Y/N and Sherlock pile their plates distractedly, filled with childlike anticipation for the bonfire to commence, excitement buzzing in the cool air like the nighttime insects gathering around the tee lights.
They have been dotted amongst the buffet-style meal so people can see roughly what they're grabbing with salad tongues and wooden spoons. Brought all the way from the cottage, the food has been hastily spread over several fold-out tables---soups and breads and salads and colourful things to fold up in wraps.
Eventually, when twilight begins to gather, Mr Holmes steps forward, a box of matches held ceremoniously above his head.
The hum of conversation falls silent, faces turning to watch him approach the humongous heap of branches and logs. They're wet and glistening with petrol, the moonlight stretched and warped over their grizzled bark.
Revelling in having everyone's attention, Mr Holmes strikes the match and declares loudly, holding the fluttering flame skyward towards the night:
"Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean!"
A cheer roars up from the small crowd, some standing, others squashed comfortably into lawn chairs and fold-out deck furniture.
Y/N's hand tightens on her dinner plate subconsciously, the atmosphere suddenly cultish.
Sherlock notices, smiling sideways at her. "He's quoting Ray Bradbury. You know...Fahrenheit 451."
Y/N's cheeks colour. "I knew that."
He smirks. "Obviously."
"Just light it, man!" Someone yells from a deckchair. It had been Trudi, Y/N thinks, cradling a bowl absolutely stacked with potato salad.
"Yeah! Stop dicking around, Charles!" Grandad George joins in, using a wooden spoon to cover his own plate with ham.
"He's so dramatic."
"He gets it from your side of the family," someone points out, his accent neatly ironed with the crispness of Cambridge.
"Well, obviously." A woman croons. "Don't you remember my performance in Les Mis?"
"You mean the 'performance' you gave in Kensington Gardens where you played all the characters yourself and were asked to leave by a mounted police officer?"
"Excuse me?" Mr Holmes clears his throat. "If you all wouldn't mind?"
"Oh yes, sorry dear," Miriam pipes up, making shushing motions with her little bird hands. "Everyone quiet down so Charlie can concentrate."
Charles' brother, Wilber, sniggers.
It is the first noise Y/N has heard him make.
Mycroft notices and adds, snidely, trying to make him laugh:
"Yes, pay attention, Father, and be careful! Fire can get quite hot."
Mr Holmes grumbles, using his free hand to wave away his son's teasing remarks. He's been leaning over for a while now, gently touching the little glowing match stick against a branch. However, the fire won't catch, and Y/N can just about see the little flame creeping closer and closer to his fingertips.
Swearing, he drops the match into the wood and pops his singed finger into his mouth.
"I did warn you," Mycroft sighs in mock pity, and Wilber sniggers again.
"Here you go, dear," Mrs Holmes bustles over with the butter dish. "Put your finger in this."
"Wendy, I don't want to put my finger in---"
Just as she jams her husband's fingers into the butter, something crackles from deep within the pile of kindling.
Everyone watches as a slither of smoke seeps through a parched bushel of blue spruce. It smells sweet, the smoke scented with burnt sugary sap and everyone watches as a feeble, flicker of orange glows through the twigs.
"...Is it lit?" Someone asks, and curious murmurs oscillate through the group.
"I'll throw some more petrol on to get it going," Adaline offers---to a resounding 'No' from her elders.
Suddenly, the glow of orange flicks a tongue of fire out between two old fence posts and everyone cheers, the first wafts of heat just about tickling Y/N's nose.
...
In time, the blaze towers well over the Holmes' heads, their flicking, writhing flames nearing the height of the first floor of the cottage.
Watching from her lawn chair, Y/N is thankful it had been set up in the next field over from the house.
It doesn't take long for the heat to become unbearable and, chuckling about it with joyous excitement, everyone moves their lawn chairs several paces backwards, their cheeks flushed red.
Sherlock keeps going, taking his chair a few paces away from everyone else and Y/N follows him, the chatter less audible over the cracking logs. He sits down heavily, his legs stretched out comfortably.
Y/N takes a sip of her drink, setting the glass down amongst the grass.
It's dry and dusty from the persistent sun, dotted with corncockles and prickly poppy seed heads. Pollen and little moths explode from below Mrs Holmes' wellies as she bustles over, a packet of something under one arm and a bouquet of sticks in the other.
"Hello, dears," she greets, handing them each a skewer. "I thought we could do some marshmallows. I got those great big ones like they have in America because they were on sale."
Eagerly, Y/N and Sherlock accept the fluffy treats she tips into their cupped hands, and set about spearing them with their sticks.
Edging their chairs as close to the heat as they dare, Y/N extends her marshmallows with one hand, shielding it with the sleeve of her jumper. She looks sideways at Sherlock, lounging beside her, his hair floppy and mussed from traipsing around the woodlands all day. She smiles. "You seem happy here."
He returns her smile, reaching between them to gently pluck a twig protruding from her hair. "So do you." He chuckles as he frees it, flicking it onto the fire.
"I am happy here," Y/N nods, rotating her marshmallow as it begins to sag on one side, slowly drooping down her skewer like a fat, sugary raindrop. "I'm really glad you invited me. It's like a dream here, and everyone in your family is so lovely."
He chuckles, the sound a low rumbling of syllables that get lost in the crackling of the fire. "Us Holmeses have been called many things but 'lovely' is new."
They sit in silence, watching their marshmallows slowly crisp. When the very edge is starting to char brown, Y/N blows hers cool and bites into it cautiously, the searing sugar inside sweet and sticky.
Sherlock copies her, somehow managing to bite it without gummy strands trailing down his front. "I do really like it here. Sometimes I wish I hadn't left," he says absently, and Y/N blinks, surprised.
She remembers him as he had been earlier, hefting a fallen oak tree onto his shoulder with Grandad George, his movements energetic, his eyes bright and his t-shirt stained green with moss.
That image is so far from the Sherlock she knows---the man in the tight suits hunched over glowing laptops, navigating the rain-streaked streets of London---and yet this is his home. This Sherlock, the one who wants to walk a dog through the fields, plays the violin with the birds at dawn, who can identify every animal and critter he comes across---
This is the natural Sherlock---the country boy, the biologist, the artist---the one that not only most suits him but that Y/N finds most attractive.
"After university, I dreamed of coming back here and studying bees." He blushes, endearing him to her even more. "But then I would have never met you."
Y/N returns his mellow smile. "Well, you've met me now...so maybe one day you can come back? I'll visit," she nudges his elbow with a teasing laugh, "you won't be able to keep me away."
He presses his lips together and doesn't say anything for a little while. Then:
"Mother meant it when she said the cottage will fall to me. Mycroft really doesn't want it." His lip twitches with the ghost of a smirk as he watches his brother pick his way through the long grass in his polished black brogues.
He makes it to the buffet table and ducks with a very manly noise as a bat darts overhead.
Y/N feels bad for giggling. "He wouldn't survive out here anyway."
Sherlock chuckles, delighted. "Hm; this place would be absolutely wasted on him."
"You think?" Y/N asks, her tone dripping with sarcasm, but Sherlock doesn't seem to catch it.
He shakes his head. "Of course! Look at him! He'd let the allotments go bare and the pond get overgrown. He'd ruin the cottage with a modern kitchen, and he thinks the locals are all beneath him when actually they're better people than he'll ever be. And he's never wanted a family which would be an utter waste."
Y/N looks at him, surprise visibly written across her face.
Clearly having accidentally let slip something quite personal to him, Sherlock turns away from her evasively, his eyes lowered to slide his last marshmallow onto his skewer.
Interested, Y/N probes gently:
"I didn't know you thought about those sorts of things."
Sherlock shrugs. "I think about lots of things."
"Not those things," she corrects. "What did you say when we met? I asked you out and you said you're 'married to your work'."
He stops slowly rotating his marshmallow and lifts his head to squint his almond eyes at her, the flames dancing shadows over his cheekbones. "...You didn't ask me out."
"I did. Sort of," Y/N feels her cheeks flush warm, the bonfire suddenly seeming to double in heat. "I hinted at it. You took me to that Italian restaurant and I asked if you were single."
He says nothing, his jaw open with an expression Y/N can't read.
She frowns, puzzled. "You didn't know?"
"No."
She shifts uncomfortably, her lawn chair's rusty screws squeaking. "I thought that was your polite way of saying I wasn't your type. I was so embarrassed at the time, for the first few months of our friendship I felt so stupid."
The feeling coming back to her, she almost buries her face in her hands just to smother out the humiliation. She wishes he'd stop looking at her, his gaze somehow more scorching than the fire.
"I never said you're not my type. I didn't...I didn't know you were asking me on a date...no one's ever asked me on a date."
Y/N scoffs. "I don't believe that at all. You've probably been asked by loads of people but you've just not picked up on it."
He waves her words away. "Forget the other people. You really asked me? When we met?"
"I tried to. Why does it matter so much?" Y/N looks inquiringly into his eyes but he turns as if she's chased him away.
He moistens his lips and Y/N thinks he's about to say something else, but he doesn't.
She hesitates. "I don't mind just being friends, Sherlock. I know how much your job means to you...Everything worked out for the best."
His marshmallows eaten, he doesn't seem to know what to do with his unoccupied hands. Snapping the skewer in half, he tosses it into the fire. His eyes follow it, even though it's immediately consumed by the licking flames. "Yeah...you're probably right."
...
Y/N and Sherlock sit in comfortable silence for a long time, the heat turning the stars to liquid. It kept the mosquitoes away for a time, but several are beginning to congregate above the damp grass.
Y/N feels Sherlock place a hand on her leg, the weight of his palm reassuring just below the knot of her knee. She looks down and he tenses, drawing it away.
"There was a gnat," he says matter-of-factly, and she finds her lip twitching.
"Was there, now?"
"Yes! I wouldn't just put my hand on a woman's leg---"
"Well, maybe you should." Drawing in a breath, she slips her own hand under his arm, linking him closer, placing her palm resolutely on his thigh.
He'd held her close last night, and the one before, but this is different, somehow.
It's different with couples surrounding the fire, their own arms linked, their voices quiet, whispering sentences just meant for each other.
It's different when they're not reading together, or protecting each other from scary noises that shatter the night.
It's different just letting herself touch him for no reason apart from...because she wants to. Selfishly, her hand holding him almost possessively, an air of ownership.
Sherlock stumbles as if she'd tripped him up.
For a moment Y/N thinks he won't relax, the muscle taught under her palm. Humiliation closing in once more, she considers turning the gesture into a friendly pat and drawing away---
---but she feels his head come to rest on her shoulder.
...
Gazing sleepily at the fire, Y/N had let her eyes unfocus, the bonfire just dancing shades of orange.
Sherlock's head has grown heavy on her shoulder, but his hair is soft, the curls warm from the fire against her cheek. His thigh has relaxed below her hand, all of him slumped contentedly against her side as if curling into her, wanting to be closer.
He's not good at giving affection, she realises sleepily. He stiffens up, shy as if afraid no one wants it, but he's good at receiving it. He leans into being held without hesitation
The Holmeses had wanted to remain until the bonfire burnt itself out, but midnight slides by and it's still incessantly glowing. The flames have died down but the middle remains a hot liquid amber, twigs cracking amongst the purring embers.
By half twelve, the majority of the family have departed to their rooms one by one, leaving several of the older gentlemen outside to keep an eye on the blaze. Leaning back comfortably in lawn chairs, occasionally sipping from glasses---several times refilled---they squint through the dark at the daily crossword puzzle, muttering back and forth in a gruff, slurred way brandy tends to bring on.
"Four across...a small rodent," The Colonel announces, and the group falls into silent contemplation.
"...A vole?"
"Not enough letters."
"They are rodents, though, aren't they? How about a mouse? I don't know many rodents."
"A shrew. They're a type of rodent."
"Now I know five rodents."
George takes a long puff from a fat cigar. It looks small in his paw-like hands, like a toothpick. "I saw a pine marten once."
"Like a polecat?"
"Yes. But bigger. Had a white chin. Just looked at me."
"Polecat!"
"Where?"
"No, polecat. Seven down."
"Good show, old chap."
Despite the warmth of the fire, the cool night air is beginning to slither into Y/N's jumper and without thinking she nestles closer to Sherlock's side.
"We should go to bed," he says, his voice a gravelly hum from so long spent in silence.
"But I like it out here."
Somehow, he seems to know she didn't just mean the fire. "If you want...we can sit like this inside."
Reluctantly, Y/N concedes, leaving the warmth and light of the fire like a moth dragged away from a flame. The heat leaks from her the farther away she gets, until she's relieved to reach the inviting embrace of the cottage. It glows atop the hill like a doll's house, the windows dark beside the plucky little porch light.
They go around to the back door to kick off their shoes. Peculiarly, a bedsheet is standing by the door, a pair of walking boots poking out from the bottom.
With a rustle, it moves and Y/N jumps, bumping against Sherlock's chest.
Holding her, Sherlock sighs boredly. "Dad, what are you doing?"
"Oh, sorry, love, don't mind me." The sheet flips one corner up like a bride's veil and Mr Holmes grins up at them. "I'm going to frighten your mother."
Y/N gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry, Charles, she went to bed half an hour ago."
He looks disappointed for a second, wilting like a little boy denied sweeties. Then, suddenly, he perks up again. Beaming:
"Okay, I'll frighten Francesca." He flips the cotton back down, covering his face. The sheet flaps at them. "Now shoo, you two or she'll see it's me!"
...
"Will he be okay out there?" Y/N calls to Sherlock through the door to their ensuite. "I mean, he is in his sixties." She can hear Sherlock brushing his teeth for a few beats, the tap running, then the door opens.
Reassuringly:
"He'll be fine. He's always doing things like this. In 1988 he stayed out all night in a dressing gown."
"What? Why?!"
Climbing into bed, Sherlock explains:
"He was waiting for me to come back from my grandma's house so he could jump out from behind the wheelie bin and scare me. However, Mum forgot to tell him I was staying the night. She found him the next day asleep in a bush."
"---but---but why?"
"It was part of 'The Twelve Scares Of Christmas'."
Y/N climbs into bed next to him, still looking confused so he sighs.
"When we were children, Dad invented a tradition of scaring Mycroft and me once a day up to Christmas. Sometimes he'd just jump out from behind doors but usually he'd hide a squirrel in our school bags or trick us into thinking we had leprosy or something."
Y/N frowns at him, baffled, so he continues, "One time, Mycroft was auditioning for the school choir so Dad gave him a beautiful old Latin song to sing."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Nine years later Mycroft found it in the attic. He studied Latin at Cambridge so he translated it." His lip twitches. "It turns out Dad's song was not appropriate material for school children."
Y/N can't help snorting with a giggle as she leans up to draw the curtains.
The bonfire is still glowing like a night light off in the field, the chatter and laughter of the remaining Holmes' carrying on the light breeze.
"Do you want to read for a bit?" She reaches over him to fetch Anna Karenina, but Sherlock stops her, catching her wrist. Gently, he puts her hand back into her lap.
His legs are pulled in, folded tight like unsettled wings. The squishy mattress is trying to absorb them but he's not letting it, his spine straight and his hands clasped in his lap.
Copying him, Y/N crosses her legs, looking up at him curiously. She's surprised to find his expression not sleepy but very much awake.
His knuckles are white, the tendons flexed within each pale finger. "Y/N."
Her name draws her eyes up and he holds her gaze steadily.
"Earlier you said you thought---when we met---I said I was married to my work because you weren't my type."
He waits as if he'd asked a question, but Y/N doesn't know how to answer. She nods.
"Well...if I had known you were asking me on a date...I wouldn't have said that. I don't know why I said it." In the soft glow of the bedside lamp he blushes a shade of pink Y/N has never seen before. He moistens his lips. "...I think I said it to impress you because...you are my type."