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When one occupies a minor position in Her Majesty’s Government, discretion is essential. Relationships are risky, especially with partners of one’s own sex. Anonymity is, paradoxically, safer.
Mycroft knew the best places for discreet sexual encounters in every city he’d visited on Her Majesty’s Service. He took care never to carry away inconvenient memories, never to leave any compromising traces. Anonymous couplings suited his tastes and his temperament: no messy emotional entanglements, merely a satisfying encounter of hands and mouths and limbs, of bodies shining with sweat, grappling in the dark or the half-light, groaning in ecstasy.
He’d noticed the fair-haired Englishman right away, though he hesitated to approach him at first. A shared language could present unwanted complications. But as the steam-clouds formed and dispersed, his eyes kept going back to the man, and eventually he’d laid a questioning hand on his thigh.
The blond responded enthusiastically - almost exaggeratedly so. For a moment Mycroft wondered whether he’d come here to forget, but dismissed the speculation as pointless. Besides, if the way this man kissed was any indication – and it usually was – having sex with him could be something rather special...
Afterwards, resisting the temptation to ask his companion's name, Mycroft returned to the hotel alone. He allowed himself a solitary cigarette, and got quietly drunk on the local apricot brandy.
**
When you've had your heart broken for the second time in thirty years, and then been dumped by the cute much younger boyfriend who never had your heart to break, you go back to what you know. Which, in Maurice's case, meant anonymous sex of the kind he'd spent most of his life having, after Clive and before Lestrade.
He liked the way sex with strangers could be just itself. Liked the sense of improvisation, of creating something in the moment, purely for the moment. No future, no obligations. Enough risk to make it exciting, but the risks were only physical.
He couldn't have said how he knew the man in the Hungarian sauna was English. Pale freckled skin, broad shoulders, powerful swimmer's thighs. A man who clearly worked hard to keep in shape, and who knew how to use his body. Wearing nothing but a cloud of steam and a smile.
The last person he'd have expected to run into at one of Clive Durham's black-tie charity dinners. He could see the other man felt the shock too, the jolt of it, like stepping on a rake and getting the handle full in your face.
“Maurice!” Clive said. “Do you know Mycroft Holmes?”
“Holmes,” Maurice said, his heart sinking. “Any relation to Sherlock?”
Mycroft Holmes smiled thinly. “Sherlock's my brother.”
***
After nearly thirty years in the Force, Lestrade knows guilty when he sees it. It's not a good look on Maurice.
“I wasn't sure I should tell you about me and Mycroft,” Maurice says. “Because of what happened between you and Sherlock.”
You what? Lestrade thinks. Then he gets it. “You think I'm still pining for Sherlock? Oh, honestly. Come here, you.”
Maurice may be a daft bugger, but he's still a bloody fantastic kisser. Amongst other talents.
“Haven't you ever done that?” Maurice asks, unbuttoning Lestrade's shirt.
“Run into someone I'd shagged? 'Course,” he says, unbuttoning Maurice's.
Never shagged the British government, though. Lestrade starts to laugh, thinking about it.
“Bet Mycroft had a fit when he recognized you. Not to mention finding out you knew Sherlock. Must have been worried you'd blow his cover. So to speak.”
Maurice snorts. “God, your jokes are dreadful.”
“Wouldn't mind having anonymous sex with you myself,” Lestrade says, pushing his hand between Maurice's thighs. “Maybe we should check out that Hungarian sauna of yours.”
“Christ, the thought of meeting you somewhere like that, not knowing you,” Maurice groans. “I'd want to have you right there and then, no matter what happened afterwards.”
“Mmm,” Lestrade says, groping him shamelessly. “Well, you know what they say about that. What happens in Budapest stays in Budapest.”