Title: Pink
Category: Sherlock Holmes (movie-verse)
Pairing: Implied Holmes/Irene, but really, nothing
Genre: Action
Set: When Holmes is waiting in the shadows and watching Blackwood's ritual.
Rating: PG-13 for violence and mentions of cocaine.
Summary: Holmes has always considered emotions to be a distraction from a case, but it's never once crossed his mind that it works in reverse too.
A/N: It was hard to think of a "color" for this one… actually just drew a random one out of an old box of crayons. I'm thinking it represents the color of a faint blush. Trying Holmes' POV on this one... Doesn't exactly follow the movie, just inspired by it.
For a moment, standing in that darkness above the cellar, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to focus in other ways. I needed to rely on all my senses if I was going to do this thing properly. Darkness claimed my vision as my eyelids slid closed and my ears picked up the words of the ritual, footsteps approaching on the stairwell which had led me here. The scent of the cellar reached my nostrils, and I reeled from it, my hands reaching out to brace me against the wall. The stone was cold and damp, and I turned my head a fraction, catching the smell of mold. Nothing was worth noting more than the ritual words and footsteps. I opened my eyes and glanced over the railing again to look down at the girl.
For a second, a very brief second, I heard the footsteps pause, and a second set join them. After that second, I blocked it out and focused on the ritual. I blinked once, and another woman's image was transposed onto the one writhing below. And another, and another. Every woman who had died in a similar manner flashed before my eyes in that one moment before I opened my eyes again.
I had to stop him now. There was no time to wait for Lestrade. Quickly, I moved to descend and was stopped by the double sets of footsteps growing louder as they came closer. Pausing in my own steps, I turned just a bit and saw my pursuer struggling against the grip of my companion. A light smirk touched my lips and I moved to assist.
"Surprised you haven't jumped yet," Watson muttered.
"I was waiting for you," I answered, smirking, as the man lost consciousness and we dropped him on the stairs.
"Sure you were."
"I was. Really."
"Were you?"
"I just said I was." I turned away from the good doctor and leaned again over the railing, jumping back when one of the hooded men looked up. "I think they know we're here."
"You 'think'?" Watson asked incredulously as he moved to join me.
"Yes, and we're about to have company," I answered, running to the stairwell leading down to the cellar from the landing we were currently on, stopping a few steps down when two hooded men blocked our path. Immediately, I struck one in the jugular and he crumpled. The other lunged at me and I ducked to the side, locking one of my ankles over one of his to trip him. Watson brought his elbow down on the man's back as he brought himself up, and he fell again. I placed my boot on the back of his neck and shifted so that my heel dug into his throat, blocking the flow of blood through the veins, making sure that the man was unconscious before we moved on. "Knew I could count on you," I said to my friend.
"He could end up completely paralyzed, Holmes…" Watson said to me and I smirked.
"But of course, you knew that when you struck him." The doctor nodded after a moment, and I could tell by the curve of his lips and the quivering of the skin beneath his jaw that he was chuckling, though I couldn't hear the laughter. "Come, we have a murder to prevent." Turning quickly, I descended the stairs and entered the cellar, Watson following.
Back in our rooms at Baker Street, I sat turned towards the window, violin in one hand and bow in the other, a velvet-lined case sitting on the windowsill where I had set it, and now I gazed at it in contemplation, drawing the bow slowly over the strings of my Stradivarius. I felt Watson's eyes on me from across the room, but did not turn. I knew what that gaze implied.
"I'd rather if you cut directly to the lecture, Watson," I said softly, not taking my eyes from the case, "instead of willing me to turn around and take my eyes off of my syringe case."
"No lecture today, Holmes. Much good it has done in the past." My friend's voice sounded so despondent that I was forced to pause in my playing and turn at least partially to look at him, curious as to this sudden change. It had never once occurred to me that my doctor-friend would ever cease lecturing me on my use of cocaine, and that he had foregone a lesson in the mind-altering properties of the substance intrigued and infuriated me, though not in the usual sense of the term. "No, today, I only have a question for you." I turned more fully in the chair, but not so far that I had to stand. Through the corner of one eye, I kept my syringe in sight while still giving Watson my attention, indicating that he could indeed ask the question.
"Go on," I said, in case he needed to hear something to indicate I was actually going to listen to him this time.
"Will you be using it as a distraction from the distinct lack of a case since this one's wrapped up? Or a distraction from something else entirely?" He folded his arms over his chest as he stared at me. I thought I could see something in his eyes that seemed to remind me of the way my father would look at me when he knew I'd snuck out after dark, or how my dear elder brother had looked the first time I asked him for a loan. He was upset with me.
"Why would you ask such a thing, Watson? You know very well by now what my solution is for." I set down my violin and leant the bow against it, finally rising and turning away from him to reach out my hand for the case that held the prepared syringe. Slowly, I opened the case and took up the needle. Watson's footsteps came closer and his hand took my wrist. "It is a distraction. What it distracts from does not alter its purpose." Even as I spoke, I knew the blood was rising to my head, and my face felt hot. I was skilled at hiding such things, and I did hide this.
"It may not have anything to do with the use, but it makes a difference to the user. Usually, you wait a few weeks without a case before needing narcotics to occupy yourself. It's not the lack of work. You're still thinking about her, aren't you?" Watson released his hold on my wrist and instead took my syringe from my fingers. His eyes spoke of his disgust, though why it should make any difference whatever to him, even I could not deduce.
"I leave you to your fancies, I pray you leave me to mine." Turning, I plucked the cocaine syringe from his hand and held it tightly in my own. "If I fancy to distract myself from a woman with my cocaine, I will, and if you wish to do the opposite and distract yourself from it with a woman, I will not stop you." I turned away, angry with myself for the years spent teaching Watson my methods, for now he was able to figure my true intent. "How did you deduce it? Aside from knowing my pattern." My voice, I kept even, though I knew my eyes were blazing.
"You turned her photo down. You never do that. You didn't even turn it down when you learned she'd left Mr. Norton after robbing him of his most valuable possessions, nor when she married a second time and left in the same fashion. You've not touched it since you set it in place, no matter what she does that catches your attention. Since you've turned it flat, you must be avoiding thinking about her." I heard his footsteps turn and cross the room, heard the handle of the door rattle as he turned it. "You're obsessed with her, Holmes. Let it go." The door opened and closed, and I turned to see that Watson had left. I turned my eyes back to my syringe and dropped it back into the velvet lining of its case and snapping it closed before setting it carefully in a drawer of my desk, slipping the band that held the key from around my wrist and locking the drawer. I crossed the room to pick up the cabinet photo I had claimed as my prize from the King of Bohemia, my eyes tracing over the gentle curves of her head and face, her eyes in the photo as expressive as they were in solid form.
Breathing out hard, I slammed the photo down again and crossed back to my chair by the window, taking up my violin once more.
Next Chapter: Black... no idea when it will be posted, but stay tuned anyway!