I am both on and in Leicester Square.

Let's start with 'on'. I expect that's the one that's perplexed you. Well, we couldn't have you perplexed, so let's start with 'on'. It is not a misprint. You did not mishear. I am on Leicester Square. I'm on the walls. Glowing in a billion little LED points. Up close I'd be a mess of red and blue and green. But from down here, looking up at the screens that are usually flashing advertising and musicals and movie posters, I look pretty fucking glorious. I'm a mile tall, repeating like insanity, I'm fucking terrifying.

And yes, in order to know all of this, I am also in Leicester Square. Don't worry, though, nobody's going to recognize me. They're not even going to see me. Everybody here is standing the same way; turned toward a screen, head tipped back, staring at me, so they can't see me. Get it?

You might say I've watched long enough. You might consider this to be tempting fate. Fine. Have it your way, my dear and constant reader. I pull down the brim of my hat and turn away. You know best. I'm not safe here. I should get out of here. You're right, you're absolutely right. Out, away from here.

Down on Whitcomb Street, you hear my voice drifting out the windows. On every screen, on every radio. And I get that fucking glorious moment you only see in movies where I pass a Curry's and I'm on every TV in the window.

You know, if I were a weaker man, this might be a real ego trip. But I'm not. Weak, I mean. Or stupid. The ego trip is yet to come.

So I'm at the lights on Coventry Street. They change. And there's a bus coming, but slow, and the light's red, so I cross. Just crossing the white line in the same lane, that bus isn't stopping, and I jump back. Other cars blast their horns and the driver finally realizes what he's doing. And I swear, the metal is against me when I breathe out, that's how close we got.

And why?

Because he didn't see me. He's craning looking up into Leicester Square. At me.

I slide around the bus, amongst the almost apologetic traffic. A laugh starts, somewhere just below my ribs. Not wanting to look like a lunatic I try and quash it, but it doesn't want to be quashed. It's stronger than I am, and has to be buried against my fist to even keep it quiet.

Hm? What's that? 'Just nerves', is it? Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Having nearly just been run over, this is just nerves. More than likely. You're a sharp sod, you, aren't you?

Piss off. You think it scares me? You think the nearness of death, the idea of my own mortality, has any power over me whatsoever anymore? Piss off.

Been there. Done that. Ruined that perfectly good coat.

No, this isn't nerves, although it's smart of you to say that. That's a psychological assessment, as much as it's an observation. But that's the trouble, you see; you look too closely. You see the red-green-and-blue little lights and miss the bigger picture. Namely, that this is hilarious. This is the best joke I've heard in years. Do you know how long I've been playing this? How much planning and effort and how much sheer fucking graft has gone into this?

How unbearably funny would it be if I walked under a bus now?

Oh, it's set me off again just thinking about it. Forgive me. I know I look like a fool, out in the street, hiding my face and laughing like a clown. Forgive me.

Me, under a bus. Me smeared across the road, turning the white lines red, with my brains out for good and all this time, broke in a dozen places, laid out all at weird angles, while my own voice still echoes all over the city. My face burned onto the memories of those who scrape me up, and maybe they don't even make the connection between that and the face they've been seeing everywhere. They take the ID in my pocket at face value. I get buried (again) under a(nother) false name, vanishing.

Oh, what would become of poor Sherlock then? Can't you just picture it? Wasting away, waiting for me, lost and dying. Imagine him expecting me, every minute of every day. Crumbling away to little pieces. Oh, he'd just go mad! White coats and rubber rooms, strapped in and chained up and boxed up and all shackled, oh God. Imagine John Watson crying over it behind locked doors in the middle of the night. And aw, fuck me, Mycroft, fucking Mycroft, Jesus Christ…

It's almost worth considering.

Almost. If it didn't require staying away, returning to quiet non-existence, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I don't know if I'm capable of that sort of fortitude. Or if anybody is. Last time, I had to be dead before he'd kill himself. Therefore, last time I didn't get to watch. To do that twice? To always have made my exit before the curtain goes down? I will not be the last corpse on stage again. Hamlet was the only one ever got a good deal out of that.

And I'm really not sure it's fair to traumatise some poor bus driver in the name of Sherlock bloody Holmes.

In other words, I need to get off these streets before I'm killed or sectioned. It's alright. I know where I'm going. Not as if I've just been aimlessly wandering. Don't love the sound of my own voice that much.

There's a place. In the interests of giving the gents at Vauxhall Cross a bit of a chase, I won't say exactly where, or what it's called. It's a beautiful little basement bar, run by a gullible and put-upon gent named Eddie. We used to drink here. Back when there was a thing you might call 'we', that is. And we never did any business here, so that it would be safe, so that we'd always have somewhere to come to.

Not to mention there are a bunch of scam artists already working out of one of the booths. Wouldn't do to tread on anybody's toes.

Anyway, that's where I find myself. It's the middle of the afternoon, so things are pretty quiet. Eddie himself is behind the bar, where he usually is. I turn up my collar, just in case.

But Eddie is another one of those people who isn't going to see me, because he's already looking too hard. He's up close to the radio, listening to the loop of my message with a face of absolute concentration.

Out from behind the jukebox, at a little table all by himself, a man lifts up his big Scouse voice and sighs, "Will you turn that shite off, please?"

"But it really sounds like that fella," says Eddie, the gormless twat. "What's his name, the one used to come in here with you, turned out to be a right wrong'un-"

"Eddie, stop speaking ill of the dead and shut the fucking radio off."

"Hold on, I just want to have a listen again."

The man in the corner gives up the fight. Sighs and shakes his head and starts to finish his drink so he can leave, but he's not arguing anymore. It's odd; he was never a quitter when I knew him. When I knew him, he would've got up, took the radio out from underneath and smashed it to bits. The static would have squealed and half-deafened everyone in a hundred yard radius, but he wouldn't have thought that far ahead. His rage would have protected him from all harm, too.

I cross to him. I have to time this properly or Eddie's going to notice something. So I measure my steps. I'm just reaching him. I open my mouth and wait an extra beat to say in sync with myself, "Did you miss me?"

Moran winces. First, he thinks it's just the radio again. Then he realizes. That was closer, it was real. It was right here with him. He turns his head very, very slowly. Round about the time I get a look at his eyes I realize, I might have made a tiny bit of a mistake sneaking up on him. The hand around the pint glass starts to shake. Starts to tighten, like it might go through the pint glass, filling itself with lethal shards before it swings up to punch me. Repeatedly.

"Now, Moran, take that look off your face-"

"You prick…"

"-You had to be expecting this, after thon other one showing up-"

"You fucking shameless wanking Irish prick, I'm going to kill you."

"Keep your voice down, would you? There's a barman over there."

The eyes narrow. I'd forgotten just precisely how tall he was until he rises up from his chair. Forgotten how well built he is, how much gym time he clocks, all those weights and reps and other terms I only ever heard from him.

But I think I would remember the black, epauletted jumper, the uniform insignia, the printed I.D. badge clipped to his belt.

Remember that laugh? The one I couldn't do anything about? "Christ alive, you're a security man now!" It's got the better of me. I'm done for, gone. I can't even argue when he grabs me by the shoulder and pushes me with him, out of the place. Passing the bar, he blocks me from Eddie's view. Probably a good thing, actually; Eddie's starting to catch on. I can feel his eyes follow us out, idiot jaw hanging open around the question that'll never, ever come. Bless him. If it weren't for eejits like Eddie, there'd be nowhere for people like me.

I am unceremoniously shoved into the cobbled side-street above, still crippled with laughter. "At least tell me it's Harrods. Or Liberty. You're not, like, the Primark store detective or something, are you?"

This is a bit grim. He's been angry with me before. I remember him angry. I remember him properly raging, but that was before we got know each other, doesn't really count. I've never seen him like this. Moran's shocked and upset. Doesn't know where to put himself. Stupid of him, if you ask me. The second Holmes appeared back on the scene, he should've started a countdown. T minus three months, give or take. Long before that, there should've been signs. Jesus, he should've known I wouldn't die that easily, surely.

So why, then, does he still look like he wants to use my skull to beat an unsuccessful hole in the brickwork?

"Sebastian, speak to me. Stop just glaring and let the words come out of your mouth." He doesn't. He turns around, actually, and starts to walk. Like he's leaving me here. "Where are you going?" No answer. "Moran, the fuck are you doing?"

"Not killing you. And if you're happy enough with that, don't come near me again."

"What're you talking about?" He turns back, charges a step or two towards me. Maybe just to see if I flinch. "Stop being a drama queen," I tell him. "And c'mon. We've got work to do."

"Yeah. And I've got about five minutes left on my break." Still on about this day job he's got himself… He better not be thinking this is funny, y'know. This is not the big joke of the day. But maybe I shouldn't roll my eyes, because he goes on to say (and this is very definitely not funny at all, in any way), "You're too late, mate. I'm done with all that. I got out."

…No, sorry, not registering. Doesn't compute. "I beg your pardon?"

Without a stammer, without remorse, "I got out."

[A.N. - For a friend who claims to have been 'sad' of late, entirely without my involvement or approval. You want to be sad? I will give you sad. But this is the only way you're allowed to be sad, y'hear?]