Chapter Text
'What?' Gregory blinked in confusion, his mouth open as he tried to comprehend what Mycroft had just told him, 'You did what?'
'I'm sorry, Gregory.'
'You....when?' Gregory's eyes were bright with tears as the weight of Mycroft's confession started to sink in, 'When?'
'Last night.' Mycroft clenched his hand to stop it shaking.
''Last night?' Gregory looked as if he were about to be sick, 'You came straight from someone else's bed to confess? And what? I'm supposed to be grateful that you told me yourself instead of letting me find out by accident? Christ...I....how many times? Hmm? Have you been laughing at me all these years?'
'No-'
'How many times? How many people?'
'Once. Just once.'
Mycroft had expected shouting. Expected guilt and pain. Expected a punch in the face. But he hadn't expected Gregory Lestrade to cry. The policeman stood across the kitchen from him, tears falling down his face, staring at Mycroft as if he'd never seen him before. And before Mycroft could say anything else, a change came over Gregory. He wiped his hand across his cheeks and shook his head before turning away, leaving Mycroft standing alone in the kitchen. A moment later the front door slammed.
And that was how Mycroft Holmes broke the heart of the only person who had ever truly loved him.
*
Greg didn’t know where he was heading, he walked with no direction, just needing to move, to put as much space between him and Mycroft as possible, allowing the anger to propel him for now, terrified of that coming moment when the grief would take over, that moment when he’d have to confront the fact that, once again, he wasn’t enough for someone.
He’d risked everything for Mycroft. Every relationship he had in the world he put on the line, personal, professional, all of it. He’d risked the respect of his colleagues, the love of his parents when at almost fifty he’d finally come out . For Mycroft.
After Caroline he never thought he’d find someone else. But there was Mycroft. He was always bloody there, lurking in dark places, the spectre at the feast, issuing orders and vague threats. And then one day during a shouting match about Sherlock, Mycroft Holmes pushed Greg against the wall of his office and kissed him.
Greg hadn’t kissed another man since he was 20 and he’d forgotten how it felt. He’d forgotten what it was like to hold broad shoulders and narrow hips, the earthy scent of another male body, the feel of an erection pressing against him.
And a week later he discovered how it felt to have those endless legs wrapped around him, and how Mycroft’s skin tasted.
Someone else discovered those things last night. Mycroft decided that Greg wasn’t enough and he went to someone else’s bed. He’d come to Greg straight from another man’s bed, unshowered, still smelling of him, and he stood in the kitchen of their home and confessed to Greg what he’d done.
‘Why?’ Greg shouted, not caring about the stares that he received from passers by. He was on Westminster Bridge now, the Houses of Parliament ahead, his feet subconsciously taking him on one of his and Mycroft’s favourite evening walks. He looked up at the building now. Mycroft would be there later. He wouldn’t miss work, not even for the end of his marriage. Was that where he met…him?
Greg deliberately hadn’t asked who Mycroft slept with. Caroline had delighted in revealing her conquests at the end. The list was impressive, but painful to hear. She’d worked her way though quite a lot of Greg’s friends by the end. So he didn’t just lose a wife, he lost half of his social network too. It had taken a lot to trust Mycroft, and when Greg decided to trust him he put every single part of himself into it.
His wedding ring cut a clean arc over the river, any sound it would have made as it hit the surface was drowned out by the noise of traffic. Greg watched it go as the tears started again, anger giving way to grief as he was overwhelmed by the realisation that whatever future he could see for himself, it was going to be one without Mycroft Holmes.