossed the room in a few strides and stopped directly in front of John, towering over him and glaring. Sherlock, John had understood from the day they'd met, had little concept of personal space and often stood inappropriately close for an Englishman. But John, used to this, met Sherlock's gaze easily and held his ground.
"The average mind is far more simply placated than mine," Sherlock said, voice dangerously low. "Of course it's easier for normal people to entertain themselves; they're like children."
"So you wouldn't be interested in a children's game like Cluedo then?" John said, delighted in having seized this opportunity. "Since it's much too infantile for a mind like yours."
Sherlock hesitated, crossing his arms over his chest. "You said you'd never play it with me again."
"I might be willing to reconsider."
John felt distinctly satisfied as Sherlock crossed to the game cupboard. There may be only one consulting detective in the world, but he was fairly certain there was also only one person who could handle him.
And only a little while later, as he watched Sherlock's eyes flicking over the game board with almost as much concentration as he gave a real crime scene, John smiled down at his cards, all thoughts of Emily absent from his mind.