"Well, I'd certainly caught the devil himself but that wasn't to say I'd captured his right hand demon," Holmes returned, with a smile and a charismatic regard that could almost be construed as natural. Kept busy. Of course he'd kept busy. He'd spent a week perusing the Swiss countryside with naught but a mental picture and the stray murder attempts aimed in his direction to keep him busy. Sebastian Moran knew very well that Sherlock Holmes was alive, and it would do Sherlock very well to change all pretenses of that.
He already had a myriad of wounds to show for it. A bullet graze at his left flank. Three previously cracked ribs from a nasty fall, another from a well-used pair of brass knuckles. The worst of which was a gash, one that hadn't quite fully healed, right in his gut. It had been less than neatly stitched, and for a while, Holmes had feared that the infection had gotten to it. If it spread, it would have entered his heart. Strangely, here, it was no longer an issue. He didn't quite understand.
"Gratitude may be unnecessary, but you know very well - or, at the very least, will LEARN very well - that employing such a tactic can only benefit you in the long run. You're a younger me and that much is obvious. I had no need for such silly pleasantries before a long-standing turn of events in my life either." And there's a way he doesn't elaborate on that but his yes shift downward, guiltily, that could only mean one person important enough to have taught him so. John. "Now. What you're suggesting is that the haphazard nation of the place leaves no need to determine a pattern, or to even look for one? How do you suggest this is approached?"
no subject
He already had a myriad of wounds to show for it. A bullet graze at his left flank. Three previously cracked ribs from a nasty fall, another from a well-used pair of brass knuckles. The worst of which was a gash, one that hadn't quite fully healed, right in his gut. It had been less than neatly stitched, and for a while, Holmes had feared that the infection had gotten to it. If it spread, it would have entered his heart. Strangely, here, it was no longer an issue. He didn't quite understand.
"Gratitude may be unnecessary, but you know very well - or, at the very least, will LEARN very well - that employing such a tactic can only benefit you in the long run. You're a younger me and that much is obvious. I had no need for such silly pleasantries before a long-standing turn of events in my life either." And there's a way he doesn't elaborate on that but his yes shift downward, guiltily, that could only mean one person important enough to have taught him so. John. "Now. What you're suggesting is that the haphazard nation of the place leaves no need to determine a pattern, or to even look for one? How do you suggest this is approached?"