It Seemed Logical

Chapter 5

This time, it took all of Sherlock's strength to even form coherent thougths during the kiss, but when the doctor started moving his lips against his own, it all just fell apart, and he resigned himself to not think at all and simply invest himself wholeheartedly into John.

Tentativelly, Sherlock's tongue grazed the other's lips, and he felt a shudder go through him as he tasted the un-sugared coffee whose scent seemed to have remained upon John's mouth since breakfast.

Sensing the detective's intentions, John parted his lips slightly, and that was all it took for both of them to lose themselves in each other, Sherlock almost digging his nails into the doctor's neck and him gripping forcefully at the other's dark curly hair to hold himself up, for his knees were threatening to give in at any moment.

Sherlock felt that John had let go of his hand, and he felt mildly disappointed until he realised it had been to cup his cheek, not unlike he had seen him do when he kissed one of those girls of his. Not knowing what to do with his free limb, Sherlock simply wrapped it around John's back, pulling him closer, leaving them with hardly any distance between each other.

As seconds turned into minutes, the detective managed to just concentrate for a long enough span of time to decide that he should break the kiss, just in case John had felt uncomfortable with this intrusion and it would do nothing but worsen their friendship.

Parallelly, John was particularly reluctant to pull away himself, knowing that Sherlock was perfectly capable of justifying the kiss as an 'experiment' and acting like it never happened or that it held no real importance, something the doctor was sure he would not be able to do at all.

Both believing the other was at least slightly uncomfortable with the current situation, the kiss ended with a mumbling of feeble excuses and both men retreated to their respective rooms, John blushing a deep red and Sherlock going over and over their conversation in his head, hoping to catch a clue on whether he had fulfilled his expectations or not.
After nearly an hour in his mind palace, more specifically, John's room - when had he acquired said space?, Sherlock decided to take a much needed leap of faith, leaving behind his pride and ignoring all scientific approaches.

He then made two phone calls: one to Lestrade to ensure that the Detective Inspector had heeded his advice on the previous case, and the other to settle the first step in his grand plan.
As soon as he had hung up, he started ruffling about his cupboard, picking out and putting on his signature suit, coat and scarf. While he did so, he allowed himself a quick glance towards John's side of the stack of drawers, and it made him determined as ever to make his doctor not regret where his garments were now located.

Not wanting to waste another second of precious time, Sherlock stormed out of his room and essentially jogged up the stairs until he found himself in front of John's closed door.

His mind already buzzing uncontrollably, he took in a breath, knocked once and said the same words he always said when he wanted to spend time with John but didn't have a good enough excuse.

"Dinner?"

"Starving" came the reply from the other side, allowing the detective to exhale that bit of air he hadn't realised he was holding in.

Sherlock stood motionless, both hands on each side of the small doorframe, listening to his flatmate pick himself up from the bed and grab his coat from the inside handle, not even stirring when the doctor opened the door and they found each other face to face once again.

Still not accustomed to this level of proximity, John looked everywhere but into Sherlock's eyes, who was just taking in every detail of his friend's face, as if he was afraid he could somehow forget what he looked like.
A fake cough brought him back out of his trance.

"Sherlock...?"

"Ah, yes, dinner!" He exclaimed, turning sharp on his heel to run down the stairs in record time. By the time John had managed to follow him outside, closing the door to 221B using the handle, as per usual, Sherlock had already stopped a cab and was holding the door open for him, signalling him to go in first.

Once they were both settled inside, the detective set the destination and both men resolved to stare out of their respective windows to avoid having any conversation at all.

On more than one occasion, John had actually opened his mouth to speak, but he kept closing it again with a shake of his head, realising all his conversation starters were much too simple or shallow. Sherlock noted all of the doctor's attempts, yet he said nothing, busy himself with the mental preparation of the next stages of his plan.

They stopped in front of an Italian restaurant John vaguely recognised from the food critics' section in the newspapers, supposedly renounced because of its extraordinary dishes and refreshing live music recitals.

From the outside, the blond man could make out that night's entertainment: a piano and a grand chello. He thanked fate internally, for had it been a violin instead of a chello, he was sure Sherlock would have interrupted whatever he was doing to criticise the musician's playing and end up playing the piece perfectly himself, to the amusement of the whole establishment.

Still smiling at the image of Sherlock angrily playing for an entire restaurant, John realised said detective was already inside, removing his black leather gloves as he waited to be seated. The grin lingering on his lips, the doctor followed his friend as they were guided towards a nice little table just next to a large window, and both men removed their coats as the waitress came again to place a candle between the two sets of plates.

Almost instinctively, John reached out to tell her they weren't on a date, but he then considered all that had happened back in the flat and pondered that maybe this was a date, after all.

Sherlock watched the other man's hesitation curiously, already figuring out what he was thinking, and smiled to himself when he saw John had chosen to accept the waitress' 'mistake'.

Locking their eyes in a rather intense gaze, both men sat down, ready to begin whatever it was they were finally starting.