book
theres hardly any speech in this.
hm.
oh well!!! yar. another~ departure from moran and moriarty, altho moriarty is still there? like more shadowy tho as befitting. also dont worry!!! cameo from moran, hee~
anyhoo here it is yar
His body was never found.
Nor was mine.
A reason why the falls were the perfect location.
I moved, blown like the wind here and there. Moriarty was dead--I knew that. He hadn’t been prepared, not like I had been, and I still had only just managed to make it out, choking on water and numb. Bruises covered me, and I had fairly shattered my right hand.
Still. It hardly mattered. No need to dwell on ghosts when I had enough living hell to deal with.
-----
“Yew herd nothing’ ‘bout this fellow Moran than, huh?” I asked drunkenly, making sure to slur my words to a perfect degree whilst not eliciting attention to myself.
“Nothing,” the fellow with me said, watching me out of his good eye before taking a swig from his bottle. I had been attempting to worm information out of this man the entire night, even going so far as to buy him some alcohol, yet it had been in vain.
“Surely ya must know somethin’. He’s fairly well-known…”
“Not by me,” he said gruffly, sliding his gaze back to me so that I sighed in frustration, sitting back in my seat and toying with my mug. It was hard to tell whether these men would know anything about him. I was clutching at straws now. I knew that he was hunting me, and as he was rather proficient at chasing animals down I wished to outfox him before I found myself in a corner staring down the barrel of a gun.
I patted the table by way of good-bye and he grunted at me, turning and allowing me to lope off, staggering and shuffling until I had made it out of the pub. Immediately I straightened and walked in my own fashion, shrugging off any past details of drunkenness as I returned to my hotel.
I contemplated throwing myself into my bed but stopped, seeing that the maid had left a package for me on the cover. I was wary as it was lightweight and unmarked, yet I judged from the quality paper used in the packaging that the sender was local.
Inside the package was a simple card that read Mr. Holmes and the writing seemed familiar, yet I could not immediately place it. Familiar looping and slant. It spoke of rage and hatred; he had nearly pierced through the paper on the second m (for I knew it was a he) and I pondered over the possible enemy as I reached carefully in.
I knew it wasn’t booby-trapped, yet I was still cautious until my fingertips touched against a little book. Curious, I quickly tugged it out and then sat down hard on the edge of the bed, stunned as I produced a small, red book.
Just like Moriarty’s.
But…
He was dead…
Casually I flipped through it and then froze, turning back to the front when I noted that there were drawings contained within. I flicked the pages so that they formed one moving picture and I felt the blood ice in my veins at what unfolded before me with a few quick lines.
Moriarty was an adequate artist (nothing like me, of course,) and so he had produced a little tale for me in the same fashion that I had him. How original.
In front of me was a small likeness of myself, and I noted that I had been strapped down to some table. A knife flashed on one of the pages, held by a bearded man no doubt intended to be the professor himself, and I winced slightly as he cut down into my midsection, drawing the blade up nearly to my neck, pulling the skin back and displaying out a number of organs in a precise manner.
I flicked through it again, mesmerised by the gore displayed with just a few strokes and then I touched the book to my lips, staring off into space.
Facts.
What were the facts?
Moriarty was alive. I had presumed…assumed…that the man was dead. Had been killed by the lethal falls. Foolish of me. Just because there was no body meant nothing; I was living proof of that!
Moriarty was alive, then, and he was following me. Tracking me. Hunting me like an animal.
I had previously been working under the assumption that Moran was tracking me, but now I had to revert this theory that they both were. Possibly--no, probably--in a team.
Damn.
I had thought, perhaps, that I might soon be able to return to Watson. I should have to keep running, however.
-----
It had been a month since the notebook.
I had settled in this little town in France. It was quiet. Too quiet. Everything was utterly dull and I had to resist the strong temptation to help the police solve the murder of a fellow at a pub who had had far too much to drink and had been more free with his money than wise.
Had to switch residences once whenever I so kindly informed the innkeeper’s wife that her husband was having a most open affair with the buxom serving-girl. Thrown out for my assistance!
Relocated to the home of an eldery fellow who was lonely and craved companionship, be it even just the presence of another underneath his roof. He thought me some wandering tourist, a German who was awestruck by all of the sights France had to offer.
It was a little grating for the doddering man to attempt to teach me in a language I had been speaking nearly since I could talk, yet I allowed him to explain what phrases like merci and bonjour meant to me, gritting my teeth and nodding impatiently while speaking in as thick a German accent as I might muster.
“You were out late today, Hans,” he said upon my return, and I smiled.
Hans.
A little different than Sherlock Holmes, was it not? But that was what I wanted. A bland, unassuming name to go with a bland, unassuming person. Suppose I had chosen aptly.
“Lots of pretty flowers. I pick them good,” I said, purposely marring my French as a foreigner might. Mr. Moreau winced at the butchering of his native language but did not correct me.
“Yes, they are quite nice. Here, let me have them,” he said, removing me of them and going to the kitchen to fetch a little jar full of water to put them.
When he returned, setting it on the table, he gestured to a small package carelessly.
“That came for you while you were out,” he said, and I felt the hair stand on the back of my neck.
No.
Who would be sending me a package? No one knew me…no one but Moriarty, but he couldn’t have found me.
He couldn’t.
“You going to open it?” he asked, and as he peered at me his smile disappeared. “You all right, Hans? You look a bit peaky.”
“I’m doing fine. Feel ill to the stomach, that is all,” I said, still remembering to keep up my ruse of poor speech even as I reached for the package, hands trembling.
“I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, how about that?” he asked, doddering off back to the kitchen while I debated opening the package at all.
Of course I opened it, tearing viciously into it.
The same red book awaited me. Well. I meant style, obviously.
I quickly flicked through it, finding another gruesome drawing awaiting me so that I went back and thumbed through it again.
I don’t know how many times I dashed through the pages, turning it back again to watch it from the beginning, horrified by what was depicted within.
My limbs were slowly rent from me (as slow as they could be in such a media) and as the blood pooled round the open wounds a sharp knife sliced down through my neck, finally putting me out of my misery. Subconsciously I touched at my throat, rubbing at the spot that was the intended site of violence and I shivered slightly, feeling his eyes upon me even there.
“What is it?” Mr. Moreau asked, startling me as his voice broke into my thoughts. I handed it over without a word, numb, and he tsked in disgust, shaking his head and handing it back to me. “’S not right. What is this?”
“Is a joke, haha. Someone play a funny joke on me with book.”
“It’s not very funny, Hans. It’s gruesome. Sick, even. Who’d send you something like this?”
Moriarty.
“Don’t know. Hans has friends wherever he go.”
“Well…put it away. Don’t need that sort of thing out. You might should burn it, even.”
I put it in my breast pocket instead, feeling it weigh down upon me and burn, as though it touched me even through the cloth and seared at my skin. I could feel his hatred for me, and I shuddered at the thought that he was dogging me even still, making no move yet comfortably watching me squirm like a bug.
-----
I was homeless.
Intentionally.
Back in England, no less.
It was a more comfortable existence than one would expect, made easier by the fact that I had a number of…acquaintances accustomed to such living. They could keep secrets and they were loyal enough to me to allow me to encroach upon their living spaces, such as they were, and share in their meagre food.
I roamed here and there in London, sleeping on a bench there or under a bridge here. It really wasn’t so rough given that it was spring, now, and I had been accustomed to worse on some dogged cases.
I couldn’t help myself one day, and although it was foolish I begged of the man as he passed me by, weeping for alms and tearing at my clothes to display how pitiful and ragged I truly was. To his credit, Watson didn’t sneer or turn his lip up at me as others had. He saw me as human and down on my luck, and although it pained me to be unable to truly reveal myself it did me some small comfort to touch at his arm and be near him again whether he knew it or not.
“Alms, sir! Alms! I’m so desperately pressed, sir! Alms!” I shouted, falling down to my knees as I tore at his clothing. He fixed me with a pitying stare even though there must be a number of similar people within shouting distance of our location and he sighed, rummaging in his pocket and producing a few coins.
“Here. For you,” he said, and he placed them into my open palm. I resisted the urge to grip his hand tightly, to embrace him fiercely as I had missed him all these many months.
I resisted.
I kissed the coins and then grabbed at his clothing again.
“Bless you, sir! Bless you! You truly are a saint!”
Watson looked uncomfortable now--knew that would get him--and he carefully untangled from me, leaving me with a peculiar pain as he forced a smile onto his face.
“Yes, well, I could do better, I assure you. But thank you. And…do take care of yourself. Stay warm as you can. It can get chilly these nights as it’s not proper spring.”
Trust him to give a beggar doctor-ly advice.
I bowed and scraped a little more, watching him go until I could see him no longer and then I fell back against the wall behind me belonging to a pharmacy. I brought the coins to my lips again and shut my eyes, reminding myself that there was a reason I was running and hiding.
His safety.
And my own.
“Accepting donations, are you?” an elderly man asked me while his companion lurked nearby, beard shading his face and eyes hidden by the hat pulled low.
“’Course I am, sir. You knows it gets pretty rough out here on the streets.”
“I made a good deal gambling, and I thought I would share the wealth, as it were. Hope you don’t mind? If it’s too much, perhaps you can redistribute it?”
I was a little surprised that someone would be so generous, and I was even moreso as he placed a soft burlap sack into my hands, white beard touching down to his chest as he nodded, tipping his hat at me as a way of saying good-bye.
“Thank you, sir!” I said, remembering myself, and he limped off, his companion quickly joining his side as they walked forward, flicking away a cigarette as he did so.
I reached into the sack, ready to count the money and promptly give it away to my acquaintances who had been so good as to help me when my fingers stopped on their own accord.
Not metal.
Not bills.
Not coinage of any sort.
It was paper.
It was a book.
I pulled it out, horrified, and then I glanced up.
He--
Moriarty!
I pushed a man out of the way, ignoring his indignant and callous, expletive-laden shout at me as I dashed forward into the milling sea of people.
“Get--move! Now!” I shouted desperately, trying to elbow and worm my way through. I might have roughed up a woman in my attempt to surge through but I was frantic, and yet I knew as I reached the end of the walkway that there would be no bearded man, nor elderly companion to meet me.
Damn it.
Damn it.
I clutched the bag in my left fist, growling to myself before deciding to flick through the book.
I was hanging from the ceiling this time, a thick cord round my neck as my limbs dangled, marks denoting that I was kicking feebly so that I was still alive. A variety of knives had been inserted into strategic portions and I seemed to simultaneously catch fire, writhing and curling up into ashes.
The last page, left blank up until now, simply read in a bold scrawl ‘The End begins tomorrow’ and I ran my finger over the careful red ink with a shudder before shutting it, placing it in my breast pocket.
Once again I imagined I could feel heat resonating from it and I laughed to myself, grimly resolved to see this through to the proper end.
-----
hm.
oh well!!! yar. another~ departure from moran and moriarty, altho moriarty is still there? like more shadowy tho as befitting. also dont worry!!! cameo from moran, hee~
anyhoo here it is yar
His body was never found.
Nor was mine.
A reason why the falls were the perfect location.
I moved, blown like the wind here and there. Moriarty was dead--I knew that. He hadn’t been prepared, not like I had been, and I still had only just managed to make it out, choking on water and numb. Bruises covered me, and I had fairly shattered my right hand.
Still. It hardly mattered. No need to dwell on ghosts when I had enough living hell to deal with.
-----
“Yew herd nothing’ ‘bout this fellow Moran than, huh?” I asked drunkenly, making sure to slur my words to a perfect degree whilst not eliciting attention to myself.
“Nothing,” the fellow with me said, watching me out of his good eye before taking a swig from his bottle. I had been attempting to worm information out of this man the entire night, even going so far as to buy him some alcohol, yet it had been in vain.
“Surely ya must know somethin’. He’s fairly well-known…”
“Not by me,” he said gruffly, sliding his gaze back to me so that I sighed in frustration, sitting back in my seat and toying with my mug. It was hard to tell whether these men would know anything about him. I was clutching at straws now. I knew that he was hunting me, and as he was rather proficient at chasing animals down I wished to outfox him before I found myself in a corner staring down the barrel of a gun.
I patted the table by way of good-bye and he grunted at me, turning and allowing me to lope off, staggering and shuffling until I had made it out of the pub. Immediately I straightened and walked in my own fashion, shrugging off any past details of drunkenness as I returned to my hotel.
I contemplated throwing myself into my bed but stopped, seeing that the maid had left a package for me on the cover. I was wary as it was lightweight and unmarked, yet I judged from the quality paper used in the packaging that the sender was local.
Inside the package was a simple card that read Mr. Holmes and the writing seemed familiar, yet I could not immediately place it. Familiar looping and slant. It spoke of rage and hatred; he had nearly pierced through the paper on the second m (for I knew it was a he) and I pondered over the possible enemy as I reached carefully in.
I knew it wasn’t booby-trapped, yet I was still cautious until my fingertips touched against a little book. Curious, I quickly tugged it out and then sat down hard on the edge of the bed, stunned as I produced a small, red book.
Just like Moriarty’s.
But…
He was dead…
Casually I flipped through it and then froze, turning back to the front when I noted that there were drawings contained within. I flicked the pages so that they formed one moving picture and I felt the blood ice in my veins at what unfolded before me with a few quick lines.
Moriarty was an adequate artist (nothing like me, of course,) and so he had produced a little tale for me in the same fashion that I had him. How original.
In front of me was a small likeness of myself, and I noted that I had been strapped down to some table. A knife flashed on one of the pages, held by a bearded man no doubt intended to be the professor himself, and I winced slightly as he cut down into my midsection, drawing the blade up nearly to my neck, pulling the skin back and displaying out a number of organs in a precise manner.
I flicked through it again, mesmerised by the gore displayed with just a few strokes and then I touched the book to my lips, staring off into space.
Facts.
What were the facts?
Moriarty was alive. I had presumed…assumed…that the man was dead. Had been killed by the lethal falls. Foolish of me. Just because there was no body meant nothing; I was living proof of that!
Moriarty was alive, then, and he was following me. Tracking me. Hunting me like an animal.
I had previously been working under the assumption that Moran was tracking me, but now I had to revert this theory that they both were. Possibly--no, probably--in a team.
Damn.
I had thought, perhaps, that I might soon be able to return to Watson. I should have to keep running, however.
-----
It had been a month since the notebook.
I had settled in this little town in France. It was quiet. Too quiet. Everything was utterly dull and I had to resist the strong temptation to help the police solve the murder of a fellow at a pub who had had far too much to drink and had been more free with his money than wise.
Had to switch residences once whenever I so kindly informed the innkeeper’s wife that her husband was having a most open affair with the buxom serving-girl. Thrown out for my assistance!
Relocated to the home of an eldery fellow who was lonely and craved companionship, be it even just the presence of another underneath his roof. He thought me some wandering tourist, a German who was awestruck by all of the sights France had to offer.
It was a little grating for the doddering man to attempt to teach me in a language I had been speaking nearly since I could talk, yet I allowed him to explain what phrases like merci and bonjour meant to me, gritting my teeth and nodding impatiently while speaking in as thick a German accent as I might muster.
“You were out late today, Hans,” he said upon my return, and I smiled.
Hans.
A little different than Sherlock Holmes, was it not? But that was what I wanted. A bland, unassuming name to go with a bland, unassuming person. Suppose I had chosen aptly.
“Lots of pretty flowers. I pick them good,” I said, purposely marring my French as a foreigner might. Mr. Moreau winced at the butchering of his native language but did not correct me.
“Yes, they are quite nice. Here, let me have them,” he said, removing me of them and going to the kitchen to fetch a little jar full of water to put them.
When he returned, setting it on the table, he gestured to a small package carelessly.
“That came for you while you were out,” he said, and I felt the hair stand on the back of my neck.
No.
Who would be sending me a package? No one knew me…no one but Moriarty, but he couldn’t have found me.
He couldn’t.
“You going to open it?” he asked, and as he peered at me his smile disappeared. “You all right, Hans? You look a bit peaky.”
“I’m doing fine. Feel ill to the stomach, that is all,” I said, still remembering to keep up my ruse of poor speech even as I reached for the package, hands trembling.
“I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, how about that?” he asked, doddering off back to the kitchen while I debated opening the package at all.
Of course I opened it, tearing viciously into it.
The same red book awaited me. Well. I meant style, obviously.
I quickly flicked through it, finding another gruesome drawing awaiting me so that I went back and thumbed through it again.
I don’t know how many times I dashed through the pages, turning it back again to watch it from the beginning, horrified by what was depicted within.
My limbs were slowly rent from me (as slow as they could be in such a media) and as the blood pooled round the open wounds a sharp knife sliced down through my neck, finally putting me out of my misery. Subconsciously I touched at my throat, rubbing at the spot that was the intended site of violence and I shivered slightly, feeling his eyes upon me even there.
“What is it?” Mr. Moreau asked, startling me as his voice broke into my thoughts. I handed it over without a word, numb, and he tsked in disgust, shaking his head and handing it back to me. “’S not right. What is this?”
“Is a joke, haha. Someone play a funny joke on me with book.”
“It’s not very funny, Hans. It’s gruesome. Sick, even. Who’d send you something like this?”
Moriarty.
“Don’t know. Hans has friends wherever he go.”
“Well…put it away. Don’t need that sort of thing out. You might should burn it, even.”
I put it in my breast pocket instead, feeling it weigh down upon me and burn, as though it touched me even through the cloth and seared at my skin. I could feel his hatred for me, and I shuddered at the thought that he was dogging me even still, making no move yet comfortably watching me squirm like a bug.
-----
I was homeless.
Intentionally.
Back in England, no less.
It was a more comfortable existence than one would expect, made easier by the fact that I had a number of…acquaintances accustomed to such living. They could keep secrets and they were loyal enough to me to allow me to encroach upon their living spaces, such as they were, and share in their meagre food.
I roamed here and there in London, sleeping on a bench there or under a bridge here. It really wasn’t so rough given that it was spring, now, and I had been accustomed to worse on some dogged cases.
I couldn’t help myself one day, and although it was foolish I begged of the man as he passed me by, weeping for alms and tearing at my clothes to display how pitiful and ragged I truly was. To his credit, Watson didn’t sneer or turn his lip up at me as others had. He saw me as human and down on my luck, and although it pained me to be unable to truly reveal myself it did me some small comfort to touch at his arm and be near him again whether he knew it or not.
“Alms, sir! Alms! I’m so desperately pressed, sir! Alms!” I shouted, falling down to my knees as I tore at his clothing. He fixed me with a pitying stare even though there must be a number of similar people within shouting distance of our location and he sighed, rummaging in his pocket and producing a few coins.
“Here. For you,” he said, and he placed them into my open palm. I resisted the urge to grip his hand tightly, to embrace him fiercely as I had missed him all these many months.
I resisted.
I kissed the coins and then grabbed at his clothing again.
“Bless you, sir! Bless you! You truly are a saint!”
Watson looked uncomfortable now--knew that would get him--and he carefully untangled from me, leaving me with a peculiar pain as he forced a smile onto his face.
“Yes, well, I could do better, I assure you. But thank you. And…do take care of yourself. Stay warm as you can. It can get chilly these nights as it’s not proper spring.”
Trust him to give a beggar doctor-ly advice.
I bowed and scraped a little more, watching him go until I could see him no longer and then I fell back against the wall behind me belonging to a pharmacy. I brought the coins to my lips again and shut my eyes, reminding myself that there was a reason I was running and hiding.
His safety.
And my own.
“Accepting donations, are you?” an elderly man asked me while his companion lurked nearby, beard shading his face and eyes hidden by the hat pulled low.
“’Course I am, sir. You knows it gets pretty rough out here on the streets.”
“I made a good deal gambling, and I thought I would share the wealth, as it were. Hope you don’t mind? If it’s too much, perhaps you can redistribute it?”
I was a little surprised that someone would be so generous, and I was even moreso as he placed a soft burlap sack into my hands, white beard touching down to his chest as he nodded, tipping his hat at me as a way of saying good-bye.
“Thank you, sir!” I said, remembering myself, and he limped off, his companion quickly joining his side as they walked forward, flicking away a cigarette as he did so.
I reached into the sack, ready to count the money and promptly give it away to my acquaintances who had been so good as to help me when my fingers stopped on their own accord.
Not metal.
Not bills.
Not coinage of any sort.
It was paper.
It was a book.
I pulled it out, horrified, and then I glanced up.
He--
Moriarty!
I pushed a man out of the way, ignoring his indignant and callous, expletive-laden shout at me as I dashed forward into the milling sea of people.
“Get--move! Now!” I shouted desperately, trying to elbow and worm my way through. I might have roughed up a woman in my attempt to surge through but I was frantic, and yet I knew as I reached the end of the walkway that there would be no bearded man, nor elderly companion to meet me.
Damn it.
Damn it.
I clutched the bag in my left fist, growling to myself before deciding to flick through the book.
I was hanging from the ceiling this time, a thick cord round my neck as my limbs dangled, marks denoting that I was kicking feebly so that I was still alive. A variety of knives had been inserted into strategic portions and I seemed to simultaneously catch fire, writhing and curling up into ashes.
The last page, left blank up until now, simply read in a bold scrawl ‘The End begins tomorrow’ and I ran my finger over the careful red ink with a shudder before shutting it, placing it in my breast pocket.
Once again I imagined I could feel heat resonating from it and I laughed to myself, grimly resolved to see this through to the proper end.
-----