Chapter 1 - Believe Me When I Beg You
Believe me when I beg you
Don't ever leave me alone.
- Oh! Darling, The Beatles
'Good luck sir.'
Anthea gave her boss an encouraging nod and looked up at him from her mobile as Mycroft Holmes stepped out of the black car with darkened window.
I am without any doubt going to need it he thought as he looked up at the rundown apartment building in front of him as the car drove away along the gloomy street somewhere in the south of London. A few yards from him a group of young teenage boys peered at him as he made his way to the door of the building. One of them made a snide comment about him, somewhere along the lines of "posh aristocrats should stay at their clubs…" and Mycroft gave him a disapproving gaze while he pressed one of the bells next to the entrance.
'Hello.'
Mycroft's heart almost skipped a beat when he heard the raspy muted voice and he exhaled a little louder than he had hoped before he answered.
'It… It's me. I thought we needed to talk.'
He didn't get a response but the lock of the door gave a small buzz after what seemed to Mycroft like an eternity. He opened it and was just entering the building when one of the boys of the group made another comment, this time suggesting where Mycroft and his "dressed-up bureaucratic mates that destroys the country" should stick up their umbrellas. Mycroft was just going to answer the young man but then he changed his mind.
He had more important matters to take care of.
Gregory Lestrade groaned very loudly when he found that the cover of his original Abbey Road vinyl record had a small scratch on it, just under Paul McCartney's unclothed left foot. John had been very kind and fetched his rather massive record collection, but due to both his and Greg's unpredictable working hours, Greg's precious records, carelessly packed in a handful of cardboard boxes, had been forced to spend a night at the battlefield that was 221B at the moment. Sherlock had been on his way to examine the damage on the left side of one of the boxes caused by a fall from a two-story building ("The information is vital for the case of the Danish ambassador John!") but fortunately his flatmate had stopped him in time. However, Sherlock had managed, and Greg was sure this was on purpose, to drop one of the boxes containing his beloved Beatles records when he was trying to help John and Greg to move the cardboard boxes into a taxi to take the records to Greg's new apartment.
But he couldn't be bothered about the scratch now – he had just come home after working for nineteen hours in a row and just wanted to listen to a few good tracks while making a late dinner, so he ignored it and put on the A side, jumping over the first few tracks to one of the songs that he appreciated the most – Oh! Darling.
To the sound of McCartney's pleading voice he turned to the refrigerator and took out some leftovers and a can of coke. He had just sat down by the small second hand table and opened up the can when the weary sound of the doorbell rang out.
If that damned gang of teenage chaps are trying to make me buy cigarettes for them again, I will throw them out of a window, he thought while slowly moving to the old phone by the apartment's front door.
'Hello.'
He heard the trembling sound of someone exhaling, and then the even more trembling voice of the older Holmes brother.
'It… It's me. I thought we needed to talk.'
Greg was taken by surprise and wasn't sure how to react. He wasn't really in the mood for a long demanding conversation, but then realised that this moment was just as good as any, and therefore he pressed the buttoned that opened the main door of the building.
He couldn't make himself move, so he remained on the same spot until he heard a soft knock on the door a few inches away from him. Greg took a deep breath and then opened it, and found Mycroft, in an expensive-looking cashmere coat and with an umbrella in his hand, in front of him.
They didn't say anything for a few minutes. Mycroft did his best trying to get eye contact with the detective inspector but Greg stared absently at a stain on the doormat. Mycroft was the one to first break the empty silence.
'I am very much aware of that you do not wish to speak to me but-'
'Why are you here then?'
Greg interrupted him angrily and turned around heading for the shabby sofa in the living room.
'Because I don't understand, Gregory.'
Greg looked up at the government official. He had noticed the quivering in Mycroft's voice and saw that he watched him carefully from the doorstep.
'Oh, look how the mighty have fallen' he snorted back, but then eased up a bit and gestured Mycroft to come in.
'I don't understand why you have…' Greg saw how much Mycroft considered his choice of words before he finished the sentence, 'left me.'
The detective inspector sighed and then said: 'Because I'm tired of waiting.'
'I…' once again Mycroft stumbled on his words, 'Please explain this for me Gregory.'
'I'm not Gregory to you anymore, I'm detective inspector Lestrade.'
Mycroft flinched as if someone had hit him when Greg uttered these words. He looked down on his former boyfriend and saw the cool indifference in his eyes.
