I neither own nor profit from any of these characters; they are the property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC. Le petit prince is the property of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
If you see something that you think ought to be changed or improved, please feel free to let me know, if you'd like. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
Special thanks to ImpishTubist for having read this over for me.
A/N: Translations can be found at the end...
"Sherlock."
Sherlock didn't answer. He just laid his hands on the earpieces of Lestrade's glasses and lifted them gently off his face, setting them aside on the coffee table next to them.
"Sherlock, what are you doing?"
Sherlock looked up at him, clear grey gaze steady despite the fact that Lestrade could only see it a little now. He held his position for a moment, one hand still on the thin wire frames, the other resting gently on Lestrade's knee.
"Making you more comfortable."
"I can't see, Sherlock."
"The prescription in these glasses isn't strong enough to indicate that you're beyond the threshold of blindness without them."
"Sherlock. It's too hard to try to make out details without them. I have to try too hard."
He realized then that it didn't matter what he'd deduced about Lestrade's vision from the lenses. All that mattered was what Lestrade wanted.
"Would you like them back?"
"Yes, please. I – I'd like to see."
As softly as possible, Sherlock rested the glasses on Lestrade's face again, ensuring that they were straight, even, not pressing in anywhere they shouldn't be, no smears or specks of dust on the lenses.
"Is that better?"
"Thank you."
But now he was at a loss. All he'd known to do was what he'd read. He'd thought the glasses were part of that, taking them off so that Lestrade could relax without them. He'd thought there would perhaps be something about fetching blankets, or pillows, or something; he'd rehearsed comforting platitudes he had looked up on the Internet; he was trying. But the first thing he had tried had been wrong, so what now?
He tried something else he'd read.
"How are you feeling?"
Lestrade chuckled; the sound was like a whisper of wind across dry leaves. "Fine, Sherlock," he said. "I'm fine."
But that was patently untrue. That was the reason for Sherlock's presence in the first place.
"You aren't."
A tired smile, a press of Lestrade's fingers against his own. "You know how to make a man feel good about himself."
"It wasn't a value judgment; it was merely a statement of fact. You are not fine, which is why I am here now. Which is why you asked for me at all."
"I could have had John."
"John wouldn't have agreed."
"You know that's not true."
He did. John would have come; John the soldier, John the doctor. John, the man who had watched his friends die in pain, pressing hands down to staunch wounds too great to heal, twisting tourniquets in failed attempts to preserve lives.
John had seen enough suffering for one lifetime, and he would not have hesitated to prevent more.
"Then why didn't you ask John?"
"Do you really not know?"
He shook his head. John would have had more experience than he (though Sherlock knew by various means that he, too, was quite proficient with a needle), and he would have known better how to handle the… less practical side of things. There were emotional implications to this that Sherlock had anticipated, had researched, but did not fully understand. John would have been the better choice.
"Because it would have hurt him, Sherlock. Don't you think he's watched enough people die? Friends and comrades, people he loved. I don't want to add to that."
For a moment, it was as if something were forbidding him to breathe.
"And – "
He couldn't even get the words out.
"And – you think this won't – hurt me?"
He kept his face turned away as he asked, gaze fixed resolutely on the arm of the couch where Lestrade sat so that Sherlock could kneel in front of him. How could he look Lestrade in the eye when this was what he thought of him – cold, unfeeling, unable even to grieve over a friend?
A hand brushed the side of his face, settled on his chin, tilted his face so that Lestrade could see him.
"No, Sherlock… no. That's not what I think. That's not what I think at all."
"Then what do you think? Why did you ask for my help?" His voice was shot through with anger, and he wished it weren't, because today of all days it seemed wrong to be upset, wrong to find fault with the man in front of him. It felt like a betrayal.
"I asked you because you're strong, Sherlock. Strong enough to keep this to yourself and not tell John until it's over. Do you think he could have hidden this from you? I asked you because you'll understand why I need to do this – why I can't just let things run their course, make me weak, make me useless, a burden. I asked you because I trust you enough to believe that you'll help me, and I'm not sure that can be said of anyone else we know."
Sherlock heard him take a deep breath, as if to continue, but no more words came. Perhaps he had thought better of it.
He did the only thing he could. He nodded, reached into the carrier bag beside them, and drew out the shoebox within.
Lestrade stayed his hand and removed the lid himself, surveying the contents of the box. "How long will it take?"
"Perhaps ten minutes, after the injection, but you'll be asleep for most of it."
He lifted out the needle in its paper-and-plastic packaging, turning it back and forth in the light to see the bevelled edge. "It's sterile, then?"
Sherlock gave him a look. "Yes, of course. Does it really matter?" Given what they would be injecting, he didn't see how.
"You tell me. It only matters to you."
"To… me?" What had he missed? What wasn't he understanding?
"To you, yes. This broken body will be yours, you know. After the medical examination and the legal enquiry and whatever else they want to do to it. It's for you."
"You're leaving me… you?"
"Are you telling me you don't want it?"
"No, of course I…" but did he? Would he be able to forget its provenance? Could he even experiment on a body if… if it had once been a person about whom he'd cared?
"You don't have to take it, of course. Or only the parts you want. I mean, it's not as though they're going to drop it on your doorstep in a bag like it's a second-rate Chinese."
"How can you be so flippant about it?"
Lestrade instantly sobered. "I thought that's how you would want it."
"No, I…"
But he found he couldn't explain what he wanted. He just… today… today was the day Lestrade would be leaving the world. Permanently. And he felt like that ought to matter.
"Don't you care?" he asked, finally.
"Sherlock, of course I care! This is my death we're talking about here. It's not like I'm going to come back in two weeks with a suntan and a wallet full of photographs, am I?"
"Then how can you treat it like a joke?" Desperate now, imploring. He didn't understand. How could he be there for his friend if he didn't even know what the day meant to him? Why hadn't Lestrade just asked John for help instead?
"Because, Sherlock. There's nothing I can do about it. Crying into my breakfast won't stop it from happening, and we'll both feel the worse for it. Is that what you want to remember of me? That I faced my last few hours with sadness and fear? Because I sure as hell don't want to be remembered that way."
"I…"
Silence reigned. Lestrade watched quietly as Sherlock fought with his words, trying to assemble them into the things he wanted to say.
"I… won't remember you that way."
"Oh?" And had Sherlock known to ask, Lestrade would have admitted that he was selfishly asking for details, that he wanted to know what Sherlock was going to think of him after he'd gone. He couldn't have explained why, but somehow, knowing might help a little.
Sherlock didn't know to ask, though, and so he just continued. "You were… you are… brave," he said. "John thinks so, too."
The soldier, the army doctor, thought that he was brave?
"And you're… far more intelligent than your colleagues would credit."
The consulting detective, the genius, thought that he was intelligent?
"And…"
But this time, Sherlock seemed to be having a hard time saying what he was thinking. Still, Lestrade was nothing if not patient, and a few extra minutes wouldn't hurt. They weren't exactly working to a schedule here.
"And… you will be missed."
You will be missed.
"Oh, Christ, Sherlock," he said, suddenly struck by his own helplessness. "I'm sorry."
Sorry to leave, sorry to end it this way, sorry to have asked Sherlock to bear the burden of helping him do this. He was so goddamned sorry for it all.
"Why?"
"Why am I sorry?"
"You didn't choose this."
He sighed heavily. "No. No, I didn't. But I…"
And this time, he let his fingers trace over Sherlock's face, the outline of sharp cheekbones, the tight lines of a worried frown.
"Quand tu seras consolé," he told Sherlock, "tu seras content de m'avoir connu."
Sherlock stared wonderingly at him. "Tu seras toujours mon ami," he said softly.
That Sherlock knew the story of the little prince did not surprise him. That he had read it enough to have memorized it, that he had not simply deleted it, did surprise Lestrade a little. There were so many things he didn't know about this man, this amazing, fascinating man…
"Come on," he said. "We need to do this before John starts to wonder where you've gone."
"Lestrade," said Sherlock urgently, "you're certain that…"
"Yes." He wasn't even going to let Sherlock pursue that line of reasoning. "Think of the alternative, Sherlock. This is the best way."
"I know." And Sherlock took the syringe out of the box, attached the needle (fine-gauge, and yes, sterile; if Sherlock did choose to accept his gift, they would have done the job right) and plunged it into the small bottle before he could think about his actions.
"Sherlock."
Lestrade's hand closed over his, syringe still firmly gripped, and held him immobile for a moment before brushing his lips against the tense knuckles.
"J'aurai l'air d'avoir mal," he whispered. "J'aurai un peu l'air de mourir. C'est comme ça."
Sherlock's reply was even softer, barely breathed into the air around them. "Je ne te quitterai pas."
"Do it. Now. Please."
Sherlock's hands were quick and sure. The injection into Lestrade's arm took only seconds.
Lestrade smiled, relieved. The job was done; all of this would be over in a few minutes. Sherlock could clean up and go home; they'd never know he'd done it if he didn't want them to, and John would be there for him afterward.
It was right.
It was right, and he was tired.
"Sherlock," he murmured, feeling his eyelids droop, his body relaxing against the rough fabric of the couch. "Sherlock, I have to…"
"I know," and Sherlock's voice was – different, something was – he couldn't –
"Come," he said with some difficulty, "here…"
Sherlock did, resting his head against Lestrade's chest, listening to the heartbeat, imagining he could hear it as it slowed.
With herculean effort, Lestrade raised his head, dropped a kiss into the dark curls before him. "Quand le mystère…" he tried, but couldn't finish.
"I know," Sherlock told him again. "I know. Quand le mystère est trop impressionnant… on n'ose pas désobéir."
"Mmm," agreed Lestrade, and let himself fall into sleep.
Translations:
All quotes are from Le petit prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
"Quand tu seras consolé, tu seras content de m'avoir connu." When you are comforted, you will be happy to have known me.
"Tu seras toujours mon ami." You will always be my friend.
"J'aurai l'air d'avoir mal. J'aurai un peu l'air de mourir. C'est comme ça." I will look as though I were suffering. I will look a little as though I were dying. That's what it's like.
"Je ne te quitterai pas." I will not leave you.
"Quand le mystère est trop impressionnant… on n'ose pas désobéir." When the mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey [its call].