Pathology
Still and pale, the consulting detective lay on his back beside her, bare and breathing. The frenetic energy she usually associated with him had stilled in satiation. She had held him in the embrace of her arms and legs, loving him, opening her body and her heart to him. He took it all from her, and now he was quiet, processing the data, the sensation, the emotion. She propped herself up on an elbow and studied him, running one finger from his sternum down to his naval, pausing before she lightly scratched the raspy patch of hair just below the naval, just above where she still couldn't believe she had the right to touch. He lips turned up in a small smile and he flicked a glance at her.
Here he was just man, like any other, like any naked body on her slab. He was finely made, but like anyone else, the veins were blue, the blood was red (and she had seen his blood, after he jumped, the scalp wound bleeding so freely down his pale face). Her fingers danced back up his belly, and he quivered, ticklish, which made her smile. The great Sherlock Holmes, boffin detective, was ticklish, especially behind his knees and under his arms. How very ordinary. How very extraordinary.
She continued to examine him, her long hair falling over her shoulders, brushing his bicep, his shoulder. He had closed his eyes again, but she could see them moving behind the lids, that amazing intellect processing, processing. His brain was still whirring away, but his face was relaxed, and she could see a bit of the child he must have been once. Soft-lipped, forehead smooth. A holy terror, to be sure, terrified of not being able to stop seeing, thinking, knowing. Not able to stop himself from blurting out what he saw, what he knew, no matter how painful it was to others. The brain worked too fast to filter. The unasked for deductions burned the emotional bridges he needed so badly. Classmates hated him. Mummy upset, always upset with him, by him. An arrogant little show off, so thin, so hungry for love, for the human connections his brain and sharp tongue denied him. He could have been a perfect monster if it wasn't for his inherent need for sweetness that made him continue to reach out despite being slapped back again and again. He loved bees that make honey, sugar in his coffee, Mrs. Hudson's tea cakes, the cherries on Molly's cardigan, Molly who put the sugar in his coffee. And Molly loved him, oh, yes, she did. And she could accept and understand when he was occasionally cruel, when that brain made deductions too fast for his heart to catch up. She was a pathologist. One who studied suffering and determined its causes, saw its effects. She understood.
Her fingertips rested lightly over his heart, feeling its steady beat. Yes, he had one, even when he wanted to pretend he didn't. He had a big heart, a heart so sensitive he locked it up, imagined it wasn't there. But it was, and she absorbed the rhythm through her palm a moment before bending to lay gentle kiss over the steady beat. She'd found it…well, he says she found it, but she always knew it was there. He was the one who thought it was lost, but he didn't understand hearts very well, nor bodies neither, but she'd helped him. He'd always come to her for help with the bodies, and she happily shared anatomical parts with him for his research, study and pleasure. What they were doing now really wasn't so different. He still didn't quite understand how hearts worked, and despite previous opportunity, he wasn't even that well versed on how the other parts worked either. However, they'd always collaborated well together in the lab, and this current experiment with hearts and bodies was yielding very pleasing results.