It was a Saturday morning about a week after they had met Moriarty at the pool, and things were almost, almost back to normal. John and Sherlock had gone the very English route of not talking about it at all, and it was working out — except they were both sleeping very little. John had convoluted nightmares every time he let his subconscious reign, and Sherlock seemed to be in one of his dark moods.
"John," Sherlock said in the tone of a casual announcement, "I would like to amend our relationship."
"Yeah?" John looked up at Sherlock over his cup of tea. Sherlock had been pacing and playing the violin all night. Perhaps he had been thinking about this 'amendment to their relationship', whatever that meant. It would take a lot more than such an announcement to phase John, at this point.
"Yes," Sherlock enunciated very carefully with a frown. "I, personally, would like to amend our relationship to include sexual interactions. Would you be open to that?"
John gave a long blink. "Er. Well. Why, Sherlock?"
"Why?" Sherlock swept around the kitchen table to loom over John with sufficient drama and presented the 'you're an idiot' look. "It recently has come to my attention that, quite without my meaning to, I have become attached to you, I am invested in your well-being, and I have desire for your form. After weighing the risks carefully I have come to conclude that it is more prudent to allow this interaction of transports rather than let it become a hinderance to my work. So John, if I have your permission, which I understand is a crucial part of the process, we shall proceed."
Sherlock stared at him with all the gravitas of the scientist. Unfortunately, John burst out laughing.
"Oh, God!" He spluttered. "That. Was such a Sherlock Holmes come-on, if I didn't know better, I wouldn't even have understood it."
Sherlock looked quite offended, increasingly so, as John's laughter kept bursting forth.
"Okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"I think I expressed myself quite clearly, John."
"Yes, yes you did." John gave a sharp jerk of his head to clear his remaining chuckles and stood up, where sadly he still had to look up into Sherlock's face. "And I'm very, very happy to hear it, Sherlock. For the record, I am very fond of you. We don't really say it, but since you have, you know, I care about you a lot, and you are bloody gorgeous. Noticed the day I met you. I've never actually done anything with a man, but if I did, I would want it to be you."
"Is this a rejection?"
"No! Christ, no! Just putting the facts out there!"
"Oh, John, I know perfectly well about facts. You think I didn't deduce your proclivity to deviate from heteronormative behaviour from the way you hit on me when we first met?"
"What are you talking about? I didn't hit on you!"
"'Do you have a boyfriend, Sherlock? Do you have a girlfriend? Oh, you don't? Look, we're both single, isn't that nice,'" Sherlock mocked in a sing-song tone, flapping his hands like propellers as he carried himself over to the sofa and plopped down.
"Shut up. I was just curious." John followed, barely noticing his feet moving as he scowled after Sherlock.
"Yes," Sherlock drawled. "Platonic, heterosexual curiosity, I'm sure. Back to the negotiations, John."
"Negotiations." John made a face. He was endlessly amused with how seriously Sherlock treated having a crush, likely for the first time since puberty, but he was by no means content with going along with it. Before he changed his mind, he ducked down and kissed Sherlock on the lips. It was a quick, chaste peck, but John felt keenly the pronounced dip of Sherlock's upper lip, and his own lips tingled with the feeling of the soft, plump, velvety texture.
"Not bad," John muttered. He sat down half in Sherlock's lap.
"Not bad?!"
John cut off Sherlock's indignation with a braver kiss, pressing into him harder, his hand coming up to cup the smooth line of Sherlock's jaw. No sexual identity crisis rung alarm bells within him, no switches were flipped. It was as good as any other kiss he had before, and more so, because as confidently as Sherlock had proposed this, his exploration of it was gentle and tentative, and it filled John with warm affection and quiet disbelief that this remarkable man had chosen him. Sherlock valued him, trusted him, wanted him. It was impossible to believe yet impossible to deny, in this moment, when he was straddling a warm, relaxed Sherlock, and Sherlock's hands fluttered against his sides as though he wasn't quite sure where he was allowed to put them.
When he finally pulled back, John had stopped finding the situation at all comical.
"I love you," John told Sherlock. It held a tone of wonderment, as he had only thought it in those words as he said it, realising as he told Sherlock that that was what he felt.
"I thought so," said Sherlock levelly, but his eyes were lighting up, and he quickly lost any shred of composure as he grinned manically into John's neck.
"You still can't keep your maggot experiment in the freezer."
"It needs to be kept in low temperature! Would you like it better in the sink?"
"I would like it better in the lab. I don't want to eat maggots. Kind of draw the line, there."
"I could have a lab, if you move into my room."
"Oh." John was still surprised. "One good snog and we're moving in? Moving a bit fast."
"You moved in eleven months before the 'good snog'. Do keep up." Sherlock punctuated this with a really rather sweet kiss on John's cheek. He cocked his head, looking at John's skin with fascination, and nuzzled his way down, sticking his tongue out to lick at John in a strangely innocent manner. Sherlock must be cataloguing his taste or something. John had seen him lick a door at a crime scene just like that.
"Am I moving in for sex purposes, then?"
Sherlock stopped to consider this. "Yes."
"Do you know how to have sex?"
"Of course I do, I looked it up on the internet."
John strangled a snort, making a most undignified noise.
"Right. We're just fine. It's all fine."
Giggling profusely, John took up snogging Sherlock again, and was getting into the more handsy part of proceedings when Sherlock stopped to tell him, "This won't be boring for at least three months. No, a year. Eighteen months if you introduce other variables."
"Trust me, I have plenty of variables."
Neither John nor Sherlock had any hands-on experience with gay sex, but that was alright. Sherlock had just said he would be happy with kissing for eighteen months. John might not, he could have blue balls by then, but they'll get there. It was fine right now, and that was good, and it was very good.