Chapter Text
"What the.... Sherlock?! What the hell have you done this time?"
John coughed and spluttered through the angry shout on coming home to find the flat full of choking, thick black smoke. The windows were thrown open by a tall, thin shadowy figure John could barely see through the smoke and slowly the air began to clear.
"Go on, then. What was it this time? A vital experiment in charring flesh? That's what it smells like... Oh God, is there a charred limb in the oven?"
Sherlock looked guilty even as he went on the defensive:
"No, of course not, John, what do you take me for?"
John rubbed a hand wearily across his face and sighed. "What then? Not a head. Please Sherlock, not a head!? I cook in that oven, for Christ's sake!"
"When? I haven't seen you cook in that oven in 2 years! Granted, you occasionally use the hob, but you know as well as I do that we mainly live off takeaways!"
"Sherlock, that is not the point! I would like to have a kitchen, and a cooker, that I can safely use for food prep without coming across large chunks of decomposing human flesh! Is that too much to ask?"
"Really John, you are overreacting. There could not possibly be any contamination from something so heavily charred. All microbes will be extremely dead. It's perfectly safe."
John heaved a huge sigh of exasperation and raised his eyes to the heavens (a gesture that Sherlock found exceedingly pointless since they were indoors and thus all John achieved was a view of some slightly watermarked plaster), and stormed out. Sherlock sighed, and began to clean up.
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Later that evening John returned to 221B to find the kitchen spotless, the smoke smell mostly gone (though it lingered in the fabric of his armchair), and a bag of takeaway Chinese waiting on the table. He was momentarily struck dumb by this unusually thoughtful peace offering from his mad flatmate.
Just then, Sherlock appeared from his bedroom in pyjamas and his blue silk dressing gown.
"Ah, John. *Ahem*" he coughed, looking embarrassed. " I thought perhaps you might like some chow mein, since my earlier attempts to provide sustenance were not an unparalleled success".
John ran this through his head a second time to check he had understood properly.
"Wait, that was...? You were... Cooking?"
"Indeed John. I think it best if I refrain from any further attempts for now. It is surprisingly more complex than it appears".
"Right... Well, thanks for the takeaway, anyway. And I'm pleased to know it wasn't charring human flesh after all. Wait... It wasn't, was it?"
"For God's sake John, what do you take me for? I know Donovan likes to call me a freak but I'm not a cannibal!"
"Right, sorry, sorry. I didn't really mean.... Oh, never mind. So what were you cooking then?"
"If you must know, partridge roasted with pears. It seemed appropriate".
Sherlock flushed rather pink and whirled away to his bedroom in a flurry of blue silk, leaving John perplexed with a mouthful of chow mein. What was up with him this time? Oh well, John decided. Probably just embarrassed that cooking had turned out not to be one of the many things that seemed to come so easily to his talented friend.