It was disgustingly sentimental, but Sherlock had found a certain notion drifting along in the back of his head in relation to thunderstorms. He found himself looking for sugar and heavy cream one night, and somehow it all ended with several bowls of what mostly resembled charcoal, and the upsetting lingering smell of burnt hair. It was just when he was digging a pumpkin scented candle out of a box in the back of his wardrobe (an almost forgotten gift from some aunt or admirer years before) when John came home.
Sherlock paused halfway through the kitchen when he saw John, framed in the doorway and frowning. He took one look at the food and Sherlock's singed fringe and grinned.
'Did you-?'
'I over-estimated,' Sherlock grumbled, moving past John with the candle and a lighter, just as the first faint rumble thunder was heard.
While Sherlock busied himself with the candle, John headed for the only experiments that had survived Sherlock's attempts. He took longer than strictly necessary with the candle lighting, and waited for the clink of the spoon against clay before he finally turned around. There was a very long minute of silence, one that Sherlock spent quietly telling himself to calm down, because it wasn't as if-
'I didn't know you could cook,' John said, staring at the bowl and its contents as if accusing it of being unfairly good. Sherlock sighed internally with relief.
'It's a simple matter of science,' Sherlock explained with faux-nonchalance, returning to the kitchen to slide the lighter into a drawer where it would be lost forever with another cluster of useless shoelaces and orphaned buttons. 'Being able to follow a simple recipe doesn't exactly merit an award.'
'But maybe using a blowtorch does,' John pointed out, ruffling Sherlock's slightly burned fringe. Sherlock scowled, but didn't protest; he didn't mind if it was John, and he was still trying to understand why he let the doctor do things like this.
'I over-estimated,' Sherlock repeated as John pushed a spoonful of cream and sugar against his lips. Sherlock stubbornly pursed his lips for a moment before he opened his mouth. It was actually a lot better than he'd expected; as arrogant as he was pretending to be, he'd still worried- just a little- that he'd ruined something along the line. He hadn't with this last trial, it seemed.
'I might start getting you to make dinner,' John thought aloud, handing Sherlock the other bowl as he nudged him towards the living room.
Sherlock scoffed. 'I'd like to see you try.'
John sighed. 'Is there a reason you decided to spontaneously make crème bruleé on a Wednesday evening?' he asked as he picked up his laptop from his chair with his free hand and moved to the desk. Sherlock sat opposite.
'I felt like it,' he answered lightly, carefully keeping his eyes on his bowl or the flickering candle between them as the warm scent of pumpkin began to fill the room.
They sat in silence for a while, permeated only by the low hum of the TV and the slow tap of keyboard keys. Sherlock let his mind wander- to past cases, current puzzles and the organization of his most recent observances (most of which pertained to John) until he found his eyes lingering on John's face. He'd studied it countless times before and probably knew it better than he knew his own, but it was still strangely fascinating. Sherlock was still caught in that infinite cycle of finding something new and trying to understand what it was about this certain arrangement of features that was so captivating to him; why this certain smile made his own lips twitch in response; why he felt the way he did when those eyes were only focused on him; why that face, while asleep, was one that Sherlock stayed awake for the first time the nightmares hadn't twisted it back into wakefulness with memories of gunshot wounds and blood-stained sand.
John looked up curiously when he noticed Sherlock's eyes on him- he was used to Sherlock's scrutiny by now, but noticed when his gaze lingered like this- and the detective found himself leaning forwards before he could really think about it.
He pushed the candle aside first, of course, before he brushed a soft kiss on John's forehead and let his lips linger there. At the next roll of thunder, John titled his head up to touch his lips to Sherlock's, closing his computer in the process.
'Why the candle?' John asked softly (his eyes held that new impassioned affection, and Sherlock felt his heart beat faster in response. He hated the clumsy blindness of sentiment, but it didn't matter with John, somehow. The doctor was his exception).
Sherlock grimaced as he pulled back and began to respond, but John quirked an eyebrow as he stood up from the table.
'You felt like it,' John answered for him. Sherlock didn't say anything, and John struggled to hide his infuriatingly endearing smile.
'It wouldn't kill you, you know, to admit you can be a little romantic,' John offered, following Sherlock to the sofa, and Sherlock mumbled something incoherent as he slumped against the cushions.
John finished the rest of his crème bruleé, occasionally tapping his spoon against Sherlock's lips as getting him to eat without him paying any proper attention. Sherlock continued to act put out until the next real clap of thunder and the flash of lightning that lit the room, at which he slid a little closer to John's side. After catching on and getting up for a second to turn off the lights, John returned to settle in next to Sherlock as they watched the storm beyond the window.
'Do you know how lightning works, Sherlock?' John murmured. His voice was calm and relaxed. Sherlock liked it best that way.
'Vaguely,' he muttered, finding John's hand on his thigh and turning it over to lazily trace the lines on his palm.
John started to explain something involving polarity, and how lightning didn't actually come from the clouds like most people thought, but Sherlock was suddenly distracted by another deep growl of thunder and the next flicker of lightning, and forgot to listen.
'Sherlock?' John lifted his head from Sherlock's shoulder (John's hand curled slightly as his fingers trailed across his wrist. Sherlock's breath caught in his throat, but it was almost undetectable unless John was looking for it). 'Did you hear any of that?'
It was a question John answered for himself as Sherlock's eyes remained riveted on the window. John sighed and returned his head to Sherlock's shoulder.
'Is this another one of things that you don't care to understand but appreciate anyway?' John asked. Sherlock turned to look at him, to dare him to mention his ignorance of the solar system while he was at it, but that never happened.
There was something about that held gaze that initiated a good long half hour of soft, painfully slow kisses, that began with Sherlock's bottom lip between John's and eventually progressed to lying on the sofa with John's fingers curled lethargically in Sherlock's hair as his tongue trailed inside the other's mouth, and Sherlock's hand moving from John's chest to rest just under his shirt at the base of his back.
'What brought all this on?' John asked when he finally pulled back. His face was illuminated by the last flash of light, and was again so excruciatingly beautiful that it took Sherlock a second too long to respond.
"The lightning.'
John frowned. 'The lightning?'
Sherlock let his fingers trail along John's spine as he explained. 'I just…I thought I'd forgotten. it's only a thought I've had once or twice before, but I caught part of the weather forecast tonight and I…remembered.' The forecast was notorious for being spectacularly wrong, but for once he was glad that it had been right.
'Remembered what?' John pressed, shifting onto his side so that he wasn't directly on top. There wasn't a lot of room on the sofa for it, but he managed.
Sherlock hesitated. 'Well, I…I've wanted to share a thunderstorm with you for a while.' He looked away, unable to meet John's eyes when he was being so embarrassing. 'To make desert and light and candle while the lightning flashes outside.' He sighed. 'I know it's pathetic-
Sherlock stopped, only because John took that as an open invitation to press their lips together. John tasted of sugar, and Sherlock liked that a lot more than he would have predicted.
'You know, for someone who hates romance, you're hilariously good at it,' John grinned. He paused. 'In certain cases.'
It took another moment of held gazes, for them to both burst out into laughter.