Chapter Text
The first time Mycroft Holmes met Mr. Jason Melas he did not make the best first impression. It had been some time since an interpreter had been required in his office but still he knew from experience how to interact with the man and with the minor Greek diplomat for whom he had been called. He said hello Mr. Melas when he arrived, and at the end of the conversation he politely expressed appreciation for his services. In between he did not acknowledge the man at all because social convention dictated that he should focus his full attention on the diplomat. The interpreter was there to do a job, not to be included in the conversation. It was civil and completely acceptable.
Of course, this did tend to dehumanize the interpreter somewhat no matter how legitimate it was. There were few other situations in polite society where one could acceptably speak directly through another person while simultaneously pretending that he was not there. This did not typically bother Mycroft. In fact he rarely spared the interpreters a second thought, and he remained untroubled by the fact that their names and faces often faded quickly from his memory. He had many other, larger things with which to concern himself.
In this particular case, however, his usual inattention was undermined somewhat by the fact that he ran into the very same man not two hours after the meeting. The man was standing, of all places, on the sidewalk right in front of his flat.
“Good afternoon,” he said with a polite incline of his head, deciding that the meeting could hardly go unacknowledged. He deliberately kept his expression neutral; he was not yet prepared to acknowledge that he was confused by the man’s presence.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Melas said with a gentle smile. He was a smallish man – of average height but slight. He had fine features and dark, friendly eyes. Though his voice bore a slight accent, his English was flawless. It was something Mycroft had noticed earlier during the meeting; he was precise as well as quick, and the wording he chose was nuanced and eloquent. He’d done an excellent job.
“Yes, and you.” Mycroft paused next to Mr. Melas on the sidewalk, waiting for him to say something more. It was ridiculous and a little egotistical, but Mycroft was having difficulty breaking out of the assumption that Mr. Melas was there for reasons that had to do with him.
Mr. Melas gave him a slightly awkward smile. “I’m just waiting for a taxi,” he offered after a pause. Mycroft nodded slowly. Not for him, then. He should have taken this as a cue to continue on his way; normally he would have, in fact, but in this case he found himself lingering.
For another long moment, neither of them said anything. Mycroft spent this time trying to get a good read on the other man. He’d been in England for some time – that his accent was so faded betrayed this. The cut and quality of his suit suggested relative wealth, though whether this was inherited or acquired Mycroft could not tell – he had no idea what the money was like in translation. He was well-read, probably – his turns of phrase in the meeting had been too elegant to have been acquired via rote learning. He looked to be in his mid-forties, was probably unmarried, and… and there was something oddly familiar about the man, as though Mycroft had seen him before today. Any further attempts at deduction were stymied by this niggling and frankly rather distracting sense of familiarity.
Suddenly, Mr. Melas chuckled quietly, as though he could tell he was being unsuccessfully analyzed. “I think perhaps we might be neighbours,” he explained, gesturing toward the door next to Mycroft’s own. “I live just there.”
“Ah. Of course.” Mycroft managed to sound both interested and pleasantly surprised. This was all he managed to get out, however. He felt rather flustered about being caught out not recognizing that the man was his neighbour. Surely people ordinarily knew who they lived next to. This slight embarrassment seemed to have caught hold of his tongue; for the life of him he couldn’t think of what to say next. He was saved by the arriving taxi.
Mr. Melas smiled again before turning to open the door. “I’m sure we’ll run into one another again soon,” he said.
Mycroft found he could do little beyond returning the smile.
_________________________________________________________
It was a few weeks before he saw Mr. Melas again. This time he made a better impression. This was aided by the fact that Mr. Melas had come in apologizing from the start; it was much easier to put one’s best face forward when all one had to do was kindly assure someone that they had nothing to be sorry for.
Mycroft hadn’t noticed anything at all until someone rang at the door. It was Mr. Melas and he seemed rather perturbed. “I’m so sorry to disturb you,” he began, a strong hint of agitation in his soft voice. “It’s my upstairs bath – one of the pipes must have burst.” He gestured toward the wall between Mycroft’s flat and his own, as though to emphasize Mycroft’s relative proximity to the disaster. “It’s been leaking into the room for some time, I think. I had no idea, I haven’t been home. I’m so sorry but I think you’d better check along the wall in case it’s come through to your side.”
Despite Mycroft’s hesitations – surely he needed to get back to deal with the problem in his own flat – Mr. Melas insisted on accompanying him on his check of the rooms along the shared wall in case he needed help cleaning anything up. “Don’t worry about my flat – I’ve called someone. Please, it’s the least I can do.” He spent a great deal of this time fretting about not having found the leak sooner – he seemed sincerely distressed by the idea that he had inconvenienced his neighbour. His sincerity was charming rather than being cloying, and Mycroft found that he did not mind reassuring him.
When they discovered a moderately large puddle creeping insidiously out from the wall in the kitchen, they sopped it up quickly using most of Mycroft’s towels. With the remaining dry towels, they constructed a makeshift dam along the base of the wall to slow the spread until the water was shut off and the pipe repaired. Mr. Melas then stayed to help with the more finicky tidying up until the plumbers arrived at his own flat. Mycroft insisted that this was not necessary, but his neighbour was adamant. Mycroft made tea and as they drank and tidied they chatted about Greece and then about Proust and then about their shared love of Seurat and their shared dislike of The DaVinci Code, skateboards, and performance art.
When the plumbers arrived and Mycroft once again had his flat to himself, which was normally his strong preference, he found that he was a little sorry to see his neighbour go.
_________________________________________________________
Something about rolling up one’s shirtsleeves and doing battle against a seemingly endless tide of water has a way of bringing people closer together. Or at least of making near-strangers into relatively friendly casual acquaintances. At least it had in this particular case – Mycroft did not have any similar experiences with which he could draw comparisons. Nevertheless, he did feel a greater connection to his neighbour after the flooding incident.
In the weeks that followed, Mycroft and Mr. Melas exchanged friendly greetings and sometimes brief small talk when they ran into one another outside the flats. When Mr. Melas went home to Greece for a week, Mycroft watered the plants he kept on his front step. When he returned, he brought back some lovely olive oil as a thank-you gift. They came to call each other by their first names. It was an amiable, neighborly sort of relationship. For Mycroft, who found that he had little time for anything more than that, it was pleasant.
When he’d gone a few days without seeing his neighbour at all, therefore, Mycroft noticed. It took him some time to decide what to do. He didn’t wish to overstep his boundaries and after all, perhaps he was overreacting. He decided to mind his own business. Another day passed. There were two newspapers lying unretrieved on the steps and a letter protruding halfway out of the slot in the door. No one was watering the plants. He changed his mind. Pulling the letter back out of the slot, he knocked on Jason’s door. Once. Twice. After the third time he heard footsteps on the other side of the door. After a long pause, the door opened.
“I…” He frowned, momentarily distracted. His neighbour looked horrible. Drawn, pale, and shaken. “I think I must have received some of your post by mistake,” he offered, brandishing the letter. He swallowed. “Forgive me for being forward, but is everything all right?”
Jason hesitated for a moment. It almost seemed as though he was looking over Mycroft’s shoulder for something. Then he shook his head. “Come in,” he said. “I’ll tell you what has happened."