"I still don't see why we can't just take a train to Chicago."
"Trains can't go underwater, Sherlock" Lestrade answered, clearly annoyed. That was the sixth time Sherlock and protested the plane trip to Illinois for an "unsolvable" murder case, or so the Chicago P.D. called it.
"It's just in my best interest to not have a bunch of idiots construct an four-and-a-half metric tonne steel contraption and throw it up into the air, nonetheless put myself into those fools' hands!"
"They're not fools, Sherlock, they know what they're doing," John chuckled. He'd always gotten a kick out of Sherlock's fear of flying. "To think, a man who isn't afraid of anything, getting all worked up over a little flight."
"Air flight 461 to Chicago, Illinois, now boarding."The intercom rang out through the noisy airport. Sherlock looked around nervously, wringing his hands together before Lestrade tossed his bag into his lap. "Time to go, ladies," he smirked.
The three made it through the security and baggage check with little struggle, aside from Sherlock giving an incredibly long and intimidating look to the man with the metal detector. "So?", John asked after Sherlock was finished deducing the security officer, "anything interesting?"
"Aside from the fact that his shoes are two sizes too large and his belt certainly isn't large enough, no."
"Oh."
John turned slightly to his left to see Greg staring back at him with pleading eyes as he was smushed up next to an overweight American female reading the latest issue of Life Magazine, the cover reading, "Who's pregnant now?!"
Both Sherlock and John turned back, chuckling at Greg's desperation. The flight attendant soon came to their seats, asking them if they'd like any snacks, to which Sherlock stuck his nose up at the mere thought of airline food.
The next eight and a half hours consisted of Greg finally resting in a position up against the window that didn't look in the slightest bit comfortable, John barely getting any writing accomplished with the baby two rows behind who insistently cried and squealed the whole trip, and Sherlock staring at every passerby, occasionally resting his head on John's shoulder.
All was going smoothly until the plane hit some turbulence.
Sherlock snapped his head upright from the curve where John's neck meets hit shoulders and gave a worrying glance over to Greg for an explanation, to which he only found the man sleeping soundly as ever… well, at least as soundly is possible in that hunched over position.
John calmly closed his laptop and buckled his seatbelt. Frantically, Sherlock looked down at John's seatbelt, then back to the grooves in between his and his own seat, searching for a seatbelt. "Where is it John I haven't got one of those is it broken should we land the plane this isn't safe" he muttered out.
Watson almost doubled over in laughter, tears slightly escaping his already shut eyes and he watched the detective shuffle around, above, and below his seat, restlessly looking for the seatbelt.
"Everything alright, Sir?", the flight attendant questioned. There was a concerned expression in her eyes. Sherlock had given up on his searching attempt. Slumping back into his seat, he answered in a solemn tone, "I don't have a seat buckle." The woman chuckled quietly and picked up the rope-like fabric strip hanging off the side of Sherlock's seat and handed it to the beyond bewildered genius.
The flight attendant took a few steps backwards. "We're scheduled to land in twenty minutes" she chimed in before walking further down the aisle.
Lestrade, still soundly asleep, sniffled loudly before turning over and rolling his head onto the breast of the woman seated next to him. This lightened Sherlock's mood considerably, and all three of the men made the flight to Chicago without any further hindrance.
That is, excluding Sherlock's ordeal in tripping the hostess out of boredom, causing an elderly woman to have searing-hot coffee spilt on her, or the incredibly offended mother of the screaming child when he shouted at the baby to "quit being an annoying and insufferable tit", but we're not going to talk about those.