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“I’m home…” Molly called as soon as she’d stepped over the door sill of her tiny apartment, dropped her keys into the small bowl waiting on the shoe cabinet right next to the front door, and her handbag on the floor. With a soft tired sigh she stripped off her shoes and slipped out of her coat, leaving the latter on its usual hook, right next to the long black Belstaff hanging off another.
“Sherlock? Toby? Are you there?”
A second later the detective’s head peaked around the doorframe leading from her tiny hallway to her small living room.
“Of course we’re here. I died a month ago, where would I go?” the officially recently deceased scoffed. “And about the feline, your doors don’t have cat flaps so obviously he’s here.”
Always nice to be welcomed like that after a long day full of way too few autopsies and way too much paperwork, Molly thought bitterly and couldn’t help but roll her eyes at her new flatmate. Sherlock on his part briefly looked her up and down and then disappeared without another comment.
“Experimenting again, are we…?” Molly frowned and quickly headed down the hallway, through her living room and into the small kitchen she shared with Sherlock these days. Though actually, ever since he’d moved in it more and more resembled the laboratory of a mad scientist.
“What else can I do all day long while you’re at work?” he asked absentmindedly, sitting in front of his beloved microscope, eye pressed to the eyepiece lens.
“Hm… take a shower perhaps? Or get dressed…?” she commented, eyeing his pyjamas and dressing gown, while she filled the kettle with water and put it on.
“I fail to see any reason to do so whatsoever, Molly… As you know I’d feel comfortable walking around in the nude as well, as long as you’d allow me to raise the temperature a little, but as you forbid me to do so…”
Molly’s nose twitched lightly and she turned her back on him so he wouldn’t see the faint pink blush that spread on her cheeks every time she remembered how exactly she’d found out about Sherlock’s preference for minimal clothing at home.
It had been the third day of his stay at her flat and she’d come home from nowhere else but Sherlock’s funeral. Naturally, she’d been very exhausted after comforting both Mrs Hudson and John simultaneously throughout the whole ceremony. All she’d wanted was to change into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and the first t-shirt she could find, cuddle up with Toby on her old couch beneath her beloved quilt, and watch some crap telly.
Instead, when she’d entered the living room after getting changed and pouring herself a glass of her favourite red wine, she’d had the pleasure of finding an apparently topless Sherlock sprawled out on her couch beneath aforementioned quilt. Molly had had to clear her throat four times until he’d finally acknowledged her presence and raised a brow at her.
“I see you’re home”, he’d commented, “How was my funeral…?”
“Jolly and full of cheerfulness”, she’d sighed and plopped down in her cuddly armchair as the couch hadn’t been available.
“I take it was hideous.”
“What lead you to this brilliant deduction…?” she’d asked with a forced smile and sipped her wine.
“Well first of all-…”
“Oh god, no please. Not today, please it’s been a horrible day for me… Also that was a rhetorical question.”
“… Alright then…” he’d replied after a few seconds and nodded.
Neither had said a word for about a minute, but then.
“Would you prefer to be alone, Molly?”
She’d blinked surprised and turned to look at him instead of an old episode of Scrubs.
It wasn’t exactly typical for Sherlock to be considerate.
“Uhm… well… actually if you wouldn’t mind-…”
“I wouldn’t have offered it anyways. I’ll be in my bedroom.”
And, behaving like it was the most natural thing in the world and ignoring how she choked on her sip of wine, he’d pushed the quilt off himself and revealed that she’d apparently been mistaken. He wasn’t only topless. He was in fact walking around completely naked. Sherlock had casually wished her a good night and disappeared towards what used to be her spare bedroom, allowing her to gape at his backside and to come to the conclusion that running around London chasing criminals did in fact wonderful things to one’s physique.
“Yes well-…” she began but didn’t know how to continue. Thankfully he didn’t recognise it as he was too busy with his microscope.
One and a half hours later, after she’d shushed him out of the kitchen so she could prepare something for dinner for them, they were sitting at her tiny kitchen table. Their plates filled with noodles and a simple tomato sauce were placed in what little space wasn’t occupied by laboratory equipment. They ate quietly as usual, either of them apparently lost in thoughts.
“I could help you with that, you know…”
Molly looked up when her train of thoughts was interrupted by his comment, realising she’d been rubbing that one tensed spot at her neck.
“What…?” she furrowed her brows in confusion.
“The tension. I could help you get rid of it.”
Sherlock raised a brow at her, leaning back in his chair.
“Oh… I uhm-… that’s really a nice offer but I don’t think-…”
“Molly, you’re clearly in pain and I offer you relief, I don’t see why you’re hesitating. I’m your friend, what’s so irritating about me wanting to help you?”
“Well… nothing… just-…”
“Great.”
With one fluent movement he got up and stepped behind her chair, Molly startling a bit when he suddenly placed his palms on her slim shoulders.
“You’re tensing even more, don’t do that. You need to relax” he ordered, surprisingly gently shoving her hair that fell open down her back aside so he could gain access to her neck.
Unable to reply she obeyed, rolling her shoulders briefly and holding her hair out of the way before sitting still again.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice slightly lower than before.
“Uhm… y-yes…” she replied quietly. Whereas his voice had lowered, hers had become slightly squeaky.
Without saying anything, he let his thumbs glide tentatively over the muscles at the base of her neck, applying only very little pressure until his fingertips met the exact right spots and Molly hissed involuntarily, a quiet noise in the silence of her kitchen.
“Ah yes…” he commented, a hint of satisfaction in his voice when he started to knead the spots lightly. “You have massive muscle gellings, Molly. No wonder you’re in pain and so easily irritated lately…”
Perhaps she’d have given a sarcastic comment in return if she hadn’t been too busy repressing involuntary moans that threatened to escape her. Her eyes had fluttered shut already and she was clinging to the sides of her chair with her hands. Of course he recognised.
“Molly, stop that, it won’t work if you keep tensing up.”
He interrupted his motions for a moment and immediately she let go and relaxed, really wanting him to continue. The pathologist had actually mostly been able to ignore the pain in her neck as she’d been too busy with well-… the other pain in her neck that lived with her, but now that she’d started to pay attention to it, Molly was no longer able to block it out.
“Sorry…” she mumbled, gasping softly when he started to knead her tensed muscles again but this time with more pressure. Her head fell forward and all at once she was grateful she didn’t have to stand as her legs suddenly felt very weak.
For a couple of minutes she just kept quiet, except for the soft gasps and whimpers that escaped her every once in a while, sometimes accompanied by a moan or two, while Sherlock kept skilfully relieving her of the tension in her neck and giving her a lecture on what was most likely to have caused her current state. Though he somehow managed to avoid the obvious, that the fact that they were sharing her flat and spending so much more time together now than before, as well as his personal oddities, did not exactly give her much personal space anymore.
After a while though his comments became rarer and eventually ceased entirely, Molly’s quiet noises the only sounds in her kitchen, which only made her even more self-conscious, while she felt like she was basically melting beneath his fingers. And it didn’t help that Sherlock stepped even closer to the back of her chair to massage her with even more expertise.
“W-where did you learn that…?” she mumbled weakly after all in all at least ten minutes, feeling so relaxed now that she was not even capable of opening her eyes anymore.
“Ohh… oh god yes right there…!” Molly gasped and moaned strangled when he firmly pressed his thumb on one of her muscle gellings.
“Ah you know… An undercover case in my twenties required this knowledge…”
He tried to sound casual but if she wasn’t mistaken his voice sounded slightly huskier than before.
“Good for me… Glad you didn’t-…” she whimpered softly, blushing embarrassed. “S-sorry… Glad you didn’t delete that-… knowledge…”
“Well now it’s proving itself to be useful…” he chuckled lowly and maybe the shiver that prickled down her spine wasn’t only due to his touch.
Another five minutes later the circles his fingers drew on her skin got slower and wider and eventually he raised his hands off her skin. Molly tried to repress the slight sadness that started to creep up inside her at the loss of the gentle touch of his warm hands, and lazily tilted her head back, sighing relieved and slowly blinking her eyes open to look up at him, smiling lightly.
“Thank you… Honestly… I feel so much better now…”
He was still standing behind her chair, looking down at her, one of those rare lopsided smiles on his lips.
“My pleasure, Molly…”
A couple of seconds they just gazed into each other’s eyes, then Sherlock cleared his throat and took a small step backwards.
“Right… Mycroft asked me to solve a case for him so I’ll-… I only have the files of course but-...”
“Yes…” she nodded immediately and sat up straight, clearing her throat as well and getting up to clean their empty plates and cutlery.
“It might take a while so-… goodnight…”
“Yes erm-… sleep well…”
Molly glanced up at him, smiling briefly before she turned around again to fill the kitchen sink with warm water and washing-up liquid.
“You too…” he replied and, after staring at her for another few seconds, disappeared towards the spare-… his bedroom.