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Greg looks down for a moment, suddenly engrossed with the fascinating pattern of the asphalt they’re standing on.
“I’m sorry,” he says hesitantly, “I mean, I’m flattered, but, well.” He shifts from foot to foot for a moment, finally blurting out, “I’m not gay."
He watches Mycroft tap and scrape his umbrella against the ground before he hears him speak. “Yes, I did assume that to be the case.” Mycroft clears his throat and Greg looks up from reflex, just in time to see Mycroft’s strained and absolutely fake smile. “Right, well, I’d better be off. Do keep in touch about my brother, Detective Inspector. Terribly sorry to bother you.”
Greg could simply go back to his work and his dismal social life and continue on as normal, but something in Mycroft’s tone had seemed so…sad. And slightly lonely and irritatingly similar to how he’s been feeling since the divorce.
“Wait,” he says, words coming out of his mouth before he even realises he’s decided to speak. “Er, well.” He coughs. “I wouldn’t be averse to spending time together.”
Mycroft looks slightly startled.
“As friends,” he adds hastily.
“Of course.” Mycroft nods hesitantly. “At your discretion.”
He makes another move toward his car when Greg’s mouth decides to fly off again. “Dinner this Thursday?”
Mycroft pauses again before shaking his head and shrugging. “Eight o’clock. I’ll send a car, Detective Inspector.”
--
He knows he should feel bad for essentially forcing the issue, but he honestly thinks Mycroft is interesting and doesn’t want things to be awkward between them because he’s not interested in shagging the man. They’re mature enough to move past their feelings.
Right.
Fuck if he knows. His last conversation with his wife had ended in a screaming match that landed him with his arse on the kerb, a suitcase of clothes his only possession. Thank Christ they don’t have kids.
But Mycroft. Mycroft is suave. Forever calm and poised. If anything else, he’d be able to salvage any friendliness between them with pure diplomatic skill.
Which is why, when Greg sits down in the chair across from Mycroft’s, he doesn’t expect the tense, awkward silence. Mycroft’s looking steadily down at his plates—this is a proper restaurant, which means an innumerable collection of silverware, each with its own unique use—and ignoring Greg, no matter how he tries to catch his attention, frantic waving and all.
Greg finally sighs. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You can leave if you’d like.”
Mycroft’s head shoots up, looking slightly startled. “That’s not necessary,” he rushes, uncharacteristically off-balance for a moment before he regains his calm—his mask of ice slipping back into place. “I was simply unsure about the meaning of this meeting.”
“Right, yeah.” He shrugs. “You looked, well, lonely,” he quickly raises his hand right as Mycroft opens his mouth to retort. “And so am I. I thought it’d be good for the both of us. To have someone to talk to. A, well, friend.”
Mycroft’s mouth clamps shut. “Friend,” he repeats quietly.
“Yeah, I mean, we’ve got a few things in common at least. We can both stand Sherlock without murdering him, after all. How you managed to live with him all those years, I’ve no idea.” He breathes out, running a hand through his hair, and laughs. “He must’ve been a terror as a child.”
“Oh, yes.” Mycroft smiles wistfully, just a soft curve of his lips that catches Greg’s interest. “He never did enjoy following the rules. You see, he always wanted to be a pirate—”
The meeting doesn’t go to shit, far from it, actually, and they’re set for a lunch meeting in the next few days. Mycroft does, in fact, have a sense of humor that he’s willing to put to use, as well as several publicly appropriate work stories that are just a tick less fantastical than Bond movies.
--
Lunch ends up in a small bistro; it’s simple, unassuming, and completely unlike the extravagant, gaudy restaurant Greg had thought he’d end up being dragged to.
Mycroft’s already sitting when Greg steps in, seated at one of the tables by a wall further in the restaurant. He’s dressed in a suit again, his umbrella hanging off his chair.
“Detective Inspector,” he greets as Greg moves closer, standing up and gesturing for him to sit down. “I hope you had no trouble locating this establishment?”
“No, none at all.” They sit down together. “And call me Greg.”
“Lestrade,” says Mycroft, as if this is some sort of trade where he can haggle for a lower price.
“Greg,” he repeats firmly. “We’re good acquaintances, if not friends. Let’s not treat each other like strangers.”
“Gregory,” says Mycroft, and it is technically his name—if not something he particularly enjoys being called—so he lets it go. He’s endured worse to keep friendships going before, after all.
“Right, so.” He flicks past the first page of the menu, scanning the dish descriptions, “What’s good to eat here?”
--
“This looks suspiciously close to a café,” says Mycroft, eyeing the front of the place warily.
Greg blinks. “Well, it is a café,” he says slowly. “It’s in the name, even.”
“Yes, well, I’d hoped.” Mycroft makes a circling gesture with his hand before simply shrugging. “I’ve never been very fond of cafés.”
He takes a few tentative steps toward the entrance, sighs dramatically, and strides in, leaving Greg confused and just slightly bewildered in his wake.
“Do please text me about your selections beforehand,” Mycroft says over his shoulder. “If we’re to be eating together, I believe I deserve the right to veto.”
Greg blinks again before it clicks, and, Christ, is that Mycroft teasing?
--
They’re in another restaurant this time, a newly opened Chinese place that Greg’s seen all over the news for its stunning architecture and authentic cuisine. He’s almost completely sure Mycroft did something vaguely immoral to get them a table (like threatening the owners or bribing someone to give up their reservations), but the Peking duck practically melting in his mouth and the steamed fish waiting on the table keep him from asking.
Mycroft’s holding his chopsticks like an expert, nimbly catching a piece of bok choy and raising it to his lips.
“When did you learn to do that?” Greg asks grumpily, looking toward his own hands which are holding a fork and knife. The last time he’d tried using chopsticks, he’d ended up using them as spears, stabbing through his dumplings like he was harpooning a fish.
“Around the same time I learned to speak fluent Mandarin.” Which, now that he thinks about it, made sense. Mycroft had ended up doing the ordering in Chinese, after all. Greg had been too distracted looking at dishes on the menu (there were English translations, thank God) for it to fully register in his brain, however. Mycroft reaches over to snatch the rest of Greg’s bun from his fingers with his chopsticks. “It’s a relatively easy technique with practice.”
“Hey, I was eating tha—” Greg finds his mouth suddenly full as Mycroft pops the bun into his mouth, retracting his hand to resume eating the vegetables on his plate while Greg chews.
“That was uncalled for,” he says when he’s finally swallowed.
Mycroft just shrugs, lip quirking up into a small smile that melts away any irritation Greg may have had. “It seemed to be the most efficient method for you to resume eating.”
Greg frowns, unsuccessfully trying to make it stern. “Bullshit,” he says, and he gives up, smiling widely and chuckling. “You’re just being prick.”
“A perk of the job,” says Mycroft loftily, raising his chopsticks and looking incredibly pretentious. This earns another surprised, choked chuckle from Greg.
--
He doesn’t think much of anything when John comes up to him at a crime scene, smiling as he says, “Hey, you look like you’re doing better.”
“Thanks, yeah.” Greg rubs at the back of his neck and smiles crookedly. “You can only take so much shit before it just stops sticking.”
John laughs. “Not what I meant, but hey.” He pats Greg on the back with another easy smile. “Glad to see you back in the game.”
--
Greg’s always believed himself a good cook. Or, well, at least a moderately average one.
He hasn’t burned down any kitchens, anyway.
So inviting Mycroft over to his flat for dinner hadn’t really seemed to be a big thing when he asked. That is, until he actually took a look at his flat.
It’s clean in the way elephants are clean. Relative to other animals in the Savannah, they’re extremely hygienic, bathing often and making sure to take proper care of their skin.
But they also slap mud and dirt over themselves (as makeshift sunscreen, yes, but still.)
And so Greg’s flat, while relatively clean by single-bachelor standards, looks a bit like a collection bin for take-out containers and odd assortments of clothing. Which wouldn’t be a problem if he hadn’t noticed that now, with Mycroft sitting on his probably-disgusting sofa while he’s in the kitchen finishing up dinner. And why does he care what Mycroft thinks of his flat?
Yeah, shut up.
The timer on the counter dings at him as if it’s heard his thoughts, and he mechanically strains the pasta, giving the sauce one last stir, before pouring it on top of the noodles in a completely indelicate fashion that would have his mum staring daggers at him.
But it’s done and edible, and that’s all that’s ever really mattered to Greg.
When he backs through the kitchen to the living room, two plates of pasta in hand, he’s surprised to find Mycroft sitting on his sofa and staring at the pictures on the coffee table as if they held answers to life itself. The last Greg’s looked, it’s just a few framed photos of him and family or a few friends over the years. Someone had set them down when he’d moved out for the divorce, and he’s never bothered to put them away.
“Middle child,” says Mycroft softly, just low enough that Greg barely catches it.
“Yeah,” he replies, setting Mycroft’s plate down on the table before his own. “Two brothers.”
Mycroft eyes the photos for another few silent moments before turning to the pasta and Greg. “It looks wonderful, thank you.” He takes another moment to look at the noodles before seeming to muster up the courage to bring a forkful to his mouth.
And hell, that’s good enough for Greg.
--
When Greg had woken up at four in the morning to a phone alert informing him of an impending appointment, he’d put the thing on snooze and fallen back asleep.
When it continued to buzz and ring at him for another twenty minutes straight with increasing intensity, he’d finally checked to see what the stupid thing was going on about.
Which is how he ended up at a low-key restaurant glaring at a plate of food.
“I didn’t even know brunch existed during weekdays,” says Greg grumpily, snatching his coffee from Mycroft’s hands. “It’s supposed to be for when you sleep in on weekends. Breakfast and lunch, hence: brunch.”
“Yes, well, this meal will comprise both breakfast and lunch for me, hence, brunch.”
“At five in the morning,” says Greg flatly.
“Busy day ahead.” Mycroft shrugs. “You never specified five in the morning or five in the evening. I just assumed.”
Greg takes a long sip of coffee, willing the caffeine to permeate through his body faster and to restrain himself from strangling Mycroft—or maybe to better achieve the task; it’s too early to tell. “So you thought five in the morning was the more likely answer?” he asks.
“People do rarely have anything planned at this hour,” replies Mycroft, smirking quite serenely.
“We will be eating at thousands of cafés after this,” announces Greg. “This will not pass without retaliation.”
Mycroft looks amused, eyes crinkling at the edges, and Greg feels a weird flipping in his stomach again. “I look forward to it.”
--
He pops by 221b a few days later to call on Sherlock, only to be greeted with a sidelong glance and a snide, “Love in the air, is it, Lestrade?”
“No, and that’s none of your business, anyway.” Greg frowns. “Will you come?”
“If it’s that dull Abbott case, then no,” says Sherlock, folding his hands and propping his head onto the points of his fingers. “And this is so much more interesting.”
“Well, thank you, but no, I don’t need any of your input. My personal life is none of your concern. Really.” He sighs. “There’s not even a relationship to comment on.”
“So you want there to be,” says Sherlock.
Greg blinks. “What? No.” He shakes his head wildly. “Absolutely not.”
John takes this time to poke his head out from behind his newspaper. “I’m going to have to take Sherlock’s side. That definitely sounded like pining.”
“Well it wasn’t,” he stresses.
“Oh please, Lestrade, denial is so trite.” Sherlock rolls his eyes. “New cufflinks, recently ironed clothes, and you’ve actually bothered with aftershave and cologne. Don’t be so obvious.”
And while those changes are true, it’s only because Greg feels so incredibly out of place with Mycroft, what, with his immaculate suits and perfect posture. He’s cleaned up a bit, yes, but not for anything special or romantic.
“And what if I’ve just decided to make a change in my life?” asks Greg, frowning. “Picking myself up after an admittedly terrible time in my life—which you were no help with, may I add.”
Sherlock just waves his hand. “Your divorce’s been final for months, please.” Greg can see his eyes slide away toward the window, interest obviously fading. “John, I do believe there may be an actually interesting case waiting outside for us.” Abruptly shooting to his feet, Sherlock suddenly disappears into the kitchen, leaving Greg standing there speechless while John sighs and carefully folds his paper in half.
“Thanks for stopping by, anyway. I’ll take the case and see if he catches interest.” John smiles wanly, turning to follow Sherlock. “You do look better, though, you know,” he adds. “Happier.”
--
“Do I look strange?” asks Greg, looking up from picking at his half-finished gelato.
Mycroft blinks, hand held in the awkward space between his cup and mouth. He slowly puts his spoon down, dropping it into the cup with a small click. “Pardon?”
“Do I look, well, different from usual?” Greg continues to run his own spoon along the edges of the cup, his eyes fixated on its movement along the ridges and purposefully avoiding meeting Mycroft’s gaze. "I just—what does this look like to you?"
"Dessert," says Mycroft wryly. "If you would stop picking at it."
“Ha, ha, very funny,” he grumbles. “Seriously, though—“
“Greg.” Mycroft’s tone is curiously flat, and he’s dropped his usual teasing Gregory. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.”
And Greg shuts up right then and there, because if that’s not an explicit warning to drop the topic, he has no idea what would be.
He’s not exactly sure what he wants the answer to be, anyway. And that’s a whole other problem to tackle.
--
Greg’s good at what he does, and that’s something he’s always been proud of. Even if everything goes to shit in his life, he’ll always be able to drown himself in work to forget about everything else.
Which sounds suspiciously like how he’d ended up divorced—but that’s something else entirely.
His office in the Yard is a sacred place, full of shit coffee, piles of paperwork, and files upon files of unsolved cases. He’ll feed them to Sherlock at some point, most likely, but for now, they’re neatly stuffed onto a shelf in the right side of his office.
Sally popping her head into his office is a usual thing. It’s expected; she’s his sergeant after all.
However, having her leaning against his doorway, smirking like the Cheshire Cat come alive is not expected or normal in the least. She’s been there for five minutes already, just staring at him with an utterly unwarranted self-satisfied smirk while Greg tries to ignore her and focus on the report on his desk.
He gives it up as a lost cause after another five seconds and finally looks up at her. “Yes?” he asks edgily.
“Hello, sir. Anything of note you’d like to tell me?” she asks brightly.
And he knows exactly what she’s hinting at, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to change the topic: “The brother in the Everett case is bothering me, send someone to question him again, would you?”
“Freak’s got it.”
“Then no, nothing.” Greg looks down at the papers on his desk for a second, which turns out to be a terrible idea, because by the time he looks up again, Sally’s at least five feet closer, features steeled with determination.
“New watch, sir?”
Greg raises an eyebrow. “Yeah.”
“And?”
“I don’t follow.”
Sally sighs. “I don’t mean to offend, sir, but you’ve had the same plain, old watch for the past eight years I’ve worked with you. Give me one good reason why you’d buy a new one out of the blue.”
And Greg’s about to reply, that no, he didn’t buy the watch, it’d been a birthday gift from Mycroft—and oh.
Oh god, he’s fucked.
It must show on his face, because Sally gives him a knowing glance before walking out of his office.
Back in the game, says John. You look happier.
New cufflinks, says Sherlock, ironed clothes, cologne and aftershave.
And the watch, Christ.
When Greg gets back home, he’s forced to face the fact that, yes, he might be a little bit extremely attracted to Mycroft. It’s about time for a mid-life crisis, anyway, right? What better than a complete re-evaluation of his own sexuality?
He glides through his flat, robotically grabbing a beer from his fridge before falling face-first onto his sofa. Unfortunately, his sofa is only a shade softer than a brick, so his fall’s broken with more of a stinging slap than the soft embrace he’d hoped for. It's closer to what he deserves, anyway, so he can't complain.
“You’re falling for Mycroft bloody Holmes,” he tells the empty room. “You’ve unknowingly dated him for five months.”
And doesn’t that just seem pathetic.
--
“You’re sure you’re fine?” asks Mycroft, and Greg swears he can hear the barest hint of concern in that voice, being the besotted, pathetic idiot he is.
“Fine,” he says, looking up from where he’s fiddling with his silverware and flashing Mycroft a weak smile. It’s an Indian restaurant this time, a nice little place with dim lights and candles at each table. An intimate sort of thing—and God Greg’s going to kick his thoughts into submission if it’s the last thing he does. “Just fine.”
“Of course,” says Mycroft in a skeptical tone of voice that roughly translates to: I know you’re lying so spill your secrets before I stab you through with my umbrella. Or, well, that’s Greg’s approximation of it, at least.
“Life,” he offers, but that just sounds stupid and flaky. “Work,” he adds, which isn’t much better.
“While it’s lovely to see that you retain knowledge of one-syllable words,” says Mycroft dryly. “Neither of those was an explanation.”
“Yeah, well.” He’s back to playing with his fork and knife like a chastised child. “I can handle it on my own.”
Mycroft sighs, but he seems to resign himself to abandoning the line of questioning, opening his menu back up to look down the line of dishes. “In the mood for curry?”
--
This time’s a quick lunch break where Greg had decided to ignore the giant pile of paperwork waiting for him back in his office and Mycroft—had free time, apparently.
Strange, that. These things usually had to be planned weeks in advance—but maybe it was a slow day or something.
“I don’t think he’s stupid, exactly,” Greg’s saying, “but he does seem to be missing a few screws, if you catch my drift.”
Mycroft’s mouth twitches and Greg almost thinks he sees a flash of a smile—god, he’s already addicted to it, isn’t he—but it’s gone within a second so he’s not entirely sure. He’s such a sap, Christ, but he can’t remember the last time he felt so—carefree. Or something.
“As well as a few nuts and bolts,” says Mycroft. “He does seem to be quite the incomplete project.”
“Half-finished,” agrees Greg, laughing as he half-listens and half-tries to smother his heart into a normal rhythm.
--
“Do you not like Thai?” asks Mycroft, and Greg’s sure that it’s real concern laced into that tone, based off Mycroft’s frown.
“Oh, er.” He looks down at his barely touched plate, filled with pad—something. It’s take-out. Whatever. “No, I do. There’s just a lot on my mind.”
“Ah,” says Mycroft dubiously. “A case?”
A case of my utterly inappropriate want to kiss you, he thinks. “Of sorts,” he says instead. “It’s a complicated matter, let’s say.”
Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure I could convince my brother if it’s important.”
“Oh, well.” Greg shrugs. “He’s actually already involved.” With his irritating observations and snide comments, the annoying berk.
“Ah.”
There’s another silence filled with Greg poking at his noodles before Mycroft speaks up again. “Can I—not to pry—possibly help with it in any way? It seems to have been weighing heavily on you for a number of weeks now.”
“Um,” says Greg eloquently. He reluctantly raises his eyes to actually look at Mycroft like he has some semblance of courage. “I—So. Er.”
Mycroft waits patiently, eyebrow raised slightly. “Yes,” he says, in what Greg thinks Mycroft thinks is encouraging but is actually slightly scary and interrogation-like, more threatening than most of the officers Greg works with would be able to muster.
“Sherlock,” Greg finally decides on a start. “I’d gone over to 221b to give him a case, and he commented on, er.” He pauses, bringing a hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “My appearance.”
“Oh, dear.” Mycroft sighs. “I can assure you, your weight is perfectly acceptable—”
“No, no, it wasn’t about that,” interrupts Greg quickly. “It was on some—changes I’ve made. About my hygiene and clothing habits and some general differences in mood. And he made a few, well, deductions.” He coughs a bit into his hand. “About why.”
Mycroft’s mouth flattens to a line. “Ah.”
Greg can feel the tension rise with every strained second, but he struggles on. Because he’s an arse, and of course Mycroft’s moved on by now and this will just be awkward and ridiculous.
“Yeah,” he says, and tries for a weak smile. “He suggested that I was, well. Dating.”
Mycroft sighs again. “I suppose it’s about time we revisit this conversation.” He brings a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I am still attracted to you, but I’ve found myself surprisingly content with our current situation. However, if you feel uncomfortable, I’d understand if you want to end our—”
Greg pushes himself out of his seat, pulling Mycroft’s head to his and pressing a bruising kiss against his mouth. The edge of the table is digging painfully against his hip and one of his hands is awkwardly half-covering part of his noodles to hold him up—but he doesn’t care because Mycroft’s lips are on his.
“I did some re-evaluation,” says Greg, once they break apart, smiling as he looks into Mycroft's wide eyes. “Not quite as straight as I thought.”