This is a little something of what I want to continue…But it’s a start…

He had heard nothing. It had been a week, and not one shiver had been felt across the web. His fingers flexed in irritation, the rag in his hands damp with oil as he passed it over a barrel over and over again. The mobile phone, the one containing one number, one point of contact, lay on the table by his elbow. One week. No, six days four hours and 36 minutes. All that time, and nothing. Moran cast the rag aside.

Jim had promised to contact him, as soon as his dealings with Holmes had been completed. The sliver of the face Moran had seen had been jubilant, filled with a something that he never witnessed. It had been a gutting sight. A sliver of humanity, cracking the mask that he had maintained through the entire of their business. That crack, revealed to Holmes. Not to him.

Jealousy is an ugly emotion.

-

    Do not shoot until you see my signal.

    Keep your sights on Watson, if He doesn’t fall you know what to do.

    Stay hidden.

And then…nothing. He had saved these two, the last two. Jim had given direct orders for communications to be erased as soon as the message had been read. He wanted to delete them, but if the whispers were true-

Moran winced as he knocked back another whiskey. His fist flexed again. Gun maintenance had always made his joints ache.The repetitive smoothing and rubbing, deconstructing and reconstructing. He set his rifle aside, blunt fingers scratching absently at a scar across his lips, and sat himself in his chair. He needed another drink. He needed a lot of things.

If the whispers were true, he allowed himself to think, then what do I do now?

He looked over the final text again, trying to convince himself it was Jim trying to look out for him.

    His entire life, since his return, had been soaked up, drowned out, washed away, born anew; pulled through by an enigmatic madman with a purpose. Jim had given him a new life, and Holmes had taken it away again.

He could still remember meeting Jim. He had been sat with his back to a raucous pub crowd, the tendons of his neck taut with the effort to keep quiet. Sickening smell of beer soaking the air and the patrons. A small hand had placed itself on his shoulder, and he had turned and twisted in such a way that his would-be attacker was pressed back-to-his-front, arm wrenched behind him.

“Yes,” Jim had murmured, “Perfect.”

The sun was just beginning to break over the horizon, the first weak rays warming Moran. The light dragged across his skin like fingers. He hated it. It didn’t seem fair somehow that London woke, and no one but him seemed to have noticed that a great mind had been removed. He couldn’t let this stand, couldn’t let this injustice pass notice. He stood, squinting out at the city skyline before turning his back and retrieving his coat. Unobtrusive, almost like a shadow getting smaller as the sun rose, he left.

-

He had been to Baker Street once before. In the early days, before Holmes had even begun to suspect Jim. They had walked along the street in the semi-darkness, Jim extolling the virtues of seeing Holmes first hand.

“Know your enemy,” Jim had murmured, eyes bright with interest, “Before they can know you. By the time he realises what I’ve done…well…You’ll see Sebastian. The fun is just beginning.”

He hadn’t known what Jim had meant at the time. He hadn’t replied. And he’d only ever seen that light when Holmes’ name had come up.

Like much of London, Baker Street had resisted change. It had settled into a rhythm; its inhabitants ebbing and flowing through it like any other stretch of concrete. Moran looked at the ground as though their footprints could be seen there, as though the importance of their conversation had somehow leached into the worn pavement, as though their footprints could bruise the resolute stone. Bring change to this unchanging place. No such luck. As Jim had wanted, they moved like spirits through the city, leaving nothing in their wake. There were few memories he would treasure from being here, being dragged here and left here. But that conversation, when everything was still so new and they seemed to have all the time in the world, he returned to it constantly.

The sun was beginning to brighten, time moving ever onwards, and Moran checked his watch. He circled back around the block. Back past the park, past Baker Street Station, along until he was stood outside. Outside 221B. He stiffened his shoulders, taking the stairs up to the shining black door. He had stood on this step, the closest they had to no-mans-land, just once before. He had stood guard. Mere days before the end. He had stayed out there, in the open, bare and prepared for a fight. Ready to face Watson should he come back early. And now here he was again, knocking to come inside. But this time, he would breach the tenuous boundaries that the Game had set down. That Jim had set down.

“Hello?” Moran had hardly noticed the door crack open a little, an old woman he recognised behind it, and he managed to school his weathered features into a small smile,

“Mrs. Hudson? We haven’t met. Sebastian Moran, a friend of John’s? May I come in?”

againstthespiritofsurprisingrice asked: dooo you live in wyoming? i do, for another week. (asked bc username)

Hello! No I’m afraid I don’t live in Wyoming. The name came from a childhood nickname my friends convinced one of their Mum’s was my real name :P
I live in England (Y)

So yes, recently I have been AWOL because of various RL crises. But now, I have writers block and wish to ask for your help!

Please leave a prompt in the replies for this? Either BBC Sherlock, or Wholock, or Cabinlock…whatever you can come up with really! Go Crazy!