Prompt: Running out of winter fuel
From: mrspencil
...
This was the last stakeout I would ever take in the snowy weather again- especially if Inspector Lestrade and Holmes have been going at each other once more with their usual quarrelling.
"If you had listened to me, Lestrade, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Holmes fumed. "It is just like you and you your men to blunder your jobs and your reputations in one fell blow!"
"Hmph!" Snorted Lestrade, indignantly. "If you would give my men half the credit they deserve, Mr. Holmes, maybe you would see no reason to mock us for our supposed incompetence!"
"I am the only reason you and your men are yet to be put into the poorhouse!" My friend snapped churlishly, folding his arms across his chest and raising an eyebrow at the long-suffering inspector.
I attempted to poke at the now dying embers of the makeshift fire in the fireplace with a dead branch.
Holmes, Lestrade and myself were pursuing a serial killer who had been decapitating innocent women for seemingly no reason, earning the nickname of 'King Henry VIII' or as Lestrade put it 'the bloody wife killer with more power than chivalry.'
A young woman named Sarah Steel had suspected the killer of stalking her, waiting to kill her. So, Holmes and Lestrade had been hired- each without the other's knowledge- to help find and arrest the killer and ensure he could not harm the lady.
Holmes' hunt took us to an abandoned mansion; about seven miles or so from London. There, in the grounds, we met Lestrade and after finding our missions were joined, we decided to double up and work together.
Well, I decided to. Holmes just grumbled about it, and called me a traitor to logic and his very being. I merely called him out for being so overdramatic and told him to shut up.
...
The fire was threatening to die on me, like so many of my loyal comrades on the Afghan sands, and I attempted to try and keep the fire going with what meagre debris I could find in our desolate watch spot.
Alas, it was not enough, and I found to my horror that my right leg began to seize up with the cold. The scar on my left shoulder also began to tighten painfully, like some unseen fist, and I let out an involuntary cry- causing Holmes and Lestrade to cease their arguing.
"Watson! You haven't been shot again, have you?" Holmes asked me in alarm, hurrying to my side and keeping a distrustful eye out for revolvers.
"By Jove, Doctor!" Lestrade jumped to his feet, his rat-like face pinched with concern. "Whatever happened? You sounded like someone shot you!"
I glared- I did appreciate those horrible reminders. "My wounds, they merely had a spasm." I explained as calmly as possible. "But I am fine, really. No medical aid required, thank you."
It was then that Holmes realised that the fire in the grate... had extinguished. I had failed to keep the last of it alive, and now we were low on fuel for the rest of the stakeout.
Lestrade was studying the landscape outside, where a smaller building housed Gregson, Hopkins and a third inspector.
"No signal from my men." The inspector reported, stepping back from the window with caution. "So far, there's been no sign of 'His Majesty.'"
Holmes cursed as he looked at his pocket watch- surprisingly unaffected by the cold atmosphere. "He will be due to strike at any moment, Lestrade."
"Well, it'd be madness to get Watson to go out in this weather." Lestrade mused. "Especially since it looks like it will snow again shortly."
Holmes let out a string of colourful curses that only a sailor could ever possibly know; or possibly a private consulting detective infiltrating a dockside in the guise and manner of a sailor.
"We cannot leave Watson here!"
"I know we can't bloody leave!"
The situation was looking very dire indeed- I was suddenly rendered useless to my companions due to my old wounds; a snow storm was approaching with Lestrade's men less than five feet from us and a decapitating serial killer was on the loose in the countryside outside.
I swear there just seems to be something about serial killers lurking about when one of us suddenly needs help. Or perhaps it is the other way around?
Lestrade took off his coat and placed it over my shoulders, in a silent, almost fraternal gesture. Touched, I smile at him, and he merely nodded in return.
"Lestrade, you will freeze"- Holmes said- so surprised by the inspector's kind gesture that he suddenly committed the same unspeakable offence he so often accused Gregson of in the past.
"Mr. Holmes, if I freeze to death tonight, I will at least be dying for one the best men I have known in all of God-gracious England," Lestrade answered, and I grinned- the little inspector's famed bulldog tenacity was present in his voice; stronger than steel and firmer than bark.
Not to mention his heartfelt sentiments about his feelings towards me.
Holmes managed a wry smile at our companion.
"Inspector, that might have just been the craziest thing you have said in all our years of this unusual partnership. But, I can wholly agree with you and your sentiments." He said warmly, steely eyes softening to the Inspector.
"Well, I may not be a man of your brains, Holmes, but I am a man of my word." Lestrade answered warmly and sincerely.
Then he suddenly froze as a shadow flitted past the window.
A small light flickered across the window of the other building.
The signal.
The chase was on.