John woke with a start to the sound of muffled curses coming from downstairs. He looked at the clock and groaned. It was five in the morning and all he wanted was a nice cup of tea and a few more hours of sleep. A loud bang sounded from below. What the hell is Sherlock doing now, he thought trying to muffle out the sounds with his pillow.
He took a deep sniff and started coughing. Something was burning. Smoke was seeping under his doorway.
"What the-"
John pulled on a jumper and ran down the stairs. His eyes began water as he approached the noises.
"Sherlock?" There was a thick layer of black smoke in the kitchen. Sherlock was trying to toss water onto a pan that was emanating ten foot tall flames that were scorching the ceiling. John's laptop was on the table, open to a page titled "Home Cooked Breakfasts in 10 Easy Steps". About ten eggs were splattered across the floor, yolk smeared across the tiles and eggshells crunched underfoot. Three stained the walls, obviously thrown there by Sherlock out of frustration. A broken egg beater, probably another victim of Sherlock's frustration, lay on an upturned bowl on the counter. More than twenty cartons of milk were strewn throughout the kitchen, several spilling out onto the floor. One of them leaked into the remnants of an experiment of Sherlock's, the mixture bubbling and hissing as it started to turn a rather alarming shade of yellow.
Sherlock stood in the center of the mess darting around the stove, attempting to flip two viciously burnt pancakes. He was covered from head to toe in flour. Distractedly, he ran a hand through curly black hair, trying to get some of the white powder out. Sherlock was attempting the peel the black goo off the pan, getting dangerously close to burning himself.
"Sherlock, what the hell is going on?" Sherlock spun around, his face reminding John of a five year old caught with his hand in the cookie jar. John glanced at the burnt remains of something that could have been a meal on the stove.
"Are those... pancakes?" Sherlock glanced at the stove.
"It was an, um, experiment." Sherlock said, cringing.
"Sherlock," John started, amused, "Were you trying to make us breakfast?"
Sherlock never did anything nice for anyone. However, John didn't know anyone else that had lived with Sherlock for more than a week and hadn't tried to strangle him. Did that make him special?
Sherlock's eyes strayed across the mess, and he looked down at his feet guiltily.
"I bought milk." he said quietly.
John's couldn't hold back his smile.