A/n: Set during Priory School, inside the inn of Reuben Hayes.
I heard the strong, easy steps of Holmes up and down the stone-flagged floor of the inn's kitchen. I should have known 'twas a trick.
I let the thought go, for I could not cease dwelling on what he had recently told me, upon my offer to take a note to the police.
"I need your company and assistance."
I struggled not to make too much of that sentence; it was mere words, as temporary and feeble as the crumpled, bloody gorse blossoms. After all, Holmes was as skilled at twisting words as he was at "twisting" ankles. He had some deeper plans today, no doubt, in which I was a pawn.
I felt bitter sorrow at the knowledge that I was just that to him: a pawn, or better, a cog—an insignificant cog he delighted to move here and there, making the machine of his life run as he needed.
These dark thoughts buzzed before my mind like a disease-ridden fly, laughing fuzzily and rubbing its diabolical feet together in glee. I faltered, for just a moment, before crushing the thing dead and oozing.
Holmes had not taken a moment, not one moment, to turn over the idea of us parting ways. He wanted me by his side.
Once more I pushed away the doubts, and chose to believe.