"So um, Molly Hooper?" Victor wondered, to which Sherlock only smiled again, letting his head fall back against the rim of the tub as he stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully.
"I know that it may appear that I love her, certainly I am a good actor in that way, however I have never felt so much as a spark of attraction to her. In fact I find her a rather revolting girl, in most all aspects." Sherlock admitted finally, making Victor breathe a sigh of relief a little bit too indiscreetly, for Sherlock's smile only widened knowingly.
"Then why do you pay her so much attention?" Victor wondered, remembering back to Molly's party when Sherlock had danced with her the entire night. Had that really all just been an act?
"Because isn't it what I have to do? Isn't that what's expected of me?" Sherlock wondered thoughtfully, closing his eyes for a moment as if he was imagining a world in which he didn't have to pretend to love a woman.
"It's not expected of your brother." Victor pointed out. "Nor of me."
"I am not my brother, he is far too old and too fat to be considered an eligible bachelor, and for you Victor you are nothing but a servant, surely no one is bothered if you go to a party just to sit by yourself. All of the upper class families expect me to act as a young, attractive man would act. They expect me to fraternize with the women who throw themselves at me, and so what can I do except comply? Gossip travels faster than light, surely if I sit alone like my brother people will talk. A dance doesn't hurt, a conversation won't kill me, however it's their expectations that always null my good humor in the end. The poor women actually think that their love is returned, and I'm not very good at turning them down." Sherlock admitted with a tedious groan, as if he found being chased by women to be absolutely exhausting.
"Well maybe one day my Lord, you will find someone who suits you. Surely there is a woman out there who is experiencing the same boredom with her own suitors." Victor guessed. Sherlock sighed heavily, almost as if he had a different, more secretive thought about where his future might lie.
"As the years progress I begin to suspect that I'm destined to be as alone as my brother." he admitted finally and with a tone of sadness that Victor couldn't help picking up on.
"You won't be alone my Lord, of that I am sure." Victor assured softly, watching Sherlock with soft eyes as the boy only watched the ceiling, as if he expected it to hold answers he did not have.
"And what of you Victor, surely you can't be my servant forever? Surely you must create your own life with a woman?" Sherlock wondered, suddenly letting his head fall along the rim of the tub so that his eyes focused intensely on where Victor sat, Victor who was still gazing with love in his eyes at his previously distracted master. As soon as the question was presented, however, Victor couldn't help but laugh, finding the very idea of a future for himself something of a laughing matter.
"Honestly my Lord..."
"Oh stop with that victor, tonight you are my friend, not my servant." Sherlock complained, waving his hand carelessly through the air before letting it fall back into the soapy water, splashing Victor and making him blink the water droplets out of his eyes.
"Honestly Sherlock," Victor corrected, "I could never see a life for myself outside of this manor."
"That will change I assume, once you find the right partner." Sherlock assured. Victor smiled to himself, almost as if he had an inside joke that only he understood. The very idea of the right partner being someone other than the very man who lay before him was becoming more and more impossible by the second. Victor had dedicated his heart so thoroughly to Sherlock that he doubted he had any of it left to himself, much less left to any other mistress that might walk into their doors. He was to stay wherever Sherlock stayed, he was going to love him from a distance like he always did, and together they would be soulmates whether or not Sherlock realized it or not.
"I don't really have the best selection, considering I am nothing but a servant." Victor pointed out glumly, or at least he pretended to be glum. His lack of options didn't bother him, as he had already found the only person that would matter in the end.
"Well maybe at one of these parties someone will take an interest in your, a waitress maybe?" Sherlock suggested.
"Or maybe I'm destined to be an old single man, serving you for the rest of my withered years." Victor suggested with a laugh.
"Well certainly I wouldn't complain, I would hate to have to employ another servant, especially after all of the years spent in your company." Sherlock admitted with a soft smile. Victor nodded, feeling his face get a little bit red at the very idea of Sherlock's gratitude.
"Maybe we're both just destined to be alone and in each other's company." Victor suggested in a rather bold statement, making Sherlock sigh heavily and lay back down in his now lukewarm bathwater.
"Yes Victor maybe you're right. Or maybe our soulmates aren't just making themselves known yet. Maybe they're not the most obvious of our companions." He admitted finally, closing his eyes as if trying to admit to himself that his true soulmate was waiting for him wherever they were. Maybe he already had an impossible lover in mind. Victor certainly did, although he was quite sure that Sherlock's impossible love wasn't the very man sitting next to him in this steamy perfumed bathroom. Their conversation dwindled after that, and finally Victor excused himself while Sherlock dressed into his pajamas, emerging from the cloud of steam draped in his dressing gown with his hair dripping wet, drifting majestically from the bathroom and to his desk, where he sat down and stared for a moment at a blank piece of paper in front of him. Victor busied himself with draining the tub and toweling off the wet floor, stuffing all of the wet towels into a basket for him to give to the laundry women downstairs. When he returned to the bedroom he saw that Sherlock now had a pen in his hand, tapping it thoughtfully against his chin while he pressed the sharp metal point to the paper beneath him.
"Writing a letter sir?" Victor guessed, walking cautiously over to Sherlock's side to see who it was addressed to. With a horrible shock he recognized John's name written in large careful cursive at the top of the page, and for a moment Victor wondered what about tonight's conversations might have sparked the idea to write to John at this hour.
"Yes well, I'm attempting to." Sherlock admitted, still having written nothing but a name.
"What do you have to say to John Watson?" Victor wondered almost apprehensively, to which Sherlock sighed heavily and sat back in his chair, capping his heavy pen and setting it down next to the nearly blank piece of paper.
"I thought it might be nice to invite him to one of our dinners, I would like to have a man here that I can tolerate." Sherlock admitted with a smile.
"My Lord I'm sure his presence wouldn't be appreciated, your brother and your guests certainly wouldn't like to share the table with someone of his...profession." Victor muttered nervously, trying to pick his words in a way that may just convince Sherlock to rethink. Of course there was some truth in what he said, Victor knew that a shoe shiner wouldn't be very welcome in these social circles and he also knew that he wouldn't be very happy with serving a man who earned even less than he did at a table filled with the most elite members of society. This didn't seem to bother Sherlock, however, for he sat forward a scribbled a line of greeting, as if he had been thinking about what to write rather than listening to Victor drone on and on about the morality of it all.
"I would like him here, certainly they wouldn't complain if they knew that he was a friend. Besides, they'll never know his profession unless he tells them." Sherlock pointed out.
"Or if they recognize him by the side of the street." Victor mumbled spitefully.
"I do not understand your hatred of John Watson; to be honest you come across as extremely childish whenever you try to keep him from my presence." Sherlock admitted with a frown.
"I am looking out for your best interest my Lord." Victor lied very quickly.
"You are looking out for yourself, you are jealous of John, not cautious of me." Sherlock corrected flatly. Victor blinked, not expecting Sherlock to be as abrupt as he evidently dared to be.
"My Lord what is there to be jealous of?" Victor wondered in a seemingly innocent voice. Sherlock breathed a heavy, exasperated sigh, slamming down his pen onto the table without turning to face his servant. He seemed tense and immediately Victor regretted being so snappy, sure he had upset Sherlock in some way.
"You are dismissed for the night, Victor." Sherlock said flatly, staring fixedly at the wall while clenching his fists in an unrecognizable fit of rage. Victor faltered, beginning to speak but seeming to fail all together.
"But..." Victor started.
"Leave me!" Sherlock yelled immediately, making Victor trip over himself in horror as he tried to scramble out of the bedroom. Surely Sherlock would start to throw things next; he always did like to make collateral damage whenever he was throwing one of his temper tantrums.
"Goodnight my Lord." Victor managed before he scampered out into the hallway, closing the door and falling onto the opposite wall, breathing heavily under the large portrait of Sherlock's great great grandmother. 

 Sherlock POV: Part of Sherlock's rage was due to the fact that Victor was undoubtedly correct. Surely John wouldn't be the outcast, surely no one would appreciate his being there, he called attention to himself simply with his moth-eaten jacket and his unkempt hair, it was impossible for him to blend into a crowd of high society members simply by invitation. And yet Sherlock wanted him at dinner, he wanted to spend time with him as much as possible and dinner would be the perfect excuse. He would invite Greg Lestrade, and Molly Hooper as well, both of which knew John and would at least make an attempt to invite him into their conversations. Sherlock didn't know why he was so desperate to talk to John Watson once more, surely he wasn't the most interesting man to talk to nor was he the most socially renowned, maybe Sherlock thought that by inviting him it would be an act of charity? But no, there was definitely something different about John, something that even the most sophisticated of men couldn't dream of possessing. Maybe it was his indifference to his class, maybe it was the way he arrived at a first rate party all alone, or the way he talked to Sherlock as if they were old friends rather than two men with a wage gap the size of the ocean stretching between them. Or maybe it was his confidence, or the way he carried a conversation, maybe it was his smile, or his laughing at things that weren't funny. Maybe it was his humbleness, or his satisfaction in the littlest of tokens, maybe it was his big dreams and his little wallet, or his complete adoration of the upper class life despite his daily struggles on the side of a dirty street. Oh who was he kidding, it wasn't any of these things that Sherlock admired in John, it was all of them! It was almost as if John had been molded with all the characteristics of confidence and fearfulness that Sherlock respected in a man, almost as if he had been created with the purpose of being Sherlock's everlasting companion. It was uncharacteristic for Sherlock to pay any attention to anyone who didn't share his own tax bracket however today's occurrences almost felt something like fate. Surely that puddle had collected there with the intentions of trapping Sherlock's foot in its depths, and John had set up his shoe shine stand right next to it as if he had known subconsciously years previous that he would be meant to serve the one man that would happen across that very puddle. Surely they were destined to know each other, to reconnect in such a seemingly coincidental way. Without that puddle surely Sherlock wouldn't have given John a second thought, if they hadn't met in that way in such close proximity to the time they first met then they may never have reunited and now, now look at him! Look at him sitting here with John's address and his pen in his hand, trying to think of a formal way to invite him to dinner without seeming to pushy! He could only hope that John got this letter, and to be honest he was rather apprehensive to send it to Greg Lestrade's house in the first place. Would Greg understand that the two of them had been acquainted, or would he open it out of curiosity? Why was Greg receiving John's mail in the first place, John had mentioned that they were still friends and yet Sherlock highly doubted that John had been invited to live at Greg's manor with his suspicious parents. Maybe he should go down there himself, or should he hand deliver the note to John's shoe shining stand? He wanted the letter to get to its intended target however he was worried that John would feel overwhelmed by Sherlock's hand deliverance, maybe he would assume that it wasn't a gesture of friendship but one of pity. No, he had to send the letter, that was how all of their formal invitations got sent after all, and if John was treated any differently then surely there would be those who would get suspicious. And Victor, how dare that servant speak such horrible words? He treated John as if he was somehow above him, as if he had some sort of superiority over that man who crouched on the streets! Did Victor not understand that despite his close connections with the Holmes brothers he was still nothing more than a servant, he held no more power than the rest of them and surely he had no more respect than John did? Sherlock was disgusted at his hatred, purely because he knew there was no logical reason to despise John unless he was jealous of all the attention he was suddenly receiving. Victor was always one to protect Sherlock from potential acquaintances, whether they be friendships or relationships, and with John it seemed that his protectiveness had flared up in a flame of pure hatred! It was almost as if Victor sensed something in John, something of the same destiny that Sherlock could only grasp at. It was impossible, however, wasn't it? That he could have a future with a man who was nothing more than a shoe shiner? John certainly would make a good friend, however it was the question of if he could even be considered an acquaintance at this point in time. The social classes didn't intermix well and gossip spread like wildfire throughout the upper class, especially when they noticed something that they deemed inappropriate or out of character. But was friendship with John Watson really inappropriate? He was just being friendly, and John was certainly the type of man that everyone would aspire to have as a friend, what did money matter in this equation? Sherlock had never had a friend before, or more accurately he had never made a friend for himself before. Victor had been his friend purely because it was his job to be so, Sherlock had never really earned his companionship he had been given it. John, well he was a completely different situation. He was someone that had, for some reason, fascinated Sherlock from the beginning of their very short affair. Sherlock had no idea why John had stuck out so vividly to him the night of the party, maybe that had something to do with fate as well. And so maybe Sherlock shouldn't try to argue with Fate at all, maybe he was supposed to write this letter, maybe John was just destined to come to his house for dinner and they would see what progressed from there. Maybe the two of them would become inseparable companions, who knew? Maybe they were compatible in the most curious of ways, fitting together like a complex puzzle piece that wouldn't have fit any other way. And so Sherlock picked up his pen and thought for a moment, scribbling down an invitation he thought would be appreciated before finally he let the ink dry, folding the paper up into a neat crease and sliding it gently into an envelope addressed to John Watson with the address of Greg Lestrade. Sherlock sensed that this very letter would begin a very complex chapter in his life, a chapter that would be written entirely by the polish stained hand of John Watson.