Work Text:
Sherlock almost knocks a cup of tea over when he moves his hand in a rapid gesture to the side just before reaching a conclusion in his Mind Palace. The disturbance tears him out of his thought process—there shouldn’t have been any impact, he was sure there hadn’t been anything near him before, so clearly…
“Always with the tea cups!” he snaps and catches the cup just in time before it manages to make a mess on the floor. “I don’t know where these things always come from,” he mutters to himself and places the cup harder on the table than necessary. Damn. He’d almost–
Out of nowhere, Mrs Hudson appears at his side. Just like the tea cups, now that he comes to think of it.
She’s holding a tea towel in her hands, and for some reason she’s scowling at him. He seems to inspire these specific muscle movements on her face all the time. “For all you’re a genius, you’re really silly sometimes, dear,” she tells him, and before he can say anything to defend himself she’s swatted him on the head with the tea towel. He yelps indignantly and flinches away from her.
Mrs Hudson sighs, though the precise tone of it is at odds with her face; it sounds almost fond. “As for these,” she says and pointedly holds the tea cup up, “they don’t just appear. I bring them to you because you’d half dehydrate yourself to death and I do it because I adore you. Though sometimes I don’t know why myself, mind,” she adds, then leaves him sitting in his chair blinking owlishly after her.
If there’s a part of Sherlock that may flush inside his Mind Palace—just a bit—well, there’s no one around to see it anyway.