Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter CIII - Stay Down

When I come round, time has passed. I am lying flat, on something hard, and there is a light above me. The room is freezing. I process the blurred panorama: hazy shapes, dark walls, a line of silver hooks fixed to the ceiling. Frost licking the metal. Circle lights. His shimmering outline, bent over me. I see the flash of a needle dip down and out of view.

Real pain kicks in then, delayed and devastating in its intensity: I cry out, shocked by it, as my body rebukes the lack of morphine. It is a stinging, searing sort of pain, all over, a sharp gnaw at tissue and bone, cutting through the dull ache offered by bruising. It is difficult to breathe. There's another spike of sensation, followed by a localised burning, and I realise I am being stitched. I twist with the animal urge to escape and see the blood and cotton wool, scattered like dead-headed bells of foxglove flowers, and the silver dish, filled with pink water. It is a nightmarish wonderland.

I try to move away from the source, turning to my side, palm on the concrete: his mouth twists, and he places a forearm over my torso, pinning me back down with taxidermic determination. I try to lash out against him, but he is stronger, stronger than me, and he continues his grim needlework with a crystal sheen of sweat on his forehead. There's a tug. Another compact burst of pain. He snaps the thread with his teeth, and then removes his arm slowly, sitting back. His face is grey, save for the revealing pink creeping up his neck. I don't care for his control, made savage by the pain morphine has staved off for so long – until he returns with the brilliant outline of my syringe, and the stinging and searing and core-deep ache is lifted quite suddenly.

I exhale, feeling my chest sink low into the ground. There's a pause – and then he bends down without warning and takes me in a violent embrace, one fist at the nape of my neck, forehead at my shoulder, his breathing ragged. Weightlessness sets in; a dizzy, sweet sort of displacement, and it takes all my strength to lift one arm and place it on his shoulder. I see the delicate stitches, little bands of blue, the way the blood has been daubed away. The mottled bruising is just beginning to paint my skin purple. I'm no longer in the wedding dress. The knife is lodged in the opposite wall as if thrown in frustration, and there are scratches on his arms – I recognise them from my own attempts at controlling the urge for chemical release, inducing pain to quell the craving. I see it all, and I hold him as best I can, because he has succeeded in what I, for all my years of substance abuse, have yet to manage.

He pulls away, and I take the opportunity to study his face. The symmetry is fascinating to me: his jaw is shaped with geometric precision, his top lip pointed, his bottom lip round, his nose straight. He is algebraic in his lines and curves. His hair glints like dark copper as he shifts, and I try to pinpoint those strands that catch and throw the light – but then he moves, and his lips are on mine, and the sensation is foreign, and strange, and more desperate in its force than lust-driven.

I blink twice, caught off guard by the warmth rising in my throat. His lips part; his breath is hot against my teeth. I sigh softly, and, holding on to his sleeve lest I slip away, begin to return the kiss that defies memory.

~~~~~~

-Emily-

~~~~~~

I step into the hallway, pressing the door shut with my shoulder and peeling the damp jacket from my arms. My eyes take some time to adjust to the lack of decent lighting, and so it is with some fumbling do I eventually succeed in hanging the leather on the hook at the back of the door – not the stand, because Sherlock gets irritated when I take up his coat space. I sniff, my nose numb from the rainwater; I'm greeted by the smell of wet wood and fried meat, and the tinny whine of Mrs Hudson's kitchen radio. An appropriately luxurious entrance.