A/N: Yes, I know. I am certifiable for posting another story when I'm thisclose to finishing AFWTD and WDF and still have miles to go before I sleep on Torn. Still. Here it is. This story was entirely inspired by Flavialikestodraw's fabulous picture of Sherlock and Molly "In Different Clothes" on tumblr (also "Electric Twist" on deviantart). Made me think 1950s Sherlock & Molly and the story below was born. :)

Thanks to LoyaulteMeLie for betaing & superb britpicking! The usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing but the plot and the words the BBC and Moftiss's characters speak. And I also take full responsiblity for moving the lot of them to 1950s Dublin for the first part of the story.

Dublin, 1955

She'd known it was a bad idea, but Jimmy Moriarty was one of the best looking blokes in school. The fact that he was also the kind her mother warned her away from only added to his attraction. If her father hadn't been ill and in hospital, dying from some lung ailment her mother refused to identify, leaving Molly home to watch over her four younger siblings, she might never have given Jimmy a second look, knowing how dangerous his reputation made him out to be.

But her father was dying, her mother was spending more and more time at the hospital, and seventeen-year-old Molly's younger sister and brothers were fast asleep in their beds while she roamed the flat until the feeling that she'd go mad if she stayed indoors a moment longer drove her outside for some fresh air.

Jimmy had been passing by, in that posh red convertible his da had supposedly bought for him before his army unit had been shipped overseas to some unknown location for some equally unknown amount of time. Jimmy had offered her a ride and she'd accepted, feeling reckless and desperate and just needing to not think for a while. They'd ended up kissing and doing some heavy petting while parked in an out-of-the-way alley, and he'd dropped her home when she breathlessly asked him to, guilty over leaving the kiddies alone for so long.

She'd been certain he'd go back to ignoring her when they returned to school the following Monday, but he'd surprised and, yes, flattered her when he asked her if she wanted to go the cinema with him sometime. She'd agreed, knowing it was wrong, that her parents would never approve, then once again snuck out of the flat after her brothers and sister were safely asleep, this time to see the new James Dean movie (appropriately enough entitled 'Rebel Without A Cause' and completely fabulous). Molly still felt guilty about leaving her siblings alone while her mam kept vigil in the hospital every night, but since she wasn't allowed to visit her da ("He needs his rest to build his strength up, not any of you lot stirrin' him up" had been her mam's blunt dismissal when she asked), there was a great deal of anger and resentment overriding the guilt, and so she accepted a third date when Jimmy asked her out again.

That turned out to be the worst mistake she could have made. Because when he'd made it clear that he expected Molly to put out for him, she finally found her sanity and did the single most courageous thing she'd ever done in her life: she told him 'No'.

Which was how she found herself walking the darkened streets of a bad part of Dublin in the middle of the night, huddled into her cardigan while silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She would have to sew up the torn dress the cardigan covered before her mam saw it and wondered what had happened. Once neatly mended – and if there was one thing Molly Hooper could do, it was a neat mending job – she'd think up some innocent reason for it to have been torn in the first place.

At the moment she wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and sob away her misery, but Jimmy had deliberately kicked her out of his car in this neighbourhood knowing that something horrible might happen to her – if, she thought darkly, he hadn't actually planned for something to happen if she didn't let him have his way. Oh, he'd shown his true colours tonight, no two ways about it. If she made it home safely – please God, let her make it home safely – she vowed she'd never do something so foolish and reckless again.

The sound of footsteps and low laughter coming from behind her sent a shiver down her spine, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she couldn't see anyone actually following her. Telling herself it was surely just her imagination, she nonetheless hurried her steps, just wanting to get home and forget this whole, awful night had ever happened.

The sound of someone whistling as if calling a dog caught her attention, and she speeded up even further as a growing fear set her heart to pounding in her chest. God, please keep me safe, she half-prayed, half-demanded as she pulled her cardigan tighter and wished she'd thought to bring her handbag with her. At least she could have used it to hit someone if they tried to grab her...

The sound of an engine brought her out of her panicky thoughts; she looked down the street and saw a single headlight heading in her direction. A motorbike, not a car; not Jimmy having changed his mind or decided she'd been punished enough and rescuing her in the expectation that she'd show her gratitude by doing what he'd asked her to do earlier.

She shuddered and broke into a half-hearted run, knowing there was nothing she could do if the motorbike rider was part of the gang tailing her, one of Jimmy's friends – Seb Moran drove a motorbike whenever he deigned to show up at school – or just some stranger out for a joy ride.

The answer, as it turned out, was none of the above. Molly gaped at the familiar face as the motorbike pulled up next to her. "Hop on," Sherlock Holmes said in clipped tones, glancing over her shoulder with a frown. "They're ready to stop playing with you and get down to business."

He was new to her school, and the rumours about him were many but the facts were few: Jimmy had announced that he'd been thrown out of so many posh London schools that his parents had finally sent him here in despair, and that had the ring of truth to it. Besides, Jimmy rarely made declarations of that sort unless he was certain of his facts.

He and Sherlock had that much in common: they were both brilliant, both couldn't care less what others thought of them, and both loathed school. Molly, on the other hand, loved it and was determined to make her way out of the Dublin slums and have a real future for herself someday. In medicine, perhaps, so that no one could ever keep her in the dark about the nature of an illness again. Something. Some way to get out of the hell her life was rapidly becoming, with her dying father and emotionally distant mother and four squabbling siblings she was half raising on her own these days...

Which brought her back to her current dilemma: get on the motorbike (which looked an awful lot like Seb Moran's motorbike, had Sherlock nicked it from him somehow?) where Sherlock was impatiently waiting, or take her chances? After all, the little she knew about the English boy wasn't very favourable; he'd been caught smoking pot more than once, he was surly and rude, got into fights, smoked cigarettes like a chimney and had gone toe to toe with Jimmy Moriarty on more than one occasion for no apparent reason other than to show how little he cared for the other boy's reputation.

The sound of someone calling her name and making kissing noises from the darkness behind her decided her; hiking her skirt up she clambered onto the motorbike behind Sherlock, wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered "Thank you" as he gunned the engine and took off down the street.

oOo

The feel of Molly Hooper's arms around his waist was much more enjoyable than Sherlock had anticipated, as was the sensation of her cheek against his back as they sped off into the night. The gang that had been ambling after her wasn't really interested in catching her or they'd have done so long before; he knew Jimmy Moriarty had put them up to it, no doubt in retribution for Molly not letting him under her skirts on their date earlier this evening. Sherlock might not care much about people one way or another, but the rip in the bodice of Molly's dress made him want to find the other boy and pound him into the ground. Bastard had obviously known she wasn't the type to go all the way with a boy after just a few dates and set this whole thing up just to scare the shit out of her.

However, that didn't mean things wouldn't have escalated once they'd finally caught up to her, which was why he'd decided to intervene. Besides, the poor girl was terrified out of her mind and his mother was always lecturing him on what it meant to be a gentleman and he really had nothing better to do tonight...

Well, that last bit might have been only an excuse. He'd noticed Molly Hooper, singled her out as one of the few bright spots in this benighted place of exile. She wasn't on the same level as he and Jimmy when it came to brains, but she was head and shoulders above the other students, boys and girls alike. In fact, she was possibly the brightest female he'd ever encountered in his admittedly limited experience. And pretty, too, with those big brown eyes and dark auburn hair... None of which mattered, he assured himself as he took a bend a bit sharper than necessary.

It wasn't, he told himself, because he wanted to feel Molly's arms tighten around him. Or smirk at her squeal of fright – although he did do just that, catching a glimpse of wide brown eyes above a rather adorable nose and an open mouth in the mis-set rear view mirror before returning his attention to the road ahead of them.

They pulled up in front of the block of flats that held Molly's family home, such as it was. He'd memorised the addresses of students he was interested in during his first week at the new school, when he was bored and already in the headmistress's office for the second time. She'd had to leave to deal with something else and he'd leafed through her filing cabinets when that 'something else' had turned out to be one of Jimmy Moriarty's thugs, Sebastian Moran, nearly burning down the chemistry lab (not deliberately, for once, simply because he'd not bothered to listen to the instructor on the proper way to light a Bunsen burner).

Moran's lab partner, as it turned out, had been Molly Hooper, who'd accompanied Moran to the headmistress's office (fortunately after Sherlock had already finished going through the files), fretting over the burns on his hands and blaming herself, which was patently ridiculous. But that seemed to be Molly's preferred way of dealing with stress: take the blame entirely onto her own shoulders no matter how innocent she actually was. Still, it had kept Moran (whom Sherlock called 'Moron' from then on, as often as possible both to his face and behind his back, which had led to the first of several brawls between the two boys) from being suspended, which was what had brought her to Jimmy Moriarty's attention in the first place.

Sherlock felt a scowl twist his lips at the thought of the other boy putting his filthy hands all over Molly. She was a tiny thing, delicate, almost. In that way – and only in that way – she reminded him of his mother. Molly, however, hadn't yet had time to develop the spine of steel Mummy Holmes hid beneath her soft, exquisitely mannered exterior.

He wondered if he would end up disappointing Molly the way he always seemed to disappoint Mummy, but brushed such thoughts aside as irrelevant and pointless.

Besides, since when did Sherlock Holmes care enough about a girl to speculate about a future with her beyond whatever was happening at the moment?

He watched with deliberate coldness as she awkwardly removed herself from the motorbike, refusing to miss the warmth of her slender form pressed up against his – but unable to entirely ignore the way she bent to readjust her skirts once she'd dismounted. All the ridiculous thoughts that had been wandering through his mind since he'd rescued her were clamouring for attention, whispering to him to say something nice to her, something that would make her like him and not just be grateful to him for helping her get out of a mess of her own making.

So of course he had to say something completely heartless, just to prove to himself that he didn't actually care. "You're lucky I happened to be about tonight, Molly. Maybe next time some 'bad boy' like Jimmy Moriarty asks you out on a date you won't be stupid enough to say yes."

She'd opened her mouth to say something – to thank him, most likely – but shut it with a snap, her brown, brown eyes narrowing into angry slits as her hands landed on her hips. Sure enough, when she did speak, she snapped out: "I was goin' to thank you for helpin' me, Sherlock, but obviously you did it just so you could say 'I told you so', so never you mind!"

Her brogue thickened when she was angry, he noted absently, with the part of his mind that was always analysing things and filing them away for future use. Or to be discarded once he'd sorted through the memories he'd gathered during the day. And her cheeks flushed a rather becoming shade of pink as well. With her hair all windblown and coming loose from its usual neat braid, a scowl on her lips and eyes flashing with anger, she looked like a fishwife – and utterly adorable.

He didn't plan it, had certainly never intended it when he began the night following her and Moriarty on their date, but suddenly he found himself reaching for her, yanking her close and covering her mouth with his own.

oOo

Molly gasped as Sherlock's arms snaked out and pulled her against his body, their chests mashed together as his lips landed on hers. She reached up to push him away but somehow ended up with her fingers in his dark, wind-tangled curls, her eyes tightly shut and her mouth opening obediently beneath his when he slid his tongue across her lower lip in a manner her parents definitely would not approve of.

God, he was a much better kisser than Trevor or Martin or even Jimmy, who had been a much better kisser than either of her former boyfriends. Kissing Jimmy had been a bit like being attacked by a ravenous wolf, whereas kissing Sherlock was more like...well. Her descriptive powers failed her as her mind melted into a gooey mess. Thank goodness her body seemed to know what to do; her tongue met his shyly at first but with increasing boldness as the kiss intensified. Her fingers were rubbing against his scalp and her body was pressing even closer to his and her eyes had snapped shut as she revelled in the storm of sensation...

...And she jerked away from him as Mrs. McGillicuddy's strident tones rang through the night. "Molly Kathleen Hooper! Get away from that hooligan right now or your Ma will be hearin' from me in the mornin'!"

She craned her head upwards, face burning as she looked up to where her neighbour was leaning out of the bedroom window of her third-floor flat, glaring down at the two teenagers. "I'm, I'm sorry!" she called up. "It won't happen again, I promise!"

She turned back to Sherlock, mortified not only by being caught but by her own wanton behaviour; hadn't she just slapped Jimmy Moriarty down for trying to kiss her like that, Frenching, wasn't it called? Something only the fast girls at school did...

Sherlock, on his part, was laughing silently, head bent and hands on the motorbike's tank. She swatted at him and hissed: "Stop laughin', ya great eejit! That woman can make my life a livin' hell!"

He took a few seconds longer to get control of himself, then looked at her and said the last thing she'd ever have expected to hear from him – words she would hug to her heart for the rest of the night and for many nights after: "Molly Hooper, this will most definitely be happening again." Then he winked at her, gunned the engine and took off with a cocky wave to Mrs. McGillicuddy.

Molly had to endure a shrill lecture from the older woman, promise not to sneak out again and thank – thank! – the shrew for 'looking out' for her in her parents' absence.

Then she escaped into her own flat, closed the door, and grinned like daft fool until she finally fell asleep.