Speechless

Chapter 4.3: All My Bubble Dreams

October 20, 2006

Almost a month had passed since the day in the hospital, but the strange tension which had been building between the Detective Inspector and the young detective had only continued to mount. True to his word, Lestrade had spent nearly all his free time attending to Sherlock whilst he was confined to bed, bringing him case files to look over and talking about the world outside his sterile hospital bedroom.

By the time he was released, Sherlock was so weak that the nurses insisted on giving him a walker. He resisted in true Sherlockian fashion, until Lestrade had told him quite plainly that were he not to accept the walker he would be confined instead to a wheelchair. The angry glare in his eyes said enough: I can take care of myself.

Lestrade had smiled at this. If the young man really was so independent-minded, he should probably stop getting himself nearly killed.

Still, he tried to respect Sherlock's wishes. When he refused to stay at the flat, Lestrade helped him settle into a nasty little ground-floor one-room of his own. It may have only been a half-step up from the street, but it was still progress. That, and it was about all the Detective Inspector could afford while still retaining his own rent. After all, Sherlock didn't really have an income.

This lack of employment, in fact, was what brought an unusually tired Lestrade to the man's door this particular afternoon. He knocked cautiously, knowing full well that Sherlock had already spied him from the street.

"It's open, Lestrade," muttered the growl-droned voice from inside.

He smiled to himself, shaking his head. He knew the man had little to steal, but all the same.

"I brought you some -" he was cut off in mid sentence as he stared in shock at the scene before him. "What in God's name…?"

Sherlock was crouching on the floor, buck naked. In front of him were five or six jam jars full of a dark substance Lestrade really really hoped was not blood, though the paler-than-normal complexion of the younger man made him suspect that it was. He had apparently been finger-painting with it on the walls, as strange rust-colored pictographs were splattered about haphazardly.

"Terribly sorry about your security deposit," crooned Sherlock, walking to the sink to wash his hands, "but I'm afraid this is a very important experiment."

Lestrade stood in the doorway in stunned silence, his stare only matched by that of the skull named John which grinned down at him from a tall, third-hand shelf on the opposing wall.

Sherlock turned, smirking at him slightly. "Problem?"

Lestrade turned his glare on him, pointedly focusing on his eyes. "Hell yes there's a problem! We were supposed to meet up two hours ago to go over the Donaldson case with Anderson, and not only don't you show up, but you're here getting up to naked satanic mischief!"

Sherlock's eyes hardened at the mention of Anderson, but he chuckled slightly at Lestrade's assessment of his experiment.

"Neo-Gnostic, my dear Lestrade."

"What?"

"Naked neo-Gnostic mischief. Not Satanic. You can tell by the use of Greek. Though I don't suppose you understand Greek, do you?"

Lestrade ignored this blatant sting. "Still, what's it doing on the walls, you pretentious bastard?"

Sherlock smirked. "You really need to look over your own crime scene photos. I've recreated the exact scene of the Donaldson homicide. Well, minus the bodies, but I'm still banned from the mortuary. I was experimenting to see how long the blood had been outside the bodies of the victims before it was applied to the walls."

"And you couldn't use pig's blood or something." Lestrade didn't even bother to put that in the form of a question.

Sherlock shrugged. "Wrong consistency. Anyways, I discovered something interesting. It seems that the blood was at least five hours old before it was applied."

Lestrade stared at him in shock. "But the victims had only been dead for -"

"Three hours." Sherlock beamed at him triumphantly. "I know! Amazing, isn't it? Oh, it's like Christmas!"

"One more question." Lestrade looked at him quizzically.

"Let me guess. Why would someone do this? How did I figure it out? Why didn't you think of it first?"

Lestrade sighed in exasperation, trying not to look at the younger man's body. "No. Why the hell are you naked?"

Sherlock looked down. "Oh, yes. That. I didn't want to get blood on my clothes."

"Oh." Lestrade turned away. "Well, if you're quite finished, we should head to the station. And please put some bloody clothes on, if you don't mind."

"Am I embarrassing you?"

"No. I mean. . . yes. A little."

"Why?" Sherlock stared at him, genuine curiosity flickering in his eyes. "It's not like you've never seen me naked before."

Lestrade could feel his cheeks flushing. "Yes. Well, that was different."

"Why? Because I wasn't conscious?" He stalked closer to the older man, smirking even more now.

Lestrade whimpered to himself, trying to figure out what the hell the younger detective was playing at. Whatever his game, Lestrade didn't like where this was going. He needed to regain control of the situation before. . .

"Get dressed, Sherlock. We have a lot of work to do."

He stepped even closer, now less than a foot away. His voice, when it came, was a husky whisper.

"And if I refuse? What will you do?"

Lestrade coughed, his face now somewhere in the burgundy palate. This was not going to end well. He hissed angrily.

"Will you stop already? Heaven's sake, man! Fine. If you don't want to come with me, that's fine. But I'm leaving. I'll see you when you grow up, if that ever happens."

He yanked open the door and fled into the street, breathing heavily as he closed the door behind him.

"What the hell was that about?" he mused to himself, trying to calm the tremors in his legs.

Lestrade awoke abruptly to the sound of muffled sobs coming from Grace's room. He got out of bed abruptly, walking swiftly to her crib.

But it wasn't his daughter crying. No, it was Sherlock. He was lying on the bed as he had been over a year earlier, his eyes red and sore from weeping. Lestrade thought it a bit odd that Grace was nowhere to be found, and yet didn't question it enough to ask.

"What's wrong, Sherlock?"

The young man looked at him, but didn't seem to entirely see him. "Where did you go, Greg?"

It was the first time Lestrade had ever heard the younger man use his full name, and he felt his spine tingle at how it sounded in Sherlock's resonant timbre. And yet, the words themselves brought nothing but confusion.

"What do you mean? I'm right here."

"No. No you aren't. You left me. You left me all alone. You promised you wouldn't. Why did you lie to me?"

Lestrade moved to his side, more perplexed than ever. "But I'm right here."

"Prove it." Sherlock's eyes seemed to focus on him for the first time, sea-blue and full of unbelievable sorrow so bright it was blinding. Without a second thought, Lestrade pulled the younger man close, kissing him gently, chastely on the forehead.

"Believe me now?"

Sherlock shook his head slightly. "You made your choice. And I lost."

"What? When? What choice?"

The corner of Sherlock's mouth twitched, but he could not quite manage a smile. "A long time ago. And not yet. But it doesn't matter. I suppose nothing I could do would change your mind."

"What do you mean? You aren't explaining anything!"

"I am. You just aren't listening."

Lestrade pulled back, ready to leave the room, but Sherlock grabbed him by the wrists and pulled him into a kiss.

He protested at first, desperate to get away, to make sense of this situation. But as their lips lingered, he felt himself slide into a different kind of desperation. He pushed Sherlock to the bed and locked his wrists above his head,, assaulting his mouth furiously.

As he pulled back for air, Sherlock gasped in contentment, arching his back under the older man like a cat.

"My my. What would your wife say? I suppose you'd better wake up now before we both get in trouble."

"What?"

But the dream had already faded.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," crooned Aster, ruffling Lestrade's hair as she set his breakfast in front of him.

He moaned, holding on to his coffee mug for dear life. Whatever the hell he'd experienced last night, he was mentally and physically exhausted.

"That bad, huh?" She smiled down at him, green eyes bright with concern. "You were crying out in your sleep last night. Case troubles?"

He nodded. She didn't even know the half of it.

I hate to do this to all of you, but SPEECHLESS will be on hold until December due to NaNoWriMo.