Work Text:
Sherlock noticed John's startled reaction to Lestrade, of course. He noticed everything. He noticed the subtle double-take (that one might not have observed, if one weren't Sherlock Holmes), the studied look away, and the slow, thoughtful looks that John gave Lestrade when he thought Lestrade wasn't looking.
Sherlock also noticed that Lestrade did the same to John. Lestrade was much better at it than John was, however, probably because Lestrade was not as shoddy a detective as all that. John didn't seem to notice.
Interesting.
-----
John was a quick learner, Sherlock gave him that; he picked a time when Sherlock appeared to be in an amiable mood, standing by the window with his violin. It was a rare sunny day, they'd just closed an interesting case, and Sherlock was plucking out a careless tune that could have been interpreted as cheerful, or at least not violent. John came to stand next to him, hands clasped behind his back, and cleared his throat. Sherlock made no audible response, but he did turn his head slightly to indicate that he was paying attention.
"Lestrade," John said.
Sherlock replied with his eyebrow.
"How long have you known him?"
The tone was aiming for "casual," but Sherlock knew better. These queries were never casual, particularly not when John was standing at parade rest like that. Sherlock put down the violin. "Long enough."
John swallowed. "And he's, ah, married?"
"Technically." Anyone else here might have asked "Why?" but Sherlock never asked why. Or he did only to answer the question himself. He turned to face John, hands in his pockets. Someone else might have phrased these next three words as a question, but Sherlock had found that he got better results if he phrased them as answers. "You know him."
Sure enough, John's throat bobbed again and he said, "I could be mistaken."
Sherlock's eyebrows shot up. John's intellect was feeble at best, but that was only because most people's intellects were Andersonian in nature: that is to say, best counted in the negatives. John was not inobservant, and his memory was above average for a man of his age. If he thought he recognised Lestrade, he probably recognised Lestrade. "How long ago?"
"Oh, twenty years or so." John gave him a quick, cheerless smile. "Like I said, could be mistaken. It's been a long time, we're both a lot older now. You know, I probably am. Mistaken. Never mind. Forget it."
Forget it. John knew better than that, and Sherlock could tell from the set of his shoulders as he strode away that John expected Sherlock to hound him about it.
But he didn't. Sherlock knew there were better ways to get answers.
-----
"You met John, twenty years or so ago. Tell me the details."
Lestrade choked on his drink and set it down before he could spill the rest of it down his shirt. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and peered up at Sherlock. "What, now I can't have an off-duty pint in peace?"
Sherlock gave Lestrade a bored look. Lestrade sighed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Asking you a question. Now answer it."
Lestrade sighed. He glanced around, though why he thought anyone would be listening was beyond Sherlock. This wasn't a cop pub, and everyone was absorbed in their tiny little worlds, having their inane little conversations. "All right, but don't--don't spread it around, all right? I mean it. This gets out, you're never working a case for the Yard again."
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"I mean it." Lestrade punched the words down.
"Fine. Yes," Sherlock bit out. "Get on with it."
Now Lestrade was fiddling with his wedding band. Interesting. "It was, yeah, about twenty years ago now, I suppose. I was young and new to the job, and I just, well, what can I say, I liked to drink a lot back then. Shitfaced every weekend; soon as I was off my shift a load of us would head on down the pub and just get pissed.
"And one of those times, there was this young bloke--oh, I was so drunk, I don't even remember really what happened or how it happened. But next morning I wake up and there he is, still in my bed, and in the broad light of day I could see that he was just a kid, and here I was a cop and I'd just gone and broken the law by getting my rocks off with a boy." Lestrade put both elbows on the bar and ran his hands through his hair. "Fortunately he was, well, he was all right about it, actually. Said he didn't want to get me in trouble, he'd just been messing about, experimenting. He put on his trousers and went home and that was it. Never saw him again." Lestrade cleared his throat. "'Til I was in your flat a few weeks ago."
Sherlock felt a distinct urge to get back to 221B, where he could stretch out and think properly. "Thank you, Detective. I'll let you know if I have any more questions."
Lestrade's eyes widened. "You're not--"
Sherlock didn't wait to hear the rest of the sentence. He didn't care.
-----
Now this was a proper puzzle, and yet it was one Sherlock could take no joy in because it was the puzzle of his own mind. He hated it when it turned out his mind was not as orderly as he wanted it to be. He had a mind palace, ordered by reason and categorized by need, and yet sometimes he still turned a blind corner and found himself in unknown belfrys and pitch-black cellars. It almost always had to do with emotion: that loathed, unquantifiable thing, impossible to measure and hence impossible to store.
Fact: Lestrade and John had had a single sexual encounter, many years ago.
Fact: Lestrade and John appeared to not want to bring it up and, in fact, showed every evidence of wanting to forget about it.
Fact: Sherlock was, for whatever reason, very, very interested that this had happened.
Query: Why?
Sherlock kept running up against that wall of why. No crime had occurred--well, technically a crime of statutory rape, but that was not an interesting crime. Not a murder or a locked-room theft or any kind of proper riddle that would normally interest Sherlock. Very little interested Sherlock save for crime, things related to crime, chemistry, music, London geography, and the occasional fine dining experience. And recreational drugs, but since that was now off-limits, Sherlock did not include it in his list of interests.
Finally, Sherlock had to admit that it interested him because it involved people he knew; and not just any people he knew, but John. Lestrade was not the deciding factor, here, which Sherlock discovered by mentally swapping John out with any number of acquaintances in his life. Lestrade and Mrs Hudson? Lestrade and Mycroft? Lestrade and Molly? No, no, no; he grew bored just thinking about it.
But John: now that he was interested in.
-----
"You had a one-night stand with Lestrade, twenty years ago."
John inhaled into his toast, coughed, and pounded on his own chest rather a lot. Sherlock stood and waited patiently. John could still cough, so he wasn't actually choking. Sure enough, after a minute or two, John turned to Sherlock, eyes watering, and croaked, "What?"
"You heard me, otherwise you wouldn't have choked," Sherlock pointed out. "I'm not going to repeat myself."
"Christ." John wiped his eyes with his thumb. "Okay. Okay. Um. Yes, I suppose. I wasn't sure it was him, it was a long time ago. How did you--no, never mind, why am I even asking. Does he--?"
"Yes."
John groaned. He rubbed his eyes again, though they were no longer tearing. "Of all the times to take an interest in my personal life," he muttered. "He, ah, he remembered me, then? He was very drunk."
"He remembered that he'd just committed an illegal act as an officer of the law, yes."
John winced. "It's not like I knew he was a cop, Christ. First I heard of it was when he fell out of bed the next morning and started shouting."
"Hmm." Was he reduced to noncommittal noises to buy space in the conversation, now? What had he come to? "Why?"
"Why?" John had turned sideways in his chair, one elbow up on the back. "God, I was just--messing around. Experimenting. You can understand that," he added, with a dry tone. "Experimenting."
"Sexual experimentation," Sherlock prodded.
"Yes. That's what they call it, yes."
That was what Lestrade had said. Their stories corroborated one another, at least thus far. "And then you left and never saw him again."
"Until the other day, yes." John sighed again. He seemed to do that a lot; was there a condition that could cause that? Sherlock would have to look it up. "Are you done now? Can I finish my breakfast?"
"You didn't have to stop on my account." Sherlock retreated to his room. He needed to think about this some more.
-----
Fact: It was not Lestrade's sexual history and activity that Sherlock was interested in, but John's.
Fact: It had been a sexual experiment, for John.
Query: Why do people engage in sexual experimentation?
Answer: Same as any other experiment: to test a hypothesis.
Query: What was John's hypothesis?
Answer: Men/Older/Stranger/Virginity/??? Not enough data.
Query: What was John's conclusion?
Answer: Not enough data.
Sherlock frowned and tried picking at a different thread, hoping to unfurl the tangled knot and find its centre.
Query: So, why am I so interested?
Solution 1: I am interested in everything that has to do with John.
False. Sherlock did not care about John's dates, his sartorial taste, his banal choice of recreational reading, or his locum work.
Solution 2: I am interested in the results of experimentation.
Again, false. Sherlock had been interested before he knew it was an experiment, and in any case, it wasn't as if Sherlock was interested in every experiment on the face of the planet. That would be absurd.
Sometimes, when Sherlock seemed to be running into the same wall, he found it helpful to think of all the things the solution could not possibly be. It seemed to clear a pathway in his mind and helped him think laterally. He put away all the cards in his head and selected a fresh, blank one from a different box.
Solution 3: I am interested in having sex with John.
Oh.
Oh.
Well, that was--Sherlock couldn't even think of a way to finish that sentence, even in his head. Absurd? Intriguing? Titillating? Sherlock blinked up at the ceiling, hands steepled under his chin. He'd been in the same position so long that his back felt stiff. He turned onto his side, then onto his other side. Finally he got up to pace.
Was it true? Was he interested in having sex with John? Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. He catalogued his responses: heartrate, respiration, sensitivity. He couldn't check his own pupil dilation without a mirror, but the signs seemed to be positive. How could he have missed this? So then was he interested in John's sexual history with Lestrade only because it provided Sherlock with a clue as to whether or not his interest--his desire--could be consummated? His heartrate picked up even more at that. His palms felt faintly sweaty. Ugh, bodies were so inconvenient, with their fluids and their hungers.
Now that he'd thought it, it seemed so logical as to be inevitable. All that remained, then, was to test it.
-----
"What was your conclusion?"
John was no longer in the kitchen.
Nor was he in the sitting room. Sherlock ran up the stairs. He was not in his bedroom, either.
He was not in 221A. He was not in the laundry facilities downstairs.
Of all the times! Sherlock retrieved his phone, which had somehow lodged itself between two books on the shelf.
What was your conclusion? SH
CONCLUSION TO WHAT?
John could never keep up with a conversation unless he'd been present for all of it and it all took place at the same time. He was hardly the only one, so Sherlock couldn't bring himself to be particularly upset about it. Of your sexual experimentation. SH
John was a very long time in replying. So long, in fact, that Sherlock switched the wireless on his phone on and off a few times, thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with his signal. John often took a long time to reply when he thought Sherlock had said something really outré. But surely there could be very little wrong with asking after the outcome of an experiment? It was scientific. Sherlock appreciated it when people enquired after his experiments.
Finally, John replied, WHY?
Sherlock ground his teeth. Now John wanted to know why? His fingers flew over the keys. Scientific inquiry. SH
BULLSHIT. WHY? DO YOU JUST WANT TO TAKE THE PISS?
Sherlock paused. He sensed this was one of those moments of great social import; whatever he said next could mark a turning point in his relationship with John, for better or for worse.
John claimed he appreciated honesty, and yet he disliked it when Sherlock was too honest. Sherlock tapped his phone against his lower lip for a few moments before typing out his reply. I am interested in replicating the results of your experiment, if conditions are favourable. SH
Another very, very long pause. Sherlock's diaphragm felt tense. He flipped through his mental book of emotions until he settled on nervousness. When his phone chime-vibrated to announce the receipt of another text, he nearly dropped it.
CONDITIONS FAVOURABLE. ON MY WAY BACK.
Sherlock smiled and let the phone drop in his lap.
---end---