Sorry for using the quote that most of us know-the start of much Holmes/Watson slash in the world. This was meant to be a) non-slash and b) much longer. I went through and marked all the points in the series where the friendship was shown in looks and lines by the very talented actors, both in affection and angst. Of course I don't regret an excuse to watch the series again :), but when I started writing it I found no way to begin without the confusion of attraction, and suddenly all those points could be reduced into a few key ones.

It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation."

"If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive."

-A.C. Doyle

The first time was when they had run through London and back in pursuit of that taxi.

They'd stood laughing and breathless in the hallway of 221b. John felt more alive than he'd felt, well, since he'd returned; the strange man-Sherlock's arch enemy-had been right. He needed this; it made him happy, and it clearly made Sherlock happy. In fact, he would say he got off on it—the chase, the puzzle.

Sherlock had suddenly swooped in and kissed him, pressing him briefly back against the wall. Not a passionate kiss, just a gentle kiss, like gratitude, but full on the lips. John blinked and it was over, Mrs. Hudson coming in, all anxiety, about the police in the flat and Sherlock was off, up the stairs on his long legs.

This, after the awkward conversation at the restaurant. John was more than a little confused. Was this just a piece of Sherlock's complete lack of social interaction skills? Was it a kiss of gratitude, of achievement in their run? He kissed Mrs. Hudson, people who were grateful kissed him, but always on the cheek. Had he been aiming for John's cheek and hit his mouth? No, that hardly seemed likely. Sherlock was much too precise, and it had been full on the mouth, not sort of off to the side.

And John found that he wasn't repulsed at all. He knew it was possible to think one had one sexual orientation and then to find someone who suddenly turned that upside down, that one fell in love with a person, not a set of genitals. Even Harry had dated boys, although she claimed she did it because she was confused at first. He didn't think it was like this. That he had suddenly found his soul mate, or that (good grief) Sherlock—Mr. Married to His Work—had suddenly discovered that John was his. Sherlock was just so damned intelligent. He fairly surged with it. John could see someone falling in love with that mind.

And Sherlock was beautiful, that was undeniable. Soft curly hair, exotic eyes, fascinating cheekbones, what could only be called sensual lips, a long slimness of neck, torso, limbs and fingers. When Mike had introduced him as the guy needing a flat mate, John had thought Mike must be having him on. This guy was remarkable looking. He had a long face with the most striking cheekbones, almost sculpted. He was pale and the glow cast up by the light box he was working over just emphasized it. Most people look terrible when lit from below, but it made this guy ethereal. Why on earth would this man be having trouble finding a flat mate? He could go into the high street and yell, "I need a flat mate!" and a dozen women would coming running to give him their phone numbers, their keys, their wallets and probably their knickers. Probably a few men as well.

But John wasn't attracted to him, not that way—just that mind and the relentless adventure that life with Sherlock offered.

He chalked it up to Sherlock's friendlessness as he followed Sherlock up the stairs. The same cluelessness that caused Sherlock to wonder why a woman might never get over the stillborn death of her child, or that people who are about to die do not usually use their imagination, only their instinct. Lestrade called him a child—was it merely a child's awkward attempt at expressing an emotion he wasn't used to feeling, like standing too close?

And John, after a little over 24 hours of knowing him, had no hesitation in killing a man to save Sherlock.

For his part, Sherlock had no idea why he'd done it either. It was like those moments when he would feel himself responding to something that his sub-conscious had picked up faster than his conscious mind could follow. The blink moment, around which the human mind develops justification. Like in the restaurant when he'd known the cab was clever, but didn't know why. If he'd followed that train of thought he'd have solved the problem faster, but he hadn't and he didn't know how to follow this puzzle yet, the puzzle that was John Watson.

It occurred to Sherlock occasionally that he was a child, putting his toys-his website—out for view and then being hurt when his genius wasn't recognized. Or being strangely delighted at John's simple praise. He worried about pleasing John, hiding the sword so John wouldn't fret, tidying the flat, well, as much as he was able, lending him his card. It wasn't for nothing that he had said genius needs an audience, and he knew that John had noted it as well.

Sherlock was disturbingly hurt when John had corrected that they were merely colleagues to Sebastian of all people. Surely they were more than that. Sherlock had had colleagues, inferior colleagues to be sure, but colleagues. What he had never had was a friend.

The second kiss was when John took the picture with his phone. He'd spun him around and around and both were dizzy and John had been so clever—taken the picture when Sherlock doubted that most of the Metropolitan police would have—and Sherlock had kissed him again. The same barely there kiss, the same sense of exhilaration and gratitude, for which neither man had a name.

And John felt a sense of pleasure in it, not in the physical moment itself, but that he had elicited something beyond curiosity from this startling man.

Both times it passed, unremarked by either man. They did not refer to it. There seemed to be no real awkwardness, no sense that the other needed to explain. They returned to their comfortableness without a backward glance.

The third time was just after the discovery of Ian Monkfish's car, when Sherlock had manipulated the "widow" so effortlessly even to the point of shedding tears. A charm turned on and off like a gate crashing down, and Sally had suggested, again, both that John and Sherlock were a couple and that John should get away from Sherlock, break free of whatever it was that connected them.

Once they were out of sight of the officers Sherlock had turned and again swooped down for another quick kiss, and then was striding off to the car rental agents. It seemed so incongruous after Sally's insinuations, and John's feeble parry.

And only a few hours later John felt he could actively hate Sherlock. Sherlock didn't care for people. Whatever he felt for John, kiss or no kiss, was meaningless compared with his indifference to the suffering of the rest of the world. John wanted to shake him and yell, what if it were Mrs. Hudson strapped with explosives, Mycroft, Lestrade, the elusive and mysterious Mother Holmes who had raised two such peculiar sons, John himself. That people existed and had lives, not just people Sherlock knew, but everyone—they were not pieces on a board.

Of course, John knew and could guess that Sherlock knew (of course he did) that John felt some guilt. If John hadn't written clues on the blog, would the killer have known? When he had felt Sherlock stiffen after Lestrade mentioned the blog, he had felt regret at embarrassing his friend—now he felt something close to panic.

What John didn't know, of course, could not know, was that Sherlock knew too well the cost of caring. If he hadn't cared, cared about John and by extension John's Sarah, he might have caught Shan, might be one more step ahead in this game. Caring saved no one.

And then, in the pool, the strange echoes bouncing around them, Sherlock faced the overwhelming fact that John had been willing to not just kill for him, but die for him. When John had left and Sherlock had offered to buy milk and beans Sherlock had seen that moment of delight on John's face. Sherlock knew it was very possible that he would not return from his meeting that night and he wanted, desperately wanted, John's last memory of him to be that of a person capable of caring, of giving. He had hoped John would not be too disappointed that there were no beans or milk.

Sherlock wanted to kiss John again as he pulled the explosives from him, but he thought, didn't know why, that it might overwhelm them both to add that confusing emotion to this terrible situation. And then Moriarty back—damn—if he didn't care, really couldn't care, he'd have left John struggling with the explosive vest and gone after Moriarty directly. If he didn't care, then Moriarty couldn't have held this last piece over him.

He shared something with John Watson, a connection that he had never had. His eyes flicked between Moriarty and John, searching for something in both faces. And when he made his decision, that whatever happened, Jim Moriarty, the consulting criminal with a finger in everything, could not leave this pool alive, even if it meant robbing the world of Sherlock Holmes, and worse of John Watson, then so be it, and he knew that John felt it too. It was a terrible gamble. That John knew what he planned, that John would respond at all, that the timing would work. But he had to try. He pulled the trigger.