Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XXXVIII - Prince Charming

He wakes violently, jolted from a nightmarish world of distorted shapes and sounds and colours, and sits up, wild-eyed and gasping.

The images are haunting; mental flashes of blurred streets and filthy walls, rowdy laughter, soft groans, the repetitive thump of someone's boot driven in to his chest and head and stomach, glinting needles, hazy heroine, men and women and children and cigarette smoke – they are endless, cyclical, and they don't fade quickly. He grits his teeth and traces the sharp outline of his jaw, forcing them down, out of his head, and when that doesn't work, he focuses on his treasured, liquid memory: the thin girl with the orange coat and the rain-grizzled hair.

His breathing steadies and, after the remnants of his warped dream sequence dissipate, he runs a hand from his forehead to the nape of his neck, swallowing and leaning back against the carved wood of his headboard.

He must not slip, not now, not during this stage of the process. It requires delicacy. Deception of the finest calibre – and deception is not possible without conviction. He has people to meet tomorrow, things to arrange, conversations to have.

A smile to wear.

His mask cannot crack.

There is a sense of instability in his movements: he stands, and makes his way over to the door. He pauses by the mirror – an ornate, cut-glass piece of furniture that softens his reflection considerably – and looks at himself. He smiles, watching the light catch on the white curves of his teeth; the face they'll see tomorrow. Practice makes perfect, after all, and perfection is a virtue of the highest order.

On the way down to the cold room, he stops at a different door, a door of light oak with gold capping at the corners, and opens it with the palm of his hand. He walks with caution, as if trying to avoid disturbance, and rests against his desk; his fingers curl around the hilt of his knife and he lifts it from the surface, holding it lightly. It's heavy, cool with disuse, the ivory worn smooth in places. He can see the whites of the flowers growing from the corner of the room, up the walls, the iris heads hanging like dancers; poised with infatuated grace. He lights a candle. The room is lit in a soft, orange glow. He looks around.

A thousand faces stare back at him.

The wall is covered; there is no space left unfilled. She is everywhere. Some are official – the copy of her driver's licence for example, and her passport photo. Most are not. The majority he took himself, Polaroids, pictures of her walking with that uneasy gait he knows like his own, her adjusting the bag strap on her thin shoulder, repositioning the sunglasses on her head, her crossing the road, entering and exiting Baker Street.

He likes the ones he's bargained for best. The old ones. The photographs of her from those cocaine days, when they were together, when she watched the window with her straight eyebrows and serious expression, her hands clasped over the small stash of needles in her lap and books stacked at her side.

His favourite is the school picture.

She's only five, there. The pinnacle of innocence; pale skinned, hair pulled back in a harsh bun at the top of her head, mouth unsmiling. She's got a very un-childlike gravity about her expression, and it captivates him like nothing else. He got the photograph from a teacher at the same school she once attended – a young girl, fresh out of university. He let her stay with him in his magnificent bed with its medieval carvings in return for her help in sifting through the old school records. She was more than willing to oblige.

He smiles to himself; a small, knowing smile.

That same teacher is downstairs now, her soft hair frozen solid and clumped at her shoulders, lips parted, black blood running from nose to gashed throat.