Sherlock is fully aware that he deserves nothing more than Molly Hooper's friendship. Since Sherrinford, since Eurus, he has broached the subject of those words, their exchange. He's explained it all, found the cameras hidden in her flat for her. The one piece of evidence he can give to show her the vivisection he has endured. The scars he carries across his chest. He explained until she only smiled and wrapped her arms around him, whispering it's okay, it's okay.

He is, indeed, fully aware, then, that he is lucky, above everything, to have Molly Hooper's friendship.

Oh, but his mind? His mind is not.

His mind is petulant, it is stubborn. Despite attempts to do the opposite, to force his mind into other venues of thought, his mind continues to concentrate on other things. Namely, the fact of Molly Hooper's deep affection for fruit-based clothing.

It takes up barely a byte of grey matter, the fact his mind keeps flashing back to. How he'd discovered the fact is entirely innocuous too. He'd simply been lying on her bed, returned recently from Derbyshire, exhausted from a week-long case involving a maliciously trained herd of sheep and poison darts. He had only, unconsciously, been letting his fingers wander over the wooden slats of her bedroom floor.

She was out at her sister's for the weekend. "You've got free run of the flat," she'd said. Leaving her key behind, ensuring his presence for the rest of the weekend, it took him a full minute to understand he'd been manipulated into flat-sitting. He'd glowered up at the ceiling as if Molly Hooper might've been able to feel his disapproval by proxy until he swore and flipped over onto his stomach. Burying his cheek into her sweet-scented pillows, he finally let himself fall asleep.

Which led to his fingertips brushing the wooden slats of her bedroom floor. Which led to his hand wandering underneath her bed. His thumb traced over something that felt like silk. His eyes snapped open. The frontal lobe of his brain reasoned that what was underneath Molly's bed was none of his business.

The parietal lobe, it seemed, disagreed. Shifting closer to the edge of the bed, Sherlock reached further down until he felt underneath his palm the cup of a bra. The parietal lobe rebelled against the frontal lobe's now high-pitched screeching, a thudding call of no, no, no, no and Sherlock found his occipital lobe at work. His eyes flicked over the bra before him, held in his hand. Just one of its cups fit into his palm, like a jigsaw piece fitting into another. The pattern's thread was weaved into the soft bases of the two white cups, coloured red and green. The green thread was scattered in pairs across the bra, each section of green two leaves tucked against one another, leading down to two stems. The red thread took over from there, completing the pattern. Cherries. A lump of old dust stuck to the base of one cup.

His first thought was an idle one, about whether she'd ever matched her cherry print cardigan with this cherry print bra.

The second noted the presence of a bow in the middle of the bra, where, if worn, it would be nestled in the valley of Molly's breasts.

The frontal lobe took over from there.

Sherlock dropped the bra, now all at once as scalding as the surface of a hot iron, threw back the duvet and ran out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

His hands shook, his ears ringing. He pulled his phone from his pocket, firing off a text, telling Molly how a 9 had come up, but he would lock her flat for her and keep her key for the time being.

The text was sent, and the parietal lobe sent a command to Sherlock's body. Diving back into the bedroom, he left the bed unmade (to make it would arouse her suspicion) and grabbed the bra to shove it back underneath her bed.

It was a surprise to both his body, his parietal, occipital and frontal lobes that the bra ended up in his coat pocket.

He is lucky to have her friendship, especially now he has stolen one of her bras. As soon as he had found himself back in Baker Street, he had oscillated on his feet, stood in the middle of the kitchen, silently turning this way and that. He had shed his coat and flung it over one of the kitchen chairs. He had sat in his armchair. All in the hopes that getting away from the garment would clear his head.

Eventually, it ended up in the state he'd found it: underneath a bed, collecting dust.

The only problem was that it was his bed.

The first night, he got no sleep, closing his eyes to find his hand before him, holding the cup of a cherry print bra.

It is only in the night that the bra comes to him.

The hold he has on it changes every night.

The first night, he held it in his dream like it was a poisonous spider, crawling over his palm and up his arm, its venomous stemmed cherries sinking into his bloodstream.

It has been a fortnight since he became a thief of bras, a year since Sherrinford. It is the fourteenth night that he is sleeping with Molly Hooper's cherry print bra hidden underneath his bed.

The night is stifling, summer creeping into the winter, and he dreams again. The smooth cup of the bra, engulfed by his palm. His thumb gently caresses the circles of red thread, follows the lines of green. Stems and leaves, the cherry. Stems. Leaves. Cherry. That's the pattern, and that's how he goes.

"Mm-hm." He opens his half-bleary eyes, lying on his side with his cheek pressed into his pillow, and flicks his eyes down to the bra. A breast has filled it. He strokes his fingers over the second cup. A second breast. The bow of the bra nestles between the valley of these two breasts, which are pale in colour and small in size.

He traces his eyes up the milky white of the breasts, the chest, the collarbone, the clavicle, the circular chin; he picks up more details. Small pink lips, a shallow Cupid's bow, a small nose, soft eyelids with dark lashes. Brown hair.

Molly arches against his gently tightening touch. She reaches out with a hand, tracing down his toned stomach. He groans, gently, in return.

"Feels nice," she murmurs, her hand disappearing underneath his bedsheets and she wraps it around his cock, her eyes still unopened but her lips cracking a smile, "doesn't it?"

"Mm," he grunts, distracted. Curiosity makes him look. She's naked from the waist down. She does something with her hand that makes him gasp and he bucks. She smiles, knowing exactly what she's doing, and removes his hand.

He rolls her onto her back in reply, because this is a dream and dreams have the luxury of silence, reality too preoccupied with consequences. He bathes in the luxury of this dream, wordlessly bending her legs at the knee, spreading her thighs so he can shove his face against her wet core and tongue-fuck her until she comes. In this dream, it's her bra, her pleasure, and he doesn't have the marker of 'thief'. (When he wakes, that marker will be there again, he'll be a consulting detective again, the detective who solved a case by stealing the most precious words a person can give.)

He gives her two orgasms before he flips her over onto all fours. She presses her hands into the mattress, raising herself up for him, and begs to be fucked. "Give me everything," she whispers, his brain not clever enough to give her more than the most basic of dialogue. He leans over, undoing the bra and pushing it off her shoulders. She clumsily pushes it off to the side, letting it lie among the tangle of crumpled bedsheets.

He bends his head, kisses the line of her spine, smiling as she shivers before he straightens, holds her hips with his hands (she's small, so small underneath him), and thrusts into her. She screams, his name, screams thank you and oh God and more, more, more, more—

He knocks on her front door, thankfully receiving silence. It opens as he's on his knees and he blinks, looking up. Molly Hooper, with chunks of wet bread dough on her fingers and an apron around her waist, sighs. Underneath the apron, she wears a cotton dress, the hem coming to her knees, the material black and the pattern cherry blossoms. Dinner, no, birthday party, she forgot to buy anything, last minute baking.

"I'll get you a damn key cut," she says, turning away from him, clearly believing his attempt to pick the lock some opulent display of how inconvenient her life choices are to him. In the past, it might've been. Sherlock gets to his feet, slipping his hand into his other coat pocket. The bra, in its plastic casing, rustles. He makes a display of shrugging off his coat as she turns, entering into her kitchen.

"Is it a case?" she asks like she's a wife, he's a husband and this is a house they share. The analogy, subconsciously made, blindsides him.

He has to shake himself awake from his trance, glancing down to his hand, tucked into his coat pocket. He hangs up the coat and snatches out the bra.

"Y-yes," he says, voice strangled. He clears his throat. "Need somewhere to think for a while. I'll be upstairs."

"Okay," she calls after him. He advances up the stairs two at a time, hurrying into her bedroom. Glancing over his shoulder, he removes the bra from the plastic bag, and sinks to his knees by the bed, glancing again over his shoulder, listening out for a footstep on the stairs.

This is what he's been reduced to. Returning a cherry print bra to its rightful place underneath its owner's bed while said owner bakes downstairs.

Distantly, he hears running water. He hears Molly swearing.

Stairs, creaking, quick footsteps.

Sherlock shoves the bra underneath the bed and jumps onto the duvet, just as Molly enters.

She streaks past him, muttering and rubbing, fingers now washed clean. Bread dough in her hair and on her dress. Despite the situation, Sherlock smiles.

"Accident?"

"Don't," Molly grumbles. She slips off her heels, her tights. He isn't undone by this, nor by her removal of her dress (he has been here enough times, she has been hurrying to work too often for either of them to still be in the awkward stage of her dressing in her own bathroom). He is, however, undone by the cherry print knickers. White lace frills hem off the edges. They are low, the edges of her knickers, curving around the round of her backside.

The pattern is one he last saw in his dreams.

"This'll make me late, but well – was going to be late anyway," Molly chatters, departing from the room. Sherlock struggles to even his breathing as he kicks off his shoes. With the bra, he now has the knickers. The dream is returning, haunting him; only this time, she isn't bare. His fingers are pushing those cherry-patterned knickers to the side, his lips scratching on the lace frills as he desperately fucks her with his tongue. His palms are stroking down her hips, rolling the knickers down her thighs and—

His growing erection strains against his trousers. He closes his eyes. A bra. A pair of knickers. His cock hardens. God. He truly is a man.

He kicks off his shoes as he hears the sound of her shower, climbs out of his clothes and slides under her duvet, skin all too hot and his frontal lobe to bring his mind to the empty, dust-covered corridor where only a metal cabinet stands, a remnant of that one office job he had, and his association with tax returns.

He pushes open the door. Distantly, the shower water runs. A soft humming echoes down the corridor, the sort of hum that comes from someone else's headphones.

Molly stands atop the grey cabinet in the cherry patterned bra and knickers, soaked from a jet of water that's coming from nowhere in particular. The soft material of her underwear is translucent, showing dark pink nipples and a triangle of pubic hair. The humming sharpens, coming from her mouth. An idle tune that he can't place.

Her eyes flutter open as she draws her wet hands through her soaked, dark hair. One hand sinks down underneath the line of her wet knickers.

"Join me, why don't you?" she asks, with a sweet grin hidden among water droplets.

Sherlock smashes his fist into her pillow.

"For God's sake!" he shouts. The bedroom door is pushed open by a wet foot. Molly Hooper's face frowns at him as she strolls into her bedroom, still domestically comfortable with his presence as ever.

He had told himself, over and over, to stop. To find another bolthole, to not inconvenience her, but habits are hard to break. His brother, in his room of Sherlock's mind, had looked up from his blank newspaper and sneered: "The proper word is 'addiction'. You don't have the capacity for a simple habit."

Heroin, cocaine, nicotine. Molly's flat. Mycroft was right. He wasn't built for habits or routine. God had betrayed him, built him to get to such a point that Molly Hooper dries herself in front of him now with no thought of being sexy while he battles a raging hard-on.

Molly wraps her towel around her hair and stands, strolling around her bedroom naked, her bottom perfectly curved, her small breasts slightly bouncing. His mouth waters and he fights back a blush as he rolls onto his side. His erection doesn't flag, doesn't let up, reminding him of how wrong this situation truly is. How bad he is being.

"I wish I knew where that bloody cherry print bra had gone," Molly mutters behind him, to herself.

"Try under your bed," he bites out, eyes widening. Out loud, he's spoken out loud.

"No," Molly says, not catching on. He lets out a sigh of relief. "Tried looking there this morning."

"Maybe you didn't look properly." Again, with the talking aloud. He bites so hard on his bottom lip, he might as well taste blood.

"Seeing, but not observing, eh?" She laughs. "Okay, okay."

He hears her knees on the floor, hears her searching, grunting as her body bends in ways she's not used to. Not flexible, quit yoga, last had sex 6—

"No!" he barks.

"Ha!" Molly cries at the same time, wriggling out from her place underneath her bed and climbing to her feet. The bra dangles from her index finger. She gives a grin, his chest tightens at the sight, and runs her fingers along it.

His breath leaves him as her smile falls into a frown. She holds one of its cups in her hand, peering closer at it. She picks at the soft fabric.

A thread is tucked between her finger and thumb.

She glances down at her own carpet.

Despite the cat bed, despite the discarded clothes, the carpet is a hoovered white. The thread she holds, though difficult to ascertain its exact colour from where he is, is most certainly dark.

He hates himself even further, for not noticing it, and hates his coat.

"'Scuse me just a second," Molly mumbles. Sherlock closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable.

It comes an excruciating two minutes later. (30 seconds to go down the stairs, 30 seconds to compare the colour of the thread and the colour of his coat, 1 minute for her to process the information.)

"Sherlock…" She starts with an elongated pronunciation of his name. She leans against her doorway. The bra dangles from her finger again. Her head is tilted. Her eyebrow raises up. "Care to explain?"

"Ah – impulsive behaviour is difficult to explain, Molly. The mind is always difficult to—" He shakes his head. Useless. Better to let the illusion fall away. "I'm sorry."

"Wouldn't take you for a thief of underwear."

She uses her words carefully, where usually, she's overly flexible with him. He raises his head. Is she teasing him?

"I'm—" he starts, but he doesn't know how to finish it, so he lets it die.

The silence swells as they consider one another. Molly's mouth is tilted with a smile. Sweat beads on his brow. Heat finds his cheeks, spreading down over his collarbone and chest. The tendrils of his hair feel damp on his forehead and neck. He feels powerless.

"I think…"

He swallows. Mouth still dry.

Her mouth cracks into a grin.

"I think you need to make it up to me." He snaps his head up, his eyebrows disappearing up into his hairline.

"You deprived me of matching underwear for – how long, exactly?" she asks, coming to stand by the bed.

His flush deepens. "Two weeks."

"Despite what men think, matching underwear is bloody rare. So yeah. You definitely need to make it up to me."

The heat in his cheeks, crawling over his chest, draws in and shoots straight to his groin. Strange, because she hasn't changed the timbre of her voice. It's as bright, curious, as intelligent as ever.

Cold brushes over him as she pushes back the duvet. Her eyes scan his form hungrily. His eyes flit down towards her thighs. There's a slight twitch there, a quiet quest for friction.

Oh.

The fact that he's made her, Molly Hooper, aroused is an achievement that he once never thought of. But he's here now, knowing the potential of what is to happen, and it feels like it is the only achievement that will ever matter.

"I lied to you."

Her eyes flit up to find his, hardening from their aroused daze. "What?"

"I told you – I meant the second one as loving you platonically. I lied. Because I thought admitting the reality would cause you to leave." She breathes his name and comes to kneel on the bed at his side. He takes a breath. "I love you, Molly. In every way. Eurus made me realise. I intended to tell you when I explained, but you were so kind… I was scared."

Her palm slides against his cheek. She tilts his head up so he has no choice but to stare at her. Examine her, just as she's examining him. She leans forward and kisses him. The mechanics of it are simple. A press of her lips to his, a brush of her nose against his, a lingering reluctance to pull away. Her brown eyes flit over his face and settle on his lips. At the last minute, she locks her eyes with his.

She gives a minute shake of her head. "Why would I leave?"

"I never thought of a reason. Merely convinced myself of the truth."

"A truth," she says, brushing her lips over his. "And this is another."

She kisses him deeply this time, mouth and tongue searching. He reciprocates in kind, and it isn't like two jigsaw pieces coming together. It isn't a kiss of a wife and a husband. It's the moment where sunrise meets sunset.

She rolls him onto his back, stroking his length into full hardness, throwing one leg over him until she's straddling him. Breaking their kiss, she takes him again in hand and he lifts his hips to help her guide him into her hot, wet core. Wet, and wanting. Wanting him. He holds her hips, stilling so she can accommodate him, and groans at how beautiful she feels.

The world tunes out into a haze of grey. The only colours he sees are her flushed pale skin, her honey brown hair, the dusty pink of her nipples. Sitting up, changing the position, he kisses those, exchanging tongue for teeth. She gasps, grasping his curls with his fingers. He holds her lower back, urging her to go harder, faster.

"Take me," he says between kisses, and she does, pushing him down onto the mattress, breasts bouncing as she fucks him until finally, they come together, screaming each other's name.

She slumps, half-weeping, half-laughing in shock from the relief (he understands that relief, feels it coursing his own veins as well as hers) of letting go. Of letting go of uncertainty and unanswered questions. Sherlock brushes her hair off her shoulder and kisses her temple.

"Of course," she says, getting her breath back, "if you'd told me earlier—"

"Oh, obviously," he replies. His hand wanders down to her breast. "I suppose that means I'll have to make it up to you."

"Fuck!" she swears suddenly, jerking up. "Anderson's birthday party. I completely forgot."

"If you turn up with the world's only consulting detective on your arm, I think he'll forgive you."

She glares, but it doesn't last. Her laughter, gorgeous and light, bubbles up and bursts out. She playfully scrunches her nose at him, sitting up and swinging her legs over the bed. "You're an arse."

"Of course, you did say I had to make it up to you…" Sherlock says, crawling over to her. He kisses her lower back, snatching at her skin with his teeth. She shivers, hisses, swallows a moan. "And I do have a lot of time to make up."

He climbs up to his knees, wrapping his arms around her neck, kissing her jaw and cheek and temple. "And Molly Hooper…" he whispers, "I am very thorough."

"Sod the party," are the last words he hears before she is kissing him back and taking him again.