CHAPTER 6.
Hopelessly non brit-picked, sorry :/
Also, this chapter is for my wonderful friend Jinx, who encouraged me to give it a go and start writing this fic :)
John's date with Janice from NSY is a disaster as well. And she seemed so nice. In reality, Lestrade's new assistant is rather short-tempered, and her cutting responses reminds John of Sally Donovan. He tries to be polite, but when it comes to the topic of cases – and Sherlock – and she tells few words too much, John suddenly finds himself in the middle of an argument, where he fiercely stands for his friend. He says "goodbye" coldly and leaves the coffee shop they met in, and heades home, thinking that maybe he should give up dating at all.
In a sour mood he decides to go to pub for a pint, and to his surprise meets Lestrade there, sitting in the corner and seemingly lost deep in thoughts.
Rather glad and hoping for a distraction from his failure he sits up to DI.
"Hi, mate, what are you doing here?" Detective Inspector asks curiously. "Shouldn't you be with Janice now?"
"Didn't work out." John winces. "You could've warn me she is so..." He wonders for a minute how to describe Janice's character without being unnecessarily impolite, living with Sherlock taught him to avoid hurting people with words. "Sally-alike" He ends awkwardly.
Lestrade bursts into laughter.
"Yes, she is." He admits. "Two of them probably should become best friends soon. But she is rather stunning, isn't she?"
John nods, feeling better, and sips his beer, before asking:
"And how's your love life, then? Finally decided to ask Molly out?"
To his surprise DI blushes and avoids looking in his eyes.
"Er... Not...exactly." He stammers. "But I'm seeing someone."
"Cangratulations then, who is it?" John asks, genuinely curious. Being a good guy as he is, he really wants to see his friend happy after what he's been through, divorce and all.
DI sighs.
"Promise not to tell Sherlock?"
"Why...Yeah, sure." John frowns. "It's not like it would interest him anyway."
"I beg to differ." Lestrade seems resigned.
"Who is it then?" Good doctor is confused.
"I'm seeing Mycroft." Detective admits after the moment of silence. "It all started few weeks ago... And now it's rather serious."
John sits there for couple of minutes, mouth agape, not knowing what to say, completely
"Er...Congrats then." He finally says, and smiles, cause it's not like he minds, of course, and if his friend is happy then he's happy too.
Then he imagines Sherlock's face when he found out and suddenly John bursts into laughter. After few seconds Lestrade joins him and they sit there, two grown men, giggling like a schoolboys. And it's fine, it's all fine.
When John comes home later this night, he finds Sherlock and Hamish sitting on the main room's floor, covered in paint, and very concentrated at stamping their hands to huge sheets of paper lying beside them. It's such a surreal sight John can't help but bursts into laughter again, and joins them after couple of minutes. And he forgets about Janice, and about this distaster of a date.
And he is happy, so much happy that if two years ago someone told him he would be that happy, he would never, ever believe it.