Those who have read my profile will perhaps know me to be a great fan of the works of Jules Verne. This fic was inspired by a line in one of his books that will be revealed later. You don't need to have read any of Verne's books to understand this story, don't worry. I have however slipped in a couple of references that I couldn't resist, which will be explained in the footnotes.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little story. :)

'Stupid, sentimental rubbish.'

John ducked just in time as a book went sailing past his head, and did not have to look round to imagine the splayed red cover on the ground behind him. He did not have to look at Sherlock to see the detective's warning-face – that was what he called the particular expression that Sherlock produced on becoming bored with something, about a second before he turned to some destructive hobby to alleviate said boredom.

It was, therefore, usually up to John to intervene before this latter instinct kicked in. 'Don't throw books at me, Sherlock.'

'I wasn't aiming at you,' Sherlock said vaguely.

'Well... just don't throw books,' John said. 'What was stupid about it?'

He leant back and picked up the book. It was a tattered copy of a French novel that he didn't recognise, but by an author he did.

'I didn't think you read Jules Verne.'

'Not any more I don't.'

'Le Rayon vert... is that like, I dunno, the green... ray?'

Sherlock nodded curtly.

'It doesn't look your style.'

'Mrs H found it for me. I happened to mention the other week that I was practising French for that case. She found this for me in a charity-shop. I never said anything about wanting to read trashy romantic literature.'

'Ah, so it's a romance.' John chuckled at Sherlock's expression. He knew that his friend abhorred anything to do with that sentiment some called love, which the detective found entirely alien. Though to be honest, he wasn't good at emotion of any sort.

'I think it's supposed to be an adventure, but it seems to revolve entirely around the most despicably perfect couple. The moment I realised where it was going, I threw it across the room.'

John merely smiled at this typical Sherlock-behaviour. If Sherlock had it his way, most of the books in the bookcase would be scattered across the floor, or riddled with bullet-holes.

At length the doctor went to put the book carefully on the shelf. Sherlock had sunk into one of his empty daydreams. John squinted at the dregs of tea in his cup, thought for a second, and then went to make some more.

'Have you ever heard of green rays?' Sherlock asked when John returned.

John paused. 'Don't think I have, why?'

'You did physics... It's an astronomical phenomenon, seen at sunset in a clear sky. For a second, when the sun is close to the horizon, a green flash can be seen.'

'Since when did you know about astronomical phenomena?'

'Since reading Verne,' Sherlock shrugged. 'I'll probably forget it soon. It's not worth remembering.'

John chuckled at Sherlock's disparaging dismissal of this (admittedly useless) scrap of knowledge. He knew how meticulous he was with such titbits, throwing away almost all of them for the sake of preserving "hard drive space" in that remarkable brain of his.

John drank his second cup of tea slowly and deliberately. The evening was lazy and looked as if it would be uneventful. He had drawn the curtains and put the side light on, so that the room was bathed in a dim orange glow that greatly resembled firelight. It was a good start to the weekend: a weekend that John hoped would be as easy-going as this evening.

His hopes were, perhaps, short-lived.

'John,' said Sherlock at last.

'Hm?'

'I'm going to Cornwall tomorrow. Would you care to join me?'

'Cornwall?' John looked a little startled. 'For a case?'

'No...'

John stared at him. 'You never go anywhere if it isn't for a case. Has Mycroft sent you there or something?'

'No.'

'What do you want to go to Cornwall for?'

Sherlock just leaned back, smiled enigmatically and pressed his finger-tips together.

Their Saturday morning began on a train speeding towards Newquay. Sherlock sat across from John at one of the grubby tables, leaning back in his seat. He had dressed himself less smartly than usual. John had, perhaps without realising it, followed suit*.

They were in Cornwall halfway through the afternoon, and Sherlock appeared impatient. He paced up and down the platform, as if he didn't know which way would take him out of the railway station, and had to be practically dragged by John away from the place.

It was a glorious day, with bright sunshine, the slightest hint of a breeze, and a blue cloudless sky as far as the eye could see. Sherlock made some comment about this weather. John looked at him in mild surprise. Sherlock wasn't one to comment on the weather. It was such an arbitrary thing, and one that never bothered him in the slightest. Nevertheless, he seemed in good spirits because of it, so John couldn't complain.

He then followed Sherlock on what was perhaps the most peculiar afternoon by the sea of his life. Nothing in Newquay appeared remotely to interest Sherlock. The detective walked up streets, down streets, round crescents, down cul-de-sacs and random little alleyways; he occasionally stopped by a shop window, but didn't seem to look in; at last, after a couple of hours of this, he suggested that they go for tea.

'Sherlock, what are we doing here?' John murmured over his meal.

'Waiting,' Sherlock replied.

'Waiting for what?'

Sherlock didn't reply, instead diving into his dinner with an entirely uncharacteristic vigour.

John found himself a little uncomfortable, as he always did when he hadn't the least idea what Sherlock was doing.

He found himself on a boat that evening, still not knowing what on earth was going on. Sherlock was at the prow, a skilled skipper (who had been paid more even than he asked for) was in the cabin, and John was at the starboard side, regarding the detective from a short distance away. The sun was beginning to set over the horizon, and, if John hadn't know Sherlock well, he might have said that he was admiring the view, which was admittedly beautiful.

He knew, however, that Sherlock didn't do admiring views, and hadn't the least idea how to judge beauty.

Something about the sunset struck a chord in him, but for the moment he didn't know why.

At last Sherlock signalled to the man in the cabin, and the loud throbbing of the engine was stilled somewhat, so that they halted, and began to drift under the action of the waves. The evening was astonishingly quiet out here, scarcely within view of the Cornish coast. Only the cries of seagulls disturbed this extraordinary peace.

Seduced by the purity of the sky**, John moved towards the front of the boat and stood next to Sherlock, who barely acknowledged him. His eyes were on the horizon. John was about to scold him, saying that he would damage his eyes looking straight at the sun, when he remembered Sherlock's brief discourse on the green ray.

'Are you –?' John began.

Sherlock silenced him with a wave of his hand. The line of the horizon was glowing now, as the sun neared it; there was a burst of orange in the sky, and the great orb was a burning, almost painful yellow, appearing far bigger than usual. It was one of the most spectacular sunsets John had ever seen. He wondered if Sherlock had ever seen better.

It was just about to disappear below the horizon when Sherlock gave a quiet exclamation.

'The green ray,' he said, almost in a whisper.

'You saw it?'

'You missed it?'

'I blinked,' John said with a chuckle.

After a moment of reflexion, and just as the last remnants of the sun disappeared, Sherlock gave a signal to the captain, and the boat began to move again. Then he looked at John.

He stayed there, staring, for longer than made John comfortable. After about a minute John had to cough, in case Sherlock had become trapped in a daydream. The detective started, and smiled thinly before leaving the deck and going to sit in the cabin. He looked... disappointed.

'Well, you've seen the green ray,' said John the next morning, as they raced back to London by the first train from Newquay. They hadn't spoken since sunset the previous evening; Sherlock had greeted him solely with a nod on emerging from his hotel room that morning. An uncomfortable breakfast and walk to the train station had made John almost reach bursting point; at last he had to sate his curiosity.

'Yes,' said Sherlock.

'And the sunset was gorgeous,' John continued, 'if you care about such things.'

'It was subjectively beautiful,' said Sherlock.

'So...' John clicked his tongue a little. 'Why are you dissatisfied?'

He and Sherlock stared at each other for a moment, awkwardly, much as they had done the previous evening. Sherlock looked away first. His hand went into his coat, and he drew from some deep inside pocket a familiar-looking book.

He thumbed briefly through it; his eyes alighted on the section he wanted to find, and he passed the open book over to John.

John read:

« Ce rayon a pour vertu de faire que celui qui l'a vu ne peut plus se tromper dans les choses de sentiment c'est que son apparition détruit illusions et mensonges c'est que celui qui a été assez heureux pour l'apercevoir une fois, voit clair dans son cœur et dans celui des autres. »

'I've mostly forgotten French,' John admitted, squinting at the language that he vaguely recalled from school.

Sherlock received the book from him, and, with a practised air, began to translate it.

'This ray has the virtue, the power, to render he who has seen it... unable to be mistaken in matters of sentiment.' A slight colour came into his cheeks then. 'It is that its appearance destroys deceptions and untruths... he who has been lucky enough to see it once, sees clearly into his own heart and that of others.'

'Surely that's superstition,' John said, with a raised eyebrow.

'Of course it is,' said Sherlock, for a moment suddenly angry; he pocketed the book, and began to stare out of the window.

John thought on this matter for a minute or two. Then his eyes lit up, his mouth began to curve in a smile, and he addressed Sherlock thus:

'Sherlock... Sherlock.' A slight grin, with more than a hint of pity. 'Did you really think yourself so incapable of emotion, of... I don't know, friendships, of liking others, that you relied on some superstition to show you what others thought of you, and what you thought of them?'

Sherlock did not reply. He did not even give any impression that he was listening.

'I understand now... Sherlock, why didn't you mention this before? Why did we have to come all the way down to Cornwall?'

'Because the sun sets over the west coast,' Sherlock said, very frankly.

'Sherlock, you're so damned...' John sighed good-naturedly. 'So essentially, you read this passage, and, in a romantic manner that you claim is so alien to you, decided that you would find out if the green ray really showed you your own heart and that of others... If I'm right about why you would do that, then really, you didn't need to do it at all. You should have been able to guess what you needed to know. Or at the least, ask it.'

Sherlock looked up at last. The flush of red in his cheeks was remarkable.

'You wanted to know if people considered you their friend... You wanted to know if you considered other people your friends.'

'Yes,' Sherlock admitted.

'And did the green ray show you the answer?'

'No.'

'I thought not. Because you must have known it already.'

'Known what already?'

'Dammit, Sherlock, it's not worth being that intelligent if you don't know...' John halted his tongue. 'First of all, you have friends. Or at least, you have people who consider you to be their friend. Greg Lestrade for one. Molly Hooper for another... And me.'

Their eyes met. Once again, Sherlock was the first to look away.

'And I... I rather hoped that you might reciprocate these friendships.'

Sherlock shifted uncomfortably before saying, not without difficulty, 'Maybe I do.'

'Sherlock.' John's face was serious, and he regarded the detective with a look filled with a whole heap of emotions, emotions that Sherlock almost hated that he could read. 'Sherlock, do you consider me to be your friend?'

'Of course,' said Sherlock at last. 'My... my best friend. Indeed my only friend.'***

The corner of John's mouth twitched. 'Well, I'm glad we cleared that up, at any rate. Thank you, Sherlock.'

'Thank you, John,' replied Sherlock, and he really and truly meant it.

He was going to give Le Rayon vert back to Mrs Hudson, to return to the charity-shop. But he had scarcely slipped it from his pocket when he realised that, though indirectly, and quietly, the green ray had done its work. He did not much know whether to thank it, but something stopped him from getting rid of the book that had set it all off.

He slipped it onto the bookcase, between Tolstoy and Wodehouse. Behind him, John put the side light on, filling the room with that glow like sunset, and went to sit in his armchair with that morning's paper. Sherlock looked at the reflexion of the room in the mirror, and particularly at John.

Here, then, was another thing that had, indirectly and quietly, but definitely, changed his life. Perhaps he wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for John. Perhaps he wouldn't be here in Baker Street, with a lamp like firelight, and a friend in that armchair. Much as emotions and sentiments and friendships cannot be measured or reckoned by the rational mind, he could scarcely begin to comprehend what he owed to John, and nor could he thank him enough for what he had done. What he would continue to do.

He smiled slightly, crossed the room and sat in his own chair. Across from him John acknowledged him over the paper, and Sherlock decided that the smile of a friend was greater than a sunset, greater than the green ray. The smile of a friend was, and not subjectively, quite the most beautiful thing in the world. And he felt luckier than anything to have seen it.

*This is an awful unintentional pun, if you squint.

**This is a phrase from another of Verne's novels that I couldn't resist using.

*** This exchange, as Sherlockian as it might sound, is lifted straight from Verne's Adventures of Captain Hatteras. The character of Hatteras is unbelievably similar to Sherlock.