Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter CIII - Stay Down

-Millie-

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The hard silence continues after Jim Moriarty's exit, punctuated only by the intermittent pat of liquid on stone. It beads at my fingertips and hemlines, then falls, a soft succession, leaving the ground pockmarked with little red scars.

I don't feel fear. It's very strange, the absence of it – I feel its omission, the gap where it should fill in the centre of my chest, but the emotion is lost on me. It's as if I've been shot through: a bullet-wound cavity, round and carved and compact, that split second of empty before the blood curtain falls. I watch him, as he watches me, both of us still. The wedding dress is very heavy. My joints begin to tremble in protest and, one by one, start to give: I sink slowly, softly, into the white fabric, the base of my spine hard against the marble. I turn my head, disoriented. The black that had been collecting around the edges of my vision grows, then recedes, and when I blink again the room has fallen with me to its side.

I see his shadow first. He stands just out of reach, his face inscrutable, head tilted. The floor seems wonderfully solid. It is comforting to know I have fallen and can fall no farther. I wonder what form it will take – I've come close before, when I hung from the bathroom light fitting, when I pushed one too many syringe, swallowed one too many pills, inhaled a dose too much powder. It is always a loosening, slackening, of body, breathing, mind. I hope the pain won't spoil it.

His outline disappears briefly. I hear him bend, hear the delicate scrape of a metal knife edge as he retrieves one of Moriarty's parting gifts. There's warmth as his body nears mine; he kneels beside me, and I feel his hand on my cut neck, see him lift it to his face, angle his glistening palm from side to side and then curl his fingers into a fist. Blood is forced through the little lines and fissures of his skin; it cuts a red line down his wrist. His hand returns, this time to my cheek, and he brushes the hair from my face – then he pulls my head back, neck arched, so that the curved ridge of my jugular strains. His pulse is rapid against my temple.

I close my eyes, because I don't want to see it. Instead, I feel: cold against my throat, light pressure, my skin offering its fragile resistance. There's a quick movement – and then nothing at all. No pain. No heat. I do not breathe, or open my eyes, daring to hope it is over. I await the tell-tale looseness. I sense him shift, feel his heat over me, smell the musk and the blood, his lips very close to mine.

"Do not move," he says.

His voice is so soft it is little more than an exhalation: he holds me down for an indefinite amount of time, his breathing hot and quick, mine long and shallow, and I am secure, comforted by his closeness, embraced in preparation for permanence.

He sits up suddenly. The change makes me open my eyes – I lift a hand to my neck instinctively, expecting the wet of a hot open wound. I feel nothing more than the thin cut inflicted by Moriarty's men, the blood beginning to cool and dry on my throat.

I look up at him, unfocused: he's watching the door, as if listening, and when the silence confirms his unspoken enquiry, he turns his attention to me.

"We are alone, I think." He must see the confusion in my expression, because he manages a brief smile, and, by way of explanation, says, "I am an excellent actor, am I not?"

I almost laugh at the absurdity of it all – but then I see behind his smile is strain, and for all his nonchalant humour, he hasn't let go of the knife in his hand. His grip is a little too tight to warrant the control he preaches, and when I focus my vision on his face, I see his pupils blown wide, the flush in his cheeks. He waits, seemingly intent on listening, although I suspect there is something considerably more violent contained within his skull. He struggles to remove himself from the red-flowered canvas of my chest. His attempts at concealing the evident hunger generate the sudden urge to reach up, offer a sensory reassurance, but I am slowly losing my grip on reality as the morphine and the adrenaline and the blood loss combine to produce a cocktail that is far too potent for my mind to handle.