Mycroft's car pulled up outside the police station precisely at ten o'clock. Lestrade was waiting for him on the sidewalk with a bemused expression on his face.

"John warned me you'd do this."

Mycroft frowned. "What, pick you up? We didn't actually set a location."

"True - I thought we could walk."

Mycroft blinked. He was rarely surprised, by anyone, but the detective inspector consistently threw off his expectations. "You have a place in mind?" he asked.

Lestrade grinned. "I do. Come on!"

So Mycroft climbed out, sent the driver on back to the office to await further orders, and quickly found himself ambling along the sidewalk next to Lestrade. "I would have assumed you'd want to avoid the cafes near the Yard," he said to break the silence. "Danger of running into someone you know."

"Not where we're going," Lestrade replied, and winked. Actually winked. "This place reminds me of you every time I go."

Mycroft felt . . . absurdly flattered. "And how often is that?"

"Almost daily, now that I'm under review and completely unwanted at my own office. Here we are."

Here turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall antique bookshop. Mycroft was vaguely familiar with the name, but had never been inside.

"Bookshop that dabbles in coffee rather than the other way around," Lestrade explained as they made their way to the tiny seating area in the back. "Nothing pretentious here - just normal coffee and good British tea - but nearly everyone at the Yard sticks with the bigger chain places closer by. I mostly come because I love the smell."

Mycroft had to concede that it did smell lovely - old books mixed with coffee beans and, underneath that, a faint hint of black tea. He could see why Lestrade might associate the combination with the image Mycroft carefully maintained - educated, proper, unrelentingly British, and (when he was being honest with himself) a touch stuffy. It fit. They both ordered their coffee black, one sugar, and settled into their faded wooden chairs.

"So have you talked to John much?" Lestrade asked without preamble.

Not likely. "He's rather avoiding me at the moment," Mycroft admitted. "I'm giving him some space."

Lestrade nodded. "I know he and Sherlock weren't together together, but they might as well have been. It's gotta be like losing a spouse."

"They were," Mycroft replied. And then nearly choked on his coffee at the shocked look on Lestrade's face. "I don't think either would have considered it dating," he amended. "But I think one could term them 'together together' in every other sense of the phrase."

"Christ." Lestrade gulped a too-large swig of his own coffee and then opened his mouth comically wide and winced. "Burned my tongue, sorry. But - really? You have surveillance in their flat or something?"

The image of Sherlock in flagrante delicto with his loyal army doctor was one Mycroft could go his entire lifetime without seeing, thankyouverymuch. "Unnecessary."

"So, what - fuck buddies?"

Now it was Mycroft's turn to wince. "I'd really rather not contemplate that aspect of my little brother's life more than absolutely necessary."

"Right, sorry." Lestrade sobered and toyed with the handle of his coffee mug. "Not really appropriate, under the circumstances. It's just - it's hard to think of him as gone, you know? Sherlock was always so . . . larger than life."

Mycroft snorted. "You should have seen him as a child."

"What was he like? A handful, I'll imagine."

"You wouldn't believe how many nannies we went through."

"Rather like how he went through flatmates before meeting John?"

"Just so." Mycroft took a much more sedate sip of his coffee. Which was surprisingly decent, considering the store obviously only served coffee as a pretense to keep customers there long enough to buy more books. "He ran the first one off when he was three years old. Sherlock went from barely speaking at all - just looking at you with those bright blue eyes like he was trying to read your soul - to suddenly talking non-stop about anything and everything. Including repeating some things our nanny had said to herself in private, assuming he wasn't old enough to listen."

"What sorts of things?"

Mycroft shrugged. "Nobody ever told me, and I didn't bother to pry, but I suspect they had to do with her taste in men. Or the variety thereof. She amassed quite a collection of ex-lovers, even in just three years. Nothing illegal, of course, but not something you want your three-year-old charge repeating to your employers."

"So he's literally been like this his whole life."

Mycroft inclined his head.

"Bet it always made it hell for you to bring home girlfriends."

"It would have been futile to try." In part because I never had time for someone like that, and in part because I was much more interested in boys. But Mycroft had been in Her Majesty's service for more than enough time for silence on the topic of his preferences to be his habit, so he gave no indication Lestrade's assumption was wrong.

And Lestrade looked like he never even considered there was an alternative. Disappointing. Not that Mycroft would have ever actually propositioned him, despite how fit and obviously intelligent he was, but Lestrade's assumption proved he was almost certainly straight.

"How old were you at the time?" Lestrade asked.

"Ten, and just that year going off to school a term at a time. Sherlock really only saw me when I was home on breaks."

"These nannies were yours, too?"

"Nominally." Mycroft cocked his head and turned the discussion toward Lestrade. "What were you like as a child?"

"A hellion." Lestrade chuckled a bit into his mug. "Nah, actually, I was actually pretty boring. My older brother was the bigger troublemaker, between the two of us. Our parents both worked a lot, so it was mostly just him and me."

Mycroft frowned. "I didn't know you had a brother." It hadn't come up on any of the preliminary reports he had run on Lestrade, back when he first took Sherlock under his wing. Which was exceedingly odd - there should have been something -

Some emotion passed over Lestrade's face, too quickly for Mycroft to parse. "Lost him when I was fourteen," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry for your loss." The words were automatic, but the sentiment was true.

"Suicide. Charlie ran with a bad crowd, more often than not, and he got mixed up with the dickhead who lived in the flat below ours. Sold pot and acid. There was something of a turf war, I gather, and of course Charlie couldn't keep his mouth shut. He hanged himself in the loo two weeks after his seventeenth birthday."

Mycroft ducked his head. "That's . . . not something any child should have to go through. From his perspective and from yours."

Lestrade took another gulp of his coffee and shrugged with forced nonchalance. "Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, that's part of why I wanted to talk to you. Just wanted to - hell, I don't know. Wanted to let you know I'm open to listen, if you want me to. I've been there." He snorted. "I know enough about what you do to know that you're bloody close-mouthed when it comes to your job, but I thought your personal life might be different."

Mycroft frowned and worded his response very carefully. "It's not that I don't appreciate your offer. The nature of my work is such that I don't often share details of my life with anyone, though - even details which might sound innocent enough on the surface." Hell, that's how I gave Moriarty the ammunition to discredit Sherlock. The thought still made him feel vaguely ill.

Lestrade's expression shuttered. "I suppose I didn't expect any different." He picked up his now-empty mug and started to stand. "The offer's still there, anyway-"

"Wait." Mycroft dared a hand on Lestrade's arm, the contact feeling much more intimate than it ought. "I don't - I've never had someone to talk to. Not like that."

"Can't risk pillow talk bringing down Her Majesty's government?" Lestrade asked with a wry smile.

"Nothing so grand - I'm merely a low-level government official," Mycroft protested automatically.

"Bullshit." Lestrade tapped the side of his nose. "Your access badge let Sherlock walk into fucking Baskerville, unannounced. Pull the other one; it's got bells on."

Mycroft huffed, but he didn't press the issue. "What I meant to say was, I've never been in a position where I both had something to say and had someone trustworthy to say it to."

"Forget it," Lestrade replied. "I didn't mean to-"

"I'm saying yes," Mycroft interrupted.

Lestrade froze in the act of pushing in his chair.

"Thank you." Mycroft couldn't believe he was doing this - putting himself in regular contact with Gregory Lestrade was just asking for trouble, where Sherlock's secret was concerned - but the offer was honestly given and there was no way in hell he could turn down the chance to spend more time with this dishy man. Even if it wasn't going to amount to anything because he didn't dare out himself and Lestrade was straight. Just dreaming about the possibility of something more was better than his sex life had been allowed for some time.

Lestrade cleared his throat, then recommenced tidying his chair and bussing his mug to the dish basket near the trash can. "When?" he finally asked.

Mycroft mentally flipped through his upcoming calendar. "Friday? What time do you get off work, usually?"

"Five, barring a case."

Which Mycroft already knew, had known for fourteen years, but unlike Sherlock he recognized the value of letting people share details about their lives of their own volition. He pursed his lips and nodded. "Meet you at six, then? Doing dinner sounds awfully formal, but in this case it seems expedient since we'll both need to eat anyway. I'll text you a restaurant Friday afternoon."

"Sounds good." Lestrade smiled, a genuine smile, and nodded toward the front door. "I'd better get back to the Yard. Not that anyone will care that I've been gone, but I do like to at least pretend I've been hard at work."

"Until Friday, then," Mycroft said, adding a polite nod farewell.

He immediately spent every free moment of the next few days trying to decide which restaurant, in all of London, would work best for a not-date with Gregory Lestrade.