If Inconvenient Come Anyway

[smallhobbit]

Fandom: Sherlock BBC
Characters: John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, Greg Lestrade
Rating: G
Word Count: 770
Summary: Written for Day 23 of 221b_advent

Two days before Christmas, Greg Lestrade looked out of the window in his flat at the pouring rain.  He felt the weather matched his mood.  Last year his children had spent Christmas with their mother at their grandparents.  He had tried to suggest he have them this year, but his ex-wife’s pointed ‘Can you guarantee you won’t get called in to work and ruin yet another Christmas Day?’ had been a sufficient deterrent.  Instead they had agreed he would have them for a couple of days before the New Year.  He was looking forward to that, and he had arranged a number of activities that he knew they would like, but it still wasn’t the same as sharing the excitement of Christmas Day itself.

He thought briefly about seeing if John Watson wanted to go out for a drink, but he didn’t know what plans he had.  And with Sherlock having been back for less than two months he had no wish to intrude on them at this time.  He continued to watch the water splashing down into the street and the pedestrians trying to dodge the puddles that were slowly taking up more of the pavement.

His phone pinged.  <Major problem at Baker Street.  Need help urgently. JW>

Some things never changed.  He texted back <On my way. GL>, grabbed his car keys and ran down the stairs.  Anything was better than sitting in his flat feeling sorry for himself

When he reached Baker Street Mrs Hudson opened the door and said “Thank goodness you’re here Inspector.”

Fearing the worst he went up the stairs to 221B and entered the flat.  The first thing he saw was a large Christmas tree lying across a good proportion of the sitting room floor.  The second was Sherlock Holmes sitting on the settee covered in a combination of branches and decorations.

John called out from the kitchen “Hi Greg, do you want a coffee?”

“Yes please.  What’s happened?”

“His lordship decided to see whether it was possible for a suitably adapted Christmas tree ornament to be propelled with sufficient force to kill someone on impact.”

“Not one of our cases.”

“No, I think it’s a case from Norway, where the relatives apparently aren’t happy with the coroner’s report; they refuse to believe it was an accident and are convinced the death was caused deliberately.  Either that or Sherlock’s planning on disposing of Mycroft at their family ‘do’ next week.”

“So what did happen?”

“He created enough force for the whole tree to fall over.”

“And the decorations?”

“I needed to clear the floor to sort the tree out and since someone refused to move..”

“I’m revising my calculations.”

“There was nowhere else to put them.”  With that John walked over and carefully placed a star on top of the Sherlock/tree/decorations mound.

“Your text said it was urgent.”  Greg tried to sound annoyed, but the sight of Sherlock wearing paper chains had to be preferable to that of staring at the walls of his sparsely decorated flat.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come if you didn’t think it was urgent.  And as you’re spending Christmas with us I didn’t think you mind giving me a hand.”

“What?”

John hesitated.  “Sherlock has asked you, hasn’t he?”

“No.”

“Sherlock, you said you were going to ask Greg last Tuesday.  And when Mrs Hudson checked you said he hadn’t said he wasn’t coming.”

“Factually correct.”

John sighed.  “Greg, Mrs Hudson and I would like to invite you to spend Christmas Day here with us.  Please don’t feel obliged to say you will, but we would be delighted if you do.”

“Thank you.  That’s really kind of you, but there’s always a chance I’ll get called into work and I don’t want to ruin the day for you.”

“We’ll all understand if that happens, so if that’s your only objection, the invitation still stands.”

“In which case then yes please.  I’d love to come.  But I don’t have much time to get presents, um...”

“There’s no obligation to bring presents, but if you want suggestions I know Mrs Hudson is very partial to a good tin of shortbread and I wouldn’t mind a bottle of brandy.  And Sherlock doesn’t deserve anything.  Oh also, we thought you might like to stay over on the settee instead of going home that night.”

“If you’re sure that’s okay, then I’d be very happy to stay.”

“There are certain practical problems,” grumbled Sherlock.

“Oh yes?” John replied.

“There is no space left on the sofa for another bauble let alone a detective inspector.”

“Which is precisely why I called Greg over to help.”