When I Look in the Mirror I See Double (2/2), R, Mycroft/John/Mycroft
Title: When I Look in the Mirror I See Double (2/2)
Pairing: Mycroft/John/Mycroft (yes, really)
Rating: R
Length: 12200 words
Summary: Mycroft and 'Anthea' are one mind in two bodies. Literally.
Notes: The kink meme is really weird you guys. I don't even know. Originally posted for the kink meme, here.
The thing about secrets is that once people find the first secret (Annabelle and Mycroft live together. They are closer than close and share a bed.), they rarely search deeper. Few of them find the second secret (Annabelle's real name is Clarice Holmes. She and Mycroft are twins).
They never think there'd be a third secret, one worse than the hints of incest and a cover-up, one that means dangerous (Clarice and Mycroft are fundamentally different from everyone else. They are something that's never been discovered before. They can do things that have never been done before).
John is told the second secret first. He'll learn the first one, eventually, because it's only a matter of time before Clarice will be expected to invite him to her home, which she shares with Mycroft and has only one bedroom (and a guest room that no one's used since Sherlock's been clean). John will probably not accept this first secret, unless he learns about the third at roughly the same time.
Lovers generally didn't. People generally didn't, if they knew Mycroft and Clarice were related by blood, until Mycroft had gained enough influence that they didn't dare mention his violation of taboos to his face and he'd become too valuable to lose over something so insignificant as incest.
In uni, Clarice and Mycroft had rented a flat with two bedrooms -- he'd ended up only using one, of course, but the other had looked lived-in enough that he'd been able to bring home bed partners without rousing any suspicions, except for the one time he had.
It happens when he's still careless with his belongings. When Clarice and William head to the bedroom, Will's foot kicks the arm of one of Mycroft's shirts. "Careful," Clarice murmurs, already working at the buttons on Will's shirt. "It's expensive."
"That's a man's shirt," Will says, catching her hands, stilling them. "What's it doing at the foot of your bed?"
"It belongs to Mycroft," she responds with a roll of her eyes. Mycroft had left it there when undressing the night before, and it hadn't occurred to him to put it away before going on his date. "Just leave it."
But Will doesn't leave it, because he's come by while she and Mycroft were both at the flat before. He's seen the way they don't speak to each other but seemingly know what the other is thinking, and the way their bodies coordinate effortlessly on tasks. He's seen how it looks like one person living here -- one person's sense of decoration, one person's tastes and spaces and belongings. Not two. He hasn't asked her outright, but he's been wondering about it. "What's it doing there?"
She shrugs. "Does it matter?" she asks, and drags Will down for a kiss.
He expects that to be the end of it and makes a mental note to be more discreet when bringing others home with him, but later Will comes to his apartment when Clarice is at a lesson and asks to speak to him.
"Of course," Mycroft says, and lets him in. There are different rules for personal space between men and women, between lovers, and between men and men; it takes a moment for Mycroft to remember the right ones to follow, and he takes a half-step back when he realizes he's accidentally standing too close. Clarice walks near enough to hold hands with Will, even if they usually don't. Mycroft is expected to leave several feet of open space between them. "Did you want something?"
"It's about Clarice," Will begins, then stops.
"What about her?" Mycroft prompts, when no explanation is forthcoming. He doesn't have to ask, of course. It's obvious.
It's written in the tension in Will's body, the way his hands curl unconsciously into fists at his side and the way his eyes scan the room, looking for something that isn't there. Proof that doesn't apply. Because Will had added two and two together to get, well, four and a bit. Almost right, but not quite -- evidence and evidence and one incorrect jump to arrive at the wrong conclusion.
The curve of Will's lips is caused by suspicion and anger and something that verges on disgust.
"You and her," Will says challengingly.
It hurts, the way Will looks at him. It's mistrusting. He's so much sweeter with Clarice -- with her, he's gentle, genuinely so, and that's what he's used to. But Will doesn't know Mycroft, except from passing mention of him as her twin. As far as he knows, Mycroft is a complete stranger to him, even though they'd curled up in Will's bed together not two weeks ago, and he'd stroked her hair and swore she was beautiful.
"What about us?" Mycroft asks, because he wants to hear it. He wants it thrown into the air between them like a gauntlet.
"Are you fucking her?" Will demands, and takes a threatening step forward. "She doesn't say anything about it, but you are, aren't you?"
Will not being a complete imbecile had been much more attractive when he hadn't been blowing things out of proportion.
"Is that what you think?" Mycroft asks curiously.
Admittedly he does on occasion, when he's in the mood for it. He finds his mouth to be more pleasurable than his hand, if he fancies a wank and both bodies are in the same place at the same time. And he's certainly never hesitated to satisfy both bodies at once, or to use them together to research his own preferences. He's never seen any reason not to.
"It's what I know," Will says. "Do you force her? Is that why you write all her papers for her? So she'll spread her legs like a whore and let you --"
"Don't be stupid," Mycroft interrupts, and then says nastily, because he is angry and his feelings are hurt and he'd never thought her boyfriend would talk about her like that, "At least I know how to get her off without spending five minutes drooling sloppily on her clitoris."
Will punches Mycroft in the face and threatens to tell everyone what he and Clarice do together; in return, Mycroft threatens to pull strings and get him kicked from the rugby team, and reminds Will that no one would believe him.
In the end, Will doesn't mention what happened to Clarice, but Mycroft sports a black eye that lasts nearly two weeks. The sight of it in the mirror is enough for her to break it off rather harshly with Will when he tries to call her.
Trying to enter a relationship had always seemed a bit futile, after that.
--
"Do you think we should break up?" Clarice asks the next time John calls her -- 7 PM but she's still at the office, finishing up his analysis of the Planck accounts (evidence of insider trading -- so boring, and with so much paperwork).
"What? Why should we break up? I thought things were going pretty good."
"Well," she corrects automatically. "Going pretty well. But -- I wasn't looking for a relationship when I agreed to go out with you. And now you seem to think we're in one."
"We are in one," John points out, sounding hurt. "I thought you wanted that too."
"I do," she agrees, because she hasn't been in a real relationship in years. Because coming home to an empty house is boring and even she knows half his visits to Sherlock are to check up on him because he's got nothing better to do the spare time when he's not working. "But," she says, and takes a deep breath, feeling like she's about to throw herself off the edge of a cliff. "There are things you don't know about me. That you should know before anything further happens between us."
There's a long pause -- John, undoubtedly, is trying to decide what she's alluding to, given that he already knows all of Sherlock's more irritating habits (dead animals in the living areas?) and hasn't been significantly phased by any of them.
"Nothing violent," she says when the appropriate amount of time has passed -- when John's thoughts will have drifted from experiments to murder or a history of abuse. "Nothing bad in the way you're thinking."
"Does it have to do with Sherlock? With my going on cases with him, or any of that?"
"No," she says, though really he means not yet. A part of him is still half-expecting Sherlock to be selfish and decide he wants John all to himself, or that he doesn't want Mycroft so closely involved in his life. But even that would just be a minor inconvenience, because for all that Sherlock acts like he expects to always get his way, Mycroft is the one who actually does get what he wants, in the end.
"Do you want to keep going out with me?"
Does he? She bites her lower lip. "I think so, yes."
--
He lets John take Clarice to dinner first -- John spends most of the meal looking thoughtfully at her. He gets a text message from Sherlock (something trivial to interrupt John because Sherlock resents being left alone) and ignores it even though normally he'd at least type back a short reply.
"You're watching me eat," Clarice says.
"Sorry." He stops for a few minutes, but eventually stares again, brows knit together in thought -- still trying to figure out what she wants to tell him. He's already figured out it has to do with her and Mycroft, but he's unwilling to seriously consider incest and has probably already verified with Sherlock that their parents did not abuse them.
The truth is not something he'll be able to guess.
The car takes them to Mycroft's house instead of dropping them off at Baker Street; when she gets out, she puts her hand on John's arm and tells him, "It'll be waiting here, if you want to leave."
The telling itself is not as bad as it could be. She sets John down on the sofa (in front of the television that never gets watched), and when he slides an arm around her shoulders, she goes willingly. Her head is on his shoulder when she says, "I know this sounds unbelievable, but Mycroft and I are -- linked, in a way that defies physics. Or any other field of science."
"Linked how?"
"We have the same thoughts."
"You mean telepathy?"
"No." He's never had to explain this before. There's no proper precedent for how to expect John will react. "I mean, literally, we have the same thoughts. We share a consciousness. I know it sounds unbelievable, but this isn't something I'd lie to you about and Sherlock will verify what I say."
John tenses; she gets up and budges to the side before he can push her away. "If this is true, then every time you and I..." he trails off, motioning between them. "He knows. How much -- does he -- can you block him out somehow?"
"It doesn't work like that," she says. She frowns. "All our experiences and sensory input are shared. In effect, we're one person."
"That doesn't make any sense," John says flatly. "How can you be one person?"
"I never did figure out the 'how' of it," she admits. He'd tried, of course, but there had been limits to his knowledge that couldn't be solved without proper testing, and proper testing was one of the things he'd had to do without, for safety's sake."It just is, and has been for as long as I remember."
John's eyes narrow. "Our first date. Mycroft sent me a text."
"I wasn't in the mood to listen to you talk about Sherlock. And I'm perfectly capable of pretending we're separate."
"So you know where Mycroft is and what he's doing, right now?"
"Bedroom, reading. It's the same book I mentioned to you earlier, I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the night. If computer metaphors help, since I know Sherlock's fond of pretending he's a robot, think of me as a dual-core machine, while everyone else has only the one. I think twice as quickly as normal people and have effectively 48 hours per day to spend, including the time both bodies need for sleep and other maintenance."
"Really?"
She sighs. "Yes, really," she says. "I can demonstrate, if you wish."
Mycroft pads out of the bedroom, still dressed in his suit from work. John watches him approach, looking between him and Clarice.
"I can continue this conversation just as easily as she can," Mycroft says. Clarice closes her eyes and leans her head back against the sofa. Her shoulders are tense. Mycroft kneads the muscles until they relax in his hands.
John stares at him, at his hands on Clarice's shoulders and the way her hair falls over his wrists. "What does it feel like when you touch her?" he asks curiously.
"It doesn't feel like anything in particular. They're just my shoulders. It's not like touching another person." It's not like touching you.
"Who else knows?"
"Sherlock. Our mother. You. No one else."
John almost believes him -- almost, but not quite, because he doesn't want to believe him. And, to be fair, it really doesn't make any sense. It just is. "So, who are you, then? Are you really Mycroft, or are you really Clarice?"
"I'm both," he says, through both mouths.
--
As expected, John takes the car home. Clarice doesn't kiss him goodnight, though she had on all their previous dates together. He doubts John would have welcomed it.
I told him. Let me know when you've found the identity of the blackmailers, Mycroft texts to Sherlock, and chalks it up as a learning experience.
--
He lets himself be drawn back into his work, letting it rise up around him until it's the only thing he sees and breathes and thinks. He's less than fifteen years and one properly cataclysmic world event away from achieving proper world domination (he only calls it that in his mind, and doesn't speak of it aloud). The CIA borrows Clarice again, so Mycroft spends extra time at the office to make up for it as Clarice keeps himself up-to-date on the latest advances in American intelligence while they try to pry information from her about, well, herself.
He doesn't check 221B's surveillance footage himself, but he skims the summaries. The night John gets home after Mycroft tells him, he and Sherlock speak for an hour and change. John goes to his room an hour later than his usual time, and the light in his bedroom doesn't go out until half an hour after that (twenty minutes longer than the average).
On the fourth day, Sherlock emails him the names of the blackmailers involved in the Stewart situation. Mycroft sends a team to collect them for questioning. Later, the security detail on Sherlock reports John Watson leaving the flat. He goes to a pub, leaves it twenty minutes later, then walks aimlessly for another hour, apparently deep in thought.
Interesting.
Mycroft receives another message from Sherlock, by text this time, several days afterwards.
John's phone lost during previous case. Requests your presence at 221B tomorrow evening for dinner.
SH
C is in the States, Mycroft replies. On business.
John says to bring Mycroft instead. SH
--
"You cooked," Mycroft says in surprise when John opens the door to the flat.
"You can tell that from here?"
Mycroft hangs his jacket on the wall and leans his umbrella right beneath it. "Yes," he says, but doesn't bother with the showy explanations he knows Sherlock favors. Showing off is more often irritating than impressive. He turns, and finds himself face to face with John.
If he'd brought Clarice here instead, she would have smiled and wrapped her arms around John's neck to pull him into a kiss -- if John didn't kiss her first. Or maybe she'd have slid an arm around his waist, and leaned against his broader, firmer body, and John would have run his fingers through her hair and grinned softly at her.
But Mycroft Holmes has six inches and twenty pounds on John Watson, and they've never touched, aside from accidental brushes against one another. John glances up at him, then takes a quick step back -- it puts a normal amount of space between them (the amount of space typically found between two heterosexual men).
"My apologies," Mycroft says stiffly, and there must be something revealed in his expression -- in his eyes, perhaps, because that's where John's looking. John's expression changes, becoming guilty and uncomfortable.
"No, you don't have anything to be sorry for. I'm sorry it took me so long to call again," John says, and steps close. He has to balance himself on one of Mycroft's arms and rise on his tiptoes to brush his mouth against Mycroft's. The kiss is brief, awkward, and over almost before Mycroft can even register the press of John's lips.
"You feel much smaller from this perspective," Mycroft says without thinking, because John would fit comfortably in his arms, with his head on Mycroft's shoulder. While Clarice had been able to tuck herself against John's side with some slouching, there's no way Mycroft would be able to do the same. Fascinating.
John gives a startled laugh. Some of the awkward tension leaks out of the room. His hand is still on Mycroft's arm, and he's close enough for Mycroft to feel the warm puff of his breath. "Two inches below average isn't that short, really. You're just bloody tall. You and Sherlock both."
"I'm an inch taller than him," Mycroft says with a smug smile. "He was so hopeful when he was experiencing his growth spurt, but he didn't quite beat me."
John laughs. The hand on Mycroft's arm shifts, the grip becoming looser and more natural. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit of a prat to Sherlock? I never would have believed it, but you are."
Sherlock's not here ("I told him to make himself scarce for a few hours," John explains as he places their meal on the table, which has been cleared of Sherlock's experiments), and after they finish eating, John smiles at him. It's a tentative smile, similar to the one he'd given Anthea on their first date together, back before John had started using her real name.
"You want to continue our relationship," Mycroft says, and helps John clear the dishes away. They settle together on the sofa afterwards, facing each other. "You're attracted to this body almost as much as you are to the other one. And you've spoken to Sherlock about me, of course. Whatever he told you can't have been too terrible."
"How much of it was real? Clarice likes fashion, reading bad science fiction, and watching romantic comedies. And you're -- was that all true?"
"Well, I wouldn't tell people that as Mycroft," Mycroft says. "But that doesn't mean it's not true. I'm the same person. Society has different standards for how men and women behave. I'm well-versed in what is and isn't gender-appropriate." He'd learned very early on that while Clarice could do most of the things Mycroft did, the reverse was profoundly not true.
"Does that bother you?"
No one's asked him that before, since no one's known before, and the question manages to genuinely surprise him.
"I --" he stops, frowning, and considers the question. Does it bother him, the differences people expect between Mycroft and Clarice? "To some extent, yes, because it's an inconvenient distinction to make. But it's just a rule one has to learn to integrate themselves in society -- nothing more, nothing less."
They talk for a while about other things, about Sherlock and cases and John's work at the surgery. Mycroft, in turn, gives John a highly edited description of the tamer incidents he's been involved in. Eventually, however, the subject turns back to Mycroft. Or, more specifically, MycroftandClarice, one entity.
"The bodies are functionally equivalent, though of course this one's more useful. There's much to be said for being male, when trying to get things done."
John tilts his head thoughtfully. At some point, they have migrated closer together on the sofa. He has to crane his head back to look Mycroft in the eyes. "And are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Male. Do you consider yourself male?" There is no uneasiness in John's posture; he's curious, nothing more.
Mycroft's never understood why people get so hung up on on such petty social norms. "Mycroft is male, but Clarice isn't. But if I had to choose one, I'd choose Mycroft. Does this bother you?" He knows the answer is mostly-not, but it's polite to ask.
"No," John says, and before he can say anything else, Mycroft curls his fingers around the nape of John's neck and licks his way into John's mouth, wet and dirty. They've kissed before and Mycroft doesn't kiss any differently than Clarice does, but John's reaction is completely different. Where before he was gentle, careful, now he's rougher, fighting for control.
"You're much rougher with men than you are with women," Mycroft comments, when he has John pinned to the sofa. The height different strikes him again -- he'd been able to curl up on John's chest before, but now he looms over John easily, locking him in place.
"You like it," John points out, which goes without saying at this point. The evidence of just how much Mycroft likes it is pressed firmly and obviously against his lower belly.
"I do," he agrees, and untucks John's shirt from his trousers. He grins against John's jaw. "If we have sex on the sofa, Sherlock will know and throw a fit. Do you want to?"
John chokes on his laughter. "We can't," he gets out between giggles. His hands smooth over Mycroft's shoulders. "We can't, he'd kill me."
"Sherlock's a prat, not a murderer," Mycroft says, sucking a path down the line of John's throat. If he tried, he could leave a bruise, bringing a tender, livid mark on his skin that would still be there tomorrow. John pokes him in the ribs.
"Don't," John says, even as he groans and tilts his head back to give Mycroft better access. "I'm working tomorrow."
Mycroft pauses a few minutes later, fingers wrapped around the buckle of John's belt while John grinds against his palm. Both their lips are kiss-swollen, bright and wet. "Sherlock will be home soon," he says, because Clarice is receiving Mycroft's notifications about his brother right now, and she's not distracted by the soft noises John makes, or the warm burn of arousal in Mycroft's veins. "He's on his way right now. We should move --"
"To the bedroom," John finishes for him. "Yes, come on, let's go."
--
Afterwards, John catches Mycroft's wrist when Mycroft swings his legs off the edge of his bed. "Where are you going? You don't have to leave."
"I have work," Mycroft explains as he pulls on his trousers and fishes around for his shirt.
"It's past midnight." John's thumb is warm on the underside of his wrist. "Get some sleep." His voice is low and rough with drowsiness, and Mycroft is sorely tempted to crawl back into bed with him and curl their bodies together.
But.
"It's not past midnight in America," Mycroft says regretfully. "The sooner Clarice finds out what I need to know, the sooner she returns to London. She's almost done."
John makes a muffled noise of assent, before registering Mycroft's actual words. He sits up. "Wait, was that what she doing just now, then? When we were... you know. Please tell me you weren't working while we were having sex."
"Well, you can't expect me to need two brains worth of processing power for sex," Mycroft points out reasonably, because while Mycroft been focused on the sheer physicality of John and the sensation of their bodies moving together, it'd been only natural to let Clarice borrow his spare mental resources. After all, she hadn't been having sex with him.
"You know, most blokes like to be the focus of their partner's attention during sex," John says, and now there is a thin thread of irritation in John's voice, because he doesn't quite understand, not really.
"You were the focus of Mycroft's attention. Clarice isn't even here," he replies, and gives John a thorough good-bye kiss before he leaves. "I swear I'll make it up to you, the both of me. I'll send a car, Tuesday when her flight gets in."
--
Sherlock is in the flat when Mycroft leaves, synthesizing poisonous gases on the kitchen table. His jaw clenches when Mycroft drifts close enough to identify the compounds he's playing with. "Couldn't you keep your hands off him long enough to not sully the sofa?"
"You should label this," Mycroft comments, picking up the bottle of vanilla that holds no actual vanilla in it. "John won't expect you to have swapped its contents out."
Sherlock glares at him when Mycroft puts it down, precisely two centimeters away from where it'd been previously. He darts his hand out, curling it protectively around the bottle as he brings it back to its original place. "Go away."
"In due time," Mycroft says. He takes a moment to steel himself, then says carefully, "You talked to John for me. About me."
Sherlock stares at his experiment. His hands are still. He doesn't say anything, but Mycroft can tell he's listening.
The surveillance footage hadn't come with an audio track, but Mycroft has been able to read Sherlock's body language ever since the summer during their childhoods when Sherlock had refused to speak a single word aloud. He'd watched the conversation twice, to be sure, but once had been enough for him to see what he needed to know.
"The situation with John would have been more difficult had you not intervened. So, thank you."
Sherlock makes a sort of indistinct noise that could almost be construed as acknowledgment. Then, he says, "It wasn't for you. But if you wanted, you could show your gratitude by not snogging him on my sofa." He glances at Mycroft. "Going back to work?"
"Clarice is being watched. I'll be performing her duties and maintaining my correspondences until she returns to London. Synthesizing nerve gas in your flat? What would your landlady think? Or, for that matter, the neighbors?"
"I know how to safely contain a reaction." Sherlock scowls at him. "I don't want you interrupting my experiments like you always do."
"You nearly blew yourself up, the last time you tried nerve gas," Mycroft reminds his brother pleasantly.
"That was ages ago!"
"Three years is not ages ago."
--
On Tuesday, John appears only mildly surprised to see Mycroft in the backseat of the car instead of Clarice. "Hi," he says to Mycroft, and leans in for a brief kiss. He is freshly showered and shaved. "I thought --"
"The flight was late," Mycroft explains. "Clarice is still en route in the cab. She'll get home shortly after we do. Have you eaten? We can order takeaway."
"Takeaway sounds great," John says and after a brief discussion on what to order, starts to take his phone out.
Mycroft stops him. "Clarice already placed the call," he says, because it'd been easier to do so in the relative quiet of her taxi, as soon as they'd made their decision. John blinks in surprise before grinning.
"Ah, right. Convenient, isn't it?"
"Quite," Mycroft agrees.
--
They are waiting for the takeaway (Mycroft is waiting for the takeaway; John is sitting with his hands folded in his lap while he tries to learn as much as he can about how Mycroft lives without actually asking him) when Clarice's car gets near. Mycroft goes to fetch her a glass of water. He heads to the front door, and John follows.
They meet Clarice at the front of the house. When she finishes paying the cabbie, Mycroft passes her the glass of water and goes to the boot of the car for her things. He can carry more than she can, and she's tired from the flight and lack of sleep.
John smiles brightly at her. He hugs her, then pecks her on the mouth. Clarice, in turn, tucks herself comfortably against him when he puts an arm around her waist, but John makes to pull away when he sees Mycroft. "Do you need help carrying her things in?"
Clarice tightens her arm around John's waist. "I quite like you where you are, actually," she says. Her bags aren't too unwieldy and she rather enjoys having John's arm around her.
"How was America?" John asks as they make their way inside.
"Confidential, mostly," she replies. "I looked at a lot of documents and talked to a lot of people, most of whom were important and bad at hiding secrets. I was acting on Mycroft's behalf, of course." Her smile is, perhaps, a little sharp -- he's always liked having people underestimate him, and sending Clarice in place of himself had certainly encouraged that. He will never stop finding it funny that people expect women (especially secretaries) to not be very bright.
Most of the time when he has an audience, he makes some effort to pretend Clarice and Mycroft as separate. He'll have the bodies smile at each other, or trade glances, or do a dozen other things that mark them as different.
He doesn't do that now. Instead, he lets things happen naturally, which means Clarice mouths John's throat while Mycroft pays for the takeaway and grabs the dishes, the two of them passing and coordinating their actions effortlessly (his body awareness extends to both bodies at once, of course).
He doles out portions for both himself and Clarice, while Clarice smooths her hair back to some semblance of neatness (she doesn't need a mirror when Mycroft can see her). She slips off of John's lap with a smile and says, "The takeaway's here. We should eat before it gets cold."
"Do you have a preference?" Mycroft asks after they have finished eating. Clarice has run to take a quick shower; perhaps she oughtn't since it's fairly obvious how this night is going to end, but he doesn't particularly like airports and wants to feel refreshed again. "For which body you want?"
John's facial expressions really are appallingly easy to read, Mycroft observes as he takes off his tie and jacket. First confusion, followed by comprehension and surprise. Then, a slight flush as he glances first to the bath where Clarice is, then to Mycroft, gaze pausing briefly on his mouth, hands, and groin.
"Or both at once," Mycroft agrees amicably, just to watch the flush deepen. John's tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he realizes with a rush of heat that Clarice hasn't yet, with John.
"Have you done it before? You and Clarice sharing someone?" John asks.
"When the occasion presents," Mycroft replies. He'd tried it a few times, to satisfy his curiosity -- just for fun, picking someone up to experiment on them. It'd been alright. Better than alright, really, compared to the usual multitasking with the second body. More intense. He'd be happy to do that now.
John swallows, and Mycroft knows he's thinking about Clarice, about her hair and skin and the fact that the water from the shower had stopped running several minutes ago. "I'd like that," he says, sounding strangled.
John goes gratifyingly speechless when Mycroft leads him to the bedroom, where Clarice is already waiting for them.
--
Things blur after that. He lets the distance between his bodies disappear into nothing, relaxes the part of his mind that constantly tracks where Clarice ends and Mycroft begins. It's easy, natural even, to remove the constant filter on his actions.
"Rougher," Mycroft urges from behind John, easing a second lubricated finger inside him. "I like -- teeth, just a little bit. Scrape, don't bite," and Clarice moans her approval when John obeys, his lips against her clit and three fingers buried to the hilt inside her.
And
She's coming, coming with a high whimper, clenching and shivering around John's fingers and against his mouth. John grins up at her, bright and smug, and Mycroft laughs in delight, twisting his fingers in a way that makes John groan and press back against him.
And then
John's inside her -- no condom, his skin against hers ("she's on birth control and I've seen your medical records," he says when John hesitates). His pubic bone grinds rough against her clit with each thrust, and Mycroft's behind him, pounding into him, and her hands are on his shoulders and on his hips and her mouth is against his ear as she gasps, "You feel so good, John, John -- you're so tight around me, fuck, inside me, oh --"
And finally
John's head on Mycroft's shoulder, and his shoulder tucked under her chin and his back warm against her chest and the skin of his waist under Mycroft's hand, warm and soft and just ever-so-slightly rough with pale scars. It's peaceful, and both of him are tired. John is already lightly dozing, and it's easy for him to just close his eyes and breathe in the comforting scent of John and himself and sex, until sleep overtakes him.
--
Some time later, Clarice arranges for a large gift basket to be delivered to 221B.
She gets a text before the surveillance footage is forwarded to him. It's from John, sent during his lunch hour. Sherlock's threatening to set it on fire. Please don't let him burn down the flat. :( PS: Dinner tonight?
He can't believe he finds the emoticons endearing. She responds, Tell him to look again at the color of the leaves. Dinner sounds lovely. What did you have in mind?
It's a secret. :) Be at the flat around seven.
She responds in the affirmative, and confirms the appointment in Mycroft's calendar. John doesn't send another message until an hour before his shift at the surgery is scheduled to end.
Why did Sherlock just text me telling me not to come home, and that he's got it under control?
It takes him a few minutes to extrapolate from the contents of the gift basket and Sherlock's impulsive nature exactly what happened. Most of those few minutes is because Clarice has to look up the MSDSes of several compounds to make sure her brother isn't likely to be in serious danger.
To John, she writes, Tell him I didn't realize he'd used up the last of his hydrochloric acid and not to mix the greens and the blues. Your flat will be uninhabitable for the next 12 hours. A car will be waiting for you when you leave work.
To Sherlock, she texts, I'll be taking John for the evening. Please don't destroy the flat in his absence.
John responds with another terrible emoticon. Sherlock doesn't deign to reply, but Mycroft hadn't expected him to. Sherlock will be too piqued about the gift basket to talk to him for days.
The Defence Secretary's aide nods at Clarice's BlackBerry knowingly and offers her a friendly smile. "Having a good day?"
She can't smother her grin before it escapes. "I've had worse."
Part 1
Pairing: Mycroft/John/Mycroft (yes, really)
Rating: R
Length: 12200 words
Summary: Mycroft and 'Anthea' are one mind in two bodies. Literally.
Notes: The kink meme is really weird you guys. I don't even know. Originally posted for the kink meme, here.
The thing about secrets is that once people find the first secret (Annabelle and Mycroft live together. They are closer than close and share a bed.), they rarely search deeper. Few of them find the second secret (Annabelle's real name is Clarice Holmes. She and Mycroft are twins).
They never think there'd be a third secret, one worse than the hints of incest and a cover-up, one that means dangerous (Clarice and Mycroft are fundamentally different from everyone else. They are something that's never been discovered before. They can do things that have never been done before).
John is told the second secret first. He'll learn the first one, eventually, because it's only a matter of time before Clarice will be expected to invite him to her home, which she shares with Mycroft and has only one bedroom (and a guest room that no one's used since Sherlock's been clean). John will probably not accept this first secret, unless he learns about the third at roughly the same time.
Lovers generally didn't. People generally didn't, if they knew Mycroft and Clarice were related by blood, until Mycroft had gained enough influence that they didn't dare mention his violation of taboos to his face and he'd become too valuable to lose over something so insignificant as incest.
In uni, Clarice and Mycroft had rented a flat with two bedrooms -- he'd ended up only using one, of course, but the other had looked lived-in enough that he'd been able to bring home bed partners without rousing any suspicions, except for the one time he had.
It happens when he's still careless with his belongings. When Clarice and William head to the bedroom, Will's foot kicks the arm of one of Mycroft's shirts. "Careful," Clarice murmurs, already working at the buttons on Will's shirt. "It's expensive."
"That's a man's shirt," Will says, catching her hands, stilling them. "What's it doing at the foot of your bed?"
"It belongs to Mycroft," she responds with a roll of her eyes. Mycroft had left it there when undressing the night before, and it hadn't occurred to him to put it away before going on his date. "Just leave it."
But Will doesn't leave it, because he's come by while she and Mycroft were both at the flat before. He's seen the way they don't speak to each other but seemingly know what the other is thinking, and the way their bodies coordinate effortlessly on tasks. He's seen how it looks like one person living here -- one person's sense of decoration, one person's tastes and spaces and belongings. Not two. He hasn't asked her outright, but he's been wondering about it. "What's it doing there?"
She shrugs. "Does it matter?" she asks, and drags Will down for a kiss.
He expects that to be the end of it and makes a mental note to be more discreet when bringing others home with him, but later Will comes to his apartment when Clarice is at a lesson and asks to speak to him.
"Of course," Mycroft says, and lets him in. There are different rules for personal space between men and women, between lovers, and between men and men; it takes a moment for Mycroft to remember the right ones to follow, and he takes a half-step back when he realizes he's accidentally standing too close. Clarice walks near enough to hold hands with Will, even if they usually don't. Mycroft is expected to leave several feet of open space between them. "Did you want something?"
"It's about Clarice," Will begins, then stops.
"What about her?" Mycroft prompts, when no explanation is forthcoming. He doesn't have to ask, of course. It's obvious.
It's written in the tension in Will's body, the way his hands curl unconsciously into fists at his side and the way his eyes scan the room, looking for something that isn't there. Proof that doesn't apply. Because Will had added two and two together to get, well, four and a bit. Almost right, but not quite -- evidence and evidence and one incorrect jump to arrive at the wrong conclusion.
The curve of Will's lips is caused by suspicion and anger and something that verges on disgust.
"You and her," Will says challengingly.
It hurts, the way Will looks at him. It's mistrusting. He's so much sweeter with Clarice -- with her, he's gentle, genuinely so, and that's what he's used to. But Will doesn't know Mycroft, except from passing mention of him as her twin. As far as he knows, Mycroft is a complete stranger to him, even though they'd curled up in Will's bed together not two weeks ago, and he'd stroked her hair and swore she was beautiful.
"What about us?" Mycroft asks, because he wants to hear it. He wants it thrown into the air between them like a gauntlet.
"Are you fucking her?" Will demands, and takes a threatening step forward. "She doesn't say anything about it, but you are, aren't you?"
Will not being a complete imbecile had been much more attractive when he hadn't been blowing things out of proportion.
"Is that what you think?" Mycroft asks curiously.
Admittedly he does on occasion, when he's in the mood for it. He finds his mouth to be more pleasurable than his hand, if he fancies a wank and both bodies are in the same place at the same time. And he's certainly never hesitated to satisfy both bodies at once, or to use them together to research his own preferences. He's never seen any reason not to.
"It's what I know," Will says. "Do you force her? Is that why you write all her papers for her? So she'll spread her legs like a whore and let you --"
"Don't be stupid," Mycroft interrupts, and then says nastily, because he is angry and his feelings are hurt and he'd never thought her boyfriend would talk about her like that, "At least I know how to get her off without spending five minutes drooling sloppily on her clitoris."
Will punches Mycroft in the face and threatens to tell everyone what he and Clarice do together; in return, Mycroft threatens to pull strings and get him kicked from the rugby team, and reminds Will that no one would believe him.
In the end, Will doesn't mention what happened to Clarice, but Mycroft sports a black eye that lasts nearly two weeks. The sight of it in the mirror is enough for her to break it off rather harshly with Will when he tries to call her.
Trying to enter a relationship had always seemed a bit futile, after that.
--
"Do you think we should break up?" Clarice asks the next time John calls her -- 7 PM but she's still at the office, finishing up his analysis of the Planck accounts (evidence of insider trading -- so boring, and with so much paperwork).
"What? Why should we break up? I thought things were going pretty good."
"Well," she corrects automatically. "Going pretty well. But -- I wasn't looking for a relationship when I agreed to go out with you. And now you seem to think we're in one."
"We are in one," John points out, sounding hurt. "I thought you wanted that too."
"I do," she agrees, because she hasn't been in a real relationship in years. Because coming home to an empty house is boring and even she knows half his visits to Sherlock are to check up on him because he's got nothing better to do the spare time when he's not working. "But," she says, and takes a deep breath, feeling like she's about to throw herself off the edge of a cliff. "There are things you don't know about me. That you should know before anything further happens between us."
There's a long pause -- John, undoubtedly, is trying to decide what she's alluding to, given that he already knows all of Sherlock's more irritating habits (dead animals in the living areas?) and hasn't been significantly phased by any of them.
"Nothing violent," she says when the appropriate amount of time has passed -- when John's thoughts will have drifted from experiments to murder or a history of abuse. "Nothing bad in the way you're thinking."
"Does it have to do with Sherlock? With my going on cases with him, or any of that?"
"No," she says, though really he means not yet. A part of him is still half-expecting Sherlock to be selfish and decide he wants John all to himself, or that he doesn't want Mycroft so closely involved in his life. But even that would just be a minor inconvenience, because for all that Sherlock acts like he expects to always get his way, Mycroft is the one who actually does get what he wants, in the end.
"Do you want to keep going out with me?"
Does he? She bites her lower lip. "I think so, yes."
--
He lets John take Clarice to dinner first -- John spends most of the meal looking thoughtfully at her. He gets a text message from Sherlock (something trivial to interrupt John because Sherlock resents being left alone) and ignores it even though normally he'd at least type back a short reply.
"You're watching me eat," Clarice says.
"Sorry." He stops for a few minutes, but eventually stares again, brows knit together in thought -- still trying to figure out what she wants to tell him. He's already figured out it has to do with her and Mycroft, but he's unwilling to seriously consider incest and has probably already verified with Sherlock that their parents did not abuse them.
The truth is not something he'll be able to guess.
The car takes them to Mycroft's house instead of dropping them off at Baker Street; when she gets out, she puts her hand on John's arm and tells him, "It'll be waiting here, if you want to leave."
The telling itself is not as bad as it could be. She sets John down on the sofa (in front of the television that never gets watched), and when he slides an arm around her shoulders, she goes willingly. Her head is on his shoulder when she says, "I know this sounds unbelievable, but Mycroft and I are -- linked, in a way that defies physics. Or any other field of science."
"Linked how?"
"We have the same thoughts."
"You mean telepathy?"
"No." He's never had to explain this before. There's no proper precedent for how to expect John will react. "I mean, literally, we have the same thoughts. We share a consciousness. I know it sounds unbelievable, but this isn't something I'd lie to you about and Sherlock will verify what I say."
John tenses; she gets up and budges to the side before he can push her away. "If this is true, then every time you and I..." he trails off, motioning between them. "He knows. How much -- does he -- can you block him out somehow?"
"It doesn't work like that," she says. She frowns. "All our experiences and sensory input are shared. In effect, we're one person."
"That doesn't make any sense," John says flatly. "How can you be one person?"
"I never did figure out the 'how' of it," she admits. He'd tried, of course, but there had been limits to his knowledge that couldn't be solved without proper testing, and proper testing was one of the things he'd had to do without, for safety's sake."It just is, and has been for as long as I remember."
John's eyes narrow. "Our first date. Mycroft sent me a text."
"I wasn't in the mood to listen to you talk about Sherlock. And I'm perfectly capable of pretending we're separate."
"So you know where Mycroft is and what he's doing, right now?"
"Bedroom, reading. It's the same book I mentioned to you earlier, I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the night. If computer metaphors help, since I know Sherlock's fond of pretending he's a robot, think of me as a dual-core machine, while everyone else has only the one. I think twice as quickly as normal people and have effectively 48 hours per day to spend, including the time both bodies need for sleep and other maintenance."
"Really?"
She sighs. "Yes, really," she says. "I can demonstrate, if you wish."
Mycroft pads out of the bedroom, still dressed in his suit from work. John watches him approach, looking between him and Clarice.
"I can continue this conversation just as easily as she can," Mycroft says. Clarice closes her eyes and leans her head back against the sofa. Her shoulders are tense. Mycroft kneads the muscles until they relax in his hands.
John stares at him, at his hands on Clarice's shoulders and the way her hair falls over his wrists. "What does it feel like when you touch her?" he asks curiously.
"It doesn't feel like anything in particular. They're just my shoulders. It's not like touching another person." It's not like touching you.
"Who else knows?"
"Sherlock. Our mother. You. No one else."
John almost believes him -- almost, but not quite, because he doesn't want to believe him. And, to be fair, it really doesn't make any sense. It just is. "So, who are you, then? Are you really Mycroft, or are you really Clarice?"
"I'm both," he says, through both mouths.
--
As expected, John takes the car home. Clarice doesn't kiss him goodnight, though she had on all their previous dates together. He doubts John would have welcomed it.
I told him. Let me know when you've found the identity of the blackmailers, Mycroft texts to Sherlock, and chalks it up as a learning experience.
--
He lets himself be drawn back into his work, letting it rise up around him until it's the only thing he sees and breathes and thinks. He's less than fifteen years and one properly cataclysmic world event away from achieving proper world domination (he only calls it that in his mind, and doesn't speak of it aloud). The CIA borrows Clarice again, so Mycroft spends extra time at the office to make up for it as Clarice keeps himself up-to-date on the latest advances in American intelligence while they try to pry information from her about, well, herself.
He doesn't check 221B's surveillance footage himself, but he skims the summaries. The night John gets home after Mycroft tells him, he and Sherlock speak for an hour and change. John goes to his room an hour later than his usual time, and the light in his bedroom doesn't go out until half an hour after that (twenty minutes longer than the average).
On the fourth day, Sherlock emails him the names of the blackmailers involved in the Stewart situation. Mycroft sends a team to collect them for questioning. Later, the security detail on Sherlock reports John Watson leaving the flat. He goes to a pub, leaves it twenty minutes later, then walks aimlessly for another hour, apparently deep in thought.
Interesting.
Mycroft receives another message from Sherlock, by text this time, several days afterwards.
John's phone lost during previous case. Requests your presence at 221B tomorrow evening for dinner.
SH
C is in the States, Mycroft replies. On business.
John says to bring Mycroft instead. SH
--
"You cooked," Mycroft says in surprise when John opens the door to the flat.
"You can tell that from here?"
Mycroft hangs his jacket on the wall and leans his umbrella right beneath it. "Yes," he says, but doesn't bother with the showy explanations he knows Sherlock favors. Showing off is more often irritating than impressive. He turns, and finds himself face to face with John.
If he'd brought Clarice here instead, she would have smiled and wrapped her arms around John's neck to pull him into a kiss -- if John didn't kiss her first. Or maybe she'd have slid an arm around his waist, and leaned against his broader, firmer body, and John would have run his fingers through her hair and grinned softly at her.
But Mycroft Holmes has six inches and twenty pounds on John Watson, and they've never touched, aside from accidental brushes against one another. John glances up at him, then takes a quick step back -- it puts a normal amount of space between them (the amount of space typically found between two heterosexual men).
"My apologies," Mycroft says stiffly, and there must be something revealed in his expression -- in his eyes, perhaps, because that's where John's looking. John's expression changes, becoming guilty and uncomfortable.
"No, you don't have anything to be sorry for. I'm sorry it took me so long to call again," John says, and steps close. He has to balance himself on one of Mycroft's arms and rise on his tiptoes to brush his mouth against Mycroft's. The kiss is brief, awkward, and over almost before Mycroft can even register the press of John's lips.
"You feel much smaller from this perspective," Mycroft says without thinking, because John would fit comfortably in his arms, with his head on Mycroft's shoulder. While Clarice had been able to tuck herself against John's side with some slouching, there's no way Mycroft would be able to do the same. Fascinating.
John gives a startled laugh. Some of the awkward tension leaks out of the room. His hand is still on Mycroft's arm, and he's close enough for Mycroft to feel the warm puff of his breath. "Two inches below average isn't that short, really. You're just bloody tall. You and Sherlock both."
"I'm an inch taller than him," Mycroft says with a smug smile. "He was so hopeful when he was experiencing his growth spurt, but he didn't quite beat me."
John laughs. The hand on Mycroft's arm shifts, the grip becoming looser and more natural. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit of a prat to Sherlock? I never would have believed it, but you are."
Sherlock's not here ("I told him to make himself scarce for a few hours," John explains as he places their meal on the table, which has been cleared of Sherlock's experiments), and after they finish eating, John smiles at him. It's a tentative smile, similar to the one he'd given Anthea on their first date together, back before John had started using her real name.
"You want to continue our relationship," Mycroft says, and helps John clear the dishes away. They settle together on the sofa afterwards, facing each other. "You're attracted to this body almost as much as you are to the other one. And you've spoken to Sherlock about me, of course. Whatever he told you can't have been too terrible."
"How much of it was real? Clarice likes fashion, reading bad science fiction, and watching romantic comedies. And you're -- was that all true?"
"Well, I wouldn't tell people that as Mycroft," Mycroft says. "But that doesn't mean it's not true. I'm the same person. Society has different standards for how men and women behave. I'm well-versed in what is and isn't gender-appropriate." He'd learned very early on that while Clarice could do most of the things Mycroft did, the reverse was profoundly not true.
"Does that bother you?"
No one's asked him that before, since no one's known before, and the question manages to genuinely surprise him.
"I --" he stops, frowning, and considers the question. Does it bother him, the differences people expect between Mycroft and Clarice? "To some extent, yes, because it's an inconvenient distinction to make. But it's just a rule one has to learn to integrate themselves in society -- nothing more, nothing less."
They talk for a while about other things, about Sherlock and cases and John's work at the surgery. Mycroft, in turn, gives John a highly edited description of the tamer incidents he's been involved in. Eventually, however, the subject turns back to Mycroft. Or, more specifically, MycroftandClarice, one entity.
"The bodies are functionally equivalent, though of course this one's more useful. There's much to be said for being male, when trying to get things done."
John tilts his head thoughtfully. At some point, they have migrated closer together on the sofa. He has to crane his head back to look Mycroft in the eyes. "And are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Male. Do you consider yourself male?" There is no uneasiness in John's posture; he's curious, nothing more.
Mycroft's never understood why people get so hung up on on such petty social norms. "Mycroft is male, but Clarice isn't. But if I had to choose one, I'd choose Mycroft. Does this bother you?" He knows the answer is mostly-not, but it's polite to ask.
"No," John says, and before he can say anything else, Mycroft curls his fingers around the nape of John's neck and licks his way into John's mouth, wet and dirty. They've kissed before and Mycroft doesn't kiss any differently than Clarice does, but John's reaction is completely different. Where before he was gentle, careful, now he's rougher, fighting for control.
"You're much rougher with men than you are with women," Mycroft comments, when he has John pinned to the sofa. The height different strikes him again -- he'd been able to curl up on John's chest before, but now he looms over John easily, locking him in place.
"You like it," John points out, which goes without saying at this point. The evidence of just how much Mycroft likes it is pressed firmly and obviously against his lower belly.
"I do," he agrees, and untucks John's shirt from his trousers. He grins against John's jaw. "If we have sex on the sofa, Sherlock will know and throw a fit. Do you want to?"
John chokes on his laughter. "We can't," he gets out between giggles. His hands smooth over Mycroft's shoulders. "We can't, he'd kill me."
"Sherlock's a prat, not a murderer," Mycroft says, sucking a path down the line of John's throat. If he tried, he could leave a bruise, bringing a tender, livid mark on his skin that would still be there tomorrow. John pokes him in the ribs.
"Don't," John says, even as he groans and tilts his head back to give Mycroft better access. "I'm working tomorrow."
Mycroft pauses a few minutes later, fingers wrapped around the buckle of John's belt while John grinds against his palm. Both their lips are kiss-swollen, bright and wet. "Sherlock will be home soon," he says, because Clarice is receiving Mycroft's notifications about his brother right now, and she's not distracted by the soft noises John makes, or the warm burn of arousal in Mycroft's veins. "He's on his way right now. We should move --"
"To the bedroom," John finishes for him. "Yes, come on, let's go."
--
Afterwards, John catches Mycroft's wrist when Mycroft swings his legs off the edge of his bed. "Where are you going? You don't have to leave."
"I have work," Mycroft explains as he pulls on his trousers and fishes around for his shirt.
"It's past midnight." John's thumb is warm on the underside of his wrist. "Get some sleep." His voice is low and rough with drowsiness, and Mycroft is sorely tempted to crawl back into bed with him and curl their bodies together.
But.
"It's not past midnight in America," Mycroft says regretfully. "The sooner Clarice finds out what I need to know, the sooner she returns to London. She's almost done."
John makes a muffled noise of assent, before registering Mycroft's actual words. He sits up. "Wait, was that what she doing just now, then? When we were... you know. Please tell me you weren't working while we were having sex."
"Well, you can't expect me to need two brains worth of processing power for sex," Mycroft points out reasonably, because while Mycroft been focused on the sheer physicality of John and the sensation of their bodies moving together, it'd been only natural to let Clarice borrow his spare mental resources. After all, she hadn't been having sex with him.
"You know, most blokes like to be the focus of their partner's attention during sex," John says, and now there is a thin thread of irritation in John's voice, because he doesn't quite understand, not really.
"You were the focus of Mycroft's attention. Clarice isn't even here," he replies, and gives John a thorough good-bye kiss before he leaves. "I swear I'll make it up to you, the both of me. I'll send a car, Tuesday when her flight gets in."
--
Sherlock is in the flat when Mycroft leaves, synthesizing poisonous gases on the kitchen table. His jaw clenches when Mycroft drifts close enough to identify the compounds he's playing with. "Couldn't you keep your hands off him long enough to not sully the sofa?"
"You should label this," Mycroft comments, picking up the bottle of vanilla that holds no actual vanilla in it. "John won't expect you to have swapped its contents out."
Sherlock glares at him when Mycroft puts it down, precisely two centimeters away from where it'd been previously. He darts his hand out, curling it protectively around the bottle as he brings it back to its original place. "Go away."
"In due time," Mycroft says. He takes a moment to steel himself, then says carefully, "You talked to John for me. About me."
Sherlock stares at his experiment. His hands are still. He doesn't say anything, but Mycroft can tell he's listening.
The surveillance footage hadn't come with an audio track, but Mycroft has been able to read Sherlock's body language ever since the summer during their childhoods when Sherlock had refused to speak a single word aloud. He'd watched the conversation twice, to be sure, but once had been enough for him to see what he needed to know.
"The situation with John would have been more difficult had you not intervened. So, thank you."
Sherlock makes a sort of indistinct noise that could almost be construed as acknowledgment. Then, he says, "It wasn't for you. But if you wanted, you could show your gratitude by not snogging him on my sofa." He glances at Mycroft. "Going back to work?"
"Clarice is being watched. I'll be performing her duties and maintaining my correspondences until she returns to London. Synthesizing nerve gas in your flat? What would your landlady think? Or, for that matter, the neighbors?"
"I know how to safely contain a reaction." Sherlock scowls at him. "I don't want you interrupting my experiments like you always do."
"You nearly blew yourself up, the last time you tried nerve gas," Mycroft reminds his brother pleasantly.
"That was ages ago!"
"Three years is not ages ago."
--
On Tuesday, John appears only mildly surprised to see Mycroft in the backseat of the car instead of Clarice. "Hi," he says to Mycroft, and leans in for a brief kiss. He is freshly showered and shaved. "I thought --"
"The flight was late," Mycroft explains. "Clarice is still en route in the cab. She'll get home shortly after we do. Have you eaten? We can order takeaway."
"Takeaway sounds great," John says and after a brief discussion on what to order, starts to take his phone out.
Mycroft stops him. "Clarice already placed the call," he says, because it'd been easier to do so in the relative quiet of her taxi, as soon as they'd made their decision. John blinks in surprise before grinning.
"Ah, right. Convenient, isn't it?"
"Quite," Mycroft agrees.
--
They are waiting for the takeaway (Mycroft is waiting for the takeaway; John is sitting with his hands folded in his lap while he tries to learn as much as he can about how Mycroft lives without actually asking him) when Clarice's car gets near. Mycroft goes to fetch her a glass of water. He heads to the front door, and John follows.
They meet Clarice at the front of the house. When she finishes paying the cabbie, Mycroft passes her the glass of water and goes to the boot of the car for her things. He can carry more than she can, and she's tired from the flight and lack of sleep.
John smiles brightly at her. He hugs her, then pecks her on the mouth. Clarice, in turn, tucks herself comfortably against him when he puts an arm around her waist, but John makes to pull away when he sees Mycroft. "Do you need help carrying her things in?"
Clarice tightens her arm around John's waist. "I quite like you where you are, actually," she says. Her bags aren't too unwieldy and she rather enjoys having John's arm around her.
"How was America?" John asks as they make their way inside.
"Confidential, mostly," she replies. "I looked at a lot of documents and talked to a lot of people, most of whom were important and bad at hiding secrets. I was acting on Mycroft's behalf, of course." Her smile is, perhaps, a little sharp -- he's always liked having people underestimate him, and sending Clarice in place of himself had certainly encouraged that. He will never stop finding it funny that people expect women (especially secretaries) to not be very bright.
Most of the time when he has an audience, he makes some effort to pretend Clarice and Mycroft as separate. He'll have the bodies smile at each other, or trade glances, or do a dozen other things that mark them as different.
He doesn't do that now. Instead, he lets things happen naturally, which means Clarice mouths John's throat while Mycroft pays for the takeaway and grabs the dishes, the two of them passing and coordinating their actions effortlessly (his body awareness extends to both bodies at once, of course).
He doles out portions for both himself and Clarice, while Clarice smooths her hair back to some semblance of neatness (she doesn't need a mirror when Mycroft can see her). She slips off of John's lap with a smile and says, "The takeaway's here. We should eat before it gets cold."
"Do you have a preference?" Mycroft asks after they have finished eating. Clarice has run to take a quick shower; perhaps she oughtn't since it's fairly obvious how this night is going to end, but he doesn't particularly like airports and wants to feel refreshed again. "For which body you want?"
John's facial expressions really are appallingly easy to read, Mycroft observes as he takes off his tie and jacket. First confusion, followed by comprehension and surprise. Then, a slight flush as he glances first to the bath where Clarice is, then to Mycroft, gaze pausing briefly on his mouth, hands, and groin.
"Or both at once," Mycroft agrees amicably, just to watch the flush deepen. John's tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he realizes with a rush of heat that Clarice hasn't yet, with John.
"Have you done it before? You and Clarice sharing someone?" John asks.
"When the occasion presents," Mycroft replies. He'd tried it a few times, to satisfy his curiosity -- just for fun, picking someone up to experiment on them. It'd been alright. Better than alright, really, compared to the usual multitasking with the second body. More intense. He'd be happy to do that now.
John swallows, and Mycroft knows he's thinking about Clarice, about her hair and skin and the fact that the water from the shower had stopped running several minutes ago. "I'd like that," he says, sounding strangled.
John goes gratifyingly speechless when Mycroft leads him to the bedroom, where Clarice is already waiting for them.
--
Things blur after that. He lets the distance between his bodies disappear into nothing, relaxes the part of his mind that constantly tracks where Clarice ends and Mycroft begins. It's easy, natural even, to remove the constant filter on his actions.
"Rougher," Mycroft urges from behind John, easing a second lubricated finger inside him. "I like -- teeth, just a little bit. Scrape, don't bite," and Clarice moans her approval when John obeys, his lips against her clit and three fingers buried to the hilt inside her.
And
She's coming, coming with a high whimper, clenching and shivering around John's fingers and against his mouth. John grins up at her, bright and smug, and Mycroft laughs in delight, twisting his fingers in a way that makes John groan and press back against him.
And then
John's inside her -- no condom, his skin against hers ("she's on birth control and I've seen your medical records," he says when John hesitates). His pubic bone grinds rough against her clit with each thrust, and Mycroft's behind him, pounding into him, and her hands are on his shoulders and on his hips and her mouth is against his ear as she gasps, "You feel so good, John, John -- you're so tight around me, fuck, inside me, oh --"
And finally
John's head on Mycroft's shoulder, and his shoulder tucked under her chin and his back warm against her chest and the skin of his waist under Mycroft's hand, warm and soft and just ever-so-slightly rough with pale scars. It's peaceful, and both of him are tired. John is already lightly dozing, and it's easy for him to just close his eyes and breathe in the comforting scent of John and himself and sex, until sleep overtakes him.
--
Some time later, Clarice arranges for a large gift basket to be delivered to 221B.
She gets a text before the surveillance footage is forwarded to him. It's from John, sent during his lunch hour. Sherlock's threatening to set it on fire. Please don't let him burn down the flat. :( PS: Dinner tonight?
He can't believe he finds the emoticons endearing. She responds, Tell him to look again at the color of the leaves. Dinner sounds lovely. What did you have in mind?
It's a secret. :) Be at the flat around seven.
She responds in the affirmative, and confirms the appointment in Mycroft's calendar. John doesn't send another message until an hour before his shift at the surgery is scheduled to end.
Why did Sherlock just text me telling me not to come home, and that he's got it under control?
It takes him a few minutes to extrapolate from the contents of the gift basket and Sherlock's impulsive nature exactly what happened. Most of those few minutes is because Clarice has to look up the MSDSes of several compounds to make sure her brother isn't likely to be in serious danger.
To John, she writes, Tell him I didn't realize he'd used up the last of his hydrochloric acid and not to mix the greens and the blues. Your flat will be uninhabitable for the next 12 hours. A car will be waiting for you when you leave work.
To Sherlock, she texts, I'll be taking John for the evening. Please don't destroy the flat in his absence.
John responds with another terrible emoticon. Sherlock doesn't deign to reply, but Mycroft hadn't expected him to. Sherlock will be too piqued about the gift basket to talk to him for days.
The Defence Secretary's aide nods at Clarice's BlackBerry knowingly and offers her a friendly smile. "Having a good day?"
She can't smother her grin before it escapes. "I've had worse."
Part 1