Just something that's been sitting around on my desktop for a while that I thought I may as well post. It was originally written as a fill for the Sherlock Kink Meme, so if perchance it looks familiar, that'd be why.
Disclaimer: I in no way own BBC's Sherlock. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction about it. I'd be off making sure that Series 4 is actually released before the Arctic melts, we find life on Mars, and we're all sitting around watching the fifteenth Doctor on our iPhone 12's ;)
It had started out as a fairly straightforward incident. Or at least, as straightforward as it possibly could be when one still had need to call in Sherlock bloody Holmes to look at the case.
Only a couple of minutes after arriving at the scene, and Detective Inspector Lestrade was already starting to regret calling the consulting detective in on this one. Sherlock had, predictably, demanded the immediate removal of any and all members of the police and forensics team from the area surrounding the body in question, and as a result, Lestrade now found himself standing at the edge of his own police tape beside a severely aggravated Sergeant Donovan and a nearly irate Anderson. However the fact remained that a woman had been found lying dead in the middle of the street, seemingly untouched except for the inexplicable absence of her right hand and left shoe, and it just wasn't something that DI Lestrade felt like trying to sort out on his own at nearly half ten in the evening. So he didn't say anything, just sipped at the coffee that did little to take the edge off his exhaustion and watched as Sherlock paced and circled around the body like some great black carrion bird, Doctor John Watson standing a metre or so off.
It was then that the bomb went off.
A dark blue car parked halfway down the road exploded in a blast of fire and deafening sound, and Lestrade lost track of what happened in the next several seconds. When he came back to himself, he was hunched over with both hands clasped firmly over his ears, heart pounding in his chest and adrenalin coursing through his veins. Anderson was yelling something that Lestrade couldn't make out over the ringing in his head, the younger man's frightened eyes flashing in the haze of dust that now lay over the street. Numbly, Lestrade reached down to pull Sergeant Donovan up from where she was now kneeling on the sidewalk.
"Alright?" he shouted over that damnable ringing, watching as the woman nodded, stunned, and clutched at Anderson's arm.
Lestrade took a few deep breaths, trying to collect himself as his hearing slowly returned and the dust filling the air began to settle and thin. It was several more long moments before he finally had the presence of mind to whip around and start frantically searching the street, looking for the place where just over a minute ago, a certain consulting detective and doctor had been standing considerably closer than he had to the source of the explosion. When he finally found the right spot, he realized with an icy fear that he was unable to distinguish which of the three unmoving forms laying crumpled on the pavement was the corpse that they had been investigating.
Launching himself off of the sidewalk without thought, Lestrade barely registered the fact that he was moving before he was already halfway across the road, sprinting toward the figures on the ground. When he reached them, Sherlock was just struggling to push himself up off the tarmac, having fallen only centimetres away from the woman's prone form. Determining the detective's relative soundness, the DI quickly turned his attention to the ex-army doctor lying curled up a little ways off, unmoving.
No, not unmoving, Lestrade corrected as he approached the smaller man's huddled form. Faintly trembling. Kneeling down next to him, the DI could see that every muscle in the doctor's body was locked tight. His hands were clenched around around fistfuls of his own silver-blonde hair, and what Lestrade could see of his face was deathly pale. Heart pounding slightly harder in his chest, he tentatively reached out to place a careful hand on the doctor's shoulder. Instantly, the body in front of him convulsed in on itself.
"Don't!" The word was probably meant to be angry and demanding, but the fact that it was rasped out in a harsh whisper took some of the edge off. Nevertheless, Lestrade snatched his hand back, gaze snapping up to where Sherlock was dragging himself weakly across the cold, slightly damp asphalt. His face was haggard and nearly as pale as the doctor's, hair covered in dust and a trickle of blood running down from his temple, but his eyes were as sharp as Lestrade had ever seen them, focused with blazing intensity on the huddled man he was struggling towards.
"Don't touch him," the detective half-panted as he reached the place were the DI was crouched, half-stunned, on John's other side. Supporting himself on one arm, he reached up with the other one to tug the scarf from around his neck, tossing the strip of fabric carelessly away. Then, despite the order that he had just given, he placed a long, pale hand gently on the doctor's forearm.
Once more, the man's entire frame seized up. A low, broken whimper rose from his throat and his spine bent even further in on itself, but Sherlock did not relent, keeping a firm, steady pressure on the doctor's arm. It was only once he began to twitch and kick that Sherlock finally released him, his hand darting over to deftly tug up the back of the doctor's jumper, pull the handgun from the waistband of his jeans, and promptly send it skidding away across the pavement. And then he just let his arm drop, falling like a dead weight over the other man's waist.
The doctor gave a muffled shout, his dark gray eyes flying open, wild and unfocused. He began to struggle harder, finally releasing his grip on his hair to throw a solid punch at Sherlock's narrow chest. But the detective merely grunted and tightened his hold on the other man.
"He's gonna end up breaking your ribs," Lestrade warned without really thinking about it, somehow finding his voice through his shock. Sherlock's bright silver eyes darted up to glance at him, before immediately returning to the doctor.
"The alternative could be chance of him injuring himself," he stated, grunting as an elbow connected with his stomach. "An unacceptable risk."
The DI couldn't think of a single thing to say to that.
"John," the black-haired detective finally ground out, shifting to lie fully on his side so that he could wrap one long hand around the other man's wrists. With his other arm he tugged the doctor even closer, until his hands were effectively pinned between their chests. "John, listen to me. You are safe," he enunciated carefully. "Do you hear me? You are safe."
And Lestrade could do nothing but watch, mouth very slightly open, as the doctor's struggles slowly subsided. His spine uncurled and the unseeing, frantic light left his eyes, and little by little his muscles relaxed, until finally he was laying completely limp in the arms of one Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock himself didn't move, except to shift his hand a few centimetres up the other man's back, until he was able to run long, thin fingers through silver-blonde hair.
"Sherlock..." John murmured at last, voice muffled by the detective's shirt. The taller man grunted softly, but otherwise didn't respond. Eventually, John began to push gently against Sherlock's chest. Unresisting, the man released him, watching carefully as John leveraged himself into a sitting position.
"I..." the doctor started dazedly, before swallowing and gazing around at the scene surrounding him. His eyes met Lestrade's for only a moment, the look in them wary and slightly haunted, before sweeping over the street once more. Lestrade could see him taking in the still-burning remains of the car up the road, the line of police tape where Anderson and Sergeant Donovan still stood, expressions indistinguishable from where the three of them sat, the corpse lying mostly untouched a couple of metres away. Eventually, his gaze once more landed on the detective stretched out beside him. "God, you're..." He reached one slightly shaking hand out to touch the thin trail of blood running down from Sherlock's temple.
The detective shrugged away from him, sitting up stiffly and beginning to tug off his coat. "Inconsequential," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Successfully ridding himself of the heavy wool garment, he then proceeded to throw it around John's shoulders before turning his gaze over to Lestrade.
"Run back to the main road," he demanded, his tone sharp and businesslike. "Hail a cab to come pick us up. Four minutes."
Blinking, Lestrade was dimly aware of his mouth falling slightly farther open before he finally thought to snap it shut. "What?" he stammered after a moment, once the detective's words had had time to sink in.
Sherlock rolled his eyes with a huff. "Given our location, the time of night, and the size of that explosion, I'd say we have approximately four and a half minutes before emergency personnel begin to arrive," he explained impatiently. "I would like to have departed before that time."
"If you think I'm letting either one of you slink away without being checked over-"
"Detective Inspector!" the black-haired detective snapped, silver eyes flashing. His voice dropped into something very much like a warning. "Three and a half minutes."
Lestrade remained crouched there, glaring, for another long, silent moment. Then, grumbling, he heaved himself stiffly to his feet.
Three minutes later found the consulting detective ushering John into the backseat of a cab, its driver looking warily over at the place where the twisted remains of the once-blue car were still smoking faintly. His coat now folded neatly over his arm along with his scarf, and John's gun tucked safely away, Sherlock turned to look at Lestrade once more.
"When my brother arrives, do inform him that his presence is neither necessary nor welcome at Baker Street this evening," he said briskly. Then he had disappeared into the cab, pulling the door closed behind him a second before the car began driving away from the scene. Within twenty seconds, it had rounded a corner and disappeared.
Less than a minute later, two police cars, a fire engine, and a completely unnecessary ambulance were pulling around that same corner. Detective Inspector Lestrade sighed, scrubbing one hand over his face as the flash of lights and blare of siren's filled the street. With the addition of a car bombing in the middle of London – which the DI had a hard time believing could be unconnected to the woman still lying in the middle of the street – the whole case had suddenly become far more complicated. And with a certain consulting detective now temporarily unavailable...
Lestrade ran a hand through his hair as he noticed the sleek black car pulling up to the scene, stopping a little ways off of the other, emergency vehicles. The DI started making his way over, resigned to dealing with one more Holmes before going back to work that night.