Chapter Text
The first time Mycroft met Greg Lestrade, he was tired, covered in grass, and on the arm of a closeted lesbian.
It was glaringly obvious from the guilty looks on his teenage brother and Harry’s brother’s faces that the ridiculously attractive detective was here for them and not, by some miracle, looking for love in all the right places. So he sent Harry inside with a soft word and turned on the man.
“Ah Inspector, how can I help you?” he asked politely. The man’s position was obvious from his clothes and demeanor, but Mycroft wasn’t one to miss the chance at a good show. Unlike Sherlock, who reveled in dramatics, he simply was dramatic. Constantly.
“How did you-“ the detective struggled and then the poor man saw the sense in giving up. What Sherlock must have put him through. “You’re Sherlock’s father?”
“Brother,” he corrected, wincing inwardly. “I’m afraid our mother is currently preoccupied.”
“And your father?” he pressed.
“More permanently preoccupied,” Mycroft excused, wishing, not for the first time, that he actually had any idea where the senior Holmes was. “Mycroft Holmes.”
“Inspector Lestrade,” the detective said, shaking the offered hand.
“Now what seems to be the trouble?” Mycroft asked, glancing at the boys who were doing their best innocent faces. John looked about as guilty as a bluebird. Sherlock looked like he’d just come back from a murder. Mycroft sighed internally. What he wouldn’t give for just one normal day.
He couldn’t claim that life had gotten less interesting since the Watson children and their mother had come to stay with them for the summer. Victoria Holmes seemed unbearably happy since she’d been joined by Cynthia Watson, a friend from years ago. But he had held out hope that seventeen-year-old John might help keep the slightly younger Sherlock out of trouble, instead of joining in with reckless abandon.
Lestrade shot the boys a glance, shoved a letter in his coat pocket, and stepped back. “No trouble,” he said, voice steady. “Misunderstanding was all. Good day, sorry to have bothered you.” And with that he strode back to his car.
And I’m Queen, Mycroft thought snippily. He’d warned Sherlock that his habit of sending tips to the police would have consequences, but that didn’t mean the little brat would listen.
Said brat turned on Mycroft as soon as the Inspector’s car had pulled out of the gravel driveway.
“He’s married,” Sherlock said pointedly.
“Well aware,” Mycroft said, turning around to head inside and schooling his face into casual disregard. The only thing more annoying than a little brother was having an annoying little brother who could read people in a single glance.
“With two kids!” Sherlock shouted after him.
“That’s lovely,” Mycroft called over his shoulder, meeting up with Harry in the hallway and heading inside to see about a shower. Sherlock shouldn’t have bothered. To Mycroft Holmes, those two sentences were as good as Challenge Accepted.
Harry Watson may not have had the deductive powers of a Holmes, but she had rather good ears and the sense to recognize Sherlock was rarely wrong.
“You were giving him a look, weren’t you?” she teased. They were sitting on Mycroft’s bed, both freshly showered and changed, in their usual positions; Mycroft lounged back against the backboard, long legs stretched in front of him, and Harry sat by with her legs curled up beneath her like a big cat, grinning at him.
“What look?” he asked innocently. It was times like this that he marveled at the oddity of a Harry Watson in his bed. If you’d asked Mycroft two months ago who his closest friends were, he would have struggled to come up with one he genuinely liked. And here sat a girl, dwarfed in an oversized Beatles tee and worn denim shorts, grinning at him maniacally.
He hadn’t expected to like the girl, after Mummy had declared her intention of making them “playmates.” She was nothing short of his polar opposite outwardly, all rough edges, short hair and loud mouth. But inwardly, the troubled girl could have been his twin, a mix of confused sexuality, big dreams and floating loneliness. They’d clicked like puzzle pieces.
“You know, the fancy a shag look?” she laughed, nudging him with a big toe. “You like him.”
“You heard Sherlock, he’s married,” Mycroft gave up pretending he didn’t like the man. It was useless to hide things from Harry anyway. Not in the way it was useless to hide things from Sherlock, because he deduced them, but because he liked telling Harry things.
She raised an eyebrow. “And you’re a bit of a whore, so that shouldn’t stop you,” she winked and Mycroft flushed.
Uni had proved to be amongst the most fertile of training grounds in terms of sex. If he bothered taking the time, he couldn’t even name all the boys he’d shagged on a mad conquest to figure out his sexuality and then simply because he could. He didn’t do it for the sex generally, though that was pleasant enough. It was the challenge, the thrill of figuring out just who and what character to play to get every attractive male on his knees. Harry said he had a power complex. She was very, very right.
“You are a terror,” he asserted and she smiled.
“Aw, thank you,” she chirped, unfurling herself and hopping down from the bed. The girl was ridiculously short in the most endearing way, and he soon joined her as she padded to the door. “I’ll give up now, because I know you’re only being contrary. Now feed me.”
***
He’d walked in on her crying two days into her stay at the Holmes mansion. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t heard the small snuffles from within and deduced, and so he’d been left standing there awkwardly as she’d noticed him in the doorway.
“Shit,” she’d murmured, reaching at another tissue. “Mycroft, right? Sorry about this.”
She’d looked ridiculously fragile, all bundled up in waves of blankets on the large bed and Mycroft Holmes had never been adept at comforting people. He’d walked over silently, coming to the edge of the bed, just close enough to touch.
He hadn’t said anything, hadn’t offered useless platitudes because he himself abhorred them and he had a feeling this strange, tough girl would too. He’d simply sat there until her sobs abated to mere whimpers and she’d curled herself tighter in her blankets.
“Why are you still here?” she’d asked gently after a moment and he’d really looked at her. She had the most fantastic blue eyes, like waves smashed against rocks, and he could see something hidden far beyond them. A powerful spirit his mind had supplied and he’d laughed inwardly at the ridiculousness of the sentiment.
“I hate crying alone,” he’d offered and she’d taken his hand and squeezed.
She’d told him, two nights later as they sat in the garden, playing with blades of grass, about her father. About his alcoholic rages and beatings. About his suicide. And she’d cried again but this time Mycroft had enveloped her in awkward arms and let her cry into his chest.
But it was too late then. They were already friends.
The Watson’s left two days after the inspector had turned up on their doorstep and Mycroft had never been sadder to see a human being go away.
Mummy and Cynthia Watson were already making promises for another summer but Harry was digging the heels of her combat boots into the gravel, shy for the very first time since they’d met.
He hadn’t realized just how badly he’d miss Harry Watson until he tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and murmured softly to her.
“UCL’s only about an hour from Cambridge,” he promised. He’d looked it up the night before. It was two trains and a bus too, but that part needn’t be mentioned. Besides, he had a car.
She smiled up at him, memories welling up beneath the surface. Late talks in the garden, shopping in town, deep thoughts beneath a duvet, swimming in the lake at dawn- and he paused before hugging her. He wasn’t one for hugging really, but he’d taken to making exceptions for Harry.
“We’ll have lunch once a week,” she decided and he grinned into her hair. “Besides, I’m going to need updates on your conquest of the inspector.”
“You’ll mostly get updates on my conquest of the other interns,” he laughed and she grinned back, just as happy. He was interning at the Ministry for half the semester. Harry didn’t need to know about his plan to quickly make waves, he wasn’t about to stay an intern for the whole six months. Even for all he told the girl, there were some things you couldn’t say without frightening ordinary people. And the Watsons were gloriously ordinary.
He watched the first true friend he’d ever made pull away with Mummy on one side and Sherlock on the other. It wasn’t until after Mummy had made some offhand comment on how Sherlock and John had spent most of the summer snogging each other and headed inside that Sherlock turned on him.
“You got along particularly well with Harry,” he noted.
“It would seem so,” Mycroft said, surprised himself. Though “getting along” didn’t seem to cover it. He’d come out to the girl after knowing her a month. They were a bit more than “getting along.”
“How?” Sherlock asked, honestly puzzled. “You don’t have friends Mycroft.”
“Neither do you,” Mycroft reminded him but Sherlock wasn’t done.
“She’s so very different from you,” he pointed out.
Mycroft let his gaze rest on his younger brother for a long time before answering. “Broken things attract each other Sherlock. Always looking for their missing pieces.”
“You’re not broken,” Sherlock said and wasn’t that just hysterical, that naïve belief that just because he was older, he had any of his shit together.
“I need to get back to Uni,” Mycroft said rather than traumatize the boy with the truth, and went inside to pack.
Harry texted him from the car. Here’s to a year of adventure. He smiled at the phone and wondered when was the last time he’d looked forward to Uni.
***
Harry had told him about her struggle with alcoholism, three weeks into July.
“I hate how it controls me,” she’d confessed, tearing at her cuticles as they sat in the garden. Sherlock and John had claimed the lake as theirs and so they’d picked the spot behind the hydrangeas, hiding in plain sight. ”It makes things easier though. Less thinking.” She’d laughed bitterly then, glancing up at him.
“That must sound bizarre to you, not wanting to think,” she joked and he’d stared at her softly.
“It’s all I’ve ever wished for,” he’d admitted, tucking a flower behind Harry’s ear absentmindedly. “Ever since I realized what a curse it was.”
But Mycroft was a classic older brother and he couldn’t help wanting to mother, as annoying as it was. “I could be your sponsor,” he’d suggested and Harry had chuckled.
”I didn’t say I wanted to quit,” she’d teased but they’d linked pinkies anyways, a promise of sorts.
Being a senior had its perks. The freshmen who practically threw themselves in his bed were one. The obscene amounts of free time were another. Harry was an obvious first. But his internship, surprisingly, was a lovely second.
He was technically filing and making tea. What he actually was doing was solving people’s problems, discreetly and with no credit. By the end of his first week, nearly everyone at the branch knew if you were having a problem with something, ask the ginger-haired intern. By his second week, he had an empire of favors owed.
“How is the internship going?” Harry asked him over an ice-tea, fiddling with a plastic straw. They’d fallen in love with a small café in central London, claiming a table on the street, right beneath the awning and lovingly nestled in a corner. They didn’t even have to ask for it anymore, bless the waiters.
“Wonderful,” Mycroft grinned. “But you don’t really care, do you?”
“Not a whit,” Harry answered, stealing a cucumber from his salad with quick, slender fingers. “Now tell me about the seduction of the inspector.”
He hadn’t done much in the two months since he’d gotten back to Cambridge. One of his “bosses” at the internship worked in partnership with the Yard and he knew he could ask some casual questions and get away with it. But it hadn’t seemed worth the bother, not since Jeremy Marks in his Economics class had started giving him appraising looks across the room. Harry was not appeased.
“You’re lying to yourself,” she goaded. “If I know you at all Mycroft, and I dare say I do, you just don’t want to try because you’re scared he might be the first one you fail to catch.”
Damn the girl, but she was right. He forgot sometimes that people could often read each other, even without the talents he and Sherlock had. “And I’m sure you have some gloriously well-developed plan,” he scoffed and she smirked.
“Get him drunk and fuck him,” she offered. “Worked for me and Susie.”
“Ah yes,” he sighed, trying not to smile. “How is Susie?”
“You’ve fallen behind, Mycroft doll,” she chided, sipping her tea. “Susie was weeks ago. We’re into Rachel now.”
Mycroft struggled to recall. “The one with the intelligence of a house fly and the tits of a-“
“-porn star, yes her,” Harry finished, smiling.
“She sounds darling,” Mycroft tried politely.
Harry laughed. “She’s as entertaining as a shoe when she’s not on her back. Luckily, she’s got the stamina of a racehorse, bless her soul.”
Mycroft just shook his head. “Whatever would I do without your witty conversation Harry?” he groaned, sinking back into his chair, posture be damned. Harry did that to a person.
“Wither away with boredom,” she suggested and he figured she was probably right.
***
But the seed was planted, no doubting it now, and when one of the runners needed someone to take some files over to the yard, Mycroft volunteered.
Lestrade had a small cubical in a larger office, working under some detective inspector named Gregson, and it was child’s play to time his exit and elevator ride to coincide with Lestrade’s lunch break.
As the steel doors closed in front of them, Lestrade turned on him, sizing him up. “Mr. Holmes?” he asked carefully, placing a face to a memory and Mycroft smiled, turning around to face him.
“Mycroft please, inspector,” he brushed off, shaking hands. “Lovely to see you again.”
“Do you-“ Lestrade tried, searching his memory, “work here?”
Mycroft laughed, carefully timed to be casual, “Oh no, I’m just bringing some files over from the Department offices,” he explained and quickly moved on. He was running out of time. “My brother giving you any more trouble?”
Lestrade raised his eyebrows. “Who said he was giving me trouble?” he pushed, forced casual.
Mycroft grinned. “He’s my brother, inspector. If he’s not causing trouble, we worry.”
Lestrade laughed. “Here here. No, he’s a good kid. He’s been…helping us actually,” he admitted carefully, not sure what to expect, but Mycroft had the upper hand.
“Better helping you than fighting you, trust me,” he conceded and Lestrade seemed to realize Mycroft knew exactly what Sherlock was doing for the inspector.
“I have to ask,” Lestrade pushed as the elevator signaled their floor, “is he always this…”
“-manipulative, impulsive, stubborn, infantile?” Mycroft suggested.
“-right?” Lestrade finished and they both burst into easy laughter. He paused at the entrance of the MET, looking the college student over. It was a pleasant sort of looking over; the kind Mycroft had given him on that porch two months ago.
Testing his luck, Mycroft went for the kill. “We should talk some time,” he said casually, as though it wasn’t the purpose of this whole small-talk ritual, “now that you’re working with my brother.”
Lestrade looked up. “What, now?” he asked and Mycroft prayed to god he wasn’t just imagining the hopeful lilt in the man’s question.
“No, no, we’re both working now,” he said casually, leaning back against the doorframe. “But some other time, definitely.” He hated this part, the fake casual part, but if there was one thing Mycroft knew it was how to play people.
“Yes, of course,” Lestrade smiled back, more relaxed.
Mycroft detached himself and moved to leave. “See you around, inspector,” he breezed as he started walking.
“It’s Greg!” Lestrade called out from behind him and he turned. The man was still standing by the doorway and he lowered the hand he’d reached out with awkwardly.
“Call me Greg,” he finished and Mycroft practically beamed at him.
“See you around Gregory,” he corrected and walked away, promising himself a call to Harry later.
It would be another month before he saw Gregory again.
In that month: Harry relapsed twice, met a lovely girl named Clara in her law class, and came out to her family.
That had been the hardest thing Mycroft had ever had to do; sit next to Harry as she came out to her mom, squeezing the living daylights out of his hand. They both knew it would go well; the Watson’s were far too loving to take it badly. But it had been nerve-wracking nonetheless.
Mycroft had been the one to encourage her to come out actually, over their weekly lunch dates. You know they love you, he’d pushed, dropping his cucumbers onto her plate before she could snatch them away. They won’t even care, I promise you.
But in the end it had been Clara that forced the reaction. The girl had been out since fourth grade and wanted to meet Harry’s family.
“And she’s perfect My,” Harry had gushed over the phone, both of them lying in their dorm rooms, sprawled out on their beds. “She’s smart and clever and she has the same sense of humor as me. She even loves EastEnders. I can’t lose her.”
And so that had been it. She’d come out and now Clara was scheduled to go over the Watson’s for Christmas dinner next month. So it was no wonder the full time student/intern hadn’t had time for his favorite challenge.
Oh, of course he saw him, across the hall or table whenever he was sent over to the Met, or a yarder had to take care of something in one of the offices. They’d chat, about the weather, Sherlock, rugby or whatever was going on. Sometimes Mycroft would pass on a hint that the inspector might’ve been interested in. But he didn’t have a full length conversation with the man until he ran into him in a pub.
Pubs were not something Mycroft generally did but he was on a mission for Harry, instructing bar owners not to sell to her under any circumstances. Clara had also proved a fantastic get-sober motivator and Mycroft was doing his best to facilitate. So running into Greg Lestrade at The Forester was a complete and happy accident.
“Mycroft,” Lestrade called over, grinning. He wasn’t drunk, not by a long shot, and the smile went straight to Mycroft’s gut. “Come sit with me.”
“Gregory, this a surprise,” he excused, coming over and settling on a seat next to him. “How are you?”
“Can’t complain,” he said, motioning a bartender over. “Though your brother’s driving me up the wall. You?”
“Good thanks-“ Mycroft started but was cut off as Gregory ordered him a beer. “Oh no, that’s not necessary,” he excused but the man waved him away.
“Nonsense, it’s on me,” he said as the bartender walked away. “I owe you a drink away. That tip you gave me about the Henley case saved my ass.”
“It was my pleasure,” Mycroft brushed off as a beer was slid into his hands. “Consider it payment for keeping my brother entertained.”
“The man is a genius, I’ll give him that,” Lestrade laughed into his pint. “But a bloody menace.”
“You can imagine him as a child,” Mycroft offered and Lestrade pulled a face.
“No I can’t,” he shuddered. “Bloody hell, that must have been awful.”
Mycroft grinned. “You ever hear the story of when he decided he wanted a puppy?”
He hadn’t meant to spend the whole evening in a pub getting progressively drunker with Lestrade and exchanging Sherlock stories, but he certainly wasn’t complaining about the turn of events. Eventually, the stories moved into talk of what Mycroft was studying and then into world politics in general. Lestrade was surprisingly knowledgeable in diplomacy, considering his career choice and the fact that he was rather shit-faced. Mycroft was suitably impressed.
The bar filled and emptied and still they sat, laughing over beer and whiskey and realizing they had an absurd amount in common. Talk was effortless between them and as they staggered out into the street past midnight, it seemed only natural to keep at it.
“-and so then the idiot comes back with two search warrants and still no arrest. So we just gave up,” Greg laughed as they hailed a cab. “Poor bloke tries, he really does, but he’s about as useful as Dimmock.”
“They’ll make you detective inspector soon enough,” Mycroft predicted, watching as a cab pulled up. “After Gregson gets promoted.”
“I can never tell if you have insider information or you’re just psychic,” Greg teased, leaning forward to tell the cabbie his address.
“Both,” Mycroft smiled and the inspector turned back to him.
“Where are you headed?” he asked, opening the cab door and swaying a bit as he grabbed onto Mycroft’s offered hand. The contact burned but neither man pulled away,
King’s Cross was on the other side of London. “Right near you, actually,” he lied and Greg’s eyes beamed.
“Let’s share a cab then,” he offered. “Nonsense,” he pushed as Mycroft moved to object. “Get in and shut up you proper git.”
The cab was too small, with both of them pressed against each other. They both realized, absentmindedly, that they could move over and make space between them, but neither man particularly wanted to. Harry’s comment about getting the inspector drunk and snogging him came back in full force and Mycroft’s drunk brain refused to push it aside.
Greg was looking at him, with the look of a man half starved, and it was doing unpleasantly pleasant things to Mycroft’s gut. “You have-“ Greg tried before wiping a stray bit of foam from the corner of Mycroft’s mouth. Mycroft would have been horrified if Greg didn’t leave his hand there a beat too long, warm and promising.
“Thanks,” Mycroft whispered, unsure as to why and Greg took his hand back, placing it awkwardly in his lap.
The cab pulled to a stop and both men stared at each other. “This is me,” Greg said unnecessarily and Mycroft nodded. It was a lovely house, promising two kids and a housewife, everything Sherlock deduced. Mycroft didn’t give a flying fuck at the moment.
“My-“ Greg stared before Mycroft attacked him, kissing him with as much passion as his drunk brain could manage. It was short; a bruising of lips, a nip of teeth, the promise of tongue and a quick grope and then Mycroft was shoving the panting man from the cab.
“Call me,” he ordered, closing the door on the sight of the disheveled inspector before turning to the cabbie. “King’s Cross,” he instructed and it wasn’t until the cab had sped away that he remembered Greg didn’t have his number.