Small World: Overture
"Skeletons"
By Nan00k
The first day his father had handed him a gun was the day Lestrade killed his first monster. Decades later, he is still haunted. Superwholock AU. Hunter!Lestrade.
Haha, yes, I am still working on this monstrosity. Good news is that I've taken off one of the "prologue" stories here from Overture, so maybe we'll get to the main story faster. Maybe. When I'm like 80 years old. Sighhh. Still moving along with this, though!
jfc, Lestrade, I love you, but I don't think you deserved 12k+ words. Okay, maybe you do. Wah.
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Warnings: MASSIVE crossover, mixing of canons, alternative universe setting, dark themes, brief mentions of physical and emotional child abuse
Disclaimers: Sherlock © Moffat/Gatiss. Supernatural © Kripke/CW. Good Omens © Pratchet and Gaiman. Doctor Who © BBC.
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Denham, England
1973
Gregory Lestrade was a poor example of a son.
The Lestrades were an old family. Ancient, his grandfather told him on nights he wasn't out up in the moors or down along the coasts hunting. They could trace their roots back to the Normans, in France, to Viking warriors who became medieval lords. There were many monks in their family history, but most were knights of forgotten sects, serving the kings of their lands in a very specialized manner. All Lestrades were raised to be good sons and good hunters.
It would figure that somewhere down the line, that expectation failed with Gregory.
His mother died when he was five. It was his uncle's fault, his father swore, for encouraging Adelaide to go on a hunt without him. It was a werewolf that got her. Ripped her to pieces, he was told. Greg had hated dogs ever since.
That left him with his father and the expansive hunter network in the British isles to call family. The Campbells were the closest and the largest; they were actually cousins to the Lestrades. They had spread over to America ages ago, but there were still many left in England. They didn't often go in large groups to hunt, but they shared information and tricks. Gregory remembered sitting upon many knees, listening way into the night, about the best ways to kill witches, stake vampires, and decapitate ghouls.
The Campbells weren't the best people. Sometimes, even Gregory's father told them to tone it down in front of him; sometimes, even the toughest Lestrade hunters exchanged mildly concern over the boldness or the recklessness of the more extreme branch. No one told them to stop being bold, however; the adults all agreed that as long as the monsters were dead, it didn't matter how it was done.
Gregory believed that mantra. He did, up until he was five and he read a children's book on fairies and spirits. The drawings were so colorful and cheerful, the first sliver of doubt entered his young mind.
"Do we kill fairies, too?" he asked one of his not-uncles, a surly man from Edinburgh who was staying the night after helping the rest of the family take down a swarm of grindylows infesting the nearby lake.
"Yes, we do, lad," the one man said, behind a foul-smelling pipe.
"Why?" Gregory asked. "They're so pretty in the books."
That earned him a chorus of jeers from the other men, making him cringe inwards on himself. "The books lie, boy," the old hunter told him. He pointed out the window with a severe jabbing finger. "Out there is the truth and it'll kill you."
Part of him felt embarrassed for asking such an obvious question; of course anything not human was a monster and of course monsters were bad.
Part of him could not shake, however, a deeper sense of confusion. It lingered inside of him and he hoped it would continue to linger unseen by his father, who's correcting slaps stung less than the sharp, mocking words responding to stupid questions and innocent doubts.
When he was six years old, his father handed him a gun. They went out and hunted down a shapeshifter. Gregory got a wild shot in and a headshot brought it down long enough for his father to hand him a knife to cut off its head. He could only cut halfway through the neck before his father finished the job for him.
Gregory didn't sleep for weeks.
0000
Rannoch Moor, Scotland
1981
When he was twelve, he went with his father into the depths of Rannoch moor, toward Black Mount. A vampire coven had been preying on the visitors to the loch and the moorlands. Word had spread, as it always did, through the channels of hunters. His father had thought it would be a good experience for the boy to go on a "real hunt." Gregory had agreed out of a deeper sense that he wasn't living up to the expectations of his relatives. He was too soft; too young. This hunt could change that.
That was why he would up out there, alone, stumbling through muddy and uneven terrain, falling into deep pits of freezing water. He couldn't see the A82 anymore and he had lost his father and team an hour prior. He didn't want to think it had been deliberately planned for him to be wandering out there alone. Even his father wasn't that harsh a teacher.
It was still terrifying to wind up alone and then facing down a shack built into the peat mounds. Bearing his gun out as if it could save him from a vampire attack—which it would not—Gregory entered the shack without thinking much of the consequences. It was a knee-jerk reaction that left him reeling at his own audacity.
The vampire inside the shack didn't think much of him or his stupidity. It was an older looking man, bloodless and fearless of the weapon pointed his way. It looked like one of the old-man hunters, the ones who were forced to retire because their bones got too weak and their faces too worn and wrinkled.
"Y'fancy yerself a hunter, do y'boy?" the vampire asked.
Gregory kept the gun pointed at the creature, the barrel wavering almost in sync with his heart rate. "I'll kill you," he swore, mostly to convince himself. It barely worked.
The vampire grinned, fangless. "I figured."
And that was it. The creature continued to sit on the lone wicker seat, smoking a pipe. It didn't move. It didn't acknowledge him again. Gregory stood there, heart pounding, sweat at his brow, and didn't know what to do.
He waited and waited for the monster to strike him dead and it never happened.
Slowly, apprehension turned into full out confusion.
"What?" he asked, startling himself.
The vampire glanced at him, unimpressed.
"What?" the creature prompted back.
He couldn't help himself. "You're not running?" Gregory asked, baffled. Sure, the gun wouldn't kill the creature, but a hunter was still a hunter.
"No," the vampire said, closing his eyes. It would have been insulting had it not been so obvious the monster meant no insult by it. "If one of you wretches is here, your kin are close behind."
Gregory squinted at the monster, who made no effort to move at all. "Then why not fight?" he asked.
One eye opened, pinning him in his spot with its weariness. "I'm tired, boy," the monster answered, as if that answered every question about it.
It was then that the picture became clearer.
"You're not the one who's been killing the hikers?" Gregory asked, the realization dawning on him like a douse of cold water to the face. They had tracked down—he had tracked down—the wrong monster?
"No," the vampire admitted. He nodded his head towards the door, beyond them into the moor. "I saw 'em, the ones that move through the moors, lookin' for fools daring the paths at night. I turn away the fools that stumble my way, but not all listen. The ones that don't, they don't leave."
Gregory knew he shouldn't have believed it for one second. But he did. Against all the reason his father had instilled in him, he did believe it.
"But it wasn't you?" he asked.
"No," the vampire said. He smiled; it was the same humorless smile the older hunters gave when asked stories about their hardest hunts. "But does it matter?"
Gregory didn't know. He felt his gun tip down, lowered by a sudden sense of confusion and insecurity.
He didn't know if it mattered. What if it did? He didn't know, but deep down, deep where his father couldn't see, Gregory wished in that moment that it did matter.
It ultimately did not, when his father and other hunters burst into the shack. His father dragged him out, hurling him out onto the cold dirt.
"Dad!" he shouted, scrambling to get to his feet. He saw flames jet to life inside the hut. "No, wait!"
Illuminated by fire and the commotion inside the hut, his father turned. "Why?" he demanded curtly.
"He..." Gregory could barely say the words aloud. He could only picture the ageless face, the empty look, the resignation, on the face of a being he had thought he'd only find as a mindless beast. "He's not the one who killed the hikers! I think he's been hiding in the moors this whole time by himself."
In the poor lighting, he could barely see his father's face, but he could see his brow furrow in confusion and annoyance. "So?" he spat, turning away again before Gregory could say anything else.
The hunters crowed with success; the vampire dead and left to burn. Gregory sat on the ground for longer than he should have. He was soaked to the bone; the fire blew outward, but the warmth didn't reach him.
He didn't understand.
"Come on, lads, let's get out before the fog rolls back in," one of his not-uncles declared to a chorus of happy agreement. He motioned at the teen on the ground. "Greg! Come on."
Gregory could only stare at the outline of the hut door. "But he wasn't..."
"He wasn't what?" the uncle asked.
"Bad," Gregory said, the word curling up on his tongue like spoiled milk.
Only some of the men bothered to listen; he was glad he had been ignored by most, since those than had heard him sent him horrible looks. His father came upon him in a whirlwind of disappointment and anger, yanking Gregory to the side, hissing in his ear.
"If there is one thing you need to remember, boy, it's that that thing in there? That creature?" his father said, pointing at the burning hut. He pointed the finger harshly into Gregory's chest. "It's bad. It's all bad. It's always been bad and you hate it. You kill what you hate, boy, and that's that."
He yanked away from his son and stomped after the others. Gregory was left standing in the shadow of the fire and he had never felt more outside the world he had been born into.
"Why?" he asked the cold air. His whole body ached.
He never got an answer.
It was then that bitterness crept into his heart.
0000
Dover
1985
When he was seventeen, he lost faith in his father's religion.
That religion was simple: hunt the monsters that plagued the Earth. Their faith was righteous and necessary. Sacrifices had to be made. Every hunter risked their life on the field. Those that followed this creed had to accept that fact. Greg almost had.
He had very nearly, almost, had.
They had tracked down a shapeshifter in the south of Dover. Apparently, there had been rumors of one being there over a year ago, but the trail went cold. Then, just as Greg and his father had been moving through the area by chance, another lead popped up. They were invited by yet another distant clan to join the hunt.
Greg had expected it to be one of the few righteous-feeling hunts, because one of the supposed victims had been a child. Shifers were nasty. He focused on that.
Just before three in the morning, they caught someone. It wasn't a shifter, but Greg didn't realize it until he had followed his father and Uncle Preston into the back of an old antique shop. In the backroom, Greg saw a bunch of men crowded around a younger bloke on the ground, his hands tied behind his back.
He had to have been human, Greg realized, because he was still alive and had a head. He didn't look much older than Greg.
It was then that a trickle of cold, sick fear began to seep down into his gut.
The man on the floor was crying and clearly terrified. Before Greg could ask why they had captured a human when they were supposed to be hunting down a shapeshifter, the story fell into place.
"We know you've been helping that monster," Uncle Preston—a loud and violent man whom Greg had always avoided as a boy—said, shaking the tied up man by his neck. "We saw you with its skin! Tell us where it went!"
"I won't let you hurt him!" their captive said. He was crying violently, clearly terrified. "He's not doing anything bad!"
Greg's father moved to the side, pacing like a predator. "He's murdered five people."
"No! The first—it was an accident! I swear!"
"Your own brother, you mean?" Greg's father asked, almost taunting, as their captive's face paled even more.
Greg recalled that the list of victims had a younger boy on it from a year ago. It had been the last victim before a recent woman went hysterical to the police about a shapeshifting beast who had shed its skin in front of her, which was what had alerted the hunters in the area. The last name matched this man on the floor, now that Greg thought about it. He wasn't the smartest, but he could imagine what had happened. The man had thought to replace his brother with this shifter. He had pitied the shifter. Now, he was protecting him.
Tears flowed freely. "My brother—he didn't mean to. He, he tried to fix things," the wounded man said, sobbing. He kept shaking his head. "Please, he's just scared. He's barely a man yet."
Part of Greg wanted to ask why a human would beg for the life of a shapeshifter. Man and monster could never co-exist. That was a tenant of his father's faith in their mission as hunters. It was just understood.
Part of Greg wondered why, then, this man cried for the shifter. He wondered why he, out of all the other hunters present, was the only one who was visibly hesitating. Didn't they ever wonder? Didn't they ever just stop and—ask? Speak to their prey? Speak to the questionable creatures to figure out just why they did whatever it was they did? Didn't his father or uncles ever wonder about the validity of how monstrous monsters actually were?
"Never thought I'd see a shifter get a groupie," Uncle Preston said, laughing along with the older men. He kicked the man on the floor violently in the side of the head, causing him to fall over on his side. "Tell us where the bloody shifter went and we won't lob your head off with his!"
"Uncle Preston, maybe—," Greg started to say, eyes darting nervously toward the shifter's friend. He felt his hear leap when the man's pleading eyes found his and practically screamed in their silence.
"Shut up, Greg," his uncle snapped. He began to roll up his sleeves. "Watch and learn."
They hit the man for over an hour, over and over again. Uncle Preston became angrier and angrier until the shifter's friend's face was a puddle of blood and flesh. Greg knew he should have left, but his father wouldn't let him. He had to sit in the back of the room, shaking and fighting off violent throes of nausea as their captive kept crying and sobbing and begging for mercy.
When the man's eyes seemed to flicker to his once, Greg had to close his eyes and cover his ears. He didn't care if anyone saw at that point. No one seemed to notice him then; they were too busy beating a man to death.
Finally, the man broke. With a barely audible voice and spoken through a slurring jaw, the man said he had gotten the shifter a ferry ticket, one way to Calais. The last boat was leaving soon and he had planned to meet the shifter in France once the coast was clear.
"We can hit the pier now," his father said, looking around at his allies. "Hobbs, Markel, take the jeep and head there now. Try to stall the boat."
Greg felt his stomach roll as he stood up and expected to follow his father out to the car. He looked over at the man on the floor and knew the bloke needed a doctor. He thought about finding a phone quickly in the front of the shop, but before he could even think about asking his father if he could slip away real quick, he saw his uncle take his revolver from his hip pocket.
A scream escaped him when Uncle Preston shot the man once in the head, the sound muffled by a silencer. The man never made a sound on the floor. His body gave a violent jerk and then slumped into the puddle of already congealing blood on the cement floor.
Greg couldn't breathe.
"You killed him!" he screamed. He lashed out without thinking and grabbed his uncle's arm to yank him forward. "You killed him!"
Uncle Preston yanked his arm back, bewildered and angry. "What's wrong with you, boy?!"
Greg could barely fathom what had just happened. Words fell out of his mouth, mixed with grief and horror and desperation to find out just why that had just happened. "You—you said you'd let him go! Why—why did you kill him?! He was human!"
"It was too late for him!" Uncle Preston roared back. He turned and fixed Greg's father with a pointed finger. "You need to remind your son what it means to be out here. We're the last barrier between this world, with monsters and their ilk, and the world out there! With real people, people who haven't sold their souls, people who matter!"
"He mattered, too!" Greg screamed.
His uncle hit him. The closed fist sent him stumbling to the side and his ears rang.
The men moved out quickly, because the shifter was still out there. Greg shrank to the far wall and couldn't think about moving. His eyes fell onto the corpse of the human on the floor and he couldn't think about anything at all.
He could hear his own breathing, in and out, like an automated machine, disconnected from his mind and soul.
A hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. When he looked up, his father stared back down at him.
"Greg, you need to understand that this is how this works," his father said. He looked like he was trying to pity Greg, but it only came out as disappointment. "We can't save everyone. Sometimes, they're too far gone."
He said it as if Greg was still a child and he could still be preached to. That he could still sell his songs of killing and honor like it was just about honor and righteousness. As if Greg had not just witnessed their crime.
This hadn't been about saving an innocent man.
This had been about hunting and only hunting.
Like a pack of wolves.
His father was staring at him with a slightly concerned look. Greg stared back and felt emptied and hollowed out, like they had taken a chisel and whittled him away.
"Greg?" his father asked.
He couldn't bear it.
"You're all insane," Greg said, shaking his head.
He turned and then he began to walk right out of the garage. He walked faster and faster toward the road, his heart pounding in his ears.
"Greg?" he father called, sounding both angry and shocked. "Gregory!"
Greg didn't stop. He couldn't. His feet carried him on the road for what must have been hours and he collapsed by a gully, throwing up everything that had been in his stomach.
0000
The following month, he applied to university in London. He struggled over a major for several months, mainly because he had never once in his life thought about going to university. It just had not fit into his reality as a hunter, who would hunt things day after day, for the rest of his life, until he could no longer hold a gun.
He chose criminal justice. It felt strangely right, settling into his gut like a pleasant warmth, when he read the descriptions of classes he could take and learn from. A police officer. A detective, even. He wasn't academic, but he could apply what he had learned growing up (the violence, the tracking, the hunting) and apply it to normal society, by helping the truly innocent. He could do something better than what he had been raised to do.
As expected—and he truly expected nothing else—his father hated it. He swore at Greg for over an hour over the phone. He blamed Greg's inability to be a man, to accept his responsibilities, and uphold family honor. If Greg hadn't already found a full time job and crap apartment in the city, his father most likely would have kicked him out. As it was, his father ended the call with an emotional threat to never associate himself with Greg again.
Greg stood by the phone for a long time, even as his newly-met roommates gave him odd looks when they passed, and he considered everything his father had said. The bitter, hurtful words stung. They cut deeply. What son—especially one who had lived the life Greg had—would not dread their father's scorn?
He took a deep breath.
And then exhaled.
And then tried his best to build a life from nothing.
He went to class and did an average job in most classes. He excelled in the upper level classes concerning criminal theory. He thought it was a little funny; his father's and uncles' teachings about how to hunt monsters strangely worked well on hunting human criminals too, sometimes.
What made it better was the fact that he wasn't hunting to kill. He was hunting and tracking criminals to bring them to actual justice. He was going to find the truth of each situation, each case, and he would be able to see wrongs righted through a better code than shooting a gun wildly into the night.
He was going to help people.
It felt like he had been reborn.
Greg kept moderate contact with some of his cousins and knew his father and family had moved on without him. He did not expect any contact with them. He was sort of glad for it, though as the years went by, he missed what little connection he had had with his father. Gradually, Greg knew he was growing up. He didn't need to linger in his father's blood-soaked shadow.
He worked at a bar at night to support himself all the way until graduation loomed in the distance. It had caught him off guard and he found himself suffering from spasms of panic whenever he considered if this was really the right thing.
For the first time in three and a half years, Greg tried to call his father, just to inform him of his impending successes. His father hadn't answered. Greg only tried once.
He applied for the force three months before he graduated. When he was accepted, he crouched down and gave a prayer of thanks.
His father did not return his calls.
0000
March, 1992
Sometime before his formal induction into the police force and after he had applied, he encountered a giant white space.
It was a mental thing. He thought he had gone mental when it wouldn't fade. It was entirely Shadwell's fault, that lunatic. He had gone to help the old man hunt down one of his "witchfinders" and wound up getting hurt in a bloody shop fire Shadwell had caused. Well, Lestrade couldn't remember any details of the fire, since he had hit his head during the aftermath, but apparently it had been a total mess. Shadwell had managed to drag them both out before it had killed anyone, thank God, because otherwise, his budding police career probably would have ended there one way or another.
Lestrade had been furious. His cousin Rupert had tried to calm him down, pointing out that Shadwell was senile. His ramblings about fighting off the "Grandmaster witch" on an airfield only made Lestrade more irritated over it all. He tried to brush it off as merely more proof involvement with the hunters was a bad idea.
Ironically, after the fire, Lestrade spent several weeks in more contact with the Lestrades and Campbells than he had had in years. His father had called him twice in one week after the news spread, asking if he was all right. It was tense and awkward. Lestrade was glad the calls eventually stopped. He didn't want his father using sympathy as an excuse to try to drag Lestrade back in.
He tried to blame the smoke inhalation and concussion for the gap in his memory. He knew that he should have remembered more time than he had, but it was only a day gone. It could have been worse. He could have died helping one of his lunatic family members doing the exact sort of job he had spent the last six years desperately trying to get out of.
Luckily, it was easier to forget the whole incident once Lestrade finally got back to work—his real work, his new career. He did well. In fact, he excelled. His record was exemplary from the start, even as he made a name for himself as being a bit lenient about playing it by the book. His supervisors sort of liked that, he thought, and people started to look to him as an example of what a police officer should have been: righteous but realistic.
Sadly, as his normal life of chasing low lives while patrol got rolling, he still could not shake some things from his old life.
Two years after the incident with Shadwell, he had started to have dreams. Vivid dreams.
Sometimes, he'd wake up from a long dream and had to splash cold water on his face in order to properly shake himself awake. He'd dream of blue boxes that were filled with fire and he was trapped inside of them. He'd dream of flaming metal swords being swung and it would cut open huge chunks of ground the moment he tried to grasp it.
Sometimes, he dreamt of a pale little boy with a cheeky grin and black, black eyes.
They were just dreams. In fact, Greg was certain they were nothing but karma, catching up to him. He had helped men kill potentially innocent people his entire youth. He knew it had not been his fault and it was his father who had to pay the price in terms of the morality of all of it, but Greg did feel a shadow of guilt in the back of his mind. Maybe the dreams were a remnant of those bad days. Maybe they were the universe's way of making sure he did not forget where he had come from…and what he had to always avoid becoming.
It got easier. The dreams lessened over the years and he focused on his new reality. One without monsters, without zealot militia men running wild in the night, and without an absence of honest law and order.
Confronting humans for the sake of other humans felt more natural and more honorable than anything his father could have given him. It made him feel like the world wasn't always filled with monsters—because sometimes, the worst of men could be redeemed or at least apprehended without more death and violence.
Sometimes, he'd think about the crimes his father and extended family had committed years ago or were probably still committing in the dark of night. He'd never try to find them in the act, but he often wondered what he would do if he ever did find them. Part of him knew he'd likely find a way to help them, if only because they were family and that's what family did.
Another part of him, a bitter part, almost the shadow of his youth come alive, whispered that maybe he wouldn't.
He tried not to think about it all together.
In 1994, he was promoted to Detective Inspector after months of training and being heralded a nature at hunting down crooks and staying calm during dangerous situations (whether or not that was due to his upbringing, Greg decided not to think about it.) It was a dream he had worked hard for and had earned. He wasn't young anymore, not really, and it looked it with his early-gray hair. But it felt like a new chance again. He had never felt freer in his life.
His father did not attend the promotion service. To his credit, Lestrade barely noticed.
0000
London
2009
The year he met Sherlock Holmes was the year that everything he thought he knew about the world changed once again. It was unclear if it was for better or for worse.
First off, his wife had left him. Well, she said she needed a break, but Lestrade knew what she had meant. His fears over raising children put a huge blockade into their relationship. His fears over becoming a father like his own father had been were irrational, he knew, but that didn't stop him from worrying.
It also didn't help Linda had slept with the postman, but he was doing his best to not dwell on that.
And then, there was Sherlock.
They had met a crime scene. Sherlock, according to his own words, came across the crime scene and had identified the lingering killer in the crowd of spectators based on nothing by observation of his behavior and a bloodied piece of the victim's clothing sticking out from the man's pocket. Lestrade had scoffed at the notion openly, but Sherlock's thorough breakdown of both Lestrade, Donovan and a fellow DI's life stories in front of them out of the blue and was able to explain detail-by-detail how he came to those discoveries suddenly became…harder to ignore.
Lestrade had been horrified and then fascinated—and then marveled by the skill set Sherlock Holmes possessed. Holmes was a horrid prick. He had no sense of social proprieties nor did he know how to hold a simple conversation. He appeared like a phantom; he worked silently, efficiently and devoid of empathy. If Lestrade didn't know any better, he wasn't human.
And yet, he was. The snark, the disdain in his gray eyes, the sneer fixed on his face—all of that was unique human, uniquely Sherlock. He did care about the cases; he got fired up and threw himself into the chase (though to Sherlock, it was more like a hunt.) He clearly felt.
Lestrade assumed the man was simply wired differently. It was almost amusing, but the frustration over a civilian interfering with cases made it difficult to smile about it. That sometimes changed, however, when Sherlock managed to break a case that had appeared unbreakable. He had saved lives by the end of the first month working as an unofficial freelancer for the homicide department.
It was mildly terrifying, agreeing to allowing the man in on confidential case files. For the first several weeks, Lestrade wouldn't let him into the crime scenes. Sherlock broke or snuck in later. Lestrade would try to tell Donovan or officers that Sherlock wasn't involved. That lie failed to work after the fifth time Sherlock whirled into Lestrade's office with a murderer in handcuffs or a missing piece of evidence dangling from his hands.
He was good. Really, really good. Lestrade started to forgive his personality after awhile. He wouldn't begrudge a resource if it helped him bring murderers to justice. Also, Sherlock's sense of humor, when detectable, was often hilarious. Maybe Lestrade was just as messed up as Sherlock and hadn't noticed it before; that wouldn't surprise him at that point.
Unfortunately, the rest of his team was far less forgiving. Sally Donovan hated him; she saw him as a menace. Poor Anderson in forensics never seemed to get the clue that he was no match for Sherlock's wit or sharp tongue.
Several of the blokes in the squad were convinced the man was mental. Some thought he was dangerous. One of the department's rising stars—one of Lestrade's closest friends on the force—Donovan thought he was a disaster waiting to happen.
"You really trust that freak?" she asked, after Sherlock had barely left the room. He had never acknowledged the biting comments spoken behind his back; he only snapped at Anderson, who was still stupid enough to not to at least pretend to keep his insults private.
"I guess," Lestrade admitted, closing up the filing folder with yet another case the wondrous Mr. Holmes had solved singlehandedly. If it weren't for the fact that he was always right and got the job done, Sherlock's success over the police would have been insulting. "He's pretty good."
Donovan leaned over the desk, eyes narrowed. "And a criminal," she said.
"What makes you say that?" Lestrade asked, almost laughing. Sherlock was old money; his big brother still got into his business, if those creepy government agents who had snuck around Lestrade's office that one time said anything.
The idea that Sherlock had done anything remotely illegal was ridiculous, merely for the fact that he thought the average crook was even less intelligent than the people he normally called idiots. However, Donovan's smugness proved that the idea wasn't totally out there.
"I looked him up. He's got a record," she said, confident. She held up another manila folder, one that looked oddly full. "Cocaine, seven years ago. The freak was in university for three years and got busted at a party."
Lestrade couldn't believe it. "Cocaine? Him?" he asked, startled. He held out his hand. "Let me see."
Despite all evidence pointing at Sherlock being a straight laced, the ink did not lie. He had been arrested but never formally charged for possession. It wasn't surprising he had been let off, since his family was clearly very influential, but the actual arrest and the crime…
"Wow," Lestrade said, unable to add much more.
"Still impressed?" Donovan asked, crossing her arms, challenging.
Lestrade looked at her over the file. "He's human." And for Lestrade, that was more of a comfort to find out than Donovan would ever know. "That's what this shows."
"What's that got to do with anything?" Donovan asked, confused.
"Never mind," Lestrade told her. He handed the folder back to her, keeping it only barely in the back of his mind within his own mental folder labeled Sherlock Holmes, Prick and Asset. "Just do your job, Sally. I'll keep an eye on this bloke."
The only thing that bothered Lestrade about Sherlock was that the man seemed oddly familiar. It was a quick, passing sense of recognition whenever he saw the detective work his magic over a cadaver.
He could not name a reason why the younger Holmes would be in any way familiar to him, however. He decided it was merely coincidence and shrugged it off.
0000
London
October, 2009
Six months into working with Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade finally came face to face with the truth. Well, a series of truths.
The first truth he learned was a slow-earned realization. He had marveled at Sherlock's skills of deduction and had been equally appalled by his apathy toward other, living people. Perhaps it really was autism (that brief conversation with Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older brother, had hinted at it), but Sherlock was almost inhuman in his responses. Lestrade would have silently agreed with his co-workers that the man was clearly from another world if Lestrade wasn't already used to identifying non-humans. To him, Sherlock was just a real jerk sometimes.
But then…that changed. Slowly, gradually, it changed. Donovan didn't seem to notice and neither did Anderson. Maybe they didn't want to see that side of Sherlock; for Lestrade, it was fascinating.
When Sherlock was on the field—or when he blew onto the field against their wishes or invitation—to confront victims or witnesses, he was barbaric with his taunts, sarcasm and biting remarks. He was not moved by tears or fear. He tore into anyone he could to get the answers he needed to solve a crime. To most police officers who witnessed it, it was an embarrassment and often offensive.
Lestrade could almost understand why he did it, even if he wasn't autistic. Sherlock was good at his job. Very, very good. He could see dozens of things no one else could see in a single moment. He could read people's emotions impeccably. His incredibly focus seemed to cause his personality to pay the price. For a detective, Lestrade grudgingly acknowledged that such a trade off was probably a good thing…not for the ones receiving such treatment by Sherlock, of course, but for the case, it was a good thing.
But…
Sometimes, just sometimes, there was also a flicker of something else. In a normal person, Lestrade would call it kindness.
In Sherlock, he counted it as a mark of humanity.
Something his uncles and father had lacked.
The times when a distraught mother would cry and make a fuss and Sherlock would sneer and react with impatience overshadowed the moments where Sherlock would slip her child a candy while Lestrade stepped in to handle the mother. There were times when a criminal who had acted out of honest desperation rather than malice often received an indifferent voice of support from the freelancing detective, when Lestrade knew Sherlock's added comment had only been noticed by him and had been shared because he apparently saw it fitting…even when it did nothing to solve the crime overall.
Sherlock didn't seem to notice that his little actions, which did nothing for the investigation, were noticed by other eyes. Lestrade seemed to be the only one to see it, but those moments helped him to realize that Sherlock perhaps was not as cold as he seemed.
Maybe he was human after all, Lestrade thought in amusement in a private joke no one outside of his background would understand. His father and the other hunters he had known growing up wouldn't have found it amusing, of course, but sometimes, Lestrade had to look back at where he had come from and laugh at what was now in front of him.
The second realization about Sherlock Holmes came six months and two days after first meeting the sarcastic bastard. This realization had been far more poignant than the first.
It was his day off. It was his first day off in weeks. He had been forced into it by Donovan after a week-long murder investigation that was still unsolved. Sherlock had been "busy," according to the self-proclaimed detective, but had come back in time to snark at the team for taking so long. It was a brutal case, but after Lestrade was caught sleeping while standing up in the break room with a case file in his hand, he had been ordered to go home for the night and following day.
Sherlock had followed him out of the office, hounding him for details on the case, as if the files didn't have everything. Lestrade tried to humor him, but Sherlock eventually grew dissatisfied with Lestrade's lethargic responses and left him.
The next day, while Lestrade tried to do some basic food shopping, Sherlock reappeared without warning behind the fruit stand, scaring a few good years off of Lestrade's lifespan.
Apparently, Sherlock had found a lead. Namely, a suspect. He had literally dragged Lestrade out of the shop and down the street, rambling out an address and a name—something McNealy, which had sounded vaguely familiar. As it turned out, it was a name he had already investigated.
Lestrade was mildly pleased that Sherlock had had the sense to go to him first, because they had recently come under-fire for Sherlock apprehending people on his own. Sherlock listening to any sort of instruction from Lestrade about his crime-busting endeavors was always nice, but this time, Lestrade wished Sherlock had any other police friends besides himself.
…or any other friends in general, when Lestrade thought about it wryly.
"Are you sure this guy is our guy?" he asked for the second time as they hurried down the streets of Croyden. He got an eye-roll for asking twice, but Lestrade couldn't help it. "Where did you even find his name?"
"If you had been listening instead of try to find a reason to doubt me," Sherlock said with the perfect imitation of a sulking child, "his association with the widow's wiccan coven firmly places him on their list of acquaintances who knew the husband would be waiting outside the meeting house and who did not have an alibi."
The murdered man's wife had been active in the local wiccan community. They were harmless folk, but Lestrade knew from his father's lessons that sometimes, the real nasty kind of witches sprung up to gather followers. He had been nervous about this case for good reason; the victim had been found on church cemetery grounds, gutted and arranged in what looked like a satanic ritual. It was troubling, and not just because it was a disturbing case. He was wary about uncovering more supernatural events connected to the crime, but it had appeared benign so far.
"But why this guy?" Lestrade asked, trying to keep up with Sherlock's brisk walk. "We already checked out his background. He did have an alibi, Sherlock! I remember, he was with another one of the—"
"One of the other coven members informed me she had lied to you about being with him. She said that he had forced her to lie, threatening her life," Sherlock interrupted. "Which is why we need to investigate this, now."
Lestrade glared at him. "So, now he's violent. Great. Sherlock, we should wait and call for backup first. If this loon is armed and we barge into his flat like this—"
"Why would it be necessary to barge in?" Sherlock asked. He abruptly turned and grinned at Lestrade; the gesture was so shocking, it made Lestrade's jaw drop. "He's at his evening meeting right now. We can just let ourselves in, very nice and quietly."
Oh, bloody— "Sherlock! I don't have a warrant!"
"And since when has that ever stopped me?" Sherlock asked, already back walking down the street, far too chipper for the occasion. "Go ahead, make your calls. I'll let you know when I find the murder weapon."
Lestrade was going to kill Sherlock Holmes or at least beat him half-to-death with his own bloody ego. He should have stopped and called in for more support.
But…
He didn't. For whatever reason, whether it was destined or just chance, Lestrade didn't make the call. He instead ran after Sherlock as they headed for the suspect's house. Maybe it was because Sherlock was rubbing off on him. Maybe, caught up in a strange rebellious stage of his career, Lestrade wanted to believe that Sherlock's antics were a good change to his rule-abiding job. He had changed his life once to fit new rules, for the betterment of himself and the world at large.
Maybe he had started to believe that trusting in the idea that Sherlock was another step of improvement. That his habits of disregarding policy and decorum were somehow just the next stages of Lestrade's career. That it was all okay.
…Lestrade regretted that brief bit of insanity of following Sherlock the moment they were on the suspect's doorstep. Sherlock had easily picked the front lock, as if it had been child's play, and Lestrade abruptly realized how outrageous his behavior was. He was a DI, a member of the Scotland Yard, and this was not okay.
"Sherlock, I'm calling for a warrant," he announced, almost in shock over his own actions. He scoffed in annoyance as Sherlock continued to billow down the cramped hallway of the flat without care. "Sherlock! Don't touch anything!"
"There's a madman on the loose and you want to sit on it? Ah, yes, the police at their finest logic," Sherlock called back, further into the house. It opened up considerably to a large dining room and living room to the left with stairs on the right that faced away from the door.
Gritting his teeth, Lestrade marched after the man. His phone wasn't getting any service. They had to leave, now. He was not going to let Sherlock risk catching a man like this just to play whatever strange fantasy Sherlock held about crime solving. In the event this man wasn't, well, normal, or if the case had supernatural ties, Lestrade had to minimize witnesses.
Having Sherlock witness supernatural elements or events would have been…interesting. Lestrade wondered if the man would lose his mind or not.
Marching straight into the living/dining room, Lestrade found Sherlock peering over the book shelf on the far wall. The whole room was dark, with black curtains over the windows, and it smelt like Lestrade's grandmother's house—full of incense and other choking smells.
"Sherlock, you need to go," he started to say, but as his eyes drifted to the side, to one of the longer tables on the far wall, the words died in his throat.
There were candles, all well-used, and piles of books. There was a drawn out circle on a large piece of what he hoped was animal skin. Various sigils and common artifacts of magic use were scattered around, but it could have still just been wicca.
There was also a human hand resting in the bowl.
Lestrade knew that their victim had been missing one of those.
"Sherlock," he said, throat drying.
Sherlock stared at the bloodied table and bowl, his eyes hard and shining. Lestrade could just imagine the sarcastic comments to follow, about the stupidity of people believing in this sort of thing, not realizing how very real it all was. Lestrade wondered if Sherlock was the type of genius to totally lose his mind in the face of the existence of the supernatural. God, he hoped not.
"Sherlock," Lestrade tried again. He reached out for the detective, who was still staring at the dark magic supplies. "We need to go. Come on…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Lestrade saw something move on the hallway wall. It was a shadow; the shadow of a man. It was moving towards them, accompanied by the sound of someone walking down the stairs in slow, lumbering steps.
He lashed out with his hand and grabbed Sherlock's pompous coat collar. He yanked them both down, ignoring Sherlock's indignant grunt, and let him go only to grab his gun from his side holster, which had been hidden by his coat. Sherlock had probably wanted to complain about being dragged behind the couch, but his face lit up with curiosity when he noticed the weapon.
"What are…you have a gun?" Sherlock asked, surprised. "Why would you carry your personal weapon around while shopping?"
He never went out without his gun while going through a busy case; a remnant of his father's teaching or merely a coping mechanism. Possibly a combination of both.
"Shut up," he hissed at him. "We're not alone."
"Clearly," Sherlock whispered back dully, as they watched the shadow on the wall move up and then become larger as the person approached.
It looked like a normal man at first, but Lestrade knew what to look for. He had seen the books, the magic circles, the blood, the candles—it all spelled out clearly that the suspect had dabbled in dark magic. Lestrade also knew to hunt out on the suspect's face for his eyes as the suspect rummaged on the dirty dining table seven meters away from them, muttering under his breath.
Black eyes.
Demon, Lestrade thought, as an icy chill swept through him. He raised the gun and moved a fraction to the side as he tried to come up with the best and sanest route out of there. If he distracted the demon, he could get Sherlock out. It wouldn't do them good to go get help, but if they could just escape—
A gloved hand reached out and pulled Lestrade back.
"He's got a weapon!" the consulting detective hissed in his ear, his grip intense, as if Greg was about to run out toward the demon.
He was right; there was something silver and shiny in the demon's grasp.
Lestrade's heart was in his throat. "That's not all he's got," he said, trying not to shake. He could do this. He just…had to focus. Sherlock wouldn't listen to anything Lestrade told him then; the genius would never believe in demonic possession. "Sherlock, head back to the front door and run to the nearest public space."
"What?"
"Do what I say—!" Lestrade started to whisper, but movement ahead of them made his words strangle. "Damn it, get out of the—!"
"Lestrade, don't—!" Sherlock started to shout when Lestrade jumped in front of him.
The suspect had whirled around with an inhuman snarl and held three deadly looking knifes. He had tried to bring his gun up, but as always, Greg was too late. He fired off a round and it hit the wallpaper behind the dark haired demon. A flash of silver in the poor lighting and the sound of a knife embedded in the wooden wall behind him made Greg duck to the ground. He rolled and looked up behind the couch just in time to see Sherlock get struck with the second knife, stumbling to the side.
"Sherlock!" he shouted, scrambling to his knees and bringing his gun up. "Bloody—!"
The fear for his friend vanished when Sherlock remained standing upright and between him and the possessed man. Sherlock was not writhing in pain from the knife that was still in his chest.
He wasn't bleeding.
Lestrade felt his numb arms lower a fraction when he saw the possessed man suddenly snarl at Sherlock and Sherlock alone.
"You!" the demon spat.
Sherlock tilted his head and seemed unaffected by the fatal wound in his chest.
"Me," he replied, mocking.
The demon seemed stunned, but abruptly reacted. He pointed his remaining knife back over at Lestrade. Before the demon could throw the knife at the speechless officer, he received unexpected back up.
Sherlock lunged. He slammed the demon into the wall and snapped the wrist holding the gun. The demon howled, but Sherlock—Sherlock didn't flinch. He punched the man in the face twice, his hands moving almost too quick to be seen. The incapacitating strikes were blurs in the darkened room.
Quicker than Lestrade could have imagined possible, Sherlock flipped the stunned demon onto the dining room table, sending candles and old spell papers flying. The demon choked out some sort of nasty comment, but Sherlock fearlessly pressed the entirety of his weight down on the beast; his arm pressed against the exposed neck with obvious power.
"Last chance," the detective hissed as he held the demon down over the table. "Run."
Lestrade could only stand there, half knocked over, and stare in horror.
The demons struggled beneath Sherlock. Despite being the inhuman one, the demon could not shake the detective's weight. It snarled and cursed in some foul language, but Sherlock would not budge.
Lestrade leaned to the side at a dangerous angle, but he couldn't help but stare. He looked Sherlock's expression; it was fearsome, unafraid. He didn't flinch at all when the possessed body beneath him suddenly seized and then expelled the demon in a one foul cloud that slammed into the ceiling before escaping through the cracks and holes in the plaster. Sherlock moved back a moment later, letting the suspect fall to the side unconscious, and the detective stood tall when he finally turned back to Lestrade, who gaped at Sherlock's eyes.
Black eyes.
Demon eyes.
Lestrade nearly dropped his gun and fell into the couch. He hung there, frozen in both shock and horror as he realized.
"Bloody hell," he whispered, eyes wide.
This wasn't…
This wasn't how this was supposed to work.
Sherlock turned around, his shoulders heaving, and he met Lestrade's gaze with his inhuman eyes shining. He didn't try to attack. He just stood there and watched the police officer. He waited.
Sherlock Holmes was a demon.
He…was a demon?
The whole world seemed to tilt out of place. It made no sense. It made no sense.
"Well, Detective Inspector?" Sherlock asked, smile brittle.
It was the same voice. There was no distortion, no obvious signs of possession. Lestrade struggled to wrap his mind around it.
That didn't mean… it couldn't have meant… that the whole time? The whole time, Sherlock had been this way? Possessed?
No amount of his father's training could have prepared him for this.
The demon possessing Sherlock proceeded to inspect the mess he had made and then look down at his body. Then, lips pursed with displeasure, he yanked the knife out of his chest, as if only realizing it had been there before. He collected the three knives deliberately and pocketed them without comment. Lestrade could see demonic text printed on all of them; he would have removed them from the scene later as well.
Lestrade's eyes went back to the gaping knife wound…but there wasn't one. The only sign Sherlock had been stabbed was a large hole in his white shirt underneath. But there was no blood at all.
There were so many things whirling around Lestrade's head at that point.
"You saved my life," he said, voice cracking. He knew that, being as underprepared as he had been, the demon from earlier would have easily killed him. He just couldn't…understand.
Sherlock-the-demon glanced over at him. "Yes?"
His eyes were no longer black. The image of them remained fresh in Lestrade's memory, however.
"Why…?" Lestrade swallowed hard. "I don't get it."
"Don't get what?" Sherlock-the-demon asked…no…
It was Sherlock, entirely, wasn't it? That snark, those piercing gray eyes, the constant annoyance directed at the world whenever it dared to interact with him? All of that was Sherlock.
The last several months of dealing with this man, it couldn't have been a demon the whole time, could it? He had witnessed Sherlock do crazy things, yes, but heroic things as well. He had saved lives, damn it. Lestrade shook his head, trying and failing to clear his thoughts.
"What's your angle?" he asked, finding his voice again.
"What angle?" Sherlock asked, turning to face him.
"You're a demon," Lestrade said, finally succumbing and sitting on the back of the couch. His knees couldn't handle it any longer.
Sherlock's one eyebrow went up in a familiar way. "You're observant," he offered in that mocking way that made everyone feel twenty IQ points lower.
Lestrade almost couldn't breathe. "You have no reason to—to help me," he stammered. Or anyone else, for that matter.
This whole time? Sherlock was…this? A monster? Lestrade had hired him, had worked with him, and this whole time…? Unless it was recent? But he wasn't that blind, surely? If Sherlock had been possessed, he would have shown signs. Lestrade, for all that he failed in as a hunter, could at least see that much.
"I suppose a demon helping a hunter is a bit odd, but I never said I was a particularly good demon," Sherlock interrupted, voice as dulled by boredom as ever. He flicked plaster off his coat sleeves.
His mannerisms and his voice…it was all the same. Everything about him was the same exact Sherlock that Lestrade had come to know in the last year. Except the eyes. Except for the demon.
Lestrade had no idea what to do. Or to say.
Some questions began to leak out, however.
He slowly shook his head. "You knew I was a hunter?" he asked.
"I know your father is one. A good one. You never were," the demon replied. He suddenly smirked. "I remember a Gregory Lestrade who once helped an angel, a few demons and a child from Tadfield stop the end of the world."
Angels? Tadfield? Lestrade floundered.
"What…?"
"You really don't remember me, do you?" Sherlock asked, curious.
Lestrade thought, long and hard, about how to answer. He didn't remember dark haired, arrogant gits who knew too much for their own good. He didn't remember any Holmes or any…
—the dark haired boy laughed, though it wasn't entirely based in humor. His demonic eyes slid back to normal. "Careful, I'm only eleven. Mummy would not approve of that sort of language." Next to him, the blond boy was grinning—
Air trapped in his chest, Lestrade stared at Sherlock.
All of those dreams... he did remember a boy. A boy with dark hair. A boy who wasn't human. And there...
"…the man in the box," Lestrade mumbled, tracing over his dreams. The bookshop fire, an airfield…a blue suited crazy man who owned a spaceship…
"Ah, yes," Sherlock drawled. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms against his chest. "Even Aziraphale couldn't make a man forget the Doctor."
"Azira…" Lestrade shook his head and fixed the demon with a wary look. "What does this mean?"
Sherlock gave his best indifferent shrug, but if Lestrade wasn't wrong after studying the strange man for the last six months, there was a small bit of tension in his movements. He was... probably just as wary as Lestrade was.
"You have a choice, Lestrade. You could excise me. But then you'd have a body to worry about," Sherlock said. His smirk was just as degrading as ever, as rare as it was. "Killing the son of a famous diplomat won't exactly put the London police in the finest light. But you would be appeasing your own father's teachings, wouldn't you?"
How did Sherlock know about his father? Lestrade could imagine that a demon would know more about hunters than the hunters did about him, though. Who knew how old Sherlock was? Or what his real name was? Or how powerful he was?
Lestrade did know, however, that Sherlock's body was not that old.
"You were the boy," he finally managed to say. It was bewildering as he took the demon's form in; it truly did look like that boy, all grown up. "The boy on the airfield."
"One of them," Sherlock said, nodding his head.
Lestrade sputtered. "Holy hell, what happened?"
"I grew up," Sherlock deadpanned.
"No! That's not…!" Okay, it partially was. Lestrade could not fathom how a demon could stay in a human host for over ten years like that. Sherlock's background check came up normal, or as normal as the strange man could be. He had a brother, a mother, a long line of family members, a paper trail that stretched the proper length of time, hell, even that arrest—what did that mean, if he really was a demon? "Have you been stalking me all this time?"
Sherlock rolled his storm-gray eyes, as if Lestrade weren't worth the effort. "Not intentionally. Our paths crossed incidentally. After we began to meet regularly, I made sure to research who you were more thoroughly, including your lineage."
"Why are you here?" Lestrade demanded. He stood up and pointed at the demon. "Why are you—why are you pretending to be a detective?!"
"Pretending isn't solving crimes on a routine scale, Lestrade," Sherlock spat. He was bristling in defense as he did whenever Anderson was really gunning for him. "Honestly."
"Why?!" Lestrade snapped, daring to step forward before he could think better.
Sherlock look at him, really looked at him, and Lestrade abruptly wanted to shake him senseless. He often wanted to when Sherlock was being especially pigheaded, but at that point, he just wanted Sherlock to start making sense rather than being too logical.
Lestrade stared back, knowing he looked emotional, because he was. He was confused and lost and just as helpless as he had been as a boy when his family had murdered in the name of justice.
Every doubt he had ever felt in his father's choices came back to him then, but this time, it was his own actions he doubted.
Sherlock did not react in the same manner. His gaze did become sharper as he looked back at the police officer. He didn't move the entire time he seemed to be finding an answer to give the human.
"I'm bored," the demon said, almost too lowly to be heard.
Lestrade hesitated. "You're bored?"
"Yes. Bored," Sherlock repeated, much louder this time, his expression voicing his disdain for having to answer again.
That…couldn't have been an answer.
"…You…you're lying," Lestrade said. He just noticed his hands were shaking.
"Why would I lie?" Sherlock asked. "I'm bored. I have nothing else to do. I want…"
The demon hesitated and looked away. He looked at the severed hand in the bowl and his lip drew backwards. He then looked at the floor by Lestrade, seemingly thinking, because Lestrade could always tell when Sherlock was frustrated, because the genius of a man was almost never frustrated. When he was rarely faced with a case he couldn't solve immediately, his face showed it.
It only struck Lestrade then that those moments had always been when Sherlock had been chided for not being kinder or more sympathetic. Lestrade had always assumed it was a simple social disorder, a human kind, that disconnected him from understanding the most basic of human emotions.
Now…it was a bit clearer.
"I'm helping. Doesn't that matter?" Sherlock asked, a tinge of something other than disdain in his voice. If Lestrade didn't know better, he would have thought he heard tinges of distress in that voice.
He didn't know if it mattered. What if it did? He didn't know, but deep down, deep where his father couldn't see, Gregory wished in that moment that it did matter.
Lestrade honestly didn't know what to say to that. He looked the demon up and down. "You're…"
"A demon?" Sherlock interrupted. He waved his hand impatiently. "And you're a hunter, who's too afraid to hunt. You did have big boots to fill. I don't blame you for turning over a new leaf." His eyes went down to the gun still hanging in Lestrade's useless hands. "Though, maybe it wasn't that big a turn."
Lestrade felt a wave of indignation and memories rise up inside him, both stunning him and setting him off. "Shut up. You don't know me. You don't know anything!"
"Maybe I don't," Sherlock said, strangely backing down. He continued to meet Lestrade's eyes, unafraid and at ease.
Trying to keep his breathing steady, Lestrade just watched the demon. He had never met a demon up close like that. Or alone. He knew they were the most monstrous of monsters. They lied, tricked, betrayed and ensnared humans. He could just imagine what had happened to the suspect on the ground—he had summoned a demon and was possessed in turn, using his connections with the local witches to find victims to use for whatever despicable actions he needed them for. The bloke probably had no idea what he had been up against and he had lost any chance of fighting back immediately.
Lestrade was now up against a demon, in the same room as the man had been weeks ago, but this time, Lestrade had no idea what to expect. He knew what he should have expected, but…
Sherlock was just watching him.
Hands tucked into his pockets, his ridiculous coat collar higher up than necessary, his arrogant expression and cheekbones placid.
It was all just the same as it had been less than twenty minutes ago, when Sherlock had been Sherlock and nothing more.
But if the dreams were right, Sherlock had been a demon for a long, long time. Lestrade had known him as a child—a child, of all things—and…and…
His head began to hurt, in a faint throb.
"That landlady of yours…" he said, his mind suddenly taking a detour. His words surprised Sherlock, who's eyebrow went up. "I knew it. I knew she wasn't human." There was no way someone was that sweet around a social disaster like Sherlock. There was something about her that made Lestrade feel like he was being watched closely, despite how nice she was.
Sherlock snorted. "She won't take hearing that well. She's put so much effort into disappearing."
"What is she?" he asked, dreading an answer.
"Aziraphale."
The name came with a flood of raw, confusing images. Lestrade could almost picture someone. Blond, smart looking, books everywhere…
"…An…angel?" he asked, hesitant.
"A principality, but yes, an angel," Sherlock said, ignoring Lestrade's distress. He smirked again. "My, you are remembering a lot."
The headache increased tenfold. "My head feels like its about to implode," he said, grasping his forehead with his hand. He felt an enormous pressure settle on top of him.
"The angel distorted most of the memories of the humans involved. It was safer for you to forget. Especially you," Sherlock said, glancing the human over. "Didn't want daddy to know you helped monsters save the world."
Lestrade swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. "It's all true…?" he asked. "All the dreams, then?"
"I don't know what you've dreamt, but probably, yes," Sherlock said. He shrugged. "Sorry, Detective Inspector. You really did team up with me before. Saved the world even. Can you imagine?"
Could he? Now, he could, with the dreams a bit clearer and more like memories than flashes of imagination. He remembered how unnatural it had all been, when he first met that demon Crowley and then an alien. Then they went to some airfield and… and… stopped the apocalypse. Lestrade truly hadn't done anything then, but he had witnessed it. It had been real.
Running a hand over his face, Lestrade could hear his father screaming in the back of his mind to just get to it.
It being… Sherlock.
Eyes going to the demon, Lestade watched the being for a long minute.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The demon stood taller. "Sherlock Holmes, the first and only consulting detective," he said, more like a religious decree than with human pride. "I also happen to be a demonic spirit inhabiting a husk of a body."
"A husk?" Lestrade repeated, surprised.
Sherlock made a face. "The child died of disease when it was only four. I found the body immediately afterwards and I…" He looked away. "Took a chance."
"You took over his life?" Lestrade asked, eyes narrowed.
Sherlock spun around at that too quickly. He glared at the human. "It's my life. It's always been mine after the human soul passed on," he said, a challenge in his voice. He motioned at his body deliberately. "And I've chosen to use it as I see fit."
"By fighting crime?"
"By solving crimes," Sherlock corrected. He tucked his hands into his pockets. "Humans are the best source of fun I've ever discovered."
Lestrade's brain was still struggling to keep up. "But you're a demon," he said, utterly lost. This…wasn't right. Everything he had ever been taught…out the window…
"I'm more of Earth than of Hell," Sherlock told him. His lips pursed tightly. "I have no love for my…kin. Not the ones who harm humans."
"Why not?" Lestrade asked, floored.
The demon looked away at the window and seemed to think his answer over. His eyes were darkened only by the light, not by maliciousness.
"Maybe I just like you more than I like them," he offered, the shrug in his voice just a tad forced.
Maybe I just like you more than I like them.
What kind of demon liked anything, let alone humans? Lestrade stared at Sherlock as if the demon had grown three heads and tried to process that admittance.
His father would have either gone mad or set the whole world on fire.
A hysterical laugh almost escaped Lestrade's mouth. He successfully held it back.
Sherlock was still watching him carefully, but seemed to try to gain control of his usual indifference. He sniffed and glanced toward the door, as if he would excuse himself to get to another appointment.
"If this is any proof of my honesty..." he began, voice trailing off. There was a moment of hesitation before he continued, his gaze growing sharper and more resolute. "My true name is Zephyr. Use it as you need, Lestrade."
A demon's name was one of their final defenses against humanity. No sane demon would ever reveal their true name to a mortal. Not to a hunter. Lestrade found himself struggling after that. Even if Sherlock was being honest...
What did Lestrade do with it?
"...why are you trusting me?" he asked, mind reeling.
"Because you're a good man," Sherlock told him. "A better one than I."
The tiny smile on his face was not malicious.
It was a little sad, but not malicious.
And with that, Sherlock adjusted his coat again, to cover the gaping hole in his shirt, and his smile turned into his usual cocky smirk when he looked back at Lestrade.
"Stop by for tea," he offered, impish. "The angel makes shit coffee, but the tea is decent."
He strode right past Lestrade and the couch, sidestepping the suspect as if it wasn't there at all. It looked like he would leave the scene to Lestrade to clean up, which Lestrade would have normally thought odd of the obsessive detective. Then again, Lestrade had a lot to cover up…and had to get the suspect to realize he couldn't start babbling about demons, or else he really would be in trouble.
Distracted by his upcoming chore of hiding the paranormal evidence, Lestrade suddenly felt the need to jump up and rush after Sherlock. He saw the front door was still open and he nearly fell as he slammed into the doorjamb, frantic to catch the other man before he left.
"Holmes," he called out, noticing that Sherlock was still just a few meters away from the stoop.
Sherlock looked back at him, eyes squinted a bit in the brighter sunlight. Lestrade could see that the eyes were gray and white. Not black.
"Thank you," Lestrade said, forcing the words out, not out of reluctance, but simple inability to speak over his residual shock.
"Oh, it was my pleasure," Sherlock said, waving a hand. "I owed you."
Lestrade stared at him, startled. "For what?"
Sherlock smirked. "Giving me a job," he said.
And then he whirled around and walked down the sidewalk like he always did, with his hands in his pockets and arrogance wafting from him like a natural cloud.
He was the same sod, the same prick that always made Lestrade feel torn between incredulous laughter and wanting to slam his head into the wall.
All of that made Lestrade stop and fall quiet as he watched Sherlock walk off and then disappear down the street. It was all so normal. It felt natural. If it weren't for the fact that he knew the genius didn't play pranks, Lestrade could have suspected that he had been the victim of a poor joke.
But it wasn't a joke.
It was real.
Lestrade, as he had with the various struggles in his life, just had to choose how to accept it.
"God help me," he said, gazing to the sky and shaking his head, knowing he wouldn't find the answers there.
He cleaned up the crime scene as best he could and then made the call. The suspect wouldn't stop rambling about demons and how his spell would work, and in the end, Lestrade held his tongue when they labeled the man a nutter. Really, he was, but not the kind they thought. It worked out in the end well enough…even though the real murderer was still out there.
It was a bit disconcerting, knowing that the demon had gotten away, but Lestrade was a bit more concerned about the more frequent demon in his life. Sherlock kept showing up at crime scenes and barely paid any more attention to Lestrade than he normally did.
Every so often their eyes would meet, and Lestrade would brace himself for anything, but Sherlock would either roll his eyes or there'd be an odd sort of shine to them, like he was laughing at something Lestrade didn't see.
Or maybe he did see it. He could see an overwhelming example of everything his father had hated about him every time he looked at himself in the mirror. He could see the failure etched into the lines under his eyes. He hadn't spoken to his father in so many years, but he knew exactly what he would have said had he known what his son had done—what his son was willingly doing—by ignoring a demonic presence.
In the aftermath of that incident and ultimately everything Lestrade had encountered in his life, however, he discovered an interesting fact.
He didn't care.
He did not care what his father would have said. He knew what the words would have been and he could hear them echoing across his mind as he lay awake at night.
But he did not care that he was failing his father.
Because every time he got up and went to work, and received help from that demon haunting the offices of the Scotland Yard and the most foul of crime scenes, he was helping people.
He was actually helping people.
And a demon, in a bizarre, hilarious twist of fate, was helping him to do it.
Greg Lestrade objectively decided three weeks later that that was indeed enough for him.
After work one afternoon, he took a cab and wound up outside of Baker's Street. He knocked on the door and smiled pleasantly when the chipper landlady answered the door.
"Oh, why, hello detective!" the old woman said, beaming and all sunshine. "Are you here for Sherlock, dear?"
"Actually, ma'am…" Lestrade cleared his throat and offered his own winning smile. "I'm here for tea. Do you have the time for a chat, Aziraphale?"
It was mostly satisfying to see Mrs. Hudson's lips form a perfect 'O,' but equally amusing to see Sherlock on the stairs let out a short laugh, the first Lestrade had ever heard from the rogue detective.
He was a poor example of a son, but he was still damn good.
He was good.
.
End Skeletons.
.
I'll let you guys decide what comes next: do you want more robots or more Aziraphale? Let me know in a comment/review! :)
A/Ns:
-Yes, the Campbells are the SPN Campbells. Yes, this means Lestrade is distantly related to Dean and Sam. I haven't decided if this matters yet, though.
-Obviously you should have read Small World: The Apocalypse That Never Was to get why Lestrade knows about Sherlock-the-demon and Aziraphale.
-I know that in Sherlock canon, Lestrade and Sherlock have known each other for five years. I had to shorten this time frame considerably to make things fit (see Building Down).
-I love Lestrade, so I was very happy I could squeeze him into the crossover adequately. Luckily, the hunter twist was actually quite easy to conceive for his character. He has quite a role in the main story... ;)
-Lestrade and Sherlock's friendship is one of the things that gives me life okay. Especially in this story series.