The doubt filled him suddenly and ruthlessly. He loosened his grip from her neck and his fingers cramped. He rose up on his knees and stared down at her. Her horror-stricken face was finally still, the muscles relaxed into a slacken gape. All his careful, methodical planning was brought to a halt and his decisions demanded to be questioned.
Oh god.
God, what have I done?
He shrank away from her, cupped his hands over his eyes and began to shake. He stayed there, rocking back and forth as if he were lulling a child to sleep, silently screaming out bits of the torment that threatened to consume him. He'd kept it bound up beneath the surface for too long and it was fighting and clawing its way out. He shook as if the demons were ripping the flesh from his bones.
No one came. No one moved him from this place. No one stopped him from breaking down beside her.
Though it seemed he was there for what must have been hours the upheaval did come to an end. It faded away and he sank into a blessed numbness for the first time in a very long time.
Maybe the man in the coat was an illusion. Maybe this was his madness. Maybe his friend was actually gone. Maybe he was really, really gone.
But that wasn't the truth, was it?
He peaked out at her from between cracks in his fingers.
Get ahold of yourself, John. We have to finish this. Do what you set out to do. It is the only way to an end, the only way out of this hell. Flush him out. Draw him to you. You make your own way because no one is going to carve it out for you, and no one is coming unbidden. Now let's be done with it.
He stood, wiping his face across his sleeve and gathering himself into the straight, collected stance of the soldier. Inhaling deeply, he cleared his mind and took in the scene before him. He was towering over her body.
His body.
His first body.
He sized her up, deciding which way he was going to lay her out. This all would be done with great care, just for him. Just for Sherlock. He would craft for him a scene that would beckon him to it. Was this the proof that he needed? Proof that he was wrong, that this could never work, this sudden severing of all ties? This was how far he would let this go, this façade of death and departure? Well, the game he played was John's demise, and now he would prove him wrong. This time, the one and only time perhaps, he was so very, very wrong.
He'd left him brutally, here alone again in the world he didn't fit into. They had fit together though, hadn't they? In finding each other they had found themselves; two oddities that made a perfect machine, fluid in its functionality. And now there was one. He was a broken half; a cup that had split in two - emptied, and without purpose. But he refused to be someone who was without consequence, someone who was easily tucked away in the back of a drawer somewhere. He had lived life in the shadows, as a shadow, and decided long ago he would never go back to it. He was awake now and this was him refusing to sleep. This was him controlling the nightmare. This was his rebuttal, and it was going to be indisputable. It was his gift to the most brilliant man alive.
Sherlock was alive, he knew it in his very bones. He had been catching glimpses of the man in the coat for months now, always in the distance, easily lost in a crowd, always far enough away to make him second-guess his own perception. But he was finished with guessing. He was ready for answers, and he would have them. He would not let the wool be pulled over his eyes complacently like the thousands of sheep in this city had. He was not one of them. Sherlock knew that. He should have known better.
She was easily moved and edged about, her limbs still warm and limp as if she were sleeping, but she would not be waking this time. He experimented with her a little, turning her head, straightening her clothes. He crossed her arms behind her back, causing her breasts to heave and her head to tilt back slightly. He liked the effect and it gave him an idea. He made his way across the almost pitch-black box car to retrieve one of the bags of sand that were left against the far wall god knows how long ago. The burlap was brittle and tore as he moved it. Much of the sand was lost in a trail leading to the body. He cursed. He didn't want a mess and he didn't have time to worry about cleanup. His little episode had taken too long and day would be breaking soon.
He decided it was better that the bag was half emptied once he had hoisted her upper body onto it. She would have looked too unnatural if it were any higher. As it was she ended up looking like she was leaning off the edge of a pillow, as if maybe in the act of making love, her back perfectly arched, her arms beneath her, exaggerating her breasts, her head tilted backwards like she was looking behind her.
And so she would be.
He turned her to face the door of the car so that whoever was to pry it open next would find its occupant staring at them, upside down with her open-mouthed, wide-eyed expression. He cascaded her hair around her, combing it out with his fingertips. He wanted to take the gloves off. He wanted to get in there, to feel and paint the scene with his bare hands, but he resisted.
"Better to err on the side of caution" he heard the voice of Mycroft in his head. And he had. He had been very careful. He knew he would not have to plant evidence to be found. He knew the man who couldn't resist a good sadistic killer would need no help in finding him. He knew he would figure him out in the blink of a brilliant eye. He was depending on it. And what would he think of this when he did? How would he handle this slap in the face, this refusal to lie back and fade away in the forgotten?
He was happy he had taken this one. She wasn't pretty in the face at all- a whore aged beyond her years by her lifestyle and addictions maybe, but in her final pose she was brilliant. Her cheaply died auburn hair that was rooting out blond formed a perfect arch around her. It was a striking touch.
He crossed her legs at the ankles and stood back, pressing his finger over his lips in thought, then he sighed.
"Well that's no good, is it?" He said out loud to her, and she did not respond.
He turned around, looking for something, anything that would give him some inclination of how he should finish her. What was missing? Again he turned. What was he missing? Sherlock Holmes would make a brilliant psychopath. The thought thrilled him. He wouldn't miss a thing.
"Work with what you have, John. Put to good use the things around you and try to involve that instrument between your ears if at all possible." Now it was his voice he was hearing. That demeaning, seductive croon that he missed so terribly. It went through him like electricity and he closed his eyes with the pleasure of it.
He finally found himself staring at the only thing there was in the car besides the occasional rusted bits of metal that littered the floor. There were the sandbags, four more of them. He would be doing some more propping, it seemed.
He was much more careful in his maneuvering of the remaining bags then he had been on the first go, and managed to get them all into position with just a slight tear in the last one when it was hoisted into place. Two under each leg. He had placed them under her ankles at first but when he backed up to take her in it didn't sit well with him and he ended up sitting on the rough, grimy floor of the car and pushing them up under her further using his feet. She had two bags propping each bent knee up now, so she was ready for sex or an exam. It was disturbing enough to wrench his stomach, which was perfect. A pretty little package for his friend with an appetite for the macabre.
"Looks like the work of a serial madman, doesn't it?" he asked her. Then he nodded to himself, quite pleased. "He'll love it."
She was perfect. Rigid and fluid, like a photo snapped of something in motion. The heavy line of sand that led from the edge of the car to the center where he'd positioned her was the only thing out of place. He strode over and swept at it with his feet, spreading it about with his shoes, but it did little more than leave streaks across it, like drawing on the beach with a stick.
Fucking brilliant.
He was down on his knees in a flash, scooping the sand from the wall towards the body with his gloved hands, sweeping every last grain forward as best he could. It was a time-consuming task, but he was sure of the importance of it. It was something he had almost missed.
He spread it as evenly as he could in a curving sweep on her left side. In it, in ornate, scrolling letters, he wrote the capitols: S.H.
John tried to imagine what the master would do upon entering; what his beautiful, fierce eyes would focus in on first. What information would he be processing and how quickly would he be able to follow it back to him? Sherlock wouldn't be part of the investigation, of course. But he was sure he would see it, nonetheless. He had an idea that someone knew more than they were letting on about his whereabouts and he had an idea it was the man's brother, he just couldn't prove it. If he was right, however, then brilliant! Beautiful! He would see every last element of the case in perfect detail. He wouldn't miss a thing. If he was wrong, which perhaps he was, then his friend would be drawing his conclusions from television and newspaper articles and wherever else he could get his information, but both paths led to the same destination. Sherlock would find him. He would intercept him. He would have to stop him, because if he didn't, then this wouldn't. John was willing to go as far as was required to get to the end of this now. How much was the man in the coat willing to ignore?
The scene was set and John exited the stage. He pulled the heavy door shut until just a crack was left open. The place would be swept once the dogs were found dead. He could sit back and watch it unfold while he planned out his next move.
Home was inviting for the very first time. He bolted the lock and slid the chain into place and his entire being seemed to calm with the act of it. Immediately his clothes went in the wash, gloves and all, and he stepped into the shower. He relaxed against the back wall, letting the heat and water wash the dirt and sins away. He forced the girl and the images of the night from his mind. He couldn't let it get to him. Nothing could shake him now that he'd stepped over the line. He imagined instead yet another scenario of how the reunion would go between them - what would be said and what would be done and the decisions that would have to be made. He sank down to the shower floor and let the water stab at him from above. He kept his head down and the water stole the tears away. His chest ached as he murmured an answer to the question he imagined would be asked:
"Because I couldn't do it, I couldn't go on. God, I tried. I tried to trust that you knew what you were doing, but you were wrong."