There was hardly a reason to be panicked. Nobody had been physically harmed. In fact, had the ones in his flat previously been perfect strangers, everything would have been completely reasonable. Almost normal.
Up until, of course, they revealed that they were working together and willingly were arrested by the police.
Consequently, Sherlock found himself entirely confused.
He stared at himself for a long time in the mirror of his wardrobe, hands poised over the lapels of his jacket in the position to shrug it off. There was the familiar vibe of uneasiness that Moriarty always managed to bring with him in his presence, though the underlying tremor of fear, the one unspoken of by the detective though the effects were indeed great enough to be chained up in his mind, was absent. There wasn't an ounce of terror within him.
Perhaps it would arrive later. He was exhausted. But that had never exactly stopped his thoughts from moving at a constant rate before, had they? In fact, he was still thinking on all sorts of levels. Peter and Amy had been a betrayal completely out of nowhere, one he should have seen the very moment he trustedthem alone in finding his location rather than checking himself. Trust was a difficult thing to find in Sherlock Holmes, and yet he had been abnormally attracted into believing them.
Oh, of course he was. He was paying them. Rather rude; they didn't do nearly the job they were hired for. Though in part, they did find his location. Wasn't exactly finding, considering they already knew. Sherlock, suddenly aware of himself physically again, looked to himself in the mirror once more and then away, removing his jacket and tossing it aimlessly into the otherwise tidy armoire. Once again, already knowing...not very kind.
Not that he cared. No, not in the very least. He was dwelling. A scowl crossed his face as he stepped backwards, then sat atop the edge of his bed. He only ever reinforced the same thought repeatedly when he did not understand how to move forward. Pick it apart and split up words, create anagrams, find hidden meanings, any reason for any of it to be clever even when it so obviously wasn't.
He hadn't even bothered deducing the two of them. Wasn't that out of the ordinary? It was possible that he had made an observation before that did not make sense. However, he had thrown them all out. They were irrelevant at the time. Now, he would give anything to remember when and why they were. Talking himself in circles. Was he truly so exhausted? Rather recently he had slept.
Maybe he was just looking for something clever. Something that would throw him out of his personal thoughts so that he would not have to question anything having to do with anything else. Only Peter, Amy, and Moriarty. Figuring out what they had been doing was necessary at this point. Surely they weren't giving up so easily. Or, maybe they were. So that he would fall into in endless cycle of just this. A roundabout of thoughts, collapsing onto one another. This would be enough to drive him mad after a few days. In fact, what if he was the one keeping himself from thinking further? It had nothing to do with them anymore.
The only reason he was still thinking about this was because if not for this, he'd have to be thinking of something else. The something else he didn't want to think about. The something else he had just spent months protecting and being protected by from what were, most of the time, only monsters under the bed, only coming alive twice and only doing damage once. The something else that he had just embraced despite never feeling any need to cradle anything to him. The something else that had forced him to sleep when he was out of his mind because that something else could be hurt if he wasn't. The something else that didn't ask for any of this, but seemed grateful despite the fact that it was all his fault she was there in the first place. The something else he had harmed so badly before and now, somehow, he seemed to want something from. The something else called Molly Hooper, and the something else that he had been too paranoid to even point his eyes in the direction of because he wanted to protect her.
How bloody predictable.
"Don't take off your belt!" Harsh knocking followed and then the determined jiggling of a doorknob commenced. Sherlock glanced over to the door and blinked, standing up and reaching out to unlock the door. The moment it clicked was the same moment, it seemed, that Molly was in the room, her face more frantic than it had been all day, looking up at him as if she understood something that he was entirely unaware of.
"I'm sorry?" he responded after silence hung between the two of them, an awkward silence as if Molly had expected him to make a realization. Which was suddenly growing more and more frustrating by the second.
Molly opened her mouth to speak, her eyes raking up and down as if in search for something very specific. "You haven't taken anything else off, have you? Other than your blazer." She looked up at him expectantly.
"Possibly I might have, had my roommate not been obsessed with the accessory that holds my trousers up," Sherlock retorted with a frown, getting more irritated with her seemingly indirect prompting. Molly looked down from him at once, her cheeks quickly forming a sheer layer of pink across her skin. However, the apparent embarrassment could not be read into for long as her head snapped up once more and she shook her head rapidly, one of her hands resting just over the buckle of his belt and the other rounding to his back.
Sherlock said nothing, only watching her as she pressed her hands against him gently, looking up at him carefully an applying more pressure until he huffed out of impatience. "Molly."
"I'm sorry, sorry!" she muttered, taking her hands away from him and staring at his belt a little longer, her eyes then quickly finding his own. "It seemed relevant. Like something he'd do."
"Relevant," Sherlock echoed, his patience worn thin. "Normally when one has a theory for something they further clarify rather than delve into their own observations when one is looking for confirmation, especially when it apparently appertains to another subject in question-"
"The bloody guardsman," Molly said flatly, staring at his chest. "You wouldn't have felt it happen if it were like that."
The detective's face softened instantly, his back stiffening ever so slightly in realization. "Ah," he replied after a pause between them. Molly closed her eyes and shrugged, the smallest and still most ingenuine of smiles on her face. "I was only being silly, I suppose it's paranoia. Nothing today has exactly made sense, so something entirely improbable seemed as though it would make sense. He said that he'd already done what he wanted, so it felt plausible once it came to mind that - "
"No," Sherlock interrupted, his hands slipping into his pockets. "I was incorrect." Molly's brow creased, eyes lifting up to stare at him in something akin to confusion. He refrained from rolling his eyes and informing her that yes, he was capable of being wrong about things and admitting to it afterwards (though only to her, for whatever reason that may be), but going by their current conditions, he didn't feel the need to be anything other than gentle from that point on. "Anything could seem possible, after all of that. It's...flattering that you would think of that. All in the interest of my safety."
Molly nodded and smiled softly. "That's alright." Neither of them said anything for a while, Sherlock tilting his head to stare upon her again. She looked as though she wouldn't want to be alone. Her eyes suggested a heavy worry for the both of them, and her posture was slumped over, her hands twitching occasionally, a conscious effort to keep from wringing them. And, in all honesty, Sherlock felt no desire to be by himself at that point, either. Though he realized some of the questions that would probably be raised in the morning from it...
Sod it.
"Come here," he said quietly, wrapping an arm around her back and holding her to him. With a surprised albeit grateful huff, Molly responded in kind and closed her eyes. His hand traveled lightly over her upper back, rubbing small circles. "Do you want to sleep in here?" He asked. "It would be...beneficial to both of us, I believe," he ensured to add, knowing her first conclusion would be pity. He wanted to make sure she stayed in there, now she was there. He wanted her close to him, and her embracing him and vice versa, possibly for the remainder of the night and into the morning was very much a feeling he felt an unrecognizable desire for.
Molly hummed in agreement, much to Sherlock's immediate happiness and caution within himself. Crossing over to the lightswitch, he turned it off and climbed into the bed, underneath the duvet and holding it open, beckoning to her with his free hand. She couldn't hide the grin from her face at the gesture; it was very unlike anything else he did, and it seemed very...domestic of him. Not to say she was complaining in the least. It was lovely, in fact, to know that she was going to be sleeping next to him. This was something she had thought of plenty of times, and though she still felt nearly giddy about it, it felt like the most natural thing for the both of them to do.
She moved underneath the covers with him, wondering immediately if she should be moving to hold him or not. They had by no means discussed what they were to each other, and this was not the time to bring it up. She probably shouldn't push it, she thought to herself, beginning to lay on her back before feeling his strong arms around her, tugging her against his chest.
She molded easily to his figure, Sherlock noticed as she settled against him, breathing out softly against him as she stilled, her own arms having looped around his waist. This was by no means a proximity he was used to, and not one they were used to in each other. Yet he found himself unable to even fathom tearing away from it. He was enjoying it. It was a secure feeling, having her this close, and keeping her secure was a feeling that was much more gratifying than even he had previously assumed. "Okay?" he asked, his arms tucking more tightly around her.
"Definitely," came her response, the word barely falling from her mouth before she was out, her eyes closed and breathing slowed. Sherlock smirked, looking down at her face and reaching up with one hand, tucking her hair behind her ear and stroking his thumb over her soft cheek gingerly. "Definitely," he whispered to nothing in particular, placing his chin atop her head and drifting off soon after her.
There are, as it is, 3 chapters left. Deepest apologies for not updating quickly, I would love to have finished this story in September. But i would much rather produce something that I find to be quality rather than quantity of chapters in the story. Please continue being as lovely as you have been and bear with the patience, hopefully the ending will leave you happy to have had this with you for as long as you have. Thank you so much for reading, and I will update possibly around the holidays, considering I'll finally have a bit more time then :)