Chapter 2: Available
Molly awoke, a sick lump forming in her stomach as the events of the last night came back to her in a blur. What had she done? She'd... Well, to be fair, she hadn't really actively done or suggested anything, but still, not protesting or telling him to stop was a decision in and of itself. She'd reasoned that it was best to let him have what he wanted, that here before here was a man half-crazed with grief and that it was best to just give him what he asked for, but now... Well, now she wasn't so sure she'd done the right thing, much less the pragmatic one.
The other guilty party, the other resident of her bed, stirred and mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like "John". That's when Molly started to cry.
He'd kissed her needily on her stoop, which turned into him biting her neck in her living room which in turn quickly became him ripping (literally ripping) her night-clothes off of her body and pushing her onto the bed before undressing himself and mounting her, a hungry look in his clear eyes.
They'd both been virgins. Neither of them had to say it; it was unspoken knowledge in the room; after all, who would bed Sherlock, cold, calculating, emotionless Sherlock? And Molly, sweet, innocent Molly: everything from the way she dressed to the way she still hopefully applied lipstick whenever she heard Sherlock might be around screamed "virgin" in bright neon letters - it was a deduction that even Anderson could be trusted to make. Sherlock hadn't lasted long - barely forty seconds and the world's only consulting detective was undone, convulsing wordlessly before slumping back against the headboard. Molly, for her part, didn't mind that he hadn't lasted. She'd felt mostly pain with very little pleasure to mitigate it - the act was one of need on Sherlock's part and acquiescence on hers; her arousal (or rather, her lack thereof) hadn't been questioned.
The guilt had set in as soon as he'd finished. Until then she hadn't had to think, she'd only had to not fight back, not resist. After he'd pulled out, seemingly sated, he'd fallen asleep on top of the blankets and she'd quietly pulled the sheet out from under him and wrapped it around herself before walking as quietly as she could to her shower where she did her best to clean up the fluid that matted her pubic hair. She bit her lip to try to keep back tears, but Molly Hooper had never been good at disguising her emotions. She sat underneath the showerhead and let herself cry until she felt, if not clean, at least marginally less dirty, before drying herself off and returning to her bedroom, her sheet again wrapped around her body. Sherlock was asleep, his face contorted: he was having a nightmare. He was whimpering, and despite herself, Molly knew that she was still in love with him. She watched helplessly, torn between trying to comfort the man she loved and wanting to hate the man who had just used her, who had wordlessly taken her virginity.
She did neither. She opted instead to simply lie down next to him, still naked under the sheet, and closed her eyes and let sleep claim her body as effortlessly as Sherlock had.
Molly watched Sherlock sleep for several minutes. She wasn't really sure what to do; she'd never been particularly adept at handling situations that involved other people, and a "morning after" was something that she was woefully unequipped to deal with, especially under the current circumstances. The man beside her began to stir, and she realized that she suddenly desperately craved a cup of tea thank you very much, so she'd just be off now and if he wanted anything she would be in the left her bed and blushed when she realized her nakedness despite being the only one awake. She pulled on a pair of grey sweatpants and put on a white sports bra and a baggy pink t-shirt and quietly padded off to the kitchen.
She'd been sitting in silence for about an hour, sipping cup after cup of tea and wondering when Sherlock would get up, what she'd say to him, what he'd say to her, and what to do about the whole situation when she heard the front door slam shut. Had he just left?
She got up and ran to her bedroom - her bed was empty and his clothes were gone off the floor. She fell to the floor with a thump, not knowing how to react to the fact that he'd just walked in, slept with her, and left in the morning without saying a word. She cried, again, the sobs wracking her entire body.
Molly didn't leave the house that day. She didn't go to work; her boss had heard about John Watson and given her an undefined amount of time off, somehow he'd felt that being around dead bodies wouldn't help in her recovery process. It was a nice gesture and it was certainly true, on any other day she'd have loathed the idea of cutting up cadavers and inspecting their insides, but right now she rather fancied the idea of cutting up something that looked like a person.
Sherlock came back that night. He knocked on the door and Molly opened it, only half surprised when she saw his face there. There were no words this time, but really, that was the only difference. He captured her lips (that was the right word, yes, because she was just there and he was taking her) and the squeak she gave when their faces crashed together was the only sound she made that lost another set of nightclothes that night.
He didn't last much longer the second time around, and she didn't really care. The physical act wasn't enjoyable for her, quite the opposite in fact, but she felt, somehow, that she needed to be there for Sherlock in whatever capacity she could, and, well, if this was how he needed her, Sherlock always knew best. Still, telling herself that she was helping him didn't help assuage the guilt that was nestled in the pit of her stomach, the feeling that she wasn't helping and that the only reason she was going along with it was because, deep down, she loved the feeling of being needed, of being wanted.
She couldn't really say that they were "sleeping together" because it wasn't that. Even in the literal sense, it was more that they just happened to be in the same bed by virtue of there being nowhere else to sleep rather than any desire to be in each others company. It definitely wasn't "making love" and it sounded far too clinical to say that they were "having sex". So "fucking". They were fucking. No, that wasn't right either, because it implied that Molly was doingsomething other than just not stopping Sherlock from having his way. Sherlock was fucking Molly and she was merely letting him.
He left again in the morning without saying a word. She'd stayed in bed this time, watching him to see if her presence in the morning would be enough to elicit some kind of verbal response, but it wasn't. She sat, wrapped in her sheet, watching as he got up, stretched, wordlessly pulled on the clothing he'd discarded the night before and left her house without once even looking at her.
Molly cried a lot, as a rule, but these two days were going to set a record.