Shelter
Complexity
Sherlock BBC
Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper
AN: Song: Shelter by Birdy
This is a stand alone taken from future scenes in Tomorrow is Fading, but given more than enough alterations to be a two shot. It's just a teaser I had to mess with. I will probably post random extra scenes or that kind of thing randomly as I write the main plot just because of reasons.
The world in large was a place full of chaos, wild and churning with unrest. It was exciting and beautiful but also horrible. How did one escape the horrible part? That was easy; by smiling and letting the mind drift in the clouds, shutting it out by shutting out the world, or by keeping ones own life as chaos free as possible. Some people could go through life and make absolutely no enemies, winning the majority of people over with a sweet nature. Those that were reclusive and took no risks might also be without many friends, but still no enemies. Since college, the brilliant young girl from a small sort of space in London had been a bit of a mix between the two, living a very normal life with no bad blood with anyone to speak of. She was invisible to most, quiet and carefree, but quite nice if anyone had the foresight to speak to her longer than a few minutes.
Molly Hooper kept herself to herself most of the time, never bothered anyone. As a rule, she went out of her way not to be in the way or cause anyone trouble. She was also a creature of habit. When walking to work she took the same exact streets, crossing the busy walkways and side streets in exactly the same places. The shops she passed were the same and each day she would consider trying a new way, but then she decided that the way she went served her well enough. Why change something that worked so well? Rocking the boat was not her style.
Her way of dealing with life worked very, very well, even if she was not exactly one of those popular people she occasionally envied. People liked her quite well and she was often proud of how she could open almost anyone up and get them talking when other people could not. Things in life had a way of shifting though. Being invisible was her defense against a wild world, a world that grew progressively more so after she met a Consulting Detective and became what amounted to his personal lab assistant. While she had the degree, he was the worlds only Sherlock Holmes and he got whatever he wanted!
The young Holmes was anything but invisible! He craved attention for his superiority complex and actively dragged adventure to his own door. He was chaos and order all at once, sustaining the strangest balance she had ever seen in her life.
The friends of the Detective were a select group able somehow to still speak to him even after he verbally demolished them and spilled every secret they ever had since pre-school. Not everyone could endure having their every thought spoken to the world by the man that saw everything, but some could, and they stayed close to him, earning his slow trust. They indulged his eccentricity because he wound himself around them and made them all love him.
Some would say she gave him more than others and they would have been correct. Dr. Molly Hooper had been head over heels for that stunningly beautiful creature from the moment she set eyes on him. Dark hair, overly dramatic and exaggerated features to match his personality, a long and tall physique, and eyes as sharp as any ten blades was what he was made of. His mind though, that was a thing of even more stunning beauty in her opinion. A majority of people could not stand his blunt, rude, thoughtless, and brutally honest ways, but Molly admired him for it. He was everything she was not! He did not care a smidgent if he upset others or rocked a thousand boats, he was himself and that was that.
She knew what he was thinking at all times because he said it all plainly and that was more than could be said of most men; her past boyfriends at the top of that list. Because of the incredible mind of his, she had been dragged into trouble more than once.
The world had crumbled around the small circle of the detective because of her letting in someone she should not have, a liar of most spectacular sort. Sherlock brought her no end of trouble, but on the occasion, she inadvertently dropped some at his front step. Two years after she helped the man she loved die so he could rebuild his life, he was back to being the storm of London, back to rocking boats, and she was glad!
Sherlock was the sun and moon in one, the push and pull of everyone around him. It would always be that way, always. For as cold as he could be, he was also their warmth and security. If Sherlock fell, they fell with him, but if he stood, they all could stand. He sheltered them in his own way even while he twisted the knife of death into them. Living with him was a continual paradox and some part of them could never live without that element, the irreducible complexity. Beautiful, Sherlock bloody Holmes!
Molly walked as quickly as she could to match his pace as he turned sharp corner after sharp corner. His excessively long legs made it interesting for a petite girl to keep up, but keep up she did, and had been all day. The untouchable and unreachable Holmes was just a few steps in front of her as the two of them worked about on a few leads.
"We need to run tests." Sherlock's deep, black velvet and chocolate voice rang against the brick walls around them.
"Right. Do you think it will tell you anything?" Her own voice sounded so mousy compared to his masculine instrument of perfection.
"One way to find out." He muttered flatly and said nothing more.
Had anyone told her where she would be the day she met him she hardly expected she would have believed them. Her life before had been about keeping her sanity but now her life was almost fully about holding his together. He was strength itself as well as fragility in tangible form, that paradox that he was. He was too prideful to admit it, but it was true, he needed her and his other little group of friends as badly as they needed him. They had all become a strange little element in nature that could only really function if they circled around the great detective but he could only function if they stayed circling.
They took a last turn and dashed into St. Bartholomew, where she worked and he occasionally lived. It was a case, or rather several all tied together in a very bloody bow, and they had been chasing down leads in every court room in the city to find the links. Sherlock was positive if they could understand the connections of the victims they would be able to track down the killer's location. Quite honestly though, Molly never wanted to see that particular killer ever again, so why she was following him was beyond her. He asked, demanded she go, but she had a will all her own and chose not to use it in favor of being his shadow.
His long, exquisite hands set to work putting slides of hair and fibers under examination but she did not bother to offer help. She was content to watch him fly about her laboratory in his usual driven frenzy, knowing full well he would speak up if he needed her. Today, she was not in a very helpful mood anyway. Her nights had been sleepless and her cat naps in the cab beside him had not been the most relaxing. Even when she awakened with her head cradled in his lap, his fingers impatiently drumming her shoulder to announce they had reached their destination, that would have been far nicer had her brain been able to appreciate it. The best she had done was groan in a very unattractive manner and sit up in time to be dragged from the cab by the hand.
People at her work thought her insane to follow behind a man such as this, and there were days she could agree. She thought she moved on from her love of him once but she was caught in his orbit just like the planets in space. No one lived up to him, no one matched him. She was cursed to always hold up any man that showed her an ounce of interest and compare them to her detective. There had been a time she struggled against it, and she still did once in a while, but almost having lost him to a bullet had drastically drained her will to let him out of her sight. At least if she chased him all over London, she knew if he was alive or dead, unlike the last time.
"Test this form me." Sherlock held out a slide to her and pulled her from her musing, not sure any more how long she had been staring as he hunched over the scope.
Molly reached out and took it from him, sliding herself over to her own usual station. She was technically on medical leave from work but she saw no reason not to do as he asked, she always did. No one would say anything about her being here considering she was not on the clock, she was on her own time. Her young little assistant, or replacement, or whatever she was, had gone home long ago. It was some time after seven even though she had not bothered to look at a clock to be exactly sure on the time when they walked in.
Being in the lab was as much like being home as any place to her so she really did not mind. Going home was far more frightening than jogging beside the most brilliant man in England, save the second man she did not care to find if she went home alone. She expected to open her door and explode some day, or maybe be stabbed to death at her own door. No, running around with Sherlock and running his tests was better on her health than going to bed in her own room.
Before Molly knew it four hours had passed by and Sherlock, just as he had in the cab, was tapping her shoulder. Apparently she had fallen asleep in her hair and he never bothered to wake her until he was quite finished with his work. He walked her down the many stairs, watching her almost like a hawk, seeming to expect her to drop into sleep on the way down. Some part of her did wonder if she was developing narcolepsy with how much she fell asleep. Recovering from a massive crash, even if she had not been injured very badly, was harder than it seemed.
"You don't need to look at me that way." Molly chided, glancing up into his frowning face, "I can stay awake and walk at the same time."
"You have not been terribly well of late, Molly." He stated it as if he were personally offended by her inability to recover as fast as he wanted.
Molly glared back, allowing her irritation to swell free, "Don't slow down on my account. I can just stay home where I'm supposed to be." She was sounding more snappish than she intended but she was glad to have that little edge that always made his chin lift in his own annoyance.
And there was that square chin, jerking up so he could look down his nose at her, hands shoved deep into his pockets the way John always did, "You are well enough to move about. It's better for recovery to keep active."
"Oh, indeed." Molly nodded, her tiredness pushing up all her normally well hidden temper, "Like you running all over London after being shot was so good for you that you were put back into the hospital again."
Sherlock went positively ridged, shoulders stiff as pipes, "That was different and I knew exactly what I was doing."
"You always do." Molly muttered, "Just like you knew what you were doing when you stuck a needle-"
"I believe you sufficiently chastised me for that once already." He bit out, refusing to look at her as he stomped down the hallway, even if he still walked slowly to let her keep up.
"I'm still angry with you!" Molly ground out, matching his angry steps with her own, going shoulder to shoulder with him.
"I refuse to fight with you at this time of night, Molly." His voice reached a new level of lofty that set her teeth to grind.
"Then stop being a stupid git and don't give me reason to worry."
Sherlock huffed, almost, almost smirking, "Now you sound like Lestrade."
"Well, you worry him too! You never think!" Molly closed her eyes and shook her head.
"Actually, I think too much, which is usually why I find myself in trouble. Being bored is what leads me to actions of less savory natures for the sheer need for something to keep my mind from imploding." Now he was bragging and being honest all at once.
"Find different hobbies that won't get you killed." She grumbled and shoved the back door open, not waiting for him.
He drove her utterly mad and the depth of her fear for him frightened her. If there was one thing she could not stand it was watching someone slipping away from her and being helpless. Loving him was too much at times because there was so much risk involved in everything that he was. It would be so easy to have him go away again, to a place she once again could not follow. Death was a persistent mistress that clung onto him at every turn and working in a morgue showed her the futility of ever getting that particular woman's claws free of anyone.
Molly turned around and stared up into his face, watching him as the bright light from the open door slowly faded as the door swung shut to leave them in nothing but the street lights. Her chocolate eye stared into his shocking blue ones and held him there, willing him to understand even a portion of what she wanted to say. More than snapping at him she just wanted him to understand even for a moment.
She was bloody well in love with him and she could never tell him half the things she wanted to, could not form the words to explain why he terrified her. If there was one person that made her more afraid than Moriaty, it was Sherlock, always Sherlock.
The last little while had made it all worse because he had been keeping her closer than he had in the past. She loved him even more now than she used to and died a little inside if he ever left her side. If she lost him again in any way, like she had two years before, she would not last through it. Love was beautiful and it was suffocation, deadly.
And now, here she was, pondering him as he stood before her, reading her mind, most likely. Since her very criminal ex boyfriend that turned out to be no more dead than Sherlock had made himself known, and once she had been let out of the hospital, topped off by the incident with the yet unresolved stolen evidence, he had kept her with him most times. It made her smile thinking of it; the Great Detective, her self appointed protector. She never asked him to, would never dream of it, but he was there all the same.
Each time she suggested he need not bother keeping her as his unhelpful shadow he would say; "I believe who I take about is my choice" or in his more candid moment he would say things like; "It is my turn." She knew what he meant but there was no debt to be repaid, there never had been. If he needed her to do it again, she would without hesitation. Nothing he could ask was too much, it had always been so. Molly had never been in love with anyone in her life, none but him. She dated, yes, but she never felt the way she did about this man, not once. Jim from IT came as close as she had ever come to being in love. Sherlock though, he was different, her own private addiction, in a way.
She tried to kick the bad habit but-
His eyes were piercing into hers, clawing inside her head with force, "Your pulse is rising, Molly." He said evenly, a statement of fact.
Shocked, she glanced down, never even having noticed his fingers take hold of her wrist to begin with. It was cool outside Bart's, though not cold, but his hand was warm, she should have noticed.
She jerked her hand from his hold, laughing wryly, "Well, you know, you can stress anyone out at times, Sherlock. It's a talent of yours." She turned on her heels, her ponytail slapping him in the chest as she turned to march away before she lost her edge and control.
Without being sure how she got there, she found herself right back in the same place, facing him again, his hands resting on her shoulders, "Stress? What have I done to cause you stress?" There was a hint of anger or indignation in his eyes and the stiff way he held his shoulders.
"I dunno, you just do it sometimes." Her lips were smiling but her brows twitched in a frown, "It's just what you do, isn't it?" It was difficult to hold her edge, keep herself together and hide how confused he was making her feel.
"Oh?" There was a chill in his eyes as he stepped closer, his body close enough it brushed her slightly, "How do I do that, Molly? Tell me."
Her breath hitched but she refused to let him win, she was not cowed by him and she was not a weak kneed teen, "Like invading peoples privacy, making everyone think you know even more than you really do - you're good but you can't actually read minds. You invade peoples space and make sure they know you don't care if it bothers them. If it suits you, you use their fears and secrets against them. You intimidate people using what you deduce about them, and you know you do it intentionally."
"Do I do that to you?" His eyes were searching her, the edge to his eyes dulling slightly.
Molly balked, "Yes - no, not really... sometimes. Not so much with me, just sometimes, like at the party. I don't always know what you're going to do so that can be confusing but you don't really do the same things as you do with some people. What I mean is more tha-"
"The Christmas party." He muttered, breaking eye contact, "You don't forget easily, do you?"
She was back to stammering, determination shattered by the need to fix this somehow, "No, I wasn't meaning it that way. You asked and it was an example, that's all. I could give you different ones instead!" She flinched, shaking her head, "I mean, not that you've done so many, of course. I don't keep count or anything." Oh, now she sounded like Tom, tripping over herself and making it so much worse with every word. "You're right, I shouldn't make conversation, still really isn't my area."
The wrinkle between his brows deepened as he studied her face, "No, you don't forget a single thing I say to you." His eyes turned reflective, his voice softened and quiet, "You lock it all away inside that brain of yours."
"I said it's fine. I didn't mean it that way, I was just saying; you asked why you intimidate some people." Her own voice grew quite, "It's fine. You just speak what's on your mind is all. That's not bad."
"I stifle you too, don't I?" His fingers brushed feather light against her chin, startling her.
"What? No, I never said that! You don't!" The wild turns this conversation was taking had her desperately spinning to fix it somehow but she had no idea what to say to dig her way back to the surface. "I would never say that about you."
"But it's true." He reached up with both hands, gently cupping the back of her head in his palms.
Her mind was in shock when his lips covered hers but her body responded decently. She matched the slow, methodical motion of his soft lips with her own, her hands finding perches on his coat collar. He was devouring her, not with swift hunger in pace, but with intensity and the slowest of motion, drawing her soul from her in a painful pull of sweetness. It felt as if he were draining her life and giving it back all in one kiss. She was hardly breathing and neither was he, suffocated in the heady thickness of the other. She had never been so invigorated and drained by a kiss in her life, so linked to another person that it felt more like a joining of life than a kiss.
When he pulled back they were both struggling to control their breathing. Molly could not even begin to understand why he would kiss her or why his hands were still cupping her head as he stared with soul searching eyes. She could have crumbled under the intensity of that stare, could have turned to ask under the smoldering strength of those blue-green eyes. It worried her how closely he was watching her because she had no idea what he was looking for. His lips were parted, just breathing her in, saying nothing to ease her mind of the silence.
It lasted long enough she was ready to say something, anything, but he interceded, saving her from a blunder.
"What do you want me to do?" His voice was lower, a bit husky, and brimming with things she could not understand.
Her mind processed his words, trying to understand them as she mulled them over. He was asking her a deeper question than her preference on kisses. He was asking for permission; gratitude; forgiveness perhaps? She nearly heard an audible sound as the truth clicked into place with a jolt through her body. He was asking her for forgiveness, giving her a gift he knew she wanted the same way he had at Christmas. It was his sincerest form of apologizing, giving an intimate gesture and piece of his pride away. It was his way of proving repentance.
The question he asked was simply for her to tell him how to repair the damage he perceived. He asked her how to fix it and bring back what they had before Tom and his death. There had always been something strange between them, a connection, and it had been damaged. Sherlock had lost John, in a way, lost most things he cared for, and he wanted one back. Change was very hard for him. He wanted her friendship back to the way it had been and he was willing to offer her something she wanted in return.
Those little words held a desperate plea within them and it shattered her to understand it. He did not love her, she knew that, but he was willing to offer what he could. He did not have to, and he did not seem to understand that. While she did love him, she would never shatter what they had, it was not worth it. She held the trust of a man that trusted few people in the world, and that was precious. They were friends, they were a rock of safety to one another. He needed her to be his rock again. Love was not what he wanted, he wanted her friendship, her devotion, her support, and he wanted her to be what she once was.
The backs of her eyes began to burn and she smiled, nearly laughing before she could cry, "Nothing."
His expression of searching shifted to puzzlement when she placed her hands over the tops of his.
"Nothing at all, you dear, deceptively gentle soul." She swallowed back the lump in her throat, "You miss understand. I don't stay because I want anything from you or because I want you to be what you're not. I want nothing from you, no price you need to pay. You don't have to kiss me or pretend, you don't even have to try to say the right things. You won't frighten me away, I'll just stay. I'm your pathologist, Sherlock. You can have me, like I told you before, I'm just here."
He stared at her in silence, working her words through his mind. She smiled, squeezed his fingers and then pulled out of his hold. She said nothing more, only retreated slowly back into the refuge of her lab where she could recover and glue together what was left of her heart. Loving him was not really allowed and it would never end in being loved. This was another part of love, another hard piece of it. Love was not easy because it sometimes called for a sacrifice. Her sacrifice was being loved in return. While he did care about her she could understand that it was all she would ever have. She could be happy with that. Sherlock Holmes' pathologist.
