A/N: Betaread by Nocturnias. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

Big thanks to my reviewers, it makes me smile to see a review alert in my inbox, and glad to see so many people already enjoying it enough to favourite it too.


Chapter 3: Trying Times

He trudged up the stairs, struggling to get to the landing before the handle of the pithy plastic bag gave in to the weight it contained. What this latest trip had taught him was cheap supermarkets were all very well and good as long as the discount gained wasn't outweighed by spillage due to shoddy packing. As he stooped low to rest the bags on the floor whilst his fingers recovered circulation, he groaned, having spotted a haphazardly discarded Tesco's bag caught under the partially open door.

"Sherlock, have you been shopping? Couldn't you wait for the Angel Delight? I thought I told you I was getting stuff this morning."

"Don't worry, John. I highly doubt there was an duplication in purchases, unless you've been harbouring strange tendencies I'm am somehow unaware of."

He tested the strain on the bags, lifting them up a few centimetres. His fingers were pinched painfully but it wouldn't do much good to wait, he did have other things to do today and Sherlock was hardly likely to help. He lugged them upwards, bracing his elbows against his sides, and kicked the door wide open.

"What did you want with Angel Delight anyway, did you really want to eat it or am I going to find some disgusting concoct-"

John Watson had entered the lounge of 221B Baker Street to many strange sights over the last few years. Today's scene topped a good lot of the strangeness he'd witness before, though possibly not the time with the donkey. At least this wouldn't get Mrs Hudson threatening to throw them out.

There was a nest of W H Smith bags, as well as some from the local corner shop, the contents of which were sprawled over an area several metres squared surrounding Sherlock, with little differentiation of what was floor or furniture as long as the items rested in place.

"Don't tell me, you've bought out half a news agents."

"Research."

There was something odder about this picture than he'd first realised. John scanned the magazine piles more intently and felt more intrigued – largely bright busy covers with smiling faces staring up at him. The titles he half-recalled from the doctor's surgery waiting area – Elle, Red, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, the list went on; mixed in with FHM, Men's Health and a few other disparate choices like The Astronomer. The overwhelming theme was women's magazines.

"This goes a bit beyond your usual keeping up with new releases for identification and classification purposes. Is there a new case? One where we need to go undercover in a publishing company..."

"No and no."

Of course, this was Sherlock so no answer would be given to elaborate where he felt it unnecessary. John was going to have to pry it out of him, for the sake of his own sanity if not to ensure Sherlock's was still intact.

"Then what is this all about?"

"I am studying popular dating theory. Your advice for Molly bombed, though the more I read of these rags the more I suspect there is a thread of common non-sense normal people subscribe to. None of this will do."

John pushed a pile off the sofa, taking a seat, at which Sherlock scowled but made no attempt to catch the cascade of glossies towards him.

"What exactly were you aiming for?"

"For her to accept my proposal."

John blinked, digesting the statement, wondering if the day really had taken such a bizarre turn already. Hard to know with Sherlock sometimes.

"What, wait, you proposed?"

"No, no! A proposal, not that sort."

John let out a silent thank you.

"I asked her to dinner, on a date, again. Very standard. She conceded I wasn't joking. Won't accept my apology. Doesn't believe I'm sincere."

"And are you?"

Sherlock glowered at him over the top of Ok!

"What, I can't ask? I like Molly. I'm not going to help you screw her over because it suits a plan of yours."

From behind the flimsy paper Sherlock gave a deep sigh of frustration.

"What is it with people wanting explanations? Nobody trusts my intentions. You, Molly. I don't know why I bother, am I that unconvincing?"

"No, you're entirely too convincing -when you want to be. That's problem. Like the boy who cried wolf. So good at faking interest it's hard to know when you mean it."

Another sigh.

"If you find this all so tedious why are you bothering?"

"Oh, I'm not giving up now, no, no, no," There was a slightly manic finger waggle emerging from the pages still held up, "I can't let you both think you're right. It just won't do."

"And you wonder why I'm questioning your intentions...I'm off to work."

"Too early."

"I have paperwork to do."

"Like any rational person you hate paperwork."

"Yes, yes I do. However right now I'd do anything to escape this madhouse."

"Good, you can go to the library for me. There's a list on the desk next to my laptop."

"Fine. I'll get them, but I hope you realise this isn't one of things you can learn rote from some book..."

"Please refrain from telling me I need to get in touch with my emotions or get all 'touchy feely'. What I need is a plan and what I need first, in order to formulate it, is data."

John scrunched up the note and shoved it in his pocket. All the data in the world Sherlock wanted probably wouldn't help him, not when he was ignoring the data he had - Molly had said no, and for good reason he assumed.


The quest – and the accompanying question of why Molly had said no - doesn't consume him, unlike Sherlock, who can be spied plotting any time he's not on a case these days. John does, however, come back to the notion on occasion when he sits briefly idle with his coffee in the clinic in the infrequent lulls. Or with his tea at the flat when it's more frequently empty.

Such an odd notion it is too; Sherlock winning over Molly, Sherlock needing to and of Sherlock being willing to as well – and he's curious if it'll work or if Sherlock will fail for once, fall flat on his face with this complex situation requiring social skills that last more than five minutes of faking or sucking it up.

John intentionally keeps his distance from 'the scheme' as he considers it, plausible deniability for whatever goes on, but he catches snippets of Sherlock's puzzling over Molly.

John can't ignore Molly's uncharacteristically irritated greetings when they visit the morgue, and it's hard not to lament the chocolates he once saw binned by her desk, especially when he could tell she'd actually wanted them and they were dumped on principle, a clear message to Sherlock.

Plus John's the one carrying the obscure medical books returned with overly polite thank you's by her and accepting petri dishes, assorted vials of glutenous substances, almost luminescent flasks of liquid and body parts returned to 221B with a look of questioning terror (and he doesn't know where Sherlock got the latter either, if not at St Bart's).

Then there's the receipts. He goes through them, and the credit card bills, once a month ostensibly to match up expenses to cases though that's easier said than done with Sherlock's erratic requests and spending habits to match.

The assortment is as unexpected as ever, yet he finds himself wondering lately which could relate to Molly.

The 5hrs in a recording studio?

£234.59 at Waterstones? He hasn't spotted any more relationship books, mind you hasn't spotted any more books at all nor been asked to fetch them from the library after the first few times.

Lessons at Mdme Fifi's? Dancing ones, he hopes but really who knows and even then he might not want to know what kind of dancing, guessing leaves him with too many disturbing mental images.

He sees an entirely new look on Sherlock's face at times as well, a special epiphany parallel to the work, a sly eureka moment unrelated to and yet tending to be inspired by the current conversation at the time, often prompting urgent scribbles in a notebook and fevered scrolling through phone apps that John has learnt not to interrupt. As fast as it occurred it would be done with, Sherlock's keen mind slotting it back in place and getting on with what was really important to him.

And he's learnt there's an accompanying expression, that appears maybe hours or days afterwards, a dark brooding flare of frustration. John doesn't count the number of follies against Molly, but they're racking up. Every time he knows what's happened when he recognises that reaction; they don't work and Sherlock doesn't stop, can't stop. Changes his approach, changes his speech, changes his clothes to be more appealing and less intimidating, whatever works. Sherlock is a master of disguise and acting when he wants to be but nothing is swaying Molly.

Their sense of normality is skewed – it used to be just the work, and his day job, evenings of Chinese takeaways and Angelo's, and Mrs Hudson over for tea and cakes. Now there's this other theoretical unbirthed aspect looming in Sherlock's life, and by extension his, and it's getting painful, waiting for it to be or not be. Even though they all know by know the answer is not. Sherlock isn't willing to accept it, an affront to his multitude of talents that he's unable to convinced one woman, who used to fawn over him for Pete's sake, to give him more than the time of day – or lab results as it actually is. John did wonder if Molly really wasn't interested anymore or if she was simply revealing a stubborn streak equally as bad as Sherlock's, refusing him on principle.

It's all backwards and either Molly's some grand mastermind of love, drawing him ever closer or Sherlock is exhibiting his dangerously obsessive tendencies. Sherlock calls it all data collection - it's like an endless experiment, that everyone except him considers sort of fundamentally wrong.

There was something dually endearing and worrying that the man would not take that no for an answer. In all honestly he was leaning far more towards worrying as time went on. Sherlock was searching for an avenue of change, another route to the destination desired but John couldn't help feeling it was all about the chase, the exhilaration of getting to that end point. Just what would Sherlock do if he succeeded? Maybe that was the doubt that was seeded in Molly's head too, the rightly logical criterion for refusal.