Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LVIII - Post Mortem

-Emily-

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I open my eyes, wince at the hangover, and look up at the ceiling. It's by no means a dull observation – on the contrary, this suite is unlike anything I have stayed in before, and I relish the differences between it and Jim's penthouse.

Where Jim's taste in interiors was brutally modernist, exposed and sharp and contained within buildings of plated glass, Ivan's is lavish, classical, dusted and re-dusted in gold. The floors are white marble, the walls printed pearl, the windows bearing the heavy, brocaded fabric seen in sixteenth century England. Everything, from the gilded stag-head on the wall to this bed, four-posted with a white muslin canopy, is opulent. Everything is a luxury. Even the plaster on the ceiling has been sculpted, swirled into thickly-layered roses.

Having said that, there are modern features interspersed throughout the suite: the glass-fronted kitchenette, for example, the polished bar stools, the curved sheet of touchscreen television mounted on the wall. I'm sure there are additional modernisms – I simply haven't had chance to observe them, yet.

We left the casino in the early hours of the morning, Ivan intoxicated, me drunker than I've been in a long time. I remember slurring something about more vodka and swatting his shoulder in mock-irritation when he said he'd had enough for the night. I'd clung to his waist, gripping the fabric, tugging the blazer from his shoulders as my heels caught the pavement flagstones; at that stage, dignity was a thing of the past, and something I no longer concerned myself with. Someone shouted at us as Ivan waved down a taxi. I made a very crude, very harsh gesture with one finger – and had to be pulled into the vehicle before a Russian mob descended upon me.

We'd taken a taxi back to this street with the unpronounceable name, me laughing weakly at the strange conversation and making loud interjections in English. He'd half-guided, half-hauled me into the lift, which was quite the accomplishment seeing as he was not altogether sober himself, and together we staggered into the corridor. I'd unnecessarily pointed out each piece of gold-work and asked if he was the lost great-great-grandson of "the Tsar with the beard". He laughed and said yes, as a matter of fact, he was, then held the door open in an exaggerated display of such princedom, bowing when I gave my sloppy curtsy and allowing himself to be led in a mock ballroom waltz around the coffee table.

Our heady humiliation was interrupted by a purposeful clearing of the throat.

I'd spun around a little too vigorously – very nearly toppling over in the process – to see a woman standing in the doorway to Ivan's bedroom, still in the previous night's negligée, grey silk with little white pearls running around the hem. She'd been waiting. Waiting for a very long time, by the looks of things. I don't think she appreciated my female presence.

She'd started off in a low voice, straining with suppressed indignation. I started exploring the suite as she spoke, stumbling over nothing in particular and handling priceless ornaments with inebriated clumsiness. When she got no response, the one-night stand became a one-night whirlwind of violent accusation, shouting accusation; Ivan could scarcely get a word in edgeways and, with his betrayed lover – one in a string of similarly besotted women – furiously gathering her belongings and snarling Russian curses at both of us, I'd stood and watched as he received a head-twisting slap to the side of his face: one that resonated, sharp like broken glass.

She spat at me, said something I dimly perceived to be an insult, then stormed out of the suite, slamming the door behind her.

Ivan watched her leave, his cheek bright with the stinging imprint of her hand. In a demonstration of classically drunken immaturity, he pulled a face, sparking another mortifying fit of adolescent laughter I was incapable of stifling. I'd left him clearing up the remnants of his overnight visitor in search of my new bedroom and, upon selecting the first at my disposal, fell back, arms outstretched, numb with vodka and rebellion and something that felt dangerously like hope.