A/N: So this is the start of a new collection of one-shots. This will be the home for AU prompts from the list I have on tumblr under my sherlollilists side blog. I'll accept PMs and asks from those lists for future additions to this series, which will be written as inspiration strikes and time allows. I'll be sure to indicate ratings with every story and remember, I own nothing except my gratitude to Moftiss for the inspiration!

This story is teenlock and is rated T for some Bad Language on Sherlock's part.

blessyoubuckybarnes said: I checked out your sherlollilists and I think the au of two strangers exploring the same 'haunted' house would be a hilarious Sherlolly au. Sherlock would totally be terrified of 'ghost' Molly xD x

My response: Sorry, this one had me totally stumped until my brain finally clicked and said: Teen!lock, so I hope you like it!

The house was supposedly haunted, and sixteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes was keen to explore it. Not because he believed in ghosts – he definitely didn't believe in anything so unscientific! – but because he wanted to shut up the idiots who did believe the whispered stories. Not just the other kids in the neighborhood but the adults as well. Just because a house lay vacant for years and years in an otherwise fully occupied section of town didn't mean it was haunted; in fact, he'd already checked the real estate records and discovered that the current owner was about a billion years old and owned literally dozens of buildings in various parts of the UK but lived in Brazil.

So it wasn't abandoned as so many assumed, and it wasn't left empty because the so-called 'ghosts' drove (non-existent) prospective tenants away. Since there was a logical reason for it to be empty, there was also a logical reason for the supposed ghost sightings, and he was determined to root said logical reason out and hold it up in triumph for all to see.

Of course, there were stubborn idiots around who would refuse to admit the truth even when waved under their collective noses, but sod them; there was nothing he could do about willful blindness. No, he'd be content to shut up the ones who were simply gullible, even knowing that they'd just find something equally idiotic to distract their tiny, empty brains.

Oh well. He was surrounded by idiots and had been all his life, there was nothing much he could do about it but at least it would be something to do, checking out a 'haunted house' and debunking the various stories. Boredom alleviated for at least a few days, which was as much as he could hope for with Mycroft off to uni and not around for him to torment.

He grinned at the plans he had for when his brother returned for the upcoming Christmas holidays; first beat him at a few games of chess, Monopoly and Operation, then egg their mother into baking even more biscuits and pies than she usually did at this time of year in order to watch Mykey struggle with his sugar addiction. And then, of course, casually announce his findings about the haunted house. Minor victories, true, but even if Sherlock hated to admit it, sometimes minor victories were all he could manage where his older brother was concerned.

Gleefully anticipating a very satisfactory holiday season, he grinned again as he hopped the fence at the back of the property. It was sat at the very edge of town at the top of a modest hill, and the kids had therefore nicknamed it 'the house on haunted hill' after some horror movie, or possibly a video game. Who knew, and who cared?

"Not me," he said under his breath as he studied the empty building in front of him, an unexpected sense of trepidation settling in the pit of his stomach. It was a dark, multi-storied rambling leftover from the Victorian era, looming far larger tonight than it seemed to in the daylight. The yard was overgrown with weeds and the occasional shrubbery, all dead and yellow at this time of year. He carefully felt in his pocket for the penlight he'd brought along, as well as the pocket knife he'd filched from his father's cluttered accumulation in his desk drawer. Not the good Swiss Army knife, he'd notice if that went missing, but a sturdy blade that might come in useful. Not as a defensive weapon; if ghosts were real (which they absolutely were NOT, he thought uneasily as he continued to stare at the darkened house gone even darker as some clouds scudded across the full moon that had lit his way thus far) then they would be immune to mortal weapons. And if he ran into some human pranksters (which had to be the explanation for the lights many claimed to have seen flickering on and off in the empty house over the years), he was confident of his martial arts and boxing skills to protect him more than some skimpy blade that would be far more useful in jimmying open locked or jammed-up doors or windows.

Realizing he was stalling, he huffed out an impatient breath (that shone as a cloud of white condensation in the air before vanishing, why did winter have to be so bloody cold?) and moved forward, determined to get to the bottom of the 'hauntings' once and for all. His reluctance wasn't, he assured himself, due to the fact that it was quite dark and silent, but simply because of his natural impulse to study a thing from all angles before acting.

Yeah, right, he could hear his friend John Watson's scoffing voice in his head. Mr. Leap-Without-Looking thinks he's being cautious. Why not just admit that you're beginning to think it's a bad idea to check this place out at night instead of during the day when you could see more clearly? What if the floors are bad and you go plunging into the basement, or what if there are junkies getting high or criminals using this place as a hide-out? What if…

"Shut up, John, go snog Mary," Sherlock muttered aloud. He'd reached the back door and closed his mouth tightly, listening carefully for any sounds that might indicate that the John in his mind was right. Nope, utter silence. Good. Curious, he tried the back door and found it locked, as expected.

The cellar doors, however, proved to have been forced open recently, causing him to both grin and hesitate: the grin because he KNEW there was a logical reason for the hauntings and what ghost would need to use a door of any kind, and the pause because perhaps his inner John was right about who was using that door.

Hmm, actually, now that he looked at it, there was no way any adult could squeeze through that narrow opening. He didn't bother with more than a cursory examination, barely flashing his penlight over the dark opening once he'd ascertained that it was, indeed, rusted in place and unable to be forced either fully open or fully closed. He supposed some neighborhood kiddies might have dared one another into pushing through that opening…no, on second thought, none of them would have the balls to try it, he thought scornfully. If he was five years younger, his skinny 11-year-old self could have managed it, but they hadn't lived here then, had still been out in the middle of nowhere in Sussex being homeschooled by their parents and happily unaware of what idiots other children actually were.

Pushing aside any thoughts other than how to get inside the house, he finally managed to pry open one of the ground floor windows (after finding and prying off a loosened board) and hoisted himself through and inside. He landed with a grunt, then carefully pulled the window mostly down and oriented himself so he could be sure to leave by the same method when the time came.

He put on the penlight, making sure the narrow beam was aimed at the filthy floor and began his reconnaissance.

A half-hour later he'd finished with the ground floor and debated whether he should make his way up or downstairs next. Deciding to go all the way to the attic and then explore the other floors and end in the basement, he tested each step carefully, not only for creaks but mainly for rotten boards. They seemed pretty sound and eventually he found himself at the foot of the second set of stairs at the end of a dark hallway with peeling wallpaper and some very interesting fungal growths he would have to come back and take some scrapings from when he had the proper tools with him.

A sound from above caught his attention, and he started, cursing softly when he dropped the penlight. He groped for it, cursing a bit louder when he realized the bulb had died when he dropped it. The sound had been that of floorboards creaking, which could have been due to any number of reasons – from squirrels or other wildlife nesting up there to a person or persons unknown creeping about.

It was definitely not due to a ghost; they wouldn't have any weight to them so how could a ghost make the floorboards creak?

No matter what it is, time to leave, his inner Mycroft advised him. Don't be stupid, Sherlock; you're just a skinny teenager and it could be a desperate murderer up there. Be smart like me and just leave now.

"Fuck off, Mykey," he muttered under his breath, his spine straightening and chin lifting in defiance. The ghosts inside his head were more annoying than any real spirit could be and he'd be damned if he left now without finding out what made the noise!

He kept to the left side of the stairs as he had coming up to the first floor, reasoning that it would not only be sounder but would also make the least noise. That proved to be the case, and he ghosted (hah!) his way up, pausing to listen every few steps. The noise he'd heard didn't repeat itself, but as he reached the attic a new sound, a soft, sighing moan, prickled his skin and raised the hairs on the back on his neck.

No such thing as ghosts, he reminded himself angrily, and boldly stepped into the room. "Who's there?" he demanded, hating that his voice was a bit shrill and deliberately modifying to a deeper tone as he added, "You may as well come out, I know you're here."

Both his inner John and Mycroft tsked at him in exasperation, but he mentally responded with Fortune favors the bold and willed them away.

Another soft sigh, definitely a girl or woman making the sound, and a creaking floorboard directly behind him. He spun around, wishing desperately for his penlight; as if in response to his panicky thoughts, the moon came from behind the clouds and flooded the darkened space with silvery light. He gasped and took a single, stumbling step back as the figure of a girl seemed to materialize right in front of him, wearing a loose white gown, the sleeves torn and darkened with what looked like bloodstains at the wrist. Her hair was a loose, tangled cloud that hung down to the small of her back and across her shoulders, shrouding her face in darkness until she suddenly looked up, and he gasped again at the sight of her vacant eyes, slack mouth and the streaks of what must absolutely be blood marring her features.

"Fucking hell!" he exclaimed, fumbling for the knife with suddenly shaky hands.

As if his words had broken some sort of spell, the girl (ghost?) shook her head and blinked, staring around with an expression of utter confusion on her face. "What…where…where am I? Who are you?" she asked, her voice squeaking on the last question. She shuddered and clutched her arms to herself, wincing in obvious pain as she did so. When she moved, Sherlock could see that her feet were bare and that she was limping and suddenly it all clicked into place.

"You were sleepwalking, something you don't usually do," he said, speaking rapidly as the deductions spewed from his mind to his lips. "It's a new, unpleasant thing, probably because of something that happened at home. You're new here, too, which is why I didn't recognize you, from that family that moved into the house down the street. We're in the Blaine house," he added as the girl gaped at him. He shrugged out of his coat and offered it to her. "It's December, you must be freezing," he added as she made no move to accept it. He worked his boots off his feet and stepped out of them, standing in his stocking feet and nudging them toward her. "Take them" he added impatiently. "Don't be stupid, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm right about the sleepwalking, yeah?"

"Yeah," she finally said, sounding dazed. But taking his coat; good. He didn't like the way her teeth were chattering, not entirely from fear, of course. "But how did you…"

"If you were used to sleepwalking you'd be used to waking up in strange places and would have recovered quicker," he said simply, watching approvingly as she shuffled over to his boots and stepped into them. She was a tiny thing; his coat was swimming on her and her feet would be… "Oh, of course!" he exclaimed, stepping closer and grasping her hands to examine them. She pulled away and he let her go, but thrust his head close to hers in order to take in her bloodied face. "You squeezed through the cellar doors, you're certainly skinny enough but scraped your face and hands when you did so. Surprised that didn't wake you up but I don't know much about sleepwalking, I'll have to read up on it now."

"Why?" the girl asked, sounding less dazed and more surprised. "I mean…thank you for helping me, but why do you need to read up on sleepwalking now?"

He blinked at her. "So I can figure out how to help you get over it, of course," he replied. "You can't keep doing things like this, you might end up in the river some night and your parents wouldn't…uh, sorry," he added, stumbling a bit as he took in her downcast expression. "It's just one parent now, right? Mum or dad?"

"My dad, cancer, he died just a few weeks ago and we moved here to be closer to my aunt and uncle," the girl said quietly. "This sleepwalking thing started after we moved, but I've never wandered further than the yard before waking up. Oh, my Mum will be frantic, I have to get home!" she exclaimed, eyes wide – brown, he thought, a nice dark brown, very warm, like the earth in his mum's garden in the spring.

Shaking off the fanciful thought, he nodded. "Yeah, better get you home and get those scratches tended to. My name's Sherlock," he added, suddenly remembering his manners. "You must be a few years behind me in school, you're what, fourteen?"

"Fifteen and a half," she replied tartly. Ah, so she was often mistaken for being younger than her actual age and resented it. "And I'm Molly Hooper and I've heard of you and you're nowhere near as nast…uh, I mean, we're in the same class or will be when I actually start, Mum kept me out till after the holidays cause she thought it would be easier and…"

Sherlock laughed. "Good to know my reputation hasn't changed, everyone thinks I'm a nasty freak just because I can tell them what they had for breakfast or if their parents are cheating on each other – or worse, their girlfriends and boyfriends." He grinned, letting her know he wasn't mad at her.

"It's rude," she mumbled and he started to protest that it was just deductions when she continued, "Calling someone a freak just because they're smart enough to know things about you? That's just plain rude, and I'm sorry I listened to any of them. All that stuff you figured out about me? That was just brilliant." She smiled shyly.

Sherlock gaped at her; no one besides John had ever called his deductions 'brilliant' before. "S-so, um, let me, uh, walk you home," he stuttered, putting out his hand without thinking why, too befuddled by the unexpected compliment to pay attention to what he was doing.

"Thanks," she said, giving him another one of those shy (beautiful) smiles and putting her dainty hand in his. He felt like a gawky, overgrown giant next to her petite form, but as he would later discover, Molly Hooper fit him perfectly.

He never did discover the source of the mysterious lights people claimed to see in the 'haunted house' but as he told Molly later, he never cared to find out once he'd met her – and did, indeed, help her get over her sleepwalking episodes. She always claimed that they ended the first time he kissed her, and that it had nothing to do with the therapy her mother insisted on after Sherlock brought her home that night and explained where he'd found her.

And that explanation, irrational though it was, was more than enough for him.