A/N: Wow, almost 500 reviews. I am so very happy! Thank you all so much! I hope this chapter makes you happy.
This chapter is dedicated to: my Darling B., my Shiny Jewel, my Ginger Goddess, She Whose Voice Is like Warm Cream, my "Dearest," and my Papillon.
S&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS&MS
In the taxi he surprised her by putting his arms around her. Not that she minded. She'd snuggle against him anytime he wanted. She felt warm and sated and so sickeningly happy.
"Turn the radio on, please," Sherlock requested of the driver, and felt Molly smile against him. He preferred silence or conversation in taxis, because he was usually thinking or talking about a case when he was in them. But for this case, the opposite was true. Moriarty had seemingly hired out a taxi for everywhere Sherlock went where Molly was concerned, and music was a clue. At least it wasn't him driving this time.
"Yes, sir," the driver answered, and a few seconds later something with a slightly grinding, blues-ish guitar started to play.
Driving faster in my car
Falling farther from just we are
Smoke a cigarette
And lie some more
These conversations kill
Driving faster in my car
Time to take her home
Her dizzy head, his conscience laden
Time to take a ride
It leaves today, no conversation
Time to take her home
Her dizzy head, his conscience laden
Time too way too long, too way too long, too way too long
Too much walking shoes worn thin
Too much tripping and my soul's worn thin
Time to catch a ride, it leaves today
Her name is what it means
Too much walking shoes worn thin
Time to take her home
Her dizzy head, his conscience laden
Time to take a ride
It leaves today, no conversation
Time to take her home
Her dizzy head, his conscience laden
Time too way too long, too way too long, too way too long
Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Molly had sung along with the entire song in a soft voice. When it ended her turned to her. "What was that song?"
"Big Empty by Stone Temple Pilots," she replied. "Did you like it?"
"In a way. I've never had much of a taste before for popular music, but lately it's become of great interest to me," he said.
She chuckled. "It's my fault. I'm teaching you bad habits. We'll have to listen to some Brahms or Ravel to make up for it. I'll play some for you soon if you like."
He swallowed hard. "Yes."
When they arrived at her flat and were standing outside her door, Molly looked up at him uncertainly. "Would you like to come in? I won't be going to bed for another hour or two."
He only nodded and let her lead him in. Toby immediately raced over to them.
"Toby, this is Sherlock. Be nice," Molly said with a smile. "I'm going to put the kettle on, all right?"
"Yes," he said absently, watching Toby.
Toby came close and sniffed him, then sniffed him again. Apparently he liked what he smelled, because he rubbed himself in circles around Sherlock's legs. Sherlock hesitantly reached down to pet him, and found the experience an oddly comforting one. Toby's fur was soft and fine and he began to purr. It was rather soothing.
When the tea was ready they sat on the sofa and Molly turned on some classical music. Vivaldi's L'autunno. Sherlock smiled. "The Four Seasons were some of the first concertos I learned."
Molly smiled. "They're excellent pieces. Summer is my favorite. Let me guess: yours is Winter."
He inclined his head and sipped his tea. "Well done."
"Summer and winter," Molly mused, sipping her own. "Two opposites. The evolution of life and the extinction of it."
Sherlock put his cup down on the coffee table and studied her. "But each has a purpose."
She sat her own cup down and met his eyes. "And together they're part of a larger plan. They not only complement each other, they need each other to exist."
They stared at each other for a long moment, the tension cracking the air like invisible lightning.
In ten seconds, they were a tangle of limbs, Vivaldi and tea forgotten.
There were many things he knew, and some things he thought he knew. And then there were things he knew he didn't know, and Sherlock Holmes was fine with that. Finite hard drive space, after all.
But if anyone had asked him at that moment into which category this fell, he couldn't have said.
He knew why he was kissing Molly.
He didn't know why he was enjoying it so much.
It was Moriarty's doing, this little film, this act. He was just the leading man, the pretender, playing a part on a stage built from a tournament of lies. A carefully crafted performance, scripted with the best of intentions.
Then why did it feel real?
Because Moriarty had been right, again. He had wanted Molly. He wanted her then, and he wanted her now. He couldn't believe it, but he had to accept it. It was what was left, no matter how impossible it seemed.
He could say it was simply biology.
His body was reacting to a stimulus. If someone struck him (unlikely, but possible), he'd react. If he ate a Dautil pepper (same thing), he'd react. If an attractive woman was pressed against him in a rather tight fit on a sofa with her tongue in his mouth and her fingers trailing up and down his body, he'd react.
All true. There was only one problem with that.
He'd wanted her just sitting on the sofa, before they'd even touched.
He'd felt that stirring of the air, that static charge, hover around him with The Woman.
Naturally, he had left it unacknowledged.
The Woman was extraordinary. His attraction to her was mostly mental, with the spark of the mind transferring to the body.
Molly wasn't like that. But there were undeniably things about her that made her special. Her gift and passion for music, her faith in him, her friendship no matter how horrid he'd been in the past. The Woman was self-serving, capable of being cruel, murderous and uncaring. She was on the wrong side of the code from him. Molly was, in that sense, everything The Woman was not.
If he'd desired The Woman for her mind, what did he desire Molly for?
"Sherlock," Molly whispered at that moment.
He moved out of his mind back into his body to discover that somehow he and Molly were both unbuttoned from the waist up and it stunned him into paralysis. Had he been analyzing that long, or was she that quick?
She pressed against him again; her small breasts were nestled in a green lacy bra and felt all warm and soft against his chest, and his blood suddenly became an ocean, roaring deafening waves that pounded his head. Her hair caressed his shoulders as she leaned over him: it tickled him, whispered to his skin. It was still strange to him, to see her with her hair undone. He'd only seen it that way at Christmas that year, when he'd gone to identify The Woman's body.
"Sherlock?"
This time it was a question, and she didn't sound happy. Oh, dear. What had he done? His mind raced furiously.
John's voice popped into his head. "TIMING?"
Oh. Right. This was probably not the best time to be attempting to analyze, even if he was thinking about her in the process.
He felt her hand grasp him through his trousers, and suddenly trying to think was no longer a consideration.
Molly could tell his mind had wandered.
And she didn't take offense… not completely. She knew perfectly well with whom she was making out. But she didn't intend to let him keep retreating into that enormous brain of his.
So when she'd felt him wander off the second time, so to speak, she didn't get angry. She didn't pout; she didn't get up and whine about why was he a million miles away.
No, Molly Hooper had a bit more class than that, and a bit more of an understanding of how this man's mind was. So she asserted herself in the best way she knew how: the way that never failed to get the attention of any straight man with a pulse.
She grasped his penis through his trousers.
He gasped.
"Hello," she purred. "What have we here?"
If he'd been able to think, he might have given her a smart-arsed answer about how as if she didn't know. Or perhaps not.
As it was, he could only swallow. Hard.
Her slim nimble fingers quickly worked the zip, and she slid her hand inside. Oh, the advantages of small hands! Part of her could hear her mother shouting: "Molly Elizabeth Hooper! You tart!" But the other part heard his breath hitch, and, well, why would she want to hear her mum in her head when she could hear that?
Oh, yes. Oh, God, yes. There he was.
Hard and hot and weighty and smooth in her hand, rising up like a Valkyrie from a forest of soft curls, he felt like heaven.
Her other hand unbuckled his belt and undid his trouser button to give her better access.
"Molly," he said, and she grinned at the rough edge in his voice.
She freed him from his boxers and stroked him, using every bit of finesse, skill and knowledge she had, and was rewarded when he moaned sharply and lifted his hips. "Molly," he gasped.
"Shh," she ordered, pressing a hard kiss to his lips, squeezing him as she stroked until he moaned. She swallowed his moan in her mouth, then pulled back to look at him.
His cheeks were flushed, pupils dilated, eyes wide and glittering. She could almost see his pulse throbbing in his throat. For the moment, she had his attention.
As Molly kissed her way slowly down his chest, Sherlock thought there was something he should say, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was, and there was a sudden rush of blood to his lower extremities again and his body hurt and he decided it was best just to stop trying to think of it. The sensations were nearly too much for him to process so he closed his eyes to help narrow his concentration, forcing himself to steady his breathing a bit.
This would be why he never indulged. So much emotion, so much feeling…it could consume him. Moriarty hadn't come out and said, but Sherlock had known when he'd said he knew Sherlock's dirty little secret. It wasn't that he was incapable of passion, as so many people thought. It was that he was capable of too much of it. He abstained out of choice so it didn't overwhelm him. And Moriarty, pretty as you please, had used the key and opened the door to his mind palace, had smashed through his sanctuary breaking all the china as he went.
Sherlock hated it. Hated being at the mercy of anything, but emotion most of all. It stripped him down, made him defenseless, took away the thing he valued most. He felt helpless and angry even as his mouth made sounds of pleasure and his body burned. He was being violated; it was against his will with coerced consent, with innocent Molly in the middle not as the originator but the cause, in the way that hurt him the most.
Well played, you bastard, he thought, just as she squeezed him again, wrenching another gasp from him.
He felt her lips on him and his eyes flew open in shock.
She met his gaze for a split second before her eyes closed and she drew his heat into the sweet coolness of her mouth. And if he had nearly come undone from her touch of her hand, he was now about to be completely destroyed.
He felt as though he was holding a live wire. He couldn't keep holding it, but neither could he let it go.
Her soft lips moved up and down, slowly, and she increased her speed in finite increments, tight around him and dear God, he had never felt such primal bliss. Not even the cocaine had given him this singular sort of pleasure wrapped within obliterating torment. She played him like he was an instrument and she was giving a concert in ecstasy. He closed his eyes again as a soft sigh escaped him.
Part of him wanted to fight it, but he knew it would be useless. He was past the point of resisting anything. His ticket had been bought and his bag packed, and there was nothing left for him to do but get on board and let it ride.
So Sherlock moaned, and arched against her, and when his climax came he gasped her name, trading his despair for delirium because pleasure was preferable to pain. He released himself into her mouth as she pulled the final notes from him, no longer in rhythm but a piacere, ending the symphony that had waited a lifetime to be played with the crazed beating of his heart.
"Big Empty" by Stone Temple Pilots, copyright 1994 Atlantic Records