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Sherlock is not allowed to watch Mythbusters ever again. John accepts his share of the blame for the fiasco; he did convince Sherlock to watch the show after all; but in his defense; he never in a million years thought his brilliant idiot would do such a thing.
John’s day had started out perfectly normal. He woke up, took a shower, got dressed, had breakfast, and went to work. When he left the flat, Sherlock was at the kitchen table, peering into his microscope and scribbling in a notebook. Things at the clinic were going pretty smoothly and he was thinking of taking his lunch break when his phone rang.
“John, he’s fine but you need to come home right away.” Lestrade said the moment he answered.
“Why? What has he done now?” John demanded even as he pulled his coat on and hurried out the door.
“I think it would be better if you saw for yourself.” Lestrade told him.
“Fine, I’ll be there in ten.” John said, hanging up as he hailed a cab.
He tried to control his racing thoughts; Lestrade had said that Sherlock was fine so it couldn’t be that bad. John had imagined all kinds of scenarios; Sherlock had blown up the flat, dyed himself purple again, handcuffed himself to something and couldn’t get free again, but nothing he had imagined had come close to pulling up in front of their home to find a large crowd of people, several members of the Met; including Lestrade, a small group of reporters and a news crew from the BBC. For some reason everyone was looking up.
“John.” Lestrade called, waving him over to the group of police.
“What’s going on?” Where’s Sherlock?” John demanded.
Lestrade pointed up. John had to tip his head quite a way back to see what Lestrade was pointing at. For a moment, his brain refused to believe the data his eyes were sending it because the data said that floating just below the roofline of a building about a block from 221b, in a canvas beach chair tethered to a bunch of large balloons, was Sherlock Holmes. John stared, blinked a couple of times, stared some more, then looked at Lestrade.
“Is Sherlock Bloody Holmes floating above Baker street in a beach chair tethered to balloons?” he asked.
“Yup.” Lestrade answered.
“Why?” he asked, hoping the inspector has a logical reason for this insanity.
“No clue. He’s not answering his phone.”
John pulled his mobile out and called Sherlock. Surprisingly, he answered.
“Sherlock, why are you floating above Baker street?” John asked calmly.
“I wanted to see how factual that Mythhunters show you made me watch was.”
“Mythbusters.” John corrected without thinking. “You just had to pick the balloon beach chair myth.”
“It seemed the most interesting.”
“Of course it did. So you just ran down to the shops for a beach chair and some balloons, blew them up, tied them to the chair, hopped on and floated off?”
“Don’t be ridiculous John, I had to order the weather balloons on line and they are filled with helium because as you well know human breath contains mostly carbon dioxide which does not cause buoyancy.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” John said, “So could you tell me just how you planned on getting back down?”
“I had planned on reeling myself back down the anchor line that I had tied to lamp post.”
“Would you do that now, please. I would be happier if you were back on the ground.”
“As would I, but I am afraid I cannot.”
John closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took several deep breathes.
“Why not?” he asked a calmly as he could.
“My anchor line broke. I managed to grab onto the drainpipe and tie the line to it but it is not long enough to get me back down.”
John clenched his jaw so hard that Lestrade was afraid his might crack his teeth.
“Sherlock Holmes, are you telling me you can’t get down?” he snapped.
“Yes, John.”
John pressed the phone against his chest and said every sware word he knew, then made up a dozen on the spot. He then took a calming breath and lifted the phone to his ear.
“I’m calling the fire brigade.” He told Sherlock
“They are all out on calls and don’t know when they can get here.” Lestrade told him.
“I’m not calling the fire brigade.” He informed Sherlock, fisting his hair with his free hand.
John stared up at his floating darling for several minutes, trying to figure out how to get him down without him getting hurt so he could strangle him. He looked at were Sherlock was floating; the chair was quite a few feet below the roof line of the building but the bunch of weather balloon were actually above the roof.
“Can we get on that roof?” he asked Lestrade.
“I’ll find out.”
John what are you thinking?” Sherlock asked.
“Hold on, I might have a plan.” John told him. “let me call you back.”
He closed his phone and stuffed it in his pocket. A constable ran up to them.
“We can access the roof of that building, Sir.” He told Lestrade.
“Great, now all we need is a really long rope.” John said.
After a quick search on google, a constable was sent to a shop that specialized in mountain climbing for as much rope as he could get. When the constable returned, he had all the rope they had.
“Take that to the roof of the building Sherlock is tied to and wait. “John told him.
John called Sherlock while they waited for the constable to get on the roof.
‘In a few minutes a rope is going to be dropped down to you.” He said when Sherlock answered. “When you’ve tied your end around you, we’ll drop the rest over the building and then pull you down.”
“I would suggest deflating some of the balloons, to lower my buoyancy.” Sherlock said.
“Didn’t they use a gun on the show? Why didn’t you buy a gun for accuracy? “
‘It is illegal to discharge a firearm in the city.” Sherlock replied with a sniff. “And you have hidden yours quite well this time and Mycroft has made it impossible for me to purchase one.’
John grinned, that was some of the best news he had heard in a long time. A nod from Lestrade let him know the constable was in place.
“Get ready, here comes the rope.” John told Sherlock.
Everybody standing on the street seemed to hold their breath as the rope went over the edge and made its way down to the waiting detective. When it reached him, Sherlock grabbed it and tied to his chair. The constable tossed the rope off the roof and it uncoiled until it hung about 20 feet off the ground. Now came the tricky part; the constable had to puncture enough of the weather balloons to lower Sherlock down so people on the street could reach the rope but not so many that he lost too much buoyancy and plummeted to the ground. There was a loud bang as each balloon was punctured and John’s heart skipped a beat each time he heard it and saw the chair his beloved was perched on jerk and bounce. Slowly Sherlock was lowered toward the earth. When he was 8 feet from the ground John could not stand waiting anymore and took off running and leapt into the air, catching ahold of the very end of the rope. He cussed a blue streak as he got a tighter grip and began to climb. As he did, his weight helped to lower Sherlock enough that the rescuers on the ground could grab a hold of the rope and began to pull Sherlock to safety. John continued his climb until he reached Sherlock, then with a bit of scrambling, climbed into his lap.
“Hello.” John said as he settled onto Sherlock’s lap.
“Hello.”
“Nice view”
“Indeed.” Sherlock agreed.
John grabbed the front of Sherlock’s coat and pulled him down until they were nose to nose.
“You will never do something like this again.” He said softly.
“I will not.”
“And you are never watching Mythbusters ever again.”
Sherlock smiled and brushed a kiss across John’s lips. John shook his head and grinned, then grabbed the back of Sherlock’s head and mashed their lips together.
A cheer went up from the crowd as the chair touched the ground and they were still kissing.