IX. EVERYTHING IS LIKE INTERLAKEN.

In Leuk they immersed themselves in thermal waters. It was a small town with few white houses and no one around; it was deep in snow and when they saw the thermal waters they dared each other: who wouldn't back down from getting naked in that freezing weather over the snow to plunge into an unknown pond?; at least they had checked the water wasn't going to cook them alive. Neither backed down but Holmes was the winner because he was in already while Watson, still wearing his pants, was outside trembling while trying to take them off, interrupting himself once and again to hug himself and shrink a little bit in a ball. The dry stone which was the only place possible where they could leave their clothes was quite a few steps away from the scary pond.

- "I will lose my feet!" Watson exclaimed as he ran naked to dive head in as Holmes had.

Holmes laughed when Watson's wet head emerged. – "How do you feel Watson?"

Watson smiled. – "Wonderful!"

In the Gemmi Pass they had difficulties, applying all professional survival skills to get through; all the time they only saw each other's eyes with some very small flakes on the eyelashes.

There was nothing in Interlaken but the frozen lake, so they continued to Meiringen, getting there on the 3rd of May and on the afternoon of the 4th they were standing near the Reichenbach falls, being sprayed on the face by their water. Holmes had seen the suspicious head of a white-blond Swiss boy in the middle of nothing as they climbed and so he realized his time was up.

He held Watson's squirming shocked body by the nape, as he kissed him with all his being right in front of the Swiss boy who had already said they needed a doctor; the boy was just a 13 year old and opened his eyes wide and learnt something that day. Then Watson thought he was sure it was a trap.

- "Go."

- "I don't want to go."

- "That woman might die Watson."

- "No."

Holmes kissed him again contradicting his own words. – "Do you truly think Moriarty would hire an innocent small boy to trick us? I saw him in the town with his mother! Didn't you?"

- "No."

- "Look at him!"

Watson did; the boy was still wide-eyed and gaping, looking like a phosphorescent angel. – "Are you lying?" Watson asked him anyway. – "If you're lying I will punish you more harshly than that man, Moriarty ever could." He was menacing. - "… I will kill you."

- "Watson!"

But the boy only shook his head briskly, paling and his mouth beginning to purse and distend, as if he was about to cry.

- "Fine!" He raised his hands. –"Fine!"

Holmes hurtled to kiss him again. – "I will walk to Rosenlaui, join me there when you're done." And he kissed him one last time.

X. VERTIGO

Moriarty seemed to unhook himself from a rock, like a bat. – "Mr. Holmes a cocksucker, I should have guessed it."

Holmes smiled tight at him. – "A little beneath you to use that kind of meaningless invectives." Holmes licked his lips without wanting to prove anything by it; he was in fact remembering of all the times when he had sucked Watson's cock. – "You're all alone now aren't you?"

- "Moran's bullet wound got infected. Yes, he died before they could arrest him. All others are in jail, even Declan Diaz; my net was too tight."

Holmes made a mocking sorrowful pout. – "Are you sad?"

Moriarty sneered. – "I'll be better when you die. Which you now can realize is the only possible outcome." Moriarty held a gun in his hand, Holmes had nothing on him; Watson was carrying his own gun and didn't know Holmes didn't have his.

Holmes waved his hand. – "I don't want to die from a bullet; it's fast, common and boring. Since you'll never recover from what I've done to you, since you'll never again do much wrong…" He nodded once. – "I'm ready to die. But I prefer dying down there." He signaled the fall at his back. Then he turned around, and calmly walked that way. Moriarty realized Holmes wanted to pull him down with him, but didn't think he would be able to. - "Don't shoot; I want to feel my bones cracking." Holmes said, calmly and cold. – "Just push me."

But Moriarty didn't know Holmes was superhumanly agile and when he kicked him, in less than a second his foot was gripped, he tripped over his back, dragged painfully by the rocky floor and was helplessly hauled down to the precipice.

Holmes did feel his bones cracking; in the sharp inhale that provoked he drank two mouthfuls of gushing water, and then he was bewildered, his mind felt thick like cotton and his suffocating body immaterial; he began having delusions until he plunged into the water, where he saw blue, and just a trace from his red appearing by the left of his head, and then what could still move of him shook violently, all was black and then nothing… nothing forever.

Watson screamed, screamed and cried, and dug his own nails into the back of his head. Then on his way to London he kept crying. And in London Mary couldn't get him out of bed for a whole month and a half.

Then Mary was pregnant, and they had a kid, and Watson could go on with his life; the only sequel of the whole affair being that he experienced vertigo and was dreadfully afraid of heights, with some scant bouts of sweet nostalgia.