It was, perhaps, ironic that John was the one to step on the hedgehog. It had been Sherlock, after all, who got them close enough to the jewel thieves for them to be running full-out through the rose garden. It had been Sherlock who insisted on sneaking on ahead, leaving John behind at the riverbank to watch for any sign of an accomplice. And it had been Sherlock who was caught by surprise by the third thief, the one neither he nor John had noticed was already at the bridge, who silenced the detective with a brutal uppercut and tossed him in the river. John had toed off his shoes, shed his coat (to keep from ruining his gun), and dived in after his friend. The adventure ended with three thieves knocked unconscious (John), bound tightly hand and foot with gardening twine (Sherlock), and Sherlock and John both soaked and shivering in the chill spring air. And then John stepped on the hedgehog in his stockinged foot.

"FuckingbloodyshitfuckOW!"

Sherlock took in the situation with a glance, as he always did, and sprang into motion. Catching the damn hedgehog in his sodden coat.

"Great," John grumbled out loud. "Bloody great. I turn my foot into a pincushion and you feel sorry for the bloody hedgehog."

"It's not, really," Sherlock said. "Not its own blood, anyway. Hedgehogs don't have the skeletal system to withstand being stepped on by a human, though, so it's lucky you didn't put your whole weight behind your stride - you would certainly have broken its back."

John was too busy stripping off his sock and trying to get a good look at the sole of his foot to gape at Sherlock the way the detective deserved. There were at least a dozen punctures, mostly in the arch and the ball of his foot - they looked too small to hurt as much as they did. The river water didn't help either, most likely - this river was, by no stretch of the imagination, "clean." It probably didn't need a trip to the A&E, but it did require washing and bandaging and probably propping it up for a while to keep anything from getting infected. The swelling was going to be a lost cause either way. "How soon can Lestrade get here?" John asked.

Sherlock grunted in reply. John looked up to see Sherlock texting with one hand and holding a squirming, sopping bundle of coat in the other.

"Sherlock?"

"Less than five minutes," was Sherlock's distracted reply. "There. Should be wrapped up soon - the diamonds were in the parlor after all, probably hidden in one of those atrocious vases on the mantel. Two of the thieves didn't know what they were looking for - they were expecting cash. The third was working with the sister and expected an even split of the insurance profits. We'd better get out of here."

John blinked. "Pardon?"

"Before Lestrade tries to get statements from us. You stepped on a hedgehog, you know."

"I know, Sherlock. But there are three jewel thieves trussed up with gardening twine behind us right now."

Sherlock shrugged. "They won't escape in the next five minutes. Here." He handed John the tied-off bundle of dripping hedgehog and coat.

And then John was being swept off his feet (well, his remaining good foot, since he wasn't exactly putting weight on the other anyway) and Sherlock was carrying him back to the cab. The driver raised an eyebrow, but the manor was between the driveway where Sherlock and John had left him waiting and the garden where the chase (and confrontation) took place, so all the driver saw was one sopping wet tall man with wild curls carrying a shorter and grumpier man up the walk, looking rather like an ugly, disgruntled princess. Who was carrying a sodden hobo knapsack made of coat.

They escaped with only a minute to spare. The cab actually passed the first of the police cars just past the entrance to the driveway; the other three came along between there and the highway. John leaned against the back of the seat with his injured foot propped over his other knee and tried to resist the urge to prod at the puncture wounds.

"They shouldn't scar, by the way," Sherlock helpfully said.

"Yes, thanks, I knew that."

"No you didn't. The spines are actually hair, you know - or you didn't, but you do now. Some people assume hedgehogs and porcupines are related species, but they're not, really - they just both happen to share a similar defense mechanism." Sherlock grinned, completely failing to take into account John's sullen glare. "Just as well - porcupine quills have bigger barbs, and they actually come out of the porcupine and stick in the aggressor's skin."

"Shut up, Sherlock."

"Hedgehog spines are barbed, too, but not as much. And they're angled in a fascinating way, layered over each other in a continuous curve, so pushing against them at a perpendicular vector only encourages them to fold downward, not to puncture the hedgehog. I'm interested to see how this one fared."

"Shut. Up. About. Hedgehogs."

Sherlock finally looked at John's face, then, and shut up.

Sherlock carried John up the stairs to the flat, too. John rather expected it at this point, not that he was looking forward to hopping the whole way up to his bedroom, so it wasn't as much of a surprise the second time around. The cabbie shot them a wink before driving away. John wished he had tipped the man a bit less.

First things first, though - Sherlock set John down on the sofa in the living room, but John immediately jumped up and started hobbling toward the bathroom. He really did need to get those puncture wounds cleaned out, and he wouldn't put it past Sherlock to jump in the shower ahead of him and only come out an hour later when all the hot water was long past gone. He'd done it before. No fucking way John was going to try to clean his wounds out in the kitchen sink - he knew exactly what Sherlock did in that room, and he didn't want any open cuts anywhere near Sherlock's mold experiment.

Luckily, Sherlock was distracted by finding a temporary place to put his newly acquired hedgehog (the coat not being a long-term storage solution), so John had time to achieve his goal. He closed the bathroom door, stripped off his still-damp clothes, turned on the tap in the bathtub, and lowered his body into the tub with a sigh. Wash puncture wounds, wash the algae off the rest of himself, then possibly do it all over again and let Sherlock be the one to deal with no hot water for once. It would serve him right.

Less than a minute after John finally got himself comfortable in the tub, the door opened and Sherlock popped in.

John sat up higher, conscious of his current state of undress. "Sherlock, I locked that."

"Yes, I noticed. Lock it better next time."

"Lock it . . . Sherlock, we only have one damn lock. I used the lock that was on the door. Surely you know what it means when someone is in the bathroom and locks the door?"

Sherlock shrugged. "You need that foot sterilized."

"And which one of us is the doctor?"

Sherlock sighed and shook his head, wearing his I-wish-John-weren't-so-stupid face. "That's your bad leg. Your joints are stiff, especially after running and then falling in the river and then shivering in a cab all the way home. You can't pivot your hip and bend your knee enough to effectively observe the sole of your own foot. Therefore you need help."

"I'm in the bath."

Sherlock turned on the sink and started thoroughly washing his hands. "Yes, I noticed."

Bloody - "I. Am. Naked. In. The. Bath. Go away." John resisted the urge to cover himself with his hand - it would only look more ridiculous, somehow, and Sherlock clearly thought himself above normal human things like personal boundaries anyway.

"Foot first. Prop it up on the edge of the tub." Sherlock folded his long legs and sat on the floor next to the edge of the bathtub. He hadn't yet changed out of his river-water-soaked shirt and trousers. There was still a bit of algae in his hair, leaving little greenish streaks among the curls, but at least his hands and forearms were now clean . . .

"If I go along with this, will it get you to leave faster?"

Sherlock just arched an eyebrow at him. John sighed and extended his foot over the edge of the tub. This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea . . .

He managed to suppress the initial shiver at the feeling of Sherlock's long fingers probing the sole of his foot. Sherlock's touch was surprisingly gentle - he didn't put any pressure on the punctures, just carefully pressed between them. John couldn't see whether it was still bleeding or not, but he rather supposed it was because Sherlock was frowning.

"Yes." Sherlock didn't look up. "You were wondering whether it was still bleeding, and it is."

John tried very hard not to squirm as Sherlock's other hand cupped his heel. Finally giving it up as a lost cause, he grabbed his washcloth and draped it over his groin - it wouldn't completely cover his unwelcome interest at Sherlock's touch, but at least he wouldn't feel quite so exposed. John had absolutely no interested in explaining I get turned on when people touch my feet to his flatmate.

But Sherlock wasn't paying attention to anything happening in the tub, he was unfolding himself into a crouch so he could reach the medicine cabinet (without looking) and dig out the antiseptic and bandages, all without letting go of John's foot. The man moved like a large cat, his body all lines and angles but his motion all graceful and smooth. John pretended not to notice, like always.

The antiseptic was cold. John almost twitched out of Sherlock's grip entirely, and probably would have succeeded if Sherlock hadn't tightened those long fingers around John's ankle and anchored him in place while he worked. Sherlock was gentle, incongruously so, compared to the barely-leashed energy the man usually radiated when he was focused this closely on something. John forced himself to relax into Sherlock's touch. That, and to stubbornly ignore the little twinges of arousal he kept feeling whenever the pad of Sherlock's thumb casually caressed the little hollow around his Achilles tendon.

"Doing alright?" Sherlock didn't divert his attention from where he was soothingly working the antiseptic into the sole of John's foot, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the pinprick puncture wounds and gently massaging the muscles underneath.

John swallowed hard, praying Sherlock wouldn't notice anything off about his voice. "Fine, thanks."

"More than fine, I think." Sherlock's fingers shifted, putting gentle pressure on the tender skin between each of John's toes, and John was hard-pressed to hide his shudder. "I think you don't mind this at all."

"It does . . . feel nice." There, that was a reasonably steady tone, and it had the added advantage of being true.

"Good." Sherlock let go, only to grab the roll of gauze and bandages and wrap John's foot tightly so only his toes and his heel remained visible. "Leave that there."

John pointed and flexed his foot, testing the feel of the wrap. "It's not like I'm going to dunk it in the water," he pointed out.

"No, but I didn't want you to startle and accidentally get it wet." And Sherlock stood, shucking his shirt in one smooth movement.

John's mouth went dry. "Sherlock - what are you doing?"

Sherlock unbuttoned his trousers and toed them off, followed by his pants. "I would have thought that was obvious, John - I'm getting into the bath."

"You - I - what?" John licked his lips. "You did notice it's already occupied, right?"

Sherlock fixed him with the look. That I-wish-John-weren't-so-stupid look again. "I did, rather." He stepped one foot into the tub, then the other. "I also noticed the flush on your cheeks when I was touching you. Your foot. I want to see that again."

John took an embarrassingly long time to respond to that. By the time his brain had worked its way through What the fuck? and You must have been imagining things and Dear God, please, Sherlock was already lowering himself into the water between John's legs. John finally settled on "Oh," and shifted his hips as far back as possible.

He supposed it was convenient that their flat had such a large tub. John usually just took showers, so most of the time it hardly mattered one way or the other, but the tub was big enough for Sherlock to sit with his back against one end and John to sit with his back against the other (and his leg dangling awkwardly over one side) and as long as Sherlock kept his knees tucked up to his chin, they didn't have to actually touch.

So of course it was inevitable that Sherlock would stretch those long legs out, planting his feet against the tub wall on either side of John's hips, and pull John's good leg onto his lap. John knew he should probably protest - this was a particularly egregious example of Sherlock's tendency to ignore trivialities such as boundaries and personal space - but then Sherlock's clever fingers started massaging the muscles in John's good foot and all he could do was to let his head fall back against the wall and let out a ragged breath.

"This isn't normal, you know," John muttered.

"Nonsense - two-thirds of the general population have a sexual interest in something which could be termed a 'fetish,' and around fifteen percent of those revolve around feet. Nothing abnormal about it."

John withdrew his foot so quickly he nearly kneed himself in the nose. "Sherlock -"

"Oh, relax," Sherlock snapped. "If you'd do the math, you'd see that - given your foot fetish - the chances of a randomly-chosen flatmate also having a foot fetish are around ten percent. A bit higher, actually, since it's markedly more common in males than females. As it so happens, you've lucked out, so quit complaining." He wrapped his fingers around John's ankle and hauled John's foot back toward himself, lowering it so the sole of John's foot was firmly against his now-obvious erection. "I wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't already deduced it would be mutually welcome. That tiny washcloth doesn't cover that much."

The solid feel of Sherlock's cock against the sensitive skin of his foot was enough to shut John up. He shifted his leg, pressing experimentally into that warmth, and was rewarded by a noticeable hitch in Sherlock's breathing.

Sherlock brought his hands back down, expertly pressing and massaging the pads of John's toes. "I haven't gotten to indulge this for a long time," he admitted quietly.

"How long?"

"Not exactly something that comes up in cases much." Sherlock snorted. "There was a bloke I spent a lot of time with at uni," he said in a softer voice. "But he couldn't stand to be around me except in small doses. He pretty much just alternated fucking me and pouting at me."

John made a noise he hoped Sherlock would interpret as vaguely sympathetic rather than pitying. "He was an idiot, then."

"Well, yes." Sherlock darted a dark look at John. "Most people are. But nobody - literally nobody in my life, and I'm including my brother in this - has treated me the way that you do. Has actually wanted to be around me. It . . . took some getting used to."

John let out a huff of laughter at that. "So do you."

"I'm glad you tried." Sherlock's look turned mischievous, then he lifted John's foot and popped John's big toe in his mouth. John's laughter transformed instantly into a groan. Sherlock grinned, then carefully swirled his tongue around John's toe before closing his mouth and sucking with deliberate slowness.

The washcloth wasn't doing a bloody thing to hide him anymore, John had gotten so hard, so he shoved it aside and palmed himself with an urgency bordering on desperation. Sherlock's eyes dropped to John's cock. He didn't relinquish John's foot, though, just released John's big toe with a long lick along the tender crease on the underside and moved on to his other toes, one at a time, until John was panting and had thoroughly forgotten anything he might have been wanting to say.

"I'm going to rub myself off with your foot, John," Sherlock said when he finally finished wringing every possible variety of sensation from John's toes. He lowered John's foot back to his straining erection, taking himself in hand and trailing his cock against each of John's toes in turn. John couldn't say anything, could only swallow and nod and watch when Sherlock reached up overhead to grab the bar of soap from the shower rack and run it lightly over the sole of John's foot.

And then he was moving, holding John's foot against himself with one hand wrapped around John's heel and the other hand blatantly pressing the two of them together, his cock and John's foot, long fingers wrapped around both, and the glorious slide from the soap reduced the friction to almost nothing and John could feel every twitch, every shudder. John tightened his grip on his own cock and worked it faster, mesmerized by the sight of Sherlock losing control right there in front of him. Sherlock's eyelids dropped closed and his breath quickened until his whole form locked up for a long moment and then he came in great spurts which came splashing back down into the bath water and onto John's foot. John pulled two, three more times and then he was coming too, that glorious feeling of flying apart and floating, and when he finally landed he was back in the bathtub with the world's only consulting detective, who still had algae in his hair and John's foot against his gradually softening cock.

What, exactly, does one say after a moment like that? John looked down, refusing the possibility of meeting Sherlock's gaze. He sluiced some water over his groin, washing away the evidence of his orgasm, belatedly realizing that the washcloth was floating in the bath only inches away from his hand.

"John."

John swallowed, still refusing to look up. "So."

"So that was . . . or would you rather I not acknowledge it happened?"

John did look up, then, and caught Sherlock's hesitant expression. The detective obviously felt he was in hostile territory, now, expecting talk about feelings and relationships and other things he was absolute rubbish at dealing at. Somehow, Sherlock's nervousness made John feel a bit better.

He took a moment to settle his thoughts. "No point in pretending it didn't happen," he finally said.

"Agreed."

"And no point pretending that wasn't bloody amazing."

Sherlock chuckled dryly. "Agreed again."

John sighed. "So that leaves us . . . where?"

A long pause. "Would you want to do it again?" Sherlock asked in a thin voice.

"God, yes."

"Well then."

"Do you want . . . do you want me to stop seeing people? Women, I mean?" John realized as he asked the question that he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted the answer to be.

And Sherlock stared, eyes traveling over John's face, deducing him, for long minutes before he finally answered with a hesitant, "yes?"

That's . . . fine. More than fine, actually, it was bloody fantastic. John would happily give up all female interest forevermore if he could keep seeing Sherlock look so utterly abandoned like that. "Okay," he said.

"Okay," Sherlock answered. And let out a relieved sigh. "Can we shower now? I smell like a river, and we have a hedgehog waiting in the kitchen sink."