Okay so i dont even think this one is that good eh meh meh whatever but the reason I post it is because THERE IS NOT ENOUGH LESTRADE/DIMMOCK FRIENDSHIP ficsout there (in fact pretty much none at all) and this is a horrible travesty and I was hoping I could lead a revolution to remedy this problem. So if you are aware of any dimmstrade friendship, of write some yourself, I would be ever so obliged if you could link me to it.

Anyways bla bla bla migraines and bromance and things. Enjoy the show:

oOoOoOo

Usually there's a warning - an aura, it's called - the blurring of vision that usually precedes a migraine, a blind spot on his left side and the texture of the world shimmering and rippling around him, a mirage in a desert. Normally the aura develops at least half an hour before so that he has time to fetch a cab home - colours too bright and sounds too intense - and lie down somewhere dark. It'll usually be his bedroom, and curse whoever the hell decided that room should have two windows, but that's why God made heavy blankets and staple guns and he's managed to block out most of the light. But today his head is already throbbing by the time his vision starts to blur, and the migraine comes on so quickly that he's caught completely off guard. One minute he's fine, tapping away at his computer, working, being normal, and the next minute the pain has risen up like a wave and he's slumped over his desk with his head in his hands. Five minutes after that he's on all fours in the loo, retching violently into the toilet with eyes tight shut against the goddamn fluorescent lights.

Dimmock hasn't had a migraine in nearly a month, and really, he should have realized that that streak wouldn't hold for long. But no, he'd gone and taken that month for granted, forgetting how precious time in which your head didn't feel as though it were being repeatedly struck with a hammer was. He's considering this, or at least trying to, because it's hard to stop throwing up long enough to hold a coherent thought, when he hears footsteps on the tile floor. Thud - thud - thud - thud, like knives in the now-terribly-acute senses of his tortured mind. Great. Some poor sod is in here watching him retch. He doesn't look who it is - it hurts too much to open his eyes. Just so long as it isn't...

Thud - thud - thud - thud, and the footsteps get closer, and then whoever it is bends down behind him and arms descend around him. One hand combs through his hair, holding his head steady as he vomits. Someone he knows well, then. No one gets closer to someone who's being sick than they have to. Anyone else, if they hadn't run off to Lestrade, would be calling his name from across the room, asking what was wrong, not holding him, helping him. And they haven't asked what's wrong which means they know, know about his migraines, which means it can only be -god, look at him, he's being a regular Sherlock Holmes over here - but all the same he hopes he's wrong, really hopes that he's hallucinating the smell of that aftershave, really hopes it isn't...

Lestrade really really doesn't like watching people be sick. Despite this, he seems to spend an extraordinary amount of his life doing exactly that.

He doesn't remember that being in the job description.

But all the same, he bends down behind Dimmock, supporting his head with a hand on his neck and the other at his forehead. His brow is covered by a thick sheen of sweat and Lestrade winces a bit. The younger DI is trembling. "Migraine?" asks Lestrade. Dimmock cringes at his voice, (not only at the volume but at the fact that his piss-poor deductions have been right and it really is Lestrade behind him) and starts to say something that sounds a lot like "No shit, Sherlock." except that he's cut off halfway through by another wave of nausea and ends up vomiting spectacularly into the toilet instead.

Lestrade really really doesn't like watching people be sick.

They stay like that for about five minutes, Lestrade crouched behind him, supporting him, balanced on the balls of his feet, and Dimmock on his knees, slumped over the toilet. And at the end of those about-five minutes, when Dimmock's done being sick and is instead clutching the toilet seat like a life raft and burying his face into the crook of his arm, Lestrade brushes the sweaty hair off the younger man's forehead and asks if Dimmock can stand.

The sarcastic reply he's expecting doesn't come. Dimmock shakes his head wordlessly. "Just..." he manages finally, "just leave me here. I'm fine."

"You're not going to lie here in your own sick." says Lestrade. "Come on." One arm moves round Dimmock's front and he tries to pull him upward into a standing position but Dimmock whimpers - actually whimpers, quiet and pained and desperate, like a dog that's been kicked - and Lestrade freezes where he is because he hadn't known his friend capable of making such a noise. "Hurts to move." says Dimmock as explanation, eyes screwed tight shut against the harsh lighting. "Well, you have to move." says Lestrade, and he's not sure whether he's trying to convince Dimmock or himself. "Somewhere dark, okay? Come on." He succeeds in hauling Dimmock to his feet, all but holding him up as they stand there together. "Too bright." mutters Dimmock, and Lestrade presses one of his hands over the younger man's eyes. He feels Dimmock's eyelashes brush his palm as his eyes open and shut again.

"Better?"

"I guess."

"Come on, then."

It hurts though, every movement's like fire, a knife in his pounding head, and standing makes him dizzy and light-headed. Halfway across the bathroom his legs give out from under him and he sinks to his knees. "I can't." he whispers. "I can't, it hurts." Lestrade's hand has come away from his eyes, and even screwing his eyes shut as tight as he can the light still filters through the lids. Patterns dance on the inside of his eyes. The pounding in his head worsens. It's the left side - always the left, though he knows when the migraine peaks he won't be able to distinguish anymore, it will just hurt everywhere. He makes a grab for the left side of his head with his right hand because his left is clutching onto the front of Greg's shirt. Digging the nails tight into the skin doesn't help but it gives him something to hold on to, so he clutches the left side of his face until he draws blood. Greg snatches his hand away.

"Iain, get up."

2 percent of the population suffers from goddamn chronic migraines, and he has to be one of them.

"Iain, if I have to carry you out of here, I will."

It's only the threat of being carried by Lestrade that forces him back onto his feet. Though walking - if you can call it that - out of the bathroom clutching onto Lestrade with both hands and his face buried in the DI's shoulder is hardly more dignified. But the lights, the goddamn lights... he'd never noticed how well-illuminated Scotland Yard was. They're burning his mind. Like laser beams into his brain. They should turn off the lights. Save electricity. God, his head. It's a throb, a constant rhythmic pulse. A heartbeat. He can hear his heart through his head, that's not right, is it? But it hurts. He tries to breathe through the pain. Tries to time the breaths in rhythm to the pulse in his head, in and out, in and out, but it's too hard, too much work, he can't think right now. There's little fireworks of pain going off inside his mind and he sees them against the inside of his eyelids, bursts of colour and light and pain. Fireworks. He grits his teeth. Breathe in, breathe out. Someone is swinging a pickaxe into the side of his brain. Breathe in, breathe out. Lestrade might as well have carried him. He's all but carrying him now. Fireworks inside his head. Just make it stop, god, make it stop...

Dimmock's clutching him so tight it's hurting, and he's grateful for Iain's sake that no one is around to watch the pair of them. Lestrade has his arms round Dimmock's shoulders, and he around his, some bizarre pantomine of a three legged race, except it's a two legged race, really, because Lestrade is the only one walking. Dimmock takes tiny disjointed steps that more often than not lead to him stumbling and having to be dragged along. Dimmock is burying his face into the sleeve of Lestrade's shirt, trying to block out the light he assumes, and he's more a deadweight than anything else. It's all of twelve feet from the washroom to the nearest empty office but what would otherwise have been a six-second walk feels like miles. "Conference room." he says to Dimmock, who's attempting, struggling, and ultimely failing to stand on his own feet again. "Come on."

He reaches for the lights before thinking better of it and drawing his hand back. He navigates by touch now, feeling his way around the room, leading Dimmock along beside him. Three chairs in a row, and he has Dimmock sit down on the middle one and lay out across all three, eyes tight shut, teeth clenched, face screwed up in pain. "Nice and dark, here." says Lestrade. "I won't let anyone come in." Dimmock's hair has gone limp and wet and clings to his forehead with sweat. "How bad is it?" asks Lestrade. "Scale of one to ten, how bad is it?"

"Four hundred." says Dimmock and squeezes the hand that Greg offers, and Lestrade huffs in annoyance at his dramatics until he realizes that Dimmock is holding his hand, is returning the pressure that Lestrade is offering, and that Dimmock would never ever ever do that unless it really was a four hundred, and that this is not a good thing at all. "Medication?" he asks, pulling his hand out of Dimmock's sweaty grasp. "Desk." is the reply through clenched teeth. "Top...right..."

"Alright." says Lestrade. "Alright. Just stay there." As if he's going anywhere. Greg knows about Dimmock's migraines, but he's never seen one played out. As far as he knows Dimmock's never had one at work before - he always manages to heed the warning signs and take the rest of the day off when he feels one coming on. Lestrade grabs the bin out of the corner of the room and stands it next to the make-shift bed. "Bin's here if you need it. Try not to be sick on the carpet, no one wants to clean that." Dimmock moans and covers his eyes with a forearm. Lestrade does what Dimmock would never allow him to do under normal circumstances and runs a hand through his sweaty hair, finger-combing it. "I'll be right back."

The door closes with a snap that makes Dimmock wince, even though he knows Greg's trying to shut it as quietly as he can behind him. It's dark now, completely, and in the dark he lies, gasping for breath, his head throbbing. He contemplates just how much of his life he's spent in the dark feeling his head throb, and he contemplates the unfairness of this for awhile until self-pity gets boring and the door opens again with an equally painful snap. The pain has ebbed though, just a little, just enough, and it feels like he has a headache again, rather than he's just been run over by a truck. He'd be willing to bet he'd be able to walk again, if he was feeling stupid enough to get up and try, but moving even an inch makes his head scream in protest and he's not going to risk it. He's still nauseous and really doesn't want to throw up on himself.

If he lies still and doesn't move - not a finger, not an eyelash - he feels better. Just a little. He evens out his breathing and focuses on lying still. Lestrade's back, with water, and pills, and a pillow, and he's asking him to sit up, but he can't, he has to lie still. Lestrade puts a hand in the small of his back and guides him upward into a sitting position. "Don't coddle me." hisses Dimmock. Lestrade hands him the pills. "Swallow." His voice is warm and authoritative and Dimmock does without thinking. He's given a paper cup of water, which Lestrade insists on holding for him as he drinks, which leads to a brief row. The raised voices make his head pound and he concedes.

"Drink the whole thing." says Greg when Dimmock leaves the glass half - full (or half - empty depending on your perspective) "It'll help." Dimmock has no strength to argue,and he does. This migraine has made him a mindless puppet of Lestrade's. If he could talk without being sick everywhere he would have something to say about that.

"How long do these usually last?" asks Lestrade. "Four, six hours." replies Dimmock, pressing his hands over his face as though trying to hold his brains inside his skull. "This one will probably be four." Lestrade winces. "If you've got your gun." says Dimmock with a wry smile, "It might be kinder."

"Don't say that."

"I didn't mean it, you great ponce" says Dimmock weakly, accepting the cold cloth that Lestrade offers him and holding it to his forehead. "You can go now, i'm fine."

"No" says Lestrade. "I'll stay.."

"And sit in the dark for six hours?" counters Dimmock. "Go on. I'll be fine."

Lestrade looks doubtful, but he gets up and leaves, closing the door behind him as quietly as he can, and it's not until a few minutes alone in the dark have gone by that Dimmock realizes he didn't really want him to leave at all.

An hour passes, and then two, and then a third, three hours in which Dimmock lies in the dark and wishes his head would stop pounding and Lestrade does miscellaneous desk work and insists Dimmock not be disturbed. It's during this third hour that the migraine peaks, and when Lestrade comes to check on the younger DI he finds him curled up on the chair clutching his head so tightly that his nails have pierced the skin and little rivers of blood are flowing down his temples. It's with force that Lestrade yanks Dimmock's hands away from his head, but he's gentle as he wipes the blood off his fingers and skin. Dimmock is beyond words and can do nothing but whimper and moan, and the rest of the third hour passes while Dimmock whimpers and moans and Lestrade holds tight to his wrists to keep him from hurting himself.

Two percent of the sodding population suffers from chronic migraines, and Dimmock had t be one of them.

At the close of the third hour Lestrade can tell the pain has started to ebb because Dimmock settles a bit and makes no more move to dig his nails back into his scalp. Lestrade rubs circles on his back - something that crosses the line from coddling to appearing gay, neither of which Dimmock tolerates, but he doesn't complain now so Lestrade keeps going.

Ten minutes into the fourth hour Dimmock is asleep.

Thirty minutes into the fourth hour Lestrade is still rubbing his back.