Sunday Lunch
A/n: I am very sorry for the long wait! I have been very very busy lately. I really hope this new instalment is worth it for you lovely people! Thank you so much for being patient, I owe you all! This is inspired by WL Chastain who asked for... Well, you'll find out! I hope you enjoy it, and that it was worth the wait xxx
It was one of those rare afternoons where Mrs Hudson decided to take the role of dictator, and have us around for Sunday lunch.
And I don't use the term 'dictator' lightly, as everyone knows that Sunday lunches are generally a faff, so you can imagine that this is ten times worse when trying to get one certain Sherlock Holmes out of his nest.
It also meant that I was forced out of my wonderfully cosy jumper into a shirt, picked 'and' laid out by Mrs Hudson herself (just a landlady indeed); it meant that windows were flung open to "let the air in" so that we all froze half to death, and it meant that Sherlock was pulled, kicking and screaming, out of the flat.
That, I had thought, would be the worst part. Because it took a full two hours, with the joint effort of both Mrs Hudson and I, to pull him out.
The result ended in two smashed mugs, a large puddle of tea in the middle of the carpet, and a pair of very wet jeans.
My jeans, in fact.
Of course, that had to be the moment when Mycroft walked in. I still would never understand why Mrs Hudson invited him.
He froze the second he walked through the door, eyes scanning the scene.
Mrs Hudson, who had been violently brandishing a large feather duster at Sherlock for most of the morning, was standing near the kitchen, with tea splattered over the left side of her face and I was holding Sherlock under the armpits, in the process of dragging him away from the mess, feeling very uncomfortable with the chilly breeze around the wet patch of my jeans.
Sherlock was scowling, and absolutely covered in pink feathers from the duster.
The sudden alarming silence in the room could have cut diamond.
"Well," Mycroft began, who was clearly struggling to keep his face straight, "I hoped I was doing a service for coming early, but clearly..." He paused, surveying the scene again, "my arrival is unwelcome,"
His eyes immediately found my uncomfortable wet spot. It had to be in the one place no man ever wants a wet spot to be. Perhaps that had something to do with Sherlock's excellent accuracy.
I made a mental note to murder him later for the embarrassment.
"No no dear, I think you can help," Mrs Hudson huffed, blotches of red flowered on her cheeks, throwing down the haggard looking feather duster with infinite finality, "you can help me cook the veg,"
Mycroft wrinkled his nose, but perhaps he saw, by the state of the carpet (I could swear that the puddle of tea was still swelling, gradually turning the carpet an unappealing shade of brown) and the quantity of red in Mrs Hudson's cheeks, that arguing about it wouldn't be the best idea.
In all accounts, Mrs Hudson would end up with a stripped metal pole for a duster if she brandished it anymore.
Sherlock plucked a feather from behind his ear, his face a blank mask, as Mycroft followed Mrs Hudson down to her kitchen.
Half an hour later, and some sort of order had finally been restored. Sherlock was sitting at the table in the kitchen, I was standing comfortably next to him, wearing dry jeans, and Mycroft was carving up.
I actually thought that Sherlock was beginning to behave himself until Mrs Hudson started shrieking like a demented owl.
My head shot up; Sherlock, who had been apparently engrossed with the table cloth, jumped violently. I had to dig my finger nails into my palm to stop myself from laughing.
"Blue! It's bloody blue!" I heard her wailing, after I'd finally managed to compose myself, "why is it blue?"
"What's blue?" Mycroft asked mildly.
"The cabbage!" She rounded on Sherlock.
Blue cabbage? After another moment of painful laughter suppressing, I went to investigate.
The boiling cabbage was indeed blue.
And not just a normal blue either. Electric blue. Radioactive glowing blue. Like space putty.
My dignified resolve crumbled, and I found myself roaring with laughter.
"Oh grow up John!" Mrs Hudson snapped at me, poking me with her feather duster. The sharp jab made me hiccup, and I put the lid back over the cabbage to stop it from making me laugh again.
"Sherlock, what did you do to it?" Mycroft sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The feather duster hovered threateningly over Sherlock's head and he eyed it warily.
"It was an experiment. I was measuring the specific heat capacity of a blue compound, and the cabbage pot was the best place to do it. I was unaware of its reactive properties," he said, sounding amused.
"But why?" Mrs Hudson wailed, "why the cabbage? Why did you choose the cabbage?"
"Hang on," I interrupt, a horrific thought springing to mind, "is the cabbage actually 'edible'?"
Sherlock said nothing, feathers imbedded into his curls.
"Sherlock..." Mycroft sighed.
"You're an idiot," I snapped.
"The cabbage is ruined!" Mrs Hudson cried, looking very pink in the face.
"You're welcome to try it, I'm not sure what will happen, it will be an excellent experiment," Sherlock said, seemingly oblivious to Mrs Hudson's pain.
I sighed. "Let's just get the rest served, there's not much we can do about the cabbage," I said, looking at Mrs Hudson.
She nodded, and returned to the kitchen.
I glared at Sherlock. He shrugged, nonchalant.
After a moment of quiet preparation, dinner was finally served, and we sat around Mrs Hudson's tiny table, squashed so tightly together, I felt like a sardine in a can.
This was one of the worst parts. When people started eating. Because nobody could get their arms to move properly.
Elbows went flying everywhere, shoulders were rubbed together painfully, food seemed to bounce around the table when clumsily diving forks missed their target, and I got Sherlock's elbow slammed painfully into my face.
After a moment of exhausting tackling to try and get Mycroft's arm out from under my nose, half of my serving of broccoli had gone walk abouts, and for some reason, I had an extra floret of cauliflower. The left side of my face was still throbbing painfully.
Finally, Mrs Hudson called us to a halt, and instructed us to move out a little. Once this was done, moving was a little easier. I felt like I could breath again.
I took the opportunity to make daggers at Sherlock's arm.
We ate in silence for a while, until I noticed that no matter what I did, there was always a floret of cauliflower on my plate.
I could swear that I'd eaten it three times already, and yet whenever I looked up, it was there, staring at me.
I stared, for the forth time, at the seemingly never ending cauliflower on my plate, half of me wondering if I was going around the twist.
"I could swear that I've already eaten that cauliflower," I said slowly, prodding it with my fork. Mrs Hudson raised her eyebrows.
"I'm serious," I said, trying to sound cheerful about it, when in fact, it was seriously freaking me out.
There was silence.
And then Sherlock started sniggering.
"Sherlock!" I yelled.
"What?" An attempt at the kicked puppy.
"Is this your cauliflower?!" I demanded, "do you keep putting you're cauliflower on my plate?!"
"No," despite his perfectly executed innocent expression, I could tell he was lying.
"You bloody..." I grumbled, stabbing the cauliflower furiously, and plonking it back onto its rightful plate, "...made me think I was going mad,"
He didn't reply with one of his usual quips, instead staring down at the cauliflower as though it was dirt on the bottom of his especially shiny shoes.
"What?" I scoffed, and then paused, having a moment of sudden understanding.
He glanced at me, frowning.
"No..." I gasped, a small smile curving my lips, "you don't like cauliflower do you?"
He made a face.
"You don't!"
"What does it matter? You don't like raisins," he snapped, looking irritated.
"You could have said, Sherlock!" Mrs Hudson said, looking worried.
He pulled another face, and proceeded to say something so quiet, it just sounded like noises.
"What?" I prompted.
He scowled at me, small patches of pink flowering on his cheeks.
I raised my eyebrows expectantly, and he slowly cleared his throat.
"It's ghost broccoli," he muttered, sounding mortified.
At that moment, Mycroft started choking on his drink.
He lowered the glass, and said something. Something I couldn't hear given the fact that I was silently dying with laughter.
"Ghost broccoli?" Mrs Hudson squawked.
"Indeed," Mycroft put his glass down, "I used to tell him that when he was young to scare him,"
I was laughing so hard now that I could feel my stomach muscles burning, but I couldn't stop.
"Shut up John!" Sherlock said furiously, slowly going the colour of a tomato, whilst desperate trying to regain control of the situation.
"Sherlock I wasn't serious," Mycroft said exasperatedly.
"Explain..." I finally managed to gasp out, feeling that this more than made up for the elbow in my face.
"When Sherlock was 4, he would steal all the cauliflower, run away and eat it," Mycroft began, whilst Sherlock shook his head slowly, expression one of pure terror at his old habit being unravelled, "it was getting out of hand, so to stop him from doing it, I told him it was the ghost of dead broccoli, and that if he ate too much, he would be haunted by it. It was ludicrous, but it worked. He never touched it again. I thought you'd grown out of it now," he added, raising his eyebrows at a horrified Sherlock.
I could just imagine a young Sherlock, shaking in his bed, waiting for cauliflower ghosts to appear before his eyes and haunt his dreams.
The thought sent me into a fit of laughter so ferocious, I feared that I would never come out of it again. Even Mrs Hudson was laughing now. Her owl shrieks bouncing off the walls.
Through my smarting eyes, I could see Sherlock with his head in his hands; the tips of his ears were glowing red. I wasn't going to be able to move in the morning, my muscles were burning that badly.
"Okay, okay SHUT UP!" Sherlock shouted finally. Out of pity for my dishevelled flatmate, pink feathers and all, I forced myself to stop, though my shoulders shook with the effort to restrain it, "I don't believe in it anymore, but I have never been able to bring back my love for cauliflower," he said, not being able to look anyone in the eye.
"Childish," Mycroft sniffed.
Sherlock snapped.
The next thing I knew, the cauliflower was spinning in the air towards him, almost in slow motion. I watched its progress as it flew in an arch, and lodged itself into Mycroft's hair.
I lost it completely, Sherlock stormed out, and Mrs Hudson seemed at a loss for what to do.
After that, Mrs Hudson declared that there would be no more group Sunday lunches "ever, ever, ever again,"
She also stated that we "all behaved like young children, and I am not going to go to such trouble to entertain overgrown five year olds,"
Mycroft left soon after, Sherlock was sulking with his back to us in his chair, and I had to drink about three gallons of water before my hiccups finally went.
It had been a very eventful day.
A/n: I hope it's okay, let me know what you think! A review or two would be amazing! Xxx