AUTHOR'S FIRST NOTE

I'm extremely happy to finally be able to post something longer again from John's POV! Because I'm writing the last bits of my master's thesis right now, the chapters might come infrequent but I'll try the best I can. As always, the stories are short but I try to work all the quality I have into them. This one will consist of three or four chapters, depending in what I decide to do with the last one. What I'm doing in this one is actually something I rarely do; go outside the TV show's canon. It's not about complaining however but rather that I had started this story before season four aired and I liked my version of Victor Trevor so much that I didn't want to give it up. I have taken profound inspiration from the Arthur Conan Doyle short story The Gloria Scott and the context is based on the first scene in another ACD short story that I can't remember the name of. Set somewhere in the middle of season two. As always, I have put some references to the originals in the story. See if you can spot any! As always, you can read it in any way you like. Johnlock, not Johnlock, platonic Johnlock; whatever you favour.

Enjoy this first chapter and let's celebrate that spring is finally here!


Chapter one

LONDON IN APRIL

It might be the biggest cliché ever but if it's something that I really hate about living in Britain, it truly is the weather. Everyone here knows that I'm not kidding if I say that the autumns sometimes feel as long as spring, summer and winter together. Hell, sometimes even longer! Worst of all is of course the constant raining. When I was a kid, my mum used to tell me that it was God crying down on me because I had been naughty. To this day, I do believe that this can actually be God's work, with the exception that it's definitely not tears. This is God bloody pissing on Britain, probably as punishment for the country and frankly the world being "naughty" as hell most of the time. Well, after all the things I saw during my service in Afghanistan, I really do understand God's decision.

However, there are still those times when God seems to be in a rather good mood and lets the sun visit even this godforsaken place. This day in the middle of April really was one of them. It was the first day of the year that actually even could be called 'summer' and the nature flourished beautifully, almost as if to celebrate that the long British autumn/winter finally had lost its grasp. People were not late to take the chance of getting outside and enjoying the sun in the parks across the city. As you never know how many times God feels like being this forgiving, I didn't want to miss the opportunity either. That's why I, after I had finished a shift at the medical centre, had convinced Sherlock to accompany me on an afternoon walk through the city.

My flatmate was rather unsurprisingly in a frustrated mood when I got home from work. He complained over the lack of interesting cases, all while he sent the solution of a double homicide to Dimmock, a case he had solved on his phone without moving so much as an inch from his cross-legged position on the floor. Now he was restlessly waiting again for someone interesting to walk in through the door or Lestrade to get stuck in one or two of his ongoing murder investigations.

Out of experience I knew that when my friend was in this kind of manic place, it was hard to convince him of anything, at least not in a rational way. Therefore, I was quite pleased with myself that I had actually gotten him to join me. As Sherlock rarely did anything that didn't fill a particular purpose for him, getting out and taking a walk just because it might feel good was not one of his usual habits. However, this was another complex part of him. Some things he seemed to appreciate just because he did, not because of the purpose but rather because he liked it.

One of these things was the city of London itself. Sure, it had an obvious purpose for his work, with that I can agree. It was more than that, however. In lack of a better word to explain it, I dare to say that it was love. Sherlock loved this nine million city with all his heart, if he was ever capable of such an emotion. It was obvious to me that he felt most at home here between the asphalt roads, the brick houses and the concrete foundations of our capital. He knew every street, every corner, every property and every stone. Yes, every step he had ever taken through all the city's different alleyways. London was his hunting ground, his home arena, which offered him countless opportunities of crimes, mysteries and brain teasers to keep his racing mind occupied. Sherlock really loved the city and I'm sure he would never have left it of free will of he didn't have to.

Exercise, just for the sake of the exercise itself, he found however to be a waste of both time and energy. The fact that he still stayed in shape both physically and mentally was a mystery to me. Considering his unhealthy eating, sleeping, occasional smoking and previous cocaine habits, it was maybe more of a miracle than anything else that his body was holding up at all. Of course I knew that the human body had a remarkable ability to adjust itself quickly to different situations, his probably more than anyone else's. I envied him none the less for it. I myself seemed to gain pounds just by looking at fried chicken or an apple pie.

After an hour long walk we found ourselves in Hyde Park, an environment which this day was breathing with life and happiness even more than usual. People in all ages, tourists and locals alike, were seated across the green grass, either on blankets with their dogs, running on the gravel roads or playing football or Frisbee with their children. Sherlock and I said very little to each other and walked mostly in silence. Yet the silence never felt uncomfortable, like it never does between friends who know each other as well as he and I already did. Because of the rare heat, Sherlock had for once left his long coat at home. Now he had also taken off his black jacket and rolled up the sleeves on his white shirt. With his right hand holding the jacket and his left hand resting in his trouser pocket, he walked with closed eyes but with his head slightly tilted backwards, facing the sunlight. The calm and content look on his face was proof that it was one of these rare moment when he also seemed able to appreciate the beautiful weather, much like the rest of us "humans".

It was some minutes after we had entered Hyde Park that I felt my phone ring. I wasn't surprised to see that it was Mike. We had taken some drinks the other night and he had been eager already right after we had left the bar to make another appointment. Recently, he was very interested in catching up on me, or quite frankly more on what I and Sherlock were doing with our time. He was obviously quite proud about that he had "paired" us together and therefore was the creator of the famous "Baker Street detective duo" as he sometimes put it. I was however, very much against what I thought I knew about myself, genuinely happy about that Mike and I had started to hang out more. It is few people who will get the privilege to get to know a person all over again after many years. Also, as he had already proven to me, the more people you knew, the more contacts you had and the easier it was to get yourself a crazy flatmate.

As Mike started to talk enthusiastically about the interesting conference which he had attended last week (which I might admit seemed neither interesting, nor exciting at all), I noticed that Sherlock had stopped and seemed to look intently in the direction of a couple on a blanket on the grass. I guessed that he was trying to keep himself entertained during my call by possibly deducing every single person within eye's reach. They didn't look that particularly interesting, I have to admit. It was a man and a woman, the man about my friend's height, quite thin and with blonde hair and a pair of glasses. The woman was clearly shorter and looked like she had some kind of Asian heritage. Nothing out of the ordinary really and I wouldn't have sent them a second look if it hadn't been for the fact that Sherlock had a few moments later still not taken his eyes from them. I didn't get the chance to ask him what it was about them that caught his attention. Before I knew it, he had, to my actual horror, started to walk up towards them.

I didn't even have time to let that horror turn into a proper reaction before Sherlock seemed to say something which made the man notice him. The man rose quickly from the blanket with a surprised look on his face. I tensed. What the hell was he doing? Not even Sherlock used to go straight up to an unknown person and state his deductions. Even he used to have more tact than that and for a moment I was sure that I would have to repair a broken nose within in a matter of seconds. It was therefore to my own great surprise that the look on the blonde man's face changed into a brilliant smile. He took my friend in hand with apparently great pleasure and in the next moment, he had pulled him into a friendly embrace that Sherlock seemed to accept without any sign of discomfort. With that, I think it's safe to say that my eyes widened the most they have ever done during my lifetime...


AUTHOR'S SECOND NOTE

You who have been reading my work before probably know that I like to really describe the visuals. It's very important for me to replicate the pictures I'm imagining in my head to the point that the reader can see what I see. Describing Sherlock is one of those pictures that I just love writing and him walking through Hyde Park and enjoying the sunlight must be my favourite description to date! My God, I'm falling in love all over again. Well, I have of course already spoiled who the man is that Sherlock seem to get along with but, yeah, let's find out more in the next chapter.

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