Fic: The Land of the Perpetual Sunrise
Title: The Land of the Perpetual Sunrise
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, DI Lestrade, John Watson
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: c. 3,300
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Warnings: Language; implied violence; non-graphic description of injuries
Spoilers: for TGG
Beta: canonisrelative
Summary: Sherlock and John find themselves living under constant threat in the year following the incident at the pool. After the latest attempt on Sherlock’s life, Lestrade and John must try to pull their friend back together.
Notes: So this one has been sitting on my computer since September, and I’m determined to get it all out before it’s rendered moot by series 2! This is the first story in a three-part series than spans the Hiatus. Features the return of amateur-astronomer!Lestrade. Unrelated to any of my other stories.
There was an eerie silence in the air, a sickly and ringing stillness that permeated the whole of the flat. John bit his lip and clenched his hand around the empty mug he was holding while he waited for the kettle to boil, and his gaze strayed yet again to the figure asleep on the sofa. Sherlock was restless with the ever-present pain of his healing injuries, and each movement he made in sleep caused him additional agony.
The kettle finished heating, and John busied himself with making tea while Sherlock continued to toss in his sleep. His restless utterances had quieted for the moment, and John allowed himself to feel a small tendril of hope that maybe he would be able to sleep for more than an hour in comfortable peace.
There came from the other room the scraping of a key in a lock, and a moment later John heard the door creak open. He recognized the soft rustling and knew it was Lestrade, who had phoned John earlier to say that he would be stopping by to check in on them. He heard Lestrade tug off his coat and do away with his shoes, and a moment later he appeared in the kitchen doorway. He had a set of files tucked under his arm and splotches of blue were splashed under his eyes. He looked as exhausted as John felt.
“Inspector,” John greeted quietly, and pressed a mug of tea into his hands; Lestrade accepted it with a grateful nod. “Those for Sherlock?”
“Yeah.” Lestrade set the files on what little table space he could find and shoved his free hand into his pocket. “Not for now, of course, but he’ll - well, you’ll - be needing a distraction as he starts becoming more coherent.”
“Thanks for bringing them by,” John said with the best smile he could manage and, going by Lestrade’s expression, it was a weak one. He sighed.
They had escaped nearly unscathed from the pool last April - and so had Moriarty. But the months after dragged on with not a crime that could be tied to him. They heard whispers occasionally; received mysterious texts or anonymous notes. Mycroft had put out all his feelers out for the man, as had Lestrade, but they had gathered precious little information and were completely helpless when Moriarty returned with a vengeance in March, almost a year to the day of the first pip and the first bomb. His target was Sherlock, who got the brunt of it. John had been collateral damage, almost an afterthought, receiving only bruises and a split lip from the attack.
Even now, John wasn’t sure whether the fact that Sherlock survived was due to luck or Moriarty’s reluctance to kill him just yet. John suspected the latter, because Moriarty reminded him of a cat who enjoyed toying with his prey. He could have killed Sherlock easily, without even lifting his finger - but he hadn’t. He’d simply left him broken and bleeding in the middle of the street, a message for all.
You can’t touch me.
And in all honesty, Sherlock should have been at the hospital still, but the anxiety of being in such a place compounded his injuries and had caused him more suffering than John was willing to bear. John leaned heavily on Mycroft, with Lestrade’s silent backing, to pull as many strings as possible to get his brother out of the place.
It was either that, or John was going to break him out himself.
Sherlock came home the next day, weak with pain but grateful beyond anything John had ever seen in his life. He was miserable, here at Baker Street, but that was nothing compared to his suffering at the hospital. At least here, he was calm.
He was home, even if Baker Street had become a sort of prison in the wake of Moriarty’s attack. They were on lockdown, under heavy guard, and the only person allowed to come and go was Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson had been sent away to her sister’s in the country and Lestrade admitted that he suspected Mycroft had men watching his own flat as well.
John hoped it would be enough.
“How’s he been?” Lestrade asked quietly, nodding to the pile of blankets on the sofa and breaking John from his thoughts.
“Quiet, for the most part,” John admitted. “It’s unsettling, to be honest.”
“Has he been asleep long?”
“Only a few hours now. Last night was a rough one.” John felt his face darken at the memory. “He was in a lot of pain, and I couldn’t give him anything more for it. It was a nightmare.”
“You could’ve called me,” Lestrade said quietly, and John said nothing to that because the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and it should have. He wasn’t the only one worried about Sherlock.
“Next time,” he promised, and then winced because on his life there wouldn’t be a next time. Lestrade smiled sympathetically, though, and dumped out the contents of his mug in the sink.
“Well, I should -”
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the sound of rustling blankets, and they both snapped around to look at Sherlock. The detective mumbled something unintelligible, eyes fluttering, and John made a move toward him.
“I’ve got this, John,” Lestrade said with a restraining hand on his elbow.
“Really?” John blurted before he could help himself. “I mean - it’s not a problem, I’ve been doing it a few days now...”
“Which means that you’re more than overdue for a break. Take a nap; work on your blog. I can handle him for a bit.” Lestrade gave him a light shove on the shoulder. “Go on - get out of here. We’ll be all right.”
John complied but didn’t go far. He settled himself at the shared desk by the window and opened his laptop while Lestrade walked over to the sofa. He tried to work on his blog, but his attention kept straying to his flatmate and their friend; it was rare that he got to see them interact outside the crime scene.
Sherlock’s eyes had shut once more, but it was evident from his breathing and the tightness in his face that he wasn’t sleeping.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade murmured quietly, leaning over the younger man and touching his shoulder. “Sherlock, you with me? It’s Lestrade.”
Sherlock stirred at the touch and cracked open his eyes. It took several long, torturous blinks for him to focus his gaze on Lestrade, and when he finally managed it he wet cracked lips and whispered something. Lestrade had to lean down, bracing himself with one hand on the back of the couch, and put his ear almost up against Sherlock’s lips in order to hear what the detective was trying to say.
“Yeah,” Lestrade said sadly, pulling back. He sat on the very edge of the sofa near Sherlock’s middle, carefully pushing aside the blankets to make sure he wouldn’t sit on the detective himself. “Yeah, I know, it hurts. Better than it was, though, I’m sure.”
Sherlock didn’t answer and Lestrade sat there for a long moment, hand buried in the detective’s hair, gently caressing the scalp with his fingers.
“You couldn’t even think straight at the hospital, it was so bad,” Lestrade continued. “‘Course, you probably don’t remember any of that. Best you didn’t, at any rate.”
The pale, cracked lips parted.
“I remember.” It was little more than a rasp, and Lestrade’s hand tightened reflexively.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not -” Sherlock paused for a moment, gathering what was left of his strength. He was starting to become a little more aware of his surroundings. “Not - your fault.”
“Did it wake you this time?”
Sherlock nodded slowly. Lestrade glanced at John, who shook his head sadly. It was too soon yet for another dose of the medication.
They would have to weather this one alone.
“Right, come on.” Lestrade helped Sherlock to sit up and then slipped in behind him, allowing the bony figure to settle back with his shoulders in Lestrade’s lap and his head on the pillows. He took Sherlock’s right hand and said, “Every time you feel pain, I want you to squeeze; hard as you need to. All right?”
Sherlock gave a jerky nod.
“Good man. Now, let’s see.” He tugged over a file and spread it across Sherlock’s stomach, sifting through the papers within. “Brought some cold cases for you. Thought they might come in handy.”
Sherlock watched him through glassy eyes, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a grimace now and again. Lestrade read through the first file, listing times of death and eyewitness statements and holding photographs in front of Sherlock’s face so that he could focus bleary eyes on them, looking for details. He had to repeat the first file three times in order for Sherlock to absorb it all, and John felt his insides tighten. This wasn’t right. Sherlock never faltered.
But Lestrade kept his calm and his patience and, when Sherlock failed to make sense of the first case, moved seamlessly onto the second. The detective was becoming frustrated, but Lestrade calmed him with a hand tangled in his hair, gently rubbing the top of his head. Sherlock was able to make a little more sense of the second case and provided Lestrade with a few suggestions, and on the third case he was able to narrow down the list of suspects to two. He lost his wind on the fourth case, though, and was far too exhausted by that point to be able to string complete sentences together.
Lestrade calmly gathered up his papers, tugging them gently out of Sherlock’s loose grip, and put the file aside, out of Sherlock’s reach. The detective cursed him for it with a vehemence John had not seen for days, but Lestrade did nothing more than raise an eyebrow and squeeze the detective’s shoulder, patiently waiting for the man to talk himself into exhaustion. It didn’t take long.
“Did you know,” Lestrade said when Sherlock finally quieted, taking off his glasses and setting them aside, “there’s a planet out there that’s tidally locked with its sun?”
“You don’t say,” Sherlock whispered weakly.
“It means that one side of the planet is always facing its sun,” Lestrade continued, “and one side is always facing away. For half the planet, it’s always night; for the other half, it’s always day. Those two halves of the planet are completely uninhabitable - it’d either be too hot for life or far, far too cold. But then there’s a band that encircles the entire planet where the two halves meet - a very thin habitable zone. They call it the Land of the Perpetual Sunrise.”
Lestrade ran the fingers of his free hand through Sherlock’s hair. “Can you imagine what that’d be like, living there? Living in a place where it’s always dawn, and the sun never sets?”
Sherlock mumbled something. Lestrade laughed, and then winced. Sherlock had squeezed his hand, John could see, and hard.
“That was a bad one,” Lestrade said softly, and lifted his gaze to meet John’s. He continued to card his fingers through the wild hair. “Can I get you some ice?”
“Won’t help,” Sherlock ground out, and then let out a strangled noise. His left hand flailed, seeking purchase, and his back came off the sofa as he arched in pain. Lestrade caught the hand and Sherlock gripped it until their fingers turned white.
“Sherlock - Sherlock, focus on me,” Lestrade called to him. “Listen to my voice. Breathe.”
The detective began to drag ragged breaths through his nose. John had long since abandoned his blog and was sitting poised, watching them, ready to propel himself out of his chair should the need arise - though to do what, he wasn’t sure.
Lestrade was the one who saved him - calm as ever, the DI said, in a level voice, “John, I don’t care if it’s too soon. Now would be a good time for that medicine.”
John fetched the bottle of painkillers and it took the two of them to force the medicine down Sherlock’s throat. Lestrade had seen this all before - had seen Sherlock at his worst, years before - and so was better equipped to dealing with it. John, army and medical training aside, felt as though he had been cast adrift in heavy seas. His hands shook; his brain fizzled.
He had never before seen Sherlock in anything less than perfect condition, even when sick or nursing minor injuries from a case. His mind had always remained intact, his wit sharp and his intellect brimming. But now injuries had reduced him to nothing more than a shade of his former self, and it was deeply unsettling.
It was downright wrong.
Lestrade leaned over and snagged the wastepaper bin sitting within arm’s reach of the sofa. John was about to ask why, but a moment later Sherlock was leaning over the sofa and retching into the bin, Lestrade’s steadying hand rubbing circles into his back. John felt his own insides seize at Sherlock’s compounded pain, the constant heaving straining his already throbbing chest. He grabbed one of the Sherlock’s hands, and the man squeezed so hard that John felt that his fingers were in very real danger of breaking.
“John, towel,” Lestrade said briskly as the retching started to slow, and Sherlock used it to wipe his mouth with shaking hands while Lestrade glanced in the bin and then set it aside.
“No blood,” he said, and John nodded. They had that going for them, at least.
They eventually got some medicine in Sherlock that stayed down, but it took several long and brutal minutes that must have pained Sherlock terribly as he gagged and struggled to swallow, all the while trying not to jostle his injuries but unable to help it when spams of pain wracked his thin frame. He slumped, finally, against Lestrade, wheezing and weak, and after several tense moments it finally became clear that the medicine would not be making an unpleasant reappearance.
But Sherlock gasped pitifully for a long while after, and Lestrade wrapped both arms around him from behind, slinging one across Sherlock's stomach and the other across his chest. He held Sherlock in place for some moments, back-to-chest, muttering quiet orders in the back of his head to just breathe. Sherlock grabbed one of the arms anchoring him with one hand and the other found its way into John’s again, and together John and Lestrade tried to hold their suffering friend together.
Sherlock’s breathing took several minutes to slow and eventually the desperate gasps were replaced by pained but shallower breaths. When it became apparent that Sherlock had regained his breath as sufficiently as he could for the time being, Lestrade gently extracted himself from the man. Sherlock bent over double at the waist as his support left him, resting his forearms on his legs and letting his head hang limply over the floor. Lestrade touched the back of his neck with light fingertips.
“Sit tight a moment,” Lestrade murmured. “Just keep breathing.”
He disappeared into Sherlock’s bathroom and emerged moments later with a damp cloth, which he used to wipe the sweat from Sherlock’s forehead while John went to go clean out the wastepaper bin. When John returned, Sherlock was still sitting upright, his face in his hands, listening as Lestrade simultaneously read from one of his files and continued to swipe the cloth across the overheated skin.
“Look into the sister’s alibi,” Sherlock muttered as John filled a glass of water in the kitchen. He walked out into the living room and handed it to the detective, who gave a grateful nod and took it from him. Sherlock squinted at the sudden light as he uncovered his face, and John saw that his eyes were bruised and deeply pained; his face, lined with strain.
“Not good?” Lestrade asked, setting the cloth aside and snagging a pen off a nearby table in order to make a note in the file.
“It’s as though she didn’t even try,” Sherlock mumbled. He leaned back, gingerly, until he was resting against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.
Lestrade took one look at his face and removed his glasses.
“Any better?” he asked, setting the file on the table.
“Too soon,” Sherlock whispered. Lestrade grabbed the blanket from where it had fallen to the floor and spread it over the detective.
“What do you need, Sherlock?” Lestrade said softly as John returned to his work, one ear trained to the conversation taking place on the sofa lest Sherlock come to distress again.
Sherlock took a deep breath and opened his eyes, allowing his head to fall to the side. He fixed unfocused eyes on Lestrade. “The Land of the Perpetual Sunrise?”
“Yeah.”
He sniffed. “Sounds like a fairytale.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Lestrade said, sounding amused, and nudged him gently with his elbow. “I think it’s fascinating.”
“You would.” And it sounded disdainful, but from the small smile on Lestrade’s face John knew he had taken it as a compliment anyway. He slung an arm across the back of the sofa; Sherlock took the invitation gratefully and sank against Lestrade’s side, resting his head on the man’s shoulder.
“Right then, Lestrade. Tell me more,” Sherlock said as he shut his eyes, “about those stars of yours.”
“He’s right, you know,” John told Lestrade later, much later, once Sherlock was sleeping again. “It does sound like a fairytale.”
Lestrade allowed a small smile as he tugged on his jacket before quickly sobering. “We could use a fairytale right about now, don’t you think?”
“You’re not one to hide from reality,” John said softly. “Especially not behind stories.”
“I’m hardly hiding,” Lestrade told him. “But I’ve always found hope a good thing. A very good thing.”
“He’s still out there.” John’s voice sounded dull and flat, even to his own ears. Worn down. “He’s playing, Lestrade. Toying with us. If he really wanted Sherlock dead, I’m sure it would have happened already.”
“We won’t let anything happen to him, John,” Lestrade said, nodding to the figure on the couch. “To either of you.”
“It’s not me I’m concerned about, Lestrade, but thank you. I - we - appreciate it. It’s just - ” John shook his head. “One of these days, he’s going to go off and do something foolish. He’s never been good about accepting help from others.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are only two ways this is going to end: he’s going to go off and hunt down Moriarty by himself, or he’s actually going to go get himself killed.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Lestrade said firmly.
“Mm,” John said noncommittally. He stared hard at the lump of blankets that hid Sherlock’s form. “You’re good with him, you know.”
Lestrade snorted. “I’ve learned how to handle him over the years.”
“No,” John said, shaking his head. “No, this is different. You weren’t a DI tonight; it was like you were his friend.”
Lestrade nodded slowly, tearing his eyes away from John’s and glancing at Sherlock. “I suppose you could say that I owe him. He helped me through a difficult time some years back. And...yeah, I do care about him, even if he is a pain in the arse.”
But he didn’t elaborate, and John didn’t expect him to. There were certain things he was never going to know about Shelock’s past; this likely was one of them.
Lestrade held out his hand. “I’ll call in the morning to check in on him. Take care, John.”
They shook hands. “And you, Inspector.”
----
Final Notes:
The planet Lestrade refers to is Gliese 581g, a planet orbiting the star Gliese 581, approximately 20 light years from Earth.
Continued in “In the Valley of the Shadow”
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, DI Lestrade, John Watson
Fandom: Sherlock
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: c. 3,300
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Warnings: Language; implied violence; non-graphic description of injuries
Spoilers: for TGG
Beta: canonisrelative
Summary: Sherlock and John find themselves living under constant threat in the year following the incident at the pool. After the latest attempt on Sherlock’s life, Lestrade and John must try to pull their friend back together.
Notes: So this one has been sitting on my computer since September, and I’m determined to get it all out before it’s rendered moot by series 2! This is the first story in a three-part series than spans the Hiatus. Features the return of amateur-astronomer!Lestrade. Unrelated to any of my other stories.
There was an eerie silence in the air, a sickly and ringing stillness that permeated the whole of the flat. John bit his lip and clenched his hand around the empty mug he was holding while he waited for the kettle to boil, and his gaze strayed yet again to the figure asleep on the sofa. Sherlock was restless with the ever-present pain of his healing injuries, and each movement he made in sleep caused him additional agony.
The kettle finished heating, and John busied himself with making tea while Sherlock continued to toss in his sleep. His restless utterances had quieted for the moment, and John allowed himself to feel a small tendril of hope that maybe he would be able to sleep for more than an hour in comfortable peace.
There came from the other room the scraping of a key in a lock, and a moment later John heard the door creak open. He recognized the soft rustling and knew it was Lestrade, who had phoned John earlier to say that he would be stopping by to check in on them. He heard Lestrade tug off his coat and do away with his shoes, and a moment later he appeared in the kitchen doorway. He had a set of files tucked under his arm and splotches of blue were splashed under his eyes. He looked as exhausted as John felt.
“Inspector,” John greeted quietly, and pressed a mug of tea into his hands; Lestrade accepted it with a grateful nod. “Those for Sherlock?”
“Yeah.” Lestrade set the files on what little table space he could find and shoved his free hand into his pocket. “Not for now, of course, but he’ll - well, you’ll - be needing a distraction as he starts becoming more coherent.”
“Thanks for bringing them by,” John said with the best smile he could manage and, going by Lestrade’s expression, it was a weak one. He sighed.
They had escaped nearly unscathed from the pool last April - and so had Moriarty. But the months after dragged on with not a crime that could be tied to him. They heard whispers occasionally; received mysterious texts or anonymous notes. Mycroft had put out all his feelers out for the man, as had Lestrade, but they had gathered precious little information and were completely helpless when Moriarty returned with a vengeance in March, almost a year to the day of the first pip and the first bomb. His target was Sherlock, who got the brunt of it. John had been collateral damage, almost an afterthought, receiving only bruises and a split lip from the attack.
Even now, John wasn’t sure whether the fact that Sherlock survived was due to luck or Moriarty’s reluctance to kill him just yet. John suspected the latter, because Moriarty reminded him of a cat who enjoyed toying with his prey. He could have killed Sherlock easily, without even lifting his finger - but he hadn’t. He’d simply left him broken and bleeding in the middle of the street, a message for all.
You can’t touch me.
And in all honesty, Sherlock should have been at the hospital still, but the anxiety of being in such a place compounded his injuries and had caused him more suffering than John was willing to bear. John leaned heavily on Mycroft, with Lestrade’s silent backing, to pull as many strings as possible to get his brother out of the place.
It was either that, or John was going to break him out himself.
Sherlock came home the next day, weak with pain but grateful beyond anything John had ever seen in his life. He was miserable, here at Baker Street, but that was nothing compared to his suffering at the hospital. At least here, he was calm.
He was home, even if Baker Street had become a sort of prison in the wake of Moriarty’s attack. They were on lockdown, under heavy guard, and the only person allowed to come and go was Lestrade. Mrs. Hudson had been sent away to her sister’s in the country and Lestrade admitted that he suspected Mycroft had men watching his own flat as well.
John hoped it would be enough.
“How’s he been?” Lestrade asked quietly, nodding to the pile of blankets on the sofa and breaking John from his thoughts.
“Quiet, for the most part,” John admitted. “It’s unsettling, to be honest.”
“Has he been asleep long?”
“Only a few hours now. Last night was a rough one.” John felt his face darken at the memory. “He was in a lot of pain, and I couldn’t give him anything more for it. It was a nightmare.”
“You could’ve called me,” Lestrade said quietly, and John said nothing to that because the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and it should have. He wasn’t the only one worried about Sherlock.
“Next time,” he promised, and then winced because on his life there wouldn’t be a next time. Lestrade smiled sympathetically, though, and dumped out the contents of his mug in the sink.
“Well, I should -”
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the sound of rustling blankets, and they both snapped around to look at Sherlock. The detective mumbled something unintelligible, eyes fluttering, and John made a move toward him.
“I’ve got this, John,” Lestrade said with a restraining hand on his elbow.
“Really?” John blurted before he could help himself. “I mean - it’s not a problem, I’ve been doing it a few days now...”
“Which means that you’re more than overdue for a break. Take a nap; work on your blog. I can handle him for a bit.” Lestrade gave him a light shove on the shoulder. “Go on - get out of here. We’ll be all right.”
John complied but didn’t go far. He settled himself at the shared desk by the window and opened his laptop while Lestrade walked over to the sofa. He tried to work on his blog, but his attention kept straying to his flatmate and their friend; it was rare that he got to see them interact outside the crime scene.
Sherlock’s eyes had shut once more, but it was evident from his breathing and the tightness in his face that he wasn’t sleeping.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade murmured quietly, leaning over the younger man and touching his shoulder. “Sherlock, you with me? It’s Lestrade.”
Sherlock stirred at the touch and cracked open his eyes. It took several long, torturous blinks for him to focus his gaze on Lestrade, and when he finally managed it he wet cracked lips and whispered something. Lestrade had to lean down, bracing himself with one hand on the back of the couch, and put his ear almost up against Sherlock’s lips in order to hear what the detective was trying to say.
“Yeah,” Lestrade said sadly, pulling back. He sat on the very edge of the sofa near Sherlock’s middle, carefully pushing aside the blankets to make sure he wouldn’t sit on the detective himself. “Yeah, I know, it hurts. Better than it was, though, I’m sure.”
Sherlock didn’t answer and Lestrade sat there for a long moment, hand buried in the detective’s hair, gently caressing the scalp with his fingers.
“You couldn’t even think straight at the hospital, it was so bad,” Lestrade continued. “‘Course, you probably don’t remember any of that. Best you didn’t, at any rate.”
The pale, cracked lips parted.
“I remember.” It was little more than a rasp, and Lestrade’s hand tightened reflexively.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not -” Sherlock paused for a moment, gathering what was left of his strength. He was starting to become a little more aware of his surroundings. “Not - your fault.”
“Did it wake you this time?”
Sherlock nodded slowly. Lestrade glanced at John, who shook his head sadly. It was too soon yet for another dose of the medication.
They would have to weather this one alone.
“Right, come on.” Lestrade helped Sherlock to sit up and then slipped in behind him, allowing the bony figure to settle back with his shoulders in Lestrade’s lap and his head on the pillows. He took Sherlock’s right hand and said, “Every time you feel pain, I want you to squeeze; hard as you need to. All right?”
Sherlock gave a jerky nod.
“Good man. Now, let’s see.” He tugged over a file and spread it across Sherlock’s stomach, sifting through the papers within. “Brought some cold cases for you. Thought they might come in handy.”
Sherlock watched him through glassy eyes, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a grimace now and again. Lestrade read through the first file, listing times of death and eyewitness statements and holding photographs in front of Sherlock’s face so that he could focus bleary eyes on them, looking for details. He had to repeat the first file three times in order for Sherlock to absorb it all, and John felt his insides tighten. This wasn’t right. Sherlock never faltered.
But Lestrade kept his calm and his patience and, when Sherlock failed to make sense of the first case, moved seamlessly onto the second. The detective was becoming frustrated, but Lestrade calmed him with a hand tangled in his hair, gently rubbing the top of his head. Sherlock was able to make a little more sense of the second case and provided Lestrade with a few suggestions, and on the third case he was able to narrow down the list of suspects to two. He lost his wind on the fourth case, though, and was far too exhausted by that point to be able to string complete sentences together.
Lestrade calmly gathered up his papers, tugging them gently out of Sherlock’s loose grip, and put the file aside, out of Sherlock’s reach. The detective cursed him for it with a vehemence John had not seen for days, but Lestrade did nothing more than raise an eyebrow and squeeze the detective’s shoulder, patiently waiting for the man to talk himself into exhaustion. It didn’t take long.
“Did you know,” Lestrade said when Sherlock finally quieted, taking off his glasses and setting them aside, “there’s a planet out there that’s tidally locked with its sun?”
“You don’t say,” Sherlock whispered weakly.
“It means that one side of the planet is always facing its sun,” Lestrade continued, “and one side is always facing away. For half the planet, it’s always night; for the other half, it’s always day. Those two halves of the planet are completely uninhabitable - it’d either be too hot for life or far, far too cold. But then there’s a band that encircles the entire planet where the two halves meet - a very thin habitable zone. They call it the Land of the Perpetual Sunrise.”
Lestrade ran the fingers of his free hand through Sherlock’s hair. “Can you imagine what that’d be like, living there? Living in a place where it’s always dawn, and the sun never sets?”
Sherlock mumbled something. Lestrade laughed, and then winced. Sherlock had squeezed his hand, John could see, and hard.
“That was a bad one,” Lestrade said softly, and lifted his gaze to meet John’s. He continued to card his fingers through the wild hair. “Can I get you some ice?”
“Won’t help,” Sherlock ground out, and then let out a strangled noise. His left hand flailed, seeking purchase, and his back came off the sofa as he arched in pain. Lestrade caught the hand and Sherlock gripped it until their fingers turned white.
“Sherlock - Sherlock, focus on me,” Lestrade called to him. “Listen to my voice. Breathe.”
The detective began to drag ragged breaths through his nose. John had long since abandoned his blog and was sitting poised, watching them, ready to propel himself out of his chair should the need arise - though to do what, he wasn’t sure.
Lestrade was the one who saved him - calm as ever, the DI said, in a level voice, “John, I don’t care if it’s too soon. Now would be a good time for that medicine.”
John fetched the bottle of painkillers and it took the two of them to force the medicine down Sherlock’s throat. Lestrade had seen this all before - had seen Sherlock at his worst, years before - and so was better equipped to dealing with it. John, army and medical training aside, felt as though he had been cast adrift in heavy seas. His hands shook; his brain fizzled.
He had never before seen Sherlock in anything less than perfect condition, even when sick or nursing minor injuries from a case. His mind had always remained intact, his wit sharp and his intellect brimming. But now injuries had reduced him to nothing more than a shade of his former self, and it was deeply unsettling.
It was downright wrong.
Lestrade leaned over and snagged the wastepaper bin sitting within arm’s reach of the sofa. John was about to ask why, but a moment later Sherlock was leaning over the sofa and retching into the bin, Lestrade’s steadying hand rubbing circles into his back. John felt his own insides seize at Sherlock’s compounded pain, the constant heaving straining his already throbbing chest. He grabbed one of the Sherlock’s hands, and the man squeezed so hard that John felt that his fingers were in very real danger of breaking.
“John, towel,” Lestrade said briskly as the retching started to slow, and Sherlock used it to wipe his mouth with shaking hands while Lestrade glanced in the bin and then set it aside.
“No blood,” he said, and John nodded. They had that going for them, at least.
They eventually got some medicine in Sherlock that stayed down, but it took several long and brutal minutes that must have pained Sherlock terribly as he gagged and struggled to swallow, all the while trying not to jostle his injuries but unable to help it when spams of pain wracked his thin frame. He slumped, finally, against Lestrade, wheezing and weak, and after several tense moments it finally became clear that the medicine would not be making an unpleasant reappearance.
But Sherlock gasped pitifully for a long while after, and Lestrade wrapped both arms around him from behind, slinging one across Sherlock's stomach and the other across his chest. He held Sherlock in place for some moments, back-to-chest, muttering quiet orders in the back of his head to just breathe. Sherlock grabbed one of the arms anchoring him with one hand and the other found its way into John’s again, and together John and Lestrade tried to hold their suffering friend together.
Sherlock’s breathing took several minutes to slow and eventually the desperate gasps were replaced by pained but shallower breaths. When it became apparent that Sherlock had regained his breath as sufficiently as he could for the time being, Lestrade gently extracted himself from the man. Sherlock bent over double at the waist as his support left him, resting his forearms on his legs and letting his head hang limply over the floor. Lestrade touched the back of his neck with light fingertips.
“Sit tight a moment,” Lestrade murmured. “Just keep breathing.”
He disappeared into Sherlock’s bathroom and emerged moments later with a damp cloth, which he used to wipe the sweat from Sherlock’s forehead while John went to go clean out the wastepaper bin. When John returned, Sherlock was still sitting upright, his face in his hands, listening as Lestrade simultaneously read from one of his files and continued to swipe the cloth across the overheated skin.
“Look into the sister’s alibi,” Sherlock muttered as John filled a glass of water in the kitchen. He walked out into the living room and handed it to the detective, who gave a grateful nod and took it from him. Sherlock squinted at the sudden light as he uncovered his face, and John saw that his eyes were bruised and deeply pained; his face, lined with strain.
“Not good?” Lestrade asked, setting the cloth aside and snagging a pen off a nearby table in order to make a note in the file.
“It’s as though she didn’t even try,” Sherlock mumbled. He leaned back, gingerly, until he was resting against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.
Lestrade took one look at his face and removed his glasses.
“Any better?” he asked, setting the file on the table.
“Too soon,” Sherlock whispered. Lestrade grabbed the blanket from where it had fallen to the floor and spread it over the detective.
“What do you need, Sherlock?” Lestrade said softly as John returned to his work, one ear trained to the conversation taking place on the sofa lest Sherlock come to distress again.
Sherlock took a deep breath and opened his eyes, allowing his head to fall to the side. He fixed unfocused eyes on Lestrade. “The Land of the Perpetual Sunrise?”
“Yeah.”
He sniffed. “Sounds like a fairytale.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Lestrade said, sounding amused, and nudged him gently with his elbow. “I think it’s fascinating.”
“You would.” And it sounded disdainful, but from the small smile on Lestrade’s face John knew he had taken it as a compliment anyway. He slung an arm across the back of the sofa; Sherlock took the invitation gratefully and sank against Lestrade’s side, resting his head on the man’s shoulder.
“Right then, Lestrade. Tell me more,” Sherlock said as he shut his eyes, “about those stars of yours.”
“He’s right, you know,” John told Lestrade later, much later, once Sherlock was sleeping again. “It does sound like a fairytale.”
Lestrade allowed a small smile as he tugged on his jacket before quickly sobering. “We could use a fairytale right about now, don’t you think?”
“You’re not one to hide from reality,” John said softly. “Especially not behind stories.”
“I’m hardly hiding,” Lestrade told him. “But I’ve always found hope a good thing. A very good thing.”
“He’s still out there.” John’s voice sounded dull and flat, even to his own ears. Worn down. “He’s playing, Lestrade. Toying with us. If he really wanted Sherlock dead, I’m sure it would have happened already.”
“We won’t let anything happen to him, John,” Lestrade said, nodding to the figure on the couch. “To either of you.”
“It’s not me I’m concerned about, Lestrade, but thank you. I - we - appreciate it. It’s just - ” John shook his head. “One of these days, he’s going to go off and do something foolish. He’s never been good about accepting help from others.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are only two ways this is going to end: he’s going to go off and hunt down Moriarty by himself, or he’s actually going to go get himself killed.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Lestrade said firmly.
“Mm,” John said noncommittally. He stared hard at the lump of blankets that hid Sherlock’s form. “You’re good with him, you know.”
Lestrade snorted. “I’ve learned how to handle him over the years.”
“No,” John said, shaking his head. “No, this is different. You weren’t a DI tonight; it was like you were his friend.”
Lestrade nodded slowly, tearing his eyes away from John’s and glancing at Sherlock. “I suppose you could say that I owe him. He helped me through a difficult time some years back. And...yeah, I do care about him, even if he is a pain in the arse.”
But he didn’t elaborate, and John didn’t expect him to. There were certain things he was never going to know about Shelock’s past; this likely was one of them.
Lestrade held out his hand. “I’ll call in the morning to check in on him. Take care, John.”
They shook hands. “And you, Inspector.”
----
Final Notes:
The planet Lestrade refers to is Gliese 581g, a planet orbiting the star Gliese 581, approximately 20 light years from Earth.
Continued in “In the Valley of the Shadow”