Sherlock Fic: The Only Time That I Can See You Clearly
Title: Seems To Be the Only Time That I Can See You Clearly
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Gen-ish. Lestrade & John friendship
Content advisory: Semi-graphic descriptions of violence. Highlight for important warning that is also a spoiler: description of sexual assault
Notes: Written for morganstuart’s Make Me a Monday request. Sorry I didn’t get the five times in there! And thanks to jaune_chat for the quick beta action! Title from this song.
Summary: Sometimes John’s friends call him when they need to get patched up off the record. He wishes these things didn’t happen so frequently to the people he cares about.
John pressed a buzzer-hopefully the correct one--next to the woefully-faded, nigh-illegible list of names and numbers beside the building’s front door. When nothing happened, he pulled out his phone to check Lestrade’s text again: Could use your help, it said, and then the address at which John stood.
Usually when John answered a summons from Lestrade, he arrived to find crime scene tape and a fleet of emergency vehicles, but this street was quiet and peaceful. Any place should be quiet at this god-awful hour of the morning, John thought a bit resentfully. He pressed the buzzer again, and this time the speaker crackled to life.
“Lestrade,” came a voice barely recognizable through the spotty connection.
“Hello. It’s John. John Watson,” he said, feeling slightly foolish. “I got your text.” A moment passed in which the intercom’s static crackled eerily, then the door buzzed in welcome.
John pushed through the door and climbed three narrow flights of stairs until he came to flat 3C. The door was slightly ajar. John’s heartbeat sped up with a sudden jolt of adrenaline until he heard Lestrade’s voice calling, “Come on in.”
John let himself into a shabby but tidy little flat in which every single light seemed to be ablaze. Lestrade’s coat lay tossed carelessly over the sofa, and three tall stacks of case files leaned precariously on the coffee table. Putting the clues together, he came to what Sherlock would have called the obvious conclusion.
“Cor, is this your flat?” John called. He marvelled that he’d never been here, in all the years of his and Lestrade’s acquaintance. Still, it made a certain kind of sense. They’d seen less of each other in the year since Sherlock had been gone. A weekly night down the pub swapping Sherlock stories had become Lestrade showing up at Baker Street once a month or so to beg a look at Sherlock’s old files and have a cup of tea.
“In the kitchen,” Lestrade called.
John moved farther into the flat, following the sound of running water. He was about to ask what big emergency had precipitated the text when he got his first glimpse of Lestrade.
He stood with his back to John, hands braced on the counter’s edge. Steam rose up from the sink, where the hot water was running full blast. His abominably wrinkled blue shirt was untucked from his trousers. The left side was liberally stained with blood.
“Can I get you some tea?” Lestrade asked.
“Lestrade! What the hell happened?”
Lestrade turned to look at John, revealing a cut above his right eyebrow, a bruise darkening on his left cheek, and a smear of blood decorating the corner of his mouth.
“Christ, Lestrade.” John rushed forwards, hands extended.
Lestrade stumbled backwards-John catalogued the stiff way he moved, how he held his body curved inward-hands blindly groping around his waist (looking for a weapon?), until his back hit the far wall, and he winced.
John stood staring for a moment, until an absolute calm clicked into place, locking down any other emotions that threatened to make an appearance. “Okay. It’s alright.” John reached over slowly to turn off the sink, which was pouring scalding water into an already overflowing kettle. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I was meant to make tea. After I sent the text. That’s what I told myself I’d do while I waited for you to turn up. Tea improves every situation, doesn’t it?” Lestrade laughed, but it sounded hollow. “Listen, I’m sorry I asked you to come. Shouldn’t have done.”
“You’re bleeding. It’s good to call a doctor when you’re bleeding,” John said evenly. He didn’t try to move toward Lestrade again. He’d seen Lestrade keep steady nerves through situations that would have turned many a grown man’s stomach, so it was strange to see him so rattled. “Are you cold?”
“A bit. Shock, you’re thinking. Probably. Should have figured that. Should know better. I’ve got a blanket, just out there.” He waved vaguely at the living room. “You needn’t worry.”
“And the blood?”
Lestrade looked down at himself and swallowed hard. “Not all of that’s mine.”
“But you are bleeding,” John pointed out. The red stain was too bright and wet to have been there long.
“Think so.” Lestrade frowned. “Couldn’t get my shirt off to have a look. Bloody hand.”
John’s eyes drifted down to see Lestrade’s hand, which he was holding protectively against his belly, was wrapped in some sort of cloth. “Can I see it?” John asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but proceeded as if Lestrade would comply. He set his doctor’s bag, which he routinely brought along on Lestrade’s calls, on the table, sat down, and busied himself unpacking a few things he thought he’d need: gauze, disinfectant, paracetamol.
Lestrade drifted closer. He didn’t sit, but came close enough to reach his hand over the corner of the table and lay it gingerly in front of John.
John moved his hands up slowly, avoiding any jerky movements. A thin dish towel was wrapped around Lestrade’s fingers. As John pulled away the towel, Lestrade stared straight ahead and gritted his teeth. He needed to talk. Something normal should do the trick.
“It’s stopped raining out,” John said. “Poured all day. Got soaked when I ran out for lunch. Sarah told me now I have my own practise I’m meant to let someone else run my errands, but I like to get some fresh air.”
“How is the practise?” Lestrade asked. His stance seemed to have relaxed, at least a fraction.
“It keeps me busy, which is nice. Doesn’t do to sit around home. Not with... Well, the flat is pretty quiet these days.” John set the towel aside and got his first look at Lestrade’s hand. There was quite a lot of crusted blood and dirt, which he dabbed at with a flannel.
“It’s best to keep busy,” Lestrade said. “I have, you know. There’s more to the network than that bastard who drowned in Switzerland. I’ve kept on it.”
“I know you have,” John said quietly. No few of their late nights at Baker Street had revolved around researching leads one or the other of them had come across in cleaning up the remnants of Moriarty’s organisation. It still bound them together, even after all this time.
“It’s funny. I never really thought it would do any good. At least, not the kind of good he would have done.”
“Hm.” Underneath the mess, John didn’t like what he saw. Lestrade’s knuckles were cut and bruised, probably from throwing a few hard punches, if John had to guess. His third and fourth fingers were bent at a strange angle. “Greg.” Not Lestrade anymore, because this wasn’t strictly a business call. “We should go to A&E.”
“You think they’re broken?”
“You’ve seen broken fingers before,” John said carefully. “What do you think?”
But Lestrade didn’t look. He continued staring straight ahead, which John added to the growing pile of puzzling clues.
“How did this happen?” John asked.
“Stomped on my hand. Just once, with the heel of his boot.”
His boot. At least one attacker, but not on while Lestrade was on duty, or he’d have been looked after. John cradled Lestrade’s hand gently in his and turned it over. A long gash marred the palm, but the blood seemed to have clotted.
“Piece of glass on the ground,” Lestrade said before John could ask.
John turned his hand back over and rested it on the table. “These fingers need to be set properly.”
“Can you do it?” Lestrade ventured a look down at John.
John didn’t like the haunted desperation he saw in that expression. “Maybe. If it’s a simple fracture, I could bind it. But I’d want to make sure. You don’t want to mess about with your fingers healing wrong. Besides, this isn’t your only injury, is it?”
Lestrade sucked in a breath, then flinched. He shook his head.
“Alright,” John said. “Let me see whatever’s bleeding.”
Lestrade pulled away from the table and winced at the movement of his fingers.
John stood, moving smoothly so as not to send Lestrade running again. “Hold your hand still as best you can. I’m going to take your shirt off, yeah? Tell me if I should stop.” John approached with his hands in front of him. He began unbuttoning Lestrade’s bloody shirt from the top while Lestrade stared resolutely at the wall.
The part of John’s brain that had spent too long with Sherlock Holmes was making rapid-fire observations. There was dirt ground into the front of Lestrade’s shirt and his trousers, not visible from the back. Something darker than dirt, too-oil or grease stains? He’d been held down on the ground, on his belly. Or on his hands and knees, perhaps-the knees of his trousers were abraded, and his hands were certainly not in good shape. Only the cuffs of his trousers were damp, though, so wherever he’d been tousling, it hadn’t been outside.
The last of the buttons came free, and John helped Lestrade work the shirt off, first his right arm, then the left, mindful of the injured fingers on that hand. Underneath, Lestrade’s vest was practically plastered to his skin with blood.
“I’m going to cut this off,” John said. “Alright?”
Lestrade nodded curtly, eyes still fixed on the wall. John’s deadly calm took a stronger hold as the strange clues piled up. He’d treated Lestrade’s injuries before, many times, and the man had never been this quiet, or this skittish. Usually at this stage he’d be swearing up a storm and counting the minutes until John would let him have some whiskey. John didn’t like this stubborn reticence.
John took a small pair of scissors from his kit and carefully began cutting down from the collar of Lestrade’s shirt, then the sleeves. As the fabric fell away, it revealed livid bruises and more than a few cuts and abrasions. The left side, sticky with blood, John had to peel away, wincing as pained breaths whistled through Lestrade’s clenched teeth.
A deep cut about two inches long traced the line of Lestrade’s fourth rib. It bled freely now, so John pressed a piece of gauze to it and applied pressure. “How did this happen?” he asked. He deliberately kept his focus on the wound, and didn’t look at Lestrade.
“One of them had a knife,” Lestrade said.
One of them. More than one attacker. “And the bruises?” he asked.
“Punches, kicks.”
There could be internal bleeding, then, but probably not. The cut bled through the first piece of gauze, then the next two strips John applied on top of that. “This is going to need stitches,” he announced. “Other injuries?”
“This is the most serious.”
“But there are others,” John said. Having lived with the past master of elusive answers, he recognized Lestrade’s evasion. “Greg, tell me. I need to know what to treat.”
“These are the worst of them.” His eyes remained fixed on the far wall, and he’d leaned as far away from John as it was possible to go without actually moving. For a man who John had seen take worse injuries with every evidence of stoicism, the behaviour sent alarm bells ringing.
“Lestrade, I’m going to help you no matter what. I owe you. God knows I owe you... But something worse could be wrong that you don’t recognize, and if anything happened to you because I hadn’t-“ John stumbled to a halt. He didn’t want to upset Lestrade, but the man was one of the very few friends he had left these days, and he wasn’t above using guilt to drive that point home. “Well, can you imagine, just for a minute, please, what that might do to me?”
Lestrade dragged his gaze back to John. His eyes drifted closed, and then he nodded. “Alright,” he rasped.
“Can you tell me what happened? We can go from there.”
“Alright. Yes. Alright.” Lestrade gripped the edge of the table hard with his good hand. “I was… I left the Yard late. I’d gone to Lambeth to talk to a victim and tell her we’d got the bastard who… Anyway, I’d gone to talk to a victim. When we were finished, I was walking back and I saw a teenager, obviously homeless, skinny bloke. He reminded me terribly of one of Sherlock’s old network. That’s just me being nostalgic; I hadn’t actually seen him before, I don’t imagine. Something was wrong. The man he was with had a grip on him that looked unfriendly. Well, there was something wrong, and I followed them for a block or two. “
“The man, what did he look like?” John asked.
“Don’t, John,” Lestrade said sharply. “Don’t do that. I’ll tell you what happened, but, listen, you mustn’t think like a detective. We’re not going after them. Put it out of your head.”
John set his jaw stubbornly, but he gave Lestrade a shallow nod, and he continued.
“I followed them.” Lestrade swallowed hard. “I followed them, and they went into a door, garage door, into an auto repair shop. It was already dark, darker still inside there. Hell, I didn’t even know why I felt I had to do something, but I went and stood by the door. Sometimes it’s just a feeling you get, you know, like you’re supposed to be somewhere.”
“I know what you mean,” John said. He’d had moments like that in battle, feeling he had to run just this direction, or ride in this Humvee.
“I looked around inside,” Lestrade said. “Didn’t see them, but I could hear the boy, and when he screamed I ran after them.”
“What happened then?” John asked.
Lestrade dropped his head, and seemed to notice John’s hand against his side for the first time. “Didn’t you say this needed stitches?”
“Yes. Which should be done at a hospital.”
“No,” Lestrade said emphatically. “Don’t tell me you never stitched up Sherlock after a case.”
“You’re not nearly as stubborn as him.”
“Am I not?” Lestrade fixed his eyes on John, and John suddenly found himself not at all inclined to argue.
“Alright, maybe you are.” John sighed. “We can splint the fingers first, while the local anaesthetic kicks in. Here,” John said, and tugged Lestrade’s good hand over to hold the gauze on his wound. “Keep pressure on this while I get a few things ready. And you may want to sit.”
John dug the necessary supplies from his bag while Lestrade lowered himself gingerly onto one of the kitchen chairs. Some other injury he was hiding, then, to be moving so stiffly. Unless it was just all the bruising making it difficult to bend.
“Wouldn’t you rather be unconscious for this?” John asked. “I have something that would put you out for an hour at least.”
Lestrade looked at him for a long moment. “No, thank you.”
John raised an eyebrow. “You think I’d take you to hospital.”
“With the best of intentions.” Lestrade offered him a rueful smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“Keep talking, then,” John said.
Lestrade squeezed his eyes shut and spoke as John worked. “I was in a room. There were six of them. Six men. One of them-the man I’d seen on the street-gave the homeless boy twenty quid. And he left.” A humourless chuckle shook John’s work surface precariously. “He’s probably off having a laugh with his mates about the stupid copper he tricked. Good for him.”
“Sounds like an enterprising young man,” John said.
“Yes. They knew my name, John.” Lestrade took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “They knew who I was, and they knew my name. I guess that means they were waiting for me. They’d planned this.”
John forced himself to keep his attention on splinting Lestrade’s fingers, but his desperately wanted to ask questions. Not now, though. Not when the battlefield was still so near.
“There was a bit of a scuffle. I didn’t give a terribly good account of myself, I’m afraid.”
“There were six of them,” John felt compelled to point out.
“Still. The man with the knife, I got in a good baton blow to the knee. He won’t be walking for a few weeks. Of course, he got some of his own back, so I shouldn’t feel too smug. They had me on the ground in under a minute.”
“Six against one,” John repeated. Anger-fuelled adrenaline kept his hands perfectly steady as he threaded the needle to stitch Lestrade up. “And they had the element of surprise.”
“The leader seemed to be the man I’d seen on the street. We had a nice little chat. I wasn’t being very tractable. That’s when he stomped on my hand.”
“Which needs to be x-rayed,” John put in. Then, he replayed what Lestrade had just said. “What was this little chat about?”
“What do you think, John?” Lestrade asked. He sounded weary.
“Not... Moriarty?” John asked quietly, as if the walls might hear him.
“They wanted to hear what I’d been looking into. Who I was investigating. They were encouraging me to leave it alone.” Lestrade’s eyes drifted shut again.
John could only imagine what Lestrade was hearing in his memory. “Then what?” he asked.
“They had my equipment. They cuffed my hands behind me.”
“Did they hit you with the baton?”
Lestrade’s eyes remained resolutely closed.
“Greg,” he prompted. “That’s different than punches or even kicks. It can break bone, cause internal bleeding. Did they hit you with your baton?”
“No,” Lestrade ground the answer out through his teeth. “Are you almost done with the stitches?”
“Yes,” John said. He pulled the last stitch through and tied the end before snipping off the excess. “That was well done,” he said. “Honestly, you’ve been a pretty terrible patient in the past, but it takes a certain kind of stoicism to sit still for stitches.”
“Thank you.” Lestrade pushed himself out of his chair and rose stiffly. “I’ve kept you too long already.”
John caught Lestrade’s uninjured hand. “Are you going to tell me whatever it is you haven’t told me yet?”
Lestrade returned to the wall and slumped against it. “It isn’t so important, is it?”
“If it’s hurt you, it’s important.”
Lestrade pushed off the wall and took a few aimless steps around the kitchen, as if searching for something. Finally, he said, “Could you get me a cigarette? There’s a pack in my coat.”
“Alright.” This wasn’t the time to argue about healthy lifestyle choices. He fetched the pack and lighter from Lestrade’s jacket in the living room. There was a receipt for both items in the pocket as well, and John noted the time: just after midnight, less than three hours ago. And already the pack was half empty. He returned to the kitchen, handed Lestrade a cigarette, and lit it for him. He resumed his seat, content to wait until Lestrade had finished off the pack, if he needed to.
Lestrade leaned back against the wall, took a long drag, and let it out slowly. He held the cigarette in front of him, staring at the burning end. “The things they said to me, John. Why do they hate us so much? They hate Sherlock, really, but they can’t get him, anymore. They hate us for remembering him, maybe, or for carrying on his work: trying to do what he did.”
“No one could ever do what he did,” John said softly.
“True enough.” Lestrade took another drag. “And maybe they know that, that I’m not much of a threat. They could have killed me, easily, but they didn’t need to. They wanted to hurt me until I stopped fighting back. And I did. I gave up, so that they’d stop.”
“You probably saved your life, Greg. You’re here. You’re alive, so you’ve won. Now let me help you.”
“It’s strange. Even when they were beating me, kicking me, I wasn’t that afraid. The thought crossed my mind that I might die, that they might actually beat me to death, and it didn’t make me afraid. But what they did then... Even when I knew, when it was happening, I knew, I told myself, ‘you can’t die of this.’ You can’t die of this, and you can’t die of shame.” He brought the cigarette to his lips, but pulled it away again without inhaling. “But it was worse than being beaten, because there was nothing I could do to make them stop. They didn’t even want information. There was no reason for them to end their fun. They could have just gone on forever.”
“Greg?” John held very still. “What did they do?”
“They took my trousers and my pants down. One of them sat on my back, to hold me still. Wasn’t hard with the speedcuffs on me. Another one, or maybe two, held my legs. I couldn’t see them.”
“Greg.” John felt anchored in his chair, unable to bridge the three foot gap between himself at the table and Lestrade clinging to the wall.
“They wanted me to feel helpless, and I did. If a man was punching me, I could laugh, even when I couldn’t breathe. There’s something funny about violence. But I couldn’t laugh at this. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t bloody think, even.” He took a determined drag of his cigarette, as if to prove his lungs were working again. “And it was going to go on and on, taking turns, until I said what they wanted. It doesn’t even mean anything.” He put on a mocking accent. “’Apologize, Detective Inspector, for being such a nosy cunt.’” He tapped his head against the wall. “Just a simple apology, and they’d let me go. After a while, it seemed such a small price to pay.”
He took another drag while studiously avoiding John’s eyes. “One of them spat in my face, after. And they left. They left me the keys. They wanted me to be able to get out. This wasn’t for anyone else to see, just a message. Leave the case alone. Forget about what Sherlock was trying to do, what he died doing, John. And I took it. I let them have their fun. And no one can ever know, so they’re never going to be punished. I let them win.”
“It’s not a game, Greg. What they did to you wasn’t a game. And they’ll pay. We’ll find them. They’re already nervous, or they wouldn’t have... But it doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t.” He stood up. “Can you... Can I check you over? There might be damage-“
“No.” Lestrade’s eyes snapped to John’s, suddenly wary. “It’s not that bad. No one has to know it happened.”
“Greg, this is madness. Let me take you to hospital.”
“No. It’s not happening.” A bit of the old steel was back in Lestrade’s voice.
“Greg, I can’t do everything you need. Antibiotics. An STI test.”
“Don’t need an STI test. They didn’t use… “
John raised an eyebrow, but Lestrade shook his head violently, and went on.
“Anyway, I’m not going.”
“I’ll go with you. We don’t have to tell them everything.”
“No.”
“Greg, please.” John took a step closer.
“They’ll take me off the case!” Lestrade said, suddenly standing tall and as full of authority as ever John had seen him. “If they know I’ve been attacked, then I won’t be able to investigate the organisation any more. Understand? I’m not abandoning the case.” Not abandoning him.
“Right.” John swallowed down his sorrow. He couldn’t argue with Lestrade, not about that. He’d be a hypocrite. “I’m sorry. Whatever you want, Greg. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Lestrade took a last drag of the cigarette before stubbing it out in the sink. “Help me get to bed?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Moving with deliberate slowness, they managed to get Lestrade into clean, dry clothes, and settled into his bed in such a way that none of his injuries were under undue strain.
John dragged the chair from Lestrade’s desk over in front of the bedroom door. “I’ll sit right here," he announced. “Unless you’d prefer to be alone.”
“No,” Lestrade said immediately. Then, “Can you lock the door, please?”
“Yes.” John turned the lock on the bedroom door and settled into his chair, facing it. He’d done as much more than once for Sherlock, either at hospital or at Baker Street, but only when the great detective was unconscious and couldn’t object. He appreciated Lestrade’s letting him keep vigil. After a few moments, he said, “Will you think about going to A&E in the morning? Even just for your fingers,” he added quickly. “You can tell them you slammed them in your car door.”
“I’ll think about it,” came Lestrade’s muffled voice from the bed. They both sat in the darkness with their thoughts another moment. Then, “John?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for coming.”
“I always will,” John said.
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Gen-ish. Lestrade & John friendship
Content advisory: Semi-graphic descriptions of violence. Highlight for important warning that is also a spoiler: description of sexual assault
Notes: Written for morganstuart’s Make Me a Monday request. Sorry I didn’t get the five times in there! And thanks to jaune_chat for the quick beta action! Title from this song.
Summary: Sometimes John’s friends call him when they need to get patched up off the record. He wishes these things didn’t happen so frequently to the people he cares about.
John pressed a buzzer-hopefully the correct one--next to the woefully-faded, nigh-illegible list of names and numbers beside the building’s front door. When nothing happened, he pulled out his phone to check Lestrade’s text again: Could use your help, it said, and then the address at which John stood.
Usually when John answered a summons from Lestrade, he arrived to find crime scene tape and a fleet of emergency vehicles, but this street was quiet and peaceful. Any place should be quiet at this god-awful hour of the morning, John thought a bit resentfully. He pressed the buzzer again, and this time the speaker crackled to life.
“Lestrade,” came a voice barely recognizable through the spotty connection.
“Hello. It’s John. John Watson,” he said, feeling slightly foolish. “I got your text.” A moment passed in which the intercom’s static crackled eerily, then the door buzzed in welcome.
John pushed through the door and climbed three narrow flights of stairs until he came to flat 3C. The door was slightly ajar. John’s heartbeat sped up with a sudden jolt of adrenaline until he heard Lestrade’s voice calling, “Come on in.”
John let himself into a shabby but tidy little flat in which every single light seemed to be ablaze. Lestrade’s coat lay tossed carelessly over the sofa, and three tall stacks of case files leaned precariously on the coffee table. Putting the clues together, he came to what Sherlock would have called the obvious conclusion.
“Cor, is this your flat?” John called. He marvelled that he’d never been here, in all the years of his and Lestrade’s acquaintance. Still, it made a certain kind of sense. They’d seen less of each other in the year since Sherlock had been gone. A weekly night down the pub swapping Sherlock stories had become Lestrade showing up at Baker Street once a month or so to beg a look at Sherlock’s old files and have a cup of tea.
“In the kitchen,” Lestrade called.
John moved farther into the flat, following the sound of running water. He was about to ask what big emergency had precipitated the text when he got his first glimpse of Lestrade.
He stood with his back to John, hands braced on the counter’s edge. Steam rose up from the sink, where the hot water was running full blast. His abominably wrinkled blue shirt was untucked from his trousers. The left side was liberally stained with blood.
“Can I get you some tea?” Lestrade asked.
“Lestrade! What the hell happened?”
Lestrade turned to look at John, revealing a cut above his right eyebrow, a bruise darkening on his left cheek, and a smear of blood decorating the corner of his mouth.
“Christ, Lestrade.” John rushed forwards, hands extended.
Lestrade stumbled backwards-John catalogued the stiff way he moved, how he held his body curved inward-hands blindly groping around his waist (looking for a weapon?), until his back hit the far wall, and he winced.
John stood staring for a moment, until an absolute calm clicked into place, locking down any other emotions that threatened to make an appearance. “Okay. It’s alright.” John reached over slowly to turn off the sink, which was pouring scalding water into an already overflowing kettle. “Do you want to sit down?”
“I was meant to make tea. After I sent the text. That’s what I told myself I’d do while I waited for you to turn up. Tea improves every situation, doesn’t it?” Lestrade laughed, but it sounded hollow. “Listen, I’m sorry I asked you to come. Shouldn’t have done.”
“You’re bleeding. It’s good to call a doctor when you’re bleeding,” John said evenly. He didn’t try to move toward Lestrade again. He’d seen Lestrade keep steady nerves through situations that would have turned many a grown man’s stomach, so it was strange to see him so rattled. “Are you cold?”
“A bit. Shock, you’re thinking. Probably. Should have figured that. Should know better. I’ve got a blanket, just out there.” He waved vaguely at the living room. “You needn’t worry.”
“And the blood?”
Lestrade looked down at himself and swallowed hard. “Not all of that’s mine.”
“But you are bleeding,” John pointed out. The red stain was too bright and wet to have been there long.
“Think so.” Lestrade frowned. “Couldn’t get my shirt off to have a look. Bloody hand.”
John’s eyes drifted down to see Lestrade’s hand, which he was holding protectively against his belly, was wrapped in some sort of cloth. “Can I see it?” John asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but proceeded as if Lestrade would comply. He set his doctor’s bag, which he routinely brought along on Lestrade’s calls, on the table, sat down, and busied himself unpacking a few things he thought he’d need: gauze, disinfectant, paracetamol.
Lestrade drifted closer. He didn’t sit, but came close enough to reach his hand over the corner of the table and lay it gingerly in front of John.
John moved his hands up slowly, avoiding any jerky movements. A thin dish towel was wrapped around Lestrade’s fingers. As John pulled away the towel, Lestrade stared straight ahead and gritted his teeth. He needed to talk. Something normal should do the trick.
“It’s stopped raining out,” John said. “Poured all day. Got soaked when I ran out for lunch. Sarah told me now I have my own practise I’m meant to let someone else run my errands, but I like to get some fresh air.”
“How is the practise?” Lestrade asked. His stance seemed to have relaxed, at least a fraction.
“It keeps me busy, which is nice. Doesn’t do to sit around home. Not with... Well, the flat is pretty quiet these days.” John set the towel aside and got his first look at Lestrade’s hand. There was quite a lot of crusted blood and dirt, which he dabbed at with a flannel.
“It’s best to keep busy,” Lestrade said. “I have, you know. There’s more to the network than that bastard who drowned in Switzerland. I’ve kept on it.”
“I know you have,” John said quietly. No few of their late nights at Baker Street had revolved around researching leads one or the other of them had come across in cleaning up the remnants of Moriarty’s organisation. It still bound them together, even after all this time.
“It’s funny. I never really thought it would do any good. At least, not the kind of good he would have done.”
“Hm.” Underneath the mess, John didn’t like what he saw. Lestrade’s knuckles were cut and bruised, probably from throwing a few hard punches, if John had to guess. His third and fourth fingers were bent at a strange angle. “Greg.” Not Lestrade anymore, because this wasn’t strictly a business call. “We should go to A&E.”
“You think they’re broken?”
“You’ve seen broken fingers before,” John said carefully. “What do you think?”
But Lestrade didn’t look. He continued staring straight ahead, which John added to the growing pile of puzzling clues.
“How did this happen?” John asked.
“Stomped on my hand. Just once, with the heel of his boot.”
His boot. At least one attacker, but not on while Lestrade was on duty, or he’d have been looked after. John cradled Lestrade’s hand gently in his and turned it over. A long gash marred the palm, but the blood seemed to have clotted.
“Piece of glass on the ground,” Lestrade said before John could ask.
John turned his hand back over and rested it on the table. “These fingers need to be set properly.”
“Can you do it?” Lestrade ventured a look down at John.
John didn’t like the haunted desperation he saw in that expression. “Maybe. If it’s a simple fracture, I could bind it. But I’d want to make sure. You don’t want to mess about with your fingers healing wrong. Besides, this isn’t your only injury, is it?”
Lestrade sucked in a breath, then flinched. He shook his head.
“Alright,” John said. “Let me see whatever’s bleeding.”
Lestrade pulled away from the table and winced at the movement of his fingers.
John stood, moving smoothly so as not to send Lestrade running again. “Hold your hand still as best you can. I’m going to take your shirt off, yeah? Tell me if I should stop.” John approached with his hands in front of him. He began unbuttoning Lestrade’s bloody shirt from the top while Lestrade stared resolutely at the wall.
The part of John’s brain that had spent too long with Sherlock Holmes was making rapid-fire observations. There was dirt ground into the front of Lestrade’s shirt and his trousers, not visible from the back. Something darker than dirt, too-oil or grease stains? He’d been held down on the ground, on his belly. Or on his hands and knees, perhaps-the knees of his trousers were abraded, and his hands were certainly not in good shape. Only the cuffs of his trousers were damp, though, so wherever he’d been tousling, it hadn’t been outside.
The last of the buttons came free, and John helped Lestrade work the shirt off, first his right arm, then the left, mindful of the injured fingers on that hand. Underneath, Lestrade’s vest was practically plastered to his skin with blood.
“I’m going to cut this off,” John said. “Alright?”
Lestrade nodded curtly, eyes still fixed on the wall. John’s deadly calm took a stronger hold as the strange clues piled up. He’d treated Lestrade’s injuries before, many times, and the man had never been this quiet, or this skittish. Usually at this stage he’d be swearing up a storm and counting the minutes until John would let him have some whiskey. John didn’t like this stubborn reticence.
John took a small pair of scissors from his kit and carefully began cutting down from the collar of Lestrade’s shirt, then the sleeves. As the fabric fell away, it revealed livid bruises and more than a few cuts and abrasions. The left side, sticky with blood, John had to peel away, wincing as pained breaths whistled through Lestrade’s clenched teeth.
A deep cut about two inches long traced the line of Lestrade’s fourth rib. It bled freely now, so John pressed a piece of gauze to it and applied pressure. “How did this happen?” he asked. He deliberately kept his focus on the wound, and didn’t look at Lestrade.
“One of them had a knife,” Lestrade said.
One of them. More than one attacker. “And the bruises?” he asked.
“Punches, kicks.”
There could be internal bleeding, then, but probably not. The cut bled through the first piece of gauze, then the next two strips John applied on top of that. “This is going to need stitches,” he announced. “Other injuries?”
“This is the most serious.”
“But there are others,” John said. Having lived with the past master of elusive answers, he recognized Lestrade’s evasion. “Greg, tell me. I need to know what to treat.”
“These are the worst of them.” His eyes remained fixed on the far wall, and he’d leaned as far away from John as it was possible to go without actually moving. For a man who John had seen take worse injuries with every evidence of stoicism, the behaviour sent alarm bells ringing.
“Lestrade, I’m going to help you no matter what. I owe you. God knows I owe you... But something worse could be wrong that you don’t recognize, and if anything happened to you because I hadn’t-“ John stumbled to a halt. He didn’t want to upset Lestrade, but the man was one of the very few friends he had left these days, and he wasn’t above using guilt to drive that point home. “Well, can you imagine, just for a minute, please, what that might do to me?”
Lestrade dragged his gaze back to John. His eyes drifted closed, and then he nodded. “Alright,” he rasped.
“Can you tell me what happened? We can go from there.”
“Alright. Yes. Alright.” Lestrade gripped the edge of the table hard with his good hand. “I was… I left the Yard late. I’d gone to Lambeth to talk to a victim and tell her we’d got the bastard who… Anyway, I’d gone to talk to a victim. When we were finished, I was walking back and I saw a teenager, obviously homeless, skinny bloke. He reminded me terribly of one of Sherlock’s old network. That’s just me being nostalgic; I hadn’t actually seen him before, I don’t imagine. Something was wrong. The man he was with had a grip on him that looked unfriendly. Well, there was something wrong, and I followed them for a block or two. “
“The man, what did he look like?” John asked.
“Don’t, John,” Lestrade said sharply. “Don’t do that. I’ll tell you what happened, but, listen, you mustn’t think like a detective. We’re not going after them. Put it out of your head.”
John set his jaw stubbornly, but he gave Lestrade a shallow nod, and he continued.
“I followed them.” Lestrade swallowed hard. “I followed them, and they went into a door, garage door, into an auto repair shop. It was already dark, darker still inside there. Hell, I didn’t even know why I felt I had to do something, but I went and stood by the door. Sometimes it’s just a feeling you get, you know, like you’re supposed to be somewhere.”
“I know what you mean,” John said. He’d had moments like that in battle, feeling he had to run just this direction, or ride in this Humvee.
“I looked around inside,” Lestrade said. “Didn’t see them, but I could hear the boy, and when he screamed I ran after them.”
“What happened then?” John asked.
Lestrade dropped his head, and seemed to notice John’s hand against his side for the first time. “Didn’t you say this needed stitches?”
“Yes. Which should be done at a hospital.”
“No,” Lestrade said emphatically. “Don’t tell me you never stitched up Sherlock after a case.”
“You’re not nearly as stubborn as him.”
“Am I not?” Lestrade fixed his eyes on John, and John suddenly found himself not at all inclined to argue.
“Alright, maybe you are.” John sighed. “We can splint the fingers first, while the local anaesthetic kicks in. Here,” John said, and tugged Lestrade’s good hand over to hold the gauze on his wound. “Keep pressure on this while I get a few things ready. And you may want to sit.”
John dug the necessary supplies from his bag while Lestrade lowered himself gingerly onto one of the kitchen chairs. Some other injury he was hiding, then, to be moving so stiffly. Unless it was just all the bruising making it difficult to bend.
“Wouldn’t you rather be unconscious for this?” John asked. “I have something that would put you out for an hour at least.”
Lestrade looked at him for a long moment. “No, thank you.”
John raised an eyebrow. “You think I’d take you to hospital.”
“With the best of intentions.” Lestrade offered him a rueful smile. “I’ll be fine.”
“Keep talking, then,” John said.
Lestrade squeezed his eyes shut and spoke as John worked. “I was in a room. There were six of them. Six men. One of them-the man I’d seen on the street-gave the homeless boy twenty quid. And he left.” A humourless chuckle shook John’s work surface precariously. “He’s probably off having a laugh with his mates about the stupid copper he tricked. Good for him.”
“Sounds like an enterprising young man,” John said.
“Yes. They knew my name, John.” Lestrade took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. “They knew who I was, and they knew my name. I guess that means they were waiting for me. They’d planned this.”
John forced himself to keep his attention on splinting Lestrade’s fingers, but his desperately wanted to ask questions. Not now, though. Not when the battlefield was still so near.
“There was a bit of a scuffle. I didn’t give a terribly good account of myself, I’m afraid.”
“There were six of them,” John felt compelled to point out.
“Still. The man with the knife, I got in a good baton blow to the knee. He won’t be walking for a few weeks. Of course, he got some of his own back, so I shouldn’t feel too smug. They had me on the ground in under a minute.”
“Six against one,” John repeated. Anger-fuelled adrenaline kept his hands perfectly steady as he threaded the needle to stitch Lestrade up. “And they had the element of surprise.”
“The leader seemed to be the man I’d seen on the street. We had a nice little chat. I wasn’t being very tractable. That’s when he stomped on my hand.”
“Which needs to be x-rayed,” John put in. Then, he replayed what Lestrade had just said. “What was this little chat about?”
“What do you think, John?” Lestrade asked. He sounded weary.
“Not... Moriarty?” John asked quietly, as if the walls might hear him.
“They wanted to hear what I’d been looking into. Who I was investigating. They were encouraging me to leave it alone.” Lestrade’s eyes drifted shut again.
John could only imagine what Lestrade was hearing in his memory. “Then what?” he asked.
“They had my equipment. They cuffed my hands behind me.”
“Did they hit you with the baton?”
Lestrade’s eyes remained resolutely closed.
“Greg,” he prompted. “That’s different than punches or even kicks. It can break bone, cause internal bleeding. Did they hit you with your baton?”
“No,” Lestrade ground the answer out through his teeth. “Are you almost done with the stitches?”
“Yes,” John said. He pulled the last stitch through and tied the end before snipping off the excess. “That was well done,” he said. “Honestly, you’ve been a pretty terrible patient in the past, but it takes a certain kind of stoicism to sit still for stitches.”
“Thank you.” Lestrade pushed himself out of his chair and rose stiffly. “I’ve kept you too long already.”
John caught Lestrade’s uninjured hand. “Are you going to tell me whatever it is you haven’t told me yet?”
Lestrade returned to the wall and slumped against it. “It isn’t so important, is it?”
“If it’s hurt you, it’s important.”
Lestrade pushed off the wall and took a few aimless steps around the kitchen, as if searching for something. Finally, he said, “Could you get me a cigarette? There’s a pack in my coat.”
“Alright.” This wasn’t the time to argue about healthy lifestyle choices. He fetched the pack and lighter from Lestrade’s jacket in the living room. There was a receipt for both items in the pocket as well, and John noted the time: just after midnight, less than three hours ago. And already the pack was half empty. He returned to the kitchen, handed Lestrade a cigarette, and lit it for him. He resumed his seat, content to wait until Lestrade had finished off the pack, if he needed to.
Lestrade leaned back against the wall, took a long drag, and let it out slowly. He held the cigarette in front of him, staring at the burning end. “The things they said to me, John. Why do they hate us so much? They hate Sherlock, really, but they can’t get him, anymore. They hate us for remembering him, maybe, or for carrying on his work: trying to do what he did.”
“No one could ever do what he did,” John said softly.
“True enough.” Lestrade took another drag. “And maybe they know that, that I’m not much of a threat. They could have killed me, easily, but they didn’t need to. They wanted to hurt me until I stopped fighting back. And I did. I gave up, so that they’d stop.”
“You probably saved your life, Greg. You’re here. You’re alive, so you’ve won. Now let me help you.”
“It’s strange. Even when they were beating me, kicking me, I wasn’t that afraid. The thought crossed my mind that I might die, that they might actually beat me to death, and it didn’t make me afraid. But what they did then... Even when I knew, when it was happening, I knew, I told myself, ‘you can’t die of this.’ You can’t die of this, and you can’t die of shame.” He brought the cigarette to his lips, but pulled it away again without inhaling. “But it was worse than being beaten, because there was nothing I could do to make them stop. They didn’t even want information. There was no reason for them to end their fun. They could have just gone on forever.”
“Greg?” John held very still. “What did they do?”
“They took my trousers and my pants down. One of them sat on my back, to hold me still. Wasn’t hard with the speedcuffs on me. Another one, or maybe two, held my legs. I couldn’t see them.”
“Greg.” John felt anchored in his chair, unable to bridge the three foot gap between himself at the table and Lestrade clinging to the wall.
“They wanted me to feel helpless, and I did. If a man was punching me, I could laugh, even when I couldn’t breathe. There’s something funny about violence. But I couldn’t laugh at this. Couldn’t cry. Couldn’t bloody think, even.” He took a determined drag of his cigarette, as if to prove his lungs were working again. “And it was going to go on and on, taking turns, until I said what they wanted. It doesn’t even mean anything.” He put on a mocking accent. “’Apologize, Detective Inspector, for being such a nosy cunt.’” He tapped his head against the wall. “Just a simple apology, and they’d let me go. After a while, it seemed such a small price to pay.”
He took another drag while studiously avoiding John’s eyes. “One of them spat in my face, after. And they left. They left me the keys. They wanted me to be able to get out. This wasn’t for anyone else to see, just a message. Leave the case alone. Forget about what Sherlock was trying to do, what he died doing, John. And I took it. I let them have their fun. And no one can ever know, so they’re never going to be punished. I let them win.”
“It’s not a game, Greg. What they did to you wasn’t a game. And they’ll pay. We’ll find them. They’re already nervous, or they wouldn’t have... But it doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t.” He stood up. “Can you... Can I check you over? There might be damage-“
“No.” Lestrade’s eyes snapped to John’s, suddenly wary. “It’s not that bad. No one has to know it happened.”
“Greg, this is madness. Let me take you to hospital.”
“No. It’s not happening.” A bit of the old steel was back in Lestrade’s voice.
“Greg, I can’t do everything you need. Antibiotics. An STI test.”
“Don’t need an STI test. They didn’t use… “
John raised an eyebrow, but Lestrade shook his head violently, and went on.
“Anyway, I’m not going.”
“I’ll go with you. We don’t have to tell them everything.”
“No.”
“Greg, please.” John took a step closer.
“They’ll take me off the case!” Lestrade said, suddenly standing tall and as full of authority as ever John had seen him. “If they know I’ve been attacked, then I won’t be able to investigate the organisation any more. Understand? I’m not abandoning the case.” Not abandoning him.
“Right.” John swallowed down his sorrow. He couldn’t argue with Lestrade, not about that. He’d be a hypocrite. “I’m sorry. Whatever you want, Greg. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Lestrade took a last drag of the cigarette before stubbing it out in the sink. “Help me get to bed?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Moving with deliberate slowness, they managed to get Lestrade into clean, dry clothes, and settled into his bed in such a way that none of his injuries were under undue strain.
John dragged the chair from Lestrade’s desk over in front of the bedroom door. “I’ll sit right here," he announced. “Unless you’d prefer to be alone.”
“No,” Lestrade said immediately. Then, “Can you lock the door, please?”
“Yes.” John turned the lock on the bedroom door and settled into his chair, facing it. He’d done as much more than once for Sherlock, either at hospital or at Baker Street, but only when the great detective was unconscious and couldn’t object. He appreciated Lestrade’s letting him keep vigil. After a few moments, he said, “Will you think about going to A&E in the morning? Even just for your fingers,” he added quickly. “You can tell them you slammed them in your car door.”
“I’ll think about it,” came Lestrade’s muffled voice from the bed. They both sat in the darkness with their thoughts another moment. Then, “John?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for coming.”
“I always will,” John said.