Author's note: *Updated and now, in it's proper form. BETA'D thanks to the ever fantastic Charm and Strange! Thank you again! Also, once more, a huge thank you to everyone that's alerted/favourited! Hopefully this lil' fic won't turn out too bad.
"Oh, oh, oh my God!" Sarah cried, gripping the blankets frantically around her as Sherlock's highlighted shadow prowled across the walls. "Is- is- is that a skull?"
Sherlock glanced at the object he held in the palm of his hands, watching the candle flickering neatly inside of it. "Yes, a human skull, actually. What of it?"
"You…you don't any more of those…do you?" She asked nervously, her eyes never leaving the glowing cranium.
"Of the candles? No—"
"No…" Sarah squeaked, and she hesitantly pointed towards the skull.
"God, I wish!" Sherlock lamented, taking a step forward to set the skull upon the coffee table. Curiously, Sherlock noticed that whenever he breached a certain perimeter of distance towards Sarah, she'd quickly draw back, as if—Sherlock licked his lips curiously—as if-
"You aren't afraid of me, are you?" Sherlock asked cheerfully, not even bothering to keep the amused tone out of his voice.
"N-no." Sarah said shakily, her eyes flashing to Sherlock and then back to the skull. "It's just,"
She stopped, her shoulders shuddering. There was a pause, and then finally, Sarah admitted: "John just… tells me things, is all."
Sherlock's eyes lit up and his mouth curled into an interested smile for once as his long, pale fingers pressed together. "Things? What kinds of things?"
Sarah suddenly looked all the more agitated—Sherlock's perceptive eyes could even see the minute beads of sweat forming along her mouth and hairline. She glanced around uneasily, as if her answer would cause something to leap out at her from the pitch black darkness.
"Things like…that you…you keep disembodied heads in the refrigerator. That you...you beat corpses…" Sarah's voice dropped off into a hush just as Sherlock's broke out into a hearty fit of laughter.
"Ah yes well," Sherlock paused for dramatic effect—wondering how he could use Sarah's fear of him to an advantage. "John isn't one to lie." Sherlock then sighed, sitting down once more in the armchair. He studied Sarah's reaction carefully. "Still unsure?"
Sarah made a small noise in the back of her throat.
"You can go check, if you like." Sherlock continued. He then sighed as he noticed a large tremor running up her right arm. "Look, I can promise you that there's nothing dead in here, well, except the skull." Sherlock paused again, considering. "At least for tonight."
Sarah nodded slowly, and sank back down onto the couch, her right leg bouncing restlessly. "Thank you."
Sherlock only wanted to kick himself now. Why tell her such a thing? He could spend the rest of the night recounting all the wonderfully unique specimens he had hidden throughout the flat, including the ones that John didn't even know about. He now desperately wished that something would happen. Something horribly 'scary', as John would call it. But with the power out, many things were suddenly at a loss. He couldn't pop in another 'terrifying' movie, and he couldn't wire some type of spooky sound effects to echo through the walls. He did have rope, however. But, in retrospect, that could possibly be taking things a bit…far.
He contented himself to glancing to the windows. The wind outside was picking up maddeningly, and with every pop, squeak and crack that they made, Sarah's heart rate increased. The door shuddered, and Sherlock wondered calmly if the letters on the front would remain there the entire night. Lighting crashed, and lit up the room briefly, sending multitudes of shadows and other crawling silhouettes across the floor and kitchen. Sherlock smiled every time the shadows changed and molded; he merely saw bits of retreating light. Sarah saw everything much differently, however. She gasped in fear and shock after every strike.
Every lighting bolt was the floodlight of a kidnaper's flashlight. Every crack and scratch was another fear come to life, even her silly childhood ones—ones of Freddy Krueger running his long, rusty metal claws across the window. Every shadow was rising from the walls and the carpet as if by black magic, and she felt claustrophobia gripping her shoulders. Every chill was a ghost trying to touch her. When the wind howled, a dying scream lingered on the wind. When the door rattled, some huge brute with chains, guns, and God knows what else was about to break in the door. When she blinked, in the split second darkness behind her lids, she saw dripping smiles and heard her pleading screams. She saw John being knocked out and beaten and her being captured and roughly tied with ropes. Always ropes.
Her breathing hitched in her throat. Her chest burned from her poor blood circulation from her position. She needed John, and she needed him now. John was safe. John was warm—John knew what to do, what to say. What to say! But all she bloody had was his creepy, lunatic roommate. And that only made the atmosphere all the most uncomfortable. The last time she was over, horrible men did break in—and all over Sherlock Holmes. All because of bloody wretched Sherlock Holmes! As far as Sarah was concerned, John should drop this…no.
She stared back up at Sherlock, whose eyes never seemed to blink. He wasn't human. These thoughts raced around in her mind and only made her all the more frightened.
"Are you sure this is all you have?" Sarah shivered into her question. Sherlock merely glanced to the windows, watching the rain pound against the glass. "Sherlock?"
"You know, there's a graveyard nearby," Sherlock said, his voice cold once more. "But unless you prefer I go out into this storm and bring back another dead body part to stick a candle in, I believe this is all we have." Sarah suddenly felt very ill.
Sarah tucked herself a bit further into her blanket, but Sherlock merely scowled at her weak notions. He was getting bored of the way her body reacted to the weather. Something needed to happen. Suddenly, Sherlock felt it—a panic attack. He could nearly feel the sickly unease as it radiated off of her, and he found himself cringing away from Sarah. He certainly wanted to scare her into possibly never coming back here again—or near John, for that matter—but for her to be sick in his flat, on Mrs. Hudson's carpet…
He pictured John's face, and wondered briefly if all the hell he'd receive for it would be worth it. It was one thing to help someone not be afraid. It was another thing entirely if they were ill. Reluctantly, Sherlock sighed, and took a chance to control the matter.
"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?" Sherlock finally pressed, leaning towards her with one elbow on his knee. Sarah only met his eyes for a second.
"What thing?"
"The whole panic attack thing."
Sarah's eyes widened, and then she looked away, as if insulted. "I don't know what you are talking about."
She cringed inside, her stomach churning in anxiety, tears that Sherlock couldn't see brimming in her eyes. She had to be strong like...like John would have told her to be. Right? Right?
Sherlock broke out into a wide smile. She trembled.
"Ah, there you go again."
"What?"
"You're lying. You've been lying for most of the entire night since John's departure." Sarah opened her mouth as if to snap back a crude remark, but Sherlock cut her off. "And don't deny that either! I can tell you're lying—and by denying it you're only adding to my collected observations. You're not good at hiding it, either. Not by a long shot."
Sarah's eyes narrowed, but her right leg only bounced more. "You know..." Sherlock drawled on, strangely interested again as he watched her panic manifest itself into her muscles. "They say the first reaction someone has when faced with a crisis is denial. So, maybe you don't even know that you are lying." He paused, a finger to lips.
"…Or maybe you do. Perhaps you're just trying to calm yourself down? …Like you were before, with your pitiful breathing exercise. You're doing it wrong, by the way," he added condescendingly.
"Excuse me?" Sarah snapped back, her eyes wide.
"Breathing." Sherlock dramatically slowed down his pronunciation of the word, so that Sarah's brain could understand. "You are doing it wrong."
Sarah only rolled her eyes towards the ceiling in the flickering candlelight. Sherlock continued regardless.
"The first basic step to keeping your head in a traumatic situation is breathing through the nose and out the mouth."
Sarah finally met Sherlock's dark gaze. How would you know? Her rolling thoughts angrily buzzed. You've never had to go through anything! Nothing like I did! She couldn't breathe. More tears. She wanted to scream at him, but all that came out was: "You make it seem like I'm about to go into hysterics."
Sherlock merely ran a hand through his hair exasperatedly. "I swear, does anyone but me actually listen to what they're saying? Yes, you are close to hysterics. But it's not just that. I think, Sarah," He hissed out her name in his short breath, "that you are prone to panic attacks. Post traumatic stress syndrome, possibly." Sherlock stopped once more as a curious thought flickered past his brain. "Does John know about this?"
Sarah quickly gripped tighter at the blankets around her. "Yes. He does. So…please…stop."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes hatefully. Fantastic. Bloody brilliant. Thanks for informing me, John.
"Stop?" Sherlock snapped, rising from his chair. "Stop what? Receiving information that I should have already been informed of?"
"You make it seem like I'm some type of mental patient!" Sarah squealed out, shrinking down at a heavy belt of rain that collided with the windows, shaking them harder than ever.
"John should have told me about this! He knows…he knows how…" Sherlock trailed off, running his fingers through his dark curls once more. He knows that I don't know what to do with the ridiculousness of people!
The talk of John made Sarah feel a bit better, made the sickness fade slightly. Suddenly a blast of thunder shook the sky so roughly it made the pictures on the walls twist at a disheveled angle, and Sarah couldn't hold in her pitiful whimper. Sherlock only made his disdain over Sarah more apparent, and it sparked something in her. Something that she'd been wanting to say for quite a while.
"John doesn't have to tell you everything you know," Sarah huffed out, dragging a useless breath in through her mouth. "You're…you're so damn possessive of him! Do you know that- that he doesn't sleep, because of all you put him through? That he's lost weight! That he sometimes is so stressed out that his left hand trembles from all the stress you—."
Sherlock froze, and he couldn't hear Sarah anymore. His already short temper had suddenly ratcheted up to anger. He felt like he was short-circuiting. As if she knows more about John than I do!
"What? Are those the signs of him acting like a mental patient?" He yelled.
"No!" Sarah raged. "If anyone's the goddamn bloody mental patient around here, it's YOU!"
Sherlock turned, truly only focused on her spiteful words of his effecting John. They grinded more than her thoughts over his own odd tendencies.
"John's hand only goes into fits of tremors when he's not under stress! He enjoys it! He enjoys the feeling of danger, and action, because he's not afraid to break free from the mundane rut of normal, dull human life—and live! But—really, no." Sherlock stalked towards her, his nostrils flaring, his eyes bright and sparkling. Sarah crushed herself more against the couch.
"Seeing as you seem to know John and I so very well, tell me, why did I—in all of my madness—still retrieve a candle for you? To help quell your pitiful, whiny, perpetual fears?"
"It's a candle in a skull!" Sarah shrieked in her defense, and suddenly Sherlock stood over her, his thin frame heaving with dark, heavy, livid breaths.
"So…my being a mental patient and all…" Sherlock's voice clicked angrily over his consonants as he growled, "You can't possibly expect for me to be warm and comforting, correct?"
Sarah only continued to gape at him, speechless under his scathing gaze. He slowly licked his fingers and lowered them over the only candle in the entire flat—straight over the skull, straight over the burning wick, and strait over the only light in Sarah's escalating nightmare.
"You…you wouldn't..." She whispered out.
"You tell me Sarah, seeing as you seem to know John and I so well—what would I do?" Sherlock's voice was cold, and full of some type of detachment.
"Y-you- you wouldn't! It's the only candle, you said—" She gasped out, her eyes wide.
"That," Sherlock growled, "…is where you're wrong about me. And further more, about John."
And with that, Sherlock grasped up the skull, clasped the fiery wick, and ripped it from its confines of dripping wax—burning his fingers in the process. But now, at least, the candle was unusable. The wick fell to the carpet with a soft pat, and the light snuffed out. Everything went impossibly, and inescapably, black for them both.