Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock.
Five Touches
By: DemonClowSorceress
Hand
Dr. Molly Hooper was just finishing up her last autopsy write-up when the sound of breaking glass echoed through the morgue. She stuck her head outside her office and peered around the morgue. "Hello?" she called out hesitantly. "Who's out there?"
"Over by the fume hood," answered a familiar baritone voice.
Sherlock? she though as a sense of dread started to creep in. "What broke?" Molly sighed as she began making her way across the morgue towards him.
"A beaker."
"Was it full of some sort of gooey or caustic or stain-causing substance?" The resulting silence only cemented her suspicions. "Sherlock..." growled Molly, rounding the corner of the examination table. There she found one Sherlock Holmes, world's only consulting detective, half-kneeling beside a growing puddle of an unknown brown-green fluid. "What the hell did you drop?" she gaped, crouching down beside him to survey the mess of broken glass and goop.
"A container of fresh bile and an empty beaker. I was attempting to measure some of the former into the latter for an experiment. It...slipped."
Molly gagged at the repugnant odor beginning to creep through the sterilized morgue air. "Sherlock, bile stinks for hours!"
"Which is why I am halting further experimentation so that I can begin cleaning it now," Sherlock said with some irritation. "Honestly Molly, even I am not so callous as to let you suffer the consequences of my actions."
"That's...very nice of you," Molly said warily. Bitter experience reminded her that Sherlock was only ever nice to her when he was gearing up to ask her something. Her eyes drifted down to watch his long latex-gloved fingers scoop up globs of gallbladder and bile. Feeling rather foolish, she began to straighten out of her crouch - then caught herself. "Sherlock, stop!"
But he either didn't hear her (possible, since he had tunnel vision at the oddest moments) or his reflexes were off (a distinct possibility, but not as probable) because although he looked up at her outburst, his hand kept moving. Specifically, it kept moving towards the two-inch shard of glass sticking up from the mess.
So really, Molly had no choice but to grab his hand to stop him. His eyes widened slightly in astonishment. Frankly, it made him look like a rather disheveled puppy.
"Pay attention, you clod," she snapped, covering her fluttery heartbeat with an exasperated sigh. "Or do you want to be treated for an infected laceration?"
Sherlock blinked twice, looked down at the shard of glass, and blinked a few more times. Molly recognized his buffering mode and waited patiently for him to process whatever had stumped his brain. While she did, she tried not to show how much she enjoyed holding his hand. Even through the organ slime and latex, she could feel its warmth...
Slime...
"EW!" she screeched as she let go of Sherlock's hand. She bolted for the nearest sink and began scrubbing the coagulated slime off her palm. "And I have a date in an hour. This smell is never going to come off!"
When no response came from Sherlock, she dared to glance back. What she saw was surprising. Sherlock had abandoned the gooey mess on the floor and was currently mixing several liquids together on his lab bench. Her suspicions grew even more when, apparently satisfied with his concoction, he sidestepped the gooey puddle and strode over to offer the flask to her. "Use this. It will help with the smell."
Molly was hesitant to use anything whipped up by Sherlock Holmes (John still complained of certain burn patterns in the rug that directly resulted from such experimentations) but she also knew that she had no other alternatives. She reached out with her slime-free hand to take the flask from him, shivering when she felt the warmth of his gloveless hand. Careful to have water running in the sink, she carefully poured Sherlock's mystery potion over her hand.
Almost immediately the slime sloughed off like so much waste. "Amazing!" she gasped, immediately pumping hand soap to begin washing up. "And the smell is gone too! Fantastic!" Relieved beyond belief, she looked back at the consulting detective with a brilliant smile. "Thank you, Sherlock!"
He gave no reply, just turned on his heel and returned to cleaning up the mess on the floor. Molly didn't bother to puzzle over it. She had a date to get ready for.
Yes yes, another Sherlock story while my other one lies incomplete. Blame the muse, fickle thing that she is.
Review please!