1. Cake

"Not like that," John huffs, like it should be obvious. Sherlock knows that he's trying to be patient. He can see it in the kind smile lines that form a neat, lacy webbing around John Watson's eyes; they fascinate him, those wrinkles. There are whole stories written there, stories that Sherlock will never be able to read because they're not in any known language. They are in the language of John, which is the least decipherable he's come across yet.

"Sherlock," John says.

Sherlock looks dispassionately down at the mess they've made on the counter: cacao powder sprinkled hither and thither; a smear of whipped egg white; bits of shell everywhere; and a bowl full of what seems to be clumps of flour floating in some sort of batter.

"What would you have me do, John?" He doesn't mean for it to come out as a whine, but it does. He wipes his sticky fingers on his apron (John's insistence. Something about not wanting to spoil a perfectly lovely clean shirt. God, but he feels ridiculous). He's not sure why they're doing this in the first place.

I am making a birthday cake, he says to himself, watching his fingers leave chocolate prints on Mrs Hudson's purple apron. I am making a birthday cake for Gregory Lestrade, and John is helping me. He's never felt stranger.

Still smiling resolutely, though Sherlock's positive there's a hint of a strain at the edges, just there, John pulls the glass bowl to himself and gently removes the spoon from Sherlock's hand. Slowly, steadily, God, so patiently, John begins to whip the cake batter with long, even strokes, until all the flour dissipates evenly into the eggs and butter and cream. Sherlock watches the process carefully. Mummy never cooked. Nor had Mycroft. It had never seemed like something he needed to learn how to do.

"– this is so hard for you," John was saying.

Sherlock concentrated on the sound of John's voice, not on the batter. John was more important than cake.

"I mean, how many hours a day do you spend mixing volatile substances? Surely, this can't be all that different?"

But it is different. Chemicals and explosive things at Saint Bart's – that, Sherlock knows how to deal with. It's a simple matter of finding the right mix, and then it becomes a matter of life and death. He's good at it. It's what he's always done, and what he'll always do. Birthday cakes are a completely different matter. He's not sure he's ever been to a real birthday celebration before, not counting when he used to hide under the table at Mycroft's parties and try to match the voices of the guests to their shoes and pant legs. That had stopped when he was seven and Mycroft had kicked him out.

Sherlock can't explain this to John, but there is an art to cooking, a sort of finesse. In theory, cooking and chemistry strongly resemble each other: delicate combinations, a watchful eye, endless patience and clock-watching until the final goal is achieved. But in practice, they're nothing alike. No one will frown at you if you use too much permanganate or sodium chloride, but when there's someone to be let down if you ruin the cake?

Doesn't John understand the significance of cake, and what happens if you ruin it?

What if Anderson takes a bite and laughs at him?

What if Anderson tastes it at all?

What if Lestrade hates it?

So Sherlock doesn't say anything. He watches the batter turn smooth and evenly coloured under John's expert handling, and is tremendously grateful to have a John Watson in his life.

A year ago, he'd turned down this invitation.

"Get me the pan, please." John is looking at him thoughtfully, and he's really not the master of subtly. That's probably alright. What John lacks in discretion, Sherlock can more than account for the two of them.

"Anderson is invited tonight, and you are being polite."

Likewise, what Sherlock lacks in tact, John makes up for with impeccable manners. People would think John was the one with the illustrious upbringing, not Sherlock.

Sherlock passes John the cake pan, and the good doctor spreads the batter evenly. They put the pan in the oven together and Sherlock sets the timer, because this he does know how to do. Precision. The recipe says ten minutes, but he's calculated: due to their particular brand of flour (what Mrs Hudson had on the shelf, actually, because they don't have much in the way of baking goods sitting around the flat. John's too afraid of finding horrid things in the sugar bowl, or some such trite nonsense. As if Sherlock would poison the sugar bowl. He likes sugar) and a slight difference in egg size, the cake will take nine minutes and twenty-three seconds.

"I'll clean up if you like," Sherlock hears himself saying. The flour in John's hair makes him look prematurely like he's on the cusp of his early sixties (John's father went grey at fifty-nine, judging on the pictures), and his fingers gleam faintly with still-lingering remnants of butter. "You can take a shower before we go."

Mostly, it's for selfish reasons. If the idea of attending a birthday party makes his insides knot unpleasantly, he's not let John know, and he sees no reason why John should think him a blubbering mess. But John shoots him such a brilliant smile that he realizes the other has mistaken this for a good deed, and Sherlock realizes that's acceptable, too.

John disappears into his room, and Sherlock washes the dishes methodically, one-by-one, until they are impeccable and gleaming on the dish rack. He's good at dishes, on the other hand. There's a universality to sparkling clean glassware. He may be untidy, but that doesn't mean bad hygiene. No one expects too much of Sherlock when it comes down to washing dishes, which is why he finds it relaxing.

If something in the oven smells like it's burning, John tactfully doesn't mention it. He calmly pops cake two, plan B in the place of the first, and Sherlock wonders if there's anything to the burn rate of egg-cream-sugar-flour-chocolate mixes.

Sally says the cake is delicious.


Hello all! This is my first published foray into the Sherlock BBC fanverse. I'm currently doing the 100 themes challenge (every other theme is a Sherlock prompt in my head, just because it's nearly all I can think about these days), and it's a lovely way to get to know the characters while I'm working on a full-length fic that will be published in the very distant future.

Anyone interested in knowing more about the author is welcome to visit her profile page.

Questions comments and feedback are welcomed and encouraged.

Lily