Notes:

A shorter chapter this time, to set the tone for this next section. And oh, just a soupcon of Drunk Sherlock.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

John had decided, after the incident with the hidden room and what followed, that setting up a regular schedule of get-togethers was necessary. Nothing that seemed too much like therapy—more the normal interaction between long-time friends, but scheduled enough so that Sherlock couldn't conveniently "forget" about it. So, after a fair amount of prodding, Sherlock agreed that Thursday evenings worked for him.

Sherlock surprised him, when John called to set up the first session, by offering to cook dinner at Baker Street. John's long silence apparently spoke volumes about his reaction. "Really, John. Why do you persist in thinking I'm incapable of the smallest domestic chores?" Sherlock sniffed.

"Fact that you refuse to do any of them might have something to do with it," John drawled.

John could hear Sherlock's grin over the phone. "It's always worked very well to keep me from doing things I don't want to do," he said airily. "That's indifference, not incapacity."

Thursday evening, then, John left directly from the clinic, deciding to take a taxi rather than the Tube since his shoulder was playing up a bit. When they reached Baker Street, though, the cabbie suddenly stopped, well down the road from 221B. John looked up the street and saw flashing lights and a fire engine and immediately thought of Sherlock. He threw money at the cabbie and jumped out, hustling up the street while trying to call Sherlock at the same time.

Threading his way rapidly around emergency vehicles and firemen, John slowed suddenly at the scene in front of the flat. Tendrils of smoke wafted gently out of the doorway, though not enough to make John fear the building was on fire. Sherlock sat on the steps, blanket around his shoulders and an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Mrs. Hudson stood over him, giving him what was clearly a thundering scold while Sherlock stared glumly at the pavement and coughed periodically. As John stepped into hearing range, Sherlock apparently disagreed with something Mrs. Hudson said, raised his head and spoke to her. John didn't hear what he said, but clearly heard Mrs. Hudson respond, "You were unconscious, Sherlock!"

Something in Sherlock's face, though, softened her anger, and she reached out and ran her fingers fondly through his hair. Sherlock sighed, closed his eyes, and leaned his head and shoulders against her legs. John managed to catch Mrs. Hudson's eye, shook his head before she could speak, and gestured over to the paramedics—he wanted to get the whole story before hearing Sherlock's version.

Five minutes later, John walked back over and stood in front of Sherlock, who opened his eyes and started to take off the oxygen mask. "Nope," said John. "Leave it on for the next ten minutes, or make a trip to hospital. Those are your options." Sherlock curled his lip but left the mask in place. John settled on the steps next to him as Mrs. Hudson moved over to thank the firemen.

"Set the oven on fire, tried to put it out yourself, then collapsed from smoke inhalation. Did I miss anything?" John said mildly.

Sherlock bristled and pulled the mask away just enough to speak. "I did not collapse." "Unconscious, Sherlock!" snapped Mrs. Hudson over her shoulder. Sherlock glared at her back but subsided. He coughed again, wetly.

"Apparently a recent history of repeated bouts of pneumonia has left my lung capacity somewhat compromised," he said finally. "I didn't realize the problem until I fell and couldn't get up."

John silently thanked God that Mrs. Hudson had been home (and was strong enough to drag Sherlock out of the kitchen, apparently), and made a mental note to follow up on that 'recent history' comment later. "Damage to anything but the oven and your pride?" he asked, and Sherlock, reluctantly, told him the whole story, scowling at John's reaction. And John realized that Mary had to hear this one.

Fifteen minutes later he and Sherlock were in a cab, heading to John and Mary's house. The fare would be horrific, but Sherlock insisted on paying (and clearly couldn't handle the Tube at the moment anyway). John had called Mary and told her the basics, asked her to order pizza, and let her know that an entertaining story was coming her way, while Sherlock glowered at him from across the taxi.

Halfway there, John's mental note popped into his head again. "'Recent history of repeated bouts of pneumonia'—how many, then? You told me about Hungary, and you were very ill here the spring before you… left. So twice in three years?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No, four times, actually. London and Hungary, yes. But also France—I had to sleep rough for several weeks, got ill but could do nothing about it for too long. Spent two weeks in an MI6 hospital outside Paris. And then Russia—I escaped from a group of Chechens who had kept me confined in an outdoor shed for three days in early April. Too cold, too damp, no food. I had to leave on foot, and traveled nearly twenty miles before I could go no further. It's how I met Pasha, in fact—he found me lying in the middle of the road. Put me in his truck and took me home, like a stray puppy." His face slid into sadness momentarily. Then he coughed heavily, closed his eyes and leaned back into the corner of the cab, clearly done talking for now.

Once again, John felt that queasy awareness of just how much Sherlock hadn't said about his time away. He, too, fell silent for the remainder of the trip, but it wasn't a completely comfortable silence. Too many secrets still.

Mary, wisely, made no attempt to coddle Sherlock when they arrived, but she didn't really tease him either. John was once again impressed with how well she dealt with Sherlock's often fragile ego. "Come on in, then," she said, lacing her arm through Sherlock's. "Why don't you go get a quick shower before the pizza comes? You smell a bit like burnt toast." Sherlock gave a nod and headed down the hall to the bath, while John fished out the pair of sweats he kept around for just this kind of occasion and set them on the toilet lid.

The pizza came just as Sherlock wandered back into the kitchen, looking ridiculously young in the rumpled sweats, damp curls flopping on his forehead. Mary grinned. "Excellent timing. You two set the table, please. Oh, Sherlock, I ordered a plain cheese one for you." Sherlock gave her a pleased smile. John often told him his eating habits were like a toddler's—he was absurdly sensitive to textures, and would invariably pick everything off his pizza. Vegetables, including mushrooms and onions, were "slimy", and meats were "too chewy". John had tried to broaden Sherlock's horizons by continuing to order pizza with different toppings, but Mary took the path of least resistance.

John waited until they were all comfortably full, even Sherlock (who surprised him by actually eating three full slices without complaint). Then he shoved his chair back, stretched, and pounced. "So. Ready to tell Mary all about your culinary exploits?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but was clearly resigned to it. Mary folded her hands in her lap and smiled encouragingly. "Oh, very well. Mrs. Hudson will surely tell you, even if I don't. I still say, though, that it was a good idea at its core," Sherlock sniffed.

"Good ideas don't usually lead to firemen and evacuated flats, Sherlock," Mary said mildly, a wicked grin on her lips.

"All right, fine. The execution left something to be desired. I was distracted at a critical moment."

"And what exactly were you distracted from?" Mary prodded.

"The chicken. I was trying a new idea for chicken. I had eaten it accidentally earlier in the week and found it quite tasty, so I thought I could replicate it in the kitchen."

Mary blinked. "How does one eat something accidentally, exactly?"

Sherlock frowned. "I didn't eat it accidentally. It was prepared that way accidentally."

John smirked. "This is the good part," he told Mary. Sherlock expanded the frown to include him as well.

"Yes, John, just as amusing as the first three times you questioned me about it," Sherlock muttered. John continued to grin. Mary flapped her hands in a "get on with it" fashion. "I could tell this more quickly if I were not continually interrupted," Sherlock said haughtily. John and Mary both made zipping motions across their mouths.

"Yes. Well. Earlier this week I stopped briefly and purchased lunch, but Lestrade texted me before I had a chance to eat it. It was sautéed chicken, and, in keeping with John's constant nagging about my eating habits," he shot a sardonic look at John, who nodded approvingly, "I decided to take it with me rather than leave it. I happened to have a paper napkin in my pocket from that morning that I had carried one of Mrs. Hudson's honey pastries in, so I wrapped it up in that and put it back in my pocket." Sherlock paused and waited for comments, then continued.

"Several hours later I remembered the chicken was still in my pocket. I took it out, took a bite, and realized that the honey had permeated the breading on the chicken. It was very good. I ate all of it. And when John mentioned having dinner this evening, I thought I might try to recreate that. It didn't seem that it would be difficult—cover the chicken in bread crumbs, sauté it, and then coat in it in honey. I wasn't sure how to effectively accomplish the last bit, so I asked Mrs. Hudson. She suggested covering the cooked chicken with honey and then putting it briefly under the broiler. So that's the approach I took. But I apparently miscalculated ingredients or timing in some fashion, and then the oven caught fire while I was out of the room." He looked at John and Mary challengingly, daring them to find any of this unreasonable.

John grinned, looked over at Mary (who was a bit mystified), then said, "Sherlock. Tell Mary exactly how you coated the chicken with the honey."

Sherlock frowned again. "I already told you. The chicken was wrapped in the napkin with the honey and it permeated the breading."

Mary blinked, while John waited, waited…

"Sherlock," she said slowly. "You put the honey on the same way, then?" Sherlock nodded. Was everyone dim this evening?

"So… you wrapped the chicken in…paper napkins with honey on them?" Sherlock nodded again. Mary was clearly struggling with herself, and John's eyes were glowing with mirth.

"And then. The broiler. You put it under the broiler." She was now laughing openly, as John giggled beside her. "The broiler. Which is an open flame. On paper napkins!" And they howled, and Mary cackled until tears ran down her cheeks, and Sherlock's pale skin flamed into a full-on blush from his collarbones to his hairline. "Yes, right," he grumbled. "I told you I was distracted. Very droll. Glad to provide the evening's entertainment. The least you can do is serve the pudding now."

After dinner, John went into his study to clean up some complicated NHS paperwork he'd been putting off for far too long, and Mary took Sherlock into the lounge with an eye to finding a movie for Sherlock to criticize. John heard Sherlock's deep voice howling in outrage once or twice and Mary's giggle, and was struck by how home-like this all felt—and how much difference a couple of months had made.

He ended up working far longer than he intended, and came wandering back to the lounge long after the movie had ended, half expecting Mary, at least, to have gone off to bed. He was surprised to see both Sherlock and Mary sitting on the sofa, glasses in their hands. He was even more surprised when Sherlock saw him, blinked, and chirped "Hi!" in an enthusiastic voice, a lopsided grin on his face.

John stopped, looked at Sherlock again, closely, then looked over at Mary. "He's pissed."

Sherlock nodded happily. "Yup," he agreed, bobbing his head up and down.

John looked back to Mary. "And why is he pissed? Or more accurately, how? He doesn't really drink."

Mary shrugged. "I don't claim to understand it. He asked about the bottle of brandy—you know, the one Mycroft gave you for Christmas." Sherlock beamed and nodded again. "So I opened it—he says it's very expensive, and I've never tasted very expensive brandy before, at least not 800-quid-a-bottle brandy. We each had two glasses, although his were bigger glasses than mine. And the first thing I know, he's, well, like this." She pointed at Sherlock, who continued to smile blearily from the end of the sofa.

John sighed. "It's very simple. The reason he doesn't drink is because he has the capacity of a nine-year-old girl." Sherlock bobbed his head some more, though he clearly wasn't quite sure what he was agreeing with.

Mary grinned. "He's really adorable like this, you know." Sherlock frowned a bit, then forgot why and returned to his cheerful mien. "Maybe we should keep some brandy on hand all the time."

John shook his head. "Nope. This is just the first part. It gets less attractive." Mary looked up inquiringly.

"I've seen him drunk now three, no, four times since I've known him, all for cases, when he couldn't avoid drinking," he continued. "He follows a very set pattern. First hour or so, he's like this: happy as a lark. Then he suddenly turns green and vomits up his toenails for half an hour." Mary flinched. "And then finally he passes out, and I have to carry him to bed." Mary reached over wordlessly and took Sherlock's glass away. Sherlock sighed resignedly but didn't protest.

John was reaching for Mary's hand, preparing to chivvy everyone off to bed, when Sherlock suddenly sat up straight and said, "It wasn't all bad, you know." He looked at them earnestly, while John stopped trying to pull Mary off the couch and settled carefully into a chair. "Um… what wasn't, Sherlock?" John said gently, though he suspected he already knew.

Sherlock blinked, obviously struggling a bit to work through an actual question. "When I was away. It wasn't…" He abruptly hauled himself off the couch, lurching precariously to his feet and staggering down the hall. Just as John was about to set off in pursuit, he was back, wallet in his hands. He dug in the side pocket, fumbling a bit, and then gave a small sound of triumph as he produced a creased photograph and held it out.

John saw two men in the picture. One was a shortish, very muscular older man with a barrel chest and a shock of spiky grey hair, and the other was clearly an oddly-dressed Sherlock, whippet-thin, scowling and ferociously sunburnt. John took it, looked, looked again, and held it out to Mary, whose forehead creased in concentration. "Sherlock," she began, "are those really, erm, on your head, are those…"

"Pig intestines. And other bits," he nodded, with what appeared to be delight. He looked over at John, who was still struggling with the idea of a picture of, well, that. "Did I tell you the story of the pig? I don't think I did but my memory doesn't seem to be at home right now," Sherlock continued, a brief bit of concern rolling across his face before the sunny smile returned.

John and Mary shook their heads in unison.

"Very well, then. I shall tell you the story of the Pig, the Monk, and the Donkey," he said grandly, and thumped himself back down on the couch.

Notes:

The whole "setting the oven on fire with chicken in paper napkins" thing? I didn't make that up. That is something a college neighbor of mine ACTUALLY DID. And-wait for it-he was majoring in Aerospace Engineering. An honest-to-God rocket scientist, friends and neighbors.