They both coughed violently as they inhaled the thick, grey smoke that poured out of the oven.

"I thought you were good at this Christmas thing!" Spencer accused through gasps.

He looked ridiculous, eyes red and streaming (why did the smoke smell toxic?) and hair fluffed up to an impressive volume from the heat. He really could get some height to it. There were streaks of soot across his face, it made his eyes look incredibly bright. She probably didn't look much better, though her hair was probably in a better state (not that that took much).

Emily glared at him as her lungs burned from the effort to breath. Seriously, why was the smoke so thick? That had to be a problem with the oven not their attempt at cooking. Turkey did not, could not, turn hazardous like that.

"The decorating! I'm good at the Christmas decorating. I never claimed that I could cook Christmas dinner! Hell, I can barely cook a normal dinner."

She made a dramatic huffing noise for good measure. Everyone knew that. It was why her apartment was close to no fewer than five different takeouts and why her kitchen counter always had at least seven different takeout menus strewn across it. Hey, at least she had variety. She never invited people to her place for dinner for this very reason! Okay, if push came to shove, she could follow a recipe. A simple recipe but that didn't in anyway mean she could cook Christmas dinner. That was a whole 'nother level of complexity that she just couldn't deal with. Obviously.

"Why do I smell garlic?" Spencer asked, sniffing the air and looking confused. "There was no garlic anywhere in the recipe."

Emily sniffed hesitantly and immediately started coughing again. She couldn't smell anything over the smoke. She looked dolefully at her counter and floor. What was the best way to get rid of soot marks? Why did they even open the oven door?

"At least nothing was on fire," Spencer said in a hopeful tone, obviously trying to find some bright side no matter how miniscule.

Too bad that she was in no mood to see any sort of bright side. There was no bright side.

"No, we just have a constantly smoking mass instead," she snapped.

As of it wanted to prove her point, the oven belched out another cloud of black smoke. It wasn't as acrid smelling this time, you could actually smell burnt food now. Progress she supposed. Not that burnt food smelt in any way good but at least it wasn't possibly poisonous or debilitating to your respiratory organs. Hopefully.

"Which should be easier to clean up than the remnants of a fire extinguisher," Spencer pointed out.

They both gave the mess another appraising look. Emily wasn't convinced of that.

"I don't even have a fire extinguisher," Emily admitted and braced herself for the fallout.

"What!"

Yep, there it was. It was quite amusing how accurately she could predict one of his freak outs. Admittedly, her not having a fire extinguisher was actually a reasonable excuse for a freak out. This time.

"How can you not have a fire extinguisher? Do you know how dangerous that it? How many apartment fires that happen every year? No, every month?"

She let him rant on until he kind of just... fizzled out, panting heavily. Which was a bad idea because that meant he inhaled even move smoke and had another coughing fit. Emily patted him on the back as he spluttered himself out.

"That wasn't a smart idea now, was it?"

He glared at her, unappreciative of her wit, "Like the idea of not having a fire extinguisher?"

"Well, it's a bad idea in general," Emily admitted. "But it's not a bad idea now because we didn't need it."

"And what if we did?"

"I don't think a turkey can catch on fire..."

Cue another exasperated look from Reid. She supposed anything could be set on fire if you tried hard enough. Admittedly, once she had set carrots on fire but that was more down to an incident with a gas cooker and a spilled bottle of wine than the flammable nature of carrots...

Emily prised open her kitchen window, suddenly realising that it would actually help the toxic smoke leave the room. Hopefully no one would spot it outside and call the fire brigade or something. That would be far too embarrassing.

Spencer poked the remnants of their alleged 'meal' remorsefully. Emily swore that it oozed, which was impressive considering that it was burnt to a cinder. She had honestly thought that that phrase was serious artistic license. Nope. You could literally burn things to a cinder. Huh. You learn something new every day.

"We tell no one of this," Emily instructed.

She did not need to be scolded by Rossi about her cooking abilities nor be on the end of Morgan's endless teasing. Both would just be relentless and wouldn't actually help them. Well, Rossi probably would and make them sit through one of his cooking tutorials but no one had time for that! Especially when very little of his instructions made sense to her and she spoke multiple languages! Stupid Italian.

Spencer gave the burnt lump another betrayed look and nodded his agreement.

"Definitely not."

They both heaved a sigh of relief.

"What are we going to do for Christmas Dinner then?" he asked after a few beats of silence."

Emily thought for a moment and sighed. "We'll just have to practice."

She saw an awful lot of turkeys and hams in their future. Surely, they were bound to get a couple, right?

"Only if we invest in a fire extinguisher."

That was something she could agree to. Mainly because between their combined effort, a fire or an explosion was almost certainly going to happen. She sniffed the air again and pulled a face. Maybe they should get some hazy suits as well.

"Deal."

Now where did she put that air freshener?