Beginner's Remorse (a fanfic)
Yesterday I met Sherlock Holmes.
It feels like a long time ago. Since then I had intruded at a crime scene, chased after a stranger through London streets, and killed a man with no greater weapon than a pill in his hand.
My life isn’t normally this exciting.
I’d been exhausted once we got home. Now it was nearly dawn, and I hadn’t closed my eyes. I wanted to believe in Sherlock. After months of trying to find a way to stay in London, this man had cast one glance at me and accepted me on the spot. Warts and psychosomatic limp and all.
I’d shot a man to protect him. As I waited for the police to be done with him, I overheard Sergeant Sally Donovan practically yelling at Inspector Lestrade.
“There’s a bloody shoeprint in his size!” she snapped.
Lestrade rolled his eyes. “So what? He stepped in the blood, it’s not a crime.”
“And the impression over the bullet wound? Did he accidentally stand on a dying man’s shoulder, right where it would cause unbearable pain?”
“We can’t say that impression was from a shoe.”
Donovan was obviously frustrated, “He was the only one in the room, he admitted it! It’s one thing to say he didn’t fire the gun, but nearly crushing a man’s shoulder while he lay dying? That’s aggravated assault. That’s enough to arrest him! I’m not letting this one go, Inspector. He’s dangerous and there need to be consequences.” She stomped off to talk to Anderson, leaving Lestrade to another heavy sigh.
This conversation shook me more than firing a fatal bullet had ever done. I tried to justify it in my mind - Donovan wasn’t keen on Sherlock, to put it lightly. She’d already warned me to stay away from him.
I’d forgotten about Donovan’s shoeprint as soon as Sherlock had leaned in, smirked, and said “Good shot.”
Now I tossed and turned and wondered if I should ask him about it. Or if I should just cut my losses, tell him to find another flatmate-slash-sidekick, and go back to feeling numb.
The term high-functioning sociopath had been tossed around with disturbing ease earlier that night, and there seemed to be no doubt or shame about the diagnosis. I’d certainly never met anyone like Sherlock before, but I’d seen my fair share of sociopaths. The military is peppered with them - charming, talkative guys, revered for their fearless embrace of battle. They never suffered from combat fatigue, the soul-deep burden of killing others for days on end. They loved it, and anything in-between was like a dull wait through commercials during your favourite TV programme. They weren’t in the military out of loyalty to their family, their country or just to make something of themselves. They were there simply because it was the only place they could find where it was acceptable, and encouraged, to murder people.
Had Sherlock seized the full sadistic opportunity of watching a serial killer die?