Sherlock Holmes had turned to the internet in many times of need, whether that be through his line of work - criminals so rarely remembered to cover their digital footprints - or in his personal life. It had proved useful during the period before the now infamous Watson wedding. Youtube had taught how him to fold serviettes and gifted him with the amusement and horror of discovering Mrs Hudson's off rhythm exotic dancing. He'd also consulted various websites in his efforts to perfect his best man's speech, though in the end, he'd never really followed their advice.
So, it wasn't so peculiar for him to turn to his search engine for assistance. The matter he wanted advice on, in this instance, was much harder to succinctly express. It wasn't a mere query he could rattle off in a few words.
His fingers typed quickly, dancing across the keys - how to tell your pathologist you're in - and then stopped abruptly, his lips compressed as he firmly stabbed the delete button with his index finger and watched as the unsatisfying phrase slipped away.
Sherlock had considered, in his desperation, going to John and Mary for advice. But happy couples were so infuriatingly smug when dishing out relationship advice. And the Watsons were deliriously happy - their recent reunion and the joy of a new baby had pushed them to new heights of martial bliss. Honestly, if Sherlock wasn't so pleased for the pair of them, he'd be disgusted. Mary had hinted on a few occasion that she was aware of his affection for a certain petite pathologist, but hadn't pushed him on it. Perhaps, as a very last resort, he could ask her to aid him.
Besides the Watsons, his few other friends could hardly be relied upon for trustworthy advice. Lestrade had been in an on-off relationship for more than a decade - mostly off by Sherlock's lengthy calculations- so the silver haired detective wasn't to be deemed an expert in romance. Mrs Husdon, who to her credit did have a vast wealth of experience in relationships, had admitted herself she lacked real knowledge of long term love. She preferred the thrill of a fling, which wasn't exactly what Sherlock was aspiring to.
How to tell someone you love - Sherlock huffed, as the words once again disappeared into nothing, leaving just a blank space tauntingly empty.
His mother had tried to offload to him her unwanted pearls of wisdoms - just tell her how you feel - when he'd foolishly mentioned Molly to his parents after the fake Moriarty return. Sherlock's father had waited until his wife skipped merrily out the room, muttering to herself about her daft sons, before he had divulged his own anecdotes on how to impress women. Well, one woman - Sherlock's father had only ever loved one woman, something which Sherlock could related to - so he listened intently to his father's stories. But, he knew fine well he'd never follow in his father's awkward footsteps - they were too different - and Molly, thankfully, was dissimilar to his mother.
Mycroft had thrown a few scathing comments his way about what he thought of any attempts to enter any sort of relationship. Caring - blah - is not - blah - an advantage. That advice had no relevance to Sherlock's current situation, he had fallen far beyond caring, into a deeper, much more terrifying terrority, that he had no experience of. His brother evidently had no insights into this realm either, so despite Mycroft's superior mind, he would only act as a further obstruction to Sherlock's end goal.
What do to if you're in love- no, no, no!
Nothing seemed to convey the information that he needed. He knew in theory what he should do. Tell her.
But it wasn't that simple- it never was with the type of man he was - because there would be questions following that confession that he didn't know how to answer. After the atrocious way he'd treated her over the course of their professional and personal relationship, he'd given her little reason to trust him. His recent escapades - the drugs, Janine, the general mayhem of the Magnussen case - left him little creditablity as to how much he valued her. Cheap, pretty words would be worth nothing to a woman like Molly.
Molly was a woman of science; she valued data, real hard evidence to confirm that a hypothesis was true. Proclamations of love and adoration - no matter how loud or sincerely he declared - would be worthless without irrefutable proof. So that's what he'd have to give her, though how he planned to achieve that, he hadn't quite figure out yet.
He took a sip at his long forgotten, now lukewarm coffee, mulling over the array of jumbled words in his head - trying not to think too much about a pair of sweet, alluring brown eyes- because they posed a distraction to his brainwork. Focus. He needed to focus.
The coffee was set back down to allow his fingers to drum along the wood his desk, all the while his mind whirled and whipped until he assembled a phrase that - at the very least- encapsulated briefly what he'd hoped to achieve.
He had a mounting feeling of constant frustration - to have all the knowledge of the workings of human mind - but not to have the ability to express his own deepest hopes and desires. It was almost too simple, he wanted Molly, but he desired so much more than that. Sherlock yearned for her trust, for her to have faith that if she should fall, he would be there, just as she had always been for him. But she doesn't, and he feared he'd failed her so many times, she never would.
She'd shown him her irrefutable proof; she'd helped save his life even though it involved the deceit of those she loved, she teased him in a way few others dared, scolded him when required, treated him as a human with feelings and fears and emotions and someone that was culpable for their own actions. Not just a robot or a sociopath or a freak. Molly had shown him her love.
Now he had to show her his.
The words scrawled across the screen, bold and triumphant, clarity flooding his mind, giving him one sole purpose to reach for, to hurtle towards.
How to show someone you love them.
Results streamed onto the screen, one website offered him twenty three ways, and at the back of his mind, his old self disdainfully commented on how pathetically desperate he must be to look for guidance from the writings of an unqualified stranger on the internet.
Twenty three ways to show Molly Hooper he loved her. At a minimum, it was start, a foundation to work on, to build with.
It was moronic to look to vast realm of the internet for guidance on the most private matters of his life. He was fool in love. Sherlock Holmes was self aware enough to admit that fact. But now, at the very least, he was a fool with a plan.