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Greg Lestrade had always been an absolute sap for Christmas, and he suspected that he always would be. Something about the festive period, with its lights and its music and its cheer, had always appealed to him. When the twins had been little, back before they could see past a costume to who was wearing it, he had dressed up as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, making sure that Pauline took pictures of him in their living room and the kitchen and the kids’ bedrooms to prove that he’d been. They’d loved it and he’d loved it, and the tradition had continued until the costume died of death the year before they had gone off to university.
Even now, well into his fifties and with adult kids, Greg couldn’t get enough of Christmas. Fortunately, his partner was very indulgent with him despite his indifference towards most of the human race, and he was able to decorate their home to his heart’s content. Which was not to say that there hadn’t been some initial resistance, but Greg wasn’t one to complain, particularly not when he was getting his way. Mycroft’s first concession to Christmas spirit had been a tree their first year living together, and he hadn’t done more than roll his eyes when Greg had put one in the dining room as well as the living room the following year. He’d objected rather more strenuously to the wreath Greg had hung from the front door their third year together, but a blow job had eventually settled the score. Last year, the fourth in their home, he’d even managed to convince the younger man to sign a couple of Christmas cards. Only to immediate family, mind, but he’d take progress wherever he could get it.
Casting a critical eye over the dining table, Greg made one final adjustment to his place setting, moving the fork a centimetre to the left. And then one more tweak, moving it five millimetres back in the direction from which it had come. When it still didn’t look right, he frowned and put the fork right back where it had been in the first place and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets lest he start fiddling again.
Still not wholly satisfied but unwilling to go any further down the road to insanity, he cast a final glance around the dining room, eyes drinking in the festive details, a child-like excitement building from within. A real Christmas tree stood tall and proud in the bay window, lights twinkling elegantly, and a garland bedecked the room’s impressive original Georgian fireplace. With more than his customary care, Greg had laid the table with their best tableware, using long since disused waiting skills to ensure that every piece of silver cutlery gleamed.
They’d always shared crackers over their now traditional Christmas Eve takeaway, but this year they were extra special. Big and obnoxiously red and shiny, they were stark against the pale, ridiculously expensive tablecloth, and Greg felt a flutter of nerves whenever he caught sight of them. In an effort to distract himself, he fiddled with the table’s centrepiece, rotating the silver five-armed candelabra a degree counterclockwise and moving it a smidgen further away from the bottle of white wine. Inherited from his gran, who had smuggled it out of France in the early days of the German occupation during World War Two, the candelabra held a special place in Greg’s heart, connecting him to his family and heritage in a way that little else did.
In the background, the hifi clicked as the CD changed and his favourite Christmas song started to play. “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, in the lane snow is glistening,” he sang, adding his voice to Andy Williams’ as he straightened the central sparkly candle; subjecting Mycroft to Christmas trimmings was one thing, but subjecting him to wonky trimmings would be a step too far.
“A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland,” he continued, a bubble of nervous excitement building in his gut. His eyes lingered on Mycroft’s cracker for a long moment, and the temptation to snatch them off the table was strong, but a creaky floorboard announced that he was no longer alone. Greg turned to face the dining room door to find his partner leaning against the door jamb, legs crossed at the ankle. Dressed casually in slacks and a dark red polo neck jumper, he looked happy and relaxed, which was really quite something considering that he’d been twenty minutes into a phone call with his mother when Greg had left him to it.
“Don’t stop on my account,” Mycroft said, smiling softly. “I enjoy your singing.”
“Gone away is the blue bird, here to stay is a new bird,” Greg sang as he crossed the room, voice deliberately lower than it had been a moment a go. Settling his hands on his partner’s waist, Greg stretched and stole a brief kiss before continuing, now well out of time with the CD, “He sings a love song, as we go along, walking in a winter wonderland.”
“Gorgeous,” Mycroft breathed, lips brushing Greg’s. They shared a tender, lingering kiss, and Mycroft’s left hand drifted to its favourite resting spot on Greg’s arse. “Dinner will be here soon.”
“Ta,” replied Greg, wrapping an arm around Mycroft’s waist. “Happy Christmas Eve, love.”
“You’re ridiculous,” was Mycroft’s considered opinion, but Greg just smiled. “Mummy sends her regards.”
“Hmm.” Greg really didn’t like the elder Holmeses, and had long since given up trying to hide it from his partner. Mrs Holmes was petty and vindictive where her eldest child was concerned, and as blind as a bat with the younger two, and Mr Holmes was ignorant at best. As it was, Greg only had the dubious pleasure of her company a couple of times a year, but it was still a couple of times too many, especially when one of the occasions upon which she insisted was Christmas. “What time’ve we got to be there?”
“Ten o’clock; the car will be here at eight thirty, and we’ll be collecting Sherlock, John, and Rosie en route.” Mycroft’s expression tightened briefly, the lines around his expressive blue eyes deepening. “She is intending to speak to you about Lucy and Brett joining us next year.”
Greg inclined his head, having been expecting as much. Mrs Holmes had been hinting that Greg’s twins should join them for Christmas since he’d started attending the annual Holmes gathering four years ago, but she hadn’t been explicit about it. The kids usually spent Christmas day with their mum and Boxing Day with him and Mycroft, but he didn’t think swapping the days over would be a problem. “I’ll invite them if she does. You know they’re dying to see where you came from.”
“Yes, I do,” Mycroft replied, a smile curling his lips. “Perhaps then you will stop trying to tell them that Sherlock and I grew out of chemical spillages.”
Huffing a laugh, Greg slipped a hand under Mycroft’s jumper. “Yeah, well, you know what they say: if the shoe fits.”
“You’re an incorrigible rascal,” said Mycroft fondly, petting Greg’s arse. It felt nice, this moment of quiet. They didn’t get many of them, but Greg had always been a sap for Christmas and Mycroft had never been able to deny Greg, so Christmas was one of the times they went out of their way to be home together as much as possible. It didn’t always go to plan, not with them in the jobs they were, but they’d been lucky so far. Thinking briefly of the crackers on the table, Greg’s heart raced and he hoped like hell that his luck held out, because this could be the best Christmas ever if it did. “Is there something you would care to share with me, Greg?” Mycroft asked leadingly, clearly having scented a change in the air. They had a long-standing agreement that Mycroft refrained from turning those impressive powers of deduction on him because Greg needed some semblance of privacy, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still spot it a mile off when Greg was up to something.
“Nope,” Greg lied, stroking Mycroft’s back. “Just happy it’s Christmas.”
“Hmm,” Mycroft hummed, doubtful. “If you say so, my dear.” His eyes drifted down to Greg’s chest, covered as it was in sparkling snowmen, and he pulled a face. “This week’s addition to your collection is a spectacularly tacky example of its kind.”
“You love ‘em really,” Greg replied, smiling widely. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you eyeing up the Yoda one.”
Looking almost physically pained, Mycroft scoffed, “Only with plans of incineration, I assure you.” Squeezing Greg’s arse, he leant down and nipped Greg’s lower lip, causing a frisson of want to run through the older man. “Though I confess that the more hideous the jumper the more I enjoy removing it.” He kissed Greg, slow and intense, letting the passion build until breathing became a problem and Greg was pressing against him, desperate for contact, desperate for anything. Just when the older man didn’t think he could take any more, Mycroft stepped it up again, using his grip on Greg’s arse to pull him closer still. “When we’ve eaten, I’m taking you to bed.” He rubbed the crack of Greg’s arse through his jeans, voice dropping to a low rumble, and Greg’s cock throbbed against his zipper.
“You’re a fucking tease,” Greg told him, rough with desire. “I could go off you.”
“That is highly unlikely.” Smug, Mycroft straightened up, the space suddenly between them leaving Greg cold. Before Greg could do more than glower at him, however, the doorbell rang. “And that would be dinner. What unfortunate timing.”
“You did that on purpose,” Greg growled, with a sharp tap to his partner’s arse. He’d stopped betting against Mycroft about what time takeaways would arrive very early on, having quickly realised that the younger man was more than capable of putting together the length of time it took to prepare their meals, their priority status with the restaurants, and London’s traffic conditions to win every time.
“Obviously.” Mycroft smirked, so very reminiscent of his younger brother, and left the room, leaving Greg hard, horny, and wracked anew with nerves.
Alright, this is it, Greg thought, eyes drawn inexorably towards the table. Impossibly, the crackers seemed to glow, standing out starkly against the pale tablecloth, and Greg shook his head. They were the same ones he bought from Marks and Spencer every year, and he’d been very careful to make sure that Mycroft’s looked exactly the same after he’d doctored it; there was no way to tell he’d fiddled with one of them, and they sure as hell weren’t glowing. “You’ve lost it,” he told himself when the glow didn’t dim in the slightest. “Totally fucking lost it.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Mycroft commented, re-entering the dining room with two bags of food. The smell emanating from them set Greg’s mouth watering, hungry as he was, and he reached for one, keen to get the tubs open and his plate filled despite his building nerves. Mycroft handed one of the bags over, giving Greg a suspicious look. “You’re twitching, Greg. Are you sure there is nothing you want to share with me?”
“Yep.” Grinning, Greg pushed the nerves fluttering restlessly in his gut down and tried to keep his mind clear. “Sit down, love, I’m starving.” He removed his lighter from his back pocket and carefully lit the candles before taking his own seat. “Drink?”
“Please,” Mycroft replied, a smile lingering about his mouth. He deftly started removing the lids from their dinner as Greg poured the wine, stacking them neatly at the edge of the table. “Subterfuge is not your strong suit, my dear.”
“Good job I leave all that to my other half then, ain’t it?” Greg replied, snagging a satay skewer. “So, tomorrow. How long do you think we’ll have to stay?”
“Until the early evening, I should imagine.” His long, elegant fingers plucked a prawn cracker - the only thing on the table that he didn’t use knife and fork to eat - from the bag. “Mummy knows that you like to be home in time for Dr Who.”
Greg huffed a laugh. Of the two of them, Mycroft was the real Dr Who fan, but watching the Christmas special with a few glasses of their good Scotch had become another of their traditions, and the older man was really rather fond of it. “Too right I do. You, me, pyjamas, and a Time Lord. Bliss.”
“Quite.”
There was a lull during which they dedicated themselves to their meals, and Greg idly wondered when he should suggest that they pull their crackers. Half of him wanted to do now and get it out of the way so as to be able to eat his dinner without his nerves making him nauseous, and the other half was half terrified of doing it in case it all went tits up. Not that he thought it would do them irreparable damage if the response was not favourable, but it would be painful and awkward as hell, and quite why he’d decided to do it this way out of the all of the stupidly soppy ways he could have done it he didn’t know.
Just when Greg’s thoughts were spiralling too close to insanity for comfort, Mycroft spoke, something almost hesitant about his tone. “Thank you. For joining me at my parents’ when I know that you would rather not.” Greg looked up from his plate and found the full weight of Mycroft’s attention trained on him. “My relationship with them has been strained since my early teens, but having you by my side makes these occasions immeasurably better.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Mycroft,” Greg replied, extending the hand not covered in satay chicken residue. “I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Mycroft took his hand, squeezing gently with his own. “I love you.”
Neither of them said those words often. Years of being cheated on and lied to and having those three words bandied around whenever had Pauline wanted to manipulate him had left Greg too jaded to use them easily. Mycroft, on the other hand, still looked surprised whenever he said it, like the words had slipped past his lips without permission from his brain.
“Love you, too. So much.” Gazes locked, their words lingered in the air between them, almost visible in the candlelight. Seizing the moment, when he had the tide of emotion on his side, Greg summoned his courage and released Mycroft’s hand. “Come on: crackers. You first.”
“Juvenile,” Mycroft replied, an indulgent smile curling his lips as he plucked his cracker from the table and held it out, fingers pale against the shiny red paper. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“I give excellent blow jobs.” Reaching for the other end of the cracker, Greg’s heart was hammering so hard that he was sure the other man must be able to hear it. “On three.”
Obligingly, Mycroft waited until Greg had counted to three before he tugged, and the cracker ripped apart with a satisfyingly loud crack. Having raised two children, Greg was very well versed in the art of pulling crackers, and it was no trouble at all to pull it just so to ensure that the other person received the prize. It worked to perfection and his heart beat double time as he registered Mycroft’s hand holding the larger end of the cracker.
“How fortuitous,” Mycroft snarked, unfurling the hat, distaste colouring his tone. “I expect more than oral sex for wearing this, Greg.” The green hat clashed with the red in his hair horribly, and Greg thought that any price was worth seeing that.
Greg mimed zipping his lips, belatedly noticing that his hands were shaking. Hastily, he dropped them into his lap, well out of Mycroft’s line of sight. “Let’s have the joke, then.”
With a put upon sigh, Mycroft picked up the slip of paper and focussed on the words. Greg’s breathing stuttered to a halt and time seemed to blur around him. A moment of silence passed and then another, and eventually Greg pulled a much needed breath of air into his lungs. Still Mycroft said nothing, starting fixedly at the paper, expression utterly blank.
Seconds ticked by and a vague sense of panic started to set in. “Say something, love,” he said, nudging Mycroft’s foot under the table. “Please.”
Mycroft’s mouth opened and closed - twice - and then his eyes eventually lifted from the paper and met Greg’s. “This is a marriage proposal,” he said, voice flat. “You want to marry me.”
“Yeah. A bit.” Greg ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Well, kind of a lot, actually. I swore off it, you know? After Pauline and all that shit, but with you, fuck, I want it. I want you to be my husband and I want to be yours,” he babbled, words tripping over themselves in their haste to get out. “I know this stuff’s not really your thing, but we’ve been together five years and I thought you might...look, it won’t change anything if you say ‘no’. I promise.”
“I’m not saying ‘no’,” Mycroft replied, lowering his gaze back to the paper. “I simply never imagined that anyone would want to marry me, so I’ve never considered myself and marriage in the same context.” Greg felt the panic leave, his body relaxing in its wake, but he didn’t know how to respond to that. Deciding that saying nothing was better than saying the wrong thing, he kept his mouth shut and waited. After what felt like and age, Mycroft looked up and spoke again, sure and confident and eyes bright. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
The acceptance took a moment to percolate, but when it did, elation hit like a freight train. “Yes!” he exclaimed, jumping out of his hair, dinner forgotten. Mycroft stood, too, and Greg flew at him, wrapping his arms around his fiancé. “I can’t even — You said yes.”
“Of course I did. How could I have refused?” Mycroft kissed him, and it was sweet and tender and perfect. “Merry Christmas, Greg.”
Stunned and relieved and elated, Greg melted into the kiss. “Merry Christmas, love.”