Note: This is an un-birthday present for dearest Adi. I am sorry it took me so long to get this written, but I hope you are having an absolutely wonderful time celebrating this, the 77th day of your birthday.

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or any of its characters and no infringement is intended with this story. Additionally, the story title is an homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and "Love Indubitably" is a shameless grab from Arrested Development. I have an intense compulsion for pop culture references.

Conversations with Not-So-Dead People

The fan whirred sullenly overhead, refusing to do much beyond move the heavy air from one place in the room to another. The clatter and voices drifting in the window only made it that much worse. The heatwave had tackled London, catching everyone (well, save for some resigned meteorologists who had tried to say something in the preceding days) by surprise. But as ever, it wasn't the heat, it was the humidity: the muggy damp that made everyone look "dewy" (read: soggy) the moment they stepped out of the air conditioning into the elements. Really, it would have been better if everyone took it as a sign that they should remain indoors and keep their sweating bodies to themselves.

Sherlock Holmes, for all of his irascibility, knew he wasn't the only one to feel this way, though many of the city's occupants were doing a damn good job of pretending they weren't bothered. The summer months brought the tourists in droves, and it seemed to him that they all had descended upon Merrick Square. It had to be personal, all of the people who were still laughing gaily and talking loudly on the pavement below that second floor window at such an late hour. Didn't they care that some people had to work in the morning? Sure, Sherlock wasn't one of them, but he thought he was being rather magnanimous for the people who lived on the square. The heat was abysmal, and it appeared that people were not thinking of their fellow man and the discomfort he might be feeling, here in this un-air-conditioned flat. Or any other flat, he hastily tacked on, remembering at the last moment that he was only thinking of others.

He thought briefly of his own, quiet bedroom on Baker Street. The air would be cool and dry, with only the slight hum of the wall-mounted condenser to break up the night's quiet. There was little better, by Sherlock's way of thinking, than an air conditioner turned to its lowest setting, necessitating warm sleepwear and several blankets to weigh a body down in his bed. Sure, the pitfall to this luxury was the angry landlady, taking the repair costs out of her tenant's rent when the AC froze out because it was turned too low. But that was neither there nor here (definitely not here, he thought, as he shifted and grimaced at the sweat beading on his temples and his t-shirt sticking uncomfortably to his skin).

John's voice echoed in his head. "Well then, idiot, why don't you go back to Baker Street?"

Sherlock scowled up at the blurred fan blades on the ceiling. He would go home if it weren't for one, minor thing.

Mind-John smirked. "Ah, yes. Then quit moaning, you spoiled brat."

"Stuff it," Sherlock sniped, even as a small foot brushed up along the side of his left calf. He tensed and turned his head sharply, an apology ready on his lips, but Molly Hooper still lay on her side, her back to him. She pulled in slow, even breaths and he decided that her foot's caress had not been intentional. Much to his regret.

To make matters worse, she hadn't moved away after. The soft skin of her sole burned like a brand where it rested against Sherlock's leg and he winced. Any number of uncomfortable feelings that he might be experiencing were made all the worse by the swelter that had yet to abate in the night air.

In fact, unless he was very much mistaken, it appeared that the temperature had increased. He felt the blush of heat settle in his cheeks, and decided that it was very odd indeed that the night should grow warmer instead of cooler as the clock neared midnight. If he'd ever bothered to learn astronomy or meteorology, perhaps he'd be able to explain why this was.

"Want a quick crash-course?" an imaginary Mary Watson offered, arriving uninvited and distressingly cheerful. Before Sherlock could refuse, she barreled on, "You see, sometimes solar winds and magnetic fields in the sun's corona are sent into space in what's known as a coronal mass ejection. If it reaches a certain velocity when directed at the Earth, it results in a geomagnetic storm. Things to go haywire. Measurement equipment malfunction, radio transmissions are disrupted, and cosmic rays—"

"Beam down and cause spikes in temperature, even at night. That's what's happening here?" Sherlock interrupted in an impatient whisper.

"No," Mary said, shaking her head sadly at the obtuse man lying prostrate on Molly's bed. "Cosmic rays have no effect on the weather, nor do coronal mass ejections. I was taking the mick. It is approximately eight degrees cooler than it was an hour ago. You feel warmer because you're just flustered that the pretty girl is rubbing her foot against you. You're hardly a virgin, Sherlock Holmes. It's a sad day when you make up excuses to explain physiological arousal."

Sherlock remained stolidly silent at that, though in part because he was busy identifying the pressure points of each toe on Molly's foot against his calf.

"You know," John said speculatively, "you just imagined Mary teaching you something actually correct about astronomy. How'd you know that?"

"I must have picked it up somewhere," Sherlock answered forlornly, turning his attention away from Molly briefly. "And now I'll have to delete it twice, since it's occupying two places in my brain now. Thanks to your interloping," he muttered.

Mary and John exchanged affronted looks. "Interloping?" Mary asked. "We were dragged—uninvited, I might add—into this bizarre sleepover of yours. We were quite happy watching Nova in the back of your mind. But here we are, all because you want a sounding board. You can't own up to the fact that you get a funny feeling in your tummy because of Molly, even as you invade her bed nearly every night."

"Go back to your useless entertainment, then," Sherlock waved them away, fighting to look icy, even though the only real witness to his childish behavior was a creaking fan.

"Love to," said John blithely, "just as soon as you stop imagining us."

Deciding to do just that, Sherlock turned his head once more to look at Molly. Between the edge of the flat sheet and the hem of her overlarge sleep shirt that had ridden up, he could see a strip of skin. Though shadowed, it still glowed warmly because of the still-illuminated lamp on Sherlock's bedside table. He licked his lips as he noticed tiny beads of sweat gathering on the small of her back. Reaching forward tentatively, he brushed his finger over her back, watching the drops of sweat spread then redistribute into droplets as they found their polarity once more.

"You could wake her up instead of being a creepy sweat fetishist," D.I. Lestrade suggested idly, suddenly in the room and inspecting his nails with such blatant casualness that Sherlock had to make a mental note to make sure the real Lestrade never did anything so obvious when out on reconnaissance.

"You could wake her up," Sherlock mimicked, adopting a high-pitched voice that sounded more like a gremlin's than any facsimile of Lestrade's. "I can suggest a few places for you to shove your advice," he continued, returning to his own timbre.

"What would be so wrong with actually letting her know you reciprocate her feelings?" Lestrade asked, not even remotely chagrinned.

"I can name several, the most predominant of which is the reason why I'm in this flat right now," Sherlock hissed.

"If you're talking about Moriarty—" Lestrade began, only to be interrupted by Sherlock.

"Give the man a prize!"

"Then you're basically having a circular argument with yourself, mate. You're worried Moriarty—or whoever the bad guy is—thinks Molly means quite a lot to you. You've essentially moved into her flat because you want to protect her from said baddie, all because he is quite right in his assumption about your feelings. Yet you're refusing to act on that plethora of warm, fuzzy, libidinous feelings because you don't want to put her in danger, because you are worried about Moriarty. Ipso facto—"

"Don't speak Latin, Griffon," Sherlock interrupted.

"Ipso facto," Lestrade continued loudly, "you find yourself running in circles of fallacious logic. She's in danger. We're all in danger. Why be miserable, too, when you could be getting cuddled and kissed even as you keep watch on her. Seems like a waste of time to me, but what do I know?"

"Very little," Sherlock said, but it was without venom. He was too busy frowning thoughtfully as he looked at Molly's hair scattered across most of her pillow and part of his. What if Lestrade—well, Sherlock-as-Lestrade—was right? He valued logic over all else. Short of leaving Molly to her own devices, his presence (looming presence, as Molly had once described it crankily while she yanked her head roughly through the wrong hole of a jumper—he'd had to help her out even as he lectured her on why she needed him nearby) would do little to dispel any notion that he didn't harbor some rather intense feelings for her. Leaving would not only fail to resolve the issue of the danger she was already in, but it would also do nothing to dispel those established notions.

"Surely you're not thinking of actually following through with this," Mycroft sighed from the corner of the room, sniffing in disdain as he looked around at the shabby-chic décor.

"And what if I am?" Sherlock demanded loudly, then immediately quieted down when Molly stirred a little.

His brother wrinkled his nose. "It's just so messy and pedestrian."

"We've had this discussion before, Brother Mine."

"And I won," Mycroft insisted.

Sherlock shook his head. "Not really. You left when you couldn't think of a witty rejoinder." And he felt a smug satisfaction when Mind-Mycroft could come up with nothing else to say. He imagined himself waving cheerfully to his brother's retreating back.

"Ignore him. I think it's lovely," Mrs. Hudson said, smiling gently at Sherlock and Molly (who was now snoring a little from her side of the bed).

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Hudson. Birds are singing, kittens are frolicking in the daffodils, and I am apparently no less a slave to my feelings than any of the people in that Love, Indubitably movie you insist on watching. This is, indeed, a cause for celebration."

"No need to be rude," Mrs. Hudson sniffed, turning and leaving the room in a huff.

"I've been in some places where love most certainly isn't 'all around,'" Sherlock called after her. "Like the London sewers." He snickered at his own joke, feeling sorry that not one of his hobgoblin friends had stuck around in his mind to appreciate his witticisms.

And then a voice chimed in that most certainly wasn't a part of his imagination. And he only then realized Molly's gentle snores had not punctuated the muggy air for several minutes now.

"What about sewers?" Her tired voice slurred as she kept her face smashed against her pillow.

Sherlock stared at her, wide-eyed, but she still lay there with her back to him. For a few moments, the only sounds came from the fan and the chattering passersby outside. And then he swallowed and said, "I was doing some thinking, trying to slow my brain before bed," he said, wincing when his voice wavered nervously.

"You find thinking of sewage to be a soothing way to fall asleep?" She lifted her head a little and squinted at him over her shoulder, thick strands of hair nearly obscuring her face.

Sherlock shook his head, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Then what were you thinking about?" she asked him, flopping back down against her pillow, uncaring that her movements had pushed her shirt up higher so that the bottom of her ribcage was now visible.

Sherlock rolled onto his side. He stared at her back, noting that the lamp brought out reds and golds in her hair even as the dim light made it that much darker. Carefully, very, very carefully, he scooted closer. "I was thinking about…" Closer, still. She tracked him out of the corner of her eye, frowning thoughtfully. "About…" he whispered and moved in further. He moved so slowly that it took him several, long seconds to finally reach her. "About you," he finally sighed into her hair.

Slowly, he brought his arm over her, reaching blindly for her hand. When he made contact, Molly didn't question it. She merely stretched out her fingers and entwined them with his. Pulling his hand up to her mouth and kissing the back of it, she murmured against his skin, "That's nice. What about me?"

"That you're not a logical fallacy. You actually make rather a lot of sense, much as I try to go in circles around you" he explained, trying to sum up his night's work in the best way possible. He ducked his head and kissed her neck, breathing in the smell of sleep and clean sweat on her skin.

"Glad to hear it," she whispered, tilting her head to give him more skin to explore. And then she turned her head and nuzzled his face coaxingly until he finally brought his lips to hers.

He'd imagined kissing her, of course. He'd dodged friends—both real and imagined—bandying advice his way on the very best way to snog the toothsome pathologist. And what was a kiss other than the smashing of lips and occasionally tongues together as a way to show affection? But he would be lying if he said he didn't feel a very real thrill, a jerk in his chest, as his lips touched Molly's for the first time. And as she exhaled sweetly at the contact, he was only too glad to deepen it.

The heavy air thickened around them as his tongue brushed against hers, as they sighed contentedly into each other's mouths. And the heat only ratcheted up as they continued to kiss. He tightened his hold her even more, murmuring in approval when she hooked her leg over his as his hips began to rock against her. It was perhaps a bit of an awkward position to be in, but he enjoyed kissing across her shoulder blades and stroking her breasts as he worked her out of her top before he scrambled to follow suit with his own t-shirt. Returning to her, the heat of her skin was nearly a fever against his, and he relished it and the slide of their damp bodies.

As he curled his fingers into the elastic band at the top of her knickers and started to tug them down her legs, Molly helped him as best she could, laughing softly in the summer night when she ended up in a bit of a heap. Once she'd straightened back out and settled against him, she snapped the waistband of his shorts against his bottom.

"Off," she commanded, and he was only too happy to comply.

She pushed him onto his back, her panting breaths skittering over his chest as she followed him over. The flush of heat and arousal in her cheeks was only made more compelling with the smile on her lips as she beamed down at him.

"You're looking rather pleased with yourself, Molly," he whispered, rubbing her thighs encouragingly as she pressed against him.

Shrugging modestly, she leaned down and rubbed her lips against his, still smiling. "It's too warm in here to be on the bottom," she explained, her voice sing-song. "I win."

Sherlock paused and lifted his head, taking stock of the bedding around him and the furnace heat of Molly on top of him. "Damn."

Nodding in poorly feigned sympathy, Molly began running her hands over him again and again until he was gasping for breath and for her as his body bowed to follow her each time she drew away from him. It hardly seemed fair, this torture.

Grabbing her hands, Sherlock allowed himself a moment to catch his breath as she waited quietly, her lips still kicked up in a smirk. Once he felt some semblance of control again, he decided to level the playing field.

"You made a mistake," he informed her, though the way he made sure to keep her hands in contact with his skin likely diminished any severity he might have tried to affect.

Rocking against him and making his breath hitch, Molly only arched an eyebrow in question.

It was his turn for a look of mock regret. "If you'd said nothing, I likely would have been too distracted to notice my inconvenient position until much later. But now that you mention it…." Rearing up and banding his arms around her, Sherlock flipped them over, letting out a low laugh at Molly's yelp of surprise. He settled over her, making sure to sigh loudly in relief as the moderately cooler air reached him. "Ooh, you are right. This is better."

Molly harrumphed and bucked underneath him, which was not even remotely unpleasant. In fact, Sherlock noticed that, in spite of her struggles, she had also wound her legs around him, pulling him nearer as her mouth rooted for his. Though… he did have to waylay one a roving hand, certain she intended to pinch his backside. Instead of letting that hand find its target, he brought it up to his lips. Gently biting the fleshy pad below her thumb, and then soothing it with a caress of his tongue, he met her gaze with smirking triumph.

Sliding his other hand down her body and finding her, he stroked his fingers over her flesh for several, thrilling minutes and reveled in the feeling of her thighs quivering against his hips and the way she rocked her hips into his palm. "You tried hard, I'll give you that. But you have to wake up pretty early in the morning to fool Sherlock Hol—oh!"

Sherlock had never thought that an ankle hooked around an opponent's knee could make such an effective fulcrum, but his mind wasn't exactly on physics at the moment. His surprise at finding himself flipped over once more was genuine.

"I think we should accept that neither of us would make very good Bond villains," Molly said, back astride his hips. "Too much gloating."

Before he could wrestle with her again, she had taken him inside her, humming as she settled against him once more. His fingers convulsed at her waist and he stared up at her, his mouth dropping open as he was robbed for breath yet again. And as she began to move over him, he wasn't certain he'd ever be able to pull in a complete lungful again.

There are much worse ways to die, he conceded as he watched her hair moving around her shoulders when her head dropped forward. He mapped everything about her in that moment: the furrow of her brow in concentration and pleasure, the purse of her lips, and the sway of her body as her hands scrabbled for his. Her grip was nearly painful, and he encouraged her with low words to hold on only more tightly, to move only more quickly.

Sweat trickled down her sternum and Sherlock brought himself up onto his elbows to catch it with his lips, the salt spreading across his tongue with the vibrations of her voice calling to him.

His blood pulsed in all of his endpoints where they pressed to her, in her, and he didn't think he could get close enough.

The pressure of his need had his muscles tensing, and he gritted his teeth against it. Bringing Molly's hand down to where they were joined, he coaxed her to touch herself as she took him. And as soon as she did, it didn't take much longer for his vision to tunnel and for shards of warm light to arc through his body, and her name to pass his lips again in a guttural shout.

Leaving him willing and ready to hold her racing body tightly as she, too, found release.

Molly slid off of Sherlock bonelessly, one thigh still draped across his hips as if the effort required to pull that last bit of her body away was asking too much. Sherlock couldn't say he minded.

They lay there panting on sweat soaked sheets for several minutes before Molly heavily turned her head to peer at him. "Sewers make you think of sexing me up?" she asked thoughtfully.

Sherlock foggily tried to figure out what she was on about, before the faint memory of their conversation prior to the 'sexing up'—as she'd so appallingly put it—came to mind. He sighed. Molly was no stranger to Sherlock talking to himself. She even asked him once if he pictured his conversations with his Mind Palace Friends being carried out over a Teddy Bear's picnic. He'd refused to speak to her for several hours after that. A punishment he'd likely failed to drive home, since he was in her bed at the time and wouldn't leave, despite his umbrage.

So it wasn't out of fear for her judgment that had him trying to find a distraction. He just really didn't want to discuss Mrs. Hudson and her taste in cinema at that precise moment. And then he brightened as something finally came to him; a filed-away line used to pull susceptible women. Looking at her heatedly and stroking her back, he whispered, "Molly, is it hot in here, or is it just you?"

He faintly heard the collective groans from his friends, shut tightly behind a door in his mind. They're just jealous, he assured himself.

Molly, for her part, stared at him for nearly thirty seconds before she snorted loudly. And then her whole body shook with happy laughter as she kissed his smiling lips again, wrapping herself around him as his body and heart burned for her.