Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Beta-read by the awesome Katya Jade who is responsible for my new favourite word: PockeMolly. Thanks too (as always) for their reviews go to MilieLitre, lollypopGuild-UK, poodle warriors, Bryttle Mystere, lavanyabelle, Katya Jade and VampireHuntress72095. Here you go, ladies: Enjoy!
~ Detectives Are Sensitive People (With So Much To Give) ~
Sherlock Holmes, consummate scientific thinker that he is, takes the opportunity to cogitate as he thunders through the alien savannah in which he's found himself, a pack of feral unicorns at his heels.
He cogitates on the fact that though elfin, Molly Hooper is surprisingly heavy when slung over one's shoulders, especially when her head keeps smacking into one's arse. (Not that the sensation is particularly horrible, but still).
He cogitates on the fact that manoeuvring said shoulderful of womanly pulchritude is actually more difficult than driving a formula one car, a stolen Tube train or a WW2 tank (and he happens to have experience with all three).
But mostly he cogitates on the fact that the unicorns are getting closer, their vicious snuffling becoming disconcertingly louder the nearer they get to their prey, and Sherlock isn't certain but he doesn't think he can keep this up much longer. In fact, he's not even certain he'll make it to the patch of trees he's heading for, (figuring that if he and Molly can reach and scramble up said greenery then the evolutionary disadvantages of hooves will make themselves apparent and Team Sherlock will be saved.)
Which would, he knows, simply be best for the universe.
But that's becoming increasingly unlikely: Though it must be an illusion, it feels like the trees are purposefully moving further away the more effort he puts into reaching them. In fact, this almost feels like one of those dreams where one runs and runs and runs, and never reaches one's destination. A dream starring the sort of childhood bogeyman that he's never told anyone about, even Mummy or John. Which leads to some interesting theories about what sort of place he has found himself consigned to, or alternatively how long Mycroft has been studying magic and how much he might have told his younger brother about the creatures it put him into contact with. Before he can examine any hypothesis further however the lead unicorn, the one which reminds him of Moriarty, gives a bounding leap forward, its razor-sharp teeth making a try for the exposed back of Molly's neck-
Sherlock hisses, swears, and manages to bound forward, dodging her out of the way. He dearly wishes Molly hadn't dug her nails into his arse in any attempt not to fall off his shoulders but oh well. It's not like he minds that much. It's a near thing though, the Moriartacorn missing, the impact of his dodge jarring Sherlock's knees and nearly toppling him over onto his belly-
He has to scramble to regain his footing, nearly dropping Molly in the process.
The Moriartacorn gives a vicious snarl and darts forward again, forcing Sherlock to speed up and bound even further ahead, trying to keep both himself and his precious cargo away from the monster.
"Sherlock," he hears Molly pant, "Sherlock, put me down. I'll try to run- I'm sure I can take the shoes off-"
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Do you think I haven't thought of that?" he snaps, pulling at her shoes as if to illustrate his point. Neither budges. "If those shoes came off I'd have thrown them at the things chasing us by now-"
"Oh," Molly says, momentarily nonplussed. Her head smacks into his left arse-cheek this time, so hard it could either cause a bruise or give her whiplash, Sherlock's not certain which. It feels almost as good as her nails and he is not examining that thought with a ten foot barge pole. He isn't.
Ahem.
"But even so, you should still put me down," she continues after a second. "I'm slowing you down; If you're not carrying me you can-"
"Molly!" Sherlock stops her with a sharp, pointed slap to her backside. She lets out the most interesting little yelp at it, almost as interesting as the feeling of her nails digging into his skin, as the Moriartacorn makes another snapping attempt at his heels. "I wouldn't leave John or Mary in this situation," he says, "and I won't leave you-"
"I qualify the same as John and Mary?" she says slightly breathlessly, this sentence delivered to his right arse-cheek. He finds himself hoping, somewhat forlornly, that it's the good arse-cheek (he once had to catalogue the differences between the two for a case, so this is an informed worry).
"You do," he tells her with certainty. "Now be a dear and shut up while I execute our little spot of derring do, alright?"
And he leaps forward, managing to clear a narrow stream in two soaking, splashing steps. He knows that it looks rather dashing and he allows himself a small, smug smile. He hears Molly sputter, realises she must have inadvertently gotten wet. Oops, he thinks. As if from nowhere the image splashes across his brain, her in that Diaphanous Dress of Doom but soaked. Soaked, the gown clinging to her skin whilst she wears a deerstalker. And go-go boots. Suddenly, in his head, she's hula-dancing.
What a lovely mental image, he thinks. Not that such thoughts will help though.
And he's right: The Moriartacorn clears the stream in one leap, not even slowing up. Though its pack are not nearly so agile, they're not far behind. Sherlock hears several hooves thundering as they land on the grass behind him and though he wants to speed up, he's afraid even his long legs cannot outpace them- For the first time in a long time, he's not even sure he can keep up his current speed-
And then the single oddest thing in this singularly odd day happens.
Which, given that he's been threatened by the Hulk, been bitch-slapped by a dragon, been sucked through a magical portal and (hopefully) seduced away the Norse God of Mischief's girlfriend, is saying something indeed.
For, to his right, he hears a sudden, ululating cry come up. It sounds like hundreds of tiny, girlish voices and they're yelling, roaring. Singing what sounds like a war-song, a tinny, pounding rhythm taking up beside him as if many, many, many, tiny feet are stomping in protest and making their way towards both he and the unicorn herd with astonishing, lethal speed. Sherlock risks a glance sideways and as he does he sees-
Why, he sees an army of tiny Mollies, dressed exactly as he as always imagined the Molly he could carry around in his pocket would be dressed.
They're all wearing tiny white lab-coats and tiny, miniscule deerstalkers, and they're all darting towards him in tiny, gorgeous, hula-capable little go-go boots.
They look absolutely bloody divine.
They're all armed to the teeth too, carrying tiny cutlasses, knives, whips, swords, and, in at least one case, what looks like a Klingon bat'leth-
"K'plagh!" he hears a tinny voice bellow- "You will die a peasant's death!"-
"Sherlock..?" Molly says, her voice slightly panicked. "Sherlock, can you see what I can see?"
"Yup," Sherlock huffs, making sure to pop his Ps. Grinning as a workable hypothesis of where he is and what this place is capable of coming together inside his head. Of course, he should have known that Mycroft made up those stories of the feral unicorns. He never would have been able to control himself when Sherlock was a child if he had actual access to one. Attempting to sell Sherlock to Menudo when he was six would have been entirely unnecessary if Brother Dearest had a feral unicorn of his very own.
Which means…
Buoyed on by this thought, Sherlock decides to test his hypothesis. He looks right at the army of PockeMollies and concentrates for a moment, even as he dodges a boulder to his left and what looks like a cross between a badger and a gecko to his right. He pictures what he wants in his mind- even as he keeps running- and then turns to look at his handiwork. For a moment, he thinks he has been successful: the army of PockeMollies is momentarily augmented by a battalion of similarly tiny, smirking Irene Adlers. Each one perfect in every regard, each one as naked as The Woman always is inside his mind though carrying a riding crop-
It looks, he has to admit, quite impressively debauched.
For a moment everyone stills, even the feral unicorns who are wearing matching, discombobulated expressions. And once you've discombobulated a herd of feral unicorns, what other challenges remain in life? he muses. But then the new recruits simply throw Sherlock an unimpressed, vaguely accusing look and morph back into PockeMollies. They even cheer and point at the real Molly, gesturing wildly like a war-party which has finally found its purpose, its leader. It's messiah. Sherlock knows he should be disappointed in his plan's failure, but somehow he's not, and he doesn't think Molly is either. Instead, she gestures for him to put her down and he does so, skidding to a halt.
She clambers out of his arms with surprising grace, throws him a look and he realises that she must have followed his line of logic, because now- NOW she's dressed in a skin-tight black leather cat-suit. It looks rather like the one Agent Romanova was wearing in London and it's- Oh my, it suits her even better than the Diaphanous Dress of Doom, despite that fact that she's not wet anymore.
Sherlock likes.
She's holding an absolutely massive gun in her hands, and she has it pointed at the Moriartacorn, a blood-curdling grin on her face.
Sherlock finds he likes that even more.
"This is my boom-stick, Jimmy," she says darkly. The Moriartacorn appears to be trying his hand at an unimpressed look but Molly isn't buying it. "And this is payback, you psychotic, sick, cruel, lying git," she snaps, "So step away from the Sherlock and assume the position, short-arse-"
And with that she cocks the gun and fires. Bullets don't come out, but some sort of energy pulse which spatters the Moriartacorn apart in a storm of blood and guts and rainbow-tufted hair.
It's glorious.
The other feral unicorns stop, blink, uncomfortable now that their pack leader is dead. "Go get them, girls," Molly intones grimly with a dismissive wave of her hand and suddenly- Suddenly the army of PokeMollies are all over the unicorns, tearing them apart through sheer force of numbers. The tiny female figures butchering their enemy, ripping them to pieces and dancing in the blood of their prey, splashing themselves with the gore. It's… Well, Sherlock thinks it looks both amazingly cute and very disturbing. Like Hello Kitty meets Lord of the Flies- Which is just Molly in a nut-shell, he muses.
And speaking of…
He meets her eye then and they turn away from the carnage, reassured that the PockeMollies will be able to handle things from here. They've starting singing some sort of war chant, the general gist of which seems to be We Are Molly, Hear Us Roar- it's sung to the tune of Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi- and that tells Sherlock everything he needs to know about their capacity for survival. As he walks away a group of them start whooping and hollering, encouraging Molly with calls and clapping and quite obscene hand gestures, all of which appear to mean, "get in there, my girl!"
Sherlock's face goes bright red at this and he is only saved from total mortification by the fact that Molly's matches.
"So, essentially, whatever we can imagine in this place, we can make real?" Molly asks then, sotto voce.
She seems fascinated by her shoes- or in this case, her high-heeled boots, and she is unwilling to meet Sherlock's eye.
Holmes nods. "Um, yeah," he answers, licking his lips. Shy suddenly, now that the adrenaline rush is over and a small army of his libido's psycho-pomps are apparently merrily disembowelling the creatures which were trying to hurt him.
The fact that so many of them are now cheering him on also isn't helping matters.
"I never told anyone about what Mycroft used to scare me with when we were children," he points out, thinking that rather than focussing on his embarrassment, an explanation might be in order. "It seemed a logical leap: Something I had imagined but which did not exist had appeared to hurt me. Therefore something I had imagined but which did not exist could be brought into being to save my life-"
Again Molly addresses her toes. "And when you think "life-saver," you automatically think me?" She frowns, her nose scrunching slightly. "Or, well, you know, tiny, homicidal versions of me-"
The PokeMollies let out boos of protest at this.
She shoots them a quelling look but it does no good at all.
"They're never homicidal in my head," Sherlock points out, desperately ignoring the PokeMollies' protests. "In my head they're little and happy and just lovely, really-"
"-And they wear almost nothing but go-go boots and dance whenever you want." A small smile dimples in Molly's cheek. "Would that about cover it?"
Now she looks up at him almost shyly, merriment in her eyes.
Sherlock scowls, uncomfortable at the teasing- mainly because the PokeMollies have decided to join in with the mocking.
They bouncing on their heels, singing, "Go Molly! Go Molly! He's Wearing The Purple Shirt of Sexy!" and it's really quite distracting.
"Yes, well, the dancing wasn't the main point of it, you know," he says testily. "The original point was to be able to take you with me into places I would never countenance your going in real life-"
Molly crosses her arms. "Like where? Baker Street? Scotland Yard? The Avengers Tower?" For some reason, she's no longer smiling. Neither are her plethora of mini-mes.
This confuses Sherlock.
"Yes," he says tartly. His scowl gets darker. "I could never put the real you in such danger-"
"But I can handle myself." Again Molly frowns. She gestures to the cat-suit and the PokeMollies let out cheers of encouragement. Sherlock suspects that power is starting to go to their heads. "I mean, whatever did you think I was doing in New York, if it wasn't learning how to kick some arse?"
"I thought you were being protected," he says bluntly. "I thought that, even if that miscreant Stark or that idiot Rogers were trying to inveigle their way into your knickers, you would at least be safe from Moriarty. And that you'd have a nice holiday before you came back to me. If I'd known for one moment you were going to endanger yourself I'd never have allowed you to go-"
"Allowed?" Molly says disbelievingly. "Allowed? You think you allowed me to do anything, Sherlock Holmes?"
"No," he snaps back, "I don't think, I know." He crosses his arms over his chest, smirks condescendingly at her. "And once we get out of this, you and I will come to some arrangement about the sort of risks it is appropriate for you to court-"
"The Hell we will!" Molly snarls, squaring up to him. Suddenly she looks… Well, she looks rather fetchingly incendiary. And she has a group of killer mini-clones.
Sherlock resolutely does not gulp. He does not.
"What I didn't let Loki dictate," she's hissing, "I'm not letting you control-"
Mention of the trickster makes him see red. "I'm not asking you for control," he snaps, "I'm asking you to keep yourself safe-"
"Oh why?" Molly retorts. "Because finagling some other poor sap into being your preferred body-snatcher would just be too much bloody trouble?"
"No," Sherlock hisses. "Because I just spent the last six months practically certain that something would happen to you and keeping the Avengers Tower under surveillance- Stark complained to MI:6, I'll have you know- and if I did all that and I got attacked by a dragon and I stood up to a god and I actually decided that I wanted you enough to tell you I fantasised about having a tiny, wee version of you with me at all times then you are not allowed get yourself harmed in some ridiculous, idiotic attempt at heroics! Because you don't need to be heroic in a way that requires a cat-suit, you just have to be heroic in the way you always have been, so there-"
And then suddenly, suddenly all thought ceases because Molly Hooper has reached out and grabbed him by his lapels and kissed him so hard that he practically passes out, let alone sees stars.
After all, he hadn't much breath left to begin with, after that tirade.
It is, without a doubt, the highlight of Sherlock's day so far. Possibly, his life. Made slightly less idyllic by the fact that now all the PokeMollies are cheering and dancing in joy, covered in feral unicorn blood as they are and waving their weapons around.
It looks like a very tiny re-enactment of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
But, you know... romantic too.
Be that as it may, however, Sherlock is far too happy to be kissing Molly to really give a toss. So he turns his back on his tiny creations and wraps his arms around Molly. Pulls her close and grins at her, dips his head to try that kissing business again. She tightens their embrace and kisses him back with a fervour he has hitherto had no experience with. A fervour he's fairly certain is illegal is several countries.
It. Is. Bloody. Marvellous.
They both come up for air and grin hesitantly at one another; Molly gestures over his shoulder to see the PokeMollies yelling in celebration at this turn of events. Molly shoots him a mischievous look, closes her eyes as she had when she conjured the gun she used on the Moriartacorn and suddenly for every PokeMolly there's a little mini Sherlock, wearing what looks like his purple shirt and his tightest trousers. There's also a couple of Irene Adlers, and some of the PokeMollies are ignoring their Sherlocks entirely and grinning at the dark-haired woman instead, something Holmes finds disconcerting, to say the least. The crowd of tiny figures cheers again, even the mini-Sherlocks joining in with the general kafuffle-
For a split second Sherlock thinks that everything is going swimmingly and that, of course, is when the two new, machete-wielding figures scramble through the undergrowth and surprise them.
A/N There now, hope you enjoyed. Until next time. And for extra brownie points, can any one tell me where the name of this chapter comes from? Think about it, you already know... :-) Hobbits away, hey!
