favourite scenes: a study in pink

based on this song, for geniusbee. 

sherlock/inception crossover: sherlock’s gone to deep, too far caught up in his dreamscape, his wars and his urban battlefields that he’s forgotten what’s real; even forgotten where the dream began. it’s an endless world of cases and it’s perfect for him: able to do experiments and never permanently injure anyone. john had warned him, told him about the dangers of too many levels of consciousness and all that, but sherlock wouldn’t be sherlock if he had listened.  mycroft wouldn’t normally involve himself with minor retrieval cases, but this is his little brother we’re talking about and nothing is going to stand in his way. they’ve got the best team on hand, and they are going to get him back, no matter what.

(Okay maybe six gifs was a bit overboard and I’m looking too deeply into this and maybe I’m totally off the mark but…hear me out?)

You guys know how Lestrade always seems to be slightly confused and looking like he has no idea what’s going on? 

That’s him humouring Sherlock. 

I mean I can’t be the only one to see this but there haven’t been such posts going around so… see, in A Study in Pink, he’s exasperated and he seems like he’s at his wit’s end with these mysterious murder-suicide-things, and he snaps at Sherlock a lot; acts like he can’t really stand Sherlock (because understandably Sherlock can be a giant prat) but if you look closely, he’s smiling. 

Lestrade has worked with Sherlock for so long to know that the best way to get information out of Sherlock is to pretend to not know anything at all. Because Lestrade must have realised after working with Sherlock for (presumably) years that this man has a heart, no matter how dismissive and suspicious the rest of Scotland Yard are - Sherlock likes to help people, and he likes to feel necessary and know everything because beneath all that aloof coldness Lestrade recognises an attention-starved little boy who’s convinced himself that he doesn’t need anyone and so Lestrade plays along; exaggerates his responses and lets Sherlock insult him, lets Sherlock see that he needs him, that he’s vital to each case. That he’s important.

And hey, in the end, everyone’s happy, another dirtbag is behind bars and he’s kept Sherlock off the streets (or off the drugs, at least, because Lestrade knows about the drugs and evidently doesn’t want to see such a brilliant mind wasted away by addiction) and I don’t know where I’m going with this any more but this is why Greg Lestrade is my favourite and why the writing of this show is so brilliant; that even the supporting characters have such complex personalities and backgrounds and things that catch at our hearts and make us love them for how human, how real they are.

Olé!

i.e. the look on lestrade’s face four times out of five when sherlock opens his mouth