-Emily-
~~~~~~
It's the chill that jolts me from sleep.
By the time I have fully regained consciousness, my fingers are numb and turning a mottled shade of grey. I turn over, squinting through the shafts of light at the cracked pipework – I don't need a degree in engineering to know that the heating system in this room has been broken for months. The window weeps condensation tears in agreement. In the distance, I hear the kettle being boiled, followed by the familiar clatter of cutlery. John must be back.
I sigh, heavily. The sheer normality of it all is overwhelming. There are days when I wake up, startled from a dream, expecting to see glittering grandeur or my own, dark reflection in Jim's mirror-ceiling – only to be bitterly disappointed by the greenish damp growing up the walls. Two years ago, and this would have been veritable luxury. Now, it's all but poverty. Wealth is a drug in itself.
Grimacing, I sit up, blowing the loose hair from my face and fishing for the discarded band to tie it back. The circles under my eyes ache when I blink; sore and raw like bruising. It's been too long since I last slept on a mattress, but I can't appreciate it fully because it's so cold. It wouldn't surprise me if I found out I'd developed stage two frostbite in my sleep.
I realise then that the sheets on my side of the bed are distinctly lacking – and when I turn around, I see Sherlock, sleeping contentedly under surplus warmth.
I wrench the covers back with enough force to jar him awake.
Startled, he jerks upright, panicked beyond coherence. I don't relinquish my grip on my newfound comfort. Sherlock's eyes narrow – whether this is the result of the bright light filtering through the blinds or my presence next to him, I don't know. He doesn't speak: instead, he tugs the sheets over his shoulders, using the weight of his body to keep them in place. When I open my mouth to protest, he simply turns his back on me.
"Sherlock."
He doesn't bother responding.
"Move up." I hit his shoulder, to no avail. "Don't ignore me."
Sherlock continues feigning sleep as if I had not spoken.
"I'm not above throttling you in your–"
"Your voice is excruciating."
His own voice is somewhat gravelly; gritty, broken, deeper than usual. I swat the back of his head in irritation.
"It's freezing."
"Get dressed."
"You're not dressed."
"It's my bedroom."
"I'm a guest. You should be courteous."
"You're an unnecessary migraine," he snaps, abandoning sleep. He turns over to squint at me. "Why haven't you gone?"
I cross my arms. "Ever the romantic."
"Romance is a disease. Not a good one, either – can't make you cough blood. I'd rather contract tuberculosis." He waves a dismissive hand in my direction. "Don't you have something to do?"
"Don't you?"
"Yes. Sleep. My mind needs regenerating."
"I could tell Mycroft you're slacking."
"I could get Mycroft to send you back to Bronzefield."
"Your hospitality is overwhelming."
"This isn't a hotel."
I give him a falsely saccharine smile.
"Jim was a better host."
Sherlock's expression darkens. My smile grows.
"Jim was better at lots of things."
"You're unbearable."
"You're letting me freeze."
"You're half-naked."
I lift the covers. "Forget the half."
Sherlock's face flushes a satisfying shade of pink. He manages a dry, "More fool you. Put something on."
"Why?" I say, grinning wickedly. "Does it embarrass you?"
"Not as much as your stupidity. It's currently minus two degrees Celsius, and you didn't think to put on some clothes." His lips curl. "Natural selection will make quick work of you."
I lean forwards, deliberately exposed, and rest my chin on my palm.
"I know what you're doing," he says, coolly – but he can't quite meet my eyes.
I abandon comfort in the name of revenge: embracing hypothermia, I push back the remaining covers and sit up, resolutely bare. The pink in his cheeks progresses to scarlet.
"What about now?" I ask.
"Emily Schott, closeted exhibitionist. Who would have guessed?"
I move to sit on his lap. His eye twitches, but he keeps his expression unimpressed – and so I lift his arms and pin them to the headboard.
"What about now?"
"For God's sake–"
The door swings open unexpectedly. I spin around. There's no one there. Confused, I study the empty space; when nothing resurfaces, I exhale, and am about to resume my efforts at mortifying Sherlock when I see something close to the floor start to move.
Addy takes an unsteady step forwards, her fingers in her mouth, looking up at me with blue-eyed wonder.
John pushes the door open, somewhat frantic."Addy?"
Her eyes crease as she starts to laugh: peals of high-pitched amusement, directed at the strange exhibition in front of her. She takes her hand from her mouth and points one saliva-slicked finger at the bed. John glances up, exhausted–
He stops. He stares. I release Sherlock's wrists from my grip.
John turns Addy's head away from this lesson in human anatomy, takes her arm and – faintly horrified – begins to back out of the room.
"I don't want to know."
"I–"
"No," he says, as he steps into the corridor. "William Sherlock Scott Holmes, I do not want to know."
The door slams shut. I climb off Sherlock and lean back against the headboard, hot-faced, waiting for John's footsteps to fade.
When all is silent, I turn to Sherlock.
"William."
"What?"
"Your name's William."
The sheets are tugged out from beneath me.
~~~~~~
-Millie-
~~~~~~
I become aware of the sound, first.
It's repetitive and soft and familiar; a faint click, a faint tick, processing the space of time and breaking it down, counting it, a one-two tap of metal in miniature. I recognise the noise, but it takes me another minute to shake off sleep's residue and identify it as a clock, somewhere in the near distance. Another sound follows suit: water, I think, lashing a surface behind closed doors. A running shower.
My sense of smell returns next. Disinfectant dominates, its chemical purpose poorly-disguised beneath layers of artificial sweetness. There's something else, too. Something floral, heavily floral – it's strong enough to break through the asepsis and make me stir, panicked, thinking I've returned to a nightmare.
I open my eyes.
Agony ensues.
Light sparks a fuse in my head; acute pain tears through tissue, gripping the base of my skull and spreading, spreading up and down and over, gathering at my temples. I make a quiet noise of condensed suffering, because this is withdrawal's doing, I know it is, and it tells me I have limited time before the craving commences and I am rendered slave to desperation. I turn my head, trying to focus my vision. The sheets snag, and I twist, netted by white cotton–
I stop moving entirely.
These are not my sheets.
This isn't my room, either. This isn't Baker Street. It's far bigger, too big, the walls papered in pearl and gold, the furniture white, the ceiling whiter, the carpet cream, the vases marble, the flowers pale, the windows opening to a balcony, overlooking a park, it must be a park, it's green, it's green, it's unfamiliar, it's paralysing. This four-poster bed is a cage. I'm not lying naturally; the sheets have been adjusted, my hands are resting on my chest – fingers carefully interlinked – and my hair has been spread out across the pillows with symmetrical precision. I am a mortician's bride.
My mind connects the two disconnected wires. Memory is jolted into action.
I remember him, I remember the open door. I remember his hand on my arm. I remember the disbelief, the expression on his face. I remember the immediate regret, the panic, the terror. I remember withdrawal knocking me forwards, past him, into the hotel room, and I remember looking around at the chaos; there were bottles everywhere, stacked on furniture and countertops and floorboards. I remember the red handprints on the walls, smudged, dragged out, as if the bleeding individual had tried to cling to the plaster. I remember the torn paper, the broken vases, the deadheaded flowers. I remember the delayed high striking me with such force and such alarming intensity, the floor fell away and I fell down, down, into my own head.
I don't remember anything else.
There are no broken bottles, now. No severed flowers, no balls of paper, no bloody remnants. All is pristine. The windows are partially open and the curtains shift with the breeze: I struggle with blind terror, unresponsive in fear, deaf to everything but the mocking tick of the wall clock–
Realisation stings.
I can hear the clock, and its countdown.
I can't hear the water.
This kick-starts my broken body: I push back the sheets, try to stand and nearly crumple at the knees. The headache has taken out the sight in my left eye; I sway, unbalanced, clutching the bedside table for support. My phone and coat are long gone. I look around wildly, trying to gauge the direction – but all the doors are shut, and I am alone, and there is no possibility of escape. My mouth is very dry. The craving is beginning; I want it like the parched want water, and there is a voice inside my head that tells me to stay where I am and plead for the drug that will ease my suffering.
Nearby, the floorboards strain under the carpet. He starts to hum.
It is enough to make me run.
The window is my only option, so I head towards that, fuelled by new adrenaline. Mercifully, the sash lifts without difficulty. I step out onto the balcony, chest heaving, and look around with the frenzied desperation of a fenced animal. It's bitterly cold outside, but I scarcely feel it – I'm too busy calculating. The adjacent balcony is too far to reach, and I can't risk jumping. We're seven stories from the pavement. The drop would kill me.
The humming stops abruptly. He's in the bedroom.
Time stalls, stutters, and then grinds to an ungainly halt. I hear only my heartbeat, thick and heavy in my skull: the curtains are moving around me, caught in this intangible breeze, rippling like gossamer and ghosting my arms as if they themselves are trying to hold me back. The withdrawal subsides.
I am granted perfect clarity.
I can't move forwards, and I certainly can't go back – I know he's making his slowed advances now, concealed, on the other side of the white curtains. I have seconds before the shadow behind the silk becomes hellish reality. He's so close. He's waited too long. I turn back around, and I look up at the sky.
It's very clear, today.
It must be morning. We rarely get such beautiful mornings: the leaden sky has given way to this brilliant blue, compact and crystalline like a diamond against lapis.
I keep my eyes fixed on the sky as I climb onto the balcony precipice.
The plaster is rough on my feet, but I don't look down at them, or at the strip of concrete below. I will keep looking at the sky. It's such a vivid blue. I lift my arms, hold them out like a crucifix; I don't want them at my sides, because they might betray me in a last-minute grab for the window frame. I tell myself I won't feel it. It'll be a drop, and it'll be over in seconds. A dash of red on the pavement. That's all.
I take a shallow inhalation of chilled air, feel it swell my lungs, make me buoyant – and then I let myself lean forwards, let my weight lull me into space and gravity take me in its brutal embrace–
I feel a hand seize the fabric at the back of my blouse.
In that moment, I let myself believe that I've started falling, that no monster can haul me back to hell because I have already started my ascension to purgatory. His grip is weak, and I feel the silk begin to slip away – but then an arm goes around my waist and I am dragged backwards, dragged away from the ultimate alleviation, dragged away from the sky with its dazzling blue promise.
"No–"
I reach out, desperate, but my wrist is pinned back down.
"It is safe. I am safe. Do not struggle, moya myshka."
"Please, don't." The rising sob swallows my words whole. "Please–"
His hands are still damp from his shower; they burn my skin as he holds me, keeps me in place as I writhe and twist like a madwoman. I can't see his face, but I can hear him, and he's hushing me, quickly under his breath – he has to lift me clear off the ground in order to stretch for the nearby cabinet. Through the frenzy, I watch as he opens the top drawer. He takes out a syringe. He's speaking to me, but I can't hear him, I can only sob these dry sobs and continue grieving for the liberty that taunted me.
I don't feel the prick of the needle, so when the high hits, I am taken by surprise.
The struggle ceases. The roar in my head is calmed, my thirst is quenched; I can feel myself soften, feel what little strength I had left seep from my blood and, as the room begins to glitter, I try to reach out for the blue gem above the balcony one, last time – only to lose focus, fall back numb.
"It is safe," he says again. I feel his palms on my cheeks. "You are safe."
I am lifted once more, a pale ragdoll. The sheets are soft against my back. His outline blurs, then sharpens suddenly: he's different, changed from the unkempt wreck in the corridor, clean shaven, hair wet and spiked, eyes like little shards of broken glass. When he speaks his silent words, I watch the trapped light in the white glaze of his teeth.
His hand is on my neck.
I don't register his intention until he leans down and his mouth replaces his hand; warm kisses, sharp kisses, kisses that could be lacerations for the pain they cause. I tell him no, I tell him please, I tell him that I want to go home, but he doesn't seem to hear me. Cocaine laps the strength from my blood with its pointed tongue. I try to force his chest away, because it's too heavy and I can't breathe, I can't breathe – but then my wrists are pushed into the pillows either side of my head and I can't keep him from me.
When he kisses my mouth, I taste blood on his tongue. I taste the blood of the women before.
He wipes the tears from my face with his thumb and begins to move quickly, too quickly for my drug-blurred mind to process. I hate his closeness. I hate the feeling of his skin. There is more movement: the comforting fabric of my shirt is taken from me and I am left cold on this operating table. I don't look at him, as he secures my legs around his hips. I look at the ceiling – and when that doesn't work, I close my eyes. The drug helps; it blots out the rest of it, blots out the pain, the soft noise he makes as I am made filthy. It lets me go somewhere else inside my head.
I go back to Baker Street.
~~~~~~