Note: This is my fill for the Sherlolly Valentine's Day Fic-a-Thon, organized by broomclosetkink. Happy Valentines Day to theonethatmatteredmost! She requested an ice skating AU, and I only hope this fits the bill!
Thanks to adi-who-is-also-mou for the support and vital suggestions while I wrote this!
Supplemental info: Jim Moriarty was the Tonya Harding to Sherlock's Nancy Kerrigan. He shot Sherlock in a jealous rage. So… slightly more murderous than Tonya, but there you have it. Drama ensued. And here we are.
Counter Turn
He watches her glide over the ice, his arms crossed and a frown marring his face.
It's not that she isn't good. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her form is perfect and her every move is calculated grace. The slice of her skates on the frozen surface of the rink bounce off of the corrugated tin walls, punctuated by her deep breaths.
Tendrils of hair that have escaped her bun flutter around her face as she turns, barely glancing over her shoulder as she skates backwards before executing a flawless triple salchow. He feels a slight hitch in his own breath while she's airborne, that momentary fear that perhaps this time, it won't be perfect. An ankle or knee might fail her and, thus, fail everything she's worked for.
But she lands it perfectly, her skate reconnecting with no fanfare beyond that scrape of blade to ice.
Sherlock Holmes hears someone appraching behind him and turns his attention away from Molly Hooper.
"What do you think?" Mike Stamford asks as he closes the warehouse door behind him.
Eyebrows arching, Sherlock turns back to the rink. "She'll never go for it."
"Why not?" the other man responds cheerfully. "You're the best. She's the best. What's not to like?"
"In a word? Me."
Stamford chuckles. "Funny. You're the second person to say that to me today."
"Oh?" Sherlock asks, not particularly curious but wanting to fill the silence.
Nodding out to the figure currently doing a sit spin in the middle of the ice, Stamford only smirks in reply.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You haven't explained why you've elected to stop coaching her. I've not spoken to her in two years. Has her personality become unbearable?"
"Goodness, no. She's wonderful. But I've done all I can for her. She needs someone who can challenge her. I did tell you this yesterday. You were just distracted by your microscope."
Sherlock heard every word of Stamford's visit, but he only shrugs. "I do remember a dull drone going on about something."
Unoffended, Stamford laughs. "Yes, I do believe you're just what our Molly needs to take her skating to the next level. I can tell that you want to work with her." He shakes his head before Sherlock can dispute it. "Don't look at me like that. You wouldn't have come, otherwise. Have you spoken with her?"
Shaking his head, Sherlock watches as Molly finally comes to a stop, her body poised in a graceful arch. "No, she's skated through this routine three times now. I think she knows why I'm here."
"I didn't keep it a secret," Stamford says before raising his voice a little reach the middle of the rink. "Molly, love, could you come here please?"
Her dark eyes only meet Stamford's for a moment before darting over to Sherlock. There's a tug in his belly—something he hasn't allowed himself to feel in quite some time—but he forces himself to meet her gaze coolly.
She stares only for a moment before shrugging a little and moving over to the door. Once she's stepped off of the ice, she pauses to put guards on her skate blades and grabs a water bottle before coming over to the two men. She greets Stamford with a peck on the cheek and then turns slightly.
"'Lo, Sherlock." Her voice is quiet, but it betrays none of what she might be feeling. He's always had a hard time reading her accurately.
"Molly," he nods, and then goes quiet. For once, he lets someone else do the talking.
"So, do you two agree?" Stamford asks without preamble.
Molly shifts, her face turning plaintive. "I don't understand why we're even entertaining the thought. You've no reason to stop coaching me."
Stamford smiles sadly. "I'm only adequate. You need someone like Sherlock because, frankly, I'm holding you back."
"Isn't that for me to decide, Mike?"
"I believe he is trying to say that you only placed third in the British Championships because of him. And he's correct," Sherlock sniffs.
Rearing back as if Sherlock had slapped a glove in her face, Molly's eyes narrow. Though her skates only add another two inches onto her slight frame, her glowering brow does its part to make her seem far less diminutive. "Get out."
"What, for telling the truth? Faint heart never won fair sporting event, Miss Hooper."
Before she can retort, Stamford steps in between them. "As much as he lacks tact, Molly, he's not wrong, though I know you don't believe it. And though you two seem to have an acrimonious relationship, at best, Sherlock is the one you need to coach you." When it looks like she's about to protest again, he adds in the emotional blackmail. "Your father made me promise to do what's best for you. Sherlock Holmes is the best."
Sherlock nearly scoffs, and is pleasantly surprised when Molly beats him to it. "I'm not some kennel club show dog, Mike, or any other kind of possession. I'm my own person, and what's best for me isn't any gold medal or any title. I'm not ruined by a third place finish. In fact, I'm proud of it."
"As am I," Stamford agrees heartily. "But you're lying if you tell me that you haven't dreamt of proving yourself further. Sherlock can help you hone the tools to do it." He sees that she isn't convinced, so he comes forward and cups her shoulders. "At least through the Games. If you find you two can't work together, I will resume my coaching duties afterwards."
Molly looks over at Sherlock. He arches a brow, not sure whether she's been swayed. But finally, slowly, she nods. "Only through the Games."
"I'll have grown tired of you by then," Sherlock agrees.
She just rolls her eyes and moves back to the ice rink door.
"No, no, no," he shouts, his voice echoing accusingly against metal walls.
Molly wheels around, digging her skates into the ice perhaps a bit harder than necessary. "What now? Did my hair flutter the wrong way?" she asks, her voice giving the barb an almost sweet tone.
"Too stiff. It looks robotic." Sherlock waves vaguely at her form
"What's too stiff?" she demands. "I can't tell if you don't show me."
Straightening from where he's leaning against the rink edge, he waves again. "Your… all of you."
"Thanks, Coach," she snarls. "I can see why you're considered the best."
If this had been their first argument, Sherlock would almost call their first month working together a success. He can see her improving with each pass she makes over the ice. As it stands, though, their sniping is a daily occurrence, and he doesn't care to examine too deeply just why it's so easy for him to be angry with her.
So he keeps his distance, and tries his best to find ways to coach her without any of that messy physical contact or emotional entanglement.
And Molly Hooper may be about to kill him for it. Not the latter, so much, but the coaching-from-rink's-length, most certainly. For good reason, too. The art of figure skating is almost as molded as clay sculpture. Though the skater has to have both an inherent and trained sense of self, some of it must also be shaped by another eye. Trying to describe what he wants her body to do is not something that has come easily to Sherlock, and it's wearing on her.
They'll implode if he doesn't get past it.
Heaving a put-upon sigh, he moves to the door and steps out onto the ice. He waits with am imperious expression, but she just stares back at him from center-rink. Finally, he decides to be the bigger the person, and picks his way across the ice to where she waits, arms wrapped around her torso, her large eyes watching him.
Without a word, but with a dark glower, Sherlock pulls her arms down to her sides and grips her waist with both of his hands. She jolts when he touches her for the first time in two years, and he disguises his own flinch by watching the placement of his palms against the dip above her hips.
"When you move into your layback spin, you're twisting your body too hard to reach the position. You have more than enough flexibility for the move, yet your body is a tell, betraying your hesitation."
She, too, stares at his hands. "I think I look stupid doing it."
"You do," he agrees, but then amends, "when you torque your torso as you move into position, you do.
"As you turn," he instructs pulling her around in a slow-motion echo of the actual move, "let your body bend with the spin, the force pulling you lower into the layback." He pushes gently on her collarbone until she's dipped further back and then loops his arm around her waist. "Go ahead and grip your blade."
He supports her as she does as he instructs. Still moving them in a slow circle, he flattens his free hand to her belly. "You're still too tense right here. Try exhaling as you bend back, letting your diaphragm assist rather than inhibit the arc." The heat of her body against his arm and hands burns, but he swallows down the strange ache and focuses on his instruction.
When he's confident that she understands, he steps back. "Now do the spin at regular speed."
She circles around him a few times to build up momentum, her face a mask of intense focus, and then she is arcing back, her body fluid as she executes the layback perfectly.
She finally comes to a stop and looks at him expectantly, and he can only nod at her in approval.
"You overthink things," he finally says, breaking the pregnant silence. "Your body accommodates the demands of the sport perfectly, but you still doubt it in spite of seeing and feeling what it can do." He turns to move away, but he hears her skate closer to him again.
"Sherlock," she asks cautiously, "why did you agree to coach me? I thought you never wanted to think about ice skating again."
He sighs, having dreaded this conversation since the moment Mike Stamford made his request. But he'll be honest.
He turns to face her again. "To say thank you."
She frowns. "What for?"
"Everything you did for me."
Shifting uncomfortably, she pretends to examine her boot lacings. "It was my pleasure."
"No," he insists, not letting her diminish anything. "I mean it."
And then the shy, awkward Molly is back. "I didn't mean pleasure. I just meant that I wanted to."
"James Moriarty would have killed me that night. You saved my life. You performed CPR when my heart stopped, and then kept me from going into shock. You slapped me. Quite hard, I might add," he says wryly, feeling something loosen when he sees small smile on her face.
"You're too stubborn to die," she says modestly, before sobering. "But why did you stop speaking to me? I thought we were friends."
"Because I let you down with the drugs," he answers honestly. "Once again, you proved that you deserved more than my failed experimentation at taking care of the people I care about."
"I was disappointed, Sherlock, but I am not so cold that I think a morphine addiction is something you chose. It was the hospital's fault for giving it to you while you were in their care."
"Call it a preventative measure, then. I was bound to let you down more and more. And then, when I felt like I had a better grasp on my addiction, you had Tom, and I didn't want to interfere by dint of being myself."
He doesn't mention the other thing. Because he hardly acknowledges it. Doesn't want it to be real.
"Yes, well…." She trails off, fidgeting with the cuff of her shrug's sleeve, her eyes flicking to her now-bare ring finger.
"Yes," he agrees, feeling far more miserable than when they began their conversation. Not liking the vulnerability, he waves her away. "Run through your short program again."
She sighs and skates away, and he carefully makes his way back to the rink entrance.
The other thing.
The part where Sherlock Holmes realized he was in love with Molly Hooper, but only after she'd chosen someone else.
"All I'm saying is that your brand of coaching is armchair." She snickers at his look of umbrage and waves it away. "You're still the best, but you'd probably be better if you ever bothered to put on a pair of skates."
They sit across from each other in a quiet chip shop on Marylebone Road. The owner always gives him extra portions, so he only feels a little resentment as Molly grabs a handful of fried potatoes at once.
He loves chips.
"Haven't you ever heard the aphorism, 'Those who can't do, teach'?" he asks her.
She nods and swallows her last bite. "But you don't know you can't do. You've studied the physics of it enough that it might very well be second nature to you."
"'Second nature' is a social construct. You, yourself, just said that I've studied figure skating enough. That doesn't make any proceeding skills natural," he corrects stiffly.
"As much as I was hoping for an evening of pedantry, I was mostly trying to invite you to come ice skating with me, Sherlock."
He blinks at her, at a loss. He'd asked her to meet at the chippy on some, trumped up 'strategy' excuse, and she'd gamely accepted and willingly discussed their plans for all of ten minutes before launching into her critique of his coaching style.
"Why would you want to go ice skating with me?" he asks her, and he worries that he very nearly sounds bashful.
Shifting in her seat, suddenly looking uncomfortable, Molly shrugs. "I dunno. I guess I thought it might be fun."
He looks around trying to figure out how she might have come to that conclusion. "You thought teaching a complete novice how to skate would be fun?"
Instead of saying, 'Never mind,' like he expects her to, she just smiles and nods at him. "What've you got to lose?"
Forlornly, he looks at the now-empty chip paper. "Besides my dignity? Very little."
"If you think ice skating is what'll do it for your loss of dignity—"
"Don't say 'too late,'" he instructs her severely, and she only grins in reply.
Which is how, an hour-and-a-half later, he finds himself stepping onto Molly's training rink, wearing a pair of rented ice skates.
Contrary to what Molly said, this isn't his first time on skates.
His first time in thirty-three years? Perhaps. But he clings to the hope that she's right, that he's examined enough skaters and their dynamics with the ice to be a savant.
The moment he steps on the ice, he realizes that he's made a critical error. As his feet try to slide in opposite directions, he lunges for the rink boards and clings to them desperately. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Molly glide out. Before she can come up to him and offer any of her hateful support, he holds up a staying hand.
"Give me a moment."
She studies him with concern, but then nods. "I'll just do a few laps. Take baby steps and remember to use your toe pick to stop if you get going too fast."
She skates away, her ponytail flying out behind her. "If you get going too fast," he mimics in a high voice before dropping back to a vicious whisper. "Not bloody likely."
He edges along, gripping the board edge tightly with both hands. By the time he's made it a quarter of the way around the rink, he predicts that Molly has made five circuits. He manages not to sneeringly call her a showoff as she lazily zigzags around, humming to herself.
This is ridiculous. It shouldn't be hard. He bolsters himself and lets go of the boards with one hand and grudgingly follows Molly's advice to take baby steps. And she's not wrong. He begins picking up speed, keeping a guiding hand on the boards, but he actually has made it nearly the entire way around before too much longer.
But then it starts to get too hard to hold on the board. It causes friction against his gloveless palm, and he wants to slow down. But he can't. His eyes widen with alarm at this realization, and he scrambles, still refusing to let go of the wall. The momentum of his body is too great, though, and so he smacks into the boards like a sack of flour.
Molly skates past and says, "Toe pick," before doing a jaunty hop that pivots her until she is skating backwards, still facing him with a cheerful smile.
He makes a rude gesture in return, and she has the gall to giggle. It travels across the ice to him because, of course, she's already reached the other side of the rink.
Gathering his nerve, he begins making his way around again, trying desperately to control his speed. But it's no good, and he tries to slow down by jerking his feet to the side, like a hockey player.
He succeeds in nothing beyond clinging to the boards once more, trying not to fall all the way to the ice.
"Tooooooooe piiiiiiiiiick," Molly sings as she goes by, making swim strokes with her arms.
"Sod off, Hooper," Sherlock suggests.
She laughs again.
This continues on for some time more. Sherlock has lost his momentum, so he returns to his double-handed hold of the wall and picks his way along. Molly laps him again and again, though she refrains from making any more remarks about the top prick or whatever it is she was going on about.
Finally, she appears to have had enough, and she comes up to him again. "Of course you are welcome to stay where you are, if you feel safe there, but if you want, we could try skating together."
He scowls at her consideration for his feelings. It's preposterous. He'll show her.
"Yes, I think I am willing to leave the boards."
She beams at him. "Wonderful. Take my hands and I'll tow you out to center rink."
Feeling ridiculous, he lays his hands in her much tinier ones, feeling the soft skin of her palms against the pads of his fingers. He grips them, and tries to assist her as best he can with his baby step-skating.
Which proves to be a mistake, since she was doing fine before he tried to assist. As he starts to stumble, her eyes widen and she starts saying coaxingly, "Toe pick. Toe pick. Toe pick!"
But it's too late. He goes down, and hauls Molly with him.
Stunned, they lie in the middle of the ice, staring at the dark rafters overhead.
"Are you alright?" she finally asks.
He silently takes stock of all of his extremities before replying. "Yes. You?"
Instead of responding, she starts to giggle again.
"Molly," he warns.
"Sorry," she gurgles, before letting out a guffaw that echoes through the building. "Sorry!"
"Are you injured?" he asks tersely.
But she's long gone, laughing and clutching her belly. "You looked like Odette," she says with a snort.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Odette? Swan Lake? When she's dying at the end, she flutters around and then folds in on herself with a leg and both arms outstretched. That's kind of how you fell."
"I'm glad I could amuse you," he snarls and struggles to sit up.
Hushing him, she rolls up, too, and throws an arm across him to stop him from clambering to his knees. He can't help but notice that she still shakes with silent laughter, but he can feel her breath puffing against his throat and neck, and he can't move away.
"I'm not laughing at you, I swear, Sherlock. I'm just enjoying myself. I haven't tried to teach anyone how to skate in ages, but clearly I don't have the knack for it."
"I'd agree with that assessment," he grumbles.
Not at all offended, she grins and presses a kiss to his cheek, though it brushes the corner of his mouth more than anything.
He freezes, watching her as she draws away, unassuming about what she's done to him.
Before he can stop himself, before he can tell himself that this is a very bad idea, he darts forward and captures her lips. She makes a muffled noise of surprise, but does nothing to stop him.
In fact, she returns the kiss.
Tentatively, she reaches up and curls her fingers in his hair, letting her mouth settle more comfortably against his, a burning heat in spite of all of the cold around them.
His arms move, too, to wrap tightly around her. As his tongue strokes her bottom lip and then her tongue in turn, he only grips her harder. And without his being cognizant of it, he's sinking back down with her, coming to rest half on top of her, an arm beneath her head so it is pillowed from the cold ice beneath them.
His other arm wraps under her, tugging her up until she is pressed chest-to-chest, knee-to-knee with him. He doesn't care about the freezing burn of ice against the back of his hand, or its unforgiving hardness as he presses back against her. All he can care about is the stroking of her hand up and down his back and the way she hums with happiness as they continue to kiss.
His chest feels heavy with it, with too much, and finally he has to stop. Their lips part, though they brush and tremble against each other as he looks at her dark eyes.
Her hand leaves his hair, sliding around so her thumb can stroke hypnotically across his cheekbone.
They say nothing for several minutes before he finally pulls out of her embrace, clearing his throat. He is at odds with himself, unsure and unsteady. But he knows they can't lie on the ice for the whole night. Uncaring about the cold on his stocking feet, he yanks off his blasted skates and stands.
Frowning down at Molly, he holds out and hand. When she places her palm in his, he tugs her upright and onto her feet, and wordlessly, they turn to the rink door and make their way across the ice.
He shuffles, she glides.
They say nothing of what happened. Funnily enough, he doesn't think either of them regrets it. In fact, he know is eagerly awaiting kissing Molly Hooper again, but there's no time for sentiment or sex or love right now
Within two days of their night on the rink, they've relocated to the Village, and when he isn't barking instructions to her during their limited time on the ice, he is helping her with mat training, or chiding her to get more rest, eat more food, drink more water, and so on.
And then she places first in her short program, and two nights later it is time for her free skating event, and Sherlock isn't convinced that he isn't more nervous than Molly.
They stand together close to the Kiss and Cry section, watching her toughest competitor hug her coach and hustle over to the sitting area to await the judges' scores.
In between terse instructions to Molly, he slips in observations about her competition, little facts that he hopes will bolster he confidence, though he suspects that she's not particularly impressed with the way he's sussed out the sex lives of seven of the nine judges.
"Sorry," he mutters.
"S'okay," she says, hopping up and down to keep her blood moving as she waits for the all-clear for her step onto the ice. "I'd like to have a sex life again soon," she adds wistfully. "Lucky bastards."
He glances at her and she waggles her eyebrows at him invitingly. Somehow it helps something loosen in him, and he smirks back at her.
The woman guarding the rink door nods to Molly, telling her to prepare, and Molly nods, sucking in a deep breath. She starts to step away, but he can't let her go like that. She turns back when he calls her name.
"Whatever happens, Molly, I just want you to know. You—" he scuffs his feet and rubs at the back of his neck and curses vehemently under his breath before saying more loudly, "You're my champion."
She smiles, a slow creeping tilt of her lips until she's beaming. They call her to the door and she waves dismissively over her shoulder to let them know she's heard. But instead of moving towards the ice, she moves to him. Her arms band around his waist, and he can feel her hot breath through his shirt before she presses a kiss to his sternum.
"You need to go," he whispers, though his arms tighten around her, in turn.
"They're still waiting on Charnysh's scores. I have a moment."
He dips his head and lets his lips brush against her temple, too nervous to purse them in the shape of a kiss. She takes matters into her own hands by turning her head and tilting her face to his, until their lips meet. Their mouths move together, a drugging kiss.
Dimly, he hears the cheers from the audience as a muffled voice recites the judges' scores for Olga Charnysh, but that anxiety he felt pervading his every thought is somehow dimmed by the confidence that Molly Hooper gives him just by wrapping her arms around him and clutching at his shirt with her small hands. He relishes the press of their lips and the hitch of breath and the rustle her lycra costume against his suit
Finally, though, a throat clears right behind them, and Molly pulls away. She stoops to pull her skate guards off, shoves them into his hand with a "Hold these," and then she's through the gate.
She glides away, backwards for a moment, looking at him and only him. And then she turns and grins at the cheering crowd, stopping at center rink and stretching into her beginning pose, one hand reaching to him, the other pointing in the direction where only she can lead.
The End