Warning: People having sex. If you don't like that kind of stuff, please stop now.
Chapter Sixteen: Secrets of Our Souls
It is several months after the fire at Arthur's motorcycle shop. They have all gone to Tommy's funeral, wrote out their statements and even took part in the official inquest. With Mycroft's, John's, Evie's and Sherlock's statements, the 'Yard was able to close the case: ascribing the fires of the shop and 221 Baker Street to Wickersham. It's all pretty drawn out and boring, so let's get back down to the fluff, shall we? These four people have been through enough in the past few months that it is time for them to get a break.
Christmas has come and gone, and can you believe it? Sherlock was actually pleasant. (John thinks he respects Evie because she is able to withstand Mycroft's bullshit the way John does Sherlock's, but that is seriously another story for another day—perhaps.) This story was started as nothing but some fluff to make myself feel better and dear gods, oh look! There's a plot. It has gone places it was never meant to go! So, dear readers, I shall leave them to it. Let's just start by imagining that they are all relaxing in the back garden at Mycroft's home, just as spring is breaking through and let's all take a moment and return to the fluff and the romance and rejoice in the fact that both Holmes brothers have been permitted to live via their rather patient better halves; besides it's time for something more positive and what can be more so than the reaffirmation of love?
Spring returns in tiny bursts of green. New grass the color of Sherlock's eyes is pushing upward from the rapidly warming earth towards the heat of the sun. The air is cool enough for jackets and light jumpers, though nothing can dampen the feeling of hope that permeates the world in this moment as it rests on the cusp of bursting forth with life. Evie sits in the padded metal chair with her denim-clad legs stretched out in front of her, bare toes moving slightly against the weathered stone of the patio; enjoying the warm sunshine, even if it is a little weak. Absentmindedly, she scratches at a spot on her cheek; sometimes she can still feel the rough texture of the suture there. She never takes her eyes from the novel in her lap. She isn't ashamed of her scars, nonetheless she blushes when she notices out of the corner of her eye that John is watching her.
John sits opposite Evie, his glasses perched on his nose and the contents of an official-looking manila folder spread out in front of him. He is looking over the rimless lenses with a piercing gaze reminiscent of a Holmes. Evie smiles back, the brown hair in her ponytail falling down over her shoulder as she turns her head to follow his movement.
"Evie, you have nothing to worry about. Those scars will fade with time." John states as he takes his glasses off and lays them on top of the folder. He pushes the chair back away from the table and then stands to stretch his legs. He walks around the table and gives Evie a pat on the shoulders. She reaches up and grasps his hand. "They aren't that bad now that you have been able to get out into the sun a little, still, you should think of them as your pearls." He gives a fond fatherly lop-sided grin that she can hear but not see.
"Thanks, John." John nods his understanding of much deeper gratitude. He slides the back door open and steps into the house. Evie returns to her novel and her sun worshipping. A light breeze swirls around here, lifting the strands of hair across her forehead and giving her a soft, pleasing kiss against the tender skin of her face.
It is a few moments before she hears voices behind her as the door slides open: John's quiet burr, Sherlock's baritone purr, and Mycroft's well-enunciated clip; all three of them talking at once.
"Look, Mycroft…" There is the hint of laughter in John's voice.
"That is quite pedestrian, Mycroft…" Sherlock's voice behind her is a low rumble.
"You two, stay out of it. She will quite enjoy it." Mycroft sounds harassed and most likely actually is.
Then there is a pair of hands over her eyes and the click of a lighter. Before the words "Happy Birthday" come out of anyone's mouth, everything around Evie begins to spin and she blacks out completely to the vision of Charles Wickersham's face swimming above her.
Sherlock is directly behind her chair and so he catches her before she can slump to the ground. John helps him gently lower her to the cool patio where he pushes her so that she is sitting up with her face on her knees.
"Here, Mycroft." John points behind Evie and Mycroft settles himself on the ground at her back. John gives him the stern look of a Captain used to having his orders followed, waiting for Mycroft to say a word about his suit trousers. Mycroft does not say anything, merely rubs Evie's back as she begins to come around.
In the mean time, Sherlock has removed the gold candle from the center of the blue and white butter cream icing. The lighter gets folded into one of his pockets. John looks up from where he is taking Evie's pulse and frowns. Sherlock gives him the most innocent expression he can plaster across his face in that moment then thinks better of it, grins and mouths "come and get it."
John actually snorts and when he turns back to what he was doing, Mycroft and Evie are both staring at him. John can almost hear Evie's "awww…so cute" and Mycroft's "Too much information" in those expressions. He just shakes his head. He knows full well what just happened and will not ask if Evie doesn't offer. Instead he holds out his hand and helps her up from the ground whilst barking out an order for Sherlock to get her a glass of water.
~o~o~o~
"Thank you for the birthday cake, Mycroft." Evie states as she turns off the faucet in the gigantic bathtub. She stretches out against the smooth white surface and closes her eyes. The warm water is wonderful against her freshly shaven legs. There are bubbles as high as her collar bones and she is all but hidden beneath them. Mycroft stands in the doorway and enjoys the sight of his lover's olive complexion against the brightness of the bubbles. He closes the door behind him and drops his robe to the floor before slipping into the water opposite Evie.
"You are so much more than welcome, Evie." Mycroft reaches out to her lovely shoulders and tugs gently, turning her around so that her back is against his chest. She leans against him, remembering the motorcycle ride they took after Sherlock and John left; her body squeezed up against his back and her arms tight around his waist, gently brushing the front of his trousers with one hand. She remembers before that when she stuck her finger in the icing and Mycroft leaned forward and licked it off before she had a chance to react. She shudders at the memory of his hot tongue probing the bottom of her finger; those thin lips usually held so stiffly turning red with the blush of desire filling them and turning them red.
Mycroft runs his hands down Evie's naked torso, fondling each breast in turn in his big hands. She sighs and pushes against him, a startled sound escaping her lips when she feels his erection against her ass. "Well, hello, Mr. Holmes is that a sword or are you glad to see me?" A girlish giggle punctuates her words as she turns around to face him, coyly watching for his reaction underneath long, dark eyelashes. She studies his pale skin, one finger tracing a line of freckles spattered against the muscles of his chest.
He does not answer, instead placing two fingers under her chin and tipping her head slightly before dipping his own and kissing her fully. He gives her soft brushes of his lips on each cheek and then presses her forehead against his mouth with one hand on the back of her head. She sighs as he moves back to her mouth, parting her lips for a gentle but demanding tongue. Mycroft hauls Evie in closer to himself as they kiss, he can fully feel the heat from her body against his own arousal. He slides one hand down to the nape of her neck as her hands go around his neck, her own hands grasping then releasing in time with their kiss. She thinks that she could follow him from heaven to hell and never be disappointed.
Evie adjusts herself until she is on her knees; now they are at eye level with each other. They pull back, dark blue eyes gazing deeply into light blue ones. In a whisper that makes the sound of butterfly wings as it takes its sustenance from a rose, Mycroft Holmes proclaims in their shared breath "Evie, I love you." To Evie it sounds like he has shouted it from the top of Big Ben. She smiles and he falls even deeper into the sparkling azure sea before him. It all makes sense now, all of it. Though there will be some things she will never know about him, this is what she needs; what she has needed her entire life.
"I love you, too." A sharp intake of air as Mycroft hears the words that have been missing from his own life; he has been looking for this piece of the puzzle for so long without ever realizing it was lost. He grins back at her and it is her turn to feel nothing except overwhelming happiness clutch at her heart. She kisses him back and soon they are pulling at each other's naked, wet skin, desperate for that final contact to complete the pact that have made between them with those eight words.
Mycroft's hands travel to grasp Evie's buttocks, pulling her upward. She arches her back and holds the base of his erection as she lowers herself onto him. They both gasp loudly when he enters her, and again as she rises up. He bucks his hips forward, water and foam sloshing over the side of the tub in a cascade as the rocking motion gathers momentum. He lets go with one hand and allows her to take over, the heat and moisture from her smoothly shaven sex pushing them both toward a shared climax. He slowly lets his hand rest between them, moving them apart enough to place his finger against her clit, stroking the hot little bud in time with each one of her thrusts.
When Evie climaxes, she throws her head back and then it falls forward against his shoulder. Her hands do not leave his shoulders. She shudders and bites at his neck as his hands move, one to cup a hip and the other to the small of her back so that he can now meet her thrusts with his own. When Evie starts feeling Mycroft's balls tighten against her smooth lips, she wolfishly bites down on his neck and he growls his way through his own orgasm. More water splashes out of the bathtub in a joyous cascade of the celebration of two people finding the one thing that their lives have been without.
~o~o~o~
John practically pulls Sherlock from the lift. Sherlock pulls back until they are pressed up against one another in the hallway in front of their door. Their lips are tight against each other as John manages to get the key in the lock and Sherlock shoves open the door. They cross the threshold in a lip lock, hands scrambling underneath shirts. There is the tink of keys smacking against the tile floor in the kitchen and a grunt from one man as he pulls the shirt off of the other one, their lips parting long enough to do so.
The two of them travel backwards towards the bedroom until John pushes Sherlock against the bed, sweeping his long legs out from underneath him. He lands on the mattress with an "oof" and John pounces, his hands round either side of Sherlock's face, holding him in place while he frenches him within an inch of his life. Sherlock arches his back and wraps his legs around John's hips, grinding their erections between their trousers with another deep growl that seems to resonate around the room.
John's hands are busy undoing the godawful button on Sherlock's trousers; Sherlock already has John's open and is sneaking one spidery hand between John's skin and the waistband of his pants. John growls back and grabs Sherlock's hand, shoving it flat against the mattress. He moves back and stares into his lover's face, thinking Sherlock a beautifully ethereal creature made of porcelain skin, magenta kiss-swollen lips and deep sea green eyes that possess a magic all on their own.
Of course as John is thinking this, he's also yanking the lighter from Sherlock's trouser pocket that he hid there when he removed the candle from Evie's birthday cake. Never mind that he does not want to give Sherlock any ideas, it is also digging into his hips. Sherlock gives another one of those little grunts that replace words in times like this and John launches the little plastic device across the room. With the same motion, he manages to completely strip Sherlock of his trousers. As he pulls them down and off of the long, lean muscled legs, he uses the palm of his hand to brush down the back of Sherlock's things and calves, the other hand joining on the other leg once Sherlock is bare. Sherlock pushes himself up onto his own hands so that he can watch while John licks a long stripe from Sherlock's knees, over his thighs and finally settling with a soft, teasing kiss on the head of Sherlock's erection. Sherlock moans and drops to the mattress, shaking them both.
John grins with a look in his cerulean eyes that would match a wolf staring down an elk. Sherlock's purple button-down shirt is open to reveal his bare chest that is sparsely populated with fine, dark hairs. Sherlock's long fingers are now spread over the back of John's head, not quite forcing the other man down but holding him still as he teasing Sherlock's cock with his tongue. John opens his mouth and deep-throats his lover with a small sigh and Sherlock's hips jerk forward on their own. He closes his mouth until his teeth just barely brush the sensitive underside before he raises up a bit more in order to set a rhythm of bob-and-suckle. With one hand he rolls Sherlock's balls upward, feeling them tighten with the pleasure rocking through his body.
Sherlock whines, pants, groans, grunts and moans and John loves every single second of it. When he finally comes, he opens his mouth and there is nothing but John's name escaping on the tail end of another one of those long, low growls. John milks Sherlock through the rest of his climax, hands underneath Sherlock's buttocks, kneading his fingers against the soft skin of those wonderful muscles. John finally pulls off and wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand. He drops his jeans to the floor and scoots up the bed so that he is lying next to his lover.
Sherlock opens his eyes when John begins to massage his chest. He lays his hands over John's and John can feel the thrumming of the heart underneath their fingers. He leans over and places a kiss against it. Sherlock folds him into an embrace and then flips so that he is now lying over John with his face pressed against the place where John's neck meets his shoulder. He makes sharp little bites, followed by a smooth, wet lick all the way down John's neck and chest; happily following the golden happy trail down to John's straining erection.
Sherlock's eyes flick up to John's face as he grins and engulfs the head of John's cock between his red lips. For an instant, John cannot decide which is more erotic: the wet heat of Sherlock's mouth or the most beautiful flush on his cheeks that accent the lust blown green eyes. Sherlock bobs his head and uses the tongue that can fillet, frighten or fatigue John in so many other ways to bring him up to the edge and then he is spilling over it, Sherlock's fingers brushing the soft spot just behind his balls. John doesn't pray, scream or growl when his orgasm hits him like a ton of bricks thrown from the top of a train car: instead he grunts and shouts Sherlock's name as he comes.
Sherlock proceeds to complete suck John dry and then raises up, his back in a perfect, protective arch over his lover. John arches in the opposite direction until their lips meet, completing the circle. They wind down from their climaxes with their arms wrapped around each other, Sherlock's head on John's shoulder. As they share slowing heartbeats, one man whispers to the other "I love you" and the other returns the sentiment as they slip into blissful post-coital slumber; bodies tight against one another like wolf pups safe and warm in their den.