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It had been many weeks since our encounter with the Resurrectionists, and we had made no attempt to go after them. My friend assured me the pair of renegades would show their faces again soon enough, and our fated war would continue; but in the meantime, there had been other cases and smaller crimes, and for my part I had been grateful for it. I did not relish another run-in with Rache and his Limping Doctor, no matter how inevitable it might be.
(They are like us, in a way that I cannot describe, yet cannot shake from my mind.)
Moriarty had asked that I come along on every one of his subsequent investigations, and though I felt worthless to him much of the time, I could never manage to refuse his small, inviting smile, or the twinkle in his eye. It is quite hard to resist such a quiet insistence upon your company.
So as my shoulder began to mend, I took it upon myself to deserve those invitations, and practised my marksmanship with renewed vigour on the targets my friend had set up around the flat.
He liked to watch me shoot - said it was a graceful thing, though I saw no grace in it. My ability was greatly reduced from the reputation I held while in the service, so I was much poorer than usual, and my misfires only multiplied with my apprehension at being observed. Thus, Moriarty had taken to slipping in secretly, observing without my knowledge until I’d concluded my training, and caught sight of him, and grew abashed beneath his gaze.
Today was one such day, and through my embarrassment I found that he’d brought tea for the pair of us, and a platter of potatoes and sausages from the landlady, whose accommodation of our constant gunfire I’d never understood.
“Your focus is remarkable, Moran,” he said appreciatively, and nudged a plate and cup in my direction.
I nodded my thanks, and joined him on the settee, helping myself to a spoonful of potatoes. But I sensed there was more he wished to say; and indeed, after a thoughtful bite of sausage, he said it.
“While I am always glad for your abilities, you needn’t overwork yourself. You’re sleeping less, are you not?”
I did not know, for I rarely slept at all.
“What brought this extended bit of practice on?”
I began cleaning my weapon meticulously, an act that had once been second-nature. “Because we have paid visits to countless crime scenes, and we have met unruly witnesses with whom we were lucky to escape with our lives, and I must be better able to protect you.”
He smiled a little, though I sensed indignance. “Surely you’re aware that I’m more than capable of protecting myself. Those targets are for my practice as well as yours.”
Yet I was broader, stronger than Moriarty, and had many more years of practice; years where I’d been feared by my fellow soldiers as well as the Afghans, known as a bullet in the shape of a man. Doubtless, my friend couldn’t guess it, by how my hands trembled when holding even a glass.
“…I can’t imagine I’m useful to you otherwise,” I answered, staring at the rifle in my hands. “But I want to be.”
A glance up at my companion showed that he was frowning, and I wondered if he’d finally seen the truth in my words. Or perhaps he’d simply insist that I was more valuable than I claimed, listing action after action, like points of data on a graph.
But that is not what he said.
“…You are dear to me, Moran, and it does not matter if you are useful, because my feelings will never change.”
He smiled then, as only he could. “That is why I wish you along.”
Moriarty was cruel in only one way, and it was how his words made my hopeless heart ache.
It was not forbidden, to love another man - not since the savage Times Before - but it was seen as less wanted, less worthy to the continuance of humanity and the Old Ones’ dominion over it. A strike against you, shown in disparaging words and looks; a thing to keep hidden in shame.
A closeness to him I knew I could not have.
So I merely said, “How can you know that?” and hoped it would reveal nothing of myself.
“Of my feelings? Perhaps I do not.” He mused on this familiarly, as he did when untangling a favourite enigma. “But it is quite likely I shall not change my mind. We were brought together for a reason - of that I am sure - and I believe it is because we are good for each other.”
My friend had said similar before, and the notion made me no less bashful than then.
“I take great comfort in the notion that all is predetermined. The Royals free us from choice, and all we must do is follow our paths as well as we can. As simple as an equation - a problem with a discrete and singular solution.”
Moriarty said it not with the dreamy-eyed faith of the ardently devout, but with a calm contentment that proved infectious. For it was true that I, too, was comforted by the stability the Old Ones offered - a lifeline to lead me out of the dark, to heal the wounds of body and mind which my time in the caves of Afghanistan had left so indelibly upon me.
There was fear, certainly, and a price to be paid; but wasn’t there always?
So caught up was I in my musings that I failed to realise my friend had drawn closer to me until I was made aware by his touch - a soft hand on my hardened shoulder, the delicate against the coarse.
“And I am eternally grateful to them for leading me to you.”
Fool that I was, the words brought yet more heat into my cheeks, and whatever I mumbled in response was such nonsense as to amuse him. But his chuckling was never cruel, or mean-spirited; no, he reserved his occasional testiness for others, and all his kindness for me.
What I had done to deserve it, I would never understand. I was no high-born gentleman like my companion - merely a rough creature of the lowest classes, granted status only by skillful violence, abandoned save for a paltry pension when it was known that the torture had broken my spirit. No scholar of space, no master of mysteries. A nigh-disposable cog in London’s grand machine.
“I am sure I can tell what you’re thinking,” Moriarty admonished, “and I will not abide it.”
“But - ”
“How is your shoulder?” He changed the subject firmly but elegantly. “Is it faring better than before?”
“Quite,” I said softly, still cowed by his compliments. “The pain ebbs by the day, though it is still raw to the touch.”
My shirt was still open several buttons at the collar, a spot of relief from the exertion of the day, and I adjusted it until the circle was visible, thickening pink nearly covering the once-deathly white.
Moriarty seemed to consider something upon seeing it, his eyes unreadable, as if he’d been given a case secretive enough that not even I was privy to its details. Whatever his dilemma, he thought upon it long and hard, before he finally felt able to speak.
“I am glad to see you are healing, my friend,” he murmured, as softly as myself, before pressing his lips to my skin.
None had touched that old wound, save for Victoria in her brutal kindness, but there was no primordial agony at his - indeed, there was no pain at all. He was gentle, gentler than I thought possible, and the gesture made me gasp, a thousand emotions behind it, with shock prevailing above them all; and my friend pulled away sharply, alarm upon his features. But I did not want him to - no, I wished that least of all.
So I drew near to him again, my shoulder still bare, and he reached out to trace it with his fingers; and I felt him lay his other hand upon my cheek, eyes moving from my scar to gaze into my own. A silent question lay in them, one I never dreamed I would see; and had I even wanted to hide my answer, I would have failed.
He kissed me, then, and I forgot terror and pain, forgot the uncertain future and the hideous past - forgot all but Moriarty’s tenderness, and the honey-coloured hair that my fingers carded through. Even as we parted, we did not; for foreheads touched, and arms encircled waists, and we were complete in each other, for a moment.
Neither of us spoke it in words; for it was known by us both, and thus unneeded. I imagine that my tongue would have mangled whatever I desired to say, for I have never been a literary man. So we existed in quiet, and company, for a long, long while.
I did not realise it was night until red moonlight streamed through the windows, and I grew drowsy at the sight, as if the Old Ones demanded it of me. It was all too difficult for me to rise, and Moriarty rose with me, supporting my weight. Like this, we made our way to my bedroom; and like this, we entered it, instead of our usual parting at the door.
It was no great deduction, I suppose, how sorely I wished him to stay.
So gowns were donned, and candles put out, and we lay beside each other in a comfortable tangle borne of small beds and little space; and I could not bear to imagine a world where I should ever have to sleep alone again.
Yet the Royals held the cards, and I knew enough of tarot to know that one would soon turn over Death.
“…You won’t stop, will you?”
“Hm?” was the answer by my ear.
“You won’t stop until one of you has died.”
“No,” Moriarty said, understanding my meaning. “I imagine we won’t. Though it is a measure I have little wish to take.”
“What if he lacks such qualms?”
“Then it will be my fate to be slain by Rache, and I will have served my purpose well.”
And for the first time since I’d kept that blasted letter, unable to burn it for reasons known not even to myself, I felt the black tendrils of heresy cling at my heart and mind. For it would not be right.
It would not be right for us to aid them, fight for them, live for them, only for my dearest friend to perish beneath a hunting hound’s jaws and a rogue medic’s knife.
Were that his path, I would stray from my own to change its course; for, selfish as it was, I wished to let no one - neither Royal nor man - take Moriarty from my side.
But paths do not diverge, and man does not choose; and so I buried such thoughts, and settled into my friend’s embrace, and hoped that should his path lead to death, that I would follow him down.
For now, my eyes grew heavy, and sleep drew near.
“I’ll still scream,” I whispered. “In the night.”
“I know,” he replied, and stayed all the same.