Mr Holmes and Miss Hooper - a Sherlolly Story

Chapter 20

Molly shushed Sherlock ask they slipped through her front door, a bag of take away hanging from Molly's fingers. Somehow, after many many kisses in the lab and a conversation in Molly's car on the way home, it had become the plan to prank Loo. Molly giggled as Sherlock toed off his shoes and hid them in the corner below a bundle of hats and scarves Loo and Molly had yet to sort through. She rolled her eyes at him, he always thought of the tiniest details. It was Sherlock's turn to shush her then, he took the bag of food from her hand silently. Molly was almost amazed at how he managed to manoeuvre a paper bag without making a single sound. They were both a bit giddy, high on the endorphins and pheromones crawling through their systems. This being in love thing was a bit of a drug itself. Sherlock hung behind in the hallway as Molly moved her way through the house. She made a show of opening and closing the living room door.

Molly plopped herself heavily on the sofa, giving herself a lecture on how she can't spoil this. She had never done anything like it before really, not to her sister. But said sister deserved a little comeuppance for going behind her back, even if it did end with a preferable outcome. Loo's feet padded down the wooded stairs with a bounce in each step, but Molly heard her halt at the entrance to the living room. Loo stepped in hesitantly, slumped on the couch is not how she expected to find her sister.

"Hey, Molls," she kept her voice soft, "everything okay?" Molly glared at her as she lowered herself to the sofa. "Ooo, not so okay..." she took a breath.

"No, Loo. Not so okay at all. Why on earth would you think it was a good idea to send Sherlock exactly where I wanted to go to get away from him? And don't pretend like that wasn't you because there was no way he would have known off his own back." She held a hand up even as Loo didn't move to protest. "He let it slip that you'd told him to come to me."

"Sorry, Molly, I didn't think-"

"No, exactly. You didn't think, Loo. And all that happened was things going wrong even further and now I don't even know how I'm going to face him at school on Monday so yeah, cheers for that one."

Moll threw her hands up in exasperation, she silently prayed she wasn't overdoing it but hoped she was doing enough. Loo rubbed her forehead with her fingers, trust her optimism to muck things up.

"I'm so sorry, Molls. I thought it might be an opportunity for you to make up. I didn't consider the possibility of it going wrong."

Molly couldn't look at her sister, too scared she would give the game away. She averted her gaze to her lap and squeezed her lips together to suppress a smile, Loo took this to be holding back tears. It seems Molly was being more convincing than she thought.

"Molls, please don't get upset." Loo crawled over to Molly's side of the sofa and wrapped her big sister into a loving hug. Molly returned it, channelling her thanks for her sister into the action. Hopefully, Loo would take it as her trying to stay together.

"I'm not mad at you," Molly said into Loo's shoulder, "just a shit day."

"I'll tell you what," Loo took a breath and took her sister to arm's length, hands still firmly on her shoulders. Molly still didn't trust herself to look up, "let's go get some Chinese and we'll stick on a crap rom-com and laugh and cry until we're ready to sleep, yeah? I'll even bring my duvet down and we can push the sofas together, make it like one of those cute American movie nights we see on TikTok all the time."

"Yeah, okay."

"Great, I'll just go grab my shoes and we'll go."

Loo rose from the sofa and kissed Molly on the top of her head before making for the door into the hallway. She was mumbling about what they could order while she walked. She didn't pay attention to the door, knowing how and where it was purely out of habit.

"Boo!"

Loo screamed when she opened the door as Sherlock jumped out at her. A real scream, one that had Sherlock cradling his ear when it was over.

"Sherlock Holmes!" Loo's shout masked Molly's laughing on the sofa. When Loo turned to her with an accusatory glare she noticed her sister slyly put her phone down. She had filmed the whole bloody thing. "Oh, and you find this funny, do you? Here I was trying to be all comforting little sister and you haven't even fallen out with the man?" She sounded incredulous, but Molly knew she was joking.

"In all fairness, we did actually fall out."

"But now you're okay?" Her eyes glanced between them when she noticed neither were looking at her anymore. They were looking at each other, it was so loving that it made Loo feel like she was almost interrupting a moment. Like this was their space, their world, and she was just living in it. "Bork! Seems you're more than okay then!" Her eyes finally focused on Sherlock.

"Yes, Loo. With great thanks to you." He smiled at her and she almost resisted the urge to roll her eyes, almost.

"And that?" She gestured to the brown paper bag in his hand.

"Chinese."

"Of course it is." She shook her head and threw her hands up in part frustration, part defeat. She turned to her sister then, before jabbing her finger at her, "You little liar!"

Molly laughed until Loo took three swift steps back across the room and jumped at her sister on the sofa, tackling her onto her side before tickling her and playfully shouting the word 'liar' over and over again. Sherlock watched with glee as this unfolded before him, he found the sisterly bond so intriguing, so special. Molly quickly defused the situation by quite literally kicking her sister away.

"Alright, alright," her hands were raised, "I did tell a bit of a lie ... it was fun though!"

"Yeah yeah, only at my expense." Loo mockingly scowled again,

"Sorry."

"No, you're not."

"I know." Then, a smile only sisters could share. "Food?"

"You owe me at least that."

Molly laughed as she got up and grabbed the bag from Sherlock.

"I'll go dish up, you two sort out what we want to watch on the telly." The pair looked at her quizzically, "Even if everything is fine, I still want my Chinese, a bad film and a duvet downstairs. Chop chop." She winked as she left the room for the kitchen.

Loo shook her head as she bolted upstairs to grab a duvet, not hers though; much better for the one in the spare room to stink of Chinese food than her own. Sherlock set about rearranging the living room so that the two sofas could be pushed together before helping Loo sort out the duvet and cushions when she was back downstairs. They stepped back to admire their handiwork and Loo raised her hand in offering. Sherlock smiled before giving her a crisp sounding high five.

"We're quite good at this team working stuff."

"It seems so."

"But if you ever do anything like that again - the hurting my sister or the jump scare - I'll kill you."

"Noted."

Molly reappeared with the food and they all got comfy before Loo scrolled through the film options on Netflix. Sherlock's groaning at each suggestion was met with an elbow to the stomach from Molly, so he soon stopped his protesting. By the time the girls had finally decided on a film, they had all finished eating. Sherlock had tried to convince them to let him choose, or to at least make use of the new 'play something' shuffle button, but they were having none of it. He rolled his eyes as he cleared their plates before taking his place on the end of the sofas once more. Molly smiled at him as he clambered into their makeshift bed den. She shifted closer to him as he settled, his arm fell naturally around her shoulders and she moulded perfectly into his side. He pressed a kiss to her lips before pressing a second to her forehead. Loo smiled at him as he did. Usually, this kind of stuff would gross her out - especially when her sister was involved - but with Sherlock, she didn't seem to mind. All that mattered to her was that Molly was happy. Soon Molly and Loo were completely engrossed in the film and Sherlock smiled to himself as he took a mental picture of the moment, before leaning back and closing his eyes.

He was sure he had an unsolved case in his mind palace somewhere.