Retainer
Even in a saint, there is a limit to how far one's patience can stretch. And the blowback potential is always directly proportional to the amount of patience. Sherlock Holmes's retainer has more patience than the average Joe. This is what happens when he loses it.
Sebastian Moran was not a man who spooked easily. Come to think of it, scaring a man who went almost everywhere armed with several sharp, pointy bits of metal or bits that could be assembled into a gun was an exercise in futility just waiting to happen.
His newest visitor scared him more than his employer ever could. Consider that his employer is a psychopath who blew things up on a whim and worked as a consulting criminal mastermind, one wonders exactly how terrifying this man could be to him, one of the RED, as the SAS referred to people like him. Retired, Extremely Dangerous. The movie wasn't far off, come to think of it.
No. What was absolutely terrifying was the fact that this man was wearing a suit. A Saville Row suit. The officially mandated execution uniform. Eek.
Moran has been through military training. He'd seen war, and he'd come back alive. He was also the right hand of the man who terrified even terrorists. Needless to say, he was a tough one to scare.
He also knew enough of the Battle Butlers to be very, very afraid. This says a lot about the Butlers that could only be implied but never truly outspoken, since anyone who hears about this super-trained soldiers cum assassins who spooked the hell out of parts of the darkest criminal underworld who having been sinking deep into a river in Egypt in a strong urge to not recognise the truly horrible truth.
Denial, however, is not forthcoming when the scariest man of the Battle Butlers, the one who scared even former Butlers like him, was sitting in front of him with a gun and a snack.
Especially when the man sitting in front of him is eating a sausage on a stick.
Moran's eyes are on that stick, wondering if he's going to skewer his eye or drive it through the sternum. If they had to trow down, Moran's hopes for the eye; it would have been over quickly.
"You're not going to get out of here alive," he tells the man, aiming for bravado, although a part of him tells him that the guy looks so pedestrian, you think anyone will suspect him? Please. "Moriarty will send in the team after your head."
And then it's that smile, that perfectly genial smile that by rights should be bright and cheerful and not containing the hidden meaning of implied violence and death by skewer or improvised weapons. "I know." he says. "I met them."
And we have an explanation to why every assassin in the organisation's employ was jumping ship like their life depended on it; it did. Cue the irony.
"It's irritating, having to explain to them why they shouldn't disturb me and my flatmate every single time," he continues, playing with the item in is other hand. Moran privately thinks that the Colt Peacemaker was a living misnomer. "I'm sure you could deal with him, right?" The bright, cheerful tone all of them mastered when they were about to kill people in the most painful way possible was there, but Moran privately thinks that it's this tone that would scare even the psychopaths.
It scares him, and he was one of them.
He privately wonders how on earth did Moriarty get him into the vest of Semtex. He concludes that the man must have been injured, seeing as there was really no way Moriarty could have managed the feat had he been in peak physical condition.
To say that Moran had known him at the start at that time when he had been here before was a gross overestimation of his abilities to recognise his own kind. To him, he had passed as an ordinary civilian.
Of course, it was still difficult to pass as an ordinary civilian when one was holding a big-ass gun. He still managed it though, the sodding bastard. And he was still laughing.
Of course, Moran knows the only reasonable answer.
"I'll see what I can do."
Sebastian Moran was many things.
Suicidal was not one of those things.
Nice job on the hit team.
-MH
How the...nvm. Thks for the suit.
-JW
Keep it. Sherlock's bringing you to see Mummy next week. Wear the suit.
-MH
Bit inappropriate, don't you think?
-JW
Hardly. One needs good clothing if one wants to survive a meeting with Mummy.
-MH
You know, I'm more convinced than ever now that you two are out of whack.
-JW
John Watson sighs as he wipes down and disposes of the last bits of the Peacemaker in nearby trash cans, changes to his nicest jumpers and jeans and sneakers, wraps up the special suit and packs the whole thing, as neatly as possible in the middle of a London alley, into a dry-cleaning bag, zipping the thing shut and swinging it over his shoulder, whistling a merry tune as he languidly walked off. Somewhere around, Sebastian Moran calls a secure private number and tells his employer that Holmes and Watson are not going to become his targets, no matter what Moriarty says, so there.
He checks his pockets, and finds his phone, already with a text from his eccentric genius flatmate.
Poisoned the last carton. Buy milk.
-SH
Fighting a grin, John Watson moves to the nearest mini-mart to pick up more milk. Really, Sherlock needed a retainer by his side just to make sure he didn't commit accidental suicide, let alone die of starvation or lack of sleep.
Just so happens that John, not only being one of the best retainers, was always one for a challenge. And he wasn't about to let a little thing like Moriarty get in the way of his calling too.
Hence, the Crusader had reared his head once more as the bogeyman of the criminal underworld. Hence, the Crusader was on to Moriarty. For killing so many, for shoving him into that Semtex vest, for pulling that stunt on Sherlock, John was going to tear his entrails out and lay them at Sherlock's feet.
To the very end, John Watson was the loyal retainer of Sherlock Holmes, living by the creed of the Battle Butlers;
Domi militiaeque, semper fidelis
In peace and war, always faithful.
Conclusione della storia
Wink, nudge, bow,
LLS