"Sherlock! Come help me!" John called from the ground. He was standing under the huge climbing tree in his backyard. Sherlock had promised to teach him how to climb a tree.
"It's easy! You just have to copy everything I did!" Sherlock called back in his never ending matter-of-fact-tone.
"But you climbed too fast!" John pouted.
"Just try!" John reached up to grab the lowest branch, but he was too short. He tried jumping for the branch but missed, and fell down on his bottom. He knew that if he pouted for long enough at Sherlock that Sherlock would come back down, take his hand, and walk him through it step by step. It was the one thing that Sherlock never seemed to anticipate happening. Or maybe he did and let John do it every time. It didn't matter. John stayed sitting there on his bottom and looked up with his best pout face toward Sherlock. He let fake tears come to his eyes, making the pout even better.
"Sherlock!" John whined. Sherlock sighed.
"Alright I'll come help you, just don't cry. I don't like that," he said, not looking at John. John perked up right away, getting exactly what he'd wanted. Sherlock started again, going slowly and making sure John knew exactly what to do. By the end they were both as high as they could go, sitting comfortably in the top of the tree.
"Thanks for helping me Sherlock." John smiled at his friend. Sherlock blushed and looked away.
"Whatever, I just don't see why you needed help, it's so easy." John giggled.
"Well thanks anyway." Carefully he leaned over and kissed Sherlock on the cheek. But then Sherlock's face was bright red. John started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Sherlock asked defensively.
"Nothing, nothing." John brushed it off as best he could. "Wait, how do we get down?" he asked suddenly, a little afraid. Both boys looked at each other with fear in their eyes. Sherlock could tell John was starting to feel frantic. He pretended he wasn't that scared.
"We just gotta go back down the way we came," he said matter-of-factly.
"And how's that exactly?!" John was really starting to panic.
"John, calm down; I'll get you down. I got you up here didn't I?" John nodded. "Okay, then just follow my lead." Sherlock slowly started to lower himself down with John following, taking shallow breaths. They were doing well, but when they got close to the bottom John slipped and fell out of the tree, landing with a loud whump. "John!" Sherlock scrambled the rest of the way down and knelt by his friend. "Are you okay? Does anything hurt?" He helped John sit up.
"I'm fine." John smiled tearily. "I just hurt my shoulder a little is all." Sherlock kissed his should and said,
"It's all better now." in his same matter-of-fact tone. Now it was John's turn to blush. His face went bright red and he giggled again.
"Let's go inside and eat some strawberry shortcake."
"Okay." Sherlock stood up and held his hand out to John to help him up. After he got up, John didn't let go, and the pair walked back into the house hand in hand, smiles on their faces.