Mrs Hudson's scones—one blueberry batch and one raisin batch—were fresh out of the oven, and she insisted John take a half-dozen of each, despite his half-hearted protests that they wouldn't be able to eat all of them tonight. It was a token argument—everyone knew those scones would be gone in less than twenty-four hours.

John stepped into the flat to find that Sherlock had, apparently, gotten into the spirit of things. There were bowls overflowing with two types of crisps, one with snack mix, and a mug of nuts crammed on the already overflowing coffee table. The Jelly Babies were poured into... yes, that was the crystal ash tray from Buckingham Palace sitting on the sofa. A quick glance into the kitchen ascertained that Sherlock was mixing up a box of brownies, cuffs unbuttoned and his sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

John's mouth began watering at the sight—one of Sherlock's hidden talents was baking, although it made sense once he thought about it, as baking was nothing more than chemical reactions. Sherlock probably saw it as nothing more than an experiment with edible results.

He set the scones on the sofa and relocated the dozens of bursting cold case folders away from the coffee table, and then made his way into the kitchen.

Sherlock wasn't a messy person, regardless of what the state of their flat might suggest, but John couldn't help the laughter that burst forth when he realised that there was a smear of cocoa enhancing the shadow beneath Sherlock's right cheekbone. "Trying to disguise ourselves as brownies now?" he teased, grabbing the brownie pan to prepare it.

Sherlock looked at him blankly before raising his hand to swipe the cocoa off his face. "Baking is hardly expected to be a clean activity," he said, licking his fingers. "Do we want normal brownies or do you want peppermint, orange, marshmallow, anise, or..." He spun the small spice rack. "Strawberry, which I despise. We have chocolate chips, and the rest of the butterscotch that I didn't use on that flammability experiment..."

Sherlock tilted his head toward him, dipping his fingers into the batter and licking them off contemplatively.

John smacked his forearm as he walked by. "Don't. We already have mint chocolate ice cream," he said, putting it into the freezer—which was currently home to what looked like a... thumb collection? Of course it was. "And I don't like marshmallows. As long as that butterscotch isn't contaminated, we could make salted butterscotch. Or coffee flavoured. Or half-and-half."

"Butterscotch is fine, but I don't know how to make salted butterscotch. I assume you add lots of salt. Coffee brownies sound good, too... Oh, I should have made Earl Grey macarons." He stood in silent contemplation with narrowed eyes for a few seconds before visibly returning to his body. "Do you want to make the butterscotch brownies, then? I want to have a shower."

John sighed with mock irritation. "Sure, I'll make them—half-and-half, I think. It won't matter if the flavours blend a bit." When Sherlock wasn't looking, John swiped his fingers through the batter to taste it, despite chastising Sherlock just moments ago. "I didn't know you could make Earl Grey macarons. You'll have to make them some time—Mrs Hudson loves macarons."

"I can." Sherlock's back straightened and his features grew sharper, as though he wasn't certain whether to feel proud or affronted. "I can make anything you want; I just need time to test it first. Baking's actually quite simple."

"Everything's simple for a genius." John shot him a grin. "And the sea salt would be... where?"

"In the mouthwash bottle in the back of the cabinet." With that, Sherlock turned and trotted back to the bathroom.

"Of course it's in the mouthwash," John muttered. "At least it's not in the bleach bottle again."

Maybe Sherlock was learning after all.

John started the movies without Sherlock—the crime scene photos were pinned on the wall directly behind him, after all—but only caught snatches of the movie as he moved the rest of the papers, a laptop he'd never seen before, and an entire stack of Elvis records—why did they have these, again?—from the sofa and onto whatever surface was available. Mostly it ended up on their chairs. (Never beneath them. Sherlock had made that perfectly clear last Tuesday when he snapped at Mrs Hudson that he was measuring the amount of dust that gathered beneath them.)

"If you want to sit on your chair, tough luck," he muttered as he tossed one of Sherlock's extra—and extra ratty—dressing gowns on the detective's burdened chair. "You should've thought of that before you insisted nothing be put under the furniture and yelled at me when my laptop was the one that got blanketed in dust..."

The flat smelled of brownies by the time that he had successfully—more or less—moved everything, so he went back to the kitchen to check on them. He did the toothpick test and grabbed a towel to pull them out.

"How's the movie?"

The voice in his left ear nearly startled John into dumping the brownies back into the oven, even though he had felt the heat radiating off Sherlock's body a second before he spoke. Quieter than a bloody cat when he wants to be...

"One day you won't be fortunate and someone is going to hurt you if you insist on sneaking up behind them," he muttered, grabbing the coarse sea salt and a knife. "No matches yet to the photos. But it looks promising—I think the parlour chairs are the same as the ones in the photos." He handed a brownie back to Sherlock, who was still hovering behind his elbow.

A moment later: "Ow!" as Sherlock chowed down on the hot brownie. That's what you get, John thought, but wisely held his tongue. Didn't need Sherlock in a strop.

"Fantastic," Sherlock mumbled. "I didn't expect to be right first go. Less romance, more... Lord of the Rings, was it?"

John nodded and finished sprinkling the sea salt on the correct half of the brownies. "Yes."

"Hm." Sherlock rummaged through the freezer, pulled out the ice cream, and took the entire carton with him. He grabbed a spoon, another brownie, and traipsed into the sitting room.

John took charge of the platter of brownies and an extra spoon and traced Sherlock's steps into the sitting room... where the detective was on the sofa, already staring at the TV with an obscene amount of ice cream heaped on his spoon.

John was just taking a seat on the other end of the sofa when the familiar ring echoed throughout the flat, signalling that someone was at the front door.

"Oh! The pizza!" Sherlock exclaimed. He didn't move an inch.

John sighed. "I'll just get that, then, shall I?" he asked, even though he knew it was a rhetorical question.

Sherlock glanced up long enough to blink at him. "What?" He looked back at the TV, licking ice cream off his spoon.

He was clearly in gathering evidence mode: eyes focussed on the TV screen John could see flickering in the corner of his eye; there was no way he was convincing him to move now.

"Fine."

He snagged Sherlock's wallet and darted down the stairs just in time for the bell to begin ringing in earnest. "Yes, yes, I'm coming," he muttered, although he couldn't help grinning when he found Angelo standing with not one but two pizza boxes in his arms.

Angelo vehemently refused to accept payment, saying that he still needed to pay Sherlock back for everything he had done for him years ago. By the time that John had argued with him about the charge (and failed in his argument) and returned upstairs, Sherlock hadn't moved a muscle. His spoon was still halfway to his mouth, but at this point, the ice cream was starting to drip. At least it was hovering over the carton.

He sighed. "What do you want, bruschetta or spicy Thai chicken?"

There was no answer; he looked up to find Sherlock staring at the TV with wide eyes that reflected the image of the two main characters glaring at one another across a fancy parlour. His fingers tingled when he recognized the ugly lamp behind the female's head.

"That's the scene, isn't it?" he asked, watching the screen for another few moments before turning his attention to Sherlock and snorting in amusement as a dollop of cream and minty chocolate chunks plopped off his spoon into the container, which, thankfully, wasn't in such a pitiful state. Yet.

"Yes," Sherlock said bluntly. He fell silent again. He did, however, raise his empty spoon and lick the melted remnants off the stainless steel.

He didn't move again, and after a few minutes John grabbed the condensation-slicked tub to return to the freezer. He settled onto his end of the sofa to watch the remainder of the scene, snagging a slice of the thick, crispy-crusted pizza as he did.

Three minutes later, Sherlock burst to his feet and, amid his standard monologue when he made a breakthrough in a case—,"Oh, obvious! Clever, but obvious. The only people who would know the murderer would be people who watched this movie and, according to IMDB, it's not a very popular movie. Only the victim would have understood the meaning and the murderer would have gotten away scot-free if it hadn't been for the similarities. Wonderful!"—dashed off to his bedroom.

"If you tell me you need to be there when Lestrade makes the arrest, I will turn your phone off and get Mrs Hudson to mail it to your brother immediately, because we are not leaving the flat tonight," John called after him.

Sherlock only resurfaced after he, presumably, called Lestrade to point him in the right direction. He returned to the sitting room, pausing as he sat down. "Where's my ice cream?" he asked, then grabbed a piece of pizza as though he'd never spoken, folded it in half, and took a large bite.

Tearing his eyes away from the steamy on-screen kiss, John watched with mild satisfaction warming his chest as Sherlock made short work of the pizza. He had gotten better about eating between cases—he hadn't suffered a fainting spell in almost two months, which John was unspeakably grateful for.

Taking in the shuddering look of disgust on Sherlock's face as the kissing began its inevitable metamorphosis into the shedding of clothes, John asked: "Ready to switch to LotR now?"

Sherlock nodded enthusiastically, his curls bouncing with the movement. "Yes, please. I don't understand why people like these types of movies. It looks—and sounds—like both of the participants of the kiss are having their faces sucked off," he muttered. Getting to his feet, he grabbed two more slices of pizza and carried them to the kitchen, shoving them into the microwave. "Do you want tea or are you good with soda?"

"Hmm? Oh, soda is good for now." Although... maybe it would be better to take Sherlock up on his offer. He probably wouldn't inquire about tea anytime later. "Actually, yes, tea. If you're tossing the kettle on, I'll take some, ta." He switched out the romance movie for Lord of the Rings, asking, "Do you want to marathon, or watch until one of us falls asleep? They're almost nine hours collected."

"As you like," Sherlock replied absently, flopping back onto the sofa. He took a drink of his soda and a large bite of steaming pizza.

John happily settled back into the cushions, grinning as Galadriel's low voice sent the speakers rumbling.

Sherlock seemed intrigued with it as they watched—that or bored straight into his mind palace, since he didn't say anything, and John enjoyed the movies too much to break the potentially delicate silence between them.

It wasn't until they reached the scene where Gandalf was recounting how he escaped Isengard that Sherlock finally proved he was paying attention.

"They clearly have winged beasts that are strong enough to support fully grown adults, so why don't they fly to Mount Doom—which is a stupid name—using those?"

John hit 'pause' and reached for a handful of crisps. "Because then there wouldn't be a plot."

"But all their issues would be solved and they wouldn't have to blunder through the next two and a half movies." Sherlock poked the corner of his pizza crust towards the frozen image of Frodo's wide-eyed stare. "Simple."

John shrugged. "There's an actual reason the Fellowship didn't take the Eagles to Mordor," he admitted, "but I don't remember what it is. It's been years since I saw these movies, and even longer since I read the books."

"It's still stupid," Sherlock said in his best sulking voice, but he didn't offer any more protests, and waved for John to play the movie again, which he did, grinning slightly. Lord of the Rings appealed to everyone, even self-proclaimed high functioning sociopathic consulting detectives.

Sherlock made the occasional comment as they picked their way through the food and snacks, but was as lenient as John had ever heard while watching a movie with him. As Frodo swept his cloak over Sam to hide them from what were clearly feminine eyes, John nibbled at the remains of his third scone, bracing his feet against the coffee table to push himself into a mostly sitting position again. As though triggered by his movement, Sherlock made a grab for the bowl of popcorn they had acquired throughout the movies.

And continued to shift again. And again. And again.

Clearly not boredom, then, given his body language. With no visible end to Sherlock's wiggling in sight, John sighed. "Sherlock, you can pause it, you know. It will still be here when you get back. If you have to go, then go." Honestly, he was such a child sometimes!

"No," Sherlock retorted, eyes narrowing slightly. "I'll wait," he said stubbornly.

John dropped his head against the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. If he weren't so tired, he would've made his way to the loo and locked the door merely to spite Sherlock for all the times he'd occupied the washroom when he needed it. As it was, the mere effort of mentally plotting out the course was too much, and he resumed staring blankly at the TV. He didn't remember this part—it had been a while since he'd watched this, actually—but he couldn't bring himself to focus. It was late. He was exhausted.

John didn't know how much time passed, but Sherlock bounding to his feet drew him out of his half-dozing state. The detective all but ran to the bathroom; John rolled his eyes and sat up tiredly, punching the stop button on the DVD player. He was going to bed, and if he was going to bed, Sherlock would wait to watch the rest of the movies, because John wanted to see them, too.

Blinking as the heaviness of exhaustion descended upon his eyes, he scooped up the pizza boxes and carried them into the kitchen. Between the video store, the food, the romance movie, and Lord of the Rings, they'd been at this for almost seven hours and it had gone half past three in the morning.

He knew they should have waited until after sleeping to start the movies.

He sighed and continued to clean up the more temperature-sensitive food—had they really consumed an entire tub of ice cream?—until Sherlock rejoined him in the kitchen.

"Well, that's better," Sherlock muttered, ruffling his hair. "Oh, you've cleaned up," he added, offhandedly, as he grabbed his mug and poured himself fresh tea. His back arched in a subtle stretch and he yawned, sipping at his tea afterwards. His eyelids were drooping as he breathed in the steam off the tea.

"Time for bed, I think," John said.

He expected a rebuttal, but Sherlock merely nodded. "I think so."

He smiled faintly. "Good. More Rings in the morning."

Sherlock yawned again and set his mug down. "Good night," he said bluntly, turning and striding back for his bedroom.

"Well," John muttered, watching him vanish into his bedroom. "That could have been worse." He shook his head slightly before flicking the light off.

Because everyone likes Lord of the Rings... more or less. xP One more chapter left and I'm pretty sure you can take a guess as to where it's going to go now.

We don't own IMDB, LotR... anything we referenced or mentioned in this chapter, and not Sherlock, either. ScribeofRED and I thank you greatly for your favs, follows, and reviews!