"Sherlock!" John yelled as he raced out of his room and down the stairs. He threw himself into the living room, his eyes scanning the couch and the chairs.
No luck there.
"Sherlock?" He yelled again, furiously turning around and looking through the kitchen.
No luck there either.
"Where are you?" he said angrily under his breath. He marched into the living room and rubbed his eyes, tired from the case that kept them up the night before. Sherlock had insisted that John had to stay awake until they figured out who committed the murder of the Clarkson's dog, reviewing statements and any random piece of evidence Sherlock found relevant.
John was pretty sure Sherlock had it figured out after one review of the statements, but lately he had been trying to get John to work on some of the cases more to sharpen his skills in deduction.
It took John a couple hours before he sort of figured it out (with much needed assistance from Sherlock), and then he'd immediately fallen asleep. He was so tired he could hardly make it up to his bed.
After he'd finished rubbing his eyes and doing a final stretch, John grabbed the empty tea mugs from the night before and headed into the kitchen, carefully placing them in the sink.
"Sherlock?" he called one more time as he stalked out into the hallway by the stairs.
By now he was pretty sure that Sherlock had left the house, probably out on some crazy new case he didn't want to wake John for, or doing god knows what else.
John sighed and closed his eyes, hoping Sherlock would at least meet him at the restaurant, if he remembered their plans at all.
Thump.
In two seconds John was already scaling the stairs to investigate the noise upstairs. "Sherlock?" he yelled one final time before, quickly opening the door to Sherlock's room, stumbling in to make sure everything was okay.
"Are you okay?" John ask urgently.
Sherlock spun around away from his wardrobe (the slamming of their doors being the source of the noise) and lopsidedly stared at John. "John, how do you tie a tie."
John paused a moment to process his flatmates words. How do you... tie... a tie.
It suddenly dawned on John. "You remembered Mrs. Hudson's breakfast plans?"
Sherlock looked at John, his eyebrows knitting together. "Of course I remembered, John." John looked at Sherlock up and down, taking in the sight of the consulting detectives suit jacket and pants. He had a terribly unkempt tie hanging loosely around his neck.
Sherlock actually remembered plans that Mrs. Hudson had made for the three of them two weeks ago.
"Why are you laughing?" Sherlock asked, no amusement to be found on his face.
"I guess I'm just surprised you actually remembered."
Sherlock looked a little bit offended. "I have an amazing memory John."
"I didn't think you'd keep something this 'mundane' in your head."
"Are you calling Mrs. Hudson's breakfast mundane?"
John sighed and shook his head, a small smile refusing to leave his lips. He exhaled once more, slowly, before walking across the room and grabbing Sherlock's tie, pulling him forward a little bit.
"Bend down a little bit?" John said quietly.
Sherlock complied, getting down to about John's height and looking him right in the eyes. John made eye contact and blinked a couple of times before pointedly returning to threading the tie in and out, getting it out of the outrageous knot Sherlock had tied.
"You're tired."
"For once it's you making the obvious comments," John whispered, thinking a regular speaking voice would be too loud for their close proximity.
Sherlock didn't reply, just focused tight on John, who was trying to keep his breathing even.
Usually he was quick at tying ties, but for some reason his mind was getting jumbled and his fingers were fumbling. It took him two tries before he finally got the tie successfully done up.
He expected Sherlock to back up and move away, but the consulting detective just stood there, staying bent down in front of John, about half a foot in front of him. John tried to take a step back, but his feet wouldn't move and he was rendered speechless for a moment.
There was a sort of look in Sherlock's eyes that John couldn't place... it was something he'd seem a couple times before, usually when they were close like this.
"Interesting," Sherlock said under his breath, so quiet that if John were any further away he wouldn't have been able to hear it.
But John was close and he caught the word, hearing the curve in Sherlock's deep, unreadable voice.
Just as fast as Sherlock said the word was the moment over and the look on the detective's face had passed. He slipped by John and grabbed his coat, throwing it on.
"Are you coming?" Sherlock asked once before opening the door fully and taking off down the stairs.
John stood still where he was, taking a moment to sort himself out.
What was that look? And what did Sherlock mean by 'interesting'?
John came back to focus at the front door closing, and he quickly turned around, racing down the stairs after his mysterious flatmate.
He'd have to think about that all later... for now he had a breakfast to get to.