Sherlock felt his heartbeat speed up and noticed that his breathing was becoming irregular as well. He also realized with a start that he had somehow drifted to the very edge of his seat.

He searched John's face to make sure that his deductions were correct. It seemed plausible that his emotions could be clouding his reasoning and that his assumptions were merely a product of wishful thinking. Sherlock studied John's face with scrutiny and was surprised once more at what he saw there.

John looked completely calm and relaxed. It seemed as if a great weight had suddenly left his shoulders. To Sherlock, he looked like a man who had been struggling with something for a long time and had now made his peace with it.

There was also a hint of a question in his look. Sherlock swallowed and closed his eyes. In his mind, he went down, far down, and forced open a heavily barricaded door. It had huge warning signs and several sets of locks. He looked inside and saw a thousands moments of their life together. They were mundane, yet their combined force took his breath away. John standing in their kitchen, making tea. John sitting on the couch, writing his blog. John laughing at something stupid that Sherlock had done. John looking at him with amazement in his eyes after Sherlock had laid out a long series of deductions.

Sherlock was suddenly flooded with a feeling of warmth and yearning that shocked him in its intensity. He thought distractedly that he shouldn't be surprised, really, since this was exactly the reason why he had locked these memories away in the first place.

He stared in wonder at the enormity of John's room in his mind palace. While he hadn't been looking, the room had expanded and tunnelled through the foundations of his palace in all directions. Sherlock realized that he had been stupid to think he had securely locked away his feelings for John. He may have barred them from his conscious thoughts by blocking the door, but that had only kept him from realizing how thoroughly the former cold and clinical halls of his mind palace had already been compromised by John's presence.

Out in the real world, Sherlock took a shaky breath and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Without opening his eyes, he knew that John was smiling down on him.

Sherlock wanted to open his eyes and see John leaning down to him, but he was frozen in place and unable to move. His fingers were grasping the chair's armrests so hard that his knuckles were turning white. He was also starting to feel a little bit silly. People all over the world do this every day. You've kissed people before. Pull yourself together.

John ended up half-kneeling in front of Sherlock. For a second, the thought flashed through his mind that this was a really awkward position for a first kiss. Then he stared at Sherlock and the look of intense concentration he saw on his face made him almost giggle. It was so typically Sherlock and it hit him in that moment that he was about to kiss Sherlock Holmes. How many times had he thought about doing this? How many times had he stopped dead in his tracks, dumbstruck by something Sherlock had said or done or just by the way he simply was, fantasizing about this moment? How many times had he shut those thoughts down with ruthless ferocity?

He tentatively put his right hand on Sherlock's cheek and slowly traced his thumb over his friend's cheekbone. He almost expected Sherlock to flinch away at the touch, suddenly realizing that this was all a big mistake. But Sherlock stayed frozen in place, looking like a marble statue of a Greek God.

John hesitated. He was keenly aware that this was the point of no return. This was the moment when he had to admit to himself that all of his denials might have been not entirely truthful. He wasn't gay. That much was true. But this had never been the question that people asked him. Are you in love with Sherlock Holmes? There was the crux of the matter. Well, are you, John? The voice in his head sounded suspiciously like Sherlock's baritone.

Unbidden, the image of Sherlock on the roof of St. Bart's came to his mind. He had told himself for a long time that what he had felt that day was due only to the tragic loss of his best friend. In hindsight, he suspected that he would have been better off allowing himself to mourn the true extend of his loss. Because he isn't just your best friend, is he?

Sherlock felt John's hesitation and for a moment thought that John would bolt from the flat. In that one second, he saw the future play out in his mind's eye. They would go back to not talking about this and John would go back to Mary. John would be a husband and a father. He would excel at both, but he wouldn't be happy. Sherlock would go back to doing his work alone. He would excel at that as usual, but it would be meaningless without John to share it with. It played out with perfect clarity in his mind. He saw himself as an old man, sitting in this very chair, wishing he could go back to this moment and do it differently. Idiot, he thought to himself, You are still in that moment. Do it differently.

Sherlock opened his eyes and saw confirmed what he already knew. John had not, in fact, run from the flat.

John was still amazed that after all this time, he could never finally decide what colour Sherlock's eyes were. Every time he thought he had it figured out, they seemed to change. In a moment of temporary insanity, he had suspected Sherlock of doing it on purpose, just to annoy him. Now he was staring at them and their colour was as elusive as ever. Enough stalling, John. Now or never.

John's hand was still on Sherlock's cheek. He closed the small gap still separating them and kissed Sherlock. It was a chaste kiss, a mere brush of lips. Their position was awkward and they bumped noses and John thought it was the most perfect first kiss of his life.

He pulled back and opened his eyes. Sherlock had that look of intense concentration again, as if filing away data for later study. John couldn't help but smile. He was struck by an intense urge to run his hand through Sherlock's curls. He decided not to fight it. Sherlock gave him a surprised look.

"Problem?"

Sherlock could clearly hear the mirth in John's voice.

"No, I just didn't expect it."

"You have no idea how long I have wanted to that."

"The kissing?"

"No, the hair thing. Well, and the kissing."

"Hm."

John was grinning from ear to ear. Sherlock looked like he was trying to figure out a complicated puzzle. John was wondering if Sherlock had always looked this adorable when thinking and he had just never allowed himself to see it.

"What now?"

"What now what?"

"John, do not try my patience. What happens now? You are a married man."

John gave a long groan and lowered his head to rest against Sherlock's shoulder.

"You had to bring that up now, didn't you." His voice was muffled.

"Me bringing it up or not does not change the facts."

"How about we figure this thing out one issue at a time?"

John pulled back and looked at Sherlock. He had to smile again.

"Besides, I think I've done quite enough talking about my feelings for this night. Probably for this month. Maybe this year."

"John, the facts are also not changed by you wanting to talk or not talk about-"

Sherlock didn't get any further because John used the hand in his hair to pull him down into another kiss.