Three years sober. An achievement anyone, especially something with a high stress job (and more often than not, lifestyle as well) could and should be proud of. But right now it was a different addiction that Gregory Lestrade was keening to satisfy.
His fingers twitched, shook and tapped against his desk as he peeled off a wasted flesh coloured patch and resisted the overwhelming urge to slap yet another one of his wrist. He had seen enough of Sherlock's own nicotine overdoses to know that he never wanted that kind of detox afterwards.
Lestrade watched the clock hands in the hallway outside tick around the circle with a mocking slowness. Barely 45 seconds till six o'clock, till his bloody shift was over. He had been bogged with paperwork, and had been forced to skip his lunch in order to organize the massive amounts of filing that Sherlock somehow managed to create every time Lestrade asked him just to have a look around.
12 more seconds.
"C'mon you fucker," Lestrade found himself muttering.
5 more seconds.
"Just let me leave, damn you!"
2. 1.
As soon as the second hand mercifully clicked over to the twelve, Lestrade, coat in hand, was out his office door and jogging down the stairs. He forced himself not to push through the sliding glass doors of Scotland Yard, and stood out in the crowded streets, relishing the scent of London. The sweet, sickly scent of car fumes, the bitter smell of skips slowly rotting in alleyways, and… That's it. He breathed deeper. The wonderful tang of a freshly lit cigarette filled his mind.
"Ah, Lestrade, I was hoping I would catch you after your shift. It turns out it was the butler who-"
Sherlock was cut off as Lestrade grabbed the small white box out of his hand, and shoved a cigarette into his mouth, lighting it with shaking fingers.
Sherlock smirked around his own smoke. "Bad day?"
Lestrade didn't say anything, only exhaled in obvious relieve and gratitude.
"You two are awful." John scolded them, and Lestrade noticed him for the first time, standing grimly next to Sherlock. "You were both doing so well, and you let a little case ruin all your efforts."
Lestrade sheepishly hid the cigarette behind his back, feeling not unlike a caught schoolboy.
Sherlock scoffed and blew smoke into John's face. "Lighten up, Doctor."
John's scowl grew deeper and Lestrade couldn't help but chuckle just a little bit when John snatched the cigarette right out of Sherlock's mouth and threw it on the ground, stamping down on it with surprising force. His laughing grew louder as they began to bicker like an old married couple.
Lestrade threw his own cigarette on the pavement next to Sherlock's now crushed one, said goodbye to John and Sherlock, who barely looked over at him, and began walking towards the tube station, thankful for the cleansing wind blowing in from the nearby park.