Ashes, Ashes

Smoke and Flame

- c h a p t e r   f i v e -

Emma turned around the cigarette in her fingers. Yes, John had asked her to keep them away from Sherlock in order to help him stop smoking. But he never said precisely how she had to keep them away from him. If there were no cigarettes left, then he certainly couldn't smoke them. It would be much easier if she could just get rid of them, once and for all.

She always wondered what it would be like to smoke a cigarette - throughout all of her experiences, it was really the one thing that always surprisingly elluded her. She knew of its dangers, but she didn't care. The majority of the choices she had made had just the same amount of dangers in one way or another at least in her mind. If she was going to quit whisky, she could easily fall into something else.

Of course, Emma didn't know the first thing about how to smoke. Her knowledge came from glancing at people when she was out and from watching people in films. That was the extent of much of her knowledge, in all sincerity. But that wasn't going to prevent her from going ahead and attempting to igure it out. If worst came to worst, she'd go online and search up precisely how she could do such a thing.

She had to find a lighter first, of course. The only problem was that Emma didn't own a lighter. After all, she'd never smoked before and therefore had no use for a lighter otherwise. She'd have to go out and get one some other time - she was going to smoke a cigarette on this day, she'd convinced herself.

No, she'd have to use something else...matches. She knew that she had matches somewhere, and after only a few minutes of rustling around in her kitchen cabinets in order to find them. She finally took one out and began to strike it, waiting for the gentle glow of the flame to cast its light upon her.

This process went fairly quickly, but she still tried to keep care and move slowly when she realised she needed to walk the match over towards where she had the cigarette box. Emma didn't exactly feel comfortable knowing she was carting around an open flame - she wasn't the most graceful person, after all. She made it eventually, however, and started to transfer the flame to the first cigarette she picked up.

She let out a yelp as she realised she'd been successful - she'd managed to light the cigarette despite of everything. With a slight quiver in her hands, she brought it up to her mouth and attempted to mirror the actions she'd seen others go through before smoking themselves.

Emma breathed in, feeling her mouth and throat filling to the brim with smoke. Almost immediately, she let out a pitiful cough. God, why did anyone enjoy doing this? She could see no reason for it. Nevertheless, she was determined to get herself through this whether it was somewhat painful or not. She needed to have the experience of smoking.

She'd convinced herself that this was something that was completely necessary. Since she had cigarettes in her possession, she might as well get something out of them. It was an experience that she believed was utterly necessary despite of everything. She couldn't justify it to herself any further than that, especially not now that she actually had the cigarette between her lips.

It felt rather hellish, if she was going to be honest with herself. She wasn't enjoying it at all and couldn't see why anyone would continue to do it ever again after doing it once. How did people manage to get addicted? Then she reminded herself of how much she loathed whisky and how horrible her initial experience with it had been...yes, cigarettes suited her well.

But as she found herself stuck within this reverie, the sound of her door flying open caused her to jump slightly. Emma didn't have to look in the direction to know precisely who it was - it was just so utterly obvious and predictable.

"Sherlock, get the hell out of my flat!" she barked, refusing to turn around. "I swear, I thought you at least would be polite enough to knock. I know it's you."