A/N: Originally this was going to be a simple little prompt fill in my Sherlolly AU Prompts collection of one-shots. Then I decided to write a follow-up. Well, I've written the follow up...and I think it needs another follow-up. So this is now part one of a three-parter at least, unilock 'meet cute' AU. Rated T for naughty language and naughty thoughts later on (and possibly naughty actions, we'll see). Enjoy!
Part 1: Four AM
Sherlock sighed, rolled over, put his pillow over his head and tried to get back to sleep. No luck. With a grunt he sat up, shoved the same pillow behind his shoulders and let his head fall back against the wall with a loud thunk.
This noise cause a brief pause in the sounds emanating from the bedroom on the other side of the wall, but only a pause. Then it started up again; the sounds of a woman crying and not even trying to muffle the noises. Intolerable.
"It's four o'clock in the morning," he grumbled loudly. Speaking to the unknown woman who'd only recently come to occupy the adjoining flat in the off-campus housing. "You do know your incessant crying woke me up, right?" Thirty-six hours he'd been awake, finishing up a last-minute project for his ass of a biochem professor, then two hours asleep and now here he was, wide awake again and royally pissed off.
There was another pause, longer than the previous one, then he heard her muffled response: "It's not my fault the walls are like tissue paper. Just….put in some ear plugs or something."
His eyebrows levitated toward his hairline; she sounded not at all contrite, as he'd expected. No, she sounded just as irritated as he was. Interesting. But not interesting enough that he wanted to continue hearing her sobs through the wall. "You could go cry in your living room instead."
He winced at the sound of a loud bang on the wall, very near his head. The flat thump of a fist, or he wasn't the deductive genius he'd always prided himself on being. Her next words proved that he'd well and truly pissed her off, which was fine with him, since he was rapidly losing what little patience he'd possessed.
"You could go fuck yourself you insensitive git. Or, here's an idea, maybe ask me why I'm crying? Offer a little sympathy? You didn't even ask if I was in pain, I could be dying over here!"
"Pure melodrama," he scoffed. "Your tears are clearly emotional in nature. And if you were in that much physical pain, you'd have dialed emergency services yourself."
"What if I don't have a phone?"
He rolled his eyes. "Everyone has a phone, Miss…whatever your name is."
"Molly, Molly Hooper. And I prefer Ms."
"And I prefer to be sleeping at four am, MS Hooper," he shot back, unable to keep a smirk from forming on his lips. If he was going to be wide awake after only two hours' sleep, then at least he was being entertained. His annoyance had faded as the conversation between the two of them continued to evolve in ways he couldn't have predicted.
"Sure, that's why I hear you banging around your flat at all hours," she scoffed. "But you don't hear me pissing and moaning about it, do you? No, you don't, and you know why? Because I know how to be a courteous fucking neighbor, that's why!"
"Courteous neighbors stifle their sobs or cry in the shower so no one can hear them," he replied with an eye-roll. With a sigh, he asked, "So what's his name?"
"Whose name?"
"The idiot who broke your heart."
There was a long silence after his question, long enough that he wondered if she'd left the room, too upset to continue the conversation. Which, he assured himself, would be fine with him; he wasn't actually interested in why she'd been crying, only in getting her to stop. Which he'd accomplished, so therefore if she wasn't going to continue, it was no skin off his nose…
"Edward," she said, the name a bit more muffled than the rest of their conversation had been. "His name was Edward. And he wasn't an idiot; it's not his fault."
"So you dumped him? Or he dumped you because of something you'd done?"
"No one dumped…he left." He had to strain to hear her. "But it wasn't his fault. So being mad at him is stupid. I'm the idiot."
Sherlock pondered her words for a long minute, mentally sifting through every nuance, everything she'd said and the things she hadn't said. And when he had reached the inevitable conclusion, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, pulled on his discarded jeans and said, "Tea."
"Sorry?"
"Tea," he replied. "Social convention dictates that I offer you tea as well as my condolences on your recent loss."
"How, how did you…"
"Father or brother?" he asked, cutting into her stuttering confusion.
"Father," she said after another longish silence.
"Sherlock Holmes."
"Sorry?"
"The name's Sherlock Holmes and the flat number, as you already know, is 221B. I'm putting the kettle on now, unless you'd rather just meet me at that 24-hour place down the road? Safety in numbers an all that? Or you could ring the landlady, Mrs. Hudson knows me and can vouch for my character."
He could practically hear her thinking it over; her silence was louder than her crying had been. "No, it's fine, thanks for the offer, but I'll just…"
"Tea," he said again as he groped for a t-shirt, still not bothering with the light. "And I think I have some biscuits. My mother and Mrs. Hudson would both have my hide if I didn't do something more for you. At the very least I owe you some kind of apology if my odd hours have kept you up. I'll leave the door open, just come in as soon as you've made yourself as presentable as you think you need to be."
He was heartened by the soft sound of a chuckle; his mother would be extremely proud of him right now. He made a mental note to send her an email later, if he didn't end up accidentally insulting his new neighbor again.
"Yes, all right," she – Molly – said. "See you in a minute, Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock?"
"Yes?" he called, already halfway to the bedroom door.
"Thanks. For everything."
He grinned as he headed for his small kitchen. Mycroft would be appalled but Mummy would, indeed, be proud of him. For the first time since meeting Victor Trevor, he actually had made a positive connection with someone at uni. So until he did something to infuriate her again – bound to happen with his track record – he would definitely count this as another hesitant step toward friendship.