A.N: Sorry about the poor writing quality of this chapter. Been very busy with other things. Hope you enjoy anyway.
Chapter 5
Greg Lestrade was just ushering his clients out of his office when the mysterious man in the long black coat swept past then and into the room. Lestrade apologised to the couple, and joined Sherlock in the office. When he turned around, the detective had already hung up his coat, set up his laptop and plugged it in to Lestrade's desktop computer. With a sigh, he walked over to have a look.
"Now, what about the eyes?" he asked, annoyed. Sherlock rolled his own eyes.
"I caught a glimpse of our captor's eyes," Sherlock informed, opening up the images and dragging a few across screens to display on the large monitor, "Look". He pointed to the highest quality screen capture. "The eyes are a peculiar mixture of Blue, Green and brown. This narrows down our search immensely!" the detective barely smirked. He still had the fresh images in his mind. Lestrade looked a little closer.
"Blimey, you'd think he'd want to hide that. It's pretty rare, did you think that it could-," Lestrade was cut off by the Consulting Detective.
"Yes, I have. They are not contact lenses; you would be able to see the outline. Also, if they were lenses, at this angle, you would be able to see the natural colour of the eye beside the pupil. Cosmetic lenses have room for the pupil to dilate whilst not completely covering the pupil. You can see that the pupil is only half dilated, and there is no colour difference. These are not cosmetic lenses, these are obviously real eyes. Now, we just need to run the description through the system and find a match," the detective explained in his usual smooth and swift manner.
Lestrade shrugged. "Sure, go ahead," he said, "How did you get these pictures anyway?"
Sherlock kept pressed his pale lips together into a line. Lestrade moved to the front of the desk and sat down. His face looked stern, yet concerned. He'd known Sherlock a long time, and he could admit that he hardly knew anything about the detective. He did know however, that the detective was keeping something from him.
"You got another video," he finally said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes".
"Tell me about it".
"No".
Lestrade furrowed his brows. "I'm not stupid, Sherlock. John is my mate too. I want to know what's going on," he demanded firmly.
Sherlock gritted his teeth. "If you must know, I spent my morning watching John have bleach rubbed into his wounds, and red-hot pins put through his cheeks. If you are too stupid to realise, I am not in a very sanguine mood this morning. It would be much more beneficial for you to just shut up." Sherlock growled, not noticing the look on Lestrade's face.
"I'm done with this. I've put up with your insults for years now, and it's high time I said something, innit? I understand you're upset about John, we all are. But you don't have to get so offensive. You should talk to someone," Lestrade suggested. It was true, his patience was wearing very thin, but he was human enough to know how to go about asserting himself against the detective at a time like this.
"Why would I need to talk to someone? I'm perfectly fine," Sherlock spat, not even looking up.
"It's obvious you're not. Like I said, I'm not an idiot. I've been doing some deducing of my own," Lestrade said, dumbing down the word 'Deducing' as if it were a stupid term. He knew it wasn't. What Sherlock could do was fantastic.
"And what do you think you've found?" The detective asked sarcastically, a spiteful tone in his voice.
"You haven't slept, Sherlock. And you've been moodier than a teenage girl. Yeah, he's your mate, and you have every right to be upset. But seriously, you're acting as if you've had your husband taken," Lestrade pulled a chair around to sit next to Sherlock, who had his face in his hands.
"Look," Lestrade started, softening his tone to be as soothing as he could, "I'm not trying to be a dick. You really need to talk to somebody. Like, Molly or something. Maybe even your brother, I don't know. You can talk to me if you want, just get all of it out. I don't want to see those marks anymore. Not again".
Lestrade looked at Sherlock's arm, where an angry welt had popped up from a needle mark. Sherlock pushed his sleeve down to hide it. Sherlock tried to say some sarcastic response, but nothing came to him. For a moment, he felt something different. Vulnerable. He mentally cursed himself for being so emotional. It wasn't like him.
"I don't know," Sherlock said, barely audibly. Lestrade raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know. It's my fault he's gone. I shouldn't have been so intrusive. I was only curious," Sherlock whispered. He felt somewhat guilty. More so than he'd ever felt.
Lestrade looked at the tall man. "Tell me about it," he asked politely.
"I caught John laughing in the kitchen, and I asked him about it. I told him that I knew he was in love, and I was about to guess who it was, when he told me, and then went out. I thought he was going to see his new girlfriend or whatever the woman is," Sherlock explained.
"Is that it?" was the reply.
"I sort of made a joke or two about how he was blushing furiously," Sherlock confessed, "He'd been acting strange all morning. Nearly blushing the whole time".
Lestrade leaned back and crossed his arms. "Well, what about you?" he asked. He knew how to counsel. It was just about asking the right questions. It was part of his training, and he figured it might come in handy at that present point in time.
"Nothing".
"There's something. You can tell me. It's not like I'm going to tell the whole department. I'm not that kind of person," Lestrade reassured.
"It's stupid. Pathetic, even".
"Just tell me".
Sherlock sighed. "I've been having these… emotions. Every time I think about John or the case I get these pangs of feelings and I haven't a clue what they mean. It's hateful, how do you normal people deal with it. I wish I could just delete them".
Lestrade smirked. He knew exactly what Sherlock's problem was. He didn't dare say it though. The amount of drama that would follow if he mentioned it wouldn't be worth adding to the more important situation at hand.
Suddenly, there was a short tone, and they both looked at the computer. The monitor displayed the words 'NO MATCH' in large red block letters. Sherlock slammed his hands down onto the desk. His face held a dangerous expression.
"How can there be no match!?" he shouted, furiously clicking through the search terms he'd entered and made sure everything was sound.
Lestrade stood and paced a bit. "One blue eye, and one half and half. There's no way it's not on the system," he said, confused.
"Unless he's somehow removed himself from the system," Sherlock growled, his baritone voice sounding threatening. "I need to think alone," he said, and swiftly grabbed his things. He was out the door before Lestrade could stop him.
…..
As soon as he opened the door to the flat, Sherlock threw his things down onto the two-seater. He felt a flurry of emotions cloud his mind. Anger, frustration, confusion. They were the main ones. There was one more that was slowly getting stronger. He was feeling guilty. Finally, he had what seemed to be a perfect lead, and it was a failure. He felt as if he'd failed John. The guilt was becoming stronger and stronger, and he stormed into his bedroom. A hesitant hand reached for the bedside drawer. Inside was a pile of syringes and a few vials. He'd acquired them as of late, and found they stopped him feeling these damned emotions long enough to think. Before even thinking, he'd taken one of the syringes out of the drawer and removed it of its packaging. For a moment he felt as if he shouldn't, but he still grabbed the vial and filed the syringe, not paying attention to the amount he was using. Whipping off his belt, he quickly fastened it around his bicep and tensed. The all too familiar pain of the needle entering his skin made him wince a little, letting the seemingly excessive amount of liquid run into his bloodstream. Once the needle ran dry, he removed it and the belt, and threw them down onto the floor.
Sherlock could already feel his mind numbing as the effects of the high began. For a moment it became easier to think with fewer feelings, and he used that short burst of time to try and figure out what else he could do with the only lead he had. He soon became aware of a throbbing in his head, which only grew stronger and more painful with time. Within ten minutes, it had become so unbearable that the detective was shouting out and clawing at his head to try and make it stop. Just when the pain had gotten to its worst, Sherlock blacked out.