Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXI - Queen of Hearts

I am not given the chance to dwell on this embarrassment.

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"Is there anything you can't do?" I ask, my voice rough and skull heavy. I consider lifting my head from Ivan's shoulder, but decide against it; I don't have the energy to open my eyes, let alone move from my current position. "There's got to be something wrong with you."

Outside, snow taps longingly at the window, yearning for warmth, sacrificing its crystallised skeletons to the sheet of glass; it melts on contact, casting live shadows on the sheets. It's dark, but the blue light filtering through the curtains is flecked with snowfall, and I hear it as I lie here, with Ivan, an unabashed entanglement of stilled limbs and soft breathing. I don't think I've ever dared to expose myself to such tenderness, but I can't say I dislike it: it's warm, genuine, his skin like pressed velvet, his hand resting on the small of my back. The rings on my finger glint dully in the dark.

"I cannot answer that."

"You can try. Everyone has something. I know I can be a little... irritable."

"Just a little."

"It's hereditary."

Ivan laughs, and, after a minute of consideration, says, "I am a hopeless romantic."

"That doesn't count."

"Я не согласен."

I tap his jaw. "You're stubborn. That can be your flaw."

"You know me well."

"Actually," I say, "I don't know you at all."

"No?"

"I know your name, I know your crime of choice, I know what you drink, how you play cards, what you do and don't eat. That's it. I married you. In hindsight, that's quite alarming."

"Is it not enough?"

"I don't know anything about your upbringing, how you ended up in England – I don't even know your age. You don't know much more about me. Does that not concern you?"

Ivan rests his chin on the top of my head. "Twenty seven."

"What?"

"I am twenty seven."

I sit up then, holding the sheets to my chest – after confirming that he is completely serious, I regard him with horror.

"Twenty seven?"

Ivan nods, perplexed. I groan, and rest my head in my hands.

"What is it?"

"You're twenty seven. I'm pushing thirty four," I say, sorrowfully.

"That is not so bad."

"You don't understand. I'm turning into my mother."

Ivan rolls his eyes and reaches out, pulling me back down to my original position. After a very short tussle with morality, I sigh, and return his embrace.

"Does this make me a cougar?"

I can feel him frown, and listen to him struggle with the unfamiliar word. "Cougar...?"

"You don't want to know." I shake my head. "I've married a stranger who happens to be seven years my junior. Still struggling to process that."

He doesn't respond immediately. Disbelief softens to contented acceptance, and together we lie in silence, Ivan tracing a slow circle on my arm with his thumb. I give up on conversation, close my eyes, use his chest as a makeshift pillow, and am beginning to slip into sleep when–