sooo, while I'm posting things I've completely forgotten about...
wrote this for... fall into sherlock at
sherlockmas The prompt was the poem-
see here Title: No Spring Nor Summer Beauty
Pairing: Mystrade
Rating: PG
Length: tiny
“No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace/As I have seen in one autumnal face…”
Mycroft shifts on the grass, leaning his weight onto his right hand.
“I had not realized you enjoyed poety.”
Lestrade smiles absently as he looked up at the other man’s profile, his head cradled in his hands as he reclines in the late afternoon sun.
“Sure. Why not?”
The tailored shoulder of Mycroft’s suit gives a tiny shrug. “Why not indeed?” His lips are pursed as he looks into the middle distance, his elegant sprawl against the tree trunk at odds with the ever-present sharpness of his eyes. “He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb…”
Lestrade laughs aloud, leaning up on his elbows to study the man next to him. The sun is nearing the horizon, and the golden light gilds the bridge of Mycroft’s prominent nose, strikes red from his hair and eyebrows.
“I’d hardly call your wrinkles graves, Mycroft. You’ve hardly any anyway.”
The other man’s lips purse ever so slightly, the slightest flush rising in the pallid cheeks. Lestrade takes a silent moment to stare, appreciative both of the view and of the level of intimacy Mycroft is allowing by even letting on that he’s more than a little flustered.
Lestrade reaches over, settling a light hand on the other man’s nape, leaning in to his ear.
“Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape/ This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame; / Affection here takes reverence's name.”
Mycroft twitches slightly under his hand, his face going carefully blank, and Lestrade suddenly realizes that he’s hit something all unknowing, something Mycroft carefully hides. He’s leaning in again, hand out to touch his arm, when Mycroft speaks again.
“But name not winter faces, whose skin's slack,/ Lank as an unthrift's purse, but a soul's sack…”
He’s surprised, truly surprised, but then, everyone has their little insecurities, he supposes, and when he thinks of Sherlock’s alien beauty, those too-light eyes and ridiculously long neck, he thinks he can understand a bit. He places his hand on Mycroft’s cheek and turns his head to face him. He pauses to really look at the man in front of him, from his darkly intense eyes to his narrow mouth, his winged hairline to his long nose.
It’s no contest, not at all. He smiles.
“My love descend, and journey down the hill,/ Not panting after growing beauties. So, /I shall ebb on with them who homeward go.”
There’s a look on Mycroft’s face that might just be a smile, so Lestrade leans in and presses his own mouth against it, just to make sure.