Disclaimer: I own nothing
Pairing: multi-pairing: Sherlock/Molly, John/Mary, Irene/Molly, Molly/Mary, Molly/Jim, Jim/Sebastian, Molly/Sebastian, Molly/Irene/Jim/Mary/Sebastian, mentions of Irene/Sherlock, Sherlock/Jim.
Warnings: HEED THE WARNINGS: Violence, blood, torture, multi-shipping, heterosexual relationships, slash relationships, bi-sexual characters, death, smut, psychological gray areas, morally questionable, mob-like mentality (literally), oral sex, fingering, manipulation, espionage, criminal activity, no remorse for anything they do, apathetic characters, just loads of questionable things. TRIGGER WARNINGS GALORE.
Author's note: Once upon a time, I promised Varjaks a dark story about Molly/Mary/Irene/Jim/Sebastian, all knowing each other and everything being connected. Well…here it is. It's not done, by any means, so it'll be slow and steady but Varjaks, this one is for you, love! Hope you all enjoy! Any mistakes are mine and mine alone. All intro poems are by the AMAZING Madeleine C. (also known as Vespairs on Tumblr. Check her out. She is amazing! Her excerpts are used with permission.) Title is taken from the song 'I Found' by Amber Run.
Opus
i. I'll use you as a warning sign
They are corrupt
but we must
interrogate them
all the same.
For we are as
innocent as we ever shall be
and as perfect
as we can make ourselves.
Generational – Madeleine C.
She sometimes wonders how it's come to this. How she's become this.
She sometimes wonders and wonders until the voices in her head stop sounding like her and start sounding like every single person she's come across. Every single person she's taken from (and if Molly Hooper has done anything in her life, it's take. She takes and takes and takes until they don't have anything left and then she takes more.) She sometimes wonders about actions and their consequences and if they have any place in her life.
And then she laughs because fuck the consequences. She doesn't owe anyone anything; it's the world that owes her everything.
But that doesn't stop her, (in her darkest and weakest moments, when the sky is dark and clouds cover the stars and moon, enveloping the city in its ebony color), from sometimes wondering how it's come to this. How she's become this.
And it's in her darkest and weakest moments, with not even the stars and moon looking at her that she'll remember a distant voice, the smell of vanilla and nails painted as black as the starless sky. She'll remember familiar brown eyes and a similar nose and she'll remember a voice, strong and steady, "You were born for this."
(You were born for this.)
They live on the outskirts of the city, near the woods that Molly claim's as her own. She builds different worlds and tears them down, only to build new ones. ("Rome wasn't built in a day, Molls." Her father would say.
"But it tore down quickly enough." Her mother would reply, eyeing her father from the hoods of her eyes and her father would always stare at her mother, no words passing between them but their glances loaded and then he would look away, his eyes landing on Molly, standing next to the couch, her hair loose around her shoulders and brown eyes taking everything in and he would sigh and look away, as if imagining himself in another world, in another life.
Molly wants to tell him that she can help him find it. It's all in your mind, she wants to tell him, everything is in your mind, you just have to find it.)
She doesn't go anywhere without her mother's friends. There's usually one, sometimes two, dressed in all black and they stare at her and they stare at their surroundings and Molly isn't stupid enough to try and run away from them. She's not stupid enough to think she knows better.
("These men, Molly, they're here to help you. They're here to look after you. To keep you safe when mummy isn't able to be with you. You don't want anything to happen to you, do you?"
Molly shakes her head, eyes never leaving her mother's face, even as her father talks to the men and questions them rapidly and they answer back calmly. "No."
"Good." Her mother replies, her hands cupping Molly's cheeks and soothing her hair, "do you know what I'd do if anything happened to you, Molly?"
Her father stops talking and stares at them, eyes shifting between mother and daughter.
"You'd hurt whoever hurt me."
Her mother laughs and it's expressionless. "Darling," she says, getting down on her knees and pressing her forehead against Molly's, faces so close they share the same breath, "I'd burn this whole world down for you.")
But one day, as the sun starts to rise, Molly is shaken awake, her mother crouched, hand over Molly's mouth. "Run." She says. "Molly, run."
Molly doesn't question her mother. She doesn't bother with senseless questions. Instead, she gets up, doesn't bother changing, only slips on her thin slippers and slides out her bedroom window, just like her mother taught her. She runs and ignores the loud sounds, she ignores the screams and the yells, and she just runs through bushes and branches, her breath coming out in white puffs in the cool start of day. All she can hear is her own heartbeat and her blood pumping through her veins. All she can feel is the wet ground and the leaves as it crunches beneath her feet and she doesn't even stop when she trips and scratches her knees and palms of her hands.
She runs until she hears cars and people and even then she still doesn't stop.
She doesn't stop until she slams into the back of a tall boy with curly black hair and piercing eyes. He's with an older man, woman and a teenage boy. They're dressed smartly and Molly only vaguely remembers that it's Sunday and they must have been on their way or back from Church.
She hears a gasp from the woman's mouth and before she knows it, she's face-to-face with the woman, her eyes kind and worried. "Darling?" She asks, her voice much softer than her mother's. "Are you alright? What happened? Where are your parents?"
Molly doesn't say anything. Instead, she just pants, eyes shifting from left to right, examining her surroundings, just like her mother taught her. "I ran."
"In your nightdress?" The woman asks, incredulously.
"Martha." The man says, placing a hand on the woman's shoulders. "People are staring. Let's clean the girl up inside." He looks at her with kind and sympathetic eyes and Molly finds herself sagging a little bit because he reminds her so much of her father. "We're going to help you, alright, love?"
Molly doesn't say much, finds that she can't, because black spots cloud her vision and the last thing she remembers seeing are piercing eyes that are neither blue nor green, but somewhere in-between.
When she wakes up, her knees have been bandaged and her palms have been cleaned and wrapped and she's wrapped in a blanket on a bed that isn't hers. She looks outside and winces against the blinding sun, the clear blue skies and the birds chirping and flying around in circles until she's almost dizzy from staring at them.
She's still in her nightdress that's torn and dirty and she almost feels ashamed for dirtying the sheets (almost, but not really, because her mother taught her better than that.) She swings her legs over the side of the bed and grimaces, her mind wandering to her mother and father and the noises.
But mostly, she wonders why she isn't scared and if that's normal.
(In the back of her mind, she can almost hear her mother telling her, you were born for this.)
"If you want to leave, I've unlocked the window."
She jumps at the sudden sound and whips her head around to look to her left. The boy with the dual-coloured eyes is sitting on the chair, eyes shifting and she recognizes immediately that he's taking her in. Examining her and picking her apart and she wants to lash out at him and tell him that he'll never figure her out. She won't let him. "You've been watching me sleep."
"You already know the answer."
"That's creepy."
"You've run away from home."
Molly laughs and gets up, stretching her limbs and slipping her feet back into her torn slippers. "Sure." She says. It's not a lie; she has run away from home
"But that's not the entire story, is it?" He asks, his head cocking to the side and studying her intently, as if trying to read her very soul. She lets him have his look, knowing full well that he won't read her. He won't ever be able to read her. No one will. She's a fortress, a no trespassing sign visible to all. "There's more to you."
She gives him a small smile void of any humor. "There's always more to me."
She knows better than to walk out the front door, where his parents are likely waiting for her. She can almost imagine them, the mother pacing back and forth, hands wringing together, brows tight with worry for a girl she doesn't even know. The father would be sitting on his chair next to the fireplace, hands steepled under his chin, staring at the ground but every second breath, he would look up, straining his ears for any type of sound.
They seem like good people, the mother and father, and Molly knows better than to let good people get too close to her.
So, instead, she goes to the window and opens it slowly, inch by inch.
"You're leaving." The boy says, his voice not surprised but still holding a sense of disbelief. "My parents want to help you." I want to study you, the girl who ran and ran until she passed out and what are you hiding? and why can't I see you like I see everyone else? is what he thinks but doesn't say.
She has one foot out the window (they don't know it yet, but it will become apparent to them in the future that one of them will always have one foot out, ready to run, unprepared to fully commit to whatever they could have been and they could be great) when she looks back at him from over her shoulder and gives him a loaded look that shows her entire life. "I will be your family's worst mistake."
And then she's gone.
(But not for long. Never for long.)
She makes her way back the same way she came. Running until the air is sucked from her lungs. She hears the familiar sound of her blood pumping through her veins and the feeling of leaves crunching beneath her torn slippers. The air is still cool and the wind even cooler as it hits her face, stinging her cheeks and sending her body in shivers when she stops running.
She trips over the same branch and reopens her wounds but she doesn't stop. She picks herself back up and continues running the path home.
She knows something is different; something has irrevocably changed when she stumbles into the clearing and sees her house. There are dead people, some she knows, and some she doesn't, outside the perimeter of the house. There are shell casings where shots were fired and there is blood.
She follows the trail, stepping over and beside dead bodies when she hears voices and follows them too.
"Molly." One of her mother's friends, one of the men who followed her for so long, is sitting on the chair, bandage around his arm and his face seeing better days. "You should stay here, love."
"Don't," She says, her voice hardening, eyes scanning the upturned tables, broken chairs and shattered windows, (this was once her home. This was once her sanctuary and it's broken, shattered and violated by people who thought they could overcome them. We were born for this, she thinks and you never stood a chance.) "Tell me what to do."
The man looks surprised for a moment before he laughs, wincing and holding his ribs before smiling at her, white teeth stained red with blood, "you're just like her, you know." He says, "your mum." He clarifies. He nods to the door leading down to the basement. "They're down there."
She doesn't keep her eyes off of him as she inches towards the door and she only breaks eye contact with him as she walks down the stairs, blood from her wounds dripping on the laminate flooring. She's quiet as she crouches down on the last step and watches her mother, father and two other people standing around one person tied to a chair.
"You come into my house." Her mother states, her voice soft, calm and leveled. "And try to best me. You threaten me and mine. Did you honestly think I would actually let you? Do you actually think, for one fucking second, that I don't have eyes and ears everywhere?" The man doesn't answer. Her mother sighs and leans against the wall. "I'm going to make this easy on you. You tell me everything and I'll give you a merciful death."
"Fuck off, cunt."
A red-hot rage washes over Molly.
Her mother laughs and it's enough to pierce the air. It's high and loud and lacks all humor. It's a dark laugh, one that promises even darker things and she watches as the man blanches. "Have you met my husband?" Her mother asks, as she walks towards the other side of the table and flips open a leather bag, the lights glittering off the metal. "He's a doctor." She supplies, she gives him a wicked smile. "But not the regular kind of doctor. He'll torture you because he knows every single way to prolong your pain. I'm going to give you one last chance."
There's a beat and then he says, "fuck off, cunt."
She smiles and looks over at Molly's father, who looks drained and tired and sad, and nods. "No one can say I was never merciful." She lolls her head to the each side. "Shall we start darling?"
(The man's screams, pleas and cries echo in her ears but Molly never once looks away. She never finds herself feeling queasy or guilty, but instead, she finds herself oddly fascinated.)
"Molly?" Her father's voice is choked with horror and Molly wants to reassure him that it's okay, she's okay, everything is okay and she doesn't think of him any differently, she swears. "How long were you down here?"
"The entire time." Molly's mother answers as she watches two men, stuff the other man's body in a bag.
"You knew?" Her father sounds horrified and aghast and Molly doesn't understand why.
"Of course." She replies, her eyes finding Molly's and holding her gaze.
Molly can see her mother look her over, eyes landing on her reopened wounds and steady rise and fall of her chest.
"Christ Rose, she's a child!"
"She's my child." Her mother states, just as calmly but there is an undertone of viciousness, an undertone of steel. "And one day, this will all be hers."
"These men," Molly starts, surprised to find her voice doesn't break, "and women," she adds as an afterthought, mind going back to the few dead women she saw upstairs and around the house. "They were sent to kill us."
Her mother nods. "They were."
"Why?"
Her mother makes her way towards her and kneels down in front of her. "Because, Molly, when you're grandfather died, he left me in charge of the business and some people don't like that. They want to take what I've built. They want to take what doesn't belong to them because they don't think we can do it. What happens to people who doubt us, Molly-love? What happens to people who think they can hurt us?"
She blinks. "We kill them." She answers, remembering overheard conversations between her mother and her mother's sisters.
"And why do we do that?" Her mother asks.
"Because we're born for this."
Her mother smiles and her father closes his eyes.
"That's right, Molly-love. We're born for this."
She hears her parents argue that night. Her father's voice echoes throughout the house that holds the faint smell of bleach and other chemicals.
"She's a child!" He says again and again and Molly doesn't understand why that should matter. She doesn't understand why it always comes back to that. Why her age matters at all.
"So were you once. So were my sisters. So was I." Her mother answers, her voice never rising. Her voice never taking the bait.
"She could have died, Rose. Does that mean nothing to you?"
There is a silence so heavy, Molly can almost feel it. She shifts closer to the wall and puts her ear against it. "Do not," her mother starts, "ever say that again. Everything I do, everything I've done has been for Molly. It's been for you. For us."
"I know that." Her father amends, this time softer and Molly can almost picture him reaching out for her mother, grabbing her hand and intertwining their fingers until Molly can't tell which hand is her father's and which one her mother's. "And you know that someday, someone will succeed and Molly will get hurt or worse, killed. This is no life for a child."
"I lived this life. We live this life. We're fine."
"We are not fine. We are so far from fine."
She hears her mother sigh, "it's why I'm sending her away." Her mother confesses, grief coating her voice. "I'm sending her to St. Mary's."
"Bloody hell!" Her father erupts, "that's not any better!"
"It's where I'm sending her. It's where we are sending her. So you better get used to it. This is her life. This is her empire and she will rule it one day." Her mother snaps. "Besides, she already knows others who go there."
"Each one is crazier than the next!" Her father argues.
Molly feels her stomach coil and she staggers away from the wall, bumping into the bed and holding onto the pillar.
A few minutes later she hears footsteps outside her door, she hears the door creak open and she hears the click-clack of her mother's heels and smells her father's cologne as he watches from the door.
Her mother takes the seat beside her and sighs, smoothing her hair. "Hello, love."
"You're sending me away." Molly says.
"Yes." Her mother responds, "I am."
"To keep me safe."
Her mother nods. "St. Mary's will be able to teach you what I won't be able to. They'll keep you safe and when the time is right, you'll come back and this will all be yours." She puts her forehead against hers, "you'll be around people just like you."
"People like me." Molly says, it's not a question, more of a statement, thinking about them.
Her mother smiles and her lips stretch, the red lipstick staining her lips like blood. "Powerful people, Molly. Never forget that you are powerful. You're going to rule the world one day, Molly."
Molly curls into her mother, looks at her father and smiles.
They're waiting for her on the steps of the school. It looks like a mansion, standing tall and regal in the middle of nowhere, with tress covering it from prying eyes and a driveway full of gravel and gargoyles on gates, keeping them in and everyone else out.
St. Mary's, she finds, isn't named after any saint but instead for the Madame who found it, cultivated it and watched with joy as each one of her pupils found greatness in blood.
Molly's mother smoothes her hair, kisses her nose and hugs her, leaning her forehead against Molly's, faces so close that they almost share the same breath. Molly for her part memorizes everything about her mother, clinging to her tightly.
Her father is next and he looks so defeated, so empty, staring at his only daughter, his only child, as she stands in front the school that will take her away from him. He gets down on his knees, wincing as the gravel digs into his kneecaps and he hugs her tightly, almost taking the breath from her body. "Don't forget who you are Molly. Don't you ever forget who you really are." You're more than this, she knows he wants to say; you're more than any of this.
She nods numbly and makes her way to them. They don't stand, instead they stay seated until she reaches them and two of them reach for her, grabbing her hand and pulling her down to sit in between them.
(Her parents leave her with this image: she, in the middle and everyone else flanked to her side, like the Queen she was always meant to be. It's foreboding and foreshadowing what's to come, though no one quite knows it yet.)
"We've missed you." Irene says, bending her head and laying her forehead against her shoulder.
Mary links her arm through Molly's other arm and clings to her tightly.
Meanwhile, Sebastian and Jim lounge on the stone railing, feet propped up against the stone lions that adorn each railing. Sebastian gives her a salute; one leg dangling off the side and Jim gives her a silky grin. "We'll be unstoppable." He says, "just you watch."
(Decades later, after they've conquered everything and everyone with violence and blood, they'll find that the one thing they didn't count on was themselves.)
So….this is going to be one helluva ride…I think. I hope that everyone has enjoyed this. there will be a lot of history and a lot of flashbacks. Thank you so so much for your words of encouragement as I get back into the rhythm. I'm actually quite excited about this! It'll be slow and steady but hopefully it'll be worth it!
MAD LOVE AND RESPECT!
BB