A/N: Betaed by asteraceaeblue and written for a tumblr anon. Rated T. Thanks everyone for following, reading and reviewing!
Anonymous: hello! for the prompt thingies: I asked for your help getting a book off the top shelf and you laughed at my taste and called me a nerd so I shoved you into a table of nonfiction best-sellers and that's how we both got banned from the quirky community bookstore AU
"It's your own damn fault!"
"No, it's your fault! All you had to do was get the damned book down for me, but noooo, instead you had to be a complete twat!"
The argument looked to have no end in sight, even after the two combatants had been unceremoniously evicted from the community bookstore. The tall, curly-haired bloke with the fearsome scowl and the petite pony-tailed brunette with the glasses riding precariously on the end of her nose (not to mention an equally fearsome scowl) stood on the pavement, neither willing to back down even now. Molly Hooper, third year medical student, stood with fisted hands on hips and glared up at her nemesis.
Who had the utter gall to roll his eyes at her. "Really," he drawled obnoxiously, "50 Shades of Being Degraded? I'd have thought any sensible woman would understand what utter rubbish that novel is."
"It's called 50 Shades of Grey and it's for a paper I'm writing, you arse," she said between gritted teeth, giving a little stomp of her foot for emphasis.
"A paper on what?" he sneered. "How not to do bondage correctly? How to encourage men to become controlling stalkers who prey on younger women? How to – "
"How to get yourself and a woman you don't even know tossed out of a bookstore?" Molly cut in sweetly. "How to not admit when something is your fault?"
Her adversary straightened his posture and looked down his nose at her. "I am not the one who shoved someone into a stack on non-fiction books, toppling both said stack and said someone onto the bloody floor." He put a hand to the back of his head, winced, then held it up for her to see the red streaks on his fingers. "Literally bloody, you daft woman!"
Molly instantly went from seething tigress to professional caregiver – as befit her intended career path as a physician – reaching up and turning his head so she could assess the damage, careful not to touch the actual injury or the blood still seeping out from his scalp. "Hmm, hard to tell through all the hair, but I don't think it's deep enough to need any stitching. Just something to stem the tide. You don't happen to have a pocket handkerchief or bandana on you, do you? No? Maybe I do." She let go of his head and began rummaging around in her knapsack. "Tissues, no, don't want to leave all that debris in the wound, where is that first aid kit, thought for sure I threw it in here…"
oOo
Sherlock Holmes, Graduate Chemist, gawped at the woman currently rummaging through her over-stuffed knapsack as if she'd grown a second head. How could she go from yelling at him one minute to helping him the next? It didn't make any sense, especially after the way he'd been needling her since Mrs. Hudson had thrown them out of her bookstore. It would be weeks before he'd dare set foot back inside Page Break, or even be seen near the vicinity of 221B Baker Street!
As if summoned by his thoughts, the elderly storekeeper poked her head out the door and glared at the pair of them. "Go on, then, shoo!" she ordered. "Get that cut taken care of Sherlock Holmes, and mind you learn some manners before you come back! You too, Molly Hooper! Him, I expect trouble from, but you should know better!" Without giving either of them time to respond to her outburst, she turned smartly and reentered her store, allowing the door to bang shut behind her.
Molly, as the petite, cinnamon-tressed (brown eyes, slender build, cat owner, medical student, only child, father possibly deceased) woman had now been identified, was staring from the door to Sherlock in consternation. "So, um, I guess you know Mrs. Hudson pretty well, then," she said, gesturing toward the once-again closed door.
"Yes, known her for ages, since her husband got in a bit of trouble with the law. I helped her out with that," he said proudly.
She looked up at him, a smile on her lips for the first time since they'd met thirty-five minutes previous. "Helped clear his name or something?" She set her knapsack on the pavement with a thunk, bending over in her continuing quest for…whatever.
He shook his head, his eyes drifting to her khaki-clad posterior. "No, helped put him away for life. Bastard deserved it, too," he replied absently, still staring at her bum as she finally found what she was looking for – a small, white, plastic container with a hand-drawn red cross on the lid. He shook his head, wincing at the aggravation that movement caused his small injury, but he needed to clear his head; Sherlock Holmes didn't go around gawking at women's bums. Even if the bum was as attractive as this one was. The body was transport, no matter what Victor or John tried to tell him, and he'd managed to keep his transport functioning like a well-oiled machine ever since he'd left his teen years behind.
So why was this young woman suddenly fouling up the cogs?
"Here." He reared his head back in startlement as she thrust a small white square of something under his nose. "It's a gauze pad. No way to secure it, but at least it'll stop the bleeding til you get home." She peered up at him somewhat anxiously. "Is it very far? I wouldn't think there was danger of concussion, I didn't think you'd hit your head that hard, but maybe we should get you to the A&E? Just have a real doctor look you over?"
"One of my flat mates is an intern at the Royal London, he'll look it over when I get home," Sherlock said, waving a dismissive hand – but accepting the gauze pad with a genuine smile. "It's over on Montague Street, not too far from here. Coffee?"
"Wh-what?" She looked confused, and he suppressed a sigh; after all, even a bright mind like hers was unlikely to keep up with his!
"Coffee," he repeated patiently. "To thank you, and to make up for getting you kicked out of the bookstore. Hudders won't stay mad for long; if you come back tomorrow and tell her you're sorry, she'll let you back in." He smiled brightly at her, knowing full well what his smiles often did to members of the so-called fairer sex. And a fair (ha!) number of men, too.
Instead of returning his smile and saying yes, Molly was suddenly back to scowling at him – damn. Why? "Why should I apologize when this is all your fault?" she demanded, and just like that they were back to arguing with each other.
oOo
Coffee? Where the hell had that come from? Well, obviously because he wanted to thank her, so why hadn't she in turn done the decent thing and either accepted or declined? No, instead she'd panicked and restarted the previous argument. Just because a good looking, intelligent bloke was nice to her for five seconds!
Oh, Molly, you idiot! she chided herself mentally, even as she continued to verbally spar with her adversary. Who seemed to actually be…enjoying himself?
As they argued they were moving, walking, her forwards, him backwards at times. And suddenly they were no longer arguing about what had happened in the bookstore, but about the merits of various works of literature instead. Sometime after she gave a spirited defense of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (and he rebutted with a rather brilliant deconstruction of Wuthering Heights), she came to realization that the two of them were actually enjoying themselves. And once they reached Montague Street and the flat he shared with two other uni students – Victor Trevor and John Watson, he mentioned casually on the way up the three flights of stairs – she began to suspect it was more than just arguing with her he was interested in.
The way his hand lingered on the small of her back as they climbed the stairs, the appreciative sparkle in his blue (green?) eyes whenever she made a particularly good riposte to one of his comments, the curve of his lips when he returned her reluctant smile at said riposte…it was enough to turn a girl's head.
Panic tried to rear its ugly head again, but she tamped it down – and it wasn't nearly as difficult as it usually was. Not when Sherlock paused outside the door to his flat, right in the middle of a ripping good analysis of modern literature as a whole, just so he could press her against the wall and snog her breathless.
After the kiss ended, while Molly was still reeling a bit from the unexpected way her day had turned out, as if he hadn't just done what he'd done – Sherlock immediately picked up where he had left off. With a grin, Molly let him rant on, interjecting her own opinions whenever he paused for breath.
Once inside the flat, they paused only long enough for Sherlock to introduce her to his slack-jawed flatmates. As he led Molly to the lav so she could help him properly clean and dress his wound, they heard Victor mutter to John, "Great, he finally brings a bird home and all he does is argue with her?"
With a grin, Molly looked back over her shoulder and said, "It's all right, boys, I'm pretty sure this is his idea of foreplay!"
Sherlock chuckled as both Victor and John turn beet red. "Miss Hooper," he said as the bathroom door shut behind them, "I do believe you're what my mother would call a keeper!"