"John? Do we have any more milk? There's none out on the sideboard."
John raised his head as the generously cheekboned man strode past his armchair into the kitchen, quickly enough to send a slight cool breeze rushing over his cheek. He frowned, looking back down at the paper again, and flipping the page.
"Er. Have you tried the fridge?"
Sherlock came to halt, spun around once, and then faced the tallest appliance in the room.
"Fridge," he murmured, twisting his head over his shoulder for a moment, and then crossing the kitchen in a couple of strides, and opening the stainless steel door.
He squatted, eyes at the level the milk resided.
Nothing.
"There's none."
"Sure? I got a couple of pints yesterday."
Sherlock stood up again, clenching his teeth together.
"There is none there," he insisted, hand braced on the top of the fridge as he glowered at the empty shelf. In the sitting room, John breathed out heavily through his nostrils and pushed himself up. He joined the other man. He hovered in front of the open appliance for a moment, ducking his head.
"It's right there."
He pointed to the shelf above, and hazarded a curious glance up at Sherlock, one eyebrow lifted.
Sherlock frowned.
"Oh." He removed it.
John rubbed the back of his neck and then paused.
"Sherlock, are you feeling all right?"
"Yes. Fine. Why? No, wait. Don't answer that— yes. I'm feeling fine," he replied curtly upon reaching a decision. He turned with the milk held limply by its plastic handle, kicking the door shut with a heel.
The shorter man cleared his throat and took a step back.
"No, Sherlock— hang on. Is there something going on? I mean, this is the third time you've done this. Today."
Sherlock didn't lift his head.
He was standing at the table, eyes flickering back and forth between sheets of paper amidst the flurry to the next, thumb nail between his teeth. The milk had been left to occupy one of the last spots of tabletop that had remained visible underneath the clutter.
"Third time I've done what."; he had bothered to answer, but the low snap of his voice suggested that his mind was elsewhere, not unusually. A great mind is rarely blessed with the patience to waste much more time than it considers suitable on irrelevant things. It skips from one thing to another easily enough and so is brilliant but well capable of unintentional pretermission. This was true of Sherlock Holmes, who John often thought did not have an awful lot of control over his intelligence and perspicacity. Not that Sherlock never slipped into a dogged fixation or private reverie in which only his own self was welcome— he did, and often.
John scraped back a chair and sat down, the fingers of his right hand drumming on his knee as he searched Sherlock's face with an expression, he could feel, somewhere between amusement and concern. (He didn't know which was a more suited emotion; the younger Holmes brother frequently caused him concern, but it was a lot of the time, too, that John found himself on the brink of uncontrollable laughter. Sherlock was truly an entertainer.)
"This morning, ten o'clock, you— pacing around in there—" He jerked his head towards the lounge. "— staring down at your desk for your phone. It was in the place right where you usually leave it, but maybe a few inches away. But you didn't see it until you'd left the room and come back in again? And then- in Bart's, looking at that cadaver, Sherlock, you saw the bullet hole in her side— you saw it—"
The volume of his voice had been rising gradually, and now John hammered his finger tip into the table, and then another time with each of his next words: "But. You. Didn't. Notice it."
Sherlock's gaze shifted up, his gaze repositioning to some indiscriminate point over John's shoulder.
Eventually, he exhaled sharply, and straightening up replied, "I'm feeling fine."
A sarcastic 'oh, right' was already forming on John's lips, but he was cut across.
"John. If I wanted mothering I'd pay Mycroft a visit. Listen, I need you to—"
"Can I at least have a look at you?"
"What?"
John pushed some of the papers aside, retrieving a small torch from the mess.
"I don't know. Delayed reaction time. Seemed slightly confused, lately— maybe I could have a quick check? Could be symptoms for something?"
Sherlock snorted.
"Really, Sherlock. Just in case? Please?"
The black-haired man stopped, hands on his hips, withering the carpet at his feet with a petulant scowl.
John leant forwards across the table, flipping the torch on.
"Sit down?"
"Why don't you stand up."
John stood and held his hands out: okay?
"Now, you sit. I need a better angle."
Sherlock sat, albeit resentfully.
"This way," John encouraged, leaning further forward.
The other man turned his head.
"Look at me. I'm not sitting on the ceiling— here— okay, right— a bit closer? That's fine."
John held up the torch, concentrating its beam firstly on Sherlock's left eye. He didn't so much as twitch his eyelid when the light hit his face, but John put this down to his friend's pride. The beam was switched to the right. This time, Sherlock blinked and drew his head back slightly.
Convinced but not necessarily content, John relented.
"Well, nothing seems out of the ordinary—"
"Obviously."
"Pupils contracting and dilating as normal. Everything looks clear. No sign of straining, or overly noticeable blood vessels—"
"Yes, good."
"You know what?— I'm just trying to help."
"Oh, dear— always reverting back to war doctor mode. If you're so worried about me why not just put a bullet through my skull and release me from my evident misery?"
John found himself without the energy to confront an excited Sherlock. He shook his head and shunted the abandoned chair back: don't put ideas into my head.