#mystrade

Mycroft awakens momentarily confused, his heart beating fast, to find himself tangled in the sheets of an unfamiliar bed. Then he smiles, calm returning, at the stripes of warm sunlight that spill across the room and the luxurious sheets of the bed he finds himself in. A breeze slips in through open French doors, carrying the scent of the nearby beach.

Then his heart skips a beat for a different reason as he is reminded why he is here, in a strange room in a strange land, yet not alone: Gregory.

From the en suite, Greg strides out, scratching at his silver head absently. The same sunlight falls over him, highlighting the lines of his nude form. Seeing him awake, Greg smiles radiantly and extends his hand, stepping closer to the bed.

Mycroft also reaches out, drawing him into the soft space beside him.

"I've waited a long time. Is it too soon?" he asks.

"Too soon to what?" Greg raises a curious brow.

“Say my name,” he whispers, shy but earnest.

Now lying beside him, Greg grins with soft indulgence. Left hands with matching bands intertwine, and the room seems to brighten.

Greg tenderly speaks his full name, emphasizing the newly added hyphenation, glimmering with the truth that this is the first morning of the first day of the rest of their lives together.

“Mycroft David Alexander Holmes-Lestrade.”

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For July 13, 2026

“Is it too soon?”

The game is to write a flash fic this weekend and post it here (or with a link to the fic on AO3) on Monday with the hashtag Mystrade Monday.

Flash fiction is a complete story that is less than 1,000 words. 360mg is complete fic of 360 words with the last two beginning with “M” and “G” in any order. Please spread the word.

Warm late afternoon light pooled across Greg’s office, the muted sounds of the city outside his window. On the other side of his office door, the NSY bullpen phones hummed, a distant coffee machine hissed, but he was listening for a specific sound and took a deep breath when he heard the pings of the unseen lift banks beyond the cubicles.

Years of working with John and Sherlock meant reception no longer announced them when they visited. So, it surprised him when he got a call warning him that he was about to have a visitor who didn’t look to be in the best of moods.

Thus, he looked up as a familiar silhouette rounded the corner: John.

John’s shoulders were hunched, his frame looking uncertain, worn, as if every step of walking hollowed him out a little more. He paused in the doorway, eyes not meeting Greg’s, then looked away; his deep blue eyes looked haunted and overwhelmed.

“John?” Greg’s brow furrowed.

“I… I just came from my anger management,” John managed, the words spilling with a tremor that betrayed more than fatigue.

“I didn’t know you were going—”

“I signed myself up after… after…”

Greg winced internally at the unsaid, his mind automatically bringing up how he last saw Sherlock: the bloodshot eyes, the cut face.

All because of John.

A fit of anger, a moment when the wrong choice had consequences now coming to a bitter head.

“That’s good. But… What happened …?” Greg gestured for John to sit, but the man remained standing.

“It made me really look at myself and… Oh Christ, Greg, I’m such a monster!” The words cracked apart, then gathered themselves with razor clarity, spilling onto the floor between them. “In my head… I know what I did… was not in anger, but guilt.”

“Guilt? What do you mean?”

“I was so angry, but at myself, at my guilt, because… Because…” John clenched his trembling left hand tight, “Because a part of me, an uncomfortably large part, is relieved… she’s…dead.”

Greg wanted to be shocked; by all rights, he probably should be shocked the man was relieved to be a widower; that his daughter would be motherless.  

But Greg was not.  

“John…”

When Sherlock unexpectedly jumped, the loss hit John the hardest. The man fell into such despair that Mycroft secretly had him on suicide watch for a long while. Nearly everyone was glad when John finally pulled himself out and began to live again.

Then after two years, Sherlock returned just as unexpectedly. John proposed and married Mary anyway. Then Mary died saving Sherlock’s life.

And John punished Sherlock for it in the most brutal way.

“But none of it. None of it excuses what I did to him!” John shook his head as he continued, not hearing him. The tremor of tears came, and John crumpled to his knees, hands wringing at the edges of his coat, voice rough and glottal.

“That is true.” Because not even Greg would sugarcoat that.

No, if anything, Greg felt his complete lack of shock for the situation was the shock.

“I… deserved that…”

John drew in a shaky breath, the sound hollow in the quiet room, and Greg mentally braced himself, somehow knowing what was coming.

“I… love him,” John tearfully whispered, the admission a fragile thing. “Sherlock. I’ve always loved Sherlock. And I lied to myself about it, about everything, because I was afraid of what people would say. I let fear and convention and anger blind me. And I did that!”

Not quite knowing how to respond, Greg came around and grabbed him by the shoulders; the urge to shush John fought with the understanding his friend really needed to get this off his chest.  

There was more.

“Had I followed my heart… My proposal… should have been to Sherlock.”

The words came out ragged, the confession stinging like salt in a wound. He cried out in a way that felt both mortal and intimate, as though every wound he’d tried to bury had erupted into pain he couldn’t swallow.

“John…” Greg tried to get him to stand, but John stayed kneeling.

“I’m sorry, I did not come here to tell you all that. Just that I decided to leave London.”

Now Greg was truly shocked. “What? No! What are you saying?”

“With my CV, I can be a GP doctor anywhere, but Sherlock’s home, his life, The Work, is here in London.”

“John, don’t say anything you’ll regr-”

“I can’t stay! London’s big, but not big enough. The risk of running accidentally into each other and the memory of what I, of all people, did to him, hurting him anew. No, I’ve hurt him enough. I will take my daughter and leave and spare him seeing the man who could do that to him.”

Down on one knee on the floor with John, Greg had forgotten about the bullpen just outside the office door that John had left ajar, but now opened fully.

"You would leave and never come back?" a familiar voice, cold and smooth, cut through the murk of the moment. “Promise?”

Distracted by John’s unexpected visit, Greg hadn’t been paying attention to the time and looked up at his dinner date.

“Mycroft!”

With a look of betrayal at Greg, until Greg hissed at Mycroft, still, John recoiled as if struck, scurrying back until stopped by Greg’s desk.

Mycroft looked at Greg in barely hidden surprise. From the very first moment John met him, John respected Mycroft’s power, but had never feared him in any way, shape, or form – until that moment.

Then again, John had only taken his little brother to the hospital for help, not put him there by harm from his own hands.

Saying Mycroft had been livid at the time did not cut it. It had taken Greg a lot to calm his lover down from raining hellfire upon John when he found out. Greg knew Sherlock would forgive his brother anything done in defense of him -except make little Rosie an orphan.

Still, this was the first time the two men had seen each other face-to-face.

Greg knew Mycroft was well aware that John would leave London and never return if pushed. And if anyone could push him at this moment, it would be Mycroft.

“John,” Greg spoke, steady from the experience of seeing people bear their worst and holding them up anyway. “You would leave and never come back?”

John, still on the floor, took another shaky breath, then faced his judge, jury, and executioner at the door.

“I’ll leave the city,” he whispered, not as a surrender but as an act of choosing the fire over frying pan. It was evident how much John hurt. He would leave London; it would kill him, but he would do it. “Sherlock deserves a life free from me, and I owe it to him to stop hurting him, even if that means my never seeing him again.”

The room seemed to compress around John, who looked up with bloodshot eyes and a desperate, almost pathetic need to be believed. It came with a gut-wrenching sound. Greg remembered that sound. It was similar to the pain John vocalized when Mary died in his arms.  

“You’ll do no such thing,” Mycroft said again, the certainty in his tone almost physical.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because… And I cannot believe I am saying this… You’re more than the worst thing you’ve done,” Mycroft replied, the edge in his voice enough to make John listen.

Mycroft quietly reminded John that Sherlock is certified in not one but two forms of self-defense, letting the implication hang.

"You're saying he let me do that to him. WHY??" John shook his head in disbelief, even as the truth of the words began to register.

“Dear god…” Mycroft sighed loudly in exasperation. “You really are your own worst enemy, Watson.”

"And this bullshit right here..." Greg looked up at Mycroft but pointed to John, "...would still be us, had I not found the courage to say something to break the stupidity."

Mycroft’s brief smile to him was enough to show how grateful he was for it.

"And that you, Mycroft, dared to follow through." Sherlock stepped from behind Mycroft.

It was one of the times Greg was reminded that Mycroft is, in fact, slightly taller than his younger brother. Tall enough that neither he nor John noticed he was there until they both stepped into the office and Sherlock fully closed the door.

The office, the bullpen beyond, the city—all of it seemed to pause.

“Sherlock…” John whispered the name that carried both mercy and condemnation.

“Did you mean it?” Sherlock asked, the rumble of his voice carrying both surprising tenderness and a quiet, ruthless honesty that cut through the fog of fear and doubt.

“What you said,” Sherlock continued, his gaze locked onto John’s, “All of it—did you mean it?”

John’s breath hitched, the confession spilling out in a gasping rush. He slowly stood, the idea dawning with a clarity he hadn’t allowed himself to admit, as if the universe itself were offering him a doorway he hadn’t dared to walk through.

“Yes, Sherlock. I meant it. All of it.”

Greg and Mycroft looked at each the unspoken FINALLY hung between them.

“Then where in this world do you think you can go where I can’t find you and drag you back to where you belong, you and Rosie – by my side at Baker Street?” Sherlock’s tone was offered as a lifeline and a binding oath, a promise that love could become a map rather than a trap.

“Sherlock, I don’t think I-…”

“John, you and I not thinking, or rather, overthinking, is why we’re here at this moment. Do shut up.”

For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Mycroft spoke.

“If you two are quite done being the horrendous warning that caused Gregory and me to act sooner rather than later, perhaps you can follow our good example and take your much-needed sentiment in conversation elsewhere.”

The edge of humor, faint as a sigh, threaded through Mycroft’s words, a quiet, unspoken support and a reminder that even in the most harrowing of moments, something human and redeeming could still surface.

“Very good idea…” Sherlock opened the door and gestured out, “John?”

But Mycroft Holmes is Mycroft Holmes.

“And John?” Mycroft waited until John’s eyes met his. “It would do well to remember if there’s a next time, there is nowhere in this world I can’t find you…”

The threat was left open; Greg’s steady gaze closed it.

“And if there’s a next time, I won’t hold him back.”

Sherlock’s brow cocked in surprise at Greg.

“I had wondered… thank you.”

The moment stretched, the room breathing with the weight of confessions laid bare, then narrowed to a single, stubborn truth: that even the deepest wounds might, in time, become the edges that define something braver than despair.

John wiped at his eyes, a tremor still in his hands, and exhaled a shaky breath that felt like a fragile, new beginning.

“We can and will talk at Baker Street, but then I’m still leaving,” he said softly, more to himself than to them, and held out a hand, stopping Sherlock’s immediate protest. “I’m not running away, Sherlock. I’m choosing to wait and learn control. To learn to live in a way that when I come with Rosie  to you, I will come with openness and honesty, not with excuses.”

A quiet, almost sacred pause settled over the room. John bowed his head, the weight of his decision pressing, yet there was something unsealed within him: a stubborn resolve, a sliver of hope, a willingness to seek healing — not just for himself, but for all of them who carried the memory of what had happened.

“When you do come back, you’ll find me ready to listen, not to punish, but to rebuild.” Sherlock paused, then added with a gossamer smile that held the weight of their shared past and the fragile promise of a future: “I’ve waited a long time for this. Maybe I’m just a fool who loves you, but if you don’t come back, if friends is all we can ever be, you’ll still have a place in my memory as someone who cared enough to try.”

“Go talk,” Greg said simply, his voice carrying both consent and caution. “Do what you must to heal, both of you. And when you’re ready, if you’re ever ready, we’ll be here.”

“I was there for you before. I’ll be there again.” Mycroft added for John, then looked at his brother, “I’ll always be there for you.”  

John’s gaze shifted from Mycroft to Greg to Sherlock, fear tempered by a stubborn, stubborn thread of hope. He slowly drew himself upright, not fully steady, but still standing. The world, which had threatened to swallow him whole moments before, now offered a path he could take if he chose to walk it, one careful step at a time.

With a curt nod, John chose to walk it.

And took that first careful step.

With hands in their respective pockets, Sherlock and John left together, the tension slowly easing into something resembling the beginnings of peace, brittle and bright.

“So, those two idiots have finally said the words. Confession is good for the soul.” Greg leaned back against his desk, watching the two men depart.

“They will confess again at Baker Street,” Mycroft said confidently. “After that? Only Universe knows.”

“And like with us, Universe is rarely so lazy as to let them go all through that for nothing?”

“Exactly.” Mycroft gestured out, “Dinner, my love?”

“Starving.”

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Chapters: 1/8 Fandom: Sherlock (BBC TV 2010) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade Characters: Mycroft Holmes, Greg Lestrade, Anthea (Sherlock BBC TV), Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Eurus Holmes Additional Tags: Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem (Sherlock BBC TV), Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem (Sherlock BBC TV), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings, Mycroft Holmes Needs a Hug Summary:

He should have done better. He should have paid for all the misery and pain and death he had caused. He should have died when the East Wind came crashing down on them.

Now it's too late.

The greenhouse smelled of damp earth and sun-warmed leaves, a green scent that settled into Greg’s skin and steadied his breathing as he moved pots from one tray to the next. The hum of the ceiling fan mingled with a rustle of foliage, a soft, constant soundtrack that made the world feel a little more patient, a little more his own. Yes, they had landscapers and gardeners, but simple things like repotting a few plants, he enjoyed doing himself.

His hands remembered the rhythm of repotting, the careful tug of a root, the sigh of soil as it settled around a stem. A small breeze fluttered the sheer underside of the plant he was working with, and a ripple of green sent a surprised, almost shy smile to his lips.

Mycroft stepped through the doorway, the edge of his suit catching on a stray vine as he paused to take in the scene of his husband at the worktop. The greenhouse light pooled in a warm halo, highlighting the silver strands of his hair, as  Greg bent over a pot, concentrating as if the world had been reduced to potting soil and moisture meters.

Mycroft cleared his throat, a small but definite sound that went unnoticed. He stepped closer. The next attempt was an almost conspiratorial clearing of his throat, followed by a soft, “Hey, love.”

Still, no response. Mycroft could not help but shake his head in amusement despite his burgeoning chagrin at Greg’s absorption in the task at hand. He took another step closer, his eyes flicking to the dirt in Greg’s hands.

The tilt of his wrist as he adjusted the stake, the way the soil clung to his gloves’ fingertips. Mycroft gave a mental sigh of relief that Greg wore gloves, usually preferring to work bare-handed. He watched the flex and retraction of the bare forearm muscles as they coaxed stubborn foliage out of its tight confines. All accompanied by Greg’s quiet humming. The sound, a light, almost private melody, made Mycroft smile at its intimacy.

“Can I steal  your attention?” Mycroft whispered, as soft as the breeze that slid between the leaves, and then he leaned in, a breath held in the hope of a kiss.

Greg made a quiet sound of acknowledgment, but his gaze never rose from the pot he was tending. Mycroft knew that Greg, caught up in his own little world and not expecting him to be home, hadn’t registered that it was him speaking, not one of the staff. He took another step closer, a whisper of his suit fabric brushing the back of Greg’s leather apron.

The other plants seemed to recede, having noticed him first, their textures slowing in the periphery, the roughness of bark, the smoothness of a new leaf, the cool dampness of potting mix because Mycroft did not want to think about the possibility that fertilizer on Greg’s hands was the reason they were gloved.

“A little kiss of welcome, maybe? For your poor husband, thus far being ignored for foliage.”

After enjoying watching those strong fingers and arms work their horticultural magic, he now wanted more than a kiss, and thought of a better place for Greg to dig his fingers in.  

The moment stretched, longer than a heartbeat and shorter than a sigh. Mycroft’s usual playfulness softened into something full of intent, his world narrowing to the feel of Greg’s skin warm through the shirt sleeve, the quiet strength in the line of his arm as he worked. His fingertips ghosted along Greg’s strong forearm, a touch that carried both a joke and longing.

“Oh!” Greg blinked, having noticed him at last.

With a sudden, breath-held gesture, Mycroft stepped in closer still, and then before either of them could overthink it, he swept Greg into his arms with warmth that promised even more heat was imminent.

Greg gasped, startled into stillness for a heartbeat, then surrendered as Mycroft’s mouth found his in a kiss that was steady, lingering, and entirely theirs. Greg returned the kiss with a gentle, lingering, full-bodied pressure that had Mycroft forget where he was as he was turned and pressed against the worktop.

When they finally pulled apart, the space between them held a quiet electricity, undercut by something sweeter. Greg’s warm eyes, bright with delighted surprise and a quiet humor that hadn’t quite left his mouth, softened as he rested his forehead against Mycroft’s.

Mycroft pressed a kiss to Greg’s temple, his hands still where they’d landed—one at the back of Greg’s neck, the other now steadying him against the embrace they’d just shared.

“Okay, there’s your kiss.” Greg teased against Mycroft’s lips, half-laced with a laugh.  He stepped back a little more, not to escape, but to acknowledge the moment they’d claimed. “But I think more than a kiss is warranted after a greeting like that, love.”

“I like the sound of that.” Mycroft grinned.  

Greg’s smile returned in a slow, heated glow; the gleam in his eyes hinted at something more inevitable. Greg looked at the remaining pots, then lowered his gaze to the evident need that had grown between them, knowing it was not because of the greenhouse effect.

Or maybe it was.

He removed his apron, used one glove to take off the other, then tossed it all aside.

He pulled Mycroft into another heated kiss.  

“The plants can wait, Mycroft. I can’t.”

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During dinner, Greg had made the mistake of pointing out a couple where a woman quietly slid an open jeweler’s box across to her stunned intended, who quietly, but enthusiastically, said yes. Mycroft sat across from him and inspected the rim of his glass with the practiced cool of someone who could dissect a situation without ever letting it become personal. He looked up, cool eyes the color of storms, and offered a wry smile that didn’t quite reach them.

“People…” Mycroft said, with that dry affection that made Greg want to roll his eyes, “…are either fools or they’re not. Romantic entanglements are for fools. Your own failed marriage proving the point. You seem much happier since you cut those ties that bound. Embrace the simplicity, inspector. Caring is not an advantage.”

“I can’t help it,” Greg murmured, half to himself, half to the man who wasn’t listening in the way a man listening should.

Greg was never going to tell Mycroft that if he seemed happier, it was because of him. That certainly would not have gone over well at all. Especially after Mycroft’s ten-minute spiel against the most foolish of all sentiments called love before the conversation moved to another subject.

The world knew Mycroft’s exterior: a mind that could map the city’s arteries and the global intrigue in the same breath, a powerful man who wore command easily. But Greg knew the heart beneath the armor of his bespoke suits: the shared jokes, the easy camaraderie, the unspoken understanding when the world pressed in too close.

“I have work to do, and people to outthink,” Mycroft said, his voice even, controlled, as if naming a fact rather than inviting a response. Dinner over and the check handled, Greg watched as Mycroft rose from the table, the way a statue might rise in a gallery, controlled, precise, unshakable.

“And I have paperwork that’s not going to file itself.” Greg gave a small, almost helpless nod, the familiar comfort of duty wrestling with something tender and ache-filled in his chest, adding under his breath, “Don’t want to go, but I love to watch you leave.”

Mycroft paused, glancing over his shoulder with a flicker of something almost, almost, soft in his expression. It was gone before most eyes could register it; a blink of warmth that didn’t fit the myth of “caring is not an advantage” before returning to its stoic mien and continuing to the exit.

Greg, unsure what he saw, dismissed it, believing himself mistaken.

It had rained while they were inside. The street had that extra sparkle, making London’s lights glitter.

He watched Mycroft stride toward the dark sedan, waiting for him at the curb. The city’s noise soon to become a distant thrum inside the posh interior. The door closed with a soft sigh that seemed to carry a weight of intention and distance alike, and the engine revved once, then settled into a steady, merciless purr as the vehicle slid into the night. Its headlights carved diamonds into the rain-slick street, and the car vanished into the black, leaving only the echo of tires on pavement.

He recalled Mycroft’s words, the way his voice sliced through sentimentality with snark and a sharp edge on the truth. Greg knew what he felt wasn’t delusional; but a quiet, stubborn belief that what was not confessed could still be felt in the margins—the words built up in his chest, a private litany of longing and restraint.

“Maybe I’m just a fool who loves you,” he whispered.

Greg stood at the curb, hands in his coat pockets, a beat longer than necessary, before heading to his own vehicle.

Always with the diligent hope that it won’t be for much longer, a soft smile flickered in the silent truth and quiet ache he’s learned to live with.  

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For July 6, 2026

Character A is quietly reading a book (or similar peaceful, solitary activity) and Character B would really like their attention.

The game is to write a flash fic this weekend and post it here (or with a link to the fic on AO3) on Monday with the hashtag Mystrade Monday.

Flash fiction is a complete story that is less than 1,000 words. 360mg is complete fic of 360 words with the last two beginning with “M” and “G” in any order. Please spread the word.