mottlemoth

Hi, folks. I'm Moth, I'm an m/m writer from England and this is my journal. <3

Other places you'll find me around the net...

mottlemoth |

mottlemoth

My ships at the moment are Mystrade, Symbrock, Snarry and Bagginshield. Always looking to make new friends - come say hi!

The thing with John in the warehouse was a test. If John had taken the money, Mycroft would have had him removed from Sherlock’s life immediately. He doesn’t want Sherlock in the hands of someone who’d spy on him for money, and he makes sure he gets his offer in first. He’s removed a number of people this way.

Mycroft was a Very Popular Young Man at Cambridge. He ended up with some deliciously filthy nickname, and couldn’t quite look his mother in the eye when he went home for Christmas.

He has the same breakfast everyday - wholegrain toast, a weighed amount of organic granola with yoghurt, and half a grapefruit.

He avoids desserts, chocolate and other sweet things, knowing it’s a slippery slope indeed. When he does indulge, he buys a very small number of extremely expensive liquor chocolates. He can only eat them when all the staff and Anthea have gone home, usually in his film room in the dark, watching something very sentimental. (With his cats.)

His hair naturally curls; he works hard to minimise the effect. Photos of him as a young man at Cambridge, when his hair was thickest, show almost floofy curls with a much redder shine.

When he retires, he plans to get into translating ancient poetry and deciphering old languages. He’s wanted to all his life, but he’s never permitted himself the time. (He first had this longing when he was eight, visiting The British Museum for the first time and seeing the Rosetta stone. He’s suppressed the interest for four decades now.)

He presents like a Capricorn, but the man’s clearly a Virgo.

As a younger man he was heavily involved in MI6, including covert work overseas. He had a few dangerous incidents over the years, but (his usual joke) ‘nothing worth adapting into a film’.

At a very low point, he paid for sex. Probably only once, and the experience was so unsettling and guilt-inducing that he blocked it from his mind. (This incident prompted a very long period of celibacy.)

Mycroft doesn’t do well in heat. The office is kept air-conditioned to the same chilly temperature year round, as is the car, and he tries to avoid situations where he’ll get overly warm.

He calls Sherlock because it’s the only way to get Sherlock to bloody respond to him. He’s actually completely comfortable with texting, especially with more personal or private communication.

When he and Greg start texting more casually, Greg is surprised that Mycroft often sends picture messages - things that amuse him, things he thinks Greg would appreciate, sometimes just shots of whatever he’s experiencing at the time. A half-finished coffee by a rainy window; crumpled bed-sheets in the half-light; one of his cats, upside down on the couch beside him asleep.

Mycroft is a very visual person. He knows it’s perhaps a little shallow, but he likes attractive partners. He’s usually so removed from ordinary people that the only way they can catch his eye is by physical attractiveness. As he reached his late thirties, he stopped noticing them so much - attractive people started just looking wearily young to him. (Then along came Greg.)

He’s a little uneasy with germs and hygiene. Essentially, he knows he can’t trust ordinary Londoners to perform even the basics of proper hand-washing. He tries not to think about it, but avoids public transport and public bathrooms like the plague (samples of which they could very well contain).

He prefers silence to music. Sherlock learned to play the violin as a child, and Mycroft the piano - but his teacher was a vicious old woman who resented the family’s wealth. Mycroft developed something of a discomfort around music, especially the piano. He becomes more comfortable with modern music due to Greg, who habitually puts a playlist on when they make love.

His favourite colour is dark red, but he doesn’t wear it often because it brings out the warmth in his hair.

He’s got a custom-designed unbelievably posh built-in wardrobe covering a full wall, with tie-racks - concealed drawers for cufflinks - the works.

He’s very self-conscious of his freckles and keeps them covered at all times. He was teased at school. His mother tried to reassure him that ‘everyone has a few blemishes’, which didn’t help.

He’s quite strongly arachnophobic. Every summer, ahead of spider season in autumn, Anthea books a pest control team to ensure the house is properly treated. Greg discovers the phobia one night when a massive one suddenly rushes across the bed and Mycroft nearly hits the ceiling. Greg deals with it. Mycroft tries not to find this heroically affecting.

His favourite restaurants in London are all French.

He suffers from migraines, especially if he drinks too much tea.

His parents were worried about the effect that fiction has on impressionable young minds, so he knows very few classic stories.

Greg introduces him to Game of Thrones, and he ends up secretly addicted. An online quiz on Greg’s phone reveals him as a Lannister through and through.

He ends up going to a country pub for lunch with Greg every Sunday.

He helps Greg quit smoking. (’Incentives’ are offered. Greg doesn’t even try to lie when he’s lapsed - he knows it won’t work.)

He starts swearing more in private when he’s involved with Greg, particularly ‘fuck’. This is how Sherlock figures out they’re together.

Mycroft is invited to an lavish reception held by the French ambassador, Pascal Lestrade, in honour of his daughter’s impending marriage. It is considered the social event of the year. London’s rich and influential are all in attendance - as is the ambassador’s roguish younger brother, Grégoire, rarely seen at such formal events.

Intending to take the opportunity to network, Mycroft instead finds himself thoroughly distracted by the dark-eyed and playful Grégoire. Though receiving plenty of admiring glances from the capital’s eligible young ladies in all their most sumptuous finery, Grégoire seems far happier to occupy himself with Mycroft, teasing and charming the flustered diplomat.

The ambassador catches Mycroft to thank him profusely for keeping Grégoire out of trouble - his brother is so liable to cause mischief at these high society events. Mycroft, startled in front of the delighted Grégoire, says it's not a problem. He promises the ambassador he will ensure Grégoire is sufficiently supervised at all times.

As the night wears on, Grégoire grows more and more coquettish with his gallant caretaker, and more restless to escape the confines of the formal gathering. He finally insists that Mycroft come upstairs to view the family’s original Cézanne, but quite unforgivably gets them lost in his brother’s enormous London town house, finding themselves instead in one of the guest bedrooms.

To the strains of Shostakovich’s Waltz No.2, as London’s most elegant people dance beneath the chandeliers of the grand ballroom two floors below, Grégoire entrusts what little remains of his virtue to the thoroughly responsible Mr Holmes - who takes exceedingly good care of it indeed.

Current Mood: French

The Lestrade family is huge. Greg has four older brothers, and enough cousins to populate a small village. Nearly all of them have children. Family weddings are enormous affairs, and seem to go on for several days.

Mycroft dreads the bloody things.

He’s never felt so out of place in a room - noisy children, gossiping aunties, Greg’s brothers asking if he’s a football or rugby man.

The worst part?

He doesn’t understand why the Lestrade family are so welcoming to him. The whole lot of them are always delighted to see him, and it’s frankly bewildering. No matter how awkward and overwhelmed he feels, they just don’t seem to realise. He sits among them at every happy gathering, lost, feeling like a neurotic giraffe surrounded by happy monkeys. Not a word is ever said. He’s not had the slightest suggestion that a single Lestrade finds him stuck-up, strange, or boring. They just throw their arms around him, shout “Mycroft!”, and ask if anyone’s gotten him a drink yet.

It would somehow be easier if they disliked him.

Then, at the wedding of Greg’s… second cousin? Who is called… Sharon? And is marrying a man called… Dave? - Mycroft finally succumbs to the only possible source of relief, and starts drinking with intent. Uncle Greg is off being chased and climbed on by hoards of excited children. It could be some hours before he’s returned to the gathering at large.

And so Mycroft takes solace in the bottle of whiskey that he and Greg brought - feeling it would be unbearable of him to drink the family’s liquor in an attempt to blot them out.

He can’t actually remember at what point he was joined at the table by Greg’s father and two of the brothers - the discussion is largely football, and Mycroft is staring dazedly at the balloons across the hall - and then he realises Greg’s father is speaking to him, and the cosy drunkenness of men sharing whiskey at a wedding is upon them.

The old man is telling him he’s glad.

Mycroft wonders what about.

“She was no good,” Greg’s father says - and Mycroft knows at once the ’she’ who is being discussed - the ’she’ that Greg’s family do not name. “Greg was never happy. Never saw him smiling, then. Different person."

The old man pats Mycroft’s knee.

"Happy, now there’s you. Smiling again. M'glad.”

Greg’s brothers pat him, too. Not a word is said - just a pat to each shoulder, and they fill up his glass for him, and ask if he and Greg are going away for summer.

Mycroft barely manages to answer them around the lump in his throat.

Half an hour later, Uncle Greg is brought back by the children in largely one piece. He barely manages to hug Mycroft and get a glass of wine down his neck before he’s hauled up on stage for karaoke with his eldest niece.

As Mycroft watches the two of them sing Shania Twain’s ‘Don’t Be Stupid’ to the entire family’s rapturous approval, he realises with a thrill that he’s watching the man he’ll marry - watching him sing and dance and laugh, grinning from ear-to-ear - and he’s grinning straight across the room at Mycroft.

It takes some planning - some discreet checking - some reassurance from a helpful mother-of-the-groom that such a gesture would not be seen as usurping a special day.

(And on the day itself, it takes several substantial glasses of whiskey to go ahead with it.)

But the roar that goes up as he sinks to one knee at the wedding of Greg’s nephew is nearly enough to raise the roof - and he never forgets Greg’s arms around his neck, and the laughter in his ear, and the pile of happy arms that the two of them then vanish beneath.

I got inspired by beautiful Johnlock art over on Tumblr, so now I'm saving these ideas here. Determined to write at least one of these someday. <3

(1) Mycroft is the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, where Greg is a new initiate. Greg’s approach to assassination is fairly blunt and brutal. Mycroft decides to give their new initiate some highly personal training in the subtler arts.

(2) Greg joins the Thieves Guild. They want him to rob the house of a rich merchant named Mycroft, who lives in Windhelm. The robbery is a success, but on the way back to Riften, it becomes clear to Greg that he’s being followed.

(3) Greg is Jarl Mycroft’s housecarl. (He used to be an adventurer, but then he took an arrow to the knee.) Jarl Mycroft has a fairly ferocious reputation, aided by his steward Anthea, and it’s thought this is the reason he’s never married. The real reason is his handsome housecarl…

(4) Mycroft is steward to a powerful jarl, but his position and his responsibilities don’t make him happy. He decides that he’d like a spouse to share his days. He journeys to the Temple of Mara in Riften to ask for an amulet. The goddess’s high priest is a dark-eyed Breton named Greg, who has some concern over Mycroft’s suitability for marriage - he wonders if Mycroft would be able to open up to his future spouse, and to give them the love and support they would need from him in return. He asks Mycroft to study at the temple for a few weeks, to better understand the Goddess of Love and what she brings to the world. Mycroft reluctantly agrees… and finds himself exploring Mara’s blessings directly through her handsome and patient high priest.

(5) Greg is a werewolf, and a dedicated follower of the daedric prince Hyrcine. After losing his little brother to a werewolf attack when young, Mycroft is a prominent member of the Silver Hand. They don’t know this when they meet in a roadside inn one night.

(6) After an increasingly dull career as a guard, Greg inherits a small amount of money from a deceased friend some adventurer must have killed. He decides to set up a forge and return to the blacksmithing his father taught him as a child. The shop next door to his belongs to an alchemist named Mycroft, who sells his powerful potions and poisons to anyone with the money to pay for them. When a local murder is committed with one of Mycroft’s poisons, and Mycroft himself is suspected, Greg must dust off his guard skills to solve the crime and protect his new friend’s reputation.

Current Mood: creative

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