Because of The Empty Hearse, we now know how John is when drunk, Sherlock more so. I couldn't help but facepalm whenever those two moved around – I was literally saying 'Oh no, client, when they're drunk – shit shit shit' when they took on a case while they were…not in their best state of minds. I find Sherlock being childish when drunk a little too endearing, especially his deductions. #deaded

Anyway, this is dedicated to my dear orangesherbert06, who is having a lot of stress and health problems lately :( I wish I could be there to help you out, but I'm stuck here, and am about to go to work in two hours' time. I am wishing so hard for you to recover! Love you, and I hope you enjoy this little thing! :DDD

Loud knocking at her front door pulled Molly away from the wonderful dream she was having, and she propped open an eye, grimacing at the interruption. Another knock sounded through her apartment and she grasped the corner of her pillow to cover her ear with it.

Three consecutive knocks came after that and Molly groaned, internally begging for the person she suspected at the other side of the door to go away already – as much as she would help Emily out whenever she was pissed, tonight was not the night she wanted her beauty sleep to be interrupted; Emily could find her way home, she reasoned – after all, it was just two doors away. Why her neighbour always insisted on knocking on her door every time she got drunk was beyond her.

Then, there was silence. Molly let go of the corner of the pillow once she was certain that there would no longer be any knocking sounds in the next few minutes (and hopefully hours), and she sighed out. God, she needed sleep – all the new trainees in the hospital tend to drain the energy out of her-

"MAWLY!"

Great – her mind was so exhausted, it was making her hallucinate voices.

"Where are youuuu?"

Molly snapped open both eyes and sat up in her bed, her head swimming for a moment at the abrupt move. She rubbed her eyes and furrowed her brows, wondering whether the familiar voice was really real and not part of her tired mind's attempt to be funny-

"Shh, cat – you're so noisy."

Hearing Toby's agitated mewl finally prompted Molly to get out of her warm bed and pull on her dressing gown. Tying the gown together at the waist to conceal the large shirt and the shorts she had on, she padded out into her living room; she saw Toby glaring and hissing at a tall figure, who had turned around upon hearing her steps and immediately gave her a large smile.

"Mawly!"

"Sherlock?!" Molly asked, her face comically expressing her surprise and confusion as Sherlock, after divesting himself of his large Belstaff and jacket (exposing that rather tight-fitting white shirt he was wearing underneath- God, Molly, stay focussed!) and carelessly dropping them on her carpeted floor, made his way towards her.

Or rather, staggered towards her. Molly had enough experience with people who walked like that to know what kind of condition Sherlock was in. "No way, Sherlock – you're drunk?!"

In response, Sherlock grabbed her right wrist and pulled her towards him, crushing her flush against his broad and trim frame as he encircled her smaller one with his arms. He buried his face in her bed hair and deeply inhaled her scent. "Hello Mawly," he sighed.

"You…Sherlock, you…" Molly stayed perfectly still in his arms, not moving as the knowledge of Sherlock being drunk in her home sank in and handicapped her movements.

"I *hiccup* think I had a little bit of a drink," Sherlock confessed into her hair. He inhaled once more as he continued to explain his presence in her home at almost two thirty in the morning, "Maybe more than a little bit…Jawn and *hiccup* Greg, they like challenges. Drank as much as I could so I could be the winner! But I forgot my Holmes keys (get it? Holmes, home?); Jawn didn't bring spare ones, and Greg doesn't have them at all. Don't like Greg anymore. So I come to see Mawly!"

He giggled, and Molly felt his chest move against her own. Flushing from head to toe at the sudden proximity of their bodies, she attempted to push him away. "Okay, Sherlock – that's enough, uhh, hugging. Just, take a seat?"

He shook his head in reply, not giving in to her request, and instead held on to her tighter.

"Sherlock – seriously, are you really Sherlock, cos the Sherlock I know won't go round hugging people."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," he finally said; leaning back a little so that he could see Molly's face, he gave a goofy smile. "I don't go hugging people – I only hug Mawly." He then went back to his favourite position – his face deep in her hair.

"Okay, you're really very…different, umm…" Molly blinked. Was she certain this was the Sherlock she knew: the one who she thought abhorred physical touch, the one who she initially suspected would not get drunk in the first place for any kind of reason, the one who would never act like he was some child in need of some cuddles and such?

"Mawly, this shirt your college boyfriend gave you is ugly," Sherlock mumbled into her hair, his fingers pulling at the collar of her shirt. "Why would you continue wearing something belonging to someone who left you for the States in the hopes of advancing his studies and finding a girlfriend there in the process, leaving you here alone?"

Ah. There was the Sherlock she knew.

"Okay, that's enough deducing for one night, Sherlock – go and sit on the sofa; I'll get you some water."

She attempted to push him into the direction of her sofa, but Sherlock would not budge; because of her small body frame as well, she could hardly move him with her strength alone. Instead, he groaned into her hair and his head slipped downwards, to the point where his lips brushed against the left side of her neck. "You're so short, Mawly," he murmured, and before she knew what else was going on, Molly felt herself being pushed against a wall and lifted up by her waist.

Sherlock again buried his face, this time against the side of her neck, and his large hands carried both her legs up, encouraging them to encircle his waist. Molly did that, but only because she had no balance at the moment. Her hands kept pushing him by the shoulder, with her half-shouting at him to put her down that instant; although this was so achingly similar to one of her deepest fantasies that involved Sherlock Holmes, she knew things would not go down well if they continued like this.

"Sherlock, you let me go this instant, or else!"

Molly felt him loosen his stance and she almost wanted to thank her lucky stars that her words had penetrated that thick drunk skull of his and made him think about what he was doing, when he lifted his head from its position near her neck and faced her, his eyes boring into her own. She saw how dilated his eyes were, the black pupils blown so big the green-blue of his eyes were mere thin rings around them. He moved his head towards her and, his lips hovering directly above her own, he whispered, "Or else what?"

Molly was having a hard time thinking, what with Sherlock's breath flitting gently against her skin with every exhale and the fact that he teased her with the slight brushing of his perfect Cupid Bow's lips on her own every now and then.

Finally snapping out of her reverie after a minute of him teasing her with those gorgeous lips of his against her own, she slapped him.

Toby, witness to the strange sight before him, meowed loudly as he watched the tall male human let go of his human and staggered backwards, a hand resting on the reddened part of the cheek he was slapped on. The cat meowed again as he made his way to Molly, who had quickly regained her balance with a hand against the wall, but she shooed him away with the other hand, eyes fixed on Sherlock. Taking the hint that he was not needed at the moment, Toby raised his tail high up and stalked back into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Molly stared at Sherlock who had a hand on the cheek she had slapped him on; both of them held shocked expressions as they looked at each other. A second later, he rubbed at the sore part and pouted. "Why did you slap me?" he whined.

My God – a drunk Sherlock really was a childish Sherlock; who knew?

Internally facepalming, Molly exhaled loudly through her nose. "Look, Sherlock – you just go and sit on the sofa, please? I'll get you some water."

Jutting out his lower lip, Sherlock was about to disobey her, but one look from the pathologist made him roll his eyes and, hand still on his cheek, he made his way to the sofa; he flopped down face first into the cushions as Molly frowned at his antics.

It was weird seeing the man become more like a 5-year-old than the incredible sleuth Molly knew him to be. In fact, more than weird – even his brief stay in her home during the Fall did not have him acting this way; he was more or less agitated and restless during that point in time, and threw tantrums that could rival a 10-year-old's, but he was never this childish.

Molly grabbed a glass of warm water and, turning around, was about to make her way back to her living room, when she squeaked in shock at the sight of Sherlock leaning against the doorway of her kitchen. "Sherlock! I told you to stay in the living room!"

He shook his head tiredly and looked at her blearily. "No, you didn't – you said for me to just sit on the sofa."

"Same thing!"

"Not."

"Yes!"

"No."

Stomping towards him, she thrust the glass of water into his hands. "Here," she immediately said; he gazed into the depths of the water almost absentmindedly as she continued, "drink this up, go lie on the sofa, and pray that you don't have a terrible hangover in the morning."

"You?"

Molly frowned. "What me?"

"Sofa's not big enough to accommodate the both of us, so where are you going to lie down?"

She stared at Sherlock's innocent-looking face as he drank the water. Was he giving her that lost puppy look again? Oh God, he was. "In my bed, of course. Where else?" she answered, puzzled.

"Oh. Then I'll also lie on the bed too."

Not waiting for any reply, Sherlock moved to her bedroom as he ruffled his curls with a hand, leaving a stunned Molly behind in the kitchen; having caught her bearings, she quickly made her way to her room. "Wait, why do you want to sleep on my bed?!" she cried out as she watched him toe his shoes off in a disorderly fashion (due to his state) and climbed onto her bed.

"Because you're in it. Isn't that obvious?"

"No, it's not obvious as to why you should lie in it. With me, of all things."

"Because I like how you smell, Mawly."

Molly would have blushed horrendously red at this point, but seeing Sherlock blinking wearily on her bed, arms behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling, she remembered he was drunk. Sighing, she stepped backwards and flipped her bedroom light off. "You take my bed, okay. Just go to sleep and in the morning we can forget about this. Well," she stammered in the end (dammit), "I mean, you'll forget about this, but- but I won't…but that doesn't mean I can't make myself forget it-"

"Night night, Mawly," the man on her bed interrupted her, turning to his side so that his back was presented to her.

There was no denying it when she had the thought of throttling the man up for being drunk and coming into her home, waking her up in the process and asking her to somehow take care of him. But when she gave in to the urge of approaching him, and seeing how the moonlight shining through her bedroom window framed his face, giving him a serene angelic expression, she let out a soft giggle. Whatever Sherlock wanted to label himself as – high-functioning sociopath was his favourite – no one could deny that he was, in the end, human.

Almost as if it were instinct, she brushed a stray curl away from his eyes, and stroked his fringe a little; she heard him snore softly, which further endeared her to him. She then reluctantly forced herself to move away, and closed the door as silently as she could. Toby awaited her with a questioning look when she turned around, and she bent down to stroke him on the head. "Don't worry, Toby – he's a friend," she whispered to her cat. He purred as she continued, not without a tiny smile on her face, "a very childish and infuriating man, but a friend nonetheless."

She got everything right again, draping Sherlock's coat and jacket over the back of an armchair and fluffing the cushions on her sofa. Disrobing herself of her dressing gown, she draped it over the back of the sofa; she laid down on the sofa and Toby jumped up onto her stomach, kneading her stomach gently before settling down. She stroked him as she felt herself drifting off to sleep a minute later.

Sherlock's coat and jacket were gone by the time Molly was awake. She blinked blearily and rubbed her eyes as she stretched and yawned, noting the absence of these two clothing articles; she was not disappointed, though, because she had expected it – Sherlock leaving without waking her up.

What she had not expected was a tiny note on her bedside table near the empty glass, written on one of her napkins, in that scrawl she had come to recognise and love.

Apologies for last night's intrusion of your abode. Shall not participate in any more drinking games with John and George in the future. And shall definitely not out-drink any one of them. Shall also remember to bring my Holmes (home. Get it?) keys, and the spare ones too.

- SH

Molly giggled a little – it was not like Sherlock to leave written messages because he preferred to text, but maybe today (or last night) was an exception. She was about to throw the napkin away when she turned it over, and saw another message. This time, she did blush horrendously red.

PS. I was not kidding when I said I like how you smell.