Molly awoke with a splitting headache, naked, between two men.
"Oh dear..." She murmured. She lifted the blanket tentatively. Yes, definitely naked.
"Ah, Molly. You're awake."
She turned her head slowly. Sherlock was lying beside her, fully dressed, his hands behind his head. He flashed her a sardonic smile.
"What am I doing here?" Molly asked, dreading the answer. John, to her left, groaned in his sleep and turned over. Molly pulled the blankets up to her chin.
"You were sleepwalking in the rain. If I hadn't caught you you'd be languishing at the bottom of the lake by now."
"Why are you two in bed with me?"
"Oh, you're welcome. I only saved your life." Sherlock sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
"Body heat, since you ask. You were freezing. It was John who undressed you, by the way. Not me. You may thank him for that one."
John yawned and rubbed his eyes.
"Necessary procedure," he said sleepily. "I didn't see anything."
He grinned at her.
"Well, not much. Feeling better?"
Molly nodded, then winced. Pain thrummed in her temples.
John sat up and stretched.
"We'll let you get your bearings. Sherlock, come on."
Sherlock looked up from his lab table.
"Why? What? This is my room."
"Molly's a bit... Exposed at the moment." John explained. "I think you'll find she might appreciate us giving her some privacy."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow.
"Right."
He slunk out of the room. John made to follow him.
"I'll bring you in a robe. And some paracetemol."
Molly smiled gratefully.
"I'm glad you're here." She said. "I mean, I'm not glad we're here, at all. But I'm glad that since I am, I'm with you two."
The doctor lingered for a minute at the door.
"I think you're awfully brave." He said.
777
Sherlock and John were bickering when Molly came down to the kitchen. Sherlock was sitting at the table drinking a cup of tea and reading as John opened and slammed cupboard doors.
"Absolutely nothing. Not a crumb."
He leaned against the counter and sighed.
"We're out of food Sherlock, which may not be of concern to you, but it is to any human being who runs on calories as opposed to oxygen, whiskey and narcissism. I'm going to drive into the village for supplies."
"Just have a cup of tea," Sherlock said without looking up. "I'm sure I saw some biscuits in the bread bin."
"Man shall not live on biscuits alone." John held out his hand. "Keys?"
"In my coat. Bedroom."
Molly wandered over to put the kettle on and John reached out to pull her into a hug as she passed.
"Any requests for shopping?"
"Oh, hot chocolate, please!" Molly grinned. "Apples... And cheese. Lots of cheese. And cake."
"I second the cake." Sherlock murmured. John looked taken aback.
"Alright. Cake it is."
He limped towards the door.
"Do try to stay alive while I'm gone.
777
The sound of the landrover faded into the distance, and the weight of silence settled back over the house. Sherlock was suddenly hyper aware of the girl sitting opposite him. With John gone the dynamic felt a little too intense.
Molly studied Sherlock's face from beneath lowered eyelashes. He had saved her life. She delved into her mind for a memory of the event. Nothing surfaced but the vague recollection of how it felt when he lifted her, and his chest heaving against her body as he ran with her back to the house.
"Do stop staring Molly," Sherlock drawled, turning a page. Molly jumped.
"I want to thank you."
"Oh." Sherlock looked up. "Quite alright."
"I owe you my life."
Sherlock studied her piercingly.
"Another cup of tea would do."
"It doesn't seem sufficient."
"And all the coffee, then. I suppose I owed you for that."
Molly considered this.
"And all of the times I almost got you fired for pulling out cadavers for me." Sherlock added.
Molly smiled.
"That seems fair."
She got up to put the kettle on. For a while, the whistle of it comfortably broke the silence.
777
The relief of being away from the House and amongst other people and normality lifted John's spirits immensely. He caught himself walking the streets with a manic grin and had to stop when he drew more than a few suspicious glances.
In the supermarket he realised that being in that House felt like existing in some strange, slow bubble of time. They had been living exhaustingly beneath the cloak of the Houses' past. John thought about Sherlock and Molly back at Ravensdale, and if he might return to find them frozen in place, cobweb strewn statues, as though centuries had passed.
He banished the thought, and stood smiling at the baked goods until a passing checkout girl asked if he was alright.
777
Sherlock's plan to do rounds of the house was mostly an excuse to get away from Molly and the confusing mix of emotions she raised in him. He was nettled when Molly insisted on coming along. He stalked ahead of her, giving customary monosyllabic answers to her friendly chatter.
Despite himself, Sherlock avoided the windowless hallway on the fourth floor for as long as he possibly could. The landing where he had seen the girl. It took almost an hour to explore the rest of the main house, and soon the hallway was the only stone left unturned. Sherlock slowed as they approached it, inwardly chiding himself for the growing sensation of anxiety in his stomach.
This hallway was lit only by dim yellowed light bulbs, the kind that buzzed and whined with the effort of staying alight. Even moths weren't drawn to them. The natural light seeping in from the stairway did little to lift the atmosphere.
"Oh." Molly looked around. "This is where I found you, isn't it? When you-"
"Yes." Sherlock stilled her with a look. Molly decided it was best to stop talking. They walked in silence.
The hallway was colder than the rest of the house with no sunlight to warm it. Their footsteps were swallowed up by the thick carpet.
They were halfway down the hallway when a sound came from behind them. A low moan, like a long held breath being released.
Sherlock whirled around and almost crashed into Molly. She put out her hands to steady him, grabbing the lapels of his jacket. For a moment they stood in silence before Sherlock exhaled sharply and closed his eyes.
"Fuck." He spat.
Sherlock opened his eyes again to see Molly's stunned expression.
"What? What is it?"
He disengaged from her grasp and looked back down the dark hallway.
"What did you see?"
Molly let out a nervous giggle and Sherlock turned back around to see her smiling.
"Nothing. I didn't see anything."
Sherlock ran his hands through his hair.
"Why did you look so shocked?"
"It's just that... I don't think I've ever heard you swear before."
Sherlock relaxed enough to allow himself a wry smile. "I don't, generally", he said, amused. "Only when the occasion warrants."
"Fuck." Molly considered. "It sounds different when you say it. Than when other people do, I mean."
Sherlock looked at her quizzically.
"Let's go back to our wing, now." He said. "There's nobody here."
777
Resigned to the fact that Molly was unlikely to leave him alone, Sherlock sat with her in the drawing-room, watching the clock count the slow minutes til Johns return. Being alone with Molly was almost too much. Sherlock willed himself to concentrate on the book he was reading, but the words refused to keep their place.
In his peripheral vision he could see her... She had draped herself into the armchair, one foot braced against the wing, the other leg dangling over the armrest. Her blue dress rode up in her lap exposing the creamy, glowing skin of her thighs. She was absorbed in that stupid spellbook, toying with her hair in between turning the pages. At one point she had kicked off her ballet pumps and stretched, arching her toes. Sherlock had almost bit through his tongue.
Yes, these things (how perfect the blue dress suited her, how every inch of her skin shone, how she would curl skeins of her disheveled hair between her fingers) gave Sherlock a pleasurable fluttering sensation in his chest, but the fear that it would turn into to the nightmare-lust was ever present.
If only she would stop being so...
"Are you alright?" She was looking at him. "You're awfully fidgety."
Sherlock managed to meet her eye.
"Perfect." He answered her, and realised only after he'd spoken that he had finished his own thought at the same time.
And there it was. The pleasant feeling began to verge on darkness. He shouldn't have looked at her face. The weakness of emotion. Whatever was doing this would exploit it from inside his mind until he...
Sherlock let the book fall and dropped his head into his hands.
Concentrate, he willed himself. It's only sensation. You can control it.
Molly jumped from her chair and fell to her knees beside Sherlock's chair.
"Are you alright? Can I get you some water?"
She shrunk away as Sherlock turned on her with darkened eyes.
"I need to find out what is doing this to me." He growled.
"Sherlock, please calm down."
Molly placed a hand on his arm and Sherlock flinched, breathing hard.
"Don't touch me. It makes it worse."
"Makes what worse?" Molly took one of his hands and looked at him imploringly.
"Please Sherlock. I can help."
"Yes. Yes, you most certainly can." Sherlock's voice was cold and he pulled away from her. Molly noticed that his shoulders were shaking.
"You're the only one who could possibly help because the problem... Is you."
Molly frowned. Sherlock made an urgent movement towards her and stopped himself.
"Fuck."
For the second time ever, Molly heard him swear. His voice was so deep that she could feel it in her bones.
Then he was gone, stalking away from her across the expanse of drawing-room that seemed to grow more vast with each step he took away from her. He slammed the door and Molly was alone.
777
John loaded the shopping bags into the land rover with a growing feeling of dread. He wished he had taken another hour in the village before finding the supermarket. A couple passed him, pushing a pram. He had his arm around her shoulders and they strolled easily in the sun. Something he said made her laugh, and the sound of it made John feel ever more desolate at the prospect of returning to Ravensdale. The dark hallways. The dripping tap.
He slammed the boot and made his way around to the driver's side. His limp had disappeared in the village. He knew without ambivalence that when he left the car at Ravensdale, it would return.
John gunned the ignition. Only for loyalty, he would have driven the other way and never looked back.
777
Molly found Sherlock in the windowless hallway.
"Why here?" She called as she approached him. "Are you daring yourself?"
Sherlock studied one of the portraits hanging on the panelling and didn't answer. It had taken him ten minutes to overcome that feeling, and now the cause of it had followed him.
"Can't you gather when somebody might prefer to be left alone?" He sneered as Molly caught up with him. "I thought I was the sociopath."
"What did you mean?" Molly demanded. "How might I be 'the problem' to you?"
Sherlock scowled and didn't answer.
"May I remind you who invited me here?" Molly was growing angrier by the second. "You bloody called me at stupid o'clock and demanded that I come along. Out of all of us this House has been a danger to me the most. I should have left after the first night but I didn't. And I don't even bloody know why!"
Sherlock faced her now. He had never seen Molly angry before. It was interesting.
"Yes, you did save my life last night and thank you, again, for that, but if you hadn't brought me here I wouldn't have been bloody sleepwalking towards a lake in the first place!"
"I'm sorry."
Molly stopped mid-rant.
"What?"
Sherlock's eyes were downcast. He looked genuinely apologetic.
"I am sorry that my bringing you here resulted in your life being in danger. If I had known I never would have called you."
Sherlock raised his eyes.
"You were the first person I thought of."
He considered this for a moment, then admitted, quietly-
"I don't believe a pathologist was required for this case at all."
Molly kissed him.
A quick, full-lipped kiss, then she stepped back and searched his face for a reaction.
Sherlock's eyes widened. He didn't move. Molly looked away, with a quick shrug.
"Sorry." She muttered. "I know you don't.. I mean you're not-"
Compulsively, Sherlock reached out to cup her face, tracing her soft skin with his thumb. He closed his eyes. It was an effort for him to speak.
"Molly..."
His voice had dropped lower than usual. Lost for words, Sherlock slid his fingers into her hair. He shook his head-for dissent or clarity, Molly wasn't sure. Then, with a shuddering breath he pulled her to him. Their lips were centimetres away.
Molly could feel the restless, tight energy of Sherlock's body as he held her. She wondered if he knew what to do next. She was enlightened a moment later, as Sherlock moved one hand to her waist and with the other still tangled in her hair, he bowed his head almost in reverence and grazed her lips with his. Then a bite, gentle, his teeth nipping her lower lip, bringing hot blood to her cheeks and making her press closer against him.
Sherlock groaned and took her mouth. Kissing her hard, open mouthed, with more passion than Molly would have thought he had in him, he backed her into the wall and pinned her there like a butterfly, both hands at her hips now.
Control. Of course.
Molly tipped her head back as Sherlock traced her jaw and throat with his lips.
She should have guessed that even like this, the detective would find a way to exert some level of order. Yes, his kisses were hungry, chaotic. But he was clear in his movements-his hands on her body giving subtle physical signals, steering her.
Sherlock's mind was, in fact, utterly roiled. Molly's kiss had created a vacuum, and all analytical thought was being dragged into it, sparing only words like 'want', 'warm' and 'please'. He hated it almost as much as he didn't.
Distractions. Molly, writhing and expressive under his hands, was perhaps the most distracting thing Sherlock could remember experiencing in a long time.
The change of context threw him. This was Molly, the professional, friendly mouse of a girl he had known for years (white lab coat almost always, hair tied back). Yet suddenly - first as a dream, then a fantasy, and now in the real warm flesh, she was something else entirely. And Sherlock wanted to-
His eyes snapped open. That other feeling was creeping in again. The sadistic, scheming want to posses, to take her and... Hurt her.
Sherlock pulled back. Molly saw panic in his eyes before they darkened.
"Sherlock? What's wrong?"
Sherlock gasped and pressed his hands to the wall. He shouldn't have broken, shouldn't have kissed her. Her mouth had taken his foresight.
Far down the hallway, the first light blinked out. Then another.
Sherlock could feel the walls begin to shake beneath his hands. Molly's voice came from eons away.
"You're scaring me."
Sherlock looked down and it wasn't Molly anymore. A young girl with long dark hair looked up at him.
"You won't stop." She said. Her voice was like a nightmare.
"You are going to hurt her like you hurt me."
"I didn't-" Sherlock was losing himself. "It isn't me." He whispered.
More lights failed. The darkness was coming closer. The girl sang softly.
"Send a man to watch all night, watch all night, watch all night..."
Her face began to sag like a wet photograph. Her eyes sank back into her skull. Sherlock tried to move but his hands were rooted to the wall. The portraits began to rattle on their hooks.
"I won't hurt you," Sherlock muttered to the skeletal girl, her hanging jaw creaking as she sang. The sound of her voice rotted as the skin on her face turned grey. Sherlock forced himself to look.
"What am I seeing?" he said through gritted teeth. "Some ancient parlour trick? No... You're here aren't you?"
Lightbulbs hissed and failed. The darkness was almost upon them.
"Whatever you are," Sherlock snarled, "You do not have the power to make me hurt her."
The corpse smell of the girl made him retch. She was little more than bones now, the nursery song was a rusted nail dragged along a coffin-lid. And something dawned on Sherlock.
"No... Stupid. Stupid! Of course. You're not trying to make me hurt her. Something else is. You... Are trying to ward me off."
The snap and fizz of the last bulb plunged them into darkness.
Molly's scream wrenched Sherlock back to reality. There was a resounding crash in the pitch black and Sherlock's hands were abruptly freed. He reeled back and fumbled in the pocket of his coat for his phone.
In the dim light of the screen Molly's terrified face blinked up at him.
"What's wrong with you?" She asked, her voice quavering. Sherlock lifted one finger to his lips. He swept the light of the phone around the hallway.
Every portrait had been ripped from its hangings and flung onto the floor. The ringing quiet after the crash was oppressive.
Sherlock brought the light back to Molly. She was looking past him down the hallway. He turned the screen to follow her gaze.
Ten metres away, his back to them, stood the dark figure of a man.
"Well, this is new," Sherlock murmured.
Flickering and distorting as it moved, the figure turned to face them.
"Alright." Sherlock grabbed Molly's hand. "Now we run."
Stumbling in the dark, they bolted.