Mystrade Advent Calendar 2017

Saturday 2nd December 2017

Baking

At the sprightly age of twenty-five, Mycroft Holmes decided he was having a midlife crisis.
This was, in part, due to personal thought - his job was lengthy and time-consuming and other than time spent at the Diogenes club, his social life was almost non-existent.
On the other hand, his mother had been rattling on about her knitting society, and Mycroft felt that having less than a social life than his own mother was a disappointing place to be in his mid twenties.
So, after much self-debate and a glass of sherry, Mycroft made up his mind to join a Saturday cookery class.
An inclusive, welcoming environment (as the pamphlet had described it) was precisely what he needed to re-ignite what little of a social life he had, and besides, Christmas was fast approaching, and he hoped to bring something new to the table (and with any luck gain the approval of his mother).
Session one involved making Christmas tartlets, a twist on the traditional mince pie. Mycroft was... hopeless, to say the least. Firstly, he cracked an egg onto the floor instead of the bowl. Secondly, he turned on the whisk before manoeuvring it into the bowl, which sent a cloud of flour exploding in all directions. It was at the third mishap - dropping the rolling pin - that the young man next to him took pity and intervened.
"You're either a pastry chef, or you're not, my mother used to say." He sympathised, picking up the rolling pin and handing it to Mycroft, who at this point was looking rather dishevelled with rolled-up sleeves and flecks of flour in his auburn hair.
"I don't suppose I'm a pastry chef, then." He grimaced. "Not any sort of chef, really..."
"Oh, you'll be surprised, I'm sure. Everyone's good at cooking something... I'm Greg, by the way. Greg Lestrade." He went to shake hands with Mycroft, then hesitated as he noticed the clumps of floury pastry between his fingers. "That's part of the problem, you need very clean hands for this bit, even though the mixing part is messy."
"I did clean my hands!" Mycroft retorted indignantly.
"Then your pastry's too loose. You need to add some more flour." Greg replied matter-of-factly. He grabbed a handful of flour and started to knead it into Mycroft's concoction.
Mycroft watched with fascination as Greg gradually turned the floury mess into something which resembled pastry.
"There you go." Greg cross back over to his bench and picked up a circular cutter.
A little taken aback, Mycroft stuttered out his thanks.
"No problem!" Greg replied with a good-natured smile. Followed by a wink.
Mycroft had to turn back to his pastry to hide his blush. One minute, he was sorting out a cooking disaster, the next he was being winked at! It was all happened awfully fast, and Mycroft (who was socially out-of-practice) didn't know what to do with himself. So, he resorted to rolling out his pastry.
"Do you need a hand with that?" Greg moved over to Mycroft's bench again.
"I think I'm okay..." Mycroft said hesitantly. Greg raised his eyebrows.
"Are you sure?"
"Ermm... how would you do it?"
Greg molded the dough back into a ball and started demonstrating the left-right-centre-flip method on rolling into a perfect circle. Mycroft watched with admiration.
"Now you try."
Mycroft delicately took up the utensil and tried to mimic Greg's long, steady movements. Unsuccessfully.
"Here, let me show you." To Mycroft's surprise, Greg reached around and took his hands up in his own, guiding his movements until he had a pristine circle of pastry in front of him.
"Thank you!" Mycroft stuttered again.
"Happy to help..." Greg smiled warmly and returned to his bench. It took him just a few minutes to perfect each tartlet before placing them in the oven.
Meanwhile, Mycroft was sizing up the cutters. There were circles, stars, squares - but he did recall Greg using the crimped-edge cutter.
"So erm, Mycroft. Can I call you Myc?"
Mycroft looked up. God that man was handsome.
"Sure, sure." He said shyly. "Greg, do you think you could - er - help me put the filling into the cases"
"Of course!" Greg shuffled over and picked up a spoon. "So, Myc, what sort of things do you like doing?"
"Oh, all sorts, me. I paint on occasion. Read. Average stuff. How about you?"
"Cooking, mostly."
"I can tell!" Mycroft smiled, dumping a teaspoon of filling into a misshapen pastry case.
The final step was to put the pies in the oven and wait for the next twenty minutes to pass. Meanwhile, Mycroft set about making tea for himself and Greg. They were leaning against the benches quite comfortably, when suddenly another class-member pointed out that black smoke was pouring from Greg's oven.
In helping Mycroft, he'd neglected his own pastries, which had reduced to little blocks of charcoal.
"Oh..." Greg murmured forlornly.
"I'm so, so sorry Gregory..." Mycroft said, quite embarrassed. "Perhaps... perhaps you could have half of my batch?"
Greg looked up and smiled, as though an idea had crept into his mind.
"Or... you could come back to mine... and we could share these over a cup of tea?" He proposed, inclining his head cheekily.
"I'd say that's an excellent idea."

With a content sigh, Mycroft sat himself down, cup of tea and mince pie at hand, opposite a very handsome young man.
Perhaps this was the start of something wonderful. Or perhaps something else.
Either way, Mycroft's social life was certainly more interesting than it had been before...