Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXXI - Execution

"Every mark," he snarls, as he raises his fist. "I know every mark."

Her skin is too dry, too clean. It's not raw enough. He holds her by her chin and brings his elbow down, across her face. There's an internalised crack of crushed cartilage; the bridge of her nose splinters, he feels it shatter, feels the blood seep through his sleeve. It's been so long since he's had his release. The temptation is excruciating. He can't concentrate because of it; he wants the satisfaction, the gratification of a warm body turned cold, but he mustn't, he can't, it would be adulterous. In a world full of people, it must be her. The frustration makes him savage; he takes her throat in his hand, feeling for her jugular, his nails cutting crescents into the skin.

"You will know what it feels like."

Her hands find his wrists.

"You will feel what she felt."

His arms are forced from her neck. He's kicked backwards, brutally, away from this woman who does not deserve the redemption he offers. He steadies himself on the wall, panting. She spits blood, wipes her nose, and takes up a fighter's stance; fists raised, legs apart.

He closes his eyes.

In his head, he replays the night she returned to him. He studies her injuries; the purple flower around her eye, the bruises on her white cheek and throat and jaw, scattered like peonies. The blood has dried, collected at the crease of her lips and the tip of her nose. Pink carnations circle her neck. He imagines the way they were inflicted, pictures Emily Schott's filthy hand around her throat. He hears the crack of bone on skin. He sees her crumpling. He sees her terrified. He sees the cartel days again, the strong preying on the weak, on his glass woman with her softness and her silk and her quiet understanding.

He opens his eyes, and he sees red.

She blocks what she can, but he is too unpredictable and she is not angry – she wills herself to tap into the space in her mind where morality is irrelevant and brutality reigns, but she cannot, not with him, she can only resist. He can't shut out the stuttering film reel in his head; he sees flickers, flashes of strange men in dark alleyways, snippets of sound, snatches of her pale face, rapid shots of the women and the girls and the other, hollow substitutes who bled their thick blood and filled him with an intensity of sensation that burns his mind to recall. He wants it again. He wants to feel her heart stall under his chest.

He takes her hair in his fist and – searing with lust's white flame – swings her head against the marble countertop.

The resultant crack is enough to render her motionless.

She slumps against the sink, exhausted. She's almost ready. He blinks, his vision orange-washed with diluted blood. The breath rattles in her throat.

She doesn't try to stand again.

He runs his hands over his face, darkening it, leaving it glistening in the dying light. He can barely contain himself – it takes all he is not to hold her down and satiate his desire with her slicked skin. He's enjoying this, this carnal surge, this overindulgence. He craves it. She watches him turn away and reach for the bronze towel rail. He tests its stability, judges it weak, takes it in both hands – and then he forces it down, forces the screws from their sockets and tears her execution free. She doesn't speak; there's a calmness about it all, a gentle relaxation in the knowledge that it's over, that she can close her eyes and not have to think again. He kicks her once more, just to feel the dead weight of her torso, and then he raises the metal bar above his head in preparation for its fall–

Someone takes his arm in their hands.

She comes from nowhere, a rush of dark satin and white skin. Her fingers tighten on his sleeve. She must be speaking, because he can hear a voice faintly in the distance, but it isn't enough to bring him back to reality, not now, not when he's so close. He pushes her back, because there are too many bodies and he doesn't quite trust himself to kill the right woman. The one with the dark skin looks up at him, at his heaving shoulders, his desire, his scarlet face and sopping hair. There's an aching sadness in her expression. He raises the bar above his head for a second time.

There's no warning: he feels two cold hands on his jaw, his head is twisted, turned to face the pale one. His arms waver. His mind wars against itself.

With a noise like a wounded animal, she presses her mouth to his.

~~~~~~

-Emily-

~~~~~~

I cough, blinded by the blood and the sweat and the pain that moves out from the bridge of my nose in pulses. Millie is standing between me and my closure, holding his head in her hands, my blood dark and glittering on her fingers. I see him falter. She blinks rapidly, as if the very act stings her lips.

It all happens very quickly after that: he drops the bar, takes her by the back of her neck and kisses her with such intensity she loses her nerve. The gentle initiation is overpowered by passion. She tries to push him away, but it's far too late. Through the film of blood I see her hoisted onto the sink counter, see his hands on her chest, her back, then her dress. It is lifted to her hips. Her legs are forced apart, secured around his waist. He pulls away for breath, and then starts to kiss her neck, relentless in his advance.

She looks at me over his shoulder. Her expression is haunting.

"Go," she mouths.

I shake my head.

"Please," she says, silently, as her dress is torn from the back. The skin of her chest is strikingly pale against his hair. "Please go."

I stagger to my feet. She presses her hand to her mouth, stifling the low, pained moan as he moves. Her eyes smart. His breathing picks up.

It is with guilt's heavy noose around my neck do I turn away.

~~~~~~