Sustain III: Obbligato 4/14

Authors: MaybeAmanda and Onemillionnine

See Chapter One for Details

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It was one of the basic tenets of Sherlock's personal philosophy that simply knowing something did not mean that he ought to share that knowledge with anyone else. It was a maxim he had developed in adolescence out of sheer necessity, having prior to the age of seven kept a constant running account of every thought that passed through his brain. It had taken several pointed beatings from other boys at school to teach him the wisdom of restraining his tongue.

He was grateful for the lesson now, as it served him quite well where Molly was concerned. He'd have hated to imagine what a fool he would have made of himself over her otherwise. There, in their cabin, as Molly adjusted Edmund's covers with the moonlight shining through the porthole and outlining the shape of her body, it seemed to Sherlock she had it in her to make him very foolish indeed.

The sudden change in the fit of his trousers reinforced this.

A quick dip in the cool waters of the Mediterranean would put an end to that. With that in mind, he headed toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Molly said, sounding surprised.

"For a swim," he said. Did he need to tell her more?

"Alone? In the dark? When you're - when you've been drinking?"

"Pffft," he said, without thinking. "I'm not inebriated."

"Are you sure?" She spoke gently. "You have had a bit to drink."

"Quite certain," he said, quietly relishing the notion that she cared whether or not he drowned. "And if you come along, I shan't be alone."

Molly's brow wrinkled. "Do sober people say 'shan't'?"

"This one does." Without another word, he turned and walked away. He had no idea why he'd suggested she come along, when her soft breasts and dark eyes were precisely what he was trying to escape. It was clear that the longer he stayed in close quarters with Molly, the greater the likelihood he would say or do something he absolutely should not.

It was unnerving and gratifying to hear her footsteps racing after him, her little legs taking two steps for his every stride. He had a sizeable head start, though,

and he stripped down and hit the water before she caught him up.

The moment he was submerged she called his name. For a moment, he was under the water and it recalled to mind, in some inexplicable way, the sensation of being in her arms. It occurred to him then that the Mediterranean was far too warm for his purposes. He wondered vaguely if even the Arctic would manage to subdue his insistent physiology tonight.

He didn't care. There was no way on Earth he was having a go at her with Edmund in the room.

He bobbed to the surface like a cork. When he opened his eyes, Molly was leaning over the railing, peering at him. As usual, she was three steps behind where he wanted her. With a sigh, Sherlock kicked off, stretched his arms and legs. If he could not have one form of exertion, he would settle for another.

It should have made him feel better, but each stroke left him that much more excited. Molly should be in the water with him by now.

"Sherlock?" she called again.

"Join me," he said, then laughed, because yes, that's what he wanted - he wanted her to join him. Nothing had to happen; he would settle for simply having her in the water with him.

"I can't."

"Go back and get your swimming costume, if you insist." He had chosen it specifically because it would suit her. If she didn't wear it now she wasn't exactly going to wear it round her flat, was she?

"No, I mean I can't, as in, I can't swim," she said. "I never learned."

"Oh," he said, suddenly feeling inept. "Right. This is like the circus, isn't it?"

In the moonlight reflected off the water and the quiet lapping of the waves he could hear her exhale and see her nod.

Sometimes he wondered what Molly Hooper would have made of herself had she been given the advantages of upbringing he took for granted. They'd have ruined her, in all likelihood. Conversely, he wondered what would have become of him had he been raised over a chippy. Perhaps he would have been better off. He could have run circles round Lestrade as a policeman. Then again, he might have wound up in prison. It was a stupid and singularly fruitless line of thought. Perhaps he shouldn't have had that cognac with Mycroft after the champagne was exhausted.

The way Molly leaned over the railing gave him an exceptionally good view of her breasts and she looked so tempting, so unbelievably enticing, that he decided not to. Believe it, that was. It was surreal, this whole business.

There was only one thing for it, then. If the mountain wouldn't swim to Mohammed, then Mohammed would just have to leave the waters of the Mediterranean behind and join the mountain on the deck of Great Uncle Hildebrande's boat.

Which is exactly what he did, though his body was more insistent than ever. Molly, still in her light summer dress, was as unbelievably lovely as ever.

Bloody hell, maybe he was drunk, after all.

He took up the bottle of water someone had left on the deck that morning and rinsed away the salt-water as best he could - he wouldn't recommend sea salt under the foreskin to any but the most devoted masochist. He raised his eyes; Molly was watching him intently. She blushed at being caught. He knew she admired him, physically, almost as much as she did intellectually. He would have chided her for being shallow, but she might not be above mentioning his interest in, among other things, her breasts.

He smiled without meaning to, and took another step toward her.

"Oh fuck," she whispered, and put her hand over her mouth as if trying to shove the words back in.

Sherlock was seized by something he hadn't quite experienced before and so, could not name. It made his heart pound.

"Excellent suggestion," he said. "If you're amenable, that is."

"Amenable?" Molly repeated as though she'd never heard the word before, and for a moment, it puzzled him. Her association with him notwithstanding, she was far from stupid. She was a doctor, for God's sake.

Oh, perhaps she thought it was a stupid question, because the next thing he knew she broke out in a broad smile and threw her arms round his neck.

He never knew how to respond to that. His first inclination was to simply stand there, which he knew was wrong. So he went with his fifth inclination - inclinations two through four being obviously flawed as well - and ran his hands from her full breasts to her waist to the bell of her hips, which was likely also wrong, but had the benefit of being extremely pleasant.

Molly made a noise which suggested that it hadn't been a mistake, after all, and he ground his hips against hers.

She moaned again, lower. Oh, no; that was him.

Her dress was a source of frustration. He wanted skin, to touch skin, he wanted to feel her body against his body, not her damn dress.

"Why are you still clothed?" he asked her.

She didn't seem to have an answer for that, looking as puzzled by her lack of nudity as he was. He reached behind her and unfastened the zip, allowing her dress to fall to her feet.

Oh, the brassiere. He watched as Molly removed it with as much grace and aplomb as she would use unwrapping a package of baps. Less, actually; she had a rather seductive way of twirling her forefinger whenever she opened a bag of bread.

It was interesting that she should be so bloody adept at sex and so inept at seduction. And a good thing it was, too, because if she could tease half as well as she could deliver, Molly Hooper would be deadly. Still, it wouldn't hurt if she occasionally - very occasionally - showed off for him, a bit. When they were alone and he was in the mood for it, say. He wondered for a moment what Molly showing off would look like. Her throat, perhaps; Molly had an exquisite throat. Sometimes, when she was listening, she raised her chin just so, and it was rather distractingly attractive. Her wrists, too, were, well -

Her hands went to the waist of her knickers.

"Stop," he said, grabbing her wrists without meaning to be so rough. "I want, um, that's my favorite part." He hoped it didn't sound as plaintive to her ears as it did to his.

"You've a favorite part?" Molly asked, her nose wrinkled that way it did when she was confused. "And it's taking off my knickers?"

Sherlock stared into her eyes until she turned her face away. "That came out wrong. I have a few favorite parts. Some of them involve your knickers. Some of them are in your knickers."

Molly trembled and gooseflesh rose on her arms. Fascinating.

"Was that not good?" he asked. "Should I not have said that?"

"How much have you actually had to drink?"

"Five glasses of champagne and part of a cognac. I didn't finish it, the cognac. It was never empty. None of which was my fault. Did you notice - Mummy was pushing champagne on people like she was force-feeding a goose? And the cognac was all Mycroft. He was so pissed Pip had to tuck him in on Aunt Angelique's divan."

"Is this why you don't usually drink? Because you get chatty?"

"'Chatty?'" Sherlock frowned. "I wouldn't say chatty."

"What would you say, then?"

"Slow. Even more unfiltered than usual. Self-indulgent."

"Yes." Molly nodded. "And chatty."

"It just so happens," he said carefully, "that there are times when brevity is insufficient. Midnight, on the deck of a boat on the Mediterranean, with an achingly desirable woman, is one of those times."

Molly gaped.

"Never mind, I'm certain this is a dream. Chances are I'll wake up next to Mycroft on the divan in the morning,"

"Say that again," Molly demanded.

"Chances are I'll -"

"No. Say 'achingly desirable' again."

"Again? I never said 'achingly desirable.'"

"You did," Molly insisted.

"I said no such thing. I merely thought it," he explained. "And thoughts are inadmissible."

"Are they?" she asked, giving him an odd look. "What else do you keep to yourself?"

Since, in all likelihood, it was a dream, he didn't answer. Instead, slipped his hand into her knickers. She was wetter and warmer than the Mediterranean. Her clitoris was swollen with excitement, and when he touched her, DreamMolly shivered like he was made of ice.

He pulled his hand out of her underclothes and stuck his fingers in his mouth. "You taste exactly like Chateau Cheval Blanc,'84," he said. Perhaps it had been more than one cognac.

"Do I?" she asked.

"I think so, yes."

"I see. And what else do you think?"

"I think - I think Oncle Jean-Michel was laying it on a bit thick with that virgin martyr comparison, don't you?" He found himself circling Molly, using the movement as distraction so he could put his thoughts in order. "Large eyes and a button nose do give a certain air of adolescence, I'll grant that, but the effect is more Miyazaki than Alma-Tadema. Come to think of it, a singularly delicious sex does sound like a super-power straight out of a second-rate anime. That, combined with the changes in your shape since Edmund - you're all breasts and backside, now - it's terribly distracting."

He was perfectly aware he was going off on a tangent, but at times like this, he was powerless to stop either his brain or his mouth. "Such a common trope - the lonely beleaguered scientist, married to the work he loves above all else, innocently minding his own business. Then one night, an entrancing creature slips in through a window and - poof! - all logic and reason disappear, and suddenly life becomes difficult and frustrating and fantastically good and, I've just described my life, haven't I? When did my life become a pornographic cartoon?"

"Sherlo -"

"And when I say 'difficult' I mean hard, hard and complicated and messy, and I have responsibilities, now, real responsibilities, and I have something to lose for the first time in my life, and every day is terrifying and wonderful and it's like bloody Christmas and the wheel of death at the same time, and, good Lord, believe me when I tell you motherhood has dramatically improved these breasts, well, your nipples could be darker, true, but all in all, they're close to ideal, and your backside has always been exceptionally well-formed, and if I had ever imagined, Molly Hooper, that you could have ruined me so thoroughly, I, I - someone on this deck needs to shut up and I nominate me. All in favour? Good, it's unanimous."

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Molly was torn between the desire to hear what else she could get Sherlock to reveal, and the desire to fuck him until his back teeth rattled. Was it taking advantage to have sex while he was impaired? Or did it mean they would finally be functioning on the same level?

"Sherlock, please shut up before you say something hurtful and I don't want to fuck you anymore, or ever again."

He blinked at her, slowly, twice. "Repeat that," he demanded.

She scowled. "Shut up before you - "

He looked embarrassed. "No, the, ah, the other part."

Molly replayed the sentence in her mind. "Oh, the last bit, is it?"

Lips pressed together, he nodded.

It was like that, was it? Hmm. True, it wasn't a word they used with each other, and certainly not as a verb. But that was easily fixed.

Like the ingénue in a film, Molly straightened her shoulders and stuck out her chest. "I want to fuck you."

Sherlock's eyes went wide. He leaned down like he intended to kiss her, but instead, he rested his forehead against hers and stared hard into her eyes. His pupils were so dilated that there was only a thin rind of pale grey round them.

He cupped her face in his hands and rubbed his cheek against hers, just the slightest hint of stubble scraping her face. Molly could smell the cognac on his breath and the salt water on his skin and feel his big gorgeous body pressing naked against her. She could feel his heart pounding.

"I want to fuck you," she whispered, "and Sherlock Holmes, I want you to fuck me."

He panted against her neck. Then, in a single motion, he pulled her down to the deck. Flat on her back, Molly could see the Virgo and Centaurus above her, and when she raised her head, she could see Sherlock kissing his way down her body. Lips and teeth and tongue, kissing, scraping, trailing between her breasts, pausing, oh God, to flick his tongue inside her navel.

His eyes blazed and he ran his forefinger along the elastic of her knickers like the bloody tease he was. Finally, finally, he pulled them down, but slowly, so slowly, hands caressing her hips. The callused tips of his fingers brushed the inside of her thighs, making her breath snag in her throat. His hands made their way behind her knees, then to her calves, and then all the way down her legs until the her knickers were off. Then he tossed them overboard.

He seemed no longer drunk, but instead, completely mad. By the time he ran his tongue along the crest of her hip bone, Molly was sure she had joined him.

Stars shone down at her from light years away and she could feel his tongue slide between her labia. After that, she couldn't make out everything he was doing, but she knew one, then two long fingers were curved inside her and stars were exploding behind her now tightly closed eyes. It was nothing short of divine, as though every nerve in her body had be switched on, as though her brain was being squeezed, and Sherlock was licking and sucking and biting, and it all felt so good Molly thought she was going to pass out.

Then, just short of what promised to be the most mind-bending orgasm, he stopped. It nearly killed her. And now she was going to have to kill him.

"My turn," he said gleefully. That boyish, enthusiastic chap he could be when the mood, or apparently the cognac, was upon him, appeared. He rolled onto his back. "There are condoms in my inside jacket pocket."

"Really? Planned this, did you?"

"'Course not." He shook his head. "I merely wished to be prepared, should this scenario present itself."

Molly smirked. "I see." She tore the wrapping and slipped it on him, then grinned in satisfaction when he groaned in what was surely pleasure. She climbed onto him so quickly that she felt dizzy for a moment, but it was so good and he looked so incredibly sweet, she gave up all the thoughts of bloody mayhem that had passed through her mind earlier. She leaned forward to change the angle of penetration and the sensation went from very good to bloody New Year's Eve.

Sherlock hissed through his teeth. His back arched then and his hips thrust so hard he managed, for an instant, to lift them both off the deck. They came back down with a thud, and the orgasm he had denied her earlier hit so fast and so hard that she felt cut in half by pleasure.

When her confusion ebbed away, she looked down to see Sherlock gasping, his eyes wide. Molly went very still, selfish enough to want him to last longer, selfish enough to want more.

Not sure how to stave off his climax, she took his hands, so large and strong that they all but swallowed hers. Lips still parted, Sherlock raised his head and…and…oh! he kissed her and he ejaculated and he held her hands and in that moment with his tongue in her mouth and the feeling of the semen pulsing despite the barrier between he seemed the sweetest, most wonderful man in the world.

He rolled away for an instant and slipped off the condom, threw it into the sea where it joined her panties. Then he took her in his arms again, smothering her face with kisses. He never did that. Ever. She wondered why he was doing it now.

"Stop. Thinking," Sherlock said, cradling her to his chest.

"What?"

"You're obsessing over something. Stop it. None of this is happening, so such obsessing is pointless," he said authoritatively.

Befuddled, she lifted her head to look him in the face. "What?"

"I assure you, this is merely a dream," he said lazily. "If it weren't a dream, could I do this?"

And with that, she realized that he was, miraculously, still hard, or hard again, which would also fall into the miraculous category. She had, once again, forgot how strong he was, because he rolled her onto her back, took her ankles in one hand, and without so much as a by-your-leave, he was inside her once more.

It was an odd position, because he was holding her legs together to the side, and she wasn't getting any stimulation at all. She didn't particularly like it. "It's not a dream. And that's not a good angle," she said as he thrust lazily.

"Um. Oh." He paused momentarily and opened her legs. "Better?"

"Definitely." She wrapped her legs round his waist. "And I'm right. I'm the sober one here. I've not had anything to drink."

"Not even with dinner? That red was excellent. That counts too, and you're tiny, I'm surprised you don't drink from a thimble." He grinned wickedly. "Eat from doll dishes."

Molly laughed, she couldn't help herself, and so did Sherlock, but he didn't stop pounding against her. The laughter died quickly.

She felt compelled to try to be responsible and talk sense to him, not that she wanted to. No, she wanted to go on like this all night, especially now that his thumb was on her clitoris, but she would feel guilty if she didn't try again. "I could get another condom?"

"Must we?" he asked, his expression pained.

She told herself it was fine. Eddie was still breastfeeding, and she hadn't had her period yet. Odds were that tonight was not the night her ovaries would decide to start up again.

"Do you trust me?" he asked, his speech punctuated by the motion of his hips. "Do you - do you want me?"

Did she want him? Was he serious? Staring up into those icewater-coloured eyes, she saw no other course of action. It was a lost cause; they were both lunatics. Molly took hold of his shoulders. "Fuck me," she whispered.

Sherlock's hips stilled and he pulled out abruptly. She could feel the slow motion ripples of his ejaculate splashing all over her belly and breasts. She sat up on sheer reflex. His eyes were shut and his mouth was open and his head thrown back in ecstasy, His cock was as arched as his back as a final spray of ejaculate splashed her chin.

It was thrilling and filthy and why why why was the most buttoned-up, repressed man she'd ever slept with also the dirtiest?

What she hadn't expected was Sherlock's fingers rubbing through his semen, spreading it over her skin. He touched his hand to her mouth, smearing it on her lips before he bent down and kissed her. His mouth slid down to her breasts, her belly, her everything, licking her clean. It was amazing. And filthy. God, filthier than anything she had imagined in her life.

Another orgasm hit her hard as his mouth found its way back between her legs.

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Sherlock woke up with the distinct sensation, both in his gut and in his mouth, of having eaten a rather bulky wool jumper. One that had been worn by a large, sweaty person for months on end.

This was why he didn't drink alcohol if he could avoid it. He had a certain resistance to narcotics, but it took so little alcohol to do this to him. It always had.

He clearly recalled babbling, though he had no idea what he'd said. What he did remember, in vivid detail, was Molly trying to warn him that they needed a condom and him dismissing her objections. She was going to be unhappy when she woke. She was going to be unhappy with him.

Had they been home, he would have gone straight up to his flat and immediately taken the first case offered. As it stood, he was on a boat docked at a private marina on the outskirts of Marseilles. Unless he wanted to leap overboard, there was nowhere to go.

He seriously considered his options for a moment: they weren't that far from shore.

He climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Molly, who was, he noted, still naked. He cleaned his teeth and put on his pyjamas. He could have left the cabin, but that would have meant dealing with Phillipa, and if not Phillipa, then Mummy. He'd take his chances with Molly, thanks. In a somewhat less offensive state, he took a look at Edmund in his cot.

His son was awake and in need of a fresh nappy. He would have taken the boy to his mother, but he knew he owed some sort of penance for his behaviour the night before. This would be a start.

That dealt with, he carried Edmund to their bed. Molly could give Edmund one thing that he couldn't; sustenance. Being a smart boy, Edmund was able to latch onto her breast without waking her. Smarter than Sherlock, apparently, because the instant Sherlock laid himself beside Edmund, Molly's eyelids fluttered and she began to stretch.

He considered for a moment whether he should pretend to be sleeping, but gave it up as a lost cause just as Molly opened her eyes and smiled. First at Edmund and then, phenomenally, at him.

Perhaps she didn't recall what he'd said any more clearly than he did. But when she shut her eyes and burrowed back into the mattress, still smiling sweetly, the haze began to lift and he recalled every idiotic phrase. Worse, he was relatively certain Molly did as well.

Oh God, anime? And the - the other? He'd actually asked her to say that? To repeat it? He wasn't sure if he was more embarrassed that he was forward enough to ask, or that he was such a classic picture of repression that those specific words, in that specific order, aroused him so specifically. The best of all possibilities; both trite and sordid. If Freud were still alive, he would no doubt bludgeon Sherlock to death with the first phallic object at hand.

Then he recalled what he'd actually done to his son's mother. He felt more than a bit mortified. He only hoped she had the grace not to mention a word of it.

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End 4/14