Title: The Problem with Personal Blogs, Part 13/21
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, the BBC gang (Molly, Sarah, Donovan, Anderson)
Rating: PG to Strong Adult - this part NC-17
Warnings: Excessive estrogen, dubcon
Summary: Sherlock finds himself the recipient of unwanted attention, thanks to the Internet.
Notes: Thank you
winterstorrm for the beta and Britpick.
For a complete list of chapters, see:
The Problem with Personal Blogs, chapter list.
13. The Aftermath
John escorted Sarah back to her
place via taxi. It was an indulgence, but he reckoned that, as the dinner had
been free, he could afford it. As he walked her up to the top step, she said,
"Tonight was lovely."
John felt a warm glow. "It was,
wasn't it?"
"No chases, no
kidnappings..."
"No stalking bloggers."
Sarah smiled at him. "I don't
know. I think I could put up with one stalking blogger."
The invitation seemed clear. John
leaned in and gave Sarah a soft, warm kiss. She returned it, setting his heart
racing. All too soon, she pulled away.
"We'll have to do this again
sometime," she said breathily. "Next time, without the weird
flatmate."
John was surprised, and a little
concerned. "I thought you enjoyed the conversation tonight."
"I did. It was very
entertaining. But, to be honest, I really don't need to know the life story of
every person I'm sharing a restaurant with. It puts me off a bit."
"All right. Next time, no weird
flatmate."
Sarah's eyes twinkled mischievously.
"Can you promise that?"
John paused. "Unfortunately
not. Sherlock is what one might call a 'random force'."
"Can't you give him a false
clue or something? Send him off to some remote part of town?"
"I don't even want to think of
what the retaliation might be if I tried that. No, I'll wait until he's
legitimately occupied, phone you with a meeting place, and turn off the
mobile."
"I'll look forward to it."
Sarah leaned in for another kiss. This time she placed her hands on his chest.
John leaned into it, soaking in her touch.
She broke the kiss, but gently. Her
eyes were kind. "See you tomorrow."
"Right."
He watched her into the flat, and exchanged
a little wave with her as she closed the door. He practically skipped back down
toward the taxi that was waiting by the curb. As he was far too energized to
sit in a cab; he paid off the driver and sent him on his way. Briskly,
whistling, he set off through the chilly air toward Baker Street.
#
Sherlock was disappointed in the
evening. Not massively so, but still. Three wretched hours in that restaurant,
and not one likely candidate emerging as his stalker.
Oh, he had a list of potential
suspects, their images captured surreptitiously on his mobile. He had with some
ingenuity learned the names of the two young ladies sitting near the door. He
would research them later tonight, although their intermittent attention didn't
hold out much hope for either of them being his target. The gay men clearly were
interested only in each other; in any case, he couldn't see a gay man writing a
pornographic passage from the viewpoint of a woman.
The gaggle of older women near the
back had grown increasingly raucous throughout the evening, but John had assured
him that they had been drinking in the bar even before John and Sarah had
arrived. They were so invested in passing cracks amongst themselves that it
seemed unlikely they had made the appointment expressly to watch him. Besides,
during one of their louder group cackles, he had distinctly heard one of the
women use the word "cute" while looking in his direction. Sherlock
had never been cute in his life; for someone to use that word in reference to
him clearly moved the speaker beyond the realm of potential sexual partner and
into the class of benevolent matron. Drunken benevolent matron. No, that group
wasn't very high on Sherlock's list. In any case, his friend the waiter got him
the name of the woman who paid the tab; Sherlock let it go at that.
Leaving the restaurant yielded no
better results. As Sarah had speculated, the bitter cold kept people well-wrapped
up and moving along, making even gender identification problematical in some
cases. Sherlock would have preferred to walk Molly home and see if any of the bulky
shadows followed them, but her skimpy costume, even hidden under her voluminous
borrowed wrap, made such an undertaking impossible, never mind the shoes. With
an internal sigh, he directed her to the lead taxi in the rank and followed her
in.
Molly for her part seemed pleased
with the evening. She had drunk by far the majority of the champagne.
Sherlock's first glass had remained pretty much as it was; after the waiter
refreshed it, it stood full next to his plate throughout the meal-until Molly,
running low, had finished it off for him. Apparently she was far enough gone
that she had forgotten that no stalkers could observe them whilst they were in
a moving taxi. She clutched him with both hands, nestled against his chest, and
nattered on about some banalities they had been discussing during dinner.
Sherlock listened to her absently, responding only as much as was required,
while his gaze roamed the pavement to either side of the street, on the lookout
for loungers.
Oddly, Molly brought up the subject
herself as the taxi turned onto the street for her flat.
"This is where she'll be,"
she said, in a complete non sequitur from her previous subject.
"Who?" Sherlock asked, not
certain he was tracking her, as he hadn't really been paying attention.
"Your fiction writer. If she
wasn't in the restaurant, she's bound to be here, waiting for you to take me
home."
It was a logical conclusion, but the
empty pavement was not supportive of such an idea. "Possibly."
"Well, she won't be standing in
the open! She'll be hiding somewhere, watching." Molly paused. "I
know I would."
Sherlock considered her words. Of
the two of them, Molly was certainly the authority on unrequited crushes.
"Keep a sharp lookout, then."
Molly squeezed his arm. "Oh, I will!"
The taxi pulled up to the curb.
Sherlock helped Molly out, then paid the man off. It was wretchedly cold, but
there was some slight chance that someone would follow him when he walked away
from Molly's door.
Molly seized his arm, leaning
against him heavily and giggling as he helped her up the stairs. For all that,
her coordination remained fairly good. He wasn't certain how drunk she actually
might be, and how much was pretense. He was beginning to understand that,
beneath her superficial manner, lurked a fair degree of cunning.
"Will you be all right?"
he asked as they reached the front door.
Molly looked at him with glittering
eyes. "Kiss me."
When Sherlock hesitated, she leaned
closer. "Someone might be watching," she whispered. "Kiss
me."
Uncertain how to respond-as Molly's
impaired state made the ethics of kissing her rather grey-he leaned forward.
Molly poured herself against him, running her hands up his back and over his shoulders,
drawing him down into a much deeper kiss than he had anticipated. Her mouth was
soft and mobile and tasted of the chocolate and coffee with which they had
finished their meal. Her hands caressing him was surprisingly erotic, as was
the way she totally abandoned herself to the kiss.
When her hips started to push
against his, Sherlock pulled away. "Molly-"
She fumbled after him. "No,
wait. She's here."
When Sherlock started to turn his
head to look, she grabbed it with both hands and pulled him back down to her
mouth. One hand snaked up to twine in his hair, the other pulled him harder
against her.
"She's coming," Molly
mumbled against his mouth.
Sherlock grew still. He could hear
it now, the sound of high heels on the pavement coming up behind him, getting
closer.
"Act passionate," Molly
whispered against him.
Sherlock did his best, taking Molly
in his arms as she devoured him with her kiss. She molded herself against him
and-it really was unfortunate. He had had no intention of becoming aroused, but
Molly's gyrating hips and groping hands and hungry mouth were having an
entirely unexpected effect. Possibly it was the champagne; he never drank.
Dreadful for the logical faculty. He tried to swivel his hips away to avoid betraying
himself, but Molly arched to maintain contact, like some sort of super-supple cat
Velcro'd to the front of his body.
The footsteps drew level with the
portico, hesitated fractionally and continued on. Sherlock could now see (over
Molly's head) the woman to whom the footsteps belonged. He instantly relaxed,
abandoning the kiss. "It's not her."
Molly continued pressing against
him, reaching blindly for his lips. "It might be," she murmured.
"No. Molly, that's a call
girl."
"What?"
"A prostitute. The very last
thing she would want to do in her spare time would be to write pornography
about anyone."
"How do you know?"
"Because if she loved her work
that much, she'd be in the more elevated tier that works from her own or
someone else's flat, not walking the street in this weather."
"What makes you think she's a
prostitute?"
"I observed her on the corner
earlier when I came to collect you. No one in their right mind would remain
outdoors in this weather for that length of time wearing that type of clothing
unless she was working a shift."
"I saw someone else farther
down the street."
"Probably one of her coworkers."
"No. She was lurking in the
doorway. I'm sure she was watching us."
"Which doorway?"
"Across the street, a couple of
doors down."
Sherlock glanced over his shoulder.
Indeed, there was a furtive movement within the shadowy doorway almost directly
opposite. He straightened up, intending to walk that way-then caught a glimpse
of the front door opening and closing. Whoever it was had just gone inside the
building.
"It's a neighbor,"
Sherlock said, wondering if that were true. It would be too monstrous a
coincidence to suppose that his stalker lived across the street from Molly
Hooper.
"You'd better come in,"
Molly said.
"I'll be fine walking home. I
don't feel the cold."
"What I meant was, as someone
most likely is watching us, you'll have to act like a boyfriend-and that
means coming inside." Molly smiled. "No woman in her senses would let
her boyfriend simply walk off after a kiss like that."
"But if she is waiting
for me, the best thing I can do is to leave now, and hope that she follows
me."
"If she waited for you all
through dinner, she'll certainly wait for you to come back down." Molly plucked
at his sleeve. "Come on, it's freezing. Let me make you some
coffee."
Sherlock gave in. "All
right."
Molly tripped a little going over
the threshold, and Sherlock steadied her. This gave Molly the excuse to wrap
her arms tightly around his waist all the way up the three flights of stairs to
her flat. She fumbled the key and dropped it. Sherlock retrieved it from the
doormat and inserted it into the lock. He pushed open the door, and helped
Molly inside.
A light had been left on in the
kitchen. Its weak illumination allowed Sherlock to see that the flat was a
studio-one sitting room, one small bedroom. He stopped in confusion. "Didn't
you say you had a flatmate?"
"I did-two flats ago."
Molly closed the door behind them.
"Then, considering the hour and
your current condition, I'd better-Molly!"
As soon as she had bolted the door, Molly
launched herself at him. Sherlock, knocked off balance, stumbled backward against
the sofa, falling onto it as Molly twined her arms around his neck, climbing
over his body and kissing him urgently.
Sherlock turned his head to escape
her lips. "Molly, you're drunk."
"Tipsy," she corrected,
licking his neck.
"Legally impaired. Considering
the amount of champagne you've imbibed, someone of your gender with your weight
would have a blood alcohol level of-"
He had to break off as she again captured
his mouth with hers. She was doing that pulsing thing with her hips again, only
now she had her legs splayed across him, making him acutely conscious of her
heat. All this licking and grasping was having a most unexpected physical effect
on him. Normally it wasn't a problem, but writhing wanton women apparently triggered
a biological override. He fought the reaction as best he could; he didn't want
her to get the impression that he shared her desire. He tried to capture her
wrists to unwrap them from his neck.
"Molly," he gasped,
breaking away, "this is not a clever idea."
She struggled to maintain contact.
"No, it's brilliant."
"You aren't in your right
mind."
"I am in the best possible
state of mind." Her hands escaped his grip and flew over the front of his
coat, undoing the buttons and pulling the material roughly aside. "God,
you're sexy."
She opened his coat with a flourish
and had his shirt untucked almost in the same moment. When he tried to pull the
material out of her hands, she pushed him sideways, so he toppled against the
arm of the sofa. He recaptured one of her hands as the other fumbled with his belt
buckle-his second hand being tangled in his flapping coat sleeve.
To his surprise, Sherlock found the
act of being enthusiastically molested by a scantily clad woman rather
intriguing-or rather, it seemed to be intensely intriguing to that seldom-used
part of him that Molly was desperately trying to free, despite Sherlock's
counter-struggles. She was really very squirmy, and all this frantic wrestling
about accompanied by the inevitable rubbing action was making it difficult to concentrate.
"I only came upstairs because I
expected your flatmate was in," he informed her between evasive twitches. Odd;
his breath was a little short.
The sound of a zip indicated she'd
won another move in the undressing battle. "I don't want to share you with
a flatmate," she panted. "I don't want to share you with anyone."
"I'm not-nghuh!"
With the agility of a cat, Molly descended
upon him with her mouth. Primal sensations that he usually ignored roared
through his brain. Hot. Wet. Swirly. He slumped against the cushions as
waves of sensation rolled over him. When the riot in his brain subsided, he
noticed that his free hand was resting idly on the side of Molly's head; it
bobbed eagerly with her ministrations, but he no longer had the will to push
her away. He smothered a groan.
She moaned in response, too
preoccupied to answer. The vibration carried right up the inside of his body to
his brain. Without thinking, Sherlock eased his legs farther apart. He tried to
catch his breath such that he might attempt a sentence. "Don't... let
me..."
Molly was now perched between his
legs, her hands curled about his hips, hugging him to her. Slowly, she took him
all the way in. His jaw dropped open, while his eyes slid shut. She was... really
extremely good at this. Quite... masterful. Forgetting his arguments for a
moment, he simply breathed, experiencing the exquisite stimulation.
Working him with her mouth, Molly
hummed. The vibration zinged through him like lightning, striking some network
of nerves that completely bypassed his conscious mind. Dimly he heard someone
moaning; with a shock, he realized it was himself.
This wasn't how it was supposed to
go. This was a fake date; what was he doing, caressing the silken strands of
Molly's hair, tugging them loose from her clip, as he mindlessly arched into
her mouth? It was hard to keep track of what was happening.
"Molly," he murmured, his
voice harsh from lack of breath, "don't let me take advantage of
you."
She hummed again in answer, pulling his
hips firmly toward her to ram his full-length into her mouth. Her active tongue
caressed every surface at once. It had been too long since he'd done this; the
sensations were more than he could bear. When she sucked in powerfully, swallowing
against his crown, Sherlock had time only to utter a surprised Oh!
before his head went back and his toes curled tight and his seed burst forth to
pulse long and hotly down her throat.
Continued in
Part 14