Everything was ruined.
His life was shattered, lying broken at his feet like a dropped mirror, and he could do nothing but stare down hopelessly at the fragmented pieces each reflecting back to him the image of a devastated man.
Greg Lestrade's career had ended the moment London's great fraud detective Sherlock Holmes had hit the pavement; the days of being a Detective Inspector would forever be in the past, buried deep with the bloodied body of the world's only consulting detective. It had been only two days ago that the headlines of every paper screamed about the suicide, and it had taken Scotland Yard half that time to give the former DI his pink slip and clear out his office. What little items he had kept in the office- a mug he had gotten for his 36th birthday, notebooks filled with case notes, a drunken picture he had taken with John and Harry- were packed rudely into a box and left atop his desk along with a post-it reminding him to relinquish his badge and weapon.
Without his gun he felt powerless and weak, a feeling that while not pleasant, he was sure he could have learned to live with.
Without his badge he felt meaningless, as if he had nothing to live for. All he was, all he was meant to do was taken away from him the moment he slid the badge into the depositing box alongside his gun, watched as the officer took both items and placed them into a container. Greg knew it would be the last he'd ever see of his badge.
Lestrade had gone to a bar the first night, got himself piss drunk, and ended up passing out in his car, luckily too inebriated to even get his keys into the ignition. He'd woken up in the parking lot of that very bar, slumped over the steering wheel, reeking of alcohol and defeat, the very clichéd image of the lifeless and destroyed man he was. His head rang with the hangover, but above that pounding and spinning in his skull was the feeling of absolute emptiness. It was so overpowering that Gregory could almost feel the hollowness pooling in his chest, snaking through his veins to paralyze his limbs with absolute fear. Without his career, the very one that had effectively become his life, there was nothing more to continue existing for. He had no friends (they were either dead or catatonic emotional wrecks), and he had no family (he remembers Sherlock pointing this out so kindly last Christmas.) The hopeless dread and sorrow of realizing you have nothing left in your life terrified Gregory, and despite the swirling of alcohol in his head, his heart quickened and his breathing came in shaky, unmetered gasps. This was, what he assumed, was the closest he had ever become to having a panic attack.
As a DI, he had been expected to be cool, calm, and collected at any point in any situation. Gunfire, car chases, serial killers- he was to confront each with an absolutely composed psyche. His emotions were forgotten, thrown deep into the depths of his mind to be brought up only when he wasn't on the job.
And when his job was his life, and his life his job, those emotions were ignored.
It was odd, suddenly having the emotional flood gate torn open without a moment's notice, and the feelings came in a torrent, mixing with the alcohol of last night to create a volatile mixture of sadness, anger, and above all, emptiness.
Every inch of his body felt like parchment, brittle and fragile, as if a gust or rain would simply blow or wash him away, any trace of the man formerly known as Gregory Lestrade vanishing into nothingness. What hurt even more, though, was knowing there was no one left who would care if you simply disappeared.
He was a nobody now.
Lestrade wasn't entirely sure how long he had sat there in his car, head resting on the steering wheel, eyes staring listlessly and glassed down at his feet, fixating on the small bits of leaf and dirt embedded in the foot carpet. The sun was high in the London air before he even moved, though the world around still looked grey and dismal thanks to the fog. As his limbs creaked, and he straightened his spine with a few subtle cracks, he blinked out into the day, his eyes stinging with the painful throbbing behind them and the pounding at his temples.
Sober enough now to reach for his keys and stick them into the ignition, his foot sat on the brake as he though with a painful realization: "where can I go?"
He had lost the house to his wife. A hotel was always an option, but for how long could he pay for something like that? All he needed was a place to rest his head, to let the emotions tear him apart before he could go about reconciling his life.
Giving the car some gas he began driving.
Somehow, he ended up at 221 B Baker Street. He stood at the door for a moment, doing nothing more than inspecting the door, the knocker, the flat numbers. He had never really taken the time to inspect the faint cracks in the dark paint, or the slight discoloration on the brass knocker, presumably from years of use. He'd always thrown open this door in such a rush, a case hot on his tail, his heart pounding and the siren of his patrol car whining in his ear as he bounded up the stairs to ask for the help of the brilliant Sherlock Holmes. He had always approached this door as a man with a purpose. Now he stood before this door as a broken shell, looking for nothing more than shelter.
It was pathetic.
Mrs. Hudson opened the door the second after Gregory's knuckles made contact with the wood, looking up at the older man with wide, sorrowful eyes.
"I… Mrs. Hudson, I just… for a night… their old flat, just for-" Gregory was choking on his own words.
"Shh, dear, it's fine. It's fine," she said, moisture welling up in her eyes as she opened the door wider, ushering him in with her hand.
"John-" she stopped to wipe a tear from her lashes before it managed to roll down her face "-John's not here. I don't know when he'll be back."
Lestrade nodded, quietly closing the door behind him. Mrs. Hudson gave a weak smile, threading her hands together in front of her in what could almost be described as a nervous gesture, but Gregory knew it was merely exasperation, that the poor woman didn't know what to do. What to feel. Before she turned to go back down the hall, he thanked her, the genuine emotion clear in his eyes, threatening to spill over into tears. He was grateful that the old woman broke their gazes, making her way to her flat before Gregory started crying.
The stairs were much creakier when you took them slowly, worn wood squeaking loudly on certain steps.
Lestrade pushed open the flat with his fingertips, the place looking like it had every day: Sherlock's things strewn about, science equipment on the dining table, John's laptop surrounded by papers, the skull on the mantelpiece next to the speared game of Cluedo on the wall.
Lestrade removed his coat, letting it fall haphazardly to the ground, and collapsed into the leather sofa.
He couldn't sleep for long; the discontented memories gnawing away at his troubled mind in the form of bizarre and disturbing dreams.
Like any good copper, he went to rummage around the flat for some something to drink. In the cupboard he found some fine whiskey, presumably a gift from one of Sherlock's pleased clients, and proceeded to drink the burning amber straight from the bottle. He tumbled back down onto the couch, this time toeing off his shoes over the armrest, letting them fall with dull thuds. Nursing the alcohol with lazy sips, he grabbed the remote, switching on the telly to some crap channel.
He didn't bother to change it.
Lestrade was woken by the creaking of the stairs. It wasn't as if he was listening for it, but his sleep was so light and troubled that even the quiet rasping of old wood shook him from his rest.
His head was heavy and filled with all sorts of disillusionment and discontent, but he lifted it up and swung his legs around, nearly kicking over the half finished bottle of whiskey on the floor. Sucking in a breath of tense air as the crystal bottle teetered back and forth with spastic clattering, he reached down to secure the bottle, placing it gently on the coffee table. The low chatter and music from the tv aggravated the persistent numbness in his mind, and the jabbed at the remote until the thing shut off.
With the buzzing of the television quieted, Lestrade could now hear the distinct clacking of slow and deliberate wingtips on the stairs.
It was a distinct step step click. Step step click. As if the person was walking with a cane of some sort.
Lestrade braced his elbows on his knees, ignoring the discomfort, and held his head in cold hands. He didn't need to turn around.
It almost physically pained him to think of Sherlock's older brother; how he must be a man emotionally broken out of recognition at this point.
Lestrade already knew Mycroft was looking down at his coat, thrown haphazardly in a pile in the middle of the doorway, moving it aside with a scrape of his umbrella. Gregory kept his face buried in his palms until he felt the couch depress with the weight of another body, the subtle sound of stretching leather and of an umbrella being propped against the coffee table. At the presence of the body beside him, he turned his head in his hands to gaze at the statue of Mycroft Holmes.
At a first glance man was impeccable; suit in perfect order, not a ginger lock out of place, he'd even remembered to put his cufflinks in. But Lestrade knew him better than that.
It was all in the eyes.
Mycroft had the same pale blue eyes as Sherlock, and as with his younger brother, Lestrade could read his emotions through them. The elder Holmes was staring blankly ahead, and while it was technically the wall, Lestrade knew he was seeing nothing but images of his brother flashing before him. Mycroft's face was so stoic, so composed, that Lestrade wanted to shout, and shake him until he let go of the mask.
Anything for the man to just let go, let go of this emotions he'd been chaining down inside that proud self.
Gregory sat up abruptly to gaze fiercely at the man sitting beside him; Mycroft's clasped hands poised atop crossed legs giving off an air of disinterest and composure.
Mycroft Holmes had no doubt sat through the entire day with his mask on, playing the witty, intelligent government official he was, acting as if the previous days had consisted of nothing more than posh meetings and drinks with Britain's elite.
If Lestrade had been paralyzed with loss and despair at the events of Sherlock's death and the aftermath, Mycroft should have been nonfunctional and then some.
How he was even standing, walking, keeping up his façade; it was painfully amazing, a brutal beauty that was as impressive as it was excruciating to watch. The thought, the mere thought of how this man could keep going, continuing on nothing more than his own inner strength and stunning ability to repress emotions, it brought sadness to Lestrade's eyes. The former DI blinked rapidly, letting the fledgling tears catch in his lashes rather than stream down his face.
"Mycroft… just… just stop it," Lestrade whispered into the silence, turning away from the other man to gaze with glassy eyes, absentmindedly out the window into the darkened night dotted with city lights.
The air was still for a long time.
In reality, it could have been a few seconds, a couple minutes, even an hour.
Neither of the men knew.
There was another shift of the couch, and then Lestrade felt the warmth and the weight of Mycroft's head on his shoulder. There was an eerie quiet at first, the slow metered breath of Mycroft on his arm.
Gregory felt the dampness of tears though his suit coat before he even heard the muffled, racked sobbing of Mycroft crying on his shoulder.
Trying to hide the fact that he was crying at this point was, in fact, futile, so Mycroft's stifled hiccups became full shudders, tears freely rolling from closed eyes.
Lestrade didn't look over, merely kept his gaze on the window, because he knew Mycroft would never want another soul to witness his breakdown. But it was okay. Lestrade wouldn't move. Wouldn't even shift for the next hour as Mycroft wept on his shoulder, for whatever comfort he was to this other man, it gave him a fleeting and heart wrenching sense purpose.
It was the first feeling Gregory had felt in two days, and he was to hold on to this painful feeling as if it were a lifeline, and he let out a low, shaky breath into the air.
Hold on.
Hold on.
At this point, all they can do now is hold on.