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Greg opened his front door just enough to be able to see who had been knocking on it for the last fifteen minutes, confident in the expectation that he was going to be sending Sherlock away with a flea in his ear, only to find that it was the other brother. Greg’s flat, which had been the best he could afford after his divorce, was above a Polish supermarket in Brixton, the front door to which was in a short alley between his building and the neighbouring one. To say that Mycroft Holmes, impeccably dressed in a navy-blue suit that probably cost more than Greg’s monthly salary, looked out of place was a colossal understatement.
“Sherlock’s not here, Mycroft; he disappeared as soon as he’d dragged me out of the Thames,” Greg said, voice still a little raspy from coughing up river water.
“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Mycroft held up a plastic bag emblazoned with Chinese writing. “I believe this is the part where you invite me in.”
“Sorry, but’s really not a good time,” Greg replied, audibly conflicted in a way that made him want to cringe. Mycroft was one of his closest friends and just being around him often had a way of lifting Greg’s mood, but, in a belated attempt at self-preservation, he had been trying to put some distance between them. As rude as it felt to turn Mycroft away, an awful week had just been topped off by a third-rate murderer pushing him into the Thames with subsequent rescue by none other than Sherlock Holmes, and, if there was going to be a time for his self-control to wobble, this was it. All told, Greg thought that hiding in his flat and streaming proper Top Gear for the next few days seemed like a perfectly reasonable response. “How about I buy you dinner next week to make up for the wasted Chinese?”
“I think not,” Mycroft replied blandly, his tone and expression telling Greg that Mycroft was neither fooled nor willing to give up. “Feel free to close the door, but I suspect that your neighbours will eventually complain if you leave me out here to continue knocking on your door for much longer.”
Greg sighed half-heartedly and stepped back to open the door. “I’m never going to be able to tell either of you ‘no’, am I?”
“I suspect not, no,” Mycroft replied, smiling smugly as he walked past Greg into the small hall at the bottom of the stairs which led to Greg’s flat.
Greg started making his way upstairs with a huff that was more amused than annoyed, back muscles bitching at him with every step. Hitting the water on his back would barely have dinged his radar twenty years ago, but at sixty it fucking well hurt. The fact that it hurt so much after a doctor had given him a thorough check-up at the scene and pronounced that some paracetamol and an early night would see him right as rain really was just the icing on the cake. Either shit hurt more with age or he was less able to deal with pain with age, but neither option appealed to him so Greg chose to park those thoughts before he depressed himself any further.
“Go and sit down,” Mycroft said when they eventually got to the top of the stairs, disappearing into the kitchen with seeming familiarity despite never having visited Greg’s flat before.
Gingerly, Greg lowered himself back onto the dining chair he had been sitting in since crawling out of his shower three hours ago. He cast a longing glance at his lovely rich brown leather sofa but knew from bitter experience that trying to get up from a deep and squashy sofa with a bad back was damned sight harder and more painful than getting up from a dining chair, so the chair it was.
Barely a minute later, Mycroft emerged from the kitchen with plates loaded with Greg’s favourite Chinese food. “You will be pleased to know that that Sherlock caught the young man who pushed you. He appears to have had something of an unfortunate run-in with a shopping trolley, but Sherlock tells me that he will be alive enough to stand trial,” Mycroft said, carefully setting the food down before taking the seat opposite Greg.
Fork poised over his plate, Greg cocked an eyebrow. “This run-in with a trolley wouldn’t be anything like the ‘run-in’ that CIA bloke had with Mrs Hudson’s bins, would it?”
Steel glinted in Mycroft’s eyes. “You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.”
The way his back throbbed when Greg laughed quickly assuaged any guilt he felt at finding the little shit’s fate funny. “It wasn’t even an interesting murder,” he lamented, tucking into his sweet and sour chicken and fried rice. For all that Greg had genuinely believed that he wanted to be left alone to sulk about his latest fix, gratitude for Mycroft’s intrusion was starting to creep in around the edges.
“Hmm. Sherlock said something about counterfeit DVDs and a bag of Percy Pig sweets. Whatever is the criminal class coming to?” Mycroft watched Greg eating for a long moment. Greg didn’t know what he was looking for, but he apparently found it because the set of his shoulders relaxed and he started on his chow mein. “I would like you consider staying with me whilst you are recovering; those wingback chairs you so like are more supportive than your sofa and more comfortable than these dining chairs, and there’s a lift. I don’t like the thought of you suffering more than is necessary.”
Mycroft’s words tore Greg in conflicting directions. On the one hand, Mycroft’s house would be infinitely more comfortable than his own flat for however long it would take for this pain to ease off. It was a big old Victorian pile with a vintage lift and Mycroft’s chairs genuinely were the most comfortable Greg had ever sat in, but, on the other hand he suspected that his resolve to stay out of the man’s pants would start to dissolve if exposed to prolonged contact. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine here,” he said, sounding every bit as unconvinced as he felt. “Got everything I need and Stan downstairs always pops up with fresh stuff he hasn’t sold.”
A frustrated sigh and palpable drop in the ambient temperature told Greg everything he needed to know about Mycroft’s opinion on that. “I don’t know what I have done to cause this accursed change in our relationship, but insisting on staying here when my house is infinitely better suited to recovery is a degree of stupidity I had long since believed you incapable of. What was the point in becoming my partner if you’re not going to allow me to dote on you?”
Greg’s hand froze in mid-air. After his divorce, his and Mycroft’s relationship had morphed from friends to friends-with-benefits, but it was not something they’d ever discussed and it certainly was not something Mycroft had indicated he wanted to become permanent. So, when Greg had turned sixty and had the horrifying realisation that he was well on his way to a lonely retirement when Mycroft inevitably realised that his fuck-buddy was an old man, it hadn’t occurred to Greg that Mycroft might object to dropping the ‘benefits’ from their friendship. Suddenly feeling intensely uncomfortable in a way that was nothing to do with pain, Greg shifted in his chair, dinner forgotten. “Was this us being in a relationship for you?” he asked as a surround sound reply of Mycroft saying ‘this accursed change in our relationship’ echoed through his head. “Like a proper one and not friends-with-benefits?”
“Ah.” Eyes fixed on Greg’s face, Mycroft had apparently read Greg’s thoughts as they were happening and his expression shifted from bemused to embarrassed and eventually settled on resigned. “Do you honestly believe that I invited other men into my home for my occasional dalliances, Greg? Or that I would have risked my only true friendship for the sake of infrequent orgasms?”
Put like that Greg suddenly felt like a colossal, very guilty tit and shook his head. Mycroft was nothing if not an intensely private man and it should have been blindingly obvious from the outset that he would not have offered Greg unfettered access to his home had there not been a depth of trust present which would have been out of place for a friends-with-benefits arrangement.
The look Mycroft levelled at him was one Greg was more accustomed to seeing on Sherlock’s face, and he did not like it one little bit. “I assumed that you understood the depth of my feelings for you the first time I took you to bed.”
“I always knew you fancied me as much as I fancied you, but I didn’t think there was any more to it for you than scratching an itch.” Greg shrugged and couldn’t help a wince when the movement of his shoulders jarred his aching muscles. “Why would I think you’d want more than friendship and sex with me? You’ve never mentioned wanting a romantic relationship in the eighteen years I’ve known you, and if you had I wouldn’t have thought I’d be your type; I’m not cultured or uber smart and the only property I own is a pokey flat in a slightly dodgy bit of Brixton.”
There was a beat of silence before Mycroft spoke. “I have a type, Greg, and you are essentially it. There has obviously been a breakdown in communication somewhere.” Mycroft sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with the hand not holding his chopsticks. “For now, suffice it to say that I am not so shallow that the charms of a good, loving, and attractive man are lost on me, regardless of the balance of his bank account or his taste in literature. I care deeply for you and would still like you to stay with me until your back has recovered because I need to know that you are safe and not struggling needlessly. There are enough bedrooms that you could be on the opposite side of the house to me if you chose, so that won’t be an issue.”
Hesitantly, Greg reached out and took Mycroft’s free hand as the other man lowered it from his neck. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, unable to bear the thought that he had been hurting Mycroft. “You’re right: there’s been a massive breakdown in communication. I’m not the kind of dick who’d just use you for dinner and sex, Mycroft. That’s not me and it’s not what a relationship with me would look like.”
For the first time ever, Greg saw Mycroft’s cheeks colour. “Yes, I’m starting to realise that. I may not have much experience with…romantic matters, but I knew you have feelings for me so it was a logical inference that we had entered a relationship.” He sighed the sigh Greg usually heard when the Prime Minister’s name was uttered in Mycroft’s presence. “Let’s keep this fiasco between ourselves, hmm? I’m sure you don’t need help imagining how unbearable my little brother would be if he got wind of this.”
Greg nodded his agreement, horrified. “Yeah, that doesn’t bear thinking about.” He looked down at his plate and found that, between the pain and guilt his appetite had packed up and fucked off. “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can eat this. Not right now, anyway.” He watched as Mycroft idly twisted noodles around his chopsticks for a moment, as nervous as Greg had ever seen him, and then strapped on a metaphorical spine. “How about you put this back in the tubs while I throw some bits in a bag? We can heat it up in that lovely Aga of yours later.”
“You don’t need to pack much; I took the liberty of buying you some things to keep at my house in the hope that you would start accepting my invitation to spend the night.”
The hope in Mycroft’s eyes when he looked up did something very funny to Greg’s insides. After spending the better part of eighteen years trying to ignore the multitudinous funny things Mycroft did to his insides, Greg allowed himself to revel in it. “That,” he said, carefully levering himself up from his seat, “is about the most romantic thing anyone’s said to me, you big softy,” Pain radiated from his neck to his coccyx and back, the paracetamol he’d been told to take having done naff all, but the thought that he had apparently been in a relationship with a man he knew he would be head over heels in love with the moment he allowed it happen was filling him with warmth and hope.
Mycroft stood and started collecting their plates and cutlery. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, some of the playfulness that had characterised their friendship over the years returning to his voice. “Go and pack, Greg.”
Inside his bedroom, Greg closed the door and took a moment to refocus and centre himself. Despite the pain and guilt, both of which he suspected would be with him for some time to come, there was a quiet sense of elation building under his skin. He had long since admitted to himself that he had real feelings for Mycroft, and it had truly been an exercise in willpower to keep himself from dwelling on that, particularly in the years since his divorce. Now, however, it seemed that Mycroft actually wanted him, too, and he was off to be looked after by the man. Greg’s fear of Mycroft’s rejection of him as a serious romantic interest based on his age dissolved like so much tissue paper under Niagara Falls, taking with it a weight Greg hadn’t known he’d been carrying.
Minutes later, there was a gentle knock before the door opened, revealing Mycroft ready to go. “The car is here.”
Moving stiffly, Greg picked up his hastily packed duffel bag, crossed the small room to meet Mycroft before the other man had crossed the threshold and pulled the door closed behind him. It’s not that he was embarrassed by his flat, per se, but his bedroom was barely big enough for his double bed and wardrobe, and there was a small insecure voice at the back of his mind telling him that Mycroft, with his massive house and apparent wealth, might judge him for it. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m absolutely positive.” Broadcasting his movements, clearly intending to give Greg time to stop him, Mycroft cupped Greg’s cheek and claimed a tender kiss. “We’ve wasted enough time on miscommunication and misunderstandings, don’t you think?”
“Hmm,” Greg agreed, savouring their kiss. It felt like it had been an age since Greg had decided to stop having sex with Mycroft in a misguided attempt to protect himself from inevitable heartache and he’d missed the intimacy. Everything about Mycroft was intense, and physical intimacy, sexual or not, was no exception to the rule; the thought that he could have all of this, that he could have it and enjoy it and Mycroft wasn’t going to abandon him for a younger lover had Greg holding on like he was scared the other man would disappear in a puff of smoke.
Mycroft, in that omniscient way of his, placed a finger under Greg’s chin and used it to tilt his face up. “I will say this as many times as you need me to: I’m not going anywhere.”