Citrus
"MOLLY!"
The junior pathologist comes rushing in, her head whizzing with every laboratory-related fear she has. Sherlock's head is caught in a machine, Sherlock's accidentally injected himself with some sort of fatal pathogen, Sherlock's slipped and skewered himself on the scalpel shelf…
"What? What?" she exclaims worriedly as she bursts through the doors. "What's wrong? I'll call emergency downstairs, they'll be here, just—"
"Molly, would you please stop? Your overly nervous attitude really is getting quite old." he snaps, annoyed, before going back to staring, glaring, at her workstation.
She blushes, muttering a small sorry, before looking at him curiously. Sherlock Holmes had arrived in her life about six months ago, and since then her life as the newest addition to the St. Bartholomew's pathology department has gone from morgue-quiet to interestingly different. The detective, however, intimidates the heck out of her, and not just because he's bloody gorgeous and brilliant, but because it seems like he's making it a point to make her feel smaller than she already does. "W-what's wrong, then? Why d-did you call me?"
"Your desk."
Her eyes immediately dart to the table, trying to look for anything that looks weird or wrong or counter-conducive to his work. She finds none. "What about it?"
"It…" he scrunches his nose in distaste. "It smells different. It smells ridiculous. And it's affecting my concentration. What did you do to it?" he demands accusingly.
She blinks. It's her desk, isn't it her own damn right to do with it as she pleases? "I c-cleaned here yesterday, and I… I j-just used a lemon-scented freshener for the drawers. Dr. Morgan said it's okay…" she explains, wondering why she's so nervous. She doesn't have answer to him!
"Why in the world would you want to do that? Are you some sort of pre-adolescent girl who feels the need to have abhorrent odors in everything they own?"
"N-no…" she insists. "I j-just like the smell of lemons. That's all." Molly takes a deep breath. "And it's my desk and technically you're in my lab, s-so I don't think you should be complaining about what my desk smells like." she says defiantly, but with a few shakes of her voice here and there. It's a good attempt, nevertheless.
When Sherlock remains unresponsive, merely going back to his work after she's berated him for berating her, her shoulders slump down and she walks back out, muttering "…you might as well scold me for using lemon-scented shampoo as well…" angrilyunder her breath.
Seven years later…
"JOHN!"
John barely moves from his position on his armchair, too comfortable in reading his newspaper to come rushing to his flatmate who is probably just once again exploding over the most mundane of thing. "What?" he calls back, his eyes not leaving the article he's reading.
"What is this?" Sherlock barks, marching into the sitting room, holding the bottle of all-purpose cleaning solution that John has just purchased that morning.
"Apparently your deductions are falling flat today. It's a cleaning solution, Sherlock. People use that to clean kitchens and bathrooms, but of course you won't know that because you never clean."
"It's unscented." he hisses.
John puts his newspaper down to look at Sherlock, his eyebrow raised. "So? Who cares what scent it is? As long as it does its job…"
"Next time buy lemon. Lemon-scented. Just that. Understand?"
"Why?"
Sherlock sends a glare his way. "Don't ask stupid questions. Just remember to buy lemon-scented next time." he reiterates, before marching back up to his room. The smallest of blushes is on his cheeks; No way is he going to tell John that lemon reminds him of his pathologist, and that he wants the flat to smell subtly of lemon for, well, for when said pathologist visits 221B for any given reason.
Note: A bit of pre-BBC timeline for all the lovely readers. :D
In this wave, the author would like to dedicate every note to thanking the people who have started the challenges too, and also to those who are planning to join, and also to those who are still thinking about it. The more the merrier, as they say, and it definitely inspires her to see people express desire to participate.