-Not a date—

A/N- Sorry doesn't even begin to cover it this time, does it? But I'll say it anyway- sorry!

But I've finished school now! Only a month of exams left in a couple of weeks, and then I'm done! So that's exciting. We had like ten various leaving dinners and breakfasts and assemblies and chapel services and dances and God only knows what else, and now I'm back at home again and I have to put my uni preferences in in a few days which is somewhat stressful.

But anyways. You probably don't really want to read about my dilemmas. I'm only making excuses.

So here's another chapter. This one's a bit more fluffy. It was fun to write :)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and as always, I don't own anything.

Chapter 6- Not a Date

It would be easy to make that assumption. John can see that. To think that Sherlock and John are on a date. That they're 'together'.

Because really, when two people walk into a crowded, cosy little restaurant at night and take a table together, what else is one supposed to think? It's a natural deductive leap to make, thinking the two men are a couple. John has never met this Angelo, so Angelo has no way of knowing that John is one-hundred-percent straight, and going by his own (albeit limited) knowledge of Sherlock, not many people really know that much about the man, so for all John and probably Angelo know, Sherlock could be straight or gay or bi or something else entirely.

So it isn't an unreasonable thing to assume. It's maybe going a little too far when Angelo insists on bringing a candle to the table because 'it's more romantic', but Sherlock seems totally unconcerned and John gives up after a couple of it's not a datesbecause at this point he's got other things on his mind.

And so John eats his pasta (very good, just by the way, cheese and mushroom and something else that may have been spinach in the ravioli, with a cheesy-carbonara sort of sauce) and Sherlock stares out the window and they don't talk because Sherlock's looking for a murderer who'll come because he's a genius and wants to be noticed or something absurd. And then John breaks the silence and they do talk a bit, about friends and enemies and relationships. John talks himself into a corner by telling Sherlock he was unattached like himself and that was good (why, John, why would you say that), and then Sherlock jumps to conclusions as well and it's sufficiently awkward for a while.

Because John is straight. Not homophobic, in any way- like he said to Sherlock it's all fine- but he's straight. He had girlfriends through secondary school and uni and before he went away to war, and sometimes he and Harry would sit in bars together before her alcoholism got too bad and rate the girls there, even though that was more than a bit strange at first, but John had gotten used to it and they'd had a laugh. So no, John Watson is not gay.

Even though John would have to be blind to not notice that his new flatmate is not half-bad-looking. He certainly cuts a mysterious figure, if nothing else, what with his piercing x-ray eyes and his cheekbones and his dark dramatic curls…

And then Sherlock meets his eyes, across the too-small table in the crowded little restaurant, and John can see again why people would get the wrong impression, because it's an intense look, magnetic, held for just a second too long, and it's a little bit guarded but it's filled with a thousand things at once and John doesn't know quite what he's just jumped into but he knows it's good. He might be in a little over his head at the moment, but he senses that he needs it, and he holds Sherlock's gaze and his breath catches in his throat and maybe the world stops for a moment.

But it's not a date. Really, it's not.

A/N2- The ending of this was sort of hard to write because I'd written it as a smile BUT SHERLOCK DOESN'T FREAKING SMILE IN THIS SCENE