The Mountains of the Moon

HEY YOU GUYS, SIDNEY SUSSEX WROTE ME A THING FOR THAT LESTRADE PROMPT:

He’d expected it, obviously, from someone like John.  Not that John wasn’t fully capable of rational behaviour, but as he’d said himself, it was a bit of an extenuating circumstance, coming back from the dead.  He sounded tired when he said it (Sherlock isn’t used to that; John used to be tired when he was alone, and once, it was Sherlock that put an end to it).  Then again, perhaps the exasperation of having to explain what seemed self-evident to him, after having thought he was free of it, was a bit much.

Sherlock wouldn’t know.  To him, it isn’t exasperation, and he’s waited three years to have the privilege of explaining the obvious again.

Still, John handled it well, all told.  There was an excessive amount of tea, some muted cursing, and Sherlock nursed a tender spot on his jaw for a few days, all the while counting down the hours until things seemed normal enough that he could ask.

It’s the question he’s wanted to ask for three days.  Three years, too, but that seems like nothing next to the three agonizing days he’s spent at 221B with no sign of anyone but John and Mrs. Hudson (cried, hugged him, brought them jammy biscuits).

It’s probably still too soon, but Sherlock, despite years of trying not to be, is only human, and he can’t keep it bottled up forever.  He’s tried being cold (watched the lines in John’s forehead deepen and abandoned that plan; never again), he’s tried being subtle (but Sherlock, for all his ability to detect the miniscule, is not a subtle man), he’s tried picking up clues from around the flat (and there aren’t any, which is typical of a world out to get him), and he needs to know.

So he asks.

He phrases it carefully, makes the question about crimes and cases and the Yard, things John will accept without question, and yet, John’s face still goes carefully blank; he still sits down in his worn armchair and stares at the coffee table, stirs his cold tea and takes a sip even though Sherlock knows he doesn’t like it that way (he makes himself fresh cups before he’s run out of the old ones, because they go cool faster than John can drink), and then says, Sherlock.

Something isn’t right.

Sherlock remembers the way he left, three years ago; he remembers what Lestrade must have had to deal with after his death (the fact that he isn’t, not anymore, won’t help) and he remembers the way Lestrade has always been about his job.  He knows there’s a chance that Lestrade won’t want to see him, but that’s happened before, and he’s always given in, in the end.

Sherlock has long-healed needle scars up both arms to prove it.

Okay, says John.  All right, I’ll take you there, and the address he gives the cabbie is all too familiar.