One

Greg Lestrade pulls his coat collar up against the rain, stood half-sheltered under the awning of 221 Baker Street. Holding the stack of pilfered case files safely under his coat, he reaches out to bang the door-knocker again, but before he can, the door swings open and Mrs. Hudson is ushering him inside with a flurry of frenzied admonishments for failing to remember his umbrella. Out of nowhere, she produces a kitchen towel, and uses it to pat dry his dripping hair, muttering about the inevitability of Greg catching cold. Christ, he thinks, this woman would probably mother hen over anybody that came to her door.

"Oh, what's the matter now, Detective? Has Sherlock done something?" Her voice brims with a kind of exasperated motherly concern, and Greg ducks his head as she becomes a little more forceful with the towel.

"Ouch! Um, no, Mrs. H, not that I know of. Had a stack of cold cases that were piling up on my desk, is all. Thought I'd pop in and drop some off for 'im. Figure he's probably climbing the walls by now." He gently pries the kitchen towel from her hand and sets to work on wiping the wetness from his hands and face. Mrs. Hudson tuts as if he's somehow doing it wrong, but doesn't protest. "Do you know if they're in?"

Greg wonders when it became customary to refer to John and Sherlock as a "they", as if the pair of them were one entity with two different heads or something. A funny picture of the two as conjoined twins pops into Greg's head and he has to fight hysterical laughter as Mrs. Hudson confirms that yes, they are in fact in their flat, and permits his passage up the stairs. In his head, conjoined John and Sherlock topple in a violently bickering heap to the ground, both having been trying to run in different directions at once. He really has to lay off the caffeine and get more sleep, Greg thinks to himself, shaking his head; he's turning into a right basket case.

The door to 221B sits slightly ajar, an unexpected warmth of light and sounds and smells drifting out into the hall. Lestrade hasn't really been inside the flat very many times—and usually when he is there it's only to pop in, tell Sherlock to get his arse to a crime scene—and pop out. The occasional drugs bust occurred only when he knew Sherlock was withholding evidence for a case. He would definitely do it more often, just to mess with the bastard, but his team (Sally) had outright refused to come back last time after finding a decapitated fish's head wrapped in aluminum foil and hidden in a shoe box under Sherlock's bed, with a meat thermometer sticking out of its eye socket. The mad detective had yelled up a storm as his "experiment" was tossed into the garbage by a very pale, suddenly very quiet Sergeant Donovan. She had spun away down the staircase with a hand held haltingly over her mouth (and looking distinctly green) as Sherlock indignantly filched it out of the bin and shouted insults after her.

Experiment or whatever it was, Greg does remember that it had smelled absolutely bloody awful.

The smell emanating from the flat now is much different, though, and thankfully there is no obvious shouting or stomping to be heard among the various other noises coming from inside. Sherlock must not be in a strop today then—or if so, it's a blessedly quiet one. He glances at his watch as he pushes the door open—God, was it really six already? No wonder he was losing it—he hadn't eaten anything since nine o'clock that morning.

The scene that greets him when he looks up from his watch makes him stop in his tracks, barely having made it past the doorway. The two men—conjoined, indeed—stand a little closer together than is normally considered just friendly, hovering over the stove in the kitchen. John stands with a large wooden spoon in hand, stirring whatever smells so delicious which he has simmering in a large saucepan. Sherlock stands just behind him, observing his flatmate's handiwork. Which would have been all fine and well, except for the fact that Sherlock practically has his chin resting on John's shoulder, and Greg doesn't think there is but an inch of available space between them. Neither seems tensed by the other's proximity, though, and in fact they both look like they couldn't be more at ease. The telly is blaring from the living room with an old episode of Jeremy Kyle, and the women screaming bloody murder at each other on the screen make it impossible to decipher what Sherlock and John are saying; though John is nodding encouragingly with a faint smile, and whatever John says makes Sherlock straighten up and puff his chest out a little with pride.

The scene isn't incriminating in any way, but there is still a certain intimacy surrounding the whole thing that throws him off. As Greg looks around the flat, it begins to dawn on him. The telly blaring unashamedly, the soft lighting, the window cracked just enough for the sound of the rain to filter on through—John and Sherlock in the middle of it all cooking a meal together, their respective chairs pushed cozily near each other and waiting expectantly for them in the living room next to the crackling flames lit in the grate. The conclusion Greg comes to is almost startling: this isn't a typical bachelor pad that he has just barged into—this is a full-fledged home, made for the two of them and by the two of them.

Hastily he steps back into the doorway before they notice his presence, and knocks loudly on the doorjamb. He feels an inexplicable heat rise in his cheeks as both men's heads snap up to focus their attention on him. He feels strangely guilty, as if he'd just walked in on them snogging or something. Which is a ridiculous notion. Greg blinks at the floor. Or at least it used to be.

"Greg!" John exclaims, looking surprised. It only takes a second for his face to split into a welcoming smile, which he reciprocates to the best of his abilities. "Well, come on in, don't just stand there like a dunce."

Greg steps in cautiously, case files still hidden against his side. John passes the spoon in his hand over to Sherlock as he moves away to wash his hands in the sink. Sherlock stirs the sauce on the stove once more before covering the pan with a lid and turning the heat down. Greg has the passing thought of how odd it is to see Sherlock in a domestic setting like this. He's even got a bloody kitchen towel patterned with butterflies slung over his shoulder. Most likely a borrow from Mrs. Hudson, he guesses. John comes up beside Sherlock and casually uses a corner of the towel to wipe his hands on before he claps Greg amiably on the shoulder. He opens his mouth to speak, before seeming to remember something. "Hang on." He glances over his shoulder. "Sherlock, could you—"

"Yes, yes, already on it," Sherlock interrupts, and the obnoxious volume of the television is lowered to an understated murmur of background noise.

"Jesus, mate, you look knackered," John says. Greg rubs his forehead, hoping he doesn't look as semi-conscious as he feels. He hasn't had a moment to pause all day, but now that he has he feels like he could collapse right here on their carpet and have a kip.

John quickly clears off a section of the cluttered sofa for him, and Greg falls onto the worn cushions gratefully. He blinks when Sherlock is immediately standing over him, hands on his hips. His sleeves are uncharacteristically rolled up to his elbows for the purpose of working in the kitchen. "Well?" he exclaims irritably, a hand detaching from his hip to flail in the air next to him. "Do you have a case for me, or are you just here to waste my valuable time?"

"Sherlock," comes John's disapproving voice from where he sits in what Greg has come to classify as John's chair. Sherlock is blocking his view of the doctor, but Greg can only imagine the look on his face.

It's impressive that it actually diverts Sherlock's attention at all. He glances behind himself at John as if there's a bug buzzing around his shoulder, curls bouncing with the sudden movement. "What now?" he snaps, but otherwise doesn't budge.

John's voice is all no nonsense and limitless patience, as if he's talking to an unruly toddler. "Leave. Greg. Alone. Stop harassing him, and just maybe he'll give you a case worth your while. It might even rank higher than an eight," he cajoles as a last effort, voice almost playfully condescending.

Surprisingly, after a momentary staring contest with Greg's coat under which the files are stored (how does he know?), Sherlock huffs dramatically and walks with heavy footfalls back to his chair across from John's. He falls into it moodily, and Lestrade swears he hears him muttering something about not knowing who "this mysterious Greg person" is. He does this sometimes, pretends that he doesn't know Greg's name, or calls him some random name starting with a 'G'. Some popular ones were Gavin, George, and even Giovanni had been one of them.

Greg would think the detective was just taking the piss if not for the completely straight-faced manner in which he does it. Surely Sherlock does know his first name after so many years, he thinks irritably. The prick had stolen his police ID just the week before—had he not even bothered to read it?! He makes himself stop that train of thought and take a deep breath. Let it go, Greg, he tells himself.

"Well, gents," Lestrade sighs, leaning his elbows on his knees. He tries to avoid the abominable glare Sherlock has directed at him. "It's regrettable to say, but I don't have a fresh case for you just yet."

Sherlock's mouth gapes open, but before any words can pass his lips, John shoots him a death glare, and Lestrade sends a similar look his way, holding up a finger in warning. The combined effort of them both seems to make Sherlock reconsider his words. He settles for yanking his knees up to his chest petulantly and huffing loudly.

"Listen, it's been all paperwork for me too, it's not like I'm out gallivanting the city without you," Greg grumbles, shooting an irritated look back at him. He's not in the right mindset for Sherlock's capricious shite tonight. He starts to wonder why he even decided to drop by in the first place. Because you're trying to stall going home to an empty flat, he thinks to himself. Because your wife took the house and the kids and everything, and it's all unbearably sad.

He pushes the intrusive thoughts aside, and reaches into the side of his coat, grasps the files. "What I do have, however—"

The folders are snatched from his hand before he's even pulled them out of his coat. Sherlock runs off to his bedroom like a dog with a bone. "...are some cold cases. You're welcome," he mutters in response to the slam of Sherlock's bedroom door.

Greg sighs and rubs his temples. He guesses he shouldn't have to explain them to him, anyway. A few vaguely questionable deaths, a jewelry store robber gone missing, and one lone case of some poor old woman's lost cat, which he isn't even sure how ended up on his desk in the first place. Either way, pretty self-explanatory stuff.

After a moment, Greg forces himself to stand from the sofa, preparing to excuse himself. The thought of going back to his flat seems less and less appealing as the seconds pass. Maybe he'll just load up on coffee and go back to his office at NSY; after all, there are still two more stacks of unsolved cases to work through waiting for him on his desk. He opens his mouth to bid John a goodnight, but the doctor beats him to it, an eerily knowing look in his eyes. Seeing it reminds Lestrade that John is just as perceptive as Sherlock, but in the opposite way. Sherlock is a master at his craft like none he has ever seen, but John Watson could sniff out emotional turmoil three-hundred yards off with a pillowcase over his head, and that was a unique talent in and of itself.

"Listen, Greg, why don't you stay for supper? It'll be ready in ten minutes."

Greg looks around, is again reminded of how painfully, nostalgically homey the flat is. He wonders if either of them even realize the impression given off by the atmosphere of the place—that it belongs solely to John and to Sherlock and nobody else. They might as well have posted a sign outside the door barring anyone else's entrance—like little kids hanging a Do Not Enter sign on the outside of a secret treehouse. "Nah, mate, thanks. But I don't wanna—impose or anythin'—"

John rolls his eyes in a distinctly Sherlockian manner, which Lestrade notes with a raised eyebrow. "Don't be daft, Greg, you're always welcome. And anyway, we made way too much spag bol for just the two of us."

There's a beat of silence.

Then Greg licks his lips. Sniffs the air. "Spag bol, eh?"

John nods exaggeratedly, giving him a distinctly sneaky look. "Oh, yeah. Homemade sauce and all. Be quite a shame tomorrow when Sherlock bins all those leftovers to make room for his experiments…Oh, well. Nothing to be done for it."

Goddamn the man. He wasn't particularly looking forward to another vending machine sandwich for his dinner tonight, but now he can't reject the offer of a home-cooked meal and still feel morally sound. That, and the smell wafting from the kitchen is downright heavenly and he'd be an idiot not to stick around for a serving.

"Alright, okay," Greg groans. "One bowl." John grins.

A few minutes later, as John is taking the bread sticks out of the oven, Sherlock emerges from his bedroom and wordlessly clears off the dining table, carting microscopes and notebooks and other various things back into his room without comment. Neither of them exchange a word or even a look, but when Sherlock comes back into the kitchen, John hands him a cloth and a bottle of spray cleaner. Sherlock dutifully wipes down the table while John makes up their dishes, and soon they're all sat in their respective seats and tucking in. Greg notices that John and Sherlock have sat directly next to each other, even though there is plenty more room to spread out at the sizable table. Greg has taken his seat on the other side of the table, directly across from them. The food is even more delicious than it smells, and he has to restrain himself from literally moaning at the taste of his first home-cooked meal in over six months. (Needless to say, he ends up having more than just the one bowl).

He finds watching Sherlock and John interact at crime scenes intriguing, but watching them interact at home gives Greg a whole new perspective. They work in tandem here just as they do at work. John butters a bread stick and passes it over to Sherlock, while Sherlock sprinkles a precise amount of salt and pepper over his bowl as well as John's. When John stands to rip a paper towel off the roll, and Sherlock opens his mouth as if to request one, John automatically rips off two and hands one over without even having to glance behind him. They are so attentive to each other, and don't even seem to notice. Did they not realize that their behavior reached well beyond the limits of "best mates" status, or did they just not care one way or the other? Having watched them interact in the comfort of their home all night, it's even harder to believe than it was before that they aren't a couple.

They actually end up having a fairly lovely meal, and Sherlock even behaves himself for the most part. He participates in the better topics of conversation, like John's old medical journals, John and Sherlock's past most riveting cases (and the newest NSY gossip), but doesn't complain as much as he usually would when it turns more towards small talk; like the weather and what they had read in that morning's newspaper or watched on the news.

As for the spag bol, Greg doesn't think he's ever devoured a bowl of it so quickly. It's the perfect combination of savory sauce, spice, and decadent pasta. He asks after the recipe, and John tells him that it was his grandmum's, passed down through generations. He goes on to explain the concerning level of madness Sherlock had reached after so long without a proper case, and how John had thought it the perfect distraction to teach him one of the few things he didn't know how to do, which was cook anything (food-wise) that didn't require a microwave. When he freely admits to having had the urge to push Sherlock out of the living room window earlier in the day, Sherlock takes a break from eating to stick his tongue out at him. Greg chuckles bemusedly at them, and tries not to gape too openly at Sherlock's empty bowl once he's finished it. He doesn't think he has ever seen Sherlock eat that much at once. Or eat that much in a week, come to think of it.

When the meal is over, Greg finds himself in surprisingly better spirits, smiling as he carries his licked clean dish to the sink. Hell, he'd even seen Sherlock genuinely grinning once or twice over the course of the night, so maybe it was going around. Maybe it was the spag bol.

He stops to use their loo before he leaves, and when he comes back out, they are actually washing the dishes together. Sherlock Holmes doing the dishes, and using that pretty, butterfly patterned dishcloth to dry them. Sherlock smirks and says something to John—too lowly for Greg to hear—which makes John shake with repressed laughter. He bumps his hip so harshly into Sherlock's in retaliation that the detective has to catch himself on the counter before he falls. Lestrade shakes his head at them, albeit fondly, and is not sure exactly what to think.

"Thanks for having me, boys," he calls, and grabs his coat from the hook next to the door. When he looks back to the sink, Sherlock has scurried off somewhere, water from the dishes dripping on the tile floor in his wake. Greg grins. He knew it was too good to be true, Sherlock Holmes doing the dishes.

"Oi!" John calls indignantly in the direction of Sherlock's room, elbow deep in soapy dish water. "Get your arse back out here and help me with these dishes, you wanker! Oh, and Lestrade, next time I see you, you had better have a case for him. A damn good one, too."

Greg laughs and makes his way towards the door, calling out a promise to tell the criminals of London to step up their game.

"We'll be seeing you, Gertrude," Sherlock can't help but call after him. Greg's face heats as he shuts their door behind himself a little firmer than necessary. He'd known Sherlock had been fucking with him on the name thing, but the twin sets of uncontrollable laughter coming from their flat only confirms it as Greg trots down the steps. He wants to be miffed about it, but he can't help the smile that comes to his face.

/

AN: Thanks so much if you took the time to read it. If you want, review and make me happy! This will be chapter 1 of 6. To be continued...