Fic: Certainties
Title: “Certainties”
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/Lestrade
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Spoilers: for “Scandal”
Word Count: c. 3,700
Warnings: Language; Asexuality Issues
Beta: canonisrelative
Summary: Thursday nights belong to Lestrade. A missing scene from “Scandal.”
Notes: Takes place in the “All Right” ‘verse but can be read as a stand alone fic. The master list for this 'verse can be found here.
A couple of housekeeping notes: This 'verse was started prior to series 2, and operates under the assumption that the bomb went off at the end of TGG. Apart from that, this and the stories that will follow are compliant with series 2. I have also temporarily downgraded a couple of fics from this 'verse, but they will be restored later on.
Feedback, as ever, is appreciated.
-----
Greg Lestrade knows not to be surprised should he sometimes return home and discover that someone has broken into his flat. He’s grown used to the constant intrusions, and on this night he does nothing more than raise an eyebrow and sigh when he finds his door ajar and an unexpected visitor sitting in his living room.
“’lo, Sherlock,” Lestrade says, deciding against pointing out the painfully obvious fact that the man has a key - and has had it for some years now. Sherlock enjoys the practice of a little breaking and entering, or so he says, and Lestrade has never tried very hard to keep the younger man away.
“Mm,” is all the response he gets from Sherlock, who is idly flipping through a mystery novel Lestrade has been half-heartedly plodding through for the past week.
Lestrade moves into the flat, nudging a light switch with his elbow along the way and illuminating the dim room. He shuffles the shopping bags in his arms, adjusting the awkward weight. “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you tonight.”
He tries to infuse a note of scolding into his tone, pleased as he is to see Sherlock. The younger man caught a nasty bout of flu the other week that had him laid up for days. He usually works in spite of illness, much to John’s consternation and Lestrade’s endless frustration, but this time even Sherlock couldn’t ignore his body’s demands. He had spent the first two days virtually comatose when he wasn’t bent double over a toilet, fighting through a series of dry heaves because they couldn’t get any food into him.
The rest of the week had been lost to sleep, violent chills, and pounding headaches. Lestrade had taken to spending most nights on 221b’s sofa in order to keep an eye on Sherlock, who didn’t get back on his feet again until day seven, and even then it was only to shuffle into the kitchen for a cup of tea that went mostly unfinished. But this is the first time, as far as Lestrade is aware, that Sherlock has left the flat since the beginning of his illness. He hopes it isn’t too soon.
“It’s Thursday,” Sherlock tells him by way of explanation, and Lestrade smiles in spite of his concern. The rest of the week is for John and Sherlock to do - well, whatever it is that John and Sherlock do together. But Thursday nights belong to Lestrade, provided that they haven’t got caught up with a case, which happens more often than he would like.
Sherlock sets the book aside and pushes himself out of the chair to join Lestrade in the kitchen, and Lestrade is pleased to note that he is at least moving easier now than he had been the other week. His breathing sounds almost normal, too, though his throat is still raw and it makes his voice husky.
“Are you feeling better?” Lestrade asks as he starts to pull food from the bags and sets about putting it away. Sherlock nods absently, distracted momentarily by his cataloguing of the kitchen. Lestrade watches as the bruised eyes rove over the cabinets and rest, briefly, on the unwashed dishes in the sink. “Well, everyone at the Yard caught it; you were bound to come down with it eventually. Though I have to say, I think your case was the worst I’ve seen so far this year. You need to take better care of yourself; I can’t always do it for you.”
Sherlock scowls at him, because it’s one thing for his immune system to betray him and force him to slow down; it’s quite another for people to verbally remind him that he is human and has to attend to his body’s needs now and again.
“I don’t require coddling,” he mutters. And then he shifts his feet uncertainly, dropping his gaze to the ground. “I...did appreciate the soup, however.”
Lestrade grins to himself. “Compared to what passes for John’s cooking, I’m sure even toast would have tasted heavenly.”
Sherlock hums softly as Lestrade snags him around the waist then and presses a quick kiss to his temple, adding, “But you’re welcome; glad to have helped. Now, speaking of food, come give me a hand with dinner. You probably haven’t eaten at all today, have you? Don’t give me that look; I know it’s true. Come on.”
They settle, with a minimal amount of fuss, into their usual routine. Lestrade hands Sherlock a knife and puts him to work chopping the various ingredients while he digs out a pot and starts to heat some water. Sherlock, despite having read chemistry at university, is a bloody terrible cook but a wonder with a knife (which Lestrade refrains from commenting on) and so between the two of them, they usually manage a decent meal.
“Are you sleeping with Molly Hooper?” Sherlock asks him after several moments of companionable silence, and Lestrade is very glad that he is not the one holding the knife when the question is voiced. As it is, he nearly drops the drink he’s currently mixing while he waits for the water in the pot to boil, and when he recovers himself he takes a long swallow of it in order to cover his surprise.
“Sorry?” he says eventually, lifting an eyebrow at Sherlock.
“Molly. Are you sleeping with her?” Sherlock repeats.
Lestrade holds up the bottle of liquor in a silent question; Sherlock shakes his head. He puts it away and then answers, “You can read very well that I’m not.”
Sherlock’s eyes flick to him and then return to the onion he’s slicing. For a moment there is no sound in the kitchen apart from the slowly-boiling water and the cut of the knife.
“I can’t,” Sherlock says at length.
“Sorry?”
“Read you.” Sherlock looks back up at him, expression guarded. “I can’t read you. Not anymore.”
“I don’t follow.” Lestrade leans against the counter, curling both hands around his glass and regarding Sherlock carefully.
“I mean,” Sherlock says in a voice so low that it is barely audible over the bubbling water, “that you - that I am too close to you, now. I’m...invested. And I see things that are untrue, or I miss the obvious. You’ve seen it happen already.”
“When you failed to realize Jody’s husband had left her,” Lestrade says, recalling a conversation they had had the other week regarding his sister. Sherlock nods.
“Among other things.” His eyes flick to the sink, where the dishes from the previous night are soaking - two sets of matching plates, utensils, and wine glasses. “I can tell you had a...visitor last night, and one who stayed until morning. But...” He trails off.
“It wasn’t Molly,” Lestrade says, wincing inwardly as he follows Sherlock’s gaze. He’s usually more discreet than this, cleaning up immediately after he brings someone home for a night. It’s not that he needs to - Sherlock is well-aware of all his encounters - but Lestrade prefers to not shove it in the other man’s face if he can help it. But he hadn’t been expecting Sherlock to resume their Thursday nights so soon, and it never occurred to him to clean up the kitchen before he left for work that morning. “But yes, I...entertained someone. I’m sorry; should’ve said something earlier.”
Sherlock shrugs, looking troubled even as he tries to feign indifference. “You’ve never needed to before. Usually I can deduce it.”
Lestrade frowns as he considers the implications of this development. In all the time they’ve had this arrangement, he has only sought out other sexual partners on a handful of occasions. It isn’t something he and Sherlock have discussed at length beyond that first time two years ago, when Sherlock fell back on the drugs to cope with the idea that he might need to give up a part of his identity in order to keep Lestrade in his life. They worked out a set of ground rules in the wake of that disastrous week - Lestrade would seek out sex elsewhere as he desired, but only for as long as Sherlock was comfortable with it. The arrangement has served them well thus far, but perhaps that was only true because Lestrade’s liaisons had been transparent to his partner.
Sherlock can’t read him, now. Lestrade imagines this must be a terrifying thing for him to realize, especially coming on the heels of Irene Adler.
The Woman.
He pauses to take a sip of his drink and then says, cautiously, “You couldn’t read her either, that first day. Irene Adler.”
Sherlock frowns at him. “How did -?”
“John,” Lestrade answers. “We went out for a pint some time back. He told me you couldn’t deduce anything from Adler the first time you met. He’d never seen you falter like that before. What did she say - a disguise is a self-portrait?” At Sherlock’s nod, he continues, “Did it ever occur to you that her lack of clothing was a disguise? Not to mention the fact that her hair had been done, she’d been wearing make-up, and she had shoes on.”
“I’m amazed John noticed so many details,” Sherlock bites out scathingly. “His gaze was distinctly elsewhere at the time.”
Lestrade ignores him, pressing, “You’re telling me you got nothing from all of that?”
“What’s your point?” Sherlock snaps.
“You just made it for me,” Lestrade says quietly. “You can’t read me anymore because we’re too close. It never occurred to you that the same could have been true of you and Adler?”
“We’d only just met.”
“Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a connection.” Lestrade drops his gaze to his drink so he doesn’t have to see Sherlock’s face when he voices his next thought. “You miss her.”
The words are more difficult to get out than he imagined they would be; after all, what right had he to feel insecure when just last night he had taken a near-stranger to bed?
“She was fascinating,” Sherlock admits tonelessly, and Lestrade feels it as a stab to the gut. But of course Sherlock would be drawn to someone who matched his intellect; Lestrade had always known he could never hope to provide Sherlock the mental challenge he needed on a daily basis. “She was clever. I am sure that I will miss that stimulation. But she was working with Moriarty.”
Who threatened Mycroft. Lestrade adds to himself the words Sherlock will never say aloud. He knows that, in a moment of foolishness, Sherlock provided Adler with the information Moriarty needed to thwart Mycroft’s plans. But then Moriarty contacted Mycroft directly - and that, for Sherlock, was the one thing that was absolutely beyond the limit.
“Water’s boiling over.”
“Hm? Oh, fuck.” Lestrade returns to the present to find the pot boiling over and Sherlock regarding him with an amused expression. He turns down the heat and mutters, “Well, at least it’s not something blowing up. Which happens more often in this kitchen than it should, come to think of it.”
“Don’t be so quick to say that,” Sherlock cautions him. He adds his vegetables to the pot and says, “We’re not done cooking. Explosions might yet happen.”
“You blow up one more thing in this kitchen,” Lestrade says, pointing a stern finger at him, “and I’m banning you from this flat.”
“Empty threat, Inspector.”
“Oh, is it, now? Don’t think I’m capable of standing up to you?”
“No, clearly you - Lestrade! What was that for?”
“C’mere - oi!”
“Watch it! You can’t - right, that’s - that’s not - oof - fair!”
“Who said I was playing fair?”
The pot boils over again. Neither of them notices.
----
They settle on the sofa in the living room after consuming what they could salvage of dinner, shirts rumpled from the impromptu scuffle and Lestrade’s hair casually defying all logic as it sticks out from his head. He’s cradling a glass of wine while Sherlock nurses a glass of water, because his breath is catching every so often in his chest from their exertions. Lestrade rubs slow circles across his back by way of apology.
“You did start it,” Sherlock says, picking up on Lestrade’s guilt. He downs the rest of his glass and sets it aside.
“And ended it,” Lestrade points out.
“Yes, well, you’ve the illness to thank for that. You got lucky,” Sherlock says with a sniff. “Cultivating a new hobby?”
His gaze has fallen on a book Lestrade left sitting on the table next to the sofa. He picks it up and lifts an eyebrow at Lestrade.
“Oh, God, no,” Lestrade says with a laugh, taking the brightly-colored book from his hands. “It’s for my niece. Her birthday’s not for a few months yet, but I knew I would forget if I didn’t get this the moment I saw it.”
“Marissa enjoys horses,” Sherlock remarks.
“Mmm. Finds ‘em fascinating.”
Sherlock takes the book back from Lestrade and flips through it, casting a critical eye over the pink pages and caricatures of the horses. He then pulls out his mobile while Lestrade takes a sip of wine, and a moment later passes the device to his partner. “You should get her this to accompany the book.”
Lestrade peers at the small screen, and without his glasses it takes him a moment to figure out what Sherlock is trying to show him.
“A toy horse?”
“Don’t be absurd. Nothing quite so useless. It’s an anatomically-correct model. She would be able to view the internal organs and even disassemble it in order to observe the inner workings of the horse. It would be beneficial.”
“You think she’d like it, huh?” Lestrade muses.
“She is curious,” Sherlock replies, which coming from him is tantamount to resounding praise. “She would find it interesting.”
“All right, then; I’ll do that,” Lestrade decides. He hands the mobile back to Sherlock. “Thanks. That was...kind of you.”
“No need to sound so surprised, Inspector,” Sherlock says dryly, and Lestrade laughs. He slides closer; Lestrade drapes an arm across the back of the sofa, allowing it to just brush Sherlock’s shoulders. “Is she well?”
“Yeah,” Lestrade says, swirling the remainder of the wine in his glass. “Bright little thing, she is. Top of her class, her mother says, and I don’t think that’s just parental pride talking. Haven’t seen her since her last birthday, but I’m taking them on holiday in March. It hasn’t been easy since her dad left, you know, and I thought a change of scenery might help.”
“Does this still work? For you?”
Lestrade, fuzzy with drink, takes a moment to catch up with the abrupt return to their previous conversation. He finishes off the wine in his glass and sets it aside, which buys him a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “Of course. I mean - you know, if it still works for you...” He trails off, suddenly uncertain. Sherlock shifts beside him, perhaps in discomfort, and is silent for some time.
“At Christmas,” he says finally, “when you looked at Molly, I noticed your pupils dilate. You became flustered.”
“Ah,” Lestrade says, flushing. He had hoped his double-take wasn’t as noticeable as he feared.
“It was,” Sherlock says, reading his embarrassment. “It was also a natural response for a human male who identifies as usually-straight. Do you want to sleep with her?”
Lestrade pauses, because, God, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been tempted. She’d made a few clumsy overtures in the months since Christmas, and he’d - sometimes reluctantly - turned them down as delicately as possible. Leaving the door open, so to speak.
“Would you want me to take her up on her offers?” he asks instead.
“It’s up to you,” Sherlock says with a slight shrug, but his spine has gone abnormally straight.
“No,” Lestrade says firmly. “You’re a part of this, too. Remember? This is an open relationship for as long as you’re comfortable with it, and I’m not sleeping with someone we know without first talking it over with you. We’ve been over this. And if you said no, I’d listen. M’not a slave to my cock, Sherlock. So - would you want me to sleep with Molly?”
Sherlock stares at him for a long moment. He rubs a thumb across his sternum absently, looks away, and then finally lets out a disbelieving huff of breath.
“No,” he says quietly. “No - God, no, Greg, I don’t want you to sleep with her. I prefer when it’s not someone I am acquainted with.”
“Which is more than reasonable,” Lestrade assures. “And that’s always been the case.”
“But are you certain you’re getting an adequate amount of sexual release?”
Lestrade offers him a small smile. “Maybe not as much as I’d like, but that’s no one’s issue but my own. It’s not going to kill me, I assure you, and there are more important things; stuff I’d rather be doing.”
“I could help.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“Lestrade -”
“No,” Lestrade interrupts, shaking his head violently, because they’ve been here before. There have been nights when his limbs are tingling, his mind is buzzing, and there’s a slow burn coiling in his belly that won’t fade away. Sherlock has, sometimes on these occasions, slipped a hand under Lestrade’s waistband and given him the release his body craved. He's offered to do more; Lestrade can't bring himself to accept what Sherlock clearly isn't comfortable giving, no matter what he says otherwise. “No, Sherlock, you don’t want this. Not for the right reasons, at least.”
Sherlock leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, his mouth drawn into a tight line.
“Then perhaps we should consider discontinuing our association,” he says after a moment, his voice laced with steel as though he needed the bracing in order to get the words out.
“You want to end this,” Lestrade says in slow disbelief, “because I won’t sleep with you?”
“I did not use the word want,” Sherlock says harshly, rubbing his hands together absently. “But someday this won’t be enough for you, and I’m not in a position to deal with the fallout when that happens.”
Lestrade curses inwardly. A year ago, Sherlock had asked him to leave for Lestrade’s own protection. Now, Sherlock was asking him to leave out of self-preservation.
I’m not in a position to deal with the fallout.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade says quietly, and moves to sit on the low table in front of the sofa. Their knees knock together, but Sherlock doesn’t meet his gaze. Lestrade takes both of Sherlock’s hands in his and tries to meet his eyes. “Look at me. When I found you over-dosing and barely alive on the floor of that filthy house six years ago, you were just a kid. I was just on the verge of Detective Inspector. Look at what we’ve been through since then: serial killers, bombs, drug relapses, Moriarty.”
“Awful cabbies,” Sherlock puts in, and Lestrade snorts.
“Yeah, them as well. But the point is, do you really think that something as inconsequential as sex is going to drive me away now?”
“Not so inconsequential for most,” Sherlock points out, and Lestrade feels his lip give an involuntary twitch in anger at Irene Adler and her attempts at seduction. Real or otherwise, they still would have served to remind Sherlock that most of the world revolved around that act, and that it could be used as a very real bargaining chip. Her charms had fallen on a less-than-receptive audience, but they still forced Sherlock to realize - once again - his own isolation.
“Do I look like most people to you?” Lestrade brings the hands to his lips and brushes a kiss across Sherlock’s knuckles before continuing. “Stop mistaking me for other people, Sherlock. I am me, and no one else. And I’m telling you that, for me, this works and I couldn’t be happier. Sherlock Holmes, I am not leaving you.”
“You’re too kind,” Sherlock mutters in response.
Lestrade snorts. “Hardly. I’m just in -” He stops abruptly, words lodging in his throat as he realized what he’d been about to say. He coughs instead and brushes a strand of hair from Sherlock’s eyes before changing his approach. “There is nothing wrong with you, Sherlock. And there is nothing wrong with this. When I tell you it’s enough, I need you to believe me.”
“Would you tell me one day if it wasn’t?”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Lestrade says fiercely, but he cracks under Sherlock’s harsh gaze and adds, “But yeah, ‘course I would.”
And then, because he can no longer help the question that’s been sitting in the back of his mind all night, Lestrade adds, “Have you heard from...her? From Adler?”
Sherlock shakes his head. “Not since I broke the code on her phone.”
Lestrade rubs a thumb along the inside of Sherlock’s wrist, distracting himself with the blue veins and porcelain skin so that he doesn’t have to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “And has that been all right?”
There is a lengthy pause where Sherlock is very still, his imitation of a statue broken only by the rise and fall of his chest. Lestrade moves back to sit next to him on the sofa, aware that he may never get an answer to this particular question.
“Whatever John has been speculating to you is incorrect. I was not smitten with her,” Sherlock says at last. “There is something in this world I’ll never fully grasp and am reviled for not even wanting. Her advances were a blatant reminder of this fact. But you’re right - I had an equal. I will miss that. I won’t miss her.”
Lestrade puts a hand on Sherlock’s knee and brushes his thumb across the fabric of Sherlock’s trousers. He says, “So long as this is enough - enough for you. Y’know I can’t provide for you what she could.”
Sherlock snorts. “I believe we have already established that that is hardly going to be an issue.”
“You know what I mean.”
Sherlock trails his fingertips across the back of Lestrade’s hand and then brushes his thumb in a circle around the sharp bone of Lestrade’s wrist. “Need I remind you that it was your mind that drew me in?”
“I’m still not her.”
“No, and thank God for that. You are you.” Sherlock lightly drags his fingernails up Lestrade’s arm, watching as tiny hairs stand on end at the sensation. “I wouldn’t want you otherwise.”
He rests his head against the back of the sofa and tilts his face towards the ceiling, shutting his eyes and folding his hands across his abdomen, signaling an end to the conversation. Lestrade pushes a hand through the dark curls and quietly asks, “Are you staying here tonight?”
“Mm.”
“Shall I make up the sofa?”
It isn’t often anymore that Sherlock spends the night at his flat, and the few times a month he does stay over it’s rare that he ends up in Lestrade’s bed. Not big on physical contact to begin with, Sherlock has become less tolerant of it over the years, and even if they start the night on separate sides of the bed, usually by morning they wake as a tangle of limbs and blankets. Sometimes this contact is fine, and Sherlock will even seek it out on occasion. Most nights, though, he craves Lestrade’s proximity but not his touch.
In the early days this meant that Sherlock would take his leave hours before Lestrade woke, slipping away from the other man’s embrace when the closeness became too much. In the years since they’ve made it work, with one of them crashing on a sofa when Sherlock doesn't feel up to sharing a bed.
Sherlock cracks open his eyes and says, “Please,” but the half-second of hesitation before the word gives away his guilt.
“Hey,” Lestrade murmurs, leaning close to brush his lips along Sherlock’s brow, “you don’t have to stay in my bed. It’s all fine. I don’t mind.”
“If you’re sure.”
“When it comes to you,” Lestrade says, placing a hand on Sherlock’s chest, “I’m always sure.”
He is rewarded by the other man’s soft lips curving into a smile, and Sherlock kisses him until he is breathless.
----
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