Planet Earth is blue; there's nothing I can do
He doesn’t start to kill himself-what Moran can’t do, won’t do-until almost two years into it. That’s something to be proud of, he thinks hazily in the lucid moments between drugged deliriums.
~
He tells Mycroft for several reasons. He needs money is the most practical; Watson needs someone to keep an eye on him the most paranoid. That he doesn’t want to feel responsible for the spiritual death of another person to whom he’s bound (not just by blood, he concedes) is the most reprehensible because it could land Mycroft in Moran’s sights.
He takes comfort in the knowledge that Moran is not Moriarty. Moriarty wouldn’t waste his time dangling only Watson in front of his nose, but Moran? Moran is a hunter; his sights are on the prize, but the prize can’t be killed, because Moran is Watson’s foil in all of this. The twist is, of course, that he can’t be so unswervingly loyal. The twist is that he will kill Holmes, and it probably won’t even be a conscious decision.
The first three weeks are a burst of energy and an attempt to keep his feet in motion.
The next three are aimless. His internal compass points him continually toward London, and he struggles to oppose it; he goes east instead, but sees Watson in everything vaguely reminiscent of Afghanistan.
In every shadow, he sees Moran. The majority of the time, he’s justified.
Moran is a hunter; he knows how not to be seen, but this isn’t a typical hunt. This is a Moriarty-mandated hunt, so the attack is in not attacking, but being present. It’s in appearing over the top of a newspaper when Holmes steps into a restaurant for the first meal he’s had in days. It’s standing idle on a corner as Holmes passes by, that teeth-filled grin on his face and a gun-shaped bulge in his pocket. It’s laying a hand on Holmes’s shoulder, giving a squeeze, and murmuring, I wouldn’t have the sugar with my tea today, Mr. Holmes. But maybe you would?
Hope chases him too, leaps out at him like a specter in the night and chokes him until he can’t sleep. Watson is alive; Watson is waiting for him, if only Holmes could get back to him. Moran is always a step ahead, somehow; Moran is always the one coming out of the shadows, and Holmes, rattled, in unfamiliar territory, finds himself stumbling. Moran dangles Watson in front of him like a noose, gives him plenty of opportunity to kill himself; it’s what he’s waiting for, surely, but Holmes is too stubborn to kill himself on someone else’s terms.
Inevitably, he finds his own terms.
He isn’t under the influence of a needle the first time he thinks he sees Moran in the face of a stranger on the street who tripped on a crack and stumbled into him. It worries him enough that he decides he ought to be under the influence anyway because he can handle going insane if his insanity is in liquid form and injected regularly every few hours.
His addiction keeps him going, and his hallucinations keep him moving, from city to city and hostel to hostel. He increases the dosage as the sightings increase, until the day comes when he can’t be sure of the last time he actually saw Moran, in the flesh; if that morning when there’d been a knife at his throat, the pinprick of blood at his collar, had been real or if he’d put it there himself in a fit.
At that point, he decides opium would be appropriate.
Time ceases to exist.
~
There is a moment he remembers because it hurts. So little of that time hurts, except for when a maybe-Moran grabs him by the lapels and shakes him until his eyes focus. There’s a knife in his hand, and it doesn’t gleam at all in the dusky light of this cave; it’s dull and thick, like most people are, but not like the probably-Moran that sighs and sits back and twirls the knife in his hand.
“It would’ve been quicker if you’d taken the poison,” he says, and his words sound thick and dull like his knife, but that’s deceptive; they’re capable of far more damage. “Wish you had, really. This isn’t any fun at all.”
He taps the handle of the knife against his knee then, and his eyes find something else to look at. Holmes hears what he sees in Moran’s eyes: the rush of water over sleek rocks.
“But I promised him, didn’t I? And what am I if I’m not a man of my word?”
These sentences aren’t for Holmes. What belongs to him is the sinister thirst in Moran when he looks down at Holmes again, and the blade of a dull knife that follows the curve of his collarbone.
“I’d kill you now, put us both out of our misery. But he wouldn’t like that.”
Holmes’s mind is fogged, but he hears it there, the misery that isn’t a lie, and he would ask, throat bobbing against the knife, where Moran finds his misery in all of this because he seems to have been enjoying it immensely. But Holmes can’t be sure how much of Moran’s grinning face he’s actually been seeing outside of his own mind, so he says nothing.
“So how’s that then?” Moran’s laughing hollowly and putting his knife away, and he’s cracking in front of Holmes. “The mastermind Moriarty stumbles off a cliff, and the great Holmes wastes away to nothing in an opium den.” He pushes himself to his feet, his lip between his teeth as he shakes his head. “That’s not something he would’ve liked, either.”
There’s pain in Moran’s face. Holmes would offer him opium, if he cared at all.
There is no Moran for two weeks.
~
There is nothing but Moran for two months.
He is, at least, the not-at-all-Moran, but he is everywhere because the drugs are nowhere, and the monks that collected him-a charity case, a lost soul-from the opium den refuse to give him any. He nearly dies, and for the first time two years, Holmes wishes he would. His body won’t give up, however, or maybe it’s his mind; he’s far too confused to tell the difference.
~
Meditation is medication, they tell him.
After a while, it is enough.
~
Thoughts of London are fragile things that he doesn’t allow himself because he would only break them. There are messages, telegrams for Mycroft, passed through the monks that tend to him, but they are few because they are distracting. They remind Holmes that he’s a fragile thing, too, and he can’t think of that now. Holmes is focused because in the moments of clarity, he remembers a painful, dusky afternoon and what was meant to be a goodbye.
For Holmes, it’s the start of a victory march.
~
He tells Mycroft for several reasons. He needs money is the most practical; Watson needs someone to keep an eye on him the most paranoid. That he doesn’t want to feel responsible for the spiritual death of another person to whom he’s bound (not just by blood, he concedes) is the most reprehensible because it could land Mycroft in Moran’s sights.
He takes comfort in the knowledge that Moran is not Moriarty. Moriarty wouldn’t waste his time dangling only Watson in front of his nose, but Moran? Moran is a hunter; his sights are on the prize, but the prize can’t be killed, because Moran is Watson’s foil in all of this. The twist is, of course, that he can’t be so unswervingly loyal. The twist is that he will kill Holmes, and it probably won’t even be a conscious decision.
The first three weeks are a burst of energy and an attempt to keep his feet in motion.
The next three are aimless. His internal compass points him continually toward London, and he struggles to oppose it; he goes east instead, but sees Watson in everything vaguely reminiscent of Afghanistan.
In every shadow, he sees Moran. The majority of the time, he’s justified.
Moran is a hunter; he knows how not to be seen, but this isn’t a typical hunt. This is a Moriarty-mandated hunt, so the attack is in not attacking, but being present. It’s in appearing over the top of a newspaper when Holmes steps into a restaurant for the first meal he’s had in days. It’s standing idle on a corner as Holmes passes by, that teeth-filled grin on his face and a gun-shaped bulge in his pocket. It’s laying a hand on Holmes’s shoulder, giving a squeeze, and murmuring, I wouldn’t have the sugar with my tea today, Mr. Holmes. But maybe you would?
Hope chases him too, leaps out at him like a specter in the night and chokes him until he can’t sleep. Watson is alive; Watson is waiting for him, if only Holmes could get back to him. Moran is always a step ahead, somehow; Moran is always the one coming out of the shadows, and Holmes, rattled, in unfamiliar territory, finds himself stumbling. Moran dangles Watson in front of him like a noose, gives him plenty of opportunity to kill himself; it’s what he’s waiting for, surely, but Holmes is too stubborn to kill himself on someone else’s terms.
Inevitably, he finds his own terms.
He isn’t under the influence of a needle the first time he thinks he sees Moran in the face of a stranger on the street who tripped on a crack and stumbled into him. It worries him enough that he decides he ought to be under the influence anyway because he can handle going insane if his insanity is in liquid form and injected regularly every few hours.
His addiction keeps him going, and his hallucinations keep him moving, from city to city and hostel to hostel. He increases the dosage as the sightings increase, until the day comes when he can’t be sure of the last time he actually saw Moran, in the flesh; if that morning when there’d been a knife at his throat, the pinprick of blood at his collar, had been real or if he’d put it there himself in a fit.
At that point, he decides opium would be appropriate.
Time ceases to exist.
~
There is a moment he remembers because it hurts. So little of that time hurts, except for when a maybe-Moran grabs him by the lapels and shakes him until his eyes focus. There’s a knife in his hand, and it doesn’t gleam at all in the dusky light of this cave; it’s dull and thick, like most people are, but not like the probably-Moran that sighs and sits back and twirls the knife in his hand.
“It would’ve been quicker if you’d taken the poison,” he says, and his words sound thick and dull like his knife, but that’s deceptive; they’re capable of far more damage. “Wish you had, really. This isn’t any fun at all.”
He taps the handle of the knife against his knee then, and his eyes find something else to look at. Holmes hears what he sees in Moran’s eyes: the rush of water over sleek rocks.
“But I promised him, didn’t I? And what am I if I’m not a man of my word?”
These sentences aren’t for Holmes. What belongs to him is the sinister thirst in Moran when he looks down at Holmes again, and the blade of a dull knife that follows the curve of his collarbone.
“I’d kill you now, put us both out of our misery. But he wouldn’t like that.”
Holmes’s mind is fogged, but he hears it there, the misery that isn’t a lie, and he would ask, throat bobbing against the knife, where Moran finds his misery in all of this because he seems to have been enjoying it immensely. But Holmes can’t be sure how much of Moran’s grinning face he’s actually been seeing outside of his own mind, so he says nothing.
“So how’s that then?” Moran’s laughing hollowly and putting his knife away, and he’s cracking in front of Holmes. “The mastermind Moriarty stumbles off a cliff, and the great Holmes wastes away to nothing in an opium den.” He pushes himself to his feet, his lip between his teeth as he shakes his head. “That’s not something he would’ve liked, either.”
There’s pain in Moran’s face. Holmes would offer him opium, if he cared at all.
There is no Moran for two weeks.
~
There is nothing but Moran for two months.
He is, at least, the not-at-all-Moran, but he is everywhere because the drugs are nowhere, and the monks that collected him-a charity case, a lost soul-from the opium den refuse to give him any. He nearly dies, and for the first time two years, Holmes wishes he would. His body won’t give up, however, or maybe it’s his mind; he’s far too confused to tell the difference.
~
Meditation is medication, they tell him.
After a while, it is enough.
~
Thoughts of London are fragile things that he doesn’t allow himself because he would only break them. There are messages, telegrams for Mycroft, passed through the monks that tend to him, but they are few because they are distracting. They remind Holmes that he’s a fragile thing, too, and he can’t think of that now. Holmes is focused because in the moments of clarity, he remembers a painful, dusky afternoon and what was meant to be a goodbye.
For Holmes, it’s the start of a victory march.