Re: Prompt Fill 3 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 18:30:31 UTC
He was gone when she woke up, the only trace of him ever being there the coffee mug and the faint smell of him on the pillows.
The next time she saw him was two days later, at St. Barts.
He told her how he solved the poisoning case and asked for a liver from a forty to forty-five year old male.
He also complimented her on the couch as being quite comfortable. Molly only stammered a bemused “Thank you”, so certain she’d been that he’d never mention the incident again and that it would be the closest thing she’d ever get to having a one night stand with Sherlock.
His visits to her flat became more frequent after that, though she could not determine any pattern as he popped up at random days and unusual hours.
Sometimes they discussed a case, sometimes he just lay there on her couch.
The first time she caught him in her flat - either he picked her lock or he’d duplicated her key - she was honestly more surprised to see him in her kitchen, eating the left-over Chinese than by the invasion of her home.
Instead of being angry at the intrusion - she suspected that he’d been sneaking into her flat for weeks now - she was really just amused by seeing him stuff his face with fried rice and chicken.
She laughed - a real belly laugh - and Sherlock’s rather perplexed and annoyed face made her laugh even more. Later, when she’d calmed down, lying in her bed, with Sherlock on the couch - Toby had made it the habit of curling up at his feet and he seemed to tolerate it - it occurred to Molly that the laughter had probably been more hysteria than mirth.
Sherlock Holmes was slowly invading her personal space.
On the one hand, she resented it. This was her home and it was up to her to control who she let in and who not.
On the other hand, the strange friendship they were building was quite nice. Not because he was Sherlock and she still did like him in that way - a tiny part of her brain did tell her that proximity fostered opportunity - but because she actually enjoyed listening to him talk about cases. She was finally comfortable enough to interact with him as a competent scientist and he actually listened to her input and had followed her suggestions a few times.
Her home felt less empty with Sherlock around and she could not NOT like that.
But still, he did not have the right to just come and go as he pleased.
However, she did not say anything the next day. Or a few days later, when something arrived in the post for Sherlock. Or when a union jack pillow appeared on her couch. Or when she noticed she kept running out of coffee and tea and her left-overs kept being eaten. Or when Mycroft started sending her texts. Or when John started calling her to ask where Sherlock was.
It was when she found a spare set of clothes in her wardrobe -the underwear was the final straw -that she decided to confront him.
Re: Prompt Fill 4 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 18:37:08 UTC
Unfortunately, she was not sure if he was going to make an appearance that night - she sent a text with no reply - but she waited for him in the sitting room anyway.
He’d given up the courtesy of ringing the doorbell when he knew she was in. He simply opened the door with his key - he HAD duplicated one - and went straight for the couch.
His surprised look was comical - she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry. He clearly had not expected her to be sitting in the middle of the couch, his clothes lying neatly next to her.
“Why are you still up?” he asked and Molly never felt like slapping someone so hard as right at the moment.
“What is this, Sherlock?” she asked, pointing at the clothes.
He frowned, “Clothes.”
“Clothes,” she repeated, hearing a shrill in her voice.
“My clothes, to be precise,” he added.
“Your clothes,” she repeated again, definitely with a note of hysteria.
“It occurred to me that I should bring some of my personal things over, considering,” he elaborated.
Molly did not know how to react to that. She was very sure that if she did not take a minute to calm down, she’d have her very first screaming argument in her life.
She tried, she really did, but the first thing that came out of her mouth was, “Considering? Considering what, Sherlock? Considering what?”
The octave higher that her voice went was really alien to her, but Sherlock’s non-reaction was even worse.
“That I sleep here,” he answered, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t sleep here!”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I sleep on your couch.”
“Not every day!”
“I don’t sleep every day.”
Molly did not know what to say to that. She tried again.
“This is my flat, Sherlock.”
“Yes. I know.”
“You don’t live here.”
“Not officially, no.”
“Not officially?”
“I do spend all my free time here.”
“All you do is come here, drink my coffee, eat my food, play with my cat, talk for hours if you’re in the mood and then sleep on the couch with Toby!”
“I’ve also taken a few showers.”
It just occurred to Molly that Sherlock had been naked in her flat - of course behind closed doors - but still naked. And she’d been naked in the same space.
“You don’t live here!”
“You say that as if you don’t enjoy the company.”
“That is not the point.”
“So you do enjoy my company.”
She glared at him, “Don’t distract me, Sherlock.”
“Look Molly, I thought that living together was beneficial to both of us.”
“We are not living together.”
Of course Sherlock simply ignored her. “You get the benefit of my company. I get a place to sleep where it’s nice and quiet.”
Benefit of his company? What did he think she was? A desperate old spinster? “We don’t live together!” she really shouted this time.
Sherlock merely shrugged his shoulders, “Not officially, no. But isn’t that what friends do?”
“What?” It suddenly dawned on Molly that Sherlock wasn’t being deliberately obtuse.
“You know, stay at each other’s places?”
“No. That’s what people who are in a relationship do. And we are not staying at each other’s places. You are staying at mine.”
“Friendship isn’t a relationship?”
He couldn’t be serious, could he ? “Well, yes but…no…you have your own place.”
“Yes, but that’s for work.”
It was then that Molly realized that Sherlock was covered in dust. And there was a dark shadow on his cheek that looked like a bruise.
Re: Prompt Fill 5 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 18:50:03 UTC
“What happened to you?” she gestured towards the torn sleeve on his jacket, one she’d never seen before. The errant thought of ‘Thank god it’s not the coat’ popped into her head.
He looked down at himself, then back at Molly and grinned and then winced, touching his cheek, “Fight. Abandoned building. I won.”
“Good for you,” she said, distractedly, already assessing the visible injuries and thinking of what else might be hurt.
She told him to sit down on the couch and take off his jacket. She opened his shirt and saw a reddish mark near his collarbone. That would turn into a nasty bruise in the next few hours.
Using her hands, she inspected Sherlock for any other injuries. As gentle as she tried to be, he flinched when she ran her fingers over his ribcage.
“What hit you?” she asked.
“Roundhouse kick.”
“Were you fighting Chuck Norris?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Anyway, doesn’t look like anything’s broken but just to be sure we’ll get an X-ray later.”
“Go take a shower and I’ll make some tea.”
“John used to say that. Then he’d give me a lecture.”
“I’ll save my breath on the lecture. You’re going to ignore it anyway.” He grinned.
After his shower - he was wearing boxer shorts and a blue robe Molly had no idea of where it came from - he immediately settled himself on the couch. Molly had put the clothes back in her wardrobe as Toby had made a nest for himself with them. It seemed a shame to have such a beautiful suit covered in cat hair.
He took the tea and painkillers she offered and the ice packs. She sat down in the chair opposite him. Her chair.
They were quiet for a while. He'd closed his eyes. And if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Sherlock had drifted off to sleep.
Once again, Sherlock had distracted her from something really important. She made another attempt.
“Look, I understand that you miss John.”
“I don’t miss John. I see him nearly every day” was the instant reply. Too instant.
She looked at the supine figure, all elegant lines and angles, and bits of her heart ached for him. “Yes, but it’s not the same, is it?”
There was no response, but she didn’t think she’d get one. She really didn’t like the look of that bruise on his cheek and remembered that she meant to get something for that earlier.
When she came back, his eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling.
She stood over him, looking down, “Here, put this on your cheek.”
His focus shifted to her, “You do it.”
She knelt down in front and he tilted his face so she could have better access. She gently smoothed the salve over his cheek. She was really surprised that he was letting her do this.
She went over the conversation earlier.
“Look, it’s really not that I don’t enjoy your company…” she started, wondering why she was whispering. He was staring at her now and she'd forgotten how unnerving that could be. She leaned back, sitting down on her calves.
‘Don’t wuss out now, Molly’ a tiny voice in her head said.
“I just don’t know what this is…and I don’t want you to get any ideas…” she said to him, forcing herself to look into his eyes. They were just too intense for her own good.
“Rest assured that I have no interest in sex,” he said, “with anyone.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to Molly before, “I wasn’t thinking about sex.”
He raised an eyebrow, “Really? You have never thought about having sex with me?”
“Well…” Okay, maybe the thought had popped into her head once or twice.
“Not that I blame you,” he added, “It’s a very natural thing to do.”
Molly shook her head, “God, you’re bloody arrogant, aren’t you?”
“Look, I know that you are attracted to me…”
“You know what? I’ve never been so unattracted to you as right this moment.”
“I know you have a crush on me…and unnattracted is not a word.”
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Being around you for the past few years has cured me of that.”
“So you don’t like me in that way anymore? Because I have seen the way you look at me…”
“You’re impossible, Sherlock.”
Molly walked out of the room. The last thing she heard before closing her bedroom door was Toby’s meow and Sherlock’s “Not there, old chap.”
Re: Prompt Fill 6 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 18:56:05 UTC
That he’d still be there in the morning was unexpected. But there he was, sound asleep. She could tell the difference now. Toby greeted her by winding around her legs.
She took a shower, then quietly prepared Toby and herself some breakfast. She usually ate it in the sitting room, watching the morning news, but she didn’t want to wake Sherlock up, so sat at the tiny table in the kitchen, eating her porridge, staring out of the small window. It looked to be another gloomy November morning.
Lost in her thoughts planning her day - she had the afternoon shift but she needed to do some shopping, buy a gift for an aunt before that - she didn’t notice Sherlock in the room until he sat down opposite of her at the table. She shrieked at the surprise, which made Toby run out of the room in fright.
“Good morning,” Sherlock simply said.
“I hate out,” Molly muttered, putting a hand on her beating chest.
“You’re not the first one,” Sherlock replied.
Again, her heart twitched at the sad note in his voice - she was sure Sherlock was unaware of it - but she was still a bit miffed at him for several things so she ignored the first instinct of apologizing.
Instead, she stood up, placed her dishes in the sink, told Sherlock to be at St. Barts around three for the X-ray and finished getting ready for the day. When she left her flat to run her errands, Sherlock was back on the couch.
She kept thinking through that day that she should have a proper adult conversation with Sherlock about the situation they were in - the situation Sherlock had put her in - and she kept thinking that for weeks and weeks.
But somehow she never really got around to it. Not because Sherlock had decided to disappear - his presence at her flat remained the same - or because she was too afraid to confront him - because she wasn’t anymore. That wasn’t entirely true, of course. She hated the logical way Sherlock could turn an argument in his favor - the several attempts she’d made had the exact same conclusion of him saying something and her being distracted by the thought that they eventually ended up discussing something entirely different. This was how she ended up being in this mess to begin with.
In the end, Molly simply gave up and decided that whatever the situation was, she actually liked it. Why ruin a good thing?
That was after Mycroft had one night shown up at the hospital and had a ‘conversation’ with her. He had offered to ‘speak’ to Sherlock about ‘sleeping’ at her flat and explaining to him how ‘inappropriate’ it was.
Something about the way Mycroft spoke to her made Molly realize that she couldn’t be bothered by thoughts like that anymore.
She bought Sherlock a new pair of expensive leather gloves for his birthday. He’d lost his old ones a week before.
He put them on and a rather astonished “They fit perfectly,” came out of his mouth.
“Of course they do,” Molly simply replied, taking pleasure from Sherlock’s reaction.
“Thank you,” he said, low and slow and the way he was looking at Molly made her feel exactly like he did all this years ago when they’d first met.
Re: Prompt Fill 7 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 19:05:13 UTC
He took her to dinner on her birthday. He ordered a bottle of expensive champagne - of which he only had a glass and Molly had the rest.
By the end of the evening, Molly was quite certain that she was well and properly shit-faced and couldn’t care less.
When they got home, Molly insisted that they should eat some of the left-over birthday cake she had in the fridge. Never mind that she already had two desserts - she ended up eating Sherlock’s as well.
They were sitting on the couch - Sherlock’s couch as Molly referred to it now, him having truly and well claimed it - having coffee - espressos, Sherlock had insisted that she’d have at least two - and chocolate cake.
She was licking some fudge off her fingers, when a question occurred to her.
“Just satisfy my curiosity,” she said, looking over at Sherlock. Did he look alarmed? She could not tell.
“I just always…kind of…wanted to know…” she continued, wondering why Sherlock was getting nearer then realizing she was leaning towards him.
She put the plate with the cake down, afraid she was going to drop it. Or drop her face in it.
“Do you…have you…ever…” she concentrated on her thought and then yawned.
Distracted by this, she caught sight of the reflection of her sitting room in the windows and thought ‘Christ, there’s a lot of pink in here.’
Sherlock was holding her shoulders now and she looked up at him in surprise, having forgotten that he was there in the room, though thinking how stupid that was since she clearly could see him in the reflection.
“I think it’s time for bed,” he said and Molly remembered her thought.
Re: Prompt Fill 8 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 19:06:14 UTC
“I beg your pardon?”
The tone of his voice made Molly go over her last few words.
“There wasn’t a complete sentence, was there?” she asked. Sherlock simply glared at her.
She really wanted to kiss him right now.
“I meant to ask if you ever think about sex?”
“Sex,” stony look, no inflection in his voice.
Molly nodded, “Yes. Sex…ual intercourse sex.”
There was a minute or so of silence and she could actually hear the ticking of the watch she was wearing.
His brows furrowed, he finally said, “Listen, Molly…I think you are a reasonably attractive person but I’m simply not…”
“Don’t be disgusting, Sherlock! I don’t want to have sex with you!” she said, wondering why she was speaking so loudly.
“You don’t?”
“No. No. No no no no. No. Not like this. I know it’s my birthday but no…no…no no…no. But thank you.”
“What?”
“Hm?”
“Molly, you’re drunk.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“At least you’re a happy drunk.”
“The crying comes later.”
“I think it’s really time for bed now, Molly.”
“Okay.”
He helped her get up and guided her towards the bedroom. Seeing her bed, she giddily flopped down on it face down, kicking off the heels she noticed she was still wearing. She heard something crash but decided to ignore it. Her bed was just too soft and cozy and nice for her to care anymore. Besides, everything seemed to be spinning at the moment so she couldn’t really be bothered to move.
She felt Sherlock sit down next to her, his weight making the mattress shift and her roll over a bit.
“Here, take this,” she heard him say and cracked open an eye. He was holding a glass of something fizzy towards her.
“Eeeurrrgh…” was all she managed, unwilling to move. This was just too comfortable.
“It will keep you from feeling like death in the morning,” he said.
“I don’t care,” she mumbled.
"You will in the morning."
"I won’t care. I’m thirty six years old , Sherlock. I look inside dead people for a living. I live alone in a flat with a cat and a gay man and my ovaries are shriveling up and soon it will be too late to have any children. Not that I’m opposed to adoption. But who in their right mind would give someone who clearly does not have her life together a child? I mean, what kind of monsters would they be? Auntie Millicent was right. I will end up alone and old and they will find me dead in a chair with a half-knit scarf…and stacks of unrecycled newspapers…”
“I’m not gay.”
“I’m a spinster Sherlock! I might as well embrace spinsterhood and move into a cottage in the country far away from civilization so I won’t scare the children. Who said you’re gay?”
"You just did."
"You are a bit gay-ish."
"Gay-ish?"
"But that’s fine…it’s fine…it’s all fine. I mean, it’s a bit sexy."
"Sexy?"
"Sherlock, tell the room to stop spinning..."
When she woke up, it was three in the afternoon. She really hoped that her saying to Sherlock "You smell nice and your trousers are beautiful" had been a dream.
Re: Prompt Fill 8 /?
anonymous
December 5 2010, 22:19:53 UTC
I looooove it ! Please write more ! I don't know why but the part in which Molly says it will be too late for her having a child made me think that they could actually have a child together. Even if it's only "as friends".
Re: OP De-anoning.
anonymous
December 6 2010, 16:05:54 UTC
Hiya! Thank you thank you for liking this! :D There's a huge grin on my face right now...am still writing the rest of it and hopefully will be ready to post towards the end of the week - have a few things to work out mostly because I set out writing this with the one rule that Molly and Sherlock would not get romantic with each other but my shippy little heart can't help it!
Re: Prompt Fill 8 /?
anonymous
December 6 2010, 19:48:24 UTC
Okay, I slightly love this and will probably stalk it. Molly is fantastic and this just makes me want to hug her halfway to death. So yes, I blame you entirely. And I'm glad that you didn't have it just go into a bog standard romance... I started reading convinced that it would veer off in that direction, but hurray! I find this far more believable for the two of them. And I love the dialogue. Right then. I'll post this before I type any more nonsense.
Re: Prompt Fill 9 /?
anonymous
December 13 2010, 14:25:45 UTC
A/N: To all you who've posted a reply to my silly little fill, THANK YOU! :D I hope the next few installments are to your liking as well... ___
Sherlock’s only comment on her indiscretion was “Champagne has a curious effect on you”.
Perhaps leaving the next day for a one week holiday in Las Vegas saved her any further embarrassment. She seemed to remember reaching out to Sherlock and running her hand down his face, saying something about ‘It’s like fierce marble!’ - whatever that meant.
She left instructions with her neighbor for Toby - Sherlock had been surprisingly sweet, worrying about Toby’s welfare - and extremely detailed ones at St. Barts for Sherlock.
He’d had taken the news of her holiday very easily - save for the comment “You’ll have your mobile with you” and making her write down a day to day itinerary of places she was going to be. She tried to explain that Las Vegas wasn’t the sort of town for daily itineraries.
Of course, Las Vegas wasn’t really her idea of a holiday destination. Her recently divorced almost-forty year old cousin had begged Molly - bribed her with paying for her plane ticket - to go with her, saying something about their last hurrah. Molly had resisted - she really just wanted a quiet week in France, renting a small house near a vineyard and doing nothing but laze about - and the fact that her cousin had chosen her ‘Because you’re the only one who understands what it’s like to be single at our age!’ had her saying no until the very last minute.
It was during a bit of turbulence on their way to Las Vegas that Molly thought she really should get her life together at some point because she really wasn’t this pathetic, was she?
There were four messages on her phone when they landed.
One from Sherlock - “Rusher won’t do, please find someone else” - three from John, obviously following-up for Sherlock -
“Er…hi Molly, it’s John. Uhm, as you can probably tell, Sherlock’s having a bit of a tough time with Rusher. Erm, maybe there’s someone else who can work with him - Sherlock - while you’re away? Please call me.”
“Hi, it’s John again. Please speak to Rusher, he’s quite upset. Obviously Sherlock’s fault, but you know…please call me. Please.”
Re: Prompt Fill 10 /?
anonymous
December 13 2010, 14:35:03 UTC
When she finally got back, she stumbled towards her bedroom, thinking she needed another week to recover from the ordeal of spending a week with her cousin. Toby snuggled up to her, a welcome warmth, and she drifted off to sleep happy to be home.
She had this really vivid dream of a log falling down beside her and she woke up with a start but seeing that it was still dark out - or was it dark out again? - she went back to sleep.
She panicked for a second while waking up when she didn’t recognize the bed sheets. She thought that she was still in Las Vegas. But noticing Toby reassured her that this really was her bedroom and that she will never go back to Las Vegas ever again.
However, the bed sheets were definitely not hers and the other side of the bed looked definitely slept in.
It took her a few moments to make the connection but when it hit her, she laid there frozen, unable to really process it. He wouldn’t dare, would he?
She found him in the sitting room, freshly showered judging by his wet hair, wearing silk pyjamas and that robe - his choice of leisure wear. He was going through a police report, while eating a piece of toast.
Her, in hindsight silly, belief that Sherlock didn’t like food that much had been thoroughly shattered ages ago, as he seemed to be constantly snacking on things when around her.
“Have you been sleeping in my bed?” she croaked, her voice still rusty from sleep.
He didn’t even bother to look up, “You weren’t using it.”
She glared at his head, “It’s my bed.”
He simply turned the page on the report, made a note on the pad next to him, “It’s a very comfortable bed. More comfortable than the couch.”
She put her hands on her hips, still glaring “It’s my bed.”
Still not looking, “We’ve established that, yes.”
“Why?” she sounded surprisingly calm.
This time he did look up, “As I’ve said, you weren’t using it.”
“But it’s my bed!” a little more force in her tone.
He turned back to his notes, “It’s a very nice bed.”
Why had she expected a normal conversation with the man? Wasn’t she used to it by now?
“Are you…I…you…did you buy new sheets?” she finally managed, walking over to her chair.
“Yes! They’re great aren’t they? Bought burgundy and marine ones as well. They were on sale.” He looked genuinely excited by that.
“This is unacceptable, Sherlock…” she said, noticing a sock under the couch.
“What? Okay, yes, even at half price they were a bit expensive but consider it an investment.”
“I have perfectly serviceable bed sheets, thank you very much and I cannot possibly stress it enough - it’s my bed, Sherlock. My. Bed. Mine. Whose bed is it? Mine. If you want to sleep in a bed then sleep at your own place. You know your own place? 221b? Yeah. There’s a bed there, that’s yours. There’s a couch there too. My couch. My bed. My flat.”
“I like the ones with the cherry blossoms the best…”
Toby meowed and jumped into her lap.
She held him up in Sherlock’s direction, “My cat!”
Toby purred.
Sherlock cocked his head, “Did you have your hair cut?”
“Do not change the subject.”
“It suits you.”
She glared at him again, “Don’t.”
“It makes you look younger.”
She rolled her eyes, “I give up.”
Sherlock merely turned back to his notes.
Molly leaned her head back on the chair, stroking Toby, watching Sherlock through half closed eyes, thinking about the work waiting for her at the lab. Was it sad that she was glad to be back at work tomorrow?
“How much damage did you do with Rusher?” she asked after a while.
A frown line appeared between his brow, “John was exaggerating. He does that.”
“You called him a brain dead monkey, Sherlock.”
“He was being particularly stupid. Everyone knows that…”
“You know what? I don’t really want to know.”
“I don’t see why you have to go on holiday for so long.”
“It was one week, Sherlock. And I’m not your personal lackey. I have a private life.”
“You didn’t even want to go to Las Vegas.”
“Shut-up.”
“Things just go more smoothly when you’re around.”
“Anyone else and I would’ve taken that as a compliment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she said and got up. She needed coffee.
Re: Prompt Fill 11 /?
anonymous
December 13 2010, 14:43:37 UTC
Her kitchen, as usual after Sherlock’s been in it, was cluttered with things - bread slices, various spoons, butter, an open jam pot, a half-eaten yogurt, cereal, cups and mugs.
They had this discussion before but Molly was gradually coming around to the conviction that domestic talks with Sherlock were a lost cause. Any sort of normal flatmate discussions with Sherlock - maybe because he wasn’t really a flatmate in the conventional sense - didn’t do much really.
She was in the middle of throwing away the yogurt, when something triggered in her mind.
“What do you mean you like the cherry blossoms ones the best? How long have you been sleeping in my bed?” she confronted him, the yogurt still in her hand.
“A few months…I thought you knew. You never objected.”
“A few months?”
“Yes. When I put my back out after the Hyde Park chase...”
How had he been sleeping in her bed without her ever noticing?
“I only sleep in it when you have the day shift.”
Seriously, how had she never noticed?
“We tend to keep to our sides of the bed.”
“We have sides?”
“Yes. You clearly prefer the left.”
“I do?” She’d never thought about it.
“Which is fortunate because I prefer the right.”
“I thought you were okay with it…” he clearly looked surprised by her objections.
“That’s because I didn’t know…”
“It’s just a bed Molly…I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss about it. John and I have shared a bed and he never complained.”
Molly later asked John about that - “It was a bit weird at first and thankfully he does keep to his side most of the times but you’ll learn that giving up on the smaller battles saves you energy for the bigger ones.” And then he added “Don’t tell anyone about it.”
The next time she saw him was two days later, at St. Barts.
He told her how he solved the poisoning case and asked for a liver from a forty to forty-five year old male.
He also complimented her on the couch as being quite comfortable. Molly only stammered a bemused “Thank you”, so certain she’d been that he’d never mention the incident again and that it would be the closest thing she’d ever get to having a one night stand with Sherlock.
His visits to her flat became more frequent after that, though she could not determine any pattern as he popped up at random days and unusual hours.
Sometimes they discussed a case, sometimes he just lay there on her couch.
The first time she caught him in her flat - either he picked her lock or he’d duplicated her key - she was honestly more surprised to see him in her kitchen, eating the left-over Chinese than by the invasion of her home.
Instead of being angry at the intrusion - she suspected that he’d been sneaking into her flat for weeks now - she was really just amused by seeing him stuff his face with fried rice and chicken.
She laughed - a real belly laugh - and Sherlock’s rather perplexed and annoyed face made her laugh even more. Later, when she’d calmed down, lying in her bed, with Sherlock on the couch - Toby had made it the habit of curling up at his feet and he seemed to tolerate it - it occurred to Molly that the laughter had probably been more hysteria than mirth.
Sherlock Holmes was slowly invading her personal space.
On the one hand, she resented it. This was her home and it was up to her to control who she let in and who not.
On the other hand, the strange friendship they were building was quite nice. Not because he was Sherlock and she still did like him in that way - a tiny part of her brain did tell her that proximity fostered opportunity - but because she actually enjoyed listening to him talk about cases. She was finally comfortable enough to interact with him as a competent scientist and he actually listened to her input and had followed her suggestions a few times.
Her home felt less empty with Sherlock around and she could not NOT like that.
But still, he did not have the right to just come and go as he pleased.
However, she did not say anything the next day. Or a few days later, when something arrived in the post for Sherlock. Or when a union jack pillow appeared on her couch. Or when she noticed she kept running out of coffee and tea and her left-overs kept being eaten. Or when Mycroft started sending her texts. Or when John started calling her to ask where Sherlock was.
It was when she found a spare set of clothes in her wardrobe -the underwear was the final straw -that she decided to confront him.
Reply
He’d given up the courtesy of ringing the doorbell when he knew she was in. He simply opened the door with his key - he HAD duplicated one - and went straight for the couch.
His surprised look was comical - she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry. He clearly had not expected her to be sitting in the middle of the couch, his clothes lying neatly next to her.
“Why are you still up?” he asked and Molly never felt like slapping someone so hard as right at the moment.
“What is this, Sherlock?” she asked, pointing at the clothes.
He frowned, “Clothes.”
“Clothes,” she repeated, hearing a shrill in her voice.
“My clothes, to be precise,” he added.
“Your clothes,” she repeated again, definitely with a note of hysteria.
“It occurred to me that I should bring some of my personal things over, considering,” he elaborated.
Molly did not know how to react to that. She was very sure that if she did not take a minute to calm down, she’d have her very first screaming argument in her life.
She tried, she really did, but the first thing that came out of her mouth was, “Considering? Considering what, Sherlock? Considering what?”
The octave higher that her voice went was really alien to her, but Sherlock’s non-reaction was even worse.
“That I sleep here,” he answered, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t sleep here!”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I sleep on your couch.”
“Not every day!”
“I don’t sleep every day.”
Molly did not know what to say to that. She tried again.
“This is my flat, Sherlock.”
“Yes. I know.”
“You don’t live here.”
“Not officially, no.”
“Not officially?”
“I do spend all my free time here.”
“All you do is come here, drink my coffee, eat my food, play with my cat, talk for hours if you’re in the mood and then sleep on the couch with Toby!”
“I’ve also taken a few showers.”
It just occurred to Molly that Sherlock had been naked in her flat - of course behind closed doors - but still naked. And she’d been naked in the same space.
“You don’t live here!”
“You say that as if you don’t enjoy the company.”
“That is not the point.”
“So you do enjoy my company.”
She glared at him, “Don’t distract me, Sherlock.”
“Look Molly, I thought that living together was beneficial to both of us.”
“We are not living together.”
Of course Sherlock simply ignored her. “You get the benefit of my company. I get a place to sleep where it’s nice and quiet.”
Benefit of his company? What did he think she was? A desperate old spinster? “We don’t live together!” she really shouted this time.
Sherlock merely shrugged his shoulders, “Not officially, no. But isn’t that what friends do?”
“What?” It suddenly dawned on Molly that Sherlock wasn’t being deliberately obtuse.
“You know, stay at each other’s places?”
“No. That’s what people who are in a relationship do. And we are not staying at each other’s places. You are staying at mine.”
“Friendship isn’t a relationship?”
He couldn’t be serious, could he ? “Well, yes but…no…you have your own place.”
“Yes, but that’s for work.”
It was then that Molly realized that Sherlock was covered in dust. And there was a dark shadow on his cheek that looked like a bruise.
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He looked down at himself, then back at Molly and grinned and then winced, touching his cheek, “Fight. Abandoned building. I won.”
“Good for you,” she said, distractedly, already assessing the visible injuries and thinking of what else might be hurt.
She told him to sit down on the couch and take off his jacket. She opened his shirt and saw a reddish mark near his collarbone. That would turn into a nasty bruise in the next few hours.
Using her hands, she inspected Sherlock for any other injuries. As gentle as she tried to be, he flinched when she ran her fingers over his ribcage.
“What hit you?” she asked.
“Roundhouse kick.”
“Were you fighting Chuck Norris?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Anyway, doesn’t look like anything’s broken but just to be sure we’ll get an X-ray later.”
“Go take a shower and I’ll make some tea.”
“John used to say that. Then he’d give me a lecture.”
“I’ll save my breath on the lecture. You’re going to ignore it anyway.”
He grinned.
After his shower - he was wearing boxer shorts and a blue robe Molly had no idea of where it came from - he immediately settled himself on the couch. Molly had put the clothes back in her wardrobe as Toby had made a nest for himself with them. It seemed a shame to have such a beautiful suit covered in cat hair.
He took the tea and painkillers she offered and the ice packs. She sat down in the chair opposite him. Her chair.
They were quiet for a while. He'd closed his eyes. And if she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that Sherlock had drifted off to sleep.
Once again, Sherlock had distracted her from something really important. She made another attempt.
“Look, I understand that you miss John.”
“I don’t miss John. I see him nearly every day” was the instant reply. Too instant.
She looked at the supine figure, all elegant lines and angles, and bits of her heart ached for him. “Yes, but it’s not the same, is it?”
There was no response, but she didn’t think she’d get one. She really didn’t like the look of that bruise on his cheek and remembered that she meant to get something for that earlier.
When she came back, his eyes were open and he was staring at the ceiling.
She stood over him, looking down, “Here, put this on your cheek.”
His focus shifted to her, “You do it.”
She knelt down in front and he tilted his face so she could have better access. She gently smoothed the salve over his cheek. She was really surprised that he was letting her do this.
She went over the conversation earlier.
“Look, it’s really not that I don’t enjoy your company…” she started, wondering why she was whispering. He was staring at her now and she'd forgotten how unnerving that could be. She leaned back, sitting down on her calves.
‘Don’t wuss out now, Molly’ a tiny voice in her head said.
“I just don’t know what this is…and I don’t want you to get any ideas…” she said to him, forcing herself to look into his eyes. They were just too intense for her own good.
“Rest assured that I have no interest in sex,” he said, “with anyone.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to Molly before, “I wasn’t thinking about sex.”
He raised an eyebrow, “Really? You have never thought about having sex with me?”
“Well…” Okay, maybe the thought had popped into her head once or twice.
“Not that I blame you,” he added, “It’s a very natural thing to do.”
Molly shook her head, “God, you’re bloody arrogant, aren’t you?”
“Look, I know that you are attracted to me…”
“You know what? I’ve never been so unattracted to you as right this moment.”
“I know you have a crush on me…and unnattracted is not a word.”
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Being around you for the past few years has cured me of that.”
“So you don’t like me in that way anymore? Because I have seen the way you look at me…”
“You’re impossible, Sherlock.”
Molly walked out of the room. The last thing she heard before closing her bedroom door was Toby’s meow and Sherlock’s “Not there, old chap.”
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She took a shower, then quietly prepared Toby and herself some breakfast. She usually ate it in the sitting room, watching the morning news, but she didn’t want to wake Sherlock up, so sat at the tiny table in the kitchen, eating her porridge, staring out of the small window. It looked to be another gloomy November morning.
Lost in her thoughts planning her day - she had the afternoon shift but she needed to do some shopping, buy a gift for an aunt before that - she didn’t notice Sherlock in the room until he sat down opposite of her at the table. She shrieked at the surprise, which made Toby run out of the room in fright.
“Good morning,” Sherlock simply said.
“I hate out,” Molly muttered, putting a hand on her beating chest.
“You’re not the first one,” Sherlock replied.
Again, her heart twitched at the sad note in his voice - she was sure Sherlock was unaware of it - but she was still a bit miffed at him for several things so she ignored the first instinct of apologizing.
Instead, she stood up, placed her dishes in the sink, told Sherlock to be at St. Barts around three for the X-ray and finished getting ready for the day. When she left her flat to run her errands, Sherlock was back on the couch.
She kept thinking through that day that she should have a proper adult conversation with Sherlock about the situation they were in - the situation Sherlock had put her in - and she kept thinking that for weeks and weeks.
But somehow she never really got around to it. Not because Sherlock had decided to disappear - his presence at her flat remained the same - or because she was too afraid to confront him - because she wasn’t anymore. That wasn’t entirely true, of course. She hated the logical way Sherlock could turn an argument in his favor - the several attempts she’d made had the exact same conclusion of him saying something and her being distracted by the thought that they eventually ended up discussing something entirely different. This was how she ended up being in this mess to begin with.
In the end, Molly simply gave up and decided that whatever the situation was, she actually liked it. Why ruin a good thing?
That was after Mycroft had one night shown up at the hospital and had a ‘conversation’ with her. He had offered to ‘speak’ to Sherlock about ‘sleeping’ at her flat and explaining to him how ‘inappropriate’ it was.
Something about the way Mycroft spoke to her made Molly realize that she couldn’t be bothered by thoughts like that anymore.
She bought Sherlock a new pair of expensive leather gloves for his birthday. He’d lost his old ones a week before.
He put them on and a rather astonished “They fit perfectly,” came out of his mouth.
“Of course they do,” Molly simply replied, taking pleasure from Sherlock’s reaction.
“Thank you,” he said, low and slow and the way he was looking at Molly made her feel exactly like he did all this years ago when they’d first met.
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By the end of the evening, Molly was quite certain that she was well and properly shit-faced and couldn’t care less.
When they got home, Molly insisted that they should eat some of the left-over birthday cake she had in the fridge. Never mind that she already had two desserts - she ended up eating Sherlock’s as well.
They were sitting on the couch - Sherlock’s couch as Molly referred to it now, him having truly and well claimed it - having coffee - espressos, Sherlock had insisted that she’d have at least two - and chocolate cake.
She was licking some fudge off her fingers, when a question occurred to her.
“Just satisfy my curiosity,” she said, looking over at Sherlock. Did he look alarmed? She could not tell.
“I just always…kind of…wanted to know…” she continued, wondering why Sherlock was getting nearer then realizing she was leaning towards him.
She put the plate with the cake down, afraid she was going to drop it. Or drop her face in it.
“Do you…have you…ever…” she concentrated on her thought and then yawned.
Distracted by this, she caught sight of the reflection of her sitting room in the windows and thought ‘Christ, there’s a lot of pink in here.’
Sherlock was holding her shoulders now and she looked up at him in surprise, having forgotten that he was there in the room, though thinking how stupid that was since she clearly could see him in the reflection.
“I think it’s time for bed,” he said and Molly remembered her thought.
“Yes, bed!” she exclaimed, beaming at him. “Sex!”
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The tone of his voice made Molly go over her last few words.
“There wasn’t a complete sentence, was there?” she asked. Sherlock simply glared at her.
She really wanted to kiss him right now.
“I meant to ask if you ever think about sex?”
“Sex,” stony look, no inflection in his voice.
Molly nodded, “Yes. Sex…ual intercourse sex.”
There was a minute or so of silence and she could actually hear the ticking of the watch she was wearing.
His brows furrowed, he finally said, “Listen, Molly…I think you are a reasonably attractive person but I’m simply not…”
“Don’t be disgusting, Sherlock! I don’t want to have sex with you!” she said, wondering why she was speaking so loudly.
“You don’t?”
“No. No. No no no no. No. Not like this. I know it’s my birthday but no…no…no no…no. But thank you.”
“What?”
“Hm?”
“Molly, you’re drunk.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“At least you’re a happy drunk.”
“The crying comes later.”
“I think it’s really time for bed now, Molly.”
“Okay.”
He helped her get up and guided her towards the bedroom. Seeing her bed, she giddily flopped down on it face down, kicking off the heels she noticed she was still wearing. She heard something crash but decided to ignore it. Her bed was just too soft and cozy and nice for her to care anymore. Besides, everything seemed to be spinning at the moment so she couldn’t really be bothered to move.
She felt Sherlock sit down next to her, his weight making the mattress shift and her roll over a bit.
“Here, take this,” she heard him say and cracked open an eye. He was holding a glass of something fizzy towards her.
“Eeeurrrgh…” was all she managed, unwilling to move. This was just too comfortable.
“It will keep you from feeling like death in the morning,” he said.
“I don’t care,” she mumbled.
"You will in the morning."
"I won’t care. I’m thirty six years old , Sherlock. I look inside dead people for a living. I live alone in a flat with a cat and a gay man and my ovaries are shriveling up and soon it will be too late to have any children. Not that I’m opposed to adoption. But who in their right mind would give someone who clearly does not have her life together a child? I mean, what kind of monsters would they be? Auntie Millicent was right. I will end up alone and old and they will find me dead in a chair with a half-knit scarf…and stacks of unrecycled newspapers…”
“I’m not gay.”
“I’m a spinster Sherlock! I might as well embrace spinsterhood and move into a cottage in the country far away from civilization so I won’t scare the children. Who said you’re gay?”
"You just did."
"You are a bit gay-ish."
"Gay-ish?"
"But that’s fine…it’s fine…it’s all fine. I mean, it’s a bit sexy."
"Sexy?"
"Sherlock, tell the room to stop spinning..."
When she woke up, it was three in the afternoon. She really hoped that her saying to Sherlock "You smell nice and your trousers are beautiful" had been a dream.
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I don't know why but the part in which Molly says it will be too late for her having a child made me think that they could actually have a child together. Even if it's only "as friends".
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Mycroft says: leiblichen thermer...really Mycroft, German?
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Molly is fantastic and this just makes me want to hug her halfway to death. So yes, I blame you entirely.
And I'm glad that you didn't have it just go into a bog standard romance... I started reading convinced that it would veer off in that direction, but hurray! I find this far more believable for the two of them. And I love the dialogue.
Right then. I'll post this before I type any more nonsense.
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___
Sherlock’s only comment on her indiscretion was “Champagne has a curious effect on you”.
Perhaps leaving the next day for a one week holiday in Las Vegas saved her any further embarrassment. She seemed to remember reaching out to Sherlock and running her hand down his face, saying something about ‘It’s like fierce marble!’ - whatever that meant.
She left instructions with her neighbor for Toby - Sherlock had been surprisingly sweet, worrying about Toby’s welfare - and extremely detailed ones at St. Barts for Sherlock.
He’d had taken the news of her holiday very easily - save for the comment “You’ll have your mobile with you” and making her write down a day to day itinerary of places she was going to be. She tried to explain that Las Vegas wasn’t the sort of town for daily itineraries.
Of course, Las Vegas wasn’t really her idea of a holiday destination. Her recently divorced almost-forty year old cousin had begged Molly - bribed her with paying for her plane ticket - to go with her, saying something about their last hurrah. Molly had resisted - she really just wanted a quiet week in France, renting a small house near a vineyard and doing nothing but laze about - and the fact that her cousin had chosen her ‘Because you’re the only one who understands what it’s like to be single at our age!’ had her saying no until the very last minute.
It was during a bit of turbulence on their way to Las Vegas that Molly thought she really should get her life together at some point because she really wasn’t this pathetic, was she?
There were four messages on her phone when they landed.
One from Sherlock - “Rusher won’t do, please find someone else” - three from John, obviously following-up for Sherlock -
“Er…hi Molly, it’s John. Uhm, as you can probably tell, Sherlock’s having a bit of a tough time with Rusher. Erm, maybe there’s someone else who can work with him - Sherlock - while you’re away? Please call me.”
“Hi, it’s John again. Please speak to Rusher, he’s quite upset. Obviously Sherlock’s fault, but you know…please call me. Please.”
“Where do you keep the chocolate? Please text.”
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She had this really vivid dream of a log falling down beside her and she woke up with a start but seeing that it was still dark out - or was it dark out again? - she went back to sleep.
She panicked for a second while waking up when she didn’t recognize the bed sheets. She thought that she was still in Las Vegas. But noticing Toby reassured her that this really was her bedroom and that she will never go back to Las Vegas ever again.
However, the bed sheets were definitely not hers and the other side of the bed looked definitely slept in.
It took her a few moments to make the connection but when it hit her, she laid there frozen, unable to really process it. He wouldn’t dare, would he?
She found him in the sitting room, freshly showered judging by his wet hair, wearing silk pyjamas and that robe - his choice of leisure wear. He was going through a police report, while eating a piece of toast.
Her, in hindsight silly, belief that Sherlock didn’t like food that much had been thoroughly shattered ages ago, as he seemed to be constantly snacking on things when around her.
“Have you been sleeping in my bed?” she croaked, her voice still rusty from sleep.
He didn’t even bother to look up, “You weren’t using it.”
She glared at his head, “It’s my bed.”
He simply turned the page on the report, made a note on the pad next to him, “It’s a very comfortable bed. More comfortable than the couch.”
She put her hands on her hips, still glaring “It’s my bed.”
Still not looking, “We’ve established that, yes.”
“Why?” she sounded surprisingly calm.
This time he did look up, “As I’ve said, you weren’t using it.”
“But it’s my bed!” a little more force in her tone.
He turned back to his notes, “It’s a very nice bed.”
Why had she expected a normal conversation with the man? Wasn’t she used to it by now?
“Are you…I…you…did you buy new sheets?” she finally managed, walking over to her chair.
“Yes! They’re great aren’t they? Bought burgundy and marine ones as well. They were on sale.” He looked genuinely excited by that.
“This is unacceptable, Sherlock…” she said, noticing a sock under the couch.
“What? Okay, yes, even at half price they were a bit expensive but consider it an investment.”
“I have perfectly serviceable bed sheets, thank you very much and I cannot possibly stress it enough - it’s my bed, Sherlock. My. Bed. Mine. Whose bed is it? Mine. If you want to sleep in a bed then sleep at your own place. You know your own place? 221b? Yeah. There’s a bed there, that’s yours. There’s a couch there too. My couch. My bed. My flat.”
“I like the ones with the cherry blossoms the best…”
Toby meowed and jumped into her lap.
She held him up in Sherlock’s direction, “My cat!”
Toby purred.
Sherlock cocked his head, “Did you have your hair cut?”
“Do not change the subject.”
“It suits you.”
She glared at him again, “Don’t.”
“It makes you look younger.”
She rolled her eyes, “I give up.”
Sherlock merely turned back to his notes.
Molly leaned her head back on the chair, stroking Toby, watching Sherlock through half closed eyes, thinking about the work waiting for her at the lab. Was it sad that she was glad to be back at work tomorrow?
“How much damage did you do with Rusher?” she asked after a while.
A frown line appeared between his brow, “John was exaggerating. He does that.”
“You called him a brain dead monkey, Sherlock.”
“He was being particularly stupid. Everyone knows that…”
“You know what? I don’t really want to know.”
“I don’t see why you have to go on holiday for so long.”
“It was one week, Sherlock. And I’m not your personal lackey. I have a private life.”
“You didn’t even want to go to Las Vegas.”
“Shut-up.”
“Things just go more smoothly when you’re around.”
“Anyone else and I would’ve taken that as a compliment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she said and got up. She needed coffee.
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They had this discussion before but Molly was gradually coming around to the conviction that domestic talks with Sherlock were a lost cause. Any sort of normal flatmate discussions with Sherlock - maybe because he wasn’t really a flatmate in the conventional sense - didn’t do much really.
She was in the middle of throwing away the yogurt, when something triggered in her mind.
“What do you mean you like the cherry blossoms ones the best? How long have you been sleeping in my bed?” she confronted him, the yogurt still in her hand.
“A few months…I thought you knew. You never objected.”
“A few months?”
“Yes. When I put my back out after the Hyde Park chase...”
How had he been sleeping in her bed without her ever noticing?
“I only sleep in it when you have the day shift.”
Seriously, how had she never noticed?
“We tend to keep to our sides of the bed.”
“We have sides?”
“Yes. You clearly prefer the left.”
“I do?” She’d never thought about it.
“Which is fortunate because I prefer the right.”
“I thought you were okay with it…” he clearly looked surprised by her objections.
“That’s because I didn’t know…”
“It’s just a bed Molly…I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss about it. John and I have shared a bed and he never complained.”
Molly later asked John about that - “It was a bit weird at first and thankfully he does keep to his side most of the times but you’ll learn that giving up on the smaller battles saves you energy for the bigger ones.” And then he added “Don’t tell anyone about it.”
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