"Hello, Sir. Do you have your ticket?"

John tore his eyes away from the brightly coloured scene just behind the elegant gates in front of him for just long enough to respond to the bored-looking ticket attendant inside the booth.

"Ah, yes. Two, here. Thanks" he gave her a beaming smile – he couldn't help it. He hadn't visited a theme park in years – no, thinking about it, decades – and the excitement was almost too much for him to handle. His gaze whipped from left to right, taking in the speeding rides and attractions that were just out of reach.

"Thank you. I'll just get your passes… here you are, Sir. Welcome to…" the monotonous greeting of the attendant fell on deaf ears – John practically skipped through the gates in his excitement, his face creasing up with a wide grin.

"John, please slow down. John!" Sherlock sighed, quickening his pace to keep up with his companion. It was almost like having a puppy, or a small child, Sherlock mused. He sighed again, this time internally. "John, just wait a minute. Your face is going to hurt in a few minutes if you keep it like that, you know."

Now it was the soldier's turn to sigh "Sherlock, for god's sake, it's called smiling. It's what people do when they're happy. You should try it some time. Just let me have fun for once, yeah?"

"I honestly don't see what's 'fun' about being here. At all. Crowds, fast food, loud noises. Why did I have to come?"

"Because it's polite, Sherlock." The truth was that the friends had been given free tickets to the park by a customer – a minor case, took Sherlock less than an hour to solve it, but the elderly couple were so grateful that they felt they had to reward 'the nice young fellows' in some way. "Anyway, I certainly wanted to come."

"You could've taken someone else – who's your current paramour? Not the brain-dead check-out attendant with alarmingly large mammary glands still, is it? No, the depressed electrician with the unresolved childhood issues was after her. Then it was the overweight-"

"No-one, Sherlock, I'm not dating anyone at the moment. And anyway, I wanted to take you because, as I seem to have to keep reminding you, that's what friends do. Fun things, together."

"Hmph," Sherlock grunted, slightly abashed – he hated it when John reminded him what a poor friend he could be at times "Right, ah, where to first?"