Black. Two sugars.
Note: My story for this year’s Asexy April. It’s a mash-up of five different asexy kink meme prompts I’ve saved over the course of the two years I’ve been in fandom. Due to time the fic isn't betaed yet, but I'm working on it.
Some conversations are lifted straight from canon with the help of arianedevere’s wonderful transcripts.
Summary: Everyone seemed to assume that Molly was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and it was so much easier to go along with it than to correct people.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Black, please. Two sugars.”
Everyone seemed to assume that Molly was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and it was so much easier to go along with it than to correct people. It was easy to fake a crush on Sherlock, he had a certain aesthetic beauty and for reasons she didn’t quite understand she found herself looking at him without really thinking about it. Sometimes it made her sad that she actually didn’t have a crush on him, because that would have been the easiest thing of all.
Molly was in the bathroom, trying to put on make-up and get her hair in order. Sherlock was coming in to check on some results today. He was caseless and had been to Barts almost every day this week, making her spend more time in front of the mirror in the mornings than she normally did.
Crush or not, she still wished he saw her for something other than a walking access card to the morgue. Because Sherlock Holmes was brilliant, and nobody could say otherwise. He was a rude and obnoxious prick, but still so brilliant and no one like that had ever even pretended to notice Molly before.
She had asked him out for coffee once. She hadn’t expected him to accept, because he was Sherlock Holmes and she was just Molly Hooper after all. Still she’d asked, and hoped, and stumbled over her words. Her awkwardness was real, and so were her coffee invitations. Her lipstick, on the other hand, wasn’t.
Molly gave herself a scrutinising look, making sure there was no mascara where it wasn’t supposed to be, and left for work.
-x-
“Don’t let him use you like that,” DI Lestrade told her when Sherlock left in a hurry after looking at a hit-and-run victim.
“Don’t worry,” Molly said with nervous giggle. “It’s mutual.”
And it really was. Or perhaps she was using Sherlock more than he was using her. At least she knew she was being used while Sherlock seemed oblivious to the fact that she used him to ward off inquiries about her non-existing love life.
-x-
Molly stood in the doorway, watching Sherlock pipetting, washing his cell cultures. She wasn’t sure what he was actually doing, but she was amazed by his concentration. And his hands. She was amazed by his hands. They were beautiful hands, and she liked to watch them pipetting. Sherlock Holmes had truly beautiful hands and she didn’t have to pretend to think that.
“Did you need anything, Molly?”
Molly jumped. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think you knew I was here.”
“The stalker thing doesn’t quite work for you,” Sherlock said, actually taking the time to look up at her with a frown. “You’re terrible at it.”
“I just wondered if you, perhaps, wanted coffee.” It wasn’t true, but it had somewhat become her default inquiry.
Sherlock stopped what he was doing, wrote down something in his notebook, and put down the pipet. Then he met her eyes, looking insecure. Or, Sherlock’s version of it. She had never seen him look like this before.
“Molly, I….” Sherlock hesitated, probably the first time she had seen him do that as well. “I think you know that I consider myself more or less married to my work, and I’m rather satisfied with the professional relationship we have right now. I’m not looking to change that. If you find it uncomfortable working with me under these circumstances I can make other arrangements.”
“Oh, no.” Molly blushed, taken completely off guard by the speech. “I was just asking if you wanted coffee.”
“Oh.” Sherlock looked surprised, but suddenly much more confident. “Black, two sugars. Please.”
“Oh, okay,” Molly said, almost telling him that she knew perfectly well how he wanted his coffee by now. Instead she just left for the cafeteria, realising that her ruse was probably working better than she had imagined. It seemed like even the brilliant Sherlock Holmes thought she had a crush on him.
-x-
The man who had accompanied Sherlock to the morgue gave Molly a half-apologetic, half-embarrassed smile when Sherlock - without as much as a ‘thank you’ - started to examine the body she had pulled out for him.
“Molly, right?” he asked, holding out his hand. “John Watson.”
“Molly Hooper, yes,” she said, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you. You were in with Mike the other day?”
“Yeah, we were at uni together. He was showing me around,” John said. “Sorry about Sherlock, he’s....”
“Don’t worry.” Molly felt herself blushing. “I’ve known him for years, I know how he’s like. Are you and Sherlock a…?” She waved her hand, trying to find a proper word to end the question with.
“Couple?” John helped her. “No. Not at all, no. We just share a flat.”
“I can hear you,” Sherlock said, without looking up from the dead woman’s fingernails. “Though I wish I didn’t.”
Molly and John exchanged a look and a smile.
“And, just for the record,” John said in a stage whisper. “I don’t think your mouth looks too small without lipstick. I think it looks lovely.”
“Oh… Eh…” Molly hid her mouth behind her hand, blushing even more. “Thank you?”
Sherlock sighed loudly. “John, if you’re done proving your heterosexuality now, could you please come here and assist me?”
Molly and John exchanged another look, and John walked over to look at whatever Sherlock wanted him to examine. Molly stood back, watching them work together and bicker quietly about something she couldn’t hear. She realised something: John was stealing her pretend-boyfriend.
It was completely ridiculous, but she suddenly felt very jealous.
-x-
Do you like coffee?
Jim 26 March 00:32
“Black. Two sugars, please,” Molly said out loud to the computer. She laughed at how silly she was before answering yes. She knew where Jim from IT was going with this and if there was one thing she didn’t need this soon after losing her pretend-boyfriend then it was getting hit on by a stranger. Coffee was nice though and so was company, the nightshifts got very lonely. She picked up her pager and left the morgue.
The cafeteria was empty aside from Jim and two night nurses who looked tired to the point of exhaustion. Molly felt sad for them, knowing that they had just started their shift an hour ago, but having someone else than Jim there made it feel so much safer to meet up with him.
“M-Molly?” Jim said, getting up from his table, waving shyly, when he spotted her in the doorway. She smiled at him and waved back as she made her way to his table.
“Jim from IT, I presume,” she said.
“Yes.” Jim nodded, reflecting her insecure smile. “Thank you for, ehm, coming. I’m- I’m glad you came.”
“Well, you can’t get enough coffee on the nightshift,” Molly said, but realising how it sounded she blushed. “I- I mean, it’s so nice of you to ask, because you really need a lot of coffee during the nights and, ehm, it’s nice to have someone to drink it with.”
Jim looked confused and insecure at the same time, but pointed in the direction of the coffee counter. “Should I get the coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Molly said, hoping he didn’t regret inviting her. “Milk, no sugar.”
“Yes, you don’t need any sugar, you’re already sweet enough,” Jim said, smiling, just as he turned to get the coffee.
Molly felt herself blushing even more and getting uncomfortable at the same time. Not many people called her sweet, but when the person who did it was a man she had just allowed to buy her coffee it became a lot of unwanted attention.
“Oh, it’s just coffee,” she muttered to herself and sat down at the table. Even if Jim had hidden agenda this step was just coffee. There was no reason to be paranoid.
Really.
-x-
It was silly, but in her head she called Jim “substitute-Sherlock”. He was cute, outright adorable, actually. She didn’t understand why he kept asking her out, but perhaps he needed a beard, because even Molly figured out that he was gay during that first nightshift coffee. That was why she kept saying yes when he asked her out. It felt safe. Jim felt safe. He would never come on to her, never expect or want anything from her. He hardly even touched her.
“Who’s that?” Jim said, pointing at the telly.
“Finn Hudson, he’s with Quinn,” Molly explained, smiling at Jim’s enthusiastic attempts to get into Glee.
“Do we like him?”
“Yes, but not her.”
Jim nodded and offered her the bowl of popcorn over the sleeping cat between them. Molly took the popcorn, smiling as Jim asked another question and then answered it himself. This was actually really nice. Watching Jim’s profile Molly realised that it wouldn’t be half-bad to live with someone who wouldn’t make sexual advantages at her. It was nice to not watching telly alone.
Perhaps Jim would turn out better than Sherlock could ever do.
-x-
“So you’re Sherlock Holmes,” Jim said, as Molly nervously watched Sherlock’s reaction. “Molly’s told me all about you. You on one of your cases?”
“Jim works in IT upstairs,” she explained. “That’s how we met. Office romance.”
They look at each other, Molly and Jim, and giggle. ‘Office’ was hardly the word for the hospital, not that ‘romance’ suited either, but they had joked about it a lot.
Sherlock gave Jim one look and then muttered: “Gay.”
“Sorry, what?” Molly’s heart sank. How stupid she must be for thinking that Sherlock wouldn’t notice when she had figured it out.
“Nothing,” Sherlock said hastily, but Molly knew exactly what he had said and she narrowed her eyes as Sherlock tried to brush off his so-not-accidental tongue slip with a greeting. Then she watched in horror how Jim giggled and made a fool out of himself before leaving Sherlock alone.
“Well, I’d better be off. I’ll see you at the Fox, about six-ish?” Jim said to her, not seeming at all as disturbed by this short scene as she was.
“Yeah,” she said quickly, smiling before Jim put his hand on her back. She panicked at the sudden, unexpected touch in the middle of this disaster and she had to force herself to not move away from Jim. It was just Jim, she tried to remind herself. It was just Jim and it was fine.
“Bye,” Jim said.
“Bye,” Molly answered him weakly.
“It was nice to meet you,” Jim added in Sherlock’s direction.
A terrible insight struck Molly: Jim was hitting on Sherlock. Luckily Sherlock didn’t seem to respond and John managed to break the silence, because Molly’s brain had short-circuited. It wasn’t until Jim had left, taking his hand of her back, that she regained control.
“What do you mean ‘gay’?” she asked Sherlock. “We’re together.”
Sherlock gave her look. “And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You’ve put on three pounds since I last saw you.”
“Two and a half.”
“No, three.”
“He’s not gay!” Molly said, angrily. “Why do you have to spoil ...? He’s not.”
She knew the battle was lost even before Sherlock started listing all the details, all his proof, about Jim being gay. The final straw was Jim actually leaving his number to Sherlock, because then it was actually no point in denying it anymore. For a moment she felt like the most pathetic fool in the world: her pretend-boyfriend was hitting on her pretend-crush in front of both her and the pretend-crush’s straight-boyfriend.
She left without a word before she’d manage to make the situation even more embarrassing.
-x-
The break-up, if you could call it that, had gone smoother than Molly had expected it to. Even without any first-hand experience of ending relationships, she had imagined it to be at least a little bit of drama. Jim had just apologised and they had decided to remain friends, he had even borrowed the next season of Glee.
That, however, didn’t stop Molly from throwing a pen at Sherlock the next time he stopped by.
“Why did you say that Jim’s gay?” Molly asked, angrily.
Sherlock, who had managed to catch the pen, looked confused. “Because he his.”
“I know, that’s what made him perfect! But after you said it in front of John I can’t go on pretending I don’t know. I’m looking pathetic enough pining after you!”
“Molly?” Sherlock kept looking at her as if she was actually going crazy.
“Never mind,” she muttered, rubbing her face and taking a deep breath. “What do you want this time?”
“The floater found at Southwark Bridge.”
“Obviously,” Molly said with a frown, because obviously Sherlock wanted to look at the most disgusting corpse she had ever seen. “She’s in number 4, help yourself. I’m going to get a coffee.”
“Black, two sugars,” Sherlock answered automatically as he walked over to the right fridge.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Molly said, closing the door a little harder than necessary on her way out. She wasn’t quite sure why, but that had felt more like a break up.
-x-
I’m sorry, Molly. I should have known.
The card lay on top of a small, carefully wrapped box. Molly recognised his handwriting. It was elegant and neat, it actually looked a lot like Sherlock Holmes himself.
She didn’t understand the note and it didn’t make any more sense when she turned it around.
You’re not alone.
Curious to what he was getting at she put away the note and opened the present instead. It was a small jewellery box, it was a… a ring box. She stared at it, was… was Sherlock proposing? She looked at the note again before she dared opening the box. It was a smooth, black ring inside. Clearly not an engagement ring. It was still a very odd gift, but every gift from Sherlock could probably be considered odd.
She looked at the note for a third time just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, but there was nothing else on it. Just that he should have known and that she wasn’t alone. Known what? Alone with what? She took out the ring and tried it on, half expecting to become invisible. Obviously, nothing happened.
It was too big for her ring fingers, but fitted very well on her right, middle finger. It felt like an odd finger to have a ring, but the possibility that Sherlock had got her ring size wrong seemed unlikely. Which was disturbing enough.
She took off the ring and examined it carefully without finding any more clues as to what had made Sherlock give it to her. Perhaps she should put it under a microscope. Or throw it into a fire and see if elfish letters would appear. Molly looked at her computer, she was no consulting detective but maybe she would be able to google a solution. It wasn’t like she was terribly busy with work at the moment anyway….
After trying search words like Black ring ,Black ring meaning and Black ring symbolism she typed what seemed to be a ridiculous phrase: Black ring right middle finger.
The first hit was a forum where someone had asked just what a black ring on the right middle finger meant. The reply was fairly simple: It’s a symbol of asexuality. and a link to a site the poster said had more information.
After looking around, making sure that no one was there to see her, Molly clicked on the link. It didn’t take long before she realised that Sherlock was right: she was far from alone.
-x-
Molly sat at her kitchen table, looking at her right hand and the ring Sherlock had given her. It looked - and felt - very strange. She felt ringed, like a bird or something. A symbol of asexuality. She couldn’t possibly see the point of publically displaying her sexuality like that. Marked like a leper, warning other people off. Not that she thought that many people knew about a symbol representing a sexuality no one had ever heard of. Instead it would lead to questions and she would have to explain it, possibly defend it. She had stopped doing that a long time ago. That’s what she used Sherlock and Jim for: human shields that would save her from exactly the kinds of questions that this ring would generate.
With a sigh Molly took off the ring. It was a nice gesture - one so nice that she had trouble believing Sherlock was behind it - but she wasn’t ready to answer all those questions again. She wasn’t comfortable displaying that part of herself to the world.
She put the ring back in its box and decided to forget about it.
-x-
Two days later Molly went to see what Sherlock was doing in the lab he had somehow managed to copy the keys to. She played with the idea of scolding him, but knew all too well that she would just make sure he didn’t break anything and then offer him coffee.
“Hello,” she said, noticing that John also was there. “Is-“
The rest got stuck in her throat in surprise. She stared at Sherlock’s right hand as he adjusted the height of the microscope. There, on Sherlock’s middle finger, was a smooth, black ring. She knew for sure that it had never been there before because she knew almost everything there was to know about Sherlock’s hands.
John looked at her funny, but Sherlock didn’t even seem to notice that she was there.
“John, I left my phone in the morgue,” he said without looking up.
“So?”
“Get it. I need it.”
“Now?”
“No, obviously not.”
John rolled his eyes, giving Molly an apologetic smile as he left to fetch the mobile phone. He always smiled like that when he left her alone with Sherlock, she had never figured out why.
“Was it the wrong size?” Sherlock asked, still not looking up from the microscope, as soon as the door had closed behind John.
“What?”
“The ring. Was it the wrong size, is that why you don’t wear it?”
“Ehm... no, I, it’s…” Molly kept staring at Sherlock’s ring. “You have one.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, taking his hand off the microscope to look at the ring. “I don’t wear it because it interferes with work and, quite frankly, I don’t need it anymore.”
“Why do you… now, I mean….”
“Because someone else needs to know that she’s not alone.” Sherlock met her eyes.
“But you are…?”
“Yes.” Sherlock nodded. “I’m asexual.”
Molly stared at him. The information needed a moment to sink in: Sherlock Holmes, the person she had pretended to have a crush on for years, was asexual as well. She remembered the speech he’d given her about being married to his work and how rehearsed it had sounded. Did he use his work the same way she had used him and Jim? Molly suddenly felt very guilty for doing that to him.
“How did you know I was?” Molly asked.
“Moriarty.”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend, Jim from IT.”
“What about him?”
Sherlock studied her for a moment. “When he put his hand on your back you became tense and uncomfortable, you tried to convince me I was wrong - which you’ve never done before, making this lie more important than your others, and you claimed that he being gay was what made him ‘perfect’ - a rather odd thing to make someone ‘perfect’ in a usual heterosexual relationship. I assume you based this on the fact that he wouldn’t poses a sexual threat to you. Much like I wouldn’t.”
Molly smiled. “Something like that, yes.”
“Is there a reason you don’t wear the ring?”
She looked at her right hand, where the ring was supposed to be, and then back up at Sherlock’s, before meeting his eyes. She felt like telling him to mind his own business, but there he was, probably the only person in her world that would understand what she was talking about.
“I’m tired of the discussions,” she said, sighing once. “I’m tired of people telling me to get laid, or finding the right man, or insisting that I’m closeted. I’m just over trying to educate people.”
Something brightened in Sherlock’s eyes, and he nodded as if he understood. “Would you like to have coffee?”
“Black. Two sugar,” Molly answered automatically.
Sherlock looked confused. “I thought you took milk, no sugar.”
“I- I do.” Molly smiled embarrassed. “I just… I…. That’s what you always say when I ask.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“I thought it was because you didn’t think I was worth your time.”
“That is partly the reason, but far from the most important one,” Sherlock admitted, standing up. “So, coffee?”
“But… isn’t John coming back?”
Sherlock frowned. “Hm, I forgot about him.”
“I can fetch us some? We can drink it here.”
Sherlock nodded.
“And Molly,” Sherlock said just as she opened the door to leave for the cafeteria. “If you feel that you still need to… I wouldn’t object to continue to be the focus of your acted interest.”
“Sherlock Holmes, are you giving me the permission to court you?” Molly laughed.
“If you want to call it that, yes.”
Molly let the door slip close. “You wouldn’t be… uncomfortable with that?”
“No.” Sherlock shook his head. “I won’t deny that your interest bothered me before, but as it is now it won’t. Not to mention that it’s probably the least I can do after getting rid of your ‘perfect’ boyfriend.”
Molly stared at him. Never in her life could she have imagined having this conversation with Sherlock and she wasn’t completely sure that it was actually real. She looked at Sherlock’s ring again, deciding that this was really happening. It made her smile.
“I’ll get the coffee, then,” she mumbled.
“Black. Two sugar,” Sherlock said, turning his attention back to the microscope.
Molly shook her head, still smiling as she left him alone in the lab. Perhaps it was an illusion after all.
-x-
The first thing Molly did when she came home was to put on the ring. She looked at it for a long time, it still felt strange, but she decided to keep it on.
Sherlock kept wearing his for three weeks before taking it off. He never commented on Molly wearing hers, but once she saw him looking at it, smiling.
-x-
It was a long time since she’d had a reason to get dressed up. She hadn’t even bothered with the extra make-up since Sherlock had outed Jim and she had started to wear the black ring. Even with Sherlock’s generous offer it felt strange pursuing the fake-crush when he knew about it. What everyone else was concerned she was still in love with Sherlock Holmes, but the act just felt strange in front of him.
The invitation to a Christmas party at Baker Street came at a good time. She was on call for the entire Christmas holiday and, even though she had volunteered to help colleagues with children, it felt ridiculously depressing knowing that she was metaphorically tied to a morgue the entire holiday. Not to mention that it made it impossible for her to visit her parents. So John’s timing was perfect; she needed a reason to dress up and feel pretty.
She took a long shower, shaved her legs and painted her toenails, not because anyone would see any of it but she enjoyed the knowledge of having red toenails and the feeling of shaved legs. After giving it some thought she painted her fingernails as well, even though she knew she shouldn’t since there was a risk she’d have to go back to the hospital.
Going through her closet - she never had anything to wear - she decided to put on the black dress with rhinestones that she’d worn last New Year’s and the bracelet that went with it. She looked at herself in the mirror, smiling when she pinned back her hair and decided that she liked how she looked. She picked out a couple of sparkly earing that she had bought but never used. Then on a whim she picked up the leftover present bow from when she had wrapped the Christmas presents, putting it in her hair. That… almost worked. Molly shook her head, but left the bow because it was more fun that way and she felt like she needed fun.
She carefully packed up all the Christmas presents: a book about medieval architecture for Greg, a polka dot scarf for Mrs Hudson, a pair of home knitted mittens for John, and finally a framed slide of a human brain for Sherlock. She was quite happy with Sherlock’s gift. It had been really hard finding one, not only for the obvious what-to-you-even-get-to-a-condescending-git reasons but also because she really wanted to thank him for what he had done for her this year.
As Molly placed Sherlock’s present at the top of the bag she caught a glimpse of her black ring. She smiled, realising that the brain slide wasn’t enough, but at least she didn’t think he’d snort at it and toss aside like the tie she’d given him for his birthday.
-x-
Molly toed off her shoes on her way to the bed and fell face-first down on the pillow. She stayed like that, fully clothed and suffocating herself, for a long time. Of course Sherlock still found a way to ruin everything. Perhaps it hadn’t been completely his fault this time, but he had been the natural centre of all the chaos. On-call or not, writing a post-mortem on a woman - the Irene Adler, as Sherlock had identified her as - with her face smashed, overseen by Mycroft-bloody-Holmes, hadn’t exactly been what she’d planned to do on her Christmas morning.
Something warm gently buffed her arm.
“Toby.” She looked up with a tired smile, scratching her cat between the ears. “Merry Christmas.”
She got a purr in return as Toby decided to lean his entire body against her face. Molly laughed and pushed him aside to sit up. The rejection didn’t stop the cat who jumped up in her lap and started purring again.
“I’ve missed you too.”
She sighed, stroking the tabby cat who seemed more than happy to just lay there and purr. Molly was tired and all she really wanted was to shower and then sleep for a week. But she had another feeling as well: a strange, almost betrayed, feeling, created by the fact that Sherlock had recognised the woman’s naked body. Sherlock Holmes shouldn’t notice women’s bodies like that, he shouldn’t know how a professional dominatrix looked without her clothes on.
It was ridiculous to feel abandoned and lonely because a person she’d never met had died and her friend was grieving, but she did. She had felt a belonging with Sherlock and now she felt cheated, no matter what reason he’d had to see Irene Adler naked. It had been obvious that the woman had meant something to him. He had even brought his brother there. Molly had never heard Sherlock talk about Mycroft with anything but contempt, but there he had been when Sherlock was to identify a dead friend. Or whatever Irene had been to him.
On top of everything Sherlock had kissed Molly on the cheek tonight, actually kissed her. Molly felt with her hand on the spot, half-expecting there to be a mark. The kiss itself had happen in slow-motion, giving her all the time she could have needed to back away had she wanted to, but everything that had happened afterwards had happen so fast that she hadn’t had time to think about it. To catch up with it. Now it just made her confused.
Molly lifted up Toby and buried her face in his fur. For the first time in months she missed Jim. Gay or not, he had made her feel more… normal.
-x-
“How’s he?” Molly asked John quietly as she moved her rook out of reach for John’s knight. Shortly before Christmas they had taken up playing chess while Sherlock did his experiments at Barts. They were both rubbish according to Sherlock, but they enjoyed it.
“No idea.” John shook his head. “Having her die was one thing… Having her come back? I have no idea.”
Molly shook her head as well, the whole business with Irene Adler made no sense. There had been a dead body on her slab. A real human body. Someone had died and Sherlock, out of all people, had identified her as Irene Adler - famous fem dom. If it hadn’t been Irene Adler, who had it been? Who was dead when she clearly wasn’t? Molly wished she didn’t think about this as much as she did because it creeped her out.
“Can I ask you something?” John asked, leaning slightly over the chess board so that he could speak even quieter than before.
Molly nodded.
“Do you think he was in love with her?”
“How would I know?”
“Sherlock’s told me about the ring,” John said, pointing at her right hand with his eyes. “And I thought that there might be things he talks to you about that he doesn’t talk to me about.”
Molly shook her head.
“Would you tell me if he had?”
“Yes, or I mean, not what he said or anything.”
“No, I wouldn’t ask you to do… No.” John moved one of his pawns without thinking. “I just hoped he’d talked to someone.”
Molly glanced over at Sherlock, hoping that he had someone to talk to as well. Maybe his brother?
She had an urge to thank John for not questioning Sherlock’s ability to feel love, but that would be a silly thing to say. Instead she took John’s pawn.
“Check.”
-x-
“What do you need?”
“If I wasn’t everything that you think I am - everything that I think I am - would you still want to help me?”
“What do you need?”
“You.”
Molly nodded, her heart still beating hard from the shock of Sherlock’s sudden appearance, as the words slowly sank in.
“What do you need?” she asked a third time, and for a split second Sherlock looked relieved.
-x-
Molly stood in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at Sherlock. He had a pair of scissors in his hand, but he leaned so heavily at the sink that Molly thought it was the only thing keeping him standing.
Dying must be hard even when you survived.
“Do you want me to help you?” She asked.
Sherlock nodded, handing her the scissors, and moved away from the sink.
“Take your shirt off and sit down on the tub. Legs inside.” Molly gave her instructions as she found a comb to help with the cutting. She looked at his back for a moment before putting a towel over his shoulders. It was strange, seeing him half-naked, after all the time she had pretended wanting to.
“How short do you want it?”
“As short as you can make it.”
“You’ll look silly in too short hair,” she said, running her fingers through his curls. He didn’t answer, which was all the same. The goal wasn’t to look good, it was to disappear. She knew that.
Silently she started to cut. Her hands trembling slightly, but she kept going as she pushed away the thoughts of John and the rest of them. She wondered if Sherlock did the same.
“There,” she finally said, brushing hair from Sherlock’s neck and trying to get the towel off him without having most of hair fall on the floor. “Look and see what you think.”
Sherlock got over to the mirror. “I do look a little silly.”
“I have some left-over hair-dye - walnut - if you’d like?”
“Would it make it less silly?” Sherlock turned around, trying very hard to smirk. Too hard.
“It would make it less you.”
Sherlock nodded. It was odd to see him this speechless and Molly thought of John again. To make sure Sherlock didn’t notice, she pushed him aside to be able to look through the cabinet under the sink.
“Do you know how to use it?” She asked as she handed it to him.
“The instructions are in English,” Sherlock said, reading the back of the box. “I think I’ll be fine.”
“Yes. Of course.” Molly looked around the bathroom. “Use whatever towels you like. I…. It doesn’t matter.”
“Thank you.”
She stopped in the door on the way out. “Would you like to have some coffee?”
“Black. Two sugars,” Sherlock said as he started preparing for colouring his hair. She could see him fighting a smile and she did the same, because, really, this wasn’t the time for jokes and smiles.
-x-
A couple of hours later Sherlock tried on Molly’s raincoat in front of the hallway mirror. It was too short in the arms, but it fitted him better than anything else that she had. He still looked a lot like himself -even with the short, brown hair - but Molly didn’t think anyone would be looking for him.
“I’ll have my brother return it to you as soon as possible,” Sherlock said, vainly pulling the sleeves as he turned around to say good bye.
“That’ll be fine.” Molly looked down at her hand, twisting her black ring before taking it off and putting it in his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Take it,” she said, nodding once. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but think you’re the one who’ll need to be reminded that you’re not alone in the coming months.”
Sherlock stared at her. “I….”
“Just bring it back,” Molly said, her voice disappearing at the last word.
“I will.” Sherlock closed his hand around the ring. “Thank you.”
They looked at each other. Molly smiled and Sherlock nodded once.
“I’ll have Mycroft return the raincoat,” he said again, putting one hand on the door handle.
She nodded. Sherlock hesitated for a moment before opening the door and leaving without another word. For a long, long time Molly stood there, staring at the door, waiting for him to come back. Absently she touched her finger where she had worn her ring; it felt strange not wearing it anymore. Molly looked down on her hand, drying the tears that finally started to fall. She finally realised what Sherlock had meant when he said he didn’t really need his own ring anymore, because even without hers she knew that she wasn’t alone.
She hoped Sherlock would remember that too.
Some conversations are lifted straight from canon with the help of arianedevere’s wonderful transcripts.
Summary: Everyone seemed to assume that Molly was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and it was so much easier to go along with it than to correct people.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Black, please. Two sugars.”
Everyone seemed to assume that Molly was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and it was so much easier to go along with it than to correct people. It was easy to fake a crush on Sherlock, he had a certain aesthetic beauty and for reasons she didn’t quite understand she found herself looking at him without really thinking about it. Sometimes it made her sad that she actually didn’t have a crush on him, because that would have been the easiest thing of all.
Molly was in the bathroom, trying to put on make-up and get her hair in order. Sherlock was coming in to check on some results today. He was caseless and had been to Barts almost every day this week, making her spend more time in front of the mirror in the mornings than she normally did.
Crush or not, she still wished he saw her for something other than a walking access card to the morgue. Because Sherlock Holmes was brilliant, and nobody could say otherwise. He was a rude and obnoxious prick, but still so brilliant and no one like that had ever even pretended to notice Molly before.
She had asked him out for coffee once. She hadn’t expected him to accept, because he was Sherlock Holmes and she was just Molly Hooper after all. Still she’d asked, and hoped, and stumbled over her words. Her awkwardness was real, and so were her coffee invitations. Her lipstick, on the other hand, wasn’t.
Molly gave herself a scrutinising look, making sure there was no mascara where it wasn’t supposed to be, and left for work.
-x-
“Don’t let him use you like that,” DI Lestrade told her when Sherlock left in a hurry after looking at a hit-and-run victim.
“Don’t worry,” Molly said with nervous giggle. “It’s mutual.”
And it really was. Or perhaps she was using Sherlock more than he was using her. At least she knew she was being used while Sherlock seemed oblivious to the fact that she used him to ward off inquiries about her non-existing love life.
-x-
Molly stood in the doorway, watching Sherlock pipetting, washing his cell cultures. She wasn’t sure what he was actually doing, but she was amazed by his concentration. And his hands. She was amazed by his hands. They were beautiful hands, and she liked to watch them pipetting. Sherlock Holmes had truly beautiful hands and she didn’t have to pretend to think that.
“Did you need anything, Molly?”
Molly jumped. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think you knew I was here.”
“The stalker thing doesn’t quite work for you,” Sherlock said, actually taking the time to look up at her with a frown. “You’re terrible at it.”
“I just wondered if you, perhaps, wanted coffee.” It wasn’t true, but it had somewhat become her default inquiry.
Sherlock stopped what he was doing, wrote down something in his notebook, and put down the pipet. Then he met her eyes, looking insecure. Or, Sherlock’s version of it. She had never seen him look like this before.
“Molly, I….” Sherlock hesitated, probably the first time she had seen him do that as well. “I think you know that I consider myself more or less married to my work, and I’m rather satisfied with the professional relationship we have right now. I’m not looking to change that. If you find it uncomfortable working with me under these circumstances I can make other arrangements.”
“Oh, no.” Molly blushed, taken completely off guard by the speech. “I was just asking if you wanted coffee.”
“Oh.” Sherlock looked surprised, but suddenly much more confident. “Black, two sugars. Please.”
“Oh, okay,” Molly said, almost telling him that she knew perfectly well how he wanted his coffee by now. Instead she just left for the cafeteria, realising that her ruse was probably working better than she had imagined. It seemed like even the brilliant Sherlock Holmes thought she had a crush on him.
-x-
The man who had accompanied Sherlock to the morgue gave Molly a half-apologetic, half-embarrassed smile when Sherlock - without as much as a ‘thank you’ - started to examine the body she had pulled out for him.
“Molly, right?” he asked, holding out his hand. “John Watson.”
“Molly Hooper, yes,” she said, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you. You were in with Mike the other day?”
“Yeah, we were at uni together. He was showing me around,” John said. “Sorry about Sherlock, he’s....”
“Don’t worry.” Molly felt herself blushing. “I’ve known him for years, I know how he’s like. Are you and Sherlock a…?” She waved her hand, trying to find a proper word to end the question with.
“Couple?” John helped her. “No. Not at all, no. We just share a flat.”
“I can hear you,” Sherlock said, without looking up from the dead woman’s fingernails. “Though I wish I didn’t.”
Molly and John exchanged a look and a smile.
“And, just for the record,” John said in a stage whisper. “I don’t think your mouth looks too small without lipstick. I think it looks lovely.”
“Oh… Eh…” Molly hid her mouth behind her hand, blushing even more. “Thank you?”
Sherlock sighed loudly. “John, if you’re done proving your heterosexuality now, could you please come here and assist me?”
Molly and John exchanged another look, and John walked over to look at whatever Sherlock wanted him to examine. Molly stood back, watching them work together and bicker quietly about something she couldn’t hear. She realised something: John was stealing her pretend-boyfriend.
It was completely ridiculous, but she suddenly felt very jealous.
-x-
Do you like coffee?
Jim 26 March 00:32
“Black. Two sugars, please,” Molly said out loud to the computer. She laughed at how silly she was before answering yes. She knew where Jim from IT was going with this and if there was one thing she didn’t need this soon after losing her pretend-boyfriend then it was getting hit on by a stranger. Coffee was nice though and so was company, the nightshifts got very lonely. She picked up her pager and left the morgue.
The cafeteria was empty aside from Jim and two night nurses who looked tired to the point of exhaustion. Molly felt sad for them, knowing that they had just started their shift an hour ago, but having someone else than Jim there made it feel so much safer to meet up with him.
“M-Molly?” Jim said, getting up from his table, waving shyly, when he spotted her in the doorway. She smiled at him and waved back as she made her way to his table.
“Jim from IT, I presume,” she said.
“Yes.” Jim nodded, reflecting her insecure smile. “Thank you for, ehm, coming. I’m- I’m glad you came.”
“Well, you can’t get enough coffee on the nightshift,” Molly said, but realising how it sounded she blushed. “I- I mean, it’s so nice of you to ask, because you really need a lot of coffee during the nights and, ehm, it’s nice to have someone to drink it with.”
Jim looked confused and insecure at the same time, but pointed in the direction of the coffee counter. “Should I get the coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Molly said, hoping he didn’t regret inviting her. “Milk, no sugar.”
“Yes, you don’t need any sugar, you’re already sweet enough,” Jim said, smiling, just as he turned to get the coffee.
Molly felt herself blushing even more and getting uncomfortable at the same time. Not many people called her sweet, but when the person who did it was a man she had just allowed to buy her coffee it became a lot of unwanted attention.
“Oh, it’s just coffee,” she muttered to herself and sat down at the table. Even if Jim had hidden agenda this step was just coffee. There was no reason to be paranoid.
Really.
-x-
It was silly, but in her head she called Jim “substitute-Sherlock”. He was cute, outright adorable, actually. She didn’t understand why he kept asking her out, but perhaps he needed a beard, because even Molly figured out that he was gay during that first nightshift coffee. That was why she kept saying yes when he asked her out. It felt safe. Jim felt safe. He would never come on to her, never expect or want anything from her. He hardly even touched her.
“Who’s that?” Jim said, pointing at the telly.
“Finn Hudson, he’s with Quinn,” Molly explained, smiling at Jim’s enthusiastic attempts to get into Glee.
“Do we like him?”
“Yes, but not her.”
Jim nodded and offered her the bowl of popcorn over the sleeping cat between them. Molly took the popcorn, smiling as Jim asked another question and then answered it himself. This was actually really nice. Watching Jim’s profile Molly realised that it wouldn’t be half-bad to live with someone who wouldn’t make sexual advantages at her. It was nice to not watching telly alone.
Perhaps Jim would turn out better than Sherlock could ever do.
-x-
“So you’re Sherlock Holmes,” Jim said, as Molly nervously watched Sherlock’s reaction. “Molly’s told me all about you. You on one of your cases?”
“Jim works in IT upstairs,” she explained. “That’s how we met. Office romance.”
They look at each other, Molly and Jim, and giggle. ‘Office’ was hardly the word for the hospital, not that ‘romance’ suited either, but they had joked about it a lot.
Sherlock gave Jim one look and then muttered: “Gay.”
“Sorry, what?” Molly’s heart sank. How stupid she must be for thinking that Sherlock wouldn’t notice when she had figured it out.
“Nothing,” Sherlock said hastily, but Molly knew exactly what he had said and she narrowed her eyes as Sherlock tried to brush off his so-not-accidental tongue slip with a greeting. Then she watched in horror how Jim giggled and made a fool out of himself before leaving Sherlock alone.
“Well, I’d better be off. I’ll see you at the Fox, about six-ish?” Jim said to her, not seeming at all as disturbed by this short scene as she was.
“Yeah,” she said quickly, smiling before Jim put his hand on her back. She panicked at the sudden, unexpected touch in the middle of this disaster and she had to force herself to not move away from Jim. It was just Jim, she tried to remind herself. It was just Jim and it was fine.
“Bye,” Jim said.
“Bye,” Molly answered him weakly.
“It was nice to meet you,” Jim added in Sherlock’s direction.
A terrible insight struck Molly: Jim was hitting on Sherlock. Luckily Sherlock didn’t seem to respond and John managed to break the silence, because Molly’s brain had short-circuited. It wasn’t until Jim had left, taking his hand of her back, that she regained control.
“What do you mean ‘gay’?” she asked Sherlock. “We’re together.”
Sherlock gave her look. “And domestic bliss must suit you, Molly. You’ve put on three pounds since I last saw you.”
“Two and a half.”
“No, three.”
“He’s not gay!” Molly said, angrily. “Why do you have to spoil ...? He’s not.”
She knew the battle was lost even before Sherlock started listing all the details, all his proof, about Jim being gay. The final straw was Jim actually leaving his number to Sherlock, because then it was actually no point in denying it anymore. For a moment she felt like the most pathetic fool in the world: her pretend-boyfriend was hitting on her pretend-crush in front of both her and the pretend-crush’s straight-boyfriend.
She left without a word before she’d manage to make the situation even more embarrassing.
-x-
The break-up, if you could call it that, had gone smoother than Molly had expected it to. Even without any first-hand experience of ending relationships, she had imagined it to be at least a little bit of drama. Jim had just apologised and they had decided to remain friends, he had even borrowed the next season of Glee.
That, however, didn’t stop Molly from throwing a pen at Sherlock the next time he stopped by.
“Why did you say that Jim’s gay?” Molly asked, angrily.
Sherlock, who had managed to catch the pen, looked confused. “Because he his.”
“I know, that’s what made him perfect! But after you said it in front of John I can’t go on pretending I don’t know. I’m looking pathetic enough pining after you!”
“Molly?” Sherlock kept looking at her as if she was actually going crazy.
“Never mind,” she muttered, rubbing her face and taking a deep breath. “What do you want this time?”
“The floater found at Southwark Bridge.”
“Obviously,” Molly said with a frown, because obviously Sherlock wanted to look at the most disgusting corpse she had ever seen. “She’s in number 4, help yourself. I’m going to get a coffee.”
“Black, two sugars,” Sherlock answered automatically as he walked over to the right fridge.
“I wasn’t asking you,” Molly said, closing the door a little harder than necessary on her way out. She wasn’t quite sure why, but that had felt more like a break up.
-x-
I’m sorry, Molly. I should have known.
The card lay on top of a small, carefully wrapped box. Molly recognised his handwriting. It was elegant and neat, it actually looked a lot like Sherlock Holmes himself.
She didn’t understand the note and it didn’t make any more sense when she turned it around.
You’re not alone.
Curious to what he was getting at she put away the note and opened the present instead. It was a small jewellery box, it was a… a ring box. She stared at it, was… was Sherlock proposing? She looked at the note again before she dared opening the box. It was a smooth, black ring inside. Clearly not an engagement ring. It was still a very odd gift, but every gift from Sherlock could probably be considered odd.
She looked at the note for a third time just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, but there was nothing else on it. Just that he should have known and that she wasn’t alone. Known what? Alone with what? She took out the ring and tried it on, half expecting to become invisible. Obviously, nothing happened.
It was too big for her ring fingers, but fitted very well on her right, middle finger. It felt like an odd finger to have a ring, but the possibility that Sherlock had got her ring size wrong seemed unlikely. Which was disturbing enough.
She took off the ring and examined it carefully without finding any more clues as to what had made Sherlock give it to her. Perhaps she should put it under a microscope. Or throw it into a fire and see if elfish letters would appear. Molly looked at her computer, she was no consulting detective but maybe she would be able to google a solution. It wasn’t like she was terribly busy with work at the moment anyway….
After trying search words like Black ring ,Black ring meaning and Black ring symbolism she typed what seemed to be a ridiculous phrase: Black ring right middle finger.
The first hit was a forum where someone had asked just what a black ring on the right middle finger meant. The reply was fairly simple: It’s a symbol of asexuality. and a link to a site the poster said had more information.
After looking around, making sure that no one was there to see her, Molly clicked on the link. It didn’t take long before she realised that Sherlock was right: she was far from alone.
-x-
Molly sat at her kitchen table, looking at her right hand and the ring Sherlock had given her. It looked - and felt - very strange. She felt ringed, like a bird or something. A symbol of asexuality. She couldn’t possibly see the point of publically displaying her sexuality like that. Marked like a leper, warning other people off. Not that she thought that many people knew about a symbol representing a sexuality no one had ever heard of. Instead it would lead to questions and she would have to explain it, possibly defend it. She had stopped doing that a long time ago. That’s what she used Sherlock and Jim for: human shields that would save her from exactly the kinds of questions that this ring would generate.
With a sigh Molly took off the ring. It was a nice gesture - one so nice that she had trouble believing Sherlock was behind it - but she wasn’t ready to answer all those questions again. She wasn’t comfortable displaying that part of herself to the world.
She put the ring back in its box and decided to forget about it.
-x-
Two days later Molly went to see what Sherlock was doing in the lab he had somehow managed to copy the keys to. She played with the idea of scolding him, but knew all too well that she would just make sure he didn’t break anything and then offer him coffee.
“Hello,” she said, noticing that John also was there. “Is-“
The rest got stuck in her throat in surprise. She stared at Sherlock’s right hand as he adjusted the height of the microscope. There, on Sherlock’s middle finger, was a smooth, black ring. She knew for sure that it had never been there before because she knew almost everything there was to know about Sherlock’s hands.
John looked at her funny, but Sherlock didn’t even seem to notice that she was there.
“John, I left my phone in the morgue,” he said without looking up.
“So?”
“Get it. I need it.”
“Now?”
“No, obviously not.”
John rolled his eyes, giving Molly an apologetic smile as he left to fetch the mobile phone. He always smiled like that when he left her alone with Sherlock, she had never figured out why.
“Was it the wrong size?” Sherlock asked, still not looking up from the microscope, as soon as the door had closed behind John.
“What?”
“The ring. Was it the wrong size, is that why you don’t wear it?”
“Ehm... no, I, it’s…” Molly kept staring at Sherlock’s ring. “You have one.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, taking his hand off the microscope to look at the ring. “I don’t wear it because it interferes with work and, quite frankly, I don’t need it anymore.”
“Why do you… now, I mean….”
“Because someone else needs to know that she’s not alone.” Sherlock met her eyes.
“But you are…?”
“Yes.” Sherlock nodded. “I’m asexual.”
Molly stared at him. The information needed a moment to sink in: Sherlock Holmes, the person she had pretended to have a crush on for years, was asexual as well. She remembered the speech he’d given her about being married to his work and how rehearsed it had sounded. Did he use his work the same way she had used him and Jim? Molly suddenly felt very guilty for doing that to him.
“How did you know I was?” Molly asked.
“Moriarty.”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend, Jim from IT.”
“What about him?”
Sherlock studied her for a moment. “When he put his hand on your back you became tense and uncomfortable, you tried to convince me I was wrong - which you’ve never done before, making this lie more important than your others, and you claimed that he being gay was what made him ‘perfect’ - a rather odd thing to make someone ‘perfect’ in a usual heterosexual relationship. I assume you based this on the fact that he wouldn’t poses a sexual threat to you. Much like I wouldn’t.”
Molly smiled. “Something like that, yes.”
“Is there a reason you don’t wear the ring?”
She looked at her right hand, where the ring was supposed to be, and then back up at Sherlock’s, before meeting his eyes. She felt like telling him to mind his own business, but there he was, probably the only person in her world that would understand what she was talking about.
“I’m tired of the discussions,” she said, sighing once. “I’m tired of people telling me to get laid, or finding the right man, or insisting that I’m closeted. I’m just over trying to educate people.”
Something brightened in Sherlock’s eyes, and he nodded as if he understood. “Would you like to have coffee?”
“Black. Two sugar,” Molly answered automatically.
Sherlock looked confused. “I thought you took milk, no sugar.”
“I- I do.” Molly smiled embarrassed. “I just… I…. That’s what you always say when I ask.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“I thought it was because you didn’t think I was worth your time.”
“That is partly the reason, but far from the most important one,” Sherlock admitted, standing up. “So, coffee?”
“But… isn’t John coming back?”
Sherlock frowned. “Hm, I forgot about him.”
“I can fetch us some? We can drink it here.”
Sherlock nodded.
“And Molly,” Sherlock said just as she opened the door to leave for the cafeteria. “If you feel that you still need to… I wouldn’t object to continue to be the focus of your acted interest.”
“Sherlock Holmes, are you giving me the permission to court you?” Molly laughed.
“If you want to call it that, yes.”
Molly let the door slip close. “You wouldn’t be… uncomfortable with that?”
“No.” Sherlock shook his head. “I won’t deny that your interest bothered me before, but as it is now it won’t. Not to mention that it’s probably the least I can do after getting rid of your ‘perfect’ boyfriend.”
Molly stared at him. Never in her life could she have imagined having this conversation with Sherlock and she wasn’t completely sure that it was actually real. She looked at Sherlock’s ring again, deciding that this was really happening. It made her smile.
“I’ll get the coffee, then,” she mumbled.
“Black. Two sugar,” Sherlock said, turning his attention back to the microscope.
Molly shook her head, still smiling as she left him alone in the lab. Perhaps it was an illusion after all.
-x-
The first thing Molly did when she came home was to put on the ring. She looked at it for a long time, it still felt strange, but she decided to keep it on.
Sherlock kept wearing his for three weeks before taking it off. He never commented on Molly wearing hers, but once she saw him looking at it, smiling.
-x-
It was a long time since she’d had a reason to get dressed up. She hadn’t even bothered with the extra make-up since Sherlock had outed Jim and she had started to wear the black ring. Even with Sherlock’s generous offer it felt strange pursuing the fake-crush when he knew about it. What everyone else was concerned she was still in love with Sherlock Holmes, but the act just felt strange in front of him.
The invitation to a Christmas party at Baker Street came at a good time. She was on call for the entire Christmas holiday and, even though she had volunteered to help colleagues with children, it felt ridiculously depressing knowing that she was metaphorically tied to a morgue the entire holiday. Not to mention that it made it impossible for her to visit her parents. So John’s timing was perfect; she needed a reason to dress up and feel pretty.
She took a long shower, shaved her legs and painted her toenails, not because anyone would see any of it but she enjoyed the knowledge of having red toenails and the feeling of shaved legs. After giving it some thought she painted her fingernails as well, even though she knew she shouldn’t since there was a risk she’d have to go back to the hospital.
Going through her closet - she never had anything to wear - she decided to put on the black dress with rhinestones that she’d worn last New Year’s and the bracelet that went with it. She looked at herself in the mirror, smiling when she pinned back her hair and decided that she liked how she looked. She picked out a couple of sparkly earing that she had bought but never used. Then on a whim she picked up the leftover present bow from when she had wrapped the Christmas presents, putting it in her hair. That… almost worked. Molly shook her head, but left the bow because it was more fun that way and she felt like she needed fun.
She carefully packed up all the Christmas presents: a book about medieval architecture for Greg, a polka dot scarf for Mrs Hudson, a pair of home knitted mittens for John, and finally a framed slide of a human brain for Sherlock. She was quite happy with Sherlock’s gift. It had been really hard finding one, not only for the obvious what-to-you-even-get-to-a-condescending-git reasons but also because she really wanted to thank him for what he had done for her this year.
As Molly placed Sherlock’s present at the top of the bag she caught a glimpse of her black ring. She smiled, realising that the brain slide wasn’t enough, but at least she didn’t think he’d snort at it and toss aside like the tie she’d given him for his birthday.
-x-
Molly toed off her shoes on her way to the bed and fell face-first down on the pillow. She stayed like that, fully clothed and suffocating herself, for a long time. Of course Sherlock still found a way to ruin everything. Perhaps it hadn’t been completely his fault this time, but he had been the natural centre of all the chaos. On-call or not, writing a post-mortem on a woman - the Irene Adler, as Sherlock had identified her as - with her face smashed, overseen by Mycroft-bloody-Holmes, hadn’t exactly been what she’d planned to do on her Christmas morning.
Something warm gently buffed her arm.
“Toby.” She looked up with a tired smile, scratching her cat between the ears. “Merry Christmas.”
She got a purr in return as Toby decided to lean his entire body against her face. Molly laughed and pushed him aside to sit up. The rejection didn’t stop the cat who jumped up in her lap and started purring again.
“I’ve missed you too.”
She sighed, stroking the tabby cat who seemed more than happy to just lay there and purr. Molly was tired and all she really wanted was to shower and then sleep for a week. But she had another feeling as well: a strange, almost betrayed, feeling, created by the fact that Sherlock had recognised the woman’s naked body. Sherlock Holmes shouldn’t notice women’s bodies like that, he shouldn’t know how a professional dominatrix looked without her clothes on.
It was ridiculous to feel abandoned and lonely because a person she’d never met had died and her friend was grieving, but she did. She had felt a belonging with Sherlock and now she felt cheated, no matter what reason he’d had to see Irene Adler naked. It had been obvious that the woman had meant something to him. He had even brought his brother there. Molly had never heard Sherlock talk about Mycroft with anything but contempt, but there he had been when Sherlock was to identify a dead friend. Or whatever Irene had been to him.
On top of everything Sherlock had kissed Molly on the cheek tonight, actually kissed her. Molly felt with her hand on the spot, half-expecting there to be a mark. The kiss itself had happen in slow-motion, giving her all the time she could have needed to back away had she wanted to, but everything that had happened afterwards had happen so fast that she hadn’t had time to think about it. To catch up with it. Now it just made her confused.
Molly lifted up Toby and buried her face in his fur. For the first time in months she missed Jim. Gay or not, he had made her feel more… normal.
-x-
“How’s he?” Molly asked John quietly as she moved her rook out of reach for John’s knight. Shortly before Christmas they had taken up playing chess while Sherlock did his experiments at Barts. They were both rubbish according to Sherlock, but they enjoyed it.
“No idea.” John shook his head. “Having her die was one thing… Having her come back? I have no idea.”
Molly shook her head as well, the whole business with Irene Adler made no sense. There had been a dead body on her slab. A real human body. Someone had died and Sherlock, out of all people, had identified her as Irene Adler - famous fem dom. If it hadn’t been Irene Adler, who had it been? Who was dead when she clearly wasn’t? Molly wished she didn’t think about this as much as she did because it creeped her out.
“Can I ask you something?” John asked, leaning slightly over the chess board so that he could speak even quieter than before.
Molly nodded.
“Do you think he was in love with her?”
“How would I know?”
“Sherlock’s told me about the ring,” John said, pointing at her right hand with his eyes. “And I thought that there might be things he talks to you about that he doesn’t talk to me about.”
Molly shook her head.
“Would you tell me if he had?”
“Yes, or I mean, not what he said or anything.”
“No, I wouldn’t ask you to do… No.” John moved one of his pawns without thinking. “I just hoped he’d talked to someone.”
Molly glanced over at Sherlock, hoping that he had someone to talk to as well. Maybe his brother?
She had an urge to thank John for not questioning Sherlock’s ability to feel love, but that would be a silly thing to say. Instead she took John’s pawn.
“Check.”
-x-
“What do you need?”
“If I wasn’t everything that you think I am - everything that I think I am - would you still want to help me?”
“What do you need?”
“You.”
Molly nodded, her heart still beating hard from the shock of Sherlock’s sudden appearance, as the words slowly sank in.
“What do you need?” she asked a third time, and for a split second Sherlock looked relieved.
-x-
Molly stood in the doorway to the bathroom, looking at Sherlock. He had a pair of scissors in his hand, but he leaned so heavily at the sink that Molly thought it was the only thing keeping him standing.
Dying must be hard even when you survived.
“Do you want me to help you?” She asked.
Sherlock nodded, handing her the scissors, and moved away from the sink.
“Take your shirt off and sit down on the tub. Legs inside.” Molly gave her instructions as she found a comb to help with the cutting. She looked at his back for a moment before putting a towel over his shoulders. It was strange, seeing him half-naked, after all the time she had pretended wanting to.
“How short do you want it?”
“As short as you can make it.”
“You’ll look silly in too short hair,” she said, running her fingers through his curls. He didn’t answer, which was all the same. The goal wasn’t to look good, it was to disappear. She knew that.
Silently she started to cut. Her hands trembling slightly, but she kept going as she pushed away the thoughts of John and the rest of them. She wondered if Sherlock did the same.
“There,” she finally said, brushing hair from Sherlock’s neck and trying to get the towel off him without having most of hair fall on the floor. “Look and see what you think.”
Sherlock got over to the mirror. “I do look a little silly.”
“I have some left-over hair-dye - walnut - if you’d like?”
“Would it make it less silly?” Sherlock turned around, trying very hard to smirk. Too hard.
“It would make it less you.”
Sherlock nodded. It was odd to see him this speechless and Molly thought of John again. To make sure Sherlock didn’t notice, she pushed him aside to be able to look through the cabinet under the sink.
“Do you know how to use it?” She asked as she handed it to him.
“The instructions are in English,” Sherlock said, reading the back of the box. “I think I’ll be fine.”
“Yes. Of course.” Molly looked around the bathroom. “Use whatever towels you like. I…. It doesn’t matter.”
“Thank you.”
She stopped in the door on the way out. “Would you like to have some coffee?”
“Black. Two sugars,” Sherlock said as he started preparing for colouring his hair. She could see him fighting a smile and she did the same, because, really, this wasn’t the time for jokes and smiles.
-x-
A couple of hours later Sherlock tried on Molly’s raincoat in front of the hallway mirror. It was too short in the arms, but it fitted him better than anything else that she had. He still looked a lot like himself -even with the short, brown hair - but Molly didn’t think anyone would be looking for him.
“I’ll have my brother return it to you as soon as possible,” Sherlock said, vainly pulling the sleeves as he turned around to say good bye.
“That’ll be fine.” Molly looked down at her hand, twisting her black ring before taking it off and putting it in his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Take it,” she said, nodding once. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but think you’re the one who’ll need to be reminded that you’re not alone in the coming months.”
Sherlock stared at her. “I….”
“Just bring it back,” Molly said, her voice disappearing at the last word.
“I will.” Sherlock closed his hand around the ring. “Thank you.”
They looked at each other. Molly smiled and Sherlock nodded once.
“I’ll have Mycroft return the raincoat,” he said again, putting one hand on the door handle.
She nodded. Sherlock hesitated for a moment before opening the door and leaving without another word. For a long, long time Molly stood there, staring at the door, waiting for him to come back. Absently she touched her finger where she had worn her ring; it felt strange not wearing it anymore. Molly looked down on her hand, drying the tears that finally started to fall. She finally realised what Sherlock had meant when he said he didn’t really need his own ring anymore, because even without hers she knew that she wasn’t alone.
She hoped Sherlock would remember that too.