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- He's waiting for him downstairs. Can you believe it? I don't know how he endures it...
Greg smiled, nodding, as the voices continued to whisper behind his back.
"At some point they'll get used to it," he thought resignedly, not wanting to get angry.
Not everyone just whispered behind his back. There were conversations and advice, most of them well-meaning voices, from people who loved him, concerned about his well-being:
- Come on, Greg, he so cold and uptight... It has nothing to do with you....
- Greg, we are friends, I don't want you to suffer.... Mycroft is nothing more than a manipulator, and he always brings problems. I don't want him to hurt you. He's just using you...
- Gregory, dear, I'm a widow, I know what it's like to feel alone, but.... Mycroft? You can have someone much better. Someone... human.
- You think you've made a hole in my brother's heart, but it's impossible. He doesn't have one. Sooner or later he will get tired of playing with you. So the sooner you get this nonsense over with, Gavin, the better for everyone.
Curiously, it was Mycroft who made him calm down and take a deep breath before he could tell them where their opinions could go:
"They're your friends, Gregory, it's normal for them to worry about you.
Yes, he didn't need anyone to tell him how different they were. The most unlikely of couples, possibly.
If Mycroft was a good public school boy, quiet, lonely,
reserved, complicated and intelligent, Greg was a suburbs son, cheeky, self-confident, charismatic and empathetic, a born leader.
Mycroft had allies and enemies, not friends, Greg was the first to be called when they needed a shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear.
Mycroft was thorough, enigmatic, disciplined and a lover of order, Greg was impulsive and temperamental, transparent and chaotic. As Greg looked beyond appearances, for Mycroft the facade was paramount.
The differences between them seemed to stand out as neon lights in his first encounter, Mycroft perfectly dressed in his three-piece suit, an arrogant smile and a look of sufficiency. Greg with a wrinkled shirt, dark circles under his eyes and a smile that made it clear that he was not impressed by the display of power.
Two different worlds about to collide.
The speed with which Mycroft's mind moved contrasting with his deliberately slow and studied movements, Lestrade's fast and nervous movements, his mind carefully calibrating every word and every gesture.
You didn't have to be a genius to see that they had very little in common.
But each knew how to see in the other something that everyone else had overlooked.
Mycroft saw an honest and loyal man, but tired of being the one who had to always be there for others, tired of superfluous relationships, a man who wanted to feel loved and protected.
Greg saw the vulnerability and fear in the ice man, the loneliness and the need to have someone there, without looking for anything in return, just someone with whom to share moments and silences.
If he was sincere with himself, and always tried to be, when he realized he was in love with Mycroft, his reaction was also one of disbelief. He did not see fireworks, nor did he listen to celestial music.
Simply, after years of friendship, he realized that the impossible had just happened.
If that was surprising, Mycroft's reaction to his statement was no less so.
When, after weeks of avoiding him, Mycroft showed up at his modest apartment demanding to know what he had done to upset the detective, Gregory was finally forced to tell him how his feelings had changed, how difficult it was to hide it from him, how aware he was of how little they had in bother common and how he would prefer to walk away for a while before doing or saying something that made him uncomfortable and lose what they valued most: their trust and friendship.
Mycroft remained silent for a few minutes, watching the policeman, as if analyzing whether it was some sort of joke.
But something about Greg's embarrassed, almost painful expression must have given him the answer, why he didn't seem upset when he apologized and left the apartment minutes later, assuring him, though Greg didn't quite believe it, that everything was fine.
The next day, a black car waited for him to take him to Mycroft's house, where the detective hoped to obtain a long speech about the impossibility, neither in this nor in other parallel universes, of something happening between the two.
But far from being frightened, and after hours of internal debate between what reason dictated and what he wanted, the redhead had let his natural pragmatism take charge of the situation.
- Any type of magnet, natural or artificial, has two magnetic poles called the North Pole and the South Pole. If we are faced with two magnets with different poles, they attract each other, while if the opposite poles are the same, they repel each other.
- I'm sorry, what?
- I think... If you want... Maybe we should....
Greg forced himself to breathe, as his heart shot up, hope and fear competing to gain space.
- Are you sure? There's nothing I want more in this world. But we're very different... What if you decide you can't stand me? I like being friends, I don't want to lose this.
- I've lived with Sherlock. Don't underestimate my patience....
Greg had laughed, feeling a little at the edge of the precipice.
It had been more than three years of that, two years and six months since their relationship became public.
Two years and six months listening to whispers, bets and advice.
Mycroft had also had his share of that, I knew it.
- Oh, Mycroft, you could have someone better, someone in the same position as you, someone who wouldn't be out of place in the informal galas of the embassies, someone who could cope in any situation with cultured and important people.
- Come on, Mycroft, he's from another world. He'll get bored of you and leave.
They just shrugged or laughed. After all, the words were just air, while what they felt for each other was something warm and solid to cling to.