Pairings/Characters: Mycroft/Lestrade, Sherlock, Anthea, Mummy, miscellaneous Sherlock folks
Warnings: AU, arranged marriage, mistaken identities, mentioned endangerment of a minor, mentioned drug abuse, Mystrade angst, slash (is that even something I should warn you about?)
Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes and all his friends, arch-enemies, and relations belong to me only in the sense that I own a copy of his books. Any and all scribbles I make about him et al are only profitable in the sense that it makes me happy, much as playing with stuffed animals made me happy when I was six.
Summary: Five years before the start of the series, Mycroft is called down to Scotland Yard to collect his brother and runs into a man he hasn't seen in ten years – when he posed as his brother for a date to meet the man Mummy hoped Sherlock would marry, Gregory Lestrade.
AN: Title of the fic is taken from song "Your Armor" by Charlotte Martin, which is my Mystrade anthem du jour. This was my first foray into Sherlock fic, is un-betaed and un-Britpicked, and I am thoroughly terrified but this just wouldn't leave me alone. Companion piece to "Limits Of Our Love."
Mycroft Holmes does not panic. He does not panic, he does not fret, and he certainly does not whine. Panic is the failing of a lesser mind, while fretting is a state Mycroft only indulges in his mother. Whining is the exclusive domain of younger brothers.
No, Mycroft Holmes plans. He has spent a lifetime acquiring the skills and knowledge that have refined his first rude assemblage of lists and intentions into a highly intricate art form which underpins every aspect of his meteoric rise in politics and his punctilious personal life. He is never without a strategy and – owing so much of his early career to planning for the failures of others, ever prepared to swoop in with a remedy I the wake of near-certain disaster – Mycroft is never caught unprepared, never on the back foot. He has protocols in place that limit potential chaos to acceptable levels of negligible affect. He prepares for every contingency, and schedules for every possible variant. While his younger brother dabbles in the quaint sandbox of chemical reactions, Mycroft leverages hard-won control to isolate and maneuver the variables of human nature and political behavior to their most desirable ends. Where others doubt and scrabble, Mycroft Holmes determines and executes.
At thirty-five years of age, Mycroft is already at the pinnacle of his career. He is quite beyond the reach of the crude machinations of elected officials and he is subject to no man's whim. The Crown considers him invaluable and entrusts him with the keys to both the armory and the coffers, tools with which Mycroft may shape the face of the nation, though he is never so thoughtless or crass as to forget with what grace his power was gifted to him. He may go where he likes and do as he pleases, without all the unpleasantness or insecurity of being a public figure. For all intents and purposes, Mycroft Holmes is a law unto himself.
And Mycroft Holmes does not panic.
As he watches the minibus rumble down the street, carrying a sedated Sherlock to the most successful (and most discrete) rehab facility in Greater London, Mycroft allows that he might be feeling a little anxious. Certainly, he has cause for some small degree of disquiet. At his elbow stands a man Mycroft was certain he had thoroughly expunged from his life, a man Mycroft has never been able to plan for or control. And Gregory Lestrade is vibrating with things that can upset Mycroft's carefully ordered status quo.
Mycroft closes his eyes on the sight of the minibus turning into London traffic. It's been ten years since Sherlock first started going off the rails. It has also been ten years since he last saw Gregory Lestrade. Were he a superstitious sort of person, Mycroft might find the connection of the two most volatile beings in his universe ominous. Being a practical man, Mycroft knows that the tie is one of causality. Sherlock's decline into despair – hindered only briefly by the handful of years spent in university – was the reason that Gregory Lestrade came into Mycroft's life, is the reason Sergeant Lestrade has come back into Mycroft's life now.
It has been ten years and these are different circumstances. Perhaps Sergeant Lestrade, his brown hair softening into a dignified premature gray, will let the past lie. Mycroft casts a subtle glance about for his new assistant. He had thought her quite reliably fastidious about his schedule; surely there is somewhere Mycroft is supposed to be that might save him from anything more awkward than a handshake and a quick word of impersonal thanks?
"So that's Sherlock Holmes," says the other man. "We finally meet, and he's pumped full of so much cocaine that it's a wonder he could even pronounce his name, let alone lecture me on the obvious age of Alice Whitemore's kidnapper based on the way he typed up the ransom note."
Typewriter, Mycroft's mind supplies needlessly. The kidnapper had been trained to type on a typewriter, not a computer. The original suspect, Alice's twenty-something teacher, was too young to have been taught to make extra spaces at the end of his sentences.
It was the only reason he had been able to intervene on Sherlock's behalf so quickly, before paperwork was filed and his brother was processed into and through the system. Messes were so much easier to clean up if they never got to the stage of things being documented. And Sherlock's insights had found a friendly ear, one that listened when he redirected the course of an entire police investigation with the result of discovering young Alice before anything untoward could happen to her. It had kept Sherlock out of a cell, giving Mycroft the time to appeal and cajole and impress upon those who required impressing that things would be so much better for everyone involved if Sherlock was allowed to go straight past jail and right into a whole different kind of lock up.
On the way to New Scotland Yard, Mycroft had been blessing Sherlock's luck that he should find such an amenable officer to vouch for him, but it all made sense when he'd stepped from the elevator to see exactly who the congenial Sergeant was. Gregory Lestrade had known a Holmes before; it would hardly have been a stretch to see that the talent for observation of minutiae he'd once encountered might well be a family trait. Especially when the two individuals had for a time shared the same name.
"Sherlock does seem to have a strange capacity for pursuing problems even when severely physically compromised. I've once known him to cut off a cast with a box cutter because he needed two hands for an experiment and couldn't be bothered to find a lab partner."
Lestrade's hands have found his pockets. He snorts softly and rocks on his heels briefly. "That wasn't in the bio."
Mycroft winces. "I imagine not."
Lestrade has mentioned the incident twice now. Mycroft's hopes of a clean escape are rapidly dwindling. Where is Anthea?
Because of his position and the danger inherent to his level of power, his new assistant had requested that she be allowed to operate under assumed names. On file, she has an entire false identity established, a red herring meant as bait should anyone get close enough to Mycroft that they might actually get their hands on the office's files and documentation. All of his work was actually encrypted and accessible only on a closed network between his assistant and himself, but they maintained a public face on government networks and a veritable legion of dummy file cabinets in his offices to put people off the scent. His assistant did live her day to day life under that established identity, but she was also fond of giving different false names to those she met on the job. The idea was that he could identify someone's level of clearance or grace with their office based on what they thought her name was. "Anthea" was the name she gave most often and he had come to think of it as her name, the code of it being "situation normal, no threat."
Up until this very moment, Anthea had been his favorite of his assistants. At only eight months in his employ, he has given her more of his work and his trust that anyone who previously held the position. He thinks of her quite as his sidekick, when he is feeling whimsical. Mycroft is not feeling whimsical at present, standing outside New Scotland Yard next to Sergeant Lestrade waiting for Anthea to tidy up the last loose ends and have the car brought around. He is not panicking, but he is finding himself increasingly...uncomfortable here in the open with the man he –
"Of course, I knew before now that you weren't Sherlock. They told me, back then." Lestrade sounds calm, almost contemplative. "They told me who you really were. And they told me you'd left. Accepted some government job, gone to London. I see they weren't taking the piss when they said you were onto bigger and better. Never seen my Chief Inspector that rattled before."
Lestrade is looking at him from the corner of his eye, head slightly turned and tilted. Mycroft fights and fights against it, but he turns to meet that unflinching gaze as though he has no control left over his body. It is unnerving.
He has not been this close in ten years. In the time since, he has scoffed at the romantic notion he had once held that Lestrade's regard was arresting in a way that caught Mycroft's breath in his throat. He finds in this moment that he was right. It is overpowering, when they are watching each other this way. It threatens to shatter him. He tightens his grip on the curved handle of the umbrella he has taught himself to carry. The affectation unsettled people just the right way, made them ask themselves whether he knew something they didn't. And in moments like this, when the world threatens to spin out from underneath him, it gives Mycroft something to hold onto.
Lestrade's eyes are the lively, dark pools he has been comparing others' to for ten years. His face has creased itself in all the places Mycroft remembers from Lestrade's face in motion, laughing, arguing, and impassioned. The gray suits him, though something small within him mourns wildly for a moment at the loss of ten years to enjoy the soft strands of brown that are now fading away. The sight is so familiar and so foreign all at once. He knows every detail, though so much has changed. His hands long to stretch forward, stroke and feel. They remember that they once had that right. He grips the handle of the umbrella a little harder.
He has no rights to Gregory Lestrade. He never did.
"Yes, I have been fortunate to find myself in a position to help Sherlock, though he would rather I left him to his own devices."
"Nothing's changed, then,"Lestrade says.
"Sergeant Lestrade, I appreciate that we have a sort of history – "
"Greg," he interrupts, talking right over what Mycroft is sure would have been a very thoughtful and concise offer to never speak of it again. Anthea and Sherlock are the only other ones who have ever learned that trick.
"What?"
Lestrade smiles. It is small and tired, kind of tight and unsure at the edges, but it is a smile. Mycroft's chest squeezes hard, startling him.
"You can call me Greg," the other man says.
It is an order as much as it is a question.
"I'd rather not," Mycroft hears himself say as he spots a familiar black car rolling up to the curb.
Lestrade startles and Mycroft watches something that shouldn't flash through the other man's eyes.
"Hey, sorry. I shouldn't have – "
"I would prefer to call you Gregory," Mycroft continues, breathless in his haste. "I always liked it better."
Lestrade stops, one hand comes up and palms over his hair. Hesitation, Mycroft categorizes. This is Gregory making a decision.
Mycroft sees Anthea get out of the car from the corner of his eye, take a step forward from the open door and stop. Clever girl. Give her another moment and she'll have the whole thing figured out.
Lestrade is suddenly close, one strong hand gripping Mycroft's forearm tightly. Mycroft fights down something that feels perilously close to a nervous giggle. He feels his free hand make an aborted move to grip Lestrade's hip. It hovers aimlessly in the small gap of air between them.
"Was any of it what you wanted? Any of me?"Lestrade demands, his voice sharpened from some emotion Mycroft doesn't recognize in him.
"Yes, of course. But it wasn't mine to have. It wasn't for me. You were waiting for Sherlock, and I lied to you. I forced you to take me instead. They picked you out for Sherlock, you were compatible and if Sherlock hadn't run off that day, you would be married to him now. I interfered and I have regretted it for both your sakes in the time since."
"But not for yourself?"
"I deceived everyone involved; I do not deserve to regret anything."
Mycroft watches Lestrade study him, feels Lestrade's breath tickle at the line of his jaw. The old greed rises up. He wants to catch and hold. He wants to turn his words towards pursuit instead of deflection. But he knows – he's always known – that Lestrade isn't his for the having.
Sherlock wasn't the only one with a file at the match-making agency, but Sherlock had been the only one who had been assigned a prospective match. Mycroft had been waiting for four years. Sherlock's file had been active only three months before the agency had contacted Mummy about Lestrade.
He still remembers it, the way it had clawed at him on the drive to the restaurant where Sherlock's match was waiting for him to arrive. Mummy had been beside herself all day. Sherlock had taken off in the middle of the night – he only turned up again when his first term at university was a week away, saying that he'd spent the time with a friend named Victor Trevor at his father's estate – and in the confusion, Mummy had left it too late in the day to call the agency's offices to cancel the meeting. Mycroft had been recruited to drive down and make the apologies in person.
He'd been working in the government since university, making his way slowly up through different agencies and offices, his intelligence and cunning propelling him past men who had spent their whole lives scrabbling for their piece of the pie. His position was forever a tenuous one and he had learned early to guard himself against jealous colleagues. But while he experienced success upon success, the caution necessary to advance and thrive meant he was alone. He didn't dare openly search for companionship; too many men were brought low by conveniently placed and equally ambitious paramours. So he'd determined upon the old fashioned route, establishing an account with a reputable match-making agency where he could be assured that only suitable and thoroughly vetted candidates would be admitted.
And then he'd waited. And waited.
When Sherlock turned eighteen, Mummy thought it best to enroll him with the agency as well, looking for a steadying influence that could understand and love her difficult son. They had thought it would take years, so they were starting early. The ink was barely dry on Sherlock's application – they hadn't even gotten the mandatory glamour shot of Sherlock to the system yet – before the match-maker on his case found Gregory Lestrade.
Mycroft had tried to be sanguine about the turn of events. He'd lectured his disappointment that he had been so much more specific in his preferences, that he was better equipped than Sherlock to wait for a mate. But driving to the restaurant, Mycroft had allowed himself to indulge just a moment of his lingering anger and confused loneliness. He'd never sought out a partner for himself before, but could it really be that his caustic sibling was a more attractive match? Or, at the very least, an easier fit?
It was in such a peculiar state of mind that Mycroft walked into the restaurant and approached the host to ask for the table reserved in his family name. He'd no sooner gotten the words out of his mouth when a young man, near his age, with fetching brown hair and a friendly, jovial manner appeared at his elbow, smiling at him with a face that Mycroft couldn't stop looking at.
So Mycroft lied. And he spent the most pleasant evening of his life with a man named Gregory Lestrade, answering to his younger brother's name with an ease that disturbed him when he recounted it the next day. But for all his guilt, he then lied to Mummy. She thought the matter closed. She told the agency to put Sherlock's file on hold. And Mycroft stole fourteen weeks of mostly happiness.
Then Sherlock came home and he received a job offer in London and Mummy found out and the agency blacklisted him and Gregory left him a message that he could never bring himself to listen to. And then he ran. Ran to London and Her Majesty's service and to plans that wouldn't dissolve in the palms of his hands. To plans and schemes he didn't give himself to. To hopes he wasn't in love with.
Mycroft Holmes does not panic, but he realizes as he looks at this older and rougher Gregory Lestrade that Mycroft Holmes does want. Were he a good man, he'd encourage Lestrade to look in on Sherlock in a few weeks, try and see if any of that relationship that never happened can get a chance so many years later now. He is not a good man, though. He's known that for ten years now.
Lestrade still hasn't let go of him, is still studying Mycroft's face. All at once, he seems to find something and his grip squeezes tightly for a moment before relaxing so that Lestrade's hand is now simply a warm, heavy weight on Mycroft's forearm. It reminds Mycroft of cool nights when two young men would sit close and revel in the sense of each other's body being near. He is seized for a moment by a palpable longing. Lestrade must see it, because that hand smooths down to rest on the tops of the knuckles that grip the handle of his umbrella.
"I read Sherlock's file. The bloke I just spent the afternoon with was nothing like him."Lestrade smiles, and it's their smile, the one that meant they were sharing something. Mycroft cannot stop looking at it.
"Mummy might have...embellished a little,"Mycroft says softly. That smile grows, Lestrade knowing where so many other people never guess at the tentative sense of humor.
"A little? I don't think I was ever going to meet the Sherlock I read about in that file, no matter who turned up for the first date."Lestrade squeezes his hand, tells Mycroft that he is not upset.
"I suppose not. You must wish you had never run across a Holmes."
"I didn't say that,"Lestrade's thumb is making slow, soft circles on his wrist, just underneath the cuff of his sleeve. "After all, I've been chasing after a Holmes for a decade now. Read his file and everything."
"What – ?"
"Is that your posh car double-parked in front of Scotland Yard?"Lestrade interrupts, jerking his head a little to the side to indicate where Anthea and the car are waiting for Mycroft.
"Yes, and my assistant,"Mycroft is nervous for the first time in recent memory.
And then Lestrade throws back his head and laughs. Mycroft watches him, tries to catalogue the sound of it, the delight it gives him to see Lestrade's body shift and sway from the force of it.
"I'm off-duty. Second shift is over."Lestrade says.
"Is it?"
"Yes, and you're taking me in your posh car to get something to eat."
"Am I?"
"You are. By the way," Lestrade takes Mycroft's hand into his own, squeezing gently as he slowly pumps their hands once up and down. The umbrella clatters onto the concrete, but the sound is a millions miles away. "I'm Gregory Lestrade."
"Mycroft Holmes," he says, dazed.
A smile, broad and broken and overwhelmingly beautiful.
"Good to meet you."
They collect the umbrella from the ground and make their way to where Anthea is waiting, and she tucks herself into the front passenger seat next to the driver and behind the partition, leaving Mycroft and Gregory alone in the back of the spacious car as it pulls away from the curb. Clever girl.
As Gregory leans in, as one of his hands finally breaks free of his control and takes hold of that much longer-for face, as they brush lips slow and sweetly, Mycroft Holmes does not panic.
Mycroft Holmes dreams.
END