Work Text:
There was… giggling.
Which was absolutely unacceptable. This was a lab. There were dead bodies nearby. Surely John should be having a fit about now about this. Hadn’t he just said two days ago that laughing around dead people was inappropriate? Yes, he had spent at least a good twenty minutes and quite possibly the longest cab ride in history berating him about jumping up and down at a crime scene because a head had been wedged under a bed and forgotten, like a dirty pair of trainers (not the head of the victim-- a second head! How was that not an appropriate time to get excited?). Did it have to do with the location of the dead body? Something to test for further analysis: distance from scene of death versus level of laughter allowed.
Regardless, there was giggling happening right now and he wasn’t the one giggling. There was work to be done and they were breaking his concentration.
“Don’t you have papers to file or perhaps a group of idiots to supervise, Lestrade?”
That shut him up. For all of two seconds. “Oh, am I messing about with your case? Blimey, that must be just really infuriating having someone in your space, distracting you from your work.” He grinned. Grinned. And then turned back to Molly and continued with his giggling. Molly squealed in delight. If it were actually possible to wake the dead, she would have not only managed the feat in the morgue, but also possibly dredged up half of Walthamstow.
Horrible.
Wretched.
Awful.
She slapped her hand on the metal desk and threw her head back, caught in a silent laugh. Lestrade wheezed. His face turned an unflattering shade of red. Sherlock briefly hoped that perhaps he was having some sort of allergic reaction which would at least get them to shut up, but no, Lestrade’s wheezing turned into a chuckle which only seemed to set Molly’s tittering off again.
The pen snapped in Sherlock’s hand. “Oh yes, lovely. Just brilliant. Isn’t he just a delight, John? Absolutely genius with his quick wit. Granted you will have to forgive his rough humour, comes with the state school education, but once you look past that there is a sort of lower class charm to him. I can understand why Molly would be so enchanted. Similar background and all.”
“Sherlock.” John was missing the entire point; Sherlock wasn’t the one carrying on like a hooligan in the middle of a lab.
“I would have thought the amount of education and her profession would have drilled the need to giggle at bodily functions out of Ms. Hooper, but apparently one cannot change one’s upbringing.” Sherlock flung the now useless pen across the desk. It narrowly missed Molly.
“Oi!” Lestrade stepped towards him, all trace of laughter gone.
“Oh, leave him, Greg. He’s just having a strop because I wouldn’t give him Edgar Dunfield’s eyes.” Molly tugged Lestrade’s shirt and pulled him away from what possibly would have at least made Sherlock’s day more interesting.
“I am doing no such thing. Dunfield exhibited classic signs of arsenic poisoning and the vitreous humour would have been invaluable.” He crossed his arms and glared. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched John shake his head and pinch the bridge of his nose.
Molly glanced over at him briefly, then stood up on tip toe to place a kiss on Lestrade’s cheek. “See you this evening?”
“Yeah, provided His Highness doesn’t decide to do something stupid.”
Sherlock growled.
“Walk you outside?” Molly slipped her arm in Lestrade’s.
“Lovely.”
The door swung shut behind them, plunging the room into blessed silence. Sherlock picked up a slide and turned back to his microscope.
“Ya know, I could be wrong, but I think you were just a total arse to two people who were just having a good time.”
The slide wobbled. “They were being ridiculous.”
“They’re newlyweds, Sherlock! Of course they are going to be ridiculous.”
Sherlock blinked. “If they are newlyweds, they shouldn’t be flirting with each other.
“That makes literally no sense.”
“Given Lestrade’s track record with marriage, I would have thought he would be more committed to a new wife, but I suppose at his age, any sort of attention from someone of the opposite sex--”
“Sherlock.”
“--is always welcome. Molly, of course, would enjoy any attention at all, so no surprise there that she has latched on to Lestrade--”
“Sherlock, they are married to each other.”
Sherlock paused and searched his memory. “No, they aren’t.”
“They got married over the summer.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No, it really isn’t. We were there. Both of us. I was his best man. You actually danced with Molly. Looked a bit put out the entire time, but you did it anyway.”
Sherlock looked at John. “Are you feeling well?”
John frowned. “What? Of course, I am.”
“It is unlike you to make things up. If you are ill, you have to tell me now. I can’t have you falling over in the middle of a case.”
John rolled his eyes. “Ta very much. I can tell you are worried about my health and not the state of your case.” He raised his hands before Sherlock could launch a protest. “Yes, yes, the Work is first and not even the Tower of London falling would stop the Work.”
“Stop, no. Possibly enhance and complicate the Work, yes.” Sherlock shook his head and studied John. His cheeks were slightly red, but that could be attributed to his sudden annoyance. No glassy eyes. No cough. He was a specimen of perfect health. “You appear fine, which still doesn’t explain why you are insisting that Molly and Lestrade are married.”
“Christ, you deleted it again, didn’t you? You promised me you wouldn’t delete it after the last time. You can’t go deleting things just because you find them inconvenient.”
“I fail to see how it would be so inconvenient that I would delete it. At worst, it would be annoying as they would be constantly able to discuss back and forth any case I happened to be on, which might lead them to know things that I rather they didn’t,” Sherlock said, ignoring John’s mutter about Sherlock not being the centre of everyone’s conversation. “But even then, I could use it to my advantage and bounce them off one another.”
“You can’t go messing about with people’s relationships.”
“Why not? If it meant I could accomplish something in quicker time, you must be able to see the benefit in that.”
John squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and said the following: “Lestrade snogging Molly in his office.”
Sherlock froze, his nose and mouth scrunched up in a rictus of distaste.
“Molly moaning Greg’s name just as you happened to walk into his office because you couldn’t be minded to knock on his door.”
Sherlock’s chin disappeared into his neck in horror.
“Both of them fumbling, trying to cover themselves because you are a rude git who couldn’t wait two seconds for Molly to right her blouse and Lestrade to button up his trousers and answer his door.”
Sherlock’s face twisted in revulsion. “Why on earth would you describe something like that to me?”
“Because it happened! Because, in front of the entire office, you stormed in and caught the two of them having a little lunch time fun and promptly deleted it and since then you’ve been deleting their relationship every time they so much as look at each other and it is damn well driving me ‘round the bend.” He pointed at Sherlock. “So help me, if you delete it again, I will ask Molly about their plans to have a baby and I will record it and play it for you every time you try to work on an experiment in the kitchen.”
Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Sherlock studied his face for a moment and then, very carefully, added a note to the section of things he knew about Molly and Lestrade in his mind palace:
Married. Giggly. Handsy. Knock on doors during lunch time. DO NOT FORGET.