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The plane ride is one of the longest in John's life, but it's time. Well over time, if Lestrade's grousing is any indication.
"I'm not going to deal with that man another second longer. I won't."
Lestrade's argument during the flight has all the petulance of an eight year old child told they have to simply sit in their aeroplane chair until they touch down at the other end on the runway, and the nice ladies with pretty hair tell them all they can get off. As an adult, Lestrade is able to get out of his chair, but not much further.
Sherlock just turns to John, his eyebrows already raised.
"So much for not being seated near my brother," Sherlock murmurs, the moment before Mycroft joins them in their cramped quarters.
John ducks his head, but he has to laugh.
Mycroft looks at him crossly. It seems as though fun has somewhere alone the plane ride been prohibited, only nobody told John. He does his best to assume a serious and respectful expression, but Mycroft very rarely pays attention to John when John has managed to present the version of himself that he would like Sherlock's brother to actually see.
They get off the plane and all of go in different directions, none of them being able to stomach each others' company after so many long weeks spent together on forced holiday. Even Mycroft looks irate, and it's been his decision when they were to go or stay the entire time.
John brings the small amount of luggage Sherlock and John have brought with them, and Sherlock steps forward to hail a cab. It's a rare moment for John to be able to take in the image of his partner without Sherlock being aware and John makes the most of it.
Sherlock turns to him when a cab pulls up by him and John isn't exactly where he's expecting him to be. The expression on Sherlock's face softens with whatever he sees on John's features. He merely holds out a hand to John.
Once in the cab together, Sherlock reaches over in the back seat and takes John's hand properly and John takes a deep breath in and out his nose. Home. Home again. He felt this way on the cab ride home from Afghanistan as well, but in a different way. He looks to Sherlock, and finds the other man staring at him already. A very different way.
And then it starts.
"Oi! I recognise you." Looking to the front of the cab, John can make out the eyes of their driver, staring at them both through the rear vision mirror instead of in front of them at the road. John makes a half-hearted attempt to relinquish Sherlock's hand, but Sherlock doesn't let him go. "You're that crazy detective what threw himself off that building. You seem to have come off from that pretty well."
John squeezes Sherlock's hand. Since his hand is still in Sherlock's, he decides to do something useful with the physical contact, doubtless reminding the other man just in time to be nice to the good cab driver.
"Yes," Sherlock says, and it's likely that only John recognises the tension in the other man's face. He blinks past the struggle not to tell their cab driver what an imbecile he is. "That's true."
John's hand lightens around Sherlock's. He watches his partner relax as his thumb makes slow patterns on the skin between thumb and forefinger. The cab driver seems pleased with their little interaction. John even starts to relax when he doesn't say anything more for several minutes. It's isn't until they're almost right outside their house that the cab driver issues them with a parting comment.
"My wife and kids will get a kick out of this one."
They enter 221B Baker Street to the sound of a very loud sigh of relief accompanied by the needlessly heavy sound of Sherlock's bags being dropped to the floor. Thrown. more like it.
"I am never going away on holiday with Mycroft again," Sherlock utters, disappearing into the kitchen by what seems to be rote. John waits in the living room, a small smile tingeing his features. "If anything, he's gotten worse since the trips we took as children."
He looks back towards John in the living room, as though just now realising that his partner hadn't followed him in. Sherlock's movements slow, like he's trying to figure out exactly why John is smiling like that. That it's unfamiliar doesn't mean it takes Sherlock long to figure it out.
"Oh," he murmurs, under his breath, his head turning very slightly to the side. Then the kitchen is forgotten, and John is in the taller man's arms, his lips being ravaged as though they had been forced to remain chaste for the length of a much longer flight, one halfway across the world.
They christen the couch and the bathroom with the nature of their new relationship before finally falling into John's bed together. Sherlock's still damp, wavy hair drips onto John's forehead, and it makes the shorter man chuckles.
*
Life returns to normal for the two men of 221B Baker St. Or, as normal as the two men at 221B Baker St have come to be used to. A small surge in interest happens when word gets out that Sherlock and John have returned, but it doesn't last for long. They are old news now, finally. Finally.
Mrs. Hudson leaves them both with a bit more space than was her usual want, a fact that is left largely unremarked upon and is greatly appreciated at the same time. Molly leaves them both text messages to welcome them back, but otherwise waits for them to contact her.
John goes back to work at the hospital, glad that they will still have him after his track record over the last couple of months. He doesn't question it, and does his damnedest to arrive early to all shifts, take none off, and even manages a little overtime.
Sherlock is always in the midst of some puzzle when John comes home, if he's not out harassing Lestrade. John knows the days when he's going to have to pick his partner up from the cop shop from the desperate text messages that arrive on his phone. Soon after that, he starts getting used to text messages coming from Sherlock too, assuring him that he doesn't need to concern himself with any of Lestrade's theatrics.
Soon after again, those text messages devolve into something whole-heartedly more distracting than the serious work he is trying to get back on top of.
The first time that he gets a message from Sherlock asking him if he could please pick up some more milk as he seems to have used the last of it, John muses over how far they've come.
*