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Bad idea. This is a bad idea.
John looks over at Sherlock. “This is a bad idea.”
Sherlock takes a deep breath, a step forward, and John’s hand. “I don’t have bad ideas, John.”
A derisive snort escapes from John before he can even attempt to stop it, but it’s cut off by a sharp gasp when his arm is practically yanked from its socket. “Sherlock!”
Sherlock’s eyes look up at him from the ground, and John ignores the twinge his arm slaps him with while he helps Sherlock back up. They’re standing too close, though, for John to be angry, and since it’s only been a few weeks since they first kissed, he grabs Sherlock’s lapels and drags him down to touch the lips he’d been staring at with his own. Because, honestly, he deserves it after being dragged out here to-
Sherlock bites his lip, and John forgets where they are, tugging until he can wind his hands through Sherlock’s hair and-
Damn it.
Sherlock’s teeth slam into his top lip, and it starts to bleed; somewhere, a fiercely unnerving screeching noise slices its way through the air; and John is dragged forward a few steps, only just managing to maintain his balance.
God help him, he can’t even find it in himself to be angry. This honeymoon period is getting ridiculous, but when he looks over at Sherlock, the only thing making his cheeks flush is the ever-familiar twinge of want.
John’s breath comes out in small puffs of white air, and Sherlock’s on the floor again. The lighting in the arena makes Sherlock’s eyes almost as pale as his skin. Fucking ridiculous the way that makes John’s heart pound. He leans over, brushing his over-sensitised-and-not-in-a-good-way lips over the shell of Sherlock’s ear.
“Not a bad idea?” he asks, not even trying to smother the tilted smile making its home on his mouth.
Sherlock groans a bit as he sits up on the ice. “I may have misunderstood the dynamics involved in this.”
John snorts, on purpose, and stands up, stepping fully into the rink.
“Because it’s so complicated, right? Ice skating?” John laughs, sliding over to where Sherlock’s getting up slowly.
“Don’t know what you’re laughing at,” Sherlock mutters. “You didn’t even want to come.”
John smirks, watching Sherlock totter his way to standing. “You’re right, you know, but this suddenly seems like a brilliant idea.”
Sherlock’s glare only makes John’s grin widen, but he finally takes pity on the precariously balanced detective, and gently lifts his hand off the railing.
John looks up at Sherlock, and watches how the glare softens and how he can actually see their breaths intertwining. Sherlock stares at the mixing air, and John thinks he might be thinking about how to tell the exact difference between their respective exhales. Possibly something to do with the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and what they ate for breakfast.
“Your knuckles were turning white,” he whispers.
Sherlock’s brow furrows and his eyes go wide, like he suddenly realised where he was and what he was doing and now John has lost all feeling in his fingers.
“You’re fine,” he says softly, edging backward. “You’re alright. Doing great.”
John continues in short, meaningless sentences, maintaining eye contact with Sherlock as they toddle their way further from the edge of the ice. Sherlock’s breath is coming in short bursts, but his eyes are slowly losing their panicked sheen. John mentally measures the distance in baby steps from the centre, and figures they’re close enough to it to not get knocked over by those circling the rink.
He stops moving, pulling Sherlock closer to him, until they’re almost hip-to-hip, or rather, hip-to-thigh.
Sherlock looks down at John.
“Hello.”
Sherlock’s eyelashes are too fucking long. They’re obscene, the way they’re littered with tiny snowflakes, and then the melting ones are flinging everywhere when he blinks and John wants to kiss him.
Instead, he smiles up at Sherlock, huffing out a laugh.
“Hi.” His voice comes out hoarse, and he can’t be arsed to care.
It would probably be horribly, disgustingly romantic to tell Sherlock he’s beautiful.
Sherlock chuckles, and leans down to brush his nose along the underside of John’s jaw, a pinpoint of ice against the warmth of his skin.
“I’m sure Mycroft has a plethora of school pictures that would beg to differ.”
Oh. John swings his head back obligingly, but wrinkles his nose at himself, glad that Sherlock can’t see it. He must’ve said that aloud. He’s not even drunk or anything else that could serve as an excuse, and he feels a prickle of embarrassment tickling the back of his neck.
He laces his fingers in the finer hair at the nape of Sherlock’s neck, and tugs his head up, until they’re nose to nose.
“Talking about Mycroft is a deal breaker.”
Sherlock smiles, leaning closer until John’s sure he’s going to pass out because all he’s breathing in is Sherlock’s exhale, but the way Sherlock’s eye look this close takes presidency over oxygen deprivation, anyway.
Distantly, he thinks Sherlock apologises, but then Sherlock’s lips are on his and he forgets what they were talking about.
Sherlock’s lips are cold and chapped. John can locate the exact spot his nose is touching John’s cheek because it’s like holding a piece of ice there. Sherlock still smells like the chemicals he was working with this morning.
John cannot stop smiling enough to actually kiss him back.
Because he’s not really thinking about any of these things, not even distantly. He’s thinking about how Sherlock Holmes, his completely, yeah, alright, beautiful flatmate is kissing him, and how he’s still not used to it. He’s thinking about the butterflies in his lungs, and the tug in his abdomen, and the air in his head where his brain used to be and how it’s a wonder he hasn’t exploded yet but maybe it’s self-preservation because if he stops kissing Sherlock he’s pretty sure he’ll die. He’s thinking about how easy it is to deepen the kiss and how, when Sherlock licks his way into John’s mouth, he still tastes like the tea John made him, and the toothpaste he stole from John’s bag. He’s thinking about this, now, forever, and then a little longer.
Oh god.
He’s thinking about how he’s in love with a man who can’t ice skate any better than Bambi.
John fights against his initial, panicked idea to push Sherlock away, though, and deepens the kiss like he’s a dying man. His teeth scrape against Sherlock’s bottom lip in a way John knows will get them swollen, and his tongue is intent on devouring Sherlock. When he hears a small choked sound that definitely did not come from his throat, he doesn’t even try to hold back a moan. He tries to put everything that’s been hanging in the air between them for months into it.
This is it, he thinks. This is what he was expecting that first time.
His frankly earth-shattering epiphany is interrupted, however. By a middle-aged mom holding the hand of a primary school aged kid, clearing her throat. Loudly. John’s eyes fly open, and the prickling embarrassment is back with a vengeance.
Sherlock makes a frustrated noise and pulls back, turning his head immediately away from John to glare at the woman.
“Come on, sweetie,” she says, suddenly, rushing to skate away.
John’s torn between laughing and an overwhelming sense of reluctance to turn back to Sherlock after watching the pair meander their way to a safer, less detective-concentrated area. Some part of his mind knows, just knows, Sherlock will have understood it, everything he was thinking, just like he always does, and is so scared he’ll just – disappear. Escape like a wisp into thin air.
John is not a coward, however, so he steels himself, and turns his head.
Sherlock’s mouth is open, and he’s panting. His pupils, so apparently contrasting with his eye colour, are still expanded in the way Sherlock taught John to look out for. He looks much too wrecked to be in a skating rink that also has children in it.
He does not look like he’s going to disappear.
John wants to take a step back, but Sherlock is still holding onto his shoulders for balance, so he just turns his head and takes a deep, steadying breath of fresh, Sherlock-less air. It doesn’t quite fill his lungs like he thought it would.
He looks back at Sherlock, and smiles at him. This is fine. They’re both fine.
“Hey.”
Sherlock scoffs and leans in closer, so John has to brace himself against the ice at an angle to keep them both upright. They’re holding each other up, and Sherlock’s coat is swinging forward to halfway envelope John, too.
“I think,” Sherlock says, “we’re eventually going to run out of pleasantries.”
John winces, but everything he really has to say now has something to do with love and forever and other scary ideas.
Now would be a fantastic time to keep moving.
He shakes his head, and grins, tugging Sherlock’s hand forward as he starts to move again.
“Come on, Sherlock,” he says, turning around so they’re both facing forward. “We’ve got to make it at least one time around this bloody thing.”
He can’t see it, but he’s sure Sherlock is smiling.
“All right, John,” he says. “I’m right behind you,” and maybe it’s the snow or the stupidly romantic location or maybe John’s just high of endorphins, but he’s pretty sure Sherlock meant it in more ways than one.