Sherlock sighed and returned something which looked far too much like human skin for John's comfort level to the Petri dish, whilst John remained steadfastly determined not to find out precisely what it was.
"Nothing more to be done here until the breakdown of the tissue is complete. Chinese? Indian? No, wait... there's a chips place. Part of town I haven't visited in quite some time."
John grinned. Only Sherlock Holmes could shift effortlessly from decomposing flesh to a lunch date (well, a sort of lunch date)... and only I could find it so goddamn amusing.
Some time ago, John had been a little leery of takeaway (after being kidnaped during his last attempt at it), and it was Sherlock who had convinced him that was a ridiculous reason to forgo curry or potstickers in front of the telly. Now, it was Sherlock who nixed delivery boys at 221B. He especially resented anyone stopping by unexpectedly. Even when Lestrade had visited unannounced, Sherlock had silently urged John to move away from the windows and act as if they were out. When later questioned, he shrugged it off as not being prepared to deal with idiocy so early in the morning, and that he would doubtless be contacting him soon via text, in any case. He was, of course, correct.
Often, Sherlock didn't even emerge from his room until mid-afternoon. John assumed he was up late, catching up on abandoned experiments, maybe reading... there certainly was a mess of papers and magazines strewn about his normally tidy, sparse bedroom. Whatever he was doing, he was being very considerate of John's need for a good night's sleep; he was always very quiet. John secretly wished Sherlock would resume playing his violin well into the night. He had missed that.
It was a month after Sherlock's return, and John was just now beginning to understand his near desperate need to head out of the flat, despite the chilly air, and remap parts of his city. The occasional shortcut that didn't quite work - what was once an abandoned lot, recently transformed into an impassible storefront - pained him. Though Sherlock still hadn't said much, it was perfectly clear, even to the most dim observer, that Sherlock had not been in London during his "death."John still couldn't bear to think of it in those terms: "his death". He simply referred to it as "when he was gone." Sherlock embraced the euphemism.
"Still here. Good. Would hate to have been deprived of extra portions of better quality chips."
John grabbed a table at the tiny, brightly-lit restaurant... a sea shanty-themed place in a safe, but dreadfully touristy, neighbourhood. A bubbly server practically skipped over to them and told them they could sit anywhere they wanted and that she would be back in a jiff. John glanced up at the plastic lobster mounted on the wall. Hardly the type of place he would have expected Sherlock to chose.
"No. Not there." Sherlock swept across the room to a table in the far corner, backed against the wall. "Here." He quickly angled his chair for a clear view of the door and a fairly adequate one of the side windows, without being directly in front of them. John thought he noticed him exhale.
The chips were quite good. On the way back, Sherlock continued to scan the surrounding buildings for changes in tenancy. John smiled. "Worried a lot has changed, then? Since you've been gone?"
"More than I could ever hope to explain," he said, simply.