A/N: Wow, what an amazing amounto of enthusiasm for this silly bit of nonsense! Hope you continue to enjoy as I present Rounds 2 and 3 in combination for your reading pleasure (and, I hope, amusement)! Warnings for some naughty references.

After the Return: Rounds Two and Three

The next round in "Toby v. Sherlock" came shortly after his return from the dead two years later. Molly had assisted him with cases on that one glorious day (which he'd told her and tried to convince himself was only to say "thank you" to her and not a date...especially not a date with a woman who was currently engaged to another man, how had it taken him so long to notice the ring...well, sometimes the mind saw what it wanted to see and ignored what it wanted to ignore) and he'd seen her in the morgue on occasion, but one night, when her fiancé was out of town on business of some boring sort or other (Sherlock could never be bothered to remember what the mad did for a living), he had found himself walking up to the door of Molly's building and pressing the buzzer before he'd even realized where he was.

"Hello? Who is it?"

Molly sounded alert but not frightened, in spite of the fact that it was, essentially, the middle of the night. "Sherlock," he replied tersely, and she'd buzzed him in without demanding to know why he was there or if something was wrong.

When he reached her second-floor flat, the door was partially open, an invitation he immediately accepted. Once inside he closed and locked the door behind him, removing his coat and scarf (they were damp, why were they damp, it must have been raining) and shaking the wet from his hair (yes, it had definitely been raining, hmm, he hadn't noticed, too lost in his thoughts) before looking around for Molly.

Ah, in the kitchen, putting the kettle on and yawning a bit. She wore a fluffy pink dressing-gown and he wondered distractedly if she was wearing the yellow satin nightgown beneath it before forcing such thoughts away from his mind. She was engaged to Tom, the boring, not-a-criminal-no-matter-how-much-Sherlock-wished-he-was-so-he-could-make-him-go-away Tom, and Sherlock had no right to wonder what she wore beneath the fluffy pink monstrosity of a dressing-gown.

A noisy meow from the region of his ankles caught his attention; he glanced down with a frown to see Toby winding his way around Sherlock's ankles. Cats weren't supposed to like the wet, so why on Earth...as the cat moved away, sauntering into the kitchen with his tail raised, high, Sherlock bit back a curse at the sight of the grey and black fur now covering the bottoms of his trousers. This round to Toby, was his disgruntled thought, but the war was far from over.

"Tea, right?" Molly called out, interrupting his (rather murderous) thoughts about her cat. "Take a seat, Sherlock, make yourself comfortable. I'll be right there and you can tell me what this is all about. Or not," she rambled on as he made his way to the sofa, levering his feet up so that they dangled over the arm. He kicked his shoes off and grumbled anew at the sight of the fur adorning his damp trouser bottoms, but pasted a welcoming smile on his face as Molly entered the small parlor, depositing the tray on the low table and starting for the matching armchair.

Sherlock raised his head and gave her a pointed look; she didn't quite smile, but her dimples showed as she changed directions and seated herself on the sofa. Before he could lower his head onto her lap – and perhaps talk her into another one of her marvelously soothing head-massages – there was the sound of a thump and the feel of fur across his face and Toby took possession of Molly's lap, purring loudly. Sherlock gave him an outraged look, Toby continued to thrash his tail across Sherlock's face and Molly had the temerity to giggle at the sight. "Oh, you two," she said when she had regained control of her voice. Her fingers were stroking Toby's head instead of Sherlock's, who was now sitting up as he continued to glower at her pet. "Honestly, he does this with Tom, too!"

As soon as the words left her mouth it was clear Molly regretted them; Toby hissed and jumped off her lap and Sherlock retreated to the far end of the sofa, trying his best to ignore her stricken face as he reached for his cup and gulped down his tea. Mumbling his thanks for the short-term use of her sofa, reassuring her that he'd only intended to stay for a few minutes as he needed to get out of the rain and clear his head (he was really a first-rate liar when he had to be), Sherlock gathered up his belongings and rushed out the door, slamming it shut behind him and not caring if he woke the neighbors or gave something away to Molly he still wasn't ready to admit to himself.

It was only after he'd flagged down a passing taxi that he realized, much to his disgruntlement, that he'd surrendered this round to Toby, who'd doubtlessly been coaxed to return to Molly's lap as soon as the door had shut behind him.

oOo

Round three of The Struggle for Ownership of Molly's Lap happened a few days after John and Mary's wedding, while they were off on their sex vacation, as Sherlock insisted on calling it. Tom was once again out of town (Sherlock always made sure to coincide his visits to Molly's flat with her fiance's absence, although neither of them commented on that circumstance) and Sherlock was, quite frankly, bored and restless. He'd 'borrowed' Molly's keys once while she was working, nipped round the corner to a locksmith and had copies made for himself. It made it so much easier to use her flat as a bolt-hole once he did that; he'd even tried going there once or twice when she wasn't home, but had decided that it was far too quiet then and returned to his usual habits.

It had nothing to do with the way Toby glared at him the entire time, he told himself.

At any rate, a few days after John and Mary buggered off together (but not before they'd confirmed his deductions regarding the new Mrs. Watson's 'interesting condition'), he was back, bored and restless. He let himself in while Molly was, judging by the noise coming from the direction of her bathroom, singing in the shower. Her voice wasn't bad, he decided, but reserved judgement until able to hear it when it wasn't a) muffled and distant, and b) accompanied by the sounds of water hitting her body.

He paused in the act of settling himself on her sofa; for some reason, images of her naked body under the warm spray had instantly entered his mind. He could picture her lathering her hair while continuing to sing some pop song he didn't recognize, could picture her running her hands over her body afterwards, soaping her breasts, teasing the nipples into…

"Bloody hell!" he swore, jumping back to his feet and scowling down at himself. He had an erection now; what was he, some hormone-addled teenager again? He could either ignore it and hope it would go away (unlikely since he was fully hard and nearly throbbing as visions of a naked, soaking wet Molly touching herself continued to plague his mind's eye), or do something to take care of it. The latter option was, of course, absurd; he had no idea how long Molly would remain in the bathroom (although her showers generally lasted at least ten minutes, with an extra five minutes if she was conditioning her hair as well as washing it) and had some vague idea that it was bad manners to wank off in a friend's flat while said friend might possibly walk in on one.

Besides, there was the blasted cat. Toby had jumped up on the sofa while Sherlock waffled in indecision, and was currently sprawled out in an insolent manner, tail twitching as he eyed the intruder. The pest was practically daring Sherlock to try to sit down, to attempt once again to take over the coveted lap that would soon be occupying the end of the sofa. And Molly might not be a consulting detective or an observational genius, but she was certainly observant enough to notice when a man had an erection.

Too bad she was still engaged to what's-his-name, Sherlock thought, then shook his head and scowled at himself. No, not too bad. She loved him, she was happy; he'd seen them dancing at the wedding reception, Molly smiling and laughing even after the unfortunate Meat Dagger incident (although he mentally replayed the bit where she'd stabbed the idiot in the hand with her plastic fork over and over again when he needed a chuckle).

With another scowl, Sherlock headed for the door. His erection had flagged just thinking about Molly with That Idiot, and he didn't want to examine the reasons too closely.

Without a single shot being fired, Toby was the definite winner of that particular skirmish.