His Collection of A’s (Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Lestrade, PG-13)

[dana-kujan.livejournal.com]

Title: His Collection of A’s
Author: Dana Kujan
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: m/m kissing & implied sex
Word count: 5 100-word drabbles
Prompt: February 20 - Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Lestrade: Anticipation - "Since you’ve already determined, in detail, the entire path of our affair, I see no reason why I even need to be involved."
A/N: The title and format of this story are a play on Holmes’s remark in The Adventure of the Empty House, "My collection of M's is a fine one." [This is my first contribution to springkink, and I'm so sorry it's late!]



Affinity

"What motivates you, Inspector?"

We were enjoying our pipes after another intimate late supper.

"My maternal grandfather was a gendarme; my father, until his untimely death, a uniformed officer."

Perhaps the disclosure of family tragedy touched him, for his smile was less condescending than one would expect.

"You’re not that callow after all your years in the Yard."

"I was growing to believe," I ventured boldly, "that we enjoyed one another’s company."

I felt a warm pressure on the back of my hand, and only then did I realize that his had been resting on mine since we sat down.

Arrogance

"Since you’ve already determined, in detail, the entire path of our affair, I see no reason why I even need to be involved," I said with some bitterness.

"I was speaking statistically," he said as a professor would address a naïve youth, "factoring in your temperament and personal history. I’m no match for the widow Lestrade’s yearning for grandchildren, nor would I want to be. My work is my life, my legacy. You’ll tire of that."

My face went hot. "And where does love factor into your equation?"

"Love?" He sighed his disdain. "Pure love is a rare thing indeed."

Anticipation

He smelled of strong tobacco and tasted of fine claret. The two indulgences mingled as his mouth opened to mine, and I was at last privy to the mysteries of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. My hands shook as they mapped every lean, hard plane of his body. To me, he was as perfect as Michelangelo's David, a symbol of intelligence and beauty to be revered.

He stilled my hands against his chest.

"Don’t adore me," he whispered, not unkindly.

"I have wanted you for so long," I confessed. "I would have waited an eternity."

"You may grow to wish you had."

Animosity

Our relations became increasingly strained after the good doctor returned, once again, to Baker Street. As his personal physician resented my intrusions, Mr. Holmes eschewed my attentions.

I foolishly thought I could ignite some spark of jealousy in that cold Bohemian heart by feigning an interest in a good lady on the periphery of a mutual case, but I was no match for the basking glow of his Boswell’s platonic fidelity. Trying a different tack, I attempted to transfer the lady’s affections to my rival, but she would have none of him, much to my distress and surprise.

We married.

Anguish

We all sleep alone.

Despite their successive proximity, I was never able to penetrate Mr. Holmes’s nightmares, nor cure Mrs. Lestrade’s insomnia. I would often wake before dawn and ruminate on the existence of "pure love."

We all die alone.

The good doctor took his final leave among strangers in an Army hospital, preceded by his fourth, last wife. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, according to this morning’s Times, passed in complete solitude, without even his housekeeper on hand.

I had known he was declining, but spite more than pride kept me from Sussex. I will regret this until my last breath.

Comments

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the pacing of this, and the almost clinical way it's broken up even though the subject matter should be anything but clinical. And his Boswell’s platonic fidelity is an absolutely wonderful turn of phrase. :)

[dana-kujan.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) I've never written this pairing before, let alone anything from Lestrade's pov. I thought his writing might be more clinical, like police notes, but I was still hoping the old-fashioned language and emotion would come across.

[volta-arovet.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really love how you've written these two together! How Holmes preemptively drove Lestrade away before Lestrade could fulfill his predictions of how it would end. Holmes always did have a bit of a blind streak when it came to perceptions of himself, and Lestrade's inferiority complex probably didn't help that, either. Well done!

[dana-kujan.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

That's nicely paced, and appropriately melancholy.

[dana-kujan.livejournal.com]

Thank you!