Sherlock: Can't Solve People
Title: Can't Solve People
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: Lestrade, Sherlock, (John)
Words: ~2100
Notes: Initially I wanted to write something with John and Sherlock. But somehow Lestrade joined and took over the spotlight. Again. Can't even explain it. But it's pretty Sherlock/John slashy anyway.
Edit Aug. 2011: I translated this fic in a fit of going mad with writer's block and the German version is over at ff.de: Menschen sind nicht lösbar
Can't Solve People
About twice a month Lestrade and Sherlock meet for lunch. It's not an arrangement as such, nothing like every first and third Tuesday or something like that, it's just Sherlock texting. About two times a month. Mostly on Tuesdays.
The secret to getting along with Sherlock is to have things his way. There's just no alternative. The moment Sherlock gets the feeling that someone's trying to set rules he's out. Deeply frustrating, yes, but Lestrade has this technique where he thinks about Sherlock in terms of a particularly difficult fife-year-old and it's working quite well so far. So if Sherlock wants to think of himself as impulsive and unpredictable, Lestrade indulges him. It's what he does most of the time anyway, no reason to change that over a bagatelle like the lunches.
The main reason for the lunches is the spying. In the beginning it was about whether Sherlock's still clean and whether Lestrade is keeping interesting cases from him. Nowadays it's more about whether Sherlock's keeping the latest mayhem he caused from Lestrade and whether Lestrade has done or experienced anything Sherlock deems worth a thought. Which most people would think isn't much, but Lestrade knows that Sherlock is a nosy bastard and his air of aloof ennui with everything and everyone is faked half of the time. Sherlock is rarely as bored with you as he wants to make you think; if he was, he wouldn't be there. It's just one of the mind games he plays for reasons Lestrade is probably too sane to understand.
So usually it works like this: Lestrade gets a text to meet Sherlock at some random place with brilliant food. Lestrade is there between 12.00 and 12.10. Sherlock is late.
“You're late,” Lestrade says, because he likes to be consistent.
“Roadworks. Had to take the sewers,” Sherlock answers, though he doesn't smell like he took the sewers. Lestrade is reasonably sure that Sherlock has a sense of humor and that he's joking occasionally, it's just that he could as well be serious about any insane thing he says. Doesn't make the picture of Sherlock climbing out of a manhole like it's as normal as exiting the bus any less amusing.
It's an Indian hole in the wall place today and Lestrade already ordered some naan. Sherlock is fiddling with one of them which Lestrade takes as a good sign, though coming here at all means that Sherlock's probably alright. Lestrade was worried, there hasn't been a murder mystery for some time, just one depressingly banal murder with robbery that was solved by CCTV. It's not that Lestrade genuinely prefers a bloody crime over Sherlock being bored to despair - he just worries, that's all. It also means that Sherlock has something to occupy his ever running mind, which Lestrade finds alarming.
“Would you consider us friends?” Sherlock asks after they ordered their food and it's just as well that Lestrade has given up long ago on being surprised by anything he says.
“As long as I don't think too much about it,” he says, barely looking up from the menu.
Sherlock is quiet for a moment. “Which means that you don't,” he states and manages to sound a little bit insulted.
The tone makes Lestrade look up. Sherlock is demonstratively not looking at him, watching him in the reflection of the window, pouting. Lestrade's second tactic for dealing with Sherlock is pretending that he is an alien that learned human behaviour from a badly researched book. Sometimes this approach works better than the fife-year-old. Today seems to be one of those days. “No, I do,” says Lestrade. “We're friends, I just wasn't sure you had figured it out.”
Sherlock looks at him and doesn't smile. “Of course I figured it out.” Even more insulted. Lestrade's pretty sure it's a lie.
“Glad we talked about it,” he says. It's a thinly veiled attempt to feign disinterest, while he's really quite curious about what got Sherlock in a funk. Sherlock doesn't do things like friends. It's normal and therefore a foreign concept to him. Lestrade has no idea what Sherlock's definition would be, but his money would be on something like “would help me without being smug about it” or anything equally egomaniacal.
“You didn't want to share the flat with me,” Sherlock remarks eventually. Lestrade is glad it doesn't sound insulted or reproachful or any other way that would threaten his sanity. He knows the tone, Sherlock is laying out the foundation for a deduction.
“No,” is all Lestrade says and it's the same thing he texted back when Sherlock was searching for a flat mate about a month ago. This one word still seems like the most polite thing he can manage in the face of that particular nightmare.
Sherlock looks at him suspiciously while the waiter (who's also the cook) brings their food. “You think I'm a bad flat mate!”
“But you are, I should know! You squatted in my flat for two weeks!” Lestrade has no idea why Sherlock sounds so scandalized about it. Living with him is like looking after a particularly bad-mannered cat. He expects food and attention when it's convenient for him, ruins the furniture and constantly drags in dead things.
“That's ages ago and you didn't tell me to leave!” - by which point the conversation got so absurd that Lestrade can't even answer. Because he not only told Sherlock to leave about five times, he also called Mycroft in the end.
“Never mind, you have that doctor of yours, haven't you?”
Sherlock gives an indignant cough and suddenly looks ten times as arrogant. Conversation with Sherlock is all about defences, distractions and misunderstandings, but Lestrade is pretty sure he knows what this is. “Oh, he already wants to leave?” He's guessing, but it's the natural assumption from his point of view. Five weeks with Sherlock is actually quite a respectable time. “What did you do?”
“I'm pretty sure, a friend is supposed to be more sympathetic,” Sherlock snipes. “You're not very good at this”
Lestrade shrugs. “There's probably a reason I don't have that many friends. Take it or leave it.”
Sherlock sulks for about two minutes, before the injustice becomes too much to take. “I didn't do anything!”
Lestrade raises an eyebrow.
“He's completely irrational!”
“About what?”
“About the ears in the bathtub! He never said that he had a particular dislike of ears, how am I supposed to know? I explained to him everything about memory being a limited resource, but did he listen? He just expects me to remember things. Things about laundry!”
Lestrade sees the problem.
“I remembered thirteen rules alone, just about what I wasn't allowed to do between midnight and five in the morning. I remembered to buy milk!” In Sherlock's world (which can never, under no circumstances, be equated with anyone else's) that's actually close to being the perfect flatmate. Lestrade is reasonably sure that Sherlock lives under the illusion that he himself wouldn't ask more of a flatmate than remembering laundry and occasionally buying milk. He tends to be delusional like that. But it's kind of sweet that he tries.
“Most people wouldn't like ears in their bathtub,” Lestrade points out. Years of Sherlock conversations have taught him not to care about how insane and/or banal a sentence sounds, it's always good to be clear about some things.
“But he didn't mind the eyes,” Sherlock argues. “That's inconsistent.”
“The eyes in the microwave?”
“They weren't always in the microwave.”
“Right, why would they?”
Sherlock ignores him. “They were defrosting. When he found them they were in the freezer.”
“And what did he do?”
“He asked why there were eyes in the freezer. I explained about the experiment. We had quite the revealing conversation about tissue damage caused by freezer burn.” Sherlock sounds happy.
And that's the point where Lestrade has an epiphany. One. He never heard Sherlock sound happy without murder or drugs involved. Two. Dr. John Watson is either a saint or almost as insane as Sherlock Holmes, maybe both. Three. Something about Jacks and Jills, if he remembers the saying right.
However, that is not the problem at hand. John Watson, who can tolerate Sherlock better than anyone else, wants to move out. Because of the ears in the bathtub. Tough the ears might not be the problem here. Amazingly.
“Maybe he wanted to use the bathtub?” Lestrade hazards.
Sherlock looks surprised, like the thought that you could use a bathtub for other things than to store ears didn't occur to him. “Bathing is supposed to be relaxing,” he says and Lestrade imagines it's a quote from the badly researched alien book. “He did appear stressed.”
“Before or after he found the ears?”
“Both. He had to work late, there was vomit involved.”
“So maybe it wasn't about the ears.”
“I think I remember the discussion quite well,” Sherlock says sceptically, “and the word 'ears' featured prominently.”
Lestrade represses a sigh. “Let's assume it wasn't about the ears.”
“Based on what? Assumptions lead to-”
“Based on what I say,” he snaps. Because, really why should Sherlock of all people be allowed to question his expertise here?
Sherlock looks thoughtful for a moment. “You could be a test function.”
“What?”
“A solved approximation to John. We're friends and both of you fake normal so well you fool yourselves half of the time. We just have to factor in that you're terribly territorial about your living space.” It's careless remarks like this which remind Lestrade that talking to Sherlock is never a harmless endeavour. One day he could tell you something about yourself, that can't be shrugged off.
“Sherlock, you can't solve people!”
Sherlock looks at him like he is the one being absurd and chooses not to answer. “So what you say is that talking about the ears was some kind of code,” he sums up.
Lestrade wants to tell him that that is not what he said at all, but then he just shrugs. “What did he say anyway?”
“Get rid of the bloody ears or I'm out of here,” Sherlock quotes.
Lestrade needs a moment to work through his confusion. “That's not exactly a declaration to move out,” he says eventually.
Sherlock looks pained. “I might have said I'd rather keep the ears.”
“Why?”
“I don't know! I was agitated, he yelled at me. And refused to make tea!”
Lestrade stares at him, Sherlock looks confused. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this man is a genius. “He yelled at you about ears in the bathtub. And you told him to make you tea.” Just to be clear on this.
“It's a perfectly socially acceptable request,” Sherlock tells him and faced with Lestrade's sceptical frown he adds a practical observation: “People make tea for other people all the time.”
“I refuse to discuss this with you,” Lestrade tells him. Sometimes when talking with him, you just reach the point where Sherlock is so completely off the rails that anything you could say would just further undermine your sanity.
Sherlock glares at him. He's thinking furious thoughts about people with tiny little brains, Lestrade can tell.
“Two pieces of advise,” he says and Sherlock glares some more. “One: You get rid of the ears and never mention them again. Two: When people yell at you, you don't tell them to do anything for you.”
“I can concede to the first one,” Sherlock says grudgingly. “I didn't need them anyway, took the prints some days ago. But the second one would drastically interfere with my work.”
Lestrade shrugs and clears the last bit of delicious curry from his plate. “I have to get back to work.”
“Hopefully some of those blundering criminals have decided to do something finally,” Sherlock remarks bitterly, like he's terribly disappointed in the London underworld for lacking entertainment value. He probably is.
“Let's hope for the best,” is Lestrade's somewhat ambiguous answer. Before he leaves he turns to Sherlock who's slumped in the corner like some kind of fin de siècle bohemian artist, scowling at the world. “He won't move out,” Lestrade feels confident to say. “Tell him about the thirteen rules you remembered, he might like that.”
.
Fandom: Sherlock
Characters: Lestrade, Sherlock, (John)
Words: ~2100
Notes: Initially I wanted to write something with John and Sherlock. But somehow Lestrade joined and took over the spotlight. Again. Can't even explain it. But it's pretty Sherlock/John slashy anyway.
Edit Aug. 2011: I translated this fic in a fit of going mad with writer's block and the German version is over at ff.de: Menschen sind nicht lösbar
Can't Solve People
About twice a month Lestrade and Sherlock meet for lunch. It's not an arrangement as such, nothing like every first and third Tuesday or something like that, it's just Sherlock texting. About two times a month. Mostly on Tuesdays.
The secret to getting along with Sherlock is to have things his way. There's just no alternative. The moment Sherlock gets the feeling that someone's trying to set rules he's out. Deeply frustrating, yes, but Lestrade has this technique where he thinks about Sherlock in terms of a particularly difficult fife-year-old and it's working quite well so far. So if Sherlock wants to think of himself as impulsive and unpredictable, Lestrade indulges him. It's what he does most of the time anyway, no reason to change that over a bagatelle like the lunches.
The main reason for the lunches is the spying. In the beginning it was about whether Sherlock's still clean and whether Lestrade is keeping interesting cases from him. Nowadays it's more about whether Sherlock's keeping the latest mayhem he caused from Lestrade and whether Lestrade has done or experienced anything Sherlock deems worth a thought. Which most people would think isn't much, but Lestrade knows that Sherlock is a nosy bastard and his air of aloof ennui with everything and everyone is faked half of the time. Sherlock is rarely as bored with you as he wants to make you think; if he was, he wouldn't be there. It's just one of the mind games he plays for reasons Lestrade is probably too sane to understand.
So usually it works like this: Lestrade gets a text to meet Sherlock at some random place with brilliant food. Lestrade is there between 12.00 and 12.10. Sherlock is late.
“You're late,” Lestrade says, because he likes to be consistent.
“Roadworks. Had to take the sewers,” Sherlock answers, though he doesn't smell like he took the sewers. Lestrade is reasonably sure that Sherlock has a sense of humor and that he's joking occasionally, it's just that he could as well be serious about any insane thing he says. Doesn't make the picture of Sherlock climbing out of a manhole like it's as normal as exiting the bus any less amusing.
It's an Indian hole in the wall place today and Lestrade already ordered some naan. Sherlock is fiddling with one of them which Lestrade takes as a good sign, though coming here at all means that Sherlock's probably alright. Lestrade was worried, there hasn't been a murder mystery for some time, just one depressingly banal murder with robbery that was solved by CCTV. It's not that Lestrade genuinely prefers a bloody crime over Sherlock being bored to despair - he just worries, that's all. It also means that Sherlock has something to occupy his ever running mind, which Lestrade finds alarming.
“Would you consider us friends?” Sherlock asks after they ordered their food and it's just as well that Lestrade has given up long ago on being surprised by anything he says.
“As long as I don't think too much about it,” he says, barely looking up from the menu.
Sherlock is quiet for a moment. “Which means that you don't,” he states and manages to sound a little bit insulted.
The tone makes Lestrade look up. Sherlock is demonstratively not looking at him, watching him in the reflection of the window, pouting. Lestrade's second tactic for dealing with Sherlock is pretending that he is an alien that learned human behaviour from a badly researched book. Sometimes this approach works better than the fife-year-old. Today seems to be one of those days. “No, I do,” says Lestrade. “We're friends, I just wasn't sure you had figured it out.”
Sherlock looks at him and doesn't smile. “Of course I figured it out.” Even more insulted. Lestrade's pretty sure it's a lie.
“Glad we talked about it,” he says. It's a thinly veiled attempt to feign disinterest, while he's really quite curious about what got Sherlock in a funk. Sherlock doesn't do things like friends. It's normal and therefore a foreign concept to him. Lestrade has no idea what Sherlock's definition would be, but his money would be on something like “would help me without being smug about it” or anything equally egomaniacal.
“You didn't want to share the flat with me,” Sherlock remarks eventually. Lestrade is glad it doesn't sound insulted or reproachful or any other way that would threaten his sanity. He knows the tone, Sherlock is laying out the foundation for a deduction.
“No,” is all Lestrade says and it's the same thing he texted back when Sherlock was searching for a flat mate about a month ago. This one word still seems like the most polite thing he can manage in the face of that particular nightmare.
Sherlock looks at him suspiciously while the waiter (who's also the cook) brings their food. “You think I'm a bad flat mate!”
“But you are, I should know! You squatted in my flat for two weeks!” Lestrade has no idea why Sherlock sounds so scandalized about it. Living with him is like looking after a particularly bad-mannered cat. He expects food and attention when it's convenient for him, ruins the furniture and constantly drags in dead things.
“That's ages ago and you didn't tell me to leave!” - by which point the conversation got so absurd that Lestrade can't even answer. Because he not only told Sherlock to leave about five times, he also called Mycroft in the end.
“Never mind, you have that doctor of yours, haven't you?”
Sherlock gives an indignant cough and suddenly looks ten times as arrogant. Conversation with Sherlock is all about defences, distractions and misunderstandings, but Lestrade is pretty sure he knows what this is. “Oh, he already wants to leave?” He's guessing, but it's the natural assumption from his point of view. Five weeks with Sherlock is actually quite a respectable time. “What did you do?”
“I'm pretty sure, a friend is supposed to be more sympathetic,” Sherlock snipes. “You're not very good at this”
Lestrade shrugs. “There's probably a reason I don't have that many friends. Take it or leave it.”
Sherlock sulks for about two minutes, before the injustice becomes too much to take. “I didn't do anything!”
Lestrade raises an eyebrow.
“He's completely irrational!”
“About what?”
“About the ears in the bathtub! He never said that he had a particular dislike of ears, how am I supposed to know? I explained to him everything about memory being a limited resource, but did he listen? He just expects me to remember things. Things about laundry!”
Lestrade sees the problem.
“I remembered thirteen rules alone, just about what I wasn't allowed to do between midnight and five in the morning. I remembered to buy milk!” In Sherlock's world (which can never, under no circumstances, be equated with anyone else's) that's actually close to being the perfect flatmate. Lestrade is reasonably sure that Sherlock lives under the illusion that he himself wouldn't ask more of a flatmate than remembering laundry and occasionally buying milk. He tends to be delusional like that. But it's kind of sweet that he tries.
“Most people wouldn't like ears in their bathtub,” Lestrade points out. Years of Sherlock conversations have taught him not to care about how insane and/or banal a sentence sounds, it's always good to be clear about some things.
“But he didn't mind the eyes,” Sherlock argues. “That's inconsistent.”
“The eyes in the microwave?”
“They weren't always in the microwave.”
“Right, why would they?”
Sherlock ignores him. “They were defrosting. When he found them they were in the freezer.”
“And what did he do?”
“He asked why there were eyes in the freezer. I explained about the experiment. We had quite the revealing conversation about tissue damage caused by freezer burn.” Sherlock sounds happy.
And that's the point where Lestrade has an epiphany. One. He never heard Sherlock sound happy without murder or drugs involved. Two. Dr. John Watson is either a saint or almost as insane as Sherlock Holmes, maybe both. Three. Something about Jacks and Jills, if he remembers the saying right.
However, that is not the problem at hand. John Watson, who can tolerate Sherlock better than anyone else, wants to move out. Because of the ears in the bathtub. Tough the ears might not be the problem here. Amazingly.
“Maybe he wanted to use the bathtub?” Lestrade hazards.
Sherlock looks surprised, like the thought that you could use a bathtub for other things than to store ears didn't occur to him. “Bathing is supposed to be relaxing,” he says and Lestrade imagines it's a quote from the badly researched alien book. “He did appear stressed.”
“Before or after he found the ears?”
“Both. He had to work late, there was vomit involved.”
“So maybe it wasn't about the ears.”
“I think I remember the discussion quite well,” Sherlock says sceptically, “and the word 'ears' featured prominently.”
Lestrade represses a sigh. “Let's assume it wasn't about the ears.”
“Based on what? Assumptions lead to-”
“Based on what I say,” he snaps. Because, really why should Sherlock of all people be allowed to question his expertise here?
Sherlock looks thoughtful for a moment. “You could be a test function.”
“What?”
“A solved approximation to John. We're friends and both of you fake normal so well you fool yourselves half of the time. We just have to factor in that you're terribly territorial about your living space.” It's careless remarks like this which remind Lestrade that talking to Sherlock is never a harmless endeavour. One day he could tell you something about yourself, that can't be shrugged off.
“Sherlock, you can't solve people!”
Sherlock looks at him like he is the one being absurd and chooses not to answer. “So what you say is that talking about the ears was some kind of code,” he sums up.
Lestrade wants to tell him that that is not what he said at all, but then he just shrugs. “What did he say anyway?”
“Get rid of the bloody ears or I'm out of here,” Sherlock quotes.
Lestrade needs a moment to work through his confusion. “That's not exactly a declaration to move out,” he says eventually.
Sherlock looks pained. “I might have said I'd rather keep the ears.”
“Why?”
“I don't know! I was agitated, he yelled at me. And refused to make tea!”
Lestrade stares at him, Sherlock looks confused. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this man is a genius. “He yelled at you about ears in the bathtub. And you told him to make you tea.” Just to be clear on this.
“It's a perfectly socially acceptable request,” Sherlock tells him and faced with Lestrade's sceptical frown he adds a practical observation: “People make tea for other people all the time.”
“I refuse to discuss this with you,” Lestrade tells him. Sometimes when talking with him, you just reach the point where Sherlock is so completely off the rails that anything you could say would just further undermine your sanity.
Sherlock glares at him. He's thinking furious thoughts about people with tiny little brains, Lestrade can tell.
“Two pieces of advise,” he says and Sherlock glares some more. “One: You get rid of the ears and never mention them again. Two: When people yell at you, you don't tell them to do anything for you.”
“I can concede to the first one,” Sherlock says grudgingly. “I didn't need them anyway, took the prints some days ago. But the second one would drastically interfere with my work.”
Lestrade shrugs and clears the last bit of delicious curry from his plate. “I have to get back to work.”
“Hopefully some of those blundering criminals have decided to do something finally,” Sherlock remarks bitterly, like he's terribly disappointed in the London underworld for lacking entertainment value. He probably is.
“Let's hope for the best,” is Lestrade's somewhat ambiguous answer. Before he leaves he turns to Sherlock who's slumped in the corner like some kind of fin de siècle bohemian artist, scowling at the world. “He won't move out,” Lestrade feels confident to say. “Tell him about the thirteen rules you remembered, he might like that.”
.