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Lestrade called him “sunshine.”
Not often. He was too modern for that, and too professional. “Sunshine” and “Sonny Jim” were just old-school enough, bloke-talk enough, for Lestrade to dodge most of the time, sticking to “Sherlock” informally and, on rare occasions when cameras were running or superiors hovering at his elbow, “Mr. Holmes.” Occasionally, though, it would slip out.
Sherlock would never admit it, but he always noticed it, and secretly he loved it. He knew every inflection, every intonation. It was usually trotted out in exasperation, and it hummed with a high voltage charge of annoyance, affection, and sarky authoritarian determination to rein Sherlock in. No one but Mycroft and Father had ever used those exact tones when speaking to Sherlock—not even John—and neither Mycroft or Father ever slipped into such careless camaraderie as they did. Lestrade, alone among his male friends, seemed comfortable with the notion that annoyance and reprimand in no way canceled out love and acceptance.
Other than Lestrade, only his female friends seemed to share the same sardonic but loving comfort zone. Mrs. Hudson, Mary, Janine—they could combine all those feelings in a single laughing sigh and a backhanded compliment. Even Molly could manage it when her romantic hopes weren’t pressing too hard against her wisdom. But Lestrade was the only man to nmanage that exact tone, that sweet, patient acceptance.
And only Lestrade of any of them, male or female, called him “sunshine.”
It fascinated Sherlock. Amused him. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand it was idiomatic—common usage between men of a certain type under certain circumstances. Sherlock knew that, said with a dagger-tipped rage, it could be far less friendly than when Lestrade invoked it. He knew that even when friendly, it implied a certain superior eye-roll. He knew it was ordinary…probably something conditioned into Lestrade from his youth onward.
But it was different when Lestrade said it to Sherlock. Every time he did, Sherlock found himself thinking in giddy fascination how at odds it was with anything anyone could reasonably say about him.
Sunshine….
Sunshine! The word spoke of clear spring mornings in clean kitchens, the early light breathing beauty into the room. It spoke of lemon-gold banners pouring down in summer; of radiant glory leaping off each drop in a crystal chandelier. It spoke of the end of night, the end of winter, the end of sorrow.
“Yeah, right, sunshine,” Lestrade would say, grinning like a merry devil. “Sure—and pigs fly. No, I’m not going to let you have those files, you wanker! Confidential—and don’t you come along picking my office door and stealing them out of my file cabinets either, or I’ll have you out of the Met and back on the street faster than you can scream for Big Brother to save your sorry arse.” Every word was charged as much with laughter and friendship as with annoyance.
Sherlock knew he wasn’t anyone’s idea of sunshine. He was a dark goblin spirit, all elbows and knees and ill temper and purely rubbish social instincts. He was a surly, dark-souled berk too impatient and angry to make an effort to lighten his affect and brighten his personal interactions even when he knew better—and far too often when he was in a passion he didn’t know better. John might in a fit of sentiment call Sherlock the “best and wisest man” he ever knew, but even in a fit of sentiment John would never claim Sherlock’s presence was the sunshine of anyone’s life, not even his.
It was a little thing. Sherlock didn’t think about it often—hardly at all, really. In truth, he didn’t think about Lestrade all that much unless he had actual cause. Lestrade was an environmental factor in Sherlock’s life most of the time: valued, but given very little attention unless Sherlock needed him or was annoyed with him. Otherwise, he was like the earth beneath Sherlock’s feet, the air he breathed, the water in his tea….
…..The sunlight that filled the sitting room in Baker Street on a Saturday morning, when Sherlock, up all night, found himself playing his violin as he basked in the cascading light, warming his long limbs. He’d close his eyes, the better to experience the cozy warmth of light so strong it passed through his eyelids and illuminated his blood, golden-red and lovely.
No. He didn’t think about Lestrade all that much, or linger over Lestrade’s kind, funny nickname for him. He noticed only when Lestrade was missing, but needed. He thought about the nickname only when Lestrade had just used it…
Except once…and that once changed everything.
“Going, now, Mycroft,” Lestrade said, gathering his things and preparing to leave the office in SIS headquarters. “You need anything, call, right?”
“Of course,” Mycroft said, eyes fixed on an open manila folder on his desk. “Or I’ll pass it through Sherlock.”
Lestrade gave him a dour, sardonic look. “God, doesn’t that tell me where I rank?” he snarked. “Gotta mean something when you’ll call Sherlock before you’ll call me.”
Mycroft’s eyes flicked up, then back down to his paperwork. “It’s not personal, Inspector. Merely a matter of expedience.”
“Yeah, right, sunshine,” Lestrade said, and it wasn’t the fond, almost doting tone he used when he called Sherlock “sunshine.” There was no light in his voice…
Mycroft’s lips tightened, but he didn’t look up.
Lestrade growled—a soft, reflexive sound that Lestrade clearly didn’t even realize he'd made. His brown eyes were shadowed—in mood, if not in actual illumination. He nodded briefly and left.
Sherlock frowned. He found that just as he disliked it when Mycroft patronized John—much though Sherlock had to admit John earned a bit of patronization—he disliked Mycroft ignoring Lestrade. Especially when it so clearly made Lestrade unhappy.
“And you lecture me on manners, brother-dearest,” he rumbled, pitching his voice in the basement of his range. “Shame-shame. That was hardly encouraging, now was it?”
Mycroft closed his eyes, but otherwise didn’t move. At all. “It wasn’t intended to be.”
“What? Has poor Lestrade fallen out of grace in your eyes?” He studied his brother, narrow-eyed and suspicious. “He’s a good man.”
“All the more reason not to let him venture too close,” Mycroft said. “Best to start as one means to go on. I’m hardly friend material…”
Sherlock snorted. “He wasn't exactly inviting you out for a pint at the local and a round of pool.”
"Of course he wasn't," Mycroft growled, focusing on his paperwork, blindly jagging his initials on the corners of his pages. "He reserves that privilege for you and John."
For the first time, it occurred to Sherlock his brother was jealous.
And, for the first time, he felt a rage of countering possession. “Yes, well,” he said, viciously. “He knows better than to invite the undead. Lestrade’s a friendly man, but even he has limits.”
Mycroft flinched...and turned his face further down toward his work, putting his features entirely into shadow. “Obviously,” he said, softly. “Now, if you’re done defending your property, Sherlock, I’d as soon you ran along. I’ve got work to do.”
“That’s all you ever have.”
“So noted. Goodbye, brother-mine.”
Leaving, Sherlock noted how dark the office was—how the shadows seemed to have substance and weight, eating up the sunlight.
He paused in the doorway. “He’s my DI,” he said. “He’s worked with me for a decade, now. He’s mine.”
Mycroft looked up, blue eyes pale and empty. “I know.” He quirked a bleak smile. “After all, I am the clever one.”
“Remember it.”
“What? That I’m clever—or that Lestrade’s yours?”
Sherlock scowled. “Both.”
“Wish granted,” Mycroft snipped, and waved one long hand in dismissal. “On your way, now, brat. The world no doubt has need of its consulting detective.”
Sherlock stalked away.
In the cab on the long ride home, he brooded…
“Sunshine.” Lestrade had called Mycroft “sunshine”—and a world of unhappiness had darkened the word, turning it the shade of angry need.
Sunshine, Sherlock thought, and meditated on Mycroft’s cold and shadowed eyes...
Mine, he thought, angrily, and then, more uncertaintly, Mine?
The next time he saw Lestrade the man was at work, though, and apparently happy. He raised his head and smiled as the younger man strode up to the crime scene. “Now you show,” he said. “Called you an hour ago, sunshine.” His voice was fond and teasing.
Sherlock’s relief shone so bright it lightened his entire day.