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"Sherlock," John said, in his most mild-mannered tone.
"Mmmmnh?" Sherlock responded absently, tapping his closed lips with one forefinger as he studied the display of power tools.
"Could you at least untie me?" John had been working at the cord holding his hands behind his back for the last few minutes, but whatever knots Sherlock had tied were devilishly tight. Sherlock had cycled through several varieties of rope, using John as his test subject, until he found one that replicated the effect he was looking for to his satisfaction. Then, naturally, he'd immediately moved on to the next item on his mental shopping list without bothering to undo his handiwork.
John supposed he was lucky that Sherlock hadn't tied his ankles, too, and made him hop to keep up.
"Oh, it's nothing that complicated," Sherlock said with a wave of his hand. "You can work it out. Consider it practice. If our latest murder victim had been any good at escapology, he might not have ended up going to pieces, as it were."
John closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he kept going to twenty, just for good measure. When Sherlock had said "Tesco's," he hadn't expected to be hauled halfway across London to one of the gigantic hypermarkets and subjected to public bondage experiments.
"People are staring," he said when he opened his eyes again; he thought he deserved a medal for how calm that sounded.
Sherlock was hefting a circular saw. "Let them," he said. "Maybe they'll learn something."
"Do you have to do this here?" John snapped, control finally fraying. Being calm and reasonable had got him here, after all. Maybe it was time to switch tactics.
"I'm reasonably certain this is where the murderer went shopping, and if I can match all the implements used in the crime with items currently in stock, that will cinch it. Hold still." Sherlock raised the saw to the side of John's neck and studied the blade angle; he was frowning slightly behind the sunglasses he hadn't bothered to remove upon entering the store. That was pretty low on the list of Sherlock's present etiquette violations as far as John was concerned, however.
"Is the murderer's preferred shopping venue really that important?" John asked in a tight, angry voice.
"Yes," Sherlock said, as if confirming that the sky was blue. Then, in an apparent attempt to clarify, "It's either here or Marks & Spencer."
With a low growl, John started working at the rope in earnest.
"Don't pull like that, you'll only tighten the knots," Sherlock said, setting the saw back on the shelf and choosing another model.
"Look, let's just buy the stuff and then we can take it home and play with it to your heart's content, in private," John suggested.
He realized his poor choice of wording when a well-dressed middle-aged lady who had been edging past them in the aisle, carefully avoiding eye contact, overheard and shot John a horrified look before hurrying on her way. She wasn't the only one.
Great, just great. Now everyone in bloody store thinks we're planning on getting kinky with Black and Decker, John thought in despair, and twisted his wrists around, trying one more time to find the free ends of the rope, wishing he could see what he was doing. Bugger -- the knots had tightened up.
"You're the one who's always going on about the household budget," Sherlock said, aiming another saw at John's neck and nodding with approval. "This is much more cost-effective."
"We can keep the receipt," John said through clenched teeth, "and return it all later."
"An unnecessary waste of time and effort. We're already here," Sherlock said, the circular saw still in his hand, cord trailing behind him as he began looking over replacement blades.
John had one hand almost free when a very nervous young man in an official blue shirt approached them and cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said. "Can I help you?"
John jerked his hand free with a grunt. "No, thanks," he said. "We're beyond help."
The young man blinked at John, too freaked-out to register the attempted joke. Then Sherlock spoke up. "Actually," he said, turning around and flashing one of his terrifying almost-normal smiles, "you can. Which of these," he held up two carded saw blades, "would be best at cutting bone neatly?"
The boy's eyes got even wider, which John wouldn't have thought was possible, and he turned and fled.
"Wait!" Sherlock called after him, annoyed, then mumbled something rude about ignorant store assistants as he flipped the blades over, studying the information printed on the backs of the cards.
Aaaaaand we just went from "kinky" to "serial killer," John thought. He wasn't particularly psychic, but he was willing to bet their immediate possible future had narrowed down to a small handful of choices ranging from being thrown out by store security to getting a ride back to Baker Street in a police car, for all that they hadn't done anything technically illegal.
Well, at least it'll save us the cab fare, he thought in resignation, mentally marking this particular Tesco Extra off his list of "places I can still do the shopping"; fortunately, it was far enough from the flat that probably wouldn't be a problem. He knew his chances of dragging Sherlock out of the store by himself were vanishingly small, and maybe getting chucked out would give him "I told you so" leverage later. He began using his free hand to work the rope off his other wrist, noting the configuration of the knots as he did so. Huh, clever.
But now he really hoped Sherlock hadn't pocketed bits of the body back at the crime scene. That would be more than a little difficult to explain, if discovered, and Lestrade wouldn't be at all happy about getting called in to bail them out.
Again.