Fic for kedgeree11: Opposition Party - Part 3
Sherlock was gesticulating wildly as Sylvius and Merton were being led away, but he stopped short in the middle of a flail and peered at Greg. He stepped closer to examine Greg's neck and pulled a look of revulsion. "Ugh. Who was she?"
Greg tried to look as innocent as possible. "Who is who?"
"Don't give me that look. The woman. The poor female who took pity on your loneliness and slept with you this afternoon."
"Sherlock," John said.
"I don't think it's any of your business." Greg folded his arms.
"I hope it wasn't anyone I know." The expression on Sherlock's face indicated just what he thought of that prospect, and Greg almost laughed in his face.
John stepped up to him with a smile and shoved Sherlock out of the way. "Well. Congratulations, I guess? Moving on?"
Greg felt himself go pink, unfortunately. "Look, can we not talk about this?"
John shrugged as if it were nothing. "Sure. Not a problem."
"She wasn't your ex, was she? No, wouldn't be, hickeys are often proprietary markings, and of your ex-wife's many issues, jealousy is obviously not one."
"Sherlock..." Greg warned him. If Sherlock ever figured out what was going on, recollection of this conversation was going to require a lobotomy.
"Love bites are also marks of passion, which she hasn't shared with you in years. Also, they tend to be made by inexperienced lovers."
Oh, this was too funny. Still, Greg had to shut him down. "Sherlock, be quiet, or I won't let you examine what else Sylvius had in his pockets."
Foiled, Sherlock scowled and flounced out of the room, then spun immediately back to retrieve his wax double. The two of them disappeared down the corridor and the bedroom door slammed behind them.
"I absolutely do not want to know what he plans to do with that sculpture now," John said.
Greg grimaced. "Don't put ideas in my head."
John smirked, but didn't seem too horrified. "So. Can we come down to the station in the morning? I think Himself is going to need a good night's sleep after three days on the hunt."
"You look like you could use some rest yourself," Greg pointed out.
"That obvious?" John gave him a mischievous smile.
Greg's eyes narrowed. "What am I missing?"
John waved that away. "Nothing. I just had fun on this case, is all."
"Well, I'm glad to know you take cases because they're fun." Greg softened it with a smirk as he moved toward the door.
"You know what I mean."
"I do, actually. Much to Pitts' chagrin."
John snorted and opened the door for him. "10am?"
"I'll see you then. Thanks, John."
"Of course. Have fun with your paperwork."
John flashed a cheeky grin and Greg rolled his eyes. "Tosser." The door closed behind him, and Greg let out a slow breath. That could have been massively embarrassing. He hadn't the foggiest idea whether he wanted a repeat of this afternoon or not, but the concept of revealing it to Sherlock and John didn't help his decision in the slightest.
Greg spent the next morning in an agony of low-level, sublimated horniness. It was as if breaking the seal on his enforced chastity had left him completely without barriers. He had inappropriate thoughts about everyone he saw, including John and Sherlock, PC Maillard, and the courier dressed head-to-toe in leather who dropped off some packages at the mailroom. Once again he was reminded of the embarrassing riot of hormones that were involved in being a teenager, fancying everyone he knew-or, at least, wanting to have sex with them.
At least this time he had the self-control of a middle-aged man more used to his body, but that didn't keep him from absentmindedly rubbing his lips with his fingertips as he read a report, or shifting in his seat so often he became over-aware of its squeak.
There was a ruckus outside Greg's office, and he threw down his biro to see what was going on. A team of men and women in expensive black suits were gathering up evidence bags from last week's case and sitting down at computer terminals. The displaced officers were standing around looking distressed, confused, and furious. Greg strode up to one of the the black-clad interlopers.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The young man ignored him, but another approached Greg and handed him a note. It read, simply, "M." Greg spun on his heel and slammed the door to his office behind him.
"What do you think you're doing?" he said into his mobile when the other end picked up.
"Exercising my authority," Mycroft said.
"Did you really just send a team down to claim jurisdiction over the evidence in the Lambert case?"
"As well as all your computer files."
"You're allowed to just...hack into my system?"
"Oh no, this is all perfectly legal. I do so enjoy going through the proper channels and still getting what I want."
"Why are you doing this, Mycroft?"
"Because I need to. And I can."
"You need to?"
"Oh, Inspector, I'm afraid this is beyond your salary grade."
"Why is it that when you say my name these days it sounds like an insult?"
"What the ear hears..."
"Fine." Greg scowled. "I suppose I have to trust that you know what you're doing. You are aware of the larger implications for this case, right?"
"She'll walk."
"Yes. And you're comfortable with that?"
"Of course I'm not comfortable with it. But it must be done."
"For important reasons."
Mycroft sighed as if it pained him, though Greg suspected it did not. "Yes."
Greg said flatly, "Heavy the head that wears the crown."
"Inspector," Mycroft said, sounding disgustingly pleased, "I do believe you're not half so idiotic as you pretend to be."
"Well. I'm flattered and insulted. Just another afternoon with Mycroft Holmes."
"I do so like to be consistent."
It was infuriating. But as much as Greg wanted to be angry with Mycroft right now, a large part of his lizard brain wanted to express this anger by holding Mycroft down against the desk and fucking the hell out of him, and that wasn't doing good things to his ability to focus. He could almost smell Mycroft's cologne right there. "Why are you always trying to make me angry?"
"That's just my charm, I suppose."
The derision in Mycroft's voice put paid to any thoughts of a repeat performance. It was absolutely dripping with condescension. Okay, then. "So I'm just going to have to take this lying down?"
"There's no use putting up a fight, no. You'll find all of this is perfectly legal."
"You are an incredible arse, Mycroft."
"So I've been told."
Greg hung up without saying goodbye and tossed the phone onto his desk. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Ugh. So much for all that work last week. He hoped that whatever Mycroft was doing, letting Lambert go free and risking more lives, was worth it. He hoped Mycroft was sure about his endgame.
There was a call on Greg's mobile. "Lestrade, you've been summoned for a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner," said his Chief Super, sounding distracted and busy and in absolutely no mood to mess about.
Greg's stomach seized. "What."
"There's a meeting you need to attend at 3pm. Dress nicely; there are going to be important people there."
"What?"
"That's all I know right now. That address, three in the afternoon, important meeting, wear a suit."
"But I-"
"Just do it, please."
Greg rang off and pressed the edge of the phone against his mouth, mind whirring. What in the hell is this shit about? Was he in trouble? Was there a problem? The Assistant Commissioner? What was he meant to have done now?
He snuck out without anyone asking where he was going, which was a blessing because he couldn't for the life of him focus on anything except his diffuse panic. He didn't want to face the Assistant Commissioner, he didn't want to put on a damn suit, and he absolutely hated not feeling prepared. He showered and changed at home, put on the suit he used for press conferences, and made it out to the correct office by 2:55.
He took the lift up to the correct floor, and when he stepped out into the cold corridor he stopped short. One of Mycroft's assistants was sitting on a bench outside the Assistant Commissioner's office. Her eyes flickered over him and she gave him a wry smile.
"Shut up," he said, and she fully smirked at him before going back to typing on her mobile.
There was the sound of a running tap in the lavatory behind them, and the sound of a hand dryer, then Mycroft emerged. "Before you ask, no, I do not know what this is about."
"How can you not know?"
"I do not know everything."
Greg blinked at him in disbelief, and to his surprise the corner of Mycroft's mouth twitched with humour. It helped, just a little. The nervous flutter in his stomach eased, the anger softened, and Greg sat down on the bench to prop his elbows on his knees. "I guess it goes without saying that I have no idea what's going on."
"I assumed."
For a brief moment Greg almost smacked him, but decided that decorum was the better part of valour.
The corridor was carpeted in a cheap, industrial blue, and Greg slid the slick leather sole of his dress shoe along the pile for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say. He completely failed. Furthermore, he was still frustrated with Mycroft. Frustrated, annoyed, angry, and worst of all, craving his touch. Greg stood up and paced away from the Assistant Commissioner's door, then back towards it. It opened.
"Gentlemen," she said, and stood back in an implicit invitation for them to enter. Greg's gaze flicked up to Mycroft's for a split second but he saw nothing helpful, so he walked in first. The assistant stayed outside.
"Ms. Callihan," Mycroft said in a slightly greasy tone, sticking his hand out. Greg supposed that was his "sucking up" voice. He had probably been head boy. To Greg's surprise-and fear-she was having none of it. She gave Mycroft's hand a perfunctory shake but remained frosty.
Callihan and Greg exchanged nods and she gestured for them to sit. "Now," she said. "I read a disturbing report over the weekend." She slid an open file across her desk over to them. It was, plainly, the write-up of what happened with Melas's kidnapping.
"Inspector Lestrade, please explain to me exactly how you came to find Mr. Melas and Mr. Kratides?"
Greg flushed with nervousness and blinked at her. "Well, it's... Ma'am, as I wrote in the file-"
"I know what you wrote in the file. And I know what you told Chief Superintendent Pitts. What I can't seem to understand is why, exactly, you thought it would be a good idea to investigate this case on your own, outside of standard protocol, without backup."
"Ah, well, if you'll note, ma'am, Sherlock Holmes-"
"Inspector Lestrade, do I seem like the sort of person who wants excuses?"
"No, ma'am."
"If I ask you this question again, are you just going to give me excuses?"
"I...don't know, ma'am."
She scowled and looked to Mycroft. "Mr. Holmes. Is it true your brother took on the case first, independently, before the police became involved?"
Mycroft swallowed and lied. "Yes, ma'am."
"Is it true you called in Inspector Lestrade instead of the proper authorities?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is it also true that, in the past, you've managed to use the authorities properly, even if you did so only to request Inspector Lestrade be assigned to the case?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"So clearly you know how these things are supposed to work. Mr. Holmes, I don't appreciate you placing my officers in this position. Obviously you used the time-sensitive nature of the case to coerce Inspector Lestrade into investigating outside the sanctioned purview of the Metropolitan Police."
Mycroft opened his mouth, but Greg cut in. "He did, but I didn't have to listen to him." Both of them turned to look at Greg. "It wouldn't have been the first time I told him to take a walk."
"Then why didn't you?" she asked.
"Because he's a good detective," Mycroft said, and both heads swivelled to look at him. "He's a good man, and I used that against him."
Callihan narrowed her eyes. "I don't know who you think you are, but you do not have the authority to call in my officers to help with private investigations, no matter your intentions."
Mycroft seemed frozen. Greg waited for him to pull out his real credentials, but instead Mycroft relaxed back against his seat. "I understand, ma'am."
It was odd, seeing Mycroft submit like that, and it made Greg supremely uncomfortable for some reason. It was like looking at a particularly well-crafted mask. No-it was, Greg thought, not unlike watching Sherlock sham for a case, and once again he found himself marvelling at how well the Holmes brothers had learned to lie. Greg sat forward. "As I wrote in the report, ma'am, I did what I thought was best at the time."
"And I think your judgement was flawed." Both Greg and Mycroft sat quietly and waited for the hammer to fall-surely Greg was going to be suspended, or worse. She glared. "I don't like this. At all. I think you showed extremely poor decision-making skills, Inspector, and I absolutely think you need to stop taking phone calls from Mr. Holmes." Her gaze flicked between both of them. "You should have known better."
Greg waited on tenterhooks for her to continue. His mouth was dry as dust. "However," Callihan added, "Your DCS speaks highly of you and your work, and he has assured me that you are capable of rectifying your behaviour. So I'm not going to argue for your suspension." Greg's muscles went rubbery with relief. "However, you can consider this a warning. Put one more toe out of line with Mr. Holmes, and there will be consequences. Do we understand each other?"
After a grating swallow, Greg could answer. "We do, ma'am. Yes. Thank you."
"And you." She turned her attention to Mycroft. "I think you'd better rethink just how you use my resources for your private investigations, kidnapping or not. If there is trouble, you contact the police through the proper channels."
Mycroft nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good." She nodded at them, looking them over. "Inspector Lestrade, you're dismissed. And you too." Callihan looked back down at her desk and picked up a folder.
Greg couldn't get out of there fast enough. It felt as though insects were crawling underneath his skin. He walked straight out her door and over to the lift, not stopping to look at either Mycroft or his assistant. He stabbed at the button and waited with his hands behind his back, jiggling his keys and staring up at the lighted indicator over the lift door.
Mycroft stepped up close to him. "Inspector. I would like a word with you."
First floor, second floor...
Mycroft leaned forward slightly. "Inspector."
...Third floor...
Then Mycroft said, quiet and almost at a growl, "Gregory."
Oh god. Greg's brain lit up with arousal, and he closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. He let it out slowly. "What."
"I would like to have a word with you. Privately."
"Can't you just say it now?" The doors opened, but Greg didn't step into the lift.
Mycroft did, however, and he held the doors open for his assistant and then for a very reluctant Greg. They slid closed.
"Well?" Greg asked, his eyes flicking to the assistant. He rather fancied an audience for whatever this would turn out to be.
But Mycroft ignored him until the flat reached the ground floor and his assistant left. She disappeared instantly into the foot traffic on the pavement, leaving Greg alone with Mycroft in a gently-moving sea of people. "Where did you park your car?" Mycroft bent his head and spoke directly into Greg's ear. Greg stifled a shudder.
"A couple of streets away," he rasped.
"Do you have a moment?"
Greg gritted his teeth. "No."
"Will you tomorrow?"
"No, Mycroft."
"When may I-"
"Mycroft," Greg said and spun to face him. That put him directly in front of Mycroft, only six inches away, which was not his best plan ever. He was warm and close and soft and horribly, terribly desirable. "You need to stop. You heard Callihan; I cannot lose this job. This is it. This is what I do. This is all I have right now."
"You didn't give me up."
Greg looked up into Mycroft's strangely vulnerable face. "What?"
"You didn't... You lied about Sherlock having been on the case first. You never said I enlisted your help before I had Sherlock's. You didn't say I was using you and your exhaustion to get my way."
"You said I was a good detective."
"I said you were a good man." Mycroft's words echoed around Greg's head before someone jostled them on the pavement and Greg stepped back safely out of Mycroft's sphere of influence.
He cleared his throat. "That fact was between us. It didn't matter."
"Of course it did."
Greg looked around at all the people walking past, going to meetings or home or the shops. "Do we have to do this here?"
"Come back to my office." Mycroft's gaze bored into him.
This was an insanely bad idea. "When?"
"Now. We can take my car."
"I'm not going to leave my car-"
"We can come back for it. Please. Inspector."
Greg took a steadying breath and made a poor decision. "I think I like it better when you call me 'Gregory.'"
The expression on Mycroft's face was stunned. Without a word, he walked down the pavement, and Greg followed him to where the black car was waiting. Mycroft slid in, then Greg, and Mycroft shut the door behind them.
"What about...er...your assistant?"
"She can follow behind."
Tension was forming at the base of Greg's spine, in his thighs, in his shoulders, and anticipation thudded with every beat of his heart. Mycroft leaned back against his seat but didn't stop looking at him, the flush blooming on his cheeks obvious even in the shadow of the car's interior. Mycroft licked his lips, leaving them shiny. Greg remembered clearly how hot and wet that mouth was, and it took all his restraint not to launch himself across the aisle between the seats to taste it again.
The car rumbled over a rough bit of pavement, and the butterflies in Greg's stomach roiled. "You were manipulating me."
"And you were perfectly aware of that fact."
Greg swallowed and blinked into a small nod. "I was."
"Melas's life might have been in danger had we involved the authorities," Mycroft said quietly.
"We don't let that stop us. We find a way around it."
"But you didn't this time." Mycroft's gaze bored intently into Greg.
"I didn't think about it. I just did it. Because you asked me to." Greg looked across the aisle at Mycroft, who appeared uncomfortable for a moment. "Why do I do that? Really? I'm with the police for a reason, Mycroft. I want people to be safe and secure. But you, you just..." He glared. "You do things like let Lambert go free, and you won't tell me why except, 'we have our reasons'. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to-"
"We have her."
Greg wasn't sure he heard him correctly. "You what?"
"We have her." Mycroft was tracing his finger up and down a seam in the seat, which probably would have been distracting had Greg not been angry and completely boggled by where this conversation had gone. "She was only at liberty for an hour before we incarcerated her in our own facilities."
Greg leaned forward. "When were you going to tell me?"
"If it became necessary."
"You are unbelieveable." His chest was tight.
"We both got what we needed."
Greg scooted forward on his seat. "You need to tell me these things."
"I do not."
"You need to tell me these things. Trust me. Tell me so I don't feel so goddamn-"
"I trust you."
"No, I don't believe you do."
"I'm learning to."
"No. You're just trying to soften me up so I don't think about why, with one word from you, I completely abandoned my responsibilities and went off to solve a crime with Sherlock like someone with a Batman complex."
"If you ask me, I think you were enjoying yourself too much."
"Well I didn't ask you." Arsehole.
"I think the case at Dartmoor reminded you what it's like to go outside your usual parameters, and you miss it."
"Fuck you." The tension in the car was rapidly spinning into a different sort entirely, a more unpleasant kind.
"Am I wrong?"
"Yes."
"You don't like feeling like a hero, sometimes? Not being hampered by your official role?"
"Vigilantism is a slippery slope and harmful-"
"Gregory." Greg shut up immediately. Mycroft continued. "Spare me the party line. You found it exciting, didn't you."
Greg restrained the urge to punch Mycroft in his smug, pointy face. But he had to admit to himself that yes, he'd found being needed to be intensely satisfying, and to be flying without a net invigorating, and looking back he realised he'd been doing some really good work over the last few weeks because of this massive dickhead and his machinations. "...Yes," he said.
But instead of an expression of victory, Mycroft's gaze turned darker. "I did too."
Oh. Greg took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"We make a good team," Mycroft said, not breaking eye contact. "I like watching you do your job well. You like being given license to do what's necessary to restore peace. You are...good. Good at it. And I like to watch you do it. I like to make you do it."
Greg swallowed. "You just like manipulating me."
"Of course. But you like being given control. Unhampered."
"I have a team. I can't just go off and do whatever I want because it gives me some sort of jollies."
"I have a team too. We both have to make tough decisions. No one knows better than I how seductive it is to break out of the shackles sometimes."
"Sometimes."
Mycroft blinked. "Of course. You wouldn't be yourself if you completely abandoned the rigid tenets of the police force. And for all its faults, working within the legal restrictions of the government has benefits for me."
"So what the hell are you talking about, Mycroft?"
"I am saying..." Mycroft licked his lips. "That when you break out of your bindings to do something heroic, I want to be there. And if I do something outside of my usual role, I'd like you to watch."
Greg exhaled. "That sounds a bit kinky."
The corner of Mycroft's mouth quirked up. "If you like."
"You have a hell of a seduction technique." Greg huffed a laugh and scrubbed his face with his hand. Jesus.
One of Mycroft's eyebrows lifted. "Is that what I'm doing?"
At that, Greg just had to smile. What an arse. "Shut up."
They spent the last three minutes of the car ride in silence.
Greg shoved his hands in his pockets once they arrived at Mycroft's building, and he kept them there in the lift and the outer corridor. He found himself slowly digging his fingernails into his thigh. But as soon as the office door closed behind them, he reached for Mycroft.
They came together violently, one of Greg's hands scooping up the back of Mycroft's head and the other closing around his back, crushing them together in a ridiculous, heart-stopping, open-mouthed kiss. Mycroft whined into it, clutching desperately to Greg's suit, and the sound nearly buckled Greg's knees. "Oh christ."
The sound Mycroft made was a bit broken and pathetic as he seemed to be trying to force them both into the same place in space-time. "Not quite, no," he said. His arms closed like a vice about Greg's ribs and he tilted his head to kiss Greg with bruising force.
Greg fisted both hands in Mycroft's hair and held on for the ride. After a few moments, he fought back and shoved his tongue into Mycroft's mouth to stunning effect. Mycroft broke into a frenzy, whimpering and letting his hands clutch everywhere they could grip: Greg's back, his arse, his hips, his elbows, the sides of his face, the back of his neck. Mycroft's hands were everywhere, as if he couldn't decide how best to hold him. Greg took pity on him by grabbing him round the waist and the back of the head again and pinning him into a deep, gulping kiss.
Greg's focus had shattered into a million pieces, but it was still clear this wasn't nearly enough. He couldn't stop moving; half of the reason he held on to Mycroft so tightly was to keep himself from squirming out of his embrace entirely with the desperate, overwhelming sensation of need.
They both were breathing deeply, roughly, quickly as Greg tore off his jacket and Mycroft ripped off his own. But even that time apart was too long, and they crashed together again into another violent kiss. Mycroft bit Greg's lower lip and Greg gasped. "Fuck, I want you so badly."
"I couldn't focus," Mycroft said. "I couldn't focus."
"I've been turned on for three days." Greg shuddered as both Mycroft's hands came up to cradle Greg's head and tilt it into a deeper kiss. Shaking, Greg fumbled for Mycroft's belt buckle and felt him whimper. He dragged his knuckles up the thin placket of Mycroft's dress trousers and found him already hard, as if he had been on the edge of arousal and just needed a few gasping kisses to coax him to a full erection. Greg groaned at the thought. He knew the feeling.
"Do you know," Mycroft said in between kisses, unfastening Greg's belt buckle, "how many times in the past thirteen years I've masturbated in that bathroom? Once." He moaned as he opened up Greg's flies and palmed his hardening cock. His voice was rough when he next spoke. "Do you know how many times I've been forced to masturbate in that bathroom since the last time you were here? Once a day."
"You've had a wank in there three times this week?" Greg tried to envision what that looked like as he slid Mycroft's open trousers down to his ankles, and his cock jumped. He imagined the flush on Mycroft's face as he carefully stepped out of his trousers and pants, laid them neatly on the sink, and wanked furiously until he came into the shower. He moaned. "I need to watch that."
Mycroft froze for a moment, then as the thought trickled down he almost convulsed with arousal. "Oh my god," he breathed. "Yes. Watch me."
Greg's brain was hazy, but he knew a kink when he saw one. The thought burned down his spine. He grabbed Mycroft's face again for a frenzied kiss.
Mycroft's hands knotted in the back of Greg's shirt, pulling it tight across his front, but when Greg reciprocated his hands slipped on the silky back of Mycroft's waistcoat. He started unbuttoning Mycroft's waistcoat from the bottom up, and after a moment Mycroft began unbuttoning it from the top down. Mycroft flailed in his haste to wriggle out of it and let it fall to the floor. Greg immediately shoved his hands underneath Mycroft's vest and shirt and scraped at the skin of his back. Mycroft hissed then melted against him. Greg bit him on the neck. There was a startling moment where Mycroft twitched with a violent jerk, but that moment melted into arousal when Mycroft moaned bitterly and ground against Greg's thigh. "Jesus, you're sensitive." Greg trailed his fingertips against the toothmarks, making Mycroft shiver, then lightly kissed the spot.
"It's been a while."
"How long?"
"I'll tell you later," Mycroft said. "I'm a bit busy." And with that he dropped down and mouthed over the bulge of Greg's erection trapped inside his boxers.
Greg huffed for breath as his head fell back, and he rested his hand gently on the top of Mycroft's head. He just barely resisted the urge to shove his groin harder into Mycroft's face. It was a close thing; he couldn't remember the last time someone's mouth had been this close to his cock.
He waited for Mycroft to pull down his boxers, or pull his erection out through the flies, but instead Mycroft just hummed with pleasure and started nosing around, breathing in audibly. Mycroft moaned and stood to capture Greg's mouth in a sloppy, wet kiss. Greg felt his cock twitch harder. He was going to be desperate in about thirty seconds. Oh, hell. He was desperate now.
Greg grabbed one of Mycroft's wrists, causing Mycroft to pull back with a startled look. But all Greg did was start unbuttoning the cuffs. There was a light of understanding in Mycroft's eyes, and a few moments were spent unfastening each other's collars and cuffs before Greg lost patience, grabbed the hems of both of Mycroft's shirts, and stripped them over his head.
Mycroft pushed his pants down and stood there in front of Greg, naked except for shoes and socks, trousers and boxer briefs puddled around his ankles, and Greg's hands itched to touch. He looked thinner than he felt-a well-constructed structure of fine bones and soft skin, flushed blotchily from his face down into his chest but milk-pale otherwise, freckled and sparsely furred and fucking gorgeous. His eyes, when Greg finally dragged his gaze up to his face, were full of terror.
Greg swallowed down his own nervousness. "You're beautiful," he murmured.
Mycroft's brow furrowed. "Shhhh," he said, before his hands came up to cradle Greg's face into a passionate kiss. Greg toed off his shoes and pulled Mycroft close.
The skin on his back was even nicer to touch without his vest dragging against Greg's knuckles, so Greg gave his hands free rein up to Mycroft's shoulders and all the way down to his arse. He skated his knuckles up Mycroft's spine, making him shudder.
Mycroft broke the kiss to yank Greg's shirt over his head, presumably jealous of all the skin. "Let me look at you," he said.
Greg wriggled his boxers down and stood before him, unashamed of his arousal. Mycroft's eyes went even darker as he scanned Greg's body from shoulders to ankles, and when he brought them back up to Greg's face they flared. Mycroft's jaw dropped slightly and he huffed out a breath. He practically jumped Greg, then, grabbing him into a frantic and undulating embrace and kissing him for all he was worth. Greg groaned at the sensation of all that skin writhing against him. His nerve-endings were on fire.
He grabbed Mycroft's arse and ground them together at the groin, making them both moan with the friction, and Mycroft bit at his mouth. Greg was done with the slow striptease. He fully stripped off his pants and trousers and socks and felt Mycroft do the same thing, then walked them-still attached at the mouth-over to the sofa against the far wall. He yanked Mycroft down to lay on top of him.
They both moaned, loudly and unabashedly, at the feeling of it. Greg's eyes fluttered closed and he licked his lips as he grabbed Mycroft's arse with both hands and started arching up against his body, a wild thrusting that left subtlety far behind. Predictably, Mycroft responded to this blatantly sexual movement by crying out and thrusting down in counterpoint against him.
It was nothing more than rutting like teenagers again, Greg thought. What was it about sex with Mycroft that made him ignore every bit of sensuality he'd cultivated over the years and just default to desperate friction? Why did he always want so badly just to rub up against Mycroft and come?
Not until Greg had scratched his nails along every plane of Mycroft's body he could reach and had started biting and sucking on every inch of his shoulders and neck that Greg realised what this was: hunger. Greg was hungry for him, and like starving men they were pawing and filling their mouths and trying desperately to sate themselves as quickly as possible.
For some reason, the thought made Greg even hungrier.
He shoved his hand between them to grab Mycroft's cock, then lined them up together so he could shove up into his hand, against Mycroft, and hopefully stimulate Mycroft as well. Mycroft's eyes shot wide and he propped his weight on his hands to look down between their bodies and watch.
When Greg rolled his hips up for the second time he watched Mycroft's face. It contorted, his jaw dropping wide in astonishment and then squeezing into a rictus of unbearable pleasure. Success, then. The third time he did it he rolled his hips and arched his back, and Mycroft actually cried out into the room. The sound shot all the way down to Greg's balls and he flared with additional arousal. Oh my god.
Over and over again Greg thrust up into his hand and against Mycroft's cock, and each time Mycroft let out a high broken cry directly into Greg's ear, and after about thirty seconds of this Greg was so turned on that his hips slowed into a steady, slow, machine of movement, each thrust building on the previous towards what was definitely going to be a stunning orgasm. He couldn't breathe, couldn't stop, and he kept his eyes open to watch Mycroft's face as he gasped and shuddered and thundered inexorably toward his own release.
Each thrust began to let off such a wrench of pleasure that Greg began to moan on every breath. Mycroft's eyes opened and their gaze caught, and Mycroft's jaw gaped wider with shock. He made an inhuman noise. Mycroft gritted his teeth, eyes wild, and ground down against Greg with an incoherent judder of his hips before he yelled full-voiced and started to come. Greg watched him lose complete control of himself, convulsing, moaning at the top of his lungs as he spurted all over Greg's hand and belly. Greg let go of them and grabbed Mycroft's arse with both hands so he could shove up against his body, ramping up almost immediately into hard, slow thrusts that spilled into a gorgeous, satisfying, seemingly-endless orgasm.
Greg's head fell back against the armrest and he groaned repeatedly, feeling the hormones flood his system with warmth and bliss and lassitude. He slowly rolled his hips up against Mycroft's body, shuddering through an unctuous series of aftershocks, gasping to regain his breath. "Oh god yes," he moaned, squirming underneath Mycroft for a last few moments before dropping completely boneless. He blew out a breath. He couldn't move.
At some point Mycroft had melted on top of him, and was now breathing in Greg's ear and seemed spectacularly disinclined to move as well. Greg nearly dozed off before Mycroft murmured, "That was..." He blew out an unvoiced sigh. "Fantastic."
Greg's eyelids fluttered. "Uh-hunh." He still couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to.
"I feel...emptied."
"I think that's good," Greg said without really opening his mouth.
Mycroft, too, was starting to slur. "May I sleep like this?"
If he'd wanted to, Greg would have shrugged. "Whatever."
And Greg let himself fall off into a doze.
Greg blinked awake slowly. His eyes felt like sandpaper. "Whatimeizzit?"
"6:34." Mycroft sounded only marginally more awake than Greg felt.
"How do you know that?"
Mycroft shifted with an aborted attempt to point across the room. "Clock on the wall."
They were both silent for a few moments. "That was incredibly good," Greg rumbled, still not really on board with the idea of waking up. Mycroft shifted, and Greg grunted and his eyes flickered back with echoed pleasure.
Mycroft made a noise of confirmation, then settled back to nuzzle his face into Greg's chest hair. He let his weight fall fully onto Greg again.
"Are your legs off the end of the sofa?" Greg asked.
"Mm-hmm."
"Isn't that uncomfortable?"
Mycroft sort of shrugged, but said nothing.
An idea occurred to Greg. A terrible, wonderful, poorly-planned-out idea. "Wouldn't you rather do this in bed?"
Slowly, Mycroft's head lifted to look at Greg's face. Greg could feel it, but he pointedly left his head tilted back against the armrest in studied nonchalance. "I'm just saying," Greg added, "I think a repeat performance might be better conducted in a bed." A swarm of butterflies in his stomach fluttered.
He heard Mycroft swallow, then felt him bob his head. "Maybe with dinner, perhaps. And some sort of shower."
"And dessert," Greg said, a grin beginning to spread across his face as he looked down at Mycroft.
"Don't push it too far, Inspector," he said, quirking a sleepy smile. Greg laughed.
It had been a long, busy, stressful week.
"Sherlock," Greg said, massaging his fingertips into his forehead. "Did you really have to clock him over the head with the fence post?" He blinked. "Wait. Explain to me first where you got a fence post."
"It was-" Sherlock hissed as John did something in his examination of Sherlock's shoulder. He was bleeding all over John's hands, but John didn't seem to care. "It was in the lumber yard."
"You chased him through a lumber yard? Where is there a lumber yard?"
"Or maybe it was someone's storage. Whatever." His voice sounded hazy with pain and blood loss. With his free hand, Sherlock waved that away as unimportant, then he rested it on John's head and stroked his hair for a moment. Greg peered at him suspiciously.
Sally radioed from the car that the suspect-6'3" of muscle, no longer armed with a several board-feet of nail-studded oak-was finally coming around from the unconsciousness into which Sherlock, John, or both had sent him. Greg pointed at the two of them. "When I come back, you're going to tell me if I'm sending you to hospital." As he rounded the corner out of the alley, his suspicions were confirmed when he caught John pressing his lips to Sherlock's forehead. Huh.
The suspect spat and swore, but wasn't giving up anything useful at the moment. He told Sally to let him stew a while longer while he took care of Sherlock, and she pulled a face. Greg very nearly rolled his eyes at her. The grudge was tiresome.
"Sir, he can handle things on his own. He does it all the time."
It was a fair point, but as he opened his mouth to explain that while she didn't like Sherlock, Greg sadly did, so if she could kindly hold her horses while he ensured Sherlock wasn't going to go into some sort of septic coma in the middle of a filthy alley, he looked down the street to see Mycroft strolling along, spinning his umbrella without a care in the world.
His world brightened.
"He's in the alley," Greg said to him while he was still ten feet away, unable to wipe the grin from his face.
"I know."
"I know you know."
Greg sauntered around the corner toward Sherlock and John, pleased to have Mycroft at his back.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked as John finished cleaning the wounds on Sherlock's shoulder and started to inspect them.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Might I suggest a light round of antibiotics after having several puncture wounds driven into one's shoulder?"
"I've had my jabs," Sherlock said. Then he jerked as John did something to the second wound.
"It looks like you're getting your jabs again right now," Greg snarked, amused at Sherlock's usual unwillingness to just go to hospital without putting up a fight. Every damn time, he did this, even if he fully intended to go to hospital in the end. He caught Mycroft's eye, and was delighted to see humour there, with a fond smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. Greg smiled back at him for a moment.
"No." Sherlock sounded strangled. "No no." Then he groaned, and Greg looked at him. "Oh, you've got to be joking."
"What?" John asked, busy covering up the wounds with precision, for all that the bandages were temporary.
"Them," Sherlock said, and jerked his chin. "Lestrade. And Mycroft."
"What about them?" John started cleaning off his hands with another sterile wipe and scanned them both, obviously looking for some clue what Sherlock was talking about and not succeeding.
"They're...shagging," Sherlock spat with distaste, and John's face immediately cycled through a series of expressions-shock, disgust, amazement, bemusement, comprehension-before he finally settled on a not-entirely-convincing smile.
"Oh," he said. "Er, that's great." Greg supposed John had never really been Mycroft's biggest fan, but that didn't really matter. It was just sex. It's not as if they were together.
Mycroft settled in for a casual bicker with Sherlock to get him to submit to the fancy facilities to which Mycroft usually dragged him, and John stood up to get out of the line of fire.
"How long has that been going on?" John asked quietly as Mycroft crouched down to speak with his brother in low, biting tones.
Greg shrugged. "A few weeks."
"So he's what. Your boyfriend?" John was clearly putting a brave face on it, which Greg appreciated no matter that it wasn't necessary.
"No, it's casual," Greg said, shaking his head, staring at the curving line of Mycroft's back and the way he was holding his umbrella.
"Is it?" John asked, and something in his tone caught Greg's attention.
"What? Yes, definitely. Why?"
John shook his head, his eyebrows creeping toward his hairline. "No reason. No. That's... That's good. A bit of fun."
"Exactly." Ah. And here was Greg's chance to change the subject. "Like you and Sherlock?"
John flushed crimson. "Erm."
Greg smiled and chuckled at him, then clapped him on the shoulder. "The case with...the diamond thief. Sylvianus?"
"Sylvius," John corrected, then smiled sheepishly.
"You both looked knackered."
"Shut up."
"And like you'd been up to something."
"We had."
"Is that why Sherlock had hickeys on the brain?"
John's eyes shot wide. "Was that-" He pointed over his shoulder at Mycroft. "Was that him?" At Greg's smirk, John's face blossomed into an expression of delight so pure Greg was sure he was going to strain something. "Oh, wait 'til he figures it-"
"OH GOD."
"-out," John finished, and started laughing his arse off as Mycroft stood up and brushed pointlessly at his trousers.
"Oh god, just. Take me to hospital so I can get away from them and delete it. Delete it all," Sherlock was saying as Mycroft walked over to the mouth of the alley where Greg stood. He had a supremely evil smirk on his face.
"This almost makes the constant distraction worthwhile," Mycroft said, leaning over and purring against Greg's ear.
Greg smirked, his arms breaking out in gooseflesh. "Almost?"
"Very nearly."
"You two are such children."
Sherlock scowled at them as John ushered him out of the alley towards Mycroft's car. John flashed an amused grin as they went past.
When they were gone, Mycroft looked around them and took Greg by the jaw, pulling him up into a brief kiss. "Tonight?"
"Can't tonight," Greg said, and kissed him again as an apology. "Paperwork. I'll be done far too late for supper."
"I wasn't talking about supper."
A slow grin spread across Greg's face. "Well now that's all I'm going to be thinking about while I'm filling out reports."
"Good." Mycroft kissed him again. "I wouldn't want to think I took the night off for no reason."
"The entire world won't fall to pieces if you take the night off to shag like rabbits?"
"I've ensured it won't."
"Lucky me."
For a moment, Mycroft flashed a smile that stopped Greg's heart. It was real-lines around his eyes and nose, white teeth, bright eyes-and beautiful for all that it was fleeting. Greg blinked and Mycroft's usual expression of quiet amusement was set in place again. He wondered if some day that happiness might linger. He leaned up to kiss him softly.
"Isn't your sergeant going to wonder where you are?"
"Let her wait," Greg said against Mycroft's mouth.
"Prerogative of the boss?"
"You should know."
Mycroft's nimble fingers scratched at the back of Greg's neck, making him shiver.
"Are you going to tell me tonight why you were in Dartmoor?" Greg asked, capturing Mycroft's face in both hands and sucking lightly on his lower lip.
"No," Mycroft said.
"Are you ever?"
"No."
"Evil."
"Obviously."
"I'm going to go back to work, then." Greg couldn't stop kissing him.
"Wise." Mycroft nuzzled his face into Greg's hair. "I need to bring Sherlock to hospital."
"I will be a responsible boss. And then later I can make you scream."
Mycroft shivered, then chuckled, a dark thing that quickened Greg's breath. "Perhaps tonight I can demonstrate just what happens in that bathroom."
Arousal flared in Greg's gut and he had to shut his eyes for a moment. "Yes. I think that sounds like an excellent plan."
"Mmm. I can't wait."
"You are such an arsehole. Damn you." How the fuck was Greg meant to concentrate now?
"At last you understand."
"As if I didn't know that before," Greg said. "Okay. Here I go." He mustered all his self-control and stepped back, trying not to look too hard at Mycroft for fear he'd just want to ruin him against the alley wall. He blew out a slow breath to steady himself.
"Here we both go," Mycroft said, and smirked, and together they walked out of the alley into the fading sunlight.
Greg tried to look as innocent as possible. "Who is who?"
"Don't give me that look. The woman. The poor female who took pity on your loneliness and slept with you this afternoon."
"Sherlock," John said.
"I don't think it's any of your business." Greg folded his arms.
"I hope it wasn't anyone I know." The expression on Sherlock's face indicated just what he thought of that prospect, and Greg almost laughed in his face.
John stepped up to him with a smile and shoved Sherlock out of the way. "Well. Congratulations, I guess? Moving on?"
Greg felt himself go pink, unfortunately. "Look, can we not talk about this?"
John shrugged as if it were nothing. "Sure. Not a problem."
"She wasn't your ex, was she? No, wouldn't be, hickeys are often proprietary markings, and of your ex-wife's many issues, jealousy is obviously not one."
"Sherlock..." Greg warned him. If Sherlock ever figured out what was going on, recollection of this conversation was going to require a lobotomy.
"Love bites are also marks of passion, which she hasn't shared with you in years. Also, they tend to be made by inexperienced lovers."
Oh, this was too funny. Still, Greg had to shut him down. "Sherlock, be quiet, or I won't let you examine what else Sylvius had in his pockets."
Foiled, Sherlock scowled and flounced out of the room, then spun immediately back to retrieve his wax double. The two of them disappeared down the corridor and the bedroom door slammed behind them.
"I absolutely do not want to know what he plans to do with that sculpture now," John said.
Greg grimaced. "Don't put ideas in my head."
John smirked, but didn't seem too horrified. "So. Can we come down to the station in the morning? I think Himself is going to need a good night's sleep after three days on the hunt."
"You look like you could use some rest yourself," Greg pointed out.
"That obvious?" John gave him a mischievous smile.
Greg's eyes narrowed. "What am I missing?"
John waved that away. "Nothing. I just had fun on this case, is all."
"Well, I'm glad to know you take cases because they're fun." Greg softened it with a smirk as he moved toward the door.
"You know what I mean."
"I do, actually. Much to Pitts' chagrin."
John snorted and opened the door for him. "10am?"
"I'll see you then. Thanks, John."
"Of course. Have fun with your paperwork."
John flashed a cheeky grin and Greg rolled his eyes. "Tosser." The door closed behind him, and Greg let out a slow breath. That could have been massively embarrassing. He hadn't the foggiest idea whether he wanted a repeat of this afternoon or not, but the concept of revealing it to Sherlock and John didn't help his decision in the slightest.
Greg spent the next morning in an agony of low-level, sublimated horniness. It was as if breaking the seal on his enforced chastity had left him completely without barriers. He had inappropriate thoughts about everyone he saw, including John and Sherlock, PC Maillard, and the courier dressed head-to-toe in leather who dropped off some packages at the mailroom. Once again he was reminded of the embarrassing riot of hormones that were involved in being a teenager, fancying everyone he knew-or, at least, wanting to have sex with them.
At least this time he had the self-control of a middle-aged man more used to his body, but that didn't keep him from absentmindedly rubbing his lips with his fingertips as he read a report, or shifting in his seat so often he became over-aware of its squeak.
There was a ruckus outside Greg's office, and he threw down his biro to see what was going on. A team of men and women in expensive black suits were gathering up evidence bags from last week's case and sitting down at computer terminals. The displaced officers were standing around looking distressed, confused, and furious. Greg strode up to one of the the black-clad interlopers.
"What do you think you're doing?"
The young man ignored him, but another approached Greg and handed him a note. It read, simply, "M." Greg spun on his heel and slammed the door to his office behind him.
"What do you think you're doing?" he said into his mobile when the other end picked up.
"Exercising my authority," Mycroft said.
"Did you really just send a team down to claim jurisdiction over the evidence in the Lambert case?"
"As well as all your computer files."
"You're allowed to just...hack into my system?"
"Oh no, this is all perfectly legal. I do so enjoy going through the proper channels and still getting what I want."
"Why are you doing this, Mycroft?"
"Because I need to. And I can."
"You need to?"
"Oh, Inspector, I'm afraid this is beyond your salary grade."
"Why is it that when you say my name these days it sounds like an insult?"
"What the ear hears..."
"Fine." Greg scowled. "I suppose I have to trust that you know what you're doing. You are aware of the larger implications for this case, right?"
"She'll walk."
"Yes. And you're comfortable with that?"
"Of course I'm not comfortable with it. But it must be done."
"For important reasons."
Mycroft sighed as if it pained him, though Greg suspected it did not. "Yes."
Greg said flatly, "Heavy the head that wears the crown."
"Inspector," Mycroft said, sounding disgustingly pleased, "I do believe you're not half so idiotic as you pretend to be."
"Well. I'm flattered and insulted. Just another afternoon with Mycroft Holmes."
"I do so like to be consistent."
It was infuriating. But as much as Greg wanted to be angry with Mycroft right now, a large part of his lizard brain wanted to express this anger by holding Mycroft down against the desk and fucking the hell out of him, and that wasn't doing good things to his ability to focus. He could almost smell Mycroft's cologne right there. "Why are you always trying to make me angry?"
"That's just my charm, I suppose."
The derision in Mycroft's voice put paid to any thoughts of a repeat performance. It was absolutely dripping with condescension. Okay, then. "So I'm just going to have to take this lying down?"
"There's no use putting up a fight, no. You'll find all of this is perfectly legal."
"You are an incredible arse, Mycroft."
"So I've been told."
Greg hung up without saying goodbye and tossed the phone onto his desk. He scrubbed his hands over his face. Ugh. So much for all that work last week. He hoped that whatever Mycroft was doing, letting Lambert go free and risking more lives, was worth it. He hoped Mycroft was sure about his endgame.
There was a call on Greg's mobile. "Lestrade, you've been summoned for a meeting with the Assistant Commissioner," said his Chief Super, sounding distracted and busy and in absolutely no mood to mess about.
Greg's stomach seized. "What."
"There's a meeting you need to attend at 3pm. Dress nicely; there are going to be important people there."
"What?"
"That's all I know right now. That address, three in the afternoon, important meeting, wear a suit."
"But I-"
"Just do it, please."
Greg rang off and pressed the edge of the phone against his mouth, mind whirring. What in the hell is this shit about? Was he in trouble? Was there a problem? The Assistant Commissioner? What was he meant to have done now?
He snuck out without anyone asking where he was going, which was a blessing because he couldn't for the life of him focus on anything except his diffuse panic. He didn't want to face the Assistant Commissioner, he didn't want to put on a damn suit, and he absolutely hated not feeling prepared. He showered and changed at home, put on the suit he used for press conferences, and made it out to the correct office by 2:55.
He took the lift up to the correct floor, and when he stepped out into the cold corridor he stopped short. One of Mycroft's assistants was sitting on a bench outside the Assistant Commissioner's office. Her eyes flickered over him and she gave him a wry smile.
"Shut up," he said, and she fully smirked at him before going back to typing on her mobile.
There was the sound of a running tap in the lavatory behind them, and the sound of a hand dryer, then Mycroft emerged. "Before you ask, no, I do not know what this is about."
"How can you not know?"
"I do not know everything."
Greg blinked at him in disbelief, and to his surprise the corner of Mycroft's mouth twitched with humour. It helped, just a little. The nervous flutter in his stomach eased, the anger softened, and Greg sat down on the bench to prop his elbows on his knees. "I guess it goes without saying that I have no idea what's going on."
"I assumed."
For a brief moment Greg almost smacked him, but decided that decorum was the better part of valour.
The corridor was carpeted in a cheap, industrial blue, and Greg slid the slick leather sole of his dress shoe along the pile for a few seconds, trying to think of something to say. He completely failed. Furthermore, he was still frustrated with Mycroft. Frustrated, annoyed, angry, and worst of all, craving his touch. Greg stood up and paced away from the Assistant Commissioner's door, then back towards it. It opened.
"Gentlemen," she said, and stood back in an implicit invitation for them to enter. Greg's gaze flicked up to Mycroft's for a split second but he saw nothing helpful, so he walked in first. The assistant stayed outside.
"Ms. Callihan," Mycroft said in a slightly greasy tone, sticking his hand out. Greg supposed that was his "sucking up" voice. He had probably been head boy. To Greg's surprise-and fear-she was having none of it. She gave Mycroft's hand a perfunctory shake but remained frosty.
Callihan and Greg exchanged nods and she gestured for them to sit. "Now," she said. "I read a disturbing report over the weekend." She slid an open file across her desk over to them. It was, plainly, the write-up of what happened with Melas's kidnapping.
"Inspector Lestrade, please explain to me exactly how you came to find Mr. Melas and Mr. Kratides?"
Greg flushed with nervousness and blinked at her. "Well, it's... Ma'am, as I wrote in the file-"
"I know what you wrote in the file. And I know what you told Chief Superintendent Pitts. What I can't seem to understand is why, exactly, you thought it would be a good idea to investigate this case on your own, outside of standard protocol, without backup."
"Ah, well, if you'll note, ma'am, Sherlock Holmes-"
"Inspector Lestrade, do I seem like the sort of person who wants excuses?"
"No, ma'am."
"If I ask you this question again, are you just going to give me excuses?"
"I...don't know, ma'am."
She scowled and looked to Mycroft. "Mr. Holmes. Is it true your brother took on the case first, independently, before the police became involved?"
Mycroft swallowed and lied. "Yes, ma'am."
"Is it true you called in Inspector Lestrade instead of the proper authorities?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Is it also true that, in the past, you've managed to use the authorities properly, even if you did so only to request Inspector Lestrade be assigned to the case?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"So clearly you know how these things are supposed to work. Mr. Holmes, I don't appreciate you placing my officers in this position. Obviously you used the time-sensitive nature of the case to coerce Inspector Lestrade into investigating outside the sanctioned purview of the Metropolitan Police."
Mycroft opened his mouth, but Greg cut in. "He did, but I didn't have to listen to him." Both of them turned to look at Greg. "It wouldn't have been the first time I told him to take a walk."
"Then why didn't you?" she asked.
"Because he's a good detective," Mycroft said, and both heads swivelled to look at him. "He's a good man, and I used that against him."
Callihan narrowed her eyes. "I don't know who you think you are, but you do not have the authority to call in my officers to help with private investigations, no matter your intentions."
Mycroft seemed frozen. Greg waited for him to pull out his real credentials, but instead Mycroft relaxed back against his seat. "I understand, ma'am."
It was odd, seeing Mycroft submit like that, and it made Greg supremely uncomfortable for some reason. It was like looking at a particularly well-crafted mask. No-it was, Greg thought, not unlike watching Sherlock sham for a case, and once again he found himself marvelling at how well the Holmes brothers had learned to lie. Greg sat forward. "As I wrote in the report, ma'am, I did what I thought was best at the time."
"And I think your judgement was flawed." Both Greg and Mycroft sat quietly and waited for the hammer to fall-surely Greg was going to be suspended, or worse. She glared. "I don't like this. At all. I think you showed extremely poor decision-making skills, Inspector, and I absolutely think you need to stop taking phone calls from Mr. Holmes." Her gaze flicked between both of them. "You should have known better."
Greg waited on tenterhooks for her to continue. His mouth was dry as dust. "However," Callihan added, "Your DCS speaks highly of you and your work, and he has assured me that you are capable of rectifying your behaviour. So I'm not going to argue for your suspension." Greg's muscles went rubbery with relief. "However, you can consider this a warning. Put one more toe out of line with Mr. Holmes, and there will be consequences. Do we understand each other?"
After a grating swallow, Greg could answer. "We do, ma'am. Yes. Thank you."
"And you." She turned her attention to Mycroft. "I think you'd better rethink just how you use my resources for your private investigations, kidnapping or not. If there is trouble, you contact the police through the proper channels."
Mycroft nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good." She nodded at them, looking them over. "Inspector Lestrade, you're dismissed. And you too." Callihan looked back down at her desk and picked up a folder.
Greg couldn't get out of there fast enough. It felt as though insects were crawling underneath his skin. He walked straight out her door and over to the lift, not stopping to look at either Mycroft or his assistant. He stabbed at the button and waited with his hands behind his back, jiggling his keys and staring up at the lighted indicator over the lift door.
Mycroft stepped up close to him. "Inspector. I would like a word with you."
First floor, second floor...
Mycroft leaned forward slightly. "Inspector."
...Third floor...
Then Mycroft said, quiet and almost at a growl, "Gregory."
Oh god. Greg's brain lit up with arousal, and he closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. He let it out slowly. "What."
"I would like to have a word with you. Privately."
"Can't you just say it now?" The doors opened, but Greg didn't step into the lift.
Mycroft did, however, and he held the doors open for his assistant and then for a very reluctant Greg. They slid closed.
"Well?" Greg asked, his eyes flicking to the assistant. He rather fancied an audience for whatever this would turn out to be.
But Mycroft ignored him until the flat reached the ground floor and his assistant left. She disappeared instantly into the foot traffic on the pavement, leaving Greg alone with Mycroft in a gently-moving sea of people. "Where did you park your car?" Mycroft bent his head and spoke directly into Greg's ear. Greg stifled a shudder.
"A couple of streets away," he rasped.
"Do you have a moment?"
Greg gritted his teeth. "No."
"Will you tomorrow?"
"No, Mycroft."
"When may I-"
"Mycroft," Greg said and spun to face him. That put him directly in front of Mycroft, only six inches away, which was not his best plan ever. He was warm and close and soft and horribly, terribly desirable. "You need to stop. You heard Callihan; I cannot lose this job. This is it. This is what I do. This is all I have right now."
"You didn't give me up."
Greg looked up into Mycroft's strangely vulnerable face. "What?"
"You didn't... You lied about Sherlock having been on the case first. You never said I enlisted your help before I had Sherlock's. You didn't say I was using you and your exhaustion to get my way."
"You said I was a good detective."
"I said you were a good man." Mycroft's words echoed around Greg's head before someone jostled them on the pavement and Greg stepped back safely out of Mycroft's sphere of influence.
He cleared his throat. "That fact was between us. It didn't matter."
"Of course it did."
Greg looked around at all the people walking past, going to meetings or home or the shops. "Do we have to do this here?"
"Come back to my office." Mycroft's gaze bored into him.
This was an insanely bad idea. "When?"
"Now. We can take my car."
"I'm not going to leave my car-"
"We can come back for it. Please. Inspector."
Greg took a steadying breath and made a poor decision. "I think I like it better when you call me 'Gregory.'"
The expression on Mycroft's face was stunned. Without a word, he walked down the pavement, and Greg followed him to where the black car was waiting. Mycroft slid in, then Greg, and Mycroft shut the door behind them.
"What about...er...your assistant?"
"She can follow behind."
Tension was forming at the base of Greg's spine, in his thighs, in his shoulders, and anticipation thudded with every beat of his heart. Mycroft leaned back against his seat but didn't stop looking at him, the flush blooming on his cheeks obvious even in the shadow of the car's interior. Mycroft licked his lips, leaving them shiny. Greg remembered clearly how hot and wet that mouth was, and it took all his restraint not to launch himself across the aisle between the seats to taste it again.
The car rumbled over a rough bit of pavement, and the butterflies in Greg's stomach roiled. "You were manipulating me."
"And you were perfectly aware of that fact."
Greg swallowed and blinked into a small nod. "I was."
"Melas's life might have been in danger had we involved the authorities," Mycroft said quietly.
"We don't let that stop us. We find a way around it."
"But you didn't this time." Mycroft's gaze bored intently into Greg.
"I didn't think about it. I just did it. Because you asked me to." Greg looked across the aisle at Mycroft, who appeared uncomfortable for a moment. "Why do I do that? Really? I'm with the police for a reason, Mycroft. I want people to be safe and secure. But you, you just..." He glared. "You do things like let Lambert go free, and you won't tell me why except, 'we have our reasons'. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to-"
"We have her."
Greg wasn't sure he heard him correctly. "You what?"
"We have her." Mycroft was tracing his finger up and down a seam in the seat, which probably would have been distracting had Greg not been angry and completely boggled by where this conversation had gone. "She was only at liberty for an hour before we incarcerated her in our own facilities."
Greg leaned forward. "When were you going to tell me?"
"If it became necessary."
"You are unbelieveable." His chest was tight.
"We both got what we needed."
Greg scooted forward on his seat. "You need to tell me these things."
"I do not."
"You need to tell me these things. Trust me. Tell me so I don't feel so goddamn-"
"I trust you."
"No, I don't believe you do."
"I'm learning to."
"No. You're just trying to soften me up so I don't think about why, with one word from you, I completely abandoned my responsibilities and went off to solve a crime with Sherlock like someone with a Batman complex."
"If you ask me, I think you were enjoying yourself too much."
"Well I didn't ask you." Arsehole.
"I think the case at Dartmoor reminded you what it's like to go outside your usual parameters, and you miss it."
"Fuck you." The tension in the car was rapidly spinning into a different sort entirely, a more unpleasant kind.
"Am I wrong?"
"Yes."
"You don't like feeling like a hero, sometimes? Not being hampered by your official role?"
"Vigilantism is a slippery slope and harmful-"
"Gregory." Greg shut up immediately. Mycroft continued. "Spare me the party line. You found it exciting, didn't you."
Greg restrained the urge to punch Mycroft in his smug, pointy face. But he had to admit to himself that yes, he'd found being needed to be intensely satisfying, and to be flying without a net invigorating, and looking back he realised he'd been doing some really good work over the last few weeks because of this massive dickhead and his machinations. "...Yes," he said.
But instead of an expression of victory, Mycroft's gaze turned darker. "I did too."
Oh. Greg took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"We make a good team," Mycroft said, not breaking eye contact. "I like watching you do your job well. You like being given license to do what's necessary to restore peace. You are...good. Good at it. And I like to watch you do it. I like to make you do it."
Greg swallowed. "You just like manipulating me."
"Of course. But you like being given control. Unhampered."
"I have a team. I can't just go off and do whatever I want because it gives me some sort of jollies."
"I have a team too. We both have to make tough decisions. No one knows better than I how seductive it is to break out of the shackles sometimes."
"Sometimes."
Mycroft blinked. "Of course. You wouldn't be yourself if you completely abandoned the rigid tenets of the police force. And for all its faults, working within the legal restrictions of the government has benefits for me."
"So what the hell are you talking about, Mycroft?"
"I am saying..." Mycroft licked his lips. "That when you break out of your bindings to do something heroic, I want to be there. And if I do something outside of my usual role, I'd like you to watch."
Greg exhaled. "That sounds a bit kinky."
The corner of Mycroft's mouth quirked up. "If you like."
"You have a hell of a seduction technique." Greg huffed a laugh and scrubbed his face with his hand. Jesus.
One of Mycroft's eyebrows lifted. "Is that what I'm doing?"
At that, Greg just had to smile. What an arse. "Shut up."
They spent the last three minutes of the car ride in silence.
Greg shoved his hands in his pockets once they arrived at Mycroft's building, and he kept them there in the lift and the outer corridor. He found himself slowly digging his fingernails into his thigh. But as soon as the office door closed behind them, he reached for Mycroft.
They came together violently, one of Greg's hands scooping up the back of Mycroft's head and the other closing around his back, crushing them together in a ridiculous, heart-stopping, open-mouthed kiss. Mycroft whined into it, clutching desperately to Greg's suit, and the sound nearly buckled Greg's knees. "Oh christ."
The sound Mycroft made was a bit broken and pathetic as he seemed to be trying to force them both into the same place in space-time. "Not quite, no," he said. His arms closed like a vice about Greg's ribs and he tilted his head to kiss Greg with bruising force.
Greg fisted both hands in Mycroft's hair and held on for the ride. After a few moments, he fought back and shoved his tongue into Mycroft's mouth to stunning effect. Mycroft broke into a frenzy, whimpering and letting his hands clutch everywhere they could grip: Greg's back, his arse, his hips, his elbows, the sides of his face, the back of his neck. Mycroft's hands were everywhere, as if he couldn't decide how best to hold him. Greg took pity on him by grabbing him round the waist and the back of the head again and pinning him into a deep, gulping kiss.
Greg's focus had shattered into a million pieces, but it was still clear this wasn't nearly enough. He couldn't stop moving; half of the reason he held on to Mycroft so tightly was to keep himself from squirming out of his embrace entirely with the desperate, overwhelming sensation of need.
They both were breathing deeply, roughly, quickly as Greg tore off his jacket and Mycroft ripped off his own. But even that time apart was too long, and they crashed together again into another violent kiss. Mycroft bit Greg's lower lip and Greg gasped. "Fuck, I want you so badly."
"I couldn't focus," Mycroft said. "I couldn't focus."
"I've been turned on for three days." Greg shuddered as both Mycroft's hands came up to cradle Greg's head and tilt it into a deeper kiss. Shaking, Greg fumbled for Mycroft's belt buckle and felt him whimper. He dragged his knuckles up the thin placket of Mycroft's dress trousers and found him already hard, as if he had been on the edge of arousal and just needed a few gasping kisses to coax him to a full erection. Greg groaned at the thought. He knew the feeling.
"Do you know," Mycroft said in between kisses, unfastening Greg's belt buckle, "how many times in the past thirteen years I've masturbated in that bathroom? Once." He moaned as he opened up Greg's flies and palmed his hardening cock. His voice was rough when he next spoke. "Do you know how many times I've been forced to masturbate in that bathroom since the last time you were here? Once a day."
"You've had a wank in there three times this week?" Greg tried to envision what that looked like as he slid Mycroft's open trousers down to his ankles, and his cock jumped. He imagined the flush on Mycroft's face as he carefully stepped out of his trousers and pants, laid them neatly on the sink, and wanked furiously until he came into the shower. He moaned. "I need to watch that."
Mycroft froze for a moment, then as the thought trickled down he almost convulsed with arousal. "Oh my god," he breathed. "Yes. Watch me."
Greg's brain was hazy, but he knew a kink when he saw one. The thought burned down his spine. He grabbed Mycroft's face again for a frenzied kiss.
Mycroft's hands knotted in the back of Greg's shirt, pulling it tight across his front, but when Greg reciprocated his hands slipped on the silky back of Mycroft's waistcoat. He started unbuttoning Mycroft's waistcoat from the bottom up, and after a moment Mycroft began unbuttoning it from the top down. Mycroft flailed in his haste to wriggle out of it and let it fall to the floor. Greg immediately shoved his hands underneath Mycroft's vest and shirt and scraped at the skin of his back. Mycroft hissed then melted against him. Greg bit him on the neck. There was a startling moment where Mycroft twitched with a violent jerk, but that moment melted into arousal when Mycroft moaned bitterly and ground against Greg's thigh. "Jesus, you're sensitive." Greg trailed his fingertips against the toothmarks, making Mycroft shiver, then lightly kissed the spot.
"It's been a while."
"How long?"
"I'll tell you later," Mycroft said. "I'm a bit busy." And with that he dropped down and mouthed over the bulge of Greg's erection trapped inside his boxers.
Greg huffed for breath as his head fell back, and he rested his hand gently on the top of Mycroft's head. He just barely resisted the urge to shove his groin harder into Mycroft's face. It was a close thing; he couldn't remember the last time someone's mouth had been this close to his cock.
He waited for Mycroft to pull down his boxers, or pull his erection out through the flies, but instead Mycroft just hummed with pleasure and started nosing around, breathing in audibly. Mycroft moaned and stood to capture Greg's mouth in a sloppy, wet kiss. Greg felt his cock twitch harder. He was going to be desperate in about thirty seconds. Oh, hell. He was desperate now.
Greg grabbed one of Mycroft's wrists, causing Mycroft to pull back with a startled look. But all Greg did was start unbuttoning the cuffs. There was a light of understanding in Mycroft's eyes, and a few moments were spent unfastening each other's collars and cuffs before Greg lost patience, grabbed the hems of both of Mycroft's shirts, and stripped them over his head.
Mycroft pushed his pants down and stood there in front of Greg, naked except for shoes and socks, trousers and boxer briefs puddled around his ankles, and Greg's hands itched to touch. He looked thinner than he felt-a well-constructed structure of fine bones and soft skin, flushed blotchily from his face down into his chest but milk-pale otherwise, freckled and sparsely furred and fucking gorgeous. His eyes, when Greg finally dragged his gaze up to his face, were full of terror.
Greg swallowed down his own nervousness. "You're beautiful," he murmured.
Mycroft's brow furrowed. "Shhhh," he said, before his hands came up to cradle Greg's face into a passionate kiss. Greg toed off his shoes and pulled Mycroft close.
The skin on his back was even nicer to touch without his vest dragging against Greg's knuckles, so Greg gave his hands free rein up to Mycroft's shoulders and all the way down to his arse. He skated his knuckles up Mycroft's spine, making him shudder.
Mycroft broke the kiss to yank Greg's shirt over his head, presumably jealous of all the skin. "Let me look at you," he said.
Greg wriggled his boxers down and stood before him, unashamed of his arousal. Mycroft's eyes went even darker as he scanned Greg's body from shoulders to ankles, and when he brought them back up to Greg's face they flared. Mycroft's jaw dropped slightly and he huffed out a breath. He practically jumped Greg, then, grabbing him into a frantic and undulating embrace and kissing him for all he was worth. Greg groaned at the sensation of all that skin writhing against him. His nerve-endings were on fire.
He grabbed Mycroft's arse and ground them together at the groin, making them both moan with the friction, and Mycroft bit at his mouth. Greg was done with the slow striptease. He fully stripped off his pants and trousers and socks and felt Mycroft do the same thing, then walked them-still attached at the mouth-over to the sofa against the far wall. He yanked Mycroft down to lay on top of him.
They both moaned, loudly and unabashedly, at the feeling of it. Greg's eyes fluttered closed and he licked his lips as he grabbed Mycroft's arse with both hands and started arching up against his body, a wild thrusting that left subtlety far behind. Predictably, Mycroft responded to this blatantly sexual movement by crying out and thrusting down in counterpoint against him.
It was nothing more than rutting like teenagers again, Greg thought. What was it about sex with Mycroft that made him ignore every bit of sensuality he'd cultivated over the years and just default to desperate friction? Why did he always want so badly just to rub up against Mycroft and come?
Not until Greg had scratched his nails along every plane of Mycroft's body he could reach and had started biting and sucking on every inch of his shoulders and neck that Greg realised what this was: hunger. Greg was hungry for him, and like starving men they were pawing and filling their mouths and trying desperately to sate themselves as quickly as possible.
For some reason, the thought made Greg even hungrier.
He shoved his hand between them to grab Mycroft's cock, then lined them up together so he could shove up into his hand, against Mycroft, and hopefully stimulate Mycroft as well. Mycroft's eyes shot wide and he propped his weight on his hands to look down between their bodies and watch.
When Greg rolled his hips up for the second time he watched Mycroft's face. It contorted, his jaw dropping wide in astonishment and then squeezing into a rictus of unbearable pleasure. Success, then. The third time he did it he rolled his hips and arched his back, and Mycroft actually cried out into the room. The sound shot all the way down to Greg's balls and he flared with additional arousal. Oh my god.
Over and over again Greg thrust up into his hand and against Mycroft's cock, and each time Mycroft let out a high broken cry directly into Greg's ear, and after about thirty seconds of this Greg was so turned on that his hips slowed into a steady, slow, machine of movement, each thrust building on the previous towards what was definitely going to be a stunning orgasm. He couldn't breathe, couldn't stop, and he kept his eyes open to watch Mycroft's face as he gasped and shuddered and thundered inexorably toward his own release.
Each thrust began to let off such a wrench of pleasure that Greg began to moan on every breath. Mycroft's eyes opened and their gaze caught, and Mycroft's jaw gaped wider with shock. He made an inhuman noise. Mycroft gritted his teeth, eyes wild, and ground down against Greg with an incoherent judder of his hips before he yelled full-voiced and started to come. Greg watched him lose complete control of himself, convulsing, moaning at the top of his lungs as he spurted all over Greg's hand and belly. Greg let go of them and grabbed Mycroft's arse with both hands so he could shove up against his body, ramping up almost immediately into hard, slow thrusts that spilled into a gorgeous, satisfying, seemingly-endless orgasm.
Greg's head fell back against the armrest and he groaned repeatedly, feeling the hormones flood his system with warmth and bliss and lassitude. He slowly rolled his hips up against Mycroft's body, shuddering through an unctuous series of aftershocks, gasping to regain his breath. "Oh god yes," he moaned, squirming underneath Mycroft for a last few moments before dropping completely boneless. He blew out a breath. He couldn't move.
At some point Mycroft had melted on top of him, and was now breathing in Greg's ear and seemed spectacularly disinclined to move as well. Greg nearly dozed off before Mycroft murmured, "That was..." He blew out an unvoiced sigh. "Fantastic."
Greg's eyelids fluttered. "Uh-hunh." He still couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to.
"I feel...emptied."
"I think that's good," Greg said without really opening his mouth.
Mycroft, too, was starting to slur. "May I sleep like this?"
If he'd wanted to, Greg would have shrugged. "Whatever."
And Greg let himself fall off into a doze.
Greg blinked awake slowly. His eyes felt like sandpaper. "Whatimeizzit?"
"6:34." Mycroft sounded only marginally more awake than Greg felt.
"How do you know that?"
Mycroft shifted with an aborted attempt to point across the room. "Clock on the wall."
They were both silent for a few moments. "That was incredibly good," Greg rumbled, still not really on board with the idea of waking up. Mycroft shifted, and Greg grunted and his eyes flickered back with echoed pleasure.
Mycroft made a noise of confirmation, then settled back to nuzzle his face into Greg's chest hair. He let his weight fall fully onto Greg again.
"Are your legs off the end of the sofa?" Greg asked.
"Mm-hmm."
"Isn't that uncomfortable?"
Mycroft sort of shrugged, but said nothing.
An idea occurred to Greg. A terrible, wonderful, poorly-planned-out idea. "Wouldn't you rather do this in bed?"
Slowly, Mycroft's head lifted to look at Greg's face. Greg could feel it, but he pointedly left his head tilted back against the armrest in studied nonchalance. "I'm just saying," Greg added, "I think a repeat performance might be better conducted in a bed." A swarm of butterflies in his stomach fluttered.
He heard Mycroft swallow, then felt him bob his head. "Maybe with dinner, perhaps. And some sort of shower."
"And dessert," Greg said, a grin beginning to spread across his face as he looked down at Mycroft.
"Don't push it too far, Inspector," he said, quirking a sleepy smile. Greg laughed.
It had been a long, busy, stressful week.
"Sherlock," Greg said, massaging his fingertips into his forehead. "Did you really have to clock him over the head with the fence post?" He blinked. "Wait. Explain to me first where you got a fence post."
"It was-" Sherlock hissed as John did something in his examination of Sherlock's shoulder. He was bleeding all over John's hands, but John didn't seem to care. "It was in the lumber yard."
"You chased him through a lumber yard? Where is there a lumber yard?"
"Or maybe it was someone's storage. Whatever." His voice sounded hazy with pain and blood loss. With his free hand, Sherlock waved that away as unimportant, then he rested it on John's head and stroked his hair for a moment. Greg peered at him suspiciously.
Sally radioed from the car that the suspect-6'3" of muscle, no longer armed with a several board-feet of nail-studded oak-was finally coming around from the unconsciousness into which Sherlock, John, or both had sent him. Greg pointed at the two of them. "When I come back, you're going to tell me if I'm sending you to hospital." As he rounded the corner out of the alley, his suspicions were confirmed when he caught John pressing his lips to Sherlock's forehead. Huh.
The suspect spat and swore, but wasn't giving up anything useful at the moment. He told Sally to let him stew a while longer while he took care of Sherlock, and she pulled a face. Greg very nearly rolled his eyes at her. The grudge was tiresome.
"Sir, he can handle things on his own. He does it all the time."
It was a fair point, but as he opened his mouth to explain that while she didn't like Sherlock, Greg sadly did, so if she could kindly hold her horses while he ensured Sherlock wasn't going to go into some sort of septic coma in the middle of a filthy alley, he looked down the street to see Mycroft strolling along, spinning his umbrella without a care in the world.
His world brightened.
"He's in the alley," Greg said to him while he was still ten feet away, unable to wipe the grin from his face.
"I know."
"I know you know."
Greg sauntered around the corner toward Sherlock and John, pleased to have Mycroft at his back.
"What are you doing here?" Sherlock asked as John finished cleaning the wounds on Sherlock's shoulder and started to inspect them.
Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Might I suggest a light round of antibiotics after having several puncture wounds driven into one's shoulder?"
"I've had my jabs," Sherlock said. Then he jerked as John did something to the second wound.
"It looks like you're getting your jabs again right now," Greg snarked, amused at Sherlock's usual unwillingness to just go to hospital without putting up a fight. Every damn time, he did this, even if he fully intended to go to hospital in the end. He caught Mycroft's eye, and was delighted to see humour there, with a fond smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. Greg smiled back at him for a moment.
"No." Sherlock sounded strangled. "No no." Then he groaned, and Greg looked at him. "Oh, you've got to be joking."
"What?" John asked, busy covering up the wounds with precision, for all that the bandages were temporary.
"Them," Sherlock said, and jerked his chin. "Lestrade. And Mycroft."
"What about them?" John started cleaning off his hands with another sterile wipe and scanned them both, obviously looking for some clue what Sherlock was talking about and not succeeding.
"They're...shagging," Sherlock spat with distaste, and John's face immediately cycled through a series of expressions-shock, disgust, amazement, bemusement, comprehension-before he finally settled on a not-entirely-convincing smile.
"Oh," he said. "Er, that's great." Greg supposed John had never really been Mycroft's biggest fan, but that didn't really matter. It was just sex. It's not as if they were together.
Mycroft settled in for a casual bicker with Sherlock to get him to submit to the fancy facilities to which Mycroft usually dragged him, and John stood up to get out of the line of fire.
"How long has that been going on?" John asked quietly as Mycroft crouched down to speak with his brother in low, biting tones.
Greg shrugged. "A few weeks."
"So he's what. Your boyfriend?" John was clearly putting a brave face on it, which Greg appreciated no matter that it wasn't necessary.
"No, it's casual," Greg said, shaking his head, staring at the curving line of Mycroft's back and the way he was holding his umbrella.
"Is it?" John asked, and something in his tone caught Greg's attention.
"What? Yes, definitely. Why?"
John shook his head, his eyebrows creeping toward his hairline. "No reason. No. That's... That's good. A bit of fun."
"Exactly." Ah. And here was Greg's chance to change the subject. "Like you and Sherlock?"
John flushed crimson. "Erm."
Greg smiled and chuckled at him, then clapped him on the shoulder. "The case with...the diamond thief. Sylvianus?"
"Sylvius," John corrected, then smiled sheepishly.
"You both looked knackered."
"Shut up."
"And like you'd been up to something."
"We had."
"Is that why Sherlock had hickeys on the brain?"
John's eyes shot wide. "Was that-" He pointed over his shoulder at Mycroft. "Was that him?" At Greg's smirk, John's face blossomed into an expression of delight so pure Greg was sure he was going to strain something. "Oh, wait 'til he figures it-"
"OH GOD."
"-out," John finished, and started laughing his arse off as Mycroft stood up and brushed pointlessly at his trousers.
"Oh god, just. Take me to hospital so I can get away from them and delete it. Delete it all," Sherlock was saying as Mycroft walked over to the mouth of the alley where Greg stood. He had a supremely evil smirk on his face.
"This almost makes the constant distraction worthwhile," Mycroft said, leaning over and purring against Greg's ear.
Greg smirked, his arms breaking out in gooseflesh. "Almost?"
"Very nearly."
"You two are such children."
Sherlock scowled at them as John ushered him out of the alley towards Mycroft's car. John flashed an amused grin as they went past.
When they were gone, Mycroft looked around them and took Greg by the jaw, pulling him up into a brief kiss. "Tonight?"
"Can't tonight," Greg said, and kissed him again as an apology. "Paperwork. I'll be done far too late for supper."
"I wasn't talking about supper."
A slow grin spread across Greg's face. "Well now that's all I'm going to be thinking about while I'm filling out reports."
"Good." Mycroft kissed him again. "I wouldn't want to think I took the night off for no reason."
"The entire world won't fall to pieces if you take the night off to shag like rabbits?"
"I've ensured it won't."
"Lucky me."
For a moment, Mycroft flashed a smile that stopped Greg's heart. It was real-lines around his eyes and nose, white teeth, bright eyes-and beautiful for all that it was fleeting. Greg blinked and Mycroft's usual expression of quiet amusement was set in place again. He wondered if some day that happiness might linger. He leaned up to kiss him softly.
"Isn't your sergeant going to wonder where you are?"
"Let her wait," Greg said against Mycroft's mouth.
"Prerogative of the boss?"
"You should know."
Mycroft's nimble fingers scratched at the back of Greg's neck, making him shiver.
"Are you going to tell me tonight why you were in Dartmoor?" Greg asked, capturing Mycroft's face in both hands and sucking lightly on his lower lip.
"No," Mycroft said.
"Are you ever?"
"No."
"Evil."
"Obviously."
"I'm going to go back to work, then." Greg couldn't stop kissing him.
"Wise." Mycroft nuzzled his face into Greg's hair. "I need to bring Sherlock to hospital."
"I will be a responsible boss. And then later I can make you scream."
Mycroft shivered, then chuckled, a dark thing that quickened Greg's breath. "Perhaps tonight I can demonstrate just what happens in that bathroom."
Arousal flared in Greg's gut and he had to shut his eyes for a moment. "Yes. I think that sounds like an excellent plan."
"Mmm. I can't wait."
"You are such an arsehole. Damn you." How the fuck was Greg meant to concentrate now?
"At last you understand."
"As if I didn't know that before," Greg said. "Okay. Here I go." He mustered all his self-control and stepped back, trying not to look too hard at Mycroft for fear he'd just want to ruin him against the alley wall. He blew out a slow breath to steady himself.
"Here we both go," Mycroft said, and smirked, and together they walked out of the alley into the fading sunlight.