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100 Words: 2 new drabbles!

Chapter 15: Life Plan, Part One

Get a job. Get married. Have some kids. That was the life plan John Watson believed in. While everyone else was meeting their soulmate and getting on with that plan, John dated women, went to med school, became a doctor. But the more weddings he attended, the more he began to feel he was failing at life. He had friends, but never met the right woman. Then he went to Afghanistan. Bill Murray said, “You might be looking for the wrong person.” He got shot, came home, and gave up. Who’d want to live with him? The name’s Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 16: Dance

Once, a long time ago, I solved the problem of love. I felt attraction, and was bruised. The bruises faded and, like a boxer learning to avoid a hit, I began to dodge and weave. I joke, I sneer, I avoid. The way he’s looking at me right now — those tactics aren’t going to work. My secret weapon, my left hook. “I’m flattered by your interest, but I’m married to my work.” “It’s all fine.” Later I realise: we weren’t boxing. We were dancing. I may have done my quick-step and saved face, but the dance goes on. He leads.

(You may have read "Dance" when I posted it a few weeks ago.)

Thank you for reading/reblogging! Let me know if you want to be tagged/untagged ❤️

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We had a short virtual retreat this weekend and it was super fun, and so good to see you all again!!! And thank you all for the help with my new project, your input is always so interesting and valuable 🥰🥰🥰

We did a ten minute flash fic using virtual story cubes. The prompt words were book, letter, cactus, burger and binoculars. I decided to make life hard on myself and used the last three.

*-*

“Christ, it’s fucking hot.”

“Will you stop complaining, this was your idea in the first place.”

“I know. Let me look.”

Silence as the binoculars pass from one man to the other.

“What are they doing?”

“Eating burgers.”

“That’s it?”

“Apparently.”

John sighs, wiping his sweaty brow on Sherlock’s sleeve. “This is so embarrassing.”

“I quite agree,” Sherlock says dryly.

“Let’s go before they see us.”

“Wise choice.”

John takes Sherlock’s sleeve and turns him around, pecking him on the lips. “Thank you for indulging my craziness, and only saying you told me so ten times, I appreciate your restraint.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Honestly, John, I do understand the impulse. It’s Rosie’s first real date. It makes sense to be vigilant.”

John presses another kiss to Sherlock’s lips, then winces. “Please don’t laugh.”

“What did you do?”

“I think I sat on a cactus.”

Sherlock manages to hold it together for ten seconds, then he breaks out into nearly hysterical giggles.

John grimaces. “My own fault, I suppose. But honestly, who has their first date in the desert house at the London zoo?”

“John,” Sherlock gasps around giggling, “she’s our daughter. Of course she’s a weirdo.”

John shrugs, conceding the point. “Now let’s go home and you can help me get the cactus stings out of my bum.”

Sherlock grins. “My absolute pleasure.”

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No, no, and NO.

AO3 does not live in “the cloud” because that is other people’s computers, and other people’s computers are vulnerable to censorship.

AO3 is on its own computers. It does still have to be housed somewhere, and I suppose a determined enough hater could try to find that place and go after it, but it’s a lot harder than sending spurious complaints to Amazon or whomever going “BadWrong things are hosted on your cloud service!”

Owning the servers is a core tenet of OTW/AO3.

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I wrote a new fic in the Reluctant Topping series! (And made another moodboard, yay! Starting to love those.)

Flooded by ShirleyCarlton

Sherlock tries to seduce John for a one-night-stand, which initially fails, but eventually he ends up getting more than he bargained for.

Rating: Explicit

Length: 7522 words

Relationship: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson

Tags: John’s first time, bottomlock, unilock, alternative first meeting, happy ending

With many thanks to my wonderful betas @blogstandbygo and @mama-orion!

Tags under the cut.

@raina-at @beccibarnes @meetinginsamarra @pommedepersephone @seekers-who-are-lovers @pagimag @frodosweetstuff @blogstandbygo @totallysilvergirl @iamjohnlocked4life @alexaprilgarden @mamaorion @hubblegleeflower @otter-von-bismarck @stellacartography @a-victorian-girl @shiplocks-of-love @lisbeth-kk @mydogwatson @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @notallthosewhowander

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Excellent ! A full case fic in ten minutes!

Another Flash Fic

So we actually had a super-short virtual Fic Writers’ Retreat this afternoon (just one hour) with the participants from the EU retreat, which was great fun! First, we chatted for a bit, then helped one of us who was sort of stuck with the plot of a long fic, and then we ended with a 10-minute flash fic session!

We used a website to generate some prompts, and it gave us these:

Cactus, letter, burger, binoculars, book

I used the ones in bold.

It never ceases to amaze me what a person can write in ten minutes during these exercises. I usually think everything through before writing anything, but with flash fic, you just have to start writing something random and then it automatically evolves into... a crime scene, in this case. 😅

 = = =

Sherlock opened the book. There was a letter in it. When he opened it, there turned out to be no words written on it. Just a drawing of a pair of binoculars.

Was it a threat? The ‘I can see you’ kind of announcement?

He looked around at John, who was still inspecting the body lying on the floor behind him.

Lestrade was shouting at someone in the hallway.

“John,” Sherlock said. And he showed him the drawing.

“A bird watching kid’s wish list for Santa?” John said.

Hmm.

Sherlock hadn’t thought of that angle. The drawing did seem a little childish.

He turned it around and only now saw the bottom half of the back. (It had been folded double.) “For Santa, from Toby.”

Sherlock chuckled. “Ha.”

But why was it inside a book that was lying on the coffee table in a murdered woman’s flat?

“Alright,” Lestrade’s voice boomed into the room. “Time’s up. You got anything?”

“Not yet,” Sherlock said, “other than the obvious.”

“Which is?”

“Her grandson found out Santa didn’t exist and got a little frustrated, aiming his water gun at his grandma, who didn’t recognise it for what it was and had a heart attack.”

“How about the blunt trauma to the back of her head, then?”

“She fell against a piece of furniture that is now no longer there. The neighbour from down the hall took it, I think. Saw it through the door, which the child had left open as he ran away in distress. Probably a piece of antique he’d had his eye on for a while. Took his chance when he saw it.”

“So we’re looking for a bloody piece of furniture. Literally.”

“Yep. Shouldn’t be hard to find. Good luck!” And then to John, “Come on John, if we’re lucky, Angelo’s kitchen is still open if we hurry.”

#virtualretreat

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CDs are a very good example of how much less durable digital storage is, because most modern computers don't have a CD drive anymore. Oh, and If you scratch the fucker, they're dead.

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Here's my possibly unpopular opinion about BBC's Sherlock (the character, not the show), I can't speak for other incarnations. But I think BBC Sherlock is clearly neurodivergent in some way, though to me he reads more ADHD than autism.

However, I think his abrasiveness has NOTHING to do with his possible neurodiversity and EVERYTHING to do with his low self esteem. He's a rude arsehole because he thinks he's fundamentally unloveable. What's the use pretending when people are going to dislike you anyway? By the time we meet him, he thinks he has no friends (not true, he has Lestrade and Molly and Mrs Hudson, but in his mind his relationship with all three is transactional), his relationship with his family is fraught and he's given up on romance. We can assume he had bad experiences with people in the past, because of his neurodiversity and his drug addiction. So he's learned that people don't like him if he doesn't provide them with some sort of service. So why bother trying to read social cues and pretending to be nice when the second the mask slips, people will fuck off anyway? Better for people to know what they're getting into with him from the start.

My reading is that over the course of the series, he slowly unlearns this lesson. Because of Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade, and Molly, but mainly because of John. No matter what he does to John, John loves him. John's love isn't always apparent, not always easy, and it's often messy and complicated and sometimes it's downright ugly. But he faked his death and hurt John unspeakably and John says to him, one episode later, that he's one of the two people he loves most in the world. If the person he hurt most in the world can still be the person who loves him most in the world, maybe, just maybe, he's not the irredeemable arsehole he thought he was.

just thinking about how acd holmes is actually an incredibly kind and generally high-spirited man to those who deserve it, especially to clients who he sees are particularly vulnerable or in need of emotional support in addition to his professional help. granada holmes also gets this spot on, and though i haven't seen every adaptation, i know most, especially modern ones (bbc sherlock.... the rdj movies....), paint holmes to be generally insufferable. and stories that take inspiration from holmes also paint their main detectives as antisocial to the point of rudeness (i'm thinking of characters like monk or professor t).

i say this because it says so much about society's perception of autistic people (and neurodivergence as a whole). speaking as an autistic person, holmes is certainly neurodivergent, if not specifically autistic, and othering him or holmes-like characters from the rest of the cast to the point of ridicule or dislike-ability on part of the audience, only further perpetrates the stereotype that autistic folks are mean and hard to get along with because we "don't understand basic rules of polite society" - when we aren't able to be infantilised, that is.

i'm an autistic person who, while i don't understand why/the origins of why certain pleasantries are required from me, i can usually see why, typically after the fact, i might have been perceived as impolite. and i learn from my experiences and try to be nice, if not necessarily "correct," the next time i'm faced with that same situation. in general, i operate under that rule of "give what you get," and i try to start any interaction by being nice first and then seeing how the other person responds. and if they are unpleasant, then they don't deserve my being pleasant, nor my respect. i don't believe in an inherent goodness of mankind, nor an inherent evil, but i do believe being a nice human and helping others is the best way one can help the world be a better place. and this is the way i think holmes operates, too. after all, his entire self-made profession is about helping people.

obviously, the "spectrum" is far and wide, and people experience this differently, but the idea that autistic people can't learn or are always in the wrong... is just not! true!

so to characterise holmes as being an actually compassionate man comforts me in knowing i can be kind, too. that my differences, whether related to my being autistic or not, are not automatic reasons to be afraid people will not like me or perceive me as "wrong." holmes is always ready to help others whom he thinks require it. he is actually incredibly charming, when he wants to be. he is a bit of a freak and a loser and pathetic, and certainly is eccentric and unconventional, but he's not mean, and he certainly isn't oblivious or stupid to the point of rudeness.

[raina-at]

100 Words

Chapter 12: Killer

Now and then, people think I’m the murderer. They make assumptions about murderers: amoral, off-kilter, scary, evil.

I’d be a terrible murderer, if only because I would keep rethinking it. 

It’s an art. A killer’s tools are audacity and dispassion. I can play a role, but I’m continually reconsidering. 

No one ever thinks John’s the murderer. Scotland Yard never suspected that he shot the cabbie. 

He has a gun, though, and doesn’t hesitate to use it. I saw this in him that first day, and was fascinated by the dichotomy.

A moral man, always. In a good cause, a killer.

Chapter 13: The Game

Sherlock calls it the Game. 

As for me… well, I’ve giggled at crime scenes, leaped over rooftops, lied with a straight face, tackled suspects. 

When I balk at calling this a game, I’m thinking as a doctor should, considering ethics. Saving lives isn’t a game; every death is a loss.

Sally Donovan once warned me: someday he’d be the murderer. Yes, he thinks like a criminal, strategically. That’s just how he wins.

Motives don’t matter in what we do; if we can prevent another death, it’s a win. 

If I didn’t love the game, though, I wouldn’t still be here. 

Read all thirteen drabbles on Ao3

Thank you for reading/reblogging! Let me know if you want to be tagged/untagged ❤️

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[raina-at]

sleeping

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PSA

EVERYONE BE CAREFUL. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN PHISHING SITE (first link)

(the link is purple bc i clicked on it to get the link w/o special characters to report to various phising page report places).

the page leads to what appears to be the normal archive page, w/ the popup about the privacy policy & everything, with the url https://xn--iao3-lw4b.ws/media DO NOT LOG IN. THEY ARE HERE TO STEAL YOUR LOGIN CREDENTIALS. LOOK AT URLS BEFORE ENTERING ANY PERSONAL INFO.

STAY SAFE ON THE INTERNET GUYS!!

please reblog to spread this warning!!

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Aw, @jrow , you're the best 🫂🫂🫂🫂

Chapters: 10/10 Fandom: Sherlock (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson Additional Tags: historical aus, soul mates, many historical aus, all the historical aus i will never write, first person POV, sex between consenting adults, Historical References, Reincarnation AU, this means they die, We meet in every lifetime Summary:

We meet in every lifetime. I never recognise you, but I always know.

There was a tumblr post making its rounds a few weeks ago, with a screenshot of their first meeting in ASIP, and a text post saying “How do you two know each other?” “We meet in every lifetime”. And what can I say, I got inspired. I think the post was by @anne-adler, and I humbly thank you for the inspiration. Basically, these are all mini historical AUs, and a bit experimental for me since it’s first person POV. I should also warn that a lot of these are sad, since history isn’t usually kind to people, especially before modern medicine and vaccines and gay marriage. So. You know. Be warned. Also, it’s a reincarnation fic, which means they do die rather frequently. So. Another warning.

Thank you so much to my beta @jrow, you’re a star as always!

Tags under the cut, please tell me if you want to be tagged or untagged.

Keep reading

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Omg you're so kind 😊 I'm so glad you enjoyed my little foray into history 😍😍😍

Historical AUs are a genre in their own right, but this wonderful story is a gathering of chapters, each one set in a different time period, when Sherlock and John meet and form a relationship.

@raina-at produced a masterful exercise in concise scene setting, character development that is influenced by the historical period, all backed by quality research to get the tone perfect for the period.

What profoundly shocked me is how few people have read it, something I have to remedy. Go, read it now. Enjoy!

[raina-at]

Chapters: 10/10 Fandom: Sherlock (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson Additional Tags: historical aus, soul mates, many historical aus, all the historical aus i will never write, first person POV, sex between consenting adults, Historical References, Reincarnation AU, this means they die, We meet in every lifetime Summary:

We meet in every lifetime. I never recognise you, but I always know.

There was a tumblr post making its rounds a few weeks ago, with a screenshot of their first meeting in ASIP, and a text post saying “How do you two know each other?” “We meet in every lifetime”. And what can I say, I got inspired. I think the post was by @anne-adler, and I humbly thank you for the inspiration. Basically, these are all mini historical AUs, and a bit experimental for me since it’s first person POV. I should also warn that a lot of these are sad, since history isn’t usually kind to people, especially before modern medicine and vaccines and gay marriage. So. You know. Be warned. Also, it’s a reincarnation fic, which means they do die rather frequently. So. Another warning.

Thank you so much to my beta @jrow, you’re a star as always!

Tags under the cut, please tell me if you want to be tagged or untagged.

@calaisreno @inevitably-johnlocked @jrow @lisbeth-kk @givemesherbet-blog-blog @discordantwords @iamjustreading @the-reading-lemon @thetimemoves @meetinginsamarra @totallysilvergirl @helloliriels @winterdaphne2 @jazzthecat00 @peanitbear @whatnext2020 @dapetty @safedistancefrombeingsmart    

[raina-at]

The Final Question - rated G, ~ 990 words

Read on AO3, if you prefer

“The interesting thing,” said Sherlock, drumming one finger on the edge of the laptop, “is that his great-great-great-grandfather – if this genealogical tree is accurate – was a university professor, an intellectual of some repute. Not an Oxbridgian – not everyone can be – but for some time the chair of mathematics at Manchester, when he was barely into his thirties. Genius in chess, mathematics and music shows early, but you know that.”

“I didn’t, actually.”

“The great work is usually done by those in their twenties. James Moriarty was no different –”

“He was James, too?”

“One of several in the line. Professor James Moriarty, D. Sc., best known for a paper on gravitational calculus that appears to have anticipated some of Einstein’s work.” He scrolled down the screen briefly, adding a little dismissively: "Asteroids. Hmph."

So we were back to not caring about the solar system and so on. “Well, had to be some brains baked into the DNA there,” I said. “Clever bugger, but insane. And evil.” 

The kettle whistled, and I rummaged in the cupboard for the carton of Builders’. It was good to have lived our way to a point that let us talk about these things – let Sherlock while away a Saturday morning exploring the ancestry of the bastard who’d nearly killed us both and parted us for two years – and though I’d have preferred another subject, it was worth seeing him treat it as just another case.

“Ah, but you’ll like this.” He leaned forward, one finger curled in front of his lips the way he does when he’s turfed something up. “There were rumours of involvement in unsuitable activities – starting with the application of probability theory to some of our island’s favourite recreations. Horse racing and dog fighting, at first –”

“Ugh.” This was about both the dog fighting, and the fact that the milk had turned. I opened a can of the condensed stuff and splashed it into two mugs. “Where’re you getting this?”

“I pulled a thread, and called in a favour. These are digitized copies of contemporary internal correspondence from the University’s archives – records of the eventual inquiry.” He scrolled again. “He seems to have migrated quickly from the turf and the fighting pit to the gentleman’s preferred pastime of cards – you might remember the story of a team of students from MIT who exercised their skills in casinos in the nineteen-seventies. They eventually banked hundreds of thousands of dollars and formed a corporation.”

“Well, I went into the wrong field, I guess.” I settled back into my chair. “Why didn’t you ever try something like that?”

“Boring. Also, I got thrown out of the Clermont Club. Anyway, it appears he made the connexions and the money he wanted, and began involving himself in high-level crime, including politics and industry. You might say there is a scarlet thread – and I’m sure you would –”

“I don’t write like that.”

“John, you called the first case you worked with me A Study In Pink.”

 “Well, there was actually. Pink. Stuff.”

“ – a thread connecting him to sordid everyday crimes, like so-called white slavery and burglary rings, and leading right through to political corruption and arms trading. Ballistics consulting to the Krupp combine, international incidents that somehow coincided with his frequent absences from the University – just the outlines of an empire that might have made him in some ways the most powerful man in Europe, if he hadn’t died in a freak accident in the Swiss Alps. Apparently the University had finally begun looking into his activities, and he discovered an urgent need to leave the country. There are theories that one of his henchmen, a discredited colonel in the Indian Army, had a score to settle. The Alps are full of chasms and crevasses.” He paused just long enough for drama, the swanning bastard. “His body was never found.”

“Now who’s writing purple prose?”

“Pale lavender, John, at the very worst,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Think of it, though. The Moriarty we both survived” –

“Thank God.”

– “at one time or another, reproduced nearly every one of his ancestor’s crimes – only one excluded, and, in my opinion, the most nefarious of all.”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.” It never helps to ask that, of course.

“Think of it, John. A punishing schedule of international travel – in the days before passenger airlines – control of illicit enterprises from gun running to human trafficking – and the man still continues to lecture, publish, and coach undergraduates?”

“Well, he couldn’t, could he? Were there two of him?”

“Close, John. Very close. But still short of the mark.” He toggled to another tab on the laptop. “The University itself, given his prestige, appears to have been quite lax in its oversight. But it seems that a Dr. Bell, of Edinburgh University, became aware of some of Moriarty’s excursions – small pond, academia – wondered how he could continue to perform his duties, and eventually pointed out the connexion between the pattern of his travels and European events, leading to the inquiry that precipitated his sudden flight to the Continent in 1893. He left behind him a criminal organisation in shambles, what used to be called a ‘hereditary taint,’ and" -- he rose, again right on schedule with another pregnant pause – “an entire new category of indentured servitude.”

“You mean –” I said, in dawning horror.

“Yes, John.” He lifted his mug like the toastmaster at a ceremony. “Let us drink to a man who lived before his time – the first on record to devise a rota for offloading his professorial duties, at a moment’s notice, onto the hapless graduate students in his charge.” He waited for me to raise my own empty cup. 

“To the memory of James Moriarty – distinguished professor” (sip), “career criminal” (sip) “and – at the nethermost depths of the pit of obloquy –  the inventor of the teaching assistant.”

Comment On AO3

Credit goes to my life partner and resident wiseass. Recently we watched the Robert Downey films, and I said “How does this Moriarty go criming all over Europe while holding down a university chair?" “Isn’t it obvious?” was the answer from this man who was born and raised when both parents were toiling graduate students. “He was the Napoleon of crime. Of course he invented the teaching assistant.”

Tagging my past readers as usual, let me know if you want to be moved on or off the list!

[raina-at]

Brilliant!

The Rest of the Story

“I’d like to make a confession,” the old man said. “Not because I’m religious, but because in everyone there is something that wants unburdening. There are things I have kept to myself which I would like you to know. As you are one of the youngest men Scotland Yard has promoted to Inspector, I think you might benefit from my experience. And I would ask you not to reveal what I say to anyone else.”

“Of course,” said his companion. “You can trust me.”

“Thank you,” he said, and began his tale. “When I was a young man, I went into the priesthood, not because I wanted to give my life to God. In fact, I was quite certain that God did not exist. For me, however, there seemed to be no place in life— no calling which let me exercise my deductive talents. From a man’s fingers and boots and the knees of his trousers I could tell his profession and see how life had disappointed him. From a woman’s shoes and shirtsleeves and jewellery I could tell what she did to earn money and whether or not she loved someone. If anyone had asked me how I knew this, I could have explained the observations that led me there. Most people, however, regarded my deductions as impertinent and a bit mad. So I became a priest and looked into men’s souls, uncertain whether I had a soul or not. 

“One night a man came to me for confession, and his voice told me that he was a murderer. It had been a long time since he had killed, but now he was dying and wished to confess what he had done. 

“He had committed the perfect murder, he said, and knew it was perfect because he’d never been caught. His cancer was a slow form that would give him another few years. He did not reveal any details of his crime, but said that no one had even realised that the death was a murder. He chose a person he had never met, and had no reason for killing them other than to see if anyone would notice. The victim was too young to have died of natural causes. Nevertheless, a natural cause was assumed. The family accepted this unsatisfactory reasoning and let it go.  

“That is what the dying man confessed to me. He gave me no name, no date, no explanation of his method. Though I had many questions, I mumbled the words of absolution, and he left.

“This event changed my life. I began to look at unsolved murders, mysterious deaths of past years. I devoted my life to solving as many as I could, and was remarkably successful— so successful that I left the priesthood and became a detective. At first I worked with Scotland Yard, solving cold cases. Eventually, word of my successes spread, and I took on clients as a private detective. Solving crimes, finding murderers, restoring justice for victims— to these I have devoted my life.”

“It has been a remarkable life,” said his companion. “You truly found your calling, I believe. Did you ever solve the case that started you off, the perfect murder, as you called it?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I solved many murders in my career, unlocked many mysteries that no one else noticed. Perhaps I did solve it. There really is no way to know, is there?

“But here is what I wish to confess to you, my boy. I became obsessed, wondering whether there truly could be an unsolvable crime. It must obviously be a murder, but without any suspects, no weapon, and no opportunity for it to have happened. For many years I planned it, and at last I believed I’d invented the perfect crime. And so it was.”

“You— murdered a man? Just to see if you would be caught?”

“I was unsatisfied, not knowing whether the man who confessed to me was telling the truth. Since I did not know if I’d solved the murder he committed, I had to try it myself. As far as I can tell, I have succeeded.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked the younger man, distraught. “I am no priest!”

“I am telling you because you have a mind that seeks answers. Just as I did, you will try to find this murder and solve it. The idea of it will haunt you, as it haunted me. Is there a perfect murder? Is there a way to snatch a soul while life goes on around the deed, oblivious? My own death, which will happen eventually, will be so much more gratifying, knowing that another carries on after I am gone. This is my legacy to you.”

“But, Mr Holmes— surely, you can’t mean that you’ve killed a man for nothing! You’ve spent your life working for justice—“ The young man struggled for words, then fell silent under the keen gaze of the old man.

“So kind of you to visit me in my retirement,” the detective said. “Thank you, Mr Hopkins. I wish you a long, successful career.”

Once the inspector was gone, Holmes chuckled. “You have a great gift of silence, Watson. I had expected to you give the game away before I had my tale told.”

Watson puffed on his pipe for a moment. “My dear man, even after knowing you for so many years, your ability to tell a boldfaced lie still astonishes me. Why did you tell young Hopkins all that balderdash?”

“He’s a good policeman, and has potential to be the best, but he’s not very skeptical. If he now looks at every case as the perfect murder, he will be more attentive and less inclined to accept easy answers.”

“Aren’t you worried that he may decide to try his own hand at murder?”

“That boy? Not at all! Lestrade says he almost became a priest.”

Watson laughed. “And so did you, according to the tale you just told.”

“Oh, that part was true,” Holmes returned. “I went to seminary before I studied chemistry at Cambridge.”

Watson sat up, leaned forward. “Holmes, please don’t tell me you murdered someone just to see if you could—“

“My dear Watson, you know me— do you really believe me a murderer?”

“Of course not. Though if you had turned your talents in that direction, I believe you could have gotten away with it. Thank heavens you did not! But tell me, did you ever find out the identity of the man who confessed that night?”

“Here is the truth, Watson: it was not to me that he confessed. I was a student, remember, not an ordained priest. The priest who heard the confession was so unnerved that he told me, in confidence. He also told me the name of the man. I had already decided to leave the priesthood at that point, and knowing my talent for deduction, he said that I must look into the man’s history.”

“And you did, I presume.”

“Indeed. He survived cancer and went on to have a long and deadly criminal career.”

“You eventually caught him, I presume.”

Holmes lit his pipe again and puffed until a cloud of blue-grey smoke surrounded his head. “We caught one another, Watson, at Reichenbach.”

He waited, watching his friend’s face to see this fact settle. 

Watson nodded. “Ah, yes. Moriarty.” 

“But you already knew that part,” Holmes added. “And now you know the rest of the story.”