A/N This is the first thing i've returned to writing after struggling to finish a series-fic that has basically eaten my free time (that and a serious Candy Crush addiction). Feeling very happy to have unblocked everything else at last! :D

WARNING: Discussed/Referenced Rape/Non-Con. It's not quite what it sounds like, its more giving in to the 'inevitable', I suppose, but rape is what i'm thinking it feels like so that's what i'm tagging it. Sorry if that's confusing.

What it says about me that this is the first thing I write after an intense load of fluffy cute romance and family time is not something I'm going to examine too closely...

Enjoy!

Sherlock never answered the door to non-case related callers, not even when John was out. He usually left it to Mrs. Hudson, or hoped that whoever it was would just go away. So what on earth possessed him, he'd never know, but when the doorbell rang, he trailed down the stairs to open in.

"Carly!" He said in surprise. He certainly didn't remember giving her his address, but, he reasoned, she could easily have got it off the website. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I believe the term most appropriate these days is 'booty call', Lock." Carly replied, raising one neatly manicured eyebrow, a tiny smile quirking her lips.

Sherlock breathed deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth before replying. In the few days since he'd seen her last, he'd made himself a promise. If she wanted to be back in his life, to keep in touch and be friends then that was fine. Whatever happened, they were not going to go back to having sex. Because that had gone so well for them the first time.

"Carly…" He began, planning to tell her just that. Honest to God, that was what he intended to tell her.

"Please Lock, I've missed you. No one does it like you…" She stepped inside the door and gave him a sweet little pout. That hadn't changed.

"Carly, I…" He began again, but was distracted by her tongue darting out to moisten her lips.

"Yes?" She asked, in that soft little-girly voice that had always made him do exactly what she wanted. God damnit, he could see what she was doing and he was still falling for it, he could physically feel himself weakening to her will. It was always the same, he thought. He could never say no to Carly.

"I suppose you'd better come up." He said, with a little resigned sigh.

"Oh Lock…" She breathed a gentle sigh as she kicked the door closed daintily, then she grabbed the lapels of his jacket, shoved him against the wall of the dim front hallway and proceeded to seize his lips in a searing, bruising kiss "you do know how to make a girl feel welcome." She smirked, pulling back a little. Sherlock avoided her gaze and she laughed, a beautiful wild sound. It made Sherlock feel sick. She was still laughing when she took him by the hand and forcefully steered him up the stairs into his flat. The front door clicking shut behind him may as well have been the swish of the executioners axe.

Mycroft arrived at 221b Baker Street a little out of breath, which was a lot out of character for the ice man politician who would never run when it would appear more becoming to walk, but this was Sherlock, this was his baby brother, and that woman, and perhaps it was to be expected that he might make an exception.

He wished he'd made it sooner.

Carly was just leaving as he arrived, "Mycroft! You're looking delightfully over-privileged this morning." She greeted him, giving him a smile that was more of a sneer as she almost sashayed past him out of the door. He was too late then. She'd have been stalking and ignoring him if she hadn't gotten what she wanted. He slammed the door behind her, hard, in response. He didn't have time for a battle of words, he had to get to Sherlock.

Mycroft found him sitting on the sofa with his back to the door, wrapped again in a sheet, though this time it pooled around his waist, leaving his torso bare. The older man tried not to see the deep scratches down his chest and across his back. He knew what they were. He didn't need to see them.

"Sherlock?"

No answer.

"Sherlock, what happened?"

This time Sherlock snorted in pure disgust "What do you think happened, brother dear?" He replied, his tone laced with bitterness and something else. Self loathing. A spot of guilt. "What always happens when Carly wants sex?"

"Sherlock-" Mycroft began, but his younger sibling cut him off

"Oh do shut up Mycroft. There's nothing you could have done to prevent it. There's nothing anyone could have done. Except, perhaps, if I hadn't bothered answering the door. That I could have done."

"You're doing it again aren't you?" Mycroft accused, re-opening a long closed argument. "She comes to you and manipulates you and uses and abuses and takes just exactly what she wants with no regard for you or your feelings, and you sit here and you blame yourself! Sherlock, this is not your fault." Sherlock opened his mouth to retort but Mycroft held up a hand to silence him and continued: "There is something I could have done, and that is something I am going to do, and you are going to agree to it."

Sherlock turned his head to stare at him.

"The cameras are going back. If she comes back here to you again, then we are going to have the evidence to take her down." He explained, firmly, before his expression softened a little and he implored softly "It went on long enough the first time, Sherlock. Do you really think you'd get through it again?"

Sherlock stared back at him, as though really seeing him for the first time since they were in their teens. "Okay." He said, soft but certain "Put them back. You're right, I can't do it again."

End Note: Farewell for now guys, I shall return with another offering far sooner that i did with this one, honest! Please review! You know you love me... :D