A/N: I live! Briefly. Still working my skinny ass off on my Supernatural fic, but I really felt the need to write something cute and uncomplicated. Voila. The product of a mixture of Chemistry A Level and boredom, passed over a nickle catalyst at 150 degrees Celsius and 5 ATM. Bon appetit.
Periodic Table
"John!"
John Watson looked up quizzically from his paper as his infant room-mate screamed at him from the kitchen. "What is it?" he enquired mildly.
"How many outer electrons does Nitrogen have?"
Mouth opened to answer, oxygen inhaled. Pause. Blink.
"What?"
"Didn't you hear me? I asked how many outer electrons Nitrogen has!"
"I'm a doctor, why on earth would I need to know that?"
"How many, John?"
John sighed. "Five. Why?"
"Calculations."
John raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" he dared to ask.
"Very complicated, wouldn't expect you to understand." The answer was brisk, preoccupied. John could hear the frantic scribbling of pen on paper even though he couldn't.
John smirked slightly. "Can't be that complicated if it doesn't even warrant you memorising the Periodic Table."
"Unnecessary."
"You do realise you've just proved otherwise, hm, Sherlock?"
"It is unnecessary, as I will always have a Periodic Table available, whether on paper, through the internet or –"
"Apparently not this time, though." John was perhaps a tad bit more smug than was really necessary. Sherlock had needed to ask him...for help!
"Or in your head," Sherlock finished loudly. "Which has rather a lot more unused space for superfluous things such as the Periodic Table," he added, rather unnecessarily in John's opinion.
John shook his head and chuckled. "What would you do without me, I wonder?" he mused.
"What indeed?"