Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Sir, you might want to see this.”

Mycroft hadn't even taken his overcoat off yet, but his PA was already behind her desk and working, looking for all the world like a permanent fixture despite the early hour.

He lifted a questioning eyebrow as she slid a folder across her desk to him. It was discreetly marked with a reference number that he immediately recognised. 

“An urgent matter?”

“Perhaps a matter of… interest, sir.”

That was annoyingly cryptic. His first instinct was a certain level of alarm, but the laughing look in his PA’s eyes told a different story. Not a matter of danger, then, but unsettling nonetheless. He narrowed his eyes at the smirk she was barely repressing, and carried the folder off into his office without opening it.

Mycroft first forced himself to go through his usual morning rituals, carefully hanging up his outerwear and settling in with a cup of tea to check his priority emails, before he finally allowed himself to turn his attention to the folder. 

He tapped the reference number thoughtfully. Certainly, he maintained an appropriate level of routine surveillance over Detective Inspector Lestrade, given the significant role that individual played in Sherlock's life. It was highly unusual, however, for something to have happened that was of such import that his PA would draw his attention to it first thing rather than allow him to review the daily briefing on Lestrade at his leisure. 

Well, there was only one way to find out what this was about. 

Mycroft took a careful sip of his tea and placed it precisely back in its saucer, arranged his face into a suitably serious frown, and flipped the folder open.

It contained only three black-and-white CCTV stills, time-stamped to the night before and cross-indexed to the full recordings he knew would be waiting in the daily briefing for him. They showed what was clearly the detective inspector, sitting at the bar of some kind of nightlife establishment, leaning towards an unfamiliar pretty woman seated to his right and smiling at her. 

In the third and final still, his fingers were resting on her knee. 

Mycroft frowned more deeply. Why had this merited his particular attention? The detective inspector was a single man, and well-enough known to seek female companionship on occasion. All perfectly natural and none of Mycroft’s business, of course, unless the liaison was with someone of a concerning nature from a security perspective. 

He went back to the beginning to look at each still shot more carefully. He flipped to the second image and froze, suddenly noticing something that had escaped his attention on the first pass - stupid - as his eye had been distracted by the detective inspector’s rogueish smile.

The woman’s left hand was lifted to bring her drink to her mouth, and there, on her fourth proximal digit, was the unmistakable shape of a wedding ring.

Mycroft's eyes widened.

Well, that’s… unexpected.

If Mycroft knew one thing about the detective inspector's personal life, it was that he loathed infidelity. The details of the recent disintegration of his marriage had been all too obvious, and Mycroft knew him to be a man of strong moral principle. 

In short, Lestrade would never involve himself with a married woman. 

Would he?

It made no sense. Mycroft did not like things that made no sense.

Indeed, the anomaly sat so spikily in his psyche that he pulled up the full briefing right away, rather than at its allotted time at mid-afternoon, and tried not to imagine the look this would surely produce on his PA’s face.

He forwarded the CCTV footage to a couple of minutes before the time-stamp of the first still image. There was the detective inspector, alone at the bar, looking singularly handsome - irrelevant – and sipping at a lowball glass of dark liquor. 

Mycroft cursed the middling film quality and lack of colour, intent on absorbing as many details as possible – purely for analytical purposes, of course. 

He watched as the woman from the stills approached and began speaking to Lestrade. There was no audio and the angle was bad for lip-reading, but it was obvious that she was introducing herself; not a date, then, but a chance encounter. 

The woman sat at Lestrade’s invitation and he motioned to the bartender to bring her a drink. The woman nervously turned her ring, unmistakably drawing Lestrade's attention to it, but he didn't seem perturbed by it at all. Instead, he looked appraisingly at her and then at something she was indicating off-screen, and gave her the self-same distracting smile that had been captured on the second still. 

After a few more moments of clearly flirtatious chat, Lestrade laughed at something she said and brought his hand up to rest lightly on her knee.

Mycroft felt his frown deepening. He couldn't make sense of what he was watching; Lestrade had clearly noticed that she was married, and hadn't even flinched. 

Something in Mycroft’s stomach started to feel heavy as he watched Lestrade run his fingers up the woman’s leg. Ridiculous. So Lestrade was something of a philanderer - so what? Perhaps the man was just drunk, although… he did not appear unsteady. In any case, this clearly had nothing to do with security concerns, meaning Mycroft didn't need to watch another moment of–

Just then, a tall, attractive man walked into frame and put his arm unhesitatingly around the woman’s shoulders.

This time, Mycroft spotted the ring right away. 

What on earth…?

The man, clearly the woman's husband, had no visible reaction to the fact that Lestrade’s hand was on his wife's leg, and Lestrade made no move to retrieve it. Instead, the man put his free hand on Lestrade's shoulder and leaned in close to speak directly into his ear. 

Mycroft watched with dawning realization as Lestrade dipped his head bashfully and shot the man that same charming smile.

Oh. Oh.

But this wasn’t– this couldn't–

This hadn't been in his file. He hadn't missed this. He couldn't have.

And yet, as Mycroft’s lying eyes stayed fixed on his laptop screen, Lestrade inexplicably, unbelievably, indulged in another drink with the couple, then another, laughing and touching them both, as the time on the footage ticked onward and onward. 

In the end, the grainy, miniature Lestrade stood up and made to leave, with his arm around the woman’s waist and the other man’s hand splayed unmistakably across the small of his back, moving up and out of the range of the camera.

The view switched to an exterior shot, but Mycroft couldn’t watch any more; an uncomfortable heat had arisen in his face, and he felt irrationally like he was doing something wrong by watching this at work.

He shut the lid of his laptop carefully, his fingers twitching at its closed shell.

Mycroft Holmes hated not knowing things. This… subject was one he had continuously surveilled for years, and yet, somehow, he had failed to register a major piece of information about him. That was unacceptable. It was unforgivable. It was…

It was totally inadequate as an explanation for the shiver that gripped him. 

Mycroft forced himself to breathe deeply and concentrate instead on mentally assimilating the new information those interminable minutes of CCTV footage had brought him. He then reached over to touch the intercom to his PA and instructed her, cold and impassive, not to waste his time with such irrelevant matters again. 

“Yes, sir,” she dutifully replied, but he fancied that her voice held a trace of reproach.

***

It was only after several hours of fitful sleeplessness that night, turning restlessly in his large and empty bed, that Mycroft finally admitted defeat.

He slunk through the dark hallways to his home office, wrapped tightly in his housecoat and suffused with self-reproach, and keyed open his laptop.

The footage file helpfully re-opened to where he had last left off watching it, showing the dimly lit exterior of the bar. The light of the laptop screen flickered across Mycroft’s face in the darkness as he watched three subjects exit onto the street, all rather visibly tipsy. 

The unidentified male fumbled with his mobile, presumably summoning a rideshare of some description. While he did so, Lestrade and the female subject occupied themselves with what could only be described as an enthusiastic snog. 

This was nothing particularly novel to Mycroft, who at this point had been keeping a steady eye on Lestrade for years. He considered himself long-since desensitised to amorous displays by the detective inspector – not that there was any particular reason for him to have been sensitive to them in the first place. 

After all, Mycroft had decades of experience in holding himself apart from the base whims of the general population. 

It was merely a fact that the subjects of his surveillance sometimes engaged in such behaviour; one fact among many, to be dispassionately considered and assigned its appropriate relevance in the greater scheme of things. 

Thus, Mycroft’s reaction to such events was appropriately muted and controlled, even when they involved annoyingly dark-eyed detective inspectors. 

Even when one such detective inspector was turning away from his female companion and sliding his arms instead around her husband. Even when he was tipping his face up towards the taller man, even when he was unhesitatingly opening his mouth to him. 

Even when he was providing Mycroft with the final proof that he had been foolish, so foolish, in his assumptions.

There was therefore no reason, none at all, for Mycroft's hands to tremble finely where they clutched his housecoat closed as he watched Detective Inspector Lestrade get into a car with the attractive couple and disappear into the night.

Mycroft stopped the playback and rubbed his hands briefly over his face before clicking over to the concise report that accompanied it. The report noted that Lestrade had travelled with the couple to a mid-range flat in Hammersmith, and had remained there until the very early hours of the following day. He had returned home only a few short hours before the stills had landed in Mycroft’s hands that very morning.

Mycroft went back to bed and tried very, very hard not to think about what might have transpired in that flat. It was, after all, wholly irrelevant, as Lestrade had returned home safely and without incident. 

And yet.

Behind his closed eyelids, there played and replayed the impossible image of Gregory Lestrade in the arms of a taller man, turning his face up eagerly to kiss him.

***

For the next several days, Mycroft opened his daily briefing on Detective Inspector Lestrade with a sense of trepidation that was frustratingly difficult to repress. But day after day, none of Lestrade's communications or actions indicated that he had contacted either member of the couple again. By the third week, it seemed likely that he had no intention of ever doing so. 

Still, the unwelcome sensations in Mycroft's abdomen persisted, and they angered him. He was distracted and irascible, snapping at his staff and making amateurish errors in his work. It was intolerable.

And now, he even found himself irritated by the oppressive silence of the Diogenes, which had always previously soothed him in times of mental turmoil. 

Mycroft rested his steepled fingers against his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. He had undertaken a thorough review of his background information on Lestrade, to see what he had missed. 

He hadn't missed anything. 

There was nothing in the files that suggested the detective inspector had previously engaged in any kind of homosexual contact. 

But that simply did not square with what the CCTV had captured. Mycroft had reviewed it several times, and it didn't seem to show a man who was unsure or inexperienced. All of Lestrade’s behaviour was that of someone who was comfortable with himself and his actions.

Someone who knew what he was doing when it came to sexual encounters with men.

Mycroft lifted the tumbler of fine whiskey at his elbow, hardly tasting it. He couldn't continue like this. He simply needed more data. 

And that was why, on this rainy Friday evening, he was waiting for the detective inspector to be brought to him. It was rare but not unheard of for them to meet at the Diogenes, on those occasions when he had instructions for Lestrade that were best discussed in person, so he anticipated minimal pushback against the summons.

By the time the porter was tapping softly at the door, Mycroft was readied and composed, lounging in his armchair with a carefully arranged newspaper and air of insouciance. His expression barely flickered as the door opened to admit the person whose damnable unpredictability had recently been ruining Mycroft's life. 

“Detective Inspector,” he greeted from behind the newspaper. His voice was dry and steady. “How kind of you to join me.” 

“Didn't seem like I had much choice, to be honest,” Lestrade replied. “Has something urgent come up…?”

Only then did Mycroft slowly lower the newspaper, fold it, and place it aside. His gaze travelled across Lestrade’s person, collecting and analyzing bits of information at lightning speed. He was disappointed but unsurprised to find nothing of particular interest. There were no signs on the good inspector's face of stubble burn from being roughly kissed, no scent of unfamiliar cologne from a masculine body being pressed against his own… but of course there wouldn't be. It had been weeks ago.

Instead, Lestrade was merely looking rumpled and doubtful, having just been unceremoniously abducted on his way home at the end of a long workday.

Mycroft magnanimously waved at him to take the armchair opposite, and stood to pour his guest a drink and refresh his own glass. 

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” he replied. “Eighteen year-old Lagavulin. Best enjoyed slowly.”

Lestrade took the cut-crystal tumbler from Mycroft and eyed its amber depths speculatively.

“S’this meant to be an apology for interrupting my Friday evening plans?”

Mycroft’s eyes darted to meet the inspector’s. “I suppose that depends,” he said, rather more sharply than he’d intended. “Were these plans of more interest than enjoying an excellent drink with an old…” He groped for the right word. “...Colleague?” 

“Colleague?” Lestrade smirked. “F’you say so. And I’ll have you know that the ready meal currently languishing in my freezer is no less than Sainsbury’s finest.” He took a sip of the Lagavulin. “Oh, bugger me,” he moaned. Mycroft choked discreetly on his drink. “Never mind, that’s miles better than frozen cottage pie. Cheers.”  

He hoisted his glass in Mycroft’s direction and took another sip, rolling it around in his mouth.

It was… distracting.

Mycroft took his own sip, giving himself a moment to tighten the reins on his composure before speaking again. 

“To answer your question: no, nothing particularly urgent has arisen. However, I did wish to discuss a matter with you that has been occupying my thoughts of late.”

“Could’ve just rung me up like a normal person if you wanted a drink and a chin-wag, you know.”

“Could I? How gratifying.”

Lestrade's lips quirked up, as though Mycroft was being amusing. 

“So, what’d you want to talk about?”

Mycroft put on a concerned frown. “It won’t surprise you to learn that it concerns my brother.”

“It usually does,” Lestrade agreed. “What’s he done this time? Need me to stage another drugs raid?”

“No, it’s nothing self-destructive, for once. Quite the opposite, actually. What do you think of his relationship with Doctor Watson?”

Lestrade took this question on board, looking surprised. “Yeah, no, John’s been good for him. Really good. Steadying, like.”

“Mmm.”

“But that’s nothing new. Why’s this bothering you now? Has something happened between them?”

“No… not yet.”

Lestrade turned his face a little and peered at Mycroft out of the side of his eye, as though slightly suspicious. 

“Meaning… what, exactly?”

“I think the possibility exists,” he began, carefully, “of their relationship… evolving.”

“Evolving.”

“Yes.”

Lestrade grinned the grin of the incorrigible. “You mean they might shag?”

Mycroft’s face crumpled in distaste. “I’d rather not put it quite like–  but, yes, in essence, I believe such a development may come about in their relationship. In fact, I rather hope that it does. I suspect it might steady Sherlock even to the point of becoming a near-functional adult.” 

It was true– Mycroft did suspect the possibility, and was greatly in its favour. It was beyond argument that Sherlock and his doctor were emotionally co-dependent, which was, for whatever inscrutable reason, a steadying influence on them both. If his brother was already all-in on this ‘caring’ lark, the relationship may as well have as solid a foundation as possible. 

And in any case, it always pleased Mycroft to kill two birds with one stone. He was nothing if not efficient.

“I think you might be right about that,” Lestrade nodded slowly. “Wouldn’t that be something, ay?”

“Indeed.”

“So, what, you’re considering giving them a little nudge, as it were? What d’you think it’d take?”

Mycroft smiled to himself. It pleased him when things followed the track he’d predicted, which was most always.

“My brother will never make a move,” Mycroft averred. “He simply doesn’t have the life experience or emotional intelligence to take that kind of risk. It’ll have to be Doctor Watson who gets up the courage. But the good doctor has… other impediments.” 

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, watching for Lestrade’s reaction. The inspector was scratching at his silvery five-o’clock shadow and seemed to be considering Mycroft’s words carefully.

“He is pretty emphatic about not being gay, which I assume is what you’re getting at. But you think it’s possible?”

“The nature of his attachment to my brother does seem to suggest that he is capable of homo-romantic feeling.” Time to tread carefully. “And, of course, one may experience same-sex attraction without being gay.”

Lestrade was staring into the dregs of his whiskey. 

“You think John’s a closeted bisexual.”

Mycroft reached casually to the table at his side and lifted the decanter. “May I offer you a refill?”

Lestrade silently held his glass out and let Mycroft pour him another two fingers. He took a healthy swig and paused for several moments before finally speaking again.

“Why’d you want to talk to me about this, in particular?” It was delivered with impressive steadiness. “Seems like you’ve got it all pretty well worked out.”

Mycroft folded his hands in his lap and mustered up his most innocent smile. “You are John’s closest friend after Sherlock, are you not?” 

Lestrade shrugged.

“Perhaps you could speak to him,” Mycroft suggested casually. “After all, you seem singularly well-placed to… deliver the little nudge, as it were.”

The lights in Mycroft’s clubroom were quite low, as befit the evening atmosphere, but he was watching Lestrade closely enough to make out the faint colour rising high on his cheekbones. The inspector was staring into his glass again.

“Mycroft, you– If this is– I mean, I know you know everything about everything, but–” 

Not everything, no. Not yet.

Lestrade gave up on his sentence and stared at Mycroft with a plea in his eyes, large and dark.

Mycroft held his gaze and passed his tongue across his teeth behind his closed lips, preparing to play his next card.

“I would speak to Doctor Watson myself, of course, if I thought he would listen to me– having, as I do, a certain familiarity with the underlying issues.”

Lestrade started backwards, as though struck by the words. “Er… how’s that, exactly?”

Mycroft uncrossed his legs and re-crossed them in the other direction, watching Lestrade’s eyes follow the motion. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his knee as he formulated his response.

“Did you know, Lestrade,” he asked in a conversational tone, “that being openly gay was a sackable offence in the security services until only a couple of decades ago?”

Lestrade visibly swallowed. “Yeah, erm, yeah, I remember hearing about that. Remember when it… changed.”

“Mmm. A trying time, to be sure. Well,” he smiled, getting to his feet, “this has been a most illuminating evening.” 

Lestrade followed his lead and stood as well, understanding that he was being dismissed. “Right. Yeah.” He shook the offered hand. “Thanks for the whiskey.” 

Mycroft held the handshake just a touch too long, and the eye contact along with it. “Do keep me updated on your progress,” he murmured, sliding his fingers over Lestrade’s wrist as he finally withdrew his hand. “Goodbye, Detective Inspector.”

Lestrade bobbed in a kind of awkward bow, looked momentarily aghast at himself, and hurried out the door. As soon as it clicked shut behind him, Mycroft dropped his self-assured pose and sagged back into his armchair. 

He needed another drink.

Chapter Text

Saturday was supermarket day, and Greg and his trolley were trudging through the aisles of his local Tesco Express with even less enthusiasm than usual. 

An endless row of bright yellow signs stuck out at right angles from the aisle, one after the other, stretching into the distance. £3, they informed him. £3, £3, £3. Their steady progression was almost hypnotic. He wandered past them on autopilot, plucking things at random from the shelves.

The trouble was that his thoughts kept drifting back to his incredibly strange meeting with Mycroft the night before. He'd already turned it over and over in his mind in the hours since, but he couldn't seem to reach a conclusion that would allow him to move past it for more than a few minutes together.

For one thing, he was fairly certain Mycroft had come out to him. This was something of a shock, not because it was surprising in itself – he'd always had his private suspicions – but because that man had to be one of the most emotionally locked-down, aggressively private blokes Greg had ever encountered. If Mycroft was capable of any kind of attraction to other people, he had always kept it very much under wraps. The fact that he was apparently gay just made the matter all the more sensitive. For him to disclose it unprompted, to Greg of all people, he must have had an unusually powerful motivation.

Greg didn't know what that motivation was, but it worried him. Based on their conversation, he thought it probably had something to do with Sherlock. That would make sense in the bigger picture as well; Mycroft’s only weak spot seemed to be his brother, and anyway, Sherlock was the only topic Mycroft ever connected with Greg on.

That last bit rather stuck in Greg’s craw. It wasn't for lack of trying on his part that they didn't know each other better. There was something magnetic about the elder Holmes, about the quiet enigma of his genius and the fragile nobility of his manner. There had also been moments here and there over the years when Greg had fancied he’d gotten a peek behind the cold façade, where he had glimpsed a lonely man who lived to protect the people he cared about. It was painfully relatable. And so, Greg had thought: perhaps we could get to know one another a little better. Perhaps we could be friends. 

He threw a bunch of special offer bananas into his trolley with slightly more force than necessary. 

It hadn't happened. Mycroft had deftly and decisively shut down every one of Greg’s attempts to socialise with him, no matter how subtle. The rejection stung, more than Greg had expected. But it hadn't smothered the spark of his curiosity and attraction.

And that was the other problem, wasn't it? 

Greg had always privately worried that Mycroft had picked up on that aspect of his interest – it seemed like nothing got past that geezer – and that it was part of the reason he held Greg so determinedly at arm’s length. 

And sure enough, he did seem to know that Greg sometimes went in for the other side. He’d never made any reference to it before last night, but Greg supposed he was just keeping it in reserve. It had almost seemed like an implied threat, meant to bend Greg to his will about approaching John– until, that is, Mycroft had taken the power out of it by sharing his own deeply private revelation with Greg. Mutually assured destruction, as it were. And in any case, why would Greg have needed to be strong-armed into helping his friends?

He found himself back where he had started – still clueless as to why Mycroft had done or said any of it. His head hurt from trying to untangle it all. 

Bloody Holmeses. 

Greg shook himself out of his reverie and realised he had been staring unseeingly for some time at a wall of identical green bottles of fairy liquid. An elderly woman a few feet away was giving him a sour look, probably wondering whether he was on drugs. 

He sighed. Whatever random items had made it into his trolley would have to do, because he suddenly found that he couldn't stand another minute of the lights and noise of the supermarket. 

Fortunately, his flat was just up the road, and it was only a few minutes later that he was dumping his shopping onto his kitchen table. He put the milk into the fridge and promptly abandoned the rest in favour of hunting up some paracetamol. 

It was barely noon, but his headache had gotten bad enough that he found himself crawling back into bed. He'd slept poorly the night before, and, on reflection, he had drunk rather a lot of Mycroft's unbearably posh whiskey. 

Greg smiled quietly to himself at the memory of Mycroft's pride in the quality of the drink. He was an uptight bastard, but he obviously had a hedonistic bent– a love of sensory pleasures, flipside to his cold life of the mind. Greg had noticed his affinity for fine food and drink, the expensive and colourful fabrics he wore, his variety of delicious colognes. He probably secretly loves to be touched… 

As the paracetamol slowly kicked in and he started to drift, Greg allowed himself to indulge in some of his favourite forbidden thoughts. 

He began by remembering the cologne Mycroft had worn last night, one of Greg's favourites, and imagined smelling it directly at its source on Mycroft’s neck. The delicious spicy-sweetness of the cologne would be warmest there, mingling intimately with the scent of Mycroft's own body. Greg imagined running his mouth down the soft skin of that graceful neck, tasting it gently at the pulse point. What kind of noises might that inspire? 

Greg felt a wave of goosebumps run down his body as his brain suddenly connected some important dots. 

He’s gay. 

He's probably had that very thing done to him by another man. 

He would have enjoyed it. Gotten off on it.

Oh, Christ.

This realization made Greg's secret little fantasies more excitingly real, knowing they were something that might have actually happened. Some man, at some time, had surely run his mouth over Mycroft's bare skin. Had brought Mycroft to ecstasy under his hands. Had… well, the possibilities were endless, weren't they? 

Greg wondered with a groan whether Mycroft had ever been fucked. Whether he liked it. 

He snuck a hand under the duvet and palmed himself speculatively over his boxer briefs. Surely it wouldn't hurt to… just a little bit. It wasn't like he was getting his hopes up about anything ever happening. Just a little stress relief. And what Mycroft didn't know couldn't hurt him. 

He shut his eyes and tried to picture the graceful sweep of Mycroft’s nude back as he lay stretched out on his front, imagined what it would feel like to run his hands down the sides of that slim torso, over the swell of his backside. 

Greg shoved his hand properly under his pants and wrapped it fully around himself as he imagined slowly sinking into him, making him cry out and lose his composure. 

God, how delicious would that be? 

I bet not many people have ever seen him really let loose… just wild and shameless… I bet it's incredible.  

That thought really did it for him, and it only took a few moments of sustained fantasizing and accelerating strokes until he was convulsing gently under his hand. 

The chemical relief that swept through his body in the immediate aftermath was almost as good as the pleasure had been, and did more for his headache than the paracetamol could have hoped to. He wiped his hand off cursorily on his pants and relaxed back onto his pillow to rest his eyes. 

Just… for a moment.

***

Greg awoke from his impromptu nap with a jolt. He’d accidentally left his mobile on full volume, and the ding of a text message notification had been more than enough to rouse him. He grabbed blearily at the thing to see what was so bloody important.

“What the fuck,” Greg whispered to himself, and considered just going back to sleep. The mobile dinged demandingly again. 

The typing indicator dots danced and disappeared a few times. It was several moments before the next reply came through.

Despite a flash of annoyance, he knew Mycroft wasn't likely to let up until he got what he wanted. So, Greg decided there was no time like the present. 

There, couldn't ask better than that, Greg thought, and went promptly back to sleep.

***

Greg’s local pub was loud and crowded, as was to be expected on a Saturday evening. Although it was still relatively early, some of the patrons were already well into their cups.

Greg had decided to wait outside for John, where he could smoke in peace and consider just what in hell he was going to say. 

He supposed he wasn't going to get around this without at least hinting at his own… whatever. Preferences. Anyway, it wasn't really a secret, just more of a need-to-know basis sort of thing. And it didn't happen to be something that most people needed to know. 

He was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of his name.

“Alright, John?” He dropped the end of his fag and crushed it under his toe, and clapped John on the shoulder in greeting. 

He could feel the doctor’s disapproval radiating off him at the sight of the cigarette, but John knew better than to take a run at him about it by now. 

“Yeah, fine,” John just said instead. He was looking tired. “Long week.”

“No offense, but you look like you could really use one. Come along.”

They pushed their way into the crowded pub and found a spot at the end of the bar while they waited for a table to open up. Fortunately, the bartender knew Greg as a regular, and despite the crush it didn't take too long for them each to get a lager in their hand. 

Greg started off with some light small talk as they sipped their first pints, making the usual chat about work (up to my bollocks in paperwork all week) and football (did you see that ludicrous display last night?)

By the time they'd started on a second round, a man stood to leave from a nearby table in a little alcove and Greg jumped at the chance to grab it. As he elbowed his way towards it, the man stumbled drunkenly into him. “Easy, mate,” Greg muttered impatiently, having spilled some of his drink over his hand. The man mumbled an apology and staggered off.

“Bit of a shit show in here tonight,” he shouted at John over the din. “Least we found a table.”

In a stroke of luck, the alcove, besides creating its own little shelter, was also a decent ways away from the busiest part of the bar. Between these two things, the racket of the pub was lowered a bit to where they could speak relatively normally and still hear each other.

“Still quieter than the flat at two in the morning yesterday,” John joked. 

Greg seized the opportunity to shift the conversation in a helpful direction.

“His lordship keeping you up half the night again? What was it this time, explosions? Cruel and unusual torture of a violin?”

“He was comparing recordings of a million different types of animal noises. Shrieks, howls, caterwauling. All sorts. Full volume, of course. Claimed it had something to do with identifying a mysterious, quote, ‘marauding beast’ that’s been showing up in the garden of one of his clients every night.”

“Does he ever take a day off?”

John laughed mirthlessly. “Not sure he'd know how.”

“Still,” Greg tried tentatively, “seems like you manage it all right.”

“What, being woken up in the middle of the night by a fox scream coming from my kitchen? Sounded like someone was being bloody murdered.”

“I mean Sherlock, in general. You're the only one who could stand to be his flatmate, I think.” 

“Yeah,” John snorted. “And what does that say about me, I wonder?”

“Still, it can't be all bad,” Greg pressed, “seein’ as you’re still sticking it out.”

John drank deeply from his lager. “No,” he conceded. “Not all bad. Not by a long shot.”

Greg had been a copper for ages, and he knew when to keep mum and let the suspect fill the silence.

“It's just,” John eventually continued, “he's fucking brilliant, isn't he? Don't think I'll ever get tired of watching his mind work.” He paused to finish his drink. “And… well, you know. Life with Sherlock is never boring. Makes me feel… yeah. Alive. Like life's worth living.”

Greg just stared at him with raised eyebrows.

“What? What's that bloody look for?”

“Nothing, mate. Nothing at all.”

“Don't you start, Lestrade. It's not like that, and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean? For the last time, I am not gay.”

“Didn't say you were,” Greg shrugged. “Wouldn't need to be, though, would you?”

“Sorry, what would you know about it, exactly?”

Greg just shrugged again, his courage abandoning him, but he could feel his face heat.

“Greg?” 

“Yeah, mate. Listen, I just… I think I get where you're coming from, that's all.”

“Need another,” John mumbled, and abruptly stood to go fetch them fresh pints.

When he returned, they both drank in silence for a while. Greg was grateful to have the alcohol help loosen his tongue a bit, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to press on.

“Have I ever told you,” Greg eventually started, “about my girlfriend at uni? Tanya?”

“Mm, no? Don't think you have,” John replied with a note of caution in his voice, clearly unsure of where this was going.

“Great bird. Smart, fit, funny.” God, he hadn't thought of Tanya in years. “I bollocksed it all up, in the end, though. Started falling for her mate.” 

John made a sympathetic noise. “Tough one, that.”

“Mmm. Eventually it just felt wrong to keep seeing her while secretly having feelings for someone else. You know?”

“Yeah,” John sighed. “Been there.”

“I didn't want to hurt her, but you can't exactly choose who you catch feelings for.”

“Listen, Greg, I get that, but it's apples and oranges. Just because you fell for some other girl…”

“Her mate’s name was Adrian,” Greg told his beer. His stomach was curling in on itself unpleasantly. When he finally looked up again, John was staring at him unblinkingly. “Yeah. Alright? Like I said, I might just know where you're coming from.”

John cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Sorry, I didn't know. I didn't mean– you know my sister is–”

“Yeah, John, I know. S’fine. It's not something I go around shouting from the rooftops. I'm just trying to say, if there's, y’know, anything you ever wanted to talk about…” He drew a breath and tried to think of how to say this. “I see how Sherlock makes you feel, mate. And I gotta say, it goes the other way round, too. I know that look, okay? So, all I'm sayin’ is, if you do ever think it might go somewhere, I think it could be… good for you. Both of you.”

John looked a bit shell-shocked by this speech. He opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a couple of times, then put his face in his hands and drew a deep breath. Greg just sipped at his pint, giving John a chance to collect himself.

After a moment, John dropped his hands and stared off into a corner of the room, face red, scratching nervously at his neck. “So…” he began, and cut off with a swallow.

“Hmm?”

“This Adrian, did you and he…? No, sorry, that's… not actually any of my business.”

Greg huffed a slightly embarrassed laugh. “Nah, s’fine. You can ask whatever you want. I'm not actually that interesting. We did, erm, see each other for a bit, but we couldn't really… had to be quiet about it, y’know, various reasons. Ended up just being too hard to deal with.” 

“So did you just stick with women after that?”

Greg rubbed at the side of his nose. “Er… well, not strictly, but yeah, I kept my actual relationships to women. Wasn't really up for anything public. It was the 90s, y'know? And I was just starting up with the Yard, and… yeah. It was just easier. Shit, I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually told anyone all this. I hope you appreciate it, you wanker.”

John finally cracked half a smile at that. “I do, actually,” he said quietly.  “And… now? I mean, you're a free man again, it's not the 90s any longer… Jesus, tell me to fuck off if you want. I just…” John shrugged awkwardly.

You just want to know whether it's something you could have for yourself, Greg thought. I get it. Sometimes I wonder the same thing.

“Nah, s’all fine,” he said, in what he hoped was a casual and jokey tone. To his surprise, he realised he was starting to enjoy being able to talk to someone about this. “To be honest, since the divorce there's only been… okay listen, don't judge me, alright?”

“Christ, Greg, what the hell did you do?”

Greg chuckled. “If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you. In my defense, I may be slightly drunk. But. A few weeks ago, I possibly… pulled a couple at a bar?”

John just looked at him blankly, and maybe a little hazily. “A couple what?”

“No, as in, a couple. Husband and wife.”

“Sorry,” John said entirely too loudly, “are you telling me you had a devil's threesome?”

“Could you keep your voice down, please," Greg hissed. "Never heard it called that, but, I guess so?”

“Jesus, Greg,” John said in an awed but blessedly lower voice, “You dog. Never would’ve guessed you were that… fun.”

“Yeah, cheers,” he replied sarcastically. “I don't make a habit of it, alright? It just… happened. Offer fell in my lap I couldn't resist. Sorry,” he giggled, “didn't mean it that way. Although…”

They tittered drunkenly together, and Greg felt a strange but pleasant lightness in his chest. 

John gave him a matey grin. “So, was it….?”

Greg felt himself flush. “Ah, well, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, but a good time was had by all, n’ we’ll leave it at that. But, yeah, that was the first time in… god, years.”

John started fiddling with his coaster, tearing little bits off it. “So, things being what they are now, d’you think you'd consider, y'know, having a proper relationship with a bloke? If someone were to catch your eye?” 

Greg suddenly thought of his pleasant little wank from earlier that day, and he must have done a shit job of keeping it off his face because John’s eyes immediately widened. 

“Holy shit, is there someone?”

“Okay, now I'll ask you to fuck off. How did this become about me, anyway? You're the one who's in love with his flatmate,” he teased. The redirection worked easily.

“Oi! Enough of that,” John exclaimed indignantly, but Greg caught a hint of bashfulness in it. “I'd have to be mad. Did I tell you he came home covered in pig’s blood last week? Mrs. Hudson nearly had a fit…”

Greg let him change the subject, glad to have done his bit without getting John's drink in his face or something. Hope you're happy, he thought at Mycroft. Then his thoughts started to wander to other ways he could make Mycroft happy, and he didn't hear another blessed word of John's story.

***

Mycroft’s agent had done an excellent job of planting the bug and getting him a clear audio feed. Every word had come through as though he were practically at the table with them.  Which was just as well, because he would definitely need to re-listen to the whole thing. Several times.