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SHERLOCK HOLMES believes dead men tell no tales, in short, the dead can't speak.
Corpses can't justify their deaths from beyond the grave and nor can they run around to solve the mystery of their demise. If someone tells Sherlock nearly a year ago that he'll be doing just that, he'd think they'd been using the nicotine patches he kept hidden in his drawers.
Annabel watched him carefully, and he tried to ignore the way her eyes glide over his. He was trying to think, to think of a way to get them out of the heavy downpour and out of the dark alley that stood between them and the Main Street. He'd been stupid enough to accidentally lead them into a dead end as the hurrying footsteps echoed not far behind them.
" Sherlock," She grabbed his arm," We need to run."
" Where ?" He snapped, backing the two of them against the graffiti wall," We're trapped. This wall is too tall for me to lift you over safely."
She looked around, eying the lack of trash bins or cardboard boxes disappointingly. He could listen to her thoughts agreeing with him, panic bouncing around her eyes.
In that very moment Sherlock felt the most disgusting feeling crawl against his throat, it burns as it made its way through his windpipes. The sickening feeling nearly made him double over.
Regret, that's what it was.
It latched itself against his nerves, clawing at him, forcing him to look away from her beady eyes as they shone like black beetles under the streetlights. He should've never taken her with him on this case, he should've asked help from Mycroft, he should've -
He slapped himself mentally, calming the rage inside of him. These signs of sentiment are chemical defects found on the losing side, yet who's to blame him, he'd lost from the very moment she had shown up on his doorstep. He had known from then on that nothing could explain her apparition. Yet a part of him, the stubborn and arrogant part of him, the curious and inquisitive Holmes inside of him ached to find out why she was there.
He pulled out his handgun, the weight of the pistol settling in his fingers as he aimed it towards the figure approaching them, "Stay with me, do as I say."
She could only nod, her body soaked from the onslaught of rain. He covered her with his figure, hiding her behind his back. She was a small woman, he had observed, barely above the height of his shoulders.
The footfalls came to a halt, and a man appeared before them. The overcast shrouded his face, casting a shadow against the curve of his jaw. He could only see a pair of sunken eyes, staring back at him like his reflection against porcelain.
It was the eyes, that unnerved him, and it was also the eyes that revealed to him the identity of this man.
Blue eyes are incredibly common in London, it's safe to say that sixty percent of the civilians downtown have brilliant crystalline eyes. He himself is no exception, yet the ones that stared back at Sherlock didn't belong to a man.
It belonged to a corpse.
" You," Sherlock accused, gripping her tighter," You're supposed to be dead."
The gunman before him didn't say a word, and this eerily felt like he was reliving a memory. He felt as if time had spun backward and he had been given a chance to relieve the night before New Year's.
Sherlock tried to hide the way the gun nearly faltered in his grip, the rivulets of rain sliding between the gaps of his fingers and the holster. He took a hesitant step forward and was replied with a similar gesture, the tension in the air so tight that it was begging to be cut by the sound of a bullet.
His finger rested above the trigger, and he could hear her breathing hitch. She was pressed against the back of his suit, she was so close that he could feel the way her fingers trembled against his spine.
" How are you still alive ?" Sherlock pressed on, stepping closer to him.
The mannequin of a man stood rigid as ever, his gun aimed squared at Sherlock's head. He stepped forward, and now there was only a meter gap between the two.
Sherlock applied more pressure at the trigger, his fingers buzzing with adrenaline. Annabel gripped his shirt tighter, and he released a breath.
A shrill bang filled the air.
Annabel immediately pulled him down the pavement, pressing him against the drenched cement. Sherlock aimed at the gunmen, shooting at him even if he could barely see his figure. He finally ceased fire when he saw the figure stumble backward, and he realized that he had shot first.
He felt something trickle down his cheeks, and he raised one finger to flick against what he discovered to be a wound and crimson gushed out of his skin, pooling against the collar of his shirt.
He untangled himself from her, lifting her up as she shivered in place, the color draining from her face at the sight of his wound. The bullet must've nicked the skin of his cheeks, and it would've done more than that if she hadn't tackled him.
She stared at the limp body across them, her chest rising and falling.
" You took me here on purpose," She finally declared, her voice sounded slightly betrayed.
Sherlock frowned," I did."
He was a lot of things, but he wasn't a liar. He watched as her expression turned sour, and she recoiled from him as if he was poison. He thought it had been rather obvious, as he stared at the ground, watching a piece of newspaper floated by them, the date above it sketched in big bold letters.
DECEMBER 31st,2015
He didn't know that he would show up, he didn't know whether this would happen, but he had to try. Despite his predictions, he was still having a hard time wrapping his head on the fixed reality before them, and he tried to swallow the horrible feeling clawing at his heart once more.
Never had he wanted to be wrong in his life.
She eyed his scar, and she didn't say a word, but Sherlock heard her.
" That could've been me."
Yet the rage behind her eyes begin to wash away with the rain, and he wished she had been angry with him. He wanted her to be furious, to walk out from him at this very moment, he'd even accept a slap or two. Alas, she stood there, the light draining from her eyes, the same way her corpse did all those months ago.
As if she was being reborn, as if the clock had been reset and she had been proclaimed dead, Sherlock Holmes could do nothing but watch her accept that it could've been her, and how it should've been her many months ago.
Sherlock wished things would've gone differently, he's done a lot of awful things, but forcing a dead woman to back into her grave wasn't something he was proud of.
SHERLOCK HOLMES watched the corpse of the gunmen before them, and he felt the urge to crouch down and ask the man about his own experience, yet he knows that DEAD MAN TELL NO TALES.
