Fic: Break Me Out of My Cocoon
Title: Break Me Out of My Cocoon
Spoilers: A Scandal in Belgravia
Warnings: implied bondage, possible hints of a dom/sub relationship. It's all very PG-13
Pairing: Molly Hooper/Irene Adler
Summary: Irene lives on, and Molly is taught how to begin.
The woman on the table is pretty but dead (always dead) so Molly pays her no mind until after Sherlock has come and gone, when she stares at the grey face for several minutes. The woman on the table is very pretty. And dead. Molly wonders, almost idly, whether those are the conditions Sherlock requires to be fascinated by someone, and then she pulls the sheet back over the still face. It's Christmas.
*
Molly has never really liked beer. Or any alcohol, really-and hadn't Sherlock said something about that, once? Something to do with her father? Over the body of a ten year old girl?
She's had a bit to drink.
Molly is drinking cheap beer at a cheap bar, and a woman is watching her from the shadowed booths. Not that Molly notices. Molly is too caught up in staring at her bottle to notice anything but the way her hands shake and her hair never lies quite right and her skin is blotchy.
A woman slides into the seat beside her at the counter.
“Buy you a drink?” she hears, and startles, turning to face the woman and almost falling from her perch.
“Um, sure,” Molly says, slowly. “Thanks.”
The woman reaches out one perfectly manicured hand with nails painted red to rest it upon one of Molly's own. “You are most welcome, Molly Hooper,” she says.
“How, How?” Molly stutters, and she thinks that, before Sherlock, the woman would have scared her, not sent a shiver of excitement up her spine.
The woman leans toward her, bringing her face out of the shadow, as she grasps Molly's hand to bring it to her lips for a gentle, brief kiss. “Irene Adler,” she says. “We've met, after a fashion. Only this time,” her voice goes deeper, and Molly shivers when her hand is brushed by lips once more, “I don't have to play dead.”
***
Irene never warns Molly in advance of her imminent arrival. Occasionally, Molly will receive a text along the lines of “Don't be alarmed by the unlocked door” as she walks up to her flat, and sometimes Irene will be waiting for her outside the morgue when her shift is done.
Since their meeting at the bar, the texts Molly receives from Irene have been heralded by a guttural moan-and Molly tells herself that her message alert is different than the one Sherlock has on his phone. Deeper. Longer. Molly blushes bright red each time she hears the sound, and hastily opens the message to cut it short even when she's alone. But she doesn't change it.
Irene takes over Molly's flat like she belongs there, effortlessly. On the days Molly gets home to find Irene there before her, she will be sitting on Molly's shabby sofa sipping tea from cracked china, legs crossed demurely. She will greet Molly with a chaste kiss to the cheek and enquiries about her day and Molly will blush and fidget and not look Irene in the eyes for the first half an hour until she relaxes into the way she notices each move the other woman makes.
Their conversation always concerns itself with trivialities until Molly has served them both something simple for supper, and then, once they are both seated on rickety chairs, Irene will turn the conversation to darker themes. A new crime, an interestingly placed piece of evidence, a body with no marks. Molly listens, and her gaze never wavers from Irene's because it's easier like this. Familiar.
Irene doesn't ask for Molly's opinion until she has broken into the flat six times. The case concerns the man whose corpse Molly had stood over just hours before, and she recounts the wounds and marks dutifully, flushing when Irene praises her.
This, too, seems familiar.
And then, one evening, something changes.
“Let's have dinner,” Irene announces, from her seat on the sofa in front of the window. Her hair shines in the fading light of the sun, and Molly has to draw her gaze away before she can think of answer.
“What?” she clears her throat. “We just ate. Did you not have enough?”
Irene smiles and stands. Molly leans back in her armchair as the other woman struts toward her, hips swaying. Irene leans over, places her hands on the arms of the chair, her face just inches away from Molly's. “Innocent,” she murmurs, but Molly's eyes have been drawn to her lips and she barely hears the word. She clears her throat, croaks out “Irene,” and finds herself unable to continue.
Irene brings a hand up to cradle Molly's cheek. “Hush, girl,” she whispers. “I know what you need.”
***
What first drew Molly to Sherlock Holmes was not his appearance, and it wasn't his overwhelming sense of self-worth, and it was not how he ignored rules and social norms . What first drew Molly to Sherlock was the way he knew people. The way he seemed to know what to expect from people, while, at the same time, withdrawing from others so completely.
Molly is not perceptive. She has never known what to expect, and she has never wished to be further away from people than she always seems to be-accidentally.
What she realizes now, while Irene is tying knots around her wrists, is that Sherlock does not truly know people. He knows actions, and he can deduce them through observation. Irene brushes away her tears, and Molly realizes that Sherlock holds himself so far above society that he no longer knows emotion. He can pick up on enough clues to follow a crime, but none of them are more sentimental than logical. He does not know what people need.
“Hush girl,” Irene repeats as she slides her hands down Molly's sides. “Hush.”
***
When she wakes, Molly is alone. She stretches slowly out across her sheets, hissing as marks on her back slide over the cotton. Her hand nearly pushes her phone off the bed, but she catches it before it can fall, twisting too quickly and falling back to bed with a groan that's more awe than pain. Right on cue the familiar moan alerts Molly to a new text message, and she blushes bright red but also smiles.
Take a shower, get dressed. The text reads.
Molly obeys without a second thought.
That day Sherlock comes into the morgue, looks her up and down, and his face goes absolutely blank. John walks in and stops abruptly as soon as he sees Sherlock's face. “Sherlock?” he asks, gaze darting back and forth between Molly and the detective.
Sherlock blinks, looks down at the body on the table, clears his throat, and continues on as normal.
Molly smiles to herself through all of Sherlock's rapid questions and unintelligible mutterings. When they leave, sooner than they usually do, John walks out but Sherlock loiters in the doorway, waiting for John to move out of earshot before he speaks.
“Tell The Woman,” he says, turning and piercing her with his eyes, “that the next time she sees fit to remake a person, she should choose less familiar traits with which to taunt me.”
Molly blinks, and Sherlock is gone.
***
Molly receives a text just as she is leaving the morgue, and she avoids the curious gazes as she fumbles the phone, trying to cut the moan short.
Possible case, the message reads, I'll meet you at your flat.
Despite herself, Molly smiles.
Sequel: It Feels Like Fear