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Before Sherlock, Greg wasn’t much one for getting lost, whether it was in his thoughts or out there, in the street. The feeling of not knowing where he was and not knowing where to go was not something he enjoyed.
In his experience, getting lost also meant a waste of time, a waste of effort and, in his line of work, a possible waste of lives.
Sherlock changed that. He had this strange magnet-like quality, which could render any of Lestrade’s compasses useless. The moral one, the emotional one and mostly, the professional one. All of them were twisted around and irremediably lost their mark. Sherlock could make the wrong look right, and vice versa, while still, somehow, staying in control. Balanced. Oscillating in various directions but never losing his purpose.
Greg learnt to get lost. At first in the long monologues, where he’d discover new words at each turn of phrase and where he’d lose his way in mazes of deductions. There was no going back, no room to get timorous, but just the impulse to go forward, through unexplored patches of facts and ideas. And then, Sherlock would conclude his demonstration, and they'd come back to more well-known, well-threaded routes, and everything would somehow fit into place.
The first time it happened, Greg found the experience overwhelming. He had tried to keep up, to make sense of it as it went. Tried to stay in control and force the detective to use roads he had become familiar with over the years.
It didn’t work, and it left both him, and Sherlock, frustrated.
Over time, he found himself slowly letting go, relinquishing a bit of his inflexibility and moving along with Sherlock’s flow of thoughts.
That’s when he realized he could gradually recognize patterns and areas, in the same way he’d start making connections when wandering long enough through an unknown place. There were landmarks, elements that kept coming up: the crossroads of infidelity, the steep slope of revenge. Elements that suddenly were more and more detectable, the longer he walked around them.
But even if he slowly figured out how this strange, ever-changing map worked, Sherlock always kept on surprising him with new corners and shortcuts. It could have been wearisome, except for the constant thrill of discovery.
Soon enough, he was able to catch up on Sherlock, following him without lagging too much behind. Some cases saw him even precede the detective, where he was able to go through dark and foggy alleys Sherlock didn’t know about.
Most of the time, though, they worked alongside, one guiding the other in a mad quest for the truth.
Later on, Greg learnt that ideas and deductions were not the only things you could get lost into. There were sounds and syllables, low rumbles and undulating vowels. Words that alone didn’t mean anything, but made sense when you looked at what they were building.
There were locks of hair, which seemed straightforward and simple from afar, but changed into intricate and sinuous paths as soon as you approached them.
There were radiant eyes, which felt like endless pools of ever-shifting colours. Pools he could navigate for hours on end without getting tired of it.
There were lines on skin, light furrows and deep fissures, merging and dividing as they went, forming a boundless labyrinth that would take years to map out.
But it was all fine. They had time.
As long as Sherlock was here, Greg didn’t mind getting lost.