In which Mycroft's umbrella experiences first-hand the meaning of the euphemism "unspeakable acts." Or: In which Mycroft's umbrella loses its final shred of dignity.

Doubling down on the do-not-try this at home theme.

The umbrella remained safely in the closet for the next three days. Molly should have returned it already, she knew that, but she had waited too long. A herniated turtle with a broken leg could have walked it over by now. If she returned now she'd have to explain why he hadn't dropped it off at Baker Street, and she didn't think she could come up with a convincing explanation that didn't involve it having been inside her.

Besides, she didn't want to see John or Sherlock. Perhaps if she left it with Mrs. Hudson—?

Her lab assistant showed up on Tuesday wearing a Han Shot First T-shirt, something Molly normally would have ignored, but today she welcomed the opportunity to lecture him about the dress code and what Dr. Ryan-Noran would say. That diverted her for about ten minutes. Having a 300-stone corpse's overripe spleen explode diverted her for an additional thirty.

She changed lab coats, scratching at the front of her blouse and wondering if the dried brownish stain on her shirt had already been there or was something that called for a Hazmat team.

Stop with the scratching! Too close to the nipple.

Though she was only checking to see if the shirt was safe to wear home—

No, you're not.

She bit her knuckle hard enough to leave little white dents and went to teach her assistant the proper way to wipe up spleen juice.

ds were Molly's guilty pleasure (though she was still embarrassed to be seen reading them on the train home), but on Wednesday she read four of them from flimsy cover to flimsy cover and even took the three-page quiz, "Which Species of Tree Are You?" She lay in bed, finishing the last article, a needlessly in-depth story about the "hot new Mongolian nomad crash diet taking Hollywood by storm," then tossed it aside. 11:30 pm. Time to go to sleep, or get up and find a decent book. But the book was all the way on her dresser, and she felt to lazy to get out of bed.

She felt around in her nightstand drawer. Ah. The Physician's Handbook. What was that even doing in there?

She lay on her back and propped it up on her chest, trying to immerse herself in a decidedly unsexy chapter on fungal infections (complete with glossy, full-color photos) but all she managed to do was brush her nipples as she turned the pages…but that couldn't be avoided, not if she wanted to read lying on her back. She could lie on her side, of course, but that might hurt her neck, and she wouldn't want that. Her job relied too much on stooping over corpses and microscopes to risk it.

Molly read another few pages, brushing herself gently, then swallowed hard and gave in and turned over on her side. A mistake, as it turned out. She was rather flat-chested, but lying on her side could feel the weight of her breasts, see their curves through the material of her fuzzy yellow pajamas, her sensitive parts brushing the material as she shifted.

Well, she would just ignore it and brush up on jock itch. Jock itch was good. Nothing like a good photo of jock itch to make men seem repulsive. Or maybe she should move on to the STD chapter, really bring it home…

No. Thinking about sex in even that context was a mistake. Her hand drifted down over her chest, running her hand over her thighs, between them. That was fine. That was just caressing. Massage, really. Massage was fine. Fine…

Her pajama bottoms slipped a bit as she shifted, her fingertip grazing the skin over the waistband. Her heart was starting to beat faster now in anticipation, the knowledge that she wouldn't actually do anything making her toes curl in frustration.

Molly flipped over on her stomach, half-grinding into the mattress, her breasts almost painfully mashed down. Too bad that she welcomed any stimulation at this point. She reached around to straighten her twisted pajamas and found her hand drifting over the rather small swells of her rear.

She thought of sitting on the floor of the laboratory bathroom and her fingers ran themselves down the seam of her pajama bottoms, stroking the cleft, up and down, a curiously pleasant, fluttering, almost tickly sensation—

She snatched hand away, but the cleft kept tingling.

On Thursday another strange body showed up at the morgue, this one with a Y on the tongue. It had showed up six blocks away, propped up in a bus terminal. It was a bit odd, how the bodies had all been found close enough to St. Bart's to be brought there and not another morgue.

Sherlock was there, alone this time, but Molly's lab assistant was there as well, so things weren't as awkward as they should have been. Meaning Molly wanted to melt into the floor, but she forewent sneaking out the window.

"I have your brother's umbrella," she said as Sherlock slid his long pale fingers in the corpse's mouth and inspected the tongue.

"Keep it."

"Do you have any theories?" she asked him timidly as he slammed the freezer drawer shut. "I mean, ideas!" she said when she saw his reaction to the word "theory." "Or rather—I suppose you already know who…never mind." Why had she opened her mouth?

"This is all highly unusual," said Sherlock.

There was an awkward pause. Perhaps he hadn't solved the case yet. If he had he would go on for hours about his own cleverness, or at least be slightly more friendly, at least to her. Unless this was one of those maddening times when he insisted on keeping everyone around him in the dark, to make the big reveal more dramatic. In which case he'd wait till John and Lestrade were there, possibly even Mycroft.

But her gut was telling her that he was genuinely puzzled, that there was something very wrong, something that worried even Sherlock.

And only one thing had ever worried Sherlock.

But it couldn't be. He was dead.

Normally being so close to Sherlock and his cheekbones would not have helped what she had come to think of as her "umbrella situation," but his obvious concern over whatever it was gave her something else to think about for the rest of the day.

YDIMEDMI

Too many letters for an acronym, even for a supervillain organization in a comic book. It had to be spelling something.

DIME MID (Y)

DIE DIM (Y M M)

MIME DID (Y)

Perhaps she was missing something. At least she was in distinguished company.

But the odd tug towards the umbrella in the closet started up as soon as she arrived home. She intentionally fell asleep in front of the TV, still wearing her work clothes, cat on her lap, WW2 documentaries playing on the TV.

Friday produced another dead body, this one with a U on the tongue. Both Sherlock and John showed up for that one, but so did Lestrade and Mycroft, so that was as close to at ease as she was going to get. She half-expected Mycroft to ask about his umbrella, but he didn't seem to notice she was even there.

On Saturday she finally came up with a solution to the umbrella situation: she'd explain that the umbrella had gotten broken and that she'd had to buy another. She hadn't time to go until now and she was very sorry.

And that way I'd get to keep the old one, she thought, but quickly chased the thought from her mind.

Really, the entire thing was just an excuse to get out of her flat where she could think about other things, and even if her new favorite subject did seize hold of her brain, she'd be in public.

That didn't stop you before.

She chased that thought away too.

She took the umbrella with her, to make sure the new one was exactly the same make and model, and rode the bus to Harrod's—only the best for Mr. Mycroft Holmes—and spent a half hour just wandering through the store. She didn't often shop at Harrod's. She wandered through the jewelry department and rather fancied she was given the fish eye by the salespeople, the same look she got when she went into fancy restaurants (well, that one time she had gone to a fancy restaurant).

The sea of makeup counters caught her eye. Not normally she something she went in for—if she wanted to experiment that was something she'd do in the privacy of her own home with drugstore makeup—but she was feeling a bit self-conscious after the jewelry department and she had come out to distract herself, after all. Two minutes later she was seated at the Mac counter being painted by a man who her grandmother, not a woman to mince words, would have called "tarted up."

Very obviously gay, even to Molly, whose gaydar was about as good as her taste in men. And yet, as the eye shadow brush glided over the sensitive patch of skin on the inside corner of her eyes she felt something stirring in her knickers.

Oh, goddamn it, since when had she been attracted to men with thick black eyeliner? Gay men with thick black eyeliner?

She sat there, unsure of what to do, struggling not to enjoy the gentle tickling sensation, then grabbed her purse and ran off with half a face made up.

She was halfway out of the store when she remembered that she hadn't bought the umbrella yet. First stop, though, was the ladies' room to wipe the goop off her face.

"Molly?" came a voice behind her as she patted her face dry. "Molly Hooper? It's me, Lucy! Lucy Jeffries."

Molly turned around. A plump red-haired woman stood beaming at her with what seemed like an inhuman amount of teeth. Lucy Jeffries, her old college roommate, queen of leaving wet towels on other people's beds and then being so sincerely sorry it was impossible to be angry about it. On occasion she had branched out to using Molly's hairbrush. Molly had spent many a night picking long red hairs out of her brush and half-wishing they were hers. Lucy's hair was her best feature.

"How long has it been? Too long! You really need to be more active on social media. The pictures of your cat are adorable, of course, but not a word about how you're doing—"

Ten minutes later Molly found herself sitting with Lucy at a sidewalk café. An hour later Molly was on her way to Lucy's sister's house for a little "get together."

A party, Molly realized too late to back out. But that was good. Today was a day for taking herself out of her element.

She sat in the corner by herself, nursing a Coke. No alcohol, not even beer. Who knew it might do to her in her current state? She almost wished she was home dealing with the glowing umbrella closet. The music was too loud, the people too rowdy, and there was a mini strobe light machine that was giving her headache.

Molly never understood parties. She didn't like talking to strangers normally, and throw in drunkenness and awful blaring music and really, why bother when you could stay home with a good book and warm cat and a glass of something that wasn't pumped out of a keg?

She found her thoughts drifting back to the umbrella, propped up against Lucy's sister's bed with the coats. Any aspiring umbrella thief could just stroll right in and take it. A fancy umbrella like that—shiny black, thick strong metal frame, hand-carved cherry wood handle…an umbrella fit for the Queen. Knowing Mycroft, it very may as well have been a gift from Her Majesty. And to lose something like that…

Best she go check on it.

It was right where she had left it, leaning against the nightstand on the other side of the bed. On the nightstand sat a shepherdess-shaped lamp, a stack of books, a phone charger, and…

A little tub of Vaseline. With cocoa butter. And a nice red lid. And enough missing from the inside that if she took a bit nobody would notice.

Molly could feel herself growing wet.

She snapped the lid shut.

Then opened it again.

It was almost painful, the pulsing in her groin. To head back out into a party feeling like this was irresponsible. Her judgment was as impaired as a drunken teenager's. She might just grab the nearest man and shove her tongue down his throat—

She closed her eyes at the image, submitting Sherlock for the anonymous party-goer, and her hand slipped down the front of her trousers.

So much for keeping the Vaseline inside the jar. Her thickly-coated fingers were buried inside her to the knuckle, thoroughly coating themselves in her slippery juices before sliding gently back out to stroke her clit.

Damn it!

Well, it's late to stop now…

No it isn't, said a different voice, but she sat down heavily on the bed, eyes squeezed shut, suddenly flushed with heat, furiously rubbing at herself as if she were trying to get a stain out of her pussy.

No, even that wasn't enough. She needed something inside her.

She tried to stick her fingers inside herself again but then she couldn't get to her clit, not full clothed like this. Besides, they weren't anywhere near thick enough. And she didn't really want them there.

What the hell. Just do it, get it out of your system. And who cares if you'd scorn that logic if anyone else used it? Nobody's getting hurt, nothing except what's left of your pride…

She eased her trousers down, scooped out a hearty dollop of Vaseline, smoothed it over the umbrella handle, and gently eased it in between her arse cheeks.

It was an odd sensation, having something back there, but not unpleasant. She turned the umbrella so that it face outward and she could get a firm grip on the long furled black part, the hooked handle facing forward inside her. With one hand on the umbrella and the other stroking her clit she started to move the umbrella inside her slowly.

Oh. Oh.

How people fit anything larger in there was a complete mystery to her, but the umbrella handle was just the right thickness and angle and hit the sweet spot almost immediately. She could feel a thin slippery band of muscle between and the handle but that only encouraged her to tug the umbrella even harder, the cold metal band at the base tickling the rim of her hole, adding a whole other layer to the sensation. She unbuttoned her blouse and pulled up her bra to let her breasts hang out and brush the bed, the nipple stimulation almost pushing her over the edge.

She gripped the umbrella even harder, her legs starting to shake and her breath coming in heavy gasps. She was almost there, everything in side her throbbing in time to the pounding music coming through the wall, she just had to keep hitting that wonderful spot deep inside her with Mycroft's umbrella—

Molly moaned at the thought of politely handing him his umbrella back without him knowing where it had been, and just she clamped down tight on the handle she heard the doorknob turned.

She had forgotten to lock the door.

With a swiftness born solely of panicked animal reflexes she dropped down on all fours beside the bed and held her breath.

"I don't know about this," said a man's voice.

"Oh, come on," said a woman with a giggle. "There's nobody here."

Nobody here but us chickens, thought Molly. Or perverts, as the case may be. She suddenly realized she was still moving the umbrella, the fingers on her other hand still flicking up and down.

Oh, hell, she was going to—to—

The bed creaked as the couple sat down, the sloppy sound of their kissing clearly audible under the music, and Molly came, hard, her walls pulsating around the umbrella handle buried deep inside her, struggling to bite back her cries as wave after wave of pleasure burst through her and left her weak.

"Is there a dog in here?" asked the woman. "Pete, take a look—"

Molly squeezed her eyes shut.

But then the door opened.

So guardian angels do exist.

"There you two are!" said Lucy. Silence. "Really, Pete? In my sister's bed? Get up, you two! You're both plastered. That's it. Get back to the party. You ought ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"

The door closed.

Heart racing, Molly carefully slid the umbrella out—a very peculiar sensation not quite good or quite bad—and yanked her trousers up and stuffed her breasts back into her clothes.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!

She locked herself in the bathroom off the bedroom and spent the next ten minute scrubbing at the umbrella with every form of disinfectant she could find under the sink. Lysol, alcohol, Clorox, and some kind of blue liquid spray that made her choke.

Clean enough to eat off of, if you were so inclined to eat off of umbrellas, but no way was it going back to Mycroft now.

Though if he keeps up ignoring me I just might, she thought to herself, and that idea made her smile despite everything.

Despite what? You feel better, don't you? Better than you've felt all week. And all's well that ends well.

Well, my "end" might not be "well" for a while.

"That's a terrible joke," she said aloud. She looked in the mirror. Her cheeks were still flushed pink, and there was a twinkle in her eye that hadn't been there in a very long time.

This is a step up, she thought as she washed her hands. At least there were no witnesses this time!

"And with that I set the bar to an all-time low," she sighed, and returned to the party.

Moriarity brushed the chalk from his hands and lit the fat black candles, one on every point of the pentagram. He set the paper down in the center and snapped a picture with his cell phone, then sprinkled the herbs over the paper and set it on fire.

He looked at the picture with satisfaction, the flames flickering over his dead-eyed smile.

About time the boys got in on the fun.

Notes: Well. That took a long time to get up. I've learned my lesson: from now on, I only post *completed* fics. I have written three other fics in the interim, but I think I'm only going to post the Star Wars ones. The other is a kinky Dottie/Peggy (Agent Carter) one complete with bloody, knives, and guns. But I just feel weird sexualizing women that way, which is weird because three of my published works have women in the middle of them. If I knew it was women reading them I guess I wouldn't care so much, which probably make no logical sense. At least it was loads of fun to write!