Anonymous said: I wish you would write a fic where Sherlock tries to seduce Molly but the tables turn, (because Molly is a clever minx when she wants to be) and she ends up seducing him.

The scene was set: 221B had been transformed into as romantic a location as he could manage without utterly gutting the place. There were flowers (none of which she was allergic to), candles (unscented so as not to interfere with the natural aromas of the blooms he'd so carefully chosen), soft, warm lighting (no bulbs with a brightness above 40 watts, most having been replaced with 25 watt bulbs in yellows and pinks), a roaring fire in the fireplace, a thick comforter placed suggestively in front of it (and well past the grate, wrong sparks igniting would kill the mood)…and himself. Wearing his tightest black trousers and the aubergine button-up she most fancied.

Dinner was on the newly-cleared kitchen table, the wine had been just as carefully selected as everything else and sat next to the two glasses he'd washed himself (after nicking them from Mycroft's office). Mrs. Hudson was visiting her sister in Leeds, John and Mary were busy with their newborn daughter Annabelle, Lestrade had been told in no uncertain terms that he was not to intrude with any cases tonight (and his phone had been not only turned off but chucked into a kitchen drawer for good measure)…and Molly had been summoned.

Well, not summoned. Asked. He'd asked her, most humbly and sincerely, to join him for dinner. Now that the fauxiarty case had been resolved and his own lamentable drug habit had been (for now) wrestled into somnolence, she'd agreed that they could perhaps explore a relationship beyond the merely professional, beyond the friendship he'd nearly derailed by his reckless behavior.

A romantic relationship, although he'd not used the word. But surely she'd understood his implications, his hints, his…the sound of footsteps on the stairs alerted him to her presence and he stood nervously by the door. Taking a deep breath, he pulled it open, his smile only faltering as he took in her appearance.

She was wearing…work clothes. Beneath her coat and scarf she wore sensible black flats, outsized khakis, a cardigan layered over a colorful blouse, with her hair pulled back in a no-nonsense pony tail and very little make-up on her face. "I thought you understood this was a date?" he blurted out, immediately regretting the words. Before he could try to cover his verbal faux-pas, however, she simply entered the flat, took the door handle from his unresisting hands, and closed it firmly behind them.

Closed, and locked it.

"Yes, I know it's a date," she said as she unwound her scarf and shrugged out of her coat. She turned and hung them neatly on the hook next to his own outerwear, then toed off her shoes, revealing a pair of bright pink socks. Fuzzy socks. The kind she normally wore to bed, as his observations of her sleep patterns had revealed when he'd used her flat as a bolthole.

"Um, then why aren't you, uh, dressed more, more…" Words failed him as she turned to face him, casually unbuttoning her cardigan. The white one with cherries on it that he knew oh-so-well.

"More what, Sherlock?" she asked as she folded the cardigan, turning to place it carefully on the low coffee table. "Mmm, dinner smells divine, what did you make? Spag bol? My favorite!"

She wandered to the kitchen while he gaped at her, then found his feet and hurried to join her. Following her lead, he first removed his loafers, setting them haphazardly next to her shoes. He poured the wine, she murmured approval, they ate whilst discussing his latest case and her most recent autopsy. Not what he'd had planned at all, but quite enjoyable all the same. Although he wasn't able to shake the feeling of being on the back foot with her, he had to admit that her easy confidence was not only comfortable, but quite…seductive.

They moved to the sofa with their wine glasses after they'd done the washing up – on her insistence, both the move and the washing when he would have just let the dishes sit till the morning or whenever Mrs. Hudson returned – and he continued to puzzle over why she'd not gotten dressed up for their date. She clearly still loved him, still wanted him as much as he now realized he both loved and wanted her…so why?

"Why do you think?" she countered. He blinked; oh, he'd said that part aloud, oops. "Come on, Sherlock," she encouraged him with an impish grin. "Deduce me."

He took her in, looking at her from head to toe, remembering every detail of her appearance now and when she'd entered the flat, and the deductions flew from this mind to his mouth within minutes. "Because…you want me know that, even if we alter the nature of our relationship – which we most emphatically are doing – that you'll still be the same. You're still Molly Hooper, and you're not going to change for me. You're not out to impress me and change me, either, with the possible exception of my lamentable lapses into drug use…"

"Yeah, there's a zero tolerance for that," she interrupted him firmly, the twinkle momentarily dimmed from her brown eyes. "You feel like you're slipping, you tell me, you don't let me find out after the fact or everything ends. Just like I told you after you got back from your 'exile'." Her voice was fierce, implacable, and he swallowed before nodding his agreement.

"I tell you," he agreed, needing to verbalize his understanding. "But with that one exception, you don't expect me to change. You want me for me, and you know I want you for you, and so all this…" He rolled his eyes and waved one hand to take in all his careful (utterly unnecessary) preparations, "…all this doesn't need to be repeated."

"Nope," she said, popping the p and grinning wickedly. "To quote a movie you've probably never seen or deleted if you did see it, 'you had me at hello', Sherlock Holmes."

Then she kissed him, and he realized with a sense of purest bliss, that the seducer had been quite, quite thoroughly seduced.