The habit has endured for a lifetime. This evening is the closest Mycroft has ever come to breaking it, unsure if he would find the time. Usually the final hours of each day are spent in his own company, working until he’s at risk of committing errors then writing quietly in bed by the glow of his lamp – but today, for the first time in his life, these final hours haven’t been spent alone.
It’s now close to midnight. His company kisses his temple, brushes back his ruffled hair and gives him a reassuring smile, promising in a murmur to return in just a few minutes. “Don’t go anywhere,” he teases, and Mycroft’s heart squeezes in response. They share a soft kiss. “Won’t be long.”
Mycroft waits until the bathroom door has closed.
He then eases open the top drawer of his bedside table, slides the journal out with care, and uncaps the silver fountain pen he keeps with it.
Something about doing this naked in a stolen moment leaves him feeling deeply and desperately honest. His hair is a mess, his skin still covered in kisses. There is stubble burn on his inner thighs. His lover is only feet away through a wall, and the two of them are now spent, sated, settling down to sleep through the night in the same bed.
He writes quietly, his heartbeat quick and happy. The pen nib scuffs across the paper, curiously audible tonight. He’s never noticed it before.
With Gregory.
As gentle and patient as I’d hoped. Even more so.
Mycroft hesitates, gazing down at the thick cream paper. The memory of the closeness they just shared brings him courage. He smiles as he commits this happy truth to the record of his life, glad to his soul.
Unsure how I’ll bring myself to let him go in the morning.
Hearing water hiss gently through the pipes, he caps the pen and returns his journal to the drawer. Tomorrow, when Gregory has left him, he’ll finish the entry. It gives him the full night to decide which additional details to give – which specific aspects should be laid down for recollection in the future and which moments should stay purely private between two lovers.
As Mycroft settles down beneath his sheets, enjoying the feel of a smile upon his lips, he realises that by morning there might even be additional memories to discreetly leave out of his journal.
Last year, our lovely @green-violin-bow wrote the most beautiful Christmas story that made me sad every time I even thought of chocolate coins. This year…well…Greg took action. This is isn’t a sequel–there’s no way I could write as well as Greenie–but it’s an AU of her AU. And with that, I present to you…
The Chocolate Coins
Mycroft sensed it even before he was fully awake. The warmth, the certainty,
the absolute rightness of his
husband’s presence was absent. He slid a hand to Gregory’s side of the bed. Slightly
warm. He’d barely begun to calculate the length of his absence when he felt the
slightest of breezes from the bedroom door opening. Gregory slipped beneath the
covers.
I needed
some mystrade-inspired Christmas
decorations in my life to get me through December and my exams, so I’ve made my
version of the traditional Danish kravlenisse
– a kravle’croft and a kravle’strade. And I thought that maybe some of
you needs them too.
They are
ready to print, cut, colour and hang up on the bookshelf (The white flaps goes
under a book or two, so it looks like Mycroft and Greg are hanging from a garland on the bookshelf).
Green Violin Bow 
