Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXX - Aphrodisiac

He swirls the remaining liquid in his hipflask and, with the rain tapping longingly at the car roof, tips his head back, swallowing the last of his vodka with unflinching ease. It sears the back of his throat – it's not cold enough, there's no ice – and he feels it make its fiery way from tongue to stomach and from stomach to the surrounding blood; hot and thick and humming with a rush of fearful anticipation.

It is with some difficulty does he force himself to turn away from the window and back to the papers on his lap. The night's blackness is dense, and he is relying on the white clarification of his car's interior light: he scans the paperwork, checking the certainty of his lie, the realism behind this identity. The background looks sound. He's sure the next hotel won't think to check the records for date certification.

Outside, the wind spits and hisses and claws at the door to his vehicle. Inside, his mind is beginning to wander; it has become increasingly difficult to focus, and concentrating on one task for more than a couple of minutes demands his full attention – which in itself is a near impossible task without the kind aid of alcohol.

He is fiercely distracted.

It is the thoughts of her, primarily; endless recollections, fragmented memories, quick flickers of sound and light and voices, her voice, cruel questions, why she hasn't come back, what he'll do when she does. Sweetly unbearable torment.

He is plagued by glowing reconstructions of their encounter; the majority of his time is passed dissecting his words, his actions, finding faults in his narrative and flaws in his composure. He'd spent months rehearsing what he wanted to say to her – and on the day itself he'd stuttered like a schoolboy. He remembers the games she played with him on that fateful evening, the tests, the torture; pretending to loathe, feigning fear. He still doesn't understand why she feels the need to cause him such suffering, but oh, how he adores her. The experience has consumed him in ways he did not think possible. Until that night, he had seen her only from a distance, from photographs and – on the rare occasion he let himself into the detective's filthy flat – in sleep, but never in such fantastic detail. Every feature, every delicate aspect of her countenance awed him: the exposed shadows of her ribcage, clasped over a trembling heart like interlocking fingers, the partial gap between her two front teeth, the clarity of her irises, the warmth of her, the way in which the column of her throat flexed on swallowing, her sigh, her fractured, floral beauty.

He realises the paperwork has fallen from his grip.

The alcohol has taken effect; he blinks, the edges unfocused, and reaches down for his documentation. 

He is being followed.

The police. The gangs. The loveless, the vengeful, the embittered. The Schott woman has been drafted by the Holmes brother to track him online, so he hears. He has ex-clientele baying for his blood. He moves from hotel to hotel on a nightly basis, buys flats and rooms and rents on whim and uses them for a week at most, before he moves on again with a new identity, a new set of lies. Each time he leaves a cryptic message – something she'll see when she comes searching for him – often in the form of a scrawl in the hotel's sign-out sheet or on the back of old receipts. A paper trail for her eyes only.

They closed down the casino chains in England, but it doesn't cause him alarm. He has enough money to live in excessive luxury for another three lifetimes. What causes him alarm is the lack of contact. He hasn't risked communication with old associates and dislikes being out of touch with affairs, but he thinks it best to let the dust settle. Shock makes people reckless – although he can't fathom why people are so shocked by his actions, why he's greeted with such horror and fear and repulsion. He's no monster. He's not insane, he's not a danger to society. Besides, anyone with a wife or lover of their own will know a similar intensity of emotion; they'll understand how love drives one to desperation.