After a while of having carefully kept my eyes to myself, I started talking about Salomon's mines being mentioned in the Koran, and Holmes, looking more cool and relaxed than ever, turned his face a fraction away from mine, lifted his cigarette very slowly to his mouth, managing to keep my eyes fixed on the damn thing. As my gaze followed it up to his thin, sensitive, soft lips, I just watched them surround the thing, holding my breath while seeing him waiting the split of a second before inhaling the smoke deeply and intimate, making the hollow in his cheeks deepen, his eyelids lowering, eyes turning inside his head, and me nearly faint. After pausing there for a long moment of pure ecstasy, he finally let go of the remaining smoke, letting it out in swirling ray of particles through that small whole shaped by his lips.

I swear to god, normally he would just suck the damn thing, and blow the smoke out!

I finally recalled how to breathe, and wished it was I not he, whose body possessed fresh nicotine as it might've be able to calm my beating heart.

His eyes half opened and he turned to look at me, his eyes now darker than ebony, glimpsing dangerously in the candlelight, like the brightest most mystic-surrounded star on the entire sky, had taken hold in them. His twisty smile seemed to be victorious, amused and summoning at the same time, perceptive as if he knew exactly what had been going through me, body more than mind, during this little 'performance' of his.

My brain now seemed complete and entirely empty for all the theology knowledge I had stored there, during my 18 years of studying the subject. Not that I cared much anymore. My mind was divided between a dazzled Russell wanting to lay down at the man in front of me's feet and worship him, and another Russell irritated to death of his clearly control of the situation (and my pulse), who were not going to let him win, not in chess and neither in this, a game just as well only in this there were no rules.

"So Russell," Holmes had finished his cigarette and was putting it out, though instead of the ashtray, his eyes were fixed on me. "You were enlightening me of the fictional Allan Quatermain's famous discoveries of Salomon's perhaps fictional mines being in the bible, whose own reliability can be looked at as controversial. But then, who am I to judge?" I smiled at the man in front of me, ironic and entertaining as always.

"Oh but Holmes, you do have a point there." I began, then paused to reach up and release my long, blond hair from the knoll on top of my head, letting it pour down my back in a waterfall of wavy gold, swinging it freely in ovals, and last letting my fingers go through it and pouring it up in a airy, more free-spirited hairstyle than I was used to. I felt more than a little smug, when noting that Holmes clearly hadn't been ready for that. "There, just making sure no one will make the mistake of believing you to be 'friendly' to a boy. If you, Sherlock Holmes himself, could make that mistake at our first time meeting, I better be on the safe side."

"Now wait a minute, to my defense you were wearing those ridiculous unfitting and unmistakably male clothes… and had the temper of a young bull." The last was said so low it wasn't meant for me to hear. "But believe me," He continued and sent me an elevator-glance, dwelling for the split of a second at my undercover-clothes, which were pretty revealing and raised an eyebrow. "To night no one, no matter how senselessly drunk one might be, could make that mistake."
"Was that a compliment Holmes?" He shrugged his shoulders, and draw in another breath of nicotine. "You were saying something about me having a point?"

"Oh that's right. Being fictional yourself, you really should open your mind more to the thought of every tale, even the biblical ones, having basis in reality, not to mention the supernatural creatures, who you speak so ill of. You of all should know how they must be feeling, always being accused for not existing. When first I saw you, it was like seeing a ghost standing quite alive in front of me. At the time you were still no more than electrical vibrations in Doyle's brain to me, not bad ones I admit, but still no more than that, and suddenly there you were; a fictitious 'ghost' standing on a Sussex hillside, marking bees. It actually was a quite disturbing moment of revelation." Holmes smiled at me, more sweetly and thereby more dangerously than ever. "Well Russell," He leaned forward till I could tell exactly what his drink had contained (vodka, lime, tomato juice, Tabasco and a hint of celery salt). "Perhaps then it's time for me to prove to you just how …" he paused to brush his fingertips lightly against my cheekbone, which in the warm and snug room felt like brief, cool raindrops on my heated skin, making pleasant quibbles go down my spine. "… real I am." I realized I was shivering, and certainly not of cold, though that was the explanation I would use, should Holmes ask. "That could easily have been the brief, windy touch of a ghost." I pointed out to him. "You have not yet convinced me completely Mr. Holmes. Hypothetically, of course." I added with a playful spark in the eye.
He raised one slightly surprised eyebrow; then took up the challenge with an as-you-please smile, which I must admit I hadn't expected him to, even at this point. He picked up my trivial student hands with his own long, tender, almost spidery hands studying them for a moment making the earth stop spin, before raising them slowly to his mouth and pressing his cool lips gently to the back of them, as lightly as if I were made out of porcelain, without removing his glowing, dark gaze from mine. In the meantime I had once again managed to forget the technique of breathing. He lowered my hands slowly again, and I realized we were both sitting bended over the table, faces inches from each other.

As he lifted his one hand in my direction, he paused and smiled ironically, as if he had to remind himself that he was, in this moment, allowed to reach beyond the boarder of our normal intercourse. He then continued up to gently seize a lock of my hair, shining like golden honey in the faint light, twisting it around his long, tender fingers. His eyes were now all over my hair, shining with true fascination, as if he'd often wondered how exactly it felt touching, but never dared to. Then with gently, cool fingertips he carefully moved little locks of hair away from my face, placing it behind my ear as if uncertain whether it would stay there. All his movements so very careful and hesitant, like he couldn't quite believe he was allowed this unfamiliar pleasure.

I was quite pleasured myself, eyes closed just focusing on the wonderfully thrilling feeling of his tender hands in my hair. As the gentle fingers in my hair disappeared, I opened my eyes to discover Holmes' face closer to me than before. "Now do you believe in my substance, or do I have to kiss you?" The smile in the corner of his mouth said it was a joke, the eagerness in his eyes and tense in his jaw indicated something else. I almost abandoned every last ounce of common sense and self-control, but managed with great effort to get a hold of myself. "Good thing this conversation is only hypothetical" I exhaled, my breathing still uneven. "Oh yes, God yes." He murmured, a frustrated wrinkle having appeared between his eyebrows, sitting upright in his chair and away from me. "…But you know," I added in hast, leaning almost desperately myself across the table. "In theory, those brief touches could also simply have been a hair-pixie." The raised eyebrow-look he sent me over his newly lightened cigarette was one of his memorable ones, hinting one should admit to hospital as soon as possible, if not madhouse. "…Hair-pixie?" He repeated after a while, his voice seriously dubious. "Yes, hair-pixies, you know those fiddling with your hair now and then, to simply disappear in thin air, ehm, often mentioned in the Grimm brothers' adventures and stuff like that" He looked at me for about 30 long seconds his gaze expressionless, which I returned the best I could, neither of us moving a muscle, before suddenly… "Well, whatever remains, however impossible…" As the words came out, Holmes dropped his cigarette on the floor and moved determined forwards, hastily closing the few feet distance between our faces. Aas his warm, welcoming mouth so tender and fierce at the same time collided with my own unprepared as well as inexperienced, but yet quickly learning everything it needed to know, thereby my world ended, and somewhere in my subconsciousness I noted that I owed Lestrade a sincere thank you for being so unattractive, making me in need of an innocent, little flirting lesson.