Christmas in the Cotswolds
Chapter Two
The pelt of ice that had built upon the shoulders of my overcoat slid down onto the foyer floor as I entered the home I now shared with Greg. It was the same house I'd lived in for more than fifteen years, but it seemed different as of late. Greg had insisted on adding small rugs in different areas and his love for cooking usually left an appetizing aroma that had rarely wafted through the enormous building before his arrival. I had never believed the house to be cold, as Greg did. These days, however, it did feel a bit more like a lived-in home.
I'd returned from a meeting at Downing Street. Greg had taken the entire week away from work and had told me he'd spend his time cleaning and packing for our Christmas-themed getaway. We were meant to drive to the Cotswolds in the morning and I'd promised to be home by three o'clock to pack my own clothes. "Greg!" I called through the house as I placed my umbrella in its stand. I was answered by my own echo. I walked halfway up the staircase. "Greg?" Still no answer.
Where was he? I'd agreed, reluctantly, to his silly trip. The least he could do was be there when he said he'd be. "Greg," I called, walking from the stairs to the sitting room, then to the kitchen. My mobile vibrated in my pocket. The words "find me" displayed on the screen. I huffed with frustration. Was this a game - part of his weekend plan? Was something actually wrong - had he been kidnapped? I didn't have time for this.
I dialed the phone. "I'm busy," Sherlock's voice was muffled. Clearly, he was looking into a microscope.
"Sorry to distract you from whatever lovely specimen you've decided to study today, dear brother. Is Greg with you?"
"Who?"
"Sherlock!"
"He's not with me. Why would he be with me?"
"I haven't the foggiest. He sent me a text telling me to find him. I thought perhaps you were on a case."
"We both know if you 'haven't the foggiest' you're simply being lazy. But no. No case," he said curtly. "It sounds more like he's inviting you to some sort of love lair."
"Oh, stop it," I snapped. "Where could he be? We're meant to leave for holiday in the morning."
"What were his plans for the day?" Sherlock suggested mindlessly, clearly having spotted the desired attribute of the object lying on his tray.
"He said something about cobwebs in corners and bubbles in wallpaper. Do you know I've changed cleaning services three times since he moved in?" I complained. He really never was content.
"I don't know. You're the smart one," he said with the sharp point of a long-ridiculed child. "That house is so colossal - maybe he just got lost."
"Oh no." I froze and lost my grip on the mobile. Before I could even hear it hit the cold floor, I was running up the staircase. I hadn't run in years. I regularly rushed across rooms to grab something from Sherlock when his otherwise adult body was acting like a petulant toddler but hadn't actually run since I was probably nine or ten years old.
"Why are there so many?" I muttered under my breath. Even taking the stairs two at a time as my height allowed didn't seem to empower me to tread them any more quickly. I slowed as I reached the final landing and saw the door to one of the bedrooms standing open. Breathing so heavily that I could hear nothing but a slight wheeze in my throat, I approached the door. Across the room, I spotted it. The hidden door that was built into the wall. It was papered so as to perfectly blend in with the rest of the space, its hinges usually hidden by a hat rack. It felt like I was dragging my feet through quicksand as I approached the secret, yet, now open, door.
"He found it," I whispered to myself. My hands started shaking, as I walked through the door and began to descend the staircase which it was meant to hide. I had climbed two flights merely to rush down three. This was the only way to access the lower level of my house. It was, for lack of a better word, a dungeon. As I reached the bottom of the concrete stairs, it was clear that all the lights had been turned on. I could hear a music box playing Buffalo Gals. He had found everything. I stepped onto the plush carpet that I'd had placed in the space upon moving into the home. As I turned to face the wide expanse of the room, I saw Greg, seated on the floor, surrounded by solid oak boxes, some opened, others turned upside down, many still stacked neatly where I'd last left them.
"How's the PM today?" he asked simply, but with the weight of the world on his voice.
"Greg. I..." I couldn't think of even one word that was appropriate. I approached, reaching my hand to him. He grasped it, pulling himself off the floor, and followed me to the oversized ottoman which sat in the corner of the long room.
"Well," he started, clearing his throat and straightening his shoulders to present an air of formality, "allow me to introduce myself. I'm Greg Lestrade, and you are?"
"Greg, don't be ridiculous." I batted away the hand he'd extended.
"Well, I figure maybe we should start from scratch - seeing how I don't know ya' at all."
"You know me better than anyone."
"Oh, yeah? Who else knows about this?" he asked, gesturing vaguely to the center of the room.
"No one. You and me."
"Well, it feels like I don't know you." He was avoiding eye contact, partly because he was hurt, but mostly because he knew it drove me mad.
"Greg," I said, gently, "if you really think about it, you do know me, and all this is simply evidence."
"What the hell are you talking about?" He was genuinely angry.
"How long have you been down here?"
"I don't know. At least two hours, I guess."
"Answer me honestly, in those two hours, have you learned anything you didn't already know?"
"Yes!" He couldn't resist yelling. "I learned that there's a hidden catacomb in the house that you say is ours. I learned that you keep secrets from me. I learned that you have," he paused to quiet his voice, apparently having finally realised his volume, "all this."
"You're acting as if you'd discovered a torture chamber or an underground Nazi headquarters."
"Who knows! How many other secret walls and doors and rooms are there around here?"
"Greg."
"Don't treat me like I'm being unreasonable," he snapped.
"What word would you use, then - for this behavior?"
"Mycroft, I trust you. I trust you with everything - my secrets, my body, my heart, my damn life. It hurts to find out you lie to me."
"I never deliberately lied to you. It just never occurred to me that you should know about this. It has nothing to do with you, really."
He stood and approached one stack of oak against the wall. "This says otherwise." He planted himself in front of a tower of four boxes with his arms crossed.
I walked toward him, reaching around his back to pull down the top box. Resting it carefully on the floor, I opened it tenderly. On the top of the box was laid a large jacquard blanket that had once decorated the back of my sitting room sofa. I lifted it out, carefully placing it on my knee, to find a red knit scarf and several folded sheets of paper. "In what way, exactly, does this offend you?" I asked, raising the scarf to my nose and inhaling its odor.
Greg knelt next to me. "It doesn't offend me." His voice was far softer than it had been. "I'm just used to knowing what you're thinking and feeling, even if you're not able to say it. But this...." He had no idea what he should say.
I allowed one arm to support me as I shifted all the weight to my backside, sitting now on the floor to face him. This was a moment for words - the proper words. What were they? "Greg, you know that emotions aren't easy for me. You know that my heart is probably best described as a fortress surrounded by a moat of ice."
"If you want to understate things," he muttered wearily.
"Precisely my point. There are, however, two places in this universe where that heart finds a home. With you, and in these boxes."
He looked at me empathetically, beginning to understand my reasons for keeping the room hidden, then reached for a few of the folded papers. "Did you keep every single one?"
"Yes," I admitted. During our long period of midnight trysts, Greg had the habit of leaving a note for me before he left my side. I, inevitably, would fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and he would rush away well before dawn. I would always wake to a note.
Greg reached and snatched the scarf from my hand. "Thought I'd lost this."
"You did," I said matter-of-factly. He examined the scarf he'd accidentally left behind one night as I picked the blanket up, wrapping my arms around it, almost in a hug.
Greg looked at the blanket, smiled, and then found my eyes. His hand suddenly grazed my back as he softly said, "You are an absolutely beautiful man. If people only knew..."
I interrupted him. "That's why people don't know." I cleared my throat in an effort to scare away the sentiment that was caught in my windpipe. It was a wasted effort.
Greg rubbed my spine as he watched me gently return the notes and his scarf to the box. He must've noticed my hesitancy to let go of the blanket. I felt his breath against my ear as he whispered, "I'm right here."
He was correct. He was right there. He was sitting next to me and, for some reason beyond my considerable comprehension, loving me. I closed my eyes as I placed the blanket in the box. My mind flashed to the sitting room, the smell of hickory logs, the taste of strawberry wine, and the touch of Greg's lips on my chest. The first night he'd come to my house under the cover of night, this was the blanket we'd rested upon.
"Hey." Greg's voice startled me out of my memories. "I'm sorry that I reacted like that. I guess I was sort of a dick about it."
"I shouldn't have secrets from you."
"Well, now that I know about all this, do you still? Is there anything else?"
"No. Just this." I moved my arm to gesture around the space. The room was the length of my sitting room, parlour, and dining room combined. The oak boxes weren't labeled but were carefully cataloged in my mind. I could find any item I desired without effort.
Tower 2, Box 3, baby pictures of Eurus
Tower 7, Box 5, Sherlock's pirate costume
Tower 9, Box 1, my rock collection from the stream at Musgrave
As I scanned through the card catalog of my mind, Greg leaned across an oak lid to reach the music box I'd heard earlier. It was no longer playing, but he immediately found the key to wind it. I could hear the words in my head, "Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight".
"Explain this one, though. Everything else makes some sort of sense." He handed me the music box.
"I was thirteen. It was in my Christmas stocking."
"There's more of a story there than that."
"I had just seen It's A Wonderful Life for the first time."
"That's a film, right?"
"My God, Greg. Yes. It's a film." I paused to shake off his ignorance. All he ever watched was football. "It's my favourite film. This is the song that plays during the opening credits, and then plays its own role in the story as well."
"The thirteen-year-old maven of film with his music box. Yep, I can see it."
He was mocking me but doing it with love. I ignored his comments and stood to return the music box back to its home. Tower 11, Box 2
"You're right, though," he offered.
"About?"
"I do know you and this is proof. You're your mother through and through. You'll never admit it, though."
"I'm sorry?" I turned to look at him.
"You're the same person you and her."
"She."
"You and she," he corrected himself with a growl. "The only difference is you try to mask what you are. She embraces it."
"I don't try, Greg."
"I'm sorry. No. You don't try. You succeed. Brilliantly, really." He stood and walked toward me. "But you don't succeed with me, Mycroft Holmes," he said, using his arms to pin my body between two stacks of boxes. "To me, you're transparent." He used his hips to force my backside against the wall. Before my mind could register his next several movements, the waistband of my trousers rested at my knees and Greg's smooth tongue was caressing my cock. I let my head fall back against the wall for just a few seconds, inhaling the pleasure of his touch. Then, I pushed his shoulders back with enough force that he fell back onto the floor. He looked up at me with a devilish grin. I dropped to my knees, grabbing his wrists then forcing them above his head before biting his neck. He raised his hips, disturbing my balance, and rolled me onto my back, taking the high ground. He straightened his back and slid his shirt over his head. Without thought, I reached up to run the palms of my hands across his freshly waxed chest. He quickly grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head as I'd done to him.
This was our plight. A constant battle for dominance. A constant battle which, in physical moments like this, usually ended in both parties panting with desperation for one another until it no longer mattered who topped whom.
He kept one of my wrists secured above my head, and reached his other arm into his pocket, pulling out a pouch of lubricant. I moved my free hand to unfasten his trousers as he ripped the pouch open between his teeth, letting go of my wrist and backing up. The gel was warm from his pocket and felt delicious on my skin. Greg's strong hands took little time to lather me up. I used the minute to pull his trousers below his knees. He squeezed what was left in the pouch onto his fingertips, reaching around his own body, taking a mere few seconds to ensure his own comfort. As he moved his hand from behind, I grabbed his hips, hoisting him upward and forward. He smiled, clutching the base of my cock with his hand, and slowly lowered himself onto it. His body rocked slightly and he circled his hips a few times, making sure his body could take it. Once his facial expression changed from wincing to hungry, I forced my pelvis upward. Greg let out a roar. He leaned down to kiss my chest as he used his solid thighs to raise himself up and down. I closed my eyes and felt my shoulders weaken as my head fell back onto the carpet. "I'm yours," I conceded, deliberately contradicting his rhythm, offering a thrust upward each time he lowered his buttocks to my lap.
"I know," he said, quickening his pace.