'Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science'
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Boring!"
"Sherlock, choose something or I'm having the remote," John was getting fed up with his flat mate. It had been a quiet day in Baker Street, far too quiet for the consultant detectives liking. Sherlock flicked over to another channel. John could have sworn they'd already dismissed the programme as boring twice already. "Right," the army doctor got to his feet and made a grab for the remote. Sherlock had been quicker. He held his arm out keeping it from John's reach. "Give. Me. The. Remote," each word was punctuated with a struggle for ownership of the remote. John won. He wrestled it from his friends grip and with a triumphant air about him he sat back down.
John chose a comedy show about a family. "Boring!"
"Give it give five minutes," to anyone but Sherlock Holmes that would have been a reasonable suggestion.
"No," Sherlock's glare burnt into the side of John's head as he changed to another shadow. A street magician. "Oh, please," Sherlock made his distaste known.
John noted that he didn't pass it off as boring straight away and settled for the show, "feeling threatened that there might be someone cleverer than you?"
Sherlock scoffed, "No. It's obvious. Anyone can do it."
"Oh really?" John would rather watch the comedy but settled for a momentarily distracted consultant detective. The magician had just filled a glass with smoke despite the glass being covered as he sat in a pub garden.
"Come on, honestly John even you can get this one," John ignored the insult, "there's something on the bottom of the beer mat."
Once the show ended John turned in for the night. Sherlock headed straight for the kitchen. It wasn't unusual for him to stay up later than John or even make it to bed in the first place. The clinking of glass signalled that he would be experimenting.
Morning arrived. Sherlock's experiment was spread all over the kitchen worktops. Various beakers of liquids cluttered what little free space there was. Several abandoned dishes sat in the sink and bottles of chemicals were left without lids on.
Sherlock knew what time John would be up and had everything set up in advance. He put a few drops of liquid ammonia in a glass and a few drops of hydrochloric acid onto the bottom of a plate. Sherlock found a box of matches underneath his skull on the mantelpiece and noted that the cigarettes had been stolen again but right now that wasn't important. "Morning John," he greeted far too cheerfully for anyone's liking first thing in the morning.
"Have you been to bed?" was John's first question.
"No," the answer was drawn out as if he found the question ludicrous.
John had learned long ago to accept his friends obscure sleeping patterns. His eyes fell on the mess in the kitchen for the first time, "Going to clean this up?" He decided to forgo breakfast in the flat. A bacon sandwich from Speedy's would have to do unless he wanted to be poisoned by some unknown concoction.
"John look at this," it didn't go unnoticed to John that the cleaning issue had been brushed aside.
"It's a glass."
"Yes brilliant deduction. Put the plate on the glass," John took the plate that Sherlock held out for him. Arguing against such a daft request would get him nowhere. Sherlock lit a match and caught some of the smoke in his hand. He waved his hand over the plate on top of the glass. The glass began to fill with smoke.
John stood in awe of what he was seeing. Not the smoke in the glass but at Sherlock who'd spent all night working on that ridiculous trick. "That's why you didn't sleep?"
"Yes," Sherlock answered proudly, "Aren't you going to tell me that it was amazing?"
"No," John turned to walk away, "congratulations Sherlock you wasted an entire night putting smoke into a glass."
Sherlock didn't classify his evening as wasted. He'd proved something, he'd proved to John that there wasn't someone cleverer than him. It could go on his website. After all, it was just science and nothing more.
There may be other silly little bits like this one in the future, they'll probably get added to this story as a series of one shots.