Warning: Fluff, lemony stuff, mild and consensual bondage, and tooth-rotting terms of endearment in this chapter. Please proceed with caution if any of the aforementioned is likely to rub you the wrong way.

Restraint

"Heavens, you've returned all the books – to the correct places," Mycroft noted with surprise as he surveyed his shelves in the library from this rather unusual perspective.

Beside him, Sherlock chuckled: "I had to. They were missing their friends."

They lay on their backs, side by side, on a large, fully unzipped and opened-out sleeping bag on the carpet, resting their heads on cushions anchored against the foot of one of the large bookshelves. A duvet was rolled up to one side.

"When did you bring them back?" Mycroft asked, choosing not to fuss with deductions.

"Over the last three days, in batches, while you were holed up in that office. Along with my clothes and violin, and an experiment in progress," Sherlock offered the details readily, evidently taking pity on his mental fatigue after the operation to critically cripple Anatoly Eskov.

"You had better not have put a human head into my refrigerator."

"Just a few toes in the toaster."

"Sherlock."

"Pulling your leg. Which I promise not to store in the fridge after it comes off."

"Of course you won't – you'll pack it straight off to the taxidermist's, won't you?" Mycroft asked, darkly.

Sherlock grinned. "It'd make quite a statement piece at Baker Street, it would, one of your stuffed legs."

"You can park it next to the fireplace, near your skull," Mycroft suggested dryly.

"Perfect."

A smile stole over Mycroft's face as he remarked: "This brings back memories – lying here, and just talking. Until you were six, you and I would curl up together in the library at Musgrave at least twice a day, and we'd read, and talk about anything on our minds."

"I remembered that only recently," Sherlock said. "Eurus always looked at us contemptuously and wouldn't join us."

"She despised me," Mycroft sighed. "Probably for having the temerity to exist."

"She hated how much I adored you."

"Well, whatever it was that she loathed, it was always just you and me in that cold, sprawling library, on that red carpet with the white roses."

"Wrapped in blankets we'd dragged downstairs from our rooms."

"Reading your silly pirate stories."

"And your stuffy classics."

"I missed that, after… everything went up in flames."

"We can do that all the time now."

"I'm not sure my old bones could handle lying on the floor for too long," Mycroft huffed.

"You're not old," Sherlock scoffed.

"You've been mocking my advanced age for at least five years now," Mycroft pointed out mildly.

"Won't do it any more," Sherlock promised. "You're not old. Even when you do finally become decrepit after, oh, about a hundred years, I'll still want to do this with you – but with a thicker mattress to spare our old bones. Although some hired housekeeper will have to lug it over to the library for us so we don't put our backs out."

Mycroft laughed. "What would people make of us? A pair of ancient, curmudgeonly brothers lying on the floor, nattering about all the peculiar things we talk about?"

"I don't care what people would make of us, as long as you're with me," Sherlock said, slipping his hand into Mycroft's and turning his head to look at him.

Mycroft's pulse sped up, feeling the heat of Sherlock's gaze on his face, and the warmth of his hand. The almost-unreal sense that Sherlock was returning his feelings – in all their alarming depth – nearly gave him another moment of needing to be alone simply to absorb the truth of it. He'd done that earlier, after they'd washed their dinner utensils in the kitchen, and he'd wanted to take a shower as he gave it time to sink in.

"Will you be all right in there by yourself?" Sherlock had asked at the bathroom door.

"Of course I will. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not going to vanish in a puff of smoke, you know," he assured.

"I could wash your hair for you."

"I have little enough hair left on my head that I am quite certain I can manage that task very easily on my own."

"I could still do it for you."

"Didn't you bathe this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"So you're clean enough, and have no need to be in here with me."

"Mycroft…"

"I promise you that all I want is to shower, not engage in a euphemism for the term. I'll be out in ten minutes."

"Meet you in the library in fifteen minutes?"

"Yes."

"I'll make us some tea."

He'd needed a bit of time to just be quietly overwhelmed by how everything was going to change now, even if on the surface it would seem the same. Superficially, their lives would alter by the barest tweaks in their schedules and logistical arrangements, with only one more secret to hide from others. But the reality was that everything would be different.

Like the shifting of tectonic plates while all remained calm on the surface.

Sherlock seemed to have understood this after Mycroft had refused to let him into the bathroom, because he hadn't just made tea in that fifteen minutes. He'd changed into his own sleepwear of drawstring slacks and a buttoned pyjama top that didn't match, dug up an old sleeping bag from the wardrobe in the guest room, and opened it out like a thick groundsheet. He'd convinced Mycroft to sit there with him in his dressing gown and pyjamas as they sipped camomile tea from their mugs. Then they'd lain back against the cushions, talked about silly things, and he'd relaxed.

Now Sherlock's hand had stolen into his, pulse racing – he felt the rapid throb where the heels of their palms pressed together. Remarkable. He wasn't the only one; his brother too was nervous. He'd spent all evening trying to please Mycroft without scaring him off, and Mycroft had locked him out of the bathroom. He turned onto his side, facing Sherlock, and caressed his face with his free hand.

"I'm sorry for shutting you out of the bathroom," he said.

"We showered together just a few days ago, you know, right here in this house," Sherlock reminded him, with a trace of a pout.

"I know."

"And I'm not Clytemnestra waiting to murder Agamemnon in the bath after his long years away at war," Sherlock declared.

"I know that too. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting," Mycroft said. "I suddenly felt a little overwhelmed."

Sherlock's eyes widened at this admission of vulnerability, and he shook his head at once, saying: "I wasn't asking for an apology for keeping me waiting. My waiting a few minutes is nothing when I'm the one who's kept you waiting all these years."

"Sherlock, you didn't keep me waiting; I always assumed that this was never supposed to happen," Mycroft sighed, running his fingers over Sherlock's right cheekbone. "Even now, a part of me thinks I should never have allowed you, when you were younger, to discover how I felt about you. Perhaps sensing my thoughts and feelings influenced yours. I can't help wondering if I engendered this, if I caused you to begin thinking of me as more than a brother…"

"Mycroft," Sherlock interrupted urgently, rising up on one elbow and shaking his head more sharply. "No, you idiot genius. You didn't make me feel what I felt for you when I was thirteen or fourteen."

"No?"

"No one could make me feel that way."

"Don't you think that someone like me would have the means to?"

"No. Not even you. You'd simply become a beautiful stranger to me, and I think it was pretty much the same for you – we'd been estranged long enough, and we'd both changed enough physically that I think we looked at each other and suddenly wanted. You were and are the only person in the world who's ever been a match for my mind yet remains sane, unlike Moriarty and Eurus. But I was angry with the inflexible person you'd turned into, so I kept you at a distance. You're not a stranger to me any more. My reasons are now entirely the opposite – I feel what I feel for you because I know you."

"I hear you. But I still question if I might have unknowingly influenced you when you were an adolescent," Mycroft said. "It's overwhelming because you've meant everything to me for so long. Yet, the part of me that wants this with you is warring with that other part of me that remembers I was there the day you were born. You are my flesh and blood, I'm much older than you, I've known you from the first day of your existence outside of Mummy's womb, I might have affected you, and it's just wrong for me to want you like this now, that part of me is telling me…"

Sherlock dipped his head and shut Mycroft up with a kiss, after which he pulled back, gazed at him intently, and stated: "It's not wrong. You didn't make me do this. And whatever the world or the law may say, this is our world, and it's right for us."

Mycroft exhaled what began as a sigh but ended like a groan as he said: "Good God, it feels as if everything now reminds me of you as a child – the way you're looking at me, arguing earnestly with me, and our being here like this really does call to mind how tiny you used to be in my arms when we were in the Musgrave library. I feel horribly like a pervert."

"You can't possibly feel like a pervert about it when I've been this great big lout for at least the last sixteen years," Sherlock laughed.

"However grown-up you are, at times, I look at you and can't see past the child you used to be," Mycroft said ruefully. He still couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd stared, aghast, from the helicopter in the immediate aftermath of Sherlock's shooting Magnussen and seen only a small, frightened child in the glare of the floodlights, a lost little boy in the cross hairs of weapons built to kill. Perhaps he would never be able to bring himself to share that traumatic vision with Sherlock.

"What did you see in your mind's eye whenever you tried to brush away thoughts of me when I was a young teen?" Sherlock asked, taking a new angle that distracted Mycroft from his memories of him as a child. "Because I know you'd have forbidden yourself to go too far even in your own head."

"How would you know that?" Mycroft asked, with a soft smile.

"I know what you're like," Sherlock gave a smile to match his. "Always so unforgivingly strict with yourself."

"I couldn't go too far in my mind with you," Mycroft confirmed. "I kept pushing those thoughts away. It wasn't right at all because you were my brother, and it would have been far worse when you were still too young. But when you were older, my thoughts did go further."

"Did they sometimes begin like this? Just lying beside me, and holding me, and kissing me?"

"Sometimes."

"Then let's begin here," Sherlock said, pressing another kiss to Mycroft's lips.

Mycroft felt him still quivering with want and the lingering nervousness he was trying to push through. It struck him how brave Sherlock was to go for what he desired even when it had become a risk for him the moment he'd had something to lose – and he'd had everything to lose once he'd fallen for Mycroft, tumbling after him into the abyss. So he kissed him back, lovingly, in their free fall… except he now had the most peculiar feeling that unlike Milton's rebellious angels plummeting from heaven for nine days straight until they smashed into the netherworld, Sherlock had hauled him out of his personal hell, dragging the entire realm of Hades into the sunlight, free-falling with him in reverse into the stratosphere.

With uncanny timing, and perhaps some clever deduction, Sherlock whispered between kisses: "You're not dragging me down with you, Mycroft. I'm taking you with me."

The dark, gravitational pull of the abyss released him, and the burden of his fears lifted. Sherlock needed him now, needed to know that he wasn't going to lose him after finally catching up with him, and Mycroft told him through his lips and tongue and hands that he wasn't going anywhere. There was no pressure or rush towards a fixed destination, because they were just starting out, despite their decades of history together – a contradiction. Always contradictory, they were. No urgency. They had all the time in the world after living almost half their lives, because this was only the beginning.

"Is it all right if we do this… just this… for a while?" Sherlock asked, a bit uncertainly, when their lips drew apart briefly, in the interval from the end of one kiss to the start of another.

"I'd like that," Mycroft agreed. "I must have dreamt about this. Just holding you and kissing you, without a desperate need to do more."

"'Making out' like teenagers," Sherlock murmured, his colouring heightened with a modicum of self-consciousness, a new thing in itself – an unfamiliar look of embarrassment on that beautiful face which for so long had presented to Mycroft nothing but a veneer of arrogance, confidence, defiance, coldness, detachment, and sometimes outright hostility. Even the concern, affection and sexual interest of the last few weeks had been nothing like this.

"I never thought I would see the day when I'd confess that there's something to be said for petting like teens, but that day has arrived," Mycroft smiled, slowly running his hands down Sherlock's back, feeling the lean muscles shift under his touch.

"It's nice," Sherlock whispered, his unadorned words conveying more feeling than any witticism could, and his hands seeking out, little by little, every part of Mycroft he could reach, as if he couldn't get enough of him.

Neither of them attempted to remove a single article of clothing. Their hands stole underneath hems and inside collars to reach skin, and their lips and tongues found each other, nipping and nibbling at ears, jawlines, necks and, playfully, the tips of their noses, just exploring and feeling and tasting, not rushing each other. They charted their ticklish spots – all of Sherlock's were exactly where Mycroft remembered them, but Sherlock had to relearn his brother's. And Sherlock had never paid much detailed attention to his own body for pleasure, never bothered to register where he liked to be touched, so Mycroft figured it out for him while showing him his own preferences. Sherlock mussed up Mycroft's shower-damp hair until it betrayed some of the natural curl it had but which Mycroft always forced into neatness; and Mycroft rediscovered, right at the roots, the reddish-brown undertones that he had always known Sherlock's hair to have, but which seemed to have been entirely smothered by the dark hues that his curls had taken on as he'd grown older.

When they got drowsy after a session of fairly chastely relearning each other's bodies and tickling each other half to death, Mycroft pulled the duvet over them. They closed their eyes and dozed off, arms around each other, for about an hour, before the discomfort of the thin surfaces between them and the wood flooring woke them to stiff backs and the pinpricking sensations of blood flowing back into their limbs.

"Leave the sleeping bag," Mycroft said, coaxing the life back into his right arm, which had been under Sherlock's head. He placed their mugs on the side table – washing them would have to wait for morning.

Sherlock got to his feet after a bit of sleepy murmuring, wrapping the duvet around his body and switching off the lights. The bedrooms were one floor above the library and drawing room, so Mycroft held Sherlock's hand to lead him up the stairs in the semi-darkness of the house, very much like they'd done as children at Musgrave, each time they'd fallen asleep somewhere other than their own rooms in defiance of their parents' and the nanny's efforts to regulate their bedtime routines.

Sherlock squeezed his hand when they reached the landing, so he stopped and turned to his brother, who wrapped them both in the duvet, encircled Mycroft in his arms, and kissed him long and deeply, in a very different way from the innocent, exploratory kisses in the library. It seemed that the nap, and this twilight state of waking from sleep, had dissolved the boundaries that had had Sherlock treating Mycroft with caution all evening – he was as good as naked in his longing.

"I guess you should get more rest," Sherlock whispered when he reluctantly ended the kiss.

Mycroft read him as easily as an unfurled, uncoded scroll in plain English, and found himself ready, finally, to meet him exactly where he was. "Once the most crucial parts of the operation were over last night, Anthea threatened me with death if I didn't go to sleep, so I did. For four hours. Which means I'm quite awake, as a matter of fact," he revealed.

"Really?" Sherlock's voice came out husky, bearing a note of not daring to believe what he was hearing.

"Really," Mycroft replied, nuzzling his face. "If you're up for it, I'd very much like to make love to you now."

Mycroft felt a shiver that had begun in Sherlock's body end in his own, like they were one being. His forthrightness appeared to have left Sherlock momentarily speechless, so Mycroft took him by the hand again and led him into his room.

"How do you want me, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, finding his voice, though it was barely above a whisper.

"I'm tempted to just have you right up against this door," Mycroft answered in a low tone, walking his brother backwards against the inside surface of the door until it shut with a click, and he pinned Sherlock to it in the darkness. The duvet wrapped around them slipped to the floorboards at their feet.

"You could do that," Sherlock said breathily, a telltale lilt in his voice suggesting that he was smiling. "I wouldn't complain."

"Tell me what you pictured in the past, when you imagined us together," Mycroft prompted, mouthing Sherlock's left ear.

"My imagination is practical, to-the-point and terribly unsophisticated, as you know, and my teenage fantasies were even more so," Sherlock confessed teasingly while his fingers undid Mycroft's dressing gown tie. "Honestly, my favourite fantasy simply had you fucking me into the mattress."

Mycroft drew a sharp breath but kept his voice level enough to ask: "Were you on your back? Or did I grab you by the scruff of your neck and hold you face down on the bed?"

"I'm pretty sure you did me both ways. Very thoroughly."

It took a good amount of Mycroft's self-control not to order Sherlock to his knees at once to suck him off. Instead, he growled softly: "Did I make you cry and beg for mercy?"

"You made me cry and beg for more."

Despite the groan that escaped him, Mycroft managed to ask steadily enough: "Was it dark like this?"

"No. You had the lights on because you wanted to see every inch of me, every expression that crossed my face."

Mycroft tapped the light switch on the wall beside them and looked at Sherlock, skin flushed, eyes dark, back pressed against the door, hands moving to push Mycroft's dressing gown off his shoulders.

"Was there no tenderness in that fantasy of yours?" Mycroft asked with a quirk of an eyebrow, touching a kiss to Sherlock's lips.

"I'm very open to leaving the finer details to you," Sherlock kissed him back as he slid his hands down Mycroft's body.

"Hmm… as you've had three days to explore every drawer in this house in my absence, I suppose you know I stocked up several days ago on what you complained I didn't have here the last time."

"Will I be incriminating myself if I say I do?"

"You'll incriminate yourself anyway when I tell you to open the drawer holding the items," Mycroft told him. "Choose what you'd like us to consider using, and place it on the bed."

Sherlock smirked, slipped out from between Mycroft and the door, and opened the bottom bedside drawer. Obviously having already familiarised himself with what was in there, he took out two types of lubricant, several condoms, wipes, a set of anal plugs, surgical gloves, a few lengths of rope, and black leather wrist and ankle cuffs with snap hooks.

Mycroft's eyebrows rose. Some of those items definitely hadn't been in that drawer the last time he'd looked. "It appears that you're sure enough about what you'd like us to do to have added to my stash," he murmured, from the other side of the bed, casting his eye over the objects, particularly the ones he hadn't bought.

"If you're to fuck me into the mattress, you'll have to get me ready," Sherlock stated pragmatically. "You've always been finicky about hygiene, so I'm giving you the option of wearing surgical gloves while prepping me, and condoms when I'm ready for you to get down to it. You also know I'm bloody headstrong and contrary. Even though I want this and am telling you this, I might perversely make things difficult for you halfway through, so you might want to restrain me as a reminder not to trip you up purely out of mischief – there's nothing here I can't get out of in an emergency, but unless I purposely reach for the snap hooks, I won't be able to just break free."

"And the plugs?" Mycroft asked curiously.

"In case you don't want to have to keep your fingers inside me all the time while getting me ready – one of those can stay in while you do… other things, if you like."

It ought to have been absurd, or terribly bizarre, or the equivalent of a pail of cold water flung over them to be standing there in their vanilla sleepwear over one corner of the bed, an array of sex-related accoutrements between them, talking about hygiene and logistics as unromantically as if they were discussing how to execute a field operation – or assemble a piece of Scandinavian furniture, for that matter. But this was how he and Sherlock had always interacted whenever they got down reasonably amicably to business – any sort of business – and as Mycroft found, it didn't feel absurd or bizarre or un-erotic. It felt intimate, trusting and interesting, dreadfully grown-up, and very arousing.

"All right," Mycroft said at last. "Come here."

Sherlock stepped around to the foot of the bed, and Mycroft undressed him, unbuttoning his pyjama top, slipping it off, folding it and placing it on the chair near the door. He undid Sherlock's drawstring slacks, lowered himself into a crouch to slip them down his legs, and let him step out of them. He folded these as well and placed them on the chair. Then he removed his own pyjama top but left the bottoms on. Slipping a hand round the nape of Sherlock's neck, he pulled him in and kissed him as he backed him against the bed until he had to sit on the mattress, then shuffle back to lie down on top of the bedcover.

"You've told me what you want me to do, and what you're ready to have me use on you. I won't exceed that," Mycroft told him, straddling his body but otherwise not touching him. "But you will leave it to me to determine exactly how I'll go about it."

Sherlock's pupils dilated even further, and he nodded wordlessly. He was already half-hard, and his erection filled out completely when Mycroft proceeded to buckle the leather cuffs onto his wrists.

"Not too tight?" Mycroft murmured.

"No."

He picked up one of the snap-hook pairs and slipped them into the rings on the cuffs to lock them together. "Show me that you can unlock them in an emergency."

Sherlock demonstrated how easy it was for his fingers to reach the levers of the snap hooks, open them and slip them out of the rings, unlinking the cuffs.

"And if your wrists aren't bound together, but separately, with rope?" Mycroft asked, knotting one of the lengths of rope through the ring on Sherlock's left wrist and pulling the rope taut off to the side.

It was trickier, but with his flexible joints and deft fingers, he could bend his wrist and last two digits enough to work at the knot, which loosened after a couple of minutes.

Mycroft shook his head. "Too difficult. If I do use rope, I'll also affix the hooks and tie it to the hooks instead, so if something goes wrong, you can free yourself at once."

"Okay."

Mycroft shifted down to Sherlock's feet to buckle the ankle cuffs on. He didn't know what configuration Sherlock had expected him to use once he put the cuffs into play, but judging by the flash of surprise darting across his face, his brother probably hadn't quite anticipated what he did next: He linked Sherlock's right wrist cuff to his right ankle cuff, and the left wrist cuff to the left ankle cuff, forcing him to hold his legs apart if he wanted to keep his feet on the mattress; if he chose to bring his feet together, he would have to lift them – and his bottom – off the mattress. Either way, it left him very exposed.

If Sherlock's erection had flagged at all during the minutes of working at the knot, this corrected the matter, because he was now fully hard, leaking at the tip.

"You like this," Mycroft observed, not even needing to make it a question.

"Only with you," Sherlock's voice dropped to a low-timbred whisper again.

"Have you done this before with anyone else?"

"Began a couple of times, stopped when I couldn't trust them."

Feeling a surge of possessiveness, Mycroft gripped Sherlock's chin with his thumb and forefinger and tipped his head back, exposing his throat. He ran his teeth over his neck, drawing gasps and guttural moans from him, while with his other hand, he stroked Sherlock's erection. When he was whimpering with urgency, Mycroft stopped and drew back to look at the bound, panting mess that his brother already was, even though they were only getting started.

Ignoring Sherlock's whine of protest, he turned away to examine the items they hadn't used yet. He extracted a pair of surgical gloves and chose the water-based lubricant – it wouldn't break the latex down, and would also be safe for use with the silicone plugs. He positioned himself between Sherlock's legs, and spoke to him as he pulled the gloves on: "I am finicky about hygiene. However, you've always been an exception for me, and I honestly don't care how filthy my fingers, mouth or cock get, as long as I'm getting them filthy with you. But I'm wearing these because I want to be able to pull off the gloves and touch you immediately elsewhere without first having to scrub my nails in the bathroom for endless minutes, all right?"

Sherlock nodded, eyes still blown dark, a whimper dancing on the edge of his vocal cords.

Mycroft poured a generous amount of lubricant onto the gloved fingers of his right hand and coated his brother's nether orifice with it, circling the opening patiently, nudging inside by a millimetre or two, but not really entering him yet. Sherlock's breathing grew heavier, and his muscles flexed and twitched under the skin, but he lay still and offered no resistance, so Mycroft introduced one finger, watching Sherlock's face attentively as he slowly moved it in and out.

He poured on more lube before adding a second digit. While one finger had been easy, two weren't, and Mycroft had to patiently wait for the tight, clamping pressure to ease marginally before he began thrusting gently into Sherlock, pausing every time he saw the tiniest flicker of discomfort. It took several minutes to coax his body through this step, and he kept his eyes on Sherlock's face throughout. His brother looked back at him, occasionally glancing away with what Mycroft could swear was the hint of a blush suffusing his cheeks. Mycroft dropped a little kiss against the inside of Sherlock's right knee and leaned forward between his thighs to place his clean hand gently and reassuringly over his abdomen.

"Breathe," he said softly, smiling as he felt the deep rise and dip of Sherlock's belly, and some of his nervousness dissipating.

"Will you ever not offer obvious advice?" Sherlock asked tightly, aiming for a touch of lightness but not quite managing it.

"I live to annoy you, sweetheart," Mycroft smirked, seizing the opportunity of Sherlock's startled reaction at the term of endearment to slide back out and work a third finger in. Sherlock inhaled and exhaled deeply and steadily; to keep him distracted, Mycroft kissed, nibbled and licked up him up and down his raised, spread thighs, leaving him quivering, so that he wasn't too tense when Mycroft began to move his three fingers back and forth, then curled them slightly and brushed against his prostate gland with feather-light strokes.

It was too intense. Sherlock's back arched, and an attenuated cry strained through his vocal cords.

"Too much?" Mycroft asked, stroking Sherlock's thigh soothingly with his other hand.

"N-no, but maybe hold off for now, if you want to continue playing with me," Sherlock panted out.

"Then let's use this next," he said, picking up the medium-diameter silicone plug which would stretch Sherlock more than his three fingers, but wasn't curved at the tip, making it unlikely to over-stimulate the gland.

"Okay," Sherlock said, before chewing on his lip and adding: "It's still not as big as you, though."

Mycroft definitely a felt a blush stealing into his own cheeks now, but he fought it by focusing on carefully withdrawing his fingers and slicking up the plug with lube before starting to press it in. Sherlock exhaled audibly, but with no indication of pain, because working the tapered tip in was no problem. However, the fact that its girth increased towards its base meant that it needed time, patience, and Sherlock to relax his body before the widest part could slip past the internal muscle which closed around the narrower neck of the plug while the flared base remained safely outside.

"All right?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock nodded, watching Mycroft keenly as he stripped off the surgical gloves and dropped them into the wastepaper basket near the bedside table. To be doubly careful, Mycroft pulled out a few sheets of the wipes and cleaned his hands, then turned back to his brother.

"Would you like me to use a condom after I remove the plug?" Mycroft asked, lying on his side and running his now-bare fingertips over Sherlock's chest.

"Only if you want to," Sherlock answered, sounding a little short of breath as his back arched in reaction to Mycroft's touch and, probably, in response to the way the plug inside him was just lightly pressing against his prostate.

"You don't mind either way?"

"If you're asking, it means you've probably seen enough of my recent confidential medical records to know I'm clean," Sherlock said pointedly. "And I gather that you are too, otherwise you wouldn't even ask – you'd just use protection without consulting me."

"You think I've been snooping into your records?" Mycroft smiled.

"The world would end before I expected any less from you," Sherlock huffed before tensing and squirming again.

"Do you want a peek at my records, in return?" he asked, running his fingers all the way down into Sherlock's thatch of pubic hair.

"N-not necessary," he stuttered. "You'd never do anything to harm me."

"I did offer you as bait to Moriarty and Eurus."

"Only because you thought you were in full control."

"You trust me, then, your archenemy?" he asked warmly.

"More than anyone in the world. What's the point of having an archenemy of a brother if I can't keep him even closer than my real enemies? Or my old lovers?"

Mycroft covered Sherlock's mouth with his own to feel, taste and swallow the gasp that escaped him when he palmed his swollen cock before wrapping his hand around the shaft. Then he leaned back and observed every expression that flitted over Sherlock's face as he stroked him.

Sherlock was a contradiction. He had a domineering streak of his own to match Mycroft's controlling character, and it was in his nature to throw a spanner into people's works just to observe their reactions. So it was a good idea of his to have Mycroft use the cuffs on him this first time they were preparing to engage in full penetrative sex. But woven into the imperiousness of his personality was a submissive thread that reacted positively to others taking command – if they knew what they were doing. Mycroft had seen him respond very well to stern orders from John, Lestrade, Molly Hooper, and once in a blue moon, even Mrs Hudson. Sherlock had spent too many years deliberately challenging Mycroft out of sheer bloody-mindedness for him to easily gauge his responsiveness to him. But if their recent sexual interactions were anything to go by, Sherlock derived a good amount of pleasure from submitting to him.

Mycroft, on the other hand, wasn't very good at playing the submission game. Although he tended to be easily embarrassed, and his outward manners and mannerisms, speech and conduct were superficially gentler and more refined than Sherlock's, it was all undergirded with steel. Sherlock was brash, loud, physical, overbearing, often offensive, but at his core, he could be like putty in the hands of people he cared about.

Which probably made Mycroft and Sherlock a very good match in bed. And on the job. And as a united front against the world. If they could remain on good terms…

"You're thinking something," Sherlock gasped out, writhing under his ministrations.

Mycroft withdrew his hand, provoking a grunt of protest which was cut short when Sherlock saw he was picking up the lube. "I'm thinking that I'd like to reduce you to a wreck even before I fuck you into the mattress," Mycroft said thoughtfully, prompting another sharp intake of breath. "And I'm going to watch you come."

With that statement of intent, he firmly wrapped Sherlock's cock again in his lube-slicked right palm and started slow and shallow before varying the rhythm, changing it up each time Sherlock got into it. The fingers of his left hand circled Sherlock's nipples and pinched them lightly, driving him to distraction. When Sherlock seemed to be on the brink, he eased off and played gently with his balls while kissing his mouth just so he couldn't protest with words. Then when he stopped straining at the cuffs in frustration and submitted to the tongue-tangling and toying with his scrotal sac, Mycroft resumed paying attention to his shaft, sitting back up and working his left hand into his hair to hold his head in place, tipped back, face exposed, with nowhere to hide.

He worked him with a steady rhythm now, varying it only briefly to heighten the tension. With his hair tangled in Mycroft's fingers, and his wrists shackled to his ankles, Sherlock couldn't turn his head away or bury his face in his arms – his eyes darted from Mycroft's face to his chest to the ceiling of the bedroom, looking for a place to retreat to and finding none.

"Sherlock, darling, I said I wanted to watch you come, and I meant it," Mycroft said softly but firmly, tightening his fingers in his curls.

Sherlock bit his lips, shut his eyes, fought Mycroft's hold for a few seconds – but didn't reach for the snap hooks to release himself. He elected to remain bound, though he still struggled a little more, futilely, until he couldn't hold back his surrender as Mycroft steadily worked him towards his climax. He gave in to helpless cries of pleasure as he threw his head back even further than Mycroft's hand in his hair had positioned him, and came with a hot, intense rush of cum spurting out over his body, over Mycroft's hand and arm, over the bedcover. Beautiful. The look on his face, his parted lips, his half-lidded eyes, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the taut line of his entire body as he climaxed… just… beautiful.

While Sherlock lay there in semi-delirium, panting and perspiring, Mycroft stripped off his own pyjama bottoms and shifted to kneel between his brother's legs. With Sherlock's orgasm having relaxed his muscles, Mycroft was able to slowly and steadily draw the silicone plug out of him without causing discomfort. As Sherlock stirred and began to peel his eyes open, Mycroft slathered his own now-painfully hard cock in plenty of lubricant, positioned it at Sherlock's opening, and pressed in. So sinfully hot and snug and utterly perfect…

"Hnnnnhh… Mycroft," Sherlock moaned, struggling weakly against the restraints.

"Uncuff yourself," Mycroft ordered gruffly as he resisted the instinct to thrust hard into him from the get-go.

With shaky fingers, Sherlock released the snap hooks and unbuckled his wrist cuffs, though with Mycroft pressing him down as he pushed half the length of his shaft into him, he couldn't remove the ankle ones. But it didn't matter – his limbs were free now, and that was what Mycroft wanted.

"Is this all right?" Mycroft asked tightly, pushing in by another inch, not yet allowing his own sensations of pleasure to cause him to forget Sherlock's comfort.

"Shut up and fuck me," Sherlock growled, wrapping his arms around Mycroft's shoulders and hooking his ankles, still circled in leather, behind Mycroft's arse, pulling him down, pulling him in.

"Sherlock…" Mycroft breathed, burying his cock deep inside him, making them both moan with the pleasure of taking and being taken.

He pulled back almost to the very tip, then thrust slowly back in at a sharper angle, the head of his penis sliding over Sherlock's prostate gland and sending a full-body shiver through him.

"It's too… oh god, Mycroft… I don't think I can… it's… nnggh…" Sherlock was practically incoherent, but his body language was eloquent, his encircling arms, thighs and ankles keeping Mycroft in place despite his overstimulation, simply demanding more even when it seemed impossible.

Mycroft glided over the hypersensitive spot a few more times, which nearly left Sherlock babbling. But he soon changed the angle of his thrusts, easing the intensity for his brother while letting Mycroft set a pace that allowed him to satisfy himself. When he found a blissful, steady rhythm, he buried his face in the curve of Sherlock's creamy neck, breathing in the heat of his scent, flicking his tongue against the light, salty tang of sweat on his skin, and immersing his senses in the delectable familiarity of the warm body beneath his.

And Sherlock was holding him, caressing his shoulders, running his hands over the length of his spine, squeezing his arms, smoothing his palms down his flanks, loving him back, wanting him as much as he was wanted, wanting more of him. Mycroft nuzzled his throat, his smooth jawline, his cheeks, and kissed him on the mouth again, deeply, as he felt the leather and metal of the ankle cuffs digging into his buttocks, with Sherlock wanting him, faster, harder, deeper – it seemed he liked this angle and rhythm too.

Mycroft drove in firmly, demanding more from Sherlock as well when he realised that the growing hardness he could feel under his belly meant that he might possibly be able to coax Sherlock into another climax. He himself couldn't remember having such a short refractory period once he was past his early twenties, but either Sherlock was extremely turned on by Mycroft, or he was simply built a little differently. Perhaps it was a combination of both.

"Can you come for me again?" he asked, nipping at his neck and ears.

"I'll t-try…"

"I can feel you getting hard again, little by little," Mycroft purred persuasively. "You're getting it up, aren't you, Sherlock? One more time – you can, can't you? You're so beautiful when you come for me…"

Between their bodies, they both felt Sherlock's prick twitch again as another throaty, involuntary moan escaped through his parted lips. "Mycroft… don't slow down…"

"Do you want me to finish inside you?"

"You'd better," Sherlock all but hissed, staring up at him out of dazed, lust-glazed eyes as he made Mycroft groan with pleasure by taking him all the way in, balls-deep in his body.

It almost sent Mycroft over the edge, but he kept going for a good number of minutes more until Sherlock was sporting another full erection. He was still oversensitised and almost wrung dry, but Mycroft offered no mercy when he transferred most of his weight to his left elbow and reached down with his right hand to exact from him what he demanded. He pumped Sherlock's cock three times, four, five… thrust into him again at a different angle… made him cry out… and even saw tears form at the corners of his eyes. That was when, within the grip of his hand, he felt the sudden further hardening of Sherlock's prick and the rush of cum as it flowed forth – though not as copiously as the first time – and Sherlock was moaning and arching his way through a second orgasm.

That did it for Mycroft too. He took his weight back onto both his arms and drove into Sherlock without holding back until his rhythm stuttered and he came in a consuming rush of pleasure, making animal-like cries against Sherlock's neck as he shot his ejaculate deep into his body.

His arms gave out under him, and he collapsed on top of Sherlock, panting heavily, mute and unthinking from the incredible flood of chemicals coursing through him, probably like the best of his brother's drugs, but without the crash to follow.

"Sorry," he whispered when he came to his senses and found himself resting all his weight on Sherlock.

"I can take your weight, Mycroft," Sherlock chuckled softly, his hands stroking Mycroft's hair and neck gently, tenderly, lovingly. "You're too bloody thin, remember?"

Mycroft laughed weakly at this reversal of criticism from his sibling, but he promptly adjusted the positions of his elbows to hold up more of his own weight before carefully easing himself out of Sherlock's body and lying down beside him, breathing hard.

Sherlock surely had to be as drained as he was, but to his surprise, he reached over him for the wet wipes, cleaned himself up the best he could with them, unbuckled the ankle cuffs, then leant over Mycroft and cleaned him up thoroughly too. Neither of them said so, but it was another reversal of all the times Mycroft had wiped Sherlock up – as a messy child, as a drug-addled teenager, and as a reckless adult who often overdosed on substances and danger.

He lay down beside Mycroft again and snuggled up to him, asking: "Was there enough tenderness in that for you?"

"Hmm… we might have to balance it out with more cuddling next time," Mycroft suggested.

"Can't wait."

"Really?"

Sherlock elevated himself on one elbow, looked down at Mycroft, and said: "Mycroft Holmes, you do know that I'm not just using you for kinky sex, don't you?"

Mycroft let out a bark of laughter, which evidently delighted Sherlock, going by the tender smile and the glow it brought to his face.

Then Sherlock sat up, held out his hand to Mycroft and said: "Come on, I know you won't be able to sleep well until you've washed up properly, cleanliness fusspot that you are."

"How well you know me," Mycroft sighed, taking Sherlock's hand, allowing himself to be pulled upright and steered into the bathroom.

From which he wasn't going to shut Sherlock out again – at least not tonight.

Note, 9 Dec 2018: I've been so busy with work irl that this chapter took me much longer than usual to post. If you've read this far, thanks for waiting for me to put it up. Another note: So far, my chapters have been structured in two or four sections, alternating between Mycroft's and Sherlock's perspectives. But here, Mycroft's side of things already takes up so much space that I don't want to make the chapter ridiculously long by adding Sherlock's section as well. I'll save the latter for the next instalment. Which ultimately means that this will end up having a couple more chapters than I'd previously anticipated!