Molly looked at the clock on the wall, bath things in her arms.
"Honestly," her roommate, Mary Morstan, sat on her side of the dorm room. "Why on earth you two can't just work this out-"
"It's the principle of it," Molly sniffed, keeping an eye on the time. "Mr-High-and-Mighty Holmes thinks that just because he's so bloody clever and good-looking he can just commandeer the bathroom whenever he wants, and use up all the hot water!"
"So what'll it be this time?" Mary asked with a tired grin. She wished both Sherlock and Molly would get off their soapboxes and just snog already. Meantime, their competition to see who could get to the bathroom first, was genuinely an amusing one. Everything from soaped up doorways to full on sprints across the campus to the big shared house on Baker Street they all crowded into.
The alarm on Molly's phone went off and she got up, quite calmly.
"See you in a few hours then," she waved.
"Hours?" Mary wondered aloud. "Oh, yes," she nodded, remembering Molly had stopped by a beauty shop to pick up a few things for the bathroom. "That'll prove interesting."
Molly strolled into the vacant bathroom, shut the door and set her things down. She'd set her alarm for a good forty-five minutes ahead of when Sherlock came bolting up the stairs.
At first, this whole thing started because he'd shoved ahead of her one night, jumping into the shower first. Not one to let her precious time in the bath to be pushed aside, she beat him the next night and took a lovely bath. The following night, Sherlock was ahead of her by twenty minutes. In the weeks that followed, various means to delay the other were used to keep them from getting to the bathroom first. Molly did admit the race across London just to get into the shower first was a bit ridiculous, though to be fair, Sherlock should have known she'd beat him. She was on her school's track team for most of her teens. Naturally, he retaliated by soaping her doorway up so she'd slipped and nearly knocked her head. It was funny, if she was honest, but Mrs. Hudson, the landlord, who happened to live downstairs, told Sherlock that if he ever did such a thing again, she'd raise his rent, and his only.
So the pranks had subsided, for now. Last night, however, just as Molly had finished running a lovely bath, Sherlock pushed in, and started undressing and climbed in, not at all bothered by her shock. He thanked her for the bath and invited her to join him. The cheeky git! She'd been so furious, she marched right out.
It was quite fortuitous she'd overheard him telling their other flatmate, John Watson, that he'd be home early, 'to beat Hooper to the bathroom'.
By now, the tub was full, so she swiftly undressed, dropping in her favorite bath bomb.
Just as she was sinking down into the warm water, there was a knock on the door.
"Occupied," she called.
"I know," was the muffled response on the other side of the door. "Can I come in?"
"No!" Molly replied. "You'll just have to wait your turn, Sherlock."
"I need to use the sink."
"The sink?" Molly asked, frowning.
"Yes, I've got a bloody nose."
Sighing, she rolled her eyes. Slouching down in the tub, she tugged the shower curtain closer to her, hiding all but her head (he might've been pretending after all, she'd want to see if he was actually bleeding). "All right, I'm decent…well, sort of. Anyway the door's unlocked."
The door opened and closed, keeping the heat in. "Thanks, sorry," he was red in the face, blood indeed, streaming down his face.
"Oh my God! You broke your nose!" she nearly launched herself out of the tub, remembering just in time her state of undress. She shoved the shower curtain back so she could see better. "First aid kit under the sink, I just restocked it, there should be those things for broken noses just behind it."
"John already set it," he said, rummaging through the cabinet.
"Good." She looked at her feet, poking out of the bubbles and wriggled her toes. "So…what happened?"
"Someone said something rather crass, and I corrected him," Sherlock responded tightly, carefully washing off his face.
"Oh." Silence again. "And they hit you?"
"No, they said something else and then I hit them. They hit me back, but I managed to get him off me long enough for campus police to step in."
"Did you get into trouble?"
"No, on account of I was stepping in for-" he glanced quickly at her. "Anyway they let me off with a warning this time."
"What was said?" Molly wanted to know. "Was it about your brother?"
"No."
"Mary."
"Nope,"
"John?"
"It was Jim, and he'd been saying some rather nasty things about you, if you must know, and I didn't like it!"
Molly leaned back, somewhat surprised.
Looking embarrassed and shy suddenly, he shifted from foot to foot. "Will you hand me a clean flannel, please?"
She reached out of the bath, leaning over the side to the storage basket kept beside it, selecting a soft cloth and held it out to him. He took it, then sat down on the closed toilet opposite her.
"Thanks," she said, just as he opened his mouth. "For defending me."
He quirked a smile at her, and Molly felt as if she'd earned some tremendous honor, seeing him so nervous and pleased, and genuinely happy at her words. "I will always defend you, Molly Hooper. You're quite singular."
"Thank you," she answered.
"You know why I started this whole…" he gestured between them and then to the room. "Ridiculous competition?"
She shook her head, grinning.
"I didn't know how else to talk to you," he fiddled with the cloth in his hands. "And as time went on, I liked riling you up, seeing how you tried to best me."
"I did quite a bit, if you recall," she said, cheeks rosy, laughing.
"You did."
"Did you mean it then?" she asked after a beat. "Last night, when you said to just get in the tub with you?"
Suddenly quite red, he looked anywhere but at her. "Well I- I didn't-" once glance and he stilled. "Yes."
Reaching for him, she kissed his cheek gently. "Maybe I'll return the favor to you someday soon," she smiled. "But not before you've bought me dinner."
Immediately, he stood, heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" she asked, surprised.
"To fetch us dinner," he said over his shoulder. "Fish and chips all right? I know a man who owns a chippie, gives me extras."
"Did you get him off a murder charge?" she called after him.
He poked his head back in. "No. I helped him assemble some shelves." With that, he gave her a sly wink, then shut the door behind him. "Back in ten, don't let the water get cold!"
"Git."
"And don't you forget it!" he called up.