A/N: By the way, I'd totally do this myself. Me, the road and just syncing in with the elements. I can always dream on, or live vicariously through these two.

There's plans for a few mini cases along the way, I'm just taking some time setting up the scene, sorry. -csf


2.

John would normally go on and on about the coral-toned glow of the sunset and the beauty of the last strings of silvery reflection over the dark grey sea. I much rather have a quick look at the van's dashboard and remind him: 'We need petrol soon.'

He nearly jumps off his seat, and given that he's the designated driver, it's a bit not good.

'Hey, I thought you were asleep, mate!'

'I was trying to reboot.'

'And...?' he looks hopeful. I have him convinced that I'm superhuman. Usually I get away with the myth. Not now, though.

'I'm still stumped by the wife having done it, John.' He looks confused as he studies me. 'Eyes on the road. I mean that I'm still glitching.'

'Any chance the wife didn't do it?'

'None whatsoever.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

The idea has the convenience of a perfect alternative universe, and zero chances of ever coming to be. The prospect of a perfectly solved case has evaporated, and yet I'm left with the aftertaste of bitter victory gone off.

'Right. We're on the road, let's sing a song.'

That reeks of desperation.

'Utterly ridiculous, John.'

He shrugs. 'You were the one excluding the radio. Know any oldies? It's probably the only ones I know the lyrics to, actually.'

I cross my arms and my eyebrows tight. 'I'm not singing, John.'

'Maybe not yet, but I'll get my way in the end, you'll see.'

He swerves on the road to enter to a petrol station, not bothering to signal, turns off the engine and jumps out. 'Want anything from the store?' he asks before banging the door.

'Some sweets.'

'Which ones?'

'All of them.'

He chuckles as he bangs the door shut.

.

We arrive late in the night, through side roads and winding paths. John tackles the road's curving with the same straight on single-mindedness of the motorway. When we're slipping on loose gravel and towered by a cliff side, somewhere between some rock saphire, Crithmum maritimum, and a giant anaemic tuff of sea kale, Crambe maritima, barely identifiable in the dead of the night and the harsh white light of the headlights, John turns off the engine and takes a long deep breath. I pull a face and exaggeratedly look on out, and that's when my pupils dilate to the darkness outside and I start making out the myriad of stars and galaxies, and their reflection on the calm sea waters of the low tide. We seem to have parked in a small cove, tucked away by the cliff and the water front, miles away from the rest of the world.

I could, in time, compose a symphony about this waves lapping piece of paradise.

There won't be time. By tomorrow lunchtime it will be high tide and this place will be inaccessible again.

John Watson, you never cease to surprise me.

'Good enough for ya?' he has waited to ask me, in a rugged voice. Tired, no doubt, from all the driving.

'It will do,' I accept, wrapping my scarf closer around my neck. I won't admit that I'm feeling vulnerable, out of sorts. He's John, he'll know it anyway.

'You look cold. Let's find some drift wood and build a small campfire.'

I watch him quickly eject himself from the van, practicality in his every move.

.

The warm glow of the campfire shines golden accents over John's prematurely greying hair, returning it to its natural state. I can see the brown flakes in the murky blue of his eyes as he puts careful attention on the burning driftwood; a sorcerer conveying fire and magic to our small patch of illegal wild camping.

'Need a blanket while this gets going, Sherlock?' he further adds, insisting on that caring protectiveness that defines him to the core.

'I'm fine, John.' It's all fine.

'You went very quiet on me.'

Dialect markers increased substantially in the past hour. This takes John back, somewhere in the memories of a younger self, likely before being a doctor and a soldier.

'You used to bring your girlfriends here,' I deduce.

He chuckles. 'Just once. Didn't work out.'

'Yes, I should have guessed.'

'Oh, really?'

'Yes. Sand gets everywhere.'

He laughs, and incredibly his rhythm matches the cracking of the dry wood in universal harmony. I let myself relax some more, leaning back against the cliff that hides us from the world we left behind.

'Not like that,' he recovers after a while, I almost forgot what he's talking about, except for that romantic dreamer expression in his face. Leaves an unexplained sour taste in my mouth. He adds: 'She never showed up.' We exchange a glance; he looks conformed, I'm inquisitive. 'It was the night before my first deployment, the cusp of something new. She broke up with me by letter, saying that she couldn't wait. I didn't blame her.'

'She wouldn't wait for you,' I summarise.

He sits up straighter. 'We were both very young and very naïve. And anyway, it's not my life we should be talking about, Sherlock.'

I look on to the gathering tide, so slow, still far, but inexorably coming up to wash everything away.

'I would wait for you, John. And show up, obviously.'

'I know you would. Thanks.'

I grump at that. He knows I detest to hear him say "thank you" as if a kind gesture, a thoughtful decision or a nice offering should be sanctioned by the constraints of civilised interaction.

He must have expected it, for he opens a bag by his side. The crinkling of plastic oddly misplaced here. 'Ever roasted marshmallows by the fire?'

'No, John.'

'Neither have I,' he admits, impaling a couple in a narrow twig. 'Let's call it a scientific experiment.'

.

I woke up a bit disoriented, making sense of my mummy cocoon that turned out being a sleeping bag on the back of a van in the middle of nowhere. John Watson is not a man of worldly comforts. Yet I didn't sleep too bad. Proof of it being that I actually slept late, later than John.

Last time I woke up at the back of a van, I had been kidnapped, maybe kidnappings is where John keeps getting his inspiration?

Where is John?

His sleeping bag is empty, folded at the corner edge of the mattress, where the crystalline morning light bathes the van from a small window over a tiny sink. There's a foldable table at the end, even a couple of cupboards, before the curtain separating the back from the driver and passenger seats at the front. It's a neat little thing, if you're a surfer with a dog, a romantic young woman with a guitar – or, apparently, the World's Only Consulting Detective's blogger on the road.

John could just as easily have picked a nice hotel resort for this, on Mycroft's tab.

But I guess caviar and champagne poolside would have lacked the personal touch. This is John's world, opening up just for me.

The tide rises; there's but little time left before this hideout from the world is submerged entirely.

My feet meet damp sand from the morning fog, and I shiver, even with John's thick jumper he's left me. The campfire is but cold ashes now. I can see John's shoes, lined up just outside the van, and know he won't be far off. I make for my phone in my pocket, but hesitate to turn it on. Digital detox. The world can wait a bit longer, I suppose.

The hungry seagulls cry out and the breeze has a salty aftertaste. It's bright, as the early morning light reflects over the vast sea. Is that rolled up glass or a piece of jewellery half-buried in the wet sand stretch, adding to the glittery shine? I decide to investigate for myself.

.

Pockets full of knickknackery, gritty fingers and a nice chat with an old seaside dweller and his dog later, I return to the van, just hidden from sight behind the cliff. There's a minor trail of smoke and I know John is dutifully building up a breakfast campfire by the time I arrive.

I didn't expect John's drying clothes hanging from the cliff wall behind him, nor the expert coffee and porridge the damp haired and washed face man himself hands me.

In a pale yellow t-shirt and brine bleached, John's hair is a golden hallo around his smile and deep blue eyes. He looks relaxed, busying himself making us coffee over the revived campfire.

'Saw you at the beach, mate, knew I didn't have to worry about you being gone,' he tells me.

'You were gone too.'

'Quick wash, round the corner there's a quieter sea puddle area. I recommend you do the same, when you finish breakfast. I can pack up.'

'The incoming tide,' I recognise the water coming up fast. It's up a foot or two since I left the van.

'I thought we could hit the town today,' he adds, looking for my reaction.

'Boring.' How can you say that after the magic of this place, John?

'Solve a case or two?'

'A case? We've got no access to technology, John.'

'So I guess we have to solve old cases then, the old fashioned way.'

'That would take ages!'

'Not for you, it won't.' John doesn't lose a beat, in his unshakeable faith in me.

'Okay, I'll try,' I find myself saying. I don't understand why I agree to it.

John's magic extends beyond conjuring fire and food.

.

TBC