Greg's hand gripped a tree nearby and he felt his fingernails digging into the bark, he let another pathetic whimper escape his lips. He had been trying to hold them back but had been unsuccessful so far. Every stitch John made had ended with a whimper from Greg and a flurry of murmured apologies from John. John knew he was helping, but he could help feeling like he was hurting Greg.

With an audible breath of relief, John finished the last stitch and tied it off.

"I think I've got it." John was glad that he was finished and was pleased to see that the bleeding was minimal. He just hoped that Greg hadn't lost too much blood.

"I'm going to have to disinfect it though. And it's going to hurt. A lot."

Greg nodded. "Just do it."

John rummaged through the first aid kit again until he found the rubbing alcohol. He unscrewed the cap and held it over Greg's wound.

"I'm sorry, Greg."

Greg nodded and John quickly poured the contents over the entire wound.

John had never heard a man scream like that before. It seemed to bounce off of every tree towards their direction and was never ending. A stream of agony of the kind John had never heard and Greg had never experienced.

Greg screwed his eyes shut and gripped the tree next to him with as much strength as he had. He tried not to move and break the stitches, but he was finding that extremely difficult. He started convulsing uncontrollably; it felt like every nerve in his body was exposed.

John held onto Greg's shoulders and tried his best to hold him to the ground as the pain slowly ebbed to a manageable state.

Greg's screams turned into ragged breaths as John sat back and looked at Greg's stitches; they were all fine.

Greg felt tears leak from his eyes as he slowly opened them. John found the antibacterial ointment and bandages and quickly put them on Greg.

John gave Greg a few minutes to recover before he helped him sit up and lean against a tree and he wrapped the final bandage around him.

As John was adding the finishing touches, Greg noticed for the first time just how bad John looked. Cuts and bruises seemed to be covering most him and he noticed a quite a lot of blood all over him.

"That can't all be mine, can it?" Greg murmured as he pointed to John's shirt.

John was confused until he finally realized what Greg was asking. "No, not quite all of it." John noticed the concerned look in his friend's eyes. "It's nothing serious. I'll be fine."

John pulled Greg's shirt back down and grinned at him. "Good as new."

Despite the pain, Greg grinned. "I feel like it too."

"I say we make camp here for the night." John stood up and looked around the clearing. "I grabbed enough food from the plane to get us through a couple of days and I think there's a fresh water stream nearby."

Greg nodded. "Were there any other survivors on the plane that you could see?

John shook his head. "Most everyone died, but there were a few seats unaccounted for which means some people survived and either fled the wreckage or were thrown from it like we were."

They both grew silent and Greg knew that John, like him, was thinking about Sherlock.

John cleared his throat and looked around at the clearing they were in. "I'm going to go look around and find some stuff to build a shelter and a fire. You just sit tight and try not to move."

"Shouldn't be a problem." Greg laughed then grimaced from the pain.

John smiled. "Be right back."

John walked to the edge of the clearing and quickly disappeared behind the thicket of trees. He hoped that Greg didn't notice that he had grabbed the first aid kit. Once he was sure he was out of Greg's sight, he leaned up against a tree and sucked in a deep breath. He unbuttoned his shirt and looked at the wound in his right shoulder. When he woke up from the crash, he found that a rather large piece of metal had been lodged in his shoulder. He had just removed it when Greg had found him. His shoulder hurt but he was sure it didn't hurt as bad as Greg's stomach. He was sure it needed stitches but he didn't have time to do it and he wasn't even sure that he could reach it properly since he would need two hands. He knew he couldn't ask Greg to do it in the state he was currently in, so hee quickly cleaned and bandaged his shoulder before he started looking for materials for a shelter. He collected several giant leaves that were the size of half his body. He dragged them into the clearing and before too long he had almost set up a tent like structure with room enough for he and Greg to stand and sleep in. He attached the leaves together using vine in the shape of a large tarp, then tied them to trees on one end and used sticks to hold up the other end. John built the whole thing over where Greg was sitting so he didn't have to move.

"Feels just like home!" Greg yelled to John as he almost finished his makeshift shelter.

John grinned at Greg. "Well, that's what I had in mind."

"I wonder where everyone else is." Greg's tone had turned serious. John knew that he was really talking about Sherlock and Moriarty.

John shook his head. "I don't know. Sherlock was in the tail end of the plane...and Moriarty has to be somewhere. As for everyone else, I can't imagine too many people survived. I imagine we were probably lucky to survive."

Greg only nodded his head and they were quiet for several minutes as John continued to work on the shelter. They both thought back to the moments before the crash. About Moriarty and Sherlock and the weight of their situation was overwhelming.

John finished up their tent and made some makeshift mattresses out of leaves. He and Greg laid down and stared at the ceiling of leaves above them.

"We're going to have to find him." Greg said with confidence, then faltered. "If he's out there."

John nodded his head. "He's out there. We just have to get to him before Moriarty does."

And with that they both slowly fell asleep as the darkness fell around them.


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