"Did you sleep well," Sherlock mumbled with perfect diction from behind his microscope. As always he was immaculately groomed at a time when I looked like I had been dragged backwards through a hedge.
"Yeah, sort of," I replied sleepily and headed into the kitchen.
"Tea," I called, receiving no response that I took to mean yes. Now to play a little game of 'Where has Sherlock put the teabags today?' Of course I found them in the small cupboard under the sink that has no other purpose than to hide the plumbing. Thankfully the milk was still drinkable and in a short time I held two slightly steaming cups of tea.
Setting Sherlock's beside him I sat down on the sofa with my laptop to check on the blog. Only a few new comments.
"John," Sherlock asked suddenly.
"Yep," I replied, glancing at him and sitting up straighter when I saw his anxious expression. "What's wrong," I asked him. There was a silence for a few minutes, permeated by the clock ticking loudly and traffic outside.
"Nothing," he whispered, staring vacantly in the direction of the window before returning to his microscope. The interaction left me confused to say the least but I let it drop. Sherlock was well known for the madness in his methods and something I had to put up with if I wanted to live here.
It was the madness that made me want to live here for the most part. I needed something in my life that required me to tidy it or organise it or shout at it. It gave me a sense of purpose where before I had been drifting aimlessly, living on an army pension in a bedsit and regretting my entire life until that point.
Sherlock for me was like the narcotics he craved. This indelible high that could only be satiated when we were running through the streets of London on the heels of a criminal. I needed the rush that Sherlock provided in his errant and erratic ways.
"You sure you're okay," I asked him. "You've been a bit off lately, vacant," I said.
He gave a brief nod but I'm not sure what it was in acknowledgement of. Yes he was okay or yes he had been vacant? I gave up trying to get an answer after a while. If Sherlock needed me he would talk to me, until then I would just have to wait.