Chapter Text
Molly groaned and slowly turned over. Every muscle she owned protested at the movement, and a few she hadn’t known she possessed. As the violet-blue haze cleared in the lab, she sat up, absently rubbing the back of her neck. What happened in here?
Then, like a restless wind, it came rushing back into her head.
The experiment.
The accident.
Sherlock.
“Sherlock?” she called sharply, coughing a bit as she rose to her feet. The vapors were dissolving around her like will-o-wisp trails. Other than the shattered beakers on the floor, there was now no discernible sign of the incident that had sent both her and Sherlock flying to the floor.
She heard a soft moan coming from behind the desk, and though she stumbled a bit Molly managed to get to her feet. Carefully avoiding the broken glass, she followed the direction the moan had come from, and found Sherlock on the floor on his back, one arm flung up over his face.
She knelt beside him. “Sherlock. Are you all right?” She looked him over while he groaned.
“Seem to be.” He moved his arm down and opened his eyes, looking up at her. “That was quite a conclusion to our experiment. Did you preserve a sample of the substance?”
Molly shook her head. “There’s nothing to preserve. It all turned into a violet-blue vapor and dissipated. Nothing left but two broken beakers.”
“Well that’s a disappointment,” Sherlock said, frowning. “And you’re certain you don’t know what was in the other beaker?”
“No, except that someone had accidentally swapped our formula out with something. We can always go ask around, see what we can find.” Molly stopped, frowning. Something smelled different in the room. It was slightly tart, but sweet at the same time. It smelled like jasmine and paprika and dark red cherries, and her mouth nearly watered in response.
“Molly?”
Dimly, Molly heard Sherlock saying her name. But she couldn’t fully hear him over the sudden deafening roar of her heart in her ears. It pounded relentlessly like a tidal wave. Her entire body seemed to throb and she clenched her hands to keep them from trembling.
“Molly?” Sherlock’s voice grew insistent. “Are you all right?”
She shivered softly at the sound of his voice. That deep, beautiful voice, like warm cream. The room seemed too small suddenly. Molly struggled to think, the smell getting stronger as Sherlock sat up, and with a sudden dismaying rush of clarity she knew where it was coming from. Him.
She turned to look at him.
Sherlock stared at her, puzzled. She looked different, somehow. Come to think of it, he felt a bit off. Not like his usual Alpha self. It had been replaced with something: the urges, the rampant hormones that he worked hard to keep under control. He felt… gentler somehow. Mellow. It was strange, but a welcome change from having to feel physical pressure. The Alpha urges were demons he had to fight down daily, his massive intellect warring with his dominant biology.
He’d never wanted to be an Alpha. He was a man of reason and science. He had better things to do than preen and strut and mate on demand like a breeding animal. Mycroft’s “suggestion” that he take an Omega had been the last straw. Surely there was a way to change the body chemistry, he’d reasoned. He’d toyed with the idea before but now had seemed like the time to put it into practice. So he’d set up in an auxiliary lab at Bart’s, and had coaxed/charmed Molly into helping with the promise of dinner every night (“Real dinner, Sherlock, not crisps or biscuits or a bag of takeaway!”). Things were looking promising, and Sherlock for the first time saw a light at the end of the Alpha tunnel. Now it was all lost.
But what had the accident done to him? And Molly? He looked her over. Pupils dilated nearly to nonexistence, heart rate elevated, flushed face, something different about her expression and her posture, too. She looked primal somehow, as though she wasn’t an Omega anymore but an ….
Oh, dear.
Molly moved closer to him. He swallowed hard. “Molly…”
“You smell delicious,” she whispered roughly.
“Molly, we need to talk,” Sherlock said quickly.
“Not interested,” she said, her voice near a growl.
“The experiment, Molly. It’s changed us. Turned you into an Alpha and me into an Omega. You’re reacting to my chemistry, Molly, that’s all.”
She took a ragged breath, trying to calm herself. Unfortunately for Sherlock, her nearness and their reversed polarity wasn’t just having an effect on Molly. Now he was struggling with new, different urges: to offer her his neck, to touch the thundering pulse at the base of hers, to arch his body beneath hers while she was crushed against him. No, no, no. This wouldn’t do at all. They had to separate for now, cool down, figure out what to do…
He felt dizzy. His entire body seemed to burn. He could feel the flush in his cheeks: feel it starting to spread to his neck. His eyes widened in dismay. He knew what this was. Not only had they been reversed, he was in the early stages of heat. Alone in a room with an Alpha whose chemistry was extremely compatible with his. He’d felt it before, of course: when he was an Alpha and she’d been his adoring Omega. He’d always managed to tamp it down before: meditate, focus on a case, or at times cruelly push Molly away verbally. It had all been to stop himself from getting closer to her: from rejecting his urges to mate, to bond. There wasn’t room for that in his life, not even with Molly.
The sudden shift in his perspective from Alpha to Omega was changing that. All he wanted was her: to belong to her, to feel himself filling her up as she claimed him. It was equally mad, wasn’t it?
He started to get up, but Molly pushed him back down. “Where do you think you’re going, Sherlock?” She asked, and the edge in her voice sent shivers down his spine in an exquisite electric tingle.
“Molly. Listen to me. I am in heat. We’re responding to each other. We have to get out of here and separate until it abates. Then we can figure out a plan.”
“Why?” She asked. “Why do we have to separate? You want me, I know you do. I can smell it. Besides. If we don’t get you out of heat, another Alpha will try to claim you. You might even incite blood lust.” Her fingers slid down to his chest, sliding buttons open, her hands splaying on his skin.
“I can take a suppressant-”
“It’s too late once you’re already in heat, and you know that.” Her hand moved up to caress his face, and he sighed deeply as her touch eased his ache a bit. The logical solution was to get this out of their systems. He knew that. But the thought of giving in to something he’d never given in to before made him afraid.
Molly cupped his face in her hands. “You said you trust me. Then trust me now.”
Sherlock looked into her warm brown eyes. Alpha or Omega, he did trust Molly. And there was no denying that they had to do something about this sudden reversal. The tension between them was so taut it was a breath away from snapping like a violin string.
He breathed slowly to steady himself, then nodded. “I’ve always trusted you. Baker Street is closer than your flat. Come with me, Molly Hooper.”
Molly grinned and placed the lightest of kisses on his mouth. “We’ll see what we can do, Sherlock Holmes.”