Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXXI - Execution

An artificial silence settles over the room.

He lifts a hand to his mouth, presses down, inspects the crimson on his fingertips. There's a welt across his bottom lip. I've cut it open; a small, scarlet slit that'll bruise soon enough. I regret it immediately.

Ivan turns back to me. There's a fevered look in his eyes – a heated brilliance that doesn't come across as entirely sound. I haven't seen it before.

"Спасибo," he says. It takes me a moment to process the Russian. Thank you.

"Why are you thanking me?"

"You have reminded me of something." Blood beads at his lip. "I have been meaning to ask you a question."

He steps closer. The blood is moving down his chin, and I watch with hypnotised fascination as it forms a liquid line. He gestures to Millie.

"When she came to me, she was hurt. There were cuts here," he says, tapping his cheekbone. "And here." He points to his right eye. "Her neck was red. A ring of red."

I stay very, very still. He doesn't drop his smile.

"Was it the detective?" The blood has reached his throat. "Hет? I agree. He is not violent. Was it his friend? Hет. It could not have been. He grieves his wife. Grieving men do not hurt. Angry men do. Angry women, too."

Ivan extends a hand.

"I think," he says, softly. "It was you."

Millie has hauled herself to her feet, but Ivan isn't looking at her anymore. His attention is focused entirely on me; a strange attention, and one that gives his blue eyes with their frosted glaze and dark rims a frenzy, a sort of hunger, one that invites compliance.

I lift my heavy hand, and I place my palm on his.

"It is all right," he says. He holds my hand loosely. "I am only asking. It is curiosity."

The beaded blood quivers on the collar of his shirt, then plunges down, into the fabric. It joins the black with untraceable ease.

"Were you angry with me, lisichka?" There's understanding in his voice. It begs confession. "Did you hurt her?"

Millie cuts across me. "Don't. Don't tell him–"

He lays his other hand on top of mine, his skin warm and smooth and soft above my own.

"It was you?"

The room sways gently.

"It was me."

The light flickers. He smiles, then: there's red slicking white, collecting in the slim gaps between his teeth and glossing their miniature curves.

He looks at me, and, very deliberately, runs his tongue across his bloodied smile.

~~~~~~

The first blow near knocks her unconscious.

She falls heavily, landing on her hands and knees; her head catches the edge of the nearest stall and she makes a noise of genuine surprise, caught off guard by the ferocity of his assault. Her fingers trace the cut across her upper lip – split on the jut of his knuckle – then move down, to her chin, where she bears a red gash courtesy of her landing. He lifts her by the front of her dress, the material taut in his fist, and he strikes again, harder this time, putting his body behind the blows, watching her head twist with the force of impact and spin back to face him. His mind has shut down. He doesn't think, he doesn't have to: it is all barbarity, fuelled by vicious vengeance, heated by a lust he no longer has control over. He throws her against the wall.