This is me jumping in on the Drunk!Sherlock fandom. Sorry. Set during The Sign of Three, between "I know ash!" and the two asleep on the stairs to 221B. The poem is "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond" by e.e. cummings. I know I can't be the only one who thinks this poem fits Sherlock/Molly perfectly. A huge THANK YOU (!) to Yvanthe who beta read the various drafts for me.
The night shift at St. Bartholomew's hospital was about as quiet as any night shift can be in a city like London. That is to say, not really that quiet at all. Molly Hooper had finally found a few moments to finish a paper for the Journal of Pathology when the sounds of an apocalypse rang out from the hallway. Ah, Sherlock had arrived.
It was the night before John Watson's wedding and, having personal knowledge of Sherlock's plans for the stag do, Molly had been expecting a visit at some point. According to the very detailed schedule, barring unforeseen circumstances, the duo would be finished touring pubs/murder sites by 9, leaving plenty of time to collect some research samples before heading home. Apparently, unforeseen circumstances had occurred.
Molly was only a few steps outside the doors of the morgue when one of her favourite secret fantasies came to life: two men fell at her feet. Of course they were quite drunk, pitifully dishevelled and currently bickering like two old grannies.
"You- you, you," John Watson stuttered, each word punctuated with a little burp, "you apoly-, apo," he reached over and batted towards Sherlock's curly head, "You! Say you're sorry!"
"No!" Sherlock shouted into the floor.
"What is going on here?" Molly interrupted, feeling more annoyed than she really should. Hadn't she suspected something would go wrong?
Sherlock sat up violently at the sound of Molly's voice and pointed an unsteady finger in her general direction. Obviously he couldn't decide which Molly of the two he was seeing was the real Molly, so the drunken genius just alternated between them both. "This is your fault, Holly Mooper!"
"How do you figure that?" Molly asked, crossing her arms. She didn't know whether to smile at how adorable the two men looked sprawled in the middle of the floor or call security and have them tossed into a bin.
"You," Sherlock pointed to Molly-on-the-left, then turned to Molly-on-the-right, "and you... messed up the calucations... calculations."
"Been urinating in wardrobes then?" Molly asked with a straight face, "I did say that you should take in to account John trying to sneak extra drinks here and there."
Sherlock looked outraged for a moment then focused on his swaying companion. John giggled and leaned against the wall, completely unrepentant. Sherlock managed to leverage himself into a semi-seated position and land a kick to John-on-the-left's leg. John growled and retaliated (missing completely), thus beginning the most pitiful slap-fight ever seen outside a nursery.
A highly amused Molly watched this for several moments (and it's a testament to her kind heart that it didn't even occur to her to record any of it), before deciding to intervene.
"That's enough!" she shouted, giving each man a little kick. When she kicked at Sherlock he grabbed her foot and wouldn't let go. Molly tried unsuccessfully to tug her foot free, then gave up. Considering the fact that the two were being quiet, she decided balancing on one foot for a few minutes was not inconvenient enough to start another fight.
"You are acting like children," Molly said, giving her foot another wiggle, to no effect, "Sherlock, I need that foot."
"You can have it back when I'm finished."
That was a conversation the two had often, but the foot in question was generally in a biohazard container, not still attached to someone breathing. Molly sighed, again deciding to pick her battles and asked, "Okay, one of you tell me what you're doing here."
That was the wrong question. John immediately remembered his earlier outrage, but evidently not the cause. Sherlock was petulant as always, but with a more limited vocabulary to express himself. They talked over each other until Sherlock's vocabulary momentarily left him entirely and John jumped into the breach.
"He," John declared, pointing at a scowling Sherlock, "has to apo-, poly-, say he's sorry!"
"No I don't!"
"Yes you do!"
"Why?" Molly cut in, grabbing the wall to steady herself when Sherlock inadvertently tugged her foot again. She turned to John, calling his name twice before she got the older man's attention. "What did Sherlock do?"
"He- ohhh," John sputtered in anger. It would have been intimidating if not for the fact that he couldn't seem to move without listing to the left. "He was ruuude, Molly, he said- he said, I don't remember what he said, but Molly, it was rude. Make him apoly-"
"No!" Sherlock shouted. That time, Molly was forced to steady herself by clutching at Sherlock's head.
"Ow. That's my hair. Let go."
"Let go of my foot."
"No."
Molly turned back to John. "You came all the way down to Bart's so I could tell Sherlock to apologize."
"Yup."
"I don't apologize! You can't make me! She can't make me," Sherlock sneered.
"Yes she can," John said will confidence, "She's done it before."
Sherlock brandished Molly's foot, making her hop a little so as not to end up sprawled in the floor with the other two, "Look at this," he continued, shaking her foot, "Look at this little foot. You expect me to listen to someone with such a tiny foot? HA!"
"Sherlock, please apologize to John."
"Sorry John- damn."
John cackled.
"How do you do that?!" Sherlock shouted. Molly finally lost her heroic battle to remain standing. Her other foot slid too far and she overcompensated by clutching at Sherlock's head. He screamed when she accidentally pulled his hair and he reared back. Molly ended up in a completely undignified heap, half in Sherlock's lap and half in John's. On the plus side, she had her foot back.
Molly wrestled herself into a sitting position, not sparing a shred of sympathy for the two drunks as her knees and elbows connected with all manner of soft bits of their anatomies. She was pushing her way back into a standing position, when Sherlock caught her around the waist.
"No really. HOW do you do that? You're so tiny! How can you do that to people? Tiny feet, tiny sharp elbows-"
"Tiny lips, tiny breasts," Molly mumbled, pushing Sherlock away, "I get the idea."
She managed to disentangle herself and moved to stand. Sherlock caught her wrist and stared at her silently. Molly froze. She was not used to being the object of such intense focus, not even from Sherlock, especially not from Sherlock.
"Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence," Sherlock said quietly. It was said with such gravity that it startled poor Molly terribly.
"Wh-what?" She stuttered. Her eyes were wide and wary.
"...in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me," Sherlock continued, his voice low and steady, "or which I cannot touch because they are too near."
"Is that...? Are you quoting poetry?"
"Your slightest look easily will unclose me though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens -touching skilfully, mysteriously- her first rose,"
Sherlock pulled Molly's hand closer and, one by one, uncurled her fingers from the fist she had made. Long fingers brushed over her open palm in featherlight strokes. Sherlock looked up at Molly with something close to... well, she couldn't identify it, but it made her shiver.
"Or if your wish be to close me, I and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending."
Sherlock cradled her hand between his. Molly's vision blurred with tears she refused to let fall.
"Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing."
One large, elegant hand moved up Molly's arm, tracing the pattern of colors in the wool of her jumper and then back. Sherlock covered her hand with his and pressed their palms together.
"I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses; nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands..."
Sherlock looked up and Molly lost the battle to keep her tears at bay. She inhaled roughly but stopped breathing completely when Sherlock smiled, one of the small, genuine smiles few were privileged to see. The breath she held exploded in a whimpering chuckle as Sherlock Holmes promptly passed out in her lap.
Molly took a little time to collect herself, so it was a few moments before she realized they had an audience. Thankfully, it consisted only of Edgar, one of the senior hospital security personnel, and her boss, Mike Stamford. Molly smiled and (discreetly, she hoped) dashed away the wetness on her cheek.
"I could use a little help getting these two home."
Mike got a passing intern to go fetch a cab and then took charge of John. Molly wasn't sure when he had passed out, but it was long enough for a pool of drool to form on the floor by his head. It took Edgar and Molly both to wrangle Sherlock to the cab, not because he was being difficult, but because he had become a lanky, boneless mass while unconscious.
While the two older men were making sure Sherlock and John stayed put, Molly gave the cabbie the address and payment for their trip. When she tried to give him a bit more to make sure they made it safely inside 221B Baker Street, he waived it away.
"You keep that, miss," the cabbie said with a friendly pat to her hand, "I'll see that they get in, don't you worry."
"Thank you," Molly said with a watery smile, "you're very kind."
As she stepped back from the cab, Molly heard:
"You see that? She did it again!"
"How does she do that?"
"Doe eyes of dooooom."
Molly stood watching the cab disappear into the night and indulged in a bit of wallowing. This wasn't the worst experience she had had with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. It didn't even rate in the top twenty on that list. Yet, somehow, Molly felt more emotionally battered. It was bad enough that she allowed herself to be mesmerized by the inconceivable sound of Sherlock reciting poetry. Even worse, he probably wouldn't remember any of it the following morning. There were times when Molly wished she never met Sherlock Holmes. Then there were times when she couldn't imagine her life without Sherlock. Oddly enough, today was both.
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Molly Hooper got back to work.