Chapter Text
Greg Lestrade had the newlywed blues. Their love had been wildfire, jumping from one milestone to the next, burning all their bridges before they could even look back. Mycroft was always running on ahead with the torch he had carried for years.
Whirlwind courtship. A marriage when they had barely had a proper date. An idyllic honeymoon, but time stolen, and now the piper was being paid with extra overtime for Mycroft.
Greg had returned from France to My’s house and My’s rules for living, and some days, he felt like he was still waiting for things to get back to normal so he could go home to his own flat. Mycroft had been perfectly willing for him to keep it as a bolthole, but that seemed like an absence of faith and trust that would start their marriage off on the wrong foot.
Melding two middle aged lives together was a bigger act of diplomacy than either of them seemed capable of so they didn’t even engage it. They had amazing sex which Mycroft always initiated, topping most of the time and Greg didn’t say anything about wanting the lights on sometimes or other things he might want to try. Greg watched football in his newly decorated man cave of a study and yelled at the telly, and Mycroft didn’t point out that the house didn’t have a pristine hush anymore. There was also a shocking lack of coaster usage. The odd couple in every way.
Mycroft had the easy part; he was traveling for work more than ever. Home for two days, gone for five. Greg found that his job had always grown to fill the empty hours so that now, when somebody might be waiting for him at home, he could go home instead of waiting on lab results that wouldn’t be ready until the next day anyway. The paperwork could be done in his posh new study in half the time without distractions. Once in awhile he would be kept out all night at a crime scene but more often than not, Mycroft would be absent when Greg came back to the house to shower and change clothes.
It was the house at St. John’s Woods, but it wasn’t home yet. Greg was a lover but he didn’t feel much like a husband yet. He was thankful for the gold band on his finger because sometimes it all seemed like an elaborate prank. The house was eating little bits of him every day. Since he carried his files home most nights, he used the canvas book bag he’d had since the academy until Mycroft had replaced it with a chocolate brown leather one that was the softest thing he’d ever felt. The leather bag stayed in the trunk of the car while the canvas one went into work. If he’d come into the Yard with something that toff, he’d never have lived it down.
There were other replacements. His clothes were in the guest bedroom, his toiletries in the guest bath. Mycroft’s version of intimacy didn’t extend to mornings or personal grooming. They showered together after sex as needed but Greg got ready for work alone down the hall. His clothes, which he had never thought much about other than as a means to public decency, took up ten percent of the walk in closet. If he only wore a clean shirt for a few hours at dinner, he would hang it up on the hook on the back of the door for the next day, but somehow it was never there and would reappear in his closet later, freshly pressed and starched.
Along with the familiar items that now smelled far more expensive due to specially scented hangers and sachets, new items were appearing regularly and a few old favorites had disappeared. He had five new shirts with the label of a tony store that he had never even felt comfortable walking past. His standby gray suit had been replaced by one quite similar but with far better material and cut. He didn’t know if the secrecy was better or worse for his pride. On a good day, he knew it was a way that Mycroft could show love; on a bad day, he felt like a dress up doll and trophy wife.
In the bathroom, the towels were fresh every morning. He had grown up dirt poor and laundry money was hard earned. Did everybody else launder the towels every day? Morris the butler was like a hard working, helpful ghost. Greg never caught him at all the little favors that made him feel like he was living in a posh hotel instead of a home. Not only did his clothes smell different, but he himself smelled different as Sherlock had remarked before John tapped him on the shin with his small pointed loafer. “I found a new shampoo,” Greg said, feeling the flush creep up his neck to his ears.
Truth was, either Mycroft or Morris had found a new shampoo that tamed Greg’s feral hair so that it was silkier and shinier. Tamed, softened, civilized, neutered. So lonely he sometimes kept the telly on programs he couldn’t stand. Loneliness was the true issue. When he had lived alone in his glass and chrome flat pining for John, he had expected the pain of isolation and it had driven him on. But what he had with Mycroft now was halfway to what he wanted.
He was a grown man, in decent shape for his age, good at his job according to everyone but Sherlock, but he couldn’t ask his husband for what he wanted because what he wanted was affection. How did he initiate cuddling with a man like Mycroft? They had done so on their honeymoon when they hadn’t been shagging or sleeping, but as soon as they had come back to London and Mycroft’s routine, the door had closed. Greg didn’t want to give his body and soul, and then put on a full set of pajamas and sleep miles apart in a king size bed. He thought anybody might feel rejected to watch My button pajamas up to his adam’s apple and stay rigidly on his side of the bed, on the edge, so close to the edge that he had fallen off twice.
Greg was a bloody coward because he thought Mycroft might say no and then where would they be? As long as the topic was tabled, there was a chance at some later date, but if Greg said something twee after a rogering like “Would you hold me?” well, it was all out there wasn’t it? Couldn’t be taken back and as awkward as things were now, that was nothing to how it would be with the cat out of the bag. He would be sleeping down the hall in the guest room with his new clothes, Mycroft visiting him once a fortnight and fucking him through a hole in the sheet like some Victorian virgin.
Besides, did they really need to talk about it or was it implied? Mycroft initiated sex because Mycroft liked sex. Mycroft didn’t cuddle because Mycroft didn’t like to cuddle. Greg wasn’t talking about being braided together every second of the night, but it would be nice to say now and then, ‘to hell with the wet spot’ and go to sleep and wake up to skin on skin. Or to be half awake in the night and reach out to My’s steady breathing, feel his warmth, know he was there.
If Mycroft did like cuddling, it would be something that Greg could give him that nobody else could. My’s one sided gift giving hurt more than Greg’s pride. He felt like a selfish wanker; Mycroft’s house and clothes and food and blowjobs. Greg liked to give but what did you give the man who had everything? Mycroft had everything he needed and what he might like, Greg didn’t have the money or the right taste to pick out. Asking Sherlock for help would open him to ridicule. The little hurts were piling up. Greg’s checks to the household for groceries and utilities--which he could well afford now that he wasn’t paying rent—had remained uncashed.
When Greg tried to reciprocate in bed, My would always turn it around. My’s need for sexual power had been present early on; he liked to take Greg out of himself with frequent and thorough blowjobs while he himself merely watched, but on the honeymoon he had started allowing himself to be transported as well. Back to a calmer daily life, Mycroft was again the aggressor and Greg felt that his advances would get that little frown as if he’d spilled on the tablecloth. Week went into week with nothing resolved and broaching the subject went from awkward to absurd.
Greg’s resentment boiled over when Mycroft was in Japan for a week. Coming home every night to a silent dinner at a giant table and a restless sleep in an empty bed reinforced the fact that something had gone horribly off track. Even the capture of a murderer so that a case was wrapped in time for weekend didn’t bring the joy it once might have. He tried to rise above. He took the crew out to celebrate, buying the first two rounds with the money Mycroft refused to take from him. While most of the group drifted off for dinner after the second round, Sally stayed with him for a third drink (his fourth), but she was having non alcoholic because she had promised to babysit for her sister later.
Much to his embarrassment, she gave him a ride home. He might have vented to her, but she assumed that missing his husband was the only reason for his drinking to excess. “You’re missing him awful.”
“Right. Come in for dinner.” He tried to make it sound like it would be fun.
“In that mausoleum? Not bloody likely.” Sally was no fool.
“Thanks ever so.” But she had already gone, the screech of tires a bit of overkill.
He went straight to Mycroft’s study and poured an enormous tumbler of the most expensive scotch there. He drank it down immediately with only one pause for a hiccup. Then he poured another, the liquid gold sloshing all over his hand and the precious satin finish of the antique sideboard.
Morris came in and sized up the situation at a glance, just as his employer would have. “Mr. Lestrade, dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,“ was his only comment but he looked daggers as he replaced the stopper on the decanter and wiped the sideboard with a clean cloth from his pocket. There were babies in the world who got less tender care than that veneer. With a last parting stare at the glass and a raised eyebrow, Morris swept out of the room.
Dinner was miserable. Greg’s stomach burned from all the liquor and while there was wine with dinner as always, Morris had a way of highlighting the water glass each time he served the next course. Greg sipped at the wine just enough not to choke on the food but he could feel himself getting drunker as the two monster scotches hit bottom. A whiskerless boy knew not to mix drinks and he was on his third type of the evening. Some of the food wasn’t making it to his mouth, and it was with great satisfaction that he noticed it was one of the new shirts that had a sizable gravy stain.
The meal was nearly over. Dessert and then an endless evening of bad telly.
“Coffee, sir?” the stealthy and disapproving Morris asked.
“Not if I have to drink it alone in this concert hall.” Stroppy moved to seething moved to eyes starting to burn. Greg Lestrade was not a sloppy drunk. Until he got married. That’s what they would say at the Yard. Sally would tattle.
This is what Mycroft had reduced him to, a man drinking alone at home on a Friday night with a butler who resented the hell out of him. He was a lonely trophy wife and apparently one who could not shut up because as Morris took his plate, he said, “Have we met? I’m Mrs. Mycroft Iceman.”
He said it with a Jewish pronunciation on the final syllable (Ice-muhn) as in ‘Mr. and Mrs. Iceman cordially invite you to Avi’s bar mitzvah.’
“I’m purely ornamental.” He wasn’t drunk because he could say words like ‘ormanental.’
“Mr. Lestrade, you are not quite yourself. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
“I ruined my shirt but I’m sure it will magically appear in the wardrobe tomorrow. See to it, Mr. Tumnus.”
There was a pregnant pause which became a laborious pause which yielded a litter of kittens.
“I’m sorry, Morris. I’m drunk because I’m lonely and my marriage is in the skip.” His lip wobbled, god help him.
He cleared his throat several times but finally gave up and let his husky voice out. No secret he was to big girl’s blouse status on his magnificent drunk. “Could we just dispense with standards for one night? I swear to you it will never happen again.”
The previous pregnant pause went into heat again and gave birth to a litter of puppies.
“Come back to the kitchen. I’ll see to that stain and get you some coffee.”
The kitchen was warm and smelled like his mum. Morris wrapped Greg’s hands around a stoneware mug of black coffee. He liked milk in his coffee which Morris bloody well knew, but he felt it wasn’t the best time to put in special orders. He burned his tongue, of course, which seemed like more than could be borne.
Morris came back with, gasp, a wrinkled shirt. “If you would care to switch, sir?”
“Greg, please. If at all possible. Anything other than Mr. Lestrade.”
“Would Mr. Greg be a suitable compromise?”
“Sounds like a poof who sells shirts such as these in his little shop.” The retort would have been far more clever if he didn’t have gravy all over his chest.
Morris handed him a tea towel and took the soiled shirt with a shake of his head. He strode back to what Greg assumed was the laundry room. He probably wanked to the scent of Persil back there. As a detective Greg wanted to know. He had scrubbed off most of the gravy and gotten both of his arms in sleeves when Morris returned. “Are you a Passion Flower or Sunshiny Days man?”
More staring. “I prefer Ariel liquitabs, sir. The Almond Milk and Honey ones are good for Mr. Holmes’ sensitive skin.”
“Sensitive skin, my arse, thick as hell.” His apology for that bit was muffled by his trying to see why his arms were tied.
“Wrong sleeves, Mr. Greg, sir.”
His chest had never been quite so bare. He was going up to his study to hide and perhaps cry into a pillow when the house phone rang. The crying jag was scared right out of him by sheer panic. He fumbled with the buttons but they kept slipping away. He held his shirt closed and turned his back to the phone. “I’m not here, Morris. If I talk to him now, I’ll say something hurtful.”
“Shall we see who it is first?”
“I know it’s him, Morris. Tell him that I missed him and I got drunk and I’m sleeping it off. That’s about ten minutes from the truth.”
The phone had been ringing for years. “Hello, Mr. Holmes. No, he finished dinner. He wasn’t quite himself and has gone to bed, I believe. Nothing serious, a minor digestive upset. Perhaps a voice mail, sir? Things are going well there? I can imagine, sir. I’m sure Mr. Lestrade will call you as soon as he wakes in the morning, allowing for the time difference, of course. I’ll see to it. Hurry home, sir. Goodbye.”
Greg heard the beep of the mobile’s disconnect. Then Morris was close enough behind him that he could feel his body heat.
“I won’t lie for you again.” The ending ‘sir’ was conspicuously absent. “You’d best come over here to the sink. You are going to be sick.”
There was a pincer grip to Greg’s elbow and his feet were moving sinkward. “I haven’t puked up my drink since I was a lad. A man knows his limits and –“
Greg was hard pressed to say what hurt most. His head, his stomach, his pride, or his elbow that had been quite firmly pinched. He was at the sink long enough that his pride didn’t hurt anymore. Morris handed him a damp tea towel, and the tears Greg wiped away were mostly self pity but a little bit of missing My and wanting him to be the one handing out towels.
“Are you quite finished?”
Greg feared his nod was a lie. Moving his head in any direction was certainly ill advised. Morris put him at the table again with a glass of ice water and an Altoid. He hadn’t known that an Altoid was exactly what he needed until the peppermint covered the myriad flavors of his binge.
“Can you listen to reason?”
“No more ‘sir’?” So the stroppy thirteen year old still lived inside him.
“I call people ‘sir’ as a courtesy. You haven’t earned it tonight, have you?”
“No, sir.” Greg checked in the bottom of his glass for the irony. There wasn’t any.
“A new marriage is a fragile thing but you haven’t broken yours beyond repair just yet. I’m going to help you, but I will deny that this talk took place until my dying day.”
Having started off strong, Morris then faltered. Finally, he took out his wallet and showed Greg a picture of a laughing bloke of about thirty. Even the standard backdrop of a cut rate photo booth could not hide the mischief in his brown eyes or the dark hair standing straight up. “My husband, may God rest his soul,” Morris said thickly.
“We worked for Mr. Holmes. He helped us be together. Things were tougher for us back then, but we had laughter.”
Greg took a sip of water and tasted guilt alongside the peppermint.
“He came from a family like yours, my Rory. Hugs and kisses and jokes at dinner. I raised myself while my dad drank his pay packet away. I know lonely. Mr. Holmes was lonely a long time, Greg."
“I know that.”
Morris gently returned the photo to his wallet. “No, I don’t think you do. He hasn’t had the experiences that you’ve had. He never gave his heart away before. Sometimes I think he feels unworthy because of all the things he’s done for his work. Sometimes maybe not having a dad around at the right time. He’s wasted many tears on Mr. Sherlock, not that he’d ever let on. Trying to be a dad when he needed one himself.”
“He doesn’t tell me what he’s feeling. I ask him and it just makes things worse.” Greg ran his hands through his hair, wincing at the premature hangover.
“You’ll have to push him a little, and some things you will have to teach him. He’s an innocent about feelings.”
“So as always, it falls on me.” Greg’s rebellion lasted all of ten seconds. He took another sip of water.
“You had some vows at your wedding. Do you recall anything about taking turns? It’s not fair but I think if you take even a little step forward, he’ll meet you more than half way. He’s quick. Give him some cues.”
“Things were fine on the honeymoon. He was able to talk about his feelings then.” Greg was truly at a loss.
“Any boat can sail in fine weather. You’re being tested now. You honeymooned with the best part of him and now you come home to his worst. You’ll have to fight for your husband, and your greatest opponent in that fight is Mycroft Holmes.”
“I want to make things right, Morris. I swear it, but I don’t know how.”
“I would imagine if you survive the head you’ll have in the morning, patching things up with Mr. Holmes will be easy.”
“How did Rory help you?” Greg was pleased to see a bit of surprise in Morris’ stern gaze.
The long silence wasn’t loaded with anything but warmth. “He piled loving care on top of loving care until I couldn’t fight anymore.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” That bloody phrase they were trained to say that didn’t make a fucking bit of difference at an open grave.
Morris smiled. “I’m going to get you another glass and some paracetamol. You’ll be wanting morphine in the morning, you poor bastard.”
Greg laughed at this which neither his head nor his stomach appreciated. “Can I be Mr. Greg until My gets home?”
“I think a man has a right to choose what he’s called in his own house. Would have been simple enough to tell me.”
“Should be, but it’s not.” Greg took the paracetamol, swallowing them very carefully.
“The man is crazy for love of you, Greg Lestrade. No question about that. He’s showing you in all the ways he knows. Now you teach him to receive love.”
“And when he asks where I got my advice?”
“Blame it on Mrs. Hudson.”
“Fair enough.” Greg held out a hand and to his great satisfaction, Morris shook it.
The next morning, Morris woke Greg with a hangover cure that tasted as bad as Greg’s breath. Then he handed Greg’s mobile to him. “I made a promise.”
Greg dialed the number while praying it would not be answered. In less than a ring, Mycroft’s voice was on the line. “Greg, are you ill?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Morris was moving toward the door but his piercing stare reminded Greg of his lessons the previous night at the kitchen table.
“You haven’t been answering your mobile. I know that the time difference makes things difficult, but I haven’t spoken with you since my first night here. Can we at least email?”
Greg took a deep breath. “No, My. I need to hear your voice. Truth is that I miss you so much I got puking drunk last night.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m too old to revisit my teens.” Greg caught himself tracing shapes on the duvet like his teenage self had done while talking to a crush.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been more available.” It was the words Greg needed to hear but in the same tone as one might use with a junior member of staff.
“You have to travel for work. I understand that.” They were talking all around it again. And Greg was trying. He had admitted to puking and that was vulnerable as hell.
“Mycroft?”
“Yes, love?”
Fuck all, he let the tears creep into his voice. “My head hurts and I’m doing a shit job of coming up with things to say. I’ve never had a husband in a foreign country before.”
“Me either. Did Morris give you his hangover cure?” A bit more personal, but not ideal.
“Yes, it smelled like dog piss.” Now hiding behind humor.
“Did you vomit?”
“No.”
“Job well done, Morris.” Now hiding behind sarcasm.
Greg sighed. He closed his eyes and put himself on a certain balcony overlooking the Aegean Sea. “I’m thinking about our honeymoon.”
“Are we going to have phone sex?” This was whispered.
“Do you want to?” Greg’s cock didn’t even quiver.
“Not presently. I’m in a meeting.”
“What the hell? You could have told me.” Beyond awkward, veering into obscene.
“We hadn’t talked.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Guilt piled on guilt.
“We are all apologies today.”
“I can’t talk to you when the fate of the world is in your hands.”
“You’ll have a long wait.”
“Show off.”
“Greg, are you okay? No sordid tryst with Morris on the credenza?”
“No, his credenza stayed in his pants where it belonged.”
“Gregory, a credenza is a type of sideboard, a long narrow—“
“The fucking veneer is fine.” Was this pouting?
“And you? Are you fine?”
“No, because I miss you and we’ve solved the case and I’ve got all weekend with nothing to do.” Oh, it was definitely pouting.
“I miss you too.”
Then there was a string of Japanese words in Mycroft’s voice which did make Greg’s indisposed cock a bit more disposed.
“Do you miss me when I’m drunk and stroppy? Morris did not appreciate the stroppy.”
“Even when you reek of hangover cure and are whinging, I love you, Greg, so much.”
His eyes were stinging again. He would be lactating soon. “Still glad you married me?”
And now he was fishing.
“Best decision I ever made but taking this call may have been one of my worst. I’ll talk with you again in a few hours. Have breakfast in bed. Goodbye, love.”
Greg rung off and got paper and pencil from the nightstand drawer. He had two days to come up with ways to pile love on Mycroft Holmes. He did not write down ‘polish the credenza.’