Crackfic -- Gaslight.
A sad and lonely person moves from a hot, sandy place to a cold, overcast place, and becomes obsessed with a very pale and mysterious stranger.
Gaslight
I sighed as the train carried me inexorably closer to London and its heavy shroud of impenetrable fog. I’d loved Afghanistan and I hated to leave it. Maiwand was bright, warm, sunny-- everything London wasn’t. And now it was a world away. But even in Afghanistan, I’d had to accept that Icouldn’t fit in. For some reason, the Ghazi warriors had never been in harmony with me, never really seemed to understand.
Not that I expected to fit in in London either. I studied my reflection in the train window with dissatisfaction. With my golden-bronze skin, clear-cut features, neatly clipped moustache and slim-yet-muscular body, I was plainly a freak. Everyone in London would probably laugh in my face the moment they saw me.
At least with any luck they wouldn’t shoot me, though, I told myself glumly.
* * *
A few weeks later and I realised I’d been fooling myself - I had been way too optimistic about London. True, no one had shot me, but it was cold, and wet, and I couldn’t even afford to live here! I sighed sadly as I sipped a glass of stout at the Criterion bar. All around me people were talking and laughing animatedly. Vaguely, I wondered what was going on in their minds.
“Watson? Is that you?” I turned in confusion to see some chap with a dimly familiar face grinning at me.
“Hello, er...?” I queried.
“Stamford,” he supplied. I made an effort to smile politely. “Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson? You are thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”
I cringed, chagrined to realise my freakishness was just as obvious as I’d feared.
It’s not as if we’d ever been cronies at Bart’s, but Stamford was nice enough. I gazed patiently into the middle distance while he chattered away. Eventually I noticed he was asking me something about what I was doing.
"Looking for lodgings," I answered. “Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price."
I soon realised telling Stamford my troubles had been a mistake - he insisted on dragging me over to Bart’s to meet someone he claimed was in the same predicament as me. Passively, I complied, though I was sure it was hopeless. Who would want to share rooms with me - the freak?
I knew my way around Bart’s, but Stamford insisted on leading me to the chemical laboratory in his overly-helpful way. There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round and his eyes met mine. The stranger was very tall, and his skin was pale - alabaster pale. His eyes were a strange grey -like mercury, my dazed mind whispered to me, or maybe quartz. Or opals. Or those little silver balls you get on top of fairy-cakes. His hair was silken black. And he was devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful.
"Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” introduced Stamford.
“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,” said Sherlock Holmes. His voice was low, musical. I stared up at him helplessly, trying to think of a reply that wouldn’t make me sound stupid. How could he know I’d served in Afghanistan? Could he read minds? Stamford was saying something again, but I didn’t take in what it was.
Actually, I don’t think I ever got round to speaking to Stamford again after that.
[Might do a bit more -- would have liked to get to "I know what you are!" etc.