Chapter Text
Mycroft woke to find Greg’s gaze unerringly on him, heady and dizzying from his pillow only a few inches away. It was seldom that Greg woke before him—in fact, Mycroft couldn’t recall it ever happening before, under normal circumstances, before the recent insanity—and Mycroft was a bit relieved about that if it meant it helped him avoid this heavy scrutiny.
“Are you watching me sleep?” he asked, half-amused.
“Possibly,” Greg answered, and then, “I missed you desperately.”
He said it as if it were an enormous confession he was making. Mycroft marveled at how Greg seemed to have no idea how much his emotions were written on his face. He was quite aware Greg had missed him desperately, it had been impossible for him to miss. Half of him wanted to apologize, caught up in an odd guilt over how lonely Greg had clearly been. None of it had been Mycroft’s fault, and there was nothing for him to apologize for, but he felt terrible about it all the same.
He rejected the idea of an apology, and wondered if he should simply say he’d missed him in return, which seemed trite and also a gross understatement, because he hadn’t missed him, that wasn’t an accurate statement at all. He had craved him, was perhaps a more accurate statement. He had needed him, possibly came closest to it. He had come home just to spend a few moments near him, had carried his notes around in his suit pocket like some sort of melodramatic Romantic poet.
He didn’t, really, have any words for exactly what Greg was and exactly how his absence or presence affected him.
He tried to think of something he could say in response, and what he heard himself say was, “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Anything. I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”
“Why don’t you ever take me to the Royal Festival Hall?”
The question caught him by surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you ever take me to the Royal Festival Hall?” Greg repeated.
Mycroft frowned a bit. “That’s not talking to me. That’s asking me a question.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t like the Philharmonic?” Greg persisted.
Mycroft’s frown deepened. He could not remember the last time he had taken a full day off of work, and he had decided to do it so he could spend the day with Greg, and Greg had decided to open the day with quarrelling. “Frankly, yes,” he informed him, letting his irritation show.
“But you like the Philharmonic,” Greg pointed out. “What does it matter whether I like it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mycroft, impatiently. “Of course it matters whether you like something.”
“I think we should go,” he decided.
Mycroft lifted his eyebrows. “You want to go to the Royal Festival Hall?”
“I want to go to the Royal Festival Hall with you. That’s an important distinction.”
“Why?”
“Because you like it. Because I think, honestly, you probably love it, given what I know about you. Because I suspect you’ve had a terrible week, and definitely a terrible couple of days, and you’ll never tell me about it, because that isn’t what you do. And I’m not offended, and I won’t pry, but you need something nice, something you enjoy, and we should go to the Philharmonic.”
Mycroft stared at him for a very long moment, gathering his thoughts. Greg always made him feel as if, if he weren’t careful, he would babble like an idiot, a press of words tumbling out of him, and none of it would make much sense. He managed, eventually, “But that’s what I’m doing today. Something nice, something I enjoy.”
Greg beamed at him, and kissed him a bit messily, which was really very nice. “Take me to the Philharmonic,” he said, drawing back.
“If you insist,” said Mycroft.
“You know,” continued Greg, “it makes sense, but I thought possibly the opera.”
“What about the opera?”
“That you’d like the opera more.”
“Why would you think that?” asked Mycroft, trying to recall if he’d ever once listened to opera while around Greg, and thinking that he definitely had not, although he listened to Philharmonic recordings all the time.
“Because everyone in an opera is so unnecessarily dramatic,” said Greg, “I thought that would appeal to you.”
He was grinning down at him, his dark eyes bright with amusement.
“Shut up,” said Mycroft, and kissed him in such a way that Greg really did shut up for quite a little while.
***
The program was Strauss, Brahms, and Mahler, and Mycroft, settled into his seat, realized that he’d missed the Royal Festival Hall. He hadn’t thought that he had, because he had been busy falling in love with Greg and everything else had seemed rather secondary to that, but it was nice to be back, with its buzz of voices and its tuning instruments. He liked the acoustics of the place. He liked, really, everything about it, and he especially liked having Greg next to him, and something uncurled inside him, a final bit of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been clinging to. There was a special ops team fanned out discreetly behind them and an entire concert hall full of people beyond that, but Mycroft looked at Greg’s profile and saw only him. His eyes were narrowed, scanning the crowd, cataloguing impressions in an automatic way that Mycroft knew Greg didn’t realize he did, a sweep of every scene as if it might be a crime scene. Mycroft was quite familiar with the impulse. And he was content to let Greg scan this particular scene while he scanned Greg.
“Do you know these people?” Greg asked, abruptly, turning to him.
Mycroft glanced around, considering. He had been a member of the Royal Festival Hall for years, but he didn’t make much of a habit of socializing there. “Some of them,” he answered.
“Will they come say hello to you?”
Mycroft looked at him curiously. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” Greg obviously lied.
“Please don’t lie to me—you’re terrible at it. You’re also far more charming than I am, so you really shouldn’t be alarmed should anyone care to strike up a conversation with us. However, they won’t.”
Greg noticed the sureness with which he spoke, which of course he would. “Why not?”
Mycroft looked at him mildly. “Because why would they ever know a minor government official like me?”
Greg laughed. “Does anyone really believe that about you?”
“Mostly everyone.”
“How can they possibly make that mistake?”
“I have old money and an impressive education. They use it to explain all manner of things.”
Greg shook his head, and sighed, and looked generally amused by the entire thing.
Mycroft loved him more than he knew what to do with. “Thank you for coming here with me,” he said.
Greg looked at him in surprise. “Oh, don’t mention it,” he said, and then, grinning, “However, next we’re going to a football match together.”
“No, we’re not,” said Mycroft, enjoying the rhythm of the teasing.
“Yes, we are.”
“I may have to work that day.”
“What day?”
“All days with football matches,” he rejoined, good-naturedly.
Greg startled him by kissing him suddenly, and he froze for just a moment before he kissed him back.
Which Greg noticed. He drew back. “Sorry, should I not have done that?”
Mycroft looked at him, as the lights flickered around them. “Move in with me,” he said.
Greg looked stunned. The lights flickered again, seeming to make the expression on his face even starker. “Oh,” he said, and then the lights went out altogether and the orchestra started playing.
Which was terrible timing. He had terrible timing. He should never have said anything at all. He had moved everything forward much too quickly, and he was annoyed with himself. Why could he not read this particular chessboard correctly?
He had thought Greg would like the idea. Certainly Greg already seemed at home in the house, and Mycroft liked having him there. It appealed to him, the concept that, no matter the mess around him at work, Greg would be waiting at home. At his home, at their home.
But of course, really, what was in it for Greg? Greg, who had surely just realized that he was a difficult man to live with. Greg was affable and easy-going, and Mycroft loved all of that very much, but it was completely the opposite of Mycroft himself, as Mycroft well knew. “Affable” and “easy-going” were not words anyone would ever use to describe him, not even the slightest of his acquaintances.
What was even worse was all that buoyant optimism latent in Greg’s character, all of his endless enthusiasm for whatever might be coming next. Mycroft adored it even as he failed to truly comprehend how it could exist in him, and he worried he might accidentally extinguish it. He thought of Greg’s downtrodden message on his mobile that day and the unmistakable sensation of fear that had squeezed at his chest. The world around him had been going to pieces, but he couldn’t have Greg that way, that had been intolerable, and what if, somehow, in some convoluted way, that had been his fault, because Greg had been lonely and had missed him and had brightened as soon as he’d seen him, relieved and delighted and terribly trusting, and Mycroft had no idea what to do with any of that. He could not remember ever having provoked such a reaction in any human being before, and he was terrified of doing the whole thing wrong, of playing the chess game so clumsily that in the end he ruined whatever it was about Greg that made him so irresistibly Greg.
Which he thought it possible he was not far from doing. Greg, who worried about the terrible things human beings did to each other. Greg, who had called Mycroft to stop him worrying about that. Mycroft, who, not long afterward, had sat at a desk and dialed a number and said a single word and ended several dozen lives, and Greg had, upon his request, not long after that, assured him that he loved him, an astonishing thing. Would he have said it if he’d known? Sometimes Mycroft desperately wished Greg wasn’t so understanding. He wished Greg would poke about the house, would ask more questions about what he did, wouldn’t merely ask instead if he was all right and say that he loved him and missed him and they should have dinner and go to the Philharmonic.
Mycroft didn’t hear a single note of the music. He applauded when he was supposed to applaud and registered none of it. It was a relief when it was over.
Greg was talking to him, pulling on his coat, and he looked mildly rumpled, and Mycroft wondered how he always managed to look rumpled and wondered how he thought that such a painfully adorable ability. He tried to pay attention to what Greg was saying, but it didn’t seem to be anything that merited a response. He walked swiftly, leading Greg, who kept up with him effortlessly, still talking, until the moment when he hung back, and Mycroft, noticing the space of his absence, paused and turned back to him.
Greg was looking at him curiously. “Aren’t you going to have to work?”
Mycroft realized he had no idea what he was talking about. “When?”
“The day of the rock concert.”
“What rock concert?”
Greg cocked his head. “Haven’t you been listening to me? I said the music was better than I thought it would be, and that maybe all music was better live, and that we should attend a rock concert next, so you could see, we could do it instead of the football match. I don’t even think you’re listening to me now.”
“Yes, I am,” said Mycroft, watching their car pull up.
“What happened?” asked Greg. “Didn’t you like it?”
“It was lovely,” Mycroft replied, automatically, opening the door.
“Did they play poorly?” Greg asked him, sliding into the car.
“I’m sure they played beautifully,” said Mycroft, impatient with the conversation, and followed him into the car. “About what I said,” he began.
“What you said when?” said Greg. He looked annoyed as well, and then seemed to realize. “Wait, is this about moving in with you?”
“Forget that I said anything,” said Mycroft.
“Mycroft, I’m already living with you. Have you not noticed this? You, the observant Mycroft Holmes?” Greg grinned at him, highly amused.
“Oh,” said Mycroft, because, now that he mentioned it… He felt like an idiot.
“Anyway,” continued Greg, settling comfortably into the seat, “thank you for the formal invitation. Should I send an RSVP, or can I just tell you yes right now?”
Mycroft looked at him, relaxed and inviting beside him, the traffic lights flashing periodically over his face, his tone warm and promising and affectionate. “You should ask me what I do,” Mycroft said.
Greg shifted immediately, tense beside him. He looked at him, met his gaze, all seductive flirtation gone from his expression. “No,” he said, evenly. “I shouldn’t.”
He was frustrating beyond belief. “Yes, you should.”
“What does it matter, Mycroft?”
“That’s precisely why it matters, because you have no idea what it is I do, what it is I’ve done, and if you knew I don’t think you would—”
“If I knew,” Greg inserted, calmly, “someone would have to kill me. At least, that was the impression I was under.”
“This isn’t a joke,” Mycroft snapped at him.
“I know.” Greg sat up, and Mycroft realized he was angry. “It’s a little insulting, you know, that you think you’re so very clever that I must have no clue what it is you do. As if I don’t have inklings about it. As if I don’t have suspicions. I’m well aware, with your state secrets and security clearances and CCTV access. Nothing about you is quite legal, and nothing about you is actually illegal, and I think I know exactly what that means about you. You’re untouchable because you have to be, because otherwise I’d have a file on you on my desk, wouldn’t I? I know the decisions you must make, and I know you tell yourself it’s all in a day’s work, because it is, but sometimes, every once in a while, that slips for you, and you have a moment like this, where you think it should matter to me, the blood that you imagine is on your hands. And it doesn’t matter to me, Mycroft. Or not in the way you think. The world, left to its own devices, spirals into horrible things. I see it every day. Do not imagine for a minute that I don’t know that someone has to be prodding it out of that path at a level much higher than the one I occupy, and I’d rather that someone be you than anyone else, because I love you and I trust you. I also live with you, and you can do everything you need to do and you will always be able to crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night and ask me if I still love you. Because I will. I won’t get angry, and I won’t leave, I’ll just…” Greg trailed off suddenly, as if he’d run out of things to say, and Mycroft stared at him, because he definitely had nothing to say in response. “I’ll just be there,” Greg finished finally, “at the end of the day, whenever that might be.” He paused again. “Most of the time. Unless I have my own case going on.”
Mycroft opened his mouth but found he could not think what to say. His mind was so full of Greg’s words, he could not think of any of his own that would have been even half as important, half as amazing, half as wonderful.
“Good,” said Greg, noticing this. “I’ve won. Just kiss me.”
He did.
***
Lestrade was in the middle of a missing persons case, sitting in a conference room and frowning at the photos he had scattered on the table, willing one to stand out for him, to suddenly give him a clue. It had reached the point in the night when he was feeling the lack of sleep, when the adrenaline was crashing slightly.
Colin walked in with the CCTV tapes Lestrade had requested.
“I should have had you get coffee while you were up,” Lestrade told him, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“You hate the coffee here,” Colin reminded him, which was true and was inconvenient and he blamed Mycroft for that development because the coffee had never bothered him before he’d grown accustomed to better coffee. “Here.”
Colin tossed something at him that Lestrade caught automatically. His mobile.
“You left it in your office,” Colin said.
“Oh,” said Lestrade, absently, and glanced at it, realizing he’d missed a text.
I want to make sure you know I’m not the least bit angry and not considering leaving, at all. I do, however, miss you. –M.
Lestrade smiled. He couldn’t help it. He forgot about wanting coffee, or being tired, or suffering from a lack of adrenaline. He texted back.
I am glad to hear you’re not considering leaving, it saves me the effort of locking you up somewhere.
Then he stood and walked to the other side of the table to change his angle, and said, feeling better, “All right. Here’s where we notice the clue that will find the girl.” And he believed it.