Alright, alright, I've got my hands up, shoot me, ah, you got me.
I've not dropped you, forgot you or anything. There's just too much stuff at the moment. Somebody's been taking up my time more than I would normally allow, if you get me, and I've had examinations, work experience, I've been banned from the net and I went to a party for which I have been paying nightly installments for my sleep debt ever since. So yeah, I'm busy. KCS will tell you I haven't stopped writing, but you know, Life is getting in the way of Art, as Oscar Wilde would say. Let's hope that in working within limits the master reveals himself.
Still
I could hear him trying to be quiet again. I'd seen him glance at that dreadful picture of the Falls in the afternoon; I'd watched him ignore his food and I'd put a blanket over his shoulders when he'd sat and brooded until after nightfall. Moriarty wasn't dead- he lived on in Holmes. He haunted him. I saw Holmes remember that whenever he laughed.
I couldn't believe this still happened. I was waiting for this to die down. I didn't want to speak of Reichenbach; it was taboo between us for we shared a lump in our throats when we came close. God help us if we were to actually talk of it. I imagined two middle-aged gentlemen crying in the moonlight at a mutual nightmare.
His ceiling had to be as bare as mine, as featureless and grey. It acted as a canvass for bad thoughts, and images flew at me. I knew we would have to get up and smoke sooner or later.
The cold floor seeped through my feet. They quickly became the only part of me that was numb, for the rest of me was deafened by my noisy clothing rubbing together and the ear-splitting unsticking of the doorknob.
By the time I had loudly silently walked into the living room, Holmes had heard me and had got up. He too seemed to flinch as he unscrewed the whiskey bottle at the racket he was making.
I sat in my armchair, and Holmes put my glass in my hand and sat in the armchair opposite. We drank.
"What time is it?" he asked, his voice scraping against the sides of his throat as it crept out.
"I think it's about quarter to three," I said, desperately trying to be nonchalant. Instead, my voice broke.
"You should go to sleep."
"You should sleep, full stop. You don't anymore."
"I tried my hardest not to wake you if I was awake."
"I can hear you much worse when you try to be still. Human beings move even if they are sleeping."
"I assumed you'd make an exception for me." He tried to laugh, but realising the context we were in, fell silent.
We talked.
I'd never seen Holmes break down before, not ever. He seemed to disappear into the lapels of his dressing gown, his face went red, and he sobbed in a high-pitched splutter. I tasted my own tears and the whiskey mixed with them, a salty, alcoholic foul drink, but the glass was good to hide behind.
We sat, two middle-aged gentlemen crying in the moonlight at a mutual nightmare.