#everchanging101

*

“So I mean…”

“Just needs some oil,”Sherlock grunted, pulling down on the door of the dumbwaiter with allhis weight.

“And you don’t carry that withyou, too?  You’ve got everything else in your coat, it’s likeBatman’s utility belt.  Probably have shark repellent in there,”she muttered the last bit to herself.

*

“You should be able to wiggle outthrough the opening.  Once you get your arms out I’ll help youthrough,” he said, peering in at her through the eight-inch gapin the doors.  The oil had helped a little bit, but obviously notenough.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

He looked at her blankly.

She resisted the urge to shine thetorch in his eyes.  She sighed; nothing for it.  She handed him herphone and the torch and went out arms-first, managing to get her headand shoulders through the opening.

“I’m stuck! Help me!”  

Sherlock pulled on her arms, but shecouldn’t get past her chest, the irony of which was not lost on her. He opened his mouth and she gave him a look that promised eternaltorment if he said any variation of what she knew he was going to.

“Take off your shirt,” hesaid instead.

“I—wh—?”

“Your jumper, it’s too bulky. Back in you get, hand it out to me and try again.  Shoes too.  Andtry facing up this time, not looking at the floor.”

*

“Oil.”

“Yes.  I’ll get your back, you canget your, um,” he gestured vaguely to his chest.

“This is a new bra, I’ve only wornit twice!”

“Going to need to lose that, too. We want gravity to work with us…” he cleared his throat andlooked away.  "Probably the trousers, too.  I hesitate to saypants as well, but your bottom is rather… round, so preparing forthe eventuality of—”

“Shut.  Up.  Give me the goddamnoil,” she gritted out, passing her bra out through the opening.

*

“So you stripped to your pantsbecause…”

“My shirt cost £200,I’m not going to ruin it.  I’m not even going to bother telling youwhat the suit cost.”

“WhenI get out of here, I’m going to murder you.  Violently.”

“Isnow really the appropriate time for flirting?” he deadpanned,wrapping his arms around her ribs just below her breasts and pulling.

“Ihad a dream about you.  In it, you shutup,” she grunted,the edge of the dumbwaiter door scraping the skin of her bum ratherpainfully.  

*

“You’renever this quiet, what’s wrong?”

“I’msitting in a cab wearing only a sheet that smells like dust and catwee after recreating the birth experience from an infant’sperspective.”

“Youcould’ve got dressed again.”

“I’mcovered in cod liver oil from a bottle that I’m fairly certainmanaged to make it through both wars.  My wardrobe might not cost thesame as the GDP of Micronesia, but I rather like my clothing anddidn’t want to have to bin it.”

“Well,at least we solved the case, that’s the important thing,”Sherlock said, very deliberately looking out the window.

*

“Soit was actually dwarves?” Greg asked.  Always better to letSherlock do the weird ones, he thought; even if he didn’t get thecredit, at least he didn’t get a reputation for being out there.

“Ithink ‘little people’ is the preferred term.  And yes, secret passagebetween floors.  Lord Fitzsimmons was famous for keeping trainedprimates of various species, used them as servants, built a networkof passages all through the house for them.  Rather ingenious, thoughprobably wouldn’t go over too well with the animal rights crowd thesedays,” Sherlock said.

Mollycleared her throat; she stood in the doorway between the kitchen andthe lounge with a sour look on her face, her hair wrapped in a toweland swimming in one of Sherlock’s t-shirts and a pair of his boxershorts.  She held up a tube of ointment and glared.  

Lestradelooked between the two of them.  "Well, I’ll just, ah, go getthis written up, then,“ he said, backing towards the door.  Hedidn’t have the full story about how she got out of the dumbwaiter,he was sure, but he had a very good idea that it hadn’t beenpleasant.  Much as he’d like a front-row seat to Sherlock taking hislumps, he didn’t want to inadvertently get caught in the crossfire.

“Yes,seems I have rather a lot of arse to kiss after today,”muttered, seeing him out.

“Literallyor figuratively?” Greg shot, hoping to catch him off-guardenough to get a candid answer and finally answer thatquestion.  The betting pool wasn’t as big, but twenty quid was twentyquid.

“Ican hear you both, you know,” Molly said.  "And so help meGod if you insinuate one more time that I have a big arse—”

It was Sherlock’s ex.  The Bridesmaidwith curves like a road through the Alps, not Belle de Jour.  ThankGod.

“Hi!”  She smiled and waved,looking like she’d just stepped off this month’s cover of Confident,Successful Women Every Man Alive Ever Would Want To Shag And ThenMarry.  Molly feltfrumpy, swollen, and very tired.

“Molly, Janine, Janine, Molly,”Sherlock introduced.  He didn’t look particularly uncomfortable,though maybe a bit impatient.

“I remember.  From the papers,”Molly said.  She realized how snippy she sounded as it came out. “And we um, met at Mary and John’s wedding that time.”

“Oh, right, your ah, date hadthe—” she mimed overhanded stabbing “—meat knifetheory.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes so hard hiseyelids fluttered; for some reason he still took Tom’s good-naturedidiocy as a personal affront.

Molly took off her coat and laid itover the back of John’s chair.  Janine’s eyes went wide.  "OhGod, you aren’t still with him, are you?“ she blurted, eyeingMolly’s third-trimester belly.

"Oh no, no—”

“It’s mine—” Sherlock andMolly answered at the same time.

Janine was speechless for a moment,then laughed.  "Congratulations, then.  Who knew ya had it inya, Sherl?“

"Well, I actually putit in her, that’s how these things happen,” Sherlockmuttered, annoyed, raising his eyebrows and looking away beforegiving Janine a tight smile.  "Thank you,“ he said.

"So, ah, what brings you here,anyway?” Molly asked, one hand absently dropping to her bellyand the other pressing on her lower back as 2.0 decided to do asomersault.  

“Back in town for a businessmeeting and thought I’d get a bit of a top-up on my revenge for Sherlbein’ such a bastard,” Janine said brightly.

“Because making piles of money bydragging me through the tabloids wasn’t enough, apparently.”

Molly caught herself making a face asJanine looked at her; she blurted, “I’m not the jealous type,I swear!  It’s, ah, it’s all in the past, anyway,” she tittered.

It was a lie; she still thought abouthow good Sherlock had looked with Janine and how Mollyherself should have been the one joined at the hip with himthat day and how much fun they could have had and it wouldn’t havebeen a sad, miserable experience for either of them.  She tried notto think about those what-ifs, though.  And she really tried not tothink about all the lies that had been in the papers and what peoplethought they knew about him.  She was in a good place with Sherlock,together in a proper, affectionate, committed relationship (well,sort-of) and two months away from parenthood.

Janine laughed it off; mirth—eithergenuine or at least convincing—seemed to be her default.  "GuessI won’t be writin’ that book, then,“ she joked.

"The Unauthorized Biography ofSherlock Holmes, sure that would be a scintillating read,”Sherlock muttered.

“’S funny, though, ya really findout who your real friends are after ya have your fifteen minutes,”Janine said, tilting her head and widening her eyes a bit, makingthat kind of face women everywhere made when something actuallyreally hurt and it wasn’t something to be denied or made light of,but it was the expected thing to do anyway.  

Molly felt a pang of sympathy despiteherself.  "Nobody needs fake friends, anyway,“ she said,bizarrely feeling the need to show some kind of solidarity with theother woman (who was, in her mind, still kind of The Other Woman;nothing was ever simple).  Molly lost almost all her friends to herbreakup with Tom, even if there wasn’t really any animosity oranything after the initial split.  Being alone sucked.

After the lull went on for just a bittoo long, Molly excused herself to the loo; she took a bit longerthan was necessary just to do a little bit of tidying in case Janinehad to use the toilet before she left.  Not that she had to impressher or anything, it wasn’t even her flat and therefore didn’t reflecton her as a woman at all.  Except it did, it always did, and it wasjust silly.

*

"You could have texted me,”Molly said after she heard the front door close.

“I didn’t have time.  You wereprobably walking out of the station when Mrs. Hudson let her in.”

She levelled him with a Look.

“Fine, yes, I’m sorry, I shouldhave warned you—for all the good it would have done—and shouldanything similar happen again I will do so,” he said, soundingjust as annoyed as she felt.

She really didn’t want to start a row. It wasn’t really his fault (well, not Janine’s visit, everything elsewas still complicated, though).  She could either let it bother herthe rest of the night or she could start the process of unwindingafter a long day made unexpectedly longer; she chose the only optionshe had the energy for.

He must have seen her posture shift andhe walked over to her from where he’d been hovering near the door ofthe lounge.  He bent down and kissed her hello and laid a hand on herbelly, a thing they’d been doing for months now but still hadn’t gotold.

*

“You were lying earlier,”Sherlock murmured after they’d settled into bed.  

They’d decided it wasn’t worth the tripback to her flat just to sleep and she had clothes and things there;there probably wouldn’t be many more nights like this after the babycame.  They hadn’t discussed it, but it was fairly obvious they’d beliving out of her flat, since that was far and away where they spentthe most time anyway.

“Oh?  What was I lying about?”

“You are the jealous type.”

“Takes one to know one,” shesaid archly, craning her neck to look over her shoulder at him.

“I am not.  Who would Ihave to be jealous of?” he asked breezily.  

They flirted more now than they everhad before she’d got pregnant.  If they were any other couple and shehad to witness it, she’d die gagging, but it made her happy, so shemade an exception.

“You were so jealous of Tom yougot me pregnant through sheer force of will.”

“I believe you’ll find I got youpregnant through sheer lack of will.  And prematureejaculation.”

Molly laughed; it was true enough, butshe never had cause to complain about his performance.

“I overwhelmed you with mycharms,” she said dryly.

“You did,” he said, droppinga kiss to her shoulder.  "I believe I’m finding myself a bitoverwhelmed right this moment.“

“Oh.”  He thought for amoment it was something interesting, like a group of Russian mobsterswith automatic weapons or maybe a rampaging lion escaped from thezoo.  "Is he with anyone?“

“Some bloke in a business suit,probably a client or a new employee or something,” she said,sliding down in her seat as much as she could.  

“Molly, you’re not a heroine in arom-com, you’re going to slide off the chair and end up flat on yourarse on the floor.  Here, hold my hand so he gets jealous.”

“Do you even listen to yourself?”she hissed, straightening and lacing her fingers with his over thetable.

He let his expression soften intosomething affectionate, besotted; it was the way he felt around hermost of the time anyway, so it wasn’t hard to fake.  "There’s afine line between cliche and classic,“ he flirted.  "Youcould make a bit more of an effort.”

Molly gave him a flat look that spoketo just how unimpressed she was, which actually worked rather well inits own way because it’s a look he’d seen her direct at The Ex ratherfrequently.

“So we’re actually doing this? You know this is exactly why he and I split in the first place.”

“No, you split because he was aninsufferable dullard and quantity didn’t make up for quality in thebedroom.”  At her incredulous look, he added, “Your words,not mine.”

“My words to Mary Watson,”she gritted out.  "Fuck-fuck-fuck, here he comes.“

"That’s what she sai—” Molly kicked him under the table.  Hard.

“Molly, hi,” Tom enthused,loping over to the table like a poodle on stilts.  "Sherlock,“he smiled, sticking out his hand.

Nothing for it, he supposed, slippinghis hand from Molly’s (rather conspicuously) and standing to shakeTom’s hand and be introduced to his very dull, boring,non-Russian-mafia-or-zookeeper shadow.  Molly got a very quick,polite hug and a handshake from the [something finance, banker’shours, has a car, boring boring boring] probably-school-friend.

Introductions; oh, your name is Tomtoo, oh Thom with an ‘h’, haha; small talk small talk; yes, we werejust at the British Museum, Molly was looking over some bones with acolleague, even ancient murders can shed light on modern forensics;The Work is always interesting, always something new; oh, you’ve beenkeeping up with the blog, John does so love to exaggerate, hahaha;yes yes, good to see you again.  His face felt like it was going tofall off from all the plastic smiles.  Tom and other-Thom moved tofind themselves a table and Molly almost collapsed with the relief ofit.

"You could have put your armaround me or something,” Molly said after they were safely outof earshot.

“That would oversell it, make melook insecure.  Obviously I have nothing to be insecure about,considering I won.  I’m a gracious winner.”

“Right, because you never gloatabout anything.  Like the time you won Uno.  Or Snakes and Ladders. Or Battleship, which you only won because you cheated.”

“Everyone cheats at Battleship. It’s like poker, it’s all about the bluff.”

She gave him another Look, so he tookher hand again.  He was keeping an eye on the Toms-squared just tomake sure they were watching.  They weren’t.  The Ex didn’t reallyeven seem to care, too absorbed in his old school friend to noticemuch of anything.

She didn’t need to know that.  Shecouldn’t see them, after all.  "You could fawn over me a bit,“he said.

"What about not overselling it?”

“Well I couldn’t oversellit, but it’s almost expected of you.  You want to show you’ve movedon so you’ll overcompensate to prove it.  It’s what you do.”

“Do I?” she asked, cockingher head an raising her eyebrows in a way that said he was skating onthin ice.

“'Jim wasn’t my boyfriend, we onlywent out three times, I ended it,’” he said, doing his bestimpersonation of her.  It was actually rather good, he thought,almost as good as his John.  Always harder to nail a falsetto,though.

“You can’t remember GregLestrade’s name, but you can quote something I said three years agoverbatim.”

Bollocks.  He only remembered becausehis comeback had been particularly witty.  And because he’dinadvertently committed as much of that day to memory as possible andreplayed it in the two years he was away, as it was a turning pointof sorts.  Not that he was in any way sentimental about that kind ofthing.

“It was about Moriarty, Iremembered everything about Moriarty in case it was useful.” Decent save.

“Uh huh.”  She stared at him.

“He keeps glancing over here—”it was a lie “—you should do something.”

“Like what?  I’m already holdingyour hand.  Shall I come sit in your lap?”

Oh God yes please.  "Idon’t know, laugh or something.  Look happy.  Like you actually wantto be here with me.  Or maybe just like you don’t want to reachacross the table and strangle me.“

"Those three things aren’tmutually exclusive.  It’s pretty much its own state of being, theGermans probably have a word for it.”  

Molly’s thumb brushed over his, sendinga shiver down his spine that wasn’t just from the too-light touch. He chewed the corner of his lip, thinking that now would be eitherthe best or the worst time for The Ex to actually look over at them.

“Have we sat here long enough forit not to be weird if we left?” Molly asked.  

“You haven’t finished yoursandwich,” he pointed out.  Really, now that he had the chance,he was going to make the most of it.

“Kinda not hungry any longer. I’ll just take it home and finish it later,” she said, slidingher hand free from his to get her handbag.  She produced an evidencebag and stuffed the rest of her sandwich and chips into it, then tookthe chips he had left on his plate.  

He was pretty sure she wouldn’t do thaton an actual date, but she would in a long-term relationship.  Heshot a smug look to Tom-and-Tomtoo, but they still weren’t payingattention.  

After they stood, he held out his handfor her to take while Molly twisted and gave The Ex one last littledorky-polite wave (God she was so cute he couldn’t stand itsometimes, he just wanted to chew on her head like a lion,which—oddly—seemed to be the theme of the day for him, maybe he’dask her to go to the zoo sometime).  Molly interlaced her fingerswith his and he led her from the cafe with his own parting look toThe Ex; the thinned lips and narrowed eyes were every bit assatisfying as he thought they’d be.

“And how about the number zero?” Molly muttered. “‘Cause that’s what you’ll be dealing with soon.” 

Sherlock only lowered his gaze, and eyed her fingers on his shirt buttons. She blushed when he looked back to her. Her mouth twisted into a poorly hidden smile.

“Oh shut up.”

His hands brushed against her thighs and came to curl underneath her knees. His fingers traced small circles against her skin, and he kissed at her throat.

“Exactly what did you apologise for? I forgot.”

She groaned. “I swear, I’m going to leave this flat in a minute.”

“Alright.” He curled his hands around her waist and pulled her closer. He caught her mouth in a brief kiss. “But I promise I’ll be extremely thankful.”

The meaning wasn’t lost on her. She draped her arms around his shoulders, a knowing look in her eyes. “Extremely?”

“Just have to hear it once more.”

“Hm.” She traced one hand against his torso, her gaze lowering. She shrugged. “I suppose it’s a fair trade.”

“Oh, entirely.”

She laughed and kissed his nose. “Then I’m sorry. Very sorry.”

“Technically, that was twice.”

“Then I’m sure you’re twice as thankful.”

Another grin, just as wolfish and wicked as the last, flicked across his lips. “Definitely.”