Lestrade barges into the flat with his usual impatience, time always at a premium for him. Enough so that he's subsisted mainly on coffee and stale doughnuts from the Yard's break room for at least twenty-four hours, from what Sherlock can see of his clothing. Busy day, then, which often means a case worth actually bothering about.
John shows him in, directs him to the unoccupied armchair (not the sofa, not with what they so recently did in evidence, which Lestrade will of course miss because he won't notice how the cushions are squashed in a distinctive pattern directly under where John's hips were, but it's just as well he not sit near that used tissue) and waits politely. Lestrade seems unsure how to take this break from tradition - usually John offers tea - but he musters quickly.
"This is a strange one," he says without further conversational pleasantries. "We've been trying to process the scene for-"
"-the better part of a day now, yes," Sherlock interrupts. "Skip to the interesting part."
Lestrade clears his throat. "Yes, well. Male caucasian, twenty-three. Name's Alexi Kriukov. Took us a while to ID him with all the damage."
"Which is?" John prompts, when Lestrade pauses unnecessarily.
"Bloody ugly, is what it is," Lestrade says with a slump of his shoulders. "Bloke was gone over thoroughly, and more than once. Fractured wrist, broken ribs, some really serious chemical burns on his back. Shallow cuts on his legs and abdomen, obviously carefully placed to maximize the pain." He swallows awkwardly. "Evidence of sexual assault, too, something forced up in there. Quite a bit of blood. Also-"
"-several raised welts on the soles of his feet," Sherlock finishes for him. "And abrasions on his wrists and ankles, from the steel restraints his captors used."
Lestrade gapes at him.
"He'll have a brother, I believe," Sherlock continues. "Diplomat, most likely, or business magnate. Foreign - the name suggests Russian, but could be any of the former Soviet bloc. The brother is well-regarded in his home country but relatively anonymous here, despite his enormous wealth and the fact that he travels to London frequently."
John gapes at him, too. "How do you know-"
Sherlock levels a stare at him. "An older brother, John. A powerful older brother."
He can see John's eyes widen as the facts click into place. Not a genius, John, but he's reliably quicker than most when Sherlock isn't being deliberately difficult to follow.
Lestrade looks back and forth between the two of them, intelligent enough to know when he's missing out on something important but not enough to deduce what it is. "Any thoughts?" he asks after several tense seconds of silence.
Several. The thoughts won't stop, won't slow enough to let Sherlock catch and analyze them one at a time. Mycroft is a bloody bastard and he used me as a pawn and bluffed and lost, they weren't lying, he left me there and didn't do a fucking thing to get me back, can't bloody stand to show emotion, but this, this tips his hand, he's made it personal, finding the brother in London was a cruel touch, make the brother into a pawn as well, "do to me and I'll do to you," except he didn't, did he, more like "touch my property and I'll ruin yours," made it all about him and his fucking cold war with the older brother, maybe their whole government, hard to tell, worked, though, because now they know Mycroft won't negotiate for me, now they'll think he has no pressure points at all, bloody Iceman, no humanity left in him, whereas I've just had mine stolen from me by force-
"Sorry, mate." John's voice winds through whirlwind of Sherlock's thoughts and provides him a mental branch to grab onto. "Sherlock would normally jump at that kind of thing, but he's not really back to himself yet. He was gone longer than he's been back, still."
Yes, back, not in that bloody hellhole anymore, home now, home with John-
Lestrade deflates a bit. "Yeah, I get it. I figured it was still a bit too soon, but I had to give it a shot. Haven't seen either of you in weeks. And I highly doubt this is going to be one of the ones we quietly solve on our own. Too many marks of it being professional - everything except the brutality, really. That's unusual."
"Drop it," Sherlock announces without looking at either of them.
"You don't think-"
"You won't have enough evidence to convict," he continues, over Lestrade's argument. "No fingerprints at the scene, despite all the blood, right?"
Lestrade nods warily.
"And when you look into the paper trail on the property where he was found, you're going to run into miles of red tape and not much else. A shell of a shell of a shell of a shell based in the Caymans or the like. It's not your scene, Lestrade, for all you've had your team tramping around over it."
"What do I do, then?"
Sherlock shrugs, the carefully-casual one-shoulder shrug he uses to indicate he both is bored and doesn't care whether anyone knows it. It usually drives John spare. "Write up your notes, put them in a neat little case file, and dump it in the unsolved bins. You're not going to get an answer on this one."
"Why not?" Lestrade asks, a puzzled frown planted firmly on his face. "And how do you know all of this, anyway?"
John snorts. "You're seriously still expecting a straight answer to that, after all this time?"
And Lestrade backs down. "You're right, mate. Kind of a silly question by now, innit?" He sighs. "Fine, I'll let this one settle. Not that I'll ignore evidence," he adds sternly, "but I'll not waste our time on something that's likely to be unsolvable. Lord knows we're paying out enough overtime already."
"Speaking of which, Detective Inspector, you really ought to try some real food and sleep." Sherlock twists in his armchair to actually look at him for the first time since he walked into the room. "Coffee and doughnuts may seem like an adequate breakfast, but they're completely insufficient for lunch and dinner too." He smirks - John and Lestrade obviously are both immediately thinking variations on who is this berk to talk? - but John also catches the subtle flick of his eyes toward the Lestrade and moves into position to usher Lestrade out the door.
"Sorry we couldn't help, Greg," John says as he stands and offers a hand. Pleasant, informal handshake at the end of a social interaction. "Maybe once Sherlock is recovered a bit more, but he still mostly needs his rest."
"I understand," Lestrade says politely. He shakes John's hand, but doesn't try to force any similar gesture of social goodwill from Sherlock. "Text me when he's on the go again, alright?"
"Will do."
"Ta." And then he's gone.
John closes the door behind him and waits until they both hear the footsteps recede down the stairs and the front door squeak closed. Only then does he turn and level a stare at Sherlock, arms akimbo, legs and shoulders locked in the military stance he unconsciously assumes when he prepares for a verbal fight.
"There's more you're going to have to tell me," he announces. "Right the fuck now."