"Dear God, John, it's finally happened."

"What has?" John asked, looking up from the plate he was washing (he'd cooked dinner at home that night and actually gotten Sherlock to finish his portion) over at his flatmate. He nearly dropped the plate right back into the dishwater when he saw what Sherlock, who had just emerged from his bedroom, was holding: John's laptop, wide open.

"What the hell, Sherlock?" John exclaimed. "I changed my password!" An icy chill went through him at the thought that Sherlock might be looking at porn. Everyone they knew was already half-convinced that John was interested in men as well as women; he didn't need Sherlock spreading the evidence around (which, knowing Sherlock, was exactly what he would do).

"Cracked it again, I'm afraid," Sherlock said, sitting down at the table and setting the laptop down in front of him. "Nice try, John, but still not quite clever enough. Obviously you tried to use, not a phrase you associate with yourself, but rather, a phrase that I have associated with you, in order to throw me off. However, you ought to have known that I'd eventually hit upon 'awful jumpers'. May I suggest that you stop trying to be clever and use a random sequence of numbers when you change it again later this evening? I'm sure that would prove more of a challenge."

"Go to hell," John muttered.

"You're right; I overestimate your memory. Perhaps you might rather open a book to a random page and-"

"Just tell me what it is that 'finally happened', you bloody prat!" John cried, exasperated.

"As you wish." Sherlock focused his attention back on the computer. "You finally wrote a blog entry that I liked."

This caught John a bit off guard. Irritated as he still was, he couldn't help but feel a little proud. Praise from Sherlock was rare, and when it came, it made John feel oddly anxious to please the detective further. Like a bloody dog, he thought ruefully.

"John?" Sherlock prompted, and John snapped back to attention, realizing he'd taken too long to reply.

"Uh, well, brilliant," he said. "Which one?"

"The newest one, about the Slovenian," Sherlock replied. "And I wouldn't go so far as to call it brilliant, but it was rather stimulating."

"Well, ta," John said, drying his hands and coming over to the table. "Now give me my damned laptop back. Why don't you ever read my blog on your laptop instead?"

"I like the password game. Takes away the boredom, if only for a few minutes."

"You're bored already?" John asked, taking the laptop back and shutting it. "That Slovenian case has barely been closed for two days."

"Don't think I'd be so bored if you'd let me have a bloody cigarette."

"No, Sherlock."

Sherlock made a very childish "hmph" noise and crossed his arms, and John sat down in his chair with his laptop, turning on the telly. After a moment he heard Sherlock stand up, and suddenly, the other man was beside him.

"What?" John asked, looking up at him.

"Your writing skills have improved. Well done. Do keep blogging, hm?" A bit awkwardly, Sherlock clapped John on the shoulder before disappearing back into his room.

John sat, stunned, in the chair, still feeling exactly where Sherlock had touched him and, if he was being honest, a bit disappointed that the detective had removed his hand.

A slow, involuntary smile spread across John's face. Praise and a touch from Sherlock, all in one day.

Was his heart actually beating faster than usual? "For God's sake," John muttered under his breath. Why did he react so strongly to attention from Sherlock? It was strange and rather embarrassing to actually crave that kind of attention. But crave it he did.

It wasn't a crush. It couldn't be. There was no way the universe hated him that much. Must just be because he's so damn brilliant, John decided, and went back to watching the telly. But even as he did, he could still feel his slightly elevated heart rate and imagine the warmth of Sherlock's hand.

"Sit down, John, and let me take care of those cuts," Sherlock said, grabbing a small bowl out of one of the kitchen cabinets.

"Sherlock, I'm fine," John protested.

"You're still bleeding, and you fell onto gravel. You're a medical man, so you should be quite aware of how important it is to clean the injuries."

"I should also be quite capable of doing that myself. Of the two of us, I'm the doctor, not you."

"Don't be tedious, John. Take off your trousers."

The phrase hit John on an entirely unanticipated level. It both surprised him and made his mind shift into a gear that he was usually careful to avoid when around Sherlock. No amount of shame could have prevented him from conjuring the image of Sherlock saying that phrase in a different setting, namely, a sexual one.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare, John? Take off your trousers and sit down," Sherlock said, going into the bathroom. Still too taken aback to resist, John obeyed Sherlock's command. He felt terribly exposed, sitting in the chair in just his pants, but he waited for Sherlock's return without further argument.

Sherlock came back into the room with the bowl, which was now filled with warm, soapy water, and knelt down in front of John. He dipped a cloth in the bowl and, with incredible gentleness, began cleaning the dirt from John's cuts.

They'd gotten a call about a murder at one of the old railway stations and had gone down to investigate with the Yarders. After Sherlock had examined the body and it had been taken to the morgue, he'd left the scene of the crime to satisfy Detective Inspector Lestrade, but he'd insisted on going back later that evening with John to check the place out further. While there, they'd noticed a figure in the closed train station and had run back to investigate, at which point John had tripped, fallen, and gotten several cuts on his legs. The figure turned out to have been a security guard, whom, after asking a few questions, Sherlock had declared a dead end. John's cuts weren't bad, nothing to go to the hospital about, but Sherlock was right: they needed to be cleaned if he hoped to avoid an infection, which he rather did.

The touch of Sherlock's large, yet graceful, hands on his legs felt so unexpectedly wonderful that John had to suppress a shiver. God, he loved those hands…he found himself watching them embarrassingly often, when Sherlock adjusted his microscope or played his violin. And now those hands were touching him, and John wished that they would never stop.

"I'm not hurting you, am I?" Sherlock asked, looking up at John with the blue eyes that were even more beautiful than his hands. There was honest concern in them; Sherlock actually cared about how he was making John feel. He didn't want to cause him pain.

Bloody hell, I've fallen for this bloke, haven't I?

John shook his head, just staring at Sherlock, incapable of breaking the stare. "No," he said softly. "You're not."

Sherlock held his gaze for a moment more, then nodded and went back to his task. "We'll have to return to the station tomorrow, of course," the detective said, his head down. "Need more data. You'll come with me, won't you?"

Had he really just asked that question? Usually he just assumed. "You ought to know by now that I'd go damn near anywhere with you," John replied, then immediately wished he could take it back. What had possessed him to say that?

Sherlock, fortunately, did not seem to read into it. He just began applying antibacterial cream to John's injuries. It stung a little, and John made a small, involuntary noise of pain, which of course, Sherlock noticed. "Alright?" he asked.

John gritted his teeth and nodded. "Alright. Hey, Sherlock, thanks."

Finishing up with the cream and wiping his hands on a clean towel, Sherlock met John's eyes again. "You're welcome," he said, his deep voice sincere. Once again, they were locked in each other's gaze, and John was overcome with a sudden, violent urge to lean forward and kiss Sherlock on the lips.

It was that which removed all doubt: he, John Watson, the heretofore aggressively heterosexual John Watson, had a massive crush on Sherlock Holmes.

He did not kiss him, however. He couldn't; he was too afraid of what Sherlock's reaction would be. Sherlock eventually looked away and began bandaging John's legs, and the moment passed. But even though he didn't get to feel Sherlock's lips that day, John leaned back, closed his eyes, and relished every remaining moment of Sherlock's careful touches on his legs, wondering a bit sadly how long it would be before his flatmate touched him again.