Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXIV - War of Hearts

-Emily-

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I watch him from a cautionary distance, pretending to be focused on my laptop screen. Whether or not John has sussed that I've been tapping the same key for fifteen minutes, I'm not sure, but he continues determinedly ignoring my presence as he boils the kettle, back turned.

The silence is bitterly cold.

This icy formality is what remains post-chaos; five days have elapsed since that evening, and the situation shows little sign of thawing. My memory of John's arrival is fragmented, courtesy of the alcohol: I dimly recall him knocking on the door, registering my face, walking past me, approaching Sherlock. He checked his pulse. Sherlock batted his arm away, intoxicated beyond understanding. John took the stairs. My memory cuts out there – I presume I sat back down beside Sherlock and fell asleep, because I woke mid-snore the following morning sprawled across his lap.

The next day was excruciating.

Sherlock and I were nursing our hangovers on the sofa, oblivious to recent events. He was holding a bag of semi-frozen peas to his temple, I was sipping black coffee in an attempt at driving the nausea from my system. There was a curl across Sherlock's forehead, and he kept blowing upwards, constantly, only to have it settle back in position. My nerves had been ground down to their most exposed, and something about the way it refused to comply irritated me; I took Sherlock's jaw in my hand and, ignoring his protests, forcibly brushed the stray strand back. He had just launched into a dark condemnation of interfering alcoholics when John's outline appeared in the doorway: Sherlock stopped, I froze, fingertips pressed to his forehead.

I have never seen such emotional carnage.

Sherlock's expression changed so rapidly and with such dramatic alteration, I drew my hand away for fear of having it snapped. I saw his mind go into overdrive; a butchery of feeling, an influx of emotive agony, parasitic in its development, using his thoughts as fuel and his face as a display until his brilliant brain was forced into shutdown.

Months of questions and accusations and vexations were boiled down to one, simple, "Where did you go?"

John stood very still – shirt creased, jacket a little loose – his face pinched with habitual weariness and eyes dark, wringing the leather strap of his watch in his hands. 

"John?"

We all turned around.

Millie's physical appearance took him by surprise. I forget sometimes, just how dire the situation appears to the outsider. We've become numb to it. I don't usually notice the differences, but in that moment I saw her through John's eyes: she's continued to lose weight, to the point where her kneecap has a greater circumference than her thigh and her face resembles cut marble; too sharp, too harsh, hollows curved deep beneath the jut of her cheekbones. To his credit, John concealed his horror quickly – if Millie noticed, she didn't show it, because then her pale face lit up and she smiled, properly smiled; lips white, skin whiter, her mouth a crack in the plaster.

"Oh, John. I thought something awful had happened." She extended a hand as if reaching for an answer, then echoed Sherlock's own question, replacing the matter of his whereabouts with the cause of his actions. "Why did you leave?"

John took a deep breath. "I know I owe you an explanation. Both of you."

He struggled with words for a long moment, shoulders squared and spine rigidly straight – and then he sighed, and shook his head.

The silence became painful, so Millie offered to make him a drink. When she passed him the mug, his fingers brushed hers and she jolted so violently she spilt the contents over his legs. This brought John back to reality. After she'd apologised and he'd mopped himself up, they sat down, Millie gingerly on the edge of the opposite armchair, Sherlock stiff and unsmiling beside me.