Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to MM. Conan Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss and probably a few others – I'd advise collective baby-sitting in his case.
A/N : Written to fill a prompt on the kinkmeme and complete the Language Kink Trilogy including "In For a Pull" and "Pardon my French".
Litany for a Watchman
Ah, there he was, holding up his furled umbrella like a torch across the dim-lit hall. Lestrade hurried to meet him halfway.
« He's fine » he called out. « Scalp wound – they're just done stitching him up. John's with him. »
« I see. » Mycroft Holmes' eyes flicked to the speaker's left cheekbone as he spoke. « And is our Health System in such dire straits that nobody thought of sparing you a stitch? »
« Oh, that. » Lestrade rubbed absently at the smudge of dry blood. « That's nothing. Unlike Sherlock, I know how to duck a punch ; yeah, even a knuckle-dustered one. For the love of Mike, take him off the violin and put him on a kickboxing program – I won't always be here to nanny his fights ! »
« Canvassing for legwork, Gregory ? » Mycroft curled a hand under the shorter man's elbow to guide him on a ninety-degree turn. « I'll give it a thought. Right now, all I can think of is home, hot water for two and a shared brandy. »
« But aren't you going to — »
« Dear me, no. You can't stitch a scalp without shaving it first, and if I know Sherlock at all, he's already thrown a king-sized fit, diagnosed the night sister with hemorroids — »
« Bladder trouble, actually. »
« — and is having Doctor Watson pet his crowning glory, or what's left of it, to make it better. As Nelson once famously remarked, flight is to the wise what it is to the gulls – a necessary inconvenience. Ah, here's the car. »
Lestrade, while doubting the quote, felt much too knackered to question it. Instead, he boarded the shiny black contraption with a relieved grin. The Bruiser might have been the runt of the gang, but it spoke much for Moriarty's hiring skills that Lestrade and John's united efforts had barely made it possible for Sherlock to remain his headstrong self. Until his next bee-line into the fray, that was. Good for Greg that he'd spotted his consultant jogging off to the left while everyone else was being steered right by the shouts – he sometimes wondered if he'd grown an inner rowdar where Sherlock and John were concerned.
His musings were cut short by a discrete chuckle on his right.
« Care to split the fun ? »
« Oh, just an errant thought. Do you know what Sherlock's name stands for, Gregory? »
« No idea. Judging from tonight, I'd say the great daftie has a fair share of luck. »
Mycroft smiled indulgently – he always smiled when Lestrade yielded to his pun addiction, just as Lestrade never cringed at Mycroft's quoting fad. What's tit for him is tat for me, Greg thought fondly, and turned to face his mate.
« It's old Saxon for « beautiful hair » – Sherlock's pet vanity, for all his ascetic blab on transport. I'm the very opposite of a fatalist, Gregory, but were I to chose a creed, I think I'd believe in name fates - nomen omen. Mine is rather devious - something to do with waterfalls and a small enclosed pasture. I've poured more oil than water in these troubled days, but I'm happy enough to do so from my, hm, secluded little outlook. As for you — »
Lestrade flexed an eyebrow. « Long as you don't tell me Greg is short for Gregson... »
« It's not. It's short for Gregorius. » The name unfolded deftly on Mycroft's tongue, its final sibilant clear and soft. « Which is Latin for the watchful, the vigilant. Gre-go-ri-us. A beautiful name, one that fits you like a glove. »
Lestrade tilted his head uneasily. « It sounds a bit, well. Grand. I mean, Latin... » He found himself floundering for words – sixteen once again, the grammar school boy assigned for practical training and an early practical job.
« Why, yes. Latin. » They shuffled closer, drawn together by the need to reconnect after the long summer hours and their alarming close. Their arms touched, their hands and shoulders ; Lestrade gave in and bent his head to the smell of clean linen and Mycroft's flesh, alive and warm under the late hint of aftershave. « Latin is quite the tongue for you, Gregory Lestrade. Enduring, resisting, solid enough for your people to carve laws that kept savagery at bay centuries before my people were taught to flip it about as a social token. I was taught this, my heart ; but I knew better after I'd met you. Let me... let me show you. »
A long-fingered hand dipped its way into Greg's limp collar, ghosting the dent of his throat. He closed his eyes as the hand cupped his cheek, brushing against the patch of blood that he daren't clean, not yet, because Mycroft would know it for his.
His friend's voice was rising in the car's leather-trimmed penumbra.
Nocte vigilans,
Die bellator.
Longe divisi
In eadem urbe,
Relicti sumus.(1)
The words were taking shape in the shell of his ear, spoken with none of the public school sheen he had expected. Mycroft was focusing every latent tendril of energy in raising a language from the dead and making it sing for him. It was almost scary, this ardour, but Lestrade knew better than to cower before it had known better for many months now, and never found cause to repent.
Ianua domi mei,
Ignis siti meae,
Silentium meum,
Pax mea
Et cordis spiritus,
Dilecte Gregorie. (1)
Lestrade didn't understand the words, didn't need to ; somehow, they spoke for themselves and the man pouring their strong subtle oil into his ear as a token of his heart. Lestrade's opened in answer to the gift, and he raised his mouth to the speaking lips, kissing them hard and slow. « Amen » he smiled against the lips, with another kiss to make his point.
They chuckled once more as the car pulled to a noiseless halt before Mycroft's house. « It's been a long night's ride » Mycroft said softly. « Eamus ad dormiendum, mi Gregorie.» (2)
« Think I got that » Lestrade said, and stepped round the car himself to open the door on his lover's side.
(1) A watcher by night,
A fighter by day.
We may be far apart
In the same city,
But remain bonded.
Door to my home,
Fire to my thirst,
My repose,
My peace,
Breath of my heart,
Beloved Gregory.
(2) Let's go to bed, my Gregory.