Archive of Our Own

When people ask how they began, one or the other explains how they met through work and became friends, and might go on to mention that they were friends for years and then they fell in love. Which is certainly true, as far as it goes.

Chapter One: The longest night

Holmes Musgrave Estate, Derbyshire

I’m too old for this. A broad hand rakes through thick, overlong, greying hair. The air is wet with dew or fog, the dampness clinging to him and trickling down under his collar. The darkness is complete, a new moon and the countryside conspiring. Greg Lestrade, pulled back to MI5 from his posting with NSY, hopes fervently he hasn’t said those words aloud, and yet means all of that and more.

Yanked from bed used to be regular, though that was two promotions ago. Orders from Lady Smallwood are not entirely out of his experience. According to Alicia, this particular Holmes mess transpired outside the service. The Holmes sister is the most efficient killing machine he’s ever known of, considered armed and extremely dangerous even in prison, and it sounds like she’s slipped their leash. The thought chills him to the marrow. The entire team are under absolutely strict instruction to terminate with prejudice. Greg’s orders are to secure Sherlock and John and return them to Vauxhall. The news that Sherlock and John are in need of rescue is never a surprise.

The burnt-out hull of the Holmes family estate house is unnervingly spooky, and the bit about the sister being truly loose is startling enough he hasn’t been able to file it away yet. The MI5 team they’ve sent him with are better than competent and boast more than one sniper. Shoot-to-kill orders always make him uneasy. Greg watches and listens as the team fans out in the quiet and the darkness, surrounding the skeletal structure, carefully closing their perimeter, entering the structure quickly. The sounds of gunfire and grappling through headsets erupt and subside so quickly it’s impossible to tell what happened. Within moments Greg has Sherlock by an arm, hustling back towards the vehicles. The definitive “target down” comes under orders to locate target three, and Greg shuffles Sherlock forward, wishing he also had John in hand.

Sherlock vibrates with what can only be described as panic—something about John being submerged in a well. This is no doubt why they’ve sent Greg out here; who else would believe any of this? It surpasses odd that Mycroft isn’t here. Greg’s expecting him at every turn. There is a helicopter landing, though. He rounds up the secondary team to search for Watson.

Once Sherlock has led them to the well, the rescue efforts gear right up and a diver swiftly has John shivering against the stones. If Greg can get them both in a car, that’s his job done here.

The diver has located human remains, though. Bones, and that stirs up another wave of action. Sherlock is frozen for the moment, pale as a ghost, staring. John, shivering under a blanket, refuses to move from Sherlock’s side. Greg keeps one hand on Sherlock’s arm while they wait to hear more about the remains in the well water below.

Greg surveys the helicopters, and none of them disgorges the elder Holmes brother. Since having a hand on Sherlock and John in sight, Greg’s unease at the situation has lessened. The continued absence of Mycroft, though. That’s not good.

He leans into Sherlock’s face to ask, “Where is Mycroft?”

“I don’t know where she took him,” Sherlock says. John shudders between them and another blanket wouldn’t be amiss.

“Took him?” Greg snags another shock blanket from the back of the ambulance.

“The last time we saw Mycroft was when Eurus drugged us. We don’t know. He’s not here.” Sherlock busily tucks fabric around John.

Missing. Near drowned. Drugged. Missing. Unexpected rage surges through him. Missing. “Where?”

“She took over Sherrinford Prison, the entire island,” Sherlock begins.

“She near killed us.” John interrupts. “She killed five people we saw, Greg.”

“She intended for you to die, too.” Sherlock brushes wet hair back from John’s face.

“No kidding.”

Lestrade stares. His bones chill and gain weight. Gods, he is angry. His fury blooms and his vision narrows. “What?”

Sherlock’s gaze snaps to him. “Don’t just stand there. Find. Him.”

Lestrade dismisses his desire to punch Sherlock. How dare he lose Mycroft. He’ll deal with that later. He twirls a finger that brings Clarkson, his second, to his side.

“Sir?”

“Get these two to Medical at Six.” Lestrade has his phone in hand.

“Yes, sir.” The agent waves a van over.

Greg calls Anthea. “Where is he?”

“On Sherrinford Island, as best we can tell.”

“Is he alright?” As best she can tell?

“He is not in contact. I don’t know. I’m on my way.”

Greg’s growl must be louder than he knows because Anthea’s breath hitches and she says, “Yes, sir. I know. I’m on my way.”

“I’m going to tell one of these men to get me out there.” Greg stalks toward the first in the line of helicopters. “Make sure no one stops me.”

“Yes, sir.”

~.~

Sherrinford Penitentiary, Isle of Sherrinford

The ride is interminable, made more so by the incendiary anger alight under his skin. Musgrave is considerably closer to Sherrinford than London, and the facility seems deserted when they arrive. Anthea’s team is just a few minutes behind them.

They meet between the aircraft. Thea is in tactical gear rather than heels. Greg lifts his brows at her. “Sit rep?”

“Target down,” she says. “There’s a list.” She gestures toward the building. “She let everyone out. We have a hell of a job on hand to rearrest them all.”

“Are you sure he’s here?”

Thea wears a rare expression of concern. “I am.”

Security cameras locate Mycroft stretched on the floor of a cell—his sister’s—a floor below them. Greg’s heart stalls even as his eyes remind him that Mycroft’s form is composed and his ankles are crossed. Not the pose of a dead man. The other man in that cell, just feet away from him, is sprawled in a mess of coagulated blood. Greg imprints the floor plan in his head and stalks out with two agents on his heels.

Greg lifts his hand to the transparent wall. For a long moment he struggles to absorb the prone form of Mycroft Holmes lying perfectly still on the floor of the cell. He blinks against the weight of his lungs slamming shut. Then, everything in him seizes. Not even the video images prepare him for the sight of Mycroft lying motionless opposite a body in a pool of blood not ten feet from him. “Somebody unlock this fucking door,” he growls.

The MI5 team crack the door and Greg strides through it to Mycroft’s still form. “Mycroft.” He drops to a knee, hand to Mycroft’s wrist. Grey eyes fly open, full of shock and alarm.

Greg is able to drop his gaze, find a breath. What the bloody fuck. That somehow Mycroft was lost amidst the deadly mayhem that unfolded here with no one to defend him. Every instinct he’s honed as an agent and a copper quivers.

Mycroft has two days’ growth of beard, he’s in shirtsleeves with no waistcoat or tie, considerably dishevelled. He is pale and worn, but moving easily. His eyes latch on to Greg. “She…?”

“Dead.” Greg answers firmly.

“Yes?” Mycroft seems wary.

“Yes.”

“Sherlock?”

“With John. Both uninjured.” Greg’s voice leaves no room for doubt.

A complicated expression crosses Mycroft’s features; he nods. He moves to sit up and Greg puts a hand on his back.

“D’you need medical?”

Mycroft shakes his head, somehow making his scramble to stand look graceful. “I just need to get out of here. Please.”

Four agents hustle them down a series of hallways and stairs. Greg falls into step behind Mycroft and manages the space around him reflexively to ensure he’s not crowded. They quickly find themselves outside where it’s freezing cold and alive with emergency responders, blue and red lights and flashers. Greg steps closer to Mycroft and looks him over slowly. Sweet bloody Jesus on the cross. He’s seen the younger man with worse physical injuries look less derailed. “Do you need medical?” he asks again softly. Mycroft touches his arm. Five long fingers grip his forearm tightly. The touch nearly undoes him. “Let’s get you over to Medical at Six,” he murmurs. Mycroft flashes him a sharp look. He shrugs.

Anthea meets them mid-parking lot and glares at Mycroft. There is a long moment of silent communication before she turns and gives Greg a grateful smile. “Sirs. Follow me.”

Anthea herds them toward a line of helicopters as one’s blades begin to spin. If this wasn’t a security services op earlier, it clearly is now. Ahead of him, Mycroft shudders. Greg peels off his overcoat and slips it over Mycroft’s shoulders.

~.~

Greg’s coat is deeply warm and Mycroft retreats into it like armour. Protection from cold if not from the abiding sense of horror that clings to him. The coat also smells like welcome. Faint traces of sandalwood, smoke, solicitude. A vast improvement over the stench of blood and shit. The weight of the dark grey wool is dense and grounding. Torture is not new, although less frequent than one might guess. Mycroft has been in worse situations and been badly physically hurt in the past. It’s not the actions of the past hours that leave him so hollow; it’s the experience of torture at the hands of those he loves that levels him now.

Mycroft Holmes rose through the ranks of SIS quickly and with the requisite stints as an agent. He’s extraordinarily well trained. He simply wasn’t trained for this. He loves his family deeply. Probably always will. That those sentiments are not reciprocated is immaterial. Cannot be reciprocated. He reminds himself sternly that wanting the impossible is a fool’s dream. And he is not a fool. His shredded heart screams otherwise. Greg and Anthea sit to either side of him. He must look a right wreck to merit such protective impulses from these two. He doesn’t have the energy to brush them off. He dons headphones and tilts his head back, eyes shut.

He woke beside the governor’s corpse in Eurus’s cell to stench, a splitting headache, and abject silence. He’d lain on the floor, waiting to die. He’d wished Sherlock and his doctor had escaped, prayed Sherlock hadn’t revealed Whytford to her, hoped his parents were safe. Drowned in unwelcome sentiment. He’d eventually pulled back from panic and gone over everything that occurred, tried to find what he’d missed. He hadn’t guessed Sherlock and John could wish him actual harm, separate him from his security. His judgement in managing Eurus’s incarceration was severely impaired. And having mishandled both, he’d nearly gotten his brother killed. Has gotten five bystanders killed. Has destroyed yet more threads of relationships with his family. He will lose his job. He will have nowhere from which to start anew. Failed. Is failing. His fingers ache with the desire for a phone, some way to contact ’Lock, Ford, or Father, make absolutely sure. No contact is, of course, best.

A hand on his arm jerks his attention to the noisy, vibrating present. Lestrade grips his wrist. He glances over and is caught by a deeply brown gaze of concern. Like his coat, Lestrade’s gaze is heavy and warm. Lestrade presses a square of cotton into his hand. He stares at the handkerchief in confusion. Lestrade doesn’t strike him as a man who carries hankies.

Lestrade’s fingers touch his jaw, causing his eyes to snap up. Before he can pull back, a gentle thumb strokes his cheek. Then the touch is gone and when Lestrade lifts his hand Mycroft sees it’s come away wet. Lestrade gestures to the handkerchief and steers his gaze away again.

~.~

Vaux Hall Medical, London

Greg stares wearily across familiar hallway tiles, unseeing, regrouping. It’s been a hell of an evening. He knows he needs to make his supervisors at NSY aware of the prison break and begin organising the Met search protocols. He hopes that someone at Five has already done that.

Mycroft has never before appeared less than utterly in control to Greg. Angry, yes. Frustrated, often. The man who pulled him from his MI5 undercover stint with the Met to handle his little brother is the epitome of brilliant control. When they work together to manage the odd SIS op, Mycroft is formidable, fearless, frightening sometimes. When they occasionally share a meal or a drink, he is dry wit and easy laughs. Even in the face of Sherlock’s worst moments, Mycroft was Mycroft. Yet, when Greg left the exam room, Mycroft had appeared entirely unravelled and more than slightly frightened. Apparently he was drugged earlier today. Which goes part of the way to explain the prison cell and the tears. It doesn’t begin to clarify Greg’s reaction to both. Movement at the end of the hallway catches his attention. Anthea.

Once again looking like a fifties pin-up girl, Anthea carries a leather garment bag over an arm. Greg narrows his gaze at her and spots the strain around her eyes, the tightness around her lips. “’S that for himself?” He gestures, sitting up.

She slants him the patented ‘don’t be ridiculous’ glare and sniffs.

Honestly, Greg shakes his head and beckons her closer. When she’s finally close enough he puts a hand on her arm. “Sit a second.”

For a long moment it looks like she won’t, but she sinks into the chair next to him with a sigh. “Do you need anything, Inspector?”

“How are you holding? Do you need anything?” He deflects back to her. She’s the perfect complement to Mycroft, whatever her job is. She’s equal to his cool and competence if not detachment. Greg sees the passion with which she guards and manages. Evidence her delivery of Mycroft’s armour. He pats the luggage in her lap. They often meet gazes from the opposite sides of a Holmes management mess in frustration or fond patience. Greg waits for an answer that doesn’t come before continuing. “Look. He’s gonna need us for a bit. Let’s make sure he gets the space and time to recover. Yeah?” Duty they can share.

Anthea’s expression softens into worry, then relief. “Agreed. Hourly check ins?”

Greg lifts his brows. That’s a lot. She shrugs. She’s worried. He nods. “Text.”

Anthea puts her game face back on and rises, gliding into the exam room with a soft knock.

Greg knows what to do in a practical sense. Get the man thoroughly checked over and, barring medical intervention, get him some nourishment and rest. What he doesn’t know is what to think or feel. Mycroft’s distress scrapes against the very ceiling of Greg’s tolerance in ways he’d near forgotten were possible. It causes a surge of protective fury he hasn’t felt in over twenty years. He is ridiculously grateful to be a middle-aged British white man with more than enough polite reserve to shelter behind. He sighs.

Mycroft comes away from the exam room looking better.

“Hey.” Greg jumps to his feet.

“Gregory.” Mycroft inclines his head. He looks more alert, more composed, a bit more like himself. Albeit, that could be the reappearance of a tie, waistcoat and jacket.

“Anthea has gone upstairs. Thomas has the car outside.” Greg smiles. “Let’s get you home. Yeah?”

A flicker of doubt crosses Mycroft’s features. “No. The flat,” he clarifies. “The Pall Mall flat, please.”

“’Course. Fine.” Greg wants to know what medical said. He limits himself to accompanying Mycroft out to the car where Thomas unfolds from the driver’s seat to convey his boss into the car with solicitous hands. Greg offers Thomas a grateful smile and slides in. During the brief drive Greg texts their destination to Anthea, then texts the duty officer at the Met to give his go bag to whomever Anthea sends to the Yard for it. Mycroft rests his head on the headrest and closes his eyes. Greg wants to reach across the leather seats and touch his hand, wants to murmur that everything is alright now. But he doesn’t and it isn’t. He texts Sherlock that they are on the way to Mycroft’s flat. He slips the phone into his pocket and watches the city go by.

~.~ 

68 Pall Mall, London

When Greg gets out of the car Mycroft’s brows lift. “Thank you, Greg. Thomas can take you home.”

Greg shakes his head. He shuts the car door firmly. Thomas has circled the car and is holding open the side door. Greg tilts his head at the door.

Mycroft balks at the kerb.

Greg shrugs. “I’m not leaving you here with just the staff. This is what friends do. They stay.”

“I see.” Mycroft’s eyes narrow. “You’ve been assigned. Very well.” He straightens his shoulders, his chin lifting, his expression severe.

Greg rolls his eyes as Mycroft strides past him and up the stairs. It’s been years since he’s done bodyguard detail, and yes, he has orders from both Smallwood and Mallory tonight. His own statement is equally true. They’ve known each other for eleven years, for Christ’s sake.

Greg’s bag is in the mudroom with a note outlining the rest of the security staffing rotation for the night. He shoulders the bag and follows Mycroft silently toward the hallway. He finds Mycroft hovering outside the living room, looking lost. He rests a hand on the man’s shoulder. “What will help?” His voice is soft.

“Help?” Mycroft asks. His gaze wanders to Greg.

“Food? Drink? Bath? Bed?” Greg lists what he can think of to soothe the edges. From the little he knows, he guesses they’re all a long way from recovering from whatever happened out there. “Talk?”

“I don’t know.” Mycroft’s eyes fall to the floor. There is an utterly alien vulnerability about him. Even so, there is grace in his long body, hawk-like features over a soft mouth. Even now, without the severity of expression he so often hides behind—particularly now—he is lovely.

“Come on.” He lifts his own coat off Mycroft’s frame and folds it over his bag. He slides his hand down Mycroft’s arm and gently grips his wrist with a tug he hopes is reassuring.

Dropping his belongings at the foot of the stairs, he guides Mycroft back to the kitchen and turns on the lights. He steers Mycroft to a bar stool. “Here.” He loosens the silk tie and unbuttons a single button at his neck. “Take a breath.” He shrugs off his own suit coat, rolls up his sleeves. He begins at the nearest cabinet and quickly opens doors and drawers, familiarising himself with the room and snagging a saucepan, spoons, mugs, cocoa, vanilla, sugar, and milk. He deftly mixes ingredients and scalds milk. Moments later he sets a mug of hot chocolate in front of Mycroft. He inhales the lush steamy smell of chocolate and sips from his own mug.

Mycroft tilts his head and lifts the mug. “Why milk?” he asks.

“Medicinal.” Greg offers.

Mycroft takes a hesitant sip and swallows. “Perhaps.” He takes another sip and seems to settle.

Greg leans back against the counter, watching Mycroft over the rim of his mug. The silence that fills the space around them is soft, almost welcome. A return to what’s familiar. Through all these ridiculous years, they’ve become expert at silence. They’d worked awkwardly through several years keeping Sherlock more or less sober and most definitely alive. They’d tried to support John Watson after Sherlock fell. Odd moments spent together, long hours keeping watch, a few endless nights worrying, taught them how to be comfortable with each other’s presence. Greg finds himself watching tonight. Mycroft’s beard is coppery red with beautiful blonde highlights and Greg wants to compliment it and request it stay. Inappropriate.

Mycroft slides the empty mug across the granite island. Washing-up time, Greg presumes. Though undoubtedly Mycroft has people. Greg runs hot water. It’s the business of a few moments to scrub a saucepan and two mugs. He glances over to ask after a towel for drying and finds Mycroft has left the room.

Greg could use some additional information here. Mycroft is hurting in a way he hasn’t seen since Sherlock was trying to kill himself with heroin. Lady S did not make it clear if this close protection is because there’s a threat or because Mycroft is the threat. He can’t recall Sherlock ever asking him to take care of anyone or even notice anyone not named Watson needed care. Greg runs a hand through his hair. He wanders down a dark hallway. He finds Mycroft sitting on the stairs up to a second floor, at the landing.

“You needn’t inconvenience yourself any longer, Inspector. I will call in to reassure that your current assignment is completed.”

Mycroft habitually reduces Greg to his lowest-ranking title when wanting to push him off. “Still don’t fancy leaving you alone.” Obviously. The word appears in his mind with all of Sherlock’s disdain. The corner of his mouth quirks when Mycroft sees it.

“I’m never alone, Detective Chief Inspector. Your admirable rescue abilities are hardly necessary. Regardless of anything my brother may have implied earlier, I am entirely capable of managing my own care. There are reports to complete along with the ongoing investigation. I simply do not want to keep you from your responsibilities.”

“Mmmm.” Greg can’t think how Mycroft is managing to look so superior while sitting on steps like a kid, babbling on about everything except what he actually wants. He’s tempted to “sir” him in retaliation for the return to job titles. Damn Holmeses—use a paragraph to say what you could say with a word. He rubs the back of his neck. He looks carefully at the well-known face above. Competing with hauteur and disdain is also anguish. He blows out a breath and climbs. He holds Mycroft’s gaze as he takes the stairs slowly, waiting for a reaction that doesn’t come. There’s a moment when he’s still five steps down and their eyes come level where he pauses to acknowledge he knows Mycroft wants him to stay despite the perfunctory dismissals. Mycroft’s eyes are a cool, wary grey. It’s a bit like being X-rayed. His nostrils flare slightly; he acknowledges that he knows Greg wants to be here. Greg climbs the final five steps and sits, arms and shoulders touching. “You going to be able to sleep?”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

Greg nods. He’s about to suggest a bath when he realises Mycroft is shaking. “Mycroft.” His voice is near a whisper. He has no idea what’s reduced Mycroft Holmes to this shaking idleness. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know. Although. There’s really nothing like family shit to disturb the hell out of a person. Holmes family shit has to be extreme to have produced the kids it has. He sighs and leans. He’s careful with his weight until he feels Mycroft lean back. They find a balance, propped against one another. “I’m assuming nothing will be the same after all this,” he says. “Always hard. Let’s just get on with it.”

“Oddly reassuring, that.” Mycroft chuckles.

A ripple of warmth runs through Greg at the unexpected pleasant sound. He rises and extends a hand, pulling Mycroft to his feet. “Lay on, Macduff.”

“And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” Mycroft whispers the answer under his breath. The two men gaze at one another for a long moment.

Greg follows Mycroft up the remaining flight of stairs, along a hallway to a wide master suite.

“My rooms.” Mycroft gestures.

They walk on down the hallway.

“Guest quarters.” Mycroft gestures to another door. “Please make yourself comfortable. I’m sure Anthea has let the housekeepers know you’re here.” There is a note of wry tolerance in his voice. “I think I’ll follow your suggestion for a bath and retire. Thank you, Greg.”

“Of course.” Endless dismissals. “If you need anything.”

“Of course.” Mycroft inclines his head and steps back. He turns into his bedroom and shuts the door softly between them.

Greg sighs and scrubs at his head. He flips on the light and surveys the guest room. Not home, but quite nice. Nicer, in fact, than the last several hotels he’s stayed at. He grins. Turning his attention to his phone screen, he double-checks that his reassignment has trickled down to the Met. He finds his active cases shoved off onto Dimmock—won’t be popular—and the two headed for court have been given to Sally as the lead, which will make her very happy and, he hopes, give her additional cred towards her pending promotion.

He wrinkles his nose and tries to imagine who set up close protection for Mycroft last night. Given the domestic nature of the mess on the island, it has to be going solely through Thames House. He taps up access to his MI5 assignments page—which he so rarely uses these days—and sure enough there’s the link to his brief and the rotation. Which is just him. No other tactical shifts assigned at this time. So, they’re not worried about physical safety beyond that provided by his usual security staff. They’re worried about Mycroft’s status, for lack of more practical language. That explains why Greg. Not like Mycroft is going to tolerate anyone else.

He opens a call to Sherlock.

“What?”

“What the hell happened out there, Sherlock?” Greg closes the bedroom door and lowers his voice.

“How is he?”

“He’s quiet. Seriously, what the fuck?” He perches on the bed.

“Just keep eyes on him. This has been horrible for him. There’s too much history to go into tonight, Lestrade. He needs you. Just be there. Okay?”

“Sure. But…”

“Lestrade. Please.”

Greg’s brows climb. Please? Shit. “Yeah, yeah. I’m here. Okay. We need to talk tomorrow.”

Sherlock ends the call without a goodbye.

A curt message from Anthea arrives announcing she will be here in the morning. Great. Everyone everywhere wants him watching Mycroft and no one is telling him what happened. Typical. It seems all Greg need do at the moment is collect his bag and jacket from downstairs and go to bed.

~.~

Mycroft undresses methodically. It’s vexing that he doesn’t know where his suit jacket is. Somewhere between the office and Sherrinford. He’d normally want it back. Though, at the moment, folding his trousers over a wooden hanger, he considers burning his entire kit. That image brings a wry smile to his lips.

The next order of business is to shave. He draws his blade over the planes of his cheeks reflexively, grateful for the soothing lather and cool steel. Shedding the beard feels cleaner, more in control. He steps into the cascade of the shower with relief. The simple act of washing from head to foot has a ritual sense of rightness alongside the physical comfort. He’s rinsing soap from his back, leaning against stone tiles, when images of the past seventy-two hours begin rising. He tries opening his eyes. It helps. His thoughts flicker from clown faces in his home, Sherlock with a gun to his head, Moriarty’s vicious smile, John’s hand on the “I love you” coffin. The bone-searing fear that Eurus would discover Whytford in her quest to claim Sherlock.

Sherlock’s pleasure at terrorising him in his home sears his memory. He curses softly and puts his head under the water, seeking oblivion of any sort. How, he wonders, how has he spent decades believing Sherlock’s behaviour towards him was childish when it was churlish? How did love blind him to accept cruelty as better than nothing at all? The first sob clutches beneath his sternum. Eurus is dead, finally gone, a vacuum blooms in his chest. Sherlock is alive. Whytford is alive. Somehow that will have to be enough. He has trouble breathing and shuts off the water. Mummy and Father are fine. His eyes squeeze closed as the icy grief of abandonment wracks through him, strangling thoughts with pure feeling.

~.~

Greg’s on his way back to the room with his bag in hand when he hears what sounds like sobs from Mycroft’s room. His chest clenches. He closes the guest room door softly and leans against it, overwhelmed by a mix of embarrassment and sympathy. Christ. He makes himself walk to the bed and open his bag.

Now in the middle of the room, both doors closed, he can’t hear anything from the next room. He hopes that means Mycroft has settled. He skins out of his clothes and pulls on a T-shirt and jogging bottoms. In the ensuite, he washes his face and brushes his teeth. He studies himself in the mirror, noticing the lines around his eyes, the shadow of two days’ beard. He doesn’t carry a razor in his go bag. He rubs his hand over his jaw. He’ll cross this bridge in the morning.

The uneasiness of Mycroft weeping still hovers in his gut. Dammit. Everything in his head tells him to go to bed. Everything in his heart and bones tells him to go to Mycroft. Greg is a heart-and-bones guy. He’ll open his door again. If all’s quiet, he’s for bed. He bargains with himself. He opens the door to the hallway and leans on the door jamb. From here, the hitch of ragged breath is very soft. Greg’s head falls, his chin hits his chest. He hasn’t quite bargained with himself what he’ll do in this instance. Nothing wrong with tears. Greg sheds his fair share. Damn near all of those on his own. His feet carry him to Mycroft’s door.

There’s something painfully wrenching about having known Mycroft as long as he has. Mycroft wouldn’t cry. And if he did, he wouldn’t allow himself to be heard. Yet, here they are. Greg’s hand defies his thought about knocking and turns the knob.

The latch is distinctively loud and the door falls open. The cry is smothered. Followed by a groan.

“Hey, there.” Nothing for it. As if he’s at the scene of an accident, Greg walks across the room in the silvery light from the street until he reaches the bed. “None of that.” He gently grips the pillow over Mycroft’s head and shifts it. Never been anything other than direct. He puts a hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. “Heya. Come ’ere.” He tugs and climbs in a series of moves that takes him up onto the bed and brings Mycroft closer. He wraps his arms around the lanky younger man and hugs. “Hush. It’ll pass.” He rubs. To his everlasting astonishment he’s not pushed away. The man in his arms grips his T-shirt and curls into the embrace. A hot face presses to his neck. Deep sobs shake through them both.

“It’ll pass,” Greg murmurs. “I know.” He strokes Mycroft’s hair and rubs his thumb against his temple. “Hush.” He keeps his breathing level and slow. “It’ll pass.” He tightens his arms. “I know.” He doesn’t know anything, of course. At least not in the specific. But he sees enough of the suffering life doles out and like anyone, like everyone, he does know. “It’ll pass.” He lets his words keep a rhythm in time with his breath and his hand in Mycroft’s hair.

Eventually the gulping sobs ease and ebb. The tension in Mycroft’s shoulders slackens though his breathing is uneven. The fists in Greg’s shirt loosen until Mycroft’s palms are flat on his chest. Greg loses track of time and place; he simply holds the space, a hand scribing a gentle circle on Mycroft’s back, feeling the muscles slowly unwinding under his caress.

Greg feels Mycroft slip into an exhausted sleep. He stills. He mulls through things to say or do. Mycroft nestles, an arm stretching over Greg’s ribs. This damp nearness, now the storm of weeping has passed, is luscious. Greg tries to put the pure intense pleasure of holding Mycroft out of his thoughts. He hasn’t had sex since Vicki stopped sleeping with him a year before their divorce three years ago. He hasn’t even glanced at anyone in that time. Except the man currently in his arms. Under exactly the wrong circumstances. Now is hardly the time. In any way. At all. Greg relaxes onto his back, unable to completely quell the ripples of desire through his body. He resigns himself that this is as good as it’s going to get. Life is simply like this. He closes his eyes, an arm curled protectively around broad shoulders, when sleep overtakes him.

Chapter Two:  A breather day

68 Pall Mall, London

Mycroft’s mind grazes consciousness briefly and registers that everything aches before retreating back into the blank wall of sleep. The oft-coveted warmth of Lestrade in his bed is a regular enough feature of dreams to blend seamlessly into slumber.

The next time awareness surfaces it’s in reaction to motion around him and under him, startling him awake. He feels a full-body flinch and hears a very low, frighteningly familiar chuckle. A strong callused hand strokes up his bare arm and his eyes snap open to meet a dark brown affectionate gaze. “G’mornin’, you.”

No. No, no. Mycroft blinks. Instead of making Greg vanish, the blink brings him into clearer immediacy. How. Mycroft’s brain stutters. But. No.

Greg’s expression turns rueful. “Yeah. All of that.”

What. Mycroft’s brain clicks back online. The previous three days crash around his memory in a kaleidoscope of terror, bodies, choices, and sibling.

“Don’t.” Greg’s voice is husky with sleep. “You’re safe. It’s over.” His arm tightens and Mycroft realises how fully entwined he is. “I’ve got you.” Greg keeps talking. “You’re okay. Safe. Over.”

Mycroft recoils, or recoils as best he can against a strong lean embrace. He groans. Both men subside and sprawl back into the sheets. Hot bitter shame cascades through him. It defies his tolerance that somehow his situation continues to get worse. Of all the circumstances in which he could end up in bed with Greg, this feels just too humiliating to be borne. Once more he’s destined to destroy his connection to every single person he cares for. He would’ve thought it hurt less as an adult. But, no. Hurts more.

“Come on.” Greg murmurs. “Let’s get you up. Quit looking like that.” He continues muttering as he untangles from Mycroft and stretches. He’s been single for three years and with each month he’s grown more fit. Mycroft has watched him take up running and football, give up junk food, quit smoking. Mycroft closes his eyes on the sight of Greg’s T-shirt riding up to reveal a flat stomach and a dark line of hair between sharp hip bones. Clearly Mycroft hasn’t died of mortification yet if the attraction is any indication. He rolls to the edge of the bed and sits; as smoothly as he can, he stands and stalks to the ensuite and closes the door on the muttering.

Sleep has actually helped. He has to pee and he’s hungry. So, yes, still alive. He sighs. He relieves himself and brushes his teeth. He steps into the dressing room off the ensuite. He surveys his wardrobe while he peels off pyjamas, folding them on the counter. For the first time since three nights ago when Sherlock and John terrorised him at the country house, Mycroft’s head is clear, his thoughts linear, and while unhappy, he feels remarkably light. Ugly as everything has turned, sad as the hideous results, there are no more secrets, really. Nothing more to hide. How odd.

He lets his gaze wander down the row of suits. He’s not going to work any time soon. Nor will he be taking any meetings. He puts his back to the suits and waistcoats. Turning to the casual side of the dressing room, he decides to dress for comfort and pulls out a pair of grey denims, a soft pale blue linen shirt, and a cashmere grey jumper. He lays the kit out on the chaise and wonders if he’s willing to wear this to Vauxhall should he have to go today.

There is the matter of his job. His sister died in the wake of this most recent horror she architected.. Whytford is ensconced so deeply in the Service he’s almost disappeared. The estimable Dr Watson is once more free to look after Sherlock. Mycroft isn’t at all sure he can forgive that duo turning his home into a horror funhouse. Vauxhall Cross is never going to view him as unassailable again. And no matter what popular films indicate, no one is executed for knowing too much. He smiles. No. He can return to the field, however. He is no more than six months away from re-qualifying. By then the legalities of the mess at Sherrinford will be tied off. He reviews the potential of this plan, tugs on pants and a vest.

His consideration turns to the man in his bed. Who seems to have been assigned to look after him. He forces his thoughts to skip neatly over the clamour in the back of his mind, leaving feelings ignored. It seems possible, even, that when he’s back at Six, if nothing more disastrous occurs this morning, he can resume a practical working relationship with Lestrade. He locates grey socks in the index, and methodically keeps his mental sights to another future. Less powerful, yes. But no less meaningful. Surely, no less meaningful. Lestrade’s MI5 permanent posting to New Scotland Yard has always been useful. He sure it will be in the future, too.

Voices in the kitchen turn out to be Mycroft’s housekeeper Susan, Anthea, his brother, and Greg. Surreally, it appears that Greg is cooking breakfast. For everyone. Mycroft hesitates in the doorway. Susan and Anthea are uncharacteristically sitting at the island, cups of coffee in hand. Sherlock prowls near the French doors. Greg stands at the island with a large mixing bowl and a spoon, the only person in the room facing the door when Mycroft pauses. Greg’s face lights. Before Mycroft can interpret his expression, the other three turn. Anthea is angry. Susan oozes pity. Sherlock is oddly sympathetic.

“Perfect timing,” Greg says. “I’m just putting on the pancakes. Sherlock, get your brother tea.”

“Come sit, dear.” Susan pulls out the stool next to her.

Mycroft obediently moves into the room and takes the proffered seat while Sherlock pushes buttons on the kettle, and Mycroft can only wonder how 24 hours with their sister has reduced them to accepting directions.

“You slept,” Anthea accuses.

Mycroft’s eyes click to Greg and back. “I did,” he allows.

Anthea tilts her head. She’s known him far too long to have expected him to sleep last night. He raises an eyebrow and she purses her lips.

Sherlock brings Mycroft a cup of tea. “Brother mine.” Is there affection in his voice?

“Thank you,” Mycroft says. “To what do I owe the presence of you all?” He glances around the room. He tries to recall anyone actually cooking here instead of simply ordering up from the professional kitchens below. There’s a lengthy silence. Mycroft sips tea. It’s good. Exactly how he likes it. He offers his brother a long interrogatory look.

“I came to pick you up. We need to talk to Mummy and Father. They’re on their way, Mycroft.”

“No,” Mycroft says. He gazes at Greg’s back at the stove. Well-defined muscles move under a black T-shirt. He’s never watched Greg cook, but apparently he’s watched him do other things so often that nearly all his movements seem terribly familiar.

“Musgrave has been mentioned in the news. They’re asking.” Sherlock pulls up a stool and sits. “Mycroft. Best to get past it.”

True. Still intolerable. There has to be some limit to the suffering. He doesn’t move.

“Mycroft.”

Mycroft has no intention of arguing this. “You talk to them. You were there. They prefer you.” Unexpectedly, it hurts to admit this in the present company. “You won’t need me.” Another painful truth. He waits for Sherlock to strike, sees the impulse flash through his brother’s mercurial gaze.

“I only know what happened at Sherrinford. I don’t have the information from the beginning.” Sherlock’s tone is still insisting, but his gaze has turned speculative. He looks Mycroft up and then down. Mycroft allows it, veiling nothing. Sherlock can see much of what’s happened to him, but not all.

“Call Rudy,” Mycroft challenges.

Sherlock doesn’t answer. Mycroft glances up to see a fiery gaze exchange between Greg and Sherlock. Sherlock folds, and he nods. “That’s… that’s an excellent idea.”

Greg’s gaze shifts to Mycroft, transforming. I will protect you, his eyes seem to say. Mycroft drops his gaze to the granite under his cup. It would be unspeakably lovely to be held in Greg’s regard. He hates his foolish heart for deluding him thus.

Sherlock is on his feet again. “I will call you this evening,” he says. For a second he rests his hand on Mycroft’s shoulder. The brief warmth leaves a stinging in Mycroft’s eyes. He’d want this, too. He recalls another pair of steely blue eyes from his past. Orphans make the best agents, Olivia Mansfield once told him. She was frequently scathingly angry with him for his constant tending of family. While she’d reluctantly acknowledged he was a good agent, she’d never forgiven Rudy for insisting she take him.

As Sherlock leaves, Susan sets a plate of pancakes and sausages in front of Mycroft. Another plate is served up for Anthea. Suddenly, four of them are eating breakfast around the island. There is butter, syrup, sliced fruit, fresh juice. Susan, Anthea, and Greg make conversation. Something about the merits of fruit in or beside one’s pancakes turns into something else about a case Anthea recalls from years ago. Mycroft eats methodically, the words flowing around him.

~.~

It takes much of Greg’s considerable stubbornness to screen Mycroft from the persistent demands of Sherlock, the Holmes parents, and various parts of the Secret Intelligence Service. Anthea arrived this morning furious that Mycroft had been cut off from the protective detail, but once Greg shared what little he knows about the situation she joined him to provide Mycroft with the time and space to recover. She’s run interference with Parliament and is babysitting his phone. Susan took up food and comfort duty after breakfast and her husband Charles is out at the country house considering repairs.

Greg originally planned to leave Mycroft to his own devices in the flat this morning and go work out, but the crowd that descended early changed that fast. Not that he could stave off every demand. The Lady Alicia Smallwood came by to take Mycroft’s preliminary statement. Anthea drove him to a psych eval. Greg watched him maintain a steely reserve that occasionally still looked like shock.

Mid-day Greg receives a thorough intel review on the circumstances of Eurus Holmes. What the Director General didn’t supply, Anthea added in her always entertaining footnotes. Smarter than Mycroft, more pathological than Sherlock, apparently surpassing anyone Greg’s ever had to track for sheer threat. The woman’s death has not significantly reduced the sense of alarm or threat, either. Along with the intel, he takes a look at the security level. In the absence of his sister, with very little intel on what she did, M is clearly guarding against the vulnerability that having Mycroft on leave might present.

The long line of Mycroft’s body is silhouetted by the pale street light. He’s leaned on the wall, head bent. He’s a study in pensive poise, elegantly outlined by the London skyline. Greg was going to suggest some crap telly and popcorn. He pivots and retreats to the library. He collapses into an armchair in the dark room and reckons some privacy is deserved.

“Will it make any difference for me to assure you that you can go home?” A deep velvet voice surprises Greg from his reverie.

“Hmmm? Yeah, no. I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want close protection.”

“Good thing it’s me, then, yeah?” Greg huffs.

“Thank you.”

“What?” Greg’s tempted to turn on the lights to see Mycroft’s face.

“I’m grateful for your company.”

Well damn. “My pleasure.”

“I appreciate not having to deal with my parents. Or with work. Today.” Mycroft settles gracefully into the chair opposite Greg. “If you hadn’t been here, I would’ve been beleaguered.”

“And here I thought it was my company you liked.” Greg jokes.

“I believe I said that first, did I not?” He hears Mycroft’s smile.

“You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

Greg still isn’t sure what to do with that answer.

“You have questions, Inspector.”

“Yeah, ’course.” Greg says.

They remain quiet.

“Won’t you ask?”

“Will you answer?”

“I believe I will.”

Greg leans forward. “Why not see your parents?”

“I’m surprised, Inspector. I thought surely you’d be curious about my sister’s history. Or the deaths on Sherrinford.”

“Mmmm. So. No answers. Alright.” Greg leans back.

Mycroft has the grace to look chagrined. “I’m sorry. I’m not in the habit…”

“Yeah, I know.” Greg allows.

“I don’t know what kind of briefing you got, but I can guess. My parents produced shockingly intelligent children and had no idea how to raise us. My parents have been disappointed in me for so long they don’t really know how to do anything else. Father in particular can be quite cruel in his assessments. It’s something I try to avoid. Today. Just.”

“But with Sherlock?”

“Oh, they can be difficult with all of us. I did try to protect them.” Mycroft sighs. “Undoubtedly a terrible misstep on my part. It’s hardly helped.” His brows draw together.

“There’s one more,” Mycroft offers. “The youngest, also frighteningly brilliant.”

Greg waits.

“Another brother.” Mycroft sighs. “Whytford. He insists on retaining his nickname of Ford. They had another son. Have.” He meets Greg’s narrow gaze. “He’s safe.” Mycroft closes his eyes tightly and shakes his head.

“Am I supposed to know there’s another one of you?” Greg ventures.

“Your security clearance is certainly high enough.”

“What does that mean?” Greg’s brows furrow with the effort of sorting out another secret sibling.

“I mean what I said.” Mycroft snaps. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to… it’s been decades. I do try to put aside feeling when… and now. I can’t. When it’s useless. When it doesn’t change anything.” The underlying frustration in his voice is sharp.

“Bollocks,” Greg says. “You know that giving a damn is all that stands between any of us and dangerous insanity.” He doesn’t add that the specific insanity seems to run in this specific family.

Mycroft shoots him a withering look. “Well, it hurts,” he offers crossly.

“It can.” Greg fights back a smile. Mycroft’s unmasked annoyance is dearly familiar and oddly reassuring. Now he does reach across the space and rest his hand on Mycroft’s. “I can’t make it not hurt. But I will be with you in this.”

“No.”

Mycroft’s refusal is faster than Greg thought it would be. He was expecting it. Of course he was. Rejection has been such a consistent feature of his life, he ought to be used to it by now. He’s not. By half. After a long still moment he takes a slow breath. “Right,” he whispers. “Right.” He gathers himself to get up. He hesitates. Mycroft never uses one word. His eyes flicker back to the man across from him. Mycroft is motionless and clearly thinking very hard. His expression is unguarded, soft and slightly worried.

“No.” Mycroft repeats, voice low and warm. He raises a hand to stop Greg from responding. “This is not yours to fight…” He hesitates. “We are serious men, you and I. What I hide with formality, you cover with casualness. But we are passionate and committed men.”

Greg’s breath catches in his chest. “We are.” That no was not directed at him.

“I will not yield and kiss the ground.” Mycroft resorts back to Macbeth.

“Before my body I throw my warlike shield.” Greg quotes the next line from the play.

Mycroft’s grin transforms his face. “You and Shakespeare are an unexpected delight.”

Never only one word. Greg smiles. “Well, let’s not just sit here thinking deep thoughts. You know your psych eval has to be a mess. They’ll saddle you with at least a month’s leave.”

The accomplishment of showers, hot milk, stairs and the lot take a ridiculous amount of negotiation. Mycroft is in a testy mood, and Greg is a terrible negotiator. He abandons Mycroft on the edge of the bed arguing with himself about whether or not to wear socks to bed to make one more round to ensure everything is locked tight and the correct personnel are in the right places. He returns to find Mycroft where he’d left him. Side remarks about nightmares couched in a “we men of action must endure” rhetoric. Backhanded thanks for not avoiding the tears last night. The third time Mycroft asks him to do something—if you could hand me the paracetamol from the other side of the bed, have you heard from Smallwood, are your accommodations acceptable—Greg pauses at the door and asks for him: “Would you mind me sleeping in here again? In case.” Close protection doesn’t get closer than in your bed. He surrenders and climbs into Mycroft’s bed, holding up the covers and glaring until Mycroft joins him.

Greg lies in bed ignoring the ridiculous thread count of the sheets and the deep restful breathing near his ear. He ponders why this infuriating man beside him spent all day complaining that he doesn’t want close protection and then spent an equal if not greater amount of energy this evening trying to get Greg to stay in the bed with him. Pretty much everything short of asking. He shifts onto his side and watches Mycroft sleep. The man is deeply asleep. Further gone than Greg’s ever been with someone else in his bed except with Julia, he supposes. He never did manage it with Victoria. Nor with Mycroft last night.

But here, with four agents on duty in the building—one outside the door—with this man he’s known nearly his entire adult life, perhaps he will sink, too.

Chapter Three: Long day

Vaux Hall, London

“You’ve been assigned to his close protection for the foreseeable future. You have to have the clearance to be beside him. The psychiatrist is insisting on a month’s leave with twice-weekly sessions before releasing him to work. That is not going to help calm the masses.”

“You couldn’t find some fit young social climber to do this?” The complaint doesn’t get an answer from Mallory, but Greg does get a bark of laughter in his ear. He’s forgotten the damn earpiece that easily. He extracts it and curls his palm around it. “I get it. He’s not going to like any of this for a moment. And he’ll tolerate me. I get that.” He starts to ask about his jobs before swallowing down that his jobs have evaporated. This is his job now. He ducks. “What happens to me after this?”

“Lady S has some excellent ideas. Focus. Don’t worry.”

“Who’s my back-up?”

“Anthea or Eve.”

They’re serious. Greg’s innate desire to buck authority is quelled by his desire to keep Mycroft safe. “He’s in more danger from his family,” he allows.

“We know. He trusts you.” Gareth doesn’t say it’s Greg’s job to protect Mycroft from his family, but the demand hangs in the air. Gareth props his chin on his fist, elbow resting on the desk.

Greg leans forward. “Who do I report to?”

“Holmes. Unless you need me.”

“Off the record for a mo…?” He closes his eyes. Nowhere in any of his imaginings does he have this conversation with this man.

“Of course.”

When Greg opens his eyes, Gareth has leaned back in his chair.

“I’m too close.” Greg rubs a hand down his face. “I’m compromised.” He hopes Gareth can make the intuitive leap, but Gareth’s expression reflects puzzlement. Greg sighs. “I’m too close. Care too much. And not only in the right ways.”

Gareth’s face clears. “Are you two…”

“No. He has no idea.” Greg admits. “But, still. Conflict of interest. Trust me.” His face heats, and he can’t recall his most recent blush.

The two men sit in silence for a long moment. Gareth rubs his chin. Greg drops his gaze to the desktop. Worn leather blotter on polished wood, uncluttered. Greg has known of both unrevealed affairs between agents and known lovers working together. But never as close protection. And he’s afraid that the unrequited nature of his feelings is more compromising than if he were intimate with Mycroft.

“I don’t think he’ll let anyone else stay with him in his home.” Gareth taps his fingers idly on his chair arm. “Stay with him. Stay armed, both of you. I’ll put a team outside.”

“I can stay as his friend.” Greg confirms.

“His dangerous friend.” Gareth amends.

“Got it.” Greg reinserts the earpiece. “Who else is listening on this?”

“Only the two of you unless you request anything else. But don’t bet that Q won’t.” Gareth purses his mouth as if considering something.

Greg waves him down. “He told me. Q. Ford. Brother. Fuck.”

“Eloquent as always, Lestrade.” Mallory opens his door. He touches Greg’s elbow on the way past. “He will be a lucky man when he figures you out,” he murmurs.

Tucking his embarrassment tight behind finding a task, Greg emerges below ground near the cubicles reserved for agents. Several are open and he drops into a chair behind a closed door and boots up the computer. He signs into his portal, idly wondering when the people he’s closest to in the Service became so prominent. He met Gareth Mallory when they were young, and he’s watched with pleasure as the man recovered from field work injury and donned the three piece suit. He admired the man’s steady tread toward becoming head of MI6 through the government - smart. Very smart. Politic. Very politic. By default, they communicate rarely these days.  Not never, though. On his own side of the service, he queries his immediate supervisor, and several colleagues. By lunchtime he’s taken care of making sure his Met supervisees are set with a new temporary chain of command, and has filed his report on the events at Musgrave.

He’s about to get up and head for the firing range for lack of anything else on when he gets a message from M. ‘Report to the Quartermaster.”

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. Greg Lestrade is a London lad. He likes keeping his country and especially his city safe and sound. He likes adventure. He thrives on risk. He even enjoys the occasional loan of his services from MI5 to MI6, but he is 50 years old. He slams from the tiny room and starts down the hallway. He’s still too old for this shit. He stalks through the glass doors into the quartermaster's lair. He is a mere three years away from mandatory stand down as it is. People who ‘report to the quartermaster’ end up dead. The thought stops him cold. He knows, on an intellectual level, that Mycroft’s life is sometimes in danger. He wonders if someone thinks that Mycroft is so badly compromised by family shit that he won’t be able to adequately defend himself. He wonders if he thinks it. It’s a near thing. Fuck. He stops inside the door, techies in fast motion in front of him, two ops in play up on screens. 

“Ah, Lestrade.” The willowy youngster in the middle of the room offers him a business-like nod. “If you’ll follow me.” 

Greg has heard all about the child-genius who is Q. The Service sustains a low level buzz about his brilliance, his mystery, his safety. And it’s right there in the uptown cheekbones, the mop of dark curls, the lanky graceful movements. When the young man turns back and levels Greg with a piercing ocean colored gaze there is no doubt. 

“Yes. There are similarities. Now. If you will.” 

Greg wrestles a clamp on his shock and wonder, squares his shoulders and follows. The youngster closes the office door behind them and gestures Greg toward his desk with a movement so like Mycroft it’s eerie.

“This is exceptionally unusual. I’d normally just give you your equipment with instructions and that’d be that. Under the circumstances I feel I ought to fully introduce myself. I am the Quartermaster, singularly referred to as Q. Pretty much everything about me is classified.” The kid does not make eye contact well. For all the power he emanates, he is shy, Greg recognizes. He also recognizes the long delicate fingers in constant motion. Almost like he’s typing on the surface of the desk. When Q does look up, he pins Greg in place with the intensity of his stare. “It seems as if I’m deeply indebted to you.” He extends a slender hand. “Whytford Holmes. Please call me Ford. In private only, of course.” 

Greg takes the hand and clasps it firmly before releasing it. “Debt?” 

“For saving Sherlock.” Ford says, the ‘obviously’ unspoken but for the quirk of an eyebrow. “And now, for protecting Mycroft. Thank you.”

Greg is momentarily nonplussed; he doesn’t perceive any part of his life that way. At all. Christing Holmeses. The kid has reduced him to guardian of Holmeses in three sentences. He sighs. He’s tempted to ‘sir’ this one, too, which would clearly irritate the kid. He experiences a twinge of sympathy for the sheer effort the kid must put into being taken seriously. He’s the age Sherlock was when he met him, though a damned sight better held together. The corner of his mouth lifts. Ford, however, has moved on. He opens the case between them and picks up a Walther PPK/S. Greg drags his attention back to duty, queen, and country. 

By the time he’s in the lift up from the shooting range, where his gun grip was coded to his palmprint for fuck’s sake, he has messages from his sources making it clear that everyone in the shadow realm of secrets from the top of the best to the bottom of the enemy has eyes on Mycroft Holmes. Hence, close protection. Thus, Greg.

He’s in the top floor kitchen scaring up tea when his earpiece activates. Mycroft is mid-sentence. “... to the moment. Greg?”

“Can I bring you a cuppa? There’s a very nice Earl Gray here.” Greg offers. 

He is rewarded with a warm chuckle in his ear. “That… that would be lovely, but impractical I fear. I’m done here.”

“On my way.” 

In the lift back down, Greg leans back against the handrail and measures Mycroft. “This isn’t what you expected.”

“No. I thought I’d lose my job.”

A slow smile arches across Greg’s face, lighting his eyes. “Some wishful thinking there, yeah?”

“Perhaps.” There’s a wry twist to Mycroft’s lips.

There’s no time in the next seven hours to think about the turn of events as Mycroft is ferried to two meetings with Greg in his wake. With the advent of the higher security level, Greg trails along beside Mycroft, sitting in on meetings he heretofore hadn’t even dreamt happened, let alone thought he’d witness. Not that he has the spare attention to sort any of the content out. His phone becomes a stream of information about times, places, and personnel. He spends the parliamentary committee meeting coordinating transportation and assessing the current protection detail rotation of six agents on three twenty-four-hour shifts. He arranges a quick meal between that and a meeting with some Americans about what sounds like hacking, although during the meeting he is able to check in with Susan and Charlie about upgrading the security at the house.

Charlie details Sherlock and John’s prank, which sounds more like a break-in plus criminal mischief. Whatever it was, the security at the house is seriously compromised and Greg arranges for them to stay at the flat on Pall Mall until he figures out what happened. He texts Sherlock, “wtf, man” and they exchange quickly deteriorating messages about the house and Mycroft’s safety, leaving Greg wanting to get Sherlock in a dark alley sometime soon with nothing but fists. By the time the meeting is over, Greg, Anthea, and Susan are on the same page and Mycroft is on his way to the flat for dinner and bed.

Lounging back in the leather seats of the town car, Greg studies Mycroft. The man lives to work and work has cheered him considerably. Greg drifts a moment, envisioning two fingers of whisky and a reduction in vigilance. He’s been less tired after running a crime scene or an interrogation. He’s pondering the merits of familiar physical work against unfamiliar intellectual work when he notes Mycroft’s fingers curl and tighten into a fist. The younger man’s posture doesn’t exactly change, and maybe someone else wouldn’t notice the subtle tightening of his muscles. Greg reflexively reaches across the upholstery and strokes one finger over Mycroft’s clenched fist. His attention snaps up. The man in command of affairs of state and colleagues has vanished. Just as quickly, Mycroft’s expression slams closed and he straightens. His lips firm and his fingers spread open on his thigh and away from Greg’s touch.

Greg shakes his head. The command-performance aspect of all of this isn’t helping. He has little choice, although he can quit or retire. He makes a bid for Mycroft’s attention. “Are there any more of you secreted away?”

“You met Ford?”

“I did.”

“Then you’ve met us all.” Mycroft tilts his head thoughtfully. “Rare.”

“I bet. He, erm, thanked me. For watching over you lot. Managed to put me in my place as readily as the rest of you.” Greg infuses his tone with humour he may or may not feel at this point.

“Shall I put in for a pay rise for you, too?” Mycroft asks, dry and wry.

Greg barks a laugh. “Won’t say no.”

~.~ 

68 Pall Mall, London

The flat is empty when they leave Simmons outside the door. Greg slides home the locks. “Drink before dinner?” he asks. “I could use a moment.”

Mycroft moves into the living room and to the bar. “Whisky?” He reaches for cut crystal tumblers.

Glass in hand, Greg sinks onto the sofa. He sips and contemplates the golden liquid sparkling in the evening light. Good stuff. He keeps his eyes on his glass while Mycroft settles in a nearby armchair. In the flat he can give the man his privacy. He considers heading for the guest room, then reconsiders. Seems simpler to get through it and talk. Then, when they relax into the night later, they aren’t waiting for a good moment.

“Congratulations on the promotion.”

Mycroft chuckles. “Surely that’s not what you were planning to say.”

“No.” Greg sighs. “Can’t quite wrap my brain around…” He leans his elbows on his knees. “What I want is none of my business.”

“Isn’t it?”

Greg slides a glare at the politician. “Can you tell me what happened that’s compromised you so badly you need a minder?”

Mycroft lifts a brow.

“Or why you wouldn’t want someone fitter?”

The other brow rises to match the first.

Greg would like the reassurance that he knows the correct answers to those questions. He’d like a smooth descent into this conversation. He takes a healthier swallow of the whisky. “Alright. I’ll sum up. You missing for more than five minutes is an incident. Despite my advanced age, in concert with the regular protective detail I can still keep a body alive, and I am the best prepared to protect you from your family, including from your own damn self.”

“Well done, you.” Mycroft’s smile is real, if a bit haunted. It’s a start. “There are certain parties that may want to take advantage of what they’ll perceive as a weakness on our side. On my part.”

“So two more days of meetings to get you squared in your new position and then a month off.” Greg turns the tumbler in his hands. He catches Mycroft’s gaze and grins. “Mallory said Her Majesty is quite fond of you.”

“The feeling is quite mutual,” Mycroft allows.

“Then I guess we do what we must to keep you in one piece.” Greg leans back and drains his glass.

The bemused expression on Mycroft’s face is tender and Greg’s treacherous heart constricts with pure affection.

Greg angles up from the sofa. “Susan left dinner in the refrigerator. Let’s get to it.”

The beef-vegetable soup heats quickly, a plate of three kinds of melon is a delightful, if very low-calorie meal. The crisp cold of the fruit is a great compliment to the spice of the soup. For half the meal, Greg eats contentedly. He could get used to having meals show up like this on the regular. The quiet between the men is comfortable enough. He hates spoiling it. But needs must.

“I…uh,” not his best start. “I told Gareth this job is a conflict for me.”

Mycroft stops eating and rests his spoon on the rim of his bowl. Not what Greg intended.

He lifts a hand. “Let me ease into this, please.”

Mycroft narrows his eyes, which doesn’t help at all.

“The way I feel about you is not a good match for protection duty.”

“Pardon me?”

Greg would give anything to have the genius across the table simply read his mind. He rests his own spoon. “I’ve had really soft feelings for you for a long time. This won’t help that.” He waves a hand around. “And, when you got lost at that prison last night…” Christ was it only last night? “I jumped way over protocol to get to you. So, if I overreact, or do something inappropriate, you’ll…know.”

Mycroft stares far longer than Greg is comfortable. He finally picks up his water glass to hide behind. Water is always good for whatever ails you. He drinks. Mycroft stares. It’s pretty obvious he’s not computing well. Greg sighs.

“Romantic. Attraction. Feelings.” He supplies. How, for the love of all that holy, does this not ever get easier? He sets the water glass down carefully before he either drops or throws it.

Bright pink slashes across Mycroft’s cheeks and nose are adorable. “Me?” Greg’s relief causes him to blush as well, and they might as well be seventeen for all he can parse next steps. But, adorable.

“You’re not making this easy.” He complains.

“But, you’re so handsome, and kind, and…” Mycroft fumbling for words is even more attractive. “I could never have you.” His voice falls to a whisper.

Greg’s heart wrenches behind his ribs. “Darlin’ you’ve had me for years if you want.” Mycroft seems halted entirely. Greg nods. “Let’s finish up here, yeah? We can sort this slowly.” Absent words, there is touching. A foot brushing an insole while they finish eating. A hand on a hip, shifting past to collect bowls for the sink. Mycroft leaning his forehead on Greg’s back while he washes the dishes. Just Mycroft. Whole and solid, breathing and here.

They end up in the same bedroom without cajoling or conversation.

It’s a matter of only two more steps, steps they’d never allowed that now feel entirely natural, necessary, reaching forward and surrounding him, being enfolded, their movements gathering as their mouths lock, breath pushing out and pulsing in, and whatever he’s imagined instantly pales before the reality of Mycroft in and around him, vibrant and present, and kissing him back. The heat and pressure is incredibly sweet. Desire careens through Greg’s frame—Christ, how is this happening right now. Or ever. The reality is so much better than his fantasies and he’s so weary that he can’t help but pour every ounce of his want into the kiss. If this is the only kiss he ever shares with this man, he wants to live it.

He cups the back of Mycroft’s head, his mouth opens and he licks into the slick hot welcome with a long sigh. Mycroft. They dive into each other, hands framing faces, tongues caressing, curling, tasting; he drinks him in a long draught. Mycroft’s hands are restless around him, as if seeking purchase. Greg holds his face still and kisses his lips again, his cheeks, his chin, as if verifying his presence. Mycroft latches onto the fabric of his shirt and hauls him against his long body, pressing chest to chest, a groan rumbling.

“Greg.” Mycroft breathes his name into his mouth and the kiss begins anew.

He wants more, wants everything. The passion he’s let lie dormant for three long years ignites in a single act. He finds himself backed up to the door.

“Gregoire Duval Lestrade, je t’ai voulu depuis des années,” Mycroft murmurs.

Of course Mycroft speaks French. Mycroft says Greg’s full given name with a flawless accent. A name Greg hasn’t heard like this since he was a very young man. He has no defence against the onslaught to his senses. He steps up to the next kiss and pours all his heart and hope into Mycroft’s mouth, his hands gripping onto his shoulders. The searing want rising from his gut hurts. Christ. Too much. Between Mycroft and the door there is barely any space for Greg. He melts, vanishes. Fear trickles up and he gasps back to reality with a groan. He puts a hand between them. “No. Stop.” He rests his head on Mycroft’s shoulder and breathes. Mycroft rests his head on Greg’s and somehow they fit. He needs this moment to absorb the shock of how much want he tamped back that floods him now. To ensure that he won’t combust, or worse, wake up. He allows his hands to fist in the oxford cloth of Mycroft’s shirt and tether him to the moment until he can turn his face into Mycroft’s neck and sigh.

When he’s able, he lets go and leans away enough for them to see one another. Mycroft has a bemused smile on his lips and Greg feels his own echoing smile. Well, that happened; now what. Shoulders drop, posture eases. He’d wondered what he’d say, how he’d explain his presence; he hadn’t thought there would be no words at all. Nonetheless, it’s his to begin.

Though he doubts that without the stun of the past desperate forty-eight hours, the emotional shove of such utter dislocation, that this moment would have unfolded with the crush of intimacy that holds them standing chest to chest, arms entangled yet. Mycroft leans to touch their foreheads and Greg can’t help leaning up into another kiss, mouth open, soft lips, deliberate, a hand coming to curl at the back of his neck. The kiss deepens, then subsides, slightly breathless.

Mycroft hums, “No idea what I’m doing here.”

The uncharacteristic dither is charming. “Well, if you give me a moment, I’m sure I can think of something to do.” Greg wants to take him completely apart. That thought alone sends heat to his face. Blushing again. He pushes up into another hard fast kiss because he can’t think of anything else to do, can’t believe he’s allowed to do this, can’t believe he’s allowing himself this.

Mycroft’s fingers tunnel up into his hair and grip, tugging his head back and mouthing along his neck. He growls near his ear, places a careful kiss on Greg’s jaw, another under his ear. He hums satisfaction, keeping Greg pressed to him. “I’d love to take you to bed.”

Greg’s whole body registers a flash of heat that settles between his belly and ribs, flaring bright. Mycroft must see Greg accept, “God, yes.”

The brief journey through a living space and into a bedroom is a dance of hands tugging at clothing, mouths crashing together, slanting in gulping kisses. Greg’s groan goes straight to his cock and Mycroft gasps a breath of hunger and relief.

“Myc,” Greg pants out half his name then is kissing him again, hard.

If he thought himself ready for this, and in all honesty he had no idea, he isn’t. At all. The clarity of Mycroft’s immediacy engulfs him in the press of a hot wet mouth, strong hands, a deep growl. Longing blazes through him. Any thought of gentleness evaporates with all his other thoughts as one of those capable hands grips his belt buckle. He snatches a breath and nuzzles under Mycroft’s neck, sinking his teeth into warm stubbly vulnerable skin. Years of restraint, a decade of denial breaks its dam and sweeps them forward.

Greg moans at the tug of teeth against his carotid. Fuck. The weight of Mycroft’s body is a deep wide pleasure, bordering on bliss. He wants everything but he’s not going to last through much. He unbuckles Mycroft’s belt, unbuttons, shoves until he can get a hand around his cock. Velvet covered steel, drops of pre-come under his fingers. “Oh god, Myc,” Greg mutters. Mycroft thrusts into his hand, a whine far back in his throat. Greg feels his orgasm threaten without a hand to him. Then Mycroft sucks in a breath and gets hands on Greg’s belt. Nimble fingers make short work of his flies and shove his trousers to his knees and then he brings a hand to his mouth and licks across his palm. Their eyes meet for a flashing second. Mycroft’s gaze is as brilliant as the sky and Greg comes to a thunderstruck halt when Mycroft joins his hand to Greg’s and strokes their cocks together. Greg’s head falls back with a yell as he comes, ribbons of hot come striping Mycroft’s hand and shirt. His world greys into utter bliss and he’s acutely aware of Mycroft groaning out his orgasm through long sweet tugs. Through wet lashes he watches Mycroft let go, an expression of pure exposed pleasure on his features. Greg’s chest contracts at the power of causing that pleasure. He pulls him close, drinking it from his mouth. Gods. They drop to the bed, collapsing in a heap of limbs, sticky half-shed clothes.

Greg’s awareness trickles back to where they hold each other in a strange room. Absurdly, they are both still wearing shoes. He rests his cheek on Mycroft’s collarbone and takes in air that smells of the dark bergamot he associates with him, layered with sweat and sex. Mycroft’s grip on him is wonderfully tight. It’s painfully nice to be held. His eyes squeeze tight. He savours having relinquished a lifetime’s vigilance he wasn’t aware of maintaining. His breath steadies and then dissolves again in a sob. Embarrassed, he glances up and falls into a sea of grey-blue affection. Mycroft’s lashes are wet, too. He touches his forehead to his and stares, yearning to memorise everything about this. As much as he wants to choke back the tsunami of feeling, it comes in ragged sobs that shake him.

“I’m sorry,” he gets out. Before he can wipe at his face, Mycroft kisses him lightly on the mouth, strokes his cheeks with his thumbs.

“I am not. At all,” Mycroft says.

“Not about you, git.” Greg huffs a laugh and shoves at him and they fall apart for the first time since the door. Greg brushes roughly at his face and swallows, almost in control of the crying. “About turning into a puddle.” He clears his throat. “You’re gorgeous. Christ, that was… shit, we didn’t even make it to the bed.” The spasms of emotion still lodged in his chest turn into laughter.

Greg’s laugh has a hysterical edge that’s contagious and Mycroft dissolves into giggles. They curl towards each other, giggles and laughter bouncing between them. Every time their eyes meet the laughter bubbles up again.

“You fucking wrecked me.” Greg gestures to his dishevelled and come-stained shirt, the trousers and pants at his knees. “You broke it, you keep it,” he adds, unable to disguise the wistful undertone.

Mycroft stills beside him and turns to meet his gaze. “If I’d known that, I’d’ve broken you sooner.” And they are serious again in an instant. A small frown crinkles Mycroft’s brow. “Is this real?”

Greg scoots closer and kisses his bottom lip. “Yeah.” Presses a palm to Mycroft’s chest. “Yeah. ’Course it is.” He nuzzles up under his chin, nipping at the soft skin there. “Has been for absolutely ages.” The discomfort of stickiness and being unable to move much, what with his trousers around his knees, finally prompts him to stretch long.

They peel off clothes perfunctorily for a bit, shedding trousers, pants, and socks over the edge of the bed. When Mycroft catches Greg unbuttoning his shirt, he pauses.

“What?”

“Allow me?” Mycroft traces a finger over the skin revealed in the V of three open buttons. “Let me see you.” He brushes Greg’s hands away and with nimble fingers unfastens the remaining buttons to push the shirt open. His eyes trace over a broad chest, lightly furred down his sternum and across his pecs, thicker over his flat belly, thickest at the base of his cock. Greg shoulders his way out of the shirt, finally naked but for his smile. “God, you’re lovely,” Mycroft sighs.

“And you. Ginger.” Greg ruffles fingers through the dense copper hair on Mycroft’s chest. The hair thins down his torso to a straight line into his bush, his cock resting nestled.

“Unfortunate.”

“Not a chance. Quite the opposite.” Greg plants a kiss on his sternum. “Matches all my wank dreams of you.”

“Your what?” Mycroft stops to stare.

“You heard me. Come on. I’m for the shower. Come with.”

The bathroom is small, tight, and poorly lit. New for the building, it’s generations off the current fashion of spa-like facilities. But the water pressure is good and the water is hot. Greg is happy just having his hands on Mycroft, still craving confirmation that he’s well, that he’s here. “Fucked me up, you disappearing,” he mutters, hands soothing soap suds over Mycroft’s shoulder blades, down his back.

“Noted.” Mycroft dutifully leans hands on the tiles, head bowed, accepting the thorough cleaning.

Greg rests his cheek at the nape of Mycroft’s neck. The small stall is steamy and the falling water echoes around the tight space. They could be anywhere, hidden away; all the demands of the service and routines of the day are absent here. “What if I’m not able to let you go?” he ventures.

Mycroft turns and wraps around him.

“Seriously, Myc. It felt like your whole world fell in on us. I don’t know if I’m okay without this. With not being with you. Christ, this sounds so stupid, I can’t find the words.” He shakes his head. “It would be incredibly helpful if you’d say something here.”

Mycroft kisses his brow. “Thank you.”

“What the fuck for? This has been a mess. Your family hurt you and the entire service seems trying to kill you. Damn it.” Greg’s voice tightens.

“For seeing.” Mycroft sighs. “For staying.”

Greg’s heart lurches. “I’ve always seen you.” He feels flayed open in a way he never has. Being physically naked is easy in comparison. He’s never felt this much a part of another person. Christ, he was married without this kind of connection. “I really don’t want to lose you.”

“Nor I you.”

It feels as if unasked questions are suddenly and irrevocably answered. Something’s decided. Greg just wishes he knew what. He feels a flicker of hope he’s used to smothering; he flushes with the suddenness of it. His eyes fill. He’s still weary. He’s also afraid. Suddenly, Mycroft asking for him to be sent to Sherrinford if he’s missing slots into a new understanding. “Lady S said you asked for me to be sent if you weren’t heard from. How long have those instructions been in place?”

Bright pink spots appear high on Mycroft’s cheeks. “Four years.”

“So not just as regards Sherrinford?”

“No.”

“Not just as regards Sherlock?”

“No.”

“Should anything happen to you, you want me…” Greg tries to sort out his questions.

“…to be called. Or fetched. Or notified.” Mycroft finishes.

“Please tell me Anthea is on that short list,” Greg says, his voice falling low.

“Hmmm. Well, I certainly trust her professionally. She’s actually more on the notifying side, but yes, of course.” Mycroft says.

Greg allows his perception of this relationship to shift. The very many times they’ve been each other’s first call. The occasions of silence they’ve endured. Their complementary senses of duty. Silent laughter at something absurd no one else has noticed. Gestures that apparently had meaning that went without saying. Partnership growing in the quiet between them without either of them tending it.

Chapter Four: The longest day

Vaux Hall, London

Mycroft would have expected Anthea in the car this morning if she’d relinquished his phone or unlocked his passcode. He touches Greg’s hand on the door frame and hopes the man takes that as appreciation for having his door held. He’s tired and feeling swaddled by all this so called protection. He sinks into the familiar leather upholstery and offers his assistant a glare in lieu of complaining about being handled. He knows he needs this careful management but he’s usually the one providing it for others. Anthea glares right back at him and he allows himself to harrumph back. 

Greg slides into the seat next to him and the car pulls away from the kerb as they buckle up. 

“We have the senior security team meeting at 9.” Anthea begins. “Mostly to make sure you have the critical overview from the Home Office, they know you have the services and the palace, but might cover those anyway to make sure everyone is on the same page before your leave. There’s a bit of a break before lunch, then lunch before your appointment with Okafor-Singh.”

The psychiatrist. Mycroft carefully doesn’t sigh. He just saw the man yesterday. He nods. 

“Good morning.” Greg offers in the pause.

Anthea makes a point of looking them both over. “I see you’ve managed to sort yourselves.”

“Hush, you.” Greg chides.

Anthea purses her lips against a smile and continues, “Business aside, Sherlock and the senior Holmeses are persistent in their demands to see you. There are insurance concerns about Musgrave and the manor that they expect you to handle. In addition, your mother is insisting on seeing Eurus and some kind of funeral.” She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “Is there anything I can do about any of that?”

“No, thank you. They are far outside your remit.” Mycroft’s thoughts reel. He’s not sure there’s anything he can do. The thought of seeing his parents has a physical weight. Perhaps that is what he can talk to Okafor-Singh about this afternoon. 

Anthea leans forward, “Ensuring your wellbeing is my entire remit, Mycroft. As your employee and as your friend. Is there anything I can do?”

He’s taken aback at her vehemence. “Perhaps. If you could source the insurance information. That would be very helpful.” He allows. 

She sits back against the seat, tapping on her phone with a sudden air of contentment. 

Mallory is not as amused when Mycroft and Greg dutifully submit the required declaration forms upon arriving for the morning meeting.  Yesterday’s vague conflict of interest leapt the verge in an evening. This morning, Greg commented he will forever credit Gareth with forcing him to say something out loud that magically carried him through the night into a clear and present risk. Mallory tucks the forms into the back of his notepad with a nod. 

The senior staff meets in their customary windowless conference room on the sixth floor of Vauxhall Cross. Around the long table sit eight people Mycroft has worked with for years, the deputy directors, section heads, and liaison officers he hired and trained. Each is studiously professional, and none meets his eyes for longer than strictly necessary. He cannot blame them. A week ago, he held the most powerful unelected position in British intelligence. Today, they are carving it up between them and despite titling this a promotion for him everyone in the room understands the inaccuracy of the term. This is, in reality, promotions for them.

His portfolio of active operations, some forty-three in various stages across four continents, will be distributed among six officers. There was clearly a meeting yesterday that he was not privy to. Mycroft advises on each transfer, patiently noting specifics that won’t appear in the briefing documents. Okonkwo in Lagos needs a light hand; she is brilliant but will bolt if crowded. The Ankara station is running a double who has been reliable for four years, who will, in Mycroft’s estimation, turn within the next eighteen months if the incentive structure isn’t recalibrated. The Southeast Asia desk requires care in reading between the lines of Beijing’s posture on maritime disputes and low-key reactions. None of this will be done as efficiently as he’d have done it. It will, he concedes to himself, still be done well. 

His oversight of his brothers is addressed with a brevity that belies its weight. Sherlock’s operational consultancy with the Met and its occasional intersections with Six will fall to Smallwood, who has the temperament for it as well as the familial ties. Whytford’s considerably more delicate situation transfers to Mallory, who already holds the relevant clearances and who, Mycroft notes with private approval, asks precisely zero questions about Ford’s location or current work. Mycroft feels a wash of relief that surprises him with its force, followed almost immediately by a deeper undertow of unease. He has kept his brothers alive through proximity and vigilance for decades. Letting that go, even to people he respects, triggers a low thrum of anxiety he manages by adjusting his cufflinks and asking Alicia a pointed question about Sherlock’s current case load. Then again, Eurus is gone. He pushes the thought of his fractured family to the margins and keeps his attention on the agenda.

What emerges from the restructuring is a new role with a title so vague it could mean almost anything: Senior Liaison, Cross-Service and Crown. In practice, Mycroft will sit at the intersection of MI5, MI6, the Home Office, GCHQ, and the Palace, coordinating where they overlap and translating where they don’t. It is a position that requires precisely his skills—languages, networks, institutional memory, the ability to hold nine contradictory agendas in mind simultaneously—while stripping away the operational authority that made him dangerous and, evidently, dangerously alone. There is nothing in the new portfolio that is genuinely new to him. He has been doing this work laterally for years, brokering between agencies that distrust each other more than they distrust their actual adversaries. The difference is that now it is his only job rather than one of forty. He may still tell people he has a minor role in transportation.

The power his Uncle Rudy built and bequeathed to him, the quiet empire of influence threaded through every corridor of British government, is now decentralised. Mycroft can admit, if only to himself, that the architecture of his authority had become so intricate he could no longer distinguish the load-bearing walls from the decorative ones. Stripping it back is simpler, cleaner.

Behind him, Anthea sits close. She is not recording minutes; she is recording Mycroft’s commitments, questions he’ll want to revisit, names that surfaced with unexpected weight. She has done this for him for eleven years. The quiet scratch of graphite on paper is as familiar as his own heartbeat, and he uses that today as a metronome to pace his composure. 

Greg took a chair nearer the door, beside Simmons from the day’s security rotation. He is directly in Mycroft’s line of sight, which is, Mycroft suspects, entirely purposeful. He has a tablet balanced on one crossed knee and appears to be managing the afternoon’s logistics—transport, the security briefing for the flat, the unending stream of Anthea’s coordination messages. Occasionally, he glances up from the screen and his gaze finds Mycroft’s. Each time, the knot beneath Mycroft’s sternum loosens fractionally. The whisper of graphite on paper and the glimpses of dark brown eyes are comforts and anchors he hardly deserves. He sets it aside. There are four more items on the agenda.

Their lunch, eaten in the office while discussing the shifts to Anthea’s position and his expectations of her in his absence, doesn’t provide the mental break he ought to have taken before meeting with Dr. Okafor-Singh.

Anthea retreats to her office, and Greg walks with Mycroft to the elevator and rides with him to the 4th floor and the jarring arrival in MI6 medical. The psychiatry offices are nested within the tiny hospital wing.

He is seven minutes early, which is three minutes later than he would prefer and ten minutes later than is natural. Feeling like a child being dropped at school, he glares at Greg until the man submits to staying at the elevator. 

There’s no receptionist here, and the door to the doctor’s inner office is closed. Mycroft won’t knock until precisely 1.30. He made it his business to know that Dr Josiah Okafor-Singh trained at the Maudsley, spent four years with Médecins Sans Frontières in the DRC and South Sudan, completed his security services certification under Dame Elspeth Waverly, and has held DV clearance for nine years. His patient list, past and present, includes agents Mycroft has personally deployed. Two of them are dead. One of those deaths was Mycroft’s operational call. Okafor-Singh wrote the after-action psychological brief. Mycroft had read it at the time and found it thorough, humane, and slightly too perceptive for comfort.

He also knows, because Anthea told him with studied casualness at lunch, that Okafor-Singh requested Mycroft’s complete service file. Not the redacted version. The thought of another human reading that file makes his skin contract.

The door opens at precisely 1.30 before Mycroft can knock. Dr. Okafor-Singh is a tall man, mid-fifties, with close-cropped, greying hair and a neatly trimmed beard going silver at the chin. He wears an open-collared shirt, no tie, sleeves rolled, reading glasses pushed up onto his forehead. His handshake is brief and dry. His office is larger than the waiting area suggests, lined on two walls with books, a desk pushed to one side. Two armchairs face each other at a comfortable angle near a window that overlooks an interior courtyard. There is tea. Mycroft observes the arrangement and categorises it as deliberate informality designed to lower resistance. He sits in the chair facing the door.

“Mr Holmes. It’s good to see you.” Okafor-Singh settles into the opposite chair. He does not open a notebook. He does not reach for a pen. “As we discussed yesterday during the evaluation, we’re beginning the therapeutic process today. Thank you for coming.”

“I wasn’t aware attendance was optional.”

“It isn’t.” A brief smile. “I thanked you anyway.”

Mycroft crosses one ankle over the other and rests his hands on the arms of the chair. “You’ve read my file.”

“I have.”

“All of it.”

“Yes.”

Mycroft lets the silence sit. In negotiations, in interrogations, he wields silence like a blade. He reminds himself that this is different. Okafor-Singh is not the one being tested. Or rather, they both are, and Okafor-Singh appears entirely at ease. It is mildly infuriating.

“I should tell you,” Mycroft says, “that I reviewed your vetting. Thoroughly.”

“I’d be concerned if you hadn’t.”

“I also reviewed your clinical record. Your outcomes with returning field agents are among the best in the service. Though I note that your approach to Agent Harwell’s post-incident debrief was somewhat… unconventional.”

Okafor-Singh inclines his head. He does not take the bait. “Where would you like to begin?”

“I would prefer not to begin at all, but as we’ve established, that’s not among my options.” Mycroft allows his gaze to rest on the courtyard beyond the window. A young plane tree, recently planted, stakes and ties still in place. Supporting it until it can hold its own weight. Subtle, that. “I presume you have questions.”

“I do. But I’d rather hear what you think brings you here.”

“What brings me here is a mandated psychiatric engagement consequent to an operational failure that resulted in five civilian deaths, a prison breach affecting national security, and the disclosure of a family matter that has been classified for over twenty years.” The words are crisp, practised. A briefing. “I am here because the Director General requires it and because my leave is conditional on these sessions. Twice weekly for four weeks, minimum, before I may be considered for reinstatement.”

“That’s what the paperwork says.” Okafor-Singh’s tone is mild. “I asked what you think brings you here.”

Mycroft turns back from the window. “You want me to say something about my feelings.”

“I want you to say whatever is true.”

The quiet stretches. Mycroft hears the soft tick of a clock he hasn’t located. Okafor-Singh does not fill the space. The most efficient path forward, ironically, may involve some measure of honesty no matter how grudging.

“I’m here because I failed.” He hears himself say. The words taste like metal. “Spectacularly and on multiple fronts. I failed to anticipate a threat that I was uniquely positioned to foresee. I failed to protect five people who died because of decisions I made twenty years ago. I failed to protect my brother. And I failed to manage my own security, which is rather the definition of incompetence in our line of work.”

“That’s a considerable amount of responsibility you’re claiming.”

“Because a considerable amount of it is mine.”

“Your sister’s actions aren’t yours.”

Mycroft’s fingers press briefly into the upholstery. “I was responsible for her containment. That is not a distinction I can afford to draw.”

“Can’t afford to, or won’t?”

“Does it matter?”

“Enormously.” Okafor-Singh shifts, leaning slightly forward. Not crowding, but present. “One is a professional assessment. The other is a habit of mind.”

Mycroft realizes his breathing has altered, that the controlled rhythm he maintains reflexively has become slightly shallow. He adjusts it. Okafor-Singh will have noticed the adjustment. That is also infuriating.

“Let me ask something simpler,” Okafor-Singh says. “How did you sleep last night?"

The question is so prosaic it nearly disarms him. “Reasonably well.”

“Alone?”

Mycroft’s gaze sharpens. “That’s not in the file.”

“No. Sleep architecture tells me more about the state of a person than almost anything they’re willing to say in this chair. Whether someone is sleeping, how, and with whom speaks to safety. I’m asking about your sense of safety, not your personal arrangements.”

The clarification helps. Mycroft considers deflection, considers a lie, considers the exhausting labour of maintaining either. “I have not been sleeping alone, no.”

“And that’s helped.” It is not a question.

“Yes.” The admission is barely a murmur. Mycroft watches his own hands, still resting on the arms of the chair. The hands of a man who held a gun to his own head three days ago to spare his brother the choice. The hands of a man who, yesterday evening, reached across a mattress in the dark and found another man’s hand already reaching back. The disparity between those two realities is so vast it threatens to undo the composure he is working quite hard to maintain. “I would appreciate it if that didn’t appear in any report.”

“Nothing discussed here appears in any report beyond my clinical assessment. You know how this works.”

“I know how it’s supposed to work. I also know what actually happens to sensitive information in this building.”

“Then you know that I’ve never had a breach in nine years,” Okafor-Singh says this without defensiveness, simply as fact. “Your trust issues are well-founded and also, in this room, something we should talk about.”

Mycroft blinks twice. “My trust issues.”

“I’ve read your file. I know what you’ve done for this country. I know what’s been done to you. I also know that you grew up in a family where you were given responsibility for secrets at an age when most children are learning long division, and that the consequence of trusting the wrong person wasn’t disappointment—it was existential danger. To you and to the people you love.” He pauses. “That’s not a clinical observation. It’s a factual one.”

Mycroft says nothing. There is a sensation in his chest that he has been managing since Sherrinford, a tight compression he has attributed to stress and insufficient sleep, that now feels as if someone has loosened a single thread. Not much. Enough to notice. He does not like noticing.

“You were given a child’s impossible choice,” Okafor-Singh continues, his voice steady and low. “Protect your family by lying or protect your family by telling the truth. And you chose lying. And you were eleven.”

“I was correct.” Mycroft lies, voice is clipped.

“You were a child.”

“I was correct.” The repetition is harder than he intends. He hardly believes it anymore. He forces his fingers to relax on the upholstery. “The alternative was unthinkable. Eurus was—” He stops. He has given countless briefings about his sister. Operational summaries, risk assessments, containment protocols. He has never spoken about her as a sister. The distinction, which he has spent decades collapsing, opens like a fault line under his next breath. “My sister was dangerous. I recognised it. No one else did. Or no one else would act.” 

“So you acted.”

“I told Uncle Rudy. He acted. I provided information.”

“At eleven.”

“Yes.”

“And your parents?”

“My parents were told what they needed to know.” The formulation is automatic, the cadence of decades of service. It sounds different here. Smaller. He is aware that he is using the same language to describe protecting his family from the truth about their daughter that he uses to describe withholding intelligence from foreign ministers. The conflation suddenly appalls him.

“What do you imagine they felt?”

“I know what they felt. They’ve made it abundantly clear.” His voice cools. “They believe I took their daughter from them. That I hid a child. That I lied about a death. Those are facts. They are not wrong to be angry.”

“And how do you feel about their anger?”

Mycroft looks at Okafor-Singh with an expression so controlled it might be mistaken for serenity. “Irrelevant.”

“I think it’s the most relevant thing in this room.”

The clock ticks. He is approaching the edge of something. Not a breakdown—he’s had those, though he would never use the word. Not a revelation—he is far too intelligent to be surprised by his own psychology. Something more like a locked door, to which he holds the key and has no intention of using.

“I am aware,” he says carefully, “that the way I manage my emotional responses is itself a response that merits examination. I am aware that the suppression of feeling in the service of function is a pattern I established in childhood and reinforced by decades of professional incentive. I know that recent events compromised my ability to maintain that suppression, and that this is, clinically speaking, a predictable consequence of sustained trauma compounded by familial betrayal.” He pauses. “I have read extensively on the subject.”

Okafor-Singh regards him with an expression that, to Mycroft’s considerable annoyance, appears to contain both respect and something warmer. “That’s a very articulate way of not answering my question.”

Mycroft blinks. The ghost of a smile surfaces. “Thank you.”

“How do you feel about your parents’ anger?”

The room narrows. Mycroft’s hands are steady. His face is composed. His voice, when it comes, is not quite as controlled as he would like. “I have spent my entire life trying to earn something that was never available to me. And I should have understood that sooner.”

Okafor-Singh is still. He does not nod. He does not make a sympathetic noise. He holds the space open the way Greg held him in the dark—present, undemanding, simply there. The comparison surfaces unbidden and Mycroft feels his throat tighten against it. He will not cry in this office. He has cried quite enough this week.

“That’s an important thing to know about yourself,” Okafor-Singh says. “And a painful one.”

“I have a rather high tolerance for pain.”

“Physical pain, yes. Your medical file is inventive.” A dry note. “But you didn’t end up on my schedule because of physical pain, Mr. Holmes. You ended up here because the emotional containment strategies that have kept you operational for thirty years, maybe longer, broke down in the space of seventy-two hours. I’m not interested in helping you rebuild them. I’m interested in helping you build something that actually works.”

Mycroft absorbs this. It is a reasonable clinical position. It is also, he thinks, impossibly naïve. What works is what has kept him alive, kept Sherlock alive, kept Ford hidden, kept Eurus contained as long as she was. What works has cost him everything personal and saved everything else. He does not know who he is otherwise. 

“You seem to have a clear idea of what you’d like to accomplish with me,” he says, deflecting into the professional register. “I should warn you that I am not an easy patient.”

“I don’t have easy patients. I have patients who are ready to do the work and patients who aren’t yet. Both are fine. We’ll meet twice a week regardless.”

“And if I simply tell you what you need to hear to sign off on my return?”

“Then you’ll return to work, and in six to eighteen months, you’ll be back in this chair or one like it under considerably worse circumstances. You’re clever enough to run the odds on that. I would like,” Okafor-Singh, shifts slightly in his chair, “to talk about Sherrinford. Not the operational aspects. The personal ones. Your sister asked something that no one should be asked.”

Mycroft is torn between speech and flight. “She gave Sherlock a gun and asked him to choose.” The words sound far away. “Between shooting John Watson and shooting me. I attempted to make the choice easier for him.”

“By doing what?”

“By being as unpleasant as possible. So he could pull the trigger.” Mycroft’s gaze is fixed on a point somewhere past Okafor-Singh’s shoulder. “It’s a standard technique. Dehumanise the target. Make it easier to act. I’m told it works quite well in military contexts.”

“You tried to make your brother want to shoot you.”

“I tried to make it possible for him to survive.” Sherlock would not survive killing John Watson.

“At the cost of your own life.”

“It didn’t work. Sherlock turned the gun on himself. Eurus intervened. We were drugged. I woke in her cell beside a body. You’ll have the rest from the debriefing.”

“I have the facts from the debriefing. I don’t have what it felt like.”

“I don’t see how that’s useful.”

“I understand that. I’m asking anyway.”

Mycroft breathes. The office is warm. The chair is comfortable. He is not in danger. These are facts he repeats to himself as the memory surfaces with a physical weight. “It felt desperate.  At the time.” He swallows. “Afterwards, on the floor of that cell, it felt—” He stops. He does not have the word. Or he has too many words, all of them insufficient, all of them reaching for something language was not designed to carry. “I was lying next to a dead man and the only thought in my head was that I had failed to die usefully.”

“Useful to whom? To what?” Okafor-Singh’s brows gather.

Mycroft looks up, gazing somewhere past the ceiling. “My sibling, my family, my country, anything.” He sits in the silence, wondering when he began sounding like an advert. When he began believing that was all he was. “I don’t like feeling useless.” He admits. 

“That’s where we’ll begin next time,” Okafor-Singh says, quietly.

Mycroft looks at him. “I’d rather we didn’t.”

“I know.” Okafor-Singh rises. “Thursday. Same time. And Mr. Holmes?”

Mycroft is already on his feet, straightening his jacket, his cuffs. His habits of armour. “Yes.”

“Whoever is helping you sleep—let them.”

Mycroft pauses at the door. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

He walks the blue carpeted corridor to the lift. Greg leans against the far wall of the lobby, arms crossed, reading something on his phone. He looks up when the lift opens and his face softens, he gives a quick assessment, then the half-smile that contains both relief and question. Mycroft walks towards him and stops a precise eighteen inches away, which is the maximum distance at which he can still feel the warmth of Greg’s body. A distance that would look professional to a camera and feels, to Mycroft, like standing beside a fire after a long walk in the cold.

“Alright?” Greg asks.

Mycroft considers the question with more seriousness than Greg may have intended. “Not yet,” he says. “But the man isn’t incompetent.”

Greg snorts. “High praise.” He pockets his phone and falls into step. Their shoulders brush. “Home?”

“Please.”

They walk out into thin winter sunlight. His official exit from everything except these appointments. He will be back Thursday. The chips will land where they fall. Greg’s hand finds the small of his back briefly, barely, gone before anyone sees.

~.~

68 Pall Mall, London

It’s not yet five o’clock, but Greg’s day has already been long. Thankfully, with the beginning of Mycroft’s leave when they left Vauxhall Cross, Greg is no longer assigned to close protection. He sinks into the leather car seat and marvels at how exhausting it is to be at attention with nothing to do. Just ready. He lets his head fall back, taking a sidelong glance at Mycroft. The psychiatrist’s visit has driven Mycroft even deeper into himself. Makes sense, but Greg notes lingering tension in the line of Mycroft’s posture and the curve of his fingers. Not a fist. Close.

His phone vibrates in his pocket. He’s pretty sure he’s off duty. The phone vibrates again, and he gives in and slides it free. Anthea. The security staff at the flat have notified her that Mycroft’s parents are at the flat with Sherlock. Not strictly a security issue, but certainly not welcome. Anthea and Sherlock have been fending them off for two days. It seems they’ve decided on ambush as a viable alternative.

“Hey.” He nudges his leg against Mycroft’s.

Mycroft rouses to look at him.

“Your parents are at the flat. Sherlock let them in.”

In the following beat of silence, Mycroft spreads his hand flat on his thigh. A small tell. “Of course he did.”

“Want to divert? We can go to the Diogenes for the evening.” Greg offers. “I’m sure Anthea and Thomas can manage getting them out of the house before bedtime.”

“No.”

The level of reluctant surrender Mycroft manages to compress into a single word is impressive. Greg nods and texts Sherlock.

Incoming. ETA 15. Still think you are a shit.

He slides the phone into his breast pocket in case it vibrates again and leans his head back, this time with his eyes closed. He has gleaned a lot about the Holmes parents over twelve or so years of watching their sons. They aren’t stupid people. It always sounded as though the arrival of Mycroft ended his mother’s career as a brilliant mathematician. He idly wonders what exactly a mathematician does, besides maths, that shouldn’t be interrupted. Looking at Sherlock and Mycroft, he’d imagined people who were either very self-involved or very cold, because clearly they couldn’t take care of their kids. Those kids were too sharp for nannies. There’s also always the chance that the pathology that made Eurus a killer and Sherlock an addict has roots in genetics. People in families are always killing each other off. He’s jaded, yeah, but also a realist. Families are not safe just because they are families. A stress yawn surprises him into sitting up. “How bad is this going to be?”

The car rolls to a gentle stop at the kerb.

“There won’t be guns,” Mycroft offers, his voice cool as dry ice.

Greg laughs. Mycroft tips his head with a raised brow. The car door opens, and Greg tamps down the urge to hum.

For a thwarted ambush, things begin civilly enough. The lack of an introduction and the undercurrents keep Greg standing at the door. Close protection positioning, though he’s technically off the clock. It’s a decent vantage for observation, and he’s certainly not going to leave Mycroft alone with this crowd.

Tea is declined. Mr Holmes has staked out Mycroft’s armchair—a territorial choice, whether conscious or not—while Mrs Holmes perches on the sofa, handbag still on her arm. The men clearly got their height from their father; their mother is tiny. Her birdlike stature is visible in their reediness, though. Sherlock is folded into the windowsill across the room like a kid. Greg gives him a slight incline of his head. Sherlock nods back.

Mycroft keeps to his feet and steers the conversation to practicalities. The dry details of how the service will release Eurus’s body and to whom. A recommendation for cremation. He moves smoothly into the additional damage at Musgrave, how long the estate will remain a crime scene, and a recommendation to sell. Clearly Anthea and Sherlock have conveyed the parents’ concerns in advance. Mycroft stands comfortably at ease, giving a report. Dutiful.

Even Greg could have advised against quite this businesslike tone and approach. Mycroft is masking hard, and this is his mask. But it’s tone-wrong for the room, and the people in it know him well enough to feel it.

“We will each need to sign updated non-disclosure documents reflecting the changed—”

“Ah yes, on to your precious paperwork now.” Mr Holmes cuts into Mycroft’s exposition with absolute disgust. “More bureaucracy slotted between you and your family, eh. You’ve been hiding behind forms and clearances since you were a boy.”

Possibly true, Greg thinks, but the disdain icing the word boy is frightening. The ambush has begun, then. A chill traces across his shoulders. He takes a single step away from the door. Sherlock unfolds.

“Why are you so cruel?” Mrs Holmes asks. Greg is hard put not to say something, but she’s not done. “You lied to me about my only daughter. I could have taken care of her. Helped her. Now she is truly dead.”

“Mummy, you could not have. She was far too dangerous. She was trying to kill Sherlock. You refused to see it.” Mycroft’s voice is level, measured—the cadence of someone who has rehearsed this explanation across decades without ever being permitted to deliver it. “Uncle Rudy thought it was better if you were told she had died. So that you wouldn’t have to know and to suffer.”

“Tosh. My brother never had children. What could he have known?” She draws a sharp breath. “She was four years old. She couldn’t have been dangerous. And you went along with it all. Let us mourn for her.” She points, and Sherlock flinches. “How… and where is Whytford? Are you going to pretend he’s dead, too?” Her voice climbs a register. “I’m sure you know and just won’t tell us. You’ve always been a horrible, unfeeling child.” She sniffs. “You took Eurus and you took Ford and you kept dear Sherlock like a—like a project, not a brother.”

“Hardly surprising he followed Rudy into the service.” Mr Holmes says this to his wife. “He has always treated us like problems to be managed rather than people to be loved. He was a strange child and has become a strange man, and I don’t think he’s capable of understanding what it costs the people around him.”

Ow. Greg watches Mycroft absorb the words without affect. He understands with sickening clarity that this is the face Mycroft learned to wear at this family’s table.

“Mr Holmes.” Greg has no idea if the man was going to continue talking about Mycroft as though he isn’t here, but he’s done listening. “When you lost your daughter, your son was eleven years old and following the directions of the only adult in your family who was willing to act. He was trying to keep you all safe from a child who was genuinely dangerous.” He hears himself using his officer-in-charge-of-the-scene voice, but it can’t be helped. “You can be angry. You’ve earned that. But you will not stand in his home and talk about him as if he isn’t in the room. And you will not blame your son for doing what the adults in his home should have done.”

He stops himself there. He’s not going to give these people the full benefit of his opinion without Mycroft’s permission. There’s a great deal more he could say about poor parenting, about the particular cruelty of producing children you can’t be bothered to understand, but this is not his family and it is not his place to burn it down.

Mycroft does not say anything. Greg realises he’s watching Mycroft choose, in real time, to absorb this bitterness rather than end it. Mycroft could tell them. Could say that Ford doesn’t want to see them, that Sherlock limits his own contact voluntarily, that the children they’re accusing him of stealing have chosen distance all on their own. He won’t. He is protecting his parents from the truths that would stop this immediately, and the cost of that protection is letting them go on believing he is the villain. When Mycroft’s gaze finally finds Greg’s, his expression is raw surprise. 

Mr Holmes takes Greg in with a steely gaze, reassessing. “And who—”

“Mummy, Father, this is my friend. Greg Lestrade.” Mycroft’s composure is flawless, his voice perfectly calibrated. “Greg, as you’ve no doubt determined, these are my parents. Timothy and Violet Holmes.”

Violet Holmes glares at Mycroft. “What on earth do you mean? You’ve never had friends.”

“That’s enough.” Sherlock stands and moves into the space between Mycroft and his father, who has the grace to look a bit shocked. “You’re wrong. About nearly all of that. It is you who are unable to recognise protection when it’s provided.”

Greg blinks. He has never heard Sherlock defend Mycroft. From the expressions around the room, neither has anyone else. 

Mrs Holmes gets to her feet, and it’s clear her sons got their physical grace from her, too. “We will have our solicitor take care of Musgrave Hall. And please vacate the manor. Return our belongings.” She gestures at the room around her, and the word our encompasses not just objects but an entire claim—on this house, on this family’s history, on the right to decide who deserves what. “You don’t deserve this. Timothy.”

Timothy Holmes rises. Sherlock deftly intercepts his parents and shepherds them out of the room.

Mycroft’s composure holds, and that is the only reason Greg’s does. They listen to the elder Holmeses being ushered down the hall, voices diminishing into murmur, and then the soft definitive sound of the front door.

The kitchen table in the Pall Mall flat has been used more in the past week than in the cumulative ten years since Mycroft moved in. Miraculously, Greg is holding his hand in a loose, caressing grip as they step into the kitchen. Anthea offers them each a cut crystal glass with an inch of golden liquid and sets the bottle on the table. Her favourite: the Rare Hare Lucky Bastard.

Sherlock is at the table already, texting. “I’ve let John know I’ll stay the night here, if that’s acceptable. Brother mine.”

This awful day continues to shock. Sherlock hasn’t stayed here since he got sober. Mycroft pulls out a chair for Greg at the same moment Greg scoots one out for him.

“Does that happen often?” Greg asks, ignoring Sherlock and Anthea for the moment. He somehow manages to hold Mycroft with his gaze alone.

“Of course not,” Mycroft says.

Sherlock speaks at the same time. “It has, yes.”

Mycroft gives Sherlock a quelling look. His personal business has been the centre of the day, and he’s scraped raw and empty. He doesn’t want more conversation, or thought, or memories. Or anything.

“They have treated you horribly,” Sherlock says. He isn’t looking at Mycroft; his gaze rests somewhere near the middle of the table, as if the observation is safer directed at the wood grain. “Even when they have been what they consider nice, they were awful. And I let them influence me to do the same.” He pauses. “I don’t expect them to change, but I will attempt to.”

Greg sips from his glass and his expression shifts through pleasure to delight. “This is…” He holds the glass up and peers at the bottle.

Mycroft takes a sip and savours the complexity of flavours, the polish of the caramel notes. He gives Anthea a nod for knowing how to soothe the jagged edges of this day. He watches the light play on the crystal.

“I will coordinate with them to gather the required signatures tomorrow,” Sherlock says to Anthea, before turning back to Mycroft. “Greg believes I owe you an apology for the pranks at the manor.”

“Bloody right, you do. What are you, twelve? Christ.” Greg sputters. “Breaking into someone’s home and using your knowledge of them to frighten them is against the law.” He shakes his head. “Not that he’ll prosecute, but…”

“I wondered how I would spend my leave time when not in therapy,” Mycroft says. He hears the doubt in his own voice. “It seems I’ll be purchasing a home and moving.” He lifts a brow to Anthea. “Are you forbidden to work with me for the month?”

“No. I’m to limit filling you in on work so that you can rest. I can coordinate a housing search if you give me your parameters.” She taps her toe against his under the table. “Moving is stressful. You will allow me to support this.”

He nods over his glass. He’s never had company in the wake of his parents’ painful disapproval. It is odd and unfamiliar, the sensation of not being alone with it. He turns the thought over cautiously, as if it might not bear his weight.

His mind catalogues the things taken from him in the past few days. The responsibility for his sister. The threat of her. A percentage of his job. His stewardship of the family home. None of those things were jobs he wanted. He’d wanted to be good at them—better than good. But he hadn’t wanted them.

Anthea finishes her drink and sets the glass in the sink. “I’m for bed.” Clearly, she’s staying as well. She has stayed before, when they worked through the night with colleagues on the other side of the world. Tonight, the reason is different, and she is not pretending otherwise.

Greg nudges Mycroft up and takes his glass. “Just so no one has a shock in the morning, I’m sleeping with this one.” He nods at Mycroft.

“Mmm. Like that’s shocking.” Sherlock sneers.

For the first time since he woke this morning, Mycroft feels as though things are as they should be. “Goodnight, brother mine.”

~.~

The flat is very quiet. The city murmurs beyond the windows. He follows Greg to his bedroom and closes the door. Greg steps close and rests his hand on Mycroft’s chest in the darkness. 

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me your friend,” Greg says. There's a grin in his voice.

“You are my friend.”

“I am,” Greg agrees,  “probably best not to mention I’m also the man who’s been sleeping in your bed for the better part of a week.”

Mycroft’s mouth curves. “Well, I wasn’t going to introduce you as my bodyguard. You’d have bristled.”

“Yeah, I would have.”

They are quiet. The dark is calming. Mycroft turns the encounter over in his mind, running it through the analytical machinery that processes everything, seeking the salient details. He finds, with some irritation, that the salient detail is not his mother’s demand for the house or his father’s cruelty or even Sherlock’s startling defence. The salient detail is Greg’s voice cutting across his father’s contempt with the words you will not. New.

46  years of life, through boarding schools and service postings and interrogation rooms and family Christmases that felt rather similar, no one has stepped between Mycroft and the people who hurt him. Anthea would burn the world on his behalf, but Anthea operates in the professional sphere where Mycroft’s authority provides its own shield. Sherlock—until today—has always been part of the assault or, at best, an indifferent bystander. And there has never been anyone else close enough to see what needed defending.

Greg saw. Greg drew a line across the floor of Mycroft’s living room and tacitly dared his parents to cross it. 

“Thank you,” he says. The words are insufficient. He has fourteen languages and none of them is adequate. “For not letting me tell them.” Here in the dark, he owes an explanation in return.

Greg’s brow creases. Then it clears, and Mycroft watches comprehension settle over his features. For not telling Violet that her brother took her children from her for their protection. “You were going to just… take it.”

“They’ve lost enough.”

“You’re an idiot,” Greg says, very gently. “A kind, self-sacrificing idiot, and your parents don’t deserve you.”

“My mother is a gifted mathematician who gave up her career. My uncle took Eurus after she tried to remove Sherlock’s hand with a filleting knife and burned down the house. He told them she died after she killed two nurses in the children’s hospital. Ford was nine the first time Sherlock overdosed, and Uncle Rudy removed Ford then, and tasked me with keeping Sherlock close. Father allows her to distort the circumstances. I…”

“Yeah. And she’s also a woman who just called you unfeeling while you stood there feeling everything.” Greg unknots Mycroft’s tie and slides it free. “You don’t have to defend them to me. Not tonight.”

Not tonight. The phrase implies a future in which Greg is here, and Mycroft is permitted to set things down. 

“I’m very tired,” Mycroft says. It is possibly the most honest thing he has said all day, including in the psychiatrist’s office. 

“Me, too. Let’s call it a night, love.” Greg extends his hand. Mycroft takes it. Greg’s grip is firm and very warm. He pulls Mycroft forward and doesn’t let go. Tugging him through the dressing room to the bathroom. Mycroft follows easily, the word love floating through his thoughts to be studied later.

They undress quietly, and Mycroft is asleep before Greg finishes brushing his teeth. When Greg slides in behind him, Mycroft surfaces just enough to register the weight shift, the arm settling across his ribs, the steady breath against the back of his neck. 

Epilogue

Clapham — Two years later

“Ohhhh.” Greg collapses on the bed. “This. This  is nice.” The light jazz piano from the speaker on Mycroft’s nightstand, the comfy mattress under him, the low lights. Mycroft came up about twenty minutes ago while he and John were finishing the dishes. Sherlock squeaked out of dish duty by getting Rosie to fall asleep on him and refusing to put her down until they left. Mycroft uncharacteristically snuck off to make sure Rudy was tucked in and then slipped up the back stairs.

“We packed too much in today,” Greg complains, rolling to sit up and slide his shoes off. “I’ve become a complete lightweight.” He stands and pulls his jumper over his head, tossing it into the dry cleaning basket. Drops his socks, jeans, boxers, and vest into the wash. “Too many people.” He tugs on sleep trousers. He’s too tired to shower tonight; he’ll do it in the morning. “Never thought I’d have too much family. Honestly.” He pads into the bathroom, where Mycroft is brushing his teeth. “Let’s not do that again.”

Mycroft raises his brows, rinses, and spits. “All I heard from here was muttering, dearest. Do what again?”

Greg grabs his toothbrush. After two years of living together, brushing his teeth beside Mycroft still makes him giddy with happiness. He grins and applies toothpaste. “I was saying we dealt with too many people, too much family today. We’ve got to space them out better.” He gestures with the toothbrush before beginning to brush. It sounds ridiculous, where both of them have sustained jobs full of people for decades.

Mycroft dries his face with a hand towel, then leans back against the counter, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “Fortunately, I don’t see how we’ll have this exact collision of events again.”

Greg tilts his head, still brushing.

Mycroft smiles. “And you’re right, it’s too much. I will ensure it doesn’t happen again.” He digs his toes into the plush rug underfoot.

“Mmm hmm.” Greg rinses and sets down his toothbrush. “I mean, breakfast was lovely. Just you and me and Rudy and tea. That was the right amount of people.” He neglects to add that it’s the number of people they have for breakfast daily.

“Rudy had three pages of notes on your book.”

“Three pages of excellent notes. Infuriatingly good, actually. He’s got a better ear for dialogue than I have.” Greg leans against his side of the counter. “I suppose if you’ve spent fifty years lying to everyone, you’d know how people really talk.”

“Charming assessment of my uncle.”

“He likes the character. She’s basically him in a frock.”

“He’s aware.” Mycroft’s mouth curves. “He told me he’s never looked better.”

Greg laughs. “See, that part of the day was perfect. And then we drove to bloody Hampshire.”

“You agreed to try again.”

“I did. I was wrong.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Myc, your mother shouted at your uncle across a restaurant table. People were staring.”

“She’s still angry he chose to live with us.”

“She’s been angry since last year. She was angry before that about different things. She’ll find something new to be angry about.” He catches Mycroft’s eye. “I’m not saying we stop trying. I’m saying I need longer than a few months between rounds. Your father sat there looking at the menu like he was above it all, which might actually be worse.” Greg crosses his arms, mirroring Mycroft’s posture. “At least your mum feels things. He just… freezes you out.”

“Yes. He does.” Mycroft says this without flinching.

“Right. So. Brunch was a disaster. Then we come home, and I’ve got forty minutes before the cavalry arrives, and I spend it hiding in the garden with a cup of tea trying to remember why I like people.”

“I saw you through the window. You looked very peaceful.”

“I was furious.” He’s not sure if Violet or Timothy infuriates him more because he’s only ever seen them as a set. 

“Yes, you look peaceful when you’re furious. It’s one of your more alarming qualities.”

Greg snorts. “Game night was good, though. I’ll give you that. Ford looked happy.”

“He did.” Something softens in Mycroft’s face. “James is good for him.”

“Sherlock cheated again.”

“Sherlock always cheats.”

“And Rosie had the time of her life winding everyone up before she crashed on Sherlock. Which got him out of dishes. The man is diabolical.” Greg shakes his head with a grin. “Nah, the evening was fine. It was good. But even so, it took a lot of energy. It’s just the whole day stacked together.”

“Agreed.” Mycroft pauses. “I’m sorry we disappeared. Rudy and I. He started talking about Her Majesty, and I couldn’t…”

“You don’t have to apologise for that. He misses her.”

“He does.” Mycroft is quiet a moment. “So do I, though I didn’t think I’d say that aloud.”

“You’ve been saying things aloud for two years now. Hasn’t killed you yet.”

“Okafor-Singh would say it’s progress.”

“Okafor-Singh would be right.” Greg reaches over and taps Mycroft’s bare arm. “Hey. You know what I kept thinking tonight? While you and Rudy were off being classified in the kitchen?”

“That we were taking too long?”

“No. I was thinking he’s the only person in your family who ever just… loved you. Told me what a perfect baby your were, and how silly you were when you were Rosie’s age. No conditions. And you brought him home.” Greg swallows. “That’s not nothing, Myc.”

Mycroft looks at him. The grey eyes are clear, astonishing, color risers in his cheeks. Steady here in the bathroom in his bed trousers. There are still nights when he wakes reaching for Greg in the dark.  “I brought you home, first,” Mycroft says quietly.

The words hit Greg square in the chest. He expects a dry remark, for the elegant sidestep Mycroft still defaults to when feeling is too close to the surface. Not devastating truth in a bathroom at half eleven on a Saturday night.

He leans over and up to kiss him, their shared minty breath mixing. In private, Mycroft is intensely affectionate and physical—a discovery that still, two years on, has the power to level Greg entirely. Mycroft slips fingers into his hair, taking another kiss, guiding it deeper for long moments. Greg melts, letting Mycroft have his weight, opening, humming his pleasure.

“I was hoping to make love to you tonight,” Mycroft says against Greg’s mouth. “But if you’re too tired…”

Greg growls his protest. “I believe I can manage, love.”

Mycroft’s smile curves against his lips, and his hands find the bare skin at Greg’s waist. Greg reaches up and frames his face. Love reciprocated, tit for tat. An embarrassment of riches. All the stupid stuff he thought only happened in novels. Right here. 

“Lay on, Macduff,” Greg murmurs against Mycroft’s throat.

Mycroft laughs—a real laugh, warm and startled and entirely his. He pulls Greg closer. “And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

“Now we’re talking.”

He lets himself be led to bed.