Skin
John never counted that brush of lips in the bathroom as their first kiss.
Because following that, Sherlock had immediately fallen down and played the brush of lips off as him slipping on the tile floor.
"Oh, you buffoon," John had joked, pulling his injured flatmate off the floor by his elbow. "Come on, you should get some sleep," John said, now pushing the lanky man towards his bedroom.
"Sleep is boring," Sherlock said.
"You think everything is boring," John retorted.
"Not murder. Murder is fascinating."
"Yes, well, if you don't let me go to bed, there will be a murder."
"Fine," Sherlock conceded and flopped down on the bed.
John stood there for a moment, feeling like something was unsaid, hanging in the air, that it was a pivotal moment and he couldn't leave it just like that.
Besides, Sherlock was barely dressed, lying back upon the bed and... well, John was intensely aware of the detective's breathing. Almost labored, quick and shallow.
A long, quiet moment in which John just watched him breathe.
Then the detective smiled, just a little.
"Did you need something else?" John asked.
"You squeezed my hand," Sherlock said.
John furrowed his brows. "What? Your hands are injured, I didn't touch them."
"No, not tonight. At the pool. When Moriarty tried to kill us. You squeezed my hand."
"Well, you grabbed it," John said.
"And you didn't let go," Sherlock observed.
"My life was in danger," John replied.
"Yes, indeed it was."
A silence.
"Were you going somewhere with this?" John asked.
Sherlock shrugged. "Would you help me with one more thing?" he asked.
John smiled, that sort of cordial, almost fake smile he always gets when Sherlock has asked something, or do something weird again. "What do you need?"
"Would you put lotion on my legs? They get dry something awful after a bath."
John's fake smile slipped into a real one. "Sure, sure," he agreed. "But only if you put on underwear."
Sherlock scoffed. "Underwear is boring."
(This story is getting away from me a bit, but we will just have to see where it wants to go. You know how it is. I'm getting into midterms now, so I'm sorry I haven't been writing as long chapters as I would like, or updating very often, hopefully I'll get my act together soon.)