The Delights of MyJohnLock
or Excuse me while I inflict my love of their OT3 on you
Do you find yourself reading a fic where Mycroft stumbles into and then quickly out of the middle of a post-case Sherlock ‘n’ John shag in the living room of 221B, only to wish that he’d stuck around and lent a hand? Do you enjoy a spot of Johncroft but feel sorry if John is shown quite clearly pining over the other Holmes he’s left at home? Do you like Holmescest and think that hey, wouldn’t it be fun to stick an unsuspecting John in the middle of this crazy-as-a-bag-of-super-intelligent-angry-cats sibling relationship?
Well what is a pervy Sherlock fan to do when they find that they enjoy the three fine ships of Johnlock, Johncroft and Holmescest, but want to mix things up or take it that little bit further? The solution is clear – you hoist the sails and smash open a bottle of champagne on the prow of an OT3 ship that combines the lot – MyJohnLock ahoy!
You may or may not have come across it before, but this is not a new ship. Over on AO3 entanglednow was posting fic for the trio within a few weeks of the BBC series first airing, and there are 57 fics in total under the Mycroft/Sherlock/John tag as well as more floating around on the kink meme or on livejournal or tumblr. And some really pretty art. And otter ‘n’ hedgehog fun. And hey did someone say shipping gifs?
From my experience of delving happily through MyJohnLock fics you’ve got the traditional split of porn-centric work versus wider relationship building, but even where sex is the major theme it’s very rare to find something completely ‘porn-without-plot’ – at the least you usually get a good exploration of character through sex, because you’ve got three such different characters to work with, and you need at least a brief explanation of how they suddenly ended up pining over or shagging each other. And yes threesome porn is all well and good in itself, but for me MyJohnLock allows for an exploration how Sherlock and Mycroft interact with each other as well as with John in such a situation – are they still sniping away and chiding at each other, is there jealously or are they teaming up to take John apart, how is John coping with this often very sudden shift in dynamics, do they each respond to things in the same way, who retains control, who is more impatient? There is a universe of possibilities and some fantastic fic out there.
John tends to be the viewpoint character – at least in the majority of fics – and is usually somewhat unsuspecting until he either gets pounced on or has a very business-like proposition put to him by the manipulative evil geniuses he shares a flat/cups of tea and the odd kidnapping with. This is understandable when you consider that for John to propose things off his own bat he would have to overcome both Sherlock and Mycroft’s sibling relationship and their general antagonism towards each other (at least in public) – social conventions and hurdles more easily tackled first by the Holmeses between themselves – but there are a whole variety of different ways this can go.
In some fics, such as entanglednow’s Modern Warfare and Armistice, there are pre-established relationships between Sherlock and John and Mycroft and John, and the brothers eventually concede to share John rather more concurrently. Extremely concurrently in that first one. In other fics, such as chasingriver’s Occasionally and Dinner Date, there is a pre-established relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft and either the Holmeses decide to invite John to participate or a rather more proactive John requests permission to join them. In yet others still, the unfortunate John ends up in the middle of an ongoing emotional battle between the brothers and acts as something of a substitute – such as with the Love, Lust and Alliance and Legwork series. All are good things, and now I wish to inflict some further recs on you.
Some of the more unusual MyJohnLock fics I’ve personally enjoyed include Satisfaction with Two which involves a fem!Joan Watson and is distinctly leg-wobblingly erotic, No Place Like Home which is MyJohnLock brilliantly in the context of a League of Gentlemen crossover, London Triptych which is a slow-burn with case fic, a most rare thing indeed, like a lost lamb returning to the fold which is a fragment of vampire AU and don’t I cry because it’s only a fragment, The Holmes Dilemna’verse which is over 140k words and allows for a heck of a lot more exploration of the relationship than you usually find, The Fine Art of Distraction which is mind-altering and just about impossible to describe but read the warnings carefully, and the Asteroidea series which is a His Dark Materials fusion and oh-so-lovely.
Other fics that I would just generally recommend because they be awesome include Watching Me Watching You (unf), Recompense (double unf), Catalyst (alas for John that’s what he is here), Decadent (in which Sherlock is a manipulative sneaky sod plus cake porn), Office Politics (sex in Mycroft’s office is always a good thing), Share (which is just so sweet), Desperate Measures (less of the sweet, more of the ganging up on Mycroft to teach him not to be such a control freak) and Lend Your Brother a Hand (technically John is only watching but this is brilliant and hilarious so shush).
If you’ve never explored the wonderful possibilities of the ship before I hope that you might like to give it a go to see if it sparks an interest – and if you already know it’s your cup of tea then maybe there’s a biscuit or two of ficcy delight here you haven’t tried before, perfect for dunking.
And over here are just links to the fics! [x]
for my own reference….