Sherlock Fics

Hey again. Hopping on board the good ship Mystrade because, as we all know, if Lestrade says he knows Mycroft in Hounds, that actually means they're married. Hope you enjoy!

Title: Primark scuffed and Oxford polished
Author: aheadofthecurve (here)/ElapsedSpiral on tumblr
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual references
Length: 4,600~
Genre: Romance? Gen, mild humour, character observation. Don't really know!
Characters/Pairings: Mycroft/Lestrade, Sherlock/John (either heavy bromance or romance)
Summary: "It could be a better day. When the lift breaks somewhere between the third and fourth floors of New Scotland Yard, it gets worse than Hleb missing by a fucking mile."
Warning: mild spoilers for HoB but primarily set in the time leading up to HoB

Primark scuffed and Oxford polished

It’s a Tuesday, it’s wet outside. Arsenal lost at the weekend.

His wife is cheating on him. And he’s not paranoid: he’s a detective with the Met, he’s spot on.

It could be a better day. When the lift breaks somewhere between the third and fourth floors of New Scotland Yard, it gets worse than Hleb missing by a fucking mile.

“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters. Then; then he remembers he’s not actually alone in the lift. It’s just that the person sharing it with him is so quiet, so eerily unmoving that he’d forgotten about them entirely.

He turns to grimace an apology.

“Sorry. And,” he gestures to the lift, “Sorry.”

Greg gives the alarm bell a heavy handed buzz.

“We just got this fixed the other day,” he notes. He’s just filling the stark silence, he knows. He’s not claustrophobic and all that’s waiting for him in his office is a stack of papers and the thought of the kids’ drama teacher bending his wife over the kitchen table. He jabs it again but nothing much happens. At his side, the figure exhales. Or, Greg assumes they do. They remain utterly silent.

“We might be here a while,” he jams his hands in his pockets and smiles in a way that he knows for a fact is inane.

You don’t look at people in lifts. Not if you aren’t after them for an arrest, anyway. It’s just British, Greg thinks. It’s the rule. It’s nothing to do with his abilities as a detective.

He therefore does allow himself to be genuinely surprised by the revelation that the man is wearing a three piece suit. There’s not a wedding in sight. His briefcase is supple leather. That, and the shoes, Greg thinks, makes a very simple statement very simply: I am much richer than you.

Greg meets the man’s eyes last. They’re startling intense but equally guarded. They are a tent at a crime scene. There is nothing to see here, move along. A second after looking Greg can’t even remember their colour.

He pulls one hand back out of his pocket and offers it to the stranger.

“DI Lestrade. You’re visiting, I assume?”

Either that or bobbies are a lot more dapper and lot better paid than when he had been on the beat, Greg thinks, unbidden.

The man considers his hand for a moment and Greg wonders if he’s with the Department of Health. Still, after the momentary hesitation he takes the hand in his own, pale one and shakes it firmly. Wherever three-piece-suit is from, he’s very practiced in shaking hands.

“Mr Holmes,” Etonian? Harrovian? All the same. Posh. The words are beautifully enunciated and Greg feels delightfully pauperish. He forces himself to keep from smirking like a school boy, “And yes. I’m from Whitehall. I occupy a minor position in government.”

Hardly surprising.

“What department?” Greg asks out of polite interest, “I know a few people down there.”

For the first time Mr Holmes does something other than look on, neutrally. He smiles. It’s alarming and Greg’s glad when the expression is washed away a second later.

“I am afraid I am not at a liberty to divulge that information, Detective.”

He’s not working on anything big at the moment. He’s not involved in the terrorism work. There’s no one who would want him offed. And, Greg feels the need to remind himself, the Avengers was just a television show and Mr Holmes doesn’t have a bowler hat at any rate. Silence falls. Greg jabs the alarm again.

“It is quite serendipitous, our meeting like this,” Mr Holmes says, and Greg hears the fencing, polo and piano lessons fall out of the man’s mouth with the words, “If it is not too presumptuous, Detective, I would appreciate a favour.”

Greg has absolutely zero idea what the man is driving act. His mind beats about, wildly and aimlessly, for the answer: extortion (pointless, he’s just bought a new car), blackmail (sadly, also little to latch onto there), sex (men in immaculate three piece suits don’t shag in lifts, he decides, and then he decides not to consider how he even came to that particular idea).

So he just says “Oh?” in his most dubious tone. The Smile returns and the contents of Greg’s stomach turn icy and stormy.

“Oh it is nothing as terrible as that, Detective. I have a little brother.”

The man’s tone is yet more difficult to fathom. His body is less than a metre from his own but his voice, Greg thinks, is coming from outer space. Cold and distant.

“He struggles. Socially. Do you see?”

He doesn’t, not in the slightest. He nods Mr Holmes on.

“He does, however, have an immense interest in crime scenes and detective work.”

Some sort of social anxiety? Or autism? Greg is already squirming internally so he lets the matter hang, puzzling and vague, between them. He offers a “here victim, here’s your cup of tea” smile.

“Would he like to see us in action, that’s what you mean?”

Like a flint across steel, Mr Holmes’ eyes turn momentarily intense. His lip quirks. Greg blinks and the expression is gone, if it was ever there at all.

“I think he would enjoy the opportunity immensely, Detective.”

“Well, it’s not exactly usual,” Greg says, “But I think if you leave me your email address or something I can see if there’s anything we can do.”

“How kind,” Mr Holmes notes absently. His hands fish his mobile phone from his briefcase (the device is totally at odds with the suit but the man operates it fluidly, expertly; Greg can scarcely send a text with fucking predictive turned on), “Do forgive me?”

He nods his understanding and takes the moment to study the stitching of the man’s briefcase. It’s perfect but somehow he still knows it’s hand stitched. Mr Holmes’ fingers fly across the keypad of his Blackberry. As he returns the phone to the pocket, the lift whirs back to life. The pair share a relieved look. Not a smile, just a mutual look. Greg’s stomach continues to rumble, unconvinced.

“Nice meeting you then, Mr Holmes,” Greg says and he’s not sure he convinces himself, “Leave your email address with the front desk and I’ll get in touch.”

Mr Holmes strides the length of the foyer as though he has just purchased it. Each stride, like each stitch of his briefcase, is perfect and even.

“That will not be necessary,” Mr Holmes calls over one shoulder, “Good day Detective.”

Greg is not a bad detective. It’s just that he operates in a world where the Avengers is a television programme and Bond villains stay on the silver screen. So it’s only months later, retrospectively, that he puts two and two together and truly appreciates what happened that Tuesday, after Arsenal got absolutely thrashed at the weekend.

*

It’s a particularly ugly gang shoot out and Greg is glad when they’ve got the area cordoned off. The tent, the forensics team, there’s a comfort to how clinical it is. There’s an assurance he finds in being able to remove a bit of London, as though with tweezers, to stop the clock and just study it, without the elements pressing down around him.

Something about the picture is blurred though today and Greg has to get out of that little world inside the tent for some fresh air. He welcomes the drizzle on his face. He welcomes a world populated with his liar of a wife, his worried children and people with intact skulls, if only for a moment. He’s a diver briefly resurfacing.

He’s also being stared at, with the most intense, prying stare he has ever met with in his life. If, Greg thinks, unbidden, an expression could cause injury this one would and is intended to.

“Sir, can I ask you to move on? This is a crime scene.”

Translation: piss off mate.

The man is like a statue. He just about blinks. Eventually, his chest swells with a breath under a bottle blue double breasted coat from some boutique. The cut and style are lost on Greg but it’s clearly well-made and suits the startling narrow – drug thinned – figure of the stranger.

The stranger doesn’t let the breath out in a sigh; he uses it as propulsion.

“You’re looking for a young woman, late teens approximately five foot ten inches tall with long brown hair, dyed. She’s wearing a limited edition pair of Converse sneakers and she dropped the gun in that skip there,” he points one gloved hand over his left shoulder without turning but his gesture is spot on, centring right on a small yellow skip well over two hundred metres away, “I could go on.”

It’s obviously phrased as a threat. Greg’s tempted to arrest him with something under the Terrorism Act but then, the voice slots into place. Deep and plummy, Etonian. Harrovian. The eyes, too.

“Would you happen to be a Mr Holmes?” he calls back.

The curious, possibly shy, maybe overly talkative teenager, delighted to dress up in a forensics suit that had been occupying his imagination is replaced by this long, dark figure, smirking.

“I would. And tell me, Detective,” the man asks, “When did you meet my dear brother Mycroft?”

*

Greg thought Mr –Mycroft –Holmes had slipped his attention because he had been a stranger in a lift. It turns out that’s wrong. Mycroft Holmes is just surreptitious. Greg can spot a mugger at five hundred yards. He can just sense when something is going to kick off in a pub or on a street, but he doesn’t even sense Mr Holmes.

The first time, he has a mild heart attack at the gentle hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

“Fuck-,” he practically bites his bottom lip with the emphasis he uses “ing hell, you don’t just do that to a person.”

“Apologies, Detective, I did not intend to startle you,” Mycroft gestures to the seat beside his own in Costa Coffee, “May I?”

“How did you know-?”

Because he clearly did know. There is no coincidence in this world, Greg is coming to believe. Not while there is Mycroft Holmes in it.

They are coming to an understanding: Mycroft has a brief, punctuating smile. It says “You would not like the answer to that question”. And they move swiftly on. Greg doesn’t find the silent confession insulting, or alarming. Nor is he alarmed by that fact.

“Please,” he says instead, gesturing pointlessly but politely to the chair.

“Thank you.”

Mycroft settles in the other armchair, carefully removes the tea bag from his green tea and sips. Greg swallows a smile at the slightest of furrows that crosses the man’s forehead.

This tastes like shit, says Mycroft Holmes’ forehead. Diet, Greg deduces as he drains the rest of his filter coffee and replaces the cup on a saucer swimming in milky dregs.

“How are you?”

“And by how am I, you mean how is your brother?”

“No,” Mycroft disagrees, taking another sip before returning his cup to its saucer carefully. He studies the art print on one wall – it’s a picture they have in every branch but he considers it intently all the same, “I was inquiring after your own wellbeing.”

“Oh, right,” Greg shrugs, feeling a bit of a berk, “Fine. Thanks. You?”

“Well. Thank you,” Mycroft notes, absently, “Is he a nuisance?”

It’s difficult to know how to proceed. Sherlock Holmes is the single most difficult, horrendous man he has ever met. He has been spat on, hell, he has been bitten in the line of duty. But it is only after his encounters with Sherlock that he feels like he has been assaulted.

“Honesty, Detective,” Mycroft instructs and there’s definite humour in his tone.

“He’s hard work,” Greg admits, like a sigh. With the confession he lets himself sit as he wants to in his seat – sprawled, legs apart. He gives his chin an irritable scratch. The change in posture seems to interest Mycroft and somehow, Greg feels pleased that he can interest him.

“That,” Mycroft wets his lips and continues, “That is an understatement, Gregory.”

“He’s absolutely brilliant,” Greg adds, biting at the inside of his cheek as he remembers the emails he’s received only this morning, resolving about 12 months of dead ends and cold cases, “I mean, he’s just phenomenal.”

“You’re angry,” Mycroft notes and again the interest is there.

For the first time, Greg feels like he is actually occupying a room with Mycroft Holmes. He is no longer a voice from on high. He is occupying a room with a man who could stand to lose a few pounds (but won’t) and who is enjoying the opportunity to hear someone speak ill of his brother (has perhaps been waiting a lifetime for it).

“Sort of,” he concedes and he feels how little distance there is between them. Mycroft’s Oxford, freshly polished, is inches from his scuffed black shoe. Primark.

“Why so?”

“Because he can’t turn it off, can he?” he says in a weary mutter, “And I’ve spent decades trying to turn that sort of ability on.”

“But that is all he has,” and again, there’s the thin edge of cruelty in Mycroft’s voice, “and you are quite correct, he cannot turn it off. I think you have gotten off lightly, Detective.”

But my wife is cheating on me, he thinks, loudly. She’s been googling divorce lawyers. She’ll use my long hours against me when it comes to access rights. I’m losing that part of my life and your brother is stealing the other half, he thinks.

“I suppose so.”

They sit in silence as Mycroft finishes his green tea with difficulty.

*

If it’s in person, it’s casual. If it’s over the phone, it’s business. It doesn’t take Greg long to make this distinction.

He has him listed as Mycroft in his phone. Not Mr Holmes. Not Holmes. Not MH. It’s Mycroft, for some reason. Sherlock is SH. Perhaps it’s because that’s how the brothers sign off in their texts. Greg’s not entirely convinced.

The phone’s on the desk when he’s working so it’s at his ear before the first ring has died away.

“Good day, Detective.”

“Mycroft,” he says, continues writing up his report with his free hand. His shoe, still Primark, toes the carpet. It circles an imaginary football. It betrays his brain.

“I am afraid a situation has arisen.”

Like the “moving swiftly on” smile, he has come to catalogue some of Mycroft’s voices, too. He is always unerringly well-mannered (although that has little to do with politeness). Greg notices the different shades now. There is the usual, genuine neutrality of a civil servant towing the party line. Then there is the shroud. This time it’s the shroud. Genuine emotion smothered by a thick layer of evenly paced, carefully selected words.

“What’s wrong?”

“My brother’s budding enterprise has floundered briefly – it would appear the criminal classes are taking a holiday.”

Sherlock hasn’t been turning up to crime scenes. It was impossible not to notice.

“And?”

“My brother has fallen back into old habits.”

My brother is killing himself with cocaine again. He won’t listen to me, the silence says. Greg’s foot is still as stone on the carpet.

“What can I do about it? You don’t want him arrested, do you?”

“A little scare, perhaps. A “drugs bust”, might do the trick.”

Greg’ll never admit it to the man but he’s missing his shadow. His colleagues all kowtow and get on with their work like good, ambitious young officers ought to. He’s coming to enjoy having someone who fights him every single step of the way. It makes the solution so much more satisfying.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “I promise,” it means.

“Thank you, Gregory.”

The line goes dead.

*

It becomes a regular occurrence without any effort, without Greg’s notice.

He sits down in his local on a Friday and, not always, but often, the chair beside him will contain Mycroft Holmes within the hour.

CCTV, he knows now. He’s deduced. And yet, somehow, it doesn’t feel like an intrusion, knowing that that is how Mycroft knows – where he is, who he’s with, whether he fancies a muffin with his coffee - it feels like closeness, like care.

Greg realises that it’s exposure to the Holmes brothers that has made him so insane but he’s not as upset about it as he should be.

Mycroft has a sherry in hand. Greg smirks at him over his lager. There’s a tiny voice in the back of his mind that screams at him to look at what he is doing: not just today, but with his life, with this family. With this man in particular. But then he remembers how his wife forgot his birthday and that his dad never liked her anyway. The moment passes.

They typically sit in companionable silence. Greg knows there is absolutely no point in asking Mycroft about his work, and it’s usually not sensible for him to discuss his own. Mycroft probably likes opera and wine tours. Greg likes working on his car and listening to the Buzzcocks. He’s not even certain Mycroft could be compelled to say the word “Buzzcocks”.

Somehow, it’s become very compelling. He skips drinks with mates just to sit in near-silence with a mystery. Tonight, he thinks of a question to pose that might receive an answer of sorts, instead of a bluff or dismissing remark.

“Can you do what your brother does?”

“I assume you are referring to deduction?”

He knows Mycroft enjoys correcting his lazy, O Level C grade quality sentences. He nods the man on.

“Would you like me to attempt to deduce something about yourself, Detective?”

His fingers stop drumming on the table at that. Greg returns the stare awkwardly.

Yes, of course I can, is the answer then.

“Honestly?” Greg says, focusing on toying with a beer mat after the x-ray vision stare and piercing comment, “No. I’ve had enough of it from your brother.”

For the first time, Greg sees Mycroft’s shoulders relax. He doesn’t slump – of course – but he is no longer poker straight.

“Good,” the man mutters into his sherry glass, “Because I really can’t be bothered.”

And, to much laughter from Greg, Mycroft describes the Diogenes Club.

*

The general election comes and goes. Mycroft Holmes remains the holder of a minor position in government. Greg Lestrade still wasn’t born yesterday.

*

One night, they somehow end up in Mycroft’s offices. Or one set of offices, at any rate. Greg is not sure anyone has actually seen Mycroft’s real office. They sit in wingback chairs by the fire and Greg isn’t certain of the century. He’s warmed and sleepy and decides to enjoy it, even the port he’s offered and accepted.

In a quiet moment, Mycroft chooses to speak.

“I remember Sherlock at six. You might have hung him up by his collar bone. A sad, sallow child. Mummy was fretting about her lost earring in August. I offered her sympathy but Sherlock disappeared. Never one for hugs, never fond of fondness. I followed him out into the garden. He walked, straight as an arrow to the herb garden by the greenhouse. I watched him crouch and with his spindly, horrible fingers, all knuckles and thin skin, he pinched. They came together in a delicate circle among the stems of a freshly watered lavender plant.”

“Caught between his fingers was a diamond. The drop of watering can water upon it was larger than that stone. The post of the earring was so small it was hidden by the pressure of his awful, clasping fingers.”

“And I said,” Mycroft murmured to the fire, ““Good heavens Sherlock, how on earth did you find that?”” his eyes bore into Greg’s intensely for the briefest of moments, “And my brother never spoke. He read and he watched and he disappeared for hours at a time, but he never spoke. And all my parents would ever speak of was how he never spoke… he said to me.”

““I didn’t find it” he said, so simply, “I knew where to look”.”

Silence falls between them. There is nothing for Greg to offer. Not just yet.

“He spoke more after that,” Mycroft adds, “Infrequently at first, but little by little. And now, of course, we cannot shut him up.”

“You’re the better detective.”

Mycroft is genuinely puzzled. He looks to Greg for explanation.

“Your brother found that earring,” he says, “But you found your brother.”

*

If you were going to cast a man in the role of someone capable of turning your life upside down, Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes would be high up on the list. Three piece suits and Belstaff coats. Cheek bones, thin noses. Knowing stares. He could have walked past the short, greying man in the brown zip up jacket, limping, a dozen times over and never thought anything of it.

Except for the fact that Sherlock Holmes has decided that Dr John Watson is the most remarkable man in the world. After that there is no questioning it: John is part of Greg’s life.

He can’t say what, precisely, has Sherlock so mesmerised. John is sound. Grounded. Haunted, possibly, but firmly ensconced on planet Earth, which was nowhere near Planet Sherlock, Greg has decided. It’s true that signing up as an army doctor spoke volumes: of bravery and, perhaps, of a need for excitement, for danger. But he was still undeniably normal.

That much is witnessed by Sherlock. Sherlock, who now says thank you, sorry, please (occasionally. Rarely. But now Greg knows the words do at least feature in the man’s vocabulary). Sherlock, who now makes one snide comment instead of four.

Greg recognises the emotion he has around Sherlock when the man smiles at John. It’s the same swelling pride he felt when Chloe started walking, or when Lily learned to ride her bike.

And like a proud parent, Greg wants to tell anyone who’ll listen that the great Sherlock Holmes is practically becoming bearable. And yet, the person he was convinced would be happiest to hear the news, his brother, is stonier than ever.

“You’ve already nabbed him, haven’t you?” Greg asks over a dinner at Mycroft’s “house”. It is a house, certainly, but Greg sees how the photo frames are empty and the sofa lacks divots and dips, the memories of bodies. It feels like a show house.

Mycroft looks up from his guinea fowl, one eyebrow quirked.

““Nabbed”,” he repeats with distaste before returning to the task of cutting up his dinner.

Greg’s had half a bottle of red clearly taken from some dusty, exclusive cellar and he feels loose, tongued and limbed.

“Battersea? You haven’t used the Gherkin yet. Good view, very Bond villain.”

Mycroft refuses to smile.

“I have had words with Dr Watson. He is adamant that he will remain in my brother’s company. Very loyal, very quickly.”

Even fuzzy about the edges as the drink has made him, Greg can read Mycroft. The long suffering brother beaten out by the doctor, oblivious as to how much he’s achieved in such a short time.

“I think he’s a good influence. Sherlock seems to like him.”

Mycroft wears his CCTV footage face and, whilst gobsmacked at the silent revelation (or perhaps more accurately: confirmation), Greg doesn’t want to know the details.

“Do you think he will maintain that level of interest, Gregory?”

“What, Sherlock?”

“No, the Doctor. I do not flatter myself that I understand any of Sherlock’s motives. How long do you think a man as volatile as my brother can keep the interest of a man like John Watson?”

It’s one of the rare occasions when it’s not a phone-call but it’s still serious, still business.

I’m afraid my brother has finally learned to love but no one in this world is capable of loving him, Mycroft is saying. Greg wishes there was more wine to drown in.

“I’m a detective,” he says, “You need a psychic.”

He remembers his wedding day and how his cheeks hurt from unbridled laughter and smiles. He thinks of his wife, shagging the PE teacher.

“Quite. I suppose,” Mycroft notes, distant, oracle-like, “We must pursue such impulses recklessly, safe in the knowledge that there is the possibility of having our hearts, minds and bodies torn asunder. A gamble.”

Greg feels himself flush (mildly), gawp (moderately) and quirk an eyebrow (blatantly).

“Bodies torn asunder? Really?”

Mycroft wets his lips with the tip of his tongue and returns his attention to his dinner. The vegetables are largely for decoration, Greg’s noticed, and the gravy has been liberally applied.

“I am in a position to borrow a secret service, Gregory. Hearts, minds and bodies.”

*

Eventually, the divorce goes through. Even lawyers get bored in the end.

And one night, whilst working late, he thinks about John Watson. They’re getting to be decent mates. They’re not that alike though. For one, John likes rugby (he’s tried to get him to see the light but he’s too loyal to the Barts squad to make the switch to football now). He likes ale, cooking shows and the Smiths. They’re not the same at all.

And John, with his warmth and his kind smile that makes mothers nudge their single daughters in the ribs, is besotted with a cruel, distant consulting detective. Except that now, he’s not so cruel, not so distant. The two have gravitated towards one another. And no one seemed to notice it happening.

And then Greg feels his right hand stop writing up the report.

And his mouth says “fuck” without the permission of his brain.

Because, somehow, Gregory Lestrade, with his sloppy free kick and his wonky grin that has landed him a slap and a drink poured over his head in clubs back in the day, is besotted with a mystery. Except, Greg realises, he’s not very mysterious at all. They’ve just gravitated towards one another.

And Mycroft presumably has footage, fraction of a second by fraction of a second footage, bearing witness to the fact.

*

So, when Mycroft materialises for a glass of wine in the bar outside his Tuesday offices, Greg asks.

“I was wondering,” Mycroft pivots, expression inscrutable, “Are you busy?”

Mycroft’s frown is full of humour at his expense. It’s a smile by another name.

“Always, Detective Inspector.”

They lapse into companionable silence. Greg’s Primark shod foot nudges Mycroft’s Oxford. The civil servant doesn’t have pigtails to pull.

*

“Gregory?”

“I’m in Florida, can it wait?”

Of course not. It’s a phone call. It’s business.

“I’m afraid not. Sherlock has rather out done himself.”

Translation: of course not. It’s a phone call. It’s business.

“Where is he?”

“Dartmoor. Specifically, the Baskerville facility.”

Greg mouths the word “fuck” into the gorgeous Florida sunshine.

“There’s no one else?”

“That I can trust? No.”

Greg’s stomach has never stopped squirming in Mycroft’s presence (and he is in his presence because Mycroft is, of course, everywhere). But now it’s warm and he chases that shiver of sensation.

“Well, perhaps I could free up some time in my calendar,” Greg says carefully.

“If?” Mycroft supplies.

“If you can.”

Goodbye, Exclusively Heterosexual Greg, Greg thinks. He finishes his lager and scratches his bare stomach, stretches out on the lilo.

“Gregory,” Mycroft says, as though it is the most obvious thing in the world, “I am a busy man. But you only had to ask.”

Greg’s despairing scowl is lost on the Florida sky and hidden behind his aviators at any rate.

“Dinner date?”

Mycroft’s fingers glide across a laptop keyboard.

“Arranged. I am afraid the taste will be impaired at 30,000 feet.”

“Come again?”

“Well,” Mycroft explains, “It is only fair that I give you a lift back home, so that you can do this favour for me.”

“…Of course.”

 “Please, continue to enjoy your sunbathing until the chauffeur comes to collect you, Gregory.”

The thing about the Holmeses, he realises, is they loathe obedience. That’s very handy for Greg Lestrades. A certain song by the Madness threatens to play in his head.

“Been enjoying the view, Mycroft?”

There is a momentary silence on the line and Greg takes a luxurious, Florida-warm moment to bask in the satisfaction of having stumped a Holmes.

“We shall discuss this further on the plane, Gregory.”

And they do.