Work Text:
"Maybe he was just her type...?" Molly Hooper suggested as she bent over a microscope in St. Bart's Hospital lab.
Molly was analyzing blood tissue samples for one of her research projects while Sherlock was waiting for the computer to finish with the pollen samples from his latest case. The case was almost complete and, to be honest, not worth his time to begin with, but Sherlock was bored and it was something to do. Since it was so easy, he hadn't bothered to call John in either, so he was without a sounding board. Hence, his presence in the lab while the computer analysis was running.
Molly wasn't the best substitute for John, but she was better than the skull as far as having someone to rant to, so Sherlock had filled her in on his theories. Somewhere along the way, Sherlock had veered from the facts of the case and ended up discussing why his client had chosen that particular man out of a crowd of dozens of single men in the pub that night. His client, by her own admission, had been approached by several other men, but had said no until his current suspect had shown up. Molly seemed to think it was not that hard to understand.
"No it's got to be more than that. She had to have picked up on something, even subconsciously, that-"
"Sherlock," Molly interrupted with clear amusement, "not everything is a conspiracy. You said yourself he wasn't trying to defraud her. Two people met up at a pub and had chemistry. She likes weedy gingers," she finished with a shrug.
Molly was doing that thing where she folded her lips in and bit them to keep from laughing. An exercise that was completely useless given the twin dimples that inevitably appeared as she did so. The presence of Molly's dimples was a barometer of her mood. Studying the depth and longevity of her dimples had become a bit of an informal research study for Sherlock when he was waiting for test results. At that moment, she rated "gently amused."
"Everyone has a type, even you," Molly said a grin.
"No I don't," the detective said, clearly offended by the very idea. Really, it was the first thing most people learned about Sherlock Holmes: romantic tripe was not his area.
"Yes, you have a type."
"No, I don't."
"Yes." Dimples. "You do."
"And what would 'my type' be, exactly?" He asked with a bit of derision. Molly didn't hesitate count off the list.
"Very clever, very assertive, tall, ridiculously long legs amplified by ridiculously high heels, dark hair and perfectly balanced body measurements."
"That's," he paused, eyeing her, "very specific."
"In reverse order: Violet Hunter, Janine the Bridesmaid -or should I call her your fake fiancee- and Irene Adler. Those are the ones I have personal knowledge of. I'm sure John could back me up with more examples," Molly said plainly, adjusting the dials on the microscope she was looking through. Sherlock found that Molly had become surprisingly matter-of-fact about such topics which made it easier for him to engage in these lively discussions (that he wouldn't admit to enjoying). Sherlock considered her examples and, to his chagrin, found Molly's reasoning very sound. That didn't mean he was willing to concede the point.
"Janine was for a case," he reminded her.
"Yes, but you were flirting with her at the reception before you knew she would be useful for the case, so it counts."
Well, that was a point to her argument. Contrary to popular belief, Sherlock did not detest women. It was simply that, as a general rule, they tended to lead with their emotions more than men and he found emotion difficult to navigate. He quite liked chatting up the clever ones, but that almost invariably led to expectations on the female's part and, well, one only had to see one of his more acidic interactions with Sally Donovan to find out how that could end (and she did, come to think of it, fit Molly's criteria). So, he had decided long ago to avoid any possibility of expectations.
Sherlock had made that mistake with Molly, too, in the beginning. Having an intelligent and witty discussion with her one day, only to have her start wearing lipstick and trying to ask him out for coffee the next. He had learned to duck better by then and completely sidestepped the question. Quite well, even if he did say so himself, and he had adjusted his behavior accordingly. It was still a fact that he always missed something.
Molly Hooper had appeared safe because, when they met, she was wearing a man's coat. Setting aside her own individualistic fashion sense, Molly Hooper was not the type to wear men's clothing as an ironic fashion statement. She was more the type to borrow a coat or a sweatshirt to wear out of sentiment. Sherlock had (quite reasonably) assumed Molly had a boyfriend. He found out later that the coat was her late father's. So, correct about the sentiment, wrong about the boyfriend. He tended to be wrong about all of Molly's boyfriends, as it turned out, but the less said about that, the better.
Sherlock mentally reviewed Molly's list. Miss Hunter had been a case, one that he had taken the day after John and Mary left for their honeymoon. Sherlock had been in need of an assistant and, resisting the urge to call Molly again (she had other obligations, after all), had simply dragged the poor client along. It had been a pleasant surprise to find Miss Hunter to be quite astute and useful during the case. Well, until she had managed to get him shot, but, to be fair, John had gotten him shot a time or two as well, so...
Flirting had been quite fun with Janine for the very reason that there was no danger of expectations. The brief but awkward conversation during the photography session served to take sex completely off the table (at least, between the two of them- she'd been determined to find someone suitable to go home with), so he had managed to actually keep himself amused and successfully suppress his need to be the center of attention while fulfilling his duties as best man and wedding party wrangler. Later, when he had forced himself to play the role of inexperienced boyfriend, it had become more of a game of cat-and-mouse. It was a toss up on any given day as to who was the cat and who was the mouse.
Then there was The Woman. The Woman. A physical manifestation of everything he admired and loathed in human beings all contained in one perfectly proportioned package. Irene Adler had upset his world view in a way no one else ever had or was likely ever to again. Sherlock still was not sure if that was a good thing or not and, quite frankly, spent very little time pondering the question after he turned down her last invitation to dinner and sent her off to scheme her way through South America. He kept both the phone and the scimitar as souvenirs, though, for whatever Freudian reason his subconscious mind had at the time.
The fact that all of Molly's examples shared a similar appearance lent credence to her hypothesis, but still...
"It could be coincidence."
"What?" Molly asked, startled. Sherlock frowned, then caught sight of the large clock on the wall behind Molly. Apparently he had been mulling over her theory a bit too long and she had lost the thread of their conversation. It was times like those that Sherlock missed having John at his side constantly. Molly tended to be easily distracted when he tried chatting with her while she worked. Seriously, it had only been an hour.
"Your list of examples demonstrating 'my type,'" he clarified, "It could be coincidental that they all share a similar appearance."
Molly let out an inelegant snort, her dimples reappearing in force as she said, "You don't believe in coincidences."
"Yes, well. It's possible that I've come to associate a certain set of physical characteristics with a superior intellect," he conceded slowly.
"And it's possible you like your big brains attached to a set of big.... legs," Molly said.
The lips didn't disappear, but the dimples did. She was quite serious. Did she really believe him to be that mundane? Sherlock prided himself on his objectivity when it came to such matters. Molly had to know that he was not one to be swayed by societal constructs and arbitrary rules of beauty, even if he did (quite subconsciously) have a 'type.' And did that mean he had different types for different aspects of his life? Interesting cases versus long-term companionship? If so, he could confidently say that his "type" for companions in detective work tended to the short, slight, jumper-wearing sort.
The great detective mulled the idea over for a bit, analyzing it as he would any new idea, regardless of the fact that it involved him personally. He could find no flaws in the theory, but still wasn't ready to admit that Sherlock Holmes might, indeed, have a type. Besides, he needed more information, more data sets for comparison. He was suddenly very curious as to what data Molly Hooper would provide. This whole line of reasoning had gotten off track and out of his control. It was time to put Molly and her dimples on the defense.
"What is your type?" He asked, looking over at Molly as she jotted notes on her clipboard. He fully expected the question to catch her off guard, even produce a pleasing blush, but no.
"B+," Molly mumbled, turning to the computer monitor to her left and typing in a few commands.
Sherlock frowned. Be positive? he thought. What kind of answer was that? Did she mean she liked men who had a positive outlook? A man not given to fits of mania or oppressing bouts of ennui in between cases? Or was she referring to how she viewed men in general, as in give every man a chance until proven to be a prat? Or a criminal mastermind? Or a high-functioning sociopath?
"Why did you want to know my blood type?" Molly asked suddenly. Sherlock frowned and looked at her. She was frowning in confusion and more than a bit of suspicion. What was the woman going on about? He didn't... oh. Oh. Apparently he had let too much time go between his thoughts and the actual question and Molly had lost the thread of conversation again. John was always warning him that most people weren't able to keep a conversation he had started three days prior.
"I meant, what is your preferred type of potential romantic partner?"
Molly stiffened ever so slightly, then looked at him over the top of the computer monitor. Most of her face was hidden by the equipment, but he could just see the left side of her face, where a dimple should be forming, but wasn't. A bit alarmed, he looked into her eyes. No tears forming, so he couldn't have said anything too awful. Not smiling though. She was giving him a very shrewd, very assessing look. He wasn't sure what to make of that reaction to a very simple question. Just when he was about to apologize (and damned if he knew why that reaction had leapt to the forefront-he always seemed to be apologizing to Molly Hooper), he caught a flash of dimple winking in and out of existence as Molly returned her gaze to the microscope.
"You're the detective, you work it out," she said wryly. She'd turned his teasing back on him quite skillfully. Sometimes he missed the Molly that he could rattle by his mere presence. She knew perfectly well that he wasn't going to touch that challenge. Molly Hooper's dating life (more specifically, his misreading of said dating life) had humbled his ego quite enough for one century, thank you very much.
"Fine," he said in a way that John typically called childish, "I was just making conversation." And because he just couldn't leave well enough alone, he added, "Everyone knows that one's perception of potential mates has a direct correlation to one's childhood interactions with one's parents and other authority figures, so it's not about having a type so much is it is about childhood neuroses and Freudian projection-"
Sherlock stopped when he saw Molly's face scrunched up in thought. "What?" he asked, seeing her incredulous expression.
"Hm? Oh! I was just... I just never... just having a hard time picturing you with parents, is all," Molly said with an apologetic shrug.
"I do have parents, you know," he said with an eye roll, "wasn't found under a rock, regardless of what Donovan likes to say."
"Well, of course, it's just that it's hard to imagine," Molly said, scrunching up her nose, and plucking at the hem of her favourite jumper, the ones with the cherries. "Can't quite picture you as a child, either. I always sort of thought of you having sprung, fully formed and armored, from the head of Mycroft."
He smirked, "Well, I am his biggest headache."
Molly folded her lips in and dimples winked back into existence on her cheeks as she stifled a giggle. Sherlock found this expression to be much better than the suspicious ones he was getting a few moments ago and decided to keep the dimples in play for a bit longer. It was on the tip of his tongue to have Molly add dimples to her list of physical requirements for his "type," but then he realized that she was the only one he knew who actually had dimples. Best to leave that unspoken.
"Come along," Sherlock said instead, standing and slipping into his coat, "you need a break."
"Do I?" Molly said even as she set down the clip board and put away slides.
"Yes. You need coffee and a dish of those hideously greasy chips from that place on the corner."
"The kind you eat off of my plate after you've nicked my coffee?"
"Yes, those ones."
Sherlock held the door open and let Molly walk out ahead of him, pleased to see her dimples had reached the "fondly amused and having fun" stage. They stopped by Molly's office and retrieved her coat. They let the matter drop after that. Their conversation over the greasy pile of chips turned to more amusing topics. Molly's stuck around until they returned to the lab.
Neither of them brought up the subject of types again, but, for Sherlock at least, it was a topic of frequent musing. It took him a few months, but he finally did decide to accept the fact that Molly was right, that he did have types, but he also believed he was correct in his assumption that he had more than one. One type was so specific as to include only an individual person. One with brightly colored jumpers, dark eyes, a truly awful sense of humour and dimples.
Definitely dimples.