Double Date
"Mary, she won't—Janine! What are you doing here?" Sherlock stopped short in the doorway to the kitchen with a damp baby in one arm, a teddy bear, a bottle of baby bath, and a graduated cylinder in the other.
Janine set her teacup on the table. "You're bathing the baby? How sweet. I can almost see you doing it for our kids."
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"The occasional top up, you remember?"
"Anyway, Mary, as I was saying, before Janine rudely—"
"Came to visit at my invitation? I never heard that called rude before, Sherlock, but then you are the man who proposed to my best friend for a case." Mary smiled sweetly.
"How's your head, Janine?"
"I know you don't care, Sherlock."
Sherlock glared at Mary and shifted the wiggling baby higher in his arm. "You're cooking pulled pork, aren't you, John?" without even glancing away.
"Hm?" John looked around and his lips twitched at the sight of his daughter insinuating her fingers into Sherlock's nose. "Pulled pork? Yes."
"Very American." Sherlock batted the baby's hand away.
"Yes, well it's my birthday, isn't it. That's why Janine is here. And that is why John is making a meal as I requested."
"Odd that you requested an Am-"
"You mean that I requested John make a meal? He's actually quite good at cooking when he doesn't have to worry he'll be asked to break into, say, an office building, while the food is in the oven."
Janine, who had been smiling at the baby, glanced at Sherlock and huffed.
"Now he's going to wash his daughter instead of. . . " Sherlock paused dramatically, " . . . cook."
"Oh, no you don't!" Mary stopped Sherlock from walking into the kitchen. "You lost the bet."
John spun around and a bit of onion flew off his knife, "A bet?! I knew you weren't just trying to . . . how did you put it? . . . be a more helpful friend."
"Of course you knew! Our friendship isn't built on trust like Mary and Janine's."
"We're normal human beings," Janine muttered into her cup.
John snorted, and Sherlock looked his frustration at Mary, while the baby started tangling her fingers into his hair.
Mary folded her arms and tried not to laugh. "Bath. Now."
Sherlock face melted into an almost pout as he tried to disentangle baby fingers from his hair. "I don't know how."
"If you haven't stored it away in that oversized brain of yours, then look it up on your phone."
Sherlock sighed and started down the hall.
Later that evening Mary and Janine were cooing over the baby's attempts to shove pulled pork into her mouth.
Sherlock watched with narrowed eyes.
"She made me wash her not two hours ago."
"They're never really clean. And this is revenge."
"Revenge?"
"For Janine."
"She has the gall to—"
John shrugged, and put a forkful of pulled pork into his mouth. And grimaced. "I can't eat this. Do you think they'll notice if I order something else?"
"It doesn't matter. Order now."
John put his hand to his pocket, then looked around the room in confusion.
"Oh, yes." Sherlock cleared his throat. "You'll need my phone."
"What?"
"You're going to need a new one. Maybe buy a waterproof cover next time."