I
Lestrade was on his fourth cup of triple-shot coffee. It was laced with something stronger; I could smell it on his breath, see the evidence in the strangely arranged scraps in the trash bin and in the haze that glossed his eyes. I didn't bother with the specifics. If Lestrade wanted suspension, he could grab a pint from the drawer and parade around the office. I really couldn't care less. I was here for one reason alone.
John Watson.
But from the slight tremors in his hands, I presumed he'd had a fair morning's worth of "caffeine."
"Long night?"
He arched a brow and bent his head back over the black leather chair, his hands raking his face. I was vaguely aware that my tone came off as distant, disinterested. Why feign interest? Lestrade may not be as intelligent as he thinks himself to be, but he is no daft, simple-minded drone of the like from which he seems to surround himself with. Pity, really, I would get away with much more. Then again, I would lose the benefits of his company, and with John drifting farther and farther away from my reach, I really needed this man's help.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and groaned against a powerful yawn. I shifted in my seat. I needed to find John. As much as I'd like to start on another case, and oh I would really like to, I'll admit that I'm more concerned with his whereabouts. Why is it that when I need the man he is always so goddamn hard to find?
The phone rang shrilly on his desk. Greg held the receiver for a split second before slamming it down with undue force. My hand tapped the side of my chair in a nonchalant yet petulant manner. I quirked a brow when his swollen, gray eyes finally met mine. Fury carved his sullen, unkempt visage into a baleful malevolence.
"Well, if you hadn't gone off and disappeared for three fucking years, we would've had a downright jolly time with these multiple homicides, wouldn't we've?"
I fought the urge to chuckle. For such an intelligent man, he was rather an obtuse individual in melodramatic circumstance. Naïve. Somewhere in my thoughts I tuned back in to his rather ridiculous rant.
"..now they've been sittin' here, piling up, cluttering up my life and my desk while I have other obligations to attend to. 'Ere you come, waltzing in like the damn prodigal son expecting me to 'elp you with your problems. Well, I've got 'nough of my own, thanks. Find someone else's life to fuck up."
He threw his hands out for emphasis, a frustrated gesture, before downing the dregs from his cup. He stood, seemingly lost, and paced the tiled floor behind his desk with the steps of a madman.
I have to admit, I was rather astounded at the level of his vehemence. He was livid.
"I didn't come here for an ultimatum, Lestrade, although it seems I have caught you at a terrible time. I'll come back later." As I stood to leave and pulled on my gloves, Greg let out a breath, and stilled his walking.
"Wait, wait."
I turned, aware that I should display some emotion. Concern, perhaps? At that moment, I was only capable of my normal expression, my "bored" face. At least that's what John calls it. Well, at least it suits. I was bored.
"I'm sorry, mate. I shouldn't've said all that. I just been under a lot as of late. 'Specially since you've come 'round. Why did you come this time anyhow?" He swiveled his chair and sat back down, resting his elbows on the desk.
The tension had faded infinitesimally from the room. He was still on the verge of a meltdown, you didn't have to be me to see that.
I moved from the door and tucked my leather gloves back inside my coat pocket. Taking my seat, I crossed my legs, making sure I appeared every bit the proper individual that I did not feel I was inside. I was growing hopelessly desperate, and the last thing I needed was for that to become evident. I steepled my narrow index fingers, pinching the bridge of my nose in concentration.
"These homicides, five, if I am right, will need some attending to. And I always work faster with John. Where is he?"
He pushed his chair back, his eyes dimming.
"Told 'em you'd come 'round asking questions…"
"Lestrade."
He shook his head slowly, refusing the eye contact I was forcibly spearing him with. "I can't tell you Sherlock."
I switched tactics. "Don't you want him to be happy? If I came back-"
"That's exactly why I'm not telling you. He's got himself a girlfriend, a job, a home, and a stable life without you. As much fun as you must've been for 'im to forget 'bout that gimp leg of 'is, he's moved on. The whole world doesn't revolve around you, mate. Let him be happy."
What?
Moved on?
"I know you'll find out sooner or later, you've got a way about you, but you won't be 'earing it from me. I consider you my friend, Sherlock, but John is my friend too."
Girlfriend?
"You don't understand what you did to him when you left…"
Suddenly I was standing. Snow. Streets. Cabby.
I was out of the door, far from Lestrade, before I noticed that I was crying, that for the first time in god knows how long, my impenetrable exterior was crushed, in absolute ruin, and there was practically nothing I could do.
I was powerless.
And no matter of intellect or deduction could piece me back together again. I weaved my way in between parked cars, pushed past foreign faces. Each step became more wobbly, and the cold fought its way into my chest. What the hell was happening to me?
In an act of pure desperation, I picked up my phone and dialed the number that so-often called and I so-seldom answered. With all of my life I hoped he responded, if only to keep me from falling into the busy streets of London. Perhaps leaving for good this time. The ringing halted.
"Mycroft. I need you."
II
I don't know how I ended up in the street. I really don't.
I refuse to believe whatever shit Mycroft keeps feeding me. Something about being drunk and stumbling my way around town. I'm not that thick. I've only gotten plastered once, and it was with John.
John.
I honestly had never expected this.
I never anticipated him to move on past me. Not to wait for me… As evil and terrible as that sounds. I know I couldn't bear it without him.
But what else did I expect? Really?
That after three years, John to be limping around still, to have isolated himself from society? I forget that he isn't like me. He can blend in. That's right, he isn't me. A different mindset. I just don't think I could've done the same if our roles were switched.
Maybe it's because he was trained for hardship; he was in Afghanistan for Christ's sake. He deserves to move on. But if the pain he felt was measurable to the kind I've had ravenously chewing at my chest for three years then I can't fathom his strength.
The point is that he doesn't want to just "blend in". A normal life bores him. We've had this conversation a million times.
And wherever he is, he isn't nearly as happy as Lestrade made him out to be.
Right?
I'm running.
Running where?
221B.
How do you even know he's there?
Mrs. Hudson will tell me…Tell me his new address…I can take up residence back at the flat…Everything will be back to how it was… Before he stole it all away…
My shoes clomped monotonously against the sepia-toned brick and cobble of downtown alleys. My thoughts outran my body by continents.
My phone hummed in my pocket and I quickly took up the call, not bothering to glance at the ID number.
"I know what you're doing."
My breathing was heavy and laden with frost. Scarf was nearly choking me. "Lestrade, honestly, I-I've got to find him."
"Meet me at that café on Pecker Street. I'll tell you. But I need to talk to you, first."
I took a collective sigh, hanging up the call. I gasped a deep throaty grumble, my hands balanced on my knees. My breath puffed out, blurring my vision, again and again, until my intakes steadied and the sharp twang in my ears subsided. The wintry air seeped into my lungs, and my bruised ribcage twitched in pain, protesting at the expansions. I ignored it, as I had the many injuries I had undertaken since I've known John Watson.
My tea was much too hot to touch.
I'd been staring at it for at least three solid minutes.
Lestrade was still adding those pinches of sugar additives in those damned pink and blue packets. Three at a time. No doubt a ritual of his, I wonder how I hadn't noticed before. Who likes their tea half sweetener?
When he finally was satisfied, he looked up at me, a teaspoon swirling the contents of his cup. The silence of the small diner was devouring me. I could hardly stay in the booth.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, I jumped on the chance.
"I-"
"Where is he?"
He stared me down, the silver-clanking-against-porcelain ambiance fraying my single, everlasting, goddamn nerve. I fidgeted against the polyester seat.
"You can't simply ask o-brother-dear?"
"I will not run to Mycroft for every problem I have. He's basically the British government itself. That would be like calling the forces after locking yourself out of the flat before calling a 'smithy."
"Didn't stop you before."
"Lestrade, do you want to be blackmailed? You don't know how much of a row I could cause with you."
"I'm sure you know plenty 'nough 'bout me that I hardly know myself. I've been a prick to you lately, as seems our custom, so it'd probably be well-deserved too." He chuckled, taking a long drink from his teacup.
Suddenly, vibrations shook the opposing bench, and Lestrade started fumbling in his pocket. His phone was making a muck of noise. I took a sip of my tea after adding a little cream. The white swirled into the russet water in a beautiful way.
I really must be going mad.
Greg cursed at the screen of his phone.
"Shit, it's Sally. There's been another. I have to do a case run-up at the office. Tag along, will you? I'm not finished with you yet, and you may get some ideas looking at these MO's."
After throwing 10 quid on the table, Lestrade breezed through the door and hailed a cabby. I've been a bit leery of taxicabs ever since John shot the last one who'd tried to murder me in a demented game of head-or-tails.
Who knew that it was all for not?
We arrived with little event, both of us trapped in our own thoughts, unable to make headway in our earlier conversation. The rain had transformed into a foggy sleet that cut jagged scrapes into our faces as we walked. They would leave no mark, but people everywhere we scattering inside buildings and shelters like mice. I saw something building up behind Lestrade's stoic pallor, his perfected mask of controlled masculinity. He was dying to say something.
"What is it, Lestrade?"
He moved from the pile of manila envelopes he'd been handed moments ago and threw a crumpled piece of printer paper towards the wastebasket with a half-hearted flick of the wrist. It bounced off of a recent takeaway wrap and rested against the molding. He thrust a hand through his ever-graying hair, huffing. Preparing. What wasn't he telling me?
"You…You didn't have to see 'im, Sherlock. You didn't have to see him."
"Lestr-"
"No, no, let me finish. 'Ere you come, after all this time, beggin' to see 'im again. I know that's exactly what he wanted. It's precisely what you want. But I just can't. He cannot know that you're back."
Anger was broiling, scalding the pits my mind. Its depth was alarming. "Whatever god-sent mission you think yourself to be on Lestrade-"
He snapped his head up, bloodshot, exhausted eyes glaring through me. Haunted.
"YOU WEREN'T HERE!" He rose, crossed the four strides around his desk in an extremely short amount of time, and held me against the wall by my coat.
What the hell?
"You didn't have to see him!" He spat, his face contorted into a terrifying stridency of ire and agony.
"You didn't wake up to three-in-the-morning calls from a man screaming to talk to someone he knows is dead! Noise complaints from the neighbors! Mrs. Hudson even had to disconnect the phonelines." He was roaring.
"You didn't have to find him out of his flat, in the pitch of night at the cemetery, draped over your pointless headstone, his mouth wrapped around that of a revolver, did you? Well, I did. I had to take away his gun three times by negotiation, had to drive him home twelve, to find him stumbling drunkenly on the slick, icy streets of London in the dead of night more than I care to remember, and more than he probably ever will. I was there because I knew he would find a way out of that mess, that he would pull himself out of that terribly dark place and see light 'gain, however dimmer it may've been than before. I cleaned up the wreck of a man you left in your wake." His grip tightened on my collar.
"He pulled the trigger once. Yeah, he would've blown his goddamn head off if I hadn't unloaded it the last week when I was at the flat, helping Mrs. Hudson clean up the sick he'd made after he'd found the case files of your busted skull on the concrete. He had a gun in his mouth for the entirety of the time you spent away." My cheeks are cold, wet.
"Had to take medicine for a good two years or so, did you know that? Medicine, just to feed 'imself, to give 'imself a shave. He could scarcely breathe for a fucking YEAR and you want me to tell him it was good for nothing? That is was a PLOT from the very person he was so shattered and broken for, for all that time? No. I can't. I can't. I just-"
His eyes shadowed, wrath eclipsed by a heavy veil of tears. He collapsed into heavy sobs, bent down into the chair, his anger subsiding quickly, and Lestrade crumbled in front of me.
My god.
Oh my god.
What have I done?