Sherlock had decided from a very young age that he was deeply and profoundly against sentimental attachment. His brother had teased him constantly as a child, telling him he was "the stupid one", and for many years he believed this to be true. It was only once he started being socialised with other children that he realised how dull and simple other people really were, and that being alone was the only acceptable course of action.

He had one childhood friend who he loved dearly before his views of the human race had soured, as much as any child had the capacity to love. They spent their days playing pirates until Victor's parents decided that Sherlock was bad news, his adventures too dangerous and his demeanour too odd for a child. The Trevor family forbade their son from playing with him again and moved to a different town the following year, and in Sherlock's childhood brain he had deduced three fundamental truths from the situation. Other people were terrible and stupid. Everything he loved, he ruined. Sentimentality was a weakness, human error that only led to inevitable pain.

His companionship with John was different, a symbiotic relationship that encouraged the best from both. But there could only be one exception to the rule and one ally was more than enough. Of course, there were people he tolerated, but friends? Friends were off the table. He tolerated Mary, the most recent and most intelligent of John's girlfriends. Mrs Hudson, his kindly neighbour that had babysat him since he was a toddler and let him have extra biscuits before bed. Molly Hooper, who constantly surprised him.

Molly Hooper – who was standing in his front yard and pacing like a madwoman.

Sherlock jolted in surprise, bumping his head against the window frame he has been leaning out of whilst trying to smoke in secret. He blinked down at his cigarette, ensuring it was indeed just tobacco he was smoking. Had his mind become so advanced he had manifested her into existence through mere thought? No, impossible.

He watched on in amusement as she enacted her silent battle of wills, believing herself to be out of sight. For every two steps forward, she turned right back around and paced three steps back, wringing her hands with anxiety.

He decided the right thing to do would be to put her out of her misery, if not a gesture of kindness then at least to avoid alerting his parents of her presence. He reached his hand out the window, butting the cigarette out on the brick and tucking the remainder behind his ear. (He had once tried to dispose of his cigarettes by throwing them into the garden which did not end well). He padded as quietly as possible down the hallway so as to not stir his mother and father downstairs, slipping silently out the doors to the balcony.

'Oh!' Molly screamed, clutching her chest as she turned around to see Sherlock, his arms folded behind him as he watched her with a lofty smirk. 'Sorry! I was…lost. And just leaving!'

Contrary to the words that has just left her lips, Molly was so horrified that her body had stopped cooperating, her feet refusing to move and carry her back home where she could stop embarrassing herself.

Sherlock raised a finger to his lips, then gestured downstairs to the window in which Molly could see Mr and Mrs Holmes perched on the couch together. He pointed to the side of the house where the windows were concealed by overgrown foxgloves before flinging himself over the balcony railing, masterfully climbing down the trellis on the side of the house and landing in an annoyingly graceful fashion. He removed the half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear to run his hand through his curls before placing it back. Molly had always hated smoking but couldn't help but admit how obscenely attractive he seemed at the moment. He still hadn't changed out of his uniform, but his sleeves were rolled to his elbows and his tie was loosened below the top three buttons which were now undone.

'Well?' He prompted, stirring her out of her teenage daydream.

'Oh, um, I…I think I left one of my books here last week.'

'Don't underestimate me Molly, you know I know when people are lying.'

'Right,' she said, trying to think of a better excuse. No, she thought to herself, don't be a coward. Worst case scenario you get rejected and after this year you'll never have to see him again.

'You're wearing lipstick,' he abruptly observed, buying her a few more seconds to think. 'You don't normally wear lipstick.'

'What? Oh, yes,' Molly suddenly felt self-conscious, folding her arms over her chest to hide the lace-trimmed blouse she had picked out. For all his incredible ability to deduce information about people by simply looking, she was slightly shocked to realise he couldn't deduce why a girl had come to his house in the evening wearing lipstick and her best blouse. 'I was wondering if we could…talk.'

'We are talking.'

'Yes well if you would just let me get a word in,' Molly started, 'I was wondering if you wanted to-'

'-have dinner,' Molly blushed.
'Partner up for biology?' Sherlock suggested at the very same time.

The two stared at each other, not even blinking. Sherlock's face was utterly perplexed and Molly could only fantasise about how nice it would be to stick her head in the sand and never have to face another person.

'Molly, I think you might be confused', Sherlock began, preparing to let her down. It was better this way, disappoint her now before she developed any further unrealistic expectations that he could ever be any sort of comfort to her.

'Stop it,' Molly warned, she couldn't bare to look him in the eye and her voice was not much more than a quiet tremble, but it carried conviction. She remembered Mary's words, telling her that she wasn't crazy for assuming a deeper meaning behind his actions. He was more than free to reject her advances but she was not about to be manipulated into thinking she had simply imagined things between them.

Sherlock was taken aback, confused by her sudden hostility. He was fairly certain he hadn't been rude this time, taking extra care as to not hurt her feelings.
'I beg your pardon?'

'I just…' Molly began, trying to find the right words to express herself without allowing her emotions to get the better of her. 'I don't understand you.'

'Well don't strain yourself Molly, most people struggle to keep up so I wouldn't take it personally.'

'No. No no no you're not doing that. Don't make me feel like I've made up signals in my head. If you don't want anything from me then that's fine, but at least have the courage to say the words to my face.'

'I couldn't have been clearer. I have no interest, nor have I ever had any interest, in forming connections with people and you are no exception.'
He paused for a moment to take in her expression, surprised by how genuinely hurt she appeared. He was doing her a favour, saving her from a doomed friendship. No one wanted to be his friend, he knew this, and for good reason. He was irritating, rude, selfish and occasionally cruel, as he had been told time and again.
'Are you upset with me?' He continued, 'Humans always do that, someone tells them exactly who they are and then they get upset when it turns out to be true'

Molly glared at him for a moment in disbelief, that a boy of his brilliance could be so spectacularly unaware.

'Well like it or not, Sherlock, you are just as human as the rest of us. At the end of the day, you're just a boy who hurts people like everyone else and runs away when things get too scary.'

She turned to leave but was stopped as Sherlock reached for her, his large hand wrapping entirely around her delicate wrist with considerable force. Her legs seemed to give way beneath her as she was once again surprised by his strength; pulling her again like he had in the hallway, although this time with intention. Her neck was craned all the way up, and his head was bowed so they were finally nose to nose.

'Are you done?' Sherlock baited, his gaze hardened and his voice darker than usual. 'Is that all you came here to tell me?'

He hadn't let go of her wrist, and Molly made no attempt to escape his grasp.

'Yes,' she lied, her voice barely a whisper.

There were very few moments in Sherlock's life when logic failed him, when he experienced mortal urges and didn't stop to think about how to respond. He managed to delay his body's response to hunger and thirst until he was bored enough to consume. He trained his mind to store relevant pieces of information and delete the unnecessary. He dabbled in recreational drugs and cigarettes to expand the capabilities of his consciousness and ability to focus. However, in this moment, Sherlock Holmes was exactly as Molly had described him. Human. His thoughts were scrambled, and he was suddenly aware that his mind existed within a body, and that body could not be so easily coerced.

Without thought or control, Sherlock closed the gap between them, pressing their lips together with a sense of urgency that took Molly a moment to process before she softened into him, melting into his arms and instinctively reaching up on her toes to get as close to him as possible.

Neither were sure how long they stayed there, but both hands had ended up in the other's hair before they broke apart, Sherlock being the first to regain composure.

'I-', Sherlock began, lost for words for once in his life. He looked horrified and immediately distanced himself from her as much as possible without physically running away. 'I'm sorry, Molly. Forgive me.'

'It's okay,' Molly said breathlessly, subconsciously reaching towards her face as she gently ran a finger over her lips, still tingling and warm. She felt dizzy, made worse by the heat in the air and the overwhelming fragrance of the foxgloves.

It would be a lie to say she hadn't fantasised about this moment, all the many different ways he would finally return her affections. Perhaps that was what stung, she realised as she observed the steely detachment that had now replaced the sheer panic on his expression. This was no act of affection. She felt more like the subject of an experiment, his expression mirroring the one she had watched a thousand times before in the school lab as he hunched over a microscope, worlds away from her. While everything had changed for Molly, nothing would change for him. He didn't need to say it, she knew that this would be just another event to add to her confusion as he continued to ignore her at school. She felt like she was coming down from a high, euphoria quickly turning into nausea.

'I should go.'

'Molly-'

'No,' she said which as much steely resolve as she could muster. 'It's fine. I know. You don't do friends.'

She gave him a half-hearted smile and quickly turned from him, refusing to let him see the heartbreak reach her face.

Sherlock watched her leave as his body and mind waged war with each other, distress rising within him at these feelings that he was completely unfamiliar with. He was unable to name them, let alone manage them, and he could no longer contain his reaction. He reached for a fallen segment of tree branch, turning it once over in his hands before turning towards the house and thrashing it against the brick. Once. Twice. A hundred times. He lost count, stopping only when he had completely exhausted himself of energy, hurling the branch as far as he could throw it before finally allowing himself to rest, collapsing in a heap on the grass with his head in his hands.

He dreamt of Molly Hooper that night, of her hair glowing auburn beneath the setting sun, of the perfume of foxgloves in the summer combined with the smell of her shampoo, of her tiny hands tangled up in his curls, the feeling of her bare knee touching his as she poured over her work that she was so endearingly passionate about. The times he had caught her staring from the corner of his eye, her face as he realised he had disappointed her and the hurt it had caused him to know it was his fault.

He awoke in a cold sweat, reaching for his phone by the side of the bed. 3am. He rose as silently as possible, lifting the false bottom of his bedside drawer to reveal an assorted collection of stimulants he saved for the occasions when cigarettes or nicotine patches wouldn't cut it, the times when he needed to take his mind to a different place. This, he thought to himself, is certainly one of those occasions. What he needed, more than anything else, was to take his mind off Molly Hooper.