* author's note: 'fraid i've fallen head over heels with both DI Lestrade and Mycroft, so this story sort of sprouted from some fantasies i've been having about both guys. also think that Mycroft is an intriguing character, but gets a bad press on the whole and i think this needs rectifying, at least...
written from Lestrade's point of view...
accompanies my other stories partidges & pear trees as well as a different league of gentlemen {might help for certain things to become clearer, maybe...}
for non-British readers: The Premier League is the main football {soccer} league in England, which has little to do with Sherlock, Mycroft or the things my chaps get up to, but as i enjoy football {soccer} a lot, and liked the First Time For Everything-pun, i decided to go with it as a title
btw: own nothing, just owe Messrs Moffat & Gatiss the world for creating {and playing} the new loves of my life... *
1. as first times go...
My life has seen many first times. Over the half-century that I've been on this planet, I've lost count, but there's one that will stay with me as the one that Changed My Life… Sounds nice and dramatic, doesn't it? Well, it was… Let me take you back to those days… I do, quite often…
It's quite fascinating to see Mycroft Holmes deal with personnel, how efficient yet gracious he is then. Well, as he is with most people that aren't his brother, his brother's lover, or his own lover, for that matter… If his lover it is what I am now, of course, not sure what stage we're at, seen as we've only just started 'proceedings' in that area minutes ago in the back of his chauffeured car. Said driver is now being told to have some time off, drive back to his house, and wait for further instructions. I wait on the pavement outside my flat, and see Mycroft come back to me, and I move to walk to the steps of the building where my flat is. He's very discreet, there's no indication that he's anything but an official looking friend of mine, coming round for whatever official looking friends come by to do. I open the big front door, which creaks a little, and we step into the hall, which has a big staircase to the left, and another door on the right, leading to the ground floor flat, where Mr Gardner lives. Mine is on the first floor, but before we start climbing the stairs, I feel an urge to touch the man I've just been extensively kissed by, to put my arms around him, and so turn to him.
'Just need to do this for a minute,' I tell Mycroft, who's looking a bit confused, but allows me to slide my hands inside his big coat, go underneath his jacket, and as I want to go further inside, I feel I'm stemmed in my flow by his waistcoat, which is buttoned up and makes him closed off for now. I press myself against him, feel his body warm and pleasant against mine, nuzzle my face in his delightfully scented neck, and his arms fold around me, as he replicates my moves, and I feel a kind of strange joy take me over. I pull back a bit, try to catch his eyes, and see him smile at me, then move in to put his lips on mine again, and we share a long, languid kiss, his arms still around me, keeping me close to him, and I move my hands down a bit, along his back, right down to his butt, which I've been wanting to get to know better. It feels lovely and taut, as I hoped it would, and as I squeeze it, I feel he makes an involuntary move against my crotch, and things start to heat up a bit too much for the place that we're in.
The door of the ground floor flat opens up, and I hear Mr Gardner come out brashly, then react to what he sees in front of him.
'Oh, sorry, I um… sorry…' he goes quite beetroot red and I feel Mycroft bury his head in my neck, sniggering quietly. 'I thought that… The front door opened, but no one went up the stairs so I thought… carry on… Sorry…' and he quickly closes the door.
'Ah… Okay…' I try to lessen the tension that now hangs in the hallway, but Mycroft just smiles and gives me a quick kiss.
'Let's just go up before anybody else gets confused,' he says and points his hand towards the stairs to indicate that he wants me to lead the way.
'Oh, thank you, sir,' I say teasingly, and make my way up quickly to open the door to my place, which is as messy as I left it that morning. I'm normally fairly tidy, but I needed to find something in one of the many boxes that came back from the house I left behind when I broke up with Louise, my ex-wife, and at 7 this morning I didn't feel like clearing it all back up again. Never in a million years did I think I would be bringing Mycroft Holmes back here… Obviously…
'Nice place you have, Gregory,' he says with a mischievous smile on his face. He looks around to see if there's anywhere for his coat and umbrella to go, then decides that the functional looking rack on the wall, which is now filled with bags and a baseball cap, is probably it, and moves to put his things there. I quickly offer to take them, and hang the coat neatly on a hanger that hangs lonely on the hooks, and put his umbrella next to the chair underneath. We move to go to the sitting room/dining area/office, where the sofa is thankfully not strewn with clothes, as it can be after I've done a laundrette visit, once in a while.
'Do you want a drink first?' I ask him as I make a move towards the kitchen, hoping he'll decline and we can carry on with our pleasant frolics from the hallway, a minute earlier. No such luck, though…
'Um, yeah… Please… That'd be lovely…' he smiles. I see that he's a tad tense, as if he wants to make something clear, but doesn't know how to broach the thing he's keen to share with me.
'What is it?' I ask in a bid to be helpful.
'It can wait, my dear, a cup of tea would be great… I haven't drunk anything since I came back from the airport, three hours ago. It was all a bit of a muddle, with hordes of tourists coming back from their breaks,' he smiles, trying to hide his disregard for the plebs he's had to mingle with.
'You want something to eat?' presuming that didn't happen either in the past couple of hours.
'God, you can read my mind… I'd love something… What did you have in mind?'
Do I get the feeling that he's hedging here?
"Cheese toasty? Ham sandwich? Peanut butter? Chicken?'
'Is marmalade on toast an option here?' he asks hopeful.
'Yeah, I think I can manage that…' I say and I get to work to supply food and beverages for my guest, who's looking rather drained as he's resting against the back of my sofa. (Mycroft Holmes is on my sofa!? Last week this would've appeared an impossible concept, something I didn't even dare dream about… I almost pinch myself…). I'm feeling both excited and somewhat protective towards him, suddenly.
He has a faraway look as he notices my coming into the room with a tray full of stuff. His cup of tea, my coffee, his toast and a packet of biscuits. I place it on the coffee table (shoving the magazines and the remote control on the floor to make room), then pass the teacup to the man I'd rather be climbing on top of, instead of catering for.
'Oh, lovely, thanks, my sweet.' His smile is dazzling. 'I needed that…' He's sighing, as if he's bracing himself for the next thing, 'I know this probably sounds daft to you, the way we've been at it only a short while ago, but do you mind if we just sit here and chat for a while… I'm worn-out from the past week, and to be honest, I've not really been in this situation… For a long time…' His face is a picture of timidity, almost, as he's trying to convey to me the state of his inner turmoil. What does he mean with that?
'I see you're confused… Let me explain. Um… You are the first in many years to have returned my advances… The first man that I've found myself falling in love with, I mean… There have been a few who'd be involved with me, for whatever reason, but never anyone whom I've had feelings for. So now that you have, now that you appear to feel the same for me…'
'Not just appear, Mr Holmes…' I butt in.
'Oh good… But still, I'm a little overwhelmed by my feelings right now, Gregory, and instead of it all going too fast, I would like to savour it slightly, if you don't mind… Is that okay with you?'
I'm a bit baffled to be fair, but I also understand what he means, and I suppose he's right. I'd love to leap into bed with him, have my wicked way, or for him to with me, as my body is indicating its intense desire to … Good thing I'm not 17 anymore, as this would've been impossible… Being nearly fifty has its advantages, after all…
I take his hand, and lace my fingers through his, then lift it up to put my lips to his, being pretty much lost for words.
'However long you need…' I pull him towards me and feel his head fall onto my shoulder, and a soft 'Thank you' being murmured into my ear.
From the moment I stepped into his car, half an hour earlier, and I figured that he wasn't Anthea, I felt my world was being flipped upside down, and back up again, like a tornado had lifted me up and thrown me down again, and although it was very nice – him kissing me so suddenly, there on that backseat, with his driver having a sneaky peak in the rear view mirror, was a shock, but a very welcome one – it was quite unexpected. Well, there had been slight indications that this was on the cards – the way he'd touch my hand when we were talking in the restaurant, or his knee would graze mine, cautiously, the way he'd be gazing at me when I was talking, or when I was on the phone to the office, dealing with an 'emergency' that one of my sergeants appeared incapable of dealing with, or the way he'd lean into me when we walked to the car, as if he wanted to touch me but felt too well-mannered to do so. It felt funny, to know I was being wanted like that, to have someone like him, someone as sophisticated and aristocratic as he appeared to me, hanker for me (little old me!), but also a bit uncanny…
It had been so long that I had been with a man in that way, that I thought I'd forgotten the 'rules'… But more than that, I felt I wanted him to take the initiative, to claim me, and when he did, after we hadn't seen or spoken to each other for two weeks, I thought all my Christmases had come at once…
We sat on the sofa for a while, and I'd put some soft music on, and we talked about our lives, about how much we hated Christmas and New Year, and it did feel so nice… So totally, wonderfully nice… Holding Mycroft Holmes in my arms…
'May I ask when was the last time your feelings were answered?' I ask him, while he's playing with the buttons on my shirt, stroking the skin of my stomach with his index finger.
'Do you really want to know that? Of all the things you could be asking me… Not if I ever got on with my father, or where I went to school, or why Sherlock and I are always at loggerheads? You want to know about my sad, non-existent love-life…' he moves to sit up a bit more, and looks at me with questioning eyes. Obviously not a subject he's happy to broach…
'It's alright, you don't have to go there if you don't want to… I was just wondering, you don't quite seem as cerebral as your brother, you seem to be to me more likely to have had a relationship, so when you said that I've been the first in a long time to respond to your affections, someone that you've taken a shine to, as you said, I was surprised…'
He smiles that sweet, attractive smile of his, although this version is the reserved one that he tends to use in company he's not very comfortable in.
'I've been in a relationship, indeed. For a few years, with a senior in the department that I worked in then, when I was in my late twenties. He died, well, killed himself, when it came out that he had a thing with a minor member of staff and that he would get himself into lots of trouble. I was heartbroken for months, and shut myself off from love, so to speak. I didn't want to get hurt again, to feel the pain from back then, and fell for guys that were unattainable – married ones, mainly – and just had flings' (which he pronounced as if it was a nasty stain) 'with ones that I'd never in my life would commit to…'
'Oh,' I said to that. Felt a bit of a bastard, really. But I also felt it was something worth knowing about – if we were to have a relationship, a proper one, I'd need to know about his past, the things he's been hurt by, even just to not have it happen to him again… Anything to not hurt this man… I probably would never really know the depths of his pain or sadness, or what he was trying to hide by appearing overly confident, but to come a little bit closer was very nice.
'So, when I met you, when Sherlock introduced me to you, I was cautious, especially when I felt my heart skip about seven beats, when I looked in your eyes, when you shook my hand, touching you, it was like electricity coursing through me… I was scared, petrified… That I might fall in love with you, and get hurt again. And the strangest thing was that having my brother become involved with John Watson, last year, opened my eyes to the possibility, if even very vaguely, of happiness being within reach, although you were still married, and not showing in any way that you were interested in me, other than on a professional basis…'
'Well, you must've been delighted when you heard that my marriage had crashed…' I smile at him.
'I suppose I was a tiny bit happy, yes… Does that make me a horrid person?' he smiles back.
And then his phone rings…
Of all the timing, this is the pits, as I'm sure I could see Mycroft lean in for another kiss, or maybe that really was what I wanted to happen. Not sure. Thing is that the moment is ruined, as he looks on the display of his phone, probably sees that it's work, contemplates answering, then presses the thing off, and puts it back in his jacket pocket, which he's draped over the back of the sofa.
'Not important,' he declares. 'You are, though…'
I smile, and feel myself going red, something that hasn't happened since secondary school, and he takes my hand. Then the phone plays it's annoying tune once more, and I know that whoever is calling him is not going to take no for an answer, and I can see he's in a quandary, a tough one, by the look in his eyes.
He answers. I leave the room to tidy up a bit, to give him some privacy (and hide my disappointment) and after a bit he comes to find me, state the inevitable news that he has to leave me.
'I'm really, really sorry, but if I don't lots of people are going to be in lots of trouble…'
I nod, cos I know that he's right – I've been in situations like that, knowing I'd rather stay, yet knowing that if I do, the results will be devastating, and I can see the sorrow in his face…
I walk with him down the stairs to the front door, where I dawdle, and he shows even less enthusiasm to go to the car that's waiting for him outside, so I move towards him to kiss him goodbye, and I feel him embrace me, with an eagerness that I remember from not so long ago… We stand there like that, kissing and putting off the inevitable, until one of us is taken over by reality.
'I'll ring you when I know some more, okay?' he says, and opens the door. 'Okay?'
I nod, and smile, and against everything I feel there I say, with as much affection as I can put into the words: 'You do what you need to do…' and watch him step into the car, answer his wave, and sigh deeply…