The Coffee Not a Date

I do not own this show at all. Now that that is out of the way please enjoy the story.

Molly frowned as she watched Sherlock beat at the corpse with his riding crop. He'd been getting more and more upset recently and it was hard to see her friend so troubled. Right before John left she'd told her to distract Sherlock when he started getting too bad. The way he was attacking the corpse it looked like he could use a break from everything. She walked up to him smiling uneasily as Sherlock had a tendency to be loose with his tongue when he was upset. "I was thinking that maybe when you're finished here, I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee."

"Black two sugars please I'll be upstairs." Sherlock said as he wrote down whatever it was that he was writing in his notebook.

She reached out to stop him and he humored her turning to face her. "I thought we could go and have coffee. We could chat about the case and swap funny stories."

Seeing that she was losing his interest she threw in her best weapon. "John told me that if you started to get stroppy that I should take you out for a cup away from the stress. You don't even have to talk at all. We can just sip our coffee in silence if that's what you want but it would make John happy."

Sherlock sighed looking like he as weighing his options. "Fine, let me finish up."

Thirty minutes later they were sitting outside the coffee shop drinks in hand. Sherlock wasn't saying much but he did seem to be enjoying the coffee. The silence wasn't unpleasant but Molly would have preferred to talk as she never really like silence.

She bit her lip and tried to start a conversation using the one surefire way to get Sherlock to speak. "So did you solve the case?"

"If the brother has a green ladder then yes the case has been solved." Sherlock said sounding bored out of his mind, though he was visibly less tense.

Molly took it as a good sign. "That's good then. What about the serial suicide case? Have you got any leads for that one?"

He stopped his eyes going distant as he looked through his mind palace. "I have a few ideas, they are obviously murders, but I need to see a crime scene. News reports are unreliable."

She frowned before a nervous smile grew on her face. "Oh. Well, how's John doing?"

"I haven't heard from her lately. I assume Mycroft is planning something." He said as he glared pointedly at the CCTV camera across the street that was pointed at them.

She talked as Sherlock drank his coffee and whined about how the last fake drugs bust messed up his latest experiment and how the last case was so simple a dog could figure it out. They had if not a good time then it was a tolerable one. Molly managed to keep a conversation going by asking about Sherlock's cases and he obliged and even asked about her opinion on them. She did make the mistake of asking about his blog and their short coffee outing turned into an hour long lecture on the qualities of tobacco ash. It was an informative conversation though she had to admit it was rather dry. They were having such a good conversation that they didn't even notice that Anderson had been staring at them for almost five minutes. Well Molly didn't notice and Sherlock after deducing Anderson from the corner of his eye didn't really care, not until he was called in for a case the next day.

"I saw him Sherlock Holmes was on a date with that mousy mortician, you know the one that works at Bart's." Anderson said to Sally as they stood just outside the door looking at Sherlock who was leaning over the body looking at the rings on her fingers.

Sherlock stood with a gusty exhale that wasn't quite a huff or a sigh. "The mousy mortician you've referred to is Molly Hooper and she is on the increasingly short list of people that I find to be tolerable. However I'm not dating her; Molly and I were talking over coffee. Isn't that what friends do?"

Anderson sneered. "Please everyone knows that she's crazy about you. She fawns over you like a teenage girl with a crush. Everyone with eyes can see it. Why else would she let you walk all over her like that?"

"I am not seeing Molly because neither of us are interested in pursuing a relationship. She isn't interested because she already has a boyfriend my brother. I am not dating her because one I am already happily married and two I'm not stupid Anderson. There is nothing more idiotic than cheating on a doctor or a crack shot and my wife happens to be both." Sherlock said looking at Anderson like he was lower than the dirt on his shoe.

Anderson puffed up his chest swelling at the insult as he snarled at Sherlock. "You're married! Who'd be dumb enough to marry you?"

Sherlock scoffed. "My wife is in the Army she's recently served two years in Afghanistan. You are talking about a highly educated doctor and a highly decorated member of our armed forces. Please Anderson do use what little brains you have and think for a moment. You've just insulted my wife for nothing more than caring about me. In what is perhaps the more idiotic blunder you've managed to insult not just one but two of the only people that both my brother and I like. I'd choose my words more carefully if I were in your shoes."

"Is that a threat?" Anderson said his face turning red from outrage.

"No, I prefer to use a bit more detail when threatening someone. It makes for a much more interesting show." Sherlock smiled his face crinkling in a Cheshire grin that made ever hair on the back of Anderson's neck stand and every cell in his spine shiver.

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