KS: Ohhh, hey, it's that author again! The one with the really weird name. Yeah, that one, the one who also draws. What's her face...kaizikysomething? KaizokuShojo. Yeah. Haven't heard from her in like, three years! She's back? Whoa...cool...I guess?

Yes, you heard it here...I'm back, off my three-year Sherlockian fast, and writing a tiny oneshot to celebrate. Keep in mind...I haven't done this in as many years, and haven't read the canon in as many years...so it's going to lack detail and refinement. It's just a little tiny offering 'til I get back into writing. Although first I'm probably going to REVISE my older stories before continuing the ones that were unfinished...XD

Thanks for your patience all this time. :)

(And do check out my newest Sherlock Holmes art on my deviantART page, I rather like it. I'm actually using it for inspiration for this oneshot.
Just add this to the normal web address for my art: art/Sherlock-Holmes-ACEO-377612761 Or go to the link on my profile.)

Holmes yawned as he sat reading the morning papers. He was on The Times now, scanning the headlines before he got to the agony column. It was a rather rainy day. Not a thunderous, dark sort, but just enough to keep one from an outing to the tobacconist, and enough to keep a person away from a scheduled concert in the park. Both had been Watson's intent for the day, and he'd planned on getting Holmes to join him, but it was unlikely by this point.

Of course, the day had just started... But it didn't look like it would stop any time soon, and all this damp made the soldier's war wound throb...

There were no cases at present. Which in a sense was also just as well, for the two men were running slightly low on tobacco, and whilst on a case...Holmes became a veritable furnace. He would burn up cheap shag tobacco as if it was life, blasting smoke from his flaring nostrils... At the moment, however, he was very leisurely enjoying his morning pipe of bits and pieces from the day before. The smoke curled up slow and thin, much like the languid behaviour of the smoker. Nothing like the vivid image the doctor had been thinking of.

The newspaper rustled as Holmes turned the page. "There's been a murder in Whitehall..." he spoke, breaking the soft drone of the rain hitting the windowpanes.

"Oh?" Watson queried, raising a brow.

"Yes... I expect Gregson may drop by later, but not for a while. He will try to see what he can do on his own first..." His grey eyes scanned the newsprint from beneath languid lids, not seeming terribly concerned or excited.

"Will the murderer get away?" the doctor asked, expecting the detective already had some idea of the details by the underlying confidence in the dry voice.

"Oh, I don't think so." He turned the page again. "But Gregson wastes his time. He's on the wrong track."

"And you know who did it?"

"No, but I have a better idea of where to look... He's off chasing a fishwife."

"For a suspect?" Watson asked as he got himself a cigar.

"No, for a mistress; he's displeased with the way Mrs. Gregson has his collars starched," the detective replied as he perused the advertisements.

For a moment Watson was completely shocked, but then he realised his friend was making a joke at his expense. His lips pressed into a line of displeasure, especially at such a subject, but he continued on. "So, Gregson believes the murderer-or, murderess-was a fishwife...how do you know she wasn't?"

"He's on the assumption because of the way the victim was murdered... But I shall set him upon the right tracks when he arrives..." He flicked his wrists to straighten the paper further.

Watson waited for more, but it didn't come. Apparently Holmes was not in a terribly communicative mood, and so the doctor settled deeper into his chair. Curiosity, as usual, prodded and nagged in the back of his brain to learn more. But he knew that Holmes didn't like to be annoyed, and that the man would disclose what he liked in his own time...so he stayed silent. It was one of the 'pains that he had to endure' that others attributed to living in close quarters with the great mind. But Watson did not see it as such. If one appreciated the truly singular person that he was, then one also had to understand the eccentricities that others found 'unusual' (to say the least) that Holmes found completely normal or logical.

It was not a pain. It was, rather, a great privilege that such a unique and brilliant person would want him as a friend over all his other associates-even his own kin. It was Watson that Holmes trusted to come along on cases both great and small, it was Watson that Holmes trusted to watch his back. It was Watson that was allowed to chronicle the detective's cases, even if they were not completely agreeable to the man's idea of documentation. (That in itself spoke volumes.)

Let other people have their ridiculous notions of friendship, filled with melodrama and overtly emphasised expressions of devotion, those fancy things that in the end often mean so little. Watson liked this. Holmes had many contacts, and had chosen his friend. The old soldier couldn't be happier. Such an exciting, yet unobtrusive life...

Watson stretched out his aching leg with a soft, rather pleased sigh. It felt like the life at 221B could last forever. Which was just fine.

KS: All right, that was silly and utterly pointless, but the basic idea is of course to show I'm still alive... :P It's 2:30 AM here, and I just wrote it, so that accounts for part of it. :)

I dedicate this and my newest piece of Sherlockian art to my three favourite Sherlock Holmes story writers on here, Westron Wynde, aragonite, and KCS. Yep.

Read and review, please. :)