The Humanity Extraction

Chapter 4~ Empty

“...Is this really necessary?”

John stood opposite me with a glint in his eyes that I didn’t especially like the connotations of. He was poised with a pair of awful blue jeans and a t-shirt draped over one tanned arm – fairly usual if he was destined for the shower – but the issue was that these were allegedly destined for me. I glanced down at my lovely burgundy shirt – I did actually like this one, as I had repeated to the insistent Watson opposite me several times – and my well-fitting suit longingly.

“But John…” I cast him a pleading look from on high. He shook his head in that brisk, determined way that he does and looked up at me, a sparkle reflecting in his eyes that I promise you were not in mine. He offered me his forearm. I clenched my jaw, fighting to resist the impulses telling me to smash him in his own. Besides, I think that would rather hurt my hand.

“Sherlock…” He was warning me. What does he think he could do to me? I stared down at him, my eyes remote and flecked with ice. Like the top of a distant mountain, or an iceberg, sighted miles out at sea. John just smirked. The awkward little jumper-wearing John was feeling confident. This was not good.

Next thing I knew, there were hands unbuttoning my shirt. I stood stock-still, discomfort crawling over me like flies over a carcass. I sucked in a lungful of air as John dragged the shirt off my shoulders. I stared at him, blushing and uncomprehending, and stuck my arms out straight. John chuckled and removed the last of the material just as a flush crept down my neck and over my chest. He drew in a shocked breath, as if winded, as his eyes met my ribs, protruding from under my translucent skin like dead trees into white skies.

I’m feeling rather poetic today.

John stretched out one hesitant digit to trace the sharply uneven outline of my torso. “Sherlock…” He gasped, tears springing to his eyes. My skin was now writhing as I stared at him, my body rigid and straight, neck frozen and my head unmoving. Please no tears John, I’m bad at coping with that… He blinked them away fiercely and wrapped me up in a solid hug, his jumper pressed against my bare skin. My body was on fire and I wasn’t quite sure why as he pressed his cheek against mine, on tip-toe. I smiled, and wondered absently what his cheek would feel like on my lips. Wait… What? I stepped back robotically and he gave me a wobbly smile, leaking care. Oh no, he’s emotional. He knows I’m terrible at handling emotional people… I started to panic and he offered me a concerned glance, stepping towards me again and giggling as he draped a t-shirt over my head and manoeuvring it around my frozen limbs and allowing it to fall into place.

The fabric felt all wrong, the cotton-polyester mix feeling cheap and light against my body. The sleeves hung open and wrinkles and bags surrounded me.

“Are you sure this is the right size, John?” I garbled out, my vocal chords still struggling to process what had just happened. Was that John being friendly or… Something else? I extinguished the burst of errant hope that flared briefly in my chest and watched the giggling man cautiously.

“Yes, Sherlock.” He laughed. “Now, do I have to put the jeans on you as well?” I froze and watched him carefully; my eyebrows consumed by embarrassment and attempting valiantly to hide in my hairline. I stared at him silently for a few long, awkward seconds. Say no! Say no! Damn, Sherlock, say no! My mind screamed at me, but the syllable was impossible to form. Wordlessly, I opened and closed my mouth, lips shaking with the drawn-out effort. Finally, I opted for a robotic shake of the head that turned into an elliptical hybrid of a nod and a desperate shake. I hissed suddenly and snatched the jeans from his arm, and heedless of the man still in the room with me, changed in a blur of beautiful, flying suit trousers and hideous, stiffly-new denim ones. I hated them already, the way they closed their jaws around my knees and then sagged, as if exhausted, around my calves. I cast my t-shirt a precursory glance. It was jet-black (that part, at least, I approved of) and depicted an odd scene of men attacking a huge gingerbread man. I frowned, and traced the oddly-drawn lines with the tip of a finger. I sighed grumpily.

“The design could be worse, I suppose…” I muttered. John laughed delightedly. I liked that sound. He moved to stand behind me, and checked the fit at the back of both trousers and t-shirt.

“Hmm…” He hummed. “You suit those jeans, but I must say I prefer the suit trousers.”

“I rather agree with you John, it is beyond me why I am being subjected to this.” I scowled at him… Although he couldn’t see me. His loss, in any case. I stepped into the most hateable shoes I had ever seen – crisp white trainers with oddly-sewn on blue patches – and promptly stepped out of them again. “I have gone along with your little game of dress-up now, John.  Kindly let me change back into my-“ I stopped short, and spun to face him. “Exactly what aspect of my humanity is this set to prove?” He reached for my arm and I watched, uncomprehending. To excuse his odd reach for my limb, he touched the horribly gaping sleeve encasing my upper arm and tugged on it a few times, blushing deeply.

“Doesn’t matter.” He mumbled, and he bolted from the flat, leaving an empty void in my chest. At loss for words, I called Molly desperately.

“Molly.” I stated.

“Oh! Sh-Sherlock! Do you need a few more specimens? I have another John Doe in the back if you-“

“No, actually Molly, I...” I took a deep breath. “I need your help with something.” I stated with great difficulty.

“O-of course, I…” The woman was at loss for words. Good, so was I.

“I’m in the flat. I’ll make tea. See you soon?” I said awkwardly, my words hanging in the thin air of the flat I stood in. With a sharp tap, I ended the call, with no doubt that she would turn up.

Empty.

So empty, you could hear my hollow heart ticking, my cogs turning, my brain whirring. You machine. My mind screamed, taking on John’s light tenor. You machine! My ears rang with the deafening silence saturated with everything that we weren’t saying. Frantically, I fled to my room and scrabbled around my pillows until I found the cardboard container that I needed. Shaking it with a fevered intensity most often found in the medically insane, I scooped up the remaining two patches and a stray cigarette from my bed sheets, jamming on the patches and balancing the unlit cigarette on my lip.

Balancing the device with the power to kill me right where it needed to hit, depriving it of the power it needed to strike. The perfect irony; the perfect metaphor that is my life. Staggering to the kitchen; veins popping against my skin, outlining my flesh in webs of green and blue as my hands shake… I’d done it all before. I lit the hob and then the cigarette from the gas ring, and just held the passionately puffing creature in my fingertips, staring at it levelly. In its desire to end me, it huffed and wheezed smoke from a burning red mouth, consuming its own life even as it would be consuming mine.

I remained like that, gas ring burning and cigarette glaring, until the doorbell went. Mrs Hudson allowed Molly access to the flat, and the timid tap on the door burned through my thoughts. The wrong one was on the other side of the painted wood. The wrong one. Numbly, I let it swing open and she stood there nervously, no lipstick this time. I smiled at her, forgetting the death creature in my free hand. Gently, wide-eyed, she reached out one slim hand to pluck it from my grip and threw it down the stair well. I gave her a tightly-lipped smile then, trying to keep emotion from reaching the surface. It was counter-productive.

She stepped over the door-frame and let it swing shut as I stood there, frozen. Gently, kindly, she took my arm and led me to the sofa, where she sat me down, made me tea, and handed me a steaming mug which I raised to my lips with shaking hands.

“I’m here, Sherlock…” She said softly, with no tears in the eyes that met mine. I respected Molly for that very reason; her lack of useless emotion in useless circumstances. I nodded jerkily, took a deep breath, and began:

“John.”