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It was a fact universally acknowledged, though never uttered, that the Holmes boys were creatures of solitary bent.
Kinder people might've said lonely. Those of a more perceptive nature might've called them "touch-starved" and been right. The numerous handshakes and odd claps to the shoulder Mycroft received in his work were some of his only contact, as were the frequent threats of physical violence Sherlock received whenever he pushed things too far.
The only 'sanctioned' affection they received was when they went home for the holidays, whereupon Father would give them rather gregarious squeezes and Mummy frequently dropped kisses on their cheeks and held their faces in her delicate, paper rose hands. And if they unconsciously pressed into that contact, it went unremarked upon by all present.
However, by and large, they were not tactile people. They were not known for relationships. They simply did not do the common physical things others did, were not likely to date or be spotted strolling hand in hand with someone, nor snogging on a sofa.
So to say that Mycroft was surprised to come home and find his baby brother sprawled all over his designer couch whilst wrapped around another human being... was an understatement to rival WW2 being 'a bit of unpleasantness with the neighbors.'
He stood a moment, half aware or caring that his jaw was a bit slack and his eyes were wide and cataloging far more than he should be, filters nonexistent as he absorbed and processed every minute detail of the scene before him. Sherlock was in his home. He'd picked the locks. Must remind Arabella to update security protocols when I am not in residence. The ridiculous Belstaff tossed over a chair, pocket full of some crumpled paper - receipts and a notice from the university offices about some new disciplinary problem. Stale cigarette smoke in the air, so he hadn't smoked here but it had been outside and recent. There were two people on his Chanel sofa. Sherlock was on top. Sherlock was on top of a... man. Both men were fully clothed... more or less. The man beneath attired in a cheap navy suit and functional shoes, Sherlock's forearms bared against the rolled back sleeves of the lusciously dark aubergine buttondown he'd paired with black jeans so obscenely tight they looked painted on. Custom boots on his imported silk upholstery, shedding dried flecks of the heaven-knew-what caked on the soles. The man had a grip on his brother's lean hip as he tried to catch the pale flashes of Sherlock's hands that were roving all over and through the other man's clothing.
A hushed rush of words was spilling from his brother's lips like a fountain, hard to make out over the susurration of skin on fabric but Mycroft's ears pricked to what sounded suspiciously like C'mon. Give it to me. You know I need it...
It was all too much.
"Just what do you think you're doing, brother mine?" The words bypassed his glitching filter and were out of his mouth before he realized, flung across the room with careless accuracy.
Both men froze and his brother's head snapped up with a subtle crack of vertebrae. Sherlock's pupils were blown full black, the likes of which Myc hadn't seen since the last time he'd dragged him out of a flophouse and nearly gotten a broken arm in the process. Fighting tooth and nail with every tool at his disposal, he'd managed to keep his brother clean and sober for over a year now, only ever having to combat his mercurial states of boredom. But at the sight of Sherlock's fascinating eyes thus, something bitter and hot churned low in his belly, and he couldn't completely say with certainty whether it was rage at the possibility this... someone had given Sherlock drugs or something preposterously akin to jealousy if Sherlock's eyes were merely registering lust for this... person.
Who was examining him upside-down from his position beneath Sherlock. Eyes gone so wide that white showed clean round warm brown centers that reminded him of coffee with just a splash of cream, enjoyed late on a Sunday morning. Hair... silver? Exactly how much older was this... man? His face was mostly free of age lines, just a few crinkles near the corners of his eyes and a small furrow between his brows. Clean skin, although a moisturizing regime would not go amiss. Body fit, so at least some physicality in his occupation. He was likely within a few years of Mycroft, thus the ardently argent locks were premature but attractive nonetheless.
And entirely irrelevant to the situation at hand, Mycroft scolded himself and forced his attention once more to the present.
Sherlock went from plastered atop the man to on his feet beside the sofa in a blink, materializing with the fluid grace of a jungle predator. Something in his palm winked out of sight behind his back, probably to find a home in his seat pocket. It had neither the immediately identifiable crinkle of a plastic baggie nor the telltale clicking of pills, so Mycroft dismissed its priority as the other man rolled off the sofa with a more practical economy that still managed not to be clumsy.
"Sorry," he apologized, Estuary accent displacing at least part of a syllable. "That was... we were... I'm Greg." His gaze had shifted from sofa to Sherlock to stunned elder Holmes sibling with each new attempt at a sentence, which he finally punctuated by sticking his hand out.
But Mycroft couldn't shake the proffered digit or the feeling that he could scarcely trust himself to stand in the man's presence without making a fool of himself, let alone touch and be touched by this... Gregory, even in order of the briefest and most socially acceptable contact.
Gregory, whose off-the-peg suit was crumpled, whose acceptably bland poly-blend tie was askew, whose rather striking hair was furiously disheveled in a way so bizarrely charming it made Mycroft's fingers itch to smooth it down. He instead curled them into a tight fist and clamped the lid even tighter over this sudden flare of unexpected emotions.
He felt his mouth rearrange into a moue of half contempt, half boredom that felt all wrong, even before he directed his speech to Sherlock in a flat tone of chilling civility. "Brother mine, I am exceedingly busy, so if you could please escort your... Essex boy to the door, we need to talk before I commence with my work for the evening."
Gregory's hand (still tragically on offer) curled up like a burning wisp of ash and vanished into his pocket as he stiffened into a ramrod straight posture of clear offense. Sherlock's pupils returned to a far more reasonable diameter as the rest of his face morphed into a mask of pinched disapproval. His curls tumbled and rolled as he shook his head, disgust heavy in the silence pervading the room like noxious vapour.
Grabbing up his coat and draping it about him as he strode to the door, it billowed dramatically behind him like an opera cape. "Badly done, My." The clipped syllables had barely landed before he was gone.
Gregory stood there, reddened tips of his ears not managing to clash with his lustrously metallic locks. For a brief moment he pinned Mycroft with a look, something swirling and indefinable that called to him like a siren song to plumb the depths of and discover the treasure that lay at the heart of this strange man. A flexion of his mouth as though he might say something - then it compressed into a hard line of annoyance and he quit the room in Sherlock's wake.
Mycroft walked mechanically to the armchair, not daring to sink into the aftermath still swarming over his couch cushions, and sat down heavily. Every detail of the last few minutes played in his head and with each passing replay he felt more and more miserable.
He'd been hasty. He'd been impulsive. He'd been impolite without cause. Hang that - he had been inexcusably ill-mannered to a guest in his home. Expected or no, Sherlock was still family, and his aborted attempt at social interaction was some sign of possible growth. It wasn't as if they'd been naked or... otherwise engaged. And Mycroft was always the soul of diplomatic courtesy even when faced with resistance... or gunfire.
In moments such as these, every jibe, every taunt, every nickname and moniker bandied about came to mind. The Iceman. The adding machine. The frigid assassin. The majorly deficient minor official. His mother was mistaken in her doting reassurances that he would meet someone nice someday with whom to settle down. Always 'someone nice' and never a gender specification. Social implications and expectations notwithstanding, their mother was an eminently practical woman. She'd given up on the prospect of naturally born grandchildren before they were out of primary school. But it hardly mattered now.
In moments such as these, he allowed himself to be convinced. He was absolutely going to die alone.
A brief and heated exchange in his foyer, distant to his own ears... then the muted slam of his front door. Mycroft allowed all the tension within the sharp prick of his conscience, and he deflated like a balloon with a slow leak.
It served him right.
After another minute, the self-loathing was really picking up steam and thus the only explanation for why he was unprepared for what happened next.
"D'ya think..."
Gregory's voice, even calm as it was, still jarred him so badly he almost fell to the floor. First rude and now oblivious.
He hadn't heard a footfall on the stairs, or approaching down the hall, and the security panel hadn't been re-engaged yet so even a halfway quiet assassin could've dropped him like a sack of potatoes by now with a depressing minimum of effort. He'd been unfairly insulting to a gorgeous man. He'd made his brother leave. If he indulged in calories and self-pity and the Mid-Orient trade negotiations managed to fall through before morning, the entire day could be counted as a complete failure on his part.
"...you could at least be civil if we grabbed a coffee?"
Gathering the tattered remains of his dignity about him like a disgraced monarch's robes, Mycroft carefully stood. "I.... what?" The apology he'd been about to deliver died a polite death as his brain finally caught up to what Gregory had said.
"Look," Gregory began, one hand roughing the darker hairs at his nape as he gave himself a small grounding squeeze. "You're posh and a bit gorgeous and way outta my league, but... I'd like to think we might get along. Sherlock seemed to think so too. S'why he brought me over." His eyes locked onto the elder Holmes' blue orbs as his hand dropped. "So Mr. Holmes... d'y'think... if we went for a coffee or - God forbid - actually tried for a meal, you could try not to insult me for breathing until like... we cleared desserts?"
He was going mad. He was standing solidly on his own two hands and going utterly mad.
"Sherlock..." My baby brother, the light of my life, the apple of our parents' eyes and the most insensitive, socially tone-deaf arsehole on the face of the entire planet? "brought you over... to meet me?"
Gregory nodded, a quirking brow and slight twitch in the corner of his lips making Mycroft wonder if he hadn't blurted all that subtext aloud by accident. "That was the plan, from what I understood."
There was a slack-jawed idiot stood in place of Mycroft's normally fantastic brain, drool pooling to the floor as he unhelpfully went 'uhhhhhhh...'
A silence that stretched for more seconds than acceptable allowed Mycroft to finally give himself a hard shake, get a bloody grip, hipcheck the idiot out of his way and reclaim control over his mental processes.
"Forgive me, for questioning you now and for being so discourteous earlier. But... if my brother did indeed... 'bring you over for me' then... um..."
Gregory quirked the brow up at his stumble, and Mycroft felt his stomach attempt a somersault when the man's lips curled into a pleasantly amused smirk that dangerously resembled a pucker.
"Then why were we mashing on your sofa like a couple of alleycats?" Mycroft had the decency to blush. "Or would 'horny teenagers' be a more apt description?"
"Er.... yes."
Gregory's eyes flicked back towards the downstairs foyer, as if he could see the younger Holmes still standing there. The look on his face was distinctly fond and Mycroft's heart experienced a painful torsion at the sight.
"Yeah, from your point, that must've been a sight." He gave a rueful shake of his head, and Mycroft's brain attempted another short when the light played off the silver of his hair like a living mirror. The man was unfairly beautiful and... sadly out of his reach now, if in truth he ever had been close enough to touch. "He pickpockets me. I'm a sergeant with the Met, and he keeps nicking my badge so he can get to crime scenes and talk to people without having to slog through proper channels. The case we're working now is... interesting to him, I guess. He's helped me close a few over the past couple weeks, brilliant sod, and it seems like it keeps him outta trouble. So I'm trying to clear it with my DI to have him work with us, off-the-books consultant or some such, but he... well, I mean you're his brother. You probably know."
"That he drives people completely up the wall with his arrogance and unexpectedly uncanny observations and makes them more likely to beat the daylights out of him than voluntarily stand his presence for more than 5 seconds? Yes. I am all too aware."
Greg's huff of laughter was husky and unexpected and wholly delightful to Mycroft's ears.
"Anyway, think I've just about got my inspector to give him a trial, but if he gets caught with my badge again before that, the deal won't just be off. They'll toss him in the cells and have him up on charges of impersonatin' a member of Her Majesty's police. Might throw in jaywalking and disturbin' the peace for measure."
A hand pulled back the fabric of his suit jacket as he fished in a pocket, allowing Mycroft a moment's distraction as the movement made suit and shirt stretch over broad shoulders, what looked to be taut muscle and a nice waist before he registered the satisfied 'good' in Gregory's voice and found himself staring at a leather case. Held in Gregory's thick and supple fingers - nails clean and unbitten, skin smooth and tanned. Likely calloused. Wonder how they would feel on my skin. Oh my Lord, get a grip, Holmes! Then it was flipped open and he noted a Metropolitan ID, metallic badge to one side, Gregory's district and surname - Lestrade, hmmm - and the rather sweet thumbnail sized photo of the DS trying to look serious but with a glint in his eyes.
"Had to make sure he didn't walk out with it." The badge was closed and returned to the inner pocket, and Mycroft Holmes found himself daring to direct a tiny smile at DS Gregory Lestrade. "Came right back, though."
"So you did." The smile was returned, and the elder Holmes noted the glint from the photo starting to twinkle in the whiskey depths of the sergeant's eyes. "And... if you'll permit me the chance, Gregory, I should like to prove my capacity for polite social interaction over whatever beverage or fare you desire."
"Wanna start with coffee... Mycroft?"
The sound of his name from this man's mouth supplanted even the finest Vivaldi concerto.
"Only if I can take you for dinner immediately following. Gregory." It sounded bold to his own ears, but Mycroft was dashed if he wasn't going to at least attempt to keep this man around as long as possible.
"Only if you call me Greg."
A soft sigh escaped him. "I shall endeavour to try, though I rather like Gregory for you."
"No one else calls me that."
Mycroft's smile spread, adding the smallest hint of teeth. "All the more reason I should then, don't you think?"
Gregory's own grin turned positively wolfish, and Mycroft found the predatory edge held a thrilling charm.
"I guess if that's the worst thing you call me, we'll probably be alright."
Mycroft beamed. Reclaiming his wallet and securing his attache in a locked cabinet, he gestured Gregory ahead of him, eager to start 'socially interacting' with all possible haste.
As they descended the stairs and Mycroft texted for a car, he remarked, "And I promise to never be rude to you again. Though now I know you're a police officer, I suppose you could always just reserve the right to shoot me." He collected his umbrella and locked the door, just as a sleek black towncar pulled up to the curb.
"Nah. Don't be silly," Greg countered warmly as he stepped up and held the door for Mycroft to slip in to the backseat, hand a fleeting pressure at the small of the government official's back. Unaware of the pleasant tingle his touch had elicited in the other man, he settled and directed the driver to a nice restaurant district downtown with a nice selection of bistros and cafes for them to choose from. The privacy screen had barely closed with a faint snikt when he leaned in close, warm breath and soft lips brushing the shell of Mycroft's ear. "I'd spank you first."