Chapter Six: Cama, Cama, Come On, Baby.

The jangling of Molly's mobile didn't register at first. In fact, it didn't register at all. The Colombian pop song that flooded the yurt did not enter his consciousness until his bedmate groaned in sleepy agitation, her face pressed to his back. The vibration of her voice against his skin was what finally roused him.

"Cállate, Juanes," Molly whined, even though the mobile had already stopped its ringing. Tugging the duvet over her head, she burrowed closer to Sherlock.

He scrunched his face, not wanting to open his tired, crusty eyes. "I'm not Juanes," he mumbled. "Soy Guillermo. Juan es mi amigo mejor."

"Ha." She kissed his shoulder blade from within her duvet cocoon. Her voice was rough with sleep. "Too bad William's your only translation option. No Spanish equivalent for Sherlock."

"Hmm. What's the translation for Molly?" he mused, more alert now, though his eyes remained closed and he felt content to keep it that way. "Margarita?"

"Margarita means Daisy."

He shrugged. "'Mimar' means 'mollycoddle'. Has a ring to it. Mimar Hooper. I think I'll use it. Mimi for short." His lips curved sleepily while he waited for her to react.

She did not disappoint. "And I'll call you Siguro de Bloqueo. Sure Lock. Sigur for short."

The deafening volume of the mobile startled them as it began ringing again, cutting off Sherlock's snort of amusement.

"What are we listening to?" he demanded, shouting over the ringtone

"Juanes. Who can't follow a single direction." Much to Sherlock's consternation, Molly pulled away from him to fetch her phone, though she cursed colorfully while she rolled across the wide expanse of the bed.

He moved to his back and followed her with his eyes, clutching the bedding so she didn't take it all with her and leave him naked to the cold air. Her hair resembled a thicket on the back of her head, she had marks on her face and shoulder from his pillow, and he spied a trace of drool on her chin.

Sherlock grinned goofily, enjoying Molly-in-the-morning.

"I told you to shut up," she groused at the phone, grabbing it up as it fell silent. "And I missed the call again. Whoops." She didn't sound particularly upset, but she did not move back over to him, instead remaining seated on the edge of the mattress, back to him while she stretched overworked muscles.

That would never do.

"Why the song?" he asked, scooting over until he could walk his fingers up from her lumbar to cervical vertebrae. She shivered when his hand tickled her nape, and he stared in fascination at the goose bumps that rose on her back.

"Hmm? Oh. 'La Camisa Negra'. I wear a black shirt because it is black like my soul. It just spoke to me."

Sherlock actually snickered, leaning forward to bite gently at the flesh on the back of her right hip. "Seems an appropriate anthem for you. You're quite evil, after all."

"I really, really am," she agreed primly, though she'd started and shivered again when he'd nipped at her.

Hooking his arm around her middle, Sherlock tugged her back so she lay sprawled across him. He took time to admire the dim morning light on her breasts and the way she almost cooed when he smoothed his hand over her stomach and ribs.

"I guess you don't care that Maurice Stonebridge rang you twice in a matter of minutes," she sighed as he stroked her breast. Her soft flesh had looked so inviting, with her back arched as it was, but the reminder of his client annoyed him enough that he stopped his ministrations with a huff.

"Wanker."

"Yes, Sherlock," she rolled over, not moving off of him, but rearranging so they could lie chest to chest. "We are all aware of how you feel about your client. But you did take his case and you have been trying to reach him for two days now."

As if he needed the reminder. There were merely far more interesting things to be done in this yurt. Stonebridge could hang, for all he cared. He hoped his eyes looked hooded and sultry as he stroked a hand down her flank.

"He's a tosser," Sherlock purred.

"Showing me your vast array of synonyms for a masturbator won't detract from the fact that it's your job to be here."

"Are you saying I'm nothing but a paid escort to you, Miss Hooper?"

She bit his chin lightly. "That's Mimar to you. I'm going to get a deed poll when we get back to London and have it legally changed. To make me seem more exotic," she explained.

"It would," he agreed and tightened his hold on her, hoping to distract her from prodding him to contact Stonebridge.

"Sure, all of my degrees and certificates are in my current name, but I can just take some liquid paper to them. How hard can it be? Married people change their names all the time." She leaned down and laid a smacking kiss on his lips and then pushed away from him, evading his grabby hands and flopping out of the bed.

As she hobbled away, grimacing at stiff thigh muscles, she called back to the bed, "I'm going to shower. Call your client."

Sherlock thought he might have nodded, but a loud buzzing had filled his ears and he couldn't be sure of anything.

Married people change their names all the time.

Oh. Hell.

He'd lain there, wrapped up in Molly, listening to her even breaths late into the night. His mind had raced with all of the hard truths that he needed to face.

Somehow, though it beggared belief, he was a married man.

Somehow? asked an annoying subconscious John Watson voice. Maybe it's because the clod who performed the ceremony is a habitual showoff who can't translate Gàidhlig to save his life?

"Shut up," Sherlock had growled before he hastened to stroke a soothing hand through Molly's hair when she'd stirred at his sudden outburst. She settled in again, snuffling against his shoulder. Distractedly, he kissed her forehead.

Just pointing out the obvious, mate, Hobgoblin John had continued more quietly. You can hardly blame anyone else.

"The stone's inscriber was likely drunk," he'd sniffed.

Whatever helps you sleep at night. Though, you'll note you're not. Sleeping, that is. Why does it matter to you? It's not like you've signed any contract. There's no license, half of yours is not Molly's. Why do you think it's real?

He'd shifted, uncomfortable.

Is it because you're happ—

Sherlock had slammed the door on that thought right away. "Society has extreme strictures on social contracts and the exchanging of vows. You'll remember my testament that I'd only ever make one vow? I'm merely concerned with the perceived ceremony of it and Molly's reaction."

John had remained smugly quiet to that, leaving Sherlock to stare unseeingly at the glow emitting from the stove. Ultimately, it was Molly who'd lured him to sleep. He'd even felt a surge of gratitude that she could halt his racing thoughts so handily.

In this case, literally handily.

She'd roused not long after he had banished John from his mind and gently, sleepily started tugging at him. All other thoughts fled as he'd rolled with her until he covered her body with his, her soft hands stroking him into renewed arousal and excitement.

The second time didn't lack the passion or fervor of their first bout of lovemaking, but it was also completely new and fascinating. As he moved in her, Sherlock had tried to separate the sensations of complete pleasure and mawkish captivation. His nerve endings experience all of the usual firing of neurons that occurred when he engaged in sex, but being like this with Molly felt like more.

He'd acknowledged his feelings for her a year ago, but had set a glacial pace in figuring out what he'd do with them. He had even admitted to himself that he—Christ—loved her, but the fact that he'd have to do something about it eventually? That was what he'd struggled to reconcile.

Sex with her came part in parcel with that. Yes, he'd wanted to kiss her and hold her and do any of the things that human bodies could do together, but he'd hung back. He had weighed the possibilities and probabilities and had come to too discrete a postulate to feel certain.

He felt none of that uncertainty now.

With her slight body beneath his, he realized his feelings for her could still surprise way he touched her was in homage to her, though he'd hardly call himself a reverent man. And this was to say nothing of Molly's feelings for him, a nervous question that had been the main source of his hesitance. The way she held him and touched him must have been in similar tribute to him. How could he misinterpret it?

He had watched color build steadily in her cheeks with each thrust of his body and the dark glitter of her eyes when they would open heavily. The bite of her nails into his skin acted as a grounder, though it was one that made him move more frenziedly and moan into her open mouth.

When he came not long after, and Molly had manhandled him some more (she really had a skill) until he lay with his head pillowed between her breasts, thoughts of panic or nerves were the furthest things from his mind.

That was then, this was now.

Sherlock remained frozen in the bed, greasy panic swelling.

Not about the intimacy. Now that they'd made this step, he wasn't the sort to nobly backtrack and let it build to the point they'd so enthusiastically skyrocketed to hours before.

After all, he'd hate to let a good box of condoms go to waste, and making love with Molly felt really, really good.

Even as he swallowed around a vaguely nauseous feeling, he promised to himself that, even if she demanded that they get their marriage annulled (or whatever the pagan equivalent), he'd persuade her that they should continue to be intimate and solve crimes together.

See? Compromise.

No, not compromise, he scolded himself. It wasn't like he wanted to be married or needed a consolation prize. He barked with laughter to show his subconscious just how ludicrous he found the notion. And then he comforted himself with affirmations.

He was a lone wolf.

A lone wolf who only happened to be in love with someone.

A lone wolf who merely wanted to continue his romantic and sexual relationship with her.

A lone wolf who wouldn't mind such an arrangement lasting until one of them died.

That was all. Nothing more.

Maybe a Celtic divorcement is like the Talaq custom of saying, 'I divorce thee' three times. Mind John had returned to the fray. That'd make things simple, yeah?

Sherlock unconsciously made a note not to mention Islam around Molly, just in case Talaq divorces sprang to mind for her, too.

Mind John grinned triumphantly. Withholding information about convenient divorce customs. Spoken like a man who desperately wants out of his marriage.

"You're not real," Sherlock informed him He jumped out of the bed in a tear, scooping up the mobile Molly had set back on the bedside table when she'd gone to shower. The water still ran, and Sherlock stopped himself from staring longingly at partition. He glowered down at the phone and stabbed in Maurice Stonebridge's number, making a laundry list of things to do while it rang through.

Contact client Solve case (probably within one minute of speaking to said client) Shower Figure out a gentle way to tell his bride that she was, in fact, his bride Find the easiest way to secure a hasty, pagan divorce Ring his mother and inform her that he would never go with her to see Billy Elliott: The Musical again Take Molly back to bed to forget this whole, sordid mess

"Mr. Holmes! You called me back!"

Maurice Stonebridge's nasal, public school voice interrupted Sherlock's list making. He turned on the speakerphone to get the shrill voice away from his ear and set to wrapping himself in a spare sheet from the wardrobe.

"Quite so," he agreed severely. "Because that is the etiquette, is it not? To return a call as soon as possible."

Stonebridge audibly quailed. "I know you called me. But I was taken in for further questioning about Posy, Brooks, and Theo. I wasn't ignoring you. And then I got sent down from the uni because I'm not fit for classes."

Sherlock scowled. He'd counted on getting the better of Stonebridge in order to feel better about his own situation, and the boy's continued trials did not help him achieve this.

"And what did the good police detectives of Stornoway and Cambridge have to say?"

"Nothing new," Stonebridge sighed. "Still no sign of my friends, so now they think I've helped them bugger out of the country."

"And did you?" Sherlock asked mildly.

Stonebridge sputtered. "Gor, no! They just left me! Maybe they're having a good laugh at me, I don't know."

"Hmm, probably," he agreed.

"Sherlock." Molly's warning voice carried from behind the privacy screen. He'd not heard the water shut off.

He shot her what he hoped was a saccharine smile as she came around the partition wrapped in a fluffy towel, her hair wrapped up in another.

She didn't buy his guile for a second and only shot him a quelling look.

Sherlock mumbled a sorry, both to her and Stonebridge. "I only have one question for you, actually."

"Yes?" Stonebridge's voice was wary.

"Why the bedrolls?"

"What?"

Sherlock sighed. "Why did you and your friends spend an exorbitant amount of money on camping bedrolls when you were staying in a well-appointed broch?"

"Oh! That! We wanted to camp out under the stars."

To think, Molly and he had nixed that idea, and with good reason. "You wanted to camp out under the stars in September in the Western Isles when it routinely sinks to 6˚ at night?"

Stonebridge had started squirming, if the shifting noises meant anything. "We didn't anticipate it being quite that cold."

"And it's difficult to look up a weather forecast before you take a holiday. I completely understand," Sherlock said in falsely bracing tone.

Molly snapped his bottom with her towel as she walked past naked and he bit back a yelp.

"So," he said to Stonebridge while shooting a look at Molly that promised revenge, "your friends decided to take a late-night camping excursion and didn't come back."

"We all complained about the cold. Why would they do that?"

"That's what you're going to tell me." Sherlock's eyes narrowed on Molly, currently bent over in front of him while she rifled through her suitcase. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him leering, so she gave a small shimmy of her bum before stepping into some underwear and hauling on an enormous sweatshirt.

Sherlock pouted. Molly grinned.

"—radiant floor heating," Stonebridge wound down, apparently extolling all of the reasons why his friends wouldn't have sallied forth from the comfort of their broch.

"Hmm. Sure. But the bedrolls," Sherlock reminded him, snapping his eyes away from his human taunt.

"So did all of their clothing," Stonebridge pointed out miserably. "It's just as likely that they skived off without telling me and are now living as cow farmers, and no one is any the wiser."

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "Does one of your friends happen to resemble a really angry, really old man, by chance?"

"Erm," Stonebridge said, "No. Why?"

"Never mind."

"Okay…. So you've found nothing, then?"

"Neither desiccated hide nor decomp-resistant hair of them," Sherlock chirped. Stonebridge made a muffled moaning sound, so Sherlock apologized again, this time without Molly's prompting.

"I should tell you, Mr. Holmes," Stonebridge trailed off. His voice had gone all squeaky. "The night Posy and the guys took off…."

"What?" Sherlock demanded, patience gone.

"It's just, well, we'd all had some molly."

Sherlock's brow furrowed, and he turned to squint at the pathologist sitting cross-legged on their bed, listening to the conversation with her chin resting on her hands.

She looked back at him, confused by his expression for a moment before it registered. She shook her head and mouthed MDMA.

Oh. Right. He knew that. Justifiable preoccupation.

He turned back to the matter at hand.

"And you didn't think that would be helpful information to pass along to, oh, I don't know, the police?" he asked sweetly.

"I was protecting them!" Stonebridge insisted desperately, and then said a little more quietly, "And myself. I—I didn't react well to it. I passed out. That's why I didn't wake up when they left the broch."

Sherlock massaged a sudden headache between his eyes. "Protecting them from what, exactly?"

"Well, it's illegal, isn't it? Brooks and Theo were in the Boat Club. They'd be expelled if the uni were to learn they'd done recreational drugs."

He sneered. "Yes, you're such a noble hero, saving your friends by failing to tell the police that they were under influence of psychoactive drugs when they disappeared. Anything else you've withheld?"

"No!" Stonebridge insisted. "That is it!"

"You're sure? Did they also mention in passing their plans to visit a gingerbread cottage owned by a grizzled, old woman in a witch's hat?"

The boy gave mewling apologies, but Sherlock disconnected the call, fed up. He flung himself onto the bed next to Molly, angry and not entirely sure why.

Her mouth twisted. "What do you want to do?"

He gave a half shrug. "Inform the constabulary that they need renew their search for bodies, I suppose. I doubt they're alive."

"Those poor kids."

He bit off a retort, recognizing the source of his confusing anger at the last moment. An addict criticizing some university students for taking drugs was more than hypocritical.

"The comedown from it is awful," he admitted to the roof of the yurt. "Lockjaw and anxiety. The worst is the memory loss, of course. You have no idea what happened and you wonder where you are. People sometimes die on their first go of it."

Molly lay down beside him, wrapping an arm around him. "Did you take it often?"

He shook his head. "I mostly stuck to heroin."

She kissed his cheek. "And now you're going get some answers for these missing kids, and that will give their families and friends some kind of comfort, even if it's not the kind they're hoping for."

He turned and studied her quiet face and then stretched forward to kiss her forehead for several, lingering seconds.

"I supposed it would be uncouth for me to show up at the Stornoway constabulary wearing only a sheet," he said when he drew back, trying for some levity.

"Says the man who felt no compunction about traipsing through a royal palace in the same state of undress," she pointed out wryly.

"What can I say? I've healthy respect of authority, but only the real kind."

Molly snorted. "Greg will be glad to hear it, I'm sure. Tell me: how many badges have you stolen from him so far this year?"

"Whose badges?"

She swatted his shoulder and he grinned. "I only take them as needed, Molly. I abhor waste."

"Ah, an environmentalist."

"Indeed." He tried to look modest.

"Go shower," she laughed a little. "We should get moving. It's already late morning."

"Yes, the police await and we also need to figure out what to do about our accidental marriage," he said absently as he rolled to press a warm kiss on the pulse in her neck.

Molly stilled. "What?"

Sherlock retraced his words. Panic froze him where he was, mouth against her skin. "Oh. Yes." He cringed, face uncomfortably hot so he kept it hidden in her neck, his words muffled. "About that."

A/N: Hello all! Thank you so much for your lovely comments in the last chapter, and to all who've followed and/or favorited or given kudos to the story! I hope to have the next chapter up next Tuesday, but it all depends on my inability to wrap a single present or bake a single pie in any sort of timely manner. Ah, the holidays.

Chapter title (and entire the chapter intro's nonsense) is from the best Latin pop song to come out of Columbia, "La Camisa Negra" by Juanes. Can't recommend it enough.

Thank you so much to dietplainlite for the betaing and patience while I work through things that really shouldn't be as complicated as I make them!