Nights When Boredom Strikes

Experiments for Dessert

They caught a cab and climbed in the back. First John, then Sherlock. Sherlock gave the address and immediately John recognized it. It was one of the nicer restaurants in town, but not too fancy. He began to wonder what Sherlock was up to. He never spontaneously went out to dinner or spontaneously did anything really. Everything was planned out. Maybe he  did plan this out, maybe he planned this and I wasn't paying enough attention, John thought. I really need to stop doing that. John sat and thought about all of the reasons for Sherlock's dinner plans. He came up with absolutely nothing when Sherlock interrupted his thought.

Well, not Sherlock necessarily, but the feeling of his cold breath on the side of John's face rather. John looked over to see the consulting detective studying him intensely. John raised an eyebrow at him and Sherlock flashed a quick, brain scrambling grin. 

"So why are we going out to dinner?" John asked, not opposing, just curious. 

"Because I wanted to take you out to dinner." Sherlock answered without a pause. 

John gave a look that kind of just said "Alright then," and turned back out the window. People already thought they were a couple, why did Sherlock want to take John out to dinner? John decided that Sherlock just wanted to be nice for once and brushed it off. Curious though, Sherlock's been acting quite strange today. John thought as they pulled up to their destination.

The waitress showed them to a table, giving them a sweet smile, and brought what they ordered to drink. When she returned, she placed a candle next to the small bouquet of flowers in the center of the table. 

"I'm not his-" John sighed, giving up.

 Sherlock saw him stop himself and chuckled a little, causing John to chuckle as well. They ordered their meals and had small conversations as they waited for the waitress to bring their food. Normal things, about their week, their lives, just the little things though because they were around each other most of the time, so they knew pretty much everything that was going on before it was told. Things like Sherlock's 'coagulation of saliva after death' experiment and John's hobbies.

When their food got there, they ate and talked, somehow never running out of things to discuss, and Sherlock seeming genuinely interested for once. The thought of how weird Sherlock was being just kind of hung out in the back of John's brain as he tried to enjoy Sherlock's addition of a little bit of sentiment to his usually machine-like character, it was nice. He couldn't shake it though, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to enjoy it, he couldn't. Something else was at work here and John really wanted to find out what it was. Maybe it's just Sherlock being Sherlock by not being Sherlock, if that makes any sense, he thought. John decided he would let it go best he could for the moment and just kind of keep mental tabs on it. Sherlock paid the bill while John was reaching for his wallet. 

"Nope, I've got it. I invited you, so I've got the bill." 

John sighed and put his wallet back, because the bill was already gone. 

"Ready to go?" Sherlock asked. 

"Yeah, let's go." John replied, following Sherlock out of the restaurant and giving a polite nod to the person at the front before exiting. Sherlock hailed another cab and gave the cabbie another address that was not 221B Baker Street. 

"Where are we going?" John asked, a bit confused as to why they weren't heading home. 

"I said I was bored didn't I? Well, I'm still bored, so we're going to go have some fun if you're up to it." Sherlock replied, looking at John, a bit questioningly. 

"Yeah, that's perfectly fine, whatever you want to do."

They pulled up to the pub that doubled as a nightclub. The same one they had been at last night; where John had the last of his memories of the previous night. John quickly paid the fare before Sherlock could because Sherlock had just bought him dinner. He shooed Sherlock out of the cab before he could argue. 

"The pub?" John questioned. 

"Why not? Pubs can be fun." Sherlock told him, giving him that amazing smile. Sherlock wasn't saying that because he'd had a sudden change of heart, he was saying it because anything that had to do with an experiment was fun, and this categorized under experiment. 

"Yes, I suppose they can." John said as the entered and chose seats at the bar. They ordered their first round of drinks and began conversation with the people around them. People would introduce themselves, and Sherlock, being the show off that he is, would tell them everything else he knew about them before they could say anything except for their name.

Most of them just gave him weird looks and either asked him how he knew that or walked away as if they had just met their lifelong stalker. He had mentioned previously how when he deduced most people they said 'piss off', but John had never really believed it until he saw Sherlock in action. He did wonder why he liked him so much sometimes, but then he looked at that face and noticed the little things he loved and forgot all about it. His hair, his eyes, his intelligence, and even his attitude, though he really hadn't figured that one out yet. Maybe it was the fact that Sherlock was mostly unattached, like John himself. Sherlock, as he drank more, became more of a socialite, and John, as Sherlock observed, laughed more often and became less tense. He could tell that John was already showing signs of inebriation after a couple of drinks. He began thinking about his experiment, smirking to himself. Sherlock was right, pubs could definitely be fun.

John began to listen more to the music that was playing, mostly just thumping club music, and it became harder and harder to resist the urge to dance. He finally decided that there was no reason to resist the urge to dance, the were in a club for God's sakes and he was going to have fun. He turned to Sherlock, instantly thinking he was going to need a map because he got so lost in those eyes. He laughed at himself for a minute about his internal cliche joke, then proceeded with his previous reason for turning to Sherlock in the first place. He tried to put on a serious face, knowing that Sherlock wasn't buying it at all. 

"Would you like to dance with me?" John asked, holding out a hand; the amused look on Sherlock's beautiful face making him burst into a short fit of laugher. Sherlock laughed a little too as John grabbed on to Sherlock by the wrist and began to pull him on to the dance floor. 

"What are you- what are you doing, John?" Sherlock asked in between laughing, not opposing, just wondering why John wanted to dance all of a sudden. 

"What does it look like I'm doing, Sherlock?" John answered with a question. 

"It appears that you are dragging me on to the dance floor whether I like it or not." Sherlock responded, making John pause for a second. 

"You don't have to come if you don't want to." John reassured him, pouting, feeling as though he had pressured Sherlock into following him and feeling bad about it. Sherlock automatically saw the concern on his drunken friend's face and reassured him. 

"No, no, it's fine, I'll dance with you John."

Sherlock, at this moment also made a note in his brain. John is more sensitive to emotions when intoxicated. Be careful. Add to notes later. He thought to himself, glad that John had pulled him away from the bar so he wouldn't drink any more. Information's no good when you're just going to forget it in the morning. They danced for a good while, every now and then someone weaseling in  and trying to interrupt them, they would just move back together and continue to dance as if they hadn't been interrupted at all. The dance floor all lights, music, and strangers having a great time. 

The both of them turned to each other at the same time after a while of moving around, sweating, and out of breath and said in unison, "Time to go home?" and they nodded in response to each other as if their brains were perfectly in sync.