Y/N stood in the middle of the kitchen, wiping soap suds from her hands with the tea towel she'd used to dry the crockery from dinner. At some point, while she'd been washing up, Sherlock must have snuck back into the flat and to his room, because she heard him opening the chest of draws that stood along the wall near his door. She used the word 'snuck' because she hadn't seen him go by---which wasn't surprising, seeing as she'd been facing the sink---but she hadn't heard him either, even with their decrepit old floorboards. So he had snuck.
If someone was to take a good long look at Y/N, right now, and guess what she was feeling, they'd probably say she seemed 'lost'---and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. She was kind of lost, lost in thought, lost in feelings and memories and her own head. Usually, it wouldn't bother her that Sherlock had 'snuck', but today it did. Maybe because he'd chosen macaroni and cheese for dinner. Maybe because he doesn't usually sneak, but today he'd done it three times; out of the hotel room they'd shared, out of the flat, then back into it again.
And every time he did, Y/N hadn't chased after him, hadn't asked him why he'd snuck, but this time she would, she decided. You can always tell when your best-friend-in-all-the-world is acting differently, you always know somethings up, and it always bothers you. Sherlock had lied when he'd said he was fine, Y/N had realised as she'd scraped hardened cheese off one of their bowls with her fingernail. And he'd been lying this morning when he acted like his usual self at breakfast, in the cab, as he unlocked the flat. The question was why. What was he hiding, and why was he hiding it from her? No secrets. That was their unspoken agreement. It was unspoken but that didn't make his violation of it any less alarming.
...
Sherlock's door is open when Y/N goes to his room, which she took as a good sign. If it was closed and locked, then she would have become properly worried.
He's sorting his socks into his chest of draws, the laundry basket empty by his feet. He's spread them all out on top of the chest, the sock draw hanging open. Y/N knows he keeps his socks in specific rows and has to stop her lips from twitching into a smile at the memory of him once explaining them to her.
"Hey," she gives his door jamb a little knock. "Want some help?"
He offers her a small grateful smile. Grateful for helping him or grateful for not calling him strange, she wasn't sure. "Okay. Thank you."
Sherlock watched her as she selects two socks, pairing them and putting them in their correct place, then, satisfied she knows what she's doing, asks: "Don't you have anything better to do?" There's a hint of teasing in that remark, in the glint of his eyes as he gives her a sideways smirk.
"I don't know. I just...wanted to hang out." Y/N's brow almost furrowed in confusion at how alien those words felt rolling off her toung. 'Hang out'. Sherlock and Y/N don't 'hang out' because they're usually already in the same place. 'Hanging out' is scheduling a location and time to meet, to be together, which they never do. They've never had to do, now that Y/N thought about it. She never has to invite Sherlock to spend time with her because he's usually already there. And if he's not, she knows where he'll be. He'll be curled up reading in his favorite chair. He'll be in the kitchen, lighting the various things he can find around the flat on fire and calling it 'science'. He'll be on the sofa thinking, staring at scraps of paper pinned to the wall, pouring over today's newspaper, raiding the cupboards for biscuits. He's like a constant, ever-present force in her life, the middle point on a map. If home was a graph he'd be the centre point.
Suddenly Y/N realised something and it hit her like a ton of bricks. She'd felt strange today, different, as if someone had broken into the apartment and moved all the furniture three centimetres to the left. She'd put it down to being the after-effects of a one night stand. Spending the night, no strings attached, with her best friend---the man she was secretly in love with---and lived with, was bound to stir up some kind of emotional storm, right? She'd put her discomfiture down to embarassment, to self-consciousness, to the sorrow caused by unrequited love.
But it wasn't that, it wasn't any of it.
Well, maybe it was some of it, but, mainly, the reason everything today had felt slightly out of wack was the simple fact that...Sherlock hadn't been there.
He'd been there, in the hotel's dining room, in the cab, in the flat, but he'd not really been...there. Immediately when they'd got home he'd gone MIA, almost as if...well as if as soon as he'd gotten the opportunity to be alone he'd taken it. He'd been keeping to himself, or rather, keeping himself inside himself; usually, he oozes personality, rich with eccentricities, but today it was as if he'd kept all that in a metaphorical box, hugging it to his chest like Gollum with The Ring. He'd been quiet. Private.
Which is odd, Y/N thought, because he's usually the most open person Y/N knew.
Y/N always has to hold in a sarcastic laugh when someone calls Sherlock Holmes 'private'. 'You try flat sharing with him,' she'd say, finding their obvious surprise amusing. He often walks around in nothing but a bedsheet (and Y/N was pretty sure the bedsheet was only there to avoid sexual harassment lawsuits), he says whatever's on his mind without thinking it through first, and he doesn't give a toss about anyone's opinion of him.
Not to mention: he responds to simple kindness like a flower does to the sun. All you needed to do to get Sherlock to talk your ear off about his latest interest was offer him an ear to talk off.
When he and Y/N had met, he had the hesitancy of someone that had been pushed away many times before, been left many times before, and he clearly didn't want Y/N to become one of those times. He'd tentatively contributed to their conversation, shyly dropping pieces of information about himself for her to pick up. If she wanted to. Y/N had picked them up, because obviously, and he'd not shut up since.
No longer did he 'drop pieces' of information, no, now he (metaphorically, of course) eagerly pushed bundles of his thoughts, feelings, interests, into Y/N's arms excitedly, almost bowling her over with his undiluted, pure Sherlock-isms.
And she loved it.
She was the first person that came to mind when he had news to share. She was the one he'd complain to if something was irking him. She was the one he'd ramble at until he himself wasn't even sure the things he was uttering were making sense. And there Y/N would always be. Accepted anything he wanted to talk about with open arms, finding everything he had to say fascinating, riveting, brilliant. There she'd always be, loving the joy that lit up his eyes every time he realised she wanted to listen---that someone wanted to listen.
But today he'd been...normal. Too normal. No gunshots, no explosions, no fire alarms, no rants at the television, no odd conversations, no inside jokes, no anything.
If she hadn't have come down to dinner would he have even called her to the table? Or would he have eaten his own and left hers in the microwave for her to find later?
'It's only been a day,' Y/N mentally asserted herself. 'One day of strange behaviour doesn't mean anything.'Â "You've been very quiet. I havn't seen you since we got home." She gave him a smile, hoping it made it seem like just a passing remark, a conversation starter.
Sounding unexpectedly curt: "Maybe that's because you holed yourself up in your room all day."
Y/N didn't know what to say to that. She almost opened her mouth to answer indignantly: 'well that never usually stops you', because it's true, it doesn't. They've spent many hours reading, watching films, or just talking together in one of their bedrooms because the other was bored and had seeked them out like a dog nudging a tennis ball into its owner's lap.
They stood in silence, slowly working their way through Sherlock's pile of socks. Despite each pair having characteristics that earned them a place in their assigned compartment, those charicteristics were extremely subtle. Every single one looked the same to the untrained eye; they were all black, or grey, or so grey they appeared black.
Y/N had started to chew her lip three sock pairs ago. She couldn't help but wonder...why hadn't Sherlock dragged her downstairs at some point today to show her how pretty Digestive crumbs looked under his microscope? Why hadn't she heard the sound of his masterful use of the violin drifting up the stairs? How can he just stand there sorting socks with someone he'd just had the most amazing night of his life with?
Had it been the most amazing night of his life? Her stomach clenched uncomfortably. Keeping her eyes fixed on the two socks she was trying to tell apart, Y/N said quietly:
"I just realised...I never asked you if you enjoyed it." She doesn't need to specify what she's talking about because it's obvious he knows; his shoulders tensing, the way he faltered slightly, like a computer generated image glitching, had given it away.
The fact that he clearly hadn't forgotten that they'd slept together is a good sign, Y/N decided. Boldly, she continued, because she had to know: "So...did you? Enjoy it?"