Holidaysat221b Prompt of the Day - 3/8/19: Molly's school reunion – Sherlock assumes he'll be needed to help Molly show everyone up. The catch: Molly's been a beloved peer, so it's him who gets the obligatory "you hurt her, we'll end you". :) - mychakk
A/N: Rated K+ at most. I hope you enjoy this one, folks!
He'd agreed to be her date on the assumption she needed a pretend boyfriend to show up her former fellow students. He'd further assumed (well, deduced, really, but under the circumstances that was quibbling) that she'd been belittled as a teen - they used to call her 'Little Miss Perfect' after all. He'd read her blog, short-lived though it had been.
He'd made deductions based on those assumptions, shown up looking his very best, making sure to match the bright purple of her dress with both his bespoke shirt and the flowers in the boutonniere he'd bought to match the wrist corsage he'd gifted her with. If anyone was going to try to make fun of 'Mousy Molly' Hooper tonight, well...they'd find themselves on the receiving end of a deduction or two that would send them fleeing from the venue in tears, or his name wasn't Sherlock Holmes!
Oh how wrong he'd been. There was a saying his parents had picked up whilst in the States…what was it? Ah yes: "Never assume because it makes an ass out of you and me."
Only in this case, there was only one ass, and its name was William Sherlock Scott Holmes.
"So, you're the hat detective, yeah? Molly's told us about you," Derrick 'Ricky' Lamberton was saying. Footballer in his youth, gone to fat, on his second - no third - marriage, although the trophy wife wasn't much younger than he was, unusual but not unheard of. The typical bully type, Sherlock's own school experiences told him, and he was more than ready to cut this one down, but his next words stopped Sherlock's in his throat where they threatened to choke him.
"Listen, Hat Man, I don't care how posh and famous you are," Ricky said, jabbing a meaty finger at Sherlock's chest. "You hurt our Molls, and we'll end you. Ain't that right, Bevvy?"
His third wife, one Beverly Lamberton (nee Anderson as he'd eventually discover, not that it mattered much) nodded vigorous agreement to her husband's threat. "Yeah, you may be everything she ever said you were, but we know Molly and we can read between the lines," she said shrilly. Her botoxed face couldn't manage much expression but he could hear the sincerity in her voice. "She's been mad about you since you two met but you're only here because she wanted to show you off, not as a real date, we figured that out early on! Yeah," she added at his (presumably thunderstruck, even if he couldn't see his own face) expression. "You're not the only one who can do deductions, Mr. Know-It-All!"
Her loud words had drawn attraction from other former schoolmates, who crowded round the three of them and appeared more than ready to join in on the (entirely unexpected and really, quite undeserved!) haranguing. "Yeah, you better be nicer to our Molls," someone else chimed in. "She deserves better than you," another one called out. "Why you haven't gotten your head out of your arse and realized what a prize you're missing out on, I'll never know!" another voice added.
"Unless you're really gay?" That was the footballer again, but this time his voice was less belligerent. "Zat it, you gay? All those stories about you and your flatmate true, then?"
Sherlock was once again forestalled from ripping into the man by Third Wife 'Bevvy'. "Well if he is, he needs to let her know so she can just move on!" she declared, shaking her head vehemently in agreement with her own words. "Just like your brother Tony did, took him long enough to figure himself out, but damn at least he let the girl he was dating know as soon as he did!"
"Yeah, Tony always was a good sort," one of the onlookers said in agreement, and to Sherlock's amazement, Ricky-the-ex-footballer's chest puffed out in pride at hearing his gay brother praised in that manner. Not at all what Sherlock had expected - not that ANY of this was - but it did make him do some rapid reevaluating of the situation in which he found himself.
"Not gay," he said before anyone else could go on the attack. "No matter what the papers might like to imply, I've never been in a romantic relationship with John Watson. I've never been in a romantic relationship with anyone," he found himself admitting, even as he discreetly looked around the room, trying to spot Molly. Surely she should have come back from the ladies by now?
Nope, nowhere in sight. Damn, he could really use a rescue about now, she always saved him, and this time he was in more desperate need than when he'd been shot!
That thought brought him up short; why hadn't he realized it before, how much he depended on Molly's good judgement, her sensible viewpoint, her adorable little smile… "I do love her," he blurted out, staring at Ricky and Bevvy and the others still crowded around them. "But I'm not, she's so much better than I am…"
"Pfft," Bevvy said with a disdainful roll of her eyes. "Then tell her, you git. Get off your arse, tell her you love her, and be good enough for her."
"Yeah, you can do it," Ricky added encouragingly. "She wouldn't waste her time on someone unless they were worth it - hell, she helped me figure out I was married to the wrong woman after my first wife passed, helped me get back in touch with Bevvy, here-" he gave his wife a doting look - "and it was just like back in secondary school when she helped me figure out maths. She knew I wasn't just some dumb jock, like everyone else thought!"
"Yeah, if Molly thinks you're worth her time, then you're worth her time," one of the others chimed in. "She's like that, our Molls. Good hearted and caring but ready to call you out if you do something awful, like that time I got into heroin." The speaker - successful businessman, most likely in banking, unmarried but with several children by various relationships - gave Sherlock a sheepish look. "She slapped the hell out of me when I showed up to our first reunion high as kite, reminded me of what I had to lose - I already had three little nippers by then, even if none of their mums wanted to stay with me - and found me the right rehab clinic. Been off the sweeties ever since," he added proudly.
A smattering of applause rose from the crowd. "What's going on, then? What am I missing?" a cheerful, much-missed voice called out from the back of the crowd.
Like something in a movie, the group parted, and there she was: Molly Hooper, looking radiant in her bright purple dress with her hair pulled up into a loose mass of curls held in place by an equally bright purple-and-yellow Alice band. "Sherlock, have you been deducing?" she asked, still smiling.
"No," he replied solemnly, taking a step forward and reaching out to her. "Being deduced, actually. Thanks to your Secondary School Fan Club, here." He nodded at the crowd. "They've made me realize a few things that I would very much like to discuss with you, Molly Hooper. In private," he added, glancing around to make sure her peers - no, surely they could be categorized as friends, even if they only saw her once a year? - got the hint.
With smiles and murmurs of 'good luck, posh boy' they melted away, until only Ricky and Bevvy were left between him and Molly.
"Remember what I said," Ricky said, once again jabbing Sherlock in the chest with his forefinger - although this time his expression was much more friendly. "You hurt her, and we'll end you."
"Ricky!" Molly cried out, her cheeks flushing a becoming shade of red. "Sherlock, I'm so sorry, Ricky's always been like a big brother to me, a bit overprotective, even when I don't need him to be," she added with a severe look at her former classmate.
"No, it's fine," Sherlock rushed to reassure her. "It's all…fine," he added, his voice softening as he moved the few steps remaining between them, tucked her arm through his, and began guiding the pair of them towards the main doors. "Sometimes you need a good kick in the arse to dislodge your own head."
With those words, grinning at Molly's confused expression, he swept her out into the warm summer night, finally ready to acknowledge to Molly how true those three little words he'd been forced to say all those months ago were far truer than either of them had realized.