They waded ashore, weighed down by their sodden clothes. John's woollen jumper was hanging almost to his knees, Greg's jeans were sliding down his arse, and Sherlock looked like a cross between a wet cat and one of the more spectacularly asinine Byronic heroes.
"Bloody fuck it's cold," Greg gasped. "How are you possibly not freezing, you madman?"
Sherlock shrugged. "I've been in Tibet."
"Yeah, smartarse, but I'm pretty sure you didn't have a bullet hole in your chest at the time."
At that, John gave a yelp of tortured conscience. "Christ, Sherlock! Your stitches!"
.
John made Sherlock sit while he looked him over. Hastily, Greg laid fresh kindling in the ashes of the morning's fire. Scavenging wood from beneath the willows, he built it up as rapidly as he could, until it bore more resemblance to a bonfire than to the tidy cooking fire of the morning.
John stripped the sodden remnants of the dressing from Sherlock's chest and ran his eyes carefully down the scar. The incision cut by the surgeons had been hurried, and not dainty, but the resulting row of stitches was neat and orderly. John's thumbs probed the scar, seeking heat or inflammation, or needlework damaged by Sherlock's disregard.
Out of the corner of his eye, Greg watched them. John's fingers pressed forcefully into the indentations between Sherlock's ribs – he was angry, Greg could tell. But the movement of his thumbs over the silvery, newly-knit skin was unutterably tender. John's head was bent, but even so, Sherlock's eyes rested on him – on his dripping hair, his lowered eyelashes, the plane of his cheek. There was something very soft in Sherlock's expression; something that sat strangely on that strange face, habitually so austere and manic by turns.
With the application of antiseptic and a new dressing, John pronounced himself satisfied. The fire was now head-high, spitting and crackling merrily and giving off a luxurious heat. John and Greg divested themselves of their wet clothes, wringing them out as well as they were able and draping them over branches near the fire. Sherlock, predictably enough, merely shucked his pyjama trousers and left them lying in a sodden pile on the grass. Sighing, John retrieved them and spread them out to dry over a large fallen log.
A person's choice in underwear, John had always thought, was very revealing of character. His own were plain, practical cotton boxers: loose fitting, comfortable, blue and white check. Sherlock's were black, bamboo and merino blend (as John knew well, since he frequently ended up washing them), and snug-fitting in a way that should probably have been more perturbing than it was. Greg's, it transpired, were blue – and patterned with a cheerful motif of monkeys and bananas. John stared.
Greg shrugged. "Christmas present from my son."
Sherlock arched a brow, his mouth twitching perceptibly.
"Bananas, Lestrade? Really?"
"Hey, they're better than the pair that says 'Police line, do not cross'."
"I'm assuming that was also your son rather than your wife?"
"Yeah. Cheeky bugger. I got him back though. Got him Barbie undies for his last birthday. Made him open them in front of his mates and everything."
John grinned. "You must be the coolest Dad."
"Are you kidding? I'm so uncool they won't even walk through the supermarket with me."
"With underpants like that, I'm astounded you could convince anybody to procreate with you in the first place."
"Yeah, oddly enough I wasn't exactly looking to score when I packed for this weekend, Sherlock."
"Hear that, John? Your honour is safe."
"Oh, sod off."
John had made the mistake of trying to remove his jeans over top of his boots. He'd managed to extricate his left foot, but the right was still woefully entangled. He performed a curious, half-hopping manoeuvre, bent over and tugging at the heel of his boot with both hands. Unfortunately, he had not taken into account the vulnerabilities engendered by this position. Sherlock took full advantage. With a puckish light in his eye, he sauntered over and slapped John soundly on the arse.
John yelped and overbalanced, but managed to drop his shoulder and roll, toppling harmlessly into the grass. His boot came off in his hand, and he wasted no time in hurling it at Sherlock. Sherlock ducked, giggling, and danced a few steps sideways to slap Greg's banana-covered posterior. Greg let out a bellow of mock-rage and pursued him, Sherlock dodging and darting, giggling immoderately. As they rounded the bonfire, John sprang up to intercept them. Caught between the two of them, Sherlock tried to fake a lunge sideways, but John anticipated it. Catching him in an effortless tackle, he brought him down, twisting easily as he did so to ensure that Sherlock landed safely across his stomach.
Logic dictated that at this point, John should hold Sherlock down while Greg inflicted dire retribution on him on behalf of their slighted honour. Instead, Greg took advantage of the others' preoccupation in order to roll them sideways and spank them both simultaneously. At this unlooked-for duplicity, John gave a yell of betrayal and swiped at Greg's ankles; Greg jumped backwards out of range, laughing uproariously. Allied once more, John and Sherlock scrambled to their feet and pursued him, hurling threats and imprecations.
They chased each other in rings around the bonfire until it became almost a dance. Sherlock began war-whooping like a schoolboy, and the others joined in, laughing until they cried. At last, Sherlock was obliged by his injury to bow out. He doubled over, fending off advances with one hand while massaging his chest with the other; but his eyes were still glinting delightedly, and his giggles continued unabated.
"No more," he panted. "Mercy… I beg of you…"
John caught him around the chest, pulled him in, and slapped him.
"Now we're even," he said.
.
The circle of firelight glowed more brightly as the afternoon waned softly towards dusk. Following their impromptu reversion to adolescence they had subsided into a lazy and unobtrusive solidarity, disrupted only when John or Greg rose to put more wood on the fire. Greg was reading Men at Arms, his face towards the fire and his back resting against a conveniently fallen tree. Sherlock, for reasons best known to himself, was lying on his back with his feet on the log alongside Greg's face. He was perusing half a dozen copies simultaneously of what appeared to be Punch, muttering obscurely to himself and making abrupt, eloquent gestures with his hands as he did so. John was drafting something in a battered yellow notebook. His head turned occasionally to look at Sherlock, as if for inspiration. His eyes lingered fondly on the impetuous movement of Sherlock's hands, and a smile touched the corner of his mouth; he seemed to be entirely unconscious of it.
Dusk drew in and the first pale stars appeared. The shadows of trees and hills drew out, long and thin over the fields. The fire spat, and sparks fountained up, spiralling skywards on a long column of smoke. It began to grow cold.
Greg disappeared for awhile, and returned with a couple of sleeping bags, a bottle of scotch, and jackets for the three of them – John's zippered fleece; a grey merino-knit jumper that Sherlock almost never wore; and, for himself, a navy blue sports jacket that boldly and implausibly proclaimed his allegiance to the Kelston High School Girls' Junior XI. John decided, upon reflection, that he was probably a coach.
"Do you want to eat?" John asked, eventually.
Greg gave a low hum of approval. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head and rolling them until his shoulders clicked.
"I suppose this is about the point where we should cook something well-balanced and nutritious," he said, still yawning.
"Mm."
"Or, we could just chuck some steaks on the fire and char the hell out of them."
"Yeah."
.
They ate the steaks with the aid of John's pocket knife. The juice ran down their wrists, and they burned their fingers, and the meat tasted of charcoal and wood-smoke. Sherlock professed to have little appetite, but he kept them company, munching quietly on a green apple and tearing occasional fastidious fragments from John's steak between thumb and forefingers.
.
By the time John and Greg had finished eating, Sherlock was already half-asleep. His long legs were stretched out, his hands lay palm-upward on the ground beside him, and his head was tilted back at an impossible angle against the fallen tree.
"Comfy?" John asked.
"Mm." Sherlock murmured. His pale throat flexed softly where it lay exposed. "Could use a pillow." His voice was already soft with sleep.
"They're in the tent," John told him. "Bring mine while you're at it."
"Mm."
Sherlock hummed sleepily, his voice reverberating low in his chest. Without opening his eyes, he canted slowly sideways, until he came to rest with his head leaning against John's shoulder. John huffed, and nudged him in the belly with his elbow. Sherlock only smiled.
.
There was something boyishly ridiculous about the whole situation, John thought fondly. Three grown men sitting around a campfire, passing a bottle back and forth, and wearing jackets and sleeping bags over still-damp underwear. He felt warm and content, and not inclined to quibble with Sherlock over modest liberties. Affectionately, he eyed his friend. He had to tilt his neck awkwardly sideways in order to see Sherlock's face; the detective made a small noise of protest at being jostled, though John's being incommoded clearly didn't concern him. He looked smug and self-possessed, even while pretending to be asleep.
Despite the obvious exhaustion, Sherlock looked better than he had in a long while. His forehead was clear and dry, and there was a touch of colour in his cheeks. Where they peeked from the neck of his jumper, his thin clavicles rose and fell with reassuring constancy.
John became aware that Greg had fallen silent and was watching them. Feeling the abrupt need to disprove whatever it was Greg thought he knew, John let his face contort into the exaggerated doctor's scowl that he used with children. He fitted his thumb and forefingers brusquely beneath Sherlock's jaw in a show of checking his glands, then moved briskly to check the pulse in his carotid.
From the way Greg's eyebrows rose, John wondered if he might not have just overplayed his hand.
.
By a process of gradual acquisition, Sherlock slid down the fleece-covered shoulder until his head was, if not quite in John's lap, at least resting openly against his thigh. Rather to Greg's surprise, John didn't push him away, but brought his hand to rest on his friend's shoulder. He glanced at Greg, slightly self-conscious, as if aware that the gesture wasn't entirely masculine, but he let his hand remain.
It occurred to Greg, quite suddenly and strangely, that John and Sherlock were probably in love with each other.
It was a surprising thought. For almost six years now, Greg, like everyone else, had had a tenner on against the day that Sherlock and John turned out to be shagging. The odds had grown longer as the years had passed, but the pool had never quite gone away.
That wasn't what this was though. It wasn't just John, bright-eyed with admiration, and Sherlock basking gleefully in his regard; it wasn't just their old, comfortable, eminently jest-worthy bromance (Sally's word). This was something very different: a sort of shy, half-desperate tenderness that made Greg's throat constrict. Love – proper love; the real thing.
Trust the two of them not to realise it until after John was married.
John offered the scotch bottle, and Greg accepted it and drank. They weren't drinking to get drunk – just sharing companionable passes back and forth, small sips to stave off the chill.
Greg felt, idly, that he would like a cigarette. A cigarette would go well with the scotch and the bonfire. The fierce sweet smell of smoke, the glow of ash – they seemed to fit the scene. But no – there was no sense in wasting eight months of tenuous progress. Besides, John would not approve.
He remembered, suddenly, the way Sherlock had stood at John's shoulder, right throughout the wedding. His hand had rested between John's shoulder blades in the moment before the rings were exchanged.
Greg tilted the scotch towards John again, and John took it from him one-handed. He drank, and the bottle left a trickle of condensation over his mouth and chin; he wiped it with the ball of his thumb. John lowered the bottle loosely by the neck and rested it against his thigh, close to Sherlock's head. The detective's hair had dried in an impossible tangle and there was a streak of ash on his chin. From a distance, Greg couldn't tell if he was asleep or only pretending.
John glanced up at Greg, his mouth quirked and his ever-mobile brows pitched cheekily. There was enquiry in his glance, but he looked happy. He looked like he had almost six years ago.
God, Greg thought. The poor bastards. The poor, poor bastards. They really had buggered this one up, six ways to Sunday and all.
.
It had just gone midnight when John woke. His neck twinged from the awkward angle at which it had lain against the tree trunk. His back and shoulders ached, and his arse was numb. The fire had died, or had been put out by somebody, and cold dew covered his sleeping bag. Greg was asleep beside him, but Sherlock had clearly crawled off towards the superior warmth and comfort of the tent. John felt a moment's evil impulse against the bastard for not having bothered to wake them.
Swearing, he shrugged off the damp sleeping bag and staggered upright. His lower half, he noted blearily, was still dressed only in underpants. The grass was freezing beneath his bare feet. It felt as though there might be a frost coming.
John shrugged the sleeping bag around himself and shook Greg roughly by the shoulder.
"Come on," he said. "You're too damn old to lie around in fields all night."
Greg moaned. "I'm too damn old to get up either."
But he shrugged himself to his feet and staggered untidily after John.
As predicted, Sherlock was sleeping like a baby, stretched lazily across the very centre of the tent, and inextricably cocooned in the only dry bedding. Sighing, John hefted a sprawling arm out of the way and clambered over into the small space between his flatmate's outflung leg and the tent wall. Greg wormed himself in on Sherlock's other side, thankful that his pillow, at least, had escaped appropriation.
"'Night John," he mumbled, hazily.
"G'night Greg."
