The rip of hair at his temples is finally making its way through to his nervous system. Sherlock's knuckles whiten under the strain of warring with his own curls as he paces the same fifteen feet from the kitchen to the sitting room. "Think, think, think!"
His mantra stutters when Lestrade inadvertently steps into his path, mumbling on his mobile to someone. Another lead, dead.
Sherlock crashes down into his desk chair, driving his elbows into the wood, feet tapping a rapid staccato rhythm on the floor. His eyes flick around as he flips through invisible reams of evidence and interviews of recent cases, none of which give him the answer he needs.
Nothing can tell him where John is.
Lestrade turns toward him, placing his hands slowly onto his hips. It is a movement of resignation, of dread, that Sherlock notes absently. He doesn't need to hear it, too, but Lestrade sighs heavily, "Right, well, we've nothing else to go on. Last sighting of him was two blocks from here—security camera on the roof of the bank. Then, nothing. We've an alert out, but until we get some tips—"
Sherlock's laugh is slicing. "Of course you've got nothing. You've always got nothing. Why do you even bother showing up for work? What is the point of you?"
Lestrade's mouth forms a thin line. "We'll find him. We're doing everything we can."
Sherlock leaps to his feet. "Is that supposed to reassure me?" His hair is a wild, spiky mass hovering around his thin white face. The darkened circles around his eyes offset their red glare. He looks possessed. "He's been missing for three days. Three. Days. And this is the best you can do?" He grabs Lestade at the elbows and pushes his face into his, teeth barred. "In a crowded city in the twenty-first century, one cannot light a cigarette or skip a traffic signal without immediate repercussions, and yet there's not a single trace of a handsome man being abducted right off the street? Is that what you're telling me, Inspector? Is it?"
Greg stares a moment. In the years he's known the very unpredictable consulting detective, he could recall no time when he actually wondered if Sherlock would lose it, if he would snap and hurt someone, be the psychopath Sally has always claimed he is. But in this moment, there is an unstrung look to him, a sharp and dangerous venom that makes Lestrade stiffen his muscles and trace the butt of his firearm with his fingertips, preparing subconsciously to defend himself if necessary. It seems to reach Sherlock because his eyes flicker and he releases his grip abruptly, turning his back and leaning both palms on the desktop.
Lestrade licks his lips. After a moment, he offers, "John's a soldier, Sherlock. He can take care of himself."
There's a noisy exhale from the hunched figure. It sounds crackly, and if Lestrade didn't know better, he'd think Sherlock were fighting back tears. "I know how strong he is," he rasps. He is silent for a few beats, then the mass of curls dips lower. "But…it's John."
Greg blinked several times. He's interrogated hundreds of people over the years; he's confronted every form of human grief possible. He has heard the pain in voices that were straining to be brave, the fear and desperation that inevitably finds their way to the surface when the facade is shattered. He's seen people in love implode from the loss of the one person who matters most in the entire world.
He just never thought he'd hear it all in a small whisper from Sherlock Holmes.
There is silence for a long time. Lestrade is suspended, unsure what to do to. He considers walking over, squeezing Sherlock's shoulder, telling him everything will be all right. But he scratches his ear instead, imagining that if he tried, he'd end up on the floor with his arm twisted backward to his spine.
Suddenly, Sherlock deflates, falling into the desk chair with his face buried in his hands. "Do you know the last thing I said to him?" The voice is hollow, haunted. "I told him to go away. I was trying to finish an experiment, and he kept pestering me because he wanted to go to dinner, and I told him to go away and leave me alone." The fingers tighten against his temples, trembling with the force. "And he did."
Greg swallows hard. "Jesus, Sherlock," he mutters. Then, he runs a hand over his face and takes a fortifying breath. "You can't believe…You don't think John knows what an arsehole you are?" He forces a chuckle. "No way he'd leave for good and let you get the last word, you bastard."
It seems to help. The fingers wrapped around Sherlock's forehead loosen and pink up, blood permitted to flow once again.
Lestrade inches toward the door. "I'm going back to the office to check a couple of feeds, and then I'm going home. If you get a lead, don't go charging off on your own, for Christ's sake. Call me." Sherlock doesn't respond, and Greg takes his silence as the closest thing to an "Ok" as he'll ever get.
He shuffles out, but something stops him on the landing. "I know John," he calls back. "He's fine." He doesn't expect a response. The gap fills with his tired footfalls and a decisive slam of the front door.
The noise below makes Sherlock raise his head. The flat is eerily quiet. There is not even the swish and grind of traffic to distract him. He shifts backwards, head lolling against the chair back, eyes turned to the ceiling. He tries to maintain focus, to run through more folders of data, shifting to last month's cases, the ones from the month before that, and the month before that.
Nothing fits. Nothing makes sense.
His eyes slip closed and the darkness is replaced by a vision from a week ago. He and John had just returned from Birmingham, a forgery case that had kept them running for several days with no sleep. When they finally had gotten home in the wee hours of the morning, they had dragged themselves into the bedroom and collapsed fully clothed on top of the covers. Sherlock had peeked an eye open to see John watching him, a slow smile crossing his face. His arms had wrapped clumsily around him, and Sherlock had tilted his head up enough to reach his mouth. They had kissed slowly, easily, an instinctive movement of lips and tongues. It had been completely languid and warm and familiar. Exhaustion had been too overwhelming in the moment to go beyond that, but it didn't matter. It was perfect. It was everything.
Sherlock had awakened the next day to sunlight shafting through the sheer curtains of the window, John's arms slung around his neck, and his upper lip still held between both of John's. Every breath that he had taken throughout the night had filtered through John's lungs first. It had flooded him with an embarrassing amount of utterly ridiculous joy. It was as close to heaven as Sherlock ever thought he'd get.
Now, he clenches a fist and gulps a shuddering inhale. He tosses his head furiously and leaps out of the chair, stifling the tears he can feel at the edges of his eyes but refuses to shed. He wanders in circles, ending up at the window. The street is empty. He scans the rooftops and the blackness of the moonless night sky. Even the clouds have deserted him, leaving nothing to reflect the city's glow back to him.
His gut wrenches, and he places a shaky hand on the glass. "Where are you?"