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“John, had you noticed that everyone assumes we are a couple?”
“I’d got that, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why… Do they think we’re a couple, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Um. I guess because we’re so close? I don’t know. We live together and we’re kind of unhealthily dependent on each other.”
“I am not unhealthily dependent on you. I am not in any way dependent on you.”
“You almost set the flat on fire while I was in hospital.”
“I often almost set the flat on fire.”
“You did it to get me to come home.”
“The average recovery period from appendicectomy is one to two days. You insisted on staying for four.”
“I didn’t insist, my appendix had burst and they wanted to keep me over to monitor me!”
“Immaterial. You were gone longer than you said you would be. It was dreadfully inconvenient.”
“John, I don’t think it would be a good idea if we were a couple.”
“Right. Well, glad that’s sorted.”
“I mean. It’s nothing against you. You’re quite handsome and smart, in your way, and useful. It’s just that, the work has to come first. I can’t afford distractions.”
“Yeah, Sherlock, I know.”
“So, you don’t mind?”
“Don’t mind what?”
“Us. Not being. You know.”
“No, Sherlock. It’s fine.”
“Good.”
“John, I believe I may have changed my mind.”
“About dinner? If you really want Chinese, we can. It’s fine, I guess I can get Thai tomorrow…”
“Not about dinner, John.”
“Then…?”
“Us.”
“Us?”
“Yes.”
“Is this more of the couple stuff you’ve been on about all week?”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re saying… What? That you want to be a couple now?”
“I can see many ways in which it would be… Beneficial.”
“’Beneficial’? Christ, could you be more clinical?”
“If you wish, I could…”
“No, never mind. Sherlock, you don’t just get to… That’s not a wonderful thing to spring on someone. You’re generally meant to sort of build up to that.”
“’Build up’?”
“Yeah. Feel the other person out. See where they are. Not completely surprise them.”
“…I’m meant to feel you out before I ask if you wish to engage in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with me?”
“Feel me out, not feel me up.”
“I see.”
“John, would you be particularly averse to entering into a romantic relationship with me?”
“That’s not generally how you ask, Sherlock.”
“Then how?”
“You’re meant to ask the other person out, first. Go on dates.”
“Dates?”
“Dinner. Movies. Walks.”
“We do that. We do all those things. We went to dinner last night.”
“That wasn’t a date.”
“Why?”
“Because both people have to agree that it’s a date. Otherwise it’s not.”
“John. Tonight we will go out to dinner, at a restaurant of your choosing. We will walk to the restaurant together. I will pay. When we come home, we will watch a movie, also of your choosing. I posit that it will be a date. Do you agree?”
“God damnit, Sherlock.”
“Yeah, alright. Fine.”