"Sherlock, what are you doing?"

Sherlock didn't actually roll his eyes, but they'd been living together long enough now that John could tell he really wanted to. "Cleaning, obviously." He crawled out from under the kitchen table and dunked the sponge (wait, was that their dish sponge?) back into his bucket of soapy water. "There were crumbs on the floor."

"So you're scrubbing it. On your hands and knees. With an actual bloody sponge."

"I got the blood up first with paper towels - there wasn't that much. I know how you feel about biological contaminants."

John shook his head, his breath escaping him in a disbelieving laugh. "I . . . wow. You're really something, you know that?"

Sherlock looked up at him, curls sticking to his sweaty forehead, brows furrowed in query. "Is that . . . something good? Or something bad?"

Jesus. "Just . . . something."

Sherlock pottered around the kitchen for the next forty-five minutes while John sat on the sofa and caught up on email. Other than the occasional question ("John, does all-purpose cleaner work on dishes as well?"), it was blissfully quiet in the flat. John was just responding to his final email when Sherlock gave a triumphant shout. "Done! John, don't move. I'll be right back." He practically ran to his room and slammed the door.

Right. John mentally shrugged - whatever Sherlock was up to, it had started with cleaning so he couldn't be entirely opposed. Hopefully it wasn't a lead-up to some new, all-encompassing experiment which would take up their entire kitchen-

"Ready!" Sherlock practically skidded to a stop in front of him. He'd changed - instead of his pajamas, he was now wearing the purple shirt that John always assumed was a size too small (not that he minded seeing Sherlock in it like that) and black dress trousers. Still with bare feet. He'd washed his face, too, which left his skin slightly damp and entirely too enticing and damn, I've really got to stop looking at him like that or one of these times he's going to notice.

"Um." John cleared his throat, deliberately forcing that train of thought off the tracks before it could get too far out of control. "Ready for what?"

"Come on." Sherlock actually offered him a hand up. And didn't let go. He dragged John by the hand into the kitchen and positioned John by the shoulders very deliberately so John was standing in the center of the room facing the sink.

"What am I looking at?" John started to turn, to take in how the kitchen looked when actually clean, but Sherlock caught his face in both hands and stilled the motion.

"This way, John." Sherlock loomed large in his vision, a determined look in his eyes. "I didn't clean the sitting room, so you have to face this way for the proper field of vision. I felt it prudent to optimize my chances of you responding positively to this, so as long as you stand right there, everything you can see should be in its best possible state."

"O . . . kay." Wonder if that includes him in that blasted shirt. "Sherlock - what's this about?"

Sherlock actually reddened a bit. "I wanted to . . ." His words trailed off and he looked down toward the table. "Damn it, why is this so hard?" He squared his shoulders a bit and brought his gaze deliberately back to John's face. "John, I want you to kiss me."

Of all the things Sherlock could have said, that was probably what John was least expecting. It took him a moment to close his mouth again. "You want a kiss?" John echoed.

"To start with, yes." Sherlock's eyes were wide - a hint of fear in them John found himself desperately wanting to chase away. "I know I'm not - I'm a difficult flatmate, John. And I've never been in a relationship worth putting effort into before. And I know-" He swallowed. "I know you're not gay. But we go so well together - and I'm a quick learner, John, I promise-"

John silenced him by the simple expedient of pressing his forefinger gently over Sherlock's suddenly quivering lips. "Hey," he said quietly. "That's what this was about, then? The cleaning?"

Sherlock shuddered - literally shuddered - but he didn't back away. "I - I thought you'd be more likely to respond well if you were in an environment which demonstrated I'm capable of taking your needs into account. I can be better about labeling my experiments, I promise - if we got a second refrigerator, I could- mmph."

The first contact was quick, a little punctuation mark of a kiss, but it stopped Sherlock's rambling. He looked absolutely gorgeous like this, wide-eyed and shocked and a little bit hopeful and John couldn't help but draw closer for the second attempt. Their next kiss was slower and achingly sweet. John could tell right away that Sherlock probably had very little experience with kissing - not with someone who enjoyed it, anyway - but there was something utterly marvelous about the way he quivered when John closed a palm over the nape of his neck and tugged him nearer for a better angle. Sherlock let out a little helpless squeak and then his hands were on John, too, flitting frantically over his back until they finally settled over the jut of his shoulder blades. John had never kissed someone taller than he was - definitely had never kissed a man - but Sherlock was rather good at being an exception to all of John's personal rules. When they finally broke apart, Sherlock was blinking rapidly and had an utterly fantastic look of shock on his face.

"John," he breathed.

"Yeah." John felt his lips twisting into a smile, and all the willpower in the world couldn't have held it back. "In case you didn't deduce it, that was me accepting your offer." He pressed another quick peck on Sherlock's unresisting mouth. "You've got me for the long run anyway, you berk, but this is . . . yes. I love you too."

Sherlock froze. "I - I didn't say-"

"Yeah you did." John looked pointedly around at the sparkling clean kitchen, then back up at his wonderful, brilliant, mad flatmate. Boyfriend? Partner. Lifemate. "And Sherlock? It's all good."