Chapter Text
‘Ypu were sio wrong...’ typed Greg furiously, heedless of the annoying misprints. He grabbed the drink - always single-malt, always on rocks - and gulped it down, letting an audible sigh out afterwards. The evening has come to the stage of the drunk-text-to-the-ex, the one DI Lestrade usually considered the penultimate bane of such lonesome nights in the Poirot. Not that he disliked the idea of being utterly insensible because of the little spirited companion named alcohol floating around in his blood, no - in fact, that was one of the best moments of the week, the Friday night finally-resting-from-the-Metropolitan-Police-relaxation. The thing that bothered Greg was the pesky detail: he could never knock himself out enough to forget how to push those little sensor buttons on the gorilla glass screen, thus sending one drunk text after another.
As a matter of fact, the only thing Greg thought to be more detestable than that was loneliness.
The feeling of this truly terrifying seclusion within the contraption of his own home forced him once to wander around the streets of the East End, listening to cockneys and Jafaicans in their desperate attempts to gain the class and inimitable authority. Oh, those youngsters in their bloom, when the scariest abomination of all is to catch the eye of the police, and the cruelest prank to pull on a fellow one is to make him drink from the john. Lestrade was strolling down the East End for a while that night, reminiscing about his own happy-go-lucky years.
It was then when he stumbled upon the Poirot - a small bar hidden in a dead end on the Old Street. The initial disgust he felt towards the fake chalk outlines and the precaution ‘Do not cross’ signs on the loo doors - for God’s sake, they were making fun of his very own occupation, weren’t they? - though quickly faded as he saw the menu. The favorite of his, Glendronach, was poured here for a mere fiver - the price he’d never seen before. Moreover, the bartender slyly winked at him when asked to not dilute the aqua vitae, and got the rocks from somewhere underneath the bar.
Since that night, Greg grew quite accustomed to his own small tradition of coming to the Poirot every Friday. It was quite a ride from the New Scotland Yard, and yet he cherished those moments of social desolation - as a rule, the bar was half-empty, the musicians did not even bother with playing anything more than the tuning notes and a couple of occasional chords, and Jeremiah - the bartender - liked the small talk of Greg’s, not to mention his tips.
Yeah, the beginnings of weekends in the favorite detective-themed bar were indeed the getaways much needed by the DI, especially in the weather like this. Thunder stroke again, preceding the very bright lightning.
Lestrade snorted at his buzzing smartphone.
‘Greg, honestly, it’s 3am, I’m sleeping. I think you need to go home and get some rest.'
'Rest, huh! She better tell me why she cheated with a g-g-gurl-l-l!’ he exclaimed thickly, hitting the bar with his fist and looking at Jeremy with a fierce expression of chagrin. ‘And to hear hurr say that... that I was too... well... not quite innocent, y’know! She has no right!'
Jeremy got distracted from drying the beer glasses with the towel thrown upon his shoulder, now looking at Greg with sympathy.
'Of course she hasn’t, buddy, of course she can’t just say that,’ he agreed, continuing to wipe the glass until it squeaked under his fingers. ‘But didn’t you really do that too?'
‘I did,’ Greg replied with some rather doubtful conviction after giving it some thought. ‘But still! She has no right of telling me... ah, why even bother. For crying out loud, the bloody woman divorced me.’
‘That’s for sure. Another go?’ Jeremy nodded at the empty glass in front of Greg.
‘Nah... I’m good. Although... yeah, let’s go for the last one,’ the latter turned with a languid movement, whistling at the guitarist on the improvised little stage. ‘Hey chief, let’s hear some music!’
‘Right on, Greg!’ the musician saluted him with a pick. He tuned the guitar - sometimes Lestrade wondered whether it was some ritual of the bar band, since they practically never played the instruments. Greg seriously doubted that guitars could get out of tune just laying around, while the musicians did nothing. However, the band started playing, interrupting his thoughts. The first chords were quite random, and the drummer clearly had one too much to drink tonight, since the rhythm was dancing along with the tipsy couple who got out of their table and started circling the tables slowly. Kyle, the guitarist, was quite good though, not letting too much echo get onto the nerves of the crowd - albeit Greg didn’t really care. The music, however bad, helped him to forget about the words that slipped out of his ex-wife’s mouth about a month ago.
‘What did you expect, little poof?’
Lestrade shut his eyes tightly at the sound of another thunder strike, trying to get away from the upper lip lifted in disdain, from the scornful look, from the hatred in his once-beloved’s voice.
Suddenly he heard a short scream, a sound of something... falling?
He opened his eyes to find himself in complete darkness. The lights must have gone off because of the lightning, as Lestrade heard Jeremy hastily trying to find some candles. Greg got up and found his way behind the bar by touch.
‘Hey, where is the circuit breaker?’ he asked, trying to locate the small box door he saw a couple of weeks earlier behind the bartender’s back.
‘It’s right there,’ Jeremy turned to him, holding a lit candle. ‘Great, thanks, Greg.’
The lights went back on, and Lestrade headed back to his seat - only to notice on the way that the guitarist was lying on the floor, and the rest of the band looked horrified with the view of him facing the back wall. Something about Kyle’s pose gave away the seriousness of the event, perhaps, the unnaturally twisted ankle, or maybe the overall gravity of his body, which seemed to be heavier than usual.
Greg leaped to the stage, getting his badge out, ‘DI Gregory Lestrade, Metropolitan Police! Everyone, clear of the stage!’
Already standing on stage, he kneeled by the body. He checked Kyle’s pulse, unwittingly touching a thick chain with a locket hanging around the musician’s neck. Having the death verified, Greg blankly stated, ‘Dead. Don’t move anywhere, any of you.’ He looked over the body, noting that the only visible damage was caused to his jeans, tearing them open at Kyle’s thigh. It was a murder, and the little metal head seen peeking in between the threads was what killed him - or at least Greg’s preliminary conclusion was such.
It was hard enough to think with his mind fogged with the amount of Scotch he drank, but to admit that he had to not only call Donovan, but also let Sherlock know of what happened. Greg absolutely positively did not want to let the consulting detective see him drunk. Nonetheless, he had no choice: having only seen briefly the weapon of choice, he knew immediately that he would not manage to solve this case without Sherlock. He knew Donovan would dismiss him tonight because of the intoxication, but he also was quite sure that her and Anderson would never let Sherlock and John see the scene.
‘Poirot on Old St. Murder, just now. Dart gun.’
That should do it, a short informative text. Soon enough they would be there, both of them. In the meanwhile Greg, of course, called the police, even if slightly later than he should have, cutting Sherlock some slack. He headed back to the bar to talk to Jeremy, when a customer rose from his seat in the very corner. He slowly walked towards Greg, with a smile so likable Lestrade double checked the number of empty Scotch glasses on the bar. He only had five, it could not be that all at once he would be attracted to a short guy with an ugly scar running through his face from cheek to cheek over the philtrum.
‘Hi, I’m Oliver. Couldn’t help but overhear that Kyle is dead,’ he said with a guilty smile, looking even more charming, if that was even possible. ‘A nice guy, I saw him a couple of times. Listen, I have some knowledge of how to deal with crime scenes, let me help you - Lestrade, was it?’ he extended a hand to shake Greg’s.
To say that the latter was surprised was to say nothing - he was rarely approached by the witnesses of the crime scene, let alone being offered help from them. He started thinking, audibly grinding the gears within the contraption of his skull - it seemed like his brain consisted of bells, and those would not stop ringing.
‘Uhm... thank you, dear sir, but I believe I can handle this,’ Lestrade cleared his throat and politely shook his head, immediately regretting this decision and grabbing the chair to prevent the inevitable fall.
‘Maybe I can bring something to you? A glass of water? A cup of coffee?’
The more the stranger talked in the quiet yet squeaky voice of his, the more peculiar the situation became. Lestrade tried to find a flaw in Oliver’s impeccably amiable and lovely manners, but failed to notice any. He squinted, looking all over the slender figure, trying to be Sherlock.
***
Meanwhile at Baker St. 221B
‘Sherlock, why are you up?’ John yawned, crawling out of his bedroom in a mere bathrobe thrown over his shoulders in a nonchalant manner.
‘There has been a murder in that disgusting lousy bar Lestrade keeps going to - what was its name? Marple? Wolf?’ Sherlock answered in that famous vexed tone of his, pulling on his trousers in a hurry.
‘Poirot, and you know that. And please take the key, I have work in the morning,’ John yawned again, heading back to his room.
‘You are coming with me, John.’
As usual, Sherlock was not asking or offering, he was stating the fact as if John was his property. That was annoying most of the times, but not when he added...
‘The victim was killed with a dart gun. There aren’t many of those floating around in the Thames.’
John groaned. Of course there weren’t - the dart guns were used by the military. At least those which were capable of killing a man, not a duckling or something of sort. The respectable Dr. Watson, MD, walked slowly towards his pants - this time they somehow ended up hanging from the closet doorknob, even though John had no idea when that had happened. He didn’t even try to hurry up, as he knew Sherlock would wait for him anyway - even Sherlock wouldn’t dare to hurry a tired medic after a double shift.
‘Could you move a bit faster? I want to get there before that Scotland Yard printer’s devil.’
‘Anderson is a criminalist, Sherlock,’ John responded calmly, fitting his belt in the trousers. ‘Besides, any dart gun poison will remain in the system for quite a long time, if I still remember the military medicine correctly.’
‘All right, all right, but still move faster, I want to be there first.’
Sometimes Sherlock reminded John of a child. Of course, the last sentence would be much more accurate, if by “sometimes” you meant “nearly always”. Perhaps, that was the reason why John looked at Sherlock with a gentle smile but remained silent. He put some pedantic attention to the process of buttoning his shirt and putting on his coat, only after that nodding to Sherlock.
‘Let’s go. Only...’ John chuckled at the expectation of Sherlock’s face expression, ‘first you have to kiss me before leaving for work.’
His forecast was duly. Sherlock looked surprised, perplexed, and annoyed altogether. The speed with which he jerked the door of their apartment and his overall nervousness were truly a delightful view.
Or at least that’s what John thought.