Chapter Text
Mycroft had sworn, repeatedly and with considerable conviction, that he would never teach hockey players.
This was not prejudice.
It was experience.
Hockey players, in Mycroft’s professional opinion, possessed all the grace of shopping trolleys released down an icy hill and approximately the same respect for personal space. They were loud, broad-shouldered, overconfident, and inclined to mistake brute force for athletic skill simply because their sport allowed them to crash into one another at speed while holding sticks.
Unfortunately, Mycroft also owed Victor Trevor a significant favour.
Which was why, at twenty-six years old, with a knee that still ached in cold weather and a competitive career buried far too early beneath surgical reports and sympathetic articles, Mycroft found himself standing at the centre of a rink at seven o’clock on a Thursday evening, facing an entire semi-professional hockey team who looked at him as though he had personally insulted their mothers.
Victor stood beside him, whistle around his neck, arms folded, looking far too pleased with himself. “Right, lads,” he called. “Listen up. This is Mycroft Holmes.”
A few of the players exchanged glances. One of them muttered something Mycroft chose not to hear.
Victor, unfortunately, did hear it. “And before any of you decide to be clever, yes, figure skating. And yes, every single one of you could learn something from him, because at the moment, I’ve seen oil tankers turn faster than half this team.”
That earned some groans.
Mycroft did not move.
He stood perfectly still on the ice, hands clasped behind his back, black training clothes fitted close to a frame that had once been built for rotation, elevation, and impossible lines. He was aware of how he appeared to them.
Too neat, too pale, too composed and too elegant for their world of shoulder pads, bruises, and shouted instructions.
He was also aware that none of them could hold an outside edge properly. Tragic, really.
“You’ll have thirty minutes with him before every training session,” Victor continued. “Edges, turns, balance, agility. If he tells you to do something, you do it. If you complain, you do it twice.”
The groaning increased.
Mycroft lifted one eyebrow.
That was sufficient to silence three of them. Not all, but three. He decided to call this progress.
At the back of the group, one player laughed softly, not mockingly. Amused, perhaps.
Mycroft’s gaze moved toward him before he could stop it.
The man was broad, dark-haired with strikes of silver in it and built like he had learned early how to take a hit and return it with interest. Late mid-twenties, though his face already carried the rough beginnings of future lines around the eyes and mouth. There was warmth in him even standing still, something open and unguarded beneath the battered pads and careless grin.
He was looking directly at Mycroft with honest interested.
How inconvenient.
Victor clapped his hands once. “No sticks for this. Spread out.”
The team moved with all the elegance of a collapsing fence.
Mycroft closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the warm-eyed player was still watching him, grin barely hidden.
“My condolences,” he said as he skated past.
Mycroft turned his head. “For what, precisely?”
The player nodded toward the rest of the team, who were now attempting to organise themselves into something resembling a line. “Us.”
Mycroft looked at him for a moment before responding. “Premature, but appreciated.”
The man laughed. “Mycroft, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Greg Lestrade.”
He offered a gloved fist.
Mycroft looked at it and then at him. “You are aware we are about to begin instruction?”
Greg’s grin widened. “Yeah. Thought I’d introduce myself before you started hating me.”
“I assure you, Mr Lestrade.” Mycroft started.
“Greg, please” Greg said.
“I am capable of multitasking.”
Greg laughed again, and Mycroft decided almost immediately that this was going to be a problem.
Not because Greg Lestrade was loud, or rough, or absurdly broad in a hockey jersey, but because he was the only one on the ice who looked at Mycroft as though he was not a punishment.
He looked at him as though he was fascinating and Mycroft, who had spent the last years being looked at with pity, found that very dangerous indeed.
Mycroft began with edges. Not turns, not spins, not anything approaching what the players clearly feared would involve artistry.
Basic control.
Foundational movement.
The sort of thing every skater ought to have learned properly before being trusted with blades, speed, and competitive aggression. Judging by the state of the team now shuffling into an uneven line before him, many of them had somehow bypassed that stage entirely and proceeded directly to collision.
“Inside edge,” Mycroft said, demonstrating with effortless economy as he pushed forward, shifting his weight through one clean curve. “Outside edge.”
He changed direction without visible strain, his body following the line of the blade as if the ice had drawn it for him in advance.
Even after everything, that much remained.
Balance. Precision. Control.
His knee complained faintly on the return, a familiar dull warning beneath the joint, but he ignored it. Pain had become an unreliable narrator some time ago.
He came to a smooth stop in front of them.
“It is not speed I am interested in,” he continued. “Nor brute force, though I realise both concepts hold considerable emotional appeal for you. I am interested in control. If you cannot control your edges, you cannot control your turns. If you cannot control your turns, you are wasting energy every time you cross the ice.”
One of the defenders near the back muttered, “We’re hockey players, not ballerinas.”
Mycroft’s eyes moved to him at once.
The man had the sense to look briefly uncertain, but before Mycroft could respond, Victor’s whistle cut violently across the rink.
“Again, Miller?” Victor barked. “You want to say that louder? Because last match you turned slower than my nan in a supermarket aisle.”
Several players laughed.
Miller went red.
Victor pointed at Mycroft. “He tells you to use one foot, you use one foot. He tells you to glide backwards reciting Shakespeare, you ask which bloody play. Understood?”
A chorus of reluctant agreement followed.
Mycroft looked at Victor.
Victor gave him a wink.
“Very well,” Mycroft said. “You will cross the width of the rink on alternating inside edges. Slowly. If you rush, you will do it again. If you fall, you will get up. If you attempt to make this amusing, you will discover that I have far more patience than you have stamina.”
That quieted them more effectively than shouting had.
He stepped aside.
The first few attempts were exactly as unfortunate as expected.
Skates scraped too loudly. Knees locked. Shoulders twisted independently from hips. One forward nearly overbalanced three seconds in and recovered only by flailing both arms as though fighting off an invisible swarm.
Mycroft closed his eyes again only briefly.
When he opened them again, Greg was watching him from the line, mouth pressed into the sort of shape that suggested he was trying very hard not to laugh.
Not at the exercise, but at Mycroft, who’s this close to lose all faith in these players.
Its infuriating.
Greg’s turn came soon enough. He pushed off with more caution than most of the others, which immediately set him apart. He did not treat the drill as beneath him. His posture was rough, certainly. His shoulders too tense, his weight a fraction too far back, but there was something honest in the attempt.
“Your weight is too high,” Mycroft said as Greg passed.
Greg slowed, turning his head. “My weight?”
“Your centre of gravity,” Mycroft corrected, with some restraint. “Lower your knees. Allow the blade to carry the curve rather than pushing through it.”
Greg nodded, serious now. “Right.”
He tried again. It was better. Not elegant, not by any civilised standard but better.
Mycroft’s mouth almost moved in approval.
“Was that nearly a compliment?” Greg asked, gliding back toward the line.
“It was nearly not a criticism.”
Greg grinned, breath misting faintly in the cold rink air. “I’ll take it.”
Mycroft turned away before his expression betrayed anything unfortunate.
The session continued with the same mixture of resistance, improvement, and barely concealed resentment. Mycroft moved among them, offering corrections with surgical precision.
“Bend your knees, not your spine.”
“Your shoulders are not independent contractors.”
“Mr Hayes, if you look at your feet again, I shall assume you wish to become permanently acquainted with the ice.”
“Less force. You are skating, not attempting to punish the rink.”
Victor laughed at that from the boards.
The players, to their credit, began to take it seriously once they realised two things.
First, that the drills were more difficult than they looked, and second, that Mycroft could spot every flaw from all the way across the rink and describe it in a tone that made poor edge control sound like a personal failing.
By the ten-minute mark, the muttering had largely stopped. By fifteen, they were sweating. By twenty most of them had developed the grim concentration of men realising they had underestimated something and would rather die than admit it aloud.
Mycroft found that satisfying. Certainly not enjoyable, but satisfying.
Greg, however, remained a problem. He watched constantly.
Not with the irritated suspicion of the others, nor the grudging respect beginning to emerge as they realised Mycroft did in fact know what he was doing. Greg watched as though Mycroft himself were the lesson. As though every demonstration, every shift of balance, every carefully restrained movement was being absorbed with far too much interest.
It was distracting.
Mycroft had not been distracted on the ice in years.
Not even in competition. Not even before the injury, when entire arenas had watched him, when cameras followed every breath and commentators discussed his body as though it were public property. Attention had been easy then. External. Manageable.
Greg’s attention was different. Warmer, closer.
More irritating because it did not feel like judgement. It felt like fascination.
Mycroft showed them the last exercise of todays practice.
“Backwards crossovers,” he said. “The principle is simple. The execution, in your collective case, will likely be tragic.”
Victor wheezed from the boards.
Mycroft demonstrated once.
Slowly, for their benefit, though even slowly the movement retained a fluidity he could not entirely strip from himself. Outside edge, weight transfer, cross, push, glide. Controlled shoulders. Quiet hips. No wasted motion.
When he turned back, the team had gone unusually still.
Mycroft felt the old discomfort rise behind his ribs before he could stop it.
That silence. That specific silence after he moved well. It used to mean scores. Applause. Expectation. Cameras. Pressure. Now it meant a group of hockey players staring at something he had been told he could no longer be.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Proceed,” he said, colder than he intended.
Blades scraped, bodies shifted, someone swore before even attempting the movement, and the rink returned to noise.
Good.
Greg pushed off when it was his turn, slower than he had before, brow furrowed in concentration. His first crossover was clumsy, too much upper body, not enough confidence in the edge. His second was worse. The third nearly sent him sideways, and he caught himself with a rough laugh.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “How did you make that look easy?”
“Years of training,” Mycroft replied.
Greg glanced at him. “Yeah?”
The question was simple, too simple and Mycroft was suddenly aware that Greg did not know.
Not properly. Perhaps he had heard the name, perhaps not. Mycroft Holmes had been very famous in a very narrow world, and hockey players were not generally known for their devotion to men’s figure skating.
“Yes,” Mycroft said.
Greg seemed to hear the door closing and, unexpectedly, did not push. He merely nodded and tried again. It was better this time.
Mycroft skated closer, stopping beside him. “You are leading with your shoulders. That will slow your turn and throw off your balance.”
Greg looked at him, breathing harder now. “Alright.”
“Again.”
Greg did it again.
Mycroft watched. “No. Your left hip is late.”
“My what?”
“Your hip.”
Greg looked down. “Didn’t know it had an appointment.”
Mycroft stared at him.
Greg grinned.
There were, Mycroft reflected, several excellent reasons not to smile. He adhered to all of them, but just barely. “Your jokes are not improving your footwork.”
“No, but they’re keeping morale up.”
“Whose?”
“Mine, mostly.”
Mycroft exhaled through his nose. “Again.”
Greg did it again.
This time, when Mycroft reached out, it was without thinking. He touched two fingers lightly to Greg’s padded elbow, guiding his arm into a better line, then tapped his hip - not hard, merely enough to indicate position.
“There. Keep that aligned. Your body must follow the edge, not argue with it.”
Greg cleared his throat. “Right.”
“Again,” Mycroft said, more sharply than necessary.
Greg obeyed and it was much better.
Mycroft watched him complete the movement, rough but controlled, and felt the unwilling flicker of approval return.
Greg’s grin came slowly, bright with exertion and triumph. “That was better.”
“It was less appalling.”
“High praise from you, I’m guessing.”
“You may choose to interpret it that way if it assists your emotional resilience.”
Greg laughed, full and delighted, and two of his teammates groaned.
“Greg’s on the pull eh,” one of them muttered.
Victor’s whistle shrieked again. “Lestrade is the only one of you improving,” Victor shouted. “So unless the rest of you want to skate rounds for the next hour, shut up and move.”
Greg’s ears went faintly red.
Interesting.
Mycroft turned away before anyone could notice his own reaction.
The final minutes passed more efficiently. The players, exhausted and humbled, began to understand that agility was not softness, that balance could be as brutal as speed if applied correctly, and that Mycroft’s quiet disdain was somehow more motivating than any amount of yelling.
When Victor finally blew the whistle to end the session, several of them bent forward with hands on knees.
The noise of the rink seemed to shift around them, sticks being collected, skates carving, Victor shouting for the team to get their first drill started. All of it remained present, and yet for one brief second Mycroft was aware only of Greg standing before him, flushed from exertion, hair damp at the temples, eyes warm and entirely sincere.
“Well,” he said, “for what it’s worth, I thought it was brilliant.”
Mycroft looked at him.
Brilliant.
People had used that word before. Judges, Commentators, Coaches, Sponsors, Reporters. It had always carried weight. Expectation and demand.
From Greg, somehow, it sounded like simple admiration.
Mycroft found he had no immediate defence against it. So he gave the only answer he could. “You have a great deal of work to do.”
Greg’s grin returned. “Good thing you’re coming back, then.” He said before skating away to join their team.
Victor came skating over to him. “Mycroft,” he said, far too cheerfully.
Mycroft turned toward him. “Victor.”
“That was excellent.”
“It was basic.”
“Exactly. They hated every second.”
“A predictable response to being confronted with their own deficiencies.”
Victor grinned. “I’ve missed you.”
“I cannot imagine why.” Mycroft said, looking down.
Victor clapped him lightly on the shoulder, careful enough not to jostle him, and Mycroft did not miss the small glance downward toward his knee. People still did that. Even Victor, who knew better.
“You did us a real favour,” Victor said, softer now. “Thank you.”
Mycroft inclined his head once. “It was no trouble.”
It was, in fact, a considerable inconvenience. Still, it had not been entirely intolerable.
“I shall come by to watch your next match,” Mycroft said.
Victor blinked. “You will?”
“Yes. If I am expected to tailor these sessions to the team’s actual weaknesses, I will need to observe them in context.”
Victor’s mouth slowly curved into something far too knowing.
Mycroft disliked it immediately.
“I will make a list of movements requiring correction.” Mycroft’s gaze flicked briefly over the team again. “Likely quite an extensive list.”
Victor huffed a laugh. “They’ll be thrilled.”
“Their enthusiasm is not required.”
“No,” Victor said, still smiling.
Mycroft turned back to him. “I assume the match begins at seven.”
“Half seven,” Victor said. “But if you want to see the warm-up…”
“I do.”
“Of course you do.”
“I will arrive by six.”
Mycroft arrived at the rink exactly at six like he said.
The match wouldn’t begin for another thirty minutes, but he had informed Victor that he wished to observe the warm-up, and Mycroft Holmes did not make inaccurate statements unless there was strategic value in doing so.
He had dressed appropriately for the environment. Warm, fitted dark trousers, a thick navy jumper beneath a dark quilted jacket, scarf wrapped neatly once at his throat and gloves in his pocket.
He chose a seat halfway up the small stand, slightly off-centre, where he could see the entire rink without obstruction. The crowd was modest but lively. Families, friends, girlfriends, a few older men in club scarves, children with hot chocolates and plastic clappers that Mycroft immediately classified as a public nuisance.
On the ice below, Victor’s team was warming up.
Mycroft folded his arms and watched.
They moved with energy, certainly. There was no lack of strength. No lack of speed either. In straight lines, most of them were competent. They attacked the ice with the particular confidence of men who believed momentum could compensate for nearly any technical deficiency.
It could not.
Their transitions were inefficient. Their stops threw up far too much ice. Their backward skating under pressure was uneven, and three of the defenders changed direction with all the grace of furniture being dragged across a floor.
Mycroft’s mouth tightened. He began making mental notes almost immediately.
Then Greg looked up.
It happened with such abrupt precision that Mycroft was momentarily convinced he had imagined it. Greg had been circling near the blue line, stick loose in one gloved hand. He turned, scanned the stands, and found Mycroft in less than five seconds.
Then he smiled and waved.
Not subtly. Not with any appropriate sense of discretion. A proper, unmistakable lift of his gloved hand.
Several players noticed. Victor noticed. At least one woman in the row below Mycroft turned to see who Greg was waving at.
Mycroft remained perfectly still.
Unfortunately, his face did not.
Heat rose with appalling speed beneath his skin.
He gave a very small nod in return, because to ignore the gesture entirely would have been conspicuous, and then immediately looked down at the programme he had accepted at the entrance and had no intention of reading.
Ridiculous.
The man was a hockey player acknowledging the presence of an auxiliary skating coach.
That was all.
There was no reason for Mycroft’s pulse to react as though Greg had performed some intimate act instead of waving at him with a padded glove in front of a couple hundred people.
There was also, regrettably, no use pretending he disliked it as much as he ought to.
Mycroft had always understood attention.
He had lived on it once, though he would have phrased it differently then. Discipline. Recognition. Technical appreciation. Scores. Applause. The sharp intake of breath from a crowd when a difficult movement landed exactly as it should.
He had never been vulgar enough to crave admiration openly, but he had thrived on being seen, on being recognised as exceptional, on the clean, bright certainty of praise earned through precision.
After the injury, that kind of attention had altered.
It had become softer. Sympathetic. Careful. People looked at him and saw the end of something.
Greg did not look at him like that.
Greg looked at him as though he were there now, present and fascinating and worth finding in a crowd. As though Mycroft’s presence in the stands mattered. As though being noticed by him was not obligation or pity or professional courtesy, but something Greg had actively sought.
It was absurdly, dangerously pleasant.
Worse, it was familiar in a way Mycroft did not entirely trust. A part of him - small, hidden, humiliatingly alive - preened beneath it.
The attention. The smile. The open, uncomplicated pleasure of being acknowledged. Of being chosen out of the noise.
He looked back at the ice.
Greg was still smiling.
Infuriating.
Even more infuriating was the fact that Mycroft wanted him to continue.
Why, exactly, Greg kept seeking his attention remained unclear. The man had teammates, coaches and an impending match and yet he kept looking at Mycroft.
Perhaps, Mycroft decided, because he was team captain, as he read on the programme.
That made sense. The captain would naturally be most invested in additional training, in tactical improvement, in the professional opinion of a consultant brought in to address their technical deficiencies.
Yes. That was likely. Leadership role. Increased responsibility. Greater awareness of coaching staff. Perfectly rational.
Mycroft sat back, satisfied with the conclusion.
The warm-up ended, the players returned briefly to the benches and the match began with a blast of the whistle and a clash of sticks loud enough to make Mycroft consider several arguments against recreational sport as a social institution.
The first five minutes were chaotic.
Not disastrous, exactly, but untidy. Victor’s team had energy and aggression, but they wasted both with remarkable consistency. They chased when they should have contained, overcommitted in the neutral zone, and relied on individual bursts of speed rather than structure.
Mycroft watched with increasing disapproval.
Number eleven could not pivot cleanly under pressure.
Number twenty-three drifted too far from his defensive partner.
Number eight stopped moving his feet whenever he received the puck, which explained why he was dispossessed twice in under three minutes.
Greg however was good.
Not in the way Mycroft had once been good, not elegant, not refined, not shaped by precision until every movement seemed inevitable.
Greg’s skating was still rough at the edges. His turns were too forceful. His shoulders did too much. His left side lagged occasionally when he changed direction at speed.
But he read the ice well. Very well.
He saw gaps before they opened. He anticipated rebounds. He corrected for his teammates’ mistakes with the weary instinct of someone accustomed to carrying slightly more than his share. His skating had power rather than beauty, but there was intelligence inside it.
A practical intelligence. The sort that did not look impressive until one realised it had been quietly holding the entire structure together.
Mycroft made a mental note. Greg’s technical foundation required refinement, but his spatial awareness was excellent.
This was all research.
Obviously.
At nine minutes into the first period, the opposing team scored.
Victor shouted something from the bench.
Mycroft agreed with the sentiment, if not the volume.
By the end of the first period, they were down two-nil.
Mycroft had already compiled an extensive list. He was beginning to understand why Victor had looked desperate enough to call in a favour.
The second period began better. Until the score became four-nil within ninety seconds.
Victor looked as though he might swallow his fist.
And then finally Greg scored.
It came late in the second period, after a turnover near centre ice. He moved faster than Mycroft expected, cutting through two defenders with inelegant but effective power. His right skate caught an outside edge surprisingly cleanly and he shifted his weight exactly as Mycroft had corrected him to do in training.
The shot was quick.
The puck hit the net before the goalkeeper properly reacted.
The small crowd erupted.
Greg’s teammates slammed into him against the boards, shouting, banging helmets, rough affection all over the place. Greg laughed, flushed and breathless and bright with adrenaline.
Then he looked up. Directly at Mycroft and grinned. As though the goal had been a private joke between them. As though Mycroft had something to do with it.
Mycroft’s face heated again with such violence that he looked sharply down at his list non-physical list of mental correction.
The second period ended four-one.
The third period was the worst.
Fatigue set in. Structure collapsed. The opposing team exploited every weakness with increasing enthusiasm.
Victor’s players lost speed in their recoveries, widened their turns, and made poor decisions under pressure. Mycroft watched it all with a growing mixture of professional interest and personal offence.
Five-one.
Six-one.
At six-two, Greg scored again.
This time it was ugly.
A scramble in front of the net, bodies everywhere, a deflection off the goalkeeper’s pad and Greg forcing the puck across the line through sheer persistence. It was not graceful. It was barely even clean.
It was, however, effective.
Greg ended up on one knee, shoved from behind, one glove braced on the ice. His teammates hauled him upright, laughing and shouting as though they were not still losing by four goals.
Greg looked up again straight at Mycroft.
Mycroft’s breath caught in a way that was both medically unnecessary and socially humiliating.
Greg’s grin was smaller this time, more breathless, almost questioning.
Mycroft held his gaze for precisely one second too long, then he gave a short nod.
Greg’s face changed. A pleased warmth moved through his expression before his teammates dragged him back toward the bench and Mycroft found himself staring at the ice as though it had betrayed him personally.
Annoying.
Infuriatingly annoying.
The match ended seven-two.
A generous scoreline, in Mycroft’s opinion, given the severity of the team’s defensive incompetence.
The final buzzer sounded, sticks lowered, players bumped gloves, and the crowd began gathering coats and children and half-finished paper cups of tea.
By the time he reached the players bench, they had disappeared down the corridor toward the changing rooms, leaving behind the lingering noise of defeat. Skates clattering against rubber mats, sticks being thrown too hard into racks.
Mycroft found Victor near the bench, one hand on the boards, clipboard with his notes still in hand, expression caught somewhere between irritation and grim resignation.
“Seven-two,” Mycroft said.
Victor looked at him. “Yes, thank you. I was there.”
“Were you? I wondered, given the defensive structure.”
Victor barked a laugh despite himself. “You always did know how to comfort a man.”
“I have rarely considered it my strongest quality.”
“No,” Victor said, eyes flicking over him with an old, easy familiarity. “You had others.”
Mycroft’s expression did not change.
Victor’s mouth curved as though he had seen the reaction anyway. He had always been irritatingly good at that.
Not like Sherlock, who tore people apart because he could not bear not to. Victor had simply paid attention. With the self-assured ease of someone older, handsome and aware of both facts.
He had been thirty-two when Mycroft was twenty-one, already moving into coaching with the casual confidence of a man who had survived his own sporting career without being devoured by it. Broad-shouldered, golden in the way some men seemed to be under every light, with easy charm and an ability to make Mycroft feel, for brief and disastrous moments, less like a project and more like a person.
They had dated. Briefly.
If dated was the correct word for a handful of dinners, several kisses in quiet corridors after training sessions, and a couple deeply unwise evenings in Victor’s flat during which Mycroft had allowed himself to believe his body might still be capable of being wanted without being useful.
Then the injury came and Mycroft’s career had ended in a hospital room, with an MRI scan and a consultant who could not meet his eyes while explaining what ‘unlikely to return to competition’ meant.
By the time Victor had reached for him, gently and sincerely, Mycroft had already retreated somewhere even he did not know how to access.
What they had never really became what most people would call a relationship. It ended quietly. Which was, in some ways, worse.
Victor had never blamed him. That had also been worse.
Now Victor leaned against the boards, older by only three years but somehow unchanged in the relevant ways. Still utterly handsome, still confident, still capable of looking at Mycroft as though the intervening damage were merely information, not warning.
“You’ve made a list?” Victor asked.
“It is extensive.”
“I expected nothing less.”
“You should not sound pleased. Much of it reflects poorly on your coaching.”
Victor placed a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded.”
“Unlikely. Your pain tolerance was never that refined.”
Victor laughed again, then glanced toward the changing room corridor as another crash sounded from within. Someone swore loudly. Someone else told him to shut up.
Victor’s expression shifted. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Need to go tell my lads off for losing again before they start blaming the referee, the ice, or planetary alignment.”
“The referee was not responsible for your second line’s inability to maintain spacing.”
“I’ll be sure to include that.”
“You should.”
Victor’s grin returned. “Wait for me?”
Mycroft adjusted his gloves with deliberate precision. “I said I would provide you with my observations. I cannot do so if you are not present.”
“Still allergic to simple answers, then?”
“Still unnecessarily fond of asking obvious questions?”
Victor stepped closer, just enough that it would have felt familiar if Mycroft had allowed it to. His smile softened at the edges, taking on that old flirtatious warmth which had once been capable of getting past Mycroft’s defences with alarming ease.
“Careful, Mycroft,” he said lightly. “I might start to think you missed me.”
Mycroft looked at him coolly.
Victor’s eyes gleamed. “Alright,” he said, voice gentler now. “I’ll be ten minutes.”
“Take fifteen,” Mycroft replied.
Victor smiled, disappeared into the changing rooms, and a moment later his voice carried faintly down the corridor, louder now, sharpened by authority.
Mycroft remained there, waiting.
The rink was beginning to empty properly now. The ice lay marked and scarred beneath the lights, a mess of lines carved by speed, impact, and poor decision-making.
Mycroft looked at it and tried not to remember cleaner ice. Brighter lights. Applause. The exact second before a jump when the body ceased negotiating with gravity and simply obeyed.
His knee ached. A dull, familiar pulse beneath the joint. He shifted his weight slightly.
Annoying.
From the corridor, Victor’s voice rose again, followed by a burst of protest from one of the players.
Mycroft’s mouth twitched.
Greg emerged from the changing room corridor in only cropped joggers and a club hoodie with his jersey number and name on it, hair damp from a rushed shower, towel looped around the back of his neck. Without the bulk of pads, he seemed younger somehow. Still broad. Still solid. But less armoured.
His gaze found Mycroft at once.
“There you are,” Greg said.
As though Mycroft had been expected. As though Greg had been looking.
Mycroft straightened slightly. “Mr Lestrade.”
Greg’s expression shifted, a flicker of amusement and a flicker of something else. “Call me Greg please.”
“You have just lost seven-two. Familiarity seems inadvisable.”
Greg laughed under his breath, but his eyes moved briefly back toward the corridor, “You waiting for Victor?”
“Yes.”
Greg nodded too casually.
Interesting.
“He seemed pleased you came.”
“We are acquainted.”
“Yeah,” Greg said. “Got that.”
Mycroft watched him.
Greg rubbed the towel once over the back of his neck, gaze dropping briefly before returning to Mycroft’s face. There was no right for the motion to appear uncertain on him. Yet it did.
“You two old friends?” Greg asked.
Mycroft recognised poorly concealed jealousy when it stood before him with wet hair and a captain’s C stitched to his hoodie.
How unexpected. How inconvenient. How tempting.
“We have known one another for some time,” Mycroft said.
Greg nodded again. “Right.”
Behind them, the zamboni hummed into life, slow and methodical.
Greg glanced toward the rink, then back. “You saw the goals?”
Mycroft’s chest did something deeply undignified. “I did, yes,” he said.
Greg’s smile appeared before he could stop it. It was almost boyish. “Good.”
“Your first turn into the lane was improved. The second goal was technically inelegant.”
Greg laughed. “Technically inelegant but still went in.”
“Yes. I am aware of how scoring functions.”
“Just checking.”
“You should not rely on force to compensate for imprecision.”
Greg stepped a little closer, still smiling, though the earlier uncertainty had not entirely left him. “Thought I did alright.”
“You scored your team’s only two goals.”
“That a compliment?”
“It is a statistic.”
Greg’s eyes brightened. “Right,” he said softly. “Course it is.”
Mycroft looked away first, ostensibly toward the corridor. Victor had still not returned.
Unfortunate.
Or perhaps not.
Greg followed his gaze. Then said, with studied casualness, “So, Victor...”
Mycroft closed his eyes for half a second. “Mr Lestrade.”
“Greg.”
“Greg,” Mycroft corrected, and the name felt warmer than it had any right to. “If you are attempting subtlety, I should advise you it is not among your strengths.”
Greg’s mouth opened, closed. Then he laughed, a little embarrassed, a little caught. “Fair.”
Mycroft studied him.
The flush at his throat was not from the shower alone.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
“We dated briefly,” Mycroft said.
Greg’s eyebrows rose before he managed to control them. “Ah.”
“A couple of years ago.”
“Right.”
“It ended.”
“Yeah, got that from the past tense.”
Mycroft’s mouth threatened to curve. “There is no need for concern.”
Greg looked at him then, “Concern?”
“I am using a polite term.”
Greg huffed a laugh and looked down at his hands. For once, the ease faltered. “I wasn’t…” he started, then stopped because he was not a liar, or at least not a very good one. “Alright. Maybe a bit.”
Mycroft said nothing.
Greg looked back up, expression more open now, more earnest. “He’s very handsome.”
“Yes.”
Greg blinked, visibly wrong-footed by the simple agreement.
Mycroft continued, “He is also excessively self-satisfied, emotionally perceptive at inconvenient moments, and currently responsible for a team that conceded seven goals in sixty minutes.”
Greg laughed. “You’re brutal.”
“I am accurate.”
“Yeah. That too,” Greg said, smiling again, before saying, “Have dinner with me.”
Mycroft looked at him. Not because he had failed to hear, because he had heard perfectly.
Greg, apparently encouraged by the fact that Mycroft had not immediately walked away, leaned one elbow against the boards and continued, “Not tonight. You’ve probably got a list to write about everything we did wrong.”
“Quite a long one.”
“Right. So not tonight.” Greg’s smile tipped slightly at one corner. “Tomorrow, then.”
Mycroft studied him.
There was nothing hesitant in Greg’s expression now. Nothing careless either. He looked a little nervous, perhaps, though he was attempting to cover it with that easy warmth of his. Still flushed from the game, still damp-haired and broad-shouldered and absurdly sincere, asking Mycroft out beside the boards after a seven-two defeat as though this were a perfectly reasonable moment to begin courtship.
For one brief, dangerous second, Mycroft allowed himself to consider it. Somewhere warm, presumably. Somewhere away from the echoing rink and Victor’s knowing eyes and the faint ache in Mycroft’s knee. Somewhere Greg might laugh across a table and ask impertinent questions and look at him as though he were interesting rather than damaged.
It was a foolish thought. Very tempting, but foolish.
Mycroft adjusted one glove with deliberate care. “No.”
Greg blinked surprised, “No?”
“I have given up on dating hockey players.”
The words left his mouth coolly enough. Smoothly enough. Only he knew the exact weight behind them.
Greg’s gaze flicked briefly toward the corridor where Victor had disappeared, understanding passing over his face. Then, to Mycroft’s surprise, he did not retreat. Instead, he straightened slightly, as if accepting a challenge.
“Fair,” Greg said.
Mycroft arched a brow. “Is it?”
“Yeah. Bad prior experience. Understandable.” Greg nodded once, serious for approximately three seconds before the corner of his mouth twitched again. “But technically, you haven’t dated this hockey player.” He pointed at himself.
“That distinction does not reassure me.”
“It should. I’m very different.”
“Are you?”
“Absolutely.” Greg began counting on his fingers. “For one, I’m less excessively self-satisfied than Victor.”
“Debatable.”
“Better hair.”
“No.”
Greg looked offended. “No?”
“Victor’s hair is objectively superior.”
“That’s harsh.”
“As previously established, I am accurate.”
Greg recovered quickly, leaning in a fraction. “Alright, maybe not better hair. But I’m younger.”
“Age is not inherently an advantage.”
“More charming, then.”
Mycroft gave him a long, assessing look.
It would have been sensible to end the conversation there.
It would have been sensible to dismiss him, collect Victor, discuss defensive structures, and leave before Greg’s attention became any more difficult to ignore. Mycroft had learnt, through experience and considerable humiliation, that hockey players were rarely improved by encouragement.
Unfortunately, Greg was looking at him as though encouragement was exactly what he intended to earn. And Mycroft, privately and shamefully, liked it.
He liked the attention. Liked the persistence. Liked being watched as though he were something worth pursuing rather than something already broken and carefully set aside. He liked the warmth in Greg’s eyes, the way Greg seemed to catalogue his smallest reactions as victories, the way his flirtation did not feel polished so much as pleased.
Pleased with Mycroft, pleased to be allowed even this much of him. It was dangerous. It was also rather gratifying.
“You are not without charm,” Mycroft said at last.
Greg’s expression brightened immediately.
Mycroft lifted one hand before he could speak. “Do not look triumphant. It diminishes the effect.”
Greg pressed his lips together, visibly trying and failing not to smile. “Sorry.”
“No, you are not.”
“No,” Greg admitted. “Not really.”
“I suspected as much.”
Greg leaned his elbow against the boards, still watching him with that infuriating warmth. “So that’s a maybe.”
“That is an extremely generous interpretation.”
“But not a no.”
“It was very nearly a no.”
“Nearly doesn’t count.”
“In skating, nearly frequently results in catastrophic injury.”
“This is dinner, not a triple axel.”
“You have not yet demonstrated you understand the distinction.”
Greg laughed, delighted. “Alright. What do I have to do, then?”
Mycroft looked at him.
Greg blinked. “What?”
“You asked what you had to do.”
“Yeah.”
“To earn a date.”
Greg’s smile changed then, going slower, warmer, with a thread of surprise beneath it. As though he had expected resistance, perhaps even refusal, but not terms.
Mycroft found he rather enjoyed causing that expression.
How unfortunate.
“You want me to earn it?” Greg asked.
“I generally prefer evidence before making poor decisions.”
“Dating me would be a poor decision?”
“Historically, dating hockey players has not produced favourable results.”
“Right.” Greg nodded solemnly. “So I’ve got to prove I’m an exception.”
“Precisely.”
Greg’s grin returned. “I can do that.”
“You sound very confident.”
“I’m motivated.”
“Confidence and competence are not the same thing.”
“No,” Greg said, eyes bright. “But I’m good at being coached.”
Mycroft’s pulse responded to that in a manner he found deeply inappropriate. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you?”
“I listen.”
“Intermittently.”
“I improve.”
“Marginally.”
“I scored twice.”
“Your team lost seven-two.”
Greg winced. “You really don’t soften anything, do you?”
“Would you prefer dishonesty?”
“No,” Greg said, softer now. “I think I like you exactly as you are.”
That was unfair. Entirely unfair.
Mycroft felt warmth rise again beneath his collar and despised the fact that Greg saw it. Worse, Greg did not gloat this time. He merely looked pleased, quietly and carefully, as though he had been trusted with something.
Mycroft adjusted his glove with unnecessary precision.
“One dinner,” Greg said. “Let me earn one dinner.”
“I have not agreed to that.”
“No, but you’re still standing here.”
“I am waiting for Victor.”
“Sure.”
“I am.”
“Course you are.”
Mycroft gave him a warning look.
Greg’s smile widened. “What? I’m just saying. You could’ve left five minutes ago.”
“I could still leave now.”
“You could.”
Greg did not move. Neither did Mycroft.
Annoying. Deeply annoying.
“You are persistent,” Mycroft said.
“Yeah.”
“And presumptuous.”
“Sometimes.”
“And entirely too pleased with yourself.”
Greg tilted his head. “Still less than Victor?”
Mycroft considered him for a moment. Then allowed the smallest curve of his mouth. “Marginally.”
Greg’s face lit with such immediate satisfaction that Mycroft almost regretted giving him the victory.
“There,” Greg said quietly. “That’s a start.”
“It is not.”
“It is.”
“You are mistaking tolerance for invitation.”
“Maybe.” Greg’s gaze dipped briefly, then returned to his face. “But I think you like being asked.”
Mycroft went still.
Greg seemed to realise he had hit something true, because his voice softened. “Not pushed. Not cornered. Asked.”
For a moment, Mycroft said nothing.
Because yes, damn him yes. He liked being wanted openly enough that there was no need to deduce it. Liked the clarity of Greg standing there after a loss, damp-haired and hopeful, making no attempt to disguise that he wanted Mycroft’s attention and intended to work for it.
He liked being flirted with when the flirtation carried admiration instead of pity. He liked being pursued by someone who seemed to think Mycroft’s resistance was not damage, but simply part of him. Still, liking it did not make it wise.
“You will not earn dinner through flattery alone,” Mycroft said.
Greg’s grin returned, but gentler this time. “Good to know.”
“Nor persistence.”
“What about improved edge control?”
“That would be a beginning.”
Greg laughed. “Right. So if I fix my left transition, I get a date?”
“No.”
“No?”
“You get considered.”
Greg put a hand to his chest. “Brutal.”
“You asked for terms.”
“I did.” His smile sharpened again. “And what if I score next game using your correction?”
“Then I may be less unimpressed.”
“That’s practically romantic from you.”
“You are very easily encouraged.”
“Only by you.”
Mycroft’s breath caught, only slightly. “My expressions,” Mycroft said, recovering, “are not a public service.”
“Shame,” Greg said, voice lower now. “I’m starting to like them. I wonder what expressions are available in a private setting.”
Mycroft stared at him.
Greg’s smile turned positively wicked.
For one suspended second, Mycroft considered several responses, most of them sharp, all of them inadequate. Then he stepped closer by half a pace.
Greg’s smile faltered.
Mycroft found that even more satisfying. “If you wish to discover that,” he said, voice cool and precise, “I suggest you begin by proving you are capable of earning my time.”
Greg swallowed.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
“And how do I do that?” he asked.
“Improve,” Mycroft said simply. “Listen. Stop relying on force when technique would serve you better. Stop treating attention as victory and start making yourself worthy of it.”
The words landed.
Greg’s expression shifted, the flirtation still present but steadied now by something more serious.
“Alright,” he said quietly.
Mycroft held his gaze. “Alright?”
Greg nodded. “I’ll earn it.”
The sincerity cut through him more effectively than the flirting had.
“Good,” Mycroft said. “Then perhaps this conversation has not been entirely without purpose.”
Greg’s smile returned slowly. “See? You’re flirting back now.”
“I am setting conditions.”
“Feels like flirting.”
“Your feelings, as previously established, are not evidence.”
“No,” Greg said, still smiling. “But they’re getting hopeful.”
Before Mycroft could decide whether that deserved correction or reward, Victor’s voice cut through the moment from the corridor.
“Lestrade! If you’re done trying to sell yourself to my assistant coach, get properly dressed before you catch your death.”
Greg turned his head. “Working on it, Coach!”
Mycroft and Victor watched as Greg disappeared back down the corridor, still grinning over his shoulder as though being interrupted mid-attempt had not dented his confidence in the slightest.
The sound of his footsteps faded.
Victor remained silent for precisely three seconds.
Mycroft did not look at him. “If you intend to comment, I would prefer you do so efficiently.”
Victor huffed a laugh. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“That is demonstrably untrue.”
“Alright,” Victor admitted. “I was going to say something.”
“Naturally.”
Victor leaned one hip against the boards, arms still folded, gaze lingering on the corridor where Greg had vanished. His amusement softened after a moment into something more thoughtful.
“He is a good lad,” Victor paused. “He’s also a terrible flirt.”
Mycroft’s fingers tightened slightly around his gloves.
“He dates a lot,” Victor continued, tone careful now. “Anyone and everyone, if he can. Not in a cruel way, mind. He doesn’t make promises he doesn’t mean. But he likes the chase. Likes being liked. Gets a bit of a thrill out of seeing if he can make someone say yes.”
Mycroft said nothing.
The rink seemed colder suddenly. Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough.
Victor glanced at him. “I’m not saying that to be unkind.”
“No,” Mycroft said evenly. “I assume not.”
“He’s charming. He knows he’s charming and when he wants someone to look at him, they usually do.”
Mycroft allowed himself one small breath through his nose. How irritatingly plausible.
Greg with his warm eyes and easy grin and blatant persistence, asking for dinner beside the boards after a match he had lost spectacularly. Greg looking up after every goal as though Mycroft’s attention mattered. Greg turning embarrassment into invitation, rejection into challenge.
It fit.
Of course it fit.
Mycroft felt something in his chest shift, sharp and unpleasant. Not heartbreak. That would be absurd. There was nothing to break. There had been no agreement, no attachment, no reasonable expectation of seriousness.
Greg was a hockey player Mycroft had known for less than a week, and Mycroft was not so foolish as to mistake flirtation for intention. Except, for one moment, he had. For one brief, stupid moment, he had allowed himself to consider dinner.
He had imagined warmth, conversation, Greg’s laugh across a table. He had imagined being wanted not because he had once been brilliant, or because he was useful, or because he represented a challenge, but because Greg had looked at him and seen something worth asking for.
Humiliating.
Mycroft looked down at the floor. “Thank you for the clarification,” he said.
Victor’s expression changed. “Myc-”
“It is useful information.”
“That wasn’t meant to make you feel-”
“You have no control over what I feel,” Mycroft said, more sharply than intended.
Victor stopped.
The words lingered between them, colder than the rink air.
Mycroft regretted them almost immediately, which only annoyed him further.
Victor unfolded his arms slowly. “No,” he said. “I suppose I don’t.”
Mycroft glanced away. In the distance, the zamboni continued its steady path, smoothing over the marks of the match.
“I merely meant,” Victor said after a moment, quieter now, “that you should know what you’re stepping into.”
“I am not stepping into anything.”
“Good.”
The agreement should have relieved him.
It did not.
Victor sighed softly. “He is a great guy, Mycroft. Really. Better than most of that lot put together. Captain for a reason. Looks after the younger players, keeps Miller from getting himself suspended every other week, turns up early, stays late. But dating?” He tilted his head slightly. “Dating is a game to him sometimes.”
Mycroft’s mouth tightened. “Appropriate, given his occupation.”
Victor gave him a look.
Mycroft ignored it. “I will adjust my expectations accordingly,” he said.
“You had expectations?”
“No.”
Victor was merciful enough not to challenge the lie directly. Instead, he pushed away from the boards and changed the subject with the delicacy of someone who remembered where the weak points were and chose not to press them.
“Coffee tomorrow?”
Mycroft looked at him.
“We can go over your list. Map out the next few training sessions properly. If you’re going to torture them, might as well be organised about it.”
“I do not torture athletes.”
Victor smiled faintly. “Mhm. Coffee, then?”
“Very well,” Mycroft said.
Victor’s smile warmed. “Ten?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Nine-thirty,” Victor agreed. “Same café near the rink?”
“Yes.”
Mycroft does not know exactly when it happens.
He can reconstruct the sequence of events, of course. That is not the difficulty.
Coffee at nine-thirty.
Victor already waiting when he arrives, looking annoyingly handsome for a man who had spent the previous evening shouting at semi-professional hockey players. Two coffees on the table. A corner seat. Familiar smile.
They go over the list.
Then coffee becomes lunch because they are still discussing training structures, and because Victor has always had a talent for making time seem less deliberate than it is.
Lunch becomes a walk because the weather is unexpectedly clear, and the walk becomes another coffee, and by late afternoon Mycroft realises he has spent nearly the entire day in Victor’s company without ever formally agreeing to do so.
It should irritate him.
It does irritate him.
A little, but not enough.
Victor is easy in a way Mycroft has never learned to be. With the same warm confidence, the same careless grace that once made Mycroft feel studied but not dissected. He asks questions without sounding as though he is prying. He lets silences exist. He talks about the team, the rink, old coaches they both remember, competitions that used to matter so much and now feel oddly distant, like lives belonging to strangers.
And somehow, without Mycroft meaning to allow it, they arrive at Victor’s flat.
“Come up for a drink,” Victor says, as if it is innocent.
Perhaps it is Perhaps it begins that way.
Mycroft tells himself it does.
One drink.
A familiar sofa.
A low lamp.
Victor laughing softly when Mycroft insults his choice of cushions. Mycroft removing his coat. Victor taking it from him with the old automatic courtesy that makes memory press too close against the present.
A hand at his elbow.
A pause.
Victor looking at him with something he has not seen in a long time. Not pity or caution, but want.
The rest is not difficult to reconstruct either. One thing leads to another.
A kiss that should not have happened. A second that happens because Mycroft does not stop it.
Victor’s hand at the back of his neck. Victor murmuring his name like he has missed the shape of it. Mycroft’s fingers in the front of Victor’s shirt, pulling him closer with something that feels too much like hunger to be comfortable.
And then the bed.
For a few hours, Mycroft allows himself to be someone else. No, not exactly someone else, but someone he used to be.
Wanted. Admired. Praised in low, breathless words against warm skin. Victor touches him like he is still extraordinary, like every line of him is something worth remembering, like the scar at his knee is not an ending but merely part of the map.
He calls him beautiful, brilliant, impossible. He says he has missed him. He says Mycroft has no idea what he does to people and Mycroft, who knows perfectly well that this is dangerous, lets himself believe it anyway.
Just for those few hours.
By evening, the room has gone dark.
The city outside Victor’s window glows faintly through half-drawn curtains. The radiator ticks softly. Somewhere beyond the bedroom door, traffic moves through wet streets.
Mycroft lies still for longer than necessary, staring at the ceiling, Victor warm and drowsy beside him.
Reality returns slowly. Then all at once.
The favour, the training sessions, Greg looking up at him after scoring, Victor telling him Greg dates anyone and everyone. Victor’s hand resting now against Mycroft’s hip with easy possession, as though this is something that can simply continue because it has happened once.
Mycroft sits up.
Victor stirs immediately. “You alright?”
“Yes.”
The answer is too quick.
Mycroft reaches for his jumper from where it has been dropped over the back of a chair. He dresses with precision that becomes more severe the more aware he is of Victor watching him.
Jumper first, underwear, trousers and belt. Every movement an act of reconstruction.
Behind him, Victor shifts against the pillows. “Mycroft-”
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were about to.”
Victor exhales softly. “Stay.”
Mycroft’s hands still on the cuff of his sleeve.
The word is gentle.
“Stay the night,” Victor says. “You’re exhausted. We both are. There’s no need to run off like this.”
“I am not running.”
“No,” Victor says quietly. “Of course not.”
Mycroft turns then, expression composed by force.
Victor is sitting up now, sheet pulled loosely around his waist, hair disordered in a way that used to make Mycroft’s chest ache. He still looks almost unfairly beautiful. Less polished than at the rink, softer in the dim light and kind.
“This was a mistake,” Mycroft says.
Victor’s face changes. Only slightly, but enough. “Mycroft-”
“We should not have done this.”
Victor is silent for a moment, “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Then you are allowing nostalgia to impair your judgement.”
“And what are you allowing to impair yours?”
Mycroft’s jaw tightens.
Victor pushes the sheet aside and reaches for his own clothes, not quite dressing, merely covering himself enough to make the conversation less vulnerable than it already is.
“You wanted this too,” he says.
“I am aware.”
“Then why call it a mistake?”
“Because desire is not evidence of wisdom.”
Victor looks at him for a long moment. Then he laughs once, without humour. “God, I’d forgotten how impossible you are when you’re frightened.”
Mycroft goes still.
Victor seems to regret it immediately, but not enough to take it back.
“I am not frightened.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“Mikey.”
The name lands with old familiarity, and Mycroft hates it. Hates that Victor knows where to press. Hates that he let him close enough again to remember.
Victor’s voice softens. “This doesn’t have to be complicated.”
“It already is.”
“How?”
“You are coaching the team I have agreed to assist.”
“That’s manageable.”
“You warned me away from one of your players yesterday.”
Victor’s mouth closes.
There it is. The complication neither of them had named.
Mycroft reaches for his socks, putting them on with more force than necessary.
Victor watches him, expression tightening. “I didn’t warn you away.”
“You informed me that Greg treats dating as a challenge.”
“Because he does.”
“And then you invited me back here to have sex, because you’re just as jealous as you always were.”
Victor sighs. The silence afterward is sharp.
Mycroft looks away first, irritated by the fact that he has said it. More irritated by how petty it sounds.
Victor stands slowly. “I didn’t bring you here to manipulate you.”
“No,” Mycroft says. “I know.”
And he does. That almost makes it worse.
Victor is not cruel. Victor is not calculating. Victor did not plan the day as a trap, did not choose his words with malice, did not guide Mycroft into bed like a consolation prize disguised as affection.
It was simply easy. Familiar. And Mycroft had been ashamed, and lonely, and stupid enough to mistake being wanted for being safe.
Victor crosses the room, stopping a careful distance away. “Look at me.”
Mycroft does not.
“Mycroft.”
He does, eventually.
Victor’s expression is open now, stripped of flirtation, of charm, of the lazy confidence he wears so well.
“I meant what I said about Lestrade,” Victor says quietly. “But I didn’t say it because I wanted this. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Victor searches his face. “Then stay.”
Mycroft closes his eyes briefly. There had been a time when that would have undone him. When Victor asking softly would have been enough. When staying might have felt like surrender instead of failure.
Now it feels like the beginning of a mess he does not have the strength to survive.
“I cannot.”
Victor’s shoulders sink slightly.
“You mean you won’t.”
“Yes,” Mycroft says. “That too.”
He reaches for his coat.
Victor does not stop him.
For several seconds, there is only the quiet sound of Mycroft dressing and the distant traffic below.
Then Victor says, “Was it really so terrible?”
Mycroft pauses at the bedroom door. His hand tightens around the coat.
“No,” he says, his voice is quieter now. “That is rather the problem.”
Victor says nothing.
Mycroft turns back just enough to look at him.
“For a few hours,” he says, each word carefully chosen because anything less precise might expose too much, “you made me feel as though nothing had been lost.”
Victor’s face softens in a way Mycroft cannot bear. “Mikey…”
“But it has been,” Mycroft continues. “A great deal. And pretending otherwise, even kindly, does not alter the fact.”
“It wasn’t pretending.”
Mycroft swallows once, “Perhaps not for you.”
That hurts Victor.
Mycroft sees it, and regret moves through him immediately. He adds, more controlled, “I am grateful for your hospitality.”
Victor gives a short, wounded laugh. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn it into manners.”
Mycroft says nothing.
Victor looks at him for a moment longer, then nods once, tired now. “Fine.”
It is not fine. They both know that.
Victor’s voice is softer when he speaks. “Whatever happens with Lestrade, if anything happens with Lestrade, don’t let what I said make you cruel to yourself.”
For once, Mycroft has no answer. So he inclines his head, because dignity is sometimes all that remains when honesty becomes too dangerous.
Then he leaves.
By the time he reaches the street, the night has settled fully. Cold air bites at his face. His knee aches.
His mouth still remembers Victor’s. His mind, traitorous and unhelpful, supplies Greg’s smile from the rink. The hopeful, open one after the second goal. The one that had asked without words whether Mycroft had seen him.
Mycroft stands beneath a streetlamp for a moment longer than necessary, then begins walking.
Tomorrow there will be training plans. He will not think about Victor’s hands, or Greg’s offer of dinner, or the shame sitting low and hard beneath his ribs.
He will not.
He has spent years teaching his body to move through pain without showing it.
This is no different.
That is what he tells himself all the way home.