From the moment Sherly and Joan arrived, all of 221b had begun to frantically divide up work, hoping to have the metaphorical table (since the only two real ones they had were piled with Sherlock's junk) laid and ready for guests by sunset. John was sent back to the supermarket a whopping four times within the first hour and a half since they started cooking. Meanwhile, Sherly and Joan continued to bicker on and off as Joan busied herself with the majority of the cooking and Sherly mostly took to hovering over her shoulder and generally getting in the way of things. Sherlock took on whatever task Joan handed to him, be it chopping up apples or mashing potatoes.

And dishes. Did I mention dishes? Lots of dishes. Piles and piles of dishes. Half of the dishes he'd just washed would immediately be picked up again and then reused, after which point Sherlock would have to start the whole process over.

By the end of the day Sherlock never wanted to see another dish again.

***

Bang!

"Bloody - WHAT WAS THAT?" John shrieked, quite nearly falling over in his surprise.

"That would be the chestnuts," Joan explained, shoving John out of the way and slipping on a pair of oven mitts to open up the microwave oven.

A little ways away Sherly began singing softly, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…"

"Roasting? No. Exploding, more like," Sherlock mused.

***

"Aren't you supposed to sew up the rear end?"

"I thought it had something to do with shoving an onion up the…"

"No, no, I'm pretty sure it was sewing."

"OUT OF THE WAY, I'M USING AN APPLE AS THE BUTT-PLUG!" Sherly exclaimed, sticking half an apple into the bottom of the raw turkey.

***

"…shit. I think that was the last of the butter," Joan realized. "JOHN!"

"On it," the doctor sighed, already pulling on his coat.

***

"CAREFUL, THAT PAN IS—"

"OUCH! Mother fucker!"

Clang, splash!

"FFFFFFFUCKING GREASE, GODDAMN—"

"…hot." Sherlock frowned before reaching out and taking a look at his sister's burnt finger. "Eh. You'll live."

"Yes, thank you for that brilliant deduction," Sherly hissed, pulling away. "Why don't you go see if Joan has any more dishes for you to wash?"

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder to find the pile already beginning to stack up once again. He made a face before ducking out of the room.

"Nope," he whispered under his breath.

***

John set the brand new tub of butter on the edge of the kitchen counter, trying to stomp the cold out of his shoes.

"John," Joan said brightly upon sighting him. "Do you have another can of peas—?"

John heaved a weary sigh and turned around again.

***

"John, where do you want me to put the ones that we didn't use?"

"Are they already in a ziplock bag? You can go ahead and keep them in the…" John pulled open the fridge before shutting it again rather quickly. "Ah, yes. Um. I can see why that might be a problem. I don't suppose the cupboards would work?"

***

"What's going on?" Joan demanded, folding her arms across her chest with a huff.

"We're watching the Macy's parade," Sherly beamed, turning the laptop to show her. The others, all crowded around the armchair in which she sat, nodded in agreement.

"Why would you watch…" Joan shook her head. "Y'know what, never mind. All of you, get on up! Back in the kitchen, lazy arses! Not you, John. I just used up the last of the butter you brought in."

***

Crash!

"Well, Sherlock, looks like you won't be needing to wash that one! Now, if you'd be a dear and fetch the broom…"

Isn't this why we have a landlady? Sherlock thought to himself unhappily as he rummaged through his closet in search of something to sweep up the broken glass with.

***

There was yet another loud thud as John accidentally flipped the bowl of mashed potatoes upside down and onto the tile floor.

"Are you kidding me?!" Sherlock snapped, throwing his arms out to his sides dramatically. "I made those all by myself!"

John felt himself turning a bright shade of pink. "U-Um, well… uh… I-I am, SO, sorry… Maybe you can… um…" Already on his knees, he was attempting to pick up the lost bits of potato as they crumbled into even smaller pieces and squished onto anything and everything. "Well, you could… always remake it? They didn't take you that long, and uh…"

"But we didn't buy any extra potatoes," Sherlock whined.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll head back over there in a minute," John groaned, defeated.

***

The apple pie was perhaps the single food item that hadn't turned out to be a complete disaster. Once finished it had been set up on a cooling rack over a stack of papers on the coffee table. With the potato mess cleaned up, John was just about to gather his things when a crashing about in the living room alerted the gang that something was amiss. Sure enough, there was Gladstone, eagerly helping himself to the entire pie.

"Bad dog!" Joan yelled, clapping her hands as she rushed to the scene of the crime. Gladstone barked rather loudly before leaping into Sherlock's arms and began licking at the bottom of his chin.

"Well. At least there's still the turkey?" Sherly offered. "Speaking of, it should be about done by now. How long since we last checked it? Two hours?"

"Two?" John echoed. "Didn't Joan say it only had about forty minutes left?"

Cue the smoke alarm.

***

"Oh god, oh god, WHAT DO I DO?" Sherly shrieked, holding the both flaming and charred turkey out in front of her. The pan was heavy and she was beginning to worry that she might lose the whole thing any minute now.

"Well, staring at it certainly isn't going to help!" Joan spat at the top of her lungs. "Put the damned thing out!"

With all of her strength Sherly managed to fling the ruined turkey out of the opened second-story window. In the moments that followed there was a devastated silence, save the faint beeping from the alarm still going off.

"Nearly six-thirty," John muttered with a glance at his watch. "The guests are supposed to be here in a half hour."

Joan collapsed to the ground where she stood, sobbing. "My Thanksgiving dinner… It's ruined, thanks to you idiots…"

The others exchanged concerned glances. "It's not too late to cancel," Sherlock suggested after some time.