Chapter Text

“You were being very cryptic on the phone, why exactly are you leading me through the bowels of the hospital towards the labs? Should I be worried?”

“There’s someone I think you should meet.”

“I haven’t been back in years. I trained here, did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know. What do you think?” Lestrade asked as he opened the door and gestured for John to enter.

“Very different from my day,” John replied.

Sherlock was leaning over a microscope, examining a specimen. He didn’t look up when they entered, but Lestrade saw him glance sideways to see who it was.

“Can I borrow your phone, Lestrade?”

“I don’t trust you with my phone, not after that stunt you just pulled.”

John looked between Lestrade and Sherlock and smirked. He pulled out his own phone and handed it to Sherlock.

“Use mine.”

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

“Eton or Harrow?” John countered.

Lestrade resisted the urge to laugh. He should have known that this interaction wouldn’t turn out quite as he had expected it to. John was not a normal kind of man, and Sherlock was about as far from normal as you could get.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “Afghanistan,” he decided firmly.

John studied Sherlock for a second longer. “Harrow.”

“Army doctor recently invalided after being injured in combat in Afghanistan, although your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly, I’m afraid. You have a brother with a bit of money who is worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him. Possibly because he recently left his wife, more likely because you disapprove of his drinking.”

“Well, that’s just brilliant,” John said, his voice completely free of sarcasm. “But two can play at that game, Sherlock Holmes. I might not be as good at deducing things as you are, but I’m not bad. Would you like me to give it a shot?”

Sherlock looked briefly at Lestrade, who smirked and looked away, before inclining his head.

“You were recently a heavy smoker, but you’ve quit in favour of patches sometime in the last three to six months. You broke your left arm between the ages of 10 and 12, your right ankle at about 14, and your right pinky finger about two years ago. You have a superficial laceration from less than a week ago on your left bicep.”

“You are deducing my medical history?” Sherlock asked incredulously.

“How am I doing?”

“How do you feel about the violin? I play in the middle of the night, and sometimes don’t talk for days on end. Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other,” Sherlock said by way of an answer. Lestrade took that to mean that John was frighteningly correct. It was interesting to see Sherlock put up against someone who was just as observant as he was, in markedly different ways, but still. The exchange was fascinating.

“Flatmates?”

“I recently told Lestrade that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for, and now here he is a few days later with a friend clearly recently out of military service. It wasn’t a difficult leap.”

“Brilliant,” John said.

Sherlock blinked like he was trying to figure out if that was a compliment or an insult. He must have decided on the former, because he smiled – grinned, actually – and got up.

“7 o’clock, 221B Baker Street. I must dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary,” he said over his shoulder as he flounced out of the room, pausing only to wink on his way out.

John turned to face Lestrade. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said flatly. “You think I should be Sherlock Holmes’ flatmate?”

“I actually do,” Lestrade said seriously, although he was smiling. “He isn’t a particularly good man, John, but he is a great man. You have a startling ability to inspire goodness in people, and this world with a good Sherlock Holmes would be considerably better. Not only that, you’re so bored with your life, you find it so unbelievably dull that I’m worried you’ll do something stupid just to liven it up. It’s always going to be your decision. It’s going to be dangerous and probably not particularly comfortable, knowing Sherlock, but I think this is what you’ve been waiting for since you got back. You certainly won’t be bored.”

“Is he capable of making friends?”

“Yes,” Lestrade said firmly. “I would count him as a friend, of sorts, but most of the time I feel more like his brother or father than his friend. He doesn’t need someone to tell him what he can and cannot do, he has me and Mycroft for that. He needs someone to trust, someone to turn to and someone to call him out when he’s being a twat. If you chose to live with him, he’s not going to let you go. He’s selfish and starved of the kind of attention he actually wants. I don’t have any previous examples, but I’d be willing to bet he won’t let you date, either.”

“So you aren’t asking me to do this? And you didn’t suggest this because you want a babysitter for him?”

“Of course not. He could be good for you, John. You need some excitement, otherwise you’ll go insane. But he could also ruin you. I don’t know, but I know that you deserve the right to decide for yourself.”

“The way you describe it…” John paused. “I’d basically be his wife, but without the sex.”

“You could think of it like that,” Lestrade laughed lightly. “But I would say you’d be more like his live-in business partner and best friend. Of course, I have no idea if he would be at all interested in sex or a romantic relationship or both. It’s possible, but that’s not the point right now.”

“He could ruin me,” John said, like he was agreeing with Lestrade. “Do you think he will?”

Lestrade studied John for a long moment, noting his military stance and conspicuous lack of leg injury, but most of all he noticed the renewed hardness in John’s eyes. He noticed that the haunted look was missing, as were the dark circles under his eyes. He was fractured, but not broken. John had started to heal himself and he hadn’t required anyone else’s help to do it. It was entirely possible that John would have been crushed beneath the sheer presence and harsh intelligence of Sherlock Holmes had they met before, but a mere two months had changed him. John knew, after those two months, that he could be alone if he chose to be, that he didn’t need someone else to ‘fix’ him. Maybe Sherlock could stop the limp and the nightmares, but John had shown to himself that he could have done it alone, and Lestrade thought that made all the difference.

“No.”

There were very few people who were equipped to handle Sherlock Holmes, but Lestrade thought John Watson would turn out to be the best of them.

***

Lestrade knew, while bounding up the stairs to 221B Baker Street, that he was interrupting John and Sherlock at a bad time, but death waited for no one. Lestrade had always known when he was out of his depth, and the media on this case was making it even harder to get anything done. The pressure was building and he hadn’t been on the case for long enough to even have formed a theory on the matter. He was out of his depth. Hell, he was drifting in the middle of a storm above the Mariana Trench. This case obviously involved intrigue beyond his capabilities and, running the risk of overextending this metaphor, he didn’t have the skill to dive down deep enough to find the truth.

So he interrupted John and Sherlock at a pivotal moment in their evolving friendship to ask for Sherlock’s help. And, never one to resist a puzzle, Sherlock came. Never one to resist danger, John accompanied him.

It was gratifying to see John working with Sherlock on the case, to see Sherlock’s face when he realised John’s interjections of “fantastic” and “amazing” were entirely without derision. It was nice, but Lestrade couldn’t help but notice that in setting up John and Sherlock’s friendship, he was being pushed down a peg from John’s best friend to his plain friend. But they were both so much happier. John was laughing without restraint and Sherlock was actually smiling, so he couldn’t bring himself to resent the decision he’d made to introduce them.

Lestrade was still happy with his decision by the end of the case, despite the dead serial killer on the living room floor of 221B Baker Street. He was clever enough to know that it was highly unlikely the killer had been murdered by a criminal enemy of some description. He was also aware that John had the skills, the time, and the inclination to have shot the cabby. He chose to ignore that and focus on the fact that John had gotten what he wanted. A little excitement was good for him. Probably.

When Lestrade looked up from taking Sherlock’s statement, wilfully ignoring the similarities between the person he described and his friend, and saw Mycroft, something strange happened. That attraction that he had clearly noticed and attempted to deal with came back in full force. He saw the way Mycroft was staring at Sherlock. He looked worried, angry, and scared, in a very Mycroftian way. His emotions were not obvious, but Lestrade could see them, and they made him feel awful. He felt guilty for not protecting Sherlock, not because he thought Sherlock required protection, but because he wanted to protect Mycroft from those feelings. And in that moment, Lestrade realised that sexual frustration and attraction were not the only emotions he’d ever felt for Mycroft. Lestrade was protective of Mycroft, he cared about him in a way that was somehow different to the ways he cared for John. These feelings weren’t more intense or more important, but they were definitively different. He was firmly entrenched in some good old-fashioned unrequited love, or perhaps not love, not yet, but so alarmingly close that Lestrade felt a sudden urge to sit down and have a panic attack. If he had been in high school, it might have been labelled a ‘crush’. Accompanying his urge to breathe heavily into a paper bag was the urge to call his sister, and his daughter, in that order. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have the time to call them because Mycroft was there, and he hadn’t forgotten what he’d done to John.

This sudden insight into his feelings didn’t stop him from being absolutely furious with Mycroft. Once Sherlock had finally put together the pieces to notice that the shooter had, in fact, been John, and given him a vague excuse so he could go and talk to him, Lestrade made his way over to Mycroft. Perhaps Sherlock was in shock, it certainly took him long enough to realise what had happened. Lestrade was too angry to care. His reaction may have been a bit stronger than usual because he was annoyed at himself and a little emotionally off-balance. Mycroft stood by his car as he approached, but he was watching John and Sherlock so he didn’t see him.

“We’re going to have a talk, Mycroft,” Lestrade said icily when he got within earshot.

Mycroft looked a little surprised, but ignored his opening statement in favour of his own. “What I want to know is why John is moving in with my brother. If he needed accommodation, would it not have been better for you to take him in? Sherlock does not share his toys.”

“John is not a toy. He is my friend. You are going to apologise to him, properly, and stay out of his personal life with Sherlock.”

“Sherlock is all-encompassing. He will not take well to your romantic relationship with his flatmate,” Mycroft said, still looking off to the side where John and Sherlock were now visibly giggling.

“My… what?” Lestrade spluttered. “So that is what this is about? I have never had romantic feelings for John. We aren’t dating, we’re friends. I introduced him to Sherlock because they’ll be good for each other. You might be amazing at observing things and deducing much in the same way as Sherlock, but you’re shit with emotions. Your brother is lonely and John is bored. They’re perfect. It’s a friendship made to give me a heart attack, but it will make them happy.”

Mycroft blinked twice. “I… see. I may have made an error. It is possible that Dr Watson deserves some kind of,” Mycroft made a face, “apology.”

“Wait, wait!” Lestrade said incredulously. “You threatened John, called him unstable and dangerous, because you thought he was my boyfriend?”

“While it was based on an incorrect assumption, my logic was sound. If he was scared away, or if he had taken the money, he could not even begin to deserve you. If he responded correctly, he would have proven to me that he was capable of deserving your affection and I would have rescinded my objections.”

“You would have ‘rescinded your objections’? What the fuck, Mycroft? You are not my father or my brother, so you have no right to give the ‘hurt him and I will break you’ speech, or threatening speeches of any kind.”

Mycroft looked down. “I assure you,” he addressed his shoes, “that my feelings in the matter were not at all familial.”

“Really not the best way to prove that you want to be my friend, Mycroft,” Lestrade said angrily. “You always have to do things the hard way. You should have just eaten the fucking chocolate.”

“Greg?” John said cautiously from behind him. “Is everything okay?”

“Greg? Who is Greg?” Sherlock asked.

“That’s his name, Sherlock. How the hell do you not know that?”

“Is it?”

“Yes!” Lestrade snarled, completely losing his grasp on his control. “I am so done with you Holmeses. You just can’t understand emotions at all. You’re both supposed to be my FRIENDS and you refuse to acknowledge that and insult me at every turn. This is just not fucking worth it, Mycroft. You don’t give anything in return and I’m out of things to give. It’s not worth all the pain and the self-reflection and the fucking blue balls, so just leave me, and my friends, ALONE.”

John took an actual step backward in an attempt to get away from Lestrade’s sudden anger and Sherlock looked at him carefully, obviously deducing what he was upset about. Oddly enough, Mycroft did nothing. He stood there, didn’t even blink, just looked at Lestrade. He didn’t seem to be looking for a reason, he was just looking, and it was disconcerting. Before Lestrade could take a full breath to start yelling again, Mycroft turned slightly to face John.

“It appears I owe you an apology, Dr Watson. I misinterpreted your motives, and perhaps my own. Will you accept my apology?”

“How is it that you know John? Why are you apologising?” Sherlock asked sharply, turning his deducing eyes to them. His eyes widened and he grinned. “Dear brother,” he mocked. “You do have an unfortunate habit of putting your overly-large nose where it is not wanted, but you are so rarely wrong.”

By the end, Sherlock was positively gleeful and Mycroft’s hand was white as it gripped the handle of his umbrella far too tightly. A sure sign that he was angry, or embarrassed, probably both.

“Sherlock,” John said reproachfully.

Sherlock didn’t look at John, and he didn’t apologise, but he also didn’t say anything further, which was a pretty clear indication that he was listening to John. After such a short acquaintance, John Watson had managed to do something Mycroft couldn’t do in more than 30 years, and Lestrade couldn’t do in five. Lestrade wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or terrified.

He was too angry to continue his conversation with Mycroft, and too distracted by his emotions to think clearly enough for an argument with a Holmes. As soon as he wrapped up the case, he called Alice.

“Greg?” she asked worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “I just… wanted to talk.”

There was a long pause. “Who is he?”

“What makes you think this is about someone in particular? What makes you think it’s a he?” he asked accusingly.

“Erin talks to me far more than you do. I’m the cool aunt.”

“You’re the only aunt,” he countered.

“That’s beside the point, Greg. You called me. You have something you want to talk about, so talk,” she practically ordered.

“Fine, it is about a guy,” Lestrade acknowledged.

“Erin thought as much.”

“His name is Mycroft,” he continued, ignoring her use of his own daughter against him. “We’ve been friends for a while, I told you about him last time I came for dinner.”

“And you’ve suddenly realised you want to shag him,” she said. It wasn’t even a question. Lestrade was beginning to question the wisdom of starting this conversation.

“Essentially, yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Erin did say, I just didn’t believe her. So emotions are involved? My Greggie has gone and fallen in love!”

“Shut up,” he said. “It’s not love. It’s just a…” He struggled to find a word that wasn’t ‘crush’, because if he used that term he would never hear the end of it.

“Crush?” Alice supplied gleefully. Too late.

“Shut up,” he said again.

“I don’t think it’s an insubstantial emotional connection, Greg,” she said, her tone suddenly serious. “You very rarely commit to something less than wholeheartedly. You’re a bit of an all or nothing kind of guy.”

“I don’t know, it feels so sudden.”

“I doubt it actually is. You’ve been a bit slow on the uptake. In most of your romantic relationships, you’ve been more than half in love before you even realised you were starting to fall.”

“I might have… sought out his company since the divorce. But I thought that I just…”

“Needed a friend?” she finished for him, again. It was sometimes frustrating to have a sibling that knew him so well. “So, what changed?”

“I made friends with John.”

“And you realised that you act completely differently around this completely platonic friend than you do around your less than platonic friend.”

“Stop doing that! It’s beyond creepy.”

“There’s nothing I can say to you that you haven’t already thought of. You’ve been interested for a while, but you didn’t think too much of it because you were distracted and you weren’t ready to face your feelings. Now you are, so what are you waiting for?”

“If I knew the answer to that question, I would currently be naked and having a great deal more fun. Also, I have no idea if he’s interested.”

“You’ll figure it out, Greg. Give yourself a bit of time.”

His call to Erin was considerably less helpful.

“I need your advice,” he began, not pausing to give her time to interrupt. “I’m not sure how to handle it. Basically, I suddenly realised that I find my friend Mycroft amazingly attractive, and I feel like I should have noticed this before.”

“OH. MY. GOD!” she squealed. “THAT’S GREAT, DAD! YOU HAVE TO BRING HIM TO MEET ME!”

“I’m not going out with him,” he corrected quickly. “I just think I might be interested.”

“You have to go for it, dad. It’s been way too long since you were in a relationship.”

And the conversation went downhill from there. He ended up hanging up on her while she was laughing hysterically, but the conversation did make him smile. He loved his daughter.

Lestrade didn’t see Mycroft for a month after the cabby incident, and he was glad for the time to regroup his senses and just think for a while, even if he found himself thinking, ‘I should tell Mycroft about this,’ at least once a day. After some serious reflection, which he hated, he found that he agreed with Alice. He had begun to feel something more than friendship for Mycroft after he had found Erin her position at the architect firm, without Lestrade having to ask and without asking for anything in return. Unfortunately, Mycroft was rather good at catching Lestrade at bad times.

“You are discharging yourself against medical advice. Why?”

Lestrade paused from his efforts to pull his sleeve over the bandage on his right arm and sighed, loudly, before he stood up and turned around. His entire arm, from his hand to his bicep, was heavily bandaged. A suspect had pinned his arm between a wall and a skip after hitting him rather pathetically in the back of the knees with a cricket bat and pushing the skip against his arm while he was down. The injury looked far worse than it was, but the A&E doctor had insisted on bandaging the wounds to prevent infection. In reality, it was a series of shallow but long lacerations and a handful of deeper cuts. Lestrade was oddly proud of them. He had managed to subdue the suspect from his ground position, with his arm pinned, before backup arrived. It’s too bad that no one had been in the alley to see it happen because it involved a series of very impressive kicks and some serious core strength. Most of his injuries had been sustained in that sequence, but he got the guy, a particularly violent but not especially intelligent serial killer, so he counted it as a win.

“As it happens, I have a rather important engagement tonight,” Lestrade said through gritted teeth, partly because he was in a bit of pain, but mostly because he really wanted to punch Mycroft in his overly-attractive face.

“I believe serious injury counts as a perfectly good excuse for missing a date, even a first one,” Mycroft retorted, a little more angrily than usual. Mycroft liked to keep his tone even and icy at all times, but there was a definite heat to those words.

“I’m not skipping out of hospital to go on a date,” Lestrade growled. “It’s my daughter’s housewarming party and I’m supposed to be meeting her girlfriend, finally, and I can’t miss it. I can’t! I promised her I would be there.” He began to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, wincing as several of the cuts reopened. Only two had been deep enough to require stitches, the others left to heal naturally. The bleeding had stopped quickly enough the first time, but he could feel the new blood seeping into the bandages.

Mycroft reached forward and carefully pulled his hands away from his buttons, stepping closer so he could do it himself. He buttoned the shirt, leaving the top button undone, and ever-so-gently fixed the collar. Lestrade was certain that he had never before been so aroused by someone putting clothes on him.

“I saw,” Mycroft said, his voice that was usually so controlled reduced to a raw, broken whisper.

“You saw what?” Lestrade asked, whispering in turn.

“I saw the fight. With the murderer, the man who killed those people, the man who did this to you. I saw the fight. You kicked him into the skip until he passed out. I heard you scream in pain as they extracted you.”

“CCTV cameras don’t have sound,” Lestrade stated automatically.

“That’s what you think?” Mycroft asked. His laugh was hollow and made Lestrade’s hair stand on end.

“Why were you watching? Why then? Why are you here now?”

“You,” Mycroft began, pausing to clear his throat. “You wanted to be my friend and I told you something, do you remember?”

“You told me that caring wasn’t an advantage. I told you that you were wrong.”

“You showed me that I was wrong. You gave Sherlock and John a chance to be friends, even though you knew it would mean you would see less of John. You protected John from my interference, you risked your own life and safety to bring someone to justice, even though he never killed anyone you knew. You risked your career by hiding that you knew who killed the cabby. Everything you do, you do because you care, and you are, and always have been, the best man I have ever known. You are better than me, than anyone, so how can caring not be an advantage? Caring is your advantage.”

“Mycroft?” Lestrade asked softly. “Is everything okay?”

“No!” he snapped. “I watched as you were attacked. I saw you bleed.” He drew in a shuddering breath. He wasn’t crying, but there was something so desperate and pained in his eyes that Lestrade had to take that one step forward and bring his arms around him. He ignored the pain of his cuts and tightened his hold. Mycroft was only just taller than he was, but he leant his head against Mycroft’s shoulder, anyway. He rubbed small circles on Mycroft’s back with his left hand, like his sister had done when he was sick as a kid, and waited. Mycroft’s arms came up to pull him to his chest even tighter, and Lestrade could barely breathe, but he didn’t mind. The tightness in Mycroft’s shoulders lifted just slightly and that was worth it. The light brush of lips on the top of his head was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He remembered all too clearly the initial piercing jolt as the murderer pushed the old, mostly-empty skip onto his arm. The feeling of the metal, rusted into sharp edges, digging into his skin and slicing through the thin material of his shirt, the screws and old bolts and crumbling brick cutting deeper and deeper into his hand as he struggled. Most of all, he remembered the overwhelming feeling of being trapped. In that situation, he now knew that he would lash out, he would fight through the pain, and he supposed that was at least one good thing to come out of the experience. It was nice to feel like part of a whole, to feel comforted by someone who wasn’t a relative. It had been a long time since he had felt so safe in another person’s arms.

“Lestrade?” Mycroft murmured softly.

“Mycroft?” he replied, his breath ghosting across Mycroft’s neck.

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said, exhaling loudly. “I should not have threatened your friend. I shouldn’t have tried to involve myself where I was not wanted. I was worried, yes, but I didn’t realise until much later the reason I actually did it.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I was jealous.”

“Because he is my friend, or because you thought he was my boyfriend?”

“Both,” Mycroft replied, his voice quieter than a whisper. “I wanted to be a good friend to you, the best, but I also wanted more. I wanted both. I still do, I know that now.”

“Why?”

Mycroft laughed. “Because you’re asking that question seriously, because you truly do not know how amazing you are. Because you use semi-colons in text messages, because you cared when no one else did, because you make me laugh and I want to know about your day, because you genuinely want to know about mine, because you yell so beautifully that I want you to be right, even if it means I’m wrong.”

“Stop.”

Mycroft trailed off and Lestrade could feel him retreating, but his arms stayed where they were.

“Would you like to come with me to my daughter’s housewarming?” he asked. “As my date,” he added, in case it wasn’t clear enough.

Mycroft didn’t answer.

“I mean, I know it’s a little intense for a first date, but, I mean, we’ve known each other long enough for it not to be an issue, right? And Erin can be a bit of a handful, but I really think you’d like her, if you met her, and I’m sure she’d like you too,” Lestrade rambled.

“Yes.”

Lestrade wouldn’t say that his daughter’s housewarming party was the best first date he’d ever had. It was awkward and confusing, too many people and too many things for him to be doing all at once. Surprisingly, Penny and Mycroft hit it off fantastically, which endeared him to both Lestrade and his daughter a little more with every interaction. Mycroft may have been overly formal and stilted with Erin, but she didn’t take offense, dragging him around the party and introducing him to her friends and co-workers as “my dad’s brilliant partner”. In Erin’s mind, Lestrade and Mycroft had been dating for at least a month, possibly as long as a year. She was very good with people and their emotions when she bothered to look close enough. Erin had announced to Mycroft that she already knew Lestrade was interested months ago, since she had last had dinner with her father, and Lestrade could see that was the case. Penny was much quieter than Erin, but she was confident and astoundingly clever. She truly loved Erin and actually respected Lestrade, which was a nice change. Although he spent more time that evening talking to people who weren’t Mycroft, they did share a few quiet conversations and some fairly intense eye contact, and that was good enough.

It might have been less awkward if he hadn’t insisted that Erin was not to know about his recent injury, spending the entire evening with his right hand in his coat pocket, trying to look like that was totally normal. She was far too busy with Mycroft and her other guests to notice, but Penny was remarkably more observant.

“You’re hurt,” she said quietly while they were in the kitchen, taking momentary reprieve from the masses.

“Don’t tell Erin.”

“Is it bad?” she asked, instead of automatically agreeing.

“Not really, just cuts and abrasions, mostly, with a couple of deeper lacerations. If I had been shot or stabbed, I certainly would have told her, no matter what the occasion.”

“Okay, I won’t tell her, Penny said, and he sighed in relief. “Until after the party,” she added sternly. He swore.

“Damn. I just don’t need her to worry.”

“She won’t until later, that’s the best I can do.”

“Good enough. I’ll be long gone by the time you get around to mentioning it, I can deal with her protective anger once I’ve rested some.”

She eyed him thoughtfully. “I admit that I’m curious, Mr Lestrade.”

“Just Lestrade,” he corrected. “What are you curious about?”

“Why haven’t you given me the customary ‘if you hurt her, I will do something nasty’ speech?” she asked, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“A few reasons,” he answered easily. “Most importantly, I trust Erin to make a good decision and recognise if she’s made a bad one. She’s old enough to think for herself and I trust her judgement. Also,” he paused, “do you really need me to say the words in order for you to get the message?”

She laughed. “I guess not.”

Lestrade and Mycroft left the party early, but Erin didn’t mind too much as they waved her goodbye and Mycroft guided him out of the room. He was too tired to argue when he was bundled into an unmarked, shiny black car, although he was surprised at their destination. Mycroft’s car took them to the hospital, where Lestrade was taken back to his room and forced to lie down by Mycroft himself. A nurse came in and hooked him back up to the machines and gave him a shot of some sort of antibiotic. Lestrade was battered, cut, and bruised, lying in a supremely uncomfortable hospital bed with wires everywhere. He shouldn’t have been at all comfortable, but he found that with the soothing sound of Mycroft’s breathing and his warm hand in his, sleep came easily.