The crêpes were fantastic.

Sherlock's mad dash out the door of 221B had somehow or another turned into a race-"Sherlock, you cheater! I hope you realize this doesn't count!"-a race in which both contestants had attempted numerous times to trip each other, and which had ended with both stumbling/pushing each other into L'eto's, quite out of breath and grinning like idiots.

John didn't quite know what to expect from Sherlock sometimes.

"John, can I take you up on your offer?"

"Erm, what?" John looked up, mouth full of crêpe and slightly befuddled.

"Your offer. You said-if there was anything I wanted to talk to you about…" John nearly choked. Christ-talk about unexpected.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said hastily, internally scrambling to arrange his facial features into an expression that exuded reassurance rather than shock. "If you want to-I mean, it's good that-go ahead." He waved his hand in a vague motion, gesturing for him to talk.

The left corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched upwards in a smile. He reached for his cup of coffee and held it with both hands, fingers splayed over the china. He stared pensively into the brown liquid for a few moments. "I know you don't think of me as being an overtly sexual person-maybe, until now, you hadn't even thought about my sexuality at all-but…I'm gay, John. I've known for a while. Though finding out was not a particularly easy process…it's not something one can instantaneously deduce about oneself, not something one can wake up and 'just realize' one day…it's a very strange, murky area, this field of love and sexuality and emotions…"

"So...how did you find out?"

"I found out in uni. Until that point, I had never had any real feelings of attraction towards anyone. I had been considering the possibility that I might be asexual." Fair enough, John thought. Up till now, he'd thought so too.

"And then I met Sebastian."

John blinked. "The-the Sebastian I met the other day? The one who paid us over £20,000?"

Sherlock nodded. "The one and the same."

John's mind flashed back to the brief meeting he'd had with Sebastian, and he started to get a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Oh, no…

"He was my roommate. When I first met him, I-I experienced some feelings that were confusing to me. I chose to ignore them. But as time went on, I found I simply couldn't ignore the evidence. He was attractive. Relatively popular. Appropriately awed my my intellect and powers of deduction, and kind to me when most others weren't. When he was nearby, the physical evidence was also quite apparent: my increased staring, dilation of the pupils, increased heartbeat, increased breathing rate-"

John was smiling.

"What?" asked Sherlock, confused.

"Nothing, it's just-cute. The way you measure love and affection, as if it were a scientific process."

"Cute?" echoed Sherlock, with clear disproval.

"Well…endearing. Sorry."

Sherlock "hhmphed" but carried on. "So one day, I decided to tell him. We had, I thought, gotten to be good friends at that point, and I thought, 'what's the worst that can happen? Even if he rejects me, they're just human emotions, so trivial and mundane…'" Sherlock paused and stared down into his empty coffee mug with a wry smile. A minute passed. A worried frown grew on John's face.

"Sherlock?" John asked gently. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me if you don't-"

Sherlock said flatly: "He laughed at me, mocked me in front of his friends, informed me that he had a boyfriend-a boyfriend who he had been having me spy on all this time and I hadn't even known it. Not a clue. My deductions are brilliant, flawless when it comes to anything else, but as soon as I make the mistake of falling in love my mind becomes so clouded with emotion that I fail to recognize the most obvious of signs. Fat lot of good my reasoning powers are then."

"Sherlock-"

"You know," Sherlock mused, "I really don't see the point of emotions. Yes, alright, from an evolutionary standpoint we know that they've evolved as a mechanism to help us recognize and respond to changes in our environment, but at times they can be quite unnecessary and even debilitating. And love! What on earth is the point of love? Useless feelings of attachment and dependency which only tie us down and limit our freedom-"

"On the contrary," John interrupted quietly, "I think love can enrich our lives and show us what it really means to be human." Sherlock blinked. John hesitated, not wanting to sound offensive or drudge up painful memories. "It sounds like you haven't had the best of luck in love, yet. But," he said, smiling wryly. "I haven't exactly either. I've dated two girls who both dumped me preemptively because they thought I was gay, and well…no matter how available I am, no one wants to date an old, wounded ex-army doctor, do they?"

Sherlock's face lit up in understanding. "Oh. Oh. That's why you're so sensitive about that topic. Me calling you gay…oh, it all makes sense now…"

John coughed. "Erm, yes...let's not, ah, go telling that story to everyone, alright?"

Sherlock nodded seriously. "Of course. I trust you with my story as well, John."

John stopped to consider that for a minute. This was, after all, nothing short of a miracle. Sherlock Holmes, the Sherlock Holmes, confided in no one, showed no weaknesses, only intellectual superiority and at times brutality. Why on earth was he telling him this, especially after John had insulted him last night?

He's vulnerable. For the first time I've ever seen, Sherlock Holmes is letting himself be vulnerable.

John reached across the table and placed his hand on top of Sherlock's. "You idiot," he said, grinning. "I'd never tell anybody."

"I appreciate that." said Sherlock, contemplating John's hand. Sherlock's hand twitched, and his other hand rose up an inch off the table, as if he was going to cover John's with it. Instead he suddenly rose to his feet, looking like a very urgent matter had just come to his attention.

"What is it?" John asked, hand still outstretched on the table, looking very bemused.

"I just remembered an important errand I have to run. Sooner than later." Sherlock paused, reached into his wallet, thumbed through a stack of bills, slapped enough to pay for their meal plus a generous tip onto the table, nodded to John, and then turned on his heel.

"Wait! Sherlock!" John shouted exasperatedly. "When are you going to be back?"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "Soon enough." And with that, he was gone.

John sighed and rubbed his temple.

"Oh, Joooohn." John looked up. What the- Somehow, Sherlock's voice carried all the way down the street.

"Now would be a good time to get caught up on all your missed hours at the clinic!"

Damn.

Please review! Reviews are helpful, and they also make my day! ^.^