3 Drabbles
Title: 3 Drabbles
Author: starjenni
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Characters, Pairings: 1) Sherlock/John, Mycroft, 2) Sherlock/Mycroft brotherly love, 3) Sherlock/Mycroft incest, John.
Warnings: Sherlock/Mycroft incest for the 3rd drabble but no sex.
Rating: M
Spoilers: For all.
Summary:
1) Victor Trevor: The first John hears of it is when Mycroft smiles airily at Sherlock on one of his more unwelcome visits and says, "How's Victor, Sherlock?"
2) When Mycroft met Sherlock: When Mycroft is seven, his mother has another baby.
3) Bath-Time; Or How John Found Out What He Really Didn't Want To Know: There are many things John Watson will cheerfully, mildly or - at worst - resignedly put up with from Sherlock Holmes…
Victor Trevor
The first John hears of it is when Mycroft smiles airily at Sherlock on one of his more unwelcome visits and says, "How's Victor, Sherlock?"
Sherlock, seated in the chair opposite, deepens his scowl. "Fine," he snarls.
John can't help it, he has to ask. "Who's Victor?"
"No one," says Sherlock quickly, just as Mycroft says, in tones of outrage, "You haven't told him about Victor, Sherlock?"
John wouldn't say he has a massively inquisitive personality, but Mycroft's tone intrigues even him.
"No, he hasn't," he says, still holding the kettle up the air in the process of tea-making. "Who is he?"
Sherlock's scowl has reached new levels of darkness, like the very bottom level of the sea where strange creatures lurk, but Mycroft is apparently unperturbed.
"Victor Trevor," he says calmly, "Was Sherlock's first love."
John - Sherlock's…well, whatever, for nearly six months now - is not exactly pleased with this new information.
"Although to be fair," Mycroft continues blithely, "Sherlock probably still loves him just as much. Oh, he may hide it, but he adores Victor."
John sets the kettle down a little harder than is strictly necessary; Sherlock gives him a quick glance and says, "Mycroft, shut up."
Mycroft smiles blandly at his younger brother. "You know, I have a little issue in which I would very much appreciate your - "
"Drop dead."
"Very well. John, Victor Trevor is - "
"All right!" Sherlock snaps. "I'll do it."
"Splendid." Mycroft smiles again; if Sherlock is like a creature skulking in the darkest depths of the sea, then Mycroft is clearly one of its more terrifying sharks. "I'll send you an email with all the details."
"Get out," Sherlock growls.
Mycroft - wisely - does so.
To be fair, John really does try desperately to put it out of his mind. He makes tea in the silence that follows Mycroft's absence, listens with half an ear to Sherlock's barely inaudible complaints about 'blackmail' and 'annoying interfering siblings', checks the fridge for something edible to make dinner with and then suddenly, inexplicably snaps.
He stomps into the living room.
"All right, just who the hell is Victor Trevor?" he demands.
Sherlock gives him an unreadable look. "No one."
John flings his arms into the air and goes back into the kitchen to make risotto.
About five minutes later, Sherlock sneaks into the kitchen himself.
"John."
"Piss off," John mutters.
"John."
John whirls around, ignoring the rice he should be supervising. "You know, Sherlock, I thought we could at least be honest in this" - He doesn't want to say relationship or affair, it just sounds so wrong in connection with the great Sherlock Holmes - "thing we have - but this is - I mean - "
"Oh, for Gods sake!" Sherlock rolls his eyes and seizes John's arm. "If you want to see Victor Trevor, you can see Victor Trevor," he snaps. "Come on."
And he hauls John out of the kitchen and into his bedroom.
John is nonplussed but goes with it - maybe Sherlock has some picture he wants to show him or something, maybe something on the internet, or maybe he -
Sherlock pulls out an old, dusty and very well-loved teddy bear from under his bed.
"John, Victor Trevor," he says in resigned tones. "Victor, John."
There is a short silence.
"He's a bear," John says.
For once, he thinks he's earned the exasperated look Sherlock flings at him. He tentatively takes Victor in one hand. The bear has next to no fur, a lopsided mouth and an ear that looks like someone has taken a bite out of it. It glares at John in a sort of cross-eyed, overstuffed way.
Sherlock scratches his head. "I've had him since I was little, I, erm." He clears his throat. "I find him…comforting."
John tells himself he shouldn't laugh, he really shouldn't. He tilts Victor a little and its head falls backwards. "Why didn't you want to tell me about this?" he asks in a voice as calm as he can get it.
Sherlock fidgets and mumbles something about 'great consulting detective'.
John grins. "You thought I'd think less of you as a genius if I knew you had a teddy bear, didn't you?"
Sherlock's ears go pink.
John quietly puts the bear down on the bed, takes Sherlock's hand. "Sherlock, you're a genius and my admiration of that is never going to change, okay? Bear or no."
Sherlock's ears go a little pinker. John succumbs to his urge for once and kisses the tip of Sherlock's nose. Sherlock, in return, rests his forehead against John's and they enjoy a brief moment of close, deep silence.
Finally John pulls away. "So," he says cheerfully. "Now you can tell Mycroft where to stick it."
Sherlock's answering smile is full of dark delight.
When Mycroft met Sherlock
When Mycroft is seven, his mother has another baby. He's not allowed to go in and watch the proceedings (much to his annoyance because he's quite curious about how it's all achieved) but after all the fussing and running around comes a silence, and then he is allowed in.
When he comes into the room, he discovers a knackered Mummy and a jittery Father leaning over a grey, nondescript plastic crib. When she sees her first son, Mummy smiles warmly at him.
"Say hello to Sherlock," she says to Mycroft, and beckons him over. They knew it was going to be a boy as soon as they could and so decided the name pretty early on. Mummy has always been a fan of bizarre names, as Mycroft can attest to.
He approaches the crib and looks over the lip of it. A tiny pink creature bundled up in a lot of cloth is sleeping in it soundly.
"Small," Mycroft says. He's stating the obvious, but he doesn't know what else to say. He's always rather liked being an only child.
The pink thing stirs at the sound of a new voice and opens its eyes, and Mycroft looks down into a gaze of light grey.
"Hello Sherlock," Mycroft says obediently.
Sherlock smiles immediately. It's not wind, it's not a twitch of the face, it's the proper thing, wide and genuine. It's nice considering he was scowling a bit before, but Mycroft has read up everything he can on newborns and he knows babies shouldn't be smiling until they are at least four weeks old.
"Good Lord," say his parents, combined.
"Another genius in our family," says Father, who thinks about that sort of thing.
"He likes you, Mycroft," says Mummy, who thinks about that sort of thing.
Mycroft watches the smile slowly slip off Sherlock's face as he closes his eyes again. Another genius like me, he wonders, and instantly feels less alone in the world.
He reaches a hand into the crib, watches a set of tiny pale fingers curl easily around his thumb and thinks Sherlock Holmes.
He will never tell anyone, but Mycroft knows that was the moment when he fell in love.
Bath time; Or How John Found Out What He Really Didn't Want To Know
There are many things John Watson will cheerfully, mildly or - at worst - resignedly put up with from Sherlock Holmes, but his hogging of the bathroom, is not, he has recently decided, one of them. He's been in there for at least two hours, more perhaps, because John only got home from work two hours ago and he's now desperate for a shower. He's banged on the door three times and only once got a reply and a conversation which ran along the lines of:
"Very busy right now John - wait a minute!"
"Sherlock, I'm seriously - "
"Use Mrs Hudson's shower."
"Mrs Hudson's?"
"That or go away!"
John had gone away. That was 33 minutes ago. His patience has now finally been tried.
He knocks on the door again, says "I'm coming in," and barges through said door.
The first surprise he registers is that the door wasn't locked. The second is that their bathtub is filled, not only with a naked Sherlock but also with half a ton of foam and an equally naked Mycroft.
John stops and stares, all thoughts of showers forgotten.
"Uh," he says.
"Good evening, John," Mycroft says pleasantly, soaping an arm as if walking in on a sinister government official bathing with his thirty-something year-old brother is the most natural occurrence in the world.
Sherlock glares at John over the bubbles, which he has sunk so low into that they are almost up to his chin. "I told you to go away," he accuses in a not-very-accusing voice. He looks completely relaxed.
John takes a step back and reviews the situation. The bathtub is hardly big enough for one person, but Sherlock and Mycroft seems to be getting comfortably by with two. They are at opposite sides of the tub, and though John can't see much for the bubbles (thank God), he can still see Sherlock's toes peeking out of the foam at Mycroft's shoulders, showing that he is resting his legs on them. Mycroft's just as long legs must be curled around Sherlock's torso, he thinks, his mind blurring just a little bit at the image.
"That's Mycroft," he says idiotically to the almost totally submerged Sherlock. "You're bathing with Mycroft. You hate Mycroft."
"Hate is such a strong word," says Sherlock half into the bubbles.
"And isn't bathing with someone a common prelude to sex?" Mycroft adds blandly, now scrubbing at his nails.
John blinks. And then sits down very heavily on the toilet seat.
Sherlock glares at Mycroft over the mountains of foam. "I wasn't going to tell him like this."
"No, Sherlock, you weren't going to tell him at all."
Sherlock splutters and says, "That's not - it wasn't for you to tell!"
Mycroft narrows his eyes and opens his mouth, but stops when he sees John raise a hand.
"You're having sex with each other," he says blankly.
"And bathing together," adds Mycroft cheerfully, waving the loofah at him.
"But you're brothers," John points out.
Sherlock and Mycroft look at each other aghast.
"Are we?" Sherlock says in tones of astonishment.
"Good Lord," Mycroft joins in. "That would explain the - "
" - growing up with each other bit, yes…"
"Yes, and having the same parents - "
"Fascinating."
"Indeed."
They both look back at John, poker-faced.
John buries his head in his hands. "Siblings," he says tiredly into his hands, "Don't usually have sex with each other."
"Ah, but we were never usual," says Sherlock.
"Speak for yourself," Mycroft rejoins, then twitches when Sherlock does something to him under the bubbles.
John snaps his head out of his hands. "Hands where I can see them!"
Sherlock - unused to military men - immediately raises his hands out of the foam, Mycroft following a second later with a smirk at his younger brother. For a moment they sit silently, hands raised obediently out of the water like they've been frozen in the middle of a bath-time rendition of the YMCA.
"Right," John says, scratching his head. "…Right." He feels completely bemused. "Why are you even doing it?" he asks finally, lamely.
Mycroft shrugs. "We find each other attractive."
"Only your mind," Sherlock retorts hastily.
"Really." Mycroft looks back at Sherlock and gives him such a filthy, wanton and entirely un-Mycroftish look that John almost joins Sherlock in blushing bright red.
"I - well, I - uh - " Sherlock stutters, for once without words, but Mycroft has already lazily turned his attention back to John.
"Anything else you would like to know, John?" he enquires gently.
John thinks. He really should be leaping around in outrage and disgust right now, but for some reason he isn't. Maybe because this is not about any two brothers, it is about Mycroft and Sherlock. He could never really imagine Sherlock being with anyone who is not of the same intellect as him. …Does them being geniuses excuse the incest?
"If you've quite finished having your moral dilemma…?" Sherlock says pseudo-irritably, but there is a distinct hint of worry glinting in his eyes.
"Sherlock, do you have the soap?" Mycroft asks smoothly, before the silence can become uncomfortable.
Sherlock throws him a purely daring look. "Perhaps," he says. "You'll have to come over here and find it…"
"All right, all right, I'm leaving!" snaps John and does so, pretending to ignore the gentle splash of water signalling a change in the position of the tub's inhabitants as he goes.
He retreats hastily to Sarah's and only returns in the middle of the afternoon the next day, finding Sherlock blissfully alone and plucking randomly at his violin.
"Do you mind?" Sherlock says as soon as John enters the room. His voice is serious, tinged with genuine uneasiness and not a little panic.
John thinks about it. "No, I don't," he says honestly, and they leave it at that.
There are a lot of things John Watson will put up with from Sherlock Holmes. This is just one more.