A/N: Just a short impromptu fic I wrote with my friend ImpishTubist in mind.
Asexual!Sherlock/Straight!John/Straight!Lestrade in committed friendship.
The Boat
Sherlock and John buy a rowboat in Sussex. When spring is giving way to summer, when the baby swans shed their down for white, when the rabbits begin to peep out of the grasses again, they drive down to their retirement house from London—they haven't given up Baker Street, not yet, there's still time—and put the boat into the lake down a winding path from the house. They take Lestrade, tucking him into the backseat of Mycroft's Austin Healey 3000, which the older Holmes no longer drives. The three men like to feel the sun on their faces, the convertible top down. Sherlock looks into the rear view mirror at Lestrade dozed off and smiles.
The rowboat's exterior is white, the interior a brick red, and Sherlock with his spindly long legs is always the one to push off the bank. John mans the oars into the middle of the lake, and Sherlock curls up with Lestrade in his arms at the bow. They can smell the daffodils in the air, and Sherlock murmurs to Lestrade about everything he sees around them, as if Lestrade is old to the point of senility or blindness. The former DI is perfectly lucid and doesn't even wear reading glasses—there are contacts now—but he indulges the younger man with a knowing look at John, who watches them with a gentle smile before surveying the trees and the sky and the water.
"One day, I'll have bees out here," Sherlock says to Lestrade, talking as if John can't hear. He looks around as if he owns all of Sussex and just needs to figure out what to do with the land. "And you'll have the best honey in your tea a man could want."
Lestrade always grins to himself, his hair now thinner and entirely gray, plenty of wrinkles in his face but fewer than a man of his age deserves. "Mr. Bespoke Designer Suits in a beekeeper's uniform," he says.
And John smiles deeply because it's a funny image of a sweet future he really is looking forward to.
"We'll have farm cats roaming about the yard," Sherlock continues. The only sound for a mile is his voice and the boat rocking gently in the water. "And I'll smoke my pipe on the porch in peace because there isn't anyone to bloody nag an old man about smoking in Sussex." Sherlock holds Lestrade in his arms for a little while, Lestrade's head on Sherlock's heart.
The sky is flush with sunshine the color of ripe peach nectar, the lake surface glittering in reflection, the leaves on the trees bright at the tops. The three men are alone here, and it feels as if they're the only ones in the world.
"You like the cottage, don't you?" Sherlock asks Lestrade. The younger detective bought the little cottage next door to the house, for Lestrade to live in. I won't leave him alone in London, he said to John. And John can't remember loving him more, recently, then when Sherlock said he'll look after Lestrade no matter what.
"I like it," Lestrade says, his eyes half-lidded and a peaceful expression on his face. "It'll do just fine."
Sherlock finally turns his attention from the landscape to John, who watches him and Lestrade with familiar admiration. Their eyes meet, and what passes between them is the sweet weight of decades already behind them and fewer ahead. A look they share more and more often, the older they get: Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for heading with me into the end.
John leans forward, clasps Sherlock's hand in his, catches Lestrade's eye. "We'll have a lovely time here," he says.
Sherlock gives a small nod, and Lestrade smiles, says, "I think so too."
Sherlock closes his eyes, as if committing this moment to memory, opens them again and looks at John like the image of him here and now is already burned brilliant into his brain.
"I don't know what I'd do without you two," Lestrade says.
Sherlock looks down into his face as if remembering Lestrade's still there. John lets go of Sherlock's hand and rests his own hand on the taller man's knee, folds at the waist and lays his forehead to the top of his hand.
Sherlock lifts his chin and his eyes to the sky beyond the trees crowding the bank. Like any man meant to last forever, he's never given much thought to immortality. But on this afternoon, as he sees the sunlight subtly receding from the ring of tree tops, Sherlock wishes that remaining in this boat with the two people he loves most in the world could somehow stop time for them.
Eventually, when the others get hungry, John rows the boat back to shore. Lestrade, with his arm hooked into Sherlock's, leans against the younger man on the way back to the car, and Sherlock walks between him and John with his long back straight and his head held high. John's already chattering about which cafe to go to in town, as he and Sherlock get into the car. Lestrade tells John to find a good station on the radio, and Sherlock's too distracted to notice the sudden noise. He peers into the rear view mirror as he turns the car around to head back and sees the row boat tied up on the sand.