All I Want for Christmas
Jan. 6th, 2019 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darnedchildSummary: Molly didn't expect to be dragged from her warm flat in the middle of the night to deal with a drunk consulting detective, but she found herself at Baker Street nevertheless. Sherlock, on the other hand, had been eagerly looking forward to a visit from his favourite pathologist. All Molly wants is to get a tipsy Sherlock tucked into bed. Thankfully, Sherlock has similar idea. (Somehow a fair bit of plot got mixed up in my Christmas smut. Oops.)
Rating: M
A/N - My entry for the 2018 12 Days of Sherlolly fest. Unsurprisingly, I’m running a little late and part one is posting just under the wire. Oopsy. Also Unbeta’d because, again, I’m late.
All I Want for Christmas
Molly glared at the phone vibrating on the coffee table. She’d only just made herself comfortable; curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine, a tub of cookie dough ice cream, her favourite Christmas flannel pyjamas (covered in cute white kittens), and ‘Love Actually’ in the DVD player.
The phone vibrated again. She huffed as she leaned forward to snatch it off the table, only to find Sherlock’s name on the display. Trust him to know exactly the wrong moment to call. “Hullo, Sherlock.”
“Hello, Molly. I was beginning to worry that you weren’t going to answer.”
She blinked and held the phone away from her ear for a moment to double check that it really did read Sherlock. “Mrs Hudson?”
“Yes, dear.”
A thousand scenarios ranging from the innocent (found Sherlock’s phone in the laundry and called in case he was using Molly’s as a bolt hole for the evening) to the devastating (he’s been shot again). “Is everyone all right?” She couldn’t quite keep the worry out of her voice.
“I suppose it depends on your definition of all right, doesn’t it?”
That did nothing to help her unease.
Mrs Hudson must have picked up on the charged tension in Molly’s silence. “I’m sorry, that did sound a little ominous, didn’t it? I simply meant that some of us are going to regret our choices come the morning.” She sounded as if she were smiling.
“Pardon?” Molly gave up on getting back to her movie anytime soon. She aimed the remote at the TV and hit pause.
“Did you go to Greg’s for drinks tonight?”
Molly had been invited to Greg’s early Christmas/New Flat Warming party (casual drinkies, finger foods, and the promise of the sort of goofy holiday party games she usually found charming). She’d fully intended to go but it has been a long and difficult day, and by the time the end of her shift came around she knew she would have been crap company. All she’d wanted was to go home and take a long, hot bubble bath. She’d meant to send a text to Greg to let him know she wouldn’t be coming, but it had completely slipped her mind. “No, I was going to but-“
“Then you missed it. Oh well, I’m sure Greg will show you the video next time you see him. If it doesn’t end up on-line somewhere first,” Mrs Hudson giggled.
“Missed what?” Molly was really beginning to wish the other woman would get to the point.
“I believe it started with spiked eggnog, for Sherlock and John at least. Who knew what the others had been up to before they arrived?”
Molly winced. The story of the infamous Stag Night was well known amongst their small social circle. “And then?”
“And then it moved on to Detective Dimmock’s infamous rum and bourbon balls. You know how Sherlock has a sweet tooth.”
She was, in fact, aware of that. She’d taken to hiding her biscuit tin in her lingerie drawer when she knew he was going to spend the night. Sherlock had been growing ever bolder in his search for her favourite sugar biscuits, it was only a matter of time before he discovered the tin under her lacy knickers. And wasn’t that an interesting thought?
“At some point, apparently, someone arrived bearing Mycroft’s regrets and a gift. And of course, they had to open the twenty-five-year-old Scotch to toast the missing Holmes brother.”
Molly groaned. “Please tell me no one ended up in the drunk tank again.”
Mrs Hudson laughed. “Not this time. No, Greg poured John and Sherlock into a cab and sent them to Baker Street. He was coherent enough to call ahead and warn me about the sorry state they were in, thank goodness.”
Well, that was something at least. Although, if John was at Baker Street . . . “Who has Rosie? Do I need to pick her up from a sitter?”
“I’ve got her, dear. John brought her over before they went to Greg’s. The plan was that I’d watch her for a few hours, but I don’t think John’s in any condition to taker her home tonight. I sent him up to his old room, and I’ll just keep Rosie down here with me.”
Muted violin music came through the phone line, and Molly realized Sherlock must still be awake. Mrs Hudson huffed. “And there he goes again. I’ve tried to get him to go to bed, but he’s being difficult. He’s going to wake up Rosie if he keeps that up. I’ve already got one child to care for, I can’t keep popping upstairs to deal with another one. Can you come over and convince Sherlock to sleep it off? Or at least distract him long enough to hide the bloody violin?”
Molly laughed until she realized the other woman was serious. “If you can’t get him to do it, why would you think I could?”
“He’ll listen to you, dear.”
Where Mrs Hudson got that idea, Molly hadn’t the foggiest. “But, but I can’t-“ she sputtered.
“I’ll leave the front door unlocked. Just go on up when you get here.”
“But-“ Molly realized Mrs Hudson had already hung up. She seriously considered ignoring the phone call and going back to her ice cream and movie, but poor Rosie didn’t deserve to be kept up all night just because her father and uncle didn’t know when to say when.
She turned off the telly, called for a cab, put the ice cream back into the freezer, downed the wine in her glass in one go, and tossed an oversized jumper over her pyjamas. Fifteen minutes later she was on her way.
It seemed to take forever to get to Baker Street. The snow had discouraged all but the most desperate last-minute Christmas shoppers from taking to the streets earlier in the day. Now that it had long gone dark, the cab passed only a handful of people during its excruciatingly slow forty-five-minute journey.
True to her word, Mrs Hudson had left the door unlocked and a lamp burning in the front hall. The stairs up to 221B were mostly shrouded in darkness, but Molly knew them well enough to skip over the creaky one just past the landing.
There was no noise coming from Sherlock’s rooms, and she wondered if he’d grown bored of the violin on his own in the time it had taken her to arrive. She tried to be as quiet as possible as she opened the sitting room door on the off chance that he had already gone to bed.
The violin had been deposited in its open case next to one of the windows, but Sherlock had not stumbled off to his room in a drunken stupor like she had hoped. He was sprawled out in his chair, head tipped back to expose the long, pale line of his neck above the open collar of his shirt.
He must have heard the door open because he lifted his head and lazily opened his eyes. Sherlock’s lips curled upward in a soft, welcoming smile. “Molly, I was wondering where you were. You didn’t go to Gerald’s thing.”
“No. I had a long day and went home instead.” She took stock of the sitting room. Other than a scattered pile of papers the floor that must have fallen off the table (and that could have very well happened at any time since she’d last visited) the place seemed to be none the worse for wear. Unlike Sherlock, who was still loose-limbed and watching her through half-lidded eyes as if she’d brought him a juicy puzzle to solve and he was just waiting for her to start laying out the details. “You should go to sleep.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and spread his legs out even farther, pointing the toe of one shoe at her. “Why aren’t you in a skirt? You should always wear skirts.”
She rolled her eyes and moved into the kitchen to dig through his cabinets in search of some Paracetamol. “They’re not terribly practical in the morgue.”
His lower lip pushed out in a pout. A pout! “They make your legs look longer.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I was already dressed for bed when Mrs Hudson called and I wasn’t about to take the time to change into something fancy just to babysit a drunk. What you see is what you get, I’m afraid.”
He considered her for a long moment, then nodded his head. “That’s all right. I like the pyjamas. They’re very . . . you”
She hoped he meant that as a compliment. She chose to take it as one. “Thank you.”
“The jumper has to go though. It’s hideous and far too large. Did you knick it from John’s closet?”
“Oh, there’s an idea. Perhaps I’ll ask John if he’s got any he’s planning to bin anytime soon, save me a trip to a second-hand shop.” Molly gave up her search in the kitchen and turned to head toward the bathroom.
“No! Not John’s. You can wear one of my shirts. No, no, Janine did that. I didn’t like it.” His pout returned.
“Duly noted. Your shirts are safe from me.” Molly wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about Janine’s wardrobe appropriation. The thought of the other woman in Sherlock’s clothing made her teeth clench and she’d rather avoid thinking about it all together.
“Dressing gown? No, that was the Woman.” He stood up and followed her to the bathroom.
“Sherlock, I don’t need to borrow anything from you or John. You can stop wracking your brain to try to find something one of your old girlfriends hasn’t claimed.” And who called their ex ‘the woman’? Was the break-up that bad that he couldn’t even mention her name?
He leaned against the wall across from the bathroom door. “You’re right, no clothes. I like that better anyway. How do you feel about sheets?”
Anyone else and she might have thought he was flirting, but they didn’t do that. That wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. As it was, he was probably running some sort of textile comparison in his mind and wanted to know her opinion on thread counts in bed linens. “You are going to have such a hangover tomorrow. You better hope Mrs Hudson is feeling merciful in the morning.”
Molly stepped into the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet. She heard him ask, “Were you sleeping? Before Hudders called?”
“Not quite.” Molly didn’t bother to elaborate.
“Were you masturbating?”
The tube of toothpaste that she’d been holding slipped from her fingers and fell into the sink. She popped her head through the bathroom doorway to stare at him, convinced she’d misheard him. “I’m sorry?”
“I do that sometimes, when I need to sleep but my brain is just too . . .” He waved his hands around his head and made a buzzing noise.
So he had said what she’d thought he’d said. Molly stared at him for a moment, and reminded herself that he was drunk off his arse and currently had zero filter running between his brain and his mouth. “That’s—that’s common. Lots of people do that to, uhm, relax before they sleep.” She swallowed and pointed toward his bedroom. “Speaking of—go to bed, Sherlock. I’m going to leave something on the bedside table for the headache you’re probably going to have.”
“But, Molly, you-“ Sherlock began with more than a small hint of whinging in his tone.
“Bed.” She wagged her finger toward the bedroom again. “Now.”
He blinked and then slowly nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She couldn’t help but be a little suspicious that he agreed so readily. She watched him with narrowed eyes as he disappeared into his room without further protest. He left the door partially open, and Molly waited to make sure he wasn’t going to try to sneak past as soon as he thought her back was turned.
“It’s your fault I drank so much, you know,” Sherlock called through the open door.
“How could it possibly be my fault?” She returned to digging through the medicine cabinet. Half the items shoved into the small space were either missing a label all together or had been refilled with something that had no business being stored in a bathroom in the first place. “I wasn’t even there.”
“Exactly!” She saw his shadow move past the thin frosted window panel that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. He spun once, fighting to get his unbuttoned shirt off his arms. The temptation to offer her assistance was on the tip of her tongue. “You weren’t there. If you had told me you weren’t coming, I wouldn’t have been forced to stay and participate in all that . . . festiveness.”
His shadow moved out of sight. Molly forced herself to concentrate on her search for an OTC pain reliever. “You didn’t have to wait for me, you could have sent a text if you needed to ask me something. If it’s about the sample you wanted run, I told you it would be a few days and I’d let you know as soon as I had anything. There’s nothing I can do to speed it up.” She opened yet another bottle and found what she’d been looking for. Molly held the pill bottle up in triumph. She looked at the sink filled with everything she’d pulled out of the medicine cabinet during her search, impressed with how much junk he’d managed to cram into the cabinet. “Nope, not even going to try to put it all back,” Molly whispered to herself.
“I didn’t want to text.” He sounded like a child who had been denied his favourite toy and offered a poor substitute instead. “It’s not the same.”
Molly hurried to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, automatically pausing long enough to check that the seal was intact and that there were no visible holes in the lid. You never knew what sort of thing he was storing in his fridge from day to day, and John had shared more than one horror story over the years.
“Well, I’m here now. What did you want to-“ She stopped dead, barely a full step into his bedroom. Sherlock was sitting on the edge of the bed, completely starkers.
And visibly aroused.
“What the hell, Sherlock!” Somehow Molly managed pull her eyes away from his penis to stare up at the ceiling. “Why are you naked?”
“I don’t like pyjamas. You know that.”
She did remember Sherlock or John mentioning something along those lines before, yes. “You wear them at my place.”
“Your sheets are scratchy.”
“They are not.” She dropped her gaze to glare at him, and her eyes fell down to his erection again. It seemed to grow even larger the longer she looked, and she realized she was staring.
“Like what you see?” He reached down with one hand and stroked himself.
Molly gaped. “Oh my God, Sherlock! I’m right here!”
“Excellent point.” His expression turned sly as he spread his legs and leaned back with his hands planted firmly on the bed. “Suck my cock, Molly.”
“What?” She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “No!” Although he did look incredibly sexy, offering himself to her like that. Molly shook the stray thought off.
Sherlock frowned and sat up straight again. “You’ve never said no before.”
“I’ve never . . . You have never, ever asked me to—to do that before. Trust me, that’s the sort of thing I would have remembered.” Rather than waning as she would have expected, his erection continued to stand proud between his legs.
He reached down again, and began to touch himself once more. “I’m not asking now, Molly. I’m telling you to come over here, get on your knees, and suck me off. I want to see those pretty little lips of yours stretched around my cock.” His thumb teased over the head of his penis as he stroked upward.
She shook her head and finally managed to drag her eyes away from the erotic display in front of her, one she would most likely remember every time she got herself off for the rest of her life. “You are drunk and obviously don’t know what you’re saying.” Molly looked around and spotted his dressing gown draped over the chair against the wall. She snatched it up and tossed it into his lap. “You and I don’t . . . We aren’t . . . What were you guys drinking? Mrs Hudson said something about Scotch, didn’t she?” She took a deep breath and tried again. “You know what, I’m going to go wake up John and-“
“No!” he snapped. The dressing gown settled into a bunch across his thighs and barely covered his groin. “We agreed, never John. That’s like asking Mycroft to join us!” Sherlock shuddered and glared up at her. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this. Normally you’d be naked by now.”
Words failed her. The only thing she could come up with was, “I’m sorry?”, and that didn’t even begin to convey the confusion—and piqued interest—she currently felt.
“I haven’t had a good wank in months. I should be imagining that you’re as desperate as I am, not playing coy. And certainly not talking about John. Unless . . .” He tilted his head to the side and looked thoughtful for a moment, then lifted the dressing gown and took a peek underneath. “Nope, still not interested.” He let the gown drop into his lap. “Quite the opposite, in fact. And now I’m going to have to work twice as hard to get the mood back.”
Sherlock flopped flat against the mattress with both arms spread wide. The movement caused the silk dressing gown to slide down his legs and off the edge of the bed, leaving him completely exposed once more. He was right, his amorous mood seemed to have shifted as his erection had finally begun to flag. The sight of a naked Sherlock spread across the bed was still enough to make Molly curl her fingers into fists to keep from reaching for him.
“Maybe it’s not even worth the effort. What do you think, Molly? Should I give up on having a wank and just go to sleep? Or do you want to crawl up here and let me finish fantasizing my way through a long overdue orgasm?”
And suddenly everything made sense. He thought she was a masturbatory fantasy. Molly wasn’t sure how to process that. She didn’t know if she should be shocked, appalled, flattered, or tempted at the knowledge that he’d made himself come thinking of her more than once. Tempted was winning by a narrow margin.
He lifted his head up to look at her. “I suppose, if you really want another threesome, I could see if Moriarty is around somewhere?” Sherlock offered in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to change her mind.
“Jim Moriarty? But you—he—what?” Don’t be so shocked. Jim’s got your engine running more than once, too. He did have that devilishly handsome bad boy thing going on.
“Would you prefer the Woman again?” His expression turned mischievous.
And there was another reference to the unnamed ex. “Sherlock, how often do you—we—have these threesomes?”
He sat up, eager now that she seemed interested. “Not that often, I like having your undivided attention.” Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he considered the rest of his answer. “Off the top of my head there was three times with Moriarty, two with the Woman, once with Lestrade—but that was only because I couldn’t find my handcuffs and you said it would be rude not to invite him to play since he came all the way to Baker Street to loan us a set of his.” He flushed and glanced down at his hands, as if he were unable to meet her eye as he mumbled, “And then there was that one time with Ms Featherstone.”
The name was completely unfamiliar to her. She knew she probably shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Ms Featherstone?”
“You remember, my first-year chemistry professor at uni. But she only watched, so I’m not sure that even counts.” He reached out for her hand, and she let him take it despite knowing it was a bad idea. “Come sit with me.”
She shook her head even as he pulled her down to the mattress next to him. “We can’t do this.”
“We can.” He pressed a soft kiss to the palm of her hand and then moved it to his shoulder. “Kiss me, Molly. If you don’t want to do anything more than that, we can just skip to the post-coital cuddle.”
“You want to cuddle?” She could almost picture it in her head. Lying next to him, her arm draped across his waist and her head on his chest, allowing the sound of his steady heartbeat to lull her into sleep.
“Well,” Sherlock drawled, leaning into her. His sinful “I’d much rather fuck,” was whispered against her lips, then his mouth was against hers and Molly found herself opening for him without a second thought. She didn’t realize he was lowering her to the bed until her back hit the mattress and his solid weight pressed against her from chest to waist. The first kiss lead to a second and third before he managed to scoot them both toward the centre of the bed. She felt his hand settle against her hip and slide down so that his strong fingers could dig into the flesh of her arse.
Molly moaned. She felt him smile against her lips before he kissed her again. He shifted, and her legs automatically parted to allow him to settle between them. He felt so good against her, his body solid and warm and better than anything she’d ever imagined.
She felt his teeth graze against the underside of her jaw, and Molly groaned his name.
He growled against her throat and ground his erection into the vee between her thighs. “God, I need you.”
“Sherlock, you have to—Oh, ohhhh.” Molly arched her back against the bed when his hand slid under her jumper and pyjama top. His palmed her breast, then circled her pebbled nipple with his thumb.
It felt so good, but she needed to put a stop to things before they went any further. “Sherlock, stop.” There wasn’t an ounce of conviction behind her words, but he stilled nevertheless.
He took a deep breath, then slowly lifted his head and reluctantly withdrew his hand from under her shirts. “It’s a cuddle night, then. Sleep now, wank in the morning.” He rolled to his side and smoothed her jumper down, utterly resigned. “Right. I just need a minute to cool down.”
“I—I should probably go.” Molly tried to sit up, but he threw an arm around her waist and shook his head.
“No! Don’t leave,” Sherlock implored. “Please, stay with me. I missed you tonight. The real you.” When she didn’t immediately roll away, he relaxed. “You’ll stay?”
Molly sighed and nodded. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but yes. I’ll stay.”
Sherlock helped arrange the covers over them both, then pulled her against his side. It was so close to the mental image she’d had earlier that Molly almost wondered if she was the one who was drunk and imagining things that had never happened.
The next day was going to be awkward as hell, but it was probably past time for them to finally get some things out in the open.
They’d had the obligatory stilted conversation after the infamous phone call. They had both agreed they loved each other, but nothing had really happened other than that. Her feelings hadn’t changed just because she’d finally given them voice; and regardless of the fact that he did love her, he wasn’t ready to pursue anything more than their already deep friendship while he dealt with the fall out of Sherrinford and his newly remembered sister.
The idea that they’d revisit the topic once things had settled down had remained unspoken, but Molly had assumed it would happen eventually. It just seemed that the more time passed, the easier it was for both of them to go with the flow and continue as always. Now it was ages later and neither one of them seemed to know how to broach the subject.
No more point in trying to ignore their attraction to each other, that cat was out of the bag and laying naked beside her.
Part 2 Coming Soon
Rating: M
A/N - My entry for the 2018 12 Days of Sherlolly fest. Unsurprisingly, I’m running a little late and part one is posting just under the wire. Oopsy. Also Unbeta’d because, again, I’m late.
All I Want for Christmas
Molly glared at the phone vibrating on the coffee table. She’d only just made herself comfortable; curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine, a tub of cookie dough ice cream, her favourite Christmas flannel pyjamas (covered in cute white kittens), and ‘Love Actually’ in the DVD player.
The phone vibrated again. She huffed as she leaned forward to snatch it off the table, only to find Sherlock’s name on the display. Trust him to know exactly the wrong moment to call. “Hullo, Sherlock.”
“Hello, Molly. I was beginning to worry that you weren’t going to answer.”
She blinked and held the phone away from her ear for a moment to double check that it really did read Sherlock. “Mrs Hudson?”
“Yes, dear.”
A thousand scenarios ranging from the innocent (found Sherlock’s phone in the laundry and called in case he was using Molly’s as a bolt hole for the evening) to the devastating (he’s been shot again). “Is everyone all right?” She couldn’t quite keep the worry out of her voice.
“I suppose it depends on your definition of all right, doesn’t it?”
That did nothing to help her unease.
Mrs Hudson must have picked up on the charged tension in Molly’s silence. “I’m sorry, that did sound a little ominous, didn’t it? I simply meant that some of us are going to regret our choices come the morning.” She sounded as if she were smiling.
“Pardon?” Molly gave up on getting back to her movie anytime soon. She aimed the remote at the TV and hit pause.
“Did you go to Greg’s for drinks tonight?”
Molly had been invited to Greg’s early Christmas/New Flat Warming party (casual drinkies, finger foods, and the promise of the sort of goofy holiday party games she usually found charming). She’d fully intended to go but it has been a long and difficult day, and by the time the end of her shift came around she knew she would have been crap company. All she’d wanted was to go home and take a long, hot bubble bath. She’d meant to send a text to Greg to let him know she wouldn’t be coming, but it had completely slipped her mind. “No, I was going to but-“
“Then you missed it. Oh well, I’m sure Greg will show you the video next time you see him. If it doesn’t end up on-line somewhere first,” Mrs Hudson giggled.
“Missed what?” Molly was really beginning to wish the other woman would get to the point.
“I believe it started with spiked eggnog, for Sherlock and John at least. Who knew what the others had been up to before they arrived?”
Molly winced. The story of the infamous Stag Night was well known amongst their small social circle. “And then?”
“And then it moved on to Detective Dimmock’s infamous rum and bourbon balls. You know how Sherlock has a sweet tooth.”
She was, in fact, aware of that. She’d taken to hiding her biscuit tin in her lingerie drawer when she knew he was going to spend the night. Sherlock had been growing ever bolder in his search for her favourite sugar biscuits, it was only a matter of time before he discovered the tin under her lacy knickers. And wasn’t that an interesting thought?
“At some point, apparently, someone arrived bearing Mycroft’s regrets and a gift. And of course, they had to open the twenty-five-year-old Scotch to toast the missing Holmes brother.”
Molly groaned. “Please tell me no one ended up in the drunk tank again.”
Mrs Hudson laughed. “Not this time. No, Greg poured John and Sherlock into a cab and sent them to Baker Street. He was coherent enough to call ahead and warn me about the sorry state they were in, thank goodness.”
Well, that was something at least. Although, if John was at Baker Street . . . “Who has Rosie? Do I need to pick her up from a sitter?”
“I’ve got her, dear. John brought her over before they went to Greg’s. The plan was that I’d watch her for a few hours, but I don’t think John’s in any condition to taker her home tonight. I sent him up to his old room, and I’ll just keep Rosie down here with me.”
Muted violin music came through the phone line, and Molly realized Sherlock must still be awake. Mrs Hudson huffed. “And there he goes again. I’ve tried to get him to go to bed, but he’s being difficult. He’s going to wake up Rosie if he keeps that up. I’ve already got one child to care for, I can’t keep popping upstairs to deal with another one. Can you come over and convince Sherlock to sleep it off? Or at least distract him long enough to hide the bloody violin?”
Molly laughed until she realized the other woman was serious. “If you can’t get him to do it, why would you think I could?”
“He’ll listen to you, dear.”
Where Mrs Hudson got that idea, Molly hadn’t the foggiest. “But, but I can’t-“ she sputtered.
“I’ll leave the front door unlocked. Just go on up when you get here.”
“But-“ Molly realized Mrs Hudson had already hung up. She seriously considered ignoring the phone call and going back to her ice cream and movie, but poor Rosie didn’t deserve to be kept up all night just because her father and uncle didn’t know when to say when.
She turned off the telly, called for a cab, put the ice cream back into the freezer, downed the wine in her glass in one go, and tossed an oversized jumper over her pyjamas. Fifteen minutes later she was on her way.
It seemed to take forever to get to Baker Street. The snow had discouraged all but the most desperate last-minute Christmas shoppers from taking to the streets earlier in the day. Now that it had long gone dark, the cab passed only a handful of people during its excruciatingly slow forty-five-minute journey.
True to her word, Mrs Hudson had left the door unlocked and a lamp burning in the front hall. The stairs up to 221B were mostly shrouded in darkness, but Molly knew them well enough to skip over the creaky one just past the landing.
There was no noise coming from Sherlock’s rooms, and she wondered if he’d grown bored of the violin on his own in the time it had taken her to arrive. She tried to be as quiet as possible as she opened the sitting room door on the off chance that he had already gone to bed.
The violin had been deposited in its open case next to one of the windows, but Sherlock had not stumbled off to his room in a drunken stupor like she had hoped. He was sprawled out in his chair, head tipped back to expose the long, pale line of his neck above the open collar of his shirt.
He must have heard the door open because he lifted his head and lazily opened his eyes. Sherlock’s lips curled upward in a soft, welcoming smile. “Molly, I was wondering where you were. You didn’t go to Gerald’s thing.”
“No. I had a long day and went home instead.” She took stock of the sitting room. Other than a scattered pile of papers the floor that must have fallen off the table (and that could have very well happened at any time since she’d last visited) the place seemed to be none the worse for wear. Unlike Sherlock, who was still loose-limbed and watching her through half-lidded eyes as if she’d brought him a juicy puzzle to solve and he was just waiting for her to start laying out the details. “You should go to sleep.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and spread his legs out even farther, pointing the toe of one shoe at her. “Why aren’t you in a skirt? You should always wear skirts.”
She rolled her eyes and moved into the kitchen to dig through his cabinets in search of some Paracetamol. “They’re not terribly practical in the morgue.”
His lower lip pushed out in a pout. A pout! “They make your legs look longer.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I was already dressed for bed when Mrs Hudson called and I wasn’t about to take the time to change into something fancy just to babysit a drunk. What you see is what you get, I’m afraid.”
He considered her for a long moment, then nodded his head. “That’s all right. I like the pyjamas. They’re very . . . you”
She hoped he meant that as a compliment. She chose to take it as one. “Thank you.”
“The jumper has to go though. It’s hideous and far too large. Did you knick it from John’s closet?”
“Oh, there’s an idea. Perhaps I’ll ask John if he’s got any he’s planning to bin anytime soon, save me a trip to a second-hand shop.” Molly gave up her search in the kitchen and turned to head toward the bathroom.
“No! Not John’s. You can wear one of my shirts. No, no, Janine did that. I didn’t like it.” His pout returned.
“Duly noted. Your shirts are safe from me.” Molly wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about Janine’s wardrobe appropriation. The thought of the other woman in Sherlock’s clothing made her teeth clench and she’d rather avoid thinking about it all together.
“Dressing gown? No, that was the Woman.” He stood up and followed her to the bathroom.
“Sherlock, I don’t need to borrow anything from you or John. You can stop wracking your brain to try to find something one of your old girlfriends hasn’t claimed.” And who called their ex ‘the woman’? Was the break-up that bad that he couldn’t even mention her name?
He leaned against the wall across from the bathroom door. “You’re right, no clothes. I like that better anyway. How do you feel about sheets?”
Anyone else and she might have thought he was flirting, but they didn’t do that. That wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. As it was, he was probably running some sort of textile comparison in his mind and wanted to know her opinion on thread counts in bed linens. “You are going to have such a hangover tomorrow. You better hope Mrs Hudson is feeling merciful in the morning.”
Molly stepped into the bathroom and pulled open the medicine cabinet. She heard him ask, “Were you sleeping? Before Hudders called?”
“Not quite.” Molly didn’t bother to elaborate.
“Were you masturbating?”
The tube of toothpaste that she’d been holding slipped from her fingers and fell into the sink. She popped her head through the bathroom doorway to stare at him, convinced she’d misheard him. “I’m sorry?”
“I do that sometimes, when I need to sleep but my brain is just too . . .” He waved his hands around his head and made a buzzing noise.
So he had said what she’d thought he’d said. Molly stared at him for a moment, and reminded herself that he was drunk off his arse and currently had zero filter running between his brain and his mouth. “That’s—that’s common. Lots of people do that to, uhm, relax before they sleep.” She swallowed and pointed toward his bedroom. “Speaking of—go to bed, Sherlock. I’m going to leave something on the bedside table for the headache you’re probably going to have.”
“But, Molly, you-“ Sherlock began with more than a small hint of whinging in his tone.
“Bed.” She wagged her finger toward the bedroom again. “Now.”
He blinked and then slowly nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She couldn’t help but be a little suspicious that he agreed so readily. She watched him with narrowed eyes as he disappeared into his room without further protest. He left the door partially open, and Molly waited to make sure he wasn’t going to try to sneak past as soon as he thought her back was turned.
“It’s your fault I drank so much, you know,” Sherlock called through the open door.
“How could it possibly be my fault?” She returned to digging through the medicine cabinet. Half the items shoved into the small space were either missing a label all together or had been refilled with something that had no business being stored in a bathroom in the first place. “I wasn’t even there.”
“Exactly!” She saw his shadow move past the thin frosted window panel that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. He spun once, fighting to get his unbuttoned shirt off his arms. The temptation to offer her assistance was on the tip of her tongue. “You weren’t there. If you had told me you weren’t coming, I wouldn’t have been forced to stay and participate in all that . . . festiveness.”
His shadow moved out of sight. Molly forced herself to concentrate on her search for an OTC pain reliever. “You didn’t have to wait for me, you could have sent a text if you needed to ask me something. If it’s about the sample you wanted run, I told you it would be a few days and I’d let you know as soon as I had anything. There’s nothing I can do to speed it up.” She opened yet another bottle and found what she’d been looking for. Molly held the pill bottle up in triumph. She looked at the sink filled with everything she’d pulled out of the medicine cabinet during her search, impressed with how much junk he’d managed to cram into the cabinet. “Nope, not even going to try to put it all back,” Molly whispered to herself.
“I didn’t want to text.” He sounded like a child who had been denied his favourite toy and offered a poor substitute instead. “It’s not the same.”
Molly hurried to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, automatically pausing long enough to check that the seal was intact and that there were no visible holes in the lid. You never knew what sort of thing he was storing in his fridge from day to day, and John had shared more than one horror story over the years.
“Well, I’m here now. What did you want to-“ She stopped dead, barely a full step into his bedroom. Sherlock was sitting on the edge of the bed, completely starkers.
And visibly aroused.
“What the hell, Sherlock!” Somehow Molly managed pull her eyes away from his penis to stare up at the ceiling. “Why are you naked?”
“I don’t like pyjamas. You know that.”
She did remember Sherlock or John mentioning something along those lines before, yes. “You wear them at my place.”
“Your sheets are scratchy.”
“They are not.” She dropped her gaze to glare at him, and her eyes fell down to his erection again. It seemed to grow even larger the longer she looked, and she realized she was staring.
“Like what you see?” He reached down with one hand and stroked himself.
Molly gaped. “Oh my God, Sherlock! I’m right here!”
“Excellent point.” His expression turned sly as he spread his legs and leaned back with his hands planted firmly on the bed. “Suck my cock, Molly.”
“What?” She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “No!” Although he did look incredibly sexy, offering himself to her like that. Molly shook the stray thought off.
Sherlock frowned and sat up straight again. “You’ve never said no before.”
“I’ve never . . . You have never, ever asked me to—to do that before. Trust me, that’s the sort of thing I would have remembered.” Rather than waning as she would have expected, his erection continued to stand proud between his legs.
He reached down again, and began to touch himself once more. “I’m not asking now, Molly. I’m telling you to come over here, get on your knees, and suck me off. I want to see those pretty little lips of yours stretched around my cock.” His thumb teased over the head of his penis as he stroked upward.
She shook her head and finally managed to drag her eyes away from the erotic display in front of her, one she would most likely remember every time she got herself off for the rest of her life. “You are drunk and obviously don’t know what you’re saying.” Molly looked around and spotted his dressing gown draped over the chair against the wall. She snatched it up and tossed it into his lap. “You and I don’t . . . We aren’t . . . What were you guys drinking? Mrs Hudson said something about Scotch, didn’t she?” She took a deep breath and tried again. “You know what, I’m going to go wake up John and-“
“No!” he snapped. The dressing gown settled into a bunch across his thighs and barely covered his groin. “We agreed, never John. That’s like asking Mycroft to join us!” Sherlock shuddered and glared up at her. “I don’t understand why you’re being so difficult about this. Normally you’d be naked by now.”
Words failed her. The only thing she could come up with was, “I’m sorry?”, and that didn’t even begin to convey the confusion—and piqued interest—she currently felt.
“I haven’t had a good wank in months. I should be imagining that you’re as desperate as I am, not playing coy. And certainly not talking about John. Unless . . .” He tilted his head to the side and looked thoughtful for a moment, then lifted the dressing gown and took a peek underneath. “Nope, still not interested.” He let the gown drop into his lap. “Quite the opposite, in fact. And now I’m going to have to work twice as hard to get the mood back.”
Sherlock flopped flat against the mattress with both arms spread wide. The movement caused the silk dressing gown to slide down his legs and off the edge of the bed, leaving him completely exposed once more. He was right, his amorous mood seemed to have shifted as his erection had finally begun to flag. The sight of a naked Sherlock spread across the bed was still enough to make Molly curl her fingers into fists to keep from reaching for him.
“Maybe it’s not even worth the effort. What do you think, Molly? Should I give up on having a wank and just go to sleep? Or do you want to crawl up here and let me finish fantasizing my way through a long overdue orgasm?”
And suddenly everything made sense. He thought she was a masturbatory fantasy. Molly wasn’t sure how to process that. She didn’t know if she should be shocked, appalled, flattered, or tempted at the knowledge that he’d made himself come thinking of her more than once. Tempted was winning by a narrow margin.
He lifted his head up to look at her. “I suppose, if you really want another threesome, I could see if Moriarty is around somewhere?” Sherlock offered in what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to change her mind.
“Jim Moriarty? But you—he—what?” Don’t be so shocked. Jim’s got your engine running more than once, too. He did have that devilishly handsome bad boy thing going on.
“Would you prefer the Woman again?” His expression turned mischievous.
And there was another reference to the unnamed ex. “Sherlock, how often do you—we—have these threesomes?”
He sat up, eager now that she seemed interested. “Not that often, I like having your undivided attention.” Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he considered the rest of his answer. “Off the top of my head there was three times with Moriarty, two with the Woman, once with Lestrade—but that was only because I couldn’t find my handcuffs and you said it would be rude not to invite him to play since he came all the way to Baker Street to loan us a set of his.” He flushed and glanced down at his hands, as if he were unable to meet her eye as he mumbled, “And then there was that one time with Ms Featherstone.”
The name was completely unfamiliar to her. She knew she probably shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Ms Featherstone?”
“You remember, my first-year chemistry professor at uni. But she only watched, so I’m not sure that even counts.” He reached out for her hand, and she let him take it despite knowing it was a bad idea. “Come sit with me.”
She shook her head even as he pulled her down to the mattress next to him. “We can’t do this.”
“We can.” He pressed a soft kiss to the palm of her hand and then moved it to his shoulder. “Kiss me, Molly. If you don’t want to do anything more than that, we can just skip to the post-coital cuddle.”
“You want to cuddle?” She could almost picture it in her head. Lying next to him, her arm draped across his waist and her head on his chest, allowing the sound of his steady heartbeat to lull her into sleep.
“Well,” Sherlock drawled, leaning into her. His sinful “I’d much rather fuck,” was whispered against her lips, then his mouth was against hers and Molly found herself opening for him without a second thought. She didn’t realize he was lowering her to the bed until her back hit the mattress and his solid weight pressed against her from chest to waist. The first kiss lead to a second and third before he managed to scoot them both toward the centre of the bed. She felt his hand settle against her hip and slide down so that his strong fingers could dig into the flesh of her arse.
Molly moaned. She felt him smile against her lips before he kissed her again. He shifted, and her legs automatically parted to allow him to settle between them. He felt so good against her, his body solid and warm and better than anything she’d ever imagined.
She felt his teeth graze against the underside of her jaw, and Molly groaned his name.
He growled against her throat and ground his erection into the vee between her thighs. “God, I need you.”
“Sherlock, you have to—Oh, ohhhh.” Molly arched her back against the bed when his hand slid under her jumper and pyjama top. His palmed her breast, then circled her pebbled nipple with his thumb.
It felt so good, but she needed to put a stop to things before they went any further. “Sherlock, stop.” There wasn’t an ounce of conviction behind her words, but he stilled nevertheless.
He took a deep breath, then slowly lifted his head and reluctantly withdrew his hand from under her shirts. “It’s a cuddle night, then. Sleep now, wank in the morning.” He rolled to his side and smoothed her jumper down, utterly resigned. “Right. I just need a minute to cool down.”
“I—I should probably go.” Molly tried to sit up, but he threw an arm around her waist and shook his head.
“No! Don’t leave,” Sherlock implored. “Please, stay with me. I missed you tonight. The real you.” When she didn’t immediately roll away, he relaxed. “You’ll stay?”
Molly sighed and nodded. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but yes. I’ll stay.”
Sherlock helped arrange the covers over them both, then pulled her against his side. It was so close to the mental image she’d had earlier that Molly almost wondered if she was the one who was drunk and imagining things that had never happened.
The next day was going to be awkward as hell, but it was probably past time for them to finally get some things out in the open.
They’d had the obligatory stilted conversation after the infamous phone call. They had both agreed they loved each other, but nothing had really happened other than that. Her feelings hadn’t changed just because she’d finally given them voice; and regardless of the fact that he did love her, he wasn’t ready to pursue anything more than their already deep friendship while he dealt with the fall out of Sherrinford and his newly remembered sister.
The idea that they’d revisit the topic once things had settled down had remained unspoken, but Molly had assumed it would happen eventually. It just seemed that the more time passed, the easier it was for both of them to go with the flow and continue as always. Now it was ages later and neither one of them seemed to know how to broach the subject.
No more point in trying to ignore their attraction to each other, that cat was out of the bag and laying naked beside her.
Part 2 Coming Soon