She hadn't meant to get this drunk. She hadn't meant to get drunk at all. Well, maybe she'd wanted to get drunk enough to dance without feeling self –conscious, but she hadn't meant to get so drunk that she had to ask Sherlock to help her home. What was Sherlock doing there anyway?
"What were you doing there anyway?" she asked. The train rounded a curve and her body continued its forward motion. Her sweaty hand slipped from the pole but Sherlock steadied her, his hand warm and strong on the small of her back. She looked around the otherwise empty carriage.
"Why are we standing up again?"
"Which question do you want me to answer first?"
Molly looked up, past his shoulder. Someone had scribbled an enormous penis, complete with veins and hairy bollocks, on an ad for an arthritis medication. She laughed. He looked back and rolled his eyes.
"That same 'artist' has defiled that particular ad on at least twenty different carriages on five different lines. I'm certain they're somehow connected to the string of flower shop robberies in Clapham but I haven't been able to prove it yet. Anyhow, we're standing because it's a long ride and I'd rather not risk your falling asleep. You're small but carrying you up a flight of stairs is no small feat. And I interrupted your girls' night because the frequency of typos and auto corrected words in your last text indicated you'd exceeded the limit you set for yourself and I wanted to make sure you arrived home safely."
This time Molly rolled her eyes and poked him in the chest. At least she aimed for his chest. She ended up poking him in the armpit. "I'm perfectly capable of making it home myself!"
"When I got to the pub you were outside chatting with a woman who was clearly intent on pickpocketing your wallet from your purse at the first opportunity. You haven't even noticed that while we've been talking, two rather unsavory looking youths have entered the carriage."
"Where?" Molly said, her voice practically echoing off the walls of the carriage. The young men looked up. One of them, a blonde with a struggling ginger beard and an Oasis tee that looked like it might not have been washed since the band's heyday, winked at Molly and waggled his tongue at her.
"Oi," Molly said to the boy. "Did you know that the average tongue is ten centimeters in length from the tip to the oropharynx? They're quite weighty, too, and surprisingly hard to cut out. I've seen more botched attempts than I've seen successful ones, but I know a foolproof technique if you'd like me to show you."
The boy closed his mouth and elbowed his partner. "C'mon Chaz. Let's go. The crazy might be catching." The other young man, who'd been dozing inside his enormous parka, shuffled after the blonde into the next carriage.
"See," Molly said. "I can take care of myself."
"And what if you'd been alone?"
"I have my pepper spray."
"If you sprayed it in here you'd risk incapacitating yourself, too, if you even had the coordination to get it out of your bag and operate it."
"I can take care of myself, okay!" she said, pushing away from him. The train rounded another curve at that moment and she went sprawling into a seat. Her elbow smacked the chair back, sending a combination of tingles and pain shooting up her arm, directly competing with the waves of hot embarrassment washing across her face. Sherlock sat beside her and helped her right herself.
"Fuck off," she said when he tried to inspect her elbow. "You're my boyfriend…thing. Not my mum."
Sherlock sighed and raked his hand through his hair. "Molly, I fully recognize that you are a brilliant, capable, independent woman, but you have to be more aware of your surroundings and the people around you. I can't always be here and I couldn't stand it if something awful happened to someone I lo—I mean." He cleared his throat and sat back. His eyes darted everywhere but her and landed on the vandalized arthritis ad. "It's not just that this vandal uses the same type of permanent marker for his phalluses that the Clapham burglar uses to write the stick up notes they hand over to the florist. It's the way they yield the marker, in the strokes, especially if you look at—"
"Sherlock."
"Hmm?" he said, knee bouncing, hands in coat pockets, not looking at her and rocking slightly.
"Are you mad at me because you…because you love me?"
His body stilled and he closed his eyes. "Yes."
"Oh you dreadful man," Molly said.
He turned to her, eyes wide. "Excuse me?"
"You would say that when I'm too pissed to even stand much less shag you silly."
"Oh." He leaned back in his seat again. "Well, that wasn't going to happen tonight no matter how coordinated you are, since you are, as you said, pissed. But if you're not too hungover, maybe in the morning?"
"Already planning on calling out sick."
"Good. Settled." He still looked a bit dazed, but not on the brink of disaster. Molly slipped her hand into his.
"I love you too, you know. You twat."
"Good." He smiled. "That might have been rather embarrassing otherwise." He tugged her hand to pull her closer, then laid the gentlest of kisses on her lips. A promise of a kiss. They sat in silence for the remainder of the ride, Sherlock nudging Molly and asking her to recite the life cycle of Sarcophagidae whenever she tried to doze off. When their stop came, he helped her up and guided her out of the train and onto the platform, armed locked firmly around her waist.
"You know," he said as they ascended the stairs to the street. "That thing you said, about the tongue?"
"Yes?"
"Simultaneously frightening and arousing. How do you do that?"
She shrugged and snuggled into him as they arrived at street level. "I don't know, but we should definitely conduct a few experiments in the morning."
"Doctor Hooper you do speak my language."
"It's why you love me."
He smiled, a mere twitch of his lips.
"Indeed."