The Choice
Title: The Choice
Pairing: Lestrade caring for Sherlock and John. Sherlock BBC
Author: alanwolfmoon
Rating: Pg-13--R
Warnings: Violence, triggers for abuse.
Summary: Lestrade is given a choice. Moriarty will leave Sherlock and John alone, if Lestrade takes the punishment. Heavily inspired by The Contract, the House fandom fic by DIY Sheep.
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Feedback: Reviews and flames are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast)
Notes: In response to the Sherlock BBC kinkmeme prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/7277.html?thread=35221869#t35221869
Lying in bed, with a towel behind his head to keep his wet hair from getting his pillow damp, he pulls the smooth, cool fabric of his sheets up over himself, he thinks about the day’s events. Sherlock, being an ass, as usual-though not to Lestrade, actually, he’d been bordering on downright civil to the Detective Inspector that morning, and hadn’t been notably rude for the rest of the day. John, the loyal friend, chasing after and standing beside the consulting detective. Lestrade himself standing back, watching it all happen-and then going back to the office to clean up the collateral damage.
Not that he minded-Sherlock got the bad guys they couldn’t catch off the street, got Lestrade the highest close rate in Scotland Yard, and generally made life a hell of a lot more interesting. On the other hand, Lestrade had only finished all the paperwork at about three in the morning, and he only had time to go home, shower, nap, and head back out to work at six.
His alarm went off, and he turned to look at it, scowling in response to the numbers his clock was displaying. He only had an hour before he had to get back to the station.
Standing across from his…well, whatever Sherlock was to him, he sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead-hairline receding at an alarming rate, sweaty from the run to catch up with Sherlock and Dr. Watson in the sewer, as a couple of other policemen dragged off the man they had caught.
Sherlock was going off on some explanation of how they identified the man, Lestrade didn’t really care, he just gripped the young man’s shoulder, steering him back to the ladder up to street level. Sherlock was so tall he had to stoop where Lestrade and Dr. Watson could stand straight, and that did make Lestrade feel at least a little amused, despite having just spent nearly an hour searching for their suspect in the work tunnels and sewers below London.
He drove Sherlock and Dr. Watson back to their flat, told them to text him if they had anything else of use, and went back to his own small apartment to write up the case and collapse. It had been a particularly hard week, he’d had maybe three hours of sleep total the last two days, and the man they had caught was only the lowest rat on a ladder that seemed to reach very, very high into the ranks of the criminal classes.
Arriving at his own tiny flat, he climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and stumbled to the chair by the kitchen table, kicking off his shoes, and leaning forwards over the cool wood surface. He’d only lived here about seven years, before he had lived in a larger flat in one of the suburbs of London with Christine. They had had an exceedingly stubborn corgi, an absolute attention whore of a cat, a couple of houseplants, and hot meals every night. Exactly what he had wanted. Exactly what he would never have again.
He took off his jacket, and undid his tie, standing and walking to the bathroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. Shower, definitely, he still smelled strongly of the sewers. He turned on the lights, laid down the bathmats, and stepped into the shower, shivering as the cold water hit his back. Slowly, it warmed, and he started to relax, until he was nearly asleep on his feet, and had to conclude that any intensive washing would have to wait until morning-he was just going to go collapse, and everything else would have to wait.
Stumbling into his bedroom, yawning and scrubbing at his face with his hand, it took him a moment to register that there was someone else in the room. By the time he had, he was already being shoved to the floor, the person’s boot on his bare back, then a knee replaced the boot, and a hand grabbed his wet hair, yanking his head up, straining his neck at the uncomfortable angle.
He would have rolled over, fought off the person, taken them down, until the recording started. Sherlock and Dr. Watson, arguing, then the voice of their housekeeper, the tea kettle-their home. Their flat. He slid his hands forward, until they were past his head, his nose pressed into his carpet-god, he needed to vacuum more often.
He had met Sherlock just after he had lost Christine. He had just been this guy, this kid, hanging around. He’d been an amusing annoyance at first, Lestrade had taken some joy out of hassling the kid when he came to Scotland Yard claiming to have the answer to some case or another. It had been rather mean, but Sherlock hadn’t seemed affected, or even really put off at all by his initial malicious and vaguely sadistic pleasure. It had gone on like that for almost a month, before he had noticed how often the kid was right.
Six years later, he was lying on his bedroom floor, with a recording playing gin his ear, and a gun being loaded above him. Six-shooter, revolver, old, but in good shape. He’d been around Sherlock too long, he should be freaking out, instead he was cataloging sounds for future analysis. Smelled like something rancid-this person had been in the sewers with them. But it obviously wasn’t Smithson, the man was in jail.
“What do you want?”
“I really did think you were just some stupid copper. But you aren’t, are you? And you trust Sherlock Holmes. You care about him. Which is why you’ll lie here, and let me put a needle in your arm, and do whatever I want with you. Because you know I could kill him, and his friend, and their housekeeper. And I’m not going to kill you. I wouldn’t do that, it’d be stupid. You’re much more use alive-and scared. Scared I’m going to take away the thing that’s the closest you have to not being a lonely old man.”
He frowned, “I’m forty-three.”
The man pinning him to the ground laughed-good, keep him talking, keep observing, try and find something they could use to track him down, later. Smells, sounds, the size and weight of the knee pressed into his spine, the length of the fingers that had pulled his hair.
“You’re trying to keep me talking. Well go ahead, I want you to know who I am. Because once you do, you’ll know. You’ll know to let me do whatever I please with you. Because I’m Jim Moriarty, and you know that name, don’t you? And you won’t tell Sherlock a thing, because if you do, he’ll be dead.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, don’t worry your little head. I just want Smithson to walk free, which just means you can’t really be making it to court tomorrow. Now it’s time for you to take a little nap.”
When he wakes up, it is to intense, blinding pain. He rolls over, and immediately begins to retch. Raising his head, he finds himself in a stereotypical darkened alley, covered in dirt and grime and-yes, that is blood, his own, soaking his sleeve. He pulls it back, and finds a slice down his arm, a deep one. Pulls down his sleeve, struggles to his feet, and stumbles out of the alley, flagging down a man with his police badge, coughing, he’s pretty sure some of his ribs are broken, “call 999.”
The only thing he can thinks that at least Sherlock will never find out that this happened-he makes a point to never keep up with cases after his part in them is done, and it wasn’t an interesting enough case for Dr. Watson to want to find out the conclusion for his blog.
Hiding broken ribs from Sherlock turns out to be much harder than he anticipated, but he just explains that he got into a tussle with a burglar, and Sherlock snorts at his incompetence, and he doesn’t have to try and hide his winces and stiffness anymore. The cut is much easier, you can’t really see the gauze through his shirt and jacket, so he just doesn’t take them off. Thankfully, it’s fall, and rainy, and he’s usually wearing his windbreaker on top of both of them, so it’s hardly an issue.
It’s almost three months before Moriarty visits him again. This time it isn’t for any particular purpose, he’s just bored, and he says he’s curious, just how far Lestrade will go to protect Sherlock and Dr. Watson. He says as far as it takes, and wakes up on the floor in his bathroom with a second cut across his arm, and a large bump on his head. His back is a mess of bruises and welts, and he realizes he’s been hit with a whip. At least nothing should be too hard to hide, this time.
The third time is less than a week after the second, leaves him with another cut on his arm, right next to the first two, and a thorough beating, he can barely move the next day, calls in sick. Dr. Watson shows up at his door with soup Mrs. Hudson made, and he works as hard as he possibly can to seem ill and not just in large amounts of pain whenever he moves.
Goings on with Sherlock and Dr. Watson and the rest of the people he interacts with go just as normal. He jogs after Sherlock and John as they follow a trail down through a basement, out a back door, into a bakery, and finally up to a wall, then through it to a false room. He watches Sherlock’s long, strong fingers, and John’s angry army face and drawn service semi-automatic, and kneels to put the handcuffs on their man. It’s a strange feeling, the pain searing through the most recent cut on his arm, this is the fifth, and it crosses diagonally over the first four, like tick marks. It hurts like hell, but Sherlock’s curly hair bouncing everywhere as the Detective runs back out of the room to go and question the shopkeeper makes him perversely glad for the pain. As long as there’s pain, Sherlock is safe.
Really, he thinks, he’s sort of been done a favor. He’s been shown just how desperate he is. And while it’s not a pleasant realization, at least it’s better to know.
The tick marks are up to seven when Moriarty breaks his wrist. He tells the people at Scotland Yard that he tripped, and tells Sherlock and John it happened on a boring case. John offers to take a look, Lestrade declines.
By the ninth tic mark, the injuries are more severe, but still mostly concealable-he’s lucky he has a dangerous job to begin with, or he’d never explain away every wince and grunt of pain. Two of his coworkers have asked him if he’s being abused. He says no, and says it’s all Sherlock’s fault for dragging him all over London. They shake their heads and tell him he can stop having dealings with Sherlock anytime he wants.
If only.
Sixteen is when he wakes up in hospital. Nobody’s visited him, so nobody’s seen the scars and still-healing cuts that aren’t covered by the hospital robe except the doctors, and after lying his ass off to the psychiatrist they make him talk to, he promises to seek help for his supposed self harming behavior, and to not ride motorcycles at high speeds into trees anymore. He doesn’t own a motorcycle, but this doesn’t seem particularly relevant, as he’s the only one in the room who knows that.
Maybe he should get one.
More broken ribs, another concussion, a dislocated big toe, slashes across his back, welts criss-crossing on top of the slashes. He’s lost track of his injures, stepping into the shower, he is rudely reminded of all the cuts he forgot about.
Sits on the floor of his shower, head hanging down, water rushing over him. Sherlock will be dead in a minute if he resists the tiniest bit. All he can do is use everything he’s ever learned from Sherlock to try and figure out a way out of the situation.
He stops going home, sleeps in the station, at his desk. Moriarty leaves a note on his desk warning him against cheating-he didn’t see anyone enter his office, and he was there the whole time. He crumples the note in the hand that isn’t aching from being stomped on, and goes back to his flat for cut number twenty-eight.
Lies on the floor, as Moriarty stands over him with a knife, closes his eyes, and shuts his mouth, as the knife bites into his back, then slices upwards. Then again. And again. And again. And then from his spine up to his other shoulder, and again, again, again. He reflects that it’ll be an interesting pattern of scars, though it’ll be utterly lost among the mess that is his back at this point.
That he’s strong enough to do this, that nobody has found out, and that he’s strong enough to keep Sherlock safe is incredibly important. He thinks Moriarty doesn’t really understand that in some strange, twisted way, the man is doing him a favor. Pain is something he can handle a hell of a lot better than the haunting of not being strong enough to protect her. So every slice, he thinks, Sherlock is safe. I’m strong, and because of that, Sherlock is safe. And it makes him smile, into the carpet, as Moriarty prepares for the next slice. Curly jet black hair, fingers tangled.
He throws away evidence from Sherlock’s flat that Sherlock was going to use to find Moriarty. Sherlock knows he’s the one who did it, and doesn’t speak to him for three months. Lestrade misses talking, but as Sherlock isn’t not talking to him because he’s dead, just mad, Lestrade figures he can probably endure the angry silence.
He must have lost more blood than usual, this time. The slices cover both forearms, and have started on the tops of his shoulders, right where the weight of his jacket sits. He’s dizzy, and he could look in a mirror to see what cut bled so much, but he’s at work, so that’s obviously out of the question. His back is a mess of bruises, scars, and cuts covered by gauze-he’s gotten rather good at bandaging his own back.
He sits on the floor of his flat, shirtless, waiting. The door opens, he lays down, a boot kicks his side, he shuts his mouth on a grunt of pain, and closes his eyes. The knife is unsheathed. It’s Wednesday.
Sherlock would be an ass-and he is, just not this time-except that Lestrade is pretty sure he actually just didn’t know he shouldn’t tell the lady married to the sterile guy she was pregnant-in front of her sterile husband. It’s hard to tell what Sherlock is doing on purpose, and what he’s just an absolute idiot about.
Paperwork sucks.
Sherlock is on Moriarty’s trail. No story that he’s confiscating evidence is going to stop him this time, he’s going after Jim, and going hard. John doesn’t look to have slept in days, when Lestrade sees them, and he has to assume that Sherlock definitely also hasn’t. They’re slowly going through Moriarty’s underlings, every time they take one down, Lestrade gets another broken rib, as the tax for letting them live.
They day they take down Colonel Moran, is the day Lestrade walks out of his flat, down the steps, and into the waiting car. He had just enough time to call in a family emergency in Wales so no-one, especially Sherlock, will come looking for him.
He sits in the attic of some old house, the floor around him splotched with stains of his own blood. A full week, he’s been here, he crawls to the window-the ceiling is very low-and looks out. A perfectly happy, beautiful neighborhood. He sits down against the wall, and stares at the light beams shining through the dust.
There’s no danger of him trying to escape, so he’s not tied up or confined in any way. The door down to the rest of the house opens, and there’s Moriarty. He’s scowling. Lestrade sighs, and moves back to the middle of the room.
“They convicted my lieutenant, Inspector. What do you think that means?”
He grins, “that they’re safe.”
“It means you’re dead, Gabriel.”
“And they’re safe,” he repeats.
“Gabriel, the angel. Gabriel, the protector. You couldn’t protect her, what makes you think you get to save them?”
His eyes snap open, “What-?”
Moriarty grins, “I’ve told you lot before, I’m changeable.”
Lestrade gets his feet under him, an lunges, Moriarty doesn’t seem to have expected this, they tumble through the trapdoor, fall, landing badly, he groans, unable to move. Moriarty, who landed on top, gets up, and stands over him, grinning. But he’s holding his arm at an awkward angle, and Lestrade grins in response to that.
“You know, Gabriel, you aren’t at all the man you seem to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve watched you, and Sherlock and John. You don’t exactly seem fond of them.”
“I’d lose my job, if I did.”
“And then you wouldn’t be able to help people. That’s really all your life is about, isn’t, Mr. Named-after-an-angel?”
“You’re named after how many saints? And I was named after my grandmother, anyway.”
“It is an appropriate name for you, though.”
“Angels are generally successful.”
“It’s been almost a year, that you’ve been protecting them, you know? Some would consider that a success.”
“They aren’t safe.”
“But you’ve kept them so for almost a year.”
“But they aren’t safe.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
He closes his eyes. Well, he would very much like to wring the life out of Moriarty with his own bare hands, but as he can’t really move, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. He knows he broke at least two ribs, and his shoulder is killing him, and he might just have fractured his pelvis. In any case, strangling Moriarty seems a bit beyond his physical abilities right now.
“You can kill me.”
“You aren’t enough, I’m afraid.”
“Then what do you want?”
“To see you suffer.”
“I’d think after almost a year, you’d be a little bored by that.”
“Not physically. I want to see you watch your precious friends die.”
He’s pretty sure he’s hurt his back, and given himself a concussion, to boot. His nose is also bleeding. Moriarty squats, leaning over him, grinning, “what do you have to say to that?”
He spits a mouthful of nose blood at Moriarty, it splatters across his face, and he gets the vague satisfaction of imagining its actually Moriarty’s. To his shock, Moriarty recoils, and practically claws at his face, trying frantically to get the blood off. Lestrade just stares. There’s no way its that simple. Moriarty’s made him bleed dozens of dozens of times. He can’t be scared of blood. Though...he’s never... he’s never gotten anyone’s blood on his hands, literally. There’re seas of blood on his hands metaphorically, but...never literally.
Lestrade manages to sit up, it hurts like hell-no, his back and pelvis aren’t broken, they just hurt terribly. Moriarty has run into the other room to wash off the blood, Lestrade manages to struggle to his feet, and shuffle after his captor, collecting the blood running from his nose in his cupped hand.
Moriarty is frantically washing, scrubbing, doesn’t even seem to hear Lestrade come up behind him, only turns around just in time for lestrade to smear the blood in his hand all over the shorter man. Moriarty squeals, there’s no other worn for it, and starts frantically ripping his clothes off. Lestrade clearly needs new ammunition, because his nosebleed is stopping, grabs a knife off the kitchen counter, and slits along his arm, waving it at Moriarty, who is now cowering, fingers slipping on his crimson covered skin.
It’s the most ridiculous thing, but it’s working, and if it keeps working, he might just be able to save Sherlock and John. Provided, of course, he finds away to end the whole thing before he suffers to much blood loss. He can’t just kill Moriarty, though. There’s no way that’s going to be a clean end to this.
Plastic ties are hard to pull tight when your fingers are slick with your own blood. He walks, and grabs a towel, pressing it to his arm. Moriarty is cowered in the corner, still, shaking, covered in blood, tied to a cupboard handle. It isn’t exactly the most secure thing in the world, but honestly, Moriarty doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.
Lestrade sits at the kitchen table, because he’s very, very dizzy. He’ll have to tell his superiors, and probably his colleagues at the Met the truth, but he might just get away with not telling Sherlock and John.
His vision is blurring, and he’s wondering if it’s from the blood loss, but no, he hasn’t lost enough. Also, it’s only in one eye. Probably something from the fall, but there’s nothing he can really do about it now. He gets up, and goes to find clothes that will cover his injuries, in case he runs into Sherlock and john, then calls the police.
He’s sitting at the kitchen table, watching Moriarty, who is shaking and crying and he really would care that he’s the one that reduced a man to that state, except he kind of doesn’t, and he would feel bad about not caring, except...well, he doesn’t. His arm keeps bleeding every time he removes the towel, so he’s kind of stuck sitting there, keeping pressure against the cut, and watching the man who’s been torturing him for almost a year sob and whimper.
The door bursts open, and it seems like half the Met floods in, and with a whirlwind of police and angry people, Moriarty is taken off to jail, and Lestrade stubbornly accompanies him all the way to Scotland Yard, despite having to continually hold the towel against his arm.
He gets his arm sewn up, they can’t repair the vision he already lost from a torn retina, but they can keep it from getting any worse. They try and admit him, but he absolutely refuses, and finds himself yelling at the doctors, who back off. Donovan tries to convince him to spend the night, but he’s been stuck somewhere not his choosing for quite a while now, and he would really like to just go home and make himself a cup of tea.
Walking out of the hospital, he hears a familiar voice yelling at some poor secretary. He walks over to Sherlock and John, who are apparently being held up at the front desk, “you dragged Sherlock here, I’m impressed?”
They both look at him, “where were you?”
“Undercover sting, took down Moriarty. What did you do this week?”
John stares at him, Sherlock looks agape. It’s satisfying in so many ways, he can’t help but break into a grin. John keeps staring, Sherlock starts looking curious, “how?”
“It’s a very, very long story.”
He only ever tells Mycroft the whole truth, and that’s more that Mycroft explaining what happened, and him confirming. But Sherlock and John really don’t need to know, and Donovan and Anderson would probably try and get him institutionalized if they found out, and it’s irrelevant for Moriarty, because they’ve got him on attempted murder of Sherlock and John at the pool no matter what, and Lestrade is working on finding proof of more of his crimes.
Sherlock eventually notices that he can’t see out of his left eye, but he’s explained away so many injuries, he doesn’t even think about his explanation-he doesn’t even remember what it was, probably that he’d been knocked in the face at some point or another.
Lestrade stands at the trial, stunned, as Moriarty gets off scott free on the attempted murder. He planned this. Probably didn’t want it to come to this, but he planned how he’d get off, planted the evidence before ever setting foot in the pool.
Not giving him the satisfaction, he stands, and glares Moriarty straight in the eye, Moriarty grins, and walks down from the witness stand. That night, he gets a note, the scariest note he’s ever gotten. All it says, is, “I’m giving the choice away.”
He runs to his motorcycle and speeds through London traffic to Sherlock and John’s flat. The door is broken open, his lungs are bursting by the time he reaches Sherlock and John. They’re standing across from Moriarty, who looks disappointed, “really, Gabriel, you’re so predictable. I was just explaining to the good consultants here how they have a choice. You or them.”
John shakes his head, “don’t worry. We already chose.”
No, bloody, way, in, hell.
John’s gun is on the table, he lunges, grabs it, Moriarty points a gun in return, smirking, as Moran walks out from the next room, also pointing one, “that’s not a very wise choice, Inspector.”
Lestrade snorts, and fires.
Lestrade opened his eyes. It did absolutely no good. Either it was exceedingly dark, or, no, he raised a hand to his face, and found gauze covering his good eye. Well, great. There’s also something rather heavy and warm lying on his chest. He tries to sort out what it is by feel, finds a curly mop of hair and a fine bone structure, and decides it’s rather likely to be sherlock.
Except for the whole apparently sleeping on top of him thing. That doesn’t make any sense at all.
Pairing: Lestrade caring for Sherlock and John. Sherlock BBC
Author: alanwolfmoon
Rating: Pg-13--R
Warnings: Violence, triggers for abuse.
Summary: Lestrade is given a choice. Moriarty will leave Sherlock and John alone, if Lestrade takes the punishment. Heavily inspired by The Contract, the House fandom fic by DIY Sheep.
Disclaimer: MINE! ALL MINE!....uh, no. Not mine.
Feedback: Reviews and flames are welcome. (They make it look like I'm writing fast)
Notes: In response to the Sherlock BBC kinkmeme prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/7277.html?thread=35221869#t35221869
Lying in bed, with a towel behind his head to keep his wet hair from getting his pillow damp, he pulls the smooth, cool fabric of his sheets up over himself, he thinks about the day’s events. Sherlock, being an ass, as usual-though not to Lestrade, actually, he’d been bordering on downright civil to the Detective Inspector that morning, and hadn’t been notably rude for the rest of the day. John, the loyal friend, chasing after and standing beside the consulting detective. Lestrade himself standing back, watching it all happen-and then going back to the office to clean up the collateral damage.
Not that he minded-Sherlock got the bad guys they couldn’t catch off the street, got Lestrade the highest close rate in Scotland Yard, and generally made life a hell of a lot more interesting. On the other hand, Lestrade had only finished all the paperwork at about three in the morning, and he only had time to go home, shower, nap, and head back out to work at six.
His alarm went off, and he turned to look at it, scowling in response to the numbers his clock was displaying. He only had an hour before he had to get back to the station.
Standing across from his…well, whatever Sherlock was to him, he sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead-hairline receding at an alarming rate, sweaty from the run to catch up with Sherlock and Dr. Watson in the sewer, as a couple of other policemen dragged off the man they had caught.
Sherlock was going off on some explanation of how they identified the man, Lestrade didn’t really care, he just gripped the young man’s shoulder, steering him back to the ladder up to street level. Sherlock was so tall he had to stoop where Lestrade and Dr. Watson could stand straight, and that did make Lestrade feel at least a little amused, despite having just spent nearly an hour searching for their suspect in the work tunnels and sewers below London.
He drove Sherlock and Dr. Watson back to their flat, told them to text him if they had anything else of use, and went back to his own small apartment to write up the case and collapse. It had been a particularly hard week, he’d had maybe three hours of sleep total the last two days, and the man they had caught was only the lowest rat on a ladder that seemed to reach very, very high into the ranks of the criminal classes.
Arriving at his own tiny flat, he climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and stumbled to the chair by the kitchen table, kicking off his shoes, and leaning forwards over the cool wood surface. He’d only lived here about seven years, before he had lived in a larger flat in one of the suburbs of London with Christine. They had had an exceedingly stubborn corgi, an absolute attention whore of a cat, a couple of houseplants, and hot meals every night. Exactly what he had wanted. Exactly what he would never have again.
He took off his jacket, and undid his tie, standing and walking to the bathroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. Shower, definitely, he still smelled strongly of the sewers. He turned on the lights, laid down the bathmats, and stepped into the shower, shivering as the cold water hit his back. Slowly, it warmed, and he started to relax, until he was nearly asleep on his feet, and had to conclude that any intensive washing would have to wait until morning-he was just going to go collapse, and everything else would have to wait.
Stumbling into his bedroom, yawning and scrubbing at his face with his hand, it took him a moment to register that there was someone else in the room. By the time he had, he was already being shoved to the floor, the person’s boot on his bare back, then a knee replaced the boot, and a hand grabbed his wet hair, yanking his head up, straining his neck at the uncomfortable angle.
He would have rolled over, fought off the person, taken them down, until the recording started. Sherlock and Dr. Watson, arguing, then the voice of their housekeeper, the tea kettle-their home. Their flat. He slid his hands forward, until they were past his head, his nose pressed into his carpet-god, he needed to vacuum more often.
He had met Sherlock just after he had lost Christine. He had just been this guy, this kid, hanging around. He’d been an amusing annoyance at first, Lestrade had taken some joy out of hassling the kid when he came to Scotland Yard claiming to have the answer to some case or another. It had been rather mean, but Sherlock hadn’t seemed affected, or even really put off at all by his initial malicious and vaguely sadistic pleasure. It had gone on like that for almost a month, before he had noticed how often the kid was right.
Six years later, he was lying on his bedroom floor, with a recording playing gin his ear, and a gun being loaded above him. Six-shooter, revolver, old, but in good shape. He’d been around Sherlock too long, he should be freaking out, instead he was cataloging sounds for future analysis. Smelled like something rancid-this person had been in the sewers with them. But it obviously wasn’t Smithson, the man was in jail.
“What do you want?”
“I really did think you were just some stupid copper. But you aren’t, are you? And you trust Sherlock Holmes. You care about him. Which is why you’ll lie here, and let me put a needle in your arm, and do whatever I want with you. Because you know I could kill him, and his friend, and their housekeeper. And I’m not going to kill you. I wouldn’t do that, it’d be stupid. You’re much more use alive-and scared. Scared I’m going to take away the thing that’s the closest you have to not being a lonely old man.”
He frowned, “I’m forty-three.”
The man pinning him to the ground laughed-good, keep him talking, keep observing, try and find something they could use to track him down, later. Smells, sounds, the size and weight of the knee pressed into his spine, the length of the fingers that had pulled his hair.
“You’re trying to keep me talking. Well go ahead, I want you to know who I am. Because once you do, you’ll know. You’ll know to let me do whatever I please with you. Because I’m Jim Moriarty, and you know that name, don’t you? And you won’t tell Sherlock a thing, because if you do, he’ll be dead.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, don’t worry your little head. I just want Smithson to walk free, which just means you can’t really be making it to court tomorrow. Now it’s time for you to take a little nap.”
When he wakes up, it is to intense, blinding pain. He rolls over, and immediately begins to retch. Raising his head, he finds himself in a stereotypical darkened alley, covered in dirt and grime and-yes, that is blood, his own, soaking his sleeve. He pulls it back, and finds a slice down his arm, a deep one. Pulls down his sleeve, struggles to his feet, and stumbles out of the alley, flagging down a man with his police badge, coughing, he’s pretty sure some of his ribs are broken, “call 999.”
The only thing he can thinks that at least Sherlock will never find out that this happened-he makes a point to never keep up with cases after his part in them is done, and it wasn’t an interesting enough case for Dr. Watson to want to find out the conclusion for his blog.
Hiding broken ribs from Sherlock turns out to be much harder than he anticipated, but he just explains that he got into a tussle with a burglar, and Sherlock snorts at his incompetence, and he doesn’t have to try and hide his winces and stiffness anymore. The cut is much easier, you can’t really see the gauze through his shirt and jacket, so he just doesn’t take them off. Thankfully, it’s fall, and rainy, and he’s usually wearing his windbreaker on top of both of them, so it’s hardly an issue.
It’s almost three months before Moriarty visits him again. This time it isn’t for any particular purpose, he’s just bored, and he says he’s curious, just how far Lestrade will go to protect Sherlock and Dr. Watson. He says as far as it takes, and wakes up on the floor in his bathroom with a second cut across his arm, and a large bump on his head. His back is a mess of bruises and welts, and he realizes he’s been hit with a whip. At least nothing should be too hard to hide, this time.
The third time is less than a week after the second, leaves him with another cut on his arm, right next to the first two, and a thorough beating, he can barely move the next day, calls in sick. Dr. Watson shows up at his door with soup Mrs. Hudson made, and he works as hard as he possibly can to seem ill and not just in large amounts of pain whenever he moves.
Goings on with Sherlock and Dr. Watson and the rest of the people he interacts with go just as normal. He jogs after Sherlock and John as they follow a trail down through a basement, out a back door, into a bakery, and finally up to a wall, then through it to a false room. He watches Sherlock’s long, strong fingers, and John’s angry army face and drawn service semi-automatic, and kneels to put the handcuffs on their man. It’s a strange feeling, the pain searing through the most recent cut on his arm, this is the fifth, and it crosses diagonally over the first four, like tick marks. It hurts like hell, but Sherlock’s curly hair bouncing everywhere as the Detective runs back out of the room to go and question the shopkeeper makes him perversely glad for the pain. As long as there’s pain, Sherlock is safe.
Really, he thinks, he’s sort of been done a favor. He’s been shown just how desperate he is. And while it’s not a pleasant realization, at least it’s better to know.
The tick marks are up to seven when Moriarty breaks his wrist. He tells the people at Scotland Yard that he tripped, and tells Sherlock and John it happened on a boring case. John offers to take a look, Lestrade declines.
By the ninth tic mark, the injuries are more severe, but still mostly concealable-he’s lucky he has a dangerous job to begin with, or he’d never explain away every wince and grunt of pain. Two of his coworkers have asked him if he’s being abused. He says no, and says it’s all Sherlock’s fault for dragging him all over London. They shake their heads and tell him he can stop having dealings with Sherlock anytime he wants.
If only.
Sixteen is when he wakes up in hospital. Nobody’s visited him, so nobody’s seen the scars and still-healing cuts that aren’t covered by the hospital robe except the doctors, and after lying his ass off to the psychiatrist they make him talk to, he promises to seek help for his supposed self harming behavior, and to not ride motorcycles at high speeds into trees anymore. He doesn’t own a motorcycle, but this doesn’t seem particularly relevant, as he’s the only one in the room who knows that.
Maybe he should get one.
More broken ribs, another concussion, a dislocated big toe, slashes across his back, welts criss-crossing on top of the slashes. He’s lost track of his injures, stepping into the shower, he is rudely reminded of all the cuts he forgot about.
Sits on the floor of his shower, head hanging down, water rushing over him. Sherlock will be dead in a minute if he resists the tiniest bit. All he can do is use everything he’s ever learned from Sherlock to try and figure out a way out of the situation.
He stops going home, sleeps in the station, at his desk. Moriarty leaves a note on his desk warning him against cheating-he didn’t see anyone enter his office, and he was there the whole time. He crumples the note in the hand that isn’t aching from being stomped on, and goes back to his flat for cut number twenty-eight.
Lies on the floor, as Moriarty stands over him with a knife, closes his eyes, and shuts his mouth, as the knife bites into his back, then slices upwards. Then again. And again. And again. And then from his spine up to his other shoulder, and again, again, again. He reflects that it’ll be an interesting pattern of scars, though it’ll be utterly lost among the mess that is his back at this point.
That he’s strong enough to do this, that nobody has found out, and that he’s strong enough to keep Sherlock safe is incredibly important. He thinks Moriarty doesn’t really understand that in some strange, twisted way, the man is doing him a favor. Pain is something he can handle a hell of a lot better than the haunting of not being strong enough to protect her. So every slice, he thinks, Sherlock is safe. I’m strong, and because of that, Sherlock is safe. And it makes him smile, into the carpet, as Moriarty prepares for the next slice. Curly jet black hair, fingers tangled.
He throws away evidence from Sherlock’s flat that Sherlock was going to use to find Moriarty. Sherlock knows he’s the one who did it, and doesn’t speak to him for three months. Lestrade misses talking, but as Sherlock isn’t not talking to him because he’s dead, just mad, Lestrade figures he can probably endure the angry silence.
He must have lost more blood than usual, this time. The slices cover both forearms, and have started on the tops of his shoulders, right where the weight of his jacket sits. He’s dizzy, and he could look in a mirror to see what cut bled so much, but he’s at work, so that’s obviously out of the question. His back is a mess of bruises, scars, and cuts covered by gauze-he’s gotten rather good at bandaging his own back.
He sits on the floor of his flat, shirtless, waiting. The door opens, he lays down, a boot kicks his side, he shuts his mouth on a grunt of pain, and closes his eyes. The knife is unsheathed. It’s Wednesday.
Sherlock would be an ass-and he is, just not this time-except that Lestrade is pretty sure he actually just didn’t know he shouldn’t tell the lady married to the sterile guy she was pregnant-in front of her sterile husband. It’s hard to tell what Sherlock is doing on purpose, and what he’s just an absolute idiot about.
Paperwork sucks.
Sherlock is on Moriarty’s trail. No story that he’s confiscating evidence is going to stop him this time, he’s going after Jim, and going hard. John doesn’t look to have slept in days, when Lestrade sees them, and he has to assume that Sherlock definitely also hasn’t. They’re slowly going through Moriarty’s underlings, every time they take one down, Lestrade gets another broken rib, as the tax for letting them live.
They day they take down Colonel Moran, is the day Lestrade walks out of his flat, down the steps, and into the waiting car. He had just enough time to call in a family emergency in Wales so no-one, especially Sherlock, will come looking for him.
He sits in the attic of some old house, the floor around him splotched with stains of his own blood. A full week, he’s been here, he crawls to the window-the ceiling is very low-and looks out. A perfectly happy, beautiful neighborhood. He sits down against the wall, and stares at the light beams shining through the dust.
There’s no danger of him trying to escape, so he’s not tied up or confined in any way. The door down to the rest of the house opens, and there’s Moriarty. He’s scowling. Lestrade sighs, and moves back to the middle of the room.
“They convicted my lieutenant, Inspector. What do you think that means?”
He grins, “that they’re safe.”
“It means you’re dead, Gabriel.”
“And they’re safe,” he repeats.
“Gabriel, the angel. Gabriel, the protector. You couldn’t protect her, what makes you think you get to save them?”
His eyes snap open, “What-?”
Moriarty grins, “I’ve told you lot before, I’m changeable.”
Lestrade gets his feet under him, an lunges, Moriarty doesn’t seem to have expected this, they tumble through the trapdoor, fall, landing badly, he groans, unable to move. Moriarty, who landed on top, gets up, and stands over him, grinning. But he’s holding his arm at an awkward angle, and Lestrade grins in response to that.
“You know, Gabriel, you aren’t at all the man you seem to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve watched you, and Sherlock and John. You don’t exactly seem fond of them.”
“I’d lose my job, if I did.”
“And then you wouldn’t be able to help people. That’s really all your life is about, isn’t, Mr. Named-after-an-angel?”
“You’re named after how many saints? And I was named after my grandmother, anyway.”
“It is an appropriate name for you, though.”
“Angels are generally successful.”
“It’s been almost a year, that you’ve been protecting them, you know? Some would consider that a success.”
“They aren’t safe.”
“But you’ve kept them so for almost a year.”
“But they aren’t safe.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
He closes his eyes. Well, he would very much like to wring the life out of Moriarty with his own bare hands, but as he can’t really move, that doesn’t seem likely to happen. He knows he broke at least two ribs, and his shoulder is killing him, and he might just have fractured his pelvis. In any case, strangling Moriarty seems a bit beyond his physical abilities right now.
“You can kill me.”
“You aren’t enough, I’m afraid.”
“Then what do you want?”
“To see you suffer.”
“I’d think after almost a year, you’d be a little bored by that.”
“Not physically. I want to see you watch your precious friends die.”
He’s pretty sure he’s hurt his back, and given himself a concussion, to boot. His nose is also bleeding. Moriarty squats, leaning over him, grinning, “what do you have to say to that?”
He spits a mouthful of nose blood at Moriarty, it splatters across his face, and he gets the vague satisfaction of imagining its actually Moriarty’s. To his shock, Moriarty recoils, and practically claws at his face, trying frantically to get the blood off. Lestrade just stares. There’s no way its that simple. Moriarty’s made him bleed dozens of dozens of times. He can’t be scared of blood. Though...he’s never... he’s never gotten anyone’s blood on his hands, literally. There’re seas of blood on his hands metaphorically, but...never literally.
Lestrade manages to sit up, it hurts like hell-no, his back and pelvis aren’t broken, they just hurt terribly. Moriarty has run into the other room to wash off the blood, Lestrade manages to struggle to his feet, and shuffle after his captor, collecting the blood running from his nose in his cupped hand.
Moriarty is frantically washing, scrubbing, doesn’t even seem to hear Lestrade come up behind him, only turns around just in time for lestrade to smear the blood in his hand all over the shorter man. Moriarty squeals, there’s no other worn for it, and starts frantically ripping his clothes off. Lestrade clearly needs new ammunition, because his nosebleed is stopping, grabs a knife off the kitchen counter, and slits along his arm, waving it at Moriarty, who is now cowering, fingers slipping on his crimson covered skin.
It’s the most ridiculous thing, but it’s working, and if it keeps working, he might just be able to save Sherlock and John. Provided, of course, he finds away to end the whole thing before he suffers to much blood loss. He can’t just kill Moriarty, though. There’s no way that’s going to be a clean end to this.
Plastic ties are hard to pull tight when your fingers are slick with your own blood. He walks, and grabs a towel, pressing it to his arm. Moriarty is cowered in the corner, still, shaking, covered in blood, tied to a cupboard handle. It isn’t exactly the most secure thing in the world, but honestly, Moriarty doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.
Lestrade sits at the kitchen table, because he’s very, very dizzy. He’ll have to tell his superiors, and probably his colleagues at the Met the truth, but he might just get away with not telling Sherlock and John.
His vision is blurring, and he’s wondering if it’s from the blood loss, but no, he hasn’t lost enough. Also, it’s only in one eye. Probably something from the fall, but there’s nothing he can really do about it now. He gets up, and goes to find clothes that will cover his injuries, in case he runs into Sherlock and john, then calls the police.
He’s sitting at the kitchen table, watching Moriarty, who is shaking and crying and he really would care that he’s the one that reduced a man to that state, except he kind of doesn’t, and he would feel bad about not caring, except...well, he doesn’t. His arm keeps bleeding every time he removes the towel, so he’s kind of stuck sitting there, keeping pressure against the cut, and watching the man who’s been torturing him for almost a year sob and whimper.
The door bursts open, and it seems like half the Met floods in, and with a whirlwind of police and angry people, Moriarty is taken off to jail, and Lestrade stubbornly accompanies him all the way to Scotland Yard, despite having to continually hold the towel against his arm.
He gets his arm sewn up, they can’t repair the vision he already lost from a torn retina, but they can keep it from getting any worse. They try and admit him, but he absolutely refuses, and finds himself yelling at the doctors, who back off. Donovan tries to convince him to spend the night, but he’s been stuck somewhere not his choosing for quite a while now, and he would really like to just go home and make himself a cup of tea.
Walking out of the hospital, he hears a familiar voice yelling at some poor secretary. He walks over to Sherlock and John, who are apparently being held up at the front desk, “you dragged Sherlock here, I’m impressed?”
They both look at him, “where were you?”
“Undercover sting, took down Moriarty. What did you do this week?”
John stares at him, Sherlock looks agape. It’s satisfying in so many ways, he can’t help but break into a grin. John keeps staring, Sherlock starts looking curious, “how?”
“It’s a very, very long story.”
He only ever tells Mycroft the whole truth, and that’s more that Mycroft explaining what happened, and him confirming. But Sherlock and John really don’t need to know, and Donovan and Anderson would probably try and get him institutionalized if they found out, and it’s irrelevant for Moriarty, because they’ve got him on attempted murder of Sherlock and John at the pool no matter what, and Lestrade is working on finding proof of more of his crimes.
Sherlock eventually notices that he can’t see out of his left eye, but he’s explained away so many injuries, he doesn’t even think about his explanation-he doesn’t even remember what it was, probably that he’d been knocked in the face at some point or another.
Lestrade stands at the trial, stunned, as Moriarty gets off scott free on the attempted murder. He planned this. Probably didn’t want it to come to this, but he planned how he’d get off, planted the evidence before ever setting foot in the pool.
Not giving him the satisfaction, he stands, and glares Moriarty straight in the eye, Moriarty grins, and walks down from the witness stand. That night, he gets a note, the scariest note he’s ever gotten. All it says, is, “I’m giving the choice away.”
He runs to his motorcycle and speeds through London traffic to Sherlock and John’s flat. The door is broken open, his lungs are bursting by the time he reaches Sherlock and John. They’re standing across from Moriarty, who looks disappointed, “really, Gabriel, you’re so predictable. I was just explaining to the good consultants here how they have a choice. You or them.”
John shakes his head, “don’t worry. We already chose.”
No, bloody, way, in, hell.
John’s gun is on the table, he lunges, grabs it, Moriarty points a gun in return, smirking, as Moran walks out from the next room, also pointing one, “that’s not a very wise choice, Inspector.”
Lestrade snorts, and fires.
Lestrade opened his eyes. It did absolutely no good. Either it was exceedingly dark, or, no, he raised a hand to his face, and found gauze covering his good eye. Well, great. There’s also something rather heavy and warm lying on his chest. He tries to sort out what it is by feel, finds a curly mop of hair and a fine bone structure, and decides it’s rather likely to be sherlock.
Except for the whole apparently sleeping on top of him thing. That doesn’t make any sense at all.