A/N: This story contains graphic imagery, read at your own risk. Favourite, follow, and review if you please.
Fingers drift over ivory keys with hardened technique. In the room the only sounds that can be heard are the elegant notes that float from the grand piano. Before he started, the room had been loud and obnoxious, partying men and women with their champagne loudly chattering, clinking glasses together, giggling, chuckling, chortling. Too much delight had begun in his home, but now the stage was his. Though his eyes were on the piano, he had no doubt that each and every person had stopped whatever they were doing. Each woman with a cigarette now had extinguished it to save for later, each couple now sat somewhere in the room, perched and listening, and each man was probably gazing into the glass of alcohol, too afraid to break the spell. He feels his control over the people, and it's amazing to him that he can control people so simply, with Mozart or Bach.
As soon as he finishes the song, there is a dull ringing sound across the room of the sharp end. For a moment, each person believes the song will continue, and he almost fools himself into believing it as well, but then the applause begins, and the laughter fluxes in. Conversation picks up all over the place and the silence he so carefully crafted now falls into madness. He lets out a soft sigh, ready to leave the room, when he feels a pat on his back and he looks up to see a man whose name and station he never really cared to remember. Although, it was this man that had dogged him into playing the piece, so he decides to allow the conversation to go on.
"Dr. Smith, I knew you were a lot of things but never a pianist," the man's voice is rough and old, but John's lips tip into a smile despite the disdain he feels.
"You know what they say about talented fingers," he chuckles, going to slide off of the piano bench and stand over his guest. "Or rather what my wife does."
Popularity, he finds, is of importance to him – not that he has to try very hard to obtain it. After being awarded as one of the best up and coming surgeons, people tend to want to be him. He hasn't bothered to know any of the names of the people in this room, but they all know his. This is his mansion, after all, and almost every item in the house signifies that it is. The pillows on the sofas are monogramed with his and, unfortunately, his wife's initials. The champagne glasses all have the embossed lettering as well. The photos that hang about or are situated in cabinets or on top of the piano are of himself or his wife or the two of them together. None of them, however, are perfect. There aren't children in them. The smiles either of them wear are boring and fake. But people praise them for being an envied couple, like the idiots that John has always seen them as.
"Where is your wife anyway?" Reality asks this question often and today reality is brought in the form of the older gentleman.
"No idea, Melody likes to run off all of the time. Some days I think I ought to keep her on a leash – especially at times like these."
"You ought to, John, no woman is good on her own."
And he believes that, for once, someone else is smart enough to realise it too. "I know, I'll go looking for her later," his voice becomes dismissive; he probably won't look for her. If she doesn't want to be at her own damn party, then so be it. Frankly, he stopped caring for his wife the day they got married, or maybe it was before then. Love was too abstract a concept for him to care about, but she had money and that's what he needed.
"You want me to help you find her?" The question that the man presents is layered in many suggestions, and he knows exactly what will happen no matter what he says.
"No, that's quite alright, I'll go," he extends his hand to the other and they shake goodbye. John then winds out of the party to the kitchen and he looks about searching for something important. A few minutes later he has retrieved what he needs, and he finds that, yes, the man from earlier left the room. What a daft decision, really. He travels through the party again, saying hello to each and every person, asking how the food is, making sure they're all having a good time. He receives compliments on his piano playing, on his work in the field, and on fundamental things like his home or his appearance. After he's sure he's spoken to each and every guest he leaves the room.
The mansion he lives in is quiet on normal days, and so the moans of two people travel through it rather quickly. His path to the library is short and sweet – he knew where his wife was going to be the whole time and he really isn't surprised that she's being a slut. Gently, he opens the door to the library. He slips in carefully and makes his way to the couch where the two of them are far too invested in each other to notice him. The man, he discovers, is named Harold – and what a horrible name he decides that is, especially with how it's said on his wife's lips with such adoration. Though he can't see how a man with a pimpled back and a hairy chest, and a small dick is something she finds attractive. He's over top of her and he can just barely see her, because honestly he's one of the biggest men that John's ever had to lay eyes on. Poor Harold, though, beginning an affair with a killer's wife.
Minutes pass where he just stands watching as, in front of him, sex occurs. It's disgusting, pig like sex. Slowly, his hand slips down to take what he retrieved from the kitchen out of his pocket; a shining knife. It's been newly sharpened and it glints just the way he'd like it to. Then he's reaching to stab through Harold's back. Cutting through the skin is easy, but the fat and bones isn't. So he begins to repeatedly stab him until he slumps over the woman underneath. As soon as that happens, a gloved hand drops the knife to the ground. Screams are coming from his wife, but he moves to pull the body from her. Those eyes he hates so much glint with sadness and terror, and for once he loves them. He takes her cheeks in his hands and begins to comfort her, cooing at her.
"Shh, Mel, everything is going to be okay." Though clearly, it's not, she's covered in blood and fluids, and he's splattered in it. Her frizzy mass of hair is speckled with drying vomit, and she's paralysed in fear that he knows he can manipulate. "But I can't believe you would do this," he murmurs.
"D-Do this? You did this!"
He presses his finger to her lips and then shows her his hands which he made sure to cover in black gloves all the way back when he was in the kitchen. "Did I? Because as far as everyone else is concerned, it was you." He picks up the knife that he let fall to the ground and presses it into her hands. She's too shaken to move or to say anything. "I can't believe you would kill our friend, Melody. You know I have to turn you in. It wouldn't be good to hide this."
"But I didn't –"
"But you did kill him, didn't you? You're the one holding the knife."
She peers down at the knife and he watches as her eyes go wide. He stands up, slowly moving away from her, discarding the gloves into the fire that burns in the library's fireplace. Her screams of anguish have begun, her confusion setting in, and he goes to the phone, dialing in the police's number.
The press catches hold of the story of Melody Smith, perfect wife turned cold-blooded killer. They investigate a couple of days, but they find that even they feel terrible for the man known as Doctor John Smith, who has pushed himself into his home and refused to leave. Interview offers were constantly declined, and he only went to work for special cases. The world slowly began to forget about him, and everything became about her. He makes her famous with his solitude, and Melody Smith gets blamed for all of the murders that had begun wreaking havoc in London as they're all very similar in way of killing. He becomes known no longer as John Smith, but instead as 'Mourning Husband'.
Its a few weeks later that things return to normal – a full month after her being put in custody and sentenced to a mental institution. The only thing he finds he misses about having Melody around is having his own personal bitch. In fact, he writes this down on the small notepad he has sitting on the ornate desk in his study. He throws his pen down on the paper and then sits back in his seat, staring at the clock above his desk. His hand reaches out to grab the glass of sherry that had been left unattended for the past hour. The alcohol has become the most interesting part of his days, it relaxes him from being on edge although it's quite obvious that he's not going to be caught.
When the phone rings he takes it as a message from the devil, 'Yes you will be,' he seems to say.
Despite his better judgment he answers, "Hello?"
"Hi, this is Clara Oswald, I'm with the Herald –" the voice on the other end of the line is chipper, but professional and he sits up in his chair a bit more, but he quickly cuts her off as well.
"I've already been contacted by your office and I've declined any sort of interview. So I'm afraid, Miss Oswald, that you've just wasted your time as well as mine," he's about to go to hang up the phone, but she's quick to respond.
"I know that, but this isn't for the main page, it's just for the lifestyle section."
"Then find someone else who's just lost his wife, I'm sure there are plenty of people like me out there."
"But there aren't, and I promise I'm not like everyone else who's contacted you. I just want to know how you're dealing with things."
"So you want to bring light to the fact that I exist."
"Precisely."
He takes a moment to think, then he hangs up the phone. If she really wants this interview, she'll call back – and she does. Ten minutes later and it's ringing again, he knows it'll be her. "You know where my house is by now, be here at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon for tea. Don't be late, if you are I won't let you in." He then hangs up again, and when she doesn't call back he supposes their meeting is set. He takes another sip from his sherry and watches the time go by on the clock. After a while, he figures it's a good thing to do an interview, he'll be cleared of suspicion and people will finally see him as Doctor John Smith again, his fame will return, and Melody Smith will be buried behind bars.