I am not lonely [Mystrade]

CHAPTER 115 : Snack

Mycroft was leaned against as small brick wall, his legs crossed, his infamous  umbrella hooked over his left arm, absorbed by what he was reading when  he heard a bell ringing and nearly instantly started to be surrounded  by a tide of young children. It didn't took him more than fifteen second to spot his son in-between the dozens of school boys wearing the exact same uniform but he didn't moved and waited for the little boy to spot him.
"Daddy !" suddenly exclaimed the toddler before running to his father.
"Hello little man." smiled the auburn, catching his son in his race and lifting him up in his arms.
"Papa haven't said it was you who was coming !" remarked the child.
"And  you are not happy to see me ?" the official teased before walking  towards Alden's school teacher to sign the register every parent had to  sign to discharge the school from the custody of their children.
"Good evening Mr Holmes." the young man greeted him.
"Good evening Mr Lawrence." Mycroft nodded. "So how is this little monster ?"
"I'm not a monster !" the little boy protested, pouting.
"Indeed." chuckled the teacher. "It's a very clever little boy you have there sir. Always the first in everything and usually well behaving, even if he sometime tends to show off a little ..."
"Family trait I fear." smiled the elder Holmes. "Well, thank you very much. Have a good evening
"Good evening." grinned the other man. "Bye bye Alden, see you tomorrow."
"Goodbye  Aidan !" exclaimed the boy happily before sinking his head in his  father's neck like when he was a baby, the scent of the man's aftershave  never failing to comfort him.

"Do you want to make a surprise  for Papa when he come back ?" Mycroft asked his son as they were taking  off their shoes in the corridor.
"Hmm ... Will you do it with me ?" wondered the toddler.
"Of course I will." smiled the official. "I've finished my work early today just to spend some time with you sweetheart."
"Can we do a cake ?" Alden proposed, storing carefully his shoes in the cupboard.
"A cake ? That sounds appealing to me ..." grinned the elder Holmes. "What kind of cake do you want to bake ? Chocolate ?"
"No. Carrot cake !" denied the child, all excited.
"Oh. Then  carrot cake it will be." accepted his father, a little surprised but  quite delighted. "What about you go change your clothes while I check  the ingredients needed and print a recipe ?"
"Yes sir !" exclaimed the child, making the man chuckle, before running upstairs.
The official made his way to his office and opened his laptop before taking off his suit jacket and waistband and rolling up his sleeve to his elbow, unpinning the sapphire and silver cufflinks and carefully  placing them in his first drawer with his pocket watch. He opened his  internet browser and took his tie off as he was waiting for the page to  show up. He was printing a page of a quite easy but still good-looking recipe when Alden reappeared, sporting his favourite, even if a little to short, jeans and his Gryffindor t-shirt he had bought at the studios a few weeks before.
They joined the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge and the cupboards to find all the ingredients required  for the cake. The only thing they were actually missing were carrots  and nuts and although they could do without the second one, the carrots  were quite compulsory for the recipe so Mycroft sent Michael out to buy  some while they were starting the baking.
"All right, so we need to  grease two cake pan." read the auburn while he was tying an apron around  his son waist and doing the same for himself.
"With butter ?" wondered the little boy.
"Of course with butter, we need  some fat to grease things and butter is way better than oil !" winked  the official, handling one of the cake pan to his son and giving him  some butter to achieve his task. "Be careful to put some butter everywhere or we won't be able to unmould the cakes alright ?"
"Like this ?" demanded the toddler after a few minutes of rubbing his greasy fingers all around the mould.
"Yep."  nodded the elder Holmes, popping the 'p'. "Go wash your hand now before  you put butter everywhere then we will start mixing the ingredients."
While  his son was trying to get rid of the butter on his fingers, standing on  a little stool to be able to reach the sink, Mycroft spread a little bit of flour over the greasy cake pan to be sure the unmoulding would  go smoothly. They were starting to mix the flour, the soda, the salt  and the cinnamon in a bowl when Michael returned with the carrots and  started to peel it, helping out his landlord with the most annoying part  of the recipe.
"Alright, now we need another bowl to mix the oil, the sugar, the vanilla and the eggs !" the auburn than read.
"Why oil, you said butter was better ?" questioned the little boy, still obeying to the recipe.
"Because there we need something liquid, and butter is not liquid, you see ?" Mycroft explained while measuring the ingredients and adding it in the bowl. "Now mix, mix, mix !"
"Why don't we mix all the ingredients together and we use two bowls ?" the child continued to ask.
"If  you blend all together in one single time you are going to have little  lumps of flours everywhere and it's not going to be good." the elder  Holmes answered him.
"Oh." smiled his son before dipping his finger in the dough.
"Do you need me to cut the carrots, sir ?" Michael enquired, throwing away the peelings.
"Yes, please, not to small tho." nodded the official before turning back to his son "Now we can blend the content of the two bowls."
They quickly finished baking  the cakes and while they were cooking they made themselves tea and  settled in the living room, Alden requesting that his father read him  some chapters of the fifth Harry Potter book.
"Chapter seventeen, Educational decree number twenty-four." Mycroft started reading, his voice  soft and dapper. "Harry felt happier for the rest of the weekend than  he had done all term. He and Ron spent much of Sunday catching up with  all their homework again, and although this could hardly be called fun,  the last burst of autumn sunshine persisted, so rather than sitting  hunched over tables in the common room, they took their work outside and  lounged in the shade of a large beech tree on the edge of the lake. Hermione,  who of course was up to date with all her work, brought more wool  outside with her and bewitched her knitting needles so that they flashed  and clicked in midair beside her, producing
more hats and scarves.
The knowledge that they were doing something to resist Umbridge  and the Ministry, and that he was a key part of the rebellion, gave  Harry a feeling of immense satisfaction. He kept reliving Saturday's  meeting in his mind: all those people, coming to him to learn Defense  Against the Dark Arts and the looks on their faces as they had heard some of the things he had done and Cho praising his performance  in the Triwizard Tournament. The knowledge that all those people did  not think him a lying weirdo, but someone to be admired, buoyed him up  so much that he was still cheerful on Monday morning, despite the  imminent prospect of all his least favourite classes.
He and Ron  headed downstairs from their dormitory together, discussing Angelina's  idea that they were to work on a new move called the Sloth Grip Roll  during that night's Quidditch  practice, and not until they were halfway across the sunlit common room  did they notice the addition to the room that had already attracted the  attention of a small group of people.
A large sign had been affixed to the Gryffindor notice board, so large that it covered everything else on there — the lists of second-hand spellbooks for sale, the regular reminders of school rules from Argus Filch, the Quidditch team training schedule, the offers to barter certain Chocolate Frog cards for others, the Weasleys' new advertisement for testers, the dates of the Hogsmeade  weekends, and the lost-and-found notices. The new sign was printed in  large black letters and there was a highly official-looking seal at the  bottom beside a neat and curly signature."
The oven bell rang as the elder Holmes was to read about the decree and he carefully noted the page where they were before closing the book and putting it down on the coffee table. The  cakes were perfectly cooked and, careful not to burn himself, the  official took them out of the oven and placed them on the worktop,  forbidding his son from touching them until they had cooled down. To  occupy the little boy, Mycroft seized a new bowl on the draining rack and they started preparing the frosting.
Alden  couldn't repress himself from dipping his finger in the creamy cheese  and was quickly imitated by his father who was as tempted as the little  boy. They were spreading little chocolate flakes on top of the icing  when they heard the front door opening. Quickly discarding their aprons,  they made their way to the corridor through the dinning room to hide to  the detective that they were in the kitchen.
"A bit late for a snack no  ? You two are not going to eat anything tonight ..." the inspector tutted  them before lifting his son from the son and hugging him a placing a  soft peck on his partner's cheek.
"How was your day ?" wondered the  elder Holmes while he was leading the other man to the living room and  sitting him in one of the couch.
"Dull. I thought we had a new case but it was just a stupid domestic accident, a bit disappointing ..." replied Greg, making himself comfortable in the soft leather couch.
"Oh poor little thing ... Beer ?" proposed the auburn, softly kissing his husband scalp.
The  latter nodded and the elder Holmes disappeared in the kitchen, quickly  coming back with a trail containing not only a cold can of beer but also  the cake and three plates.
"So that's why you've come out of the dining room ..." chuckled the policeman. "Sugar before the diner ? Are you sure ?"
"Hell the diner, I thought you wanted us to grow old and fat together ?" winked Mycroft, cutting three slices of the cake and handling the two others a plate.
"Let's get fat !" chuckled Greg, dipping his spoon in the cake.