He swirls the remaining liquid in his hipflask and, with the rain tapping longingly at the car roof, tips his head back, swallowing the last of his vodka with unflinching ease. It sears the back of his throat – it's not cold enough, there's no ice – and he feels it make its fiery way from tongue to stomach and from stomach to the surrounding blood; hot and thick and humming with a rush of fearful anticipation.
It is with some difficulty does he force himself to turn away from the window and back to the papers on his lap. The night's blackness is dense, and he is relying on the white clarification of his car's interior light: he scans the paperwork, checking the certainty of his lie, the realism behind this identity. The background looks sound. He's sure the next hotel won't think to check the records for date certification.
Outside, the wind spits and hisses and claws at the door to his vehicle. Inside, his mind is beginning to wander; it has become increasingly difficult to focus, and concentrating on one task for more than a couple of minutes demands his full attention – which in itself is a near impossible task without the kind aid of alcohol.
He is fiercely distracted.
It is the thoughts of her, primarily; endless recollections, fragmented memories, quick flickers of sound and light and voices, her voice, cruel questions, why she hasn't come back, what he'll do when she does. Sweetly unbearable torment.
He is plagued by glowing reconstructions of their encounter; the majority of his time is passed dissecting his words, his actions, finding faults in his narrative and flaws in his composure. He'd spent months rehearsing what he wanted to say to her – and on the day itself he'd stuttered like a schoolboy. He remembers the games she played with him on that fateful evening, the tests, the torture; pretending to loathe, feigning fear. He still doesn't understand why she feels the need to cause him such suffering, but oh, how he adores her. The experience has consumed him in ways he did not think possible. Until that night, he had seen her only from a distance, from photographs and – on the rare occasion he let himself into the detective's filthy flat – in sleep, but never in such fantastic detail. Every feature, every delicate aspect of her countenance awed him: the exposed shadows of her ribcage, clasped over a trembling heart like interlocking fingers, the partial gap between her two front teeth, the clarity of her irises, the warmth of her, the way in which the column of her throat flexed on swallowing, her sigh, her fractured, floral beauty.
He realises the paperwork has fallen from his grip.
The alcohol has taken effect; he blinks, the edges unfocused, and reaches down for his documentation.
He is being followed.
The police. The gangs. The loveless, the vengeful, the embittered. The Schott woman has been drafted by the Holmes brother to track him online, so he hears. He has ex-clientele baying for his blood. He moves from hotel to hotel on a nightly basis, buys flats and rooms and rents on whim and uses them for a week at most, before he moves on again with a new identity, a new set of lies. Each time he leaves a cryptic message – something she'll see when she comes searching for him – often in the form of a scrawl in the hotel's sign-out sheet or on the back of old receipts. A paper trail for her eyes only.
They closed down the casino chains in England, but it doesn't cause him alarm. He has enough money to live in excessive luxury for another three lifetimes. What causes him alarm is the lack of contact. He hasn't risked communication with old associates and dislikes being out of touch with affairs, but he thinks it best to let the dust settle. Shock makes people reckless – although he can't fathom why people are so shocked by his actions, why he's greeted with such horror and fear and repulsion. He's no monster. He's not insane, he's not a danger to society. Besides, anyone with a wife or lover of their own will know a similar intensity of emotion; they'll understand how love drives one to desperation.
It is out of his control.
He puts his hipflask down and, after waiting for the road to stop swaying, pulls out of the lay-by.
The distant cry of a siren forces him to increase his speed. He revs the engine – an instinctive, precautionary measure that helps lower the thrum of his heartbeat. Driving controls his nerves; he presses the clutch down, moves into a higher gear and feels the car hum in appreciation. It's a priceless vehicle imported directly from Moscow – a low-roofed, black-glossed piece of craftsmanship with the ability to tear through streets and stir litter in gutters. The dial above his wheel shows sixty-five miles per hour, then seventy: a speed camera flashes as he turns down a smaller road, but he ignores it. He changes his number plate more frequently than he changes his name.
The corner approaches without warning.
He misjudges it entirely, his mind blurred by alcohol and vehicle losing traction on the rain-slicked tarmac–
He turns too quickly, sees her too late.
He slams both feet down, his head snapping forwards with the force of collision; the woman hits the bonnet, her body spinning like a hurled ragdoll, mouth open and glasses shattering in a burst of crystal fragment.
She hits the ground, heavily.
He forces the car to a halt, curses in Russian and opens the door, the engine steaming beneath the crumpled bonnet. He looks around frantically. No witnesses. There is blood on his forehead. He can't hear any sirens.
The woman is lying face-down, her hair fanned over the back of her dented skull and arms beneath her body. He turns her over, asks her if she can hear him, feels for a pulse with fumbling fingers. He knows he won't find one.
He's experienced enough of the lifeless to know death when he sees it.
The certainty of her state calms him. There will be no rush, this way, no last-minute grapple for life. She's been spared the anguish of failing survival. He feels the panic begin to ebb, lets her soft fingers fall limp from his own, and begins studying her in earnest.
She has a truly pretty face.
It is the white-black contrast he craves; her skin is porcelain in its paleness, her hair dark and beginning to break free of its straightened artificiality in the humidity. Her eyes are a little green for his liking, but she is of the right physique, the correct balance between ethereal fantasy and reality. Her lip has been cut open from top to bottom and her spine snapped clean in two, judging by the unnatural curve of her back, and yet she retains her poise. On her left breast pocket she has a badge – the plastic cracked and ink smudged – reading a name and franchise. A fast-food employee. She still smells of oil, although she's tried to disguise it with perfume, but her warmth and grace and red mouth captivate him with each passing second.
He forces himself to stop, and attempts to chase the feeling out of his head. He's avoided touch for so long. He must stay faithful to her, while he's waiting – but Бог, this one tempts him, draws him closer with her wanton expression.
The rain beats down on her open face. He lifts her, sighing at the dense weight, the loll of her head, the internal crack of shattered bone shifting.
She is an aphrodisiac.
He chides her for seducing him, speaking softly under his breath as he holds her against the metal in order to open the car door. He lays her down across the back seat, careful not to crease her clothing, and then steps out into the rain, scanning the surroundings once more. Her broken glasses glint dully against the kerb. There is no-one around.
Morally appeased, he shuts the door and climbs back into the driver's seat.
After some searching, he pulls into an empty carpark. He exits the vehicle, re-opens the door and ducks beneath the metal frame; she's lying as he left her, on her back, chin upturned and eyes open, inspecting the interior of his car ceiling. The skin on the left side of her face is starting to discolour, bruising in ruddy, wine-tinted flowers, and the blood that had been welling freely over the sliced curve of her bottom lip has coagulated; scabbed, little flecks of clumped cells. He puts one hand up to her cheek to conceal the bruise. Her face is still soft, still warm. In his experience, the stiffening doesn't set in for another five hours or so. He's got plenty of time.
Time moves too slowly as it is.
It's difficult, in such cramped conditions: he balances precariously on the edge of the leather car seat, holds her in place, lowers himself down. There is always that thrill – that illicit rush – of waiting above the lips, waiting and knowing there will be no warm blush of breath, no reactionary movement; it is utter, untainted consumption, control, co-ordination. Their mouths meet, his hot and flushed and forceful, hers pliant, unmoving, beginning to drain of their previous pink. They're cooling now. Natural incentive. He lets himself rest on her chest, takes her scented hair in one hand, her skirt fabric in the other – and then he opens the floodgates in his mind and lets his imagination paint over this woman's imperfections, vividly reconstructing her touch, her smell, her gentle wonderment–
He stops before he unbuckles his belt and sits up, careful not to hit his head on the low ceiling. It's too bright. He can't make this one look like her in such stinging luminance. Aching with want for something so very tangible, he forces himself to stretch, to reach away from the temptations of cold skin and stilled lips. His fingers find the plastic button. He turns off the car light.
She blossoms beneath him.
~~~~~~
-Emily-
~~~~~~
"Those are the ones."
I turn around and inspect the label, letting out a low whistle at the price.
"Not for five hundred quid."
"No," says Irene, leaning forwards, "is not an option. You look ravishing."
I roll my eyes. Irene – who, as it transpires, has been a regular visitor following Millie's return from hospital – has insisted we find a decent pair of trousers. I welcomed the opportunity, because tensions at Baker Street have become unbearable. Sherlock refuses to let me near the baby. He swivels between bouts of good-natured sarcasm and sudden cruelty, resulting in furious backlash on my part. When I am not waking from hellish dream sequences concerning pale eyes and white teeth, I am fighting the urge to reach for alleviation in a bottle.
Millie is utter wreckage.
She spends her time re-patching a mask of normality and forced control. Sometimes it works; there are days when she holds conversation, when she'll offer opinions and walk around the flat – but then there are moments, little occasions or sounds or touches, that undermine that normality and tear down her control. Yesterday it was the footsteps. Sherlock was called to meet with Lestrade on a cold case – Millie doesn't appear to share an interest in crime-solving, anymore – and I was despairing over the pair of borrowed jeans laid out in front of me when we heard the footsteps on the stairs.
Millie dropped her mug and began backing away so rapidly and with such acute terror in her expression I began to feel fearful myself. Irene had pushed open the door to reveal me – bare-legged and tensed for combat – and Millie, back flat against the wall and pleading with an invisible perpetrator to spare her the suffering. We couldn't get near her to provide reassurance without inducing hyperventilation, and so we left her to her hallucinatory panic until reality soothed her sores and she registered our faces. She then apologised for making a mess and tried to clear up the shattered china, succeeding only in slicing her shaking fingers on the shards.
This impromptu shopping trip is an attempt at diffusing a potential homicide. Millie's perpetual state of panic sets me on edge, and, when faced with Sherlock's reactionary digs, I find myself quickly overwhelmed; I have come very close to resorting to brute violence on more than one occasion – I get the feeling Sherlock is deliberately provoking me, trying to prove that I am too unstable to reside at Baker Street – but I've yet to succumb to the desire to cave his skull with a kitchen appliance.
"Ravishing or not," I say, twisting in front of the mirror. "I'm on a budget."
Irene gives me a scarlet smile. "Consider it my treat."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I didn't say gift," says Irene, silkily. "I expect payment in good time."
"Have you seen my financial situation?"
"I didn't say anything about money, either." She crosses her legs and begins inspecting her nails. "I'll devise your payment later. I'm thinking you, on your knees, in a–"
"I'm not letting you pay for my clothing."
"Yes, you are."
"Forget it."
"You have a ten pound note to your name. Your only source of clothing currently weighs less than I did at fifteen. Unless you intend to continue in men's trousers, I suggest you take this opportunity while it is still available. Now," she says, looking up at me through thick lashes. "Take them off – or I shall do it for you."
I mutter something dark about manipulative sex workers, scowling at Irene's lip curl and tossing my pair of priceless jeans in her direction with a little more force than is strictly necessary. She catches them in one hand and stands up, brushing the lint from her legs and retrieving a slim credit card from the plunging neckline of her dress.
"See you on the other side," she says, parting the curtain. "I won't forget about that payment. I think it's high time you were acquainted with my paddle collection, don't you?"
I respond with something sparklingly blunt. She winks.
The memories don't find me today.
~~~~~~