lilsmolls3 on tumblr said: I know it's closed but if you ever feel the urge to do the Drabble prompt maybe try 30 please?!

Prompt: "You better watch yourself."

Oops I did a sort of swap!lock with Criminal!Molly in a reimagined scene from TRF. Rated a heavy T. I wrote this last year (2018) but it fits pretty well with the other 2 Criminal!Molly fics I wrote (My Criminal Romance) so consider this the precursor to "For the Sake of Law and Order" and its follow-up, "Escape Clause".

"Well, this is unexpected."

Sherlock stood by the door to his flat, eyeing the intruder who'd made herself so casually at home in his chair.

Molly looked up from the piece of fruit she'd been paring, a dazzling smile on her lips. "Why Mr. Holmes, surely you're not actually surprised to see me."

"No, I suppose I'm not," he replied, finally moving into the sitting room, careful to close - and lock - the door behind him. "Although I am surprised you've become so formal, Molly. To what do I owe the…honor?"

Instead of answering, she held up the green fruit as if offering it to him. " Quite symbolic, wouldn't you say?" she asked, finally meeting his gaze.

He returned the saccharine smile on her lips with a flat grin of his own. "Yes, I suppose we do make quite the 'pear'," he deadpanned.

She let out a peal of delighted laugher, the giggle-snort at the end just as adorable as it had been before he discovered she was the master criminal he'd been playing cat-and-mouse with for the past six months. Quiet, helpful Molly Hooper, the girl from the morgue, the gifted pathologist with the atrocious clothing sense and even more atrocious sense of humor.

He had absolutely not seen her coming.

She'd vanished after that fraught confrontation at the pool, and his fury at her for threatening John had only been slightly ameliorated by the startling fact that the Semtex vest he'd been wearing had only been a fake. It didn't make up for all the other people she'd killed, but it did show a crack in the giggling-madwoman facade she seemed to favor.

"What do you want, exactly?" he asked as her laughter died down.

"Tea?" she asked, an expression of exaggerated innocence on her face.

"I'm not in the habit of serving tea to murderers," he countered, fighting to keep his eyes on hers as she leaned forward. Her navy blue dress hugged her figure, the scoop-neck low enough to show off the top curves of her breasts, the skirt short enough that he caught more than a glimps of her slender, shapely legs.

He blinked and ordered his brain to focus as she responded to his words.

"And yet you serve tea to John Watson almost every day." Molly's grin was dazzling, her eyes dark with equal parts mirth and malice. She was wearing more makeup than he was used to seeing on her, subtly and effectively applied to play up her best features. "His hands are hardly clean. And don't tell me you wouldn't put a bullet into an enemy to protect him. D'you know, it was so much fun pretending I didn't remember his name that one time in the lab. You remember it, right? When I introduced you to my new 'boyfriend' - brother, actually, a very gifted actor - and you so kindly deduced he was gay?"

Sherlock couldn't take it, not a second longer. Not when she was pushing every one of his buttons where she - or rather, where the Molly Hooper he'd thought he'd known - was concerned. "What. Do. You. Want?" he ground out.

She set down the pear and stood up. "I want you to stop, Sherlock. It's been fun, but if it keeps up, one of us will end up dead, and I do so hate going to funerals." She stepped closer, slid one hand up the lapel of his suit jacket. "Wouldn't it be so much better if we were on the same side?" she murmured, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

He stepped away, fighting to keep his expression impassive. "You know that's never going to happen, unless you suddenly grow a conscience, renounce your evil ways, and throw yourself on the mercy of the law."

She laughed again, doing a slow clap of appreciation. "Well, it was worth a try. Too bad you're on the side of the angels, Sherlock; the other side is much more fun."

"I may be on the side of the angels, Molly, but don't for one second mistake me for one," he growled. "I do believe you've outstayed your welcome, see yourself out, you know the way." He deliberately turned his back on her, knowing full well that if she wanted to she could throw the wickedly sharp knife she held straight into his back.

As he moved toward the mantle her heard her give a soft sigh. "Right, then, off I pop. Keep an eye out for me in the news, you'll know why when you see it."

Her cheerful voice, the same one he'd heard so many times in the morgue and path lab at Bart's, was too much. Whirling around, he snapped, "You'd better watch yourself."

Molly smirked over her shoulder, going so far as to offer a saucy wink in response. "Why should I, Sherlock, when you do such a fantastic job of doing it for me?" She deliberately arched her back, stretching her arms above her head before dropping them back to her sides. He tracked every movement, as she'd clearly expected; what wasn't expected, however, was the way he lunged toward her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her ferociously.

Her lips were soft, warm, mobile beneath his; her tongue met his fearlessly as she wrapped her arms around him. He held her close, tight to his body, his arms like iron bands around her waist as he finally caved into the attraction he'd been fighting since the very first day they'd met, nearly five years ago.

They ended up pressed against the door, clothing disheveled, faces flushed, lips kiss-swollen and hair more than a bit mussed.

It was the sound of footsteps on the stairs that brought him back to his senses; with a bitten-off curse, he released her. "Go," he said lowly, pointing to the kitchen with its second door to the hall landing.

She tiptoed up and kissed him softly, wiping away the smears of lipstick with her thumb as she gave a small nod. "Till next time, Sherlock."

By the time John got the door unlocked and made his grumbling way into the flat, Molly had slipped away and Sherlock was standing by the desk, violin in hand, watching through the window until he saw her on the pavement below. She paused, looked up briefly as if feeling his eyes on her, and smiled before entering the taxi that stopped at her hail.

It was with both dread and anticipation that he waited for her next move.