Hell on the Throat (Sherlock) -FIN-

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

Suicide is a funny thing. Not in a laughing-funny type way, though that can happen sometimes, but in the kind of funny that, well, nobody knows quite what to do if it fails. If it succeeds, there’s a funeral, there’s a news article, a report, sadness and all, and people go, “Oh, I wish there could’ve been something I could have done, that poor poor child, should’ve known how much they have to look forward to, how many people they had supporting them.”

But then, failure? Well, failure is socially unacceptable in all aspects in life, and suicide is no exception. See a kid with scars down his arms, and all you hear is teases, jeers, ‘Suicidal Freak.’ Nobody pays any mind to the loser. Everyone pays attention to the one who loses everything.

It’s one of the reasons Lestrade despises the world, sometimes. One of the reasons he’s tries to leave himself. But he’s never played the man who loses everything, just the loser. And for a long time, that can seem like it’s worse than losing everything.

Lestrade hates doing suicide cases, especially when they deal with young people. He does them fine, yes, deals with them well enough, but when he gets home, there’s always a sting, an ache, for a child whose not on this world anymore of their own accord. He used to be jealous of them. Now he just feels pity.

Today is a suicide day.

Lestrade was on the case. Unfortunately.

Lestrade didn’t have the energy while standing over the dead body of a seventeen year old to do much except announce the death, and doesn’t have the energy to sharpen his very dull pencil-tip while writing a police report that really should be in ink, and when Sherlock came bouncing in for a case, he barely had the energy to yell at him to go away.

“Fuck off,” he mumbled. He couldn’t deal with Sherlock’s flippant attitude towards the death of children right now. Sherlock didn’t though, of course, and so Lestrade yelled at him a bit more.

“FUCK. OFF.” It’s not yelling exactly, more like harsh words said very, very loudly. So sort of like yelling. Except level.

Lestrade wanted nothing more than to go to sleep for a very, very long time right now. It’d not been a very good day anyway, but still, it seems this suicide just has happened to depress him more than they usually do. And that’s not comfortable; it’s awful.

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

It had been, so far, very much an unproductive day.
So much so that Sherlock found himself prancing down to the station with all the grace and excitement of a baby deer in the spring once it reached an acceptable time to be out on the streets. The consulting detective, despite having not slept for around three days time had been (as usual) constantly completely alert with the assistance of a few (or more) cups of very, very caffeinated coffee. And, of course, the general lack of interest in sleeping.

Why lose consciousness voluntarily, after all?

Though today, it seemed, was not one full of good fortune for Holmes.
It was somewhat of a given - when one considered the man's usual behaviour toward fellow people in general - that the rest of the world think of Sherlock Holmes as, in honesty, a bit of a tosser. One Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade was no exception to this fact. So even on a good day he treated the consulting detective with the same sort of attitude that he probably deserved. Usually being: 'Don't turn up high, don't insult anyone too much and, dear God, try not to get constantly punched in the face' (this being only a statement that Holmes had imagined Lestrade to give him, having not listened when the man was probably setting down ground rules for his presence at crime scenes).

But in comparison to some, Greg was generally rather kind to the eccentric detective.

“FUCK. OFF.”

There was a brief flash of panic as Sherlock considered what it was Lestrade could have found out about him now, before he began to realize that this time, it probably wasn't actually about him.
Which meant that he could honestly say that this time, it wasn't his fault.

If he had been a lesser man, and of course had owned less dignity than the common rat, the consulting detective would have probably downright pouted at the frankly unfair outburst. But being Holmes, he rarely did show such emotion, and so the only token of obviousness that he had actually heard the two words positively screamed from the mouth of the other detective was the barely-restrained smirk that began to spread across his features.

All it took was a slight tilt to his lanky frame before the man was near enough to pluck the report Greg was currently in the process of scrawling across from the desk with one swift swipe of his left arm. He briefly skimmed through the information displayed on the pages, before tossing it back on the desk with little more than a derisive snort and a ridiculous eye-roll.

"Are you really that bothered about such a simple case?" raising an eyebrow, Holmes contemplated how best to mock the man, "You know, people kill themselves for such petty reasons."

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

Sherlock looked more than happy to be in his office, prancing about the room with all the energy of a rabbit and grinning at the thought of getting a new case to work on. Lestrade was most assuredly not in the mood.

For a second, Sherlock's face flashed between something akin to startled to relieved when Lestrade oh so kindly told him to knock off. But he was Sherlock, he saw everything - he could never stop seeing everything or he wouldn't be him - and he only thought for a moment that he might be in trouble.

The self-assured prick.

Sherlock easily leaned forward and plucked Lestrade's case out of his hands with annoying ease, which was bad enough, but then he snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Are you really that bothered about such a simple case? You know, people kill themselves for such petty reasons."

That was worse.

The worst, actually.

Tracy Osmond had been a senior in high school and had just been accepted into a few very good colleges when, on her trip to visit on of them, was killed by a manic act of depression on her part and put a bullet through her head in an airport bathroom. Security cameras assured everyone that it was definitely suicide, but no-one knew (or would admitt) why such a 'happy girl with such a bright future' would kill herself. Which meant no one ever cared enough to check her wrists.

The whole case in general - all his cases like this, really, and there were a lot of them - rang of wrongness on so many emotional levels and was too close to home, if he was being honest with himself. But he didn't like to be honest with himself, and so-

"You bastard!" Lestrade practically roared at Sherlock, slamming his desk loudly with his hand  while standing and snatching the case back out of Sherlock's hand. He was really, really angry with Sherlock, so angry he didn't care about consequences. Because what Sherlock had said was unforgivable.

"What do you know? I suppose since you're the one who's tried to kill himself a half dozen times in such creative ways, you can just be all high and mighty about what people do and don't do?" Lestrade glared at Sherlock as meanly as he could, before closing his eyes for a half-second, and said quieter, but with just as much malice, "If that's so, then what's your reason, huh?" Sherlock had never told him, and Lestrade had never pushed. But he couldn't leave it anymore, not like that. Lestrade had originally knicked Sherlock's file from the hospital for work purposes (of course), but seeing that nice highlighted list of self-harm was the reason he was bursting with how unfair Sherlock was being right now.

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

"You bastard!"
The outburst was, in retrospect, more dramatic than he had expected. Though of course he had predicted one. Maybe he had only done so just a fraction too late to stop from having said the words that set the man off. If that was the case? Well, it was quite unfortunate.

He let go of the case file when the Detective Inspector chose to snatch it rather rudely from his grasp, and didn't even flinch when he hit the surface of the desk with an audible loud crack. Sherlock simply stood, stone-faced and unmoving, as he automatically began to process the other man's actions through the part of his mind he had trained to attempt to recognize basic human emotion.
Apparently it was anger.

"What do you know? I suppose since you're the one who's tried to kill himself a half dozen times in such creative ways, you can just be all high and mighty about what people do and don't do?"
The consulting detective's expression didn't falter from blank at the barbed words. In fact, it would be almost as though he hadn't heard what the Detective had said at all - if there hadn't been the minutest of movements. A tiny straightening of his back (despite the already perfect posture), and a twitch in his left fingers so small it was practically imperceptible.
Holmes met Lestrade's glare with a casual stare of his own, remaining eye contact until the other closed his eyes.

"If that's so, then what's your reason, huh?"

The man tilted his chin upward slightly, so that in effect he was now looking down at the other man even more than he was before. It was moments like these that Sherlock felt himself extremely accurate in his self-diagnosis as a sociopath.

"Feeling empathy must be terrible for you people, I don't know why you bother," his voice was cold, the same informative tone he used when making observations at a crime scene.
"But then, you know exactly how she felt, don't you? I'd expect you feel rather uncomfortable with it hitting so close to home, and all. Have you ever told anybody, Lestrade? That you'd spend hours considering whether or not you should just off yourself. Just think, Detective Inspector, if you had have put that gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger the first time you thought about it, you wouldn't have to deal with me right now! Doesn't that sound like a lovely outcome?"

He was rather surprised at himself for not yet putting much an emotion into his own voice. The tall man lowered his head slightly, so as to stare the other directly in the face as he leaned a fraction of an inch forward.

"I do hope I haven't made you upset. After all, we both know how terrible you can get when you're angry. You've killed before, haven't you Lestrade?"
The toneless words had been pleasant for a while, at least. But the last sentence was layered thick with mocking.

"So you tell me, what's your reason?"

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

"Feeling empathy must be terrible for you people, I don't know why you bother," Sherlock said coldly, and Lestrade practically growled at him. He hated when Sherlock talked like that, like he wasn't human, because he was. "But then," Sherlock continued. "You know exactly how she felt, don't you? I'd expect you feel rather uncomfortable with it hitting so close to home, and all. Have you ever told anybody, Lestrade? That you'd spend hours considering whether or not you should just off yourself. Just think, Detective Inspector, if you had have put that gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger the first time you thought about it, you wouldn't have to deal with me right now! Doesn't that sound like a lovely outcome?"

Lestrade could barely believe that Sherlock was saying that to him. Sure, he knew Sherlock knew things about him that he didn't want Sherlock to know, because he was Sherlock and that's what Sherlock did. But still, he'd never thought that Sherlock would go as low as that. Of course, he knew perfectly well that Sherlock was more than capable of being that cruel, but it had still not occurred to him that that cruelness would be towards him. Lestrade now felt a lot worse for Sherlock's victims and a lot angrier at Sherlock himself. Because it didn't sound like a lovely outcome, and he didn't wish he'd done it the first time, and he didn't try to off himself. Okay, maybe he did, but it was just such a horrible term that Lestrade didn't want to think of it like that, lest think of it at all.

"I do hope I haven't made you upset," Sherlock drawled, ignoring the obvious. "After all, we both know how terrible you can get when you're angry. You've killed before, haven't you Lestrade?" Lestrade froze. Sherlock couldn't possibly know that, could he? He'd never told anyone, never, not in his entire life. But here Sherlock was, basking in the fact that he knew more about Lestrade than perhaps Lestrade himself. "So you tell me, what's your reason?"

Sherlock was turning words back at him. Sherlock was being a terribly person and so cruel and insensitive, and he was... right. And admitting that he was right broke Lestrade a little. "Fuck you!" Lestrade yelled so loudly that he was sure any of the other people in the surrounding area outside of his office had probably heard. Then he got up, went around his desk, and punched Sherlock in the cheek as hard as he could.

It was probably the most satisfying thing he'd done in a very long time.

Maybe he expected for Sherlock to shatter, because he was just such a perfect child, after all, or maybe he thought Sherlock wouldn't do a thing. He expected for his hand to hurt, because usually punching someone hurt the person doing the punching just as much (it was rather counterproductive in that sense). What he didn't expect were for angry tears to spring up to his eyes, not quite leaving but just enough to burn. He didn't want to cry. But he liked the burn of anger.

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

Sherlock reeled backwards from the blow, taking a good few steps back in order to regain his balance. Lestrade had an unsurprisingly accurate punch. And, blimey, was it painful.
"Fuck," Holmes gasped, left hand clutching the side of his face, "I had forgotten how much that hurts."

After a few moments of flexing his jaw to feel the response, the consulting detective drew himself back up to his full height, and scowled directly at Lestrade. It had only been a punch, but Sherlock looked positively murderous.
"That was completely uncalled for!" Holmes was rarely one to shout - even now his voice was raised only slightly above an averagely loud speaking level - but the man was able to put such venom in the simple words that he may as well have. It was odd, how moments before the man had remained so icy, so distant from whatever it was that had caused him to respond so viciously.

"You can not expect to be able to pry into personal matters of mine, without expecting me to retaliate!" the consulting detective strode closer to the DI with every exaggerated word. Even a fool would be able to notice that he seemed to have lost control of the brain-to-mouth filters that allowed Sherlock to keep his sociopathic persona.
"How dare you fucking ask that."

The man seemed to have almost forgotten about his cheek, as he was holding both hands firmly by his sides - as if trying to keep them from waving around in the air. He was angry, but not a loony. Not yet.

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, and there was a brief moment in which he seemed to attempt to cast his hateful gaze directly into Lestrade's soul. He squared his shoulders, breathing heavily though his nose as if tying to regain some of the air lost through the shouting. No, no it wasn't shouting. Loud talking.
Whatever it was, it had the uncanny ability to draw energy from the lanky consulting detective.

Holmes partially turned away. Perhaps he was embarassed at his brief outburst, or perhaps he just didn't much feel like looking at Lestrade any longer. Whatever the reason, the man's face had quickly reverted to it's original, stony expression.

It really had hurt.

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

Lestrade felt his self-satisfaction amplify as Sherlock staggered back and grasped the side of his face Lestrade had punched and gasped, "Fuck, I had forgotten how much that hurts." In normal circumstances Lestrade would have felt immediately awful and apologized honestly. Normally, he would have tried to convince Sherlock into letting him take a look and making sure he was okay. He also would have noticed that he was witnessing one of the rare times Sherlock ever swore in earnest. But, well, at the moment? All he really thought was, 'Good, the bastard deserved it,' and 'I'm glad that it hurt this time too.' They were quite nasty thoughts.

Lestrade glared at Sherlock as the younger man popped his jaw and tried to pull himself back together by standing up straight. As if that would intimidate Lestrade, please. He dealt with dead bodies every day, he was afraid of a tall one. Even if, you know, this one wasn't dead. Sherlock dead. What a more peaceful world that would be. There was no small part of his brain that wasn't telling him the world would be a whole fucking less peaceful without Sherlock, but the part of him that was feeling right now told the rest of him to shut the hell up because Sherlock was a dirty know it all and he deserved everything Lestrade gave him.

He hands were still shaking, no doubt from the adrenaline high and anger. He'd always felt guilty after resorting to physical violence in a fight in the past, like when he slapped his mother and when he had punched Elliot in the stomach while drunk after Elliot had found and disposed of his neat little cupboard stashed full of all his vices. But, well, he'd never felt bad about it when the person deserved it. Frank and Daniel had deserved it when they laughed at Lestrade for going to Becket's funeral. Sherlock had deserved it now.

"That was completely uncalled for!" Sherlock said harshly, and Lestrade could have laughed if he hadn't been so angry and the statement made him angrier at the ignorance of the other man rather than disbelieving. Wasn't uncalled for? Of course it had been bloody called for, Sherlock had been being a dick and unfair and cruel and unfair.

"You can not expect to be able to pry into personal matters of mine, without expecting me to retaliate!" Sherlock hissed, stepping closer to Lestrade in a way that probably should have frightened him, but didn't. "How dare you fucking ask that?" Sherlock was yelling now, and okay, that did get through to Lestrade a bit because Sherlock never yelled unless if was needed for being heard, and never at him. But then, he would have never thought Sherlock would go so low as to use what he knew and Lestrade had never told him - or wanted him to find out - like he did just now, and that just got him furious all over again.

It was probably good that Sherlock chose to turn away from him a little then, because Lestrade would have likely punched him in the face again if he had to look at the stupid, weirdly shaped, completely wrong face any longer.

"How could I? You started it," Lestrade hissed, and while the words were quite childish in general, they were true and said with more than enough malice so that a five year old probably couldn't have managed to say so quite as charged with negative energy. "You don't get to say things like that you bloody fucking hypocrite!" And yeah, he may have started talking quite levelly but he was yelling just as loudly as before now. He was growing quite bitter that he had ever cared enough to even think Sherlock might be better than he had initially seemed. That he had called Sherlock a friend and stolen that chart because he was worried. At that moment he hated himself for caring.

For a second he wondered if this was how Sherlock felt.

But then he got angry again with the petty but natural need to prove it to all outside forces that Sherlock was being a dick and Lestrade was completely in the right punching him. It had to make sense, and if it made sense to someone else it made it easier to stop regretting anything and just keep feeling angry. Even if the person he had to convince was Martin. Damn kid.

Lestrade shot him a glare so cold that Martin looked like he wanted to run and hide. "Sorry, I just," the young man stuttered, and Lestrade wanted to hit him for a second, too. "I heard shouting. And, um, swearing. Is everything all right?"

"Yes, perfectly fine," Lestrade forced himself to spit, everything screaming not fine at all. "Now get the fuck out of my office Martin." He stared Sherlock straight in the eyes, practically daring him to say anything to Martin at all. It'd probably be easier to convince Martin to hate Sherlock when Sherlock wasn't there, after all. And why was Martin just standing there staring at them, like 'get the fuck out' couldn't be any more final? Lestrade was beginning to not only hate Sherlock and this day, but all persons involved in it.

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

The sting left behind by the punch faded as Lestrade's words were pulled into sharp focus at the front of Sherlock's mind. Honestly, if he had any current choice in the matter, he would simply ignore the Detective Inspector completely. That would be easier, after all. It would also be the easy way out - but for once he didn't really care. It was unfortunate that ignoring anything at that particular moment seemed far beyond the capabilities of the consulting detective.

Perhaps it was because he had started to shout - a habit so uncommon for the man that it was downright surprising to even he himself - that Holmes began to lose grasp on the shields that he kept so firmly protected near constantly. And without blocking out all the unnecessary and useless little things that Sherlock typically deemed better left unnoticed, everything was all of a sudden scratching its way into the inside of his skull. Tiny things - like the tick of a watch, the incessant tapping of a number of keyboard somewhere outside of Lestrade's office, even the breathing of the man himself - were dragged into excruciating clarity.

He was able to notice so many things at once, capable of threading probably hundreds of simultaneous thought chains, that it wasn't surprising why he usually shut it all out.

"How could I? You started it, you don't get to say things like that you bloody fucking hypocrite!"

He should not answer. He should not say a word, and just stride away from the office with all the dignity he had left. He should just run to somewhere in the city and do nothing but breathe until he had ordered and calmed his manic thoughts. He should do anything other than simply stand there, and allow thousands of pieces of drifting information swarm his overworked brain.
But he couldn't. When a man is unable to think on just one thing, he will usually do whatever he would otherwise think he shouldn't.

"Yes, I do. Everything is petty, and stupid, in the end. It doesn't matter whatever it once was, however big or hurtful - at some point it will still be nothing," Sherlock hissed. At some point he had closed his eyes, and his fingers had threaded into the mess of curls sat atop his head. "And you're an idiot if you are unable to see that!"

Holmes wasn't angry. He was furious.

As he began to pace around the room, anyone would think that the lanky man hadn't noticed the conversation between Lestrade (also furious; obviously completely loathing Sherlock at the moment; most likely hoping to punch him again) and another man ('Martin'; an underling; he and Holmes had not yet met, or else he most likely wouldn't have interrupted the argument; his breakfast had consisted of an Alaskan Omelette and a half a cup of coffee; his home had been darkened from a power cut for two days and electricity was likely to return in another three). On the contrary, he was practically aware of what the two were thinking, never mind their words.
Unlike many people, emotions did not blind Sherlock - but made him aware of so much more.

"Oh yes, everything obviously so completely excellent. We were just clarifying that your Detective Inspector is a blemish on the evolutionary process." The lanky consulting detective spat the words, casting a level glare at Lestrade.

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

OOC: READY YOUR GIFFS EMMY

"Yes, I do," Sherlock said, and Lestrade really wanted to strangle him. Never had he wanted to strangle someone more; well, it seemed like that at the moment. Sherlock was such a self-righteous, selfish bastard and if Lestrade had to listen to him say things that basically degraded the rest of the world's own hurt Lestrade was bloody well going to punch his face in the next time.

"Everything is petty, and stupid, in the end. It doesn't matter whatever it once was, however big or hurtful - at some point it will still be nothing. And you're an idiot if you are unable to see that!" Sherlock yelled, and Lestrade knew Sherlock was truly saying what he meant, because he looked almost pained, his eyes shut tight and his hair atop his head, clenching curly black hair as something to hold on to; to ground him. And that wasn't fair, that Sherlock got to say things like that. Lestrade was being awfully childish in his reasoning against Sherlock right now, he knew, but really, how else to say it? Sherlock's god complex, or whatever it was, could kill a man. Why did he have to go and say that belittling truth, that all people who bother to think recognize but have to ignore if they ever want to do anything? When did Sherlock get that right?

Lestrade knew he was botching things by telling Martin everything was fine, even though it had been an obvious lie to all in the room. "Oh yes," Sherlock drawled sarcastically, "Everything obviously so completely excellent. We were just clarifying that your Detective Inspector is a blemish on the evolutionary process."

Sherlock glared at Lestrade.

Lestrade leapt at Sherlock, yelling a jumble of words that was intended to be an explanation using mostly swear words to describe why Sherlock was the worst possible person to ever come into this world, but it was hopeless, because his words got messed up between Martin grabbing him and telling him to calm down and no he would not fucking calm down.

So Martin grabbed Lestrade's wrist and somehow got a hold of Sherlock's - Lestrade wasn't really looking when he did it, he'd have to learn that trick later - and: right, Martin was so getting sacked if Lestrade had anything to say about it, because Martin had just fucking handcuffed the both of them with Lestrade's own he'd taken off the desk - seriously what the hell Martin - and was now proceeding to drag them both by their free hands down stairs to the holding cells and dear god, he wasn't -- he was.

Yeah, Martin was dead meat.

"If you think you're just fucking going to lock me up with him like we're some kind of bloody children then I will stab you in your sleep," Lestrade said angrily, but Martin was deceivingly very strong, especially for how skinny he was, and pushed them both in the little room.

"Work it out," Martin said seriously, like they were kids who needed to be kept together so they could talk out their differences and decide how to evenly split up the cookies and goddammit Martin had taken his keys too, he noticed right after Martin had quickly uncuffled the both of them and locked the door to the cell tightly. "Don't hit each other, and be warned that I am right out the door and if I hear either of you acting like idiots I will taze you," Martin added almost thoughtfully, before his face disappeared from the little window on the door and fuck, Lestrade was left alone with the man he really wanted to kill right now; how was this smart in the slightest?!

Lestrade turned around to face Sherlock again and hissed, "This is your fault."

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

There was a long moment of nothing but chaotic confusion in Lestrade's office. A largely drawn out, long moment. And somewhere in the middle of the shouted words, and fast-moving limbs (mostly on the part of Lestrade himself, who had seemed to attempt to jump at the consulting detective), Sherlock Holmes blanked.
Completely and utterly blanked.
Meaning that for a few seconds, perhaps even longer, the lanky man was more or less catatonic.

This was most likely the reason that the Detective Inspector's subordinate managed to get (and keep) one of a pair of handcuffs around his wrist. Had he been paying attention, Sherlock would most likely have been walking out of the station within a matter of minutes - he had a few nifty techniques to free himself of such things that wouldn't cause any sort of disruption in the one then clasped around Lestrade's own wrist. Holmes was also completely unresponsive up until the point that a door slammed shut quite noisily.
And then, it was alarmingly obvious that he had seemed to break out of whatever mental trance he had previously been under.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Sherlock nearly screamed, kicking violently at the door. He was not generally a fan of enclosed spaces - the last time he had been in a cell was not one he greatly wanted to remember. Though he had ended up doing more damage to the unfortunate officer to lock him in it than himself, which was something at least (though once he was out of the hospital, he had almost been tried for assault on a police officer).

He vaguely heard a hissed accusation from the Detective Inspector, but chose mostly to ignore it. It was false, anyway, what the man had stated. It was decidedly not his fault at all. The blame should be put down to the bloody man stood on the outside of the door.
After a relentless stream of abuse Holmes managed to inflict upon said thing, the taller man did seem to calm down, if only physically. He let his head fall heavily against the metal, keeping a continuous 'thud' sounding throughout the cell as he repeated the process. Again, and again, and again...

He most definitely was not pleased.

"Just shut up, and order that man to open the door so I can leave."

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

"What the fuck are you doing?" Sherlock yelled through the thick metal door of the cell at Martin. Like Martin cared. Like Martin was ever going to see the light of day again.

Sherlock was quite upset, obviously, and while Lestrade took some sick pride in that, he didn't exactly feel good when Sherlock started banging his head repeatedly on the wall. He was pretty sure real people outside of movies and shows didn't do that. But it had to hurt, and yeah, now that he was standing here in the quiet aside from Sherlock's head banging, he was feeling a little guilty. Wait, no, no he wasn't, who said that. This was definitely still Sherlock's fault.

"Just shut up, and order that man to open the door so I can leave," Sherlock said between bangs.

"I'm not talking," Lestrade huffed. He thought, Martin and Sherlock will have fun in hell together, and, I hate both of them, but especially Sherlock, for another ten seconds before he couldn't help himself any longer and snapped at Sherlock, "Stop that, you're gonna hurt yourself."

And that was when he was pretty sure that if Sherlock wasn't already banging his head, he would've done it himself. Because he hated, hated at that moment that he still cared about Sherlock, even though he wanted the fucking man dead at the moment. And the 'you're gonna hurt yourself?' Yeah, that was a bit against his whole argument, considering everything he'd said previously about Sherlock's (and his, but shut up) history of self harm. Now he was just getting mad at himself and oh, that wasn't fair, why did he have to feel guilty now? Fuck, couldn't this have waited until he was home and then he could have a huge 'Man I'm a jerk,' pity-party then. Outside of the presence of Sherlock. Lestrade decided Sherlock undoubtedly had some strange gas he emitted through his skin that often kept people from murdering him.

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

"I'm not talking,"
Sherlock rolled his eyes, before squeezing them shut as his head hit the door again. That was a promise that Holmes sincerely wished Lestrade would keep, but knew he would be unable to. The man really was ridiculously talkative at times - and now that he was angry he would likely want to say at least a few things during the time they would be in the cell. It, disappointingly, didn't look as though the officer outside was going to open the door.

He continued to bang his head.

"Stop that, you're gonna hurt yourself."
The lanky man snorted out a bitter laugh. If Lestrade had more control over what he said (not that Sherlock could comment on the matter, he had absolutely no brain-to-mouth filter) then he would not have given away something completely secret when one is angry at a man. Idiot.

"I. Don't. Care," Holmes growled, increasing the force with each word. The motion was helping a little to calm his mind, and that was worth the sharp pain each bang of his head received. Besides, if he moved from his position at the door, the consulting detective honestly wasn't sure what to do. He really wasn't fond of enclosed spaces.

"And nor do you, so continue with your 'silence strike'. Don't mind me."
He really was not pleased at all about the current arrangement. In retrospect, he would most likely have acted the same if he had been placed in such a space on his own - but then, if that had happened, his frantic brain would have been much more relaxed. Meaning he most likely wouldn't have been smashing his head against the door with such fierceness.
It was the fact that Lestrade was there and still talking and breathing and making noises every time he moved that sent his overworked mind into hyper drive. And it really was not a pleasant experience.

It wasn't his fault that the next words came as another shout.

"Shut. Up!"

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

"I. Don't. Care," Sherlock told him, and continued hitting his head on the wall. "And nor do you, so continue with your 'silence strike'. Don't mind me." It made Lestrade's stomach tighten in both annoyance and the feeling that he always got when he saw someone sick, or injured, or weak. He wished the annoyance was stronger, and so, it was. Anger was easy to pull out and over, especially when it was only in his head for most of the time.

Lestrade growled and sat on the small metal bench that was drilled to the wall and floor of the cell. He really hated cells. They weren't clean, either, ugh. And, well, he was trapped with a pissy Sherlock Holmes in one at the moment, there weren't many things that could be worse, he thought.

Really there could be, but in-the-moment moments were always so much more dramatic in your head while you wee living them. Lestrade just stared at Sherlock's feet - his stupid expensive shoes probably cost more than Lestrade's own wage - and let the grating rhythm of Sherlock's head banging on the wall over and over get more and more annoying with every bang.

"Shut. Up!" Sherlock yelled, really yelled, suddenly, and Lestrade looked up. Sometimes Sherlock told people to shut up when they weren't talking, but it was truly startling when it was directed towards him for the first time, in this situation of all things.

"You shut up, you're the only one making noise," Lestrade snapped. "Stop being a pissy fucking ass wipe and you shut up so we can get outa here already." He pause, and groaned with annoyance and hateful admittance as he said, "This is half our fault's each, so if you shut up I'll shut up."

[SHERLOCK HOLMES]

If only Lestrade had kept his mouth shut. It really was a very small thing to ask, considering the circumstance. But then, the other man was angry, and it was unlikely that he would be willing to do anything the consulting detective asked of him.

"You shut up, you're the only one making noise, stop being a pissy fucking ass wipe and you shut up so we can get outa here already."
Sherlock growled (honestly, growled), hitting the door hard with the palms of both hands before pushing away to stride across the space of the cell. It was horribly confining - not that anything else could really be expected - and the man was almost struck with the impulse to do anything, absolutely anything that would ensure he could be out of there within seconds.
Fortunately, his pride caught up before he was able to act on that.

"This is half our fault's each, so if you shut up I'll shut up."
The lanky man pressed his fingernails firmly into his palms as he began to pace between the walls. If anything, this seemed to make the situation worse - for now his own footsteps had included themselves in the awful cacophony of noise that would still not cease to torment his mind. But he found that, having already taken the few steps away from the door, he was unable to stop moving.

"It is most definitely not my fault," Sherlock insisted, unwilling to take even half of the blame. After all, he sincerely believed that he was not in the wrong.
"I simply stated the truth, and you, Inspector, took it far too out of hand. How could even be surprised that I said what I did? It isn't as if I don't usually say things that other people are too afraid to."
The consulting detective's nose wrinkled almost in disgust. Though to Lestrade it would probably seem obvious that this expression assisted what he just said - it wasn't particularly clear whether or not the disgust was at this, or himself.

Sometimes even he himself doesn't like the truth. And sometimes he doesn't intend to say it.
But even if the man did not originally believe that people 'killed themselves for petty reasons', the amount of rapid logical reasoning he had done to support this theory would most likely ensure that he would be a firm believer of this once the entire situation had been dealt with.

Holmes ran a hand through his curls, uncaring of both the way he had then ruffled his hair to give it a positively manic appearance, and the crescent-shaped indents left on his palm from his digging fingernails. The other hand remained in a fist. Though he wasn't likely to punch the Detective Inspector, lord no. Despite what people may or may not think, Sherlock Holmes was not a particularly violent man.

After a long moment of the man simply pacing, and attempting to quiet everything he heard (he had long since shut his eyes to block out the sight) in order to allow a single rational thought through, the consulting detective finally stopped, facing Lestrade with a stony expression.
"Fine then, how are we supposed to get out of here, hm?"

[GREGORY LESTRADE]

"It is most definitely not my fault," Sherlock said immediately, beginning to pace with a frantic spring to his steps. Lestrade growled; he was trying to be the mature one here, but Sherlock wasn't exactly making it easy. "I simply stated the truth, and you, Inspector, took it far too out of hand. How could even be surprised that I said what I did? It isn't as if I don't usually say things that other people are too afraid to."

"Well, your truth is stupid," Lestrade muttered. Whether or not Sherlock heard him, he wasn't sure, but he didn't care; just because something was the truth didn't mean it was right, or good. The truth didn't make people happy. Neither did lies, but a certain amount of skimming over - deception - was sometimes needed.

It took a while, but finally, Sherlock stopped, opened his eyes, and said, looking almost frighteningly cold, "Fine then, how are we supposed to get out of here, hm?" It was somewhat condescending, Lestrade thought, and he thought of making a snappy remark back, but really, what was the use? They'd already fought, and Lestrade wasn't up for doing it again; he'd just have to get over himself now and fume later, be as mature as he could after spending the last ten minutes acting like a child. Though, Lestrade could see why Sherlock did all the time; it was so much less work than being nice.

"Work it out," Lestrade sniffed, mimicking Martin's somewhat high, I raised three rebellious teenagers don't even try voice. "I don't really want to much more than you do, so I suggest we just murmur nothings until Martin lets us out. He tends to take silence as a cause for punishment, trust me." It might be a bit ironic, saying Trust Me to someone after you just tried to punch them out and perhaps subsequently strangle them, but Lestrade unfortunately hadn't thought of that until afterwards. Thinking of punching Sherlock... "I didn't hurt you, did I?" He asked, trying to sound offhand but still coming off a bit more concerned than he would have wanted. It was embarrassing really, how transparent he was.

OOC: Sorry for the bit of wait; I'm doing Hair. That, and Andrew's zapping all my muse! D: