Didn't He?
Chapter One
John Watson came home from the surgery over two hours later than normal. He came into the flat like a ghost, soft and silent, alone in his thoughts. He did not follow his normal course of actions upon entering the flat either. His coat, gloves, hat, and scarf were worn on the sullen shuffle from the door to the fireplace, not discarded at the door like normal. He didn't even shrug out of his layers once he had collapsed bonelessly into his armchair in front of the hearth.
John stared numbly into the flames, lips bloodless and cheeks pink from the cold day. His hands were limp in his lap and not even a sigh or grumble broke the heavy mute silence of his form.
Sherlock did not notice these things because he wanted to, but because his flat-mate's mannerisms had been so thoroughly ingrained into his daily doings that the abrupt change couldn't have been clearer if outlined in self-phoresing paint.
The strangeness needled into Sherlock's concentration until he could barely pretend to be ignoring the fair haired man hunched in on himself next to the fire.
Why had John not made his customary cuppa? Why had John not put up his outerwear and donned his new light green house slippers? Why was John staring unseeing into the fire rather than bustling in their shared tiny kitchen or peering over Sherlock's shoulder?
The need to know swelled inside of Sherlock with each second of out of character behavior. His eyes wouldn't focus on the slide of tobacco ash before him. His mind was whirling away from the case and orbiting John Watson like a speck of dust caught in Saturn's rings.
He changed the slide. Watson wasn't covered in blood, so if he was attacked it couldn't have been too viciously; besides, the good doctor was very capable of self protection.
It wasn't raining, nor were the doctor's clothes wet from the passing splash of a cab. There was no case that lay heavily on the doctor's mind, Sherlock hadn't destroyed the flat, for once there were no extra body parts lying about either.
What was the cause of John's very un-John-like behavior?
How could he figure it out? All deductive reasoning was failing Sherlock. He couldn't just ask the other man… could he? That's what normal functioning humans did, no? They inquired as to the mental and physical well-being of each other by simply asking.
Was he allowed to do that? It seemed such a personal question. How would he go about it?
How are you? No, inflection could alter that into a perfunctory statement as well as a sincere question.
What is wrong? Accusatory, maybe (unlikely) nothing was wrong.
What happened? Same problem.
Sherlock sat, slides forgotten in favor of running the acceptable pleasantries of the situation in his mind; looking for the one that seemed appropriate, as John let the silence grow.