Molly Hooper is a watcher. Not in a Sherlock Holmes know your entire life story with a glance way, but a quieter, less methodical way. A thousand unobserved moments of intimacy watched by eyes that never count.
She could tell you a hundred things about any one of the people in St Barts. About loves and losses and heartaches that never seem to heal; because no one notices Molly, and in return she notices everything.
She used to watch Sherlock. Watch the arrogance, the tight lines of pain and unhappiness around his eyes even as he smiled to her, to his brother, to the other lab workers, to anyone who happened to snag his attention for more than a moment. But there are now two Sherlocks – Before John and With John.
Before John with his tight control and his desperate need to always be right regardless of who he hurt in the process. Before John where he would still be in the lab at two in the morning probably, Molly thought, because he couldn't bear the thought of going home to his empty bedsit. Empty but for the constant buzzing of a mind that never stops. Before John when he never had a kind word or look or time for anything outside of those that directly related to him proving himself and his intellect again and again and again.
But now there is With John.
With John and the slow amazed smile when his observations are met with praise instead of hatred. When he is met with a smile instead of disgust. With John when he stops pushing quite so hard to get a reaction – any reaction from anyone. With John when he allows a moment of quiet, when there is companionship instead of a constant desire to prove that he is best. With John and the quiet burst of laughter, of a joke between friends.
With John, with John, with John. There are no two entities now, they come as a single unit. A unit that is cut off from the world, dependent only on each other. A word, a touch, a smile that tells the other that they are there, they are listening, they do not have to fight this battle alone.
With John and the weight of a hand at a shoulder. With John and the reassuring bulk of a gun hidden beneath a jacket. With John and a thousand endless cups of tea that show that he is not going anywhere. He is here. He is not leaving, will not leave, will never leave. He is in it for the long haul.
Molly watches it all. Moments so private that Molly feels like a voyeur, yet she cannot look away.
They move in sync, a perfect symmetry of movement, push and pull and desperate demands and wants. Sherlock constantly pulling John's attention back from wherever it might have wandered to – phone, other people, newspaper spread out on one of the lab table tops as he searches for the next unsolved crime to tempt Sherlock with.
Soft fingers curling at the nape of the neck, tugging at the edge of a jumper sleeve, touches that barely graze the skin but cause an instant reaction – an instant centering.
Molly watches the differences between them. When John touches Sherlock, his eyes widen, an imperceptible shift as he stills, swallowing, eyelashes flickering down to brush against too pale cheeks stained suddenly red. But when Sherlock touches John, light fingers skimming along an inch of exposed skin it is as though John relaxes. An uncoiling of tension he didn't even realise he'd been holding. A gradual turn into the touch, a soft smile – the constant orbit of the two around each other.
Each time they come into the lab they are different. Subtle shifts of power, of demands, of need and want that never seem satisfied.
Once when it was raining, the third day in a week of rain, they run in, soaking wet and breathless with laughter from the chase. Clinging to the lab tops for support as they relive the moments before, laughter punctuating each word. Sherlock straightens, attempt at poise, aloof superiority and slips on the rapidly growing puddle of water at their feet.
John reaching, fingers bunching in the front of Sherlock's coat to keep him from falling – pulling him closer. The surprise hitch and shift of breath of two chests suddenly in contact, suddenly constricted – too little air, too little space, flush against the other. The slow flush against the curve of skin at Sherlock's throat. The droplet of water skimming down the side of Johns face like a tear. Sherlock's fingers reaching, touching, smoothing away the water until it was skin on skin, contact through two fingertips and a slowly widening stillness from that point.
A door banging somewhere along the corridor and then there was too much space, Sherlock across the room in a heartbeat. John's hands fisting air before dropping to his coat pockets, head dropping to hide his expression, lip biting, lines of confusion, of want, and need and desperate longing deepening in a map around his eyes.
Molly wishes he would look up. Would look in time to see the same map reaching out across Sherlock's face as he stares sightlessly out of the window, before steeling himself, shrugging out of his coat and continuing on as though the last moment had never happened.
Another day, another case, another long night of notes and observations and calculations muttered at speed under his breath as Sherlock tries to fit together another puzzle of pieces that didn't fit. John storms in, livid, shouting, demanding attention and apologies. Met only with a cool stare of indifference as Sherlock makes another note on the thousand pages scattered around him.
You can't do that, can't run off, can't leave, can't not tell me where you're going. Not like that, not after last time, you can't leave me wondering if –
Words choked off, John's throat too thick with emotion to scream them out, and Sherlock doesn't even seem concerned, twists his lip in an expression of disdain, of cruelty, and that is a step too far for John.
Quiet, well mannered, polite John who has a core of steel, who would kill and be killed for the man feigning indifference in front of him.
Soft spoken John who grabs Sherlock by his shirt front and hauls him up against the wall behind, scattering pages, pens, empty dishes and the stool in his wake.
Don't you dare do that, don't shut me out, not after this, not after everything.
For a moment the mask flickers, held in place by sheer determination and then it falls and Molly wants to cry at the look on Sherlock's face. So lost, so alone so desperately fragile he might crack if John shakes him hard again.
And John does. Pushes him harder against the wall, stepping in close, refusing to let Sherlock look anywhere but right at him.
You can't do that. Not anymore.
Sherlock swallows. And the fragility burns away with something like hope, and yet nothing like it at all. Something that cries inside that he isn't alone anymore. That someone cares, that someone notices when he's gone. That he matters.
John's voice dips, softens, becomes more of a caress than anger dipped in fear.
Understand?
Sherlock nods, and for a moment they are utterly still but for the harsh breath of John's fear laced out between them.
Then Sherlock's hand comes up and touches gently, starts at John's sleeve, plucks and pulls and jumps along the length until it comes to rest at his collar. Fingers curving until the fabric is caught tight in his grip, pulling, shifting, bringing John closer still. One slender tip scraping lightly against the skin of John's neck and making him shudder, eyes closing even as he tightens his grip on Sherlock's shirt.
Sherlock shifts forward, barely a breath between them, and leans his forehead against John's, eyes closing, eyelashes a dark smear across his cheeks.
I'm sorry. The words are a promise, a plea, a benediction. Breathed out to fall gently against John's skin.
I know.
They stand pressed together a moment longer. Tension coiling out, smoothing out the creases.
I know.
Molly watches it all. Watches each tendril of trust and hope and love unfurling between them and reaching for another place to hold. Watches the relationship that others can only make snide jibes about because they do not know – will never know. Will never understand. Will never see what Molly sees.
Will never see the study of Sherlock and John that Molly cannot bear to look away from.