I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 31 : Passion

Mycroft stopped before the white wall, his eyes caught by the pictures displayed on it, small prints of Balinese dancers photographed by Henri Cartier-Bresson, powerful and nearly alive black and white portraits. The official approached from the wall, moving from a general vision to a detailed view of each single pictures, breathless before the perfect bodies and delicate moves depicted, little glimpses of life caught by the French photographer.
It was a rainy Sunday afternoon in London and the auburn had brought his husband to an exhibition of his favourite photographer in a gallery in Southwark. Despite his love for antiquities and generally speaking for well-established form of art and design, he had grown a passion for photography since his early teenage years, discovering the great work of LIFE's photo-journalism, and moreover, the work of the Magnum Press Agency, amazed by the impression of life carried by those pictures mostly took without the subject posturing. At the age of 17 he bought himself a Leica II, a marvellous camera that he would bring everywhere with him, developing himself the cliches in a laboratory he had settled in an outbuilding of the Holmes countryside cottage. He had some of his pictures printed in Harrow's school paper and in the Imperial College gazette, but he kept most of his work for himself, enjoying the process and the excitement of the moment far more than the result. With time passing by he had less time to dedicate to his passion, but whenever he had the occasion he would disinter the old camera from locker it was usually stored and enjoy the same thrill that he had felt the first time he had had his hands on the device.
He rarely had shown the pictures he had taken, only Greg being allowed to have his hands on the precious and very intimate collection the auburn had heaped up through the years and the multiple days he had spent walking alone, mostly in the British countryside, to capture the best vision possible, favouring landscape to portraits, maybe because he was most of the time unable to understand the beauty of the human being as well as his masters could. He still had taken some nice pictures of Gregory one of the first time they escaped from London, two summers ago on a beach in Cornwall, keeping one of it in his wallet, another framed on his desk in his private office. This string of pictures was, according to him, one of his best and without any doubt the best portraits he could ever do and he had been very pleased when his boyfriend had told him he never had found himself prettier than on those cliches.

The said boyfriend joined Mycroft in his contemplation of the Balinese dancers, wrapping his right arm around the official's waist, pressing himself against the tall man's body. The auburn rested his hand on the left shoulder of the detective, enjoying the contact of the warm body against his own, simply happy of the afternoon he was spending.
The two men started wandering around the gallery again, holding hands, stopping a few meters away in front of a large picture portraying a bunch of striped-t-shirt wearing Neapolitan kids taking a nap in deck chairs, most of them in impossible positions, which made them laugh gently.

They kept roaming between the various pictures displayed for a little longer, sometime exchanging a few words in mid-voice, commenting what they were seeing or Mycroft explaining the context or the will of the photographer when the picture had been taken, then, at half past four, they proceeded to the gallery's exit. The last piece exposed wasn't a picture but a self-portrait, drew by Cartier-Bresson at the end of his life, probably the only way for a great photographer to fix his own image for the eternity.
Greatly affected by the power of the black and white pictures they had seen, the two men sat on a bench, facing the Thames River on the bank side, not talking, just being close one to another, Mycroft arm wrapped around his husbands shoulder, the detective's head resting against the official's own shoulder.

Shortly after they had settled down on the bench, they felt the first drops of the cold rain falling on their face. The auburn opened his legendary umbrella, sheltering Gregory and himself under the large refuge offered by the blue fabric and they decided to move to a tearoom to take an afternoon tea instead of making it home immediately. Mycroft led his partner to the Aqua Shard restaurant on the other side o fthe London Bridge, one of his favourite spot to have tea with its spectacular view on the entire city from the west to the east ends and its exquisite Earl Grey opera cake.
A page led the two men to the thirty-first floor of the tower where a waiter placed them at a table near the window before bringing them a complete and traditional afternoon tea menu with a glass of Veuve Cliquot champagne. They toasted and Gregory placed a soft and long kiss on the lips of his lover, not paying attention to the shocked look that the ladies at the table near them glanced. Since he had started to date Mycroft, he had learnt not to notice the looks and the comments that people could throw to him even if it was sometimes still really annoying. When he was hanging around with the official, very few people thought of them as a couple if they weren't holding hands or clearly showing that they were in a relationship, mostly because they assume that a man like the elder Holmes, with his strict suits and his manners couldn'be anything else than heterosexual, which makes their reactions when they witnessed the truth even more extreme and less discreet. Luckily, the impressive aura of the auburn prevented, most of the time, the gossipers from addressing their remarks directly to the detective or to his boyfriend.
Trying to make abstraction of th eladies of the nearby table, the yarder drank a gulp of the tea he had been poured, admiring the view, just slightly spoiled by the grey and cloudy sky but still looking beautiful, the light of the city starting to light up as the darkness was invading the sky.

The official's black Jaguar dropped them before Kensington Palace Garden's number 15b just after six. The two men entered the house and hanged their slightly wet coat in the corridor, appraising the warmth provided by the fires alighted in the different rooms.
Mycroft could hear his son giggling in the living room while he was storing his precious umbrella on the rack near to the entrance door and slipping his feet in navy silk slippers. He stepped in the room few seconds later, finding the little boy in the middle of tickle battle with Molly Hooper. The young woman had offered to babysit the toddler while his fathers were taking an afternoon off, appreciating spending some time with Alden, not having children of her own, despite all the love she had for babies. Even if she had, according to him, a weird sense of humour, the auburn liked the Barts's employee quite a lot, reckoning that she was a dedicated and loyal friend and a strong and independent woman at the same time, two qualities that he valued greatly. As much as he sometime doubts his brother capacity to take care of his son, always feeling more secure when he knew that Dr Watson wouldn't be far from 221B, he had never been worried about letting Alden alone with Molly.
"Good evening." he said happily, approaching the young woman.
She looked up and smile before raising to her feet, the little boy in her arm. "Hey Mycroft ! How was the exhibition?"
"Fascinating. Very powerful picture and vivid portraits." he answered, running his fingers in his son's thin ginger hair. "You would love it I'm sure."
"Photography is not my expertise field but I'll maybe go and have a look if you recommend it." Molly smiled, handling the little boy to his dad.
"Well, I do. So, how does the afternoon has been going ?" the official asked, placing a kiss on the toddler's forehead, smelling the scent of baby shampoo.
"Wonderful. We went to hide park to feed the ducks before it start raining then we had some waffles with hot chocolate and drew for a little while before bathing the little man." replied the young woman, replacing a lock of hair behind her ear.

"He liked the ducks ?" wondered the auburn. "I've meant to bring him there for a little while but I've never had the time to yet..."
"Yes ! Well I think so at least ... He even tried to cuddle one but I've repressed him of doing so not for him to be bitten." retorted the post-mortem.
"Well thank you for everything Molly." said Mycroft, smiling to her. "Will you join us for diner ?"
"No, I'm sorry, I have to leave, I've got an appointment tonight." she answered, looking slightly shy and embarrassed.
"Oh, well, good luck then." the official wished her, placing a kiss on each of hercheeks and escorting her to the door. He looked at her climbing in his own car which was supposed to bring her back to her flat in Hackney before closing the door and focusing on his son that was playing with his shirt buttons, looking rather pleased at himself every time he succeeded to unbutton it and button it back.
"Hey little man, what are you doing ?" he giggled to him. "Already striping off man's clothes at your age ?". The toddler didn't understood his father's remark and simply threw him a huge smile.
"Look daddy !" he said, unbuttoning the auburn's shirt once again. The man laughed genuinely, placing a new kiss on his son's head, unable to be anything else then soft every time the little boy was anywhere near him.

He was heading back to the living room after having advised Michael to start preparing the dinner when he was joined by Gregory who had changed the light blue shirt, black trousers and navy blazer jacket he had been wearing that afternoon for a pair of tight jeans and a black thin V-shapped collar sweater, the sleeves rolled to hiselbows, his barefoot in one of his lover's black silk pair of slippers. While the detective was tickling gently his son, Mycroft couldn't help noticing how sexy the yarder was looking and ran a tender hand on his lower back.
They settled down on a couch by the fire, Alden playing with the red silk tie the official had just took off, making knots with it and trying to untie it afterward. Greg wa slooking at the toddler, amazed by the talent he showed for this kind of task that a two-years-old was usually unable to achieve.
"Your son is a little genius." he said in a low voice to his partner sat beside him with the little boy on his lap.
"It's your son too Gregory ..." remarked the auburn with a smooth smile to his boyfriend.
"He is way more of a Holmes than of a Lestrade ... I would never had been able to do this at his age trust me." laughed the detective meekly.
"Don't say that, you are the brightest man I've ever met darling." lectured him the official in an amused voice.
"Rubbish. I'm just a little cop and you come from the Holmes brainy family ... I'm fine with that, I don't mind being your slow little boyfriend ..." the DI smiled, placing a kiss on Mycroft's cheek.
The latter wrapped his arm around his husband's hips and brought him closer. "I would give up all the brainy Holmes neurons and DNA if I had to just for an hour with you..." he whispered to his lover's ear.