Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XCVI - Happy Families

-Emily-

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Outside, the first scintillas of dawn begin to show. There's no blushing sunrise – Winter's minimalist love of black and white prevails – but I know dawn is fast approaching. I know it for two reasons: the traffic outside is starting to pick up; a gentle, ever-present hum, swelling in volume through the open window, and the early symptoms of my inevitable hangover are taking hold. The room is perfectly dark, but my head is gripped by a slow, growing ache that tightens around my temples with each passing second. Nausea will find me soon enough.

With sobriety threatening to make its presence known, I turn to Moran, who stands by the window, shirtless, silent, smoking. I stretch, then sit up.

"Care to share?"

He says nothing. I roll my eyes, sink back into the sofa cushion – and then I feel a light tap as something cylindrical and paper is tossed onto my lap. I pick up the cigarette and hold it out as he walks over to sit beside me. He drops the plastic at my feet.

"Light it yourself."

"Charming." I reach for the lighter and run my thumb across the little corrugated wheel, relishing the click and spark. The cigarette glows orange. I lean back, and inhale slowly. "Thanks."

He shrugs, and together we breathe tar into the soft tissue of our lungs. I study him in the blue-ink dark: he sits with one arm on the sofa arm-rest, the other bent towards his mouth. The light given off by the cigarette end casts the strangest shadows: his bottom lip is outlined in black, his chest a gold topography of muscle, the hairs glinting like copper across his torso. Now the initial, intoxicated lust for senselessness has been satiated, I feel no desire. Attraction is lost on me. I'm satisfactorily numb, temporarily full, and I savour this state of being. It never lasts long.

I take another, full-bodied drag. The smoke is hot in my throat; it dries me out from the inside, coats the red interior with a fine layer of ash. I exhale, and smile, watching the smoke writhe as if in silent throes of agony.

"Enjoy it."

I don't turn around. "Enjoy what?"

"This. Living." Moran laughs, bitterly. "I give it a month."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Who I'm talking about."

"Can we stop with the riddles?"

"He's going to have me skinned for this." Moran ignores my sharp intake of breath and continues, "No point trying to hide it. He'll know."

"Shut up."

"You'll be lucky if he has you killed, you know. I'll put my money on a show – round up the detective and his doctor and have them tortured for your personal entertainment."

"I said shut up."

"What? I'm telling it like it is. We were stupid, and we all know Jim doesn't like stupid–"

I turn on Moran with a fury fuelled by fear; fear makes me desperate, and desperation makes me take his throat in my hands. I wrench his head to its limit, watch the skin strain, push his chin back when he tries to twist. Moran does not move for several minutes, and when he does, it isn't to crack my skull into the plasterwork. Instead, he raises both arms in a surrender and says, "All right. All right. No more."

His response catches me off guard. I pause, uncertain, and feel the anger waver. Moran clenches his jaw – I feel it tense in my grip – but keeps true to his word: he stays silent, doesn't lash out, remains very still and very wary as if confronted with something savage and inhuman. Slowly, I release my grip. His skin bears my fingerprints like little red ovals, ten of them, and I watch as they fade to an irritated pink. I slide off his lap and retreat to the opposite end of the sofa.