Hello, everyone. First of all, to any followers, I'm so sorry it's been this long since I've published anything! Secondly, to anyone who read The Disappearance of Molly Hooper, I can happily tell you that a very long overdue prompt taking place in that world is on the way. To all, please enjoy this bit of Sherlolly silliness. :)
Disclaimer: Not mine. My eternal thanks has to go to ACD and the Sherlock team for bringing these characters to life!
And away we go...
Knock knock knock knock
What in the world?
Knock knock knock
There it was again!
"Mollllyyyy!"
And there it was.
Molly groaned and sat up groggily as she came to the realization that the banging was real and had no intention of letting her get back to sleep. She covered her head with a pillow as the familiar voice rang out again, far too loud for - bloody hell, 3 in the morning?!
She sat up with a frown. To her knowledge Sherlock Holmes wasn't on a case at the moment, wasn't on the run, and wasn't under cover on some sort of secret mission. With a resigned sigh she briefly wondered about her chances that ignoring the loud presence at her door would cause said presence to leave. Very low, she thought as she pulled a jumper over her head and started a slow trek from bedroom to front door.
As she poised her hand on the handle, she thought enviously of her neighbors who would undoubtedly be going straight back to sleep in only a few minutes. Molly had her reservations that she would be enjoying that same luxury.
She jumped a bit as the already loud knocking turned into a pound. Annoyance worked its way to the surface, and she opened the latch and pulled the door open with more force than intended...to be met with an unstable Sherlock Holmes whose momentum was heading straight for her face as he swung his arm down to knock again. Molly jumped sideways just as his body stumbled forward ungracefully.
Ungracefully? When was Sherlock Holmes anything but graceful? She probably should have closed the door on him then and there.
"Molly!" Sherlock slurred exuberantly as he straightened himself up the best he could. Molly ducked with confusion out of what she assumed to be a hug, or attempted hug - it was hard to tell what his uncooperative limbs where trying to do - and caught the distinct whiff of dingy pub clinging to him like a desperate ex.
Sighing, she briefly inspected his flushed face, still slightly damp with sweat, before leading him awkwardly inside. Molly then peeked her head round the front door briefly before closing and latching it once more. What now? What does one do with an inebriated Holmes?
She glanced back over at him and saw the man in question apparently examining an empty tea cup she'd been too lazy to clean as if it were a vital clue in one of his cases. "Traces of poison?" Molly couldn't resist asking with a small quirk of her lips.
He looked over at her with such a startled expression that she was momentarily taken aback. He said nothing in response, so she shrugged and figured he had slipped into his mind palace and forgotten where he was. Or you know, she thought flippantly, he was just drunk off his arse.
After another moment of silence, Molly sighed, "Look, Sherlock, it's late and I would really love to get back to bed. You're welcome to stay the night, I'll get you some water and blankets and then I'm going to sleep." He blinked at her a couple times before setting the cup down, so she walked over and lead him to the couch, gently pushing him down.
"Just...sit down here for a moment. I'll be right back, ok?" Molly received a sleepy nod in response. She had her doubts about leaving him in there for even a few minutes, but what else was there to do?
By the time she got back he seemed to have returned to some semblance of responsiveness. He was smiling too widely at her again as she set a glass down in front of him followed by dumping a large blanket onto his lap. She made to turn around but he caught her arm.
"Wait!" She waited. Nothing further seemed to be forthcoming, so she tried to pull away again. He stopped her once more with a quieter, "Please?"
...Agh! Why could she never defend herself against those eyes? That uncommonly earnest expression wasn't helping, either, her mind grumbled. So she lowered herself next to him in defeat, all hopes of getting back to sleep becoming dimmer and dimmer by the second.
Seconds passed in silence. "You're drunk, Sherlock." Really Molly, that's all your brain could come up with? She silenced the voice in her head with a reminder that it was after 3 in the morning and she deserved a little slack.
"Wan Jatson..Waa? No. Jawwn?" Molly waited patiently as he sounded it out,
caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement. "John," he finally managed
with a nod, "he cheated again!"
Well fool me twice, Molly thought with a roll of her eyes.
"With help," He added with a frown. She listened as he explained that 'George' Lestrade had been out with them as well.
"Oh, you know his name, Sherlock."
The lanky detective turned so he could look directly at her and simply said, "yes," surprising her with his honest confession (however small). Then the moment was ruined as that damned grin plastered itself on his face again. "Can't fool you, Molly Hoop-Hooper."
She really was at a loss, and really, nothing good could come of this encounter.
"You need to drink this." She pushed the glass closer towards him. "It's just water," she added in exasperation at his suspicious glance.
He dutifully took a large gulp before suddenly springing up, startling Molly. What in the – her thoughts were interrupted by Sherlock's exclamation.
"I almost forgot!" He strode over to where he had (probably assumed he had) hung up his coat. In reality it was in a heap at the foot of the standing lamp.
"Forgot what?" Molly was equal parts curious and cautious as he dug around the crumpled fabric.
"Why I came to your flat...aha!" With a triumphant smile, Sherlock lifted a DVD out of his pocket and into the air like a trophy. Though to the detective this appeared to make perfect sense, Molly couldn't make heads or tails of what this meant.
Sherlock looked at her, apparently waiting for her to join in his excitement.
"...Ok," was all she could manage with a questioning tone.
Sherlock frowned at her lack of response and stepped closer to the couch, still holding up the film. "Well it's your favorite, isn't it?" She couldn't tell exactly what it was until he stopped directly in front of her. Molly tried not to let a laugh escape at the picture he painted standing before her; it was an image she would never forget.
"You think my favorite film is The Aristocats?" Her lips twitched.
"Well...yes." A rare expression of befuddled doubt crossed the detective's features as he spoke.
"Why? I mean, sure I enjoy the movie and I haven't seen it in ages...but what brought you to the conclusion that it was my favorite?" She really was curious to hear what deductions had crossed his mind on this one.
"It- it's about cats," Sherlock began hesitantly, as if the most obvious thing in the world had just turned out to be a complete lie as he was in the middle of explaining it to a crowd. "And you have a cat, and you like cats, and apparently everybody wants to be a cat - which frankly would be rubbish...except for the heightened night vision. That, I admit, could be useful. And I suppose a tail could be alright..."
He plopped down heavily next to her once more as he muttered to himself. "So it's...not...your favorite? You don't like it?"
The fact that he'd even thought of her in his inebriated state (whether that meant something significant in a good or bad way, or if it meant nothing at all, she wasn't sure and wasn't going to dwell on it), his ridiculous reasoning, and his forlorn expression caused Molly's grin to soften to a fond smile.
"I love it Sherlock, thank you for bringing it over," she patted his arm gently as she spoke.
It was 4:30 in the morning. A slowly sobering, sleepy Sherlock Holmes was curled up on her couch. She was watching Duchess and her kittens escape the clutches of the butler for the final time as she heard the detective's breathing become deep and even. Oh, how Molly hoped he would remember this in the morning - he will be mortified.
With a tired yawn, she lifted Sherlock's legs off of her lap and removed herself from the couch as unobtrusively as she could. She needn't have worried - the man could have doubled as one of her cadavers at the moment. After adjusting the quilt to cover his legs and taking out the DVD, Molly gave him one last glance before turning off the lights. In some ways, Sherlock himself reminded her of a cat.
I should tell him that sometime.
As she finally returned to her room, she found Toby at the center of her bed and shifted him so she could fall back beneath the covers. Smart bugger, hiding in here and getting peaceful sleep. "You know, Toby," she muttered sleepily to her furry companion before drifting off, "everybody wants to be a cat..."
Epilogue
He was gone the next morning, a very brief thank you text the only indication from him that anything had happened at all. Well that and her new movie. He avoided her for a week, made no claims to remembering what had happened aside from his going to her flat and spending the night.
But Molly knew better. It was during his next visit to the morgue that her suspicions were confirmed. John and Greg trailed behind his typical dramatic entrance, the inspector explaining the situation to her as Sherlock asked to see the body of a 35 year old man.
She had begun to hum absentmindedly as she stitched Arnold Meriwether back up, and that's when Sherlock suddenly stumbled on his words mid-pontification. It was such an unusual occurrence that all three looked up at him sharply to see what was wrong. Molly's eyes widened as she saw a faint pink flush begin to tint his cheeks – certainly nothing like hers, but there it was.
Now that was unusual, nay, unprecedented, in her experience. What could possibly have caused him to react that way?
It wasn't until later when she had begun humming that same tune again as she cleaned up for the day that a thought crossed her mind. The tune she was humming – 'Everybody Wants to Be a Cat' - was that...could that possibly have been...?
She laughed but decided to try it the next time she saw him, which, lucky for her, happened to be the next day. She innocently started to sing the tune under her breath as the man in question stared into a microscope, and began to see him fidget! Not two minutes later he was packing up saying he'd gotten all he needed, and sure enough his face was sporting a slightly pinker shade as he passed by her to leave.
Molly couldn't believe the gift she'd been handed from one odd night two weeks ago – the ability to make Sherlock Holmes blush at her will. Finally, she felt the playing field had been leveled a bit. Oh-ho, this could come in handy.
And so it did, at least for a while. When he was being particularly cutting or unhelpful, all she had to do was start humming. The flush never failed to appear and either he could explain his sudden discomfort to John, or Lestrade, or Mary, (who did catch on and eventually the story came out to much snickering), or he could shut up and make himself useful.
She enjoyed teasing him while she could, mostly when it was just the two of them in the lab. At some point he finally gave up trying to get her to stop and it became a sort of game. Suddenly horribly kitschy cat items were popping up around her desk or flat. She would list off the ways in which he reminded her of a feline over text or across autopsy tables.
And then one day, after coming into Bart's to find her desk strewn with particularly dreadful jumpers and a book of poetry written about cats, Molly invited him over to watch her favorite movie.
She had been half joking, but then he had accepted the terms of the invitation (not drunk). And when they would look back years later, that's the night Molly would claim to be their first real date - though he would stubbornly contest that it was the first time they watched the movie together, failing to see the difference between the two evenings. Stubborn as a cat, she would mutter with a smile.