Sharing Inspirations: A Challenge where another person writes a first sentence and you write a story around it. (I used Captain Ozone's sentence, in bold.)
"Ruing the Day"
It was a trap. Of that, he was convinced, for things usually went to shit whenever he dared utter, "What's the worst that could happen?"
With his hands loose across his legs, Greg Lestrade very slowly leaned forward, until his forehead rested on the table. Looking ever the abject picture of surrender and despair. His wife, Anne, looked at him in concern as he groaned audibly.
"Remind me never to say that ever again," he moaned.
"Greg..?" she started to ask, looking bewildered before he abruptly jerked back upright, squaring his shoulders and looking across the pub where they had found a rare moment to enjoy lunch together.
"Whatever happens next, love," he warned, his eyes gaining an intensity he reserved for when he was about to engage in some sort of battle, "Say nothing, absolutely nothing!"
She looked at him agape for a moment, catching the warning in his voice, then she followed his gaze across the crowd. Slowly moving towards them, with a look of barely held contempt, was a tall, slender, man in an immaculate, and very expensive, black pinstripe business suit. She looked back at Lestrade.
"No matter what happens next, say nothing!" Lestrade re-emphasized. He rued the day he ever met the approaching man. He should have known he couldn't go anywhere in London without him finding where he would be at, effectively trapping him whenever he wanted one of these 'meetings'.
"Ahhh," the man said smiling with a shade of contempt in his voice as he looked at Anne with a glance and then dismissed her in less than a fraction of second. "Detective Sergeant Lestrade." He fixed his ever so slightly condescending gaze on the grey haired Sergeant.
Lestrade plastered on an equally fake smile. "Holmes," he greeted, trying to ignore the fact that the elder Holmes' brother was pulling a chair up to their table -uninivited- and sitting down, crossing one leg over the other and folding his hands elegantly on his knee.
"I do find these places ever so dreary," Mycroft commented, looking briefly around. "Still, the masses must gather somewhere I suppose." He flicked a gaze at Anne then looked at Lestrade. "This must be the wife?"
Lestrade just shot a glare at him.
Mycroft gave him a Cheshire cat style smile in return. "I find myself put upon to be here, Detective Sergeant, -at a most inconvenient time I might add- because we had an understanding in regards to a certain arrangement we had made which seems to not have been fulfilled..." Mycroft looked at him, tapping his index fingertips together like a school master barely tolerating a disobedient student. "...as yet." He let the implied menace hang.
Lestrade just smirked back at him. "Then you'd also know that your little project has utterly failed to show up, as directed, and if there's one thing I'm not going to do, it's play childminder to a drug addict." Lestrade flashed a smile, barely hiding the wolf that could lurk within. "I'm also not his chauffeur. You can tell him that, from me. You can also tell him to stop calling my mobile!"
The fingers stopped tapping and Mycroft gave a very soft sigh of regret. "Detective..." he started but Lestrade abruptly cut him off.
"You asked me for some of my cold case files. I got them, you know they're still sitting on my desk at the Yard. You also know that they're going to stay right there. You want your brother entertained with my cases, he has to be do it in my office, no where else." Lestrade said flatly.
A look of piqued annoyance appeared on Mycroft's face. Lestrade just shook his head. "No Mycroft. I'm not removing them from the building. You want this to happen, it happens there, at Scotland Yard. While I'm there."
Mycroft slowly shook his head, tsking in dismay. "On your head be it," he said ominously. "I've been most patient with you on this matter. Sherlock will not grant you the same consideration." He looked frankly at Lestrade. "You can't say I haven't tried to warn you."
Lestrade didn't reply, just keeping his gaze fixed on Mycroft. Mycroft heaved another sigh, and stood up. "Very well then, if this is what you want." He held up his hand to forestall the retort that was about to escape the detective's lips. "Save the sarcasm, Detective Sergeant, you are going to need all you can get."
With that, the tall man turned, looking distastefully around the busy pub and shook his head in despair. Lestrade didn't move as Mycroft left, just keeping his eyes drilled on the retreating man's back until he disappeared from view. No sooner was he gone, then Lestrade leaned forward again to slowly start thumping his forehead on the table.
Anne, eyes as big as saucers, looked at her husband in amazement. "Greg, who..?"
Never stopping the slow motion beating of his head on the table, Lestrade replied, "That is the most dangerous man in all of Britain."
He cast a glance at his speechless wife. Shoulders dropping in despair, he propped an elbow on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. "No he's not a criminal. He's the bloody government! And he wants me to child-mind his younger brother, who's a drug addict."
"And you agreed to this?" She asked.
"You can't say no to the British government, Anne. He's as high up as they get, short of being the Prime Minister. He knows everything about just about everybody and its not easy telling him no."
"He want's your cold cases for his little brother?" Anne asked, still bewildered. "Sherlock?" She said the name incredulously.
Lestrade nodded. "My cold case files, from as far back as I can go. He wants them for his brother to solve as puzzles to keep him occupied while he cleans himself up."
Anne just looked at her husband, speechless.
Lestrade sighed, "You just saw the brother, imagine what the other one will be like and magnify it threefold then add a dose of crack. My work life is going to hell in a hand basket!"
"How much does he know about..." she started to ask. Lestrade's look silenced her.
"Everything. He's like a gigantic information clearing house. You bring him any and all information, no matter how trivial, and Mycroft Holmes can distill it to the relevant important bits in a matter of seconds, in his head. That kind of talent is invaluable to espionage circles anywhere. All they do is traffic in information. He's very, very high up..." Lestrade heaved another sigh, looking weary. "And now I get to deal with Sherlock."
Anne looked at her husband in sympathy. "Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, shaking her head.
Lestrade nodded, rubbing at the back of his neck and sitting back as their food arrived. "You can't easily forget names like that."