It had taken a very long time, longer than he liked to admit, for John Watson to truly read the complex, alien language that was Sherlock's face. Most people, John found, we relatively easy to read, expressions were the stuff of emotions, raw, primal things that it was built into one's DNA to understand, but Sherlock was something else… the rules never seemed to apply to him. Never-the-less, John was starting to make progress, he had a little catalogue in the back of his brain of Sherlock faces, with little notes on what they meant, the sorts of situations they applied to and which ones it was a good idea to avoid. Most were variations of the famous 'How can anyone so mind-blowing stupid even survive in the modern world?' face, (one that was generally reserved for the likes of Anderson, one that John had only found himself subjected to on a small number of occasions.) But there was also the 'shut up I'm thinking' face, the 'I'm so terrifically bored won't somebody hurry up and die' face, the 'you just hate me because I'm so staggeringly intelligent face' and even the occasional content smile… But there was no adequate description in John's mental filing cabinet of still-shots that quite summed up the expression that stretched like cling-film over the consulting detective's cutting cheekbones now. John had never seen his flatmate quite so… discomposed.

John cast a wary gaze across the room, nonchalantly aware of a pair of pale, hawk-like eyes boring into the fabric of his skull. He expected that he was enduring the ongoing torment of what both men now referred to as the look, and was rather taken aback when he found that it was not so. There was nothing arrogant, bored or exasperated about Sherlock's expression. He seemed… trance-like transfixed even, lips slightly parted, eyes wide, jaw slack, as if a pathway to a parallel universe had suddenly torn its way through the space where John's head should be. John blinked, coughed quietly and proceeded to wave his hand a little in Sherlock's line of sight.

"Are you alright?" John murmured. Sherlock blinked at him, his dark curls bouncing a little as he jumped back into reality.

"Yes, perfectly fine, why do you ask?" Sherlock turned away from John, throwing those (rather elegantly, John thought) long legs up onto the couch and placing his hands, palm to palm, under his chin.

"You just… looked… strange. Stranger than usual." John muttered, a bubble of awkward tension rising in his gut as he pondered over the reason behind the attractive pink glow that laced those impeccable cheekbones.

"Thank you for your analysis of my appearance John." Sherlock muttered dryly. "I was merely thinking about the coagulation of saliva and your face happened to be in the way."

John swallowed. He didn't really like to admit his once-mild-but-swiftly-becoming-anything-but fixation with his flatmate, not even to himself. Of course, he wasn't the only person ever to have been won over by the consulting detective's allure, his presence, his intellect, those goddamn fucking cheekbones, he probably wasn't even the first man. But John knew Sherlock, he wasn't a sexual object to be toyed with, he was a man dedicated entirely to his own enormous brain, that delicious body, with its hard angles and long limbs and delicate graceful structure, was merely a case for that intellect, John knew better than to even really consider pushing the boundaries with Sherlock, no matter how sweet that concept tasted on his tongue, because Sherlock wasn't like that. Not at all, or so John had thought… He wasn't in the habit of ogling Sherlock's… intimates, the way he would with women, despite this new-found fascination with his flatmate, John still regarded the idea of sex with another man as a rather alien concept, (He knew how it worked, what went where and which positions were more comfortable and the mechanics of 'top' and 'bottom' and… thins like that, but it still wasn't something he had ever really given much thought to in relation to his own body) yet as his eyes drifted back down to the morning paper in dismissal of Sherlock's cutting comments, he noticed the detective's slender hand reach down to scratch what John decided was a considerably… well… larger bulge than usual. John felt a heat rise up his face and he coughed again, hiding what would have probably been a distinctly un-masculine giggle.

"And do you usually get a hard on thinking about coagulating saliva then?" John's tone was amused, Sherlock's expression was merciless. He glared, like a bird of prey across the room at John, before returning his gaze to the ceiling.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He mumbled. Sherlock never mumbled.

"Yes you do. One minute you're staring at me as if the answer to life, the universe and everything just appeared tattooed across my forehead… the next minute you're scratching your privates and talking about spit."

"John." Sherlock sat up at glared at his accomplice with all the weight and malice of the world. "If you're feeling frustrated then by all means take the laptop into your bedroom. I'll even turn the stereo on if you're worried I might be listening. But do NOT, DO NOT put me at the center of whatever bacheloresque fantasies you've created for yourself. I am well aware of the way you swing, calculated by the number of brainless twitty bints you bring home and you know that I avoid the swing set altogether…"

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson stared at each other for a very long time, the echoes of Sherlock's shouting still lingering in obscure corners of the room. John had been shouted at many times by his friend, he took it with a grain of salt, it was just Sherlock's way, but this, this was cutting. Humiliation boiled over his skin like a tidal wave of hornets.

"Fine. You know what fine. I'm going out. If you're going to yell at me I'd rather just be alone thank you." John threw the paper to the floor and lifted himself out of the chair. He would go for a drink, he decided. He would go for a few drinks. Enough drinks to wash the impossible sting of everything Sherlock had said from his skin, form his head, from his heart. Who did he, John, think he was? Did he really think, even for one skull-shattering, foundation crumbling second that Sherlock really wanted him? It was Sherlock for crying out loud! So what if he scratched his balls, that didn't mean anything. John couldn't be sure that he had 'the bulge' going on either; maybe he was just… uh… 'well-endowed'… he'd never really looked that closely. And the face, well… it was Sherlock, who knew what was really going on behind those wintry eyes? John took a deep breath as he stomped across the room, grabbed his coat and marched down the stairs.

"John." Sherlock's voice rang out, following John down the stairs, making his ears bleed. He was not going to have a conversation. He was not going to be calm and civilized. He was not going to shout and scream either. He was going to go out, get roaring drunk and bring home some 'bint'.

"John."

"John!"

"John I'm sorry."

Sorry. Sherlock said sorry. He apologized. This meant three things. One: He knew he'd hurt John and felt genuinely bad about it. Two: He didn't want John to leave, and three: John would be glued to that one spot until the problem was resolved, via a complete lack of willpower when it came to anything Sherlock related.

Sherlock popped his head around the door frame at the top of the stairs.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes." Said John. "You should be."

"Your comments confused me, and I don't like being confused, so I got angry, and I yelled at you, and I'm sorry."

John scratched his head. Apologetic Sherlock was one of those things that you never really got used to, it was oddly disconcerting. John thought it was probably best to avoid the whole thing by shifting the blame on to himself.

"No, no, you're right. I said some stupid things, and I made some stupid assumptions. I… haven't been… with anybody for a while now, and… I just… wasn't really thinking."

Sherlock's face twisted, morphing into that unreadable phenomenon that had started the fight in the first place. John bit his lip. Sherlock was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, though John wasn't sure he'd actually seen him move.

"It never works you know." The taller man mumbled, his voice seemed, somehow lower than usual. John frowned, he wondered if Sherlock was on drugs… or perhaps drunk. He was very close to John now, frighteningly close. John could feel the detective's breath on his skin.

"What?' He managed to breathe… feeling the hard cold plaster of the wall against his back as he brushed up against it. "What never works?"

John could hear his own heartbeat, ragged and vital in his ears as a cold, slender hand cup the side of his face.

He had every intention of asking Sherlock what he was doing but he only got as far as "Sh..." before Sherlock's mouth crashed onto his with all the force of a tropical storm. John was momentarily shocked, he forgot that he was meant to shut his eyes, or reciprocate, or breathe, but it was only for a second. That second threw the whole world into perspective. He was kissing Sherlock, Sherlock was kissing him. It was both the most ridiculous, terrifying and wonderful thing he had ever done in his life. John Watson closed his eyes, and everything was so much more real. Everywhere that Sherlock's skin touched his burned, like their bodies were vastly different molecularly and tiny reactions were going on all over the place. Sherlock's body, all those long, sensuous limbs and sharp angular facets pinned John against the wall. His lips moved against Johns in a way that made John very confused by the fact that Sherlock had never been in a sexual relationship before. Not that John was really thinking very hard at all. He wrapped one arm around the taller man and pulled him, somehow, even closer, so close that every intimate detail of their bodies were pressed together like Oreos without the icing, glued together by the simple existence of raw, pulsating lust.

For Sherlock, the experience was more than lust, more than feeling. Despite his large vocabulary, the detective knew there was really no way of accurately describing how it felt to be kissing this man. It wasn't that John was so ludicrously attractive that he broke down Sherlock's seeming asexual barriers, he wasn't. He was a relatively normal looking guy really. It wasn't that he was cripplingly intelligent, or suave, or mysterious, or any of those things. He was just John. That was what made every fiber in Sherlock's body sing as he raked his fingers down the doctor's back. Sherlock was kissing John, and it made, if you'll ignore the cliche, his head explode into stars.

It was rather like being squeezed down a small tube that narrowed towards the end, the pressure was nauseating, mind-blowing. There was a small voice in the back of Sherlock's mind worrying that he'd never get over this, never get out, that he'd be stuck permanently in this dizzying dimension of raw, senseless need forever... suffocating, burning, but the rest of his mind didn't listen, if he suffocated in this pressurized dispenser of pulsating, gyrating lust then so be it... drowning in John Watson... there are a million far worse ways to die.

If Sherlock were to list and analyse all the different reactions that this kiss gave him, he would probably never think about anything else for the rest of his life. He would dissolve into the tactile experience that was John's body and he would never get out. Hesitantly, Sherlock opened his eyes. John stopped. He blinked, and locked gaze with the detective. The pair pulled away, Sherlock scratching his head and John plunging his fists deep into his pockets.

Sherlock smiled hesitantly, placing a gentle hand on John's shoulder. "Lying to me." He murmured.

John blinked. "What?"

"It never works." Sherlock said calmly, continuing the pre-kiss conversation which John had clearly forgotten all about. John was biting his lip, his own lip this time, hard. He was going to ask Sherlock what had just happened, Sherlock could see the question in his stature, the questioning glint in his eyes, but the question didn't leave his lips. The door behind them swung open, and a small, angry woman stood in the doorway, her eyes full of confusion and exasperation.

"If you boys are going to fight can you please consider my walls?" Mrs. Hudson had her hands on her hips and was glaring up at Sherlock with cold eyes.

Sherlock crafted his face into an angry glare which he cast, somewhat mockingly at John, who merely blushed and looked away.

"Oh Sherlock, you've made the poor man bleed. You two better sort out your differences or I WILL intervene." She stated with a huff, before closing the door muttering about and holes in the plaster going into the boys' rent bill.

"Well that was…" John scratched his nose, laughter bubbling just below the surface.

"Close?"

"Exciting."

"I really am sorry." Sherlock murmured. "About before. "

"Well… you can yell and scream at me all you like if that's your method of apology." John was laughing now, his eyes crinkling up like folds in the fabric of Sherlock's bed sheets, which were currently predominantly on his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~