Chapter 22 #2
She’d taken advantage of Sherlock, in truth.
He had been swept up in the moment, in the eroticism of it all.
But neither of them had been inebriated.
They were both sober. And he hadn’t once told her no.
In fact—though she’d been denied the glorious full awareness of the moment and had been relegated to a fade-to-black scene—she remembered his hand twisting in her hair as he urged her to quicken her motions.
His motions.
Whatever.
Sherlock was sitting across from her at the table, studiously ignoring her. And she knew he would never speak of what had passed between them that night. It was an embarrassment. A travesty. A sin that they should simply pretend had never happened.
Too bad that wasn’t how Sidney operated.
“Sherlock. About—”
“No.” Sherlock put down his newspaper and looked up at her. “No. We shall not have this conversation.”
Letting out a rush of air, she leaned back in the thin wooden chair. “And why not?”
“It was a mistake. Simple as that.” He picked up the paper again and resumed his reading. “I am, despite my best intentions, simply human. And so are you. And therefore, we err.”
“Why do you think it was a mistake?” She folded her arms over her chest. “If it’s because we’re both men—”
“No, John. Because—” He slapped the newspaper back down to the table and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Because you are my friend. And nothing more. Because I share no romantic feelings for you of any kind.”
“Who says we can’t be friends with benefits?
” She shrugged. She knew the phrase was way too modern for Victorian times.
She didn’t give a shit. She wanted out of this story.
“Really, Sherlock, you said it yourself. You’re simply human.
You have urges and needs as much as the next man.
And it was clear watching”—she had to stop herself from saying my sister—“Irene and Moriarty had you experiencing those needs.”
“I do not wish to have this conversation, John!” Sherlock had a look in his eye that was a mix of fury and…fear. He was afraid. “It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. And I do not plan on repeating it. I am ashamed of what we did.”
Well. Great. “I’m not. And I think you’re overreacting—”
“Enough.” Sherlock stood from the table so quickly it nearly tipped his chair over. “What happened between us was a terrible mistake that shall never be repeated. Do you understand?”
“Sherl—”
“Do. You. Understand?”
Sidney had been rejected a fair number of times in her life.
She was familiar with the process. But this one stung and she didn’t know why.
It shouldn’t. He wasn’t even real. He was just a fake fictional character written by some old white dead dude.
She didn’t even really have sex with him.
She just had fictional off-page sex with him.
So why did it feel like he’d slapped her in the face as he stormed out of the room to stand at a window with his back to her, his hands on his hips?
Because Virtue was the one driving him?
Because it felt like Virtue was rejecting her, not Sherlock.
But that wasn’t true. They weren’t the same person.
Sherlock was just a tiny part of the whole.
Loneliness stabbed at her again, and she found herself—for maybe the first time in her life—a little jealous of Sasha for having someone to hold onto in all the terrifying nonsense that was this bizarre alternate reality game where one of them had to die for the other to survive.
Sasha was always better at games, though. Didn’t matter what kind it was. Cards, tabletop, video games. She had the head for it. Sidney didn’t. She just never really saw the point. And she supposed now that was going to come back and bite her.
Sasha was doing better at playing along.
There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Hudson. “Sherlock, dear? A letter came for you. Private delivery. Seemed urgent.” She held out a folded envelope with a wax seal on the back of it. “It…seems to be from Miss Adler.”
That had Sherlock’s instant attention. He half flew from the window to snatch the card from Hudson’s outstretched hand. And just as quickly, it might as well have been that all the world ceased to exist around the detective as he ripped open the envelope and read the enclosed note.
Hudson cast Sidney a knowing, piteous look, before leaving and shutting the door behind her.
“Fascinating.” Sherlock was pacing back and forth through the room. All the anger from their previous conversation was forgotten. “Utterly fascinating.”
“What is it?” Sidney knew that this was the beginning of the end. And while she was excited to get out of this terrible story—she was also not excited for the way it might end.
Sherlock was still pacing, not answering her question, his eyes darting back and forth as if plotting something out in front of him.
This was going to give her a headache. She rubbed her temple. “Sherlock.”
Nothing.
“Sherlock.”
Still nothing.
“Hey, asshole!”
That got his attention. Though he didn’t react to her swearing at him. It seemed that if she did anything too far out of character, they just…ignored it. Damn. “She wishes to meet us for lunch.”
“When?”
He stopped his pacing to face her. “Get your coat, Watson. The game’s afoot.”
I fucking hate this place.