Lestrade had finished cleaning and packing away the guest room with a melancholic air. He was pleased that Sherlock had taken matters into his own hands, had found himself a flat and had rented it. But he missed having the violin music playing at ludicrous hours, missed the detective flopping around being bored and fidgety, missed the languid put-downs and the devouring of case files.
He also worried about Sherlock on his own. He wasn't sure the consulting detective was up to it. Sherlock had given Greg permission to drop by two days after he moved in, and Greg was eager to see his new flat. He had no idea what to expect. But anything, he reflected, was an improvement on the garage.
On a cold and frosty morning, Greg wiped his nearly frozen feet on the mat outside a dilapidated and neglected block of flats. It was already not a promising start. Greg made his way down the corridor and knocked on the door of number 3. Only a few moments passed before he heard Sherlock on the other side slouch to the door. In the meantime he inspected the peeling red paint on the wood. Getting worse, Lestrade decided.
Sherlock swung open the door and beckoned Lestrade in. When Greg stepped over the threshold Sherlock sat back down at the same old rickety table that Lestrade had seen at the garage, and continued to munch on his bread and honey. Greg didn't think it looked like a very satisfying meal, but thought it was a good sign that Sherlock was at least eating something.
"Welcome to my humble abode," Sherlock muttered in a monotone, mouth sticking together.
Greg glanced over the place. It didn't take long to see it all, as there wasn't really much to see. And it was certainly humble. Two rooms: a main room consisting of a couch doubling as a bed, a table and kitchenette, and then a bathroom leading off it. Greg didn't miss the crack in the ceiling and the leaking kitchen sink, and he grimaced at the dust and the cockroach. No, not the cockroach – the cockroach family. There was also a rather hideous frayed and faded yellow and red carpet on the floor.
"I'll boil the tea," Sherlock suggested. "Put some toast on?"
Greg declined the offer; he didn't want to touch any of Sherlock's food if it meant Sherlock wouldn't be eating it. Out of the blue, Lestrade had to catch the set of keys lobbed in his direction. If not for his quick reflexes, he wouldn't have liked to see the black eye.
"What're the keys for?" he asked.
"Well they gave me two sets, and since there's only one of me I thought the best way to keep Mycroft's hands off the second pair was to give them to you. Anyway, then you don't have to knock and make me get up from what I'm doing if you want to come over with cases or whatnot."
Greg was a bit touched by the fact Sherlock would give him the keys to his flat. He decided to cut Sherlock a spare set of his house keys. He sipped at the tea and was surprised momentarily – it was very a good pot of tea. Something he wouldn't have credited Sherlock for being able to do, but then again, Lestrade thought of Sherlock's commandeering presence in his kitchen last week. He wondered when he'd stop being surprised by Sherlock. Sherlock rubbed his eyes for a moment and winced.
"All right?"
He jerked up, almost as if startled.
"No, no…fine. It's all fine," he went back to looking at some papers on his lap. It looked like sheet music.
Greg inspected him more closely. Sherlock looked as if he was coming down with the flu.
"Are you getting a flu? Have a sore throat?"
No reply. Greg took the lack of argument to mean that he did. That might explain the bread and honey.
"Have you got any medicine?"
"I don't need any."
"That's beside the point; what if I'm over here once and I have a headache? I want to know where your medicine is."
"Top left cupboard."
Greg swung open the doors and took down the dirty plastic box. In there was a solitary band-aid, one container of sore throat gargle, one box of aspirin and a three other brown bottles. They all looked positively ancient. Lestrade inspected one of the bottles with dirt encrusting the white lid, scratches on the brown glass and a stained and torn label. He then checked the aspirin for a use-by date. It had expired nine years ago.
"Sherlock!" he cried. "This aspirin would kill you because it's so old – and this tea tree oil remembers Queen Elizabeth the first!"
Lestrade tipped the entire contents of the pitiful medicine box into the bin and opened Sherlock's door. After a long-winded argument he managed to drag Sherlock out of his flat to go shopping for essentials. When he'd opened the kitchenette cupboards, Lestrade had discovered the reason Sherlock was having bread and honey was not because honey would be good for a scratchy throat, but because his entire food cupboard contained one loaf of bread, one bottle of honey and three boxes of teabags.
"You should get a haircut while we're in town Sherlock," Greg suggested as they rode in a cab to the CBD. "Your hair's very long."
Sherlock shook his head stiffly.
"Why not?"
"Because this way it covers my neck."
Greg looked confused.
"It's warmer that way. Your neck is one of the vital places for determining body temperature; if your neck is cold then so is the rest of you. Why do you think that in winter people only pull the duvet up to their chin?"
Lestrade's heart sunk at these words. He pictured Sherlock, huddled in a cold garage or on a freezing pavement, long hair acting as the warmer he didn't have access to. The image of him in Lestrade's mind was so small and pitiful.
"We'll cut your hair and I'll buy you a scarf."
"I'm not having someone cut my hair."
"Why not?"
Sherlock paused before answering, and Lestrade was surprised Sherlock had decided to tell him: "I don't like strangers touching me. Touching my hair. I don't want them to."
Greg remembered how he'd been whenever anyone had touched him unexpectedly; when Caroline had accidentally touched him and he'd frozen.
"What about if I cut it for you?"
"Can you cut hair?" Sherlock asked sceptically.
"Nope!" Greg answered happily. Sherlock's mouth twisted into a half-grimace. "Come on. Please? I won't chop off your ears or cut anything that isn't hair. And it looks too scruffy. Much too scruffy."
"Fine!" Sherlock huffed. "Blue scarf please. Dark blue. It would match the coat. Like my old one."
Greg smiled; he suddenly remembered Sherlock when he first met him: an imposing black coat with the look set off well decked in the blue scarf. It made Sherlock look dramatic and imposing. Lestrade thought that the consulting detective's power complex was as bad as his brother's.
They went to the chemist first, and Sherlock's face contorted with disgust when their ears were assaulted by disco music. Sherlock checked his watch.
"Yes, why go to a drab and boring chemist?" Sherlock muttered. "Instead of going to a pharmacy, come down to a pharma-disco, where the action never stops, not even at the inappropriate hour of half-ten in the morning."
Greg concealed a laugh, turning it into an odd, suppressed snort. Once they'd left the chemist, Sherlock tried to make off for his flat and escape his own personal hell that Greg was putting him through.
"Oh no Sherlock, we're not done yet! Clothes shopping next!" Greg winked, and ignoring Sherlock's look of utter horror, he dragged him off to the nearest menswear store.
"Please, remind me to never do that to myself again," Greg moaned, laden with multiple heavy shopping bags that Sherlock had refused to carry – 'It was your idea to buy it!' –slumping into the consulting detective's poky flat. He dumped the bags and rubbed his sore hands. Sherlock placed the solitary bag he'd carried home on the table.
"Don't worry Lestrade, rest assured that I will definitely remind you never to do that to me again."
He and Lestrade shared a cringe thinking about the day.
"Tea?" Greg asked, and Sherlock grunted appreciatively. As the kettle boiled, Lestrade took the scarf out of the bag and gave it to Sherlock, who wrapped it around himself. It had been an expensive scarf – costed Greg 95 quid. Apparently it was the same material as Sherlock's other one. Greg had ruefully passed over the 50-pound scarf – exactly the same except for the fabric. But he wanted to get Sherlock what he asked for, and if this had to be it then that was what Greg would buy him.
Lestrade watched Sherlock wrap himself up with satisfaction; Sherlock was warm. And knowing that he was keeping him from freezing during frosty winters made Greg feel very content inside. Wrap him in a lovely, thick scarf; keep Sherlock sheltered from the cold. Keep Sherlock safe.
They sat down with their tea and Greg picked up a slightly rusty pair of scissors he'd found on Sherlock's kitchenette bench. He snipped the scissors jokingly menacingly as he approached Sherlock with a wink. He fingered the locks as he chopped them, but made sure he left quite a bit of length. He liked the black curls. Though now they were starting to get ridiculous. Rolling his eyes, Sherlock watched as hunks of his hair cascaded around his shoulders and fell down his shirt.
"You should have given me a towel. Didn't think this through well. You should've put a towel on the ground. Easier to sweep off the floor."
"Yes, yes…unfortunately not everyone can be up to speed with your incredible intellect."
"That I'll concede."
From then on, Greg was the only person Sherlock would ever entrust his hair to every three months.