"She doesn't wanna talk to me?" John Watson spits at the floor, holding a lit cigarette in one hand and a strawberry ice-cream cone in another. "Fine. I don't give a shit." When the ice-cream trickles down and kisses his fingertips, he swears and licks the sticky sweet trail up rather obscenely. Sherlock fucking blanches. 

He's not used to it. John knows. He came out to him recently, after receiving the news (from the cold, unforgiving voice of his dad) that his childhood dog succumbed to liver failure. And now Sherlock looks at him licking up ice-cream off a cone and probably ruminates about the fact that that's probably how John sucks cock. (It's not, but. It's a little funny how he adjusts in his seat and wriggles his hips and presses his preppy behind into the plastic lawn chair.) John licks his lips and gives him a coy once-over. Sherlock Holmes, so fucking fit but not even slightly aware of it. Wearing his bloody suit to a university ice cream parlor.

"Mary," he starts, but the words get all hung up in his throat, and then they're tumbling out all at once, rephrased and repurposed. "You don't need her." 

"Yeah, well you wouldn't know, would you?"

"What do you mean?" Sherlock replies indignantly, sitting up a little straighter. 

"I mean" - more ice-cream melts onto John's fingers  - "fuck, can you hold my cigarette?" - Sherlock reaches across the table and takes it from him, holding it gingerly between his fingers like it's a rat. Or a diaper. Something that'll get his pristine, form fitting suit dirty. John tries not to be blatant because he's a jock and he knows it and he doesn't want Sherlock to think that John is just a gay guy dressed up as bisexual, trying to save himself from ridicule, but it's hard not to be blatant. Sherlock's making a little "n" with his mouth, in disgust - John would love to tell him how much he liked that. "I mean that you don't have a lot of sexual experience."

"I thought we were talking about dating, not sex."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"No," Sherlock replies, straight to the point, like a bullet. For all of Sherlock's innocent, virginal awkwardness, he isn't afraid to tell anyone exactly what he thinks of their opinions. "Romantic attraction is different from sexual attraction, but they can run in the same vein."

"Interesting," John lauds. It's just a compliment, but Sherlock's lips quirk up in a little smug smile. "I just wanna know how you know what I don't need, Sherlock. What if I really fancy her, hm?" At that, John takes the opportunity to devour the rest of his ice-cream, licking his fingers as he watches Sherlock rapid-fire a response.

"Well, that would be unfortunate. For you, honestly. She lied to you and now she's avoiding you. She's a coward and you don't need her, simple as that." 

"And what about you?"

This is where Sherlock gets frustratingly slow. He lags. The gears in his mind wind backwards, a bit - if John squints, he can see Sherlock losing his footing. 

"...Sorry?"

John tries for a joking tone but it falls apart as it comes out of his mouth. What's wrong with him? "Girlfriend?"

"John..." Sherlock trails, in a tone reminiscent of a man about to apologize. He's really, truly at a loss - it surprises John that someone could be so content in their own inexperience. Especially someone like Sherlock, who is eager to overanalyze everything, from people to biochemistry.

"I'm serious," John says in a voice that's still, in all honesty, completely nonconfrontational. Their eyes lock but it's probably because John can't do anything but stare at him. He's a bloody schoolgirl. Fucking - melted marshmallows, fucking putty around Sherlock Holmes.

"Let's be completely honest with each other-"

"Yeah," John's tone is nonchalant but his heart hikes into his neck and he forcibly swallows it back down.

"-and agree that I couldn't get a girlfriend if I wanted to."

"So you want a girlfriend, then." (Shit.)

"It's just not my area." Sherlock hands back John his cigarette and smooths over his suit, as if to get invisible ash off of it. His abdomen flexes under his shirt as he leans back in his chair - John has seen muscles from the guys on his team but Sherlock's just a little sweaty from the heat and his stomach is flush against the white fabric and Christ, oh Christ. "And why did you date Mary, anyway?" Sherlock demands, shaking John from his pubescent fantasy. "She's not exactly well-known for her compatibility."

"Neither are you," John tries to remind Sherlock, but it comes off a little shallow.

Sherlock scoffs. "Besides the point."

"I guess I dated her because she was feasible." He puts out the cigarette on the metal picnic table and throws it to the concrete slab. For a reason he can't pin down, smoking over lunch is making him feel strange and faintly nauseated.

"John, you're actually quite popular and dating someone out of your league is really not a valid issue. I know - when I found out, I was surprised as well." 

The ball of nausea hardens into a pebble. "I mean, she's a girl," John clarifies.

It gets a little quiet. Not awkward, exactly - it's more of a pensive silence, but it terrifies John all the same. Sherlock's eyes search his face for a crack in the mask as attentively as he searches Sherlock's. For some reason, he feels he isn't concealing his thoughts well enough. 

Sherlock's throat bobs. He looks away, suddenly. "I apologize."

"There's a guy." John can't look Sherlock in the eyes as he says this. "From our UNI. But he's straight, I think."

"Did you... ask?" Sherlock replies, softly, still looking at a place that's not quite in the distance.

John shakes his head as he laces his arms across his chest.

"Then how do you know?"

"I have a feeling." John licks his lips, stares at Sherlock's hands, folded on top of one another. "I told him I was bisexual. He didn't say anything."

"Well, why do you like him?"

John smiles, his stomach fluttering, nervous and shaking and hoping Sherlock won't read him like a goddamn book. (Or a brochure - John admits to himself that he's probably a little too simplistic to be a book.) "I mean... What's not to like?"

Sherlock cocks his brow, and John is compelled to continue. "He's just... gorgeous. Brilliant. I mean, fucking genius. Bloody funny, too."

"If you like him so much... you should just ask," Sherlock says.

"D'ya think?" John murmurs to the sky above Sherlock's crystal blue eyes, before his gaze flickers down to assess Sherlock's expression. It's kinda at a loss - Sherlock's gaze is suspiciously emotional but John can't pin down what emotion.

"You should ask him," Sherlock says, more firmly, his body deathly still. The wind blows his hair into his eyes and he doesn't push it away.

"I should ask him?"

Sherlock slowly nods.

"I should ask him. Right now," John says to Sherlock, his heart starting to become loud in his head. The pebble in his stomach bounces around his body, ricocheting violently into his neck - he might lose consciousness - but the momentum has already begun and there's no feasible way to stop now. He's fucking sweating. 

"Right now?" Sherlock asks, flabbergasted - maybe a shade irritated - as John sits up and takes off his varsity jacket to reveal a black tee. "John - wh-"

"Sherlock, I have something important to ask you," John says as he discards his jacket - Sherlock's eyes widen, and John has to brush past the fact that his eyes alone have the power to shake him down completely, just so he doesn't lose the courage, "are you gay?"

There's a little lag in time. Sherlock flashes through a dozen different emotions at once and then his eyelashes are fluttering like butterfly wings. The longer the chasm between the question and the answer stretches, the redder John's cheeks get, and he's about two seconds away from apologizing, saying, "Sorry, no, I didn't mean it like - I'm just trying to say - it's all fine," when Sherlock replies, point-blank: "Well - yes."

"Oh," John exhales. His fingers work into his hands. The sun feels a thousand times hotter on his skin. "Oh."

Sherlock evenly nods, reaffirming what John wasn't sure of; what he couldn't imagine. "So," John hardly manages, feeling like he's about to vomit, "can I - d'you think I - would you let me kiss you?"

Sherlock inhales, sharply. His eyes glass over. "I want to - it'll be terrible, I've never-"

"Please let me kiss you," John pleads. The entire world around them sounds muffled as he says this, the only words he can hear being his own, ringing loudly in his ears. He can faintly hear Sherlock gulp from across the small wicker table. His knee rubs against the inside of John's thigh, plunging a white hot sensation into the place where the pebble of blinding anxiety used to reside.

Sherlock finally goes to wipe the smattering of chocolate brown hair away from his eyes - and when he nods in consent, his very breath shaky, John gathers his nerve and finally leans across, physically getting up from his seat to cover the distance. The black fabric of the T-shirt strains against his biceps as he takes Sherlock's cheek in his palm - he marvels - this isn't real. Sherlock in his suit, in this ice-cream parlor, with every university kid he knows and doesn't know... seeing them kiss.

John finally leans in so close that he can't pull back and he can't kiss him, either. He's petrified, in a terrifying middle ground, until Sherlock presses his closed lips against John's, madly shivering in the eighty degree weather.

His lips are soft, and warmer than John thought they'd be, and Sherlock opens his mouth a little but they're both too scared to let anything come of it. He tastes mint chocolate ice cream, even though Sherlock was the one who ordered that.

And he doesn't know how long it lasts but he knows it was shorter than he would have liked it to be. So after they part - John is still leaning all the way across the table - he asks, "Can I kiss you again tomorrow?"

Sherlock laughs. His laugh is really something else, John thinks to himself. "Well," Sherlock says, still grinning, "yes."

A/N: i know that not everyone reading colorblind reads this but I'm so sorry you haven't been getting updates

I've been hit with what I think might be a pretty hard bout of depression recently and I don't have energy (like usually i can still write when I'm sad but this is different idk) so I'm really kind of just scraping along

this was my attempt to get back in the groove n i was gonna delete it but i felt rlly bad abt not posting I'm so sorry

and I hate making excuses like this but i promise to you guys that i will finish ASAP, even if ASAP takes forever, which i know sucks but I'm really bummed abt it too ugh

Sherlock s4 coming out in two months!! :)

Stay strong everyone ONLY 2 MONTHS!!! WTF!!! JOHNLOCK CANON IN 2 MONTHS

sorry if ive deluded u lol good luck