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October 6, 2001
Sherlock can’t believe that after a decade away, he’s back at school. His Yves Saint Laurent black leather shoes squeak horrendously on the recently buffed gymnasium floor, late eighties pop is blaring out of a nearby set of speakers, and there are red and gold balloons absolutely everywhere, as though they could obscure the fact that this event is being held in a room that stinks of stale sweat. God, why had he talked himself into this?
He looks over his name tag and grimaces when he sees the Year 13 photograph they’ve had printed. At fifteen, his face was covered in acne, his limp, greasy hair had nearly fallen into his eyes, and although he hadn’t smiled for the photograph, the bulge of braces behind his lips is obvious.
Sherlock doesn’t consider himself to be a vain man, but he knows that his appearance has significantly improved in the past ten years. He has learnt to tame and style his hair, his skin has cleared up, and he’s discovered the merits of bespoke tailoring. Most of his prior classmates have not aged so gracefully. The gymnasium is awash with receding hair and paunch bellies. But tonight is not about showing off to his past schoolmates (however gratifying he may find their gaping faces). Sherlock is here for one reason.
Sherlock scans the crowd for a man: the only reason he had found—the only reason he had needed—to attend.
* * *
September 29, 1990
“You want me to tutor John Watson?” Sherlock asks, disbelief etched all over his face.
Dr. Stamford attempts to look as stern as a benevolent, baby-faced man possibly can. It isn’t terribly convincing.
The thing is, Sherlock had ‘blown up’ Stamford’s science lab. Just a little bit. Barely more than singed, really. Everyone was just being so dramatic about this. And it wasn’t as though it was his fault that most of the equipment in this school is a decade older than he is.
“Yes, John Watson. He’s a promising student, but doesn’t have much instinct for chemistry. Smart lad, good work ethic, just needs a bit of guidance. You two’ll get along famously.”
Sherlock very much doubts it. John Watson is the school’s darling: plenty of friends, good grades, captain of the rugby team, and dating the equally lovely school president Mary Morstan. John Watson is all this and painfully, tragically gorgeous. The boy is all sun-kissed skin, golden hair, and deep blue pools for eyes that make girls weak at the knees. Perhaps not just girls. The first time he’d glimpsed them up close for himself, Sherlock, too, had found himself (reluctantly, hopelessly) infatuated with John Watson.
“You have third periods free, don’t you Sherlock?” Mike prompts, interrupting Sherlock’s reverie.
“Couldn’t you just give me detention, sir?” Sherlock drawls. Cleaning chalkboards and Erlenmeyer flasks would be far preferable to a series of surely mortifying encounters with the object of his lust. Besides, it’s unlikely that John would accept Sherlock’s help at all. Sherlock is two years younger than everyone else in their year. John Watson of all people wouldn’t accept a fifteen year-old tutoring him for A-levels.
“No detentions this time. It’ll either be helping out John or me calling up your parents to let them know about the damages inflicted on my lab.” Sherlock winces. “But you help out John and I think we can call it even.”
Sherlock’s parents really wouldn’t appreciate (another) one of those calls. They had threatened to take away his home-lab if they heard from the school again.
“Very well. Third periods you say?”
* * *
October 6, 2001
Two people step in front of Sherlock, obscuring his line of sight. “What do you think you’re doing here, freak?”
Anderson and Donovan. Narrowly voted class treasurer and Best Dressed by the student body. Both unanimously voted Major Annoyances in Sherlock’s personal yearbook. “I was invited,” he replies, hoping to curtail this conversation.
“Why?” sneers Anderson. “It’s not as if you had any friends in school.”
Sherlock is already bored of this. “Is your wife away for long, Anderson?”
“What? Who told you that?”
“Your deodorant told me that.”
“Still pulling those tricks, are you.” Anderson shares a look with Donovan. “Fine, Holmes. What about my deodorant?”
“It’s for men.” Sherlock smirks, and decides to enjoy this.
“Of course it’s for men, I’m wearing it!”
“So’s Ms. Donovan. So unless Sally came round to your hotel room this afternoon for a nice little chat and to clean your floors judging by the state of her stockings, then I’d say-”
Sherlock staggers back with the force of the blow Anderson lands. He’d been looking pointedly at Donovan’s knees and hadn’t seen the punch coming. Stupid, stupid. Anderson lunges for Sherlock and shoves him past the punch table and against the nearest wall.
Only took Sherlock five minutes for me to start a brawl. Mycroft owes him ten quid.
Just as Anderson pulls his fist back for another strike, he’s yanked away from Sherlock like a puppet on a string.
“Some things never change, do they Anderson?”
That honeyed tenor never sounded so good.
Sherlock straightens his suit and watches John push Anderson away, his shoulders tense and square under a (ill-fitting – weight loss, stress, money troubles) dove gray blazer. John turns and Sherlock is caught. He examines an older but still irrefutably John Watson from top to bottom, and the man positively glitters with deductions.
Army doctor – invalided – gunshot wound – psychosomatic limp – PTSD? – not married - living alone – didn’t sleep well last night – gorgeous as ever – John.
* * *
October 1, 1990
Sherlock arrives at the library to meet John expecting to wait half an hour for the jock to saunter in. To his surprise, he immediately spots John’s flaxen-haired head bent over a textbook at a nearby table.
“Watson.”
The boy looks up and grins. Sherlock tries (and fails) not to be swallowed whole by hypnotic indigo eyes. “Hey, Sherlock, right?” Watson asks, sticking out a hand as Sherlock sits across from him. Sherlock shakes the hand and tries (and once more fails, get ahold of yourself, Holmes) not to shiver at the feeling of John’s rough palm against his own.
“Sorry, mate. I know you probably don’t want to spend your free periods with me, but I could really use a tutor in chem, and you’re the best in our year. Stamford mentioned you had this period free, so…” John trails off, obviously looking for some kind of reassurance.
Sherlock stays silent.
John tries again. “Maybe we should get to know each other a bit before starting?”
Sherlock runs his tongue over his braces as he scrutinizes John. Maybe if John were to tell Stamford this didn’t work out, Sherlock could get out of this.
“John Watson: captain of the rugby team in the fall and center forward for the football team in the spring. You want to join the military when you leave school, possibly in Intelligence, more likely as some kind of doctor. You have an older brother who drinks too much and your family is not well off. That’s quite enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” Sherlock smirks, waiting for the inevitable: the anger, the denials, the dramatic exit.
“…Wow.”
What?
“That was incredible. My mates on the rugby team said you could do that, but honestly, that was unbelievable!” John’s face stretches in a dazzling smile. John leans forward conspiratorially, eyes glittering. “Okay, let me guess. You figured out Harry from my textbook, yeah?” John gestures to his book where Sherlock had in fact seen the words ‘Harry Watson 1987.’ “And, maybe you heard about me wanting to be an army doctor, but-”
“Wrong,” Sherlock interrupts. “I deduced that from your posture and the U.K. Forces patch on your bag. That you wanted to work in a specialized field was obvious from what Stamford told me about you. Not struggling with chemistry but still requesting a tutor? You must intend to go into a field that requires extensive knowledge of the sciences or you wouldn’t bother. Intelligence is possible but doctor is more likely.”
John Watson is still (bewilderingly) smiling. “Okay, but what about the rest? Harry’s drinking, my family?”
Sherlock does not quite understand what’s happening here, but he cautiously decides to go along with it for the moment. “The stains on your textbook are from alcohol, several different varieties, and at least two years old; there are clear signs. If your brother’s science textbooks were routinely exposed to alcohol in Year 13, then the odds are astronomically in favor of his alcoholism continuing to be a problem. As for the money problems, that follows logically. Your parents couldn’t afford a new book for you, even though that one’s an outdated edition that has seen better days.”
“That is just brilliant. I knew you must be smart, to’ve skipped a grade,” John says.
“Two grades,” Sherlock sniffs.
“But, I mean, wow.” And John is still smiling, and camera crews aren’t popping out with confetti cannons from behind bookshelves to shout ‘Surprise!’
“That’s not what most people say.”
“What do most people say?”
“Piss off, freak.” Sherlock has carefully engineered this tone to sound bored, detached. Wouldn’t want the world thinking that he has a heart, after all.
“Yeah, we might need to work on your social skills a bit, mate,” John acknowledges with a tip of his head. “But let’s maybe save that for our next free period. Right now I’ve got a few questions on protein structure I was hoping you could help me out on…”
* * *
October 6, 2001
“John.” Thankfully, Sherlock’s voice is steadier than the pounding of his heart.
“C’mere,” is all John says, as he takes Sherlock by the wrist – still electrifying – and pulls him out a side door and into a cluttered office. Coach’s, perhaps? Gymnasium, after all. The pounding beats of “Like a Prayer” are audible through the door, thankfully muffled.
Just because John had forced him to listen to Madonna in school doesn’t mean he’d enjoyed it.
John rifles through the stacks of paper and files until he finds a first aid kit, which he opens and begins to sort through methodically. “So. Ten years. What’ve you been up to?” John asks, visibly stiff and uncomfortable. Sherlock sympathizes. Being alone in a small room with John Watson after a decade is surreal.
“I’m a consulting detective. I take private cases, but when the Met are out of their depths, which is always, they consult me.” Sherlock has had to explain his occupation to enough family members that he has the speech memorized, well-rehearsed.
John chuckles as he crosses to a nearby sink and begins to wash his hands. “Still in London, then?”
“Of course. And yourself?”
“What, you can’t read it on me?” John asks. Some of the tension eases from the room as he smiles. John approaches him with the kit and lifts Sherlock’s chin to inspect the small cut on his face. “Christ, that utter prick was wearing his school ring when he punched you,” John mutters, shaking his head. Against Sherlock’s protests, John takes out his phone to photograph the injury, should Sherlock decide to press charges. Sherlock warms at the used-to-be-familiar protectiveness. He could’ve used it, the twelve-odd other times he’s been punched in the last decade.
“I’m often told that deducing people isn’t the best way to get into their social graces,” Sherlock says, hoping his elevated pulse isn’t noticeable to John.
“Yeah, but I don’t count for that do I?” John smiles, sly and challenging. “Go on, then.”
The deductions are automatic and unstoppable. “I can tell you joined the army straight out of school and served as a doctor. Invalided out within the past year due to a gunshot injury in your shoulder. You’re living in London although you can’t afford it. I can tell you’re single, and that Harry’s worried about you but you won’t go to her for help. Likely because she’s still an alcoholic, but also because she recently walked out on her wife. I know your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic, quite correctly, I’m afraid. That enough to be going on with, John?”
John lowers the antibiotic he was about to apply to Sherlock’s cut, a fond expression on his face. “Still brilliant, then?”
“Obviously.”
They look seriously at one another for a moment before cracking up. John’s giggle is as boyish as it ever was, and Sherlock smiles so widely it aches on his face. Has he once smiled like this in the years since he’s seen John?
“Okay, let me guess,” John starts.
Sherlock groans, “Must you guess? You never did excel in deduction.”
“Hey, people change! It’s been ten years, after all.”
“People don’t change,” Sherlock scoffs, “much as they try to convince themselves they do. They come to an event like this with a painted-on veneer of someone they’re not. The snobby banker is still the prick he was in high school, the CEO of an IT company is still just the geek in the corner. This whole event is a farce. Everyone comes to reunions gussied up and hoping to show their old friends and enemies and lovers how rich and successful they’ve become. But nobody really changes.”
“Fine, okay, I get it.” John raises his palms towards Sherlock in assent. “I’m no better at mind-reading than I ever was. Impress me, then.”
Sherlock smirks, and does just that. “The army training is discernible in your posture and bearing. I deduced doctor by the way you washed your hands, thoroughly and up to standard medical practice. Invalided due to gunshot wound is obvious. They don’t let army doctors go easily and you never would have left if you didn’t have to, adrenaline junkie you are, so it must have been a traumatic event that interfered with your ability to practice. Stiffness in your right arm and shoulder told me where the injury was. The mud on your shoes said London, the second-hand camera phone which you used a few minutes ago said struggling financially and its inscription said it was from Harry. New phone, a gift from her wife, and she’s just giving it away? Marriage must have gone downhill. Probably due to her drinking problem which was evident in the scuff marks along the edges of the charging socket.”
“What made you say I’m single?” John asks, just as curious about his methods now as he was a decade ago. The exchange is familiar in an aching way to them both, as they stretch muscles that have lain dormant for decades. Like taking out the bike after a long winter and realizing you haven’t forgotten how to ride in the intervening months.
“You’re a war hero just returned living in a bad part of London, once again going by the mud. If you’d been seeing someone while you were abroad it would have been serious enough to move in with her, presumably in a better neighborhood, when you got back.”
“But what about the therapist?”
“You have a psychosomatic limp, of course you’ve got a therapist.”
“Psychosomatic?” John asks easily as he resumes tending to Sherlock’s cut.
“You forgot your cane at the punch table when you raced over to save me from Anderson,” Sherlock smirks, victorious.
John throws back his golden head and laughs, bright and free. Sherlock thinks he would quite easily get used to the new fanned crinkles in the corners of John’s eyes, given half a chance.
“Yep. Still brilliant. How about you then? Are you seeing anyone?” John’s face has reddened slightly. Interesting.
“Ah, no. Most prospects are turned off by the human skull on the mantel and the body parts in the refrigerator,” Sherlock affects a light tone. In all honesty, he’s dated little these past ten years. Only one man has ever caught his eye and tolerated his odd quirks and habits, and he’s standing in this room.
John nods thoughtfully before beginning, “Listen, there’s something I want to say.”
Sherlock’s heart rate increases. “John, if this is what I think, then don’t.”
“No, Sherlock let me. I’ve wanted to say something for years, meant to call you but never have. Since this is the first time I’ve seen you in a decade, I might as well say it now.”
Sherlock walks to the other side of the office, embarrassed, and wishes they could skip this part.
John’s voice is soft, uncertain. “You kissed me.”
* * *
June 21, 1991 (the wee hours)
“Am I… a woman?”
Sherlock giggles, light and bubbly.
John had shown up three hours earlier with a bottle of wine in each hand, graduation cap perched (somewhat crookedly) on his head, declaring that he’d had enough of his parents and Harry for the night. Sherlock has had wine before, at his cousin’s wedding and family dinners, but he’s never been properly buzzed. He’s beginning to see the appeal.
Wait, what did John ask again?
“Yes, you’re a woman.”
“Am I - pretty?” John asks, fluttering his eyelids and pouting absurdly. Yes, Sherlock wants to say. Even when you’re ridiculous. They’re entering dangerous territory. Plied with wine, the words he’s ached to say to John for months feel that much closer to rolling of his tongue. Sherlock makes up some tosh about beauty being constructed by society.
John has had enough of his blathering. “Yeah, but am I a pretty lady?”
Sherlock’s eyes trace the contours of John’s face. He watches as John blinks, slower than usual. So Sherlock isn’t the only one affected. He leans forward and squints his eyes at the word printed on John’s forehead, searching hopelessly for inspiration: MADONNA. He gives up. “I don’t know who you are, or who you’re supposed to be.”
“You picked the name!” John explodes in a flurry of flailing, incredulous limbs.
“I picked it at random from the papers!” Sherlock flaps his hand in a graceless gesture.
John peels the paper off his forehead to read it. “You don’t know who Madonna is?” he asks, incredulous. “We have got to fix this.”
John locates a shelf full of CDs and searches until he finds what he’s looking for. “Aha!” John pulls out an entire stack of Madonna CDs wedged between Sherlock’s classical music and mummy’s jazz albums. Oh, Sherlock is going to give Mycroft so much grief for this.
John fiddles with a CD player and some speakers until music begins to fill the living room. Sherlock barely has time to hear the beat before John shouts, “Oh, I love this one. Let’s dance!” He leaps (stumbles) from his seat and attempts to pull an obstinate Sherlock along with him.
“John, no! What would Mary think?” Sherlock keeps his tone light and teasing, and ignores the bite he feels at thoughts of John’s beautiful, perfect girlfriend. They’d recently been voted ‘Cutest Couple’ in the yearbook. (Sherlock had anonymously, humiliatingly, nominated John for ‘Best Smile’).
John’s aforementioned gorgeous smile falls. “Mary and I split up, actually.” John tries to pull his grin back up, but Sherlock can see lingering pain written there. “We don’t want to date long distance, and I’ll be shipping out soon enough, if everything works out. So, c’mon. No more excuses. Dance with me.” Sherlock knows this is a terrible idea, but he obliges John. He loves dancing, and the thought of dancing with John is too tempting to resist.
The two of them bounce and bob and giggle and generally make Sherlock feel grateful that Mycroft is out for the night. By the time they’ve finished “Like a Virgin” (Sherlock had not, had not blushed at its eponymous song) and are halfway through “True Blue,” they’re both panting. A slower number comes on, and, grinning mockingly, John pulls Sherlock in by the hand and waist for a slow dance. Sherlock’s breath catches at the feel of John’s strong hands on his body, at the feel of John’s muscles working under his fingertips.
I have a tale to tell
Sometimes it gets so hard to hide it well
I was not ready for the fall
Too blind to see the writing on the wall
The lyrics are rather trite and bland for his tastes, but Sherlock appreciates the sentiment. I was not ready for the fall. He leans his body closer to John’s as they sway, caution having whistled through wind several glasses of wine ago.
The mirthful look fades from John’s eyes and his expression becomes very serious. His eye’s flicker to Sherlock’s mouth, then dart up to Sherlock’s eyes. This is it. This is my moment, Sherlock thinks, giddy. “John…” he tries to begin, but finds no words to say it all. Instead, he leans in and presses his mouth to John’s.
Bliss.
Sherlock moves his lips against John’s, which suddenly come alive, and John is kissing him back and Sherlock wishes he could crystallize this moment for eternity. Both of John’s hands come up to cup Sherlock’s head, gentle like it’s something precious. When a tongue sweeps into his mouth, Sherlock thanks a God he did not believe in three minutes ago to finally be rid of those torture devices called braces. John’s tongue slides along his and Sherlock groans deep at the sensation.
Abruptly, John stills.
He pulls away from Sherlock and takes several steps away. He turns his back, shoulders tense and shaking. Did Sherlock do something wrong? His fuzzy mind tries to find the moment that made John withdraw.
“John?” Hesitantly, Sherlock reaches a hand and places it on John’s back.
John flinches away from the touch.
Something hot and burning rushes down Sherlock’s spine at the movement.
“I’ve gotta go, Sherlock.” Oh, no. “Let’s just pretend that never happened, yeah?” Sherlock should have known this would happen. “It’s just because of the wine, you know.” It still breaks his fragile, untested heart. “You know I’m not a pouf. I’m not gay.” John repeats the words, as if to himself: “I’m not gay.” John huffs out a bitter laugh, short and hard.
Sherlock’s cheeks flame in embarrassment at the rejection and he feels as though he may throw up.
After a moment, John gathers his things and leaves.
When he hears the front door click shut, Sherlock raises a hand to touch his still-tingling lips.
That was his first kiss.
* * *
October 6, 2001
Sherlock sighs. “I was sixteen and stupid, John. Can’t we forget it?” He turns away and looks for something to distract him in this cramped office.
“You’ve weren’t stupid at any age, Sherlock. If either of us was stupid that night, it was me. And I won’t ever forget.”
Sherlock leans against a desk, finally looking back at John. John’s eyes, still so blue, search Sherlock’s face. He doesn’t know whether or not he wants John to find what he’s looking for there.
“God, I was such a dick that night. And I never called or apologized or said anything, but I’ve been thinking about it for years.” John sighs when he realizes that Sherlock isn’t saying anything. “I guess I’m asking…can we try it again?”
“Try what?” Sherlock asks, suspecting (hoping) what John’s asking for, but afraid that he might be wrong. Even after a decade, the sting of rejection feels raw.
John makes a small, frustrated noise in the back of his throat and closes the distance between them before taking Sherlock’s face in his palms – rough, callused, warm. John tilts Sherlock’s chin down and leans up and in, his face blurring out he’s so close.
John’s lips meet his in a question, a gentle, fleeting brush. Is this okay? Sherlock’s eyelids flutter shut and he shudders in a shaky breath through his nose. He presses back for another kiss, deeper and wetter. Don’t you dare stop.
Sherlock heaves open a long-disused door in his mind palace and tries to catalogue everything at once, but there are too many sensations.
The soft hair on John’s neck, where Sherlock has unthinkingly placed his hand. A rough tongue flickering past his lips. The side of his nose gently rubbing John’s. The mossy base note of John’s cologne.
And all of it gloriously, unfathomably, John.
After minutes or hours or days, the kiss reaches its natural end, touches slowing as they both catch their breath. Sherlock leans his forehead against John’s and tries not to think too hard about what happens next. Instead, he focuses on the tender, molten feeling glowing in his belly.
“Sherlock?”
“Mmm?”
John chuckles, a soft, sweet thing. “Open your eyes.”
Sherlock obeys, and reluctantly steps away. If John wants to have a conversation, Sherlock can’t do it when all he can see and touch and breathe is John.
“Thanks,” John says.
“What for?”
“For letting me kiss you again, after all I’ve done not to deserve it. And for a bloody good snog as well, I suppose.”
Sherlock blushes, which obviously delights John as he smiles and reaches up to touch his warming cheeks.
“Just as brilliant, just as cute,” John says.
“John, if you’re suggesting that I was cute in sixth form-” Sherlock begins, but John interrupts.
“Oh you definitely were. Maybe not the fox you are today,” John sweeps a predatory look up and down Sherlock’s figure, causing his blush to shift from rose to vermillion. “But still beautiful. You’ve always had the cheekbones and the bottomless eyes and the effortless grace. I was just a bit behind on the whole ‘bisexuality’ thing. Took me a good few years to work up the courage and admit it to myself, honestly.” John scratches a spot behind his ear, looking uncomfortable. “That’s what I wanted to say. Well, ask, really. I’m sure we’ve both changed some over the years, but we’re still both single and I’ve never quite gotten over you, that is, once I figured out that there was something to get over. Honestly I should’ve realized sooner that completely-straight blokes don’t think about their mate’s lips as much as I thought about yours, but then again I’ve always been a bit slow on the uptake-”
“John-” Sherlock tries.
“And I know I’m not much to look at anymore, I’m practically an old man before my time, and I’m broken in so many ways. I get these awful nightmares, my shoulder’s messed up and with all that going against me and God just look at you but I thought maybe-”
“John, shut up,” Sherlock says. John’s jaw snaps shut. Sherlock leans in and presses his lips to John’s, a single chaste point of contact between their bodies. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Weren’t you listening to what I said before, John? No one really changes. You may have some new wrinkles and a stiff shoulder. You may think you’re old and broken, but I can see the integrity, the kindness, and the strength that I loved about you in school. You’re the same in all the ways that matter.” Sherlock allows a slow smile to spread across his face. “And if that weren’t enough, my sixteen-year-old self would definitely kick my arse if he found out that I’d refused a date with John Watson.”
John beams at Sherlock, a bright dazzling thing. “Okay, great then! Maybe, we could get dinner sometime this week?” Sherlock opens his mouth to reply but John beats him to it. “You know what? Never mind. We can figure all of that out later. Right now, I want to dance with you. I haven’t danced properly in years, and now thanks to you I don’t have that bloody cane to contend with. Plus, I think I owe you one. What d’you say?”
Sherlock says yes.
They dance and snog and laugh. They make dinner plans and exchange phone numbers. They cheerfully scandalize most of their graduating class. Later in the night John asks Sherlock, “What made you show up to this thing anyways? I’m certainly glad you did, but it doesn’t seem like your idea of fun.”
“It’s not,” Sherlock agrees. “But I called the head organizer and asked if you had RSVPed in the positive.”
John laughs. “I think we owe Mary a thank you. She’s the head organizer and she hounded me for weeks until I agreed to show up. I didn’t understand why, until now.” Sherlock and John look to the side of the room and see a very pregnant Mary and her husband chatting with another couple. Catching their eyes, she raises a flute of seltzer in their direction, and winks.
* * *
Epilogue – 29 and a half years after that.
In nearly thirty years, two invitations will arrive at 221B Baker Street. John will call out from the kitchen, “Sherlock! We’ve been invited to our fortieth school reunion!”
Sherlock will collapse on the couch dramatically, clad in pajamas and dressing gown. “Oh, joy,” he’ll grumble.
“Not interested in going then? We’d be a shoe-in for ‘Most Dangerous Job’ this year,” John will muse. “Especially now we’re pushing sixty.”
“Everything I could possibly have hoped to accomplish at a school reunion, I accomplished at the previous one. What purpose would attending yet another serve?”
“’Everything you could have accomplished?’” John will quote back. “Are you referring to landing me, you great softie?” he’ll tease as he enters the living room to perch over his husband.
“Obviously. You were the only motivation I had to attend the last one, as you know. And I’ve got you now. You’re quite stuck with me, in fact.”
“That I am,” John will agree, then swoop down for a kiss.