A sort-of prequel fic inspired by Mychakk's fic The Family Man. You don't have to have read it to enjoy this one, but I certainly urge you to do so! Warnings for underage consensual sex - if that's not your cup of tea, no hard feelings if you decide not to go any further.

She's almost fifteen and he's just barely seventeen when they meet. He's teaching a chemistry seminar (although he's supposedly just assisting) for students prepping for early entry into uni and it's not exactly love at first sight. Well, it is for her but as far as he's concerned she's just a child - a smart, motivated child, but a child all the same.

He's harsh, even rude as he deduces the dozen students taking his seminar, but all she can hear is how brilliant he is. Because he's not wrong, not about any of his deductions, even if some of them are more than a bit mean. Yes, he drives her tears when he casually mentions her wanting to please her dead father, but he immediately apologizes without any prompting so she forgives him. Especially since he does so in front of the entire class, something she's never seen him do in the two weeks that have passed.

After that they become friendly, if not friends - he declares, somewhat arrogantly, that he doesn't have friends, so she lets it lie. But they share lunch sometimes, and during the fourth week he offers to tutor her on some of the more complex equations and soon they're meeting at his flat for dinner and extracurricular discussions that, alas, are entirely about chemistry-the-science and not chemistry-the-way-she-feels-about-him.

When she finally works up the courage to tell him how she feels, he just stares at her. "How can you think you're in love?" he asks, panic clear in his eyes. They've become close over the past six weeks; she's impressed him with her intelligence, far more important, she knows, than impressing him with her looks the way a few of the other girls - and at least one of the boys - attending the seminar have so obviously been trying to do.

"I just - I'm not asking you to love me back," she replies, trying not to panic herself. What was she thinking, just blurting it out to him during a private tutoring session at his flat? Why didn't she wait until next week, the last week, so he wouldn't feel she was trying to pressure him into something? Stupid, stupid, Molly, she chastises herself.

"That's, that's good," he replies, stuttering a bit, still with that deer-in-the-headlights look in his (gorgeous, more blue than green at the moment) eyes. Then he makes a mistake; he looks down his nose at her and tries to act Very Grown Up and Mature as he says, "You're not old enough to know what love is, to know what you want, Molly Hooper."

"Really?" she says, her voice cold as she jumps to her feet in order to glare down at him where he's sitting sprawled on his sofa. "I'm old enough to know what I want to do with my life, so why aren't I old enough to know how I feel about you?"

He sneers at her. "You want to be a doctor because your father died of cancer and you want to make up for it," he deduces, and instead of feeling hurt or angry she feels triumph.

"Wrong," she tells him with a smug little smile. "I've wanted to be a doctor since I was seven. Dad died when I was twelve." It still hurts, she still misses him, but she's not going to let Sherlock's words open up that particular wound. Not when it's an obvious defense mechanism on his part. Pushing her away, trying to make her angry because he's uncomfortable with the subject at hand.

No. She's just as stubborn as he is; it's fine if he doesn't love her back (no it's not, her mind whispers but she ignores it); she didn't tell him because she thought he felt the same way, she told him because...because she knows it's true, it's always (ever since they met) been true. She loves him and she needed him to know, even if they never see each other again after the seminar is over.

He's still staring at her, eyes wide, and she feels her confidence starting to slip as the moment of silence stretches and grows. Just as she's about to say something, anything, to fill the silence, he stands up, towering over her petite frame, and says, "Say it again."

"Say what again?" she squeaks as he lowers his head so they're at eye level.

"Say you're in love with me," he says, sounding almost desperate.

So she says it. "I love you. I'm in love with you, Sherlock Holmes."

"Why?"

She shrugs, looks away, but he reaches up and sort of pushes her cheek until their eyes meet again. "Because you're you," she replies, knowing it's inadequate, knowing he'll want to know more. Before he can make the demand, she adds, "Because you're brilliant and gorgeous and I've never met anyone like you, ever."

"I made you cry, when I deduced you the first time," he says. As if she might have forgotten. "People call me a freak, they hate me deducing them and they hate how smart I am."

"They're just jealous," she assures him, trying not to notice how close they are, how warm his fingers are where they linger on her cheek, as if he's forgotten he left his hand there. "And yes, your deductions can be mean - maybe you might want to think before just blurting them out sometimes - but they're not wrong. Usually," she adds, in light of how wrong he'd been about her motivations for getting into medicine. "And you don't act like you want to hurt people - you don't, do you?"

"Of course not, what would be the point?" he scoffs. "People just don't want to know the truth about themselves, no matter how much kinder it is to give them that truth rather than lie to them."

She nods, completely understanding - even though she's about to tell him he's wrong, which she knows he'll hate. "Of course they don't, but just because you see that truth doesn't mean you have to point it out all the time. Especially not in front of others, unless there's a really good reason. Like, if someone's committed a crime or something. You'd make a really good detective," she adds, liking the idea, picturing him fighting crimes with New Scotland Yard.

He kisses her. It's so unexpected that it takes her a few seconds to react, to kiss him back with enthusiasm to make up for her lack of experience, but react she does. Kiss him she does, her hands stealing up to his shoulders as she raises herself on tiptoes and feels his hands - so big! - cupping her face.

When the kiss ends, they're both breathing a bit heavily, and he rests his forehead on hers. "You love me, you really love me," he says, as if he still can't believe it.

"I do," she says simply, and he kisses her again.

Eventually they end up on his sofa, her half in his lap and his hands under her blouse and jumper, skimming the soft flesh of her belly and waist. She knows she's blushing - she's never even kissed a boy before now, let alone let one put his hands on her like this - but she doesn't care. Doesn't care about anything except being with Sherlock. Even if he never loves her, she's already made her decision: she wants him to be her first.

She tells him that as their kisses intensify, her hands toying with the buttons to his tight aubergine dress shirt, even though she knows she should stop this. But common sense has flown right out the window from the moment he kissed her, and as far as she's concerned, there's no turning back.

At least, she thinks that right up to the moment when he says, "Molly, we can't. I don't have any condoms."

At that point they're both shirtless; her skirt has ridden up to her thighs and he's about to undo her bra and she can feel him beneath her, how hard he is, how much he wants her. She wants him just as much; her quim (she blushes at the dirty word) has that wet ache she gets sometimes, that itch that she's learned how to scratch through fumbling self-experimentation. But she doesn't want to touch herself, doesn't want to bring herself off, she wants him to do it. Besides, it's her first time; as long as they use condoms the rest of the time...if he pulls out (oh how her cheeks heat at that thought!) then it'll be fine.

"I don't care," she says, knowing he's read every thought that flitted through her mind - not literally, of course, but by the changes in her expression. He's watching her too intently to have missed a single nuance. "We'll be careful, you can, you know-" She blushes, but curves her fingers into a tube and makes a pulling-back motion she hopes in unmistakable.

He bites his lip, looks uncertain, and she impulsively pulls his head down so that his face is resting between her little buds of breasts. (Oh how she hopes they'll start getting bigger soon, not watermelons of course but at least something bigger than an A cup!)

(The irony of that thought as her breasts do start getting bigger in four months time and for a very specific reason isn't lost on her.)

He makes a muffled sound and squirms in her embrace; just as she loosens her desperate grip on his head (his curls are so soft, so lovely beneath her fingers) and starts to swallow down her disappointment, he turns his head. Licks tentatively at one nipple. Pulls her closer and cradles her tenderly as he suckles at her, one breast at a time.

She chokes out a gasp of pleasure at the sensation, squirms beneath him as her knickers dampen between her thighs, feels his hardness against her legs and feels she can't wait a single moment longer.

Sherlock, it would seem, is in complete agreement. They wiggle around on the sofa until she's completely beneath him; he rears up onto his knees and desperately shimmies out of his khakis and pants (they're plain white cotton, just like hers, which makes her feel unaccountably pleased, as if the fact that their underwear is in sync is some kind of sign). She lets him take her knickers down; they dangle around one ankle but she doesn't care, doesn't really notice at all as she stares unabashedly at his erection.

He looks enormous to her inexperienced eyes, far too big to fit inside her, but the hunger in his gaze as he stares down at her exposed pussy (her cheeks heat up as she thinks the naughty word, one she would never dare utter aloud) drown out any doubts. She widens her legs as he kneels between them, raises her arms up beseechingly, and he lowers himself on top of her, kissing her like a fury, desperate and needy as she feels his...his cock...against her skin. Hard and hot and heavy, and all she can think is now now now now now…

"Now," she keens aloud, but instead of pushing his way inside her he kneels back up. Snaps his head down to give her a reassuring kiss. Then he doubles himself up, still on his knees, lowers his head and - Oh! Her eyes go wide as she sees his head, the dark mass of curls, between her legs. "What are you…" she starts to ask, even though she knows (hopes she knows!) what he's planning.

"Getting you ready," he says with a cocky (!) grin, popping his face up just long enough to answer her. "Don't want your first time to hurt any more than it has to. I've, er, read up on it. For research purposes only, of course."

That last is mumbled, barely heard and not at all believed (by either of them) as he lowers his face and gently lays his hands on her thighs. She sucks in a breath as she feels the first, tentative swipe of his tongue against her overheated flesh, then squeals in pleasure as he unerringly finds her clitoris (the spot she and her friends had giggled over when reading the article they'd found in that one issue of the medical journal she subscribed to, the spot that the author heavily implied most men found impossible to locate without a roadmap and written instructions).

It's the most intense, most incredible sensation she's ever felt. Her entire body flushes hot and cold and hot again; her muscles twitch and spasm, almost like she's taken a mild electric shock, and her thoughts scatter like quail after a gunshot. Heat continues to creep over her body, spreading like magma from where Sherlock's mouth meets her flesh until she can no longer keep her feelings inside; they burst from her lips in a series of unintelligible noises, hands flailing and legs shaking as her very first outside-assisted orgasm quakes through her body.

Sherlock, once she can open her eyes and focus on the outside world again, looks very pleased with himself. He moves to kiss her but she turns her head away, shy of tasting herself on his lips (she'd tasted herself on her fingers once and hadn't been very impressed by the salty sourness but he certainly seems to appreciate it). So instead he kisses her neck, the tops of her breasts, her shoulder and whatever other parts of her he can reach as he jostles them both into place for what she privately labels The Main Event.

She feels him between her thighs, his fingers fumbling a bit before something large and blunt rams itself against her sex. She grimaces; he apologizes breathlessly, then manages things a bit more smoothly on the second go. Instinct drives her to wrap her legs around the backs of his thighs, just beneath the round globes of his buttocks, and he grunts his approval. She feels him pulling back, sliding forward, easing himself inside her, deeper each time until suddenly there is a slight burn, a warm tingle, and there he is.

Inside her. Filling her. Exactly where she wants him to be.

"All right?" he gasps, probably deducing the slight discomfort she's feeling. She nods, and he kisses her, holding himself still until she whispers that she's ready.

As soon as the words leave her lips he starts moving, slowly at first but with growing speed and confidence as she sighs and makes little mewling cries as she starts to enjoy the feeling of having him inside her like this. He seems to be enjoying it just as much, judging by the grunts and gasps and other little pleasure-noises he makes as he moves.

Just as it's starting to feel really good, as she starts to feel that build-up of pressure she now know means she's about to come, he gives out a strangled moan and she feels the hot spurts of his cum against her belly as he jerkily pulls out.

He wipes it off with the tail end of his shirt, tosses it onto the floor and sighs as he looks down at her. "Sorry," he mutters. "I didn't mean to finish so quickly, before you could-"

"S'okay," she soothes, running her hands over his shoulders, hugging her knees to his hips. "I mean, you already...you did the thing…"

She blushes, amused and embarrassed at the same time that she can't bring herself to say you went down on me and...

"Made you come?" he suggests with a cocky grin, as if reading her mind. Not that her thoughts would have been hard to figure out, under the circumstances.

She ducks her head in a nod, but he's having none of that; he pulls her close, squirms them around until they're lying face to face with her hands on his chest and his arms encircling her. "S'all right," he murmurs against her lips, his eyes fluttering shut and his breathing slowing. "We'll do it better next time."

They fall asleep in each other's arms, and Molly knows with a feeling of utter helplessness that he's spoiled her for anyone else.

Fortunately for her, as she'll soon discover, he feels exactly the same way.

oOo

A month later Molly calls him, her voice shaky, to tell him in panicky whispers that she's skipped a period. The next day he's on her doorstep, loudly announcing his intention to marry her. (That won't happen until she turns sixteen, because her family refuses permission even considering he's the father of her child, but the minute she's of legal age he drags her and their son Benedict to Gretna Green to make legal what's been true in spirit since that first night: they are meant to be together. Forever. And nothing will ever change that between them: not interfering elder brothers, not scheming dominatrixes, not even criminal masterminds.)