"Brilliant. Fucking super. Now what?"

John Watson, confirmed bachelor, admitted he was at an utter standstill. Bollixed, be-calmed and done in.

"I ask you."

"What, John? Did you say something?"

Christmas-time, in London town, was a dizzying panoply of date-type opportunities for the emergent potential 'couple', from shopping to strolling to dining to clubs, live revues and cinemas, exhibitions and private parties. An array of the 'fun', the 'exhilarating', the 'merry'—all 'round, just a smashing good time to be had by those desirous of furthering their acquaintance in a romantic manner and in a convivial atmosphere. With an eye towards romance, that is, in the long view, and a short hot gimp at some holiday season fucking, more immediately.

Wasn't likely to be the sex was the problem. Was that Sherlock Holmes and dating didn't appear to go together.

"Not hungry," Sherlock had replied, when John suggested dinner. "I just ate yesterday, actually. No need to do it again so soon, John."

"Don't like them; waste of time," Sherlock had muttered darkly, when John had remarked that perhaps that new film, the one everyone was raving over? Might be the thing? "When I have a dozen inane scripts to read through? When my crashingly stupid bore of a disappearing agent, Sebastian, must be hunted down and brought to strict heel? Be serious. Oh, and have you seen my riding crop?"

"Oh, no, really, John?" Sherlock had sunk his head in his hands and shaken it sadly when John brought up the concept of perhaps visiting a gallery opening. 'Culture' was always a shot in the arm; had those romantic juices flowing, didn't it? "Art? They dare call that art? Glaringly inchoate acrylic daubs tossed haphazardly on miscellaneous surfaces by practicing morons? Why would they ever? And I don't care for photography, either, unless it's black-and-white and documentary-style. Not a lot of that sort on schedule at any of your poncy galleries, I don't think."

"You go ahead if you like, count me out." Sherlock had flapped a dismissing hand and raised a snooty nose to the suggestion of a torch-lit boating trip down the Thames, a docent-guided tour of the V&A and both a rugby and a soccer match, the tickets of which were quite coveted by all John's other male mates—but not Sherlock. "Tedious, the lot of it. Can't understand how you stand even considering."

"Oh, god, no!" Also a pop-type concert, with some bird who had a famous song (Adelaide, was it?); a casual night down the local, with darts; and a visit to the Borough Market: "Bor—ing!"

"…But do come here, John," Sherlock had followed that last negative with a positively 'come-hither' sly look in his glittering eyes and an eager flare of those pretty nostrils he was so fond of raising upon high. "To me; sit by me." He patted the elderly cushion next to the one he'd just whumped his lovely arse down on with a thump and actually wriggled upon it, his silk wrapper artfully unwrapping. "Join me on the sofa. Mrs Hudson has just brought us…tea."

'Tea', as John had discovered, was a code word of sorts, standing primarily for 'shagging with Sherlock'.

Still, stymied. He was stymied. Sex was all very and good—very well-and-good, cheers!—but a man couldn't exist on a steady diet of the physical alone. Well…he could, but John didn't want to, necessarily. Not with Sherlock.

However, as far as John could tell, Sherlock never went out, unless it was to work. He was a homebody, with his roots firmly planted in 221B Baker, his tip of a flat, and it would probably take a bloody gas leak explosion to shift him. Or a coffin and bearers.

That idea left John shuddering.

"Right, right," he sighed, subsiding heavily next to his irritating light 'o love upon the ancient sofa. Potential LOL, that was, as neither of them had breathed a word of making this official, this 'thing', this mad, passionate shagging streak they'd going. For two weeks now. During shooting, after shooting, before shooting. Practically all the bloody time, and John wondered every now and again when it was he might venture back to his own flat for some honest-to-God sleep. "Yes, okay, Sherlock. Whatever you say."

Sherlock treated him to an absolutely dazzling grin, one of his real ones. There were several sorts; John generally was allowed the 'real' ones. They tended to transform his elegant beast into a Prince Charming.

Which was, in large part, why John rarely ventured back to his own flat, these days.

"One of the many things I do admire about you, John Watson, is your eminent good sense; you always know when it is to give in," he purred, in that honey-drenched way he had, the one that just sank right into John's skin, straight down to his testicles. "To reason." Which, naturally, were already quite interested. "Ah? Speaking of 'giving in', John?"

In a lightning fast motion, Sherlock twitched an enquiring brow at John and scooted his whole lanky elegant body over, swinging a long leg and a willowy arm until he had John's startled person firmly straddled, pinned in place on his flattened cushion. He settled his blessedly delicious bum atop John's shrinking hips with a smirk and narrowed a pair of very knowing eyes upon John's instant and automatic gaze southward. Where events were happening, evidently, of the physical nature. Fancy that. "How about you practise a little 'giving' right now? John."