When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

- Henri Nouwen

There were rooms in Sherlock's mind palace which he liked to keep permanently locked. They contained various incidents, thoughts and feelings that, regardless of how hard he tried, he couldn't forget. He rarely had to recall the contents of these rooms – having effectively banished them as far from his daily thoughts as he could – but now he could practically hear John rattling on one of the handles, trying to get in, and he knew that he would be expected to reveal what hid behind a few of them.

They had been sitting in a contemplative silence for the past ten minutes, with Sherlock being reluctant to be the first to speak and John being obviously lost for words.

It was unnerving to see him so engrossed in thought like this, so intent on trying to work out the: who, what, when and how. Perhaps if he applied this level of avid deduction to their cases, Sherlock wouldn't have to go through the laborious task of explaining everything all the time.

"You had..." John finally said but then abruptly stopped when words failed him, "But I thought... who... he_"

"Are you planning on reciting every pronoun in the English language or are you actually going to start speaking in full sentences?" Sherlock snapped.

John, obviously undeterred, asked – with that special tone of incredulity which conveyed that he wanted an explanation rather than a simple answer – "You had sex with a man?"

Sherlock felt his face grow uncharacteristically warm and, to his intense horror, he realised that he was blushing. "Yes." He said, rubbing at his cheeks in a hope to try and disperse the hot blood that was pooling beneath his skin, "This really isn't something that we need to discuss."

John made a noise at the back of his throat that sounded like something caught between a laugh and a snort, "No, come on. This is like... like... You had sex!" He finally exclaimed, "You had sex with a man."

"Yes John I am aware." Sherlock said as he clenched his fists together, grimacing as he felt the sweat that had accumulated on his palms. In fact his whole body was starting to feel abnormally clammy and warm.

"But... I mean..." John continued, obviously impervious to Sherlock's state of growing discomfort, "that's something that requires a bit of discussion."

"Why? I don't ask you about the personal details of your past sexual experiences."

"That's different. We're talking about you having sex with a man, not me getting off with some girl from the local pub. I... well I honestly thought that you were still a virgin."

"Evidently not." Sherlock said tightly.

This time John must have sensed his unease because he said, "Look, you don't have to give me specific details, all I want to know is the general... gist of what went on."

"Going by your web browsing history, I'm sure you understand the dynamics of gay sex pretty well."

"Sherlock," John said, and he could tell that he was holding onto his patience rather tenuously, "Stop being facetious and tell me what happened."

"There's nothing to tell," Sherlock said as he stripped himself of his coat, suddenly finding the growing warmth of his skin unbearable, "I simply made an error of judgement."

"When?"

Sherlock rubbed his face fiercely with his hands and then pressed his palms together, resting them against his chin like a pilgrim in prayer. How had the situation devolved to this? This was not part of the plan, not part of the game they were supposed to be playing. John was meant to see just how incompatible they were, just how different their lives had been.

It should have formed a venn diagram: with Sherlock's experiences on the right and John's on the left with no linking intersection in the middle. They shared no common ground, the drinking game was supposed to illustrate that, to prove to John that there was no way they could be anything more that friends and flat mates, but now...

He was about to unlock the door to a moment in his past that he had tried his hardest to forget. This was intimacy, in the true sense of the word, and Sherlock didn't like feeling so exposed and raw.

He sighed deeply before he said, "Do you really want to know?" His heart beat fast as he listening, waiting for John to deliver his verdict.

"Yes."

2001, University of Cambridge: School of Physical Sciences.

The night it happened there was a celebratory postgraduate leavers' party taking place in the main hall. I remember feeling the vibrations of the pulsing, heavy bass music through the floor. I didn't understand the attraction of dancing to music that sounded like an amplified version of an ultrasound heartbeat because even separated by several walls of concrete it was still giving me a headache.

I was sitting in the corner of my old research lab. The lights were off and the room was devoid of all forms of human life – with the exception of myself. I would often sit in that room after the technicians locked up and went home. It was a place where I could open up my mind and just let my thoughts wonder. The darkness aids the thought process: by cutting off visual stimulation you allow your brain to focus on other things. That, coupled with the gentle hum of the centrifuges and the dull drone of the air conditioning would often help lull me into an almost dream like state.

I had grown rather fond of that room over the past five years and that night, on the eve of leaving it forever, I couldn't help but feel a little... lost. I'd heard most of my fellow MSc graduates talking about the various job offers they had received but I knew that there were very few vocations that would suit me. Which job, after all, provides daily mental stimulation and a level of financial stability without the presence of colleagues or clients? I wanted to be given work that ignited my blood, made my brain ache and my eyes burn from the sheer number of hours that I would have to spend trying to work out the answer. But I also craved isolation and for some overly sentimental – and juvenile reason – I had convinced myself that the only place I would ever feel safe was in that lab where I could condense my entire world to one magnified glass slide. So I sat there that night, clinging to the last few hours I had to be alone in my self self-proclaimed haven.

It must have been about midnight when I heard male voices approaching. Going by their obnoxious loudness and incoherent conversation, I discerned that they were all probably heavily inebriated. They were approaching the door, and, not wanting to be noticed, I slid myself underneath one of the desks closest to the window. I sat there, looking like some errant school boy, waiting for the upcoming onslaught of light and noise that would soon enter the room.

The voices grew closer and I watched as someone turned the handle and opened the door, only about an inch, which allowed a shard of fluorescent light to stream into the room. Three fingers curled around the frame and through the babble of laugher and incoherent dialogue of the drunken men, I heard the man closest to the door say,

"Boys, I know that tonight is all about casting off the shackles of knowledge, but please try and reduce the amount of brain cells lost to the consumption of cheap liquor, at least until you are out of the confines of this establishment."

I recognised the voice immediately; it belonged to my, now former, degree advisor: Dr Fredrick Koffë. He was one of the younger lecturers at the college – being only about thirty-nine – and had a deeply ingrained state of inner calm and an outwardly expressed impassivity of nature that bordered on apathy. He always used to conduct lectures with a level of intense lethargy which rendered most students practically unconscious halfway through the session. He expressed a level of contempt for the entire student body, often reading out particularly poorly written essays with the intention of humiliating the author. He rarely stopped in the hallways when someone tried to address him and, when he did speak to a student or answer one of their questions, it was always in a patronising tone of voice. However, I seemed to be his one... exception.

During our one to one meetings, Dr Koffë had always found reasons to prolong our sessions together, getting me to read a particularly long article or continue questioning me long after our allotted hour had run its course. He would also shake my hand at the beginning and end of our meeting and, although I had no point of reference at the time, upon later reflection these handshakes did always feel rather lingering. I was rather flattered to be honest, assuming that it was because he found my insights and obvious intelligence rather stimulating. I thought he saw me as an equal, someone who he could converse with – academically speaking – and, at the age of twenty-three, that sort of special treatment was greatly appreciated. However, now, with the aid of hindsight, I realised that Dr Koffë had been harbouring feelings of a much... different kind.

After the drunken group of men had continued down the hall – obviously heading back towards the party – I watched as Dr Koffë finally pushed the door fully open and stepped inside. At first I thought that he had left his coat in the office or was here to pick up some papers to grade, but to my surprise I saw he looked directly at me like he had known that that is where I was going to be. He didn't look shocked by my presence – all hunched up under a desk, sitting alone in the dark – in fact, he looked as if he had come here with the sole purpose of finding me.

The door was still open and by the stream of light I watched him stare at me for a few seconds. Even though it could have been a trick of the light, I thought I saw his Adam's apple bob slightly in his throat, almost as if he was swallowing nervously. He stood silent for a moment before finally saying,

"Are you paying homage to your place of learning?"

I shrugged, "I suppose you could put it like that. I simply like the peace." I stressed the last word slightly in the vain hope that he would get the hint and leave. He didn't and instead ventured further into the room.

Without his hand to hold the door open, it swung shut and we were plunged into darkness. I wasn't frightened, I was simply a little disturbed by the idea that there was a person in the room with me that I couldn't see.

I listened though and heard the sound of his shoes snapping against the laminated floor. He grew close to me and then stopped. After a few seconds I was startled by the metallic sound of the blinds being opened and the sight of pale moonlight flooding into the room. The moon illuminated the figure of Dr Koffë, I could only see up to his knees because he was standing directly in front of me and the desk was obscuring my view.

Several seconds passed before he moved away from the desk and then, very carefully, he sat himself down in front of me. His sudden close proximity made me flinch slightly and I moved out from under the desk in order to feel less cornered.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, feeling slightly irritated that he seemed intent on ruining my former solitude.

He smiled – the first smile I think I had ever seen him bestow on another human – "I came looking for you."

"Why? I'm no longer your pupil."

He nodded, "This is very true – and I shall lament the loss of you in my class. You're going back to your family home are you not?"

"Yes, Mycroft is driving down tomorrow to pick me up."

"Ah, yes, I remember your brother Mycroft, he didn't attend Cambridge as a full time student, but he did venture over here a few times for debate challenges and the like." Upon which Dr Koffë cocked his head slightly and stared at me in contemplation, "You two look nothing alike. Where you are thin, pale and good looking, he was blotchy, overweight and had a rather off-putting face. He had an absolute respect for authority whereas you seem to have nothing but contempt for authoritative figures. How is it that one brother was born with a back bone and the other spineless?"

I think there's an established double standard that all siblings understand: it's fine for you to openly ridicule your sibling but it's not acceptable for someone else to do the same. Because of this, his comment about Mycroft irritated me immensely and I sounded quite sharp when I said,

"We came from the same womb but we didn't spring from the same ovum, why shouldn't we look and act dissimilar?"

"I meant nothing by it, it was simply an observation."

"Yes, and a rather trite one."

At this Dr Koffë smiled again, this time showing off a line of white teeth, "That is what I think I'll miss the most about you. Your obnoxious mouth. Are you unaware that you're being rude or do you take pleasure from being insubordinate?"

I was a little taken aback by his confession and was starting to sense that our conversation was shifting into a different sort of territory, "I suppose it's a combination of the two." As I spoke Dr Koffë shuffled a little closer and I caught a whiff of aftershave and recently applied antiperspirant, "What special event are you attending tonight?"

He seemed surprised by my question, "What makes you think I'm attending a special event?"

"You recently shaved. I saw you this morning at the awards ceremony and you had an inch of stubble. Now why would you shave so late tonight but not this morning? The same can be said of your clothes, this morning – when you should have dressed up for the occasion of bidding a formal farewell to all the postgraduates – you wore one of your oldest and most shabby suits. However, going by the evenly positioned creases in your trousers and shirt, you recently dressed in the suit you are now wearing – one which you must have brought a while ago but have neglected to wear until tonight. And then there's the question of your shoes, they're brand new, never been worn and for that reason they're rubbing the heels of your feet. Why wouldn't you wear them in a little first before you wore them out? Surely that would soften the leather and make them more comfortable to walk in? So that means that you knew that you wouldn't be walking too far. Need I go on or have I supplied sufficient evidence to back up my former question?"

Dr Koffë, who had been watching me throughout my speech with a growing smile on his lips, said, "How do you know that I haven't just come from a special event?"

I snorted, "Please don't insult my intelligence Doctor."

"Oh that I would never do Sherlock; that would be an act of sacrilege. But humour me nevertheless."

I sighed, in no mood to explain the obviously apparent, "You smell of antiperspirant."

"Most people do."

"Yes, but most people apply it before they leave home. If you were coming back from attending your special event then the odour of your spray would have dissipated and been replaced by the smell of sweat – it is, after all, June. Your suit smells clean, as do you, which suggests that the only trip you've made this evening is from home to here."

Dr Koffë's eyes wandered from mine, instead favouring to take in the sight of my throat for a few seconds. I watched him swallow before he said, "After deducing all that, can't you work out what the special occasion is?"

I shrugged, "I could but I have neither the interest nor the inclination to do so."

He made a strange noise at the back of his throat – something half caught between a groan and a growl - "Someone really needs to teach that mouth of yours a lesson. You have no idea how often I've wanted to do just that but... the regulations of the university forbade it."

"As does the law."

His brow puckered slightly in confusion, "The law doesn't prohibit... wait, what are you referring to?"

"Corporal punishment. Isn't that what you were talking about? You wanted to beat the insubordination out of me?"

He laughed at that, "Oh Sherlock, how is it that you can be so intensely bright and dim at the same time? You don't have a clue do you?"

"A clue about what?"

Instead of answering, he rummaged around in his back pocket. A second later he pulled out a square piece of foil and placed it on the floor in front of me. I picked it up and examined the label – as good as I could in the poor lighting.

"It's a prophylactic." I said perplexed.

"Indeed it is. Now use that brilliant brain of yours and deduce why I've given it to you."

For the first time – I think in my life – I was unsure of the answer that I was supposed to give. I turned the tiny square over in my fingers, allowing the moonlight to catch on the shiny foil. I looked from it to him a few times, again taking in his new clothes and freshly applied cologne. It was then that I realised that I had been incredibly blind, I wanted to smack myself for appearing so utterly naive and ignorant.

"You're here for me. I'm your special event?" Even as I said it I felt my throat grow uncharacteristically dry and my pulse quicken. He'd put in a lot of effort, for a man who usually took so little pride in his physical appearance. He'd come here with an intent, with the sole intent of having sex with me. I wasn't sure why. Why had he set his sights on me?

He must have sensed my growing panic because he said, "Don't worry yourself Sherlock, I'm not going to force you to do anything that you don't want to do. You are perfectly within your rights to tell me "no thank you" and I'll leave without a fuss. I'm simply putting forward an opportunity that you may wish to experience."

I sat there, even though I loath to admit it, completely dumbstruck. The prospect of having sex – with either a man or a woman – had never really interested me. The idea of physical intimacy disturbed me and, knowing enough about the science of sex, the thought of swapping any kind of bodily fluids with a fellow human made me feel ill.

Instead of addressing that particular issue straight away I said, "I'm assuming that you've waited until now because of the university's policy regarding fraternisation between staff and students."

"You're too proper Sherlock. "Fraternisation" is not synonymous with "fucking"."

I swallowed as quietly as I could before I held up the condom, my fingers trembled slightly and I knew that he had noticed, "You want me to use this?"

"On the contrary," Dr Koffë said, taking the package from my hand, "I'll be the one using it. All I want is your consent."

"You want me to consent to_"

"Fuck you, Sherlock. I want you to agree to let me fuck you. Don't act like a simpleton, not after five years of smart mouthing me. You know what I'm asking_"

"But I don't understand why. I've never given you any indication that I would want to take part in this sort of thing."

Instead of answering me he reached out and traced my throat, his eyes following the path his fingers made. He seemed transfixed and when he spoke he sounded almost disorientated,

"You don't think about it do you? Such a primal, base desire that consumes almost every other creature on the planet but you... you're just not interested in sex are you? You don't know what it's like to burn with desire, to watch someone every day and want nothing more than to feel their skin. It's so incredibly destructive Sherlock, so paralysing."

And that was when he slid his hand between my legs. I remember gasping, being shocked by the sudden intimacy of his contact. At first I tried to move away from his touch, but with my back already pressed against the wall there was nowhere for me to go.

"I don't think... I think you should stop."

"Why? I can feel that you're getting hard. You like it." He said as his hand continued to stroke my – now fast growing – erection, "Has anyone ever touched you like this?"

Incapable of speaking I simply shook my head. It was just how he had formerly described it, while he was touching me I was hit with a sort of paralysis, my mind banishing itself of rational thought and instead being solely focussed on the feeling his hand was eliciting. No one had ever touched me like that before and I found that, as much as I was uncomfortable with this sort of physical contact, I was also incredibly aroused by it. So I didn't protest, instead I watched him touch me, my hips involuntarily surging forward to meet his strokes. But it wasn't enough. There wasn't enough heat or friction and I remember feeling incredibly frustrated in a way I hadn't encountered before.

"Think of this as an experiment." He said, his voice much rougher this time and sounding a lot less composed than before, "Let me present you with a new experience, one that you can learn from. A last impartment of knowledge from me to you."

His hand had slipped inside my trousers at this point and I remember covering my face with my hands to both smother my moans and hide the blush that was bleeding into my cheeks. I was feeling incredibly self-conscious and, illogically, rather ashamed that I was responding in the way that I was, that I was seemingly incapable of stopping him.

"Will you let me?" He asked, his breath sounding rather ragged – almost matching mine. "Will you give me your consent?" I tried to think logically but my thoughts were scattered, things were moving too quickly, spiralling out of control and I couldn't process what was happening.

"I..." but before I could answer his hand disappeared and in its place I felt his mouth pressing against my erection through the fabric of my trousers. After that it was impossible for my mind to formulate any other answer but "yes".

He proceeded to make me climax using his mouth – which was incredibly pleasurable and intense – but the following anal sex was... horrific. It hurt and burnt with a sort of blunt pain that I hadn't experienced before – or since. Every time I tried to pull my hips away, to try and lessen the force of his thrusts, his hands would always pull me back. He kept telling me to relax but I couldn't. He rubbed the length of my spine in an attempt to dissipate my tension but it did nothing to distract me from the pain. I didn't know how to tell him that he was hurting me and, considering he'd given me pleasure before, I felt obliged to return the favour. So I settled on resting my head against the floor and breathing through my nose in an attempt to stop myself from whimpering.

Thankfully it didn't last too long – seventy-four seconds to be precise. And once he was finished he got dressed, wished me luck with the rest of my life and left.

Sherlock had edited the last part of his story as much as he could, simplifying it down to the bare facts. He had omitted the part about how he had lain in the lab until morning, feeling dazed and uncharacteristically hollow. He hadn't told John how he had hugged Mycroft – for the first time in his adult life – when he had turned up to collect him that morning. Or how Mycroft had quickly worked out what had had happened the night before and, instead of making some malicious comment, he had simply prolonged their embrace and said quietly, "Oh brother mine, I haven't protected you very well have I?" Or how he had lain down in the back seat of the car because he couldn't sit without feeling pain radiating through his pelvis.

He also hadn't been able to look at John throughout his narration, instead favouring to stare blankly at the wooden beam that ran down the length of the ceiling. He didn't want to look at him now, to see his reaction, his face contorted with sympathy or – worse yet – pity. He despised being seen as weak and he knew that this particular story cast him in the role of victim. Even the word seemed to taste bitter in his mouth and he had to swallow down a mouthful of bile at the thought of John seeing him as some fragile creature.

They sat for a few minutes in silence. More of the candles had blown out so now the room was bathed in a mixture of shadows and barely burning flames. The air was cold and without his coat Sherlock was starting to shiver.

"It doesn't matter anyway," He said at last, as he rummaged around in his trouser pocket looking for his stash of cigarettes, "Most people's first sexual experiences tend to be a disappointment." With still shaking fingers he tore open the packet and placed a cigarette to his lips. Just as he was about to light it he saw John move and before he had time to turn his head, the cigarette was ripped from his lips.

He looked up and saw John standing over him, his face awash with such an intense multitude of emotions it actually made Sherlock wince to look at him. He appeared angry but also animated by some deep-rooted, unreadable emotion. Before he was able to say anything John suddenly got down onto his knees, bracing his legs on either side of Sherlock's hips. He remained still for a moment, just staring at him, his eyes growing soft as he reached out and cupped the right side of Sherlock's jaw. His touch was gentle, reverent even, as he brushed the pad of his thumb over Sherlock's lower lip.

Their sudden close proximity, mixed with John's warmth and weight pressing against him and the feeling of his skin against his, was making Sherlock feel slightly dizzy.

"John, what are you_?" But before he could ask, John's fingers were in his hair, tugging his head back and his mouth was on his.