John Watson tried to ignore the expectant titters of the circus crowd as he made his way towards the brightly-colored cannon. He was feeling anxious and high-strung and the fact that he was wearing full clown makeup wasn't helping matters.
Passing by the mouth of the cannon, he muttered as discreetly as possible, "Sherlock, are you sure about this?"
"I don't see you coming up with a better solution."
"Every solution is a better solution-!" John bit back the remark. Of course he and Sherlock had needed to get close to the circus performers, and of course being shot from a cannon would provide Sherlock with the view that he needed. So he was right. Maddeningly, infuriatingly, inevitably right.
"Really, John, it's perfectly safe. I don't see why you're getting so worked up about it."
No, of course you don't. John moved to the back of the cannon and lit the fuse. A hush fell over the crowd as each and every circus-goer gazed intently at the cannon. John, though, was watching the space in front of the cannon, between the cannon and the net, where, any second now...
BOOM.
Sherlock, clad in a blue jumpsuit and a red helmet, shot from the cannon. He was traveling at a breakneck speed, but he still managed to notice every relevant detail as he looked down on the circus. Four exits-ring-risers-
He was startled out of his concentration by a violent impact with the safety net. He bounced once, twice, then settled as the crowd erupted into cheers.
It wasn't until then that he noticed how his heart was racing. He'd been scared, nervous, at least on a subconscious level. Completely understandable. Humans weren't meant to fly through the air like that. And he still felt as if he were flying through the air...
The crowd was still cheering as John ran up to him. "Sherlock, are you all right?" he demanded, his voice unnecessarily loud.
"Of course I'm all right," Sherlock snapped, a little more irritably than he'd intended. He turned away from John and closed his eyes, mentally reviewing what he'd seen during his flight, bringing the fleeting information into full focus and storing it away in his mind palace.
"Got it," he muttered, mostly to himself. Then he looked up and saw that John was still watching him. "Got it," he repeated as he stood up, taking a moment to steady himself. "Let's go."
"You saw everything you needed to see, then?" John asked as they exited the ring.
"Of course I did." Once they were out of sight of the audience, Sherlock removed his helmet. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Oh, I dunno. Most people might find the whole being-shot-out-of-a-cannon thing a bit distracting."
"I didn't think it was distracting."
"Well, thank goodness for that."
As they walked, Sherlock began to process the things that he hadn't had time to think about when he was in the air. Apprehension, exhilaration, the very feeling of flight-everything had been shunted to the side so that he could focus on the case.
Not distracting, he thought. Never distracting.