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1.
“You’re never going to eat that, Lestrade.” Mycroft looked as though his face was about to collapse in on itself in a black hole of disdain. Greg didn’t care.
“Bloody well am, haven’t eaten in sixteen hours.” Greg took the sauerkraut-laden bratwurst in both hands as it steamed in the crisp late winter air. The holy grail itself. “Grab that coffee for me, would you?” He wouldn’t normally ask but, frankly, Mycroft owed him a favour or two.
“You’re shortening your life span immeasurably.” Mycroft followed him to a park bench, paper cup of coffee held gingerly between thumb and forefinger. Greg collapsed on the bench with a relief so intense it nearly brought tears to his eyes. Coming up on a full day on his feet and he was still no closer to finding the murderer of a minister’s wayward mistress—who’d had access to the man’s personal files. “I’m fairly certain that fellow isn’t licensed.”
“Sizz whed.” Greg paused, swallowed, wiped mustard off his upper lip, then reached for his coffee. Mycroft handed it over, watched Greg drink with the air of a man watching another take poison. It tasted about like that and burned all the way down. “Since when is my life span any concern of yours? If it were, you’d put your brother on a leash.”
“I do apologize for that. He does get a little underfoot sometimes. He’ll clean up his mess.” Mycroft cast about, then—with a resigned sigh—perched on the bench next to Greg. He pulled out a thin silver cigarette case, then offered it to Lestrade, who shook his head. Russian. Wouldn’t go with the sauerkraut. “And for the hypocrisy. Trying to cut down.”
“Don’t mind me.” Greg was trying not to simply gulp down the greasy, delicious mess without chewing. His stomach felt like a bottomless pit. “Nothing wrong with a vice or two. Keeps a man honest with himself.”
“I appreciate your timely intervention this afternoon. With regard to my brother.”
Greg had to run over things in his head to work out which intervention might be the one in question. Probably the one where he’d stopped the Minister of Farming from punching Sherlock in the face.
“Oh, that,” he said, once his mouth was empty again. “Not a problem. No offense, but it was mainly because if anyone gets to punch your brother in the face, it’s going to be me.”
“No offense at all.” Mycroft blew a thin plume of smoke into the frosty air. The tip of his nose was pink, as were the tips of his long, elegant fingers. A swirl of ice-glittery wind snatched at the smoke, tugged his scarf, played with his fine, dark hair. He looked, for a moment, more weary than Greg felt. “Do keep in mind that, should I be on scene, the first punch falls to me. I have seniority here.”
“You’ll break your hand.” Greg shoved the last of the sausage and bun into his mouth, then began mopping the grease and mustard from his fingers with several insufficient and crumpled napkins.
“Point taken,” Mycroft said morosely. “Here.” He handed Greg a handkerchief—a very nice one, too nice to get dirty, but Greg couldn’t really turn him down. “I will require a proxy.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Greg got his hands wiped, then folded up the handkerchief. His own hands weren’t very big but did the job well enough, even when it came to knocking a bloke out now and then. He’d earned the scars on them. “Getting my hands dirty.”
“You do the job well.” Mycroft looked over at him and actually smiled a little. The cold had turned his cheeks pink. It looked good on him. “I appreciate it. Next time, let me buy you a proper meal.”
“When there’s time, you’re on.” Greg pulled his phone out to check it—it had been buzzing with one text message after another the entire time. “Meanwhile... Good God. Your brother’s gone in the Thames.”
“In...” Mycroft blinked owlishly.
“In.” Greg held up the phone with the photograph from Anderson displayed on it. “I need a drink.”
“I suppose they fished him out.” Mycroft opened his briefcase and rummaged around in the pockets until he came out with a thin, silver flask that matched his cigarette case. He spun the top open before handing it over.
“If we hurry,” Greg said, taking the flask and dumping half the contents into what was left of his coffee, “you can push him back in.”
2.
“Claridges.” Greg sounded slightly horrified. Or perhaps that was terrified. Mycroft couldn’t quite tell over the rush of passing automobiles and the perpetual hiss of rain. The man was stood by the side of the road somewhere, no doubt.
“The Reading Room, yes. I realize you’d prefer bratwurst in the park but I fear my constitution couldn’t withstand the strain. Also, it’s pouring. Indulge me, if you would.” Mycroft began dismantling an antique fountain pen that Anthea had managed to procure online. The poor thing was in dreadful condition, practically coming apart in his hands, but there was hope yet. “Where on Earth are you, anyway?”
“The Highway. Dead business man found on the edge of King Edward Memorial Park. Bit of a mess, really. Looks like he was run down crossing the road around two in the morning, but still not sure why or by whom. Hardly any traffic then. It’d be a hell of a thing if it were an accident.”
Mycroft pondered this as he laid the parts of the pen out on his desk. “What manner of business man?”
“What kind? Well, I don’t know what kind. You mean like a Dalmation or an Alsatian? He’s not got much of a face on him at the moment. About six feet, grey suit, balding. The usual. All he had on him was one of those pass cards, didn’t even have his name or photograph on it. No markings at all.” Greg grunted irritably, Mycroft envisioned him crouched down at the edge of the road. “Well, here’s one of his shoes. That’s, what, nearly twenty yards from the body. Poor sot. Sole says... Crockett and Jones. Does that help?”
“Yes, a great deal. Send me a photograph or two?” Crockett and Jones was a traditional sort of shoe, a bit stodgy to say the least. Mycroft waited for the photographs to show up on his phone. Black calf leather, monk gusset styling, single silver buckle—hand-finished and hammered. “Mmm. That’s sold here and in Belgium, more popular over there this season. Traditional styling, to say the least. I’d say international investment banker, recently promoted. There’s a conference here in town. Let Sherlock know you’re stuck for an identification.”
“Why? You just gave me Belgium and investment banking as a lead, as well as a local conference.”
“Well, because it’s pouring rain and we have reservations for lunch at Claridges. And, it’ll make him happy. He loves irritating Belgians.” Mycroft took out a magnifying glass and his reference book to begin dating the precise parts he’d need to replace. “Bit like shooting fish in a barrel, if you ask me, but you know Sherlock.”
“You’re suggesting I play dumb so I can skive off with you and eat lunch at Claridges while your brother does my job.”
“Precisely. If you’re feeling up to it,” Mycroft made a careful note on a clean sheet of paper, “bag up those shoes for evidence and send them back to the lab immediately. He won’t think to ask after what your people have found until he’s got in at least a half hour of pontificating his way about a crime scene that extensive.”
“You’re a terrible person.” Somehow, it didn’t sound particularly insulting the way Greg said it.
“I prefer pragmatic. Would you like me to send a car for you?”
“No, that’s fine. I’ll make my own way.” Greg’s voice grew distant for a moment. “Anderson, see the shoes bagged and back to the lab immediately. I think we’re going to call Holmes in on this one.”
“Holmes, sir? But. It’s a hit and—“
“Does this look like a multiple choice question to you? Make the call. What time for lunch?”
“Half noon, if you would. I have a four o’clock.”
“Three and a half hours for lunch?” There was that edge in Greg’s voice again.
“Call it a meeting.” Mycroft couldn’t help his quiet chuckle. “Or blame me. Being a terrible person has its advantages.”
3.
“People are going to talk.” Claridges. The park. Now the back of a Ministry car. It was a hell of a car, at that. Two rows of buttery soft black leather seats facing one another, rosewood inlay and hand-stitched brown leather on the doors, tinted windows, an engine so quiet it hardly seemed as though they were moving at all. Freezing rain battered the roof, the edge of a disastrously large weather system was nipping at England’s shores.
“I agree.” Mycroft’s tie was tucked in his jacket pocket, his shirt was open at the throat, baring pale skin and the delicately freckled hollow between his clavicles. For some reason, that was utterly distressing. The world was out of joint. He poured Greg three fingers of scotch and handed it over. “Drink.”
“What time is it?” The world outside was pitch black except for the lights of passing cars broken into bright gems by the rain-beaded windows. The crystal tumbler was heavy in Greg’s hand.
“One-forty-nine in the morning. Drink, Greg.”
Greg tossed it all back at once, just to be done with it, but Mycroft refilled his glass as soon as he’d emptied it.
“You mustn’t blame yourself.” Mycroft poured himself a glass before sliding the crystal decanter back into the car’s minibar.
“Mustn’t I? Mycroft, I just watched a man I’ve known twenty years turn a gun on himself tonight, after... after doing things I can’t even fathom. To his own children, among others.” Greg’s hand shook so that the scotch surged up the sides of the glass. “I’m supposed to know things. To see things. Your brother’s right, I’m a monkey with a badge. Ridiculous little tin-pot dict—“
Mycoft’s hand on his knee cut him off. “Don’t be ridiculous, Greg. You know you’re in shock. A terrible thing happened tonight. You’re not rational but I won’t have you speak that way about yourself, no matter the cause.”
“Sorry I missed lunch.” Mycroft’s hand was out of place on his knee and yet not, maybe only out of place because it was only there. Greg entrusted his scotch to his right hand and put his left over Mycroft’s, finding it surprisingly warm and comforting.
“You were doing your job. Hardly something for which you should apologize.” Carefully enough that he didn’t disturb Greg’s hand, Mycroft turned his over so that Greg’s fingers rested in the soft hollow of his palm. Mycroft’s thumb stroked the backs of his knuckles, soothing. “It’s difficult sometimes, knowing that you’re going half a day and more on nothing but station coffee and the occasional sweet.”
“Difficult?” Greg asked stupidly. Mycroft was right: his mind was clouded, dull with shock.
“I fix problems, Greg. I tend to and I mend things. For the country. For Her Majesty. I’m very good at my job. It’s not easy for me to leave things undone when I could do them.” Mycroft let his hand go, then leaned back to finish his scotch. “It would be the work of a moment to see that you were taken care of—but, as you pointed out, people will talk.” He reached across the seat to take up an insulated bag Greg hadn’t seen until just then. “However. This is an emergency. That Yum-Yum restaurant of which you’re so fond was still open when I left London. I expect the chips are soggy by now but you’ve had worse, I’ve seen the travesty for myself. Pulled pork, I think you prefer. Yes?”
“You brought me banh mi in the middle of the night.” Sherlock had the right of it, Greg was master of the obvious at best. He drank his scotch, then set the glass aside in the holder next to Mycroft’s. “In a storm.”
“We had a lunch date.” Mycroft shook out one of his handkerchiefs, then laid it on Greg’s lap. “I am merely keeping it. A gentleman does not neglect his engagements.”
The words were pure Mycroft, prim and precise, but the corner of his mouth quirked and his eyes glittered as he glanced over at Greg while he was unpacking the bag. He was startlingly handsome when he was being mischievous. The observation, the rush of warmth that came with it, and the way his breath caught were warning flares that Greg couldn’t afford to ignore. The shift in Mycroft’s expression and the sudden stillness of his hands spoke to the same awareness on his part.
“People are going to talk,” Greg said again.
“If they have something to discuss, yes,” Mycroft said with the quiet solemnity of a man who had been thinking about this for some time.
It was surreal to have this conversation about avoiding gossip without having had the one that ought to come before to it: the one about there being anything happening between them for people to talk about in the first place. But perhaps words weren’t necessary. Perhaps they had already said everything that needed to be discussed on that matter tonight when Greg had texted Mycroft to tell him what had happened because he had to tell someone and couldn’t imagine telling anyone else, when Mycroft had texted back: I’ll come get you.
“What they don’t see, they can’t use. Trust me.” Mycroft handed him a partially unwrapped banh mi.
“I do.” It was lovely to have someone to say it to. “Thanks for lunch.”
Mycroft’s expression was gentle and yet it made Greg hot under his skin. “Any time, Greg.”
4.
Spring sunlight shimmered through the windows of one of the best rooms the Mandarin Oriental had to offer and lit up the silver in Greg’s hair. He opened the balcony doors, letting in a clean, post-rain breeze.
“Christ, this view. It won’t ever get old, will it?” He stepped out and Mycroft, loathe as he was to move after an exceptional lunch, followed simply for the pleasure of sharing it with him. Spring had come over Hyde Park, wreathing the trees in the the pale green mist of new leaves. The sky was cerulean smudged only with a few last grey rags of clouds trailing the rains that had blown through in the morning.
“I’m fond of it,” Mycroft admitted. “It’s one of London’s fairer faces.” Joining Greg at the balcony rail, he allowed himself the luxury of resting one hand at the small of Greg’s back. “I should let you know that certain parties have been quite pleased with your department’s work lately. That Romanian child smuggling ring was ugly business.”
“Certain parties?” Greg shot him a disbelieving look, but a smile tugged at his mouth. “You don’t say.”
“Well. A certain party,” Mycroft admitted. “Some social engagements or travel arrangements can lead to extended periods of boredom. Occasional tales of heroics go a long way to passing the time.”
“I see.” Greg laughed quietly. “Your brother must provide you with hours of engaging story telling. I’m glad she’s amused.”
“She is. Quite. I don’t just tell her about Sherlock, though.” Mycroft laid his other hand on the railing next to Greg’s and was quite pleased when Greg covered it with his own, almost without hesitation. This close, Greg smelled warm and wonderful. The lines at the corners of his eyes and his long, dark lashes were in perfect focus for Mycroft to admire. “She has her favourites. As do I.”
“Does it show?” Greg leaned into him, just the slightest shift of weight, but it was as emphatic as an embrace. “That you have favourites?”
“It doesn’t do to try hiding things from certain people, though it’s hardly necessary to do so in that case.”
“Not sure what to make of that.” Greg’s cheeks were pink, and it wasn’t just the crisp air. The long muscles of his back were taut under Mycroft’s hand. He was always so intent on things, it was a wonder he didn’t simply snap some days.
“You don’t have to make anything of it. If it bothers you, I’ll stop.” In truth, the privacy of their meetings was ultimately a façade. Certain things would always come to the surface. Mycroft prefered to present them in his own light, in his own time, to his own benefit.
“I’m guessing Herself doesn’t get to watch Corrie much.” Greg chuckled softly. “So long as she’s pleased.”
“Downright smug. She thinks I don’t know she knows.”
Greg laughed outright at that. “Carry on, then. It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Mycroft couldn’t recall having done anything out of the ordinary, nothing that had felt like any kind of task.
“Well, Victoria’s summer internship in Switzerland, for one thing.”
Oh, that. Mycroft had simply pointed Greg to the appropriate website, then asked an associate to look out for the girl’s application once Greg had seen to it that she applied. Nothing untoward there.
“I hear she was well-suited. She deserved it. She’s a bright girl. Whatever I’ve done for you, Greg, it’s made me happy to do.” That came out sounding like something else under the words, and Mycroft didn’t regret it at all.
“You’ve done a great deal, Mycroft.” Greg turned enough to look Mycroft in the eye. “I think you know that.”
“I would do far more in a heartbeat. You need only ask.”
“Well, I’m asking.” Greg’s fingers twined with Mycroft’s on the balcony rail as he leaned in so that Mycroft only had to duck his head to kiss him.
It wasn’t terribly long. It wasn’t dramatic. But it was perfect, a hot but delicate negotiation of lips and teeth and tongues that left Mycroft weak in the knees. After, Greg let his head rest on Mycroft’s shoulder and that was almost better yet. It also made what Mycroft had to say next all the more painful.
“I have to be away.” His voice was thick with emotion, strange to his own ears. He pressed a kiss to Greg’s soft hair. “For some weeks. I am so very sorry.”
“Duty calls.” Greg rubbed his cheek against Mycroft’s shoulder and the sweetness of it was almost unbearable.
“I’m afraid so.” Mycroft had dreaded saying it but hadn’t fathomed the intensity of his own regret. “We’ll have lunch the day I come back.”
“Dinner,” Greg said, with certainty. Then he kissed the curve of Mycroft’s throat, tenderly, like a promise. “Then lunch.”
5.
Dinner. Just like lunch, only after dark. It seemed like a simple enough concept. Greg paid the cab driver, shouldered his overnight bag, then ducked into the back entrance of the Mandarin. They should have done Langhams next, but it had been weeks and they both had a fondness for the view over Hyde Park. A swipe of his key card got him in the door. It had come to him that afternoon in an elegantly plain envelope with Lestrade scrawled across the front.
In the lift, they finally hit him, all the feelings he’d somehow skipped as a teenager. He’d blundered through, cruising on cool and arrogance. Now he was certain there was nothing remarkable about him. He was just a man. A very anxious, nervous man, who hadn’t been intimate with anyone in so long he might as well be back in school with all the insecurities and none of the bluster.
No second thoughts about Mycroft, though. Only himself. He’d missed Mycroft terribly, and it wasn’t just about herding Sherlock and solving murders. Greg had missed his friend. His confidante. His perpetual lunch date.
Mycroft had become—with no warning whatsoever—the sole bright spot in many crushingly miserable days of a dark winter and a grim spring. The weeks without him had worn Greg down to the desperately tired and anxious man reflected in every polished surface around like a ghost that haunted him. As uncertain as he was of what lay ahead, he was soldiering on toward it to see the person he’d missed so much.
The Mandarin was an oasis of old school peace and perfection in a chaotic world. Greg knew he was horribly out of place but the hotel was such that his mere presence justified itself—a tautology, that was the word. It was a place so exclusive that if one was there, one deserved to be there.
The door was familiar. They’d been here before. The last lunch. The first kiss. Greg swiped the card, then opened the door. The lights were up inside, it was pleasantly warm.
“Mycroft?”
“There you are.” Mycroft stepped into view in his shirt sleeves, of all things, and they were rolled to just below his elbows. He was lightly rumpled—there had been some flight delays, he might have been right off the plane—but smiling. “How are—“ Mycroft didn’t get to finish because Greg dropped his bag, stepped forward, and kissed him nearly all at once, as though he’d practiced it.
Minutes later, Greg’s back was against the door, his jacket was on the floor, Mycroft’s shirt tails were out, and they were both breathless.
“That’s how I am,” Greg said unsteadily. Mycroft’s back was silky smooth under his palms.
“Good thing I returned in a timely manner then,” Mycroft said quite seriously. He traced Greg’s lower lip with his thumb. “I hope you don’t mind that I ordered dinner already.”
“Not at all.” It was a sharp relief, to have things taken care of this way.
“You were at work today.” A statement, not an accusation. It was where the envelope had been delivered. Mycroft’s brows drew together with concern. “On a Saturday.”
“No rest for the wicked. So no rest for me.” Greg exhaled slowly. “I feel better already, though.”
“Come have a drink, I’ll tell them to bring dinner.” Mycroft caught one of Greg’s hands in his and drew him along. “I’ll collect your things.”
“You do that?” Greg couldn’t help teasing. “Mycroft Holmes tidies up?”
“That is a secret not to be divulged,” Mycroft scolded. His eyes were bright with that mischief again. Greg wondered how many people ever got to see it. “Not even to Herself. She thinks particularly well of me, you know.”
“How could she not?” Greg let Mycroft seat him on a chaise that probably cost more than his flat and pour him a glass of wine. The evening was cool, the balcony doors were open wide, and a small fire burned on the hearth to keep the room temperate. It was exceptionally comforting. “Good trip?”
“Atrocious. Even if I could discuss it, I wouldn’t want to. The company was insipid at best.” Mycroft handed Greg the wine. The low light cast by the antique lamps brought out the creases in his shirt, especially the way it buckled and sagged where it was half out of his trousers, and the details of his body such as the fine hair on his pale forearms and the veins on the inside of his wrist when he held out the glass of wine. “Your absence was truly notable,” Mycroft said solemnly. “To a startling extent.”
“Yours, too.” Greg took the wine, sternly and silently ordering his hand to stay steady and his mind to stay on track.
“It’ll be only minutes to dinner.” Mycroft stepped away to do as he’d promised, calling for dinner before getting to collecting Greg’s things. He hung the jacket up in the closet, then carried the bag to the bedroom. His voice drifted out and Greg basked in it more than he listened to the words. “I returned to some excitable emails from Sherlock. You’ll have to tell me all about it. He was almost complimentary regarding your contributions.”
“I believe his words to me were something like ‘not an entirely iredeemable idiot’,” Greg offered. “I was touched. I should have let you push him back in the Thames this winter.”
“I’ve known Sherlock his entire life, I believe that’s better than he’s spoken of me where I could hear it.” Mycroft returned and collected his own wine. The smile he gave Greg was nothing short of affectionate. “He’s finally managed to deduce what I knew shortly after we first met,” he said, as he setted down next to Greg and stretched one arm across the back of the chaise.
“What’s that?” Greg was genuinely curious.
“That you’re not a man to be underestimated or underappreciated. You often are, and you leverage as best you can, but it’s still a crime.” Mycroft brushed the backs of his knuckles against Greg’s jaw. “I was considering some plans for tomorrow, but now that I see you, I think not.”
“No?” Greg turned just enough to breathe a kiss against Mycroft’s skin. “Why not?”
“I think a lie-in is in order. Doubt you’ve had a proper one in years, if ever.” Mycroft’s expression was thoroughly pensive, his eyes were as piercing as Sherlock’s when he turned his full attention to something. Greg had never been so aware of being on the receiving end of that Holmes stare. It was paradoxically arousing and intimidating at once. “So I believe we ought to stay in bed.”
We. In bed. The cascade of events that would lead to them being in bed—together—in the morning was clear enough. Aside from the impulsive moment in which he’d insisted on dinner and not lunch, Greg had actually tried very hard not to dwell on all that. Not until it arrived.
Greg let his hand rest on Mycroft’s thigh, absorbing the heat of lean muscle under fine wool and linen. If he’d let himself dwell on it, he might have thought of nothing else. Now, he met Mycroft’s scrutiny willingly, knowing that everything he wanted was naked on his face and in his eyes.
“I’m happy to yield to your greater wisdom on this,” he said, and saw Mycroft parse the unspoken meaning of things hidden in his words. Mycroft gave him the ghost of a smile, then kissed him, slowly and with great purpose.
“I cannot imagine hearing anything more welcome,” Mycroft murmured against his lips.
The morning sun poured in and drenched them both in heat. Greg had been awake, or half-awake and drowsing, for as long as it had taken the leading edge of the sun to move from the crease of Mycroft’s elbow to the freckle some three fingerwidths above it. His observations were spoiled when Mycroft moved to run his hand over Greg’s hair.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping. It can’t be more than half-six,” Mycroft murmured.
“Last bells said it was ten.” Ten on a Sunday morning. The only time Greg was asleep at this hour was if he’d just gone to bed at sunrise. His shoulder creaked as he pushed himself up on one elbow to see Mycroft’s face. The sheets were rucked up and wound around them like restless white water. Thoroughly rumpled, and with damn good reason. “If you’re jet-lagged, I can let you sleep.”
“It’s half-six somewhere,” Mycroft said, laughing quietly. He threw an arm up to block the sun, then cracked an eye to look back at Greg. “You look positively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Greg slid closer to let Mycroft feel him hard against the cool curve of Mycroft’s hip. “Or is that some upper-crust euphemism that never filtered down to lads like me?”
Now Mycroft was laughing outright. “Yes, that’s precisely what we used to say in school.” Reaching out, he caught Greg by the nape of the neck—those elegant fingers were also incredibly strong—and drew him in for a kiss. His other hand found Greg’s hip as he turned to press the length of his body against Greg’s.
“When you said lie-in, you just meant we had to be in bed, yes? So I’m clear,” Greg asked between kisses.
“In bed, yes.” Mycroft pressed Greg onto his back and rolled up over him. He was flushed and his hair was in disarray and his lips were red from kissing Greg so much in the last twelve hours, among other things. “Until at least twelve.”
“And then lunch?” Greg ran his hands up the silken landscape of Mycroft’s pale back, his fingertips rising and falling over each vertebra. Mycroft got a knee between his thighs, then he kissed Greg breathless.
“Yes,” Mycroft murmured. “And then lunch.”