Help us to survive (10/17)
Summary: A crime scene involving a dead anorexic woman hits close to home for John and Sherlock, leading John to discover a disturbing pattern and Sherlock to face his eating disorder in new light.
Note: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse. The raw first draft of this story was written around the time I finished posting Eating us Alive again. At that time, its sole purpouse was to entertain a friend. It was never my intention to create actual plot and make it public, but with the help and inspiration of willowmeg that happened anyway. I’m so grateful for the support throughout this, thank you.
I apoligise in advance for the severe hand waving I’ve occasionally done when it comes to medicine and to criminal law.
-x-
Sherlock turned on the shower, feeling the temperature of the water go from cold to almost scalding with his hand.
It was still, theoretically, too early to get up, but he’d been awake for hours already and couldn’t stand lying in bed and staring into the darkness anymore. The noise would probably both wake and alarm John, but Sherlock didn’t care. He felt empty, and not in the good-that-was-actually-really-bad way, but detached and numb. The ruined dinner yesterday had been an out of body experience; he couldn’t rationally explain what he’d done, or why he’d done it, and that bothered him more than the action itself.
He got undressed, carefully avoiding looking down. His body had always been a battle ground, and since he couldn’t say which side he currently was on, he knew he did best in just pretending it wasn’t there at all. Stepping into the tub and having the hot water burn his skin red was liberating, though. A good, harmless pain, that took his mind off… things. Life.
Sherlock had been certain that he could do this; that he would be able to stay objective throughout the case, but clearly he was mistaken. John’s suggestion - or autarchic decision - that he should take other cases for a while felt like a defeat, or a cruel punishment. He wasn’t used to leaving investigations mid-way. There were cases he hadn’t solved, obviously, but he had never stopped before he had worked through every possibility. And this case still had a lot of threads left to follow.
Judging by yesterday’s fiasco, though, John did have an annoying point: Sherlock should stay away from the forums and the blogs. There was another lead though, one he had left on purpose, one he had hoped that he’d never have to go near: Micha. Now that was his only option, that was the way he would have to go, because he would not let it win.
He would not let it take the work from him ever again!
Sherlock lifted his head, letting the hot water wash over his face. Making a decision, having a plan, felt good. Now he just needed to come up with a ruse that would convince both John and Lestrade to let him do it.
The lifts at New Scotland Yard were unbelievably slow.
Sherlock stood impatiently in the back of a particularly crowded one, cursing his own stupidity for not takin the stairs as usual. To make matters worse, in his haste to get out of the flat before John could ask too many questions he had arrived in the tail end of the morning rush. That made it somewhat easier to get in, but it was far from ideal when he wanted Lestrade’s attention.
Not to mention that it made the damned lift stop at every single floor to let people out.
The bullpen at the third floor was semi-full of people, but completely filled with numbing chatter about last night’s activities, commutes, and other inane things. Very few seemed to take notice of Sherlock as he made his way to Lestrade’s office, but his pulse was still as high as if he had in fact run up those flights of stairs. He slowed down his pace, putting his hands in his pockets. It did very little to lower his heart rate, but at least it seemed like he was in control, and that was enough.
The door to Lestrade’s office was open, but Sherlock wasn’t in the habit of knocking anyway, so he just stepped inside.
“I have absolutely no time for you right now,” said Lestrade in greeting when he looked up from behind his desk.
“Ravi Shah or Rebecca Turner.”
Lestrade’s frown turned into an amused smile at the mention of the cold cases. “John’s thrown you out, has he?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Sherlock, making a face.
Whenever London was boring, or John was particularly annoying, Sherlock used to come to the police archives to go through cold cases. At first it had been Lestrade’s way to make Sherlock stop running around, bugging everyone, but as time had gone by Sherlock had started to go there on his own accord when nothing else managed to hold his attention for long enough.
The abduction of Ravi Shah and the murder of Rebecca Turner were two unsolved cases from Sherlock and Lestrade’s early acquaintance, which were emotionally important to both of them. Sherlock felt slightly bad for using these cases for this, but it was the quickest way he could think of to get John to let him leave unaccompanied, to make Lestrade compliant, and to gain access to police documentation.
And it worked.
Lestrade reached into his pocket and tossed over his keys. “Back with them in ten. You can use Tait’s old office, no one’s moved in there yet.”
Sherlock nodded, going through the keys for the one he needed while working himself up to the real reason he had decided to spend the day at Scotland Yard.
“The suicide at the Rosewood Hotel, is there anything saved from that?”
“Not in evidence, if you mean.” Lestrade looked curiously at him. “Her things went back to her parents after the autopsy was done.”
“Documentation and photos from the scene?”
“Digitally.”
“Can I see it?”
Lestrade peered at him; it took more effort than Sherlock had imagined not to squirm. He met Lestrade’s eyes - doing his best to not look too innocent, because he knew Lestrade wouldn’t buy that. Sometimes he really hated that Lestrade wasn’t the idiot he accused him of being.
“You said it was a waste of time,” Lestrade said after a long five seconds.
“It was,” said Sherlock. “I had a serial killer to track down for you, remember?”
“You solved it in less than a minute. It’s closed. Why on earth do you want to look at it now?”
Sherlock sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Not helping your cause.”
Sherlock made a frustrated sound, though mostly completely fabricated. “I haven’t had a case in weeks. You lot are useless, John is completely unreasonable, Molly’s not speaking to me, and I’m… I’m going out of my mind. I need something. Insulin suicide, at least that’s novel!”
Lestrade smirked, apparently quite pleased with the reaction he had provoked. Sherlock, too, was pleased, because it meant the act was working as well.
“I’ll get you the file,” said Lestrade, pointing at the door. “Now go and get the other things. I really do need my keys back before half nine. And Sherlock, just one of them.”
Sherlock just barely managed to not roll his eyes again. He didn’t bother closing the door as he left for the basement to fetch one of the decade old cold cases. He used the stairs this time, and after two flights he stopped, taking a moment to lean against the cool wall. He closed his eyes. The first part had gone flawlessly, but he needed to get a grip of himself if he was going to be able to make it through the day.
There was no time to stay here, though. Lestrade would miss his keys, and he needed to get started.
Former DI Harvey Tait’s office was smaller than Lestrade’s, but it had the same infuriating glass walls. Sherlock had spread out the documents and old photographs from the Ravi Shah case - it had been closer to the entrance than Rebecca Turner’s - on the desk, and taped them up on the wall opposite the door to make it look like he was actually working in case anyone peeked in.
During the sixteen years he had worked on cold cases he had only solved three, and none of them had been taken to court. It wasn’t a very good statistic, but he didn’t do it to solve them. He did it to remain in control of his life. First it had been solely to stay clean, because if he started using again Lestrade wouldn’t let him work on real cases. Then he had realised that working on cases (both cold and hot ones) became natural semi-fasts, even at times when he considered himself to be fine. To have those short, but regular, periods of food restriction had become absolutely vital in his pursuit to stay away from real starvation. Or worse.
Today it did absolutely nothing for him, though. He just sat there, staring at familiar collection of evidence, and waited for Lestrade to come with Micha’s file. It took over two hours, but just before lunch Lestrade finally came.
“Sorry it took so long,” he said. “HR’s on me about over-time reports that are due at the end of the month.”
Sherlock just glanced at him, but his heart was beating faster and he held out his hand to get the printouts of the suicide.
“I know he’s probably dead,” said Lestrade with a sigh, looking at the photos of Ravi Shah on the wall. “But I keep hoping that it’s a Deep End of the Ocean situation.”
“If he’s still alive, he turned twenty last month.”
Lestrade hummed. “Anyway. I’m planning to be out of here around six, so pack this up before that, would you?”
“Mm, yes.”
Sherlock had already begun to go through the Rosewood folder, very demonstratively not paying Lestrade any attention as he left the room. He didn’t bother removing the Ravi Shah documents from the desk. Instead he just put the new folder down on top of everything and started to read.
The autopsy report was insignificant, but at the top of it were her full name, Sophia Michelle Victoria Troy, and her NHS number. That would undoubtedly make it easier to track her down. Or rather, to track her family down. bubblenox's name was Catherine Troy. Sherlock wondered if John knew that, or if he preferred not knowing.
Clear signs of malnutrition due to long periods of starvation, the report said as he kept on reading. Markings on the teeth and the oesophagus showed signs of repeated - and recent - vomiting. No stomach content.
Almost instinctively, Sherlock leaned over the desk, pressing his stomach against the edge. He didn’t have much stomach content himself after eating just two eggs and three slices of toast for the last twenty-one hours, and he was starting to feel light-headed.
He went on reading the autopsy report, but there was nothing there he didn’t already know. Cause of death was concluded to be heart failure due to self-induced hypoglycaemia and the report was clearly marked with “Suicide” at the top, next to her name. No matter how much Sherlock wanted to, he couldn’t deem the coroner incompetent, because a wider pattern was impossible to see from a single incident.
After that there was a detailed cataloguing of her personal belongings. Sherlock went through the list in search of the insulin she had used. It bothered him that he hadn’t looked into the different available brands, but rather had handed those details over to John.
The next thing in the folder was photos. The room had been very efficiently documented. Sherlock couldn’t remember anyone on the forensic team that day, but whoever had taken these pictures, it hadn’t been their first crime scene. Micha had done a great job staging herself, but the photographer had been amazingly good with working the unflattering lighting. The sternum, for example, was far more distinctive in the photographs than he had remembered it. He could even see that she had broken her left clavicle fairly recently.
Sherlock moved two fingers over the photograph, and realised he was tracing his own collarbone with his other hand. He froze monetarily, before removing his hand from his shoulder and closing the folder. For a long time he just sat there with both his hands on top of it before putting it aside completely. He didn’t need to look at the photos, there was nothing useful in them since The Angel of Death hadn’t been there. They needed the file to get her name and address, and to find out what insulin she’d used, nothing else.
He leaned back in the chair to stare at the evidence he had taped to the wall again instead, but the photographs of Micha all but screamed at him to pick them up again. The Ravi Shah case did nothing to distract him from going over her last blogpost and suicide note over, and over again in his head.
Not before long, he noticed that his hands had started to tremble. He made them into fists and stubbornly stared at the wall in front of him. He knew he needed to eat, or at least drink something, to get his blood sugar up, but he couldn’t just pack up and leave yet. Not yet.
Sherlock looked at the clock on the wall. In about an hours he could probably leave without rising suspicion. One hour, he could do that. As to prove him wrong, his stomach grumbled, and even though he pressed his hand down on his lower abdomen the sound seemed to echo in the small room. Hunger-pangs were nothing, but he wish he’d brought something other than chewing gum to keep it at bay. Preferably something salty. He wondered absently if they had crackers at home, he used to like crackers.
They probably didn’t have any. For some reason John associated crackers with purging, and to his knowledge Sherlock hadn’t purged in over four years. Sherlock had no plans to engage him in conversation about how wrong he was on both accounts.
Time moved painfully slow. After another fifty-seven minutes of aimlessly shuffling the Ravi Shah case around, he got up to spit out his third piece of chewing gum. The worst of the hunger had passed, but his hands were still slightly unsteady as he started to carefully put away the old evidence. It was tempting to just leave everything in Tait’s office, and go home, but he had a feeling that would come back and bite him in the arse later. The cold cases was a matter of trust, and he needed Lestrade to trust more than his skills to let him keep working here.
When he was done, Sherlock sealed the evidence box properly. He took an extra breath, putting on a mask of bored annoyance, and picked up the box to carry back to Lestrade.
He met the DI walking down the corridor, looking somewhere between busy and despondent. One of his sergeants were clearly causing him more trouble than usual. Most likely Nilsson. It was always Nilsson.
“Leaving already?” Lestrade asked, frowning as he looked at the evidence box under Sherlock’s arm.
“Yes, there’s nothing new here.”
“I could have told you that this morning.”
Sherlock huffed, holding out his hand for the key Lestrade got out of his pocket.
“And the insulin suicide?” Lestrade asked.
“Barely interesting, but I’m taking it home.”
Lestrade’s frown grew deeper. “You know you’re not supposed to do that.”
“It’s a suicide.”
“It’s personal information.”
“But it’s a suicide.”
“That doesn’t really make a difference,” Lestrade said, but the he sighed. “But fine, take it. Just don’t make me regret it?”
“I’ll be back with the keys,” Sherlock said, walking away from him without commenting further. He appreciated being allowed to take the suicide file home, but if he hadn’t, he would have stopped by a photo copier on the way to the archives. Perhaps that was why Lestrade had given in.
When he came back up to the third floor, he found Lestrade in his office. Sherlock tossed him the keys from the doorstep.
“Thanks,” said Lestrade, making a pained face as he caught the keys. ”How are- Can you close the door?
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, studying Lestrade to figure out what he wanted. He failed. So instead he closed the door as requested.
“Are you doing all right?” Lestrade asked when Sherlock turned his attention to him.
Sherlock’s mouth went dry. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d be better if something interesting would turn up.”
“I meant beside that,” Lestrade said, smiling briefly. “You’ve seemed a bit… unfocused, since the hotel killings.”
Sherlock shrugged. The seconds passed, and Sherlock could see worry starting to seep through Lestrade’s neutral façade. Sherlock didn’t know what to say, but he had to say something. Anything. Preferably now. But his mind was blank.
“Well, if that’s all,” he finally managed to get out, his hand already on the door handle. “Text me if anything comes up.”
Lestrade said his name, followed by a deep sigh, but he did no attempt to follow him. When Sherlock noticed that, he forced himself to slow down his pace to not draw attention to himself. It was absolute torture, but he reminded himself over, and over again that people were unobservant idiots. Not to mention that he was (mostly) okay and didn’t look anorexic anymore, so there was nothing to notice.
Except Lestrade obviously had noticed something, and Sherlock had no idea what it was. As he left Scotland Yard, Sherlock couldn’t tell which of the two made him the most uncomfortable.
-x-
Chapter 11
Note: This is part of the Eating us Alive verse. The raw first draft of this story was written around the time I finished posting Eating us Alive again. At that time, its sole purpouse was to entertain a friend. It was never my intention to create actual plot and make it public, but with the help and inspiration of willowmeg that happened anyway. I’m so grateful for the support throughout this, thank you.
I apoligise in advance for the severe hand waving I’ve occasionally done when it comes to medicine and to criminal law.
-x-
Sherlock turned on the shower, feeling the temperature of the water go from cold to almost scalding with his hand.
It was still, theoretically, too early to get up, but he’d been awake for hours already and couldn’t stand lying in bed and staring into the darkness anymore. The noise would probably both wake and alarm John, but Sherlock didn’t care. He felt empty, and not in the good-that-was-actually-really-bad way, but detached and numb. The ruined dinner yesterday had been an out of body experience; he couldn’t rationally explain what he’d done, or why he’d done it, and that bothered him more than the action itself.
He got undressed, carefully avoiding looking down. His body had always been a battle ground, and since he couldn’t say which side he currently was on, he knew he did best in just pretending it wasn’t there at all. Stepping into the tub and having the hot water burn his skin red was liberating, though. A good, harmless pain, that took his mind off… things. Life.
Sherlock had been certain that he could do this; that he would be able to stay objective throughout the case, but clearly he was mistaken. John’s suggestion - or autarchic decision - that he should take other cases for a while felt like a defeat, or a cruel punishment. He wasn’t used to leaving investigations mid-way. There were cases he hadn’t solved, obviously, but he had never stopped before he had worked through every possibility. And this case still had a lot of threads left to follow.
Judging by yesterday’s fiasco, though, John did have an annoying point: Sherlock should stay away from the forums and the blogs. There was another lead though, one he had left on purpose, one he had hoped that he’d never have to go near: Micha. Now that was his only option, that was the way he would have to go, because he would not let it win.
He would not let it take the work from him ever again!
Sherlock lifted his head, letting the hot water wash over his face. Making a decision, having a plan, felt good. Now he just needed to come up with a ruse that would convince both John and Lestrade to let him do it.
The lifts at New Scotland Yard were unbelievably slow.
Sherlock stood impatiently in the back of a particularly crowded one, cursing his own stupidity for not takin the stairs as usual. To make matters worse, in his haste to get out of the flat before John could ask too many questions he had arrived in the tail end of the morning rush. That made it somewhat easier to get in, but it was far from ideal when he wanted Lestrade’s attention.
Not to mention that it made the damned lift stop at every single floor to let people out.
The bullpen at the third floor was semi-full of people, but completely filled with numbing chatter about last night’s activities, commutes, and other inane things. Very few seemed to take notice of Sherlock as he made his way to Lestrade’s office, but his pulse was still as high as if he had in fact run up those flights of stairs. He slowed down his pace, putting his hands in his pockets. It did very little to lower his heart rate, but at least it seemed like he was in control, and that was enough.
The door to Lestrade’s office was open, but Sherlock wasn’t in the habit of knocking anyway, so he just stepped inside.
“I have absolutely no time for you right now,” said Lestrade in greeting when he looked up from behind his desk.
“Ravi Shah or Rebecca Turner.”
Lestrade’s frown turned into an amused smile at the mention of the cold cases. “John’s thrown you out, has he?”
“In a manner of speaking,” said Sherlock, making a face.
Whenever London was boring, or John was particularly annoying, Sherlock used to come to the police archives to go through cold cases. At first it had been Lestrade’s way to make Sherlock stop running around, bugging everyone, but as time had gone by Sherlock had started to go there on his own accord when nothing else managed to hold his attention for long enough.
The abduction of Ravi Shah and the murder of Rebecca Turner were two unsolved cases from Sherlock and Lestrade’s early acquaintance, which were emotionally important to both of them. Sherlock felt slightly bad for using these cases for this, but it was the quickest way he could think of to get John to let him leave unaccompanied, to make Lestrade compliant, and to gain access to police documentation.
And it worked.
Lestrade reached into his pocket and tossed over his keys. “Back with them in ten. You can use Tait’s old office, no one’s moved in there yet.”
Sherlock nodded, going through the keys for the one he needed while working himself up to the real reason he had decided to spend the day at Scotland Yard.
“The suicide at the Rosewood Hotel, is there anything saved from that?”
“Not in evidence, if you mean.” Lestrade looked curiously at him. “Her things went back to her parents after the autopsy was done.”
“Documentation and photos from the scene?”
“Digitally.”
“Can I see it?”
Lestrade peered at him; it took more effort than Sherlock had imagined not to squirm. He met Lestrade’s eyes - doing his best to not look too innocent, because he knew Lestrade wouldn’t buy that. Sometimes he really hated that Lestrade wasn’t the idiot he accused him of being.
“You said it was a waste of time,” Lestrade said after a long five seconds.
“It was,” said Sherlock. “I had a serial killer to track down for you, remember?”
“You solved it in less than a minute. It’s closed. Why on earth do you want to look at it now?”
Sherlock sighed, rolling his eyes.
“Not helping your cause.”
Sherlock made a frustrated sound, though mostly completely fabricated. “I haven’t had a case in weeks. You lot are useless, John is completely unreasonable, Molly’s not speaking to me, and I’m… I’m going out of my mind. I need something. Insulin suicide, at least that’s novel!”
Lestrade smirked, apparently quite pleased with the reaction he had provoked. Sherlock, too, was pleased, because it meant the act was working as well.
“I’ll get you the file,” said Lestrade, pointing at the door. “Now go and get the other things. I really do need my keys back before half nine. And Sherlock, just one of them.”
Sherlock just barely managed to not roll his eyes again. He didn’t bother closing the door as he left for the basement to fetch one of the decade old cold cases. He used the stairs this time, and after two flights he stopped, taking a moment to lean against the cool wall. He closed his eyes. The first part had gone flawlessly, but he needed to get a grip of himself if he was going to be able to make it through the day.
There was no time to stay here, though. Lestrade would miss his keys, and he needed to get started.
Former DI Harvey Tait’s office was smaller than Lestrade’s, but it had the same infuriating glass walls. Sherlock had spread out the documents and old photographs from the Ravi Shah case - it had been closer to the entrance than Rebecca Turner’s - on the desk, and taped them up on the wall opposite the door to make it look like he was actually working in case anyone peeked in.
During the sixteen years he had worked on cold cases he had only solved three, and none of them had been taken to court. It wasn’t a very good statistic, but he didn’t do it to solve them. He did it to remain in control of his life. First it had been solely to stay clean, because if he started using again Lestrade wouldn’t let him work on real cases. Then he had realised that working on cases (both cold and hot ones) became natural semi-fasts, even at times when he considered himself to be fine. To have those short, but regular, periods of food restriction had become absolutely vital in his pursuit to stay away from real starvation. Or worse.
Today it did absolutely nothing for him, though. He just sat there, staring at familiar collection of evidence, and waited for Lestrade to come with Micha’s file. It took over two hours, but just before lunch Lestrade finally came.
“Sorry it took so long,” he said. “HR’s on me about over-time reports that are due at the end of the month.”
Sherlock just glanced at him, but his heart was beating faster and he held out his hand to get the printouts of the suicide.
“I know he’s probably dead,” said Lestrade with a sigh, looking at the photos of Ravi Shah on the wall. “But I keep hoping that it’s a Deep End of the Ocean situation.”
“If he’s still alive, he turned twenty last month.”
Lestrade hummed. “Anyway. I’m planning to be out of here around six, so pack this up before that, would you?”
“Mm, yes.”
Sherlock had already begun to go through the Rosewood folder, very demonstratively not paying Lestrade any attention as he left the room. He didn’t bother removing the Ravi Shah documents from the desk. Instead he just put the new folder down on top of everything and started to read.
The autopsy report was insignificant, but at the top of it were her full name, Sophia Michelle Victoria Troy, and her NHS number. That would undoubtedly make it easier to track her down. Or rather, to track her family down. bubblenox's name was Catherine Troy. Sherlock wondered if John knew that, or if he preferred not knowing.
Clear signs of malnutrition due to long periods of starvation, the report said as he kept on reading. Markings on the teeth and the oesophagus showed signs of repeated - and recent - vomiting. No stomach content.
Almost instinctively, Sherlock leaned over the desk, pressing his stomach against the edge. He didn’t have much stomach content himself after eating just two eggs and three slices of toast for the last twenty-one hours, and he was starting to feel light-headed.
He went on reading the autopsy report, but there was nothing there he didn’t already know. Cause of death was concluded to be heart failure due to self-induced hypoglycaemia and the report was clearly marked with “Suicide” at the top, next to her name. No matter how much Sherlock wanted to, he couldn’t deem the coroner incompetent, because a wider pattern was impossible to see from a single incident.
After that there was a detailed cataloguing of her personal belongings. Sherlock went through the list in search of the insulin she had used. It bothered him that he hadn’t looked into the different available brands, but rather had handed those details over to John.
The next thing in the folder was photos. The room had been very efficiently documented. Sherlock couldn’t remember anyone on the forensic team that day, but whoever had taken these pictures, it hadn’t been their first crime scene. Micha had done a great job staging herself, but the photographer had been amazingly good with working the unflattering lighting. The sternum, for example, was far more distinctive in the photographs than he had remembered it. He could even see that she had broken her left clavicle fairly recently.
Sherlock moved two fingers over the photograph, and realised he was tracing his own collarbone with his other hand. He froze monetarily, before removing his hand from his shoulder and closing the folder. For a long time he just sat there with both his hands on top of it before putting it aside completely. He didn’t need to look at the photos, there was nothing useful in them since The Angel of Death hadn’t been there. They needed the file to get her name and address, and to find out what insulin she’d used, nothing else.
He leaned back in the chair to stare at the evidence he had taped to the wall again instead, but the photographs of Micha all but screamed at him to pick them up again. The Ravi Shah case did nothing to distract him from going over her last blogpost and suicide note over, and over again in his head.
Not before long, he noticed that his hands had started to tremble. He made them into fists and stubbornly stared at the wall in front of him. He knew he needed to eat, or at least drink something, to get his blood sugar up, but he couldn’t just pack up and leave yet. Not yet.
Sherlock looked at the clock on the wall. In about an hours he could probably leave without rising suspicion. One hour, he could do that. As to prove him wrong, his stomach grumbled, and even though he pressed his hand down on his lower abdomen the sound seemed to echo in the small room. Hunger-pangs were nothing, but he wish he’d brought something other than chewing gum to keep it at bay. Preferably something salty. He wondered absently if they had crackers at home, he used to like crackers.
They probably didn’t have any. For some reason John associated crackers with purging, and to his knowledge Sherlock hadn’t purged in over four years. Sherlock had no plans to engage him in conversation about how wrong he was on both accounts.
Time moved painfully slow. After another fifty-seven minutes of aimlessly shuffling the Ravi Shah case around, he got up to spit out his third piece of chewing gum. The worst of the hunger had passed, but his hands were still slightly unsteady as he started to carefully put away the old evidence. It was tempting to just leave everything in Tait’s office, and go home, but he had a feeling that would come back and bite him in the arse later. The cold cases was a matter of trust, and he needed Lestrade to trust more than his skills to let him keep working here.
When he was done, Sherlock sealed the evidence box properly. He took an extra breath, putting on a mask of bored annoyance, and picked up the box to carry back to Lestrade.
He met the DI walking down the corridor, looking somewhere between busy and despondent. One of his sergeants were clearly causing him more trouble than usual. Most likely Nilsson. It was always Nilsson.
“Leaving already?” Lestrade asked, frowning as he looked at the evidence box under Sherlock’s arm.
“Yes, there’s nothing new here.”
“I could have told you that this morning.”
Sherlock huffed, holding out his hand for the key Lestrade got out of his pocket.
“And the insulin suicide?” Lestrade asked.
“Barely interesting, but I’m taking it home.”
Lestrade’s frown grew deeper. “You know you’re not supposed to do that.”
“It’s a suicide.”
“It’s personal information.”
“But it’s a suicide.”
“That doesn’t really make a difference,” Lestrade said, but the he sighed. “But fine, take it. Just don’t make me regret it?”
“I’ll be back with the keys,” Sherlock said, walking away from him without commenting further. He appreciated being allowed to take the suicide file home, but if he hadn’t, he would have stopped by a photo copier on the way to the archives. Perhaps that was why Lestrade had given in.
When he came back up to the third floor, he found Lestrade in his office. Sherlock tossed him the keys from the doorstep.
“Thanks,” said Lestrade, making a pained face as he caught the keys. ”How are- Can you close the door?
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, studying Lestrade to figure out what he wanted. He failed. So instead he closed the door as requested.
“Are you doing all right?” Lestrade asked when Sherlock turned his attention to him.
Sherlock’s mouth went dry. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d be better if something interesting would turn up.”
“I meant beside that,” Lestrade said, smiling briefly. “You’ve seemed a bit… unfocused, since the hotel killings.”
Sherlock shrugged. The seconds passed, and Sherlock could see worry starting to seep through Lestrade’s neutral façade. Sherlock didn’t know what to say, but he had to say something. Anything. Preferably now. But his mind was blank.
“Well, if that’s all,” he finally managed to get out, his hand already on the door handle. “Text me if anything comes up.”
Lestrade said his name, followed by a deep sigh, but he did no attempt to follow him. When Sherlock noticed that, he forced himself to slow down his pace to not draw attention to himself. It was absolute torture, but he reminded himself over, and over again that people were unobservant idiots. Not to mention that he was (mostly) okay and didn’t look anorexic anymore, so there was nothing to notice.
Except Lestrade obviously had noticed something, and Sherlock had no idea what it was. As he left Scotland Yard, Sherlock couldn’t tell which of the two made him the most uncomfortable.
-x-
Chapter 11