Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, the BBC do. And I do not own the characters or general story, Arthur Conan Doyle does. The only thing I own is what I've written here and I don't profit from it in any way except the sheer enjoyment of writing it

Story: Set shortly after the first episode of Sherlock entitled "A Study in Pink". Holmes/Watson slash. Watson goes back to the flat and confronts Sherlock over what he said in the cafe. And admits his own attraction.

"Well, that Chinese was nice, wasn't it?" Sherlock said, unusually chirpy, possibly because he had just solved a case. "Oh look at that, I'm nearly out of nicotine patches. That won't do."

John Watson lingered in the doorway silently. It wasn't the fact that he had shot dead a serial killer only an hour or so earlier that bothered him, but rather Sherlock's own words at the cafe that had lingered with him, and confused him. When he had asked Sherlock if he had had a girlfriend, Sherlock had said no, that it wasn't his "area". He asked him if he had a boyfriend and Sherlock had said no again, but not that it wasn't his area this time.

"Are you gay?" he blurted out.

Sherlock looked up from the mail he had been sorting through and raised a quizzical brow. "I'm sorry?"

"S-Sorry, I, it doesn't matter. I shouldn't have asked."

"Obviously it matters to you if you asked," Sherlock pointed out. He ran a hand through his dark curly hair. "I don't see it as relevant to our partnership."

Watson shook his head, cheeks burning. Great. Now he looked like a complete idiot.

"Unless." Sherlock turned to fully face Watson as he said it, as a thought occurred to him. He placed his blue scarf on the table, and walked over to stand in front of Watson.

"What?" Watson heard himself say faintly.

"I should have seen this. Maybe you've always felt attractions to men. It's why you joined the military, to sleep near them, to shower with them. To be near them," Holmes finished, and as he held eye contact with Watson, Watson couldn't help but swallow. "Yet you never admitted it, am I right?"

Watson cleared his throat, and lowered his gaze a moment. "How did you turn this around on me so easily?"

Sherlock placed a finger under Watson's chin to tilt it upwards to his gaze once more. "I'm Sherlock Holmes," he said with a smile. "It's what I do." Then he leaned in and kissed him.

Watson was so caught off guard he would have stumbled back, had Sherlock not pulled back first.

"Do you want to come upstairs?"

Annoyed at his mouth having gone dry, Watson was lost for words. He hadn't expected the elusive, "high functioning sociopath" Sherlock Holmes to do such a thing.

And now he was...smiling? "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't normally do this with my flat mates you know."

"I suspect Mrs. Hudson would have said something to me if that were the case," Watson managed to say.

Another beat of silence, then Sherlock awkwardly reached out; took Watson's hand. "Would you like to come up to my room...John?"

Watson forced a nod. "I would like that."

Following Sherlock up the stairs, his mind, and his heart were racing, however. He had been attracted to guys before, that was true. Maybe it was as Sherlock had suggested, that he had subconsciously joined the army to be close to them. But he had never been with one before, let alone one as androgynously handsome and elusively compelling as Sherlock Holmes.

As soon as they reached the room, his hands went to help Sherlock off with his jacket, but they were shaking. Sherlock caught his arm with a hand and a tender smile. "I can do that in a minute," he told him gently. The other pale hand went to cup his face, an intimacy Watson never could have imagined Sherlock doing, but it seemed to fit him perfectly.

"Are you sure about this?" Watson found himself saying. "We barely know each other."

"That's not true. I know – "

"I mean, beyond the deductions you've made."

"We're partners now. And flatmates. I'd wager we'll find out a lot in a short space of time," Sherlock shrugged. He discarded his jacket, placing it on the back of a chair and it was at that moment Watson remembered he was in Sherlock's room, and took his eyes off the man himself.

"You're really into this stuff, aren't you?" Various books on crime and human psychology were piled on top of each other, one even on the bedside table.

"You have to know your enemy," Sherlock shrugged again, unapologetically, pulling Watson to sit on the bed beside him.

"You're the most beautiful guy I've ever seen," Watson confessed finally. "I bet it isn't just women who try to pick you up."

"That's elementary, my dear Watson," Sherlock smiled. "The truth is, I have struggled to find an intellectual equal."

"And you think that's me?"

"I think you love the thrill of the chase as much as I do. Now, enough talking," he said, and moved in for another kiss. His lips were soft, but somehow that didn't surprise Watson, because he had thought that they looked soft all along, at the back of his mind.

In sex, Sherlock was everything he had already exhibited. Commanding, eccentric, unapologetic. But to Watson's surprise he was also gentle and passionate, opening up to Watson, revealing vulnerability and neediness, but also expecting the same in return.

And Watson had to admit, despite the pain and clumsiness, that it was one of the most erotic experiences of his life, the way Sherlock attacked him with kisses all the way down his neck and shoulder as he drove into him, perhaps because he was finally admitting to a part of his sexuality that he had so long denied.

"I wonder...what we should...tell Mrs. Hudson," Watson found himself gasping between the onslaught of kisses and touches.

"We tell her nothing, it's none of her...business," Sherlock murmured, moaning in such an uninhibited manner that Watson hoped he would hear it every day.

Afterwards, they lay together, and Sherlock traced his pale hand over Watson's body, using his scientific deductions to observe how Watson had gained various scars. Watson was pleased to find that Sherlock's body was pretty much the flawless snow white under his clothes as the parts the rest of the world saw were. Except for a freckle on his shoulder, which Watson couldn't resist kissing.

"I knew it," he murmured.

"Knew what?" Sherlock said.

"That you would be beautiful."

Sherlock couldn't think of a response to that, and Watson smiled, a little satisfied to have rendered the man speechless, as he bent to apply kisses to the curve of Sherlock's shoulder. His delight increased as the man unconsciously arched into him, a silent plea for more.

N.B. BBC'S Sherlock has become my new obsession now and whilst this fic was partly an excuse to imagine Benedict Cumberbatch naked, I also think that the new Sherlock and Watson have a great chemistry onscreen which translates well into slash. If people like this (and even if they don't) I'll probably do another chapter.