-Millie-
~~~~~~
Withdrawal subsides, just in that moment.
The sight of the landing jolts me back to a recent past: a hallucinatory reminiscence, kick-started by the remnants of the drugs in my system and re-lived in real time, so that when I take a step forwards the image moves with me. It's no longer night, and I am no longer accompanied by the man from my nightmares. I'm alone, I'm standing in Sherlock's coat and it is morning; an autumnal morning, judging by the colour of the light passing through the window at the top of the stairs. Pale yellow. It thickens the air, makes it rich, liquid honey, sweet to inhale and warm to touch.
I experience tranquillity again.
There are voices coming from upstairs, familiar and muted: John's a murmur, Emily's loud and very distinguishable, Sherlock's a baritone drawl. I can hear Mary, too. Her voice is higher than Emily's, but less aggressive in its volume; the latter lacks the ability to tailor her tone to the occasion. I can make out her words through the walls. Don't look at me like that. He had it coming.
In the distance, the television hums.
Each step is a luxury. I reach the landing and find the door, pushing it open softly, so not to interrupt the conversation inside. Mycroft's here. I recognise his voice – he'll be visiting about that case, the one with the orange pips. I prepare myself for the cold civility. It will be a clash of the glacial; icy courtesy. Mycroft and I never thawed towards each other.
As I walk, I register a drop in temperature. Perhaps the heating system has broken again – I'll need to ask John for the plumber's number, because if I don't sort this out, we'll be living in sub-zero conditions for the foreseeable future. I remember the last time it happened: Sherlock had insisted the apartment temperature was perfectly well-adjusted and that I was being a hypochondriac – until his lips turned blue and he could no longer stutter out damning observations. The repair wasn't scheduled for another week, and so we resorted to sitting by the fire grate – half choked by the ash – with blankets over our shoulders, cross-legged. I recall turning away to warm my hands, and turning back to see Sherlock sit down with two dust-frosted champagne flutes and a bottle of prosecco, filched from John and Mary's wedding.
"Are we celebrating?"
He regarded me with scathing disregard for my humour. "It's a vasodilator."
"What is?"
"Alcohol. Temporary warmth."
"And there I was thinking you were being romantic."
He'd scoffed, and passed me the bottle to open. "The cold's got to your head. You sound like the women in John's poetry."
The cork dislodged with a muted pop. I poured the contents into our glasses and set the bottle down, running my finger around the flute circumference to clear the dust.
Sherlock raised his glass.
"To hypothermia."
I remember laughing, the clink of glasses, the sharp fruit tinge on my tongue.
"To hypothermia."
My memories soften the chill considerably.
I look around – the kitchen itself is still chaotic: Sherlock's microscope and slides and stacked Petri dishes sit beside the unwashed plates and takeaway cartons, and I can see the sink has reached its full capacity. I make a mental note to wash the contents at the next available opportunity.
I turn around, anticipating the crowd I heard on the landing–
I am met by an empty room.
My smile falters. The speech is muffled, softened, spoken underwater. I look around. Everything's in place; the newspapers are where Sherlock and I left them, as are the cigarette butts, the skull, the taxidermy butterfly display, my books, his dressing gown.
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.
"Let her sleep."
There is a long, laboured pause.
Slowly, and with palpable difficulty, he lowers his knife and sets it down on the sofa armrest.
The movement behind his eyes stills, the hunger fades. He doesn't look away from me, and I keep my gaze as steady as I can with the involuntary trembling: we hold each other's line of vision for some time; a silent negotiation.
There's a choked sob below me.
I look down; Emily's crying now, softly, holding onto his hand with the suppressed suffering of a dying woman. I think she's realised.
"Why did you lie?" she says, over and over again. "Why did you have to lie?"
His brow furrows. Emily doesn't let go of his hand.
"You are not her."
"I know," she says, "I know. But it hurts. I want to go back."
I follow his gaze to their clasped hands: his fingers are pale, slender, squared at the tips, hers darker – the colour of wet sand – and bitten, ragged edges. Her grip shakes with her sobs.
He looks at me, his expression pained.
"She is wretched."
There's no guilt in his tone, but there's no certainty either. He's struggling to look away; it's a macabre fascination, the irresistible compulsion to observe, to watch something in agony. He's aware of her suffering. He feels it.
I, on the other hand, feel nothing.
I regard Emily with detachment as she clutches the hand with furious, desperate, hopeless longing. I'm a spectator. Nothing more. I want to be away from Baker Street and its hollow memories, I want to have my needle, I want to shut it all out and close my eyes and find a black space in my head that'll snuff out my heartbeat and lull me to permanent sleep. I don't want to watch a reunion between strangers.
Emily moves suddenly: she hooks her arm around his head and pulls him down, his hair in one fist, the other at the nape of his neck, her face against his shoulder. He reaches out instinctively for the knife behind him, but she only keeps him there, not moving, just holding.
He hesitates – and then he lowers his hand.
"Do it," she says, speaking so softly I can scarcely hear her. "Use the knife."
He places his palms on her cheeks. She sighs, and tilts her face up, his thumbs resting lightly at the corners of her mouth.
"You will listen to me," he says. "I do not love you. I did not love you."
"The knife. Use the knife."
"You have hurt her, I have seen it. You have tried to take her from me."
Her voice cracks. "Why won't you use the knife?"
"I have hated you. I have wanted you dead. I still feel it, as you feel – but tonight," he says, "I forgive you." There is a pause. "You must hear me now. I do not love you, but that does not make you less. It is no loss. How can it be? You have rid yourself of a man who cannot have you. It is a blessing, is it not?"
Her eyes have lost their focus; I can see her sway, see his silver words curl themselves around her mind and loosen the cogs, unscrew the bolts, catalyse the disintegration of willpower.
"Will you hear me, lisichka?"
She nods her head once.
"Perhaps one day you will forgive me," he says, as she loses her grip on her senses. He straightens up. "It is a virtue."
My liberation is snuffed out with her consciousness.
I don't try to resist when I feel the hand on the small of my back begin to guide me away from Emily, from Baker Street, from this hollowed shell of fissured memories. I make no attempts at fighting the man who carries me down the narrow stairs, because my legs no longer wish to co-operate with my malfunctioning mind. I stay unprotesting as the door is shut behind me. I maintain my silence, keep up the rectitude, make no effort to push him away as I am lifted into the car and the ghosts of his victims welcome me back. There's no struggle. No defiance. No fight.
The seatbelt is fastened across my chest, and the car doors are locked. He looks at me in the half-light of the overhead streetlamp.
"Are you happy, myshka?"
I do not move.
He leans forwards: his face blurs with the sudden proximity and I feel his lips on mine briefly, a foreign sensation, fleeting and hot against my skin. I keep very still.
He pulls away mercifully quickly.
"I am glad." He brushes the thin strands across my eyes back, behind my ears. "You do not smile so much. It is hard to tell sometimes."
I turn away to the window. Outside, Baker Street remains remarkably unchanged; the road remains silent, stoic, unmoved by the events of tonight. I hear him twist the keys – the sound jolts me, and I close my eyes instinctively. There's the dull thud of a shifted gear, the rev of the engine, and then the car accelerates rapidly.
All options are nullified. I have no escape, no energy, no desire to progress. There's nothing but acceptance left.
The conclusion I come to is calming in its clarity.
~~~~~~
On that cheerful note, I can now announce the end of this impromptu hiatus – I don't know how many of you have chosen to stick around, but for those of you who have: welcome back to Human Error. My exams have finished, and I am free to write/murder characters/finalise the plot as planned. There will be a brief silence following this chapter as I won't be in the country, but after that, updates will resume on their twice-a-week basis (with the odd extra thrown in to make up for my absence). I hope all of you are well and have survived exam season – and that you're ready for some cathartic relief at the expense of my characters' sanity.
Hold on tight. Things are about to get a little messy.
~Shem