all_inclusive | (no subject)

Being here -- where everything is tranquil, normal, not a threat -- makes it very easy to forget everything that happened, before I stepped through one doorway and ended up at the Nexus.

But it's all still there, lingering in the back of my head, like an uninvited guest. Everything that's happened, all the deaths that have been pinned on me, they just sit there, rotting away, half a story told that I'll never be any closer to finding out the ending to.

It bothers me, how much of my own life I'm missing. I can't piece it back together, not without knowing the evidence, without having some else there to untangle the threads. For now, all I can do is speculate, and the longer I have here to my own devices, the more convinced I am that even my speculation is delusional.

The weather's nice today; brisk. I can stand outside without shivering, at least, although a chill goes up my spine anyway as I let myself think about Abigail, Georgia, Marissa, Cassie. I repeat their names in my mind like a mantra, the four women that a corrupt, imperfect system has been tricked into believing I've murdered.

I wrap my arms tighter around my body and stare out at the empty land around the Nexus. I am not a murderer. No one here has any reason to think I am.

So why do I feel like I'm hiding something very, very significant?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On occasion, people are fascinating. Moriarty has been pretending to be one a normal person for so long that it's actually fairly liberating when he runs into someone who doesn't fit the expectations. True, this place has been rife with mythical and impossible things, but at the heart of it, Moriarty likes to know what makes people tick.

If you have to take the cogs out to find out, well, you can't tune a clock without a few smashed parts, can you? He watches the man, watches his discomfort, and then decides to wade into the pool. "If you're waiting for something to come in from the cold, I think you might be here a while," he informs the man, standing three feet behind him, sizing him up.

It takes me a while to realize that someone has spoken, and I haven't just heard a voice in my head. It says something, about how I am still not well, that I would consider the fact that the man isn't real. I turn in the direction of the voice, needing to ascertain that there is, in fact, someone there, and nod in satisfaction when I see the man.

At least if I'm hallucinating, it's a full audio-visual spectacle, not just words floating on air.

"I'm not sure what I'm waiting for," I admit as I rub my hands against my forearms. "Inspiration, maybe."

Moriarty cocks his head to the side in a fluid, continuous, gentle motion as he takes in every aspect of the man standing in front of him, finding him fascinating from nothing more than the very tip of his shoe. He withholds that reaction, though, careful not to let his delight show as he extends a hand outwards. "John Holmes," he introduces himself, pushing his body language forward in an extroverted and open manner. "If it's inspiration, I've often found it at the end of a bar more often," he jokes, his eyes still locked on the man before him as he catalogues every inch of his life within his own mind.

There's something about this man that makes me feel itchy under my skin, like there's something burrowing around there that I just can't quite grasp onto. I roll my shoulders reflexively and take a small, shuffling step back.

"Will Graham," I say to introduce myself. My face stays blank, while I try to figure out what has my hackles raised, and I'm frustrated that I'm so out of practice that I can't immediately put my finger on it. "I've tried the barside approach, it, ah, hasn't done much for me lately."

"Maybe that means it's just the wrong drinks," he says amiably, affecting that warmth that people so often carry in their voices when they're happy. It sounds like a quaint little hum of a song. He wants to dig and dig and find out what has him so interested in the man before him. In a world where Moriarty has turned to Sherlock Holmes, alone, to carry every ounce of his interest, this is promising.

It's practically Christmas.

"Are you new here? Or is this just a fresh crisis of thoughts?"