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English
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Part 12 of Scotch
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Published:
2012-03-08
Completed:
2012-03-17
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14,238
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4/4
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Middlegame

Summary:

The story of how Greg Lestrade came to live in Mycroft Holmes's house.

Notes:

I know I promised an Empty House fic, and that is coming, but then I wrote this fic, and chronologically it belongs here, before the Empty House fic, so I'm posting it before the Empty House fic. I request your indulgence in this delay. This fic wasn't originally planned, but then once it was written I thought it very nicely explains how Mycroft and Lestrade got from "Scotch" proper to the tiny scene at the very end of "Scotch," and to the comfortable scenes of them in "12 Things," and to, subsequently, how they'll be in the Empty House fic. So, before getting to John and Sherlock's story, here's the rest of Mycroft and Greg's. Hope you enjoy!

Thank you to my usual cheerleaders, to arctacuda for the beta, and to sensiblecat for the Britpick.

Chapter Text

Mycroft owned a television. Actually, he had an entire media room that was clearly spare-no-expense and state-of-the-art, and Lestrade thought it was a pity that Mycroft was indifferent toward sports, because it was a fabulous set-up for a football match.

“Why do you have this?” Lestrade had asked him, quizzically, when Mycroft had first shown it to him. It was tucked off the library, under the stairs, in a space that must have been carved from the rooms around it.

Mycroft had quirked amusement at him in that way he had. “I’m not averse to technology, you know.”

Which Lestrade knew was true. In fact, he suspected Mycroft was much more adept with technology than Lestrade could ever hope to be. But still, the idea of Mycroft having a media room had not occurred to him.

“What do you watch in here?” he’d asked, and Mycroft had shrugged and answered, “Where does one find the time to watch things?”

“One finds the time to watch things when one is dating someone,” Lestrade had informed him, and Mycroft had laughed and told him they could watch whatever he suggested.

Lestrade knew Mycroft really would watch whatever Lestrade wished to, but Lestrade wanted Mycroft to enjoy the experience for reasons other than Lestrade’s company, immensely flattering though that might be. Lestrade thought maybe a movie, something well-made and clever. Hitchcock, he decided.

“It’s Rear Window,” he had informed Mycroft, when he’d arrived. “It’s a classic.”

Mycroft had given him a look he couldn’t interpret, which had made Lestrade feel as if he’d done something terribly wrong. He was growing to recognize most of Mycroft’s looks, but this one was beyond him in a nervous-making way.

“What?” he’d asked, hoping he didn’t sound defensive but knowing that he probably did.

“Nothing,” Mycroft had responded, carefully, as if he were considering very closely what to say. “It’s a good choice. It’s a good movie.”

“You’ve seen it?” Lestrade had been annoyed with himself for picking what was apparently the one movie Mycroft had ever seen.

Mycroft had given him that odd look again, and spoken carefully again. “Greg, do you imagine that I’ve never seen a single movie ever?”

Which had given Lestrade pause. Because, put that way, that had been a ridiculous assumption on his part. Mycroft would of course have seen movies. Maybe not at the frequency a normal person might, and maybe never a movie of frivolous, dubious quality, but he must have seen at least a few movies. Surely, at some point, Mycroft had been a boy, a teenager, even a younger man, and surely he had done some of the normal things people did at those ages, like watch movies. Lestrade tried to imagine it. Mycroft had obviously not sprouted into the world fully formed, but Lestrade could not envision what either Holmes had been like as a child. Sometimes he wished he could ask Sherlock to tell him, but he suspected Sherlock would say Mycroft always had been exactly the same, because to Sherlock he probably always had been.

“So you’ve seen it,” Lestrade had concluded.

“Yes. I like it. I like most Hitchcock. Which is why it was a good choice.” When Lestrade had first met with Mycroft, years ago, he had thought that he had a way with words, but Lestrade knew now it wasn’t so much words as tone. Mycroft could inflect a whole speech into the delivery of a single word if he so desired. Lestrade knew this talent of Mycroft’s could be sharp and unpleasant, but Lestrade primarily experienced its kinder, gentler side. Mycroft could say a simple phrase and inject it with enough warmth that Lestrade blushed and buzzed as dizzily as if he’d just been kissed. Mycroft had done it then, in calling the movie a good choice, and Lestrade had been delighted by what he now decided was brilliance on his part. And which he recognized was part of Mycroft’s charm, that he seemed to think many things Lestrade did were genuinely brilliant.

Mycroft had then demonstrated the advantage of watching a movie they had both already seen—that advantage being that they spent most of the movie snogging—and Lestrade kept bringing Hitchcock with him to Mycroft’s.

It was North by Northwest that night, which Lestrade hadn’t seen in years, possibly since uni days. Which, honestly, would have been a more age-appropriate time to view a great classic of cinema by snogging on a not-quite-big-enough sofa in a darkened room. But Mycroft was an especially good kisser and Lestrade had no particular interest in North by Northwest and a great deal of interest in the clever thing Mycroft was doing just there with his tongue.

Mycroft’s mobile rang, but a ringtone Lestrade had never heard from it before. Shorter and higher-pitched. Mycroft froze and drew back, frowning. His hair was tousled, and his tie was undone, and it was Lestrade’s favorite look for him, a state of disheveled he knew only he ever got to see.

“I have to take that call,” said Mycroft, already reaching for where he’d tossed his suit jacket.

“Of course,” said Lestrade, watching him extract the mobile. Mycroft seemed tense. Mycroft’s work was all-hours sort of work, which Lestrade didn’t mind in the least because so was his, and he wondered vaguely why Mycroft seemed tense about the interruption instead of merely annoyed. He hoped Mycroft didn’t think Lestrade was going to be difficult about it.

Mycroft stood and exited the room, not in itself an unusual act. Sometimes Mycroft had work conversations in front of Lestrade, and sometimes he didn’t. Lestrade supposed it had to do with the level of clearance of the particular conversation. He wasn’t offended.

Mycroft was gone for much longer than Lestrade would have expected, and that was unusual. Mycroft might work when he was with Lestrade, but generally not for longer than five or so minutes at a time. But Mycroft was gone long enough for Lestrade to get engrossed in the movie.

When Mycroft came back into the room, he was, as Lestrade liked to think of it, re-assembled, his suit crisp and clean and put-together. One would never have known that he ever looked any other way. The re-assembly, thought Lestrade, without saying anything, didn’t bode well for the resumption of this particular date.

“I have to go,” Mycroft announced.

“I can see that,” replied Lestrade. “I’d ask if everything’s all right, but if it were, you wouldn’t be going, would you?”

“Precisely,” said Mycroft, with a tight smile. “You should stay, though. Finish the movie. It’s a very good movie.”

“But I don’t come here for the movies,” Lestrade pointed out. “How long will you be gone?”

“I have no idea.” Mycroft looked distracted, and Lestrade thought that, under normal circumstances, Mycroft would already have been well on his way to the office, that Lestrade’s presence in the house was already slowing down the way things were supposed to function.

Lestrade considered. Telling Mycroft he should go was ridiculous, because Mycroft wasn’t asking for permission and didn’t have to, anyway. He wondered if he should promise to phone Mycroft the next day. Did that seem too needy? More or less needy than asking Mycroft to phone him? Lestrade hated early-stage relationships. He decided upon, “We’ll reschedule North by Northwest. I’d hate for you to miss the ending.”

Mycroft smiled absently, then said, abruptly, “You should stay here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lestrade, because Mycroft had already told him to finish the movie.

“You should stay here, tonight.”

Lestrade hesitated. Staying the night at Mycroft’s was far from unprecedented and indeed, these days, more common than not. Staying the night at Mycroft’s without Mycroft seemed a very different story however.

“I’ll have to come home eventually,” Mycroft continued.

Which was true. And Lestrade read between lines Mycroft didn’t say. Mycroft was tense and worried about something, clearly, and Mycroft wished Lestrade to stay. Because Mycroft would probably like to have him there when whatever was going on was over. It was not the sort of thing Mycroft would say out loud, but it was the sort of thing Lestrade knew Mycroft depended upon him to know without him saying it out loud. Sometimes Lestrade felt as if he understood nothing about Mycroft, but other times he knew he understood Mycroft better than anyone ever had; he could read the wonder of that on Mycroft’s face and it was half terrifying.

“Yes,” he said. “Fine. I’ll stay. Be careful.”

Mycroft leaned over and brushed a thoughtless, automatic kiss over his mouth, like a perfectly normal couple would when one of them was leaving for work. “It isn’t dangerous,” he said.

“Maybe not, but you never know with that dodgy chauffeur you have.”

“He’s thoroughly qualified,” Mycroft told him, as he left the room.

***

Lestrade re-started North by Northwest from the beginning because he had time and decided he might as well. Mycroft still wasn’t home when he finished it, so Lestrade spent a little while investigating the quality of Mycroft’s cable, which was startlingly good in a way Lestrade suspected was not quite legal for people who weren’t the British government. Eventually, with an eye on the clock and aware that he had work in the morning, Lestrade decided to go to bed.

The house was quiet, although there was a lamp lit at the foot of the stairs and another at the top. Lestrade wondered if the butler had done that specifically for him and if he was supposed to turn them off on his way up to bed. He had never seen Mycroft leave any lights on in the house, but, then again, maybe it was standard to leave them on when Mycroft wasn’t home, so he wouldn’t come home to complete darkness. Lestrade debated, then decided he was behaving stupidly over a minor point that Mycroft wouldn’t really care about, and he left them on.

It was exceedingly strange to go to sleep in Mycroft’s bed without Mycroft, and Lestrade decided he didn’t really like it. Everything about it was familiar: the luxuriously comfortable bed, the expensively soft sheets, the angle of the moonlight through the French doors that led to the balcony, the outline of the shadows of the room’s ornate furniture. But it all felt vaguely sinister now that he was in the room by himself. The house seemed loud with its creaks and groans, without the cover of Mycroft’s breathing to mask them, and the antique clock on the dresser in the corner ticked. Lestrade had never noticed that it ticked before. Lestrade stretched out on his side of the bed and counted the seconds.

He must have fallen asleep, because he woke to someone shaking him gently. He blinked Mycroft into focus, leaning over the bed.

“You stayed,” he said, his voice soft, sounding surprised.

“You asked me to,” Lestrade replied, and closed his eyes and snuggled back into his pillow. “What time is it?”

“Very late, or very early, depending on one’s perspective,” Mycroft answered.

Which was such a Mycroft answer, even for the middle of the night, that Lestrade chuckled, thinking, as he sometimes did, This is the ridiculous man you are in love with. “Come to bed,” he said, sleepily.

“I can’t. I only came to get a change of clothes.”

Lestrade opened his eyes again, bringing Mycroft back into focus. Well, Mycroft’s silhouette, at least, because the room was dark. “You came?” Because it seemed like an errand, the sort of thing that could have waited until morning and could have been handled by one of Mycroft’s endless assistants. The sort of thing he hadn’t needed to wake Lestrade up for, at the very least.

“Well, I didn’t want to send someone who might disturb you,” answered Mycroft, sounding a trifle defensive.

Mycroft was almost never defensive, so Lestrade smiled, because what this meant was that Mycroft had just been curious about whether or not he’d stayed. It possibly also meant he had woken him just so he could talk to him, which should have been irritating but Lestrade was besotted enough to find it adorable. “You disturbed me,” he pointed out.

Mycroft’s voice was laced with amusement when he replied. “Well, yes, but disturbing you is my prerogative.”

“Only because you’re good in bed.”

“You say lovely things when you’re half-asleep,” said Mycroft, and kissed him. “I have to go.”

Lestrade nodded and yawned and turned back into his pillow. “Be careful,” he mumbled.

“It’s not dangerous,” he heard Mycroft say, sounding fond.

***

Lestrade woke next to his mobile beeping its alarm at him, and he opened his eyes just enough to ascertain he was still alone in the bed, mostly because if he was still alone he could hit the snooze button without bothering Mycroft. He forgot about hitting the snooze button, though, because there was a cream envelope sitting on Mycroft’s pillow, propped to face Lestrade, with Greg written on it in Mycroft’s neat, precise handwriting.

Lestrade shut off his alarm, sat up, and curiously reached for the envelope, which was too heavy to contain just paper.

The envelope wasn’t sealed, and Lestrade reached in and pulled out a sheet of Mycroft’s expensive stationery and a single key. Lestrade glanced at the key and read the note. It’s unclear when I’ll be back or even when I’ll have an opportunity to get in touch with you. Please feel free to stay at the house. I quite like not having it empty. –M.

Mycroft’s house was never empty, not with the butler and the cook, but Lestrade knew that literal emptiness was not what Mycroft had meant. He looked at the key in his hand and wondered if this now meant he was living with Mycroft Holmes. Only Mycroft would ask a significant other to move in by disappearing on him entirely, thought Lestrade.

He showered and dressed and jogged down the stairs, working Mycroft’s key onto his key ring as he did so, and he was startled when the butler, Reynolds, said, cheerfully, “Good morning, Inspector. I’ve set out coffee for you in the dining room. Would you like breakfast as well?”

Lestrade froze three steps from the bottom of the staircase and considered Reynolds. Mycroft had leisurely breakfasts, at which Lestrade tended to join him, but Mycroft woke up early enough to allow for leisurely breakfasts, which Lestrade had decidedly not done. It had not occurred to him that Mycroft’s household staff would have prepared a breakfast for him.

“Oh,” he said, trying to think if he could refuse the offer without seeming rude. He glanced at his watch and hated that he did it, because Mycroft Holmes’s butler knew bloody well how to read visual cues.

“You’re running late,” he said, smoothly. “I’ll fetch your coffee to go.”

“That’s…” Lestrade was going to tell him it was quite all right not to fetch his coffee to go, that he could stop on his way to work to grab coffee, but Reynolds had already disappeared into the dining room and, frankly, Mycroft had terrific coffee that made all other coffee taste like dishwater, so Lestrade was willing to sacrifice timeliness for its sake.

Reynolds returned in less than a minute with a sleek, stainless steel travel mug. Lestrade had never seen Mycroft with a travel mug but it didn’t surprise him to learn that, since Mycroft did own a travel mug, it looked like this one. “It should be prepared to your satisfaction,” Reynolds told him, and handed him a paper bug. “And that’s a muffin.”

“Oh, brilliant,” said Lestrade, in undisguised delight. There were good things to be said for having a butler and a cook. “Tell Mrs. Taylor cheers for me.”

“Have a pleasant day, sir,” said Reynolds, sounding pleased with Lestrade’s delight.

“Thank you,” Lestrade replied, turning to the door, and then abruptly turning back to Reynolds. “Mycroft gave me a key.”

“Very good, sir,” said Reynolds, blandly.

“I mean, to the house.”

“Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, looking at him as if to ask what other type of key Mycroft would have given him.

Which was a good question. Lestrade felt a little like an idiot, because he wasn’t sure what he meant to say next. He could not remember the last day he hadn’t spent at least some time in Mycroft’s house, so it seemed ridiculous to tell Reynolds he would be back at the end of the day, he was usually back at the end of the day. “Okay,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to be startled when I opened the door by myself.” Which also sounded idiotic. He took a sip of his coffee because he thought that might help him sound halfway intelligent.

“Not at all, Inspector,” said Reynolds, and smiled at him.

The sort of smile, Lestrade thought, that you gave grown men who were behaving in foolish ways. “Bye,” he said, before he could embarrass himself further.

***

Lestrade had several cases that weren’t making much sense, and, frustrated, he finally decided to take them home with him. And then he literally stood in front of his car and contemplated what “home” was and where he intended to take them. If he had not had the key to Mycroft’s house currently in his pocket, he would have gone to Mycroft’s house immediately, unthinkingly. He didn’t see why that should change now that he had the key.

Determined not to be a coward, he drove himself and his files to Mycroft’s and let himself in the front door. Reynolds met him immediately, took some of the files from him, and carried them to the drawing room, where Lestrade tended to work when he was at Mycroft’s, after failed experiments in the dining room and the library.

“Is he home?” Lestrade asked, following Reynolds with the rest of the files, but he assumed he wasn’t because normally Mycroft came to greet him if he was home when Lestrade got there.

“No, sir,” Reynolds answered, setting the files down. “When would you like to have dinner?”

“Dinner?” echoed Lestrade. He ate when Mycroft got home. If he wasn’t home when Lestrade arrived, then Lestrade worked and waited for him and ate when he got there.

“Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, clearly waiting patiently for Lestrade to make a decision about it.

“You don’t think Mycroft will be home for dinner,” Lestrade concluded, which made sense, given Mycroft’s note that morning, but Lestrade had vaguely assumed that just meant another late night, not an I’m not coming home at all for a little while. Lestrade thought of the change of clothes trip the night before and wished he’d paid more attention. How much clothing, exactly, had Mycroft retrieved?

“Probably not, sir,” responded Reynolds.

“Right,” said Lestrade. “Well, there’s no need to make dinner just for me. We can order in.”

Reynolds was a good butler, with the poker face of a good butler. He radiated disapproval simply by thinking it, no need to change his expression at all. “Order in?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Lestrade said, staunchly. “Mrs. Taylor can have the night off.”

“Mrs. Taylor has already prepared dinner. She merely requests a time at which she should finalize it.”

Of course, thought Lestrade. Cooking took time, didn’t it? “Fine,” he sighed. “Whatever time works best for her, I’ll eat then.”

“Very good, sir,” said Reynolds, radiating relief that he had not been forced to commit the cardinal butler sin of ordering in.

Lestrade watched him leave the drawing room and considered his files, then glanced at the chessboard instead, because he didn’t much feel like working at the moment. Then he narrowed his eyes. Mycroft had moved, he realized. During his middle-of-the-night visit, Lestrade supposed. In the middle of some sort of international crisis requiring his attention, Mycroft had paused to make a move in their chess game.

Lestrade realized he was smiling as he sat at his side of the board and considered his options.