"John. John! The sink's frozen again!"
"Sherlock, I'm busy!"
"I don't care, half the solutions have crystallized! Help me move them!"
Dr. John Watson growled at the stove as he turned down the heat on his half-cooked dinner and left the stir-fry to simmer. The world famous, self-titled Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes was stalking back and forth across the kitchen in a frustrated rage, carriying mason jars full of clear, thick, unidentifiable liquid from the sink to the refrigerator, carelessly shoving freshly-bought groceries in the fridge aside and crushing them against one another to make room for his latest and now-seemingly-failed science experiment. John watched him for a few seconds, then grabbed a warm jar full of what appeared to be tan-colored ice and followed him, but he was shoved aside as he tried to set the jar beside others.
"No, no!" Sherlock nearly growled, glaring at the jar as if it had personally offended his intellect. He cast a banishing finger across the kitchen. "In the microwave, it must be reheated!"
John sighed and followed the order, walking across the kitchen to the microwave and opening it. Inside was something slimy and pink on a plate that smelled foul. He didn't even ask what it was. He just pulled it out, set it on top of the microwave, and replaced it with the jar of crystal.
"How long?" he called, turning back. He had to ask twice more before Sherlock in his angered haste noticed.
"How long what?"
"For the microwave?"
"Oh." Sherlock waved him away with a scowl. "We'll do them all at once, get more of them over there. They can't be heated at different times."
John gave a resigned sigh and began his own repeated journey of bringing the jars that had solids in them into the microwave. He had no clue what Sherlock was doing with them but there were a lot of them, and they all didn't fit on the microwave plate.
"I can't fit these last three, Sherlock!" he called. "Should I just start the others?"
"No. No. No." Sherlock stuffed the rest of the still-liquid jars in the fridge with a series of dangerously loud clinks and stormed over to the microwave. John moved aside and watched him briefly attempt an impossible problem of geometry, then turn to look around the kitchen for an alternate solution. Sherlock's eyes fell on the stove and narrowed as he considered it. No. His gaze dropped to the oven below. Yes.
"John, get a baking sheet."
"We don't have one."
A steady look from Sherlock was all it took for John to exhale tiredly and grab his jacket. "I'll be back," he called as he hustled down the stairs to hail a taxi.
One supermarket trip later, Sherlock was draped across the couch in clear dejection. "It's ruined," he muttered as John came up the stairs brandishing the necessary cooking tray. One of his sleeves was unbuttoned and the box of nicotine patches was open on the table next to him. "They're all ruined. That damned sink, I told Mrs. Hudson we need it fixed, I don't care how..."
John stood in front of Sherlock for a few moments, but when the detective turned his head to look up at his flatmate, the good doctor just shook his head and walked to the kitchen to find a place for the useless baking sheet. Of course it was ruined. Whatever it was.
He stopped short as something glistened at him from the kitchen floor.
"Oh Sherlock, come on, you couldn't even clean up this...what is this?"
"Harmless. Mop's in the cupboa-"
"Yes, I know where the mop is, thanks." John scowled down at the broken glass and thickly laid contents of whatever jar Sherlock had either dropped, knocked over, or even thrown down in a rage on the already-stained linoleum, but he stepped over the mess and set the sheet on the counter. Things were really getting out-of-hand in the flat. Sherlock's temper was starting to flare as more and more of his science experiments were ruined by a growing plumbing problem in the entire building. It seemed to be stemming from a leak of some sort in the basement flat. Mrs. Hudson claimed she was trying to get ahold of a plumber but they were all either busy with similar problems throughout the neighborhood and in fact the city itself, or simply unreachable. Everyone seemed to be having stubborn plumbing problems this time of year that were more important than theirs, or at least had been called in first. It was almost as if the forces of the universe itself were converging to make 221B Baker Street the single most miserable flat in all of London. And of course John had to clean up after Sherlock's frustration, because Mrs. Hudson was getting fairly sick of it, herself, and the world-famous genius couldn't be bothered to clean up while he was pouting in the parlor.
At least this mess was inorganic. Or so John hoped as he knelt down to pick up the larger pieces of glass. Sherlock had called it harmless. That meant very, very little these days.
About halfway through the mess he smelled something strange. At first he thought it was whatever was on the floor but then he realized it was burning food. His dinner! He ran to the stove but he only had to glance at it to know it was ruined. Sherlock hadn't even done him the courtesy of shutting off the heat. He turned off the stove himself and scraped out the mess into the trash, then carried the burnt pan to the sink. He turned on the faucet. No water. Right. Frozen pipes still. With a helpless shake of the head he left it there with some dish soap in it and returned to finish Sherlock's mess. The consulting detective made not a sound.