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She smelled like she’d been dropped in a vat of wine. She wasn’t purple-hued, and she certainly didn’t smell like a chardonnay, but she was unhappy and that should have been his primary focus. Should have been, if he was a normal person.
But he was the Ice Man, an unfortunately apt nickname...for the most part.
Even if the presence of the petite brunette in front of him had defrosted him a bit.
Not that he would admit it to her No, he was here to fix the damage his brother had inflicted on her. He was always cleaning up Sherlock’s messes, it seemed, but this time he had gone too far. Not just in regards to the now broken engagement between Miss Hooper and the clod, but the matter with Magnussen. He was to be off on a one-way trip and the one chance he had had to say goodbye to her he had cocked up. He should not have unloaded on her that he doubted he would come back in anything other than a body bag.
Miss Hooper was strong, but that had broken her heart.
He had never wanted to box his brother about the ears more than he had at that moment. How Sherlock had known there was so little chance of success he wasn’t entirely sure, but that fact could have been kept from her to spare her. And yet he had blundered. Sherlock had blundered too, no doubt, but he had been a fool to not think their parting this time would be different than when his brother had used her home after the Fall.
That time it had been assumed Sherlock would come back in more or less one piece.
This time…
After a moment something in him began to stroke her hair back, hair let own to hang around her shoulders. Soft hair, he noticed, probably the result of indulgence in good quality hair products. The conditioner had to be excellent, and he realized he could smell the faint mixture of coconut and almond wafting up as he lowered his head slightly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, blubbering. “I just...he’s an absolute arse.”
“I am painfully aware of that.” He was also painfully aware of the wetness on his shirt, her arms around his waist, the proximity between them that was far closer than it had ever been before.
“I didn’t mean to be a blubbering drunk mess for you to deal with,” she said, letting go and beginning to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. He procured his handkerchief for her, already missing the closeness.
Defrosting, indeed.
“You are not a mess, Molly,” he said, surprising both of them with the use of her first name, apparently. She looked up at him with wide eyes, her hand freezing in the process of dabbing at her eyes. “He is a fool and you’ve suffered him far too long. You’ve deserved better for...”
“A long time,” she said with a sigh. “I know. Better than Sherlock, better than a substitute.”
“Better than me,” he murmured.
If she had looked surprised before she looked absolutely floored now. Her eyes were red but so wide she looked as though she was a deer in headlights. “Mycroft?”
“Forgive me,” he said, shaking his head. “It was too forward of me. You have a fondness for my brother, not an ugly duckling such as myself.”
“You are not ugly,” she said, a sudden vehemence in her voice. “You’re actually quite...beautiful.”
“You’re drunk,” he said, shaking his head. It was the alcohol talking, surely not her. Not this beautiful woman he’d been pining after from afar.
"Yes, I'm drunk. And you're beautiful. And tomorrow morning I'll be sober...but you'll still be beautiful." She tentatively stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his waist again, this time pressing her cheek into his back. “So don’t make me out to be a liar.”
Mycroft felt a small smile tug at the edges of his lips and he turned in her arms to embrace her in turn. Tonight nothing would happen, and if she had no memory of this conversation he would not bring it to her attention. But it had warmed his heart in a way not much else had, and as he bent his head to press a kiss into her hair the scent of coconut and almond enveloped him more than the scent of wine, though it was still there. He would forever associate those scents with her, he realized. “Never,” he said softly, letting himself be held and holding her in return.