7:30pm

It had been an interesting evening so far. Sherlock and John had gone upstairs to look after Frasier half an hour before the guests had arrived, and found him watching television.

Sherlock was now hurling abuse at the TV.

"This programme is unrealistic!" he cried, scowling at the screen. "A mouse? In a reggae band? It's ridiculous!"

"Lighten up, Sherlock!" John laughed.

"Why should I? This programme is nonsensical. Mice have no concept of Rastafarianism! How absurd! I'm not even counting that it's wearing a hat, T-Shirt and dreadlocks, let alone this Rastamouse's frankly surreal ability to play the guitar."

"You're just annoyed we're not watching Raven anymore," Frasier smirked.

Sherlock frowned. "Raven is a quality piece of programming. Plus you get to laugh at children falling over and guessing the answers to riddles wrongly. They're all so stupid, the answers are obvious!"

John simply smiled and carried on watching the mouse sing.

8:00pm

"10…9…8…7…6," Sherlock sighed. "5,4,3,2,1. I'm coming!" Hide and seek. The world's only consulting detective was playing hide and seek. With his flatmate and an eight year old. What was happening to his life?

He walked into the bathroom, scanning the surroundings. One thing that struck him was how good John was at not being found when he wanted to be. He could stay deathly quiet and still with little effort- it must have been the army training.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a cupboard that was slightly ajar. Smirking, he wrenched it open and was about to launch into a triumphant victory speech- when he realised they weren't there.

He heard a giggle, and a muffled "Shush!". Sherlock turned and saw that both of them had been behind the door all this time.

"You're not supposed to hide together!" Sherlock pouted.

John laughed. "Where does it say that in the rules?"

Sherlock went to speak, but John's superior knowledge of children's games seemed to have him beaten. "Fine," he muttered.

"Behind the door," John said smugly. "You didn't check- rookie mistake."

"It's my turn to seek now!" said Frasier brightly. He turned his back and covered his eyes. "10…"

John silently beckoned for Sherlock to come with him. They crept into Frasier's bedroom.

"Where do we hide?" Sherlock hissed.

John searched frantically around the room. Never had a game felt so tense- Sherlock later scolded himself for his lack of grip. John's eyes fell on the wardrobe. "Here!"

"That's tiny!" Sherlock protested. "We'll never fit!"

"3…" came a loud call from the corridor.

"There's no time!" John whispered. "Get in!"

They crammed into the tiny wardrobe. Sherlock's head hit the ceiling painfully.

"FU-" John clamped his hand over Sherlock's mouth, muffling the sound. Sherlock shut his mouth and allowed himself to lean against the side. He slid down the wood a little, trying to keep his back straight by moving his legs across to the other side. All he succeeded in doing was entangling John's legs with his own. John tripped and put a hand out to steady himself- he staggered forwards until his head was agonizingly close to Sherlock's.

"Sorry about that," he muttered.

"'S fine," Sherlock said quietly, trying to control the slight shake in his voice. John was incredibly warm, and around an inch and a half away from him. He tried to straighten up in order to rectify the situation, but it only made it worse. Sherlock's nose brushed against John's.

The sudden touch made Sherlock feel achingly desperate to kiss John. Their eyes locked again.

Breath, he told himself. He exhaled deeply, the expiration gently moving John's hair. John licked his lips torturously slowly, and Sherlock felt his lips moving down to meet them despite himself. They were far too close.

The door was hurled open. "Found you!"

Sherlock flung his head back and it collided with the side of the wardrobe violently. He promptly fell out of the wardrobe, pulling John with him into a heap on the carpet. They both groaned in pain.

Frasier laughed. "That was easier than I thought it was going to be. I could hear Sherlock breathing from ages away."

Sherlock found himself blushing. "Shall we play something else?"

8:30pm

Tag had been, in retrospect, a terrible idea. Sherlock and John had collapsed onto Frasier's bed after half an hour due to fatigue. The boy's seemingly endless supply of energy had shamed them into submission. They had both considered themselves fit and active young men, but their defeat at the hands of a child had made them both feel rather middle aged.

Frasier grinned. "We don't have to run around any more, if you're too tired."

"That…" Sherlock panted. "Would… Be… Fantastic."

Frasier pulled out a box from under his bed. It was filled with Play-Dough. "You want to try it?"

10:30pm

Letting Sherlock and John play with Play-Dough was an even worse idea on Frasier's part than Tag had been. Soon, Sherlock was making an ambitious castle out of purple and green Play-Dough, whilst John and Frasier had begun work on the people who would live there. They had made Sherlock, John, Frasier, Lestrade, Sally (Who Frasier had described as "the angry lady", much to Sherlock's amusement) and Kayleigh. John had offered to make Gordon, but Frasier had flatly declined. His father was not allowed in his Play-Dough kingdom.

Finally, they had finished their creations, and began to play. Sherlock controlled John, and John controlled Sherlock, making each other suitably ridiculous to the delight of Frasier. However, it was Frasier who had the best imagination, creating characters, adventures and even crimes for Play-Dough Sherlock and John to solve as easily as a crime writer.

"You're good at this," said John, impressed. "Do you like stories, Frasier?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "Mummy tells me them all the time. She makes up the best ones."

"So did my mother," said Sherlock happily. "She told me one about a man who stole cobwebs from spiders and weaved them into clothes for the shadow people. It was my favourite."

"It sounds cool…" said Frasier, stifling a huge yawn.

"Come on Frasier," said John, glancing at his watch. "You should really go to bed now."

"Awwww…" he protested, trying to keep his eyes open with some difficulty. Sherlock picked him up and tucked him into his bed- he had changed into his pyjamas earlier in order to avoid getting Play-Dough on his clothes. Sherlock and John had no such worries. "Will you read me a story?" he asked sweetly. "Mummy always reads me one before I go to sleep."

"Ok," Sherlock chuckled. "But only a short one."

"There's a book on the shelf over there," He pointed at the bookshelf. "The red one."

Sherlock picked it up. A Hans Christian Andersen anthology… He sat on the end of the bed.

"Let me see… Ok, how about this one. The Princess and the Pea. There was once a prince who wished to marry a princess- but a real princess she had to be." Frasier settled down, and John sat down on the rug with his back against the radiator. "So he travelled all the world over to find one; yet in every case something was wrong. Princesses there were in plenty, yet he could never be sure that they were the genuine article; there was always something, this or that, that just didn't seem as it should be. At last he came back home, quite downhearted for he did so want to have a real princess.

"One evening there was a fearful storm; thunder raged, lightening flashed, rain poured down in torrents- it was horrifying. In the midst of it all someone knocked at the palace door, and the old king went to open it. Standing there was a princess. But, goodness! What a state she was in! The water ran down her hair and her clothes, through the tips of her shoes and out at the heels. Still, she said she was a real princess.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough, the old queen thought. She didn't say a word, though, but went into the spare bedroom, took off all the bedclothes and laid a small pea on the mattress. Then she piled twenty more mattresses on top of it, and twenty eiderdowns over that. There the princess was to sleep that night. When morning came, they asked her how she had slept.

'Oh, shockingly! Not a wink of sleep the whole night long! Heaven knows what was in the bed, but I lay on something hard that has made me black and blue all over. It was unspeakable.'

Now they were sure that here was a real princess, since she had felt the pea through twenty eiderdowns and twenty mattresses. Only a real princess could be so sensitive. So the prince married her: no need to search any further. The pea was put in a museum; you can go and see it for yourself if no one has taken it. There's a fine story for you!*" Sherlock stopped reading, and saw that Frasier was fast asleep. He smiled, in spite of himself. He sat down on the floor beside John.

"He really likes you, you know," John grinned at him. "You really can be nice to children if you like."

"I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. Who knew children could be so tiring?"

"Tell me about it," John groaned, then stopped himself when he remembered the sleeping Frasier. "You're a very good story teller," John whispered. "So absorbed in the book. You should read Jackanory."

"Sorry, what?"

John shook his head. "Never mind."

"I had fun," said Sherlock, shocked by this revelation. "It was nice."

John laughed. "God forbid you should ever have fun when it doesn't involve dead bodies."

"It has been known to happen occasionally," Sherlock grinned.

"You should be playful more often." John's voice was low, and it sent a jolt of pleasure and confusion through Sherlock's already shaken emotional receptors. This evening had been… interesting. The debacle with the wardrobe had been most intriguing. John had not mentioned the fact that Sherlock had tried to kiss him yet- surely he must have noticed? Perhaps it was his imagination, but Sherlock could have sworn he saw John's head tilt to meet his own.

John smiled at him. "So I'm going to see Sarah when we go back." And he was back down to Earth. Sarah had the same effect on his libido as a bucket of cold water.

"Oh," he said, in an attempt to be nonchalant.

"I'm kind of nervous, actually," said John sadly. "What if I-" He stopped himself.

"If you?"

"If she thinks I'm stupid?"

Sherlock had to stop himself laughing at how adorable the man was. "If she thinks you're stupid then she doesn't deserve you."

John smiled. "Thanks Sherlock."

"No problem. Just don't go all sentimental on me about her, will you? It's rather irritating," he half joked. John gave him a cheerful shove. Sherlock responded by stealing his phone out of his pocket.

"Sherlock," John smiled. "Give it here."

"Make me," he smirked, waving it above his head. John's hands scrambled at Sherlock's arm, trying to tug it down, but he did not yield.

"I will get it back," John said determinedly.

"Yeah, sure you will," Sherlock scoffed. He held it still higher. With an almighty heave, John grabbed the collar of Sherlock's shirt and pulled him towards him. Too hard. Their faces collided, their lips brushed.

The moment seemed to smoulder in Sherlock's mind for an eternity. Never had he felt more alive, more complete in his entire life. The most chaste of kisses seemed like a burning, fiery oblivion, and Sherlock realised what John awakened in him. Two things that should never have met, like oil and water, like art and science, like an unstoppable force and an immovable object, collided in a blazing passion that made him whole then blew him apart. John undid him.

This all happened in just under a second, before they both became aware of what they were doing and drew apart. John looked shocked. Sherlock blushed.

"Did you eat the Play-Dough, Sherlock? Your lips taste of plastic," John laughed, getting up from the ground.

"Not that I'm aware of," Sherlock said with a forced smile. They sat in an awkward silence for a moment, before Kayleigh mercifully opened the door.

"Hi!" she whispered. "Thanks so much for looking after him!"

"It was nothing," Sherlock assured her.

"He wasn't any trouble, was he?"

"None at all," said John.

She gave him a look of concern. "Are you alright? You look a bit flustered."

John scratched the back of his head. "I'm fine! Just fine!" He walked out into the hallway. Sherlock nodded at her before walking back downstairs with John.

Neither said a word to each other. Sherlock assumed John still felt awkward about what happened. He was feeling both apprehensive and ecstatic about the kiss. He knew he should be worried in case his feelings were exposed, but at that moment he was too happy to care. This high was better than any drugs he'd ever taken. At the moment he didn't care about the consequences.

*This version of The Princess and the Pea was taken from my copy of "Tales of Hans Christian Andersen", translated by Naomi Lewis. The work is hers, and his, not mine.