Spoilers: For all of season 1 and 2.
Warnings: adult themes, hints of D/S
A/N: Written back in May for ladyofthelog as part of 2012 summer Holmestice exchange, finally able to post more generally as the month of anon gifting for the fest is over - this fic is a bit different to my usual Sherlock/Molly fare, given it's got 1) asexual Sherlock and 2) genderswapped female!Sherlock but I hope people still enjoy the pairing that way - I certainly had fun writing it that way.
Coffee has connotations, she knows that. I-want-to-date-you/see-you-naked/revel-in-my-lust-for-you connotations. Connotations Molly never expected to express for a certain female consulting detective who drives her a bit crazy, in a special way no other woman does, and only a sparse few men have done.
She likes to think most people would feel the same if they saw Sherlock like she did. That's what she rationalises about her attraction to Sherlock, though a lot of the people she sees around Sherlock look at the oddly graceful, lanky woman like they might well hate her and all the coolly sprung truths freed by her mind. They think hate where they see what Molly considers with amazement, and it seems a form of jealousy Molly is mostly immune to. Except what she gets instead is an affinity for the form, the genius, that isn't returned and nevertheless there is a burning desire to bask in the woman's brilliance, to seek that blinding light out (or is it the darkness around the flame, the danger, sometimes she wonders).
Coffee and lust, they were connotations that were accurate too, at the time, and even once she's determined the unsuitability of those connotations for Sherlock, Molly isn't so foolish as to think that's the only reason she failed in her attempt to ask the woman out. Molly places the faux-pas behind her successfully, for the most part, but she still studies Sherlock and draws her own confusing conclusions.
Sherlock doesn't dress provocatively, which she'd assumed was her wanting to be taken seriously by the police. She's still coincidentally stylish in her neatly cut suits; androgynous in that odd and utterly alluring mix of sharp angles and the soft curves of flesh that must be there. The flesh underneath is hidden very well, but still there to provide proof of humanity despite that Sherlock fancies herself above everyone in her behaviours, her intelligence shown off at every opportunity. Yet Molly can tell she is below them all in her own mind too, contradictions warring inside, making her vulnerable in her quest for perfection.
Sherlock is facts and figures, infinite and limited. Molly had thought at first she wanted to possess her, a haunting primal urge she quelled, but Sherlock is a tricky creature, free and flying high (as a kite, on occasion, if Lestrade's warning is to be believed); a creature nevertheless on a leash, however long it is. A leash she forgets , and, upon finding a reminder of it, will angrily lash out when reaching the end of its tether. Why so, when she is ever focused and electric? Because Sherlock can't hide the truth. Careful observation reveals telltale hints. Maybe Sherlock doesn't do people, not in the way Molly had originally yearned for, but Sherlock doescare. Sometimes. And it all too often makes her recoil when she notices. The result is a subtle yet spectacular freak-out. It is rare that anyone else but Molly herself notices, though John must have caught on to it too, she hopes.
John, why do you insist on wasting time on a no-hope like Harriet, Sherlock will say indelicately of a trip to A&E that pulls her partner in crime-stopping away from the case. That hit, like many, an apparent revenge over others' emotions and in reality a strike back at her own perceived failing. Every other person is then merely an inadequate mirror containing weakness to critique, to correct, and they will not, making it a little less troublesome that Sherlock cannot either.
Molly long ago stopped wanting to be a part of Sherlock's life. Sherlock would turn up, bat her eyelashes for a fraction of a second and turn her life upside down in a minute, but it was only a temporary madness so she didn't bother to resist. That changed when Sherlock fell, because she came to Molly, trusted her, and Molly discovered something herself in the tragedy: a new hope only a little less foolish.
She'd never be Sherlock's girlfriend - which might be just as well given her need to explain the sudden attraction if Sherlock had ever reciprocated as desired, though in all honestly it wasn't women, it was just Sherlock – but she would be there for her, always. Lust, eros, tended to fade unless you were really lucky. The kind of love she was realising she felt for Sherlock was longer lasting, all encompassing; unconditional.
Just the same as John wasn't with Sherlock - which he felt the need to point out over and over with incredulity, and ever increasingly banal versions of 'he doth protest too much' made it into the papers - but John would chase her over town and country. He'd probably die for Sherlock. Only fitting then that Sherlock ended up proving she would for John too.
What Molly accepts is similar, wanting merely to be there for Sherlock. To matter like Sherlock had claimed that fateful night, and just a little more too, maybe, for her satisfaction. Sherlock doesn't call her a friend then even, but Molly dreams of a time she might and that is all she wants from the woman these days.
Coffee together was too much. Molly aims to be more practical, dependable, useful. It's detached in theory, making herself a tool to be wielded for Sherlock's special brand of justice. It'll be enough to be there and Molly is there, beside Sherlock for years. There when others cannot be, when John is otherwise engaged. She is a faithful assistant, holding steady in the eye of the storm with a few pointed remarks to direct it – remarks she has learnt from John can be necessary to get the best out of Sherlock, for when she is sidetracked, to prevent her quietly pitying herself that is shown via her taunts. Sherlock barks but will not bite when challenged well and rightly.
Dealing with the mercurial detective is always testing. Sometimes Molly catches a look that she figures means Sherlock is deliberately trying her patience and she doesn't know if holding her peace means she passes the test or not. Impossible to tell. Sherlock doesn't often intentionally share those kinds of thoughts.
That's exactly why she never sees it coming. There's no counting hours or days spent together – she's past her obsession and Sherlock wouldn't attribute anything to that sort of thing so why would she either? Superficial coincidence. One that John has a pure-minded manner of mentioning as a salient fact in just the way to have her questioning it. She's still figuring out how to bring it up when Sherlock does it for her.
"It has come to my attention I pursue tasks increasingly in your company."
Sherlock says it nonchalantly at 3am as she peers down a microscope in the lab at samples she weasled out of Molly against her better judgment, whilst Molly sits filling out the appropriate bureaucratic mess of paperwork it requires.
"John?"
"Yes. He has a point. You're tolerable. Much like him"
She gives Sherlock a half-serious offended look and marks the tick in the box on the form with a touch more force than required. It is, she thinks, far too late at night to be having this conversation she is ill-prepared for. Sherlock won't let it go though, she knows from experience. The conversation is happening now, whether she likes it or not.
"Not correct?" Sherlock says, getting up abruptly and then switching to approaching her slowly, hands in pockets, a hint of mock sheepishness, "Not appropriate?"
"Just a bit... unpersonable."
"Oh well, we'd not want to spoil the illusion of my social butterfly masquerade would we," she says sarcastically. The comment has an air of attempting to break a tension Molly hadn't been aware of until it passed Sherlock's lips.
"What do you need?"
Two weeks later she moves into Baker Street. Not John's old room - kept as it is in what appears to be a vain expectance time will revert to as it was before he married. Her boxes are lugged with efficiency by the movers she didn't hire, into Flat C, done up with no expense spared. Of course it's not to her tastes and Molly immediately redoes it, with Mrs Hudson's permission this time.
The elaborate patterning of the wallpaper can be traced through its repainted surface and it is worth the sacrifice of quality to see Sherlock inwardly cringe at what she considers a further reminder of the aesthetic abomination. Sherlock blatantly dislikes visiting Flat C after that and the unforeseen consequence is that Molly's presence is forever demanded in Flat B instead.
Life is chaotic nearly every hour of the day and body parts, mysterious deaths and experiments at home become as normal as those at work. She does get Sherlock to concede to leaving her fridge out of it. Molly's fridge/freezer that is, which necessarily develops a further too-bright-to-miss splattering of pink kitten-themed magnets on the front so Sherlock can't excuse being 'mistaken,' when it now sits upstairs for convenience. Sooner or later most items end up upstairs, for convenience, much like Molly herself.
Life is chaotic but chaotic is normal, so life is normal, until she finds herself refusing an invitation to a housewarming because she has testing degradation of genetic material in commonly found carboxylic acid solutions to perform with Sherlock that evening. Sherlock, who will never be her girlfriend. Sherlock, whom she lives with. Sherlock, who has inadvertently ruined her last five dates, and Molly knows deep down she had let her. It made things interesting. Not that things were ever boring with Sherlock around. In the end a lack of dates didn't seem too bad when between her work and Sherlock's work she was eternally busy.
She considers moving out and reconsiders that as stupidly emotional, very well knowing she doesn't exactly becauseshe is too emotional, too attached. She matters like John had, desperate not to be a replacement though, and she isn't willing to give that up.
"What would you call me?" she asks Sherlock as she clears space on the coffee table – possibly currently the most hygienic surface in the flat regardless of the mouldy book piles she had to move - to serve Chinese takeaway for them both.
"Molly," Sherlock retorts, and in the drawn out two syllable reply she manages to imbue a complex mix of laconic dry amusement, exasperation and boredom in an instant.
"I mean, what am I to you?"
"My flatmate, obviously. You live here."
"Just a flatmate?"
"What more do you want? The position of blogger is taken already."
"Never mind, forget I said anything."
And she quickly settles down to food, eyes keenly focused on her plate, blinking faster than usual to push back the evidence of her suddenly watery eyes. Part of her feels useless hearing Sherlock speak it out loud. She knows she isn't though, and finally she gathers together enough strength to look back up. The sharp studying stare Sherlock gives her, maintained longer than Molly would have expected, makes her think Sherlock won't forget. It seems like for the longest time Sherlock might have though, and that it's only Molly who gives this unconventional setup any worry.
The thing that starts to get to Molly isn't worry in the end. It's the downside to her lack of dates. It has a side effect of a lack of sex and with all the seemingly nice people revealed to be creeps she has met on cases from time to time she doesn't fancy risking one night stands anymore. There are too many weirdo's out there and besides, she might well come under that category lately given she's a thirty-something spinster coroner who lives with her totally uninterested best friend and tends to investigate grisly murders in her free time with more glee than appropriate (Sherlock's attitude rubs off in addition to her existing interest and Sherlock's not the only one Lestrade finds disturbing anymore).
Totally uninterested isn't totally true she finds out. Nor totally oblivious, she reflects when she opens up the starry gift bag to find a curved purple vibrator and two packs of batteries. There is absolutely no note to explain Sherlock's sudden generosity. Best guess is that she's been distracted and this is Sherlock's politest way to say 'get over it'.
Upon reflection, and experimentation, the item definitely helps and at the same time it really doesn't.
Because Sherlock bought it for her. Sherlock bought her a sex toy.
Because Sherlock's hands have undoubtedly been all over it, examining it for durability and whatever else she might deem compulsory. Sherlock's hands have touched the smooth, warm silicone Molly slides inside herself and it starts to be hard not to imagine Sherlock's hands touching it when she touches it, the imaginings that come guiltily to mind of Sherlock grasping it, teasing her with it where Molly's own hands are mimicking the fantasy.
The smirk she notes on Sherlock's face the next morning, the morning after she is first given the present, is unsettlingly how she imagined her friend's lips quirking at the pleasure of causing her pleasure; of being in control.
The fantasies become more of a distraction after that and though she'd never thought it possible, she's all the more aware of Sherlock's presence nearby. She'd become complacent about being around her and suddenly she is afire again with a vengeance, the crush gone and pure obsession in its stead. Her thoughts race, interspersed with unbidden indecent flashes, and she stutters half the time, feeling an idiot. Sherlock cannot not notice this change.
Sherlock says nothing of it. What Molly does start to notice about Sherlock is her disguises. She has from time to time been prone to using her looks to her advantage, dolling herself up to elicit a particular response, a particular desire that is required to get her in a club, a party, a house. Whatever it takes she will dress the part and Sherlock starts to get elaborate there.
Almost every time Molly walks in the door Sherlock is wearing something new, something that directs attention to an asset of hers – her long legs, her dark unruly curls, the contrast of her pale complexion with colour, her modest bust, rough fibres and textures to compliment the silkiness of her skin – and it doesn't matter what it is, feminine or masculine, it is always Sherlock and it is always distracting. A constant truth that accompanies this is that it will pretty much always feature in a technicolour sensational fantasy of Molly's that evening.
As she comes ineffectually stifling Sherlock's name one night she wonders how thick the ceilings are and how long Sherlock has been intentionally fuelling her fantasies. And whether it will continue indefinitely. Which isn't that different from what she'd wondered when she'd first moved in. People had told her it wouldn't last and she'd heard Mrs Hudson paradoxically warn Sherlock, that one day Molly would meet a nice boy and 'move on'.
Except she doesn't agree. Mrs Hudson is wrong.
Molly doesn't want to meet a nice boy anymore. She's already met an obnoxious inappropriate girl, who is too brilliant for her own good. It might classify her as a masochist but nice boys are never going to compare favourably in the future and the problem of unwelcome urges isn't turning out to be that much of a problem. It's confusing and untraditional and that's why she rather likes it – it's very Sherlock, it fits into this peculiar relationship that is evolving. She doesn't even think Sherlock planned it this way; it's just them, how they function together, Sherlock's unorthodox methods to ensure her happiness and no one has any right to doubt them.
Molly knows better than to bring up the subject of sex or love with Sherlock. Other people still do, however.
Uncommon as it is, sometimes Sherlock puts her arm around her shoulder when she senses Molly is upset or tugs her along by the hand for expediency when they are out. These things may be as close as she gets to holding hands or hugs from Sherlock and they still startle her.
Other people notice that and some of them, well-meaning people that they are, ask if she knows what she is doing with Sherlock. John asked just the once, satisfied she understood, as it was asked, Molly reckons, to calm his conscience on the subject. She assumes the same people talk to Sherlock, with less tact in order to break through her perceived inability to see with emotional intelligence. Molly sees their questions reflected in Sherlock's gaze some days, like she isn't certain she is doing what is best. Molly doesn't let that stand for a moment, not even inside Sherlock's mind. Whenever she suspects that question has cropped up she does something decisive and distracting to prove she is her own person and wants to be there, because it isn't anyone else's decision to make about what is right or what she deserves. What other people most likely put in those categories she gets to thinking of as boringly 'normal'.
Sherlock doesn't do girlfriends, but there are things she does do that speak of the level of their relationship. It becomes not unusual, much to John's chagrin when he witnesses it, for Sherlock to eat food Molly prepares herself without question.
"What the - how are you..? Sherlock doesn't even like courgette! You refused to eat vegetable soup once in case it had any in and you threw them out the first five times I put any in the fridge."
"Perhaps you never stumbled upon an adequate enough preparation," was all Sherlock had to say in response to John's interrogation. John had simply looked at Sherlock, then to Molly and back at Sherlock with a sigh. Quite possibly everyone at that table had realised the lie. Sherlock ate the rest of the pasta bake and Molly never so much as bought another courgette after that.
Coffee had too many connotations. Coffee hadn't even been what Molly would have ordered from the cafe either. She wasn't that into coffee unless it was sweet. She preferred hot chocolate or possibly a mocha. The seasonal coffees with cream sometimes tempted her but she didn't like your average cup of coffee.
She's gobsmacked when Sherlock hands her a mug one day randomly and waits expectantly. Molly looks up, mouth open, not sure what is happening. Not once in the three years she has lived in the building has Sherlock made anything for her.
"Coffee. Black, two sugars."
"But I don't take it like this. I don't even..." she trails off, suddenly cottoning on to the significance of the preparation.
This is Sherlock's coffee, completely wrong for her tastes, possibly the only way Sherlock knows to make coffee and a mirrored offering of the coffee she had made her fetch that day with her 'misunderstanding' of Molly's question.
It feels strangely like an apology, a peace offering, an olive branch that is reaching for a moment of meaning so she sips at it as she gets back to reading her pathology journal. Sherlock stands by her, smiles at her in a forced lengthy way that hints at barely hidden uncertainty, and Molly tries to smile back, unnerved at the development.
"Thanks."
The colourful, ingeniously curved vibrator is not the only sex toy Sherlock buys her.
Sherlock tells her not to bother getting a Christmas present. Sherlock does however leave her a small package at the end of her bed that she finds on Christmas morning (Sherlock has no key to Flat C but when would such a trifling detail stop her doing what she wants) containing pink 'vibrating pleasure pants'.
She'd assumed Sherlock had meant 'don't buy me a gift because holidays are over-commercialised excuses to engage in senseless social conventions' or simply because Sherlock was unlikely to remember herself, a warning to gird against disappointment, but as Molly figures out the decided absence of the remote in her package she thinks it wasn't that at all – Sherlock has already arranged her own gift.