Worlds collapse
I heard the front door open and close. It wasn't Jim; he was doing something in the library. I stood up and went to see whom it was.
"Hello? Who's there?" I asked.
"No need to be worried Percy, it just me." Replied a voice I really didn't want to hear. Thus far I'd been able to avoid Sebastian Moran.
"Oh hello Seb, what brings you over?" I was trying to be polite, but my nerves were on high alert. I didn't want to be near him without Jim.
"You know, work, stuff, you." He leered menacingly.
"No, Seb, no. I have already said never again. Jim is upstairs, what is wrong with you, don't you understand English?"
"Whoa, okay calm down woman. I wanted to apologise for last night. I shouldn't have gotten so angry with you."
"Fine." I was trying to suppress the memory of last night.
"Is that all I'm getting?" He added with a flirtatious wink.
"Don't push it Sebastian. I'm serious, I am not in the mood for your games today." I ground out.
"Ok, Ok, sorry." He replied, seeing the hard glint in my eye.
"I need to go out. You stay quiet." I hissed at Seb and called up to the stairs Jim, sweetie, I'm going to see Angie, I'll be back later."
"Ok love, have fun. Send my love to your brother." Jim called back. I smiled at his comment. It was going to be a never-ending torment between the two of them. I put my coat on and slipped my keys and phone into my pocket. I started walking in the direction of Baker Street, Seb following me.
"Go home Seb, why yare you following me?"
"The boss wouldn't forgive me if something happened to you." He replied as I knocked on the door of 221b.
"Just leave." Seb turned and left just as Angie answered the door.
Angie looked over my shoulder and asked. "Wait...who is that?"
"Sebastian Moran, a friend, in fact the friend that got Jim and I together." I replied. Not thinking about that night, focusing on Jim in my mind.
"Oh...okay. Uh, how long exactly have you known him?" Asked Angie.
I had to think. "Umm 7/8 years, I met him at an exhibition when was in my first year at college, it was the same night I met Jim for the first time. Why?"
"Just wondering." This was odd, what was she hiding? I was going to get to the bottom of this.
"Right, sure. I'm not falling for that, why so many questions?"
"Nothing, it's just...I, uh, thought I recognised him. Probably just saw him somewhere around, at the market or something." She was trying to fob me off, I needed to change tactics, a more round about approach.
"Ok, ok, I'll drop it it's obvious you don't want to talk about it." I paused, letting her think I'd dropped the subject, but soon added. "Also Seb lives way up in North London, it takes him about an 40 minutes to get into central London."
"So, I've been up there. Probably just saw him on the street or something." She defended. This was getting more suspicious but the minute.
"Do you know him, you can tell me. You may have seen him, he does have a spare key to the house, heavens knows why, I'm not sure Jim knows why either, but anyways, maybe that's why you passed him on the street?"
"Yeah, just that." What is the issue here, why is she trying so hard to avoid the topic? Angie changed the topic entirely.
"Anyway, you won't me see for a few days, we're going to America for a case." This made me panic. I really needed Angie's help and advice.
"What really? Oh, I was hoping we could talk, I did something really, really stupid."
Well, we're not leaving for a few days; it's just a heads up. I can still talk." She looked at me inquisitively.
"Good. I don't really know where to start, all I know is it was one of the stupidest things I've done for a while." The shame of what I had done pouring over me like icy water.
"Alright, take your time." Concern in Angie's voice.
"On scale of bad 1 being not bad and 10 being a total disaster, we're at an 8 maybe 8.5." I paused and rethought the consequences of the situation. "In fact, seeing as I am getting married soon and considering who the best man is, lets make this a 9.5."
"Okay. It's nothing dangerous, is it? Nothing that should go to the police or anything like that? Nothing life-threatening?" Life threatening, ha! It could be.
"Umm life threatening, not for me necessarily, the other person involved possibly."
"Uh, alright. What exactly is it?" Angie looked worried and confused, I wasn't giving much away.
"If I say it out loud then it really happened, it won't just be a horrible drunken memory."
Okay, so you were drunk. That's not necessarily true.." Replied Angie. Okay, I had to be brave, I just needed to tell her, she wouldn't judge me.
"Umm do remember when I had friend come to stay with me back in Brecon, we got really drunk together and something sort of happened.
"I remember. Wasn't it the guy in the photo?"
"Uh, yes, we might've slept together." The words came out of my mouth in a rush, but sadly still understandable. I hoped admitting to what I had done wold make me feel better, apparently not. I added as an after thought, hoping to justify my actions. "No one else can know, but I had to tell, someone. It was, once and a major lapse in judgment."
"You what?" Oh dear, Angie was angry. "What?! Are you crazy?! What were you thinking?!" Her voice rising as she spoke.
"That is the problem I wasn't thinking and in the heat of the moment, but I've regretted it every day since." I tried to defend myself, but it even sounded lame to my ears.
"I just don't know how to react to this." She paused. "Of all people." The disappointment in her voice made me feel even worse.
"Help me Angie, I don't know what to do. I'm so sorry. Please don't hate me."
"I don't hate you, I'd never hate you. I just don't know what to think. I don't know what to do." Again an awkward pause, Angie then asked a vital question, but one the irked me all the same. "Are you sure it's going to be just the once? I don't mean you, I mean him. Anyone who would sleep with his best friend's girlfriend can't have very high morals. Especially since, if he's working for Moriarty, he's clever enough to know that you were emotionally compromised."
"Oh I don't know, for me, never ever again. It was such a mistake, and technically Jim and I weren't together, but I know Jim won't see it that way, he'll go ballistic." I was actually a little scared about what Jim might do.
"Well, I don't know. I know sometimes we make really stupid mistakes that we regret for the rest of our lives, and there's nothing we can do about it. Has he mentioned it again?"
"Yes, Seb works for Jim, he's a hit man. Emotionally compromised, I was a total mess, as was Jim at the time. Oh I am so much trouble. I'm getting married in 3 weeks." My brain was flying all over the place, until now, I'd not seriously thought about telling Jim, or dealing withy he consequences of telling Jim. "Seb's brought I up once, he wanted it to be a regular thing. I told him over my dead body."
"And how did he take it, how did he react?"
"He went nuts and broke and smashed a vase." He threw the vase at me, I moved just in time that it hit a cupboard instead.
"When was that? Was it like right after it happened or was it recently, like he brought it up again?" Ah she was in full detective mode, getting the necessary answer to piece together the story.
"Yesterday, at the party, he brought it up when were in the kitchen and he smashed the vase of lilies that Jim had bought me, the vase was a gift from Jim's parents. I got really angry with him, I tried to throw him out the party but Jim stopped me." Thinking about Jim made my insides ball up into knots. "I need to tell Jim, but I can't hurt him like that. I don't know what to do, I don't want a marriage full of secrets."
"If you do tell Jim, maybe he'll kill him. That'd be nice." I had never heard something so shocking come out of Angie's mouth. What was going on?
"When do you condone killing?! Do you know Seb?!"
"It's just...putting my best friend into this situation. He obviously knew what he was doing. And now he's getting more dangerous." Angie's response didn't make sense. Then it hit me. Seb always talked about this woman he'd loved, she'd got away, he called her his Angel. It was Angie, even Jim referred to Angie as Angel.
"Oh my...you're Angel...oh this makes so much more sense, you were the one that got away, Seb always talks about his Angel, the girl that got away. He used me to get to you...urgh I feel sick." I felt used and dirty. Both Jim and Seb had dated Angie, maybe they both wanted her!
"What are you talking about?"
"You are his lost love. Was he called Alex a long time ago?"
"How would I know?" Why was Angie pretending not to know Seb?
"Don't try and hide something from me Angie, I know that you know Seb, or Alex, or whoever he was way back when, you loved him. When I said Alex your pupils dilated, you blushed. He called you Angel, it's why you don't like being called by that nickname. Be careful Angie, he's dangerous, he's worse than Jim, I'm just learning this."
"It's impossible to hide anything from you Holmes', isn't it?" I nodded, replying.
"Yes it is. Why do think Jim has so much trouble hiding his plans?! I usually have to be away for him to do things and me not work it out."
"I already knew all that a long time ago. I wasn't the one who got away, I'm the one who escaped. Barely. The last time I saw him, he had a gun pointed at me. And now he's back. He's gotta be it. The one who sent me that rose a few days ago. And...I was always afraid he'd come back to haunt me."
"I have a very bad feeling about all of this. My spider sense is tingling. I think he's plotting something big, I can't read him very well. He sent you a rose? That is seriously creepy. I'm scared Angie." I was beginning to understand why Angie wanted to forget him and why Jim was so protective when I was around Seb. Maybe he was worse than I'd ever imagined?
"And...you've got to swear not to tell Sherlock, but...I think he might have snuck into my room one night. Just for a few minutes, but still."
What?! This was a new development, in her room? I almost missed what she said next.
"I'm scared, too. He's the one man who intimidates me."
"He came into your room? Was Sherlock in the flat? Obviously I won't tell anyone." I added.
"Yeah, Sherlock was in his room, I was still mostly asleep, I'm not even completely sure it happened, it was like a dream. More like a nightmare."
"Angie, you aren't seeing him are you? Are you cheating on Sherlock?" I may dislike Sherlock, but he didn't deserve to be cheated upon and he's my brother.
"Of course not! How could you ask something like that?! I'd never do that to Sherlock! Especially with him! All these years, I've tried to forget him, and just when I start to, just when I can go for a while without thinking about him, just when my life is finally going semi-good, he has to come back and do this."
Maybe all of Angie's posturing against Jim was because she like the dark ones, the bad boys? I mean Sherlock blurred the line of good and bad.
"I have to be sure, does Sherlock know you dated his arch nemesis? But I'm sure dating Jim was nothing too?! What did happened between you too, I never got a proper answer."
"Yes, Sherlock knows about the two weeks with Jim. And nothing happened! We had coffee a few times! We barely knew each other! Actually, I didn't know him at all because it was all a big lie, just another way to get to Sherlock. What are you implying?!"
"
So you've dated your fair share of maniacs too then?! I reckon you have a taste for the bad boys more than I do. Two weeks, a lot can happen in two weeks."
"And obviously a lot can be forgotten in five years. Don't you know me at all? You know I don't do that. You know what my morals are."
"Well like you said, we all do things we regret. You do seem to like clever psychopaths. I mean how many of them have you slept with?! My brother, my fiancé, my friend?!"
"I haven't slept with...I didn't sleep with Jim, it was literally getting coffee for ten minutes. In a shop, in public. Nothing happened between us, we never even kissed! And as for Sherlock, he's never...done that, and I have never slept with him, we've only kissed a few times in the six months that we've been dating. I haven't slept with anyone since Jesse."
"If you say so Angie." Our discussion had lost all rationality.
"Just because you made that mistake doesn't mean that I would." There is was, she was looking down on me. She was always better than me. I was hurt and fed up.
"That's not necessarily true, but I'll take your word for it, but actions speak louder than words."
"And just what actions would give you any reason to think that I'd do that?"
"They way you seem to have had romantic affiliations with nearly every man in my adult life."
"Well, technically it would be the other way around, considering that I met them first, with the exception of Moriarty, but then again, it wasn't real, he was just using me to get to Sherlock."
"The only romance in my life is Jim, I'm related to Sherlock, which isn't my fault, I can't change my genetics, and well he was an incredibly stupid lapse in my mental faculties." My voice trailed off as I finished.
"So just because I happen to know them, you assume that I've slept with them? I'm sorry, when did you start thinking that I was a slut?"
"I never said you were a slut. That's what my darling brother thinks I am, Jim's little whore. Think of it as a warning, he's a narrow minded idiot, apparently our hormones make us uncontrollable."
Wait, I'm confused now. Who thinks you're a slut?! Which one? And yes, they're both idiots who don't understand women. Sherlock's one of those that thinks that any problem that affects my mood, he automatically thinks it's PMS." I snorted in response, that sounded like Sherlock, the oblivious genius.
"Who do you think, of course it is Sherlock. I've spent a lot of time stopping Jim going after my idiot brother for insulting and upsetting me so much." I admitted. It had been hard to restrain Jim from going over and beating suspense into Sherlock. We had an uneasy truce, there was no need to break it.
"He actually called you that?! He called you that?! We'll have words." Her incensed reaction to what Sherlock had said to me, made me feel marginally better, but I really didn't want to deal with Sherlock, it was just too much at the moment. I sighed, resigned to failure, I knew when I wasn't wanted. It doesn't matter. I wanted to leave, I had try and save my marriage prospects.
"I've had enough with all of it. I've got my own life to live and I need to salvage that, it's more important than all of this." I stood up and stared straight ahead as I said this. Angie's reply was like an arrow to the heart.
"Fine then. Have a good life, then." Her tone cold and dismissive.
As I left the living room of Baker Street I bumped into the last person I wanted to be around, my brother. He pushed passed me a looks through the open door, he turns back to me with accusation in his eyes. D
"Why is Angie so upset? What have you done now?"
"Why is it always my fault?! Leave me alone Sherlock. Back out of my life." I fly down the stairs and slam the door behind me.
The short walk home felt like miles, each step feeling like i head lead boots on my feet. I felt sick. If I could turn back time I would. Hindsight, gives you perfect vision.
I walked into the living room, the only room that had been tidied and cleaned after the party, the kitchen was still a mess because of the broken glass. Having just forsaken saving any remnants of friendship with Angie, I decided I may as well take the plunge, I had to tell Jim.
"Percy is that you?" Called Jim from somewhere in the house.
"Yeah, I'm in the living room." I said as perched on the edge of the sofa, not wanting comfort. Jim walked in and I looked up at him, I knew that I was going to break the most wonderful person with my actions. I had to tell him, he'd be honest with me, I now had to do the same. "We need to talk...I need to talk."
"Alright, sweetheart. What is it?" He asked coming further into the room.
"I kind of did something incredibly stupid." That was the understatement of the century right there.
"Well, it can't be any worse than anything you've done before." He smiled, oh if only he knew. This was going to be hard, harder than telling Angie. Thinking her name sent another wave of guilt surging through me.
"You have so much faith in me. I'm so, so sorry." I voiced guiltily.
"Alright, come on, now. What is it? What's wrong?" Worry filling his eyes as he sat next me.
"Please remember how much I love you, I can't wait to marry you and spend our lives together. I was angry and a mess." I stood up, nervous energy filling me, I had to move as I spoke otherwise the words would get stuck.
"Alright, take it easy. Just calm down. I know how much you love me, how could I forget? Just tell me what's wrong? I can't stand seeing you like this." The fear in his voice was palpable, we were both scared for opposite reasons.
"You remember when you came to see me in Wales and we ended up running into Sherlock and Angie and they told me that your were some mass murdering psycho, well I freaked out...and I told you we were splitting up. For the first time in years we spent over a month apart."
"Yeah. Probably the worst month in my life."
"I know, I know." The pain had been horrendous, I hadn't slept properly for weeks without him next to me and I'd barely eaten. As soon as I told him to leave I had wanted him back. "Well Seb came to see me, I wanted to know you were alright, but after five bottles of wine, one thing led to another and we...we slept together. I've never regretted anything more in my life, it was a monumental lapse in judgment. I'm really, really, sorry. Please forgive me." I paused and added, "At the time, I was angry and upset, but that doesn't excuse anything." I could see our relationship crumple with each word I spoke. My heart breaking at the sadness and and pain gracing Jim's face.
"What? You did what? With Seb, my best friend, Seb Moran? And what were you doing drinking five bottles of wine?!"
"I'm so sorry Jim I really am. I've been feeling dreadful for weeks, I didn't know how to tell you, I didn't want to hurt you further. I don't want our marriage to be filled with secrets. I don't remember much of the evening, that doesn't make it better, I wasn't in a good place. Please forgive me."
"I don't if I can. Is this what you and him were talking about yesterday?"
"Yes, Seb wanted it to be a regular arrangement, he got angry when told him, no, or should I say over my dead body. He threw a vase at me. That's why I wanted him to leave. Please don't leave me James, I love you." I would not lie, I'd be honest.
"Well, I'm not sure if I can get past this. I think I need to go away for a few days." His words were expected, but they still tore my heart into pieces.
"No, no, please don't leave me alone. Please stay, I'm so sorry." I pleaded earnestly.
"I need to think. Honestly, Percy, I'm angry. And I don't want to be around you when I'm angry. I don't know what I might do." I caught a glimpse of the criminal seeping through and it scared me.
"I'm so sorry, please don't leave me alone. Don't go, please." I needed him to stay, I can't live without him. My worst fears were coming true. He would leave me, I would drive home away like I did everyone else.
"If I stay when I'm like this, you might end up seeing the side of me that your angelic little friend and your brother have seen. I don't want you to ever see that side of me." The hard edge to voice was a warning. He was protecting me even now, even after I had hurt him so badly.
"I am so sorry, please don't leave me alone. Stay please, I love you." I was now begging. Anything to keep him with me. I would do anything for him to forgive me.
"I told you, I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to deal with the consequences of this."
"Please don't go, please, please don't leave me alone. I'm so sorry. I love you." I begged, now openly crying. I couldn't control the pain. Everything had broken.
"Goodbye."
He turned a left. He walked away, hurt and anger coursing through his demeanour. I knew he was upset, he couldn't hide the emotion, not from me. If he had cursed and shouted it would've been easier, I could take anger; seeing the restrained anger, the unbreakable control and the cool acceptance, hurt, hurt deeper and more permanently than rage ever could. His own removal from the situation made it so much more painful.
He'd gone and I was alone. I can't blame him, I betrayed him, I deserved all the hatred he could muster. The tears just fell and I crumpled to the floor sobbing. I had no one to turn to and no where to go. I'd pushed everyone away, no love left in my life just anger and pain. For the first time in a long time I felt like I was sixteen again, angry at the world, vulnerable. I had that craving, the need to escape. No! I told myself, no. I had to be strong, I couldn't do that again. I couldn't add tot the hurt I'd put upon Jim, for him I'd resist. I stumbled up the stairs and into our bedroom, it smelt of him, which just increased my guilt. I felt sick to my stomach, the look of horror as I uttered the words of my betrayal. That memory turned my stomach, I rushed to the bathroom and was sick.
The rest of that night was a blur; I awoke the next morning, still on the bathroom floor, stiff and cold. I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes red and raw. I was a pathetic mess. I stripped off and turned the shower as hot as I could stand, hoping the heat would burn away my shame and guilt. I got dressed and made my way downstairs, and began to clean the remnants of the party up. I would make our home perfect and unblemished. Maybe then he'd come back?