The first time Sherlock was face-to-neck with John was in late spring. It felt as if the summer was early, which made people happy and easy (and fearful at the same time, as that did happen occasionally; summer came early between April and May and buggered off for a holiday during the actual summer months, filling it up with dreary rain instead and thereby ruining everyone else's holiday) and John has taken off his jumpers to enjoy this short, and very possibly temporary, respite. He was in the kitchen making his mid-morning tea and Sherlock was sat crossed-legged on the settee going through today's newspapers. It was an ordinary morning in Baker Street - as ordinary as it gets during those case-less periods when John went to work in random hours and Sherlock skulked about in the flat gradually declining into boredom.

"Sherlock!"

John called out to him from the kitchen. A hint of frustration; it must mean he found the petri dish without a lid but with a culture in the cutlery drawer. Sherlock didn't even look up.

"Not to worry. Put it in the microwave if it bothers you so much. Black tea is fine."

"Put it in the microwave yourself. Glad to hear you're fine with black tea when I'm not-"

Considerable frustration. Sherlock frowned. Whatever for? John would shake his head, sigh and put the petri dish away himself if it were other times. He was missing something.

"-and when it's you who forgot to buy milk for the whole month!"

Mystery solved. Since the question of unbought milk (which was terribly important to John due to it being related to the production of tea; a liquid that must flow in his veins instead of blood) was involved, Sherlock thought he may deign to do what John wanted him to do for a change. Besides, he needed to stock up on brownie points as he was bound to annoy John in near future unless Lestrade turned up with something remotely interesting. So Sherlock got up, and began making his way to the kitchen - which surprised John, which in turn amused Sherlock.

"Yes, John. I am capable of acting like a 'nice' flatmate when the advantages of acting like one far outweighs the disadvantages of not acting like one."

Sweeping into the kitchen he was interested to observe the effects of his words on John's face where various expressions were succeeding each other like something that succeeds each other rather too quickly. John's face settled to form a faint smile which made a corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched up in reply.

"I'll bear that in mind."

"Tut tut, John, you know I of all people can't be manipulated."

"I reckon it's worth a try."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and John's smile grew bigger. Motioning to Sherlock to sort out the petri dish, he moved to get the boiling kettle and began brewing less-than-perfect, but-better-than-nothing, black tea. While John was busying himself getting out two usable mugs, Sherlock did move the offending item from the cutlery drawer to the microwave. It was a great pity; he wanted to observe the growing pattern of the culture on their cutlery and find out if the proximity of metal objects affected it in any way. Never mind. At least those three other samples in lower drawers were not discovered. His task was done, and the smell of fresh hot tea began taking over the kitchen. Sherlock was just shutting the door of the microwave and was making a 195° turn to return to the living room - when he found himself disrupting his smooth movement involuntarily.

To put it simply, he stopped.

This is the sight he met mid-turn: He could see John's back. It seemed he had just finished brewing the tea and was getting rid of the tea bags, as John was facing the bin and had a teaspoon in his left hand, fishing for that brown squelchy thing, while he was holding Sherlock's mug in his right hand. John was looking down. John was wearing a cotton t-shirt - surely 200g/m². The back of John's neck, a set of smooth lines which emerged beneath his closely shorn blonde hair was fully exposed. Sherlock stared.

Then his brain began whirring away, observing this new territory to gather data, as he should. John's neck was not as thick as Sherlock had estimated, which is understandable as he used the yet unconfirmed but generally applicable neck/waist ratio. Well, that was all right. So that was that. The tan line he had noticed at John's throat extended to the back, and was more pronounced, obviously, due to the back of the neck being more exposed to the sun. There wasn't much to see. John didn't have any freckle or mole, nor any scars. It was how it should be. Nothing out of ordinary. Seemingly normal. Skin covering muscles and bones. All there, present and correct. A human neck, that's what it was. That was all. And it looked... nice. Yes, nice. It was John's neck. Anyway. Yes. There was nothing new. He was just seeing it physically for the first time. Still nice.

Why in the world was he repeating that most boring adjective of all to himself?

What was so nice about it anyway?

Stop using that word, right now.

Still Sherlock stared, as John emptied two mugs of the used tea bags, found sugar, put sugar in the mugs according to the mug-owner's preference, and began stirring the mugs one by one. With his neck bent, looking down, the angle ever so slightly different, humming some popular tune or another Sherlock didn't care to acquaint himself with under his breath.

He realised he wanted to touch it; press his fingers on that slightly rough surface and see how it feels. There was nothing to note, but he wanted to note the sensations, minute details that can only be gathered by employing and focusing all his senses upon that slight expanse of human anatomy. Which was completely irrational, unnecessary, and stupid, really. He seemed to be confused, but the reason was unclear. There was nothing to be confused about.

Then he saw his right hand, moving by itself, reaching out to John - and quickly brought it down using his left just before John turned around and held out his mug towards him.

"Here's your black tea. Say the magic word and I might go out and get milk myself," said John, smiling.

"I don't know any magic words."

The words came out of his mouth automatically and his hand grasped the proffered mug without any hesitation but his brain was befuddled with various problems which didn't make any sense but were terribly effective nevertheless. Sherlock realised with a start that this whirlwind of mental activity didn't take more than three minutes maximum.

"Damn, forgot who I was talking to."

John chuckled and walked towards the living room.

And Sherlock stared after him. At his neck.

Note: I am not a good writer in any way and fail on all fronts of quality, quantity and speedy delivery. But it's weekend and some people were overly nice - adding me on alerts and writing me a review, even, so I tried. I don't have a beta reader and I really just write for my own satisfaction, so it's strange to find that some people are reading this.

TL;DR: Thank you for reading. :)