Chapter Four: Holy Palmers' Kiss
Sherlock had never been one for sightseeing. When his parents still tried to drag him with them on holidays as a boy, he did not face the prospect of comparing men to rocks and mountains with any enthusiasm. Mummy and Father had despaired, but often left him alone in the car or hotel room with a book while they wandered off to get a closer look at local attractions.
It wasn't that he disliked places of historical or geological import. As he'd told John, he could appreciate the beauty of things without feeling any need to understand their provenance or reason for existing. His mind was cluttered enough without archaeological or epochal minutiae.
On a normal day, when Sherlock was engaged in a normal case, he would sooner be caught combat crawling through a Peer's garden than be found taking in the sights. And yet, there he was, driving down narrow Hebridean roads with Molly Hooper, following her directions to various and sundry attractions.
"It's only because Maurice Stonebridge hasn't returned my call," he'd snippily told her when she'd commented on the strangeness of playing tourist with Sherlock Holmes.
"Indeed," she agreed somberly, though Sherlock thought he'd caught a glimpse of dimples that only appeared in conjunction with a smile.
His eyes had narrowed before returning to the road. "Don't get used to it."
She'd held her hands up in mock surrender, though he noted that she had conjured a sticky notepad and bookmarked several pages of her Lewis and Harris Board of Tourism booklet.
"I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, how often are we going to find ourselves outside of the city for a case? Do let me know if you ever have one that takes you to Madame Tussaud's, though. I'd really like to get a picture of you with the Boris Johnson wax figure."
A vague memory of a voice saying, 'The Grinch had a wonderfully awful idea', wafted through his mind and he'd grimaced. "The actor?"
"What do you mean, the act—no, not Boris Karloff." Molly had grinned. "Boris Johnson. The mayor of London."
He'd shrugged, not at all chagrinned. "Either one would be equally dull. I believe I once discovered some political subterfuge surrounding Karloff, though. Something to do with an arts council appointment and chicken feed."
"Johnson, Sherlock," she'd patiently reminded him again. "Karloff died nearly ten years before you were born."
He'd remained quiet for a full minute before muttering, "That would have made it all the more scandalous."
Molly's snicker was almost rewarding. And then she'd suddenly started wriggling in her seat, pointing and screeching, "Whale Bone Arch! Whale Bone Arch!"
"Yes, Molly. I see it. It's hard to miss. I take it you want to stop?"
She had. They'd stayed for three quarters of an hour.
Sherlock had hung back, watching her scuttle around the giant arch, chatting amiably with a Scottish Heritage employee while she snapped pictures on her mobile.
And that was when he started to worry for himself.
Had it been anyone other than Molly, he would have accelerated past the structure made from a beached whale's jawbone, excited flailing be damned. More to the point, to make amends for their sordid morning in the least hands-on way possible, he would have just forked over the car keys back at the yurt and sent the other party on their way, not suggested a day spent in each other's company.
No, though. He'd offered to drive and then felt relatively content to stand there and wait as Molly got her fill of the whale bone and the two sites they'd visited prior to that.
In fact, his only comfort had been the dubious judgment he still felt for her interest. He just couldn't understand why she would want to visit something made from the bones of a dead whale when she couldn't even read human interest articles about rescued pets without crying.
There was a reason he'd refused a closer examination.
Schoolchildren in the United Kingdom have more than a passing familiarity with standing stones and henges.
Throughout his career as a student, Sherlock had lost count of the times that he and his classmates had been bundled onto a bus and carted off to Wiltshire. He'd seen Stonehenge in both rain and shine and, while impressed, he hadn't felt terribly moved by it.
If Stonehenge wasn't his cuppa, as Mrs. Hudson would say, then any smaller standing stones were even less remarkable to him. Whether visiting them with his parents, classmates, or idly looking out of a car window on his own and seeing a stone circle just off of the carriageway, to him, they'd been just one more feature as he scanned the landscape.
Molly bore no such blasé attitude about megalith sites. She freely admitted to taking special access tours to Stonehenge for the single purpose of getting into the inner circle. She had even volunteered on a small excavation of a lithic site during a Uni module. Prior to their deaths, her grandparents had the crumbled remains of a standing stone circle in their back paddock outside of Blackpool, she explained while they hiked up to the island's Callanish I standing stones.
"It was in such a poor state, English Heritage hardly glanced at it before they told my grandmother that they could recommend a rock removal service if she'd like." She glanced at Sherlock to see if he was even paying attention.
He nodded for her to continue.
"Whenever I went to stay with them during term holidays, even into my teens, I would weave dandelion and ribbon crowns and go dance in the circle, making believe I was a druid. And now I'm regretting speaking." Twin patches of color bloomed in her cheeks.
Confused, Sherlock scowled as they wove around one of the legs of the outer cruciform. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if ever there were a ranking of flights of fancy, I would say a fourteen-year-old dancing around a stone circle in a flower crown would top it."
Unbidden, the image came to mind. He could see a younger Molly, hair loose and flying while she twirled around (gracelessly; a dancer Molly Hooper most certainly was not), barefoot on summer grass while she daydreamed about pagan magic.
Somehow it fit, so he only looked at her coolly and said, "I planned to become a seventeenth century pirate until I was twelve."
Stunned-apparently by his lack of caustic remark, more than his piracy admission—Molly stared at him, tripping on a large rock just as they reached the inner circle. Though she staggered only a little and caught herself, Sherlock grabbed her arm to steady her.
He didn't realize that they'd stopped walking until she shuffled her feet sheepishly and he let go of her belatedly. "Sorry," she muttered. "Anyway, sad to hear we both had unrealized goals as children. I still regret never achieving my calling as a pagan ceremonial… person."
"Perhaps you didn't know the right conjuring dance moves," he suggested, his tone nearly teasing.
Her smile widened. "And seventeenth century piracy just doesn't have a stronghold at Eton, so you probably just missed the ship."
Sherlock surprised himself with a small chuckle. "Yet, we continue to dream," he said with feigned wistfulness.
"I rather think I've become a realist," Molly sniffed haughtily, but her smile betrayed her.
"A realist who still puts ribbons in her hair," he murmured, reaching up to finger one of the fluttering tails of her bow. His knuckles brushed the side of her cheek and they both froze, staring at each other.
It was the first time they had touched since the events of that morning. It was such a strange dichotomy: the carnal nature of their awakening versus the innocence of Sherlock's fingers accidentally touching her face.
That the latter should make him feel just as off kilter as the former was something with which he was only just coming to terms.
He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn't be sure of what he intended to say. Flummoxed, he closed it again and only waited to follow Molly's lead on the matter. He didn't realize he hadn't moved his hand until she reached up with her own and cupped it, her fingertips tickling slightly.
When she didn't do much else, he forced his hand relax, his fingers to uncurl from their tense stasis. When they did, he traced the soft curve of her ear with the pads of his fingertips, and she shivered a little.
"My hair's too short now to tie all of it back," she whispered finally. "Headbands hurt my head."
He smiled a little and whispered back, "The ribbon suits you."
Together, they lowered their hands and finally turned to look at the stones surrounding them. Moving in opposite directions, they followed the inner circle's perimeter, studying the echoes of Bronze Age ceremony.
With the roiling sky bringing in dark clouds, the crashing waves just over a hill, and their solitude, even Sherlock had to admit that it felt atmospheric. Without the bustle of a city and little view of the village of Callanish, it would be easy to feel swept up in the mystery of the stones.
He came to a stop in front of the center stone, studying its odd, weathered shape. At some point, it'd had a circle the size of a plate charger carved through the stone. Time and erosion had done nothing to preserve it, and now all that remained was a semicircular notch in the stone's side.
Something caught Sherlock's eye, and he squinted to make out what he was seeing. Lines and crosshatches marred the façade of the stone, and he smiled in satisfaction, realizing what he was seeing.
"Molly," he called. When she made a vague noise of acknowledgment, he sighed, put upon that she hadn't materialized then and there. "I've found a script for a pagan ceremony for you."
That got her attention. Trotting over to him, she looked at the center stone with wide-eyed interest. She followed his line of sight and positively beamed when she realized what he'd found.
"You can read ogham?" she breathed.
Barely. "Yes," he said, instead. The devil was in the details, after all.
When he didn't expound, she lightly poked his arm repeatedly, though she didn't tear her eyes away from the ancient script. "What kind of ceremony is it?"
Of course she would have to ask that. He slowly moved over the unfamiliar script, working to remember anything, really. "I doubt this is an actual, orthodox carving," he said, instead, hoping Molly'd lose interest.
"Amazing," she whispered, enraptured. "Scholastic ogham is still from the earliest years of the Common Era, isn't it?"
"Yes," Sherlock grudgingly agreed.
"So what does it say?" Molly prodded him again with that poking finger. Distractedly, he darted his hand out and made a grab for her, stilling her excited twitching by closing his fingers over hers.
"It's worn, so I might not be able to translate the full thing." He was eschewing, but stalling had served him well in the past. Maybe Molly would remember an urgent appointment and he'd be saved from having to play translator.
"Better than nothing," she reminded him, bouncing on her toes a little while she waited him out.
Brow furrowed, he looked for familiar words. "It's an equinox ceremony. To be performed yearly on Samhain, the pagan new year." At least he thought that was what it said. He certainly recognized the word Samhain and several mentions of a 'full year.'"
"Talk about timing." Molly scooted up against Sherlock, still rapt with interest. "Tomorrow's the thirty-first."
He considered her for a moment before returning to his study. "It isn't really an instruction manual, but it says participants in the ceremony are supposed to stand so they can see each other through the hole in this stone, called the Odin Stone. Remnants of the Old Norse religions practiced here prior to the arrival of the Picts. You're lucky it's not in Pictish, by the way, since no one can translate any of its text."
"Ja," she agreed cheerfully.
He rolled his eyes. "Move to the other side of the stone and stick your right hand through the circle," he instructed.
Molly stared at him. "We're actually going to do a pagan Samhain ceremony?"
Shrugging, he used his hold on her hand to push her out and away from him, wheeling her towards the other side of the stone. "Follow your dreams or whatever the rot you see on cross stitch samplers says to do."
"My dream isn't really to—"
"You say that now, but our conversation about hair ribbons indicates differently. We'll need that, by the way."
Molly now faced him through the semicircle. Though she still looked excited, she also appeared to be a little taken aback by Sherlock's instructions. "Need what?" she asked dazedly.
Sighing, Sherlock reached through and tugged her light blue hair ribbon loose, untying it by pulling on the same end he'd caressed earlier.
"We both say these words. Fortunately, this is easy enough to sound out if you know the Beith-Luis-Nin alphabet."
"Yes," Molly agreed blandly. "What a relief, except to those of us who don't know it."
"Quiet." He took a hold of her hand once more, this time with his right hand, only sparing a moment to ponder the strange intimacy of their surroundings and their small contact with each other. Tuning it out, he turned back to the ogham. "Listen carefully and repeat after me."
After her initial facetiousness, Molly gamely went along with Sherlock. She stuttered through the ceremonial proceedings a lot better than most would, he thought proudly.
When it came time to wind the ribbon around their joined hands, she laughed as they struggled to secure the slick, satin ribbon with just one hand on each side.
"You're sure this is an equinox ceremony?" she asked between giggles. "I swear I've seen it in some other context, but I can't remember where."
He wasn't. There was one particular word that he couldn't interpret and it was repeated multiple times.
"Of course I'm certain," he fibbed. She need never know.
Unfortunately, Molly did know him and she knew when he was lying. She and Mary Watson were quite alike in that regard. But when she arched a challenging brow at him, his haughty stare only made her laugh again.
And he couldn't fight a grin in response. Quickly, though, he sobered and cleared his throat. "Please be serious. We have important work to be done here. We wouldn't want to set Bacchus free or something due to an incomplete ceremony."
"Bacchus is Roman," she stage whispered.
"Hush," he whispered back.
They stumbled their way through the rest of the recitations, Molly's hand warm in his. After their last words died away, Sherlock stared at the ogham. That word he couldn't begin to translate taunted him, as did the very last word.
Bound. What was bound, he wondered.
Molly's hand wiggling against his tore his stare away from the stone. Her ribbon now held fast, and she pulled futilely, hoping the slack ends would give. Sherlock watched her struggles mutely, reminded of those Chinese finger traps from his childhood. The more she pulled, the tighter the ribbon seemed to be.
"You do have another hand," he finally told her without any real censure, and Molly grinned at him, guileless as ever.
"I do, but that would make sense, Sherlock. Do keep up. I don't see you helping," she reminded him.
He sniffed. "I offer vital suggestions and moral support. What more could you want?"
"Your version of 'moral support' leaves something to be desired," she snickered. And then she began laughing again outright.
"What?" he asked, mouth curving slightly.
"This. Us. You have to admit, Sherlock, this is probably the first time you've found yourself literally tied to a woman in a Scottish field after you performed a pagan ceremony."
His smile started to widen, but as he watched her drop her head back, stomping her feet with mirth over the entire ridiculous day, he was struck by her, by just how pretty and happy she looked despite every weird thing that had led to their current predicament.
Without pausing to think what he was doing, Sherlock lifted their hands out of the worn-through circle in the Odin Stone and stepped around it, stepped up to Molly. She grinned up at him, not questioning his serious expression or his sudden proximity.
In fact, she even scooted up onto tiptoe when he cupped the back of her neck with his free hand and bent to her, kissing her still-smiling mouth. Their bound hands made for an awkward embrace, but somehow, they managed.
They managed, and then some. As his lips pressed against hers more insistently, he could feel her free hand under his coat and jacket, clutching his shirt at small of his back. Her index finger on the hand tied to his stroked the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist.
He made a low sound, sliding his hand from her neck down over her back so he could hold her tighter against him. His fingertips dipped slightly into the waistband of her trousers. Encouraged, Molly swiped the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip, and when he drew in a sharp breath, she took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Sherlock gladly met her halfway, enjoying the tiny electric shocks the arced through him with each, hot slide of their tongues and the small moans he elicited from her, and she from him.
He wished he could wrap both arms around her, but he took no time to step back to unwind the ribbon. Sure, his fingers might eventually fall asleep, circulation inhibited by the push of their bodies against each other, but it seemed a worthy sacrifice. Until Molly complained, he would keep the kissing status quo.
That didn't mean he didn't move at all. At some point (he couldn't clearly recall when), he'd decided to push her up against the Odin Stone to compensate for the lack of aid from his arm in keeping her as flush against him as possible while he dipped his head down to suck a mark on the fluttering pulse in her neck. The coolness of the rock face against the back of his free hand barely registered. In fact, it was almost a relief, considering the heat of Molly to his front. He felt the pulse of arousal pick up tempo, and this time, he welcomed it.
That said, though his hips rocking against Molly's and her excited reciprocal movements were perfectly agreeable, a small, reasoned part of Sherlock's brain chimed in. Intellectually, he knew he shouldn't divest them both of their trousers, hitch her legs up around his hips, and proceed to fuck her furiously against a site of Scottish antiquity. It would likely be frowned upon by any passing village folk.
Not to mention difficult, what with their hands tied together as they were.
Molly apparently had similar thoughts. She made no protest when Sherlock finally broke contact between his lips and her skin. They breathed heavily, foreheads together in what struck him as a surprisingly sweet calming. They did not speak, but their loose hands continued to stroke over each other's backs and hair.
When he eventually felt less fevered, he drew back from her. They smiled a bit sheepishly at each other, though Molly unselfconsciously reached up to trace her thumb over his cheek. He turned his face further into her touch.
"Sherlock," she whispered.
He made a small hum of acknowledgment.
"I don't have any feeling in my hand."
"Second hands are superfluous, really," he tried, possibly cuddling closer to her.
She pressed a kiss to his chest. "True. But Farmer MacTavish is also staring at us from the bottom of the hill."
That got Sherlock to pull away where nothing else could. He jerked around, scowling. Swearing, he engaged in a small scale glare-off with the man.
"How long do you think he's been there?" he asked Molly sotto voce.
"He just walked up," she assured him. "But I'd rather not give him any more fodder against us."
Nodding in agreement, Sherlock stepped back. He raised his hand to offer the farmer a carefree wave, but made the mistake of using his right hand. Molly swore loudly when her own arm was yanked unceremoniously above her head, and Sherlock quickly lowered it back down and set to unwinding the ribbon.
Glancing over down the hill while he worked to unsnarl it, Sherlock willed the farmer to continue on slogging through the mud in his dirty wellies. MacTavish only glowered some more up at them while a lone cow nosed at his hand. Finally, though, he shook his head and moved off. But not so quickly that they didn't hear his parting shot.
The people of the Hebrides were the last Gàidhlig-speaking stronghold in Scotland. A handful of the Isle of Lewis' occupants spoke it primarily, only switching to English when tourists happened through. So it was a bit of a shock, when, instead of a salty insult in his first language, MacTavish very distinctly muttered, "Bleeding weirdos."
Sherlock took umbrage. The man acted like he'd never seen two adults embracing against a king stone with their hands bound together before.
"What a pleasant gentleman," Molly mused, though her eyes were busy following Sherlock as he tried (and failed) to stealthily pocket the ribbon as a keepsake.
"He's probably jealous," he suggested, and offered no explanation for his petty theft.
"I've yet to meet a Significant Other MacTavish," she agreed.
Ushering her ahead of him, he thought on it. "Sure you have." She turned back and raised her eyebrows in question. "Do keep up," he instructed. "It's Roberta the Bruce."
Molly's peal of laughter echoed off of the otherwise silent stones as they picked their way back down the hill to the car. Their hands brushed occasionally while they walked, until Molly finally grabbed hold of him, lacing their fingers together.
Sherlock was forced to admit that this was better. Holding Molly Hooper's hand had started to feel rather natural.
Bastardization of History/Archaeology Disclaimer: There isn't actually an Odin Stone on the Isle of Lewis, but there are/were a couple scattered around Scotland; There really aren't any ceremonial engravings to be found. Mostly all archaeologists find are stones with words tantamount to "Bob wuz here". Also, I couldn't find any information on whether or not ribbons were used in the handfasting ceremonies associated with Old Norse ceremonial stones. For the sake of this story, they totally were. Go with me on this.
Thank you so much to everyone who's favorited, given kudos, subscribed, and reviewed the story thus far. I know I said I would try to reply to reviews after last week's update, but this time I really will. *she says with all the dependability of that kid's dad in Angels in the Outfield who promises to return to his son when the Angels win the pendant but then doesn't so Danny Glover (in this case, miabicicleta or dietplainlite) adopts him, instead, and the kid is better off for it*
Thanks to dietplainlite for the beta-ing and saying, "What were you trying to say here? How? Why? Go eat a McFlurry and think this through, dude."