Several months pass, months full of cases and excitement but not yet one successful conversation with Sherlock about dating and boundaries. And yet maybe John's the one who needs to work on boundaries because although he is sat across the table from Paulina, who is talking to him, he is thinking about Sherlock, who is literally miles away and also directly in his head at the same time.
Paulina deserves better. She's intelligent and charming and beautiful and she really does have rather a large nose, John thinks uncharitably.
He drinks more wine and smiles at her and prays she never learns that Sherlock has dubbed her "The One With the Nose" because then she will most likely stop having sex with him-though she may dump him soon enough simply because he cannot stop looking at it and he's sure she'll catch him at it any second now.
She doesn't. She actually wants to go home with him, and though taking her within striking distance of Sherlock seems like a really, really stupid idea, he's halfway to drunk and all the way to horny, so they end up in his room, fucking efficiently, and he's finding it all a bit perfunctory.
Afterwards, she seems inclined to stay and snuggles into the crook of his arm. He counts down backwards from a thousand until she seems quite asleep and then disentangles himself, cleans himself up, pulls on boxers and a t-shirt. Sex is one thing. Sleeping with her feels like a lie.