Lestrade was not having a good week.
Some psychopath had murdered five people in the same night, in different places around London. He had known from the first moment he saw the crime scenes- blood spatter everywhere, with something that was only vaguely recognizable as a body in the center of the rooms- that he'd have to call Sherlock in. He tried to investigate for a day anyway, for Donovan's and Anderson's sake and so that he didn't feel like he was running off to Baker Street for every little thing.
It made no difference. They're just as clueless at the end of the day as they were in the beginning. In the end, it's Donovan who says that they need to go to Sherlock, popping her head into his office where he's tearing out his hair while looking at the blood-soaked pictures of the crimes spread out on his desk.
"Let's go get the freak," she sighed, resigning herself to being picked apart by Sherlock.
She and Lestrade go to Baker Street and they both enjoy a cup of tea from Mrs. Hudson as they wait for Sherlock to come back.
He bursts in just a few minutes after they've drained their cups, in a surly mood and muttering under his breath because John refused to take off from the clinic to help him with his latest experiment which involved hydrochloric acid and the body parts that he took from the morgue that Lestrade carefully avoided thinking about. Sherlock actually gets halfway up the stairs before he realizes that Lestrade and Donovan were in Baker Street.
"Hello Sally, Lestrade," he starts off. "I see you spent the weekend with Anderson again. How does his wife not know yet?" He switches his gaze suddenly, pinning Lestrade with it. "And you've come to call me in on a case with three-," he pauses to correct himself, "no, five bodies. Lead the way to the scene. I'll follow you."
Sherlock stalks around the scene like an overgrown cat, saying his deductions under his breath. John shows up, ten minutes later, ready to scream at Sherlock.
"You do not just text me, 'show up, I need you,' Sherlock! Especially not without an address!" He's yelling loud enough that even the crime scene techs that are outside are peering through the windows. "I thought you were being kidnapped! Again!"
Lestrade winces at the mention of Sherlock's last kidnapping. It had started with a tranquilizer dart and a lured away doctor. It had ended with ripped ropes and eight knocked out people and a much-too-smug John. He had filed that incident under "things I don't think about," which is basically full of things about Sherlock and John, like the gunshot that killed the cab driver and the body parts that were always in 221B.
Sherlock eventually calmed John down, mainly by gesturing aggressively at the blood stains all over the room. "What do you think of these?"
"Well, judging from the sheer amount of blood I can see," John paused to sniff, "and smell, this didn't all come from one person." He started walking around the room, measuring out distances. "Also, one of the people was significantly taller than the other two."
"Two?" Lestrade asked.
"Two!" Sherlock exclaimed. "That's what I was missing. John! We've got to run!"
"Wait, what?" John yelled while he was already being pulled out of the door.
Sherlock's excited exclamation drifted through the door. "Golden retrievers!"
Lestrade ran his hand through his hair again.
"I suppose you'll want me to try to follow them, sir?" Donovan asked from behind him.
"Yeah," he sighed.
Donovan didn't succeed in following them.
Lestrade got a text about two hours later from John with the address of an abandoned pound just outside the limits of London. He and Donovan were the first to get there, just in time to see the sunset behind the building that the other two were rest of the team got there just a few minutes later to find John pacing aggressively just inside the door, muttering under his breath about how idiotic some geniuses could be. He had blood on his knuckles that Lestrade carefully did not comment on.
Sherlock was right behind him, and rattled off a series of deductions when he saw them. Lestrade didn't completely understand it, but from the few bits that he did understand, the murders had been committed to cover up the theft of a purebred golden retriever that had something in it.
The thugs were tied up in the room beyond them and only one of them was conscious. The would-be dognapper was much more forthcoming than the consulting detective was.
The floor plans to several government buildings had been put on a chip which had then been implanted in the dog. They had just finished taking it out- Lady was in a drug induced sleep in the corner of the room- when John and Sherlock had burst in. Or, as they put it, 'the hat-guy with the coat and the jumper bloke.'
"So, where's this chip?" Donovan asked, looking around the room. She sees a bloody scalpel on top of the table along with a few other tools, but not anything that remotely resembles a computer chip.
"The hat-guy took it," one of them answers.
Lestrade swears violently.
"Sir?" Donovan asks.
"Let's process this crime scene first, then we'll go and get back the evidence from the ponce," he looked around the room. There were several filing cabinets as well as three laptop computers that he could see. Even with the backup that was on the way, it would take hours before he was done.
It was nearly midnight when they were finally finished. Everything in the abandoned building had been photographed and filed, and the three criminals had been hauled off to the holding cells.
Lestrade daydreamed about a world where Sherlock Holmes didn't run off with evidence as he, Donovan, Anderson and another officer were on their way to Baker Street.
They make their way up the stairs and Lestrade opens the door, his usual line of 'it's a drugs bust' dying in his mouth as they take in the room before them.
It looks like a hurricane ripped through 221B. There's broken glass on top of the sofa and a smashed bottle of wine in the kitchen. The skull that usually gazes at them from the mantle piece is hanging from one of the horns of the bison head and the papers that are usually in stacks that defy gravity on the desks are scattered across the living room and the couch and one of the chairs are tipped over. There's a shoe mark on the wall, and Lestrade recognizes John's shoe on the floor beneath it. There's pieces of ripped cloth everywhere, and, to his horror, a few of them are the same shade as the shirt that Sherlock was wearing earlier. Half of the bookcase has fallen out and is on the floor of the living room and Sherlock's coat is haphazardly thrown one of the chairs with pieces of a smashed teacup on the table next to it. They all pull out their batons, and Lestrade signals for Donovan and two of the others to search this floor, while he and Anderson go upstairs.
It had only been a few minutes before they came rushing back downstairs when Donovan screamed. Lestrade and Anderson came running back downstairs, heading for the source of the scream- Sherlock's room.
They just paused in the doorway and stared, unable to look away. Sherlock was blushing -some tiny corner of Lestrade's mind noted how young it made him look, and John was attempting to cover both of them with the sheet. It didn't really hide that John was handcuffed to the bed or that both of them were naked.
"We-we came for the computer chip," Lestrade stammered out after a moment.
"And he'll give it to you gladly. Would you leave for a bit?" John asked with enviable calmness.
Lestrade, Donovan, and Anderson waited in the living room, standing around awkwardly. He had dismissed the other officer, letting him go home to get some much needed sleep.
Snatches of John and Sherlock's conversation floated into the room.
"Sherlock, where's the key for these?"
"I think melted it down for an experiment last week, give me a moment to find my lock picks."
"There's slime on my trousers. Please tell me that's not one of your experiments."
"No, we forgot to put the cap back on the bottle."
"Oh, thank god."
"Your pants, on the other hand, fell in the sulfuric acid."
"Sherlock!"
After an indeterminable amount of time- it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, all Lestrade really knew was that he was more embarrassed than he had ever been in his whole life- they both came out, John holding the chip on his palm.
"Here you go," he passed it to Lestrade, both Donovan and Anderson still showing no signs of talking anytime soon.
"We would like to get back to what we were doing," Sherlock drawled.
"Oh. Right. Yeah, of course," Lestrade started going out, Donovan and Anderson following him down the stairs like shell-shocked ducklings.
John yelled down at them, "call before you show up next time!"