Whenever he buys donuts, he always buys one with sprinkles. Sherlock's favourite. Just in case the detective happens to stop by. It's rare he does these days, with John, and even rarer that he will actually eat it but Lestrade will buy it every time. Just in case. He'll never stop.

He loves his mum, but he has always been closest to his father.

He likes driving late at night with the windows open. You barely hear the car tires on the road, but you hear other things in the distance: rubbish bins and cars and dogs and city things. But all that feels far away, like you're in a bubble or down a well and all that's real is the car you're in and even that doesn't feel solid. You ghost along the roads in the dark and you feel a bit like a ghost. Like you're fading away as you're driving. It's a bit spooky, but he likes the way it feels.

The first proper song he learned how to play on his guitar was 'Stairway To Heaven'

He's not too fussed with big questions, to be honest. Things like 'why am I here' and 'where do I go after I die'. He tries to live in the present. He believes that this life is what matters. What you do. Not why.

There was a period of his life (somewhere after 'astronaut' and before 'rock god') that he wanted to be a schoolteacher. Young kids, four or five or six. Lestrade has always loved kids and been good with kids and he could think of nothing better than being with kids all day and teaching them and playing with them and inspiring them.

There's a small selfish part of him that would give almost anything to one-up Gregson at just one thing.

He feels stupid next to Sherlock. And he is stupid next to Sherlock, hell, everyone is, but that doesn't mean it's a very nice feeling.

Christmas lights are the greatest invention he has ever seen. There is nothing like seeing London lit up for Christmas, especially after dark. It gives him a warm feeling inside he cannot define. There is something special there. He would go so far as to say it is his favourite part of the holiday. Lights.

He tends to root for the underdog.

He and Mrs. Hudson get on very well. She's kind, and friendly, and sharp, and she makes good biscuits and cakes and things. They talk sometimes, over biscuits and cakes and tea and he always enjoys her company. She's deeply fond of Sherlock, and Sherlock of her, and Greg has more respect for her than perhaps he'll ever let on.

He can't help but miss the countryside sometimes.

He meets a little girl in the Baker Street tube stop one morning, as he's waiting for his train. She couldn't have been more than five or six, in a little red coat and shiny black name is Tamara and he says that it's a lovely name and they strike up a lovely conversation until Tamara's mother swoops down and yanks her daughter away from him, glaring at Lestrade all the while. He can hear her scolding the little girl as she walks away about talking to strangers, and hell, he wouldn't want his kids talking to weird old men in the tube stop either, but he's still sad. He's a detective and he's seen kids die because they talked to weird old men in tube stops, and that hurts too. He hates it sometimes. The world.

He has a lot of nice suits. Expensive ones. All courtesy of Mycroft who insists he "dress appropriately" when they meet to discuss Sherlock and supplies the formal wear for him. Greg's rather fond of getting nice new suits, even though it creeps him out a bit that Mycroft knows all his measurements.

He gets his love of Christmas from his mother. He's his father's son, in looks and in temperament, but if there's one thing he and his mother can see eye to eye on it is their almost fanatical love for the holiday season.

He was expecting a lecture from his dad when he showed him that he had let his mate Syd pierce his ear with a sewing needle. Instead, his dad just laughed.

He feeds ducks. He likes them. They're funny.

When he watches films, he always stays for the credits.

In the winter, after dark, he likes to go out and just walk. There is something about the cold and the dark that makes everything more real. He can't explain that. It just is.

He has a lot of thoughts and ideas and things that might make a good book. At least some poems. Except when he tries to put thoughts and ideas and things down on paper it all gets messed up somewhere in the transition from his head to his pencil and everything ends up stupid. He used to write books and poems and stuff when he was a kid but he never finished them because he got so bloody frustrated with that transition thing. Nothing sounded the way it did in his head. Maybe he's a thinker, not a writer, but his thoughts don't make all that much sense either. That's probably why he's a detective. You don't have to think deep things and you don't have t write them down.

He can't sleep with socks on his feet. Not if he's awake enough to think about it. Sometimes he falls down on his bed and goes to sleep right in his clothes, socks and everything, but if he's in his bed wearing socks the socks annoy him to no end. He has to take them off or else that's all he thinks about and he can't get to sleep.

He is comfortable with a leadership role but he will not actively seek one out.

Sometimes he feels like crying. Sometimes it's for no reason at all, at least not directly. Sometimes, if he's alone, he does cry. Other times he holds it in or ignores it until the feeling goes away.

There is no one on earth he hates more than James Moriarty. The very name makes his hands curl into fists, his chest burn with anger, and he knows that if he had a clean shot he would take it without the very slightest hesitation.

He's a great fan of James Bond.

Every time he hugs his father, his father is a little bit weaker. And it breaks his heart.

He is secretly terrified of being buried alive. The very idea makes his throat close and his heart pick up speed. "When I'm dead." he says to Sherlock one day. "Cut off my head or something. Just to make sure I'm really dead." Then a thought occurs to him. "You can't keep it, though. My head. I don't want to be in your fridge when I'm dead."

He's not a big talker. He's a bit quiet, unless it's about work, or Sherlock, or something he's really terribly passionate about. He can hold a conversation fine, but he's unlikely to strike one up out of the blue.

He cried at the end of Batman Begins then, and he cries at the end of Batman Begins now.

Often when Sherlock has been sick or in hospital, Greg would read books aloud to him. It's a silly thing, but it does not stop him from doing it. Usually he does this when Sherlock is unconscious or sleeping but sometimes he has been awake, and curiously, the detective has never protested.

There is a switch at his place that does not turn on a light. Nothing happens when you flick it: nothing that he can tell, at least. He has never known what that switch was for. He tries not to flip the switch too much. He secretly worries about setting off bombs in other countries and things like that, which is honestly one of the stupidest things he has ever worried about. He has a lot of stupid thoughts like that sometimes. They go away pretty quick to be replaced with logical reasoning, but it crosses his mind whenever he accidentally flips that mystery switch to apologize to the people he might possibly be killing.

He's not a fan of that nicotine gum. It doesn't taste very nice and it doesn't work all that well either.

He had a fantastic sweet tooth as a kid and a teenager. Anything sugar. His personal favourite were those pop rocks. Being older now, he's not sure what the allure was.

He remains on a Christmas-card basis with the American spinal surgeon who saved him from a life of paraplegia.

He is not good at debates or press conferences or at any kind of improvised speech. He needs time to think about things before he says them. Otherwise he just sounds dumb, and there's no time for him to get his thoughts all straight enough to even know what he's saying.

He tries to keep his feet firmly on the ground but there is a part of him somewhere inside that is a good bit of a dreamer. He doesn't show that side a lot, or arguably at all, but it's there somewhere. It always surprises him.

He can never sleep after cases that involve children hurt or killed.

He thinks he might want to be cremated when he dies. He's signed up to donate every organ he has, but there's still the rest of him to deal with. It's easier that way. It takes up less space and less money, and being a dead body under ground with a tombstone and everything is really depressing. Granted, the thought of dead people burning in a fire freaks him out a bit. Also, he always wonders about what if someone doesn't clean out the crematorium properly and bits of other people's ashes get mixed in with his. Not that that would bother him much because he would be dead, but it is a bit of a weird thought. He wonders who would even want his ashes. Who a can of dead him is going to be forced upon. He thinks it would be nice to have his ashes scattered somewhere, except he's heard that that can be dangerous to wildlife and things. He might even leave his body to science, only because Sherlock would be rather cross with him if he didn't. He always imagines Sherlock pulling him apart after he's dead. Thinking about all that is kind of sad, so he tries not to. He wishes your body would just disappear when you died. Evaporate into the air. Everything would be easier.

He has a really big crush on Karen Gillan. Slightly innapropriate, but rather hard to control.

Dartmoor was his last vacation. Before that, his failed Let's-Fix-Things vacation with his now ex-wife. Before that, he hadn't taken a vacation for a very long time. Greg's not too big on the travelling thing. Everything he needs is right here.

They never had a proper honeymoon.

It's tough not to punch Sherlock sometimes. He's annoying, he's arrogant, he's, well, Sherlock. Greg gets frustrated with him a lot, but he knows the very second he might lay a hand on him he will regret it.

It bothers him when Sherlock works on cases with Gregson.

Sometimes the paper spells his name wrong. It shouldn't annoy him, but it does a bit. Leastrade, Lestrad, Le Strade, Lastrade, Lesrede, Lestred, among others.

What he does makes little tiny differences in people's lives and he loves that.

When he is upset, what he really wants is for someone to hold him. No words. Just a hug. A strong hug, like his dad gave. No talking or petting his hair or pretending it will get better, just holding and holding until he is okay again. He craves this secretly when he cries, when he's sad or lost or hurt. Someone to hold him.

His wife's wedding dress is in a trunk in his spare room. She did not take it with her and he cannot get rid of it, so it stays there.

Rock and roll is the best music.

He's good with handcuffs. He can snap them on your wrists before you even saw it coming. What he can't do is twirl them round his finger. You see detectives do that in films. He tries it when he is bored but he drops them or the chain gets wrapped around his finger or the other end smacks him in the face and leaves a mark.

He feels an immensely strong sense of duty toward Sherlock. He is responsible for more than his own life: for Sherlock's as well. He has never had that feeling before.

He loves vinyl. There's nothing like it. No CD or mp3 file, no cassette tape can ever compare to a big disk of vinyl. He loves that ipod of his, but records always win. It's a nostalgia thing.

He's been called nostalgic. It's true. Except it's not the old days so much that he's missing as much as the people in them. He misses people. Not time.

He's a different person now from who he used to be. But it's not a bad thing.