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Irene is draped languorously across the sofa, her pose so reminiscent of Sherlock that John can't help but stare. She's even gone so far as to have filched his red dressing gown, apparently having decided the colour is more flattering to her skin tone than the blue one was. She's been hiding out in their flat - again - for long enough that even Sherlock's grown bored of her.
Sherlock is perched sulkily in his chair, glaring at the television when a young, awkward junior cabinet minister of some sort comes up on the screen.
"Oooooh" Irene's voice is a purr. "I had such fun with him, tied him up and left him there to watch while I fucked Kate on the couch..." John flushes, doing his best not to imagine the scene. He looks over at Sherlock, half-expecting him to be scandalised, because if anyone can still shock him, it's her.
Instead, he looks calm and calculated. "Mmm, yes, you always did love to play with your food."
At this, Irene throws her head back - that expanse of pale skin is so familiar to John, so fascinating - and cackles gleefully. “I did learn from the best, after all.”
John’s brow furrows. Something about this conversation is making him uncomfortable, but he can’t quite figure out what. He studies Sherlock’s face, and he looks almost smug. Proud. Of what?
Oh god. The realisation makes John’s blood run cold. He turns back to Irene, scalp crawling and hoping beyond hope that he’s misunderstood. Sherlock will mock him if he has, but it will be worth it.
“You… learnt. To. Play. With your food. From him.” His gaze bounces between the two of them. John scowls. If it were anyone but Sherlock, he would have assumed a slip of the tongue. But nothing Sherlock ever does is without calculation. “Oh my god.” John sinks further into his chair. “You’re related.” He wants it to sound like a question, but it’s not. It’s a simple acknowledgement of fact.
For a moment, Sherlock’s face is an inscrutable mask, but slowly a smile creeps across it, Cheshire-like. He cocks his head at Irene.
“I told you he’d figure it out, we’d just have to drop a hint or two. He’s smarter than he looks.”
“Oi, Sherlock. I’m right here, thank you. You wanted me to know. You said that so I'd have to think about it." It's not an accusation, merely an observation. "You're either tired of lying about it, or you're trying to upset her for some reason."
Sherlock smiles enigmatically again, apparently proud that John's figured out both his secret and his motive.
“We’d both agreed you should know, John. The duplicity was getting tiresome. Irene is my younger sister.”
“Mycroft’s too, then.” John regrets this astute observation the moment it’s crossed his lips, but Sherlock just smirks indulgently. “Yes, yes, I know, obviously. Shut it.” He narrows his eyes at Sherlock before rubbing his face with his hands. When he emerges, he stares at Irene.
Coyly, she rises from the couch. Walking across the sitting room, she holds a delicate hand out to John, the gesture almost mocking. She's waiting for him to shake it. For reasons he can't quite explain, he bends to her whim.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, John Watson. Irene Adler, nee Holmes."
Suddenly it all makes sense. The hair, the cheekbones, the shifting verdigris eyes. Not only the appearance though. Also the strange way they circled around each other, the play of one sharp intellect against another. Tense, tightly coiled, and almost sensual, but somehow never sexual. John has seen Sherlock dance around someone else like that before, but at the time it hadn't registered. Now it couldn't be more obvious. Shades of Mycroft.
"God, the three of you, must have been a holy terror. I pity the nannies." He runs his hands through his hair again, chuckling in imagined sympathy, trying to hide the nearly-overwhelming confusion still running through him.
The smile on Irene's lips - devoid of lipstick, but somehow all the more sensuous for it - makes John think of some smug, self-satisfied cat.
"Oh, the things I made those two do to each other. Nothing outright indelicate, mind you, but oh, so fun. Can you imagine?" Her voice rumbles in her throat. "I'm sure you can. I'm sure you have." John shifts awkwardly in his seat. He's never thought of Mycroft the way she’s implying, but he'd be lying if he said the same about Sherlock. Part of him is repelled by the idea, these three strange siblings playing off each other through an awkward adolescence, wallowing in their isolation. But another part of him is curious. There's a brief internal struggle where he debates asking for details, but John knows this is what Irene wants and he's not going to give it to her.
"What I don't understand though, is why? Why all the secrecy? Mycroft obviously knew who she was when he called us in..."
"Merely a facade, John. When Mycroft asked if I knew who she was, my answer was genuine - the name change was new. I think he was expecting some sort of a reaction from me when he showed me the photographs."
“And of course our dear brother couldn’t admit to being related to a woman of such ill repute, lest it damage his career.” Irene chimes in, laughter like bells in her voice.
“But then, what about the code? The whole plane fiasco?”
She smiles wistfully, pulling Sherlock’s robe tighter around her slight frame. “Oh, Johnny. That was all legitimate, I needed to know what those documents were. The problem with being a little girl in a family of intelligent old souls is that nobody ever takes you seriously. I learnt very early on that Irene’s number one priority is Irene. I went to Sherlock because, much to Mycroft’s dismay, Sherlock always was the smarter one. It’s also easier to handle him, such a darling little show-off. Always loved to be the one to teach poor little Irene something new.”
Sherlock glowers as John’s jaw drops.
“That was legitimate? You manipulated one brother, and fucked the other over, to save your own hide?”
Irene does a smashing job of pretending to look contrite, but Sherlock dismisses them both with a wave of his hand.
“Mycroft’s a big boy. He got over it. It was worthwhile for me, seeing him knocked down a peg.” John never did find out exactly what happened that night, with Irene’s cameraphone, watching her break legitimately for the first time in so long. Perhaps if he had, he'd be more sympathetic.
"So then... Christmas. It makes more sense now."
Sherlock cocks a brow, sarcasm darkening his face. "Oh, yes, poor sad Sherlock pining for his darling sister. I assure you John, there is no love lost in this family. I was simply mourning the loss of an admirable intellect."
John's massive eye-roll is punctuated with a snort of laughter from Irene.
"Bollocks. Or have you forgotten how you clung to me when you and Mycroft got sent to Eton and I had to stay home with Mummy?" She fixes John in a hawk-like stare. “John. Sherlock was hurt when he was younger. He didn’t trust anyone outside the family. What I told you at Battersea, all of it. Don’t forget any of it.”
All this new information is swirling madly around in John’s head, some of it conflicting and confusing, but most of it falling so perfectly into place that he kicks himself internally for not realising it sooner. Shaking his head, he pulls himself out of his chair.
“I need a cuppa. You… uh… either of you guys want anything?”
“Coffee, black. Two sugars.”
“Coffee, black. Two sugars.”
The echo is so alarmingly perfect that John wonders if they’d rehearsed it, just to fuck with him. He sighs heavily and plods into the kitchen, prepping his mug of tea and the twin coffees. As things are brewing, steeping, he takes a moment to appreciate the peace and quiet. He looks over his shoulder, studying the strange, amorphous mass of fair skin, dark curls, and angular cheekbones that seems to have infested the entire flat. They’re both sitting in silence, but they appear to be having a conversation expressed entirely in subtle shifts and quirks of their faces. Probably figuring out more ways to torment John.
Eventually the drinks are ready, and John carries them into the sitting room, finding himself much calmer than he was before. As he sits, he notices Sherlock’s mobile on the arm of his chair, and he’s flooded with another memory. Of something that, if he’s being honest with himself, just made him jealous at first. Now it nearly makes him sick.
“Oh god. The ringtone. What about the ringtone?” John needn’t say any more, they all know what he’s thinking about. That noise, so comforting and so obscene, all at once.
Finally, Sherlock looks suitably bashful. Surely even he understands how that sound, so inappropriate before, is even more bizarre in light of what John now knows. John stares at him, awaiting an explanation, but it is Irene that clears it up.
“He caught me pleasuring myself once. When we were teenagers. Just barged into my room looking trying to figure out why I was making the noises I was. Had no idea what I was doing, not at first. Poor innocent boy. I realised early on I could push his buttons by making more noises like that.”
“Vulgar.” Sherlock snorts.
“You know what I think? I think you just don’t like being reminded that you were so ignorant about something, and that ignorance got you into an embarrassing situation.”
Sherlock glowers at her but doesn’t argue, making it quite clear that Irene’s once again scored a point in their strange and seemingly endless competition.
John stares into his tea before glancing over at the clock. It’s nearly midnight.
“I… uh… thank you for telling me, finally. I think. But it’s late, and this is a lot to absorb. I think I am going to turn in for the night.”
Irene pouts, shoulders hunching and lower lip trembling disingenuously. “But things were just getting so fun.”
“Irene!” Sherlock snaps, glaring at her enough that she actually shrinks into the sofa cushion, however slightly. “John, this is a lot to absorb. I do apologise for the duplicity. We can talk about it more tomorrow if you want?” His voice sounds genuine, warmly concerned, and John can’t help but note how self-satisfied Irene looks, as if Sherlock’s just proved her right again.
Shaking his head again, John just smiles weakly and nods at the two of them before heading up to a confused and erratic night’s sleep.
The next morning, when John wakes up and shuffles down the stairs, Sherlock is unsurprisingly wide awake and pounding away at his laptop. The sofa, however, is empty save for one neatly folded red dressing gown. At the sound of John’s footfalls, Sherlock turns, staring at John. His posture is defensive, but the look in his eyes is oddly vulnerable.
“Alright then, John?”
“Alright, Sherlock. Coffee?”
Smiling, Sherlock nods. John briskly preps two mugs, padding across the floor and putting one at Sherlock’s elbow. As he crosses the sitting room again, he picks up the bundle of red off the sofa, tossing it into the laundry pile without a second glance.