When first we practise to deceive 3/?
anonymous
November 4 2010, 16:03:16 UTC
Thursday came, and with it the million little problems that humanity liked to raise. There were issues in America... there were always issues in America. There were problems in the Far East... there were always problems in the Far East. The war in Afghanistan needed his attention. There had been two attempted terrorist plots, one on British soil. Neither had got anywhere and neither would ever see the light of a journalist’s report.
All in all, it was a day like any other, apart from the fact that Mycroft had a date.
He had last been on a date in nineteen ninety two. He had the strangest feeling that you were supposed to do things differently in the twenty-first century, but he wasn’t sure what the differences were.
The table was booked (a high end restaurant, without being too high end. Gregory would feel awkward somewhere that looked too expensive and Mycroft needed to keep things low key) for seven thirty. He had arranged what to wear with his assistant - who had decidedly not laughed at him, though he could read her well enough to tell exactly what she was thinking.
Nothing should go wrong.
Except that Mycroft had found that things never seemed to turn out quite as he expected when Gregory was involved.
He had his men check in about Sherlock every half hour. If anything was likely to disrupt his dinner plans it was his brother. But Sherlock seemed to have decided to play nice for the day. There was no obvious drug use, no sign of any illegal or irresponsible activity.
Mycroft felt a little bit upset by that, almost as though he had been looking for an excuse to avoid the date, which was ridiculous. Mycroft had had dinner meetings with the men who ran the world (the men who really ran the world, not the men people thought ran the world), he had had dinner with spies and with oligarchs and every single one of them, without fail, had done exactly as he wanted them to.
One Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard, with whom he had spoken at length many times before, was hardly a cause for concern.
Nevertheless, after he had changed (several minutes earlier than he had planned to initially) he straightened his tie five times in two minutes. Displacement activity for nervousness, he told his hands and stilled them at his sides.
“You look fine,” his assistant said, sliding a file over his desk. “This’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning. Have fun.”
All in all, it was a day like any other, apart from the fact that Mycroft had a date.
He had last been on a date in nineteen ninety two. He had the strangest feeling that you were supposed to do things differently in the twenty-first century, but he wasn’t sure what the differences were.
The table was booked (a high end restaurant, without being too high end. Gregory would feel awkward somewhere that looked too expensive and Mycroft needed to keep things low key) for seven thirty. He had arranged what to wear with his assistant - who had decidedly not laughed at him, though he could read her well enough to tell exactly what she was thinking.
Nothing should go wrong.
Except that Mycroft had found that things never seemed to turn out quite as he expected when Gregory was involved.
He had his men check in about Sherlock every half hour. If anything was likely to disrupt his dinner plans it was his brother. But Sherlock seemed to have decided to play nice for the day. There was no obvious drug use, no sign of any illegal or irresponsible activity.
Mycroft felt a little bit upset by that, almost as though he had been looking for an excuse to avoid the date, which was ridiculous. Mycroft had had dinner meetings with the men who ran the world (the men who really ran the world, not the men people thought ran the world), he had had dinner with spies and with oligarchs and every single one of them, without fail, had done exactly as he wanted them to.
One Detective Inspector from Scotland Yard, with whom he had spoken at length many times before, was hardly a cause for concern.
Nevertheless, after he had changed (several minutes earlier than he had planned to initially) he straightened his tie five times in two minutes. Displacement activity for nervousness, he told his hands and stilled them at his sides.
“You look fine,” his assistant said, sliding a file over his desk. “This’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning. Have fun.”
“Thank you,” he told her.
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