The Coming of the Night
Pairings/Characters: DI Lestrade/Asexual!Sherlock
Warnings: Character death. Also, this is quick and unbeta'd; I just needed to be rid of the plot bunny.
Disclaimer: They do not belong to me. I just borrow them and abuse them.
Notes: This one is for Lestrade's Lady, who wanted to know, as I've already killed off John and Lestrade, if Sherlock was next. A big thanks also to Sidney Sussex, whose story "A City Without Walls" is where I got the idea for one of Sherlock's lines. Her Sherlock wanted to know what Lestrade would look like in the rain; this Sherlock gets that question answered. This isn't necessarily related to "They're Gonna Be All Right," but could be seen to operate in the same universe.
The crumpled body in the alley gives a soft wheeze as Lestrade runs toward it, and it takes him several seconds to realize that the sound is a laugh.
"Christ," he hisses vehemently, sinking to his knees in a quickly-spreading pool of blood. Sherlock, sitting boneless against the alley wall, gives him a crooked smile. His bloodied hands are pressed against the wound in his side.
"Wasn't fast enough," he says by way of explanation, and there is a shadow of a wry grin on his face. Only Sherlock Holmes would be able to find this situation amusing.
Lestrade pries away the hands and peels away the clothing in order to better see the wound. It's deep and jagged, curving around Sherlock's side until it almost touches his navel. Lestrade sucks in a deep breath. There was almost no way that the knife could have avoided piercing delicate organs, and Lestrade suspects from the quick inspection that the detective only has minutes.
"This doesn't look good, Sherlock," he whispers finally, whipping the scarf from around his neck (technically it's spring, but no one seems to have informed the temperature of that fact) and pressing the relatively clean material against the wound. Blood begins to seep through within seconds.
"I know," Sherlock tells him.
"I called it in soon as I saw you; they'll be here any minute."
"Not soon enough," Sherlock says flatly, as though he were discussing the weather or the shopping – something mundane. Lestrade winces.
Don't talk like that, Lestrade wants to say, but instead he asks, "How bad, d'you think?"
"It was a sloppy job. Going by the rate of blood loss over the past two minutes, I'd judge –" Sherlock winces and shifts, trying to find a relatively pain-free position. "I'd judge that I have no more than ten minutes."
"That's more than enough time for them to arrive."
"In optimal conditions, yes, but you know as well as I that the competency and speed of London drivers diminishes severely with the first heavy rain after snow, even though it's the same rain that we get every year. Where's John?"
"Safe," Lestrade assures. "He was grazed by a bullet, and I've got him in a car heading to the hospital right now. He'll be fine and as far as he knows, you are too."
"Thank you," Sherlock says. "That's – good of you."
"I can't call them back here, but I can try getting him on the phone."
Sherlock shakes his head.
"What do I tell him, then?" Lestrade asks desperately. What will John think of him, knowing that he didn't do everything he could to allow the man a final word with his best friend?
"You can tell him," Sherlock says, bloodied hands closing over Lestrade's own, "that I wasn't alone. Knowing John, I believe he'll find some comfort in that."
Lestrade wets suddenly-dry lips and whispers, "What can I do? There must be something."
Sherlock's head falls back so it rests against the brick behind him, and his eyes drift to the bleeding skies. He's losing strength, and fast. "You aren't usually one to delude yourself, Lestrade. There's nothing to do but wait."
"At least allow me to try," Lestrade says desperately. "C'mon, press down on the scarf with me. It'll slow the blood loss, at least, and maybe buy us a few extra minutes –"
He's silenced by a hand to his cheek. Sherlock is looking at him, and Lestrade knows that he is being analyzed; deduced. He drops his gaze to the ground; feels for a moment the trickle of rain through his hair and the rivulets that snake beneath his collar and run down his back. Water drips from his brow, and he's too much of a realist to try to pretend that his cheeks are wet with only rain. He draws a quick breath through his nose and eventually whispers, "What'm I to do without you, Sherlock?"
"Same thing you did before me, I 'xpect." His words are becoming slurred, and Lestrade clenches the scarf tighter in his hands. Sherlock drops the hand from his face and, with a small grunt of pain, aids Lestrade in adding futile pressure to the wound.
"No. There's no going back, Sherlock, not after this. How can I forget having met you? Everything will be different," he whispers, lifting his eyes to look at his partner. The rain has flattened the curly mop of hair so that it's plastered to the detective's forehead, and a few stray locks hang in his eyes. Lestrade brushes the strands aside, and Sherlock stares back at him through rapidly clouding vision.
"I had always wondered," the detective says finally, his eyes sliding over Lestrade, "what you would look like in the rain, Greg."
"Does it live up to your expectations?" Lestrade finds himself asking.
"Gorgeous," is all Sherlock says in reply, and it's wrong, all wrong, because Sherlock's as disinterested in endearments as he is in sex and he's never been known to waste his breath on what he feels to be meaningless phrases. They love, fast and deep, and that alone is enough. He's never needed to use the words and Lestrade's never needed to hear them; they are foreign on the man's tongue. Sherlock shows: he whirls and performs and deduces. He doesn't say.
"There are a good many things I would have liked to know," Sherlock continues, half to himself.
"There's still time."
"Not enough."
And that's when it finally hits Lestrade, breaks through the wall of shock and terror and crashes over him like a tidal wave.
Sherlock is dying.
His Sherlock.
Sherlock will stop forever, and he will continue. The flesh beneath his hands is warm and pliant; in an hour it will be cold and stiff and he'll be staring at a face that can no longer see him. Sherlock's time will end, and the world will have the audacity to keep spinning.
"I know what you're thinking," Sherlock tells him, voice suddenly quite clear. "Or what you're going to think, at least. Don't go after him."
"What?" Lestrade says, confused, and Sherlock is right (again) because whatever dots the detective has connected haven't come together in Lestrade's mind yet.
"My murderer," Sherlock forces out through a sudden pain. "Don't kill him, Lestrade."
"What do you care what happens to him?"
"I don't," Sherlock says severely. "But you're a good man. Don't change that on my account. I'm going to be dead either way, so I suggest you waste your time on other pursuits - preferably ones that don't end with you in prison."
"Like what?" Lestrade asks bitterly.
"You'll figure it out."
"No," Lestrade says suddenly, furiously and in a rush, "no, Sherlock, that's not how this works. We - we're going to move out to the country and John will probably come with us because you wouldn't have it any other way and when have I ever been able to say no to you? And I'd get old and gray but you'd stay the same, you and him both, always off to save the world. Right? And -" he swallows, "- and when I'm gone you'd still have him. You wouldn't be alone, and he's all you ever really needed but that's fine; really, it is, because I got to spend the rest of my life with you and that's - that's all I wanted. Want. That's all I want."
"In all the time you have known me, Lestrade," Sherlock says softly, "when have things ever gone according to the plan?"
"God, Sherlock," Lestrade whispers, bowing his head and pressing their foreheads together. He slips a hand around the back of Sherlock's neck and pulls him closer, holding on tight.
"And you're wrong."
Lestrade lets out a harsh laugh. "This is news?"
"It would've been jus' – " Sherlock stops, closes his eyes briefly to round up his strength, and then continues, forcing the words past numbing lips, " – jus' you and me, in that house. Only us. I was...quite looking forward to it."
Lestrade can't move for a moment, and he's quite sure that all the air has been sucked from his lungs. He's always assumed – well, it hardly matters now. He'll never know that life, the one with the country and the bees and Sherlock. He never thought he would have it anyway, and learning now that it's been ripped away from under his feet…he swallows several times and doesn't trust himself to speak for some moments. Sherlock continues his intent stare, even though his eyelids are beginning to droop and he's very visibly fighting off the encroaching darkness. Lestrade knows that he's cataloging; memorizing. He's committing to his hard drive every one of his partner's minute facial twitches; every tear; every quirk of the mouth. He's determined to take it all with him into the abyss.
"I'll miss you," Lestrade mutters finally, voice cracked and drained. And the moments we'll never have.
"I'm sorry I won't be able to do the same."
Lestrade brushes his lips over both of Sherlock's eyes as they flutter and then gathers the man in his arms, discarding the useless scarf and allowing the blood to flow freely once more. Sherlock is now the color of porcelain and just as chilly; just as fragile.
"I've got you," Lestrade whispers.
"As ever," Sherlock agrees, and his fingers dig into Lestrade's back. He's frightened, the DI knows, but this is the one trail he won't walk alone.
Together, they await the coming of the endless night.