Our neurotic heroes left a funeral a few minutes ago, they're walking home through quiet streets.
"Why were you shaking at the end of the minute's silence? You weren't attached to him, you showed no sign of emotion through the whole service and no one in the room had your attention, do you have some sort of disease coming on?"
"I can't tell you."
"Don't be childish, you know you're going to, why put it off?"
"You won't understand."
"We both know I will." Sherlock probably would, just not from the inside, which was always the problem.
"You're like Captain Subtext, aren't you?"
"Sorry?"
"He's the superhero who always knows what you mean when you say normal things."
"You really do watch some crap telly, don't you? Yes, I'm him. Now tell me, I don't like not knowing things."
"Don't say I didn't warn you..."
"You didn't warn me, you said "don't say I didn't warn you" that's different, but in the interests of moving this along, I won't."
"The giggle loop..."
"You've lost me."
"Then let me finish!" John knew he was just about to feel idiotic, and didn't want to be disturbed in the process of minimising the damage. "When there's a solemn moment or and awkward silence or... Something. Normal people, people not like you, get an urge, a bizarre, untraceable urge, to giggle. They don't, obviously, because that'd be offensive..."
"So why did you giggle?"
"Let me finish! Then they, the normal people, stop themselves, and think how terrible it would have been if they had giggled, because they care about other people and feelings and stuff. Problem is the giggle loop. If you know about the giggle loop, the very act of preventing a giggle causes a larger, more shameful giggle... Which you stifle just in time, obviously, but then then nervous energy from stifling that huge giggle produces a huge laugh... And then you move house and change your name."
Sherlock paused to let the ridiculousness hang in the air, then said "You overestimate the value of normality."
"You underestimate it."
"Go and talk to her, you're dying to." Sherlock points out wearily.
The two men had been sitting in a quiet corner of the local pub for a hour. The woman in question (single, dominant, investment banker, ostentatiously dressed [red], divorced [twice], would lap up the Watson type with a spoon then never phone) sits alone at an exposed table, with exposed legs.
"Can't"
"Why not?" Imagine a tone that says "tell me your neuroses so I can quietly enjoy not caring about them", that's the tone.
"Nudity buffer."
"Nudity buffer?" Raised eyebrows.
"Yeh. We've been staring at her for an hour..."
"You have"
"And thus, I already know exactly how she'd look naked. I can't go and have a conversation with that image in front of me. You have to start the conversation before the buffer runs out, otherwise you're screwed."
"I know how you look naked and I can talk to you."
"That's 'cause me naked isn't very goo... HOW do you know how I look naked?"
"Nudity buffer"
"Oh, right, yours'd be about four seconds, wouldn't it?"
"Six. You over estimate me. Don't turn people into heroes, John, it doesn't help anybody."
"John! Problem!"
"Important problem? Important enough for me to actually get up and walk downstairs?"
"Yes! Problem number one, Captain Problem!"
"Coming" Weary tone, you know the one.
"My hands are covered in... Experiment"
"And?"
"7 o'clock"
"And?"
"News!"
"You have gooy [cringe] hands, you want the news put on and that counts as "problem number one"? How is that problem number one? That's problem... 27!"
"Trapped dental floss" Sherlock mutters into the microscope.
"The numbers are SPECIFIC to...? never mind!"
"Did I have this before, was this here before?" John points to a mole in the (...very) lower back region.
"What is it?"
"It's a mole, is it new?"
"It's a large freckle." Disinterest, you can imagine.
"But was it there before?"
"I don't know! I don't memorise your large freckles!"
"Mmm"
"You made an "mmm" noise. What did that "mmm" noise mean? What kind of "mmm" noise was it?"
"How many are there?"
"Twenty seven" Sherlock replies with zero hesitation.
"Of course there are."
"So what did it mean?"
"It meant... You observe and memorise EVERYTHING, right up until it's on my arse!"
"Twenty eight."