Chapter Text
His life was, to the unobservant eye, dull. Plain, Boring. It consisted of a tedium, of all work and no play, punctuated only by moments of extreme danger.
To say that was a falsehood was an understatement.
He’d had his fair share of days like that, he would admit that much willingly. It was actually a documented fact so why should he dispute it? But to apply that to his personal life…well, he’d spent most of his life believing that caring was a disadvantage and as such had spent little time forming attachments of a personal nature. He had one to Andrea, he supposed; he trusted her with quite a bit, but not all his secrets, not personal things that were important to him. She was his right-hand woman, but not his confidante.
For that, he turned to one person and one person only: Gregory Lestrade. He had been unsure of how the relationship had come to pass, exactly, and that was something that should have vexed him but didn’t. He had often wondered at that and then realized he didn’t care. If Gregory was his goldfish, so to speak, he didn’t want to question how it had happened. He just wanted to celebrate that it had.
But him celebrating it and his parents celebrating his new found happiness were two entirely different matters, apparently, as he looked at the note from his mother that had come in with the afternoon mail.
I am so pleased to see that you’ve found someone who has made you happy, Mikey. I always knew there was a woman out there who would capture your heart, just as your father captured mine. I demand to meet her. Your father and I want to invite you and the remarkable woman to our home in Cambridge next weekend. Perhaps for a family dinner at least once over the weekend? Please say you’ll come.
He tossed the note onto his desk and steepled his fingers together. This was, indeed, a conundrum. He wasn’t entirely sure of his mother or father’s attitudes towards homosexuality or bisexuality, and there was always the chance that whatever those attitudes were was on an academic or abstract level and they would be completely different when forced to be applied to their own son and his choice in lovers. After all, his mother was an academic who was only a generation removed from Alan Turing; did she look at the man as a pitiable genius for who he was and the “condition” he had, and would she look on her son the same way? Even with times changing, he didn’t know.
Those were the thoughts that had kept him from telling his parents the truth about his relationship with Gregory. He was not ashamed of Gregory at all; those close to them were aware that they were dating, even those in the Yard and amongst the government. He knew it would damage their careers, but they were closer to retirement than they were anything else these days, so it truly didn’t matter. And they were more than simply lovers, as they did more than share a bed. There were genuine feelings shared between them. They went places together, did things together, integrated themselves in each other's lives. Mycroft was even involved in Lestrade’s daughter’s life, and even though Eileen’s studies at university precluded her seeing him often she adored him and he, in turn, adored her as well.
To be honest, Mycroft had considered making Gregory a more permanent part of his life. And now, thanks to the intervention of his mother, he was considering hiding his love to appease them.
What a mess this was.
He sighed and ran a hand over his face just as Andrea entered his office. “Bad news?” she asked.
“I think I should put a moratorium on letters from Mummy,” he said, indicating the letter on his desk. “She is demanding to meet the woman who has captured my heart.”
Andrea raised her eyebrow. “In the entire four years you’ve been with Lestrade, you haven’t told your parents you’re in a relationship with a man?”
Mycroft had the decency to look ashamed. “I’m not sure of their attitudes towards homosexual or bisexual men, and certainly not of one of their sons being towards that persuasion.”
“You’re a coward,” Andrea said, shaking her head. “I swear, I’m half tempted to tell Lestrade he deserves better.”
“Don’t!” Mycroft said, his eyes wide and his voice panicked.
Andrea shook her head again and planted her hands on his desk, leaning forward. “What exactly does your mother want from this mystery woman who has ensnared you?
“A family dinner in Cambridge,” he said.
“Isn’t that where Eileen attends uni?” Andrea asked, tilting her head slightly.
Mycroft nodded. “Yes.”
“And hasn’t she invited Lestrade up for the weekend to visit her for a family function or something?”
Mycroft lowered his head in his hands. “Yes,” he said, his voice muffled.
“Oh, you’re in for an interesting weekend then, aren’t you?” she asked with a smirk. “But I’ll help you as you have been a more than halfway decent man to work for and I think that even though this situation is rather your own damn fault I can see why it got to this point. But really, Lestrade does deserve better than to be pushed aside for a fake girlfriend.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I will make it up to him, a million times over.”
“Oh, most certainly,” Andrea said. “And me too. I deserve a vacation when this is all over. Ten days in the Bahamas.”
Mycroft looked up at her. “I can’t lose you for that long,” he replied.
“A week, then,” she said. “But immediately after the weekend at Cambridge.” Andrea reached her hand across the desk towards him. “Deal?”
Mycroft debated it in his head and then nodded, reaching over to seal their agreement with a firm handshake. “Deal,” he said. As soon as they let go and she turned away from his desk he began to plan for all the myriad things that could go wrong and then began to plan for contingency plans for those. If he could get through the weekend with his sanity intact, he might actually start to believe in a higher power.
Possibly.