mottlemoth:

Of course you can. ❤ 

(These are also Mystrade.)

• Cats. Of course.
• 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.
• 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.