A NICE PLACE TO VISIT
Chapter Three
Greg's first date with Mycroft was not going well.
They did not linger overly long at dinner in Marseilles nor speak much on the ride back. In the car, Mycroft slid to the far corner of their shared back seat and for most of the journey fiddled with his mobile more attentively than Greg suspected was necessary. Once in a while Greg caught Mycroft looking at him out of the corner of his eye, but each time he returned his attention to his phone immediately, his face looking ghostly and cold in its bluish light. Neglected by his companion, Greg made a few attempts to engage their taciturn young driver, Nicolas, in conversation instead. After receiving several monosyllabic responses and vaguely disapproving glances in the rear-view mirror, Greg gave up and sat in forlorn silence, wishing he had brought his phone along to play with, too. He fidgeted with the corners of the flat black gift box he held on top of one thigh instead.
Greg replayed their dinner in his mind, searching for the moment or moments where he might have given offense. He wasn't always the most sensitive of men, he supposed—his ex-wife would attest to that—but even in hindsight he thought he'd been on his best behavior. Maybe his best behavior wasn't good enough after all. His challenge to Mycroft had been to impress him, but Greg had certainly hoped to impress a bit in return. Flirting, he was usually good at that, but his attempts this evening had not gained him any of Mycroft's smiles in return.
When they arrived back at the villa and entered the foyer, Greg could hear the faint sounds of gunfire and sirens issuing from the media room down the hall. His first thought was that it reminded him of home—London and crime. A good old-fashioned firefight sounded a lot simpler to manage than a date right now. At Greg's wistful little gust of laughter, Mycroft shot him a wary glance. Greg tried to smile at him, still hoping to reconnect, puzzled as he was by Mycroft's peculiar coolness. Mycroft looked away again immediately.
Greg sighed his frustration. "Mycroft, damn it, what's wr—"
"After you," Mycroft interrupted softly but with determination, gesturing with an open palm toward the staircase to the upper floor.
"Are you walking me to my door?" Greg said lightly, trying for an air of levity he was not feeling. He was in fact feeling exceedingly uncertain of himself in the face of Mycroft's gradual withdrawal—disappointment?—as their evening had progressed. "Such a gentleman."
"It's hardly an inconvenience," Mycroft said with a stiff smile, "given the proximity of our rooms." Apparently he was walking Greg to his door…which meant the date was officially over. Greg turned away to hide what he knew would be a crestfallen expression. They ascended without further conversation and paused outside the door to Greg's room, which stood slightly ajar.
Greg ducked down to catch Mycroft's lowered gaze. "Well. Thank you, Mycroft. It was…a nice dinner."
Mycroft ran a long finger down the grooved, ivory-painted wood of the door frame and studied his shoes intently. "You didn't like the restaurant."
Greg blinked. "No, I…it was…" He squinted up at the ceiling, searching his mind for the right word. "Elegant." And a little too quiet. All right, stiflingly quiet. The maître d' had welcomed them warmly enough, but the waiter had smirked at Greg's too-casual trousers. Yeah, he should have changed when he saw what Mycroft was wearing, but Mycroft always dressed in a nice suit. His selected dish—whatever it was exactly, something with beef, he wasn't certain with the menu all in French—had an unexpectedly pungent flavor. He'd supposed his taste was just not refined enough to appreciate it properly, because the food would obviously be very good at such a fine restaurant. "The food was good."
"Greg, you needn't try to be polite. I read people for a living." Mycroft tilted his head reproachfully. "You didn't finish your meal. And you didn't want to stay for dessert. Nor did you like your gift," he added, looking downcast.
Greg looked at the black box in his hand. "It's a lovely tie. Very nice…flowers."
"Medallions," Mycroft corrected with a pained expression. He reached toward the box and then dropped his hand to his side without touching it. "It's silk, handmade in Italy."
"Ah."
"It will complement your eyes."
"Mycroft, I said it's lovely," He received the reproachful look again, and shifted uncomfortably. "All right then. Fine. I didn't like the restaurant. And you gave me a tie. A very, very nice tie, but it's a little, um, I don't know…impersonal? But I wasn't there for the food. And I wasn't there for a gift."
"I want you to have the best." Mycroft lifted his chin challengingly, but Greg had already come to recognize the pose as defensive.
Greg's brow furrowed. "The best what?"
"Everything."
"So you're upset with me because I didn't really like the best things?" Greg asked, bewildered, scratching at the end-of-day stubble on his chin as he examined the rigid set of Mycroft's jaw.
"Upset with you?" Mycroft frowned crossly and shook his head. "With myself."
"For what?"
"For not giving you anything that was…right. I should know what you like." He traced a finger down the doorframe delicately again, smirked, and said with heavy irony, "After all, I read people for a living."
"You don't have to give me anything, you idiot," Greg protested wonderingly, gesturing with the box in his hand. He looked down at it as reassurance sparked in his chest, then back at Mycroft, and thought that he would really like both his hands free. "Hang on." He opened the door and stepped into his room to toss the box onto the end of his bed.
"Do you like your room?" Mycroft asked hopefully from behind him, waiting diffidently outside the doorway.
Greg's now-dancing mind shuffled through theories on Mycroft's apparent reluctance to enter the bedroom—yes, he had seen Mycroft reflected in a mirror. And Mycroft's cassoulet at dinner had definitely included garlic in its ingredients—Greg had sampled a bite. He smiled and held out his hand. Such a gentleman. "For fuck's sake, Mycroft, come in."
Mycroft ducked his head, took his hand, and stepped across the threshold. The warmth in Greg's chest was becoming effervescent. Mycroft looked around the room appraisingly. "I thought it would suit you well?"
"Really?" Greg scanned the room, trying to see it through Mycroft's eyes. It was large and the natural stone walls were brightened in the daytime by two floor-to-ceiling windows, but the room was spare in decoration apart from a warmly colorful rug and a painting of a line of white-robed men charging on horseback into golden clouds of battle dust. An incongruous and enormous rack of antlers was mounted over the fireplace. "Because?"
"It seemed…" Mycroft drew himself up, uttering the next word uncertainly. "Masculine." Greg looked at the antlers again, took a breath, and the bubbles in his chest burst as he dissolved into decidedly un-masculine giggles. Mycroft pressed his lips together tightly and looked away, flushing pink.
"I'm…flattered," Greg managed finally, wiping tears away from the corners of his eyes. Hands, yes, he'd wanted to do something with them. Mycroft looked unhappy and that wouldn't do at all. Greg put his hands on Mycroft's shoulders and squeezed. "You."
Mycroft's posture stiffened at the contact. His eyes widened. "What about me?"
"If you still want to know something I like…" Greg leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Mycroft's and smiled playfully. "I like you."
Mycroft blinked. His mouth opened and closed several times as he sought a response. "I wanted to impress you." The confession escaped on a rushed, fluttering breath.
Greg pressed his lips softly to Mycroft's. "You're doing fine," he whispered, and slid his hands up to the sides of Mycroft's neck. Mycroft swayed toward him, and Greg gave him one more kiss, one he let linger before he pulled away. He felt giddy. He felt powerful. He felt like jumping up and down on his bed and throwing pillows and whooping. He swallowed the sensation down into his chest, where it curled up and purred. "So, what's next in your master plan of seduction?"
Mycroft still seemed to be having some trouble responding, so Greg stroked the edge of his jaw soothingly with his thumb. He felt Mycroft swallow twice before he spoke. "I do…have something…in mind for tomorrow."
"Will I like it?"
Mycroft's laugh was surprised and wholly unguarded. "I've no idea."
xxx
John wandered the grounds near the villa after his morning cup of tea and a breakfast pastry. The air was still cool, especially under the tall plane trees, and the sky was a little overcast. He spotted Greg at the far end of one of the formal gardens—geometric patches of lawn decorated with both flowering and sculpted trees, classical statuary, and gurgling stone fountains—and headed toward him. He was standing in front of one of the statues, an artfully posed female nude whose platform elevated her above him by half a meter, gazing up at her reflectively with an odd little smile on his face. He glanced at John as he approached. "Morning."
"Care to introduce me to your friend?"
Greg grinned. "I think her name is Aphrodite."
"Ah, the ideal of feminine beauty." John stood beside him and looked up at bare stone breasts. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Where's Sherlock?"
"Having a lie-in. Lazy bugger." John chuckled, then looked at Greg out of the corner of his eye speculatively, wondering what their mutual status was after the previous day's Sherlock-induced debacle. He may as well test the waters. "And…where's Mycroft?"
"Working this morning," Greg answered benignly, with no trace of discomfort at the question. "But we have plans this afternoon."
"Oh? What sort of plans?"
"Apparently it's a surprise."
John pulled an expression that was only half-jokingly alarmed, as his mind flashed through the sort of potential scenarios a "surprise" from Mycroft Holmes might entail. "So…you two…that's all...sorted, then?"
"Yeah." Greg huffed a laugh and looked back up at the statue bemusedly. "Better than."
"Sorry if it was sketchy for a bit. Sherlock, um, actually said he thought you'd both be 'pleased' by his…deductions," John told him. As ever, he felt it fell on him to smooth things over after a Sherlocking had occurred. It wasn't his favorite part of his life with Sherlock, but it was far too often a necessary one. "Mad as that sounds."
"I am pleased, as a matter of fact. Surprised, but…pleased." He placed a hand on the curve of Aphrodite's bared hip, rubbed his thumb over her the sculpted swell, and said quietly, "I never expected this…you know?"
John laughed softly and circled behind the statue, pausing to run the back of two fingers up the inner arc of her thigh. "Yeah, well. Neither did I. But look at the pair of us." He cupped his hand under the curve of one cold, sculpted buttock and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Sherlock's is nicer."
"I…didn't need to hear that," Greg sighed.
John peered around Aphrodite's backside at him. "Fancy a few rounds of Street Fighter? I saw an Xbox."
Greg stuffed both his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels. "Yeah, cheers, all right!"
xxx
Three hours later, Sherlock found Lestrade and John in the media room perched on the edge of their chairs, vigorously thumbing buttons on their video game controllers and yelling profanities while two unrealistically muscular computer-generated characters kicked and pummeled each other on the enormous projection screen television.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "John?"
"Take that, dick weasel."
"Fuck you sideways!"
"Dick weasel?" Sherlock repeated quizzically, with perfect enunciation.
"Oh, you're going down, you pile of—"
"Fuck…balls…motherffff…son of a bitch!"
Greg flung himself sideways in his chair as if to encourage his poorly-rendered avatar to move in the same direction. "Now you're in trou—hey, how'd you do that?"
Sherlock frowned. "This room smells like socks."
John leaned over to show Lestrade a button on his controller. "I just keep hitting this one really fast until he does the flip, then this one."
"John," Sherlock said.
"Nice. Lemme try that…" Lestrade jabbed at his buttons furiously and one of the characters produced some sort of injurious flaming cloud.
"There you go! Good one! Oh! You enormous cock."
Lestrade cackled with ridiculous glee.
"John," Sherlock said again, raising his voice.
"Look what happens if I press these—shit!"
"Ha! Not so cocky now, are we?"
Sherlock picked up the somewhat crumpled game manual from the floor beside John's chair, flipped through it, sighed as loudly as he could, and flung the manual back onto the floor between John and Lestrade's chairs. Neither man looked at him. His lips tightened.
"Ha! Did you feel that? Oh, I know you felt that!"
Sherlock walked in front of the screen and glared at John.
"Oi!"
"Out of the way, tosser!"
Sherlock spread his arms. Behind him one of the fighters emitted an agonized death groan.
"Damn it!" Lestrade threw his controller on the floor. "I had him that time!"
"In your dreams!" John returned merrily.
Lestrade sighed, leaned back in his chair, then jumped up again after glancing at his watch. "God, is that the time? I have to run!"
"Yeah, you'd better run." John grinned. "Hey, have fun, mate."
"You too!" Lestrade grinned back, exchanging some sort of secret eye language look with John that Sherlock did not care for at all.
"Yes, lovely, everyone have a lovely day!" Sherlock mimicked as Lestrade left the room. He turned to John and finally allowed the details of his appearance to register, and his expression grew appalled. "John…what are you wearing?"
John puffed his chest out to emphasize the painting of a mountain depicted on the front of his aggressively yellow t-shirt. "Do you like it? I got it in Aix. It's by Cézanne."
"It's hideous. Take it off."
"No. It's a souvenir."
"It's ridiculous. I can't be seen with you like this."
"I got you one, too."
"Oh, how wonderful."
"Not like this one. Yours is black. And it has a skull on it," John said enticingly. "Cézanne also painted skulls."
"Hm." Sherlock's brow furrowed contemplatively. He nodded toward the door. "Lestrade seems disgustingly cheerful."
John smirked. "Didn't you deduce it from his shoes, or whatever? He's got a sort of…date. With your brother."
"Eugh." Sherlock wrinkled his nose.
"Have you spoken to him?"
"Once or twice. We did grow up together. Sort of."
"You know what I meant."
Sherlock sighed and flung himself into Lestrade's abandoned chair. The leather was still warm. "Not since I, as you so mawkishly phrased it, 'nearly ruined his hope for happiness.' Which obviously I did not do, as his so-called 'happiness' is bustling off for some sort of rendezvous with him right now." Sherlock shuddered.
"Yeah, but what if you had?" John raised an eyebrow.
Sherlock decided to classify the question as rhetorical, but he frowned. What if he had? What if he did not have John? What if John had not wanted him? What if he almost had John, but lost him? He looked at John, in his ridiculous, garish shirt, kicking one short leg idly against the bottom of his chair. He had eaten a raspberry pastry for breakfast. He'd been outdoors this morning already. His hair was mussed out of place. His eyes were bright from his game play. His glorious dark blue eyes. His John. His hope for happiness. "Mon bien-aimé," he murmured.
John eyed him suspiciously. "That one sounded…nice. Does that mean…best friend?"
Sherlock considered, tilting his head. "Yes."
A sincere smile lit John's face. "Well...that's...you're mine too. You know that. And don't think I don't realize you're just diverting me from the subject." He bounced in his seat a little, obviously still full of sympathetic adrenaline, and waved his game controller at Sherlock. "Hey, do you want to play?"
"Certainly not."
"Yeah, I understand." John nodded with a sad-eyed, patronizing look at Sherlock. "Because you know I'd kick your arse across the entire continent and back."
"And you call me childish. This," he waved a hand behind him at the television, "is childish. And boring."
"Mmm." John licked his lips. "Winner's on top."
Sherlock's eyes narrowed.
John regarded him steadily.
"John, the game…" Sherlock snatched up Lestrade's discarded controller, eyes flashing. "…is on."
"Let's see what you've got!" John wriggled in his chair. "Pretty boy."
Sherlock found that getting the hang of the game play and the evidently requisite swearing were both fairly simple, as was ensuring he eventually subdued his response time just enough so that when his adversary started to win he would believe it was completely legitimately.
xxx
Mycroft was, Greg was fairly certain, younger than he—he would have to remember to ask by how much—but his tightly-controlled demeanor so often made Greg forget that detail, in fact often made Greg feel like the younger man by far. The man Greg found waiting for him that afternoon, leaning against the large stone arch leading to the salon with a warm, welcoming smile, looked much younger than the usual Mycroft Holmes. He was dressed casually in dark, slim jeans that made his legs alone look about six feet long and a subtly-textured dusky blue button-up shirt, open at the neck to reveal the pale hollow of his throat. His hair was not combed back as severely as usual. Instead it looked messier, with one auburn forelock curling just a little to touch his forehead. Greg licked his lips, staring at that little curl.
It wasn't just that he looked younger, Greg realized, now that he'd seen Mycroft in casual wear a few times. He looked far more vulnerable when he wasn't wearing one of his customary three-piece suits. Greg had realized long ago that Mycroft's attire was only one of the tools he used to reinforce an image of power, but he'd only just realized how effective it actually was. Today it was not Mycroft-the-British-government who was standing in front of him. This was Mycroft, just a man. And that man was…sexy. Really sexy.
"Greg…good afternoon." The velvet of his voice was almost tangible. He started toward Greg, and then stopped himself and clasped his hands a little awkwardly in front of him.
Greg felt unexpectedly awkward as well, the burst of confidence that had fueled his kiss last night fading in the light of day. He wondered if Mycroft could read on his face the torrent of inspired libidinous thoughts he'd worked off in the shower before he went to bed. Would he like them? Would he be appalled? "Mycroft. You look…you look…" Edible. "Is, er, this all right?" he asked, indicating his own grey twill trousers and darker grey Henley top, not wanting to find himself wrong-footed or wrong-trousered again with Mycroft. "For wherever we're going?"
Mycroft smiled enigmatically. "We're staying in." He tilted his head toward the kitchen. "This way."
Greg followed him down the hallway, through the kitchen, and down a back stairway into a small room on a lower level of the villa that Greg hadn't discovered in his initial explorations. It was a cozy, stone-walled room set in an area of the house where the garden sloped down, opening onto a covered patio. An elegant chandelier-style fixture hung from a coffered wood ceiling over a high stone table set in the center of the room. A worktop with a sink, an array of glassware, and a pebbled stone floor completed what was apparently a wine tasting room. There was already an array of wines bottles, an assortment of stemmed glassware, a basket of sliced bread, and a pitcher of water arranged along the stone table.
Greg had the strong impression that Mycroft was resisting the urge to exclaim, "Ta da!" as his surprise was revealed. He looked well pleased with himself, in any case, and Greg hid a grin at this uncharacteristic and utterly delightful display of enthusiasm behind his hand.
"I will be your sommelier for the afternoon," Mycroft said with a small bow.
"Wine tasting?" Greg grinned and seated himself on a stool at the tall table. "This looks a little like one of Sherlock's chemistry projects, actually."
Mycroft let Greg's mention of his brother pass without comment. "I've…noted that you enjoy wine upon occasion."
"I do, yeah, from time to time. Although I'm usually more one for a pint."
"And I generally prefer whisky," Mycroft nodded, satisfied. "But there is an aspect of this experience that I especially wished to share."
"What's that?"
Mycroft selected a bottle of wine, already uncorked, and poured two small glasses. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and Greg looked at the freckles on his forearms and wondered where else he was freckled. "It isn't just about the taste of the wine. It's about the scent. The texture. The memories it evokes." He put one glass on the table and slid it toward Greg, holding his gaze. "It's sensual."
Greg felt his heart rate jump.
"I've selected an assortment of local and regional wines for us to sample." Mycroft held his glass up by the stem and inspected the color of the wine against the light from the doors to the patio.
Greg mirrored Mycroft's action and raised his glass for scrutiny. The wine was a nice pale gold color, he supposed. "Are these 'the best' wines?"
Mycroft lowered his eyes when he smiled this time. "No. But they're very good." He swirled the wine in his glass and inhaled. "Mmm," he hummed in appreciation. "Floral perfume…ethereal…but with a tang of citrus. Can you smell it?"
Greg sniffed at his glass hesitantly. It did smell a little like…oranges? "I've never been very good at this," he confessed with another, deeper sniff. "I can never smell what I'm supposed to smell."
"I am, perhaps, better equipped for such an endeavor," Mycroft joked wryly. Joked? Yes, he'd made a joke! About his nose. Greg huffed a startled laugh as Mycroft continued. "Please, don't concern yourself with how you think you should experience the wine. This is…" Mycroft fixed him with a suddenly earnest look. "I want this to be…fun." He pronounced the final word cautiously, as if it were the first time he'd ever said it aloud and wasn't quite sure how it was supposed to sound.
Greg wanted to kiss him, but he resisted the urge to crawl over the table to do so. "Um, and you should know I never taste what I'm supposed to taste, either, but I'll try."
"Close your eyes," Mycroft suggested, bending forward and resting his elbows on the table to watch Greg intently.
Greg felt very aware of his mouth, his face, his body under that stare. "All right." Greg closed his eyes and took a sip of his wine. His eyes opened again in surprise at the taste. "Oh. It's…kind of…buzzy?" He waved his hand, searching the air for adjectives.
Mycroft smiled satisfaction at him and took a sip from his glass. "That's the acidity. It invigorates the palate."
Greg took another sip. "It tastes like summer." He wondered if Mycroft's tongue also felt fizzy.
Mycroft's smile widened with obvious approval. "Nectarines and honey."
Greg smiled back, pleased at having pleased Mycroft and feeling just absurdly…pleased with everything. He certainly wasn't drunk on two sips of wine. It must be something else. He took one more sip. "Wait, I'm not supposed to be spitting it out, am I?"
"While that is the usual practice at a formal tasting, here, with me, it is absolutely your decision whether or not you prefer to swallow."
Greg's eyes flew toward Mycroft, widening, but Mycroft had turned to rinse out his glass in the little worktop sink. He turned back with what Greg suspected was a residue of humor in his eyes, and took Greg's glass as well. Greg cleared his throat. "Next one?"
"We'll allow a short interval of time for our palates to clear," Mycroft informed him. "Help yourself to water or bread if you like. We can…converse."
Greg didn't bother hiding his grin. He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and his chin propped up on one hand. "What would you like to talk about?"
Mycroft settled himself atop a stool opposite Greg and rested his hands in his lap. "I suppose we're past 'tell me about yourself'?" He smiled crookedly.
Greg snorted. "Well, you tell me—is there anything that's not in your reports? No, it's all right," he added as Mycroft's eyes grew concerned. "I understand about that sort of thing, you know." Mycroft looked a little unconvinced, but he nodded his acceptance of Greg's reassurance along with his implicit acknowledgement of the existence of these not-supposed-to-exist reports. Not that Greg had any doubts of their existence in the first place. He expected Mycroft knew things about his life that he himself didn't know or could no longer remember. He wondered whether he should find the situation disturbing but ultimately…he didn't. There was something liberating about being thoroughly known…and still admired. Something that made him want to return the favor. "I don't have a file on you, though. You should tell me something."
"Something like…what?"
"Something personal. Something that wouldn't be in a file, even if there was one."
Mycroft pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "I like to cook."
"You told me that at New Year's," Greg reminded him.
"Did I?" Mycroft blinked.
"Yeah. You provided me with copious detail for almost two hours on desserts you'd made." He couldn't miss Mycroft's embarrassed look, although he wasn't sure whether Mycroft was embarrassed because he didn't remember the conversation or because of the reminder of their tentative and subsequently abandoned first flirtation. He didn't want him to feel embarrassed. "No, it was…cute. All right, tell me why, then."
Mycroft shrugged. "I find it relaxing. Peaceful. Creative."
Greg tilted his head. "And who do you usually cook this peaceful, creative food for?"
Mycroft shook his head as if puzzled by the question. "Myself."
For himself by himself. Greg supposed that was not necessarily a bad thing, although in the context of his own life it brought to mind beans on toast or takeaway eaten in front of the telly.
"I'd like to cook for you," Mycroft offered. He looked at Greg in that slightly shy way that made Greg's heart skip. "Sometime. If you'd like."
"Yeah. I would." He looked at the freckles on Mycroft's arms again. He wondered what the fabric of his shirt felt like. It looked soft.
"I think it's time for the next wine," Mycroft said quietly, moving to pick up a second bottle and two fresh glasses. He poured the wine, a red this time, and slid Greg's glass across the top of the stone table. He gathered his sommelier demeanor around him again and lifted his glass. "This is a 2009 cuvée from the Languedoc region, a blend of the Rhône's Syrah and Grenache grapes."
"Mmm, fascinating," Greg grinned, watching Mycroft. He held the wine up to the light and glanced at it. Kind of reddish-purple. His eyes returned to Mycroft.
"The estate was established in 1664 by monks who brought a new shrub, a berry, from Corsica to the Languedoc."
Greg sniffed the wine. It did smell like berries. Greg took a sip.
"You may be able to taste the black and red berries distinctly. Let the wine linger, let it spread across your tongue," Mycroft advised. "It will improve your sense of taste." He demonstrated, taking a sip of his wine, tilting his head back slightly, elongating the line of his throat and closing his eyes.
Fucking hell.
Greg finished the rest of his glass in a gulp that no doubt would have horrified Mycroft if he'd seen it. Mycroft's eyes did fly open when Greg set his glass down with a loud clink, slid off his stool, and strode around the table. He took Mycroft's glass from his fingers and pulled him into a deep kiss. Mycroft made a startled sound and then melted completely into him, wrapping his arms around Greg's waist. Greg slid his fingers into the hair on the back of Mycroft's head. It was as soft as it looked. Greg sucked his tongue, licked at the corners of his lips. When he pulled away he said huskily, "I can taste spices in your mouth."
"Greg," Mycroft breathed, looking dazed. His cheeks were very flushed now, and his hair was beautifully disheveled.
I did that. Greg's body told him to press in further, to press Mycroft against the wall and taste every part of him. With their hips pressed together as they were by the end of the kiss, Greg was in no doubt that Mycroft was just as aroused as he was. Something made him hesitate, though. He ran his hands from Mycroft's shoulders to his chest. His shirt was soft, too. The hollow of his throat was soft. Vulnerable. "I'm sorry," Greg murmured. What was he sorry for? He looked over Mycroft's shoulder at the carefully-arranged bottles of wine lined up on the worktop.
Greg stepped back and Mycroft ran a slightly shaky hand through his hair, failing completely to smooth it back into place. "Not at all." His voice was shaky, too. "I think you may have introduced an element to the tasting process that has been long-overlooked at the more formal events. I shall have to make them aware of the oversight."
Greg tugged at the placket at the front of Mycroft's shirt playfully. "I'll be really put out if you snog anyone else this way." And he meant that sincerely, playful tone or not.
Mycroft hooked his finger into the vee at the top of Greg's Henley top and gave it little tug. He dropped his head. "Greg. I…want you, too. I…just…I…" His voice was tight.
"It's all right." He kissed Mycroft's jaw and ran his hand down the back of his neck. "Let's try the next wine, then?"
Mycroft nodded and plucked up the next bottle enthusiastically. "Ah. 2006 Corbières Rouge, with an old-vine Carignan base. Aged in small barriques. Earthy and expressive. I hope you'll be able to smell the violet!" He smiled broadly as he poured two glasses.
"Mycroft? Um. Are we incorporating that missing element of the tasting process, then? Going forward, I mean?"
Mycroft pulled out the stool beside his for Greg and put his glass in front of it. "I think that would be beneficial, don't you?"
xxx
The afternoon sun shone through the sheer white curtains of John and Sherlock's bedroom window. Sherlock was in complete disarray on his back in their bed with one hand clutched in their sheets, one hand gripping John's arm, one heel hooked over John's shoulder, and John between his legs.
John's hands were small and strong and they were everywhere, as though he manifested extra ones when they were in bed together just so he could use them to remind Sherlock that the back of his neck was so very sensitive and his thighs had long muscles in them and his toes were ticklish and he liked having his belly stroked and fingers on his throat and his nipples lightly pinched and his bicep squeezed and his hand held tightly when it was John.
"John," he gasped as John shifted his position…effectively. "Unnh." Why did he feel the pressure against his prostate behind his teeth as well? "John. There. Right there. Don't stop." He didn't know why. He didn't know anything at all and he didn't care. He wrapped his hand around his own erection and that was good, very, very good, and every time John pushed into him there was friction and he had to stroke and groan he couldn't help it he had to.
It was fine, because John was making noises, too. John made ridiculous noises during sex. And whispered ridiculous things. And you were allowed to laugh, you were meant to laugh sometimes, and it was all fine. Now it was John's hand around his cock, hot, quick, urging, urgent. Sex was like a game and games were like sex and John was inside him and he'd won and he wanted to find a way to be inside John at the same time, impossibly and inextricably interjoined. John was watching his face and his eyes were so—oh. "Oh." yes "…ssss…" yes John yes yes there yes more keep yes John "…John…" yes John yes yes.
When Sherlock opened his eyes again—and, damn it, he'd wanted not to close them, he wanted to watch John's face be ridiculous and beautiful—his abdomen was coated and sticky and so was a patch of the sheet under him. John was hovering above him on all fours and covering his face in murmurs and kisses. "Any good?" Sherlock asked with a light touch to John's hair.
"Very good," John rumbled, and kissed one of his eyebrows, and the side of his nose, and his mouth.
"You cheated again," he chided, petting John's back, "with that ball of fire."
"I won." John grinned in triumph, rolling off the bed and heading for the bathroom. "Be right back, I'll get a towel."
Wrong…and wrong, Sherlock thought smugly as he picked up the horrid yellow t-shirt from beside the bed and mopped his stomach with it.
xxx
Mon bien-aimé = My beloved
xxx
