A/N: Sorry if it doesn't make much sense, it's been ages since I last wrote a fic, and it's been even longer since I wrote a close-to-decent one, and there's also the fact that it was 3am when I wrote this.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock BBC.
An hour after collapsing onto his bed and falling asleep before his head even hit the pillow, John woke upon hearing his name being called.
"No?" he muttered and shifted in his bed, trying not to wake himself up too much that he couldn't get back to sleep.
"John?" Sherlock tried again.
Sighing, John opened one eye to find a consulting detective standing over him.
"What d'you want, Sh'lock?" he mumbled.
"We're out of milk."
"We're out of milk?"
"Yes. And we need milk."
John lifted his head slightly to view his alarm clock. It glowed 4:58am. "Come back in 2 more hours and we'll have this conversation," he whispered before digging his head back into the pillow.
"But I need you to buy some milk. It's absolutely necessary that I have milk for... my experiment."
John whimpered and curled up into a sheet-tangled ball, "You're a big boy now, Sherlock. You can buy your own milk."
"Yes, but I don't like shopping. Shopping's boring."
"Sometimes, we have to do things we don't like." Like stay awake for 47 consecutive hours to work on a case, John thought.
When John heard Sherlock leave his room, he let his mind wander back to sleep.
He woke up 2 hours later to the smell of something burning.
"If he blows up the kitchen with his experiments again…" John grumbled, threat left hanging.
Sitting up gently and yawning, he heard footsteps approaching his door. Sherlock, if you even dare ask me to buy milk, I swear I will buy it just so I can pour it on your head.
"Happy Birthday, John." A flour-decorated Sherlock thrust the plate of burnt cake into John's hand. John almost dropped the plate — whether it was because the plate was hot or he was in shock, John couldn't tell. The cake was actually smoking slightly from the burnt bits, and he wondered if Sherlock had just put the plate of cake in the oven and forgotten about it…
In all the stress of their latest case, John had almost completely forgotten that it was his birthday.
He sat in his bed, staring at the cake. It appeared to be just a plain cake loaf with purple icing on top that simply spelt out "John".
"Uh, right… uh, thank you, Sherlock."
When John didn't move to start eating it, Sherlock gestured towards the cake.
"Oh, right. Uh, good idea."
When the slice of cake reached his tastebuds, he had to hold back a grimace.
Ah. So that's why he needed milk.