When Y/N returns home, she climbs the stairs to the flat not just because she lives there but because she's curiously following a smell.
She recognises the smell but it doesn't usually come from her apartment.
It usually comes from a Gregg's, or those stainless steel kitchens at the back of Sainsbury's with the big ovens.
There's a tiny fluffy stegosaurus keyring hanging from her house keys; Sherlock had bought him for her from the gift shop when they'd last visited the Museum Of Natural History. She strokes his little head with the pad of her thumb as she unlocks the door—a nervous habit that has made his fluff go flat, like bangs over his black beady eyes.
What is Sherlock doing in there? And why does it smell so good?
Cautiously, she peers about the apartment.
He is not in the living room, and the heap of papers he'd been scribbling over that morning are all completely gone from his desk.
Y/N wonders, for one heart-stopping moment, if he's taken them to some sort of workshop to bring his invention into reality—but then she spots his scribbly drawings clogging up the waste paper basket; as if he'd swept them off the desk with one arm in a moody huff.
Rounding the corner, her shoulders sag as she finds Sherlock's long body stooped over the kitchen counter. He still hasn't changed out of his blue pyjama t-shirt, but his dressing gown has disappeared and, unusually, his arms are exposed. They're pale but surprisingly muscled, and Y/N's lip twitches to think of him secretly managing to do push-ups in the cramped space between his bed and wardrobe.
She also notices he is wearing trousers, so his mental state doesn't seem to have depleted anymore while she was gone. They are pyjama trousers, though, which implies he didn't leave the house after all.
His ears metaphorically prick with the sound of the door closing, and he turns around. "Y/N!" Excitedly, he gestures with one hand, rising back to his full height. "Come look at this!"
"Okay but you look at this, I popped into Boots on my way home. Your shaving foam was on offer so I got you some more, I know how you like to hoard them."
"It's not a hoard, it's an index. But thank you. Come on, I want to show you something."
Y/N unlaces her shoes. "What is it?" She would be lying if she claimed her voice lacked a weary air of suspicion.
Sensing it, he reassures:
"It's good, you'll like it."
Shrugging off her coat, Y/N hooks it on one of the pegs by the door, her little jacket dwarfed by Sherlock's giant blanket-like Belstaff.
His blue scarf has slithered onto the floor, and she brushes some lint from the wool and hangs it back up where it belongs.
"That's what you said about the Tupperware from the morgue."
Sherlock's eyebrows furrow in genuine confusion. "There's nothing inherently bad about Tupperware."
"It was what was inside it that bothered me."
Joining him in the kitchen is a little difficult because she has to squeeze between the table and the counter, which Sherlock hasn't moved away from.
He seems to be guarding something, but as Y/N opens her mouth to ask what, a basket is pressed proudly into her hands.
The weave is warm, steam rising in delicious-smelling ribbons. It blurs her vision, but she can clearly see it is full of bread.
"I made it," Sherlock clarifies, just in case the flour and dough-caked mixing bowls weren't enough of a giveaway. Some of it is on his t-shirt.
Y/N regards the basket with narrowed eyes.
It appears to have begun as a baguette, which he has sliced and toasted with a hearty wad of garlic butter slathered over each side. The loaf's crust is golden and crispy, the innards like a fluffy white sponge.
"...You made this?"
His exuberant smile falls heavily into a flat frown. "You don't need to sound so surprised; it's surprisingly easy."
Cautiously, Y/N takes a piece, the crust crackling between her finger and thumb. She bites into it and moans. "...It's amazing."
Obviously, he'd gotten the reaction he'd been hoping for. He's got a sort of smirk playing about his lips. "Down on your knee, then."
Puzzled, her cheeks full of bread like a squirrel:
"What?"
"You said you'd marry me if I made garlic bread."
She laughs, taking another bite, this time of the middle alone, the dough sodden and salty and wonderful.
Sherlock takes some too, and they munch away happily, Y/N against the table and Sherlock against the counter—after first brushing it with one hand so his shirt doesn't get covered with the mess behind him.
There isn't much room between the two, so their feet have slotted together automatically: Sherlock's, Y/N's, Sherlock's, Y/N's.
His left sock is spattered with a smattering of bread flour.
Curious as to the state of the rest of his workspace, Y/N leans to see around Sherlock's torso—
—but he leans with her, her eyes unable to glimpse past their egg basket shaped like a chicken (that they'd called Pauline).
"Sherlock, what are you—?" She leans the other way this time, and, once again,he mirrors her, hindering her view past the kettle. Before he can right himself, Y/N side steps, trying to dodge around him like a netball player—
—but he simply steps neatly to the right, blocking her with his body.
Her brows furrowed, the bread basket making one of her hands hot:
"What are you hiding?"
"Nothing. I just need to clean up the kitchen."
"Bollocks; you've done something." Y/N's lip twitches. "Show me."
"I haven't done anything! Apart from making this absolutely stupendous bread. Tell me again how much you like it. What word did you use before? I think it was 'uughhh'."
Her cheeks budding with two splotches of pink, like ink through paper, Y/N narrows her eyes. "Then why won't you let me see?"
"I'm not not letting you see, I am simply standing in a location."
Putting the bread down, she licks the butter off her fingers determinedly.
He watches, then his blue eyes go suddenly wide as she takes his middle firmly and shifts him out of the way by force.
She doesn't need to use much force.
As soon as her hands closed on his narrow waist he'd gone strangely pliant.
With the counter exposed (or rather, what sits shamefully on the counter) she doesn't have much time to think about it. Peeling back a sooty teatowel, Y/N cackles and prods a pitch black slab.
It's still hot, but not too hot to pick up and wave teasingly under Sherlock's nose.
So she does. "What happened to this?"
Sherlock smiles sheepishly. "I forgot about it."
Turning the slab to examine all of its charred, crusty angles:
"It's amazing you managed to cook it until it caught fire, yet it still didn't rise."
Protectively, Sherlock snatches the loaf from her hands and stamps on the bin pedal.
The lid closes on the failed bread with a snap.
"Can we just focus on the one that did rise? And, I if I do say so myself, it rose rather well."
"It did indeed rise very well." Y/N concedes because she knows when to stop bullying him just before she's gone too far. Hoping he can feel her genuine admiration, she takes his arm and gives it an excited little shake. "We should have it with something. Something worthy of its excellence. Of its quality and its magnificence."
"Well, now you're just being silly." But his lip twitches with a pleased smile.
...
While Y/N scrubbed and chipped the burnt bits out of the oven, Sherlock cooked dinner, as he often does.
This time, however, when she tries to engage him in conversation, his replies are vague and preoccupied, and when Y/N removes her head from the oven to confront him, she finds his nose deep in a cookbook she doesn't remember seeing on their shelf.
There's a crinkle of concentration building between his dark eyebrows, and their entire spice cupboard has been emptied out onto the counter and compartmentalised into several groups. He's tied an apron protectively around his middle to guard the clean shirt he changed into.
It is patterned with black and white stripes and is a foot too short. Y/N is almost certain Mrs Holmes had bought it for him back in his days of high school Food Tech. She would tease him about it—
—if he didn't look like he's putting genuine effort into what he's doing.
And if he hadn't carefully set the table with their best flatware.
As she takes her first bite, Y/N catches a glimpse of bluey-green as Sherlock's eyes dart from his plate.
He's gauging her expression, waiting for her judgement and, when she makes an enraptured humming sound, he grins.
Both their plates cleared, Y/N stands to start washing up, stretching her arms up over her head like a content cat. "That was brilliant, Sherlock, thank you."
"You didn't think it was too salty?"
Y/N shakes her head, meaning it. "It was perfect." She grins, giving his cheek a kiss as she leans over to take his plate. "You're turning into quite the little housewife."
It makes his whole face go red.
They played Scrabble that evening and argued over whether "sceen" is a word. A quick call to Mycroft had settled that it wasn't. Afterwards, as always, when night has well and truly set in and the curtains are pulled, Y/N puts on a movie Sherlock insists he will hate.
And, as always, she catches him watching it from the corner of his eyes as he pretends to read a book.
...
Sherlock cooked every day after that, his new cookbook becoming thick with spatters of butter and sauce between the pages, and wrinkly where he'd spilled various liquids onto the paper by accident.
He presents each dish hesitantly, obviously waiting for Y/N's approval, then spends the rest of the meal revelling in her enjoyment.
Y/N lies in on Saturday, but even then she's still up before Sherlock.
He stumbles into the kitchen wrapped in his duvet at around noon.
Reading on the side of the sofa closest to the window, Y/N peeks over her book periodically, watching her flatmate amusedly as he struggles to make a bowl of cornflakes while half asleep.
There's a clinking of metal on glass as he tries to fish the wad of cream out of the neck of the bottle with a spoon, then a crunching as he flattens the flakes down into the milk. They are then covered with blueberries from the fridge:
His daily ritual.
A little while later, he pads into the living room, more awake now, and sheds his duvet, ditching it in his armchair.
Y/N finds herself curiously disappointed that he remembered to put pyjamas on underneath it. She decides not to look into that too closely.
She'd thought he'd flop down into his chair along with the duvet—like a bird in a giant, feathery nest—but is surprised when, instead, he perches next to her on the sofa.
The cushion dips with his weight. "Y/N."
She can feel his eyes boring into the side of her head expectantly.
He is fully awake now, and pops a blueberry into his mouth.
"Y/N."
"What is it? I'm reading."
"No, you're not, I saw you watching me."
"I wasn't watching you, you were distracting me."
He nudges her arm. "Y/N." When she ignores him he nudges her again. "Y/N."
"What?"
"Can I ask you to do something?"
"Anything you need."
"It's ridiculous, I'll warn you."
"I'm used to that; you're a ridiculous man."
From his pyjama pocket, smothering the blade with his hand, he holds out some scissors.
They're the delicate, silver, pointy ones from the bathroom.
"Can you cut my hair?"
"What?"
"My hair. It's too long. Look."
Submitting to defeat, Y/N closes her book and turns to face him.
He perks up, pleased he's finally won her attention. "See?" He blows a huff of air upwards into his fringe.
It is indeed an inch or two past his eyes.
"What about that guy you usually go to? What's his name? Mr Canned Soup?
"Mr Candicci. And it's not that he can't do it, it's that he won't. Come on, we've got nothing better to do today."
"Sherlock, I don't know how to cut hair. Well, I've seen people do it but I think it's one of those things that look easy but actually aren't. Like crochet."
"Come on, we can do it in the bathroom."
"Excuse you?"
"I'll sit on the side of the bath. The floor's easier to sweep." He furrows his brows. "What did you think I meant?"
"Nothing. Why can't you go to another barber?"
His nose wrinkles as if he smells something bad. "I'd have to speak to new people."
Y/N rolls her eyes. "Oh yeah, why did I even ask?"