4. Scott and John – Tent
One of the things John would always remember was the sound of the rain.
It drummed down for what seemed like days, though really it was only a night. John had lain awake for hours, just listening to the heavy fingertips that tap-tap-tapped on the polyurethane nylon roof.
He was snug inside his sleeping bag, with a slumbering Scott head-to-toe at his side. It had been years since they had gone camping together – in fact, they hadn't since their long-ago scouting days. The scarves and woggles had been left behind this time. Now all they had from the old times was each other.
Another thing he would always remember was Scott's snoring. That was something that would never change. John muffled his chuckle in the thick lining of his sleeping bag. He was notorious for being a light sleeper, but also for being a noisy one when he finally managed to fall into a slumber.
Unfortunately, John's stifling had not been successful. Scott sat straight up, fully alert with the whites of his eyes flicking side to side in the faint light.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
John shook his head and sat up, too.
"Nothing, Scooter. Nothing at all."
Even in the darkness, John could sense Scott's irritation at the nickname.
"Something woke me up, Jay-Jay ," he said.
"Oh, touché," John replied. "You wound me."
Jay-Jay was not high on his list of acceptable pet names, which in fact contained no names at all. Well, apart from a simple Jay – but only from Virgil.
"Well," Scott said around a gaping yawn, "you woke me up with your strange not-sleeping habits."
John huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes, though the effort was lost in the darkness. His huff was almost lost in the sound of the rain.
"I'm surprised you didn't wake yourself up with all that snoring. You sound like a freight train and an elephant suffering from bronchitis all in one."
Material shifted, shiny surfaces sliding against one another as Scott made himself more comfortable, leaning on one hip.
"Well, I've never heard myself, so I choose to believe it's not true," he said pointedly.
There was a beat of silence. Then the two brothers fell to pieces in giggles, their laughter punctuated by the tap-tap-tapping of the rain.
Gradually recovering control over his laughter, Scott palmed his face and shifted again, this time leaning a little closer to his brother in the cramped space of the small tent.
"Oh, god, I needed that laugh," he said.
"Me too," John said. "Me too."
This was what it was all about. The brotherhood, the camaraderie, the simple act of being together – not separated by twenty-two thousand miles of space and air.
John would remember the sound of the rain – and the sound of Scott's snoring. But the brotherhood, yes. That was what John would remember the most.