It took John about two seconds for the picture to register in his mind.
"Nope! No! what – nope!" He shut the laptop lid quickly and looked away, as though he could un-see the watercolour painting that had just appeared on the screen. He could feel Sherlock's gaze fixed on him but he couldn't look him in the eye.
"Something frighten you, John?" Sherlock mocked, but John just glared at him. Sherlock hadn't seen the picture. "John, we're never going to find the murderer if you flinch at every – Oh, is that you?"
He had lifted the lid of the laptop and had his head tilted to the side, trying to interpret the picture. "Wait, is that your – and me! Well, that's a bit -"
John could feel the colour and heat rise in his face and he scrolled down determinedly before Sherlock could finish, as far from the picture he could go. He saw several other pictures, some from TV shows and films that he recognised, and a good many of Sherlock from the newspapers. And then there was more fan art. Far too much in John's opinion.
"I think these people read your blog, John." Sherlock sneered before he turned away.
Horrified and intrigued in equal measure, John continued to scroll down, although he was certain by now that this website held no answers for them. He had all but forgotten his surroundings when Lestrade entered the room. Slamming the laptop closed he jumped back from the seat, almost knocking over Sherlock. Lestrade raised an eyebrow as John realised just how guilty that had looked.
"We're finishing up here you two, you need to go."
"Wait! No, I um-" John frowned at the laptop for a moment, shook his head and finished with "We need the laptop. Might help."
John didn't turn the laptop back on for a while after they returned to 221B, he wanted to wait until Sherlock was out. For Sherlock's sake of course, he was always so awkward around things like that. John could handle it though, it wasn't as though he was awkward about sex. He was completely comfortable with his sexuality. He was straight. It didn't bother him. Yes… Entirely for Sherlock's sake.
And John continued to tell himself that until Sherlock left again a few hours later, against Anderson's instructions, to snoop around in the garden of the girl's house to support his theory that the killer had gotten in through the window. He watched Sherlock's cab leave through the window, and headed straight for the laptop lying on the coffee table.
He spent hours on the teenage girl's laptop that night, trying to laugh off the in-depth analyses of every photograph in which him and Sherlock happen to be making eye contact. It was in those hours that John learned several things. The first was the verb "to ship." The second was that the internet severely over-estimated the size of his penis, and finally John learned that the entirety of the internet were all, to varying degrees, sexually frustrated and gay. He was just about to shut the laptop, no longer uncomfortable, just amused and a little bit lightheaded (some of the better photographs of Sherlock had caught him off guard) when he stumbled across the fanfiction…
"Sherlock dear! It's so late! What are you doing coming home at this hour?"
Mrs Hudson's voice travelled up the stairs just as the front door slammed shut. John quickly tucked the laptop away and hurried off to bed. He didn't quite fancy being left alone with Sherlock right now, although he wasn't so sure why.
"John?"
Sherlock's voice woke him the next morning, calling from the living room.
"What do you want Sherlock?" John muttered back in to his pillow, assuming he just wanted him to pass him a pen or something. Sherlock just repeated his name, but with more urgency. Assuming it had something to do with the case, John dressed quickly, trying to shake away the strangely good dream he'd been having.
"What do you – Sherlock, why have you been reading - ?" John came striding in to the room, his heart skipping a beat as spotted the laptop, the fanfiction up in the background, Sherlock hunched over it.
"Look" was all Sherlock said. And his solemn expression pulled John's gaze from the terribly vivid story in the background, to the smaller window in the bottom corner. It was an instant messenger of some kind, and someone by the username of "The Great Storyteller" was typing.
"Hello Sherlock. Having fun? x."