I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 200 : A new begining

Montreal was layered in snow and the temperature was well below zero  but life seemed to be just as usual for the locals who were walking up  and down the streets, hurried to get back home after a long day of work.  Greg and Mycroft were strolling across the Outremont neighbourhood, admiring some of oldest and most beautiful houses of the vibrant Canadian city, their hand closely entwined.
This trip was the policeman's gift for his husband's birthday, and  they both intended to make the most of it. After all, it wasn't every  day that the British Government turned fifty and was surprised with a  trip to the other side of the planet.

They had walk straight ahead for at least twenty minutes when they found themselves in front of a strange looking-castle shape building. Montreal wasn't that of an old city, especially not around here, but yet an out-of-the-fairytale looking castle was making the corner of a large block. Curious, the elder Holmes approached  closer and found a little engraved cooper plate. Dating back to the  beginning of the twentieth century, the building apparently was inspired  by the French renaissance's castle, enhance the presence of towers and  stone-decorated windows. As the politician discovered, the building was  still in use and sheltering a fireman casern.  Surprised and amused, the man asked his partner to come and pose in  front of the building before taking a picture of it for his children.
Tired  of working straight forward, the two men decided to turn on the left  alongside the St-Laurent boulevard, a street that seemed even busier than the one they just had left. The shops and restaurants on both side were projecting their warm lights that came reflecting on the snow as the night was falling on the city, creating a weirdly coloured patterned on the pathways.
Even  if the brick was also the main material used for the edification of  Montreal's buildings and houses, the architectural differences between  these buildings and those in England couldn't be greater. When in the  United-Kingdom everything seemed to have been down to have beautiful,  slightly fake-looking houses, everything here seemed to have been thought for practical purposes. The houses were all cubic shaped with big  windows and flat roof, metallic outdoor stairs would grant access to  the second floor directly from the large pavements and the decorative  feature would be kept to a bare minimum. I fact, if you paid attention,  you would remark that everything in the city seemed regulated by  mathematical laws, from the house to the streets and the traffic lights.  Although it had seemed pretty rigid to the official as he had arrived  earlier that afternoon, he was now quite sensible to the charm of the thing. Of course, he loved a good old neo-Gothic building, but the streets of Montreal had something quite mesmerizing and more he looked at it, more he was able to see the subtle differences between the different houses and neighbourhoods.
As  the night was becoming increasingly darker, Mycroft remarked an  appealing art gallery on the opposite side of the road. Making sure not  to get rolled over by a car, not an easy thing to do at this moment of  the day, the two men crossed the road and entered the small place.  Shared between a gallery and a shop the room's walls were covered in graffiti and prints of different kind of modern urban art forms.
Dedicated to be a centre of counter-culture and a critic of capitalism, most of the items sold by the Artgang galleries were derivate from best-selling brands and twisted to show another message. On the wall behind the cashier was a gigantic print of Mickey Mouse only he was tattooed with multiples logos and look-alike logos that was seen as a sign of poshness by shavy  boys all around the world. Paired with his Nike Airs and a New-Yorker  cap, the children character was looking like a right billboard.
The entire place was booming with colours and if everything wasn't to the taste of the two men, they had to recognize that some of the  prints and pictures that were to sell were worth their price and even  more. As always in love with great pictures, the elder Holmes plumped  for a beautiful print of a local artist called Roadsworth depicting a Canadian street.
This  entire city seemed like if it was unaffected by the passing of time,  just like if what was happening today would happen again in the exact  same way tomorrow and the day after that, something strangely peaceful  and slow-motioned despite the vibrant energy that could be somehow felt.  Maybe was it due to the snow outside that was giving the feeling of  having froze everything or to the timelessness of the buildings around,  Greg couldn't really say, but he had never really felt calmer in a long  time, as if nothing important could happen to him here.