"Sherlock!" John called, sprinting down the street after his bloody flatmate, chasing after a criminal with a monster of a cast on his arm, mildly unbalanced and out of sorts and yet entirely determined to catch him.

They hadn't even been on a case. But they'd been out shopping (John had managed to convince Sherlock to accompany him shopping, on the condition that he could pick out some ice cream) except Sherlock had spotted someone and dashed after him, leaving John standing there with a basket which he promptly dropped, leaving their ice cream there to melt. Shopping would have to wait.

It was only a week after their visit to the hospital and his subsequent cast, and it had been a week of hell. Sherlock had been absolutely miserable, unable to play the violin or work on any of his more delicate experiments. To top that all off, there hadn't been any interesting cases to distract him. Or perhaps Lestrade hadn't offered any to them, maybe because of someone's meddling brother.

John spotted a flash of someone, hopefully Sherlock, and not the man he was chasing. Because all John wanted to end this day was a face off with an unknown man who'd done an unknown crime, if he'd even done anything.

But the blur stopped, and John, although hesitant, jogged over to see what it was.

Sherlock was standing over the man, collapsed in a pile, out of breath from running, clutching his casted arm to his chest like a bird to a broken wing.

"What did you do?"John gasped, not sure if he was more worried about Sherlock, or the unconscious man on the ground.

"Hit him," Sherlock replied, looking entirely too smug with himself.

It was dawning on John, but he was hoping he could ignore what his mind was telling him in favour of his heart. "Hit him... with what?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, exasperated with John's ignorance. "My arm. The one encased in a brick?"

John groaned. He knew that was what happened but had just really really hoped it wasn't true.

"Come on. We'll go back to the flat and I'll check you over. We probably don't need to return to the hospital." He paused, a though occurring to him. "Why were you chasing him down anyway?"

Sherlock shrugged, struggling with the handcuffs as he tried to cuff the man to the fence he'd collapsed by. John took pity and did it for him.

"Lestrade," he announced, speaking into his phone. "Left you a present. I think you'll be rather interested. Trace my phone."

Ignoring John's question, Sherlock began walking away.

"Well, it doesn't look any worse for the wear," John admitted after checking it over. "But you do have to go for x-rays at the end of the week, so we can get it checked then."

"Hmm," Sherlock huffed.

"Oh stop," John scolded. "You're luck you didn't crack his head open and get blood all over your pretty drawings."

Sherlock peered down to admire them.

"They are impressive, aren't they?"

"Rather," John confirmed. Which was mostly true. True for Sherlock anyway. John probably would have preferred something other than chemical formulas and decomposing body parts sketched on his cast, but to each their own.

Sherlock was content with it, and that was really all that mattered.

Especially considering he'd be living with it for at least eight more weeks.

And they were going to be long, long weeks.