CHAPTER 7. CONVERSATIONS IN GRAY
Greg tried to move, to roll over to sit up anything but his body cried out in pain. So he decided to stay put, it was dark, wait no his eyes were closed, he slowly opened his good eye. Still in the warehouse, but locked in a boiler room, how unoriginal. He forced himself to sit up, holding in the pain it caused, his vision blurred, he could feel himself going clammy.
"Lestrade, sit still. You're alive. In the most cliché' of places. A boiler room in an abandoned warehouse. Well at least they left the light on. All so predictable. Why are you getting up anyway? Just sit, lean against the damn pipes they've got you chained to."
"You do know you're not real right?" Lestrade bit out, the pain thundering in his ears rolling through him like a hot tidal wave of hammers hitting at his shoulders and abdomen.
"You didn't even know you were chained to a pipe. I say we are even. Now,STOP moving around. You'll only make it worse." Again with the know it all tone, the tall thin detective pulled his coat around him and moved to crouch in front of the DI, who did just as he was told, leaning against the dusty pipes his right wrist was cuffed helplessly to.
"Why couldn't I have conjured up a pretty girl or I'd take a John Watson. He's always a blast."
"Lestrade, who knows how the mind works? But here I am, besides you don't know any pretty girls. And John is my friend."
"I know Molly and she's a pretty girl. She's actually quite-"
"Really Molly? She's a little out of your league don't you think. For one she's intelligent-"
"I'm not to bad myself. Besides I've been meaning to ask her out for coffee. She just seems a little distracted when I'm about to. I think she could like me."
"Oh, great conversations involving sentiment just my area." The imaginary Sherlock said in his sarcastic voice standing up now , his coat twirling behind him as he turned away.
"What's taking you so long any way? We'll if you are looking?"
"Of course I'm looking you idiot. I've told you before I've faked my death once to protect those I consider friends. You were one of them. Even if you don't believe it."
"You know when you came back I wasn't surprised. Not at all. I just wondered what took so long."
"You wouldn't understand." The imaginary Sherlock kept his back turned to the bruised Lestrade, Lestrade could see the familiar gesture, in fact he after Sherlock's "death" he would catch himself placing his own hands behind his back in a familiar manner.
"I know. I know. I'm an idiot."
"Smarter than most." The imaginary Sherlock sighed, shaking his head. "Lestrade, I know you remember this conversation, from the mere fact that I 'm repeating it, and I'm not very real. He was going to kill you, as in had a sniper pointing a red laser light on the back of your head. YOUR HEAD! They didn't care that you were in New Scotland Yard, he was going to kill you. Kill you, John, Mrs. Hudson. All of you. And I might as well be dead , without my heart-Moriarty was right Lestrade. He would burn the heart out of me, John being the the ever present conscience, Mrs. Hudson and her sentimental ways. And you, you Greg with your hope your stubborn determination that I could be more and you would take whatever abuse I hurled your way to show me I could be. I cant believe you are making me say this again." Imaginary Sherlock turned now, moving to crouch again in front of the half conscious detective.
"S'good to hear again." DI Lestrade tried to smile despite his split upper lip.
"Fine. I'll say it then. You are my friend Greg Lestrade. You are my friend and I would die before I allowed anyone to take that away. "
Greg remembered the day Sherlock returned, the way the sun shown brightly over head despite the dreary London weather they'd been having. On break the DI was sitting on the park bench cappuccino in hand, his mind drifting. Thinking of the past three years, how when ever he had to go to Barts his stomach turned these days.
He'd felt guilty for dragging Sherlock into his cases, well he was as bad as a dealer taunting the Consulting Detective with the complex cases where the DI couldn't seem to figure it out. And then Sherlock would swoop in and point out three or four things they missed, putting everyone down in his ridiculous speech. But the case would be solved that's all that mattered to Greg, that the murderer would pay for his crimes. Black and white had been Greg Lestrade's vision of the law, but Sherlock managed to drawl him into the gray, more than once. And slow DI Lestrade would always be one step behind that impossible man and his ever patient Doctor.
So when he felt the presence of another sitting next to him, Greg didn't look over, so lost in his own thoughts. Thoughts of running after the two trying to get a clear statement, and in English, not the bigheaded posh language Sherlock liked to use. Before giving up and saying "Oh let me write it down for you!" Lestrade found himself once more chuckling over a remembered conversation, where at the time he had been frustrated, but now god he missed it.
"Remembering a Joke?" Came the baritone voice, Lestrade pulled away from the memory.
"No-just a friend. A frustrating old friend."
"Oh, sounds like a comedian."
"No, no far from it. He just had this way to twist me around and make me dizzy. A whirl wind that one. A good man. "
"Oh, he sounds like an idiot." Lestrade snapped out of his musings remembering then he was carrying on a conversation with a complete stranger.
"I'm sorry do I-" his thoughts fell away unable to form any coherent sounds but somehow he'd stood up a frown on his face. His coffee forgotten it toppled out of his hands onto the dark cement.
"Sherlock?"
"DI-" the other man stood, wearing a familiar Bellstaff coat, his hair a little more wilder, a spot of gray starting just around the ears. Lestrade could see that the 3years hadn't been easy. His usually vibrant friend seemed somewhat defeated, vulnerable. As if he was worried to say anything more, afraid that Greg would push him away, or punch him in the face like someone had already. The gray eyes, so haunting still pierced through him, searching his posture and expression for some sign, something to deduce to gather more data on how to proceed.
"What took you so long?" Greg Lestrade Detective Inspector for NSY pulled the younger man into a tight hug. Feeling the fine bones under the coat, Sherlock had lost weight, but he was alive. "You idiot! What took you so long!" He pulled away, realizing that the hug had been stiffly accepted.
Now in the boiler room Lestrade frowned closing his eyes remembering the sun on that day, the hesitant but uninterrupted explanation, a dumbed down account of the his friends dark adventures. Now Greg caught the familiar glare, the icy gray eyes narrowed and he could hear the imaginary Sherlock start to pace before falling gratefully into the darkness once more.