Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LXXXVI - Golden Wine

I can smell alcohol.

For one marvellous moment, I think I'm back by the fireplace with Sherlock and the golden wine – but then the morning light flickers, darkens, and I find myself in a black room. The newspapers and cigarettes and display cases and books and clothing disappear. The voices shut off like a radio turned to mute.

My illusion falls and skitters at my feet like broken glass.

It is then I make out the shape on the sofa, lying inert and motionless.  I see the bottles first. They surround her, glinting like eyes in the dark. There are so many; crumpled beer cans, lager, cider – and at the centre of it all, an empty bottle of malt whiskey. The fumes near knock me backwards. She's lying on her side, paralytically drunk, her face bruised and bearing the remnants of our last encounter.

"Emily?"

She stirs, then groans, swatting the air in my general direction.

"Emily–"

I hear footsteps on the stairs; soft and sinister and straining the wood.

Something snaps within my mind. I seize her hand and shake it desperately, her skin hot and sticky with spilt alcohol, flushed like the rest of her body. Emily doesn't open her eyes. I get down on my knees – close to her ear, hiding from him – and beg in a rush of whispered terror.

"Please Emily, wake up. It's me. He's here. Please. Please wake up–"

She slurs something incoherent.

I look behind me, half-blind in my desperation. "Where are the others? Where's Sherlock?"

She groans again, before opening her eyes. I am squinted at blearily.

"Is it morning?"

"Don't do this," I say. "Not now. Please, Emily–"

"Shouldn't have drunk so much. Too much. Can't see you." She laughs, her back arching, then sighs. "Tell Irene to come here. I want her again."

I feel his hand on my shoulder.

The hope that has kept me alive splits, clean down the middle, falling away in two glass-edged halves. I look down at Emily's hand, still clasped between my own – and then I let it drop, let myself be lifted up, propped against him like some human figurine.

There is only defeatism left.

"It's you." With poor coordination, Emily lifts her arm and points at him, her finger accusatory. "Where have you been?"

He stays silent; a silhouette beside me.

"Is Safiya coming?" she asks, struggling to sit up. "I need to tell her something. Something about someone."

He maintains his reticence. Without warning, Emily reaches up and snatches the hand from my waist. I feel him tense next to me; a stiffening of muscle, feline predation.

"Don't be late. You said you wouldn't be late."

His fingers curl around the knife in his other hand.

She pulls him down next to her and he works the blade free, preparing to sheathe it in the soft tissue of her stomach–

"Don't."

He looks at me over his shoulder, knife raised. I see conflict: there is movement behind his irises, something black behind pale glass, something hungry. I force myself to maintain eye contact. This isn't the conman. This isn't the little boy, or the pseudo gentleman. This is a person whose entire existence revolves around lust – be it carnal or of blood – and he terrifies me, because I can't understand. I can't understand why he wants what he wants. He operates on his own morality – but for Emily's sake, I try again, my voice catching.