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As soon as the ridiculous joke passed his lips, John wanted to kick himself. He inwardly cringed, but Sherlock chuckled in a slow, deep rumble. When John looked up at him, Sherlock’s face was tilted down towards his half-full plate. He looked at John from under his eyelashes. John slid a hand off the table and rested it over his pocket, one finger tracing the outline of the black velvet box that he’d been carrying for over two weeks.
“That was a terrible joke,” he said. “Really not worth laughing over.”
Sherlock shook his head, still smiling. His eyes flickered to the side, where the rain beat gently against the window. When he turned back to John, his smile had faded, but warmth still lingered in his gaze.
They were quiet for a moment, looking at each other. Candlelight flickered between them, tiny licks of amber illuminating their skin.
John cleared his throat.
“Sherlock—” He felt Sherlock’s leg brush his own underneath the table. He licked his lips and leaned in closer, the edge of the table just pressing against his ribcage. He spoke softly. “I wanted to—”
“Would you like another glass of wine, Mr. Holmes?”
John looked up at the waitress who had interrupted. Her poorly-manicured hand hovered over Sherlock’s empty glass, and Sherlock shook his head with a scowl.
“None for me, none for Dr. Watson, no coffee or pudding. That will be all, now leave.”
“I—”
John sighed.
“I’m sorry. If you could just give us a moment...”
The waitress gave a stunned nod. She picked up their empty wine glasses and scurried off with a muttered apology.
“You were saying?” Sherlock asked.
John felt his stomach tie itself into knots. “Um. I was—right.” He leaned back from the table and held both hands in his lap, clenching his fists. Sherlock raised an eyebrow.
“Sherlock, I—”
“If this is about what happened to the bathtub this morning—”
“This isn’t about—”
“I’ll get the stains out, I swear. I just need to—”
“Sherlock.”
Sherlock shut his mouth and waited. John took a breath.
“I love you,” he said.
Sherlock’s shoulders loosened. “Ah. This really isn’t about what happened to the bathtub.”
John laughed, nervously, feeling the tension ease out of his body. He slipped his hand into his pocket and ran a finger over the tiny black box before pulling it out and holding it in his lap. He turned it over in his hand as he spoke.
“I love you, and I don’t care what you’ve done to the bathtub. I didn’t care what you did to the last bathtub, and I won’t care what you do to the bathtub after this. You could destroy a hundred bathtubs, and it wouldn’t make a difference, so long as they were ours.”
Sherlock looked somewhere between amused and confused. He glanced at John’s fidgeting arm, and John forced himself to keep still. He clutched the box tightly in his fist.
“What I mean to say is—” He shook his head and muttered a curse under his breath, then got up and sat next to Sherlock on the bench. Sherlock immediately slid back to make room, his eyes narrowing as he tried to see what John was hiding behind his back.
“I’m not kneeling,” said John. “There are too many people here, and I know neither of us want to be fussed over.” He took Sherlock’s left hand in his right. “But you’re not exactly one for tradition, so I don’t think you’ll mind.”
Sherlock stared at him, his lips parted, his eyes widening. John smiled. He brought the box out from behind his back and flipped it open with one hand, as he had done a hundred times alone, in front of the mirror.
“Sherlock, will you marry me?”
⚛
He must not laugh. It was of inestimable importance that Sherlock keep from laughing, even if it choked him. If he choked, or stopped breathing and flopped unconscious onto the sticky restaurant floor, John would forgive him. If he laughed—
Sherlock inhaled, savouring candlelight and coincidence and John’s gold-toned affection like tobacco smoke, until his mirth was contained.
“John—”
Sherlock had known, of course, before John pulled out the ring. Indeed, some subtler and still higher-functioning part of his brain had undoubtedly known for days, and Sherlock would have known that he knew if he hadn't been so distracted by his own plans.
All things considered, it was a bearable miscalculation.
John’s expression was edging toward uncertain, which wouldn’t do. Sherlock couldn't trust himself to speak, laughter still lodged in his throat, so he slid closer, until he and John were not facing but pressed shoulder to shoulder. Sherlock reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, square box. He flipped it open and placed it on John’s knee.
John was quiet.
Sherlock stared straight ahead, wearing the calmest and most thoughtful of expressions. He could feel John’s warmth from knee to hip to shoulder. After what seemed like an eternity of silence, John cleared his throat.
“Sherlock,” he began, a funny quaver hiding in the second syllable. “Is that—?”
“Mm,” Sherlock replied. A corner of his mouth twitched, rebelliously.
“So, you— ah,” John cleared his throat again. “Were you— did you plan on, um—”
“Mm.”
Sherlock released John’s hand to pull his ring free of its plush casing. He rolled it between thumb and forefinger. It was smooth, unadorned black titanium, with rounded edges. He slid it onto his ring finger and found that it fit very comfortably.
John’s body was humming like a shaken soda bottle, and Sherlock couldn’t stop grinning. He watched as John picked up his own ring—plain gold, with a faint ridge—and held it, considering, in the palm of his hand.
“So,” John managed, “is that a yes, then?”
“Ah.” With a truly heroic effort, Sherlock schooled his tone into seriousness. “Well, John Watson—you tell me.”
The dam burst. Forks and knives rattled against plates with the force of their convulsions, and a few people turned to stare, mouths quirking with sympathetic smiles. Sherlock and John laughed like they had just run six blocks after a confused Californian in a taxi and were collapsing with their backs against Mrs. Hudson’s tastefully-chosen wallpaper. They laughed like John had been airlifted in a government-owned helicopter and flown to Buckingham Palace only to find Sherlock seated on a finely upholstered settee clad in only a bed sheet. They laughed and held hands under the table.
“People will talk,” John murmured, as soon as he could breathe. He turned to Sherlock and grinned.
“John,” Sherlock said, looking solemn. “You should know that I consider myself married to m—”
John kissed him, until Sherlock ruined it with another laugh.
“You’re an idiot,” John said, slipping an arm around his narrow waist.
Sherlock smiled. “Only sometimes.”