Fic: Brotherly Love 1/5
Title: Brotherly Love Prologue/Chapter 1
Author: dweo
Words: 3062
Rating: Teen
Characters: Lestrade, Sally, Mycroft, Sherlock
Pairings: Lestrade/Mycroft
Warnings: Drug Use
Beta: The Lovely grassle
Summary: When people say that the day he met Sherlock Holmes had to have been the most incredible day of his life, he agrees. But what Lestrade never tells them is that it had very little to do with Sherlock.
AN: Written for sherlockbigbang
Brotherly Love
Prologue
On a desk somewhere in New Scotland Yard lies a small black book. The Little Book of Horrors, as they call it. It contains a list, a simple list of names, and whenever somebody wants to remember or perhaps forget, they write down a name, a hobby, an age. Sometimes there are little drawings, sometimes there are loving remarks, and sometimes there is nothing but a location.
When the book, the written proof of the human side of all the cases that shape their lives, is full, it disappears, burnt, drowned, used for target practice. And it helps them do their job, never really forgetting but forever going on.
Chapter One
When people say that the day he met Sherlock Holmes had to have been the most incredible day of his life, he agrees. But what he never tells them is that it had very little to do with Sherlock.
DI Gabriel Lestrade, Lestrade to friends, enemies and at this point even his mother, had not been prepared for the chaos at the Yard that morning. It appeared about half the Metropolitan Police was trying to get coffee from the lone working coffee machine on his floor. Deciding to give up before even trying to get his morning fix, he simply crashed onto his chair.
"What's this circus?" he asked the room at large.
"Briefing in ten minutes," Donovan, one of his new sergeants, said, handing him his coffee mug with a smile. He was going to like her. She already knew how to preserve her safety and sanity when faced with a caffeine-deficient Lestrade.
"What's it this time?" Lestrade groaned.
"I've no idea, but it's big," Donovan said. "They’ve called in half the Met."
"I noticed," Lestrade said sarcastically as he felt the caffeine flow through his veins.
Several minutes later, with his coffee gone and really desperate for a second cup, he followed the long line into the biggest conference room in the building. It seemed they had every constable, sergeant and inspector on the force in there. There was a little bit of room left at the back, giving Lestrade the perfect spot to watch the goings on at the front without drawing unwanted attention to himself.
It was then he noticed something out of place in the room. On the opposite side of the room, also in a prime spot to notice but not be noticed, stood a man. At first glance he looked like a civil servant, sharply dressed, umbrella in his hand, a man who wanted to look unnoticeable. For some reason John Steed came to Lestrade's mind. The only thing missing from the picture was a bowler hat. But the way he held himself told Lestrade the man was in fact something else, something more powerful, something frightening. Lestrade spent most of the briefing watching the man. Why would a civil servant, even a powerful one, be present at a Met briefing?
Okay, it might be about the biggest drugs bust they’d had in years, but still.
Lestrade spent the rest of the meeting studying the man, not getting any closer to an answer. The briefing ended just as Lestrade had time to refocus to hear his people being appointed to a team that would take on a house somewhere in the West End.
***
The whole raid turned out to be rather tame. There was of course some resistance, but within fifteen minutes the team had thirteen junkies standing outside, dressed in all sorts of shabby clothes and of different level of awareness. Now it was Lestrade's job to collect any evidence left. The house looked like a herd of elephants had crashed through it, and he sighed. He hated cases like this because they seldom yielded anything useful, and the buildings always stank. The first order was to check the rooms to make sure there was nothing of interest left. They reached the upper level, looking at the peeling wall paper, the knocked-down walls, the filthy mattresses. The whole building stank of neglect. If he took a good look, he was certain he’d see rats scurrying away.
Lestrade moved carefully, keeping Donovan close by his side. They said they had arrested all those inside and this was just the sweep, but his instinct told him to be careful.
He walked into a small room, not more than a cupboard. Donovan stopped in the adjacent room, lifting up a mattress with a look of disgust on her face. The small room was empty at first sight, and in later years he would always wonder what had made him look up, but look up he did. There in the dark, two eyes were looking down at him. He made a startled move, and for a few short moments he thought a giant bat came sailing down, knocking him to the floor. The next moment a knife was pushed against his throat.
"Don't move," a low voice growled. "One move, and the knife will cut right through your carotid artery." Lestrade tried to get a good view of the figure crouching above him. The knife against his throat was held by a thin, pale hand, clean, well manicured. The hand was attached to a bony wrist, too thin, and encased in a very expensive-looking sleeve. Lestrade tried to avoid looking into his assailant’s eyes: you never knew with junkies what their reaction to that would be. So instead he looked carefully up, starting at the top.
Hair short, almost military, clean. Surprising; clean wasn't a word he would normally use to describe junkies.
Razor-sharp cheekbones enhanced by sunken cheeks. Handsome mouth. Not traditionally good-looking, but more the kind of junkie look you would find on a model.
Long neck, unbuttoned shirt, expensive. Dark suit, also expensive. Much more the typical city boy than the kind of guy you’d expect in a rundown crack house.
"What do you think will happen if you cut me?" Lestrade rather stupidly asked, throwing all his 'You do not antagonise the junkie holding a knife to your throat' sense out of the window.
"Nothing; none of the people close by are carrying weapons, and even if they were, they'd shoot me, but that wouldn't help you. You would bleed to death within a minute." The words were callous, careless. And Lestrade realised the man on top of him didn't care about his own life, which made him even more dangerous than the average criminal.
"You don't seem the type to have a death wish," Lestrade said.
"I don't. Well, it would be more interesting than holding you at knife point." The man locked eyes with Lestrade’s, and he felt like he was being dissected. The man's pupils were dilated, but even though he was high as a kite, his eyes seemed to say he was smarter than Lestrade could ever imagine.
"Interesting,' Lestrade said, slowly bringing his left foot up, planting it firmly on the ground, "You're bored by this?" He knew he sounded rather incredulous.
"Of course; the cocaine normally takes the edge off, helps me concentrate, but this whole raid thing has broken the spell. If you could refrain from doing that again, it would be good." Lestrade stared at the man, speechless for a moment.
"You're asking us to stop raiding crack houses because it bores you."
"Basically." The man sounded altogether too calm for a man holding a knife to a police officer's neck. That was the moment Lestrade decided to take matters into his own hands, since nobody else seemed to be doing anything.
"You sound like a petulant five year old," he said. His distraction strategy seemed to work as the man snorted indignantly.
So Lestrade brought his hand up in a flash, hitting the man's hand with force, knocking the knife away from his throat and bringing his left knee up to the man's crotch, flipping them over using the momentum. He was sitting on him, the knife out of reach of the man's hand. The man made a valiant effort to grab the knife. So Lestrade flipped the junkie down onto his stomach, his right arm pulled high up his back, his left trapped under his body. Lestrade's knee pressed the man's cheek to the ground.
"I don't like it when people hold knives to my throat." To Lestrade's surprise the man smirked at those words. He didn't seem to worry much when they put the handcuffs on, clearly knowing the drill, and he looked positively bored when he was pushed into line with the others. Lestrade finally relaxed as the man was escorted away. There was something about a close brush with death that made him feel alive.
***
Lestrade moved his hands through his hair, making it stick up even worse than before. The lack of coffee and the nightmare of paperwork in front of him made him wish he had chosen a less demanding job, caretaker or something.
They hadn't even tried to send him home after what had happened, and he was glad, because he really didn't want to go to the cold, empty flat. It hadn't really felt like home since Thomas had died.
Lestrade opened the file, looking at the idiot who had tried to slit his throat. Apparently his name was Sherlock Holmes. He snorted softly; somebody's parents had hated him.
"Let's see what records we have on you." He expected some minor offences, perhaps some minor drugs charges. He didn't seem the kind that would go unnoticed, and he had known the drill slightly too well for it to have been his first offence. It took the archives a few moments before suddenly a list with case numbers and names started to appear on his screen.
"Damn, look at this." Lestrade stared as the number of records kept growing until there were more than a 100 cases that came up in connection with Sherlock Holmes. Donovan stopped writing her own report and stood behind him, her mouth dropping open as she looked at list.
"There are four murders on just the first page. Click on that one," she said, pointing to one of the murder cases.
Lestrade read the short note it contained.
Arrested on suspicion of murder, released the next day after the apprehension of another suspect.
They discovered a disturbing pattern in the cases. Holmes would be mentioned in a case as a witness, then as a suspect, and then there would be a short note explaining his release, sometimes due to the lack of evidence, but most of the times because the real perpetrator had been found and arrested.
"How old did you say he was?" Donovan asked as she pointed to the oldest case.
"27," Lestrade answered as he opened it.
"Then why is there a case from 1989 on here? He must have been what, eleven or something? Besides, I didn't know old cases like that were in here already."
"Oh God." Lestrade clicked on some of the older cases, fifteen-year-old cases, ten-year-old cases. A horrified feeling settle in his stomach as realisation hit him.
"At least forty of those cases took place when he was a minor. He was just a kid when these happened," he said softly.
"Who is he?" Donovan's face showed a similar look of horror as Lestrade’s.
"A very bored man." The cultured voice made them spin around. The man who should have had a bowler hat stood in the doorway.
"Sergeant Donovan, would you mind leaving DI Lestrade and me for a moment."
"Sir?" Donovan looked at Lestrade, curiosity on her face.
"Go and get some coffee for us from that new place down the road," Lestrade said, a resigned look on the woman's face showed that she wasn’t happy with him. But Donovan didn't say anything and walked past him, looking worried.
"Please explain who you are and what's going on. I've had a rather trying day. I spent my day in a rundown crack house, a junkie tried to slit my throat, and there is no coffee left in the whole building, and believe me I’ve looked. So I don't have a lot of patience left."
"I'm here to retrieve my brother's possessions." The man sat down uninvited, looking completely at ease under Lestrade's angry stare.
"Your brother's possessions? You're telling me you're Holmes's brother?"
"Yes, and I'm very grateful to the Met for getting him out of that awful building." Realisation hit Lestrade.
"You arranged it; you made sure we'd take down that house, just so we’d get your brother out."
"Of course, Inspector." Holmes looked impressed, like he hadn't expected Lestrade to realise what was going on.
"Who are you?"
"Mycroft Holmes." If the situation hadn't been so absurd already the name would have made it so. Their parents really had had the cruellest sense of humour.
"You do realise I can't release your brother's possessions yet? They're evidence in his case." Lestrade leaned on the desk, looking down on the man sitting too relaxed in the chair across him.
"What case?"
Lestrade looked incredulous at those words. "What case? He was found in a crack house in the possession of drugs. Oh yeah, and there’s the small matter of the fact he tried to cut my throat."
"Minor offences, don't you agree?"
"Minor?" Lestrade wanted to wring the other man's neck to get the smug look off his face.
"Yes, minor, because you will not charge him with assault." Holmes's voice had dropped a few octaves, suddenly sounding extremely dangerous, proving Lestrade's feeling this wasn't a man to play with.
"Of course I won't charge him with assault. Attempted murder on the other hand…" Lestrade looked at the man defiantly. A look of respect suddenly appeared in the man's eyes. He clearly wasn't used to people standing up to him.
"You do realise what I can do to you?"
"No, but I can guess. It doesn't matter. I don't like idiots like your brother running freely on the street."
"How is your flat? It must feel empty after Thomas died."
Lestrade felt his heart freeze. "How," he stammered.
"Oh, I know more about you, Gabriel Lestrade, much more." There was a clear threat in the voice. "I know about your ex-boyfriend, the one who hit you, before he ended up in hospital under suspicious circumstances. I know about the accident that killed that rapist two years ago."
Panic made breathing difficult. Those were his secrets, things that would cost him his job and probably land him in prison if somebody wanted.
"Don't worry, Inspector. You're so much more useful here. I would just prefer it if my brother wasn't here."
"I can't," Lestrade said.
"Of course you can, and if you're worried about my brother getting off lightly, believe me when I say that nothing you can do to my brother can ever…impress him like I can." Lestrade suddenly felt sorry for the junkie
"I can't let him go. I need his statements; we’ll need everything we can get on the dealers." Lestrade wasn't giving up without a fight. No matter what the man informed him he had on him he still was a cop. Justice was still his ultimate goal even if he was sometimes prepared to take shortcuts.
"Ah of course, Mister Van Wijk. Don't worry about him. He will be taken care of." The finality in the man's voice told Lestrade he would release Sherlock Holmes no matter what the officer part of his mind protested.
"Please hand my brother this. I would prefer it if he didn't bring in any unwanted guests." Mycroft threw him a bag that said I might look simple and understated but what I hold costs more than what you make in a month.
With a sigh Lestrade took it, leaving the other man standing in his office, looking thoughtful.
***
"Get changed." Lestrade threw the suit at Holmes. "You're being released."
"What?" Holmes sat up, an eyebrow raised in mock surprise. He looked too attentive, too aware of his surroundings for a junkie who only two hours ago had been arrested high as a kite. He looked bored again, a cold impassive mask on his face now making it impossible to read his true emotions.
"You heard me," Lestrade said, ignoring the sharp eyes looking him over.
"He's here, isn't he? This was all his doing." Holmes sounded bitter.
"Just get changed," Lestrade sighed.
"You dropped the charges." The words sounded angry, but there was a trace of something else in his voice, and it made Lestrade look up. The cold mask on the other man's face had dropped for a second, showing both annoyance, and to Lestrade's surprise, fear. Apparently he wasn't the only one who realised the mild-mannered civil servant might be the most dangerous man in the world. And he was suddenly glad he had dropped the charges. Nothing the law could have done to Holmes would have hurt him like this.
"Yes, I dropped the charges, and I didn't want to, but I think that might have been the right decision after all." The only reply was an inscrutable look.
Ten minutes later Lestrade dropped Holmes off in the hall into the waiting arms of his brother. If looks could kill, Lestrade would have had a nice crime scene in the middle of the Yard. But since they didn't, Holmes was left with glaring angrily at his brother. Lestrade just shook his head and walked away from the front desk, letting the two brothers fight it out, glad he would never have to hear the name Holmes again.
***
Lestrade sat down at his desk with a sigh. The crime scene he had just left had been the final straw that had turned a merely bad week into the worst week in a long time. The raids earlier in the week had resulted in more paperwork than even the most enthusiastic pen pusher could handle. And now somebody had gone and made it all redundant, all their hard work, all the months of preparation made superfluous.
Letting out another sigh, just to let the world know how displeased he was with its current state, he pulled out the Little Black Book he had taken from Gregson's desk. And started to write.
Benjamin van Wijk
Drugs baron
Shot to the back of the head
Executed
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Author: dweo
Words: 3062
Rating: Teen
Characters: Lestrade, Sally, Mycroft, Sherlock
Pairings: Lestrade/Mycroft
Warnings: Drug Use
Beta: The Lovely grassle
Summary: When people say that the day he met Sherlock Holmes had to have been the most incredible day of his life, he agrees. But what Lestrade never tells them is that it had very little to do with Sherlock.
AN: Written for sherlockbigbang
Brotherly Love
Prologue
On a desk somewhere in New Scotland Yard lies a small black book. The Little Book of Horrors, as they call it. It contains a list, a simple list of names, and whenever somebody wants to remember or perhaps forget, they write down a name, a hobby, an age. Sometimes there are little drawings, sometimes there are loving remarks, and sometimes there is nothing but a location.
When the book, the written proof of the human side of all the cases that shape their lives, is full, it disappears, burnt, drowned, used for target practice. And it helps them do their job, never really forgetting but forever going on.
Chapter One
When people say that the day he met Sherlock Holmes had to have been the most incredible day of his life, he agrees. But what he never tells them is that it had very little to do with Sherlock.
DI Gabriel Lestrade, Lestrade to friends, enemies and at this point even his mother, had not been prepared for the chaos at the Yard that morning. It appeared about half the Metropolitan Police was trying to get coffee from the lone working coffee machine on his floor. Deciding to give up before even trying to get his morning fix, he simply crashed onto his chair.
"What's this circus?" he asked the room at large.
"Briefing in ten minutes," Donovan, one of his new sergeants, said, handing him his coffee mug with a smile. He was going to like her. She already knew how to preserve her safety and sanity when faced with a caffeine-deficient Lestrade.
"What's it this time?" Lestrade groaned.
"I've no idea, but it's big," Donovan said. "They’ve called in half the Met."
"I noticed," Lestrade said sarcastically as he felt the caffeine flow through his veins.
Several minutes later, with his coffee gone and really desperate for a second cup, he followed the long line into the biggest conference room in the building. It seemed they had every constable, sergeant and inspector on the force in there. There was a little bit of room left at the back, giving Lestrade the perfect spot to watch the goings on at the front without drawing unwanted attention to himself.
It was then he noticed something out of place in the room. On the opposite side of the room, also in a prime spot to notice but not be noticed, stood a man. At first glance he looked like a civil servant, sharply dressed, umbrella in his hand, a man who wanted to look unnoticeable. For some reason John Steed came to Lestrade's mind. The only thing missing from the picture was a bowler hat. But the way he held himself told Lestrade the man was in fact something else, something more powerful, something frightening. Lestrade spent most of the briefing watching the man. Why would a civil servant, even a powerful one, be present at a Met briefing?
Okay, it might be about the biggest drugs bust they’d had in years, but still.
Lestrade spent the rest of the meeting studying the man, not getting any closer to an answer. The briefing ended just as Lestrade had time to refocus to hear his people being appointed to a team that would take on a house somewhere in the West End.
***
The whole raid turned out to be rather tame. There was of course some resistance, but within fifteen minutes the team had thirteen junkies standing outside, dressed in all sorts of shabby clothes and of different level of awareness. Now it was Lestrade's job to collect any evidence left. The house looked like a herd of elephants had crashed through it, and he sighed. He hated cases like this because they seldom yielded anything useful, and the buildings always stank. The first order was to check the rooms to make sure there was nothing of interest left. They reached the upper level, looking at the peeling wall paper, the knocked-down walls, the filthy mattresses. The whole building stank of neglect. If he took a good look, he was certain he’d see rats scurrying away.
Lestrade moved carefully, keeping Donovan close by his side. They said they had arrested all those inside and this was just the sweep, but his instinct told him to be careful.
He walked into a small room, not more than a cupboard. Donovan stopped in the adjacent room, lifting up a mattress with a look of disgust on her face. The small room was empty at first sight, and in later years he would always wonder what had made him look up, but look up he did. There in the dark, two eyes were looking down at him. He made a startled move, and for a few short moments he thought a giant bat came sailing down, knocking him to the floor. The next moment a knife was pushed against his throat.
"Don't move," a low voice growled. "One move, and the knife will cut right through your carotid artery." Lestrade tried to get a good view of the figure crouching above him. The knife against his throat was held by a thin, pale hand, clean, well manicured. The hand was attached to a bony wrist, too thin, and encased in a very expensive-looking sleeve. Lestrade tried to avoid looking into his assailant’s eyes: you never knew with junkies what their reaction to that would be. So instead he looked carefully up, starting at the top.
Hair short, almost military, clean. Surprising; clean wasn't a word he would normally use to describe junkies.
Razor-sharp cheekbones enhanced by sunken cheeks. Handsome mouth. Not traditionally good-looking, but more the kind of junkie look you would find on a model.
Long neck, unbuttoned shirt, expensive. Dark suit, also expensive. Much more the typical city boy than the kind of guy you’d expect in a rundown crack house.
"What do you think will happen if you cut me?" Lestrade rather stupidly asked, throwing all his 'You do not antagonise the junkie holding a knife to your throat' sense out of the window.
"Nothing; none of the people close by are carrying weapons, and even if they were, they'd shoot me, but that wouldn't help you. You would bleed to death within a minute." The words were callous, careless. And Lestrade realised the man on top of him didn't care about his own life, which made him even more dangerous than the average criminal.
"You don't seem the type to have a death wish," Lestrade said.
"I don't. Well, it would be more interesting than holding you at knife point." The man locked eyes with Lestrade’s, and he felt like he was being dissected. The man's pupils were dilated, but even though he was high as a kite, his eyes seemed to say he was smarter than Lestrade could ever imagine.
"Interesting,' Lestrade said, slowly bringing his left foot up, planting it firmly on the ground, "You're bored by this?" He knew he sounded rather incredulous.
"Of course; the cocaine normally takes the edge off, helps me concentrate, but this whole raid thing has broken the spell. If you could refrain from doing that again, it would be good." Lestrade stared at the man, speechless for a moment.
"You're asking us to stop raiding crack houses because it bores you."
"Basically." The man sounded altogether too calm for a man holding a knife to a police officer's neck. That was the moment Lestrade decided to take matters into his own hands, since nobody else seemed to be doing anything.
"You sound like a petulant five year old," he said. His distraction strategy seemed to work as the man snorted indignantly.
So Lestrade brought his hand up in a flash, hitting the man's hand with force, knocking the knife away from his throat and bringing his left knee up to the man's crotch, flipping them over using the momentum. He was sitting on him, the knife out of reach of the man's hand. The man made a valiant effort to grab the knife. So Lestrade flipped the junkie down onto his stomach, his right arm pulled high up his back, his left trapped under his body. Lestrade's knee pressed the man's cheek to the ground.
"I don't like it when people hold knives to my throat." To Lestrade's surprise the man smirked at those words. He didn't seem to worry much when they put the handcuffs on, clearly knowing the drill, and he looked positively bored when he was pushed into line with the others. Lestrade finally relaxed as the man was escorted away. There was something about a close brush with death that made him feel alive.
***
Lestrade moved his hands through his hair, making it stick up even worse than before. The lack of coffee and the nightmare of paperwork in front of him made him wish he had chosen a less demanding job, caretaker or something.
They hadn't even tried to send him home after what had happened, and he was glad, because he really didn't want to go to the cold, empty flat. It hadn't really felt like home since Thomas had died.
Lestrade opened the file, looking at the idiot who had tried to slit his throat. Apparently his name was Sherlock Holmes. He snorted softly; somebody's parents had hated him.
"Let's see what records we have on you." He expected some minor offences, perhaps some minor drugs charges. He didn't seem the kind that would go unnoticed, and he had known the drill slightly too well for it to have been his first offence. It took the archives a few moments before suddenly a list with case numbers and names started to appear on his screen.
"Damn, look at this." Lestrade stared as the number of records kept growing until there were more than a 100 cases that came up in connection with Sherlock Holmes. Donovan stopped writing her own report and stood behind him, her mouth dropping open as she looked at list.
"There are four murders on just the first page. Click on that one," she said, pointing to one of the murder cases.
Lestrade read the short note it contained.
Arrested on suspicion of murder, released the next day after the apprehension of another suspect.
They discovered a disturbing pattern in the cases. Holmes would be mentioned in a case as a witness, then as a suspect, and then there would be a short note explaining his release, sometimes due to the lack of evidence, but most of the times because the real perpetrator had been found and arrested.
"How old did you say he was?" Donovan asked as she pointed to the oldest case.
"27," Lestrade answered as he opened it.
"Then why is there a case from 1989 on here? He must have been what, eleven or something? Besides, I didn't know old cases like that were in here already."
"Oh God." Lestrade clicked on some of the older cases, fifteen-year-old cases, ten-year-old cases. A horrified feeling settle in his stomach as realisation hit him.
"At least forty of those cases took place when he was a minor. He was just a kid when these happened," he said softly.
"Who is he?" Donovan's face showed a similar look of horror as Lestrade’s.
"A very bored man." The cultured voice made them spin around. The man who should have had a bowler hat stood in the doorway.
"Sergeant Donovan, would you mind leaving DI Lestrade and me for a moment."
"Sir?" Donovan looked at Lestrade, curiosity on her face.
"Go and get some coffee for us from that new place down the road," Lestrade said, a resigned look on the woman's face showed that she wasn’t happy with him. But Donovan didn't say anything and walked past him, looking worried.
"Please explain who you are and what's going on. I've had a rather trying day. I spent my day in a rundown crack house, a junkie tried to slit my throat, and there is no coffee left in the whole building, and believe me I’ve looked. So I don't have a lot of patience left."
"I'm here to retrieve my brother's possessions." The man sat down uninvited, looking completely at ease under Lestrade's angry stare.
"Your brother's possessions? You're telling me you're Holmes's brother?"
"Yes, and I'm very grateful to the Met for getting him out of that awful building." Realisation hit Lestrade.
"You arranged it; you made sure we'd take down that house, just so we’d get your brother out."
"Of course, Inspector." Holmes looked impressed, like he hadn't expected Lestrade to realise what was going on.
"Who are you?"
"Mycroft Holmes." If the situation hadn't been so absurd already the name would have made it so. Their parents really had had the cruellest sense of humour.
"You do realise I can't release your brother's possessions yet? They're evidence in his case." Lestrade leaned on the desk, looking down on the man sitting too relaxed in the chair across him.
"What case?"
Lestrade looked incredulous at those words. "What case? He was found in a crack house in the possession of drugs. Oh yeah, and there’s the small matter of the fact he tried to cut my throat."
"Minor offences, don't you agree?"
"Minor?" Lestrade wanted to wring the other man's neck to get the smug look off his face.
"Yes, minor, because you will not charge him with assault." Holmes's voice had dropped a few octaves, suddenly sounding extremely dangerous, proving Lestrade's feeling this wasn't a man to play with.
"Of course I won't charge him with assault. Attempted murder on the other hand…" Lestrade looked at the man defiantly. A look of respect suddenly appeared in the man's eyes. He clearly wasn't used to people standing up to him.
"You do realise what I can do to you?"
"No, but I can guess. It doesn't matter. I don't like idiots like your brother running freely on the street."
"How is your flat? It must feel empty after Thomas died."
Lestrade felt his heart freeze. "How," he stammered.
"Oh, I know more about you, Gabriel Lestrade, much more." There was a clear threat in the voice. "I know about your ex-boyfriend, the one who hit you, before he ended up in hospital under suspicious circumstances. I know about the accident that killed that rapist two years ago."
Panic made breathing difficult. Those were his secrets, things that would cost him his job and probably land him in prison if somebody wanted.
"Don't worry, Inspector. You're so much more useful here. I would just prefer it if my brother wasn't here."
"I can't," Lestrade said.
"Of course you can, and if you're worried about my brother getting off lightly, believe me when I say that nothing you can do to my brother can ever…impress him like I can." Lestrade suddenly felt sorry for the junkie
"I can't let him go. I need his statements; we’ll need everything we can get on the dealers." Lestrade wasn't giving up without a fight. No matter what the man informed him he had on him he still was a cop. Justice was still his ultimate goal even if he was sometimes prepared to take shortcuts.
"Ah of course, Mister Van Wijk. Don't worry about him. He will be taken care of." The finality in the man's voice told Lestrade he would release Sherlock Holmes no matter what the officer part of his mind protested.
"Please hand my brother this. I would prefer it if he didn't bring in any unwanted guests." Mycroft threw him a bag that said I might look simple and understated but what I hold costs more than what you make in a month.
With a sigh Lestrade took it, leaving the other man standing in his office, looking thoughtful.
***
"Get changed." Lestrade threw the suit at Holmes. "You're being released."
"What?" Holmes sat up, an eyebrow raised in mock surprise. He looked too attentive, too aware of his surroundings for a junkie who only two hours ago had been arrested high as a kite. He looked bored again, a cold impassive mask on his face now making it impossible to read his true emotions.
"You heard me," Lestrade said, ignoring the sharp eyes looking him over.
"He's here, isn't he? This was all his doing." Holmes sounded bitter.
"Just get changed," Lestrade sighed.
"You dropped the charges." The words sounded angry, but there was a trace of something else in his voice, and it made Lestrade look up. The cold mask on the other man's face had dropped for a second, showing both annoyance, and to Lestrade's surprise, fear. Apparently he wasn't the only one who realised the mild-mannered civil servant might be the most dangerous man in the world. And he was suddenly glad he had dropped the charges. Nothing the law could have done to Holmes would have hurt him like this.
"Yes, I dropped the charges, and I didn't want to, but I think that might have been the right decision after all." The only reply was an inscrutable look.
Ten minutes later Lestrade dropped Holmes off in the hall into the waiting arms of his brother. If looks could kill, Lestrade would have had a nice crime scene in the middle of the Yard. But since they didn't, Holmes was left with glaring angrily at his brother. Lestrade just shook his head and walked away from the front desk, letting the two brothers fight it out, glad he would never have to hear the name Holmes again.
***
Lestrade sat down at his desk with a sigh. The crime scene he had just left had been the final straw that had turned a merely bad week into the worst week in a long time. The raids earlier in the week had resulted in more paperwork than even the most enthusiastic pen pusher could handle. And now somebody had gone and made it all redundant, all their hard work, all the months of preparation made superfluous.
Letting out another sigh, just to let the world know how displeased he was with its current state, he pulled out the Little Black Book he had taken from Gregson's desk. And started to write.
Benjamin van Wijk
Drugs baron
Shot to the back of the head
Executed
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5