PARADISA

[Sherlock can be found on the castle grounds late this morning, a swath of dark coat and dark hair against the snow. He watches while Gladstone plays, getting much-needed exercise (for the both of them).

Paradisa is calmer and quieter, these days.

He hates it, really. He's been dragged along like a child with a doll for two years (or three or four or five, his mind never quite recovered from the fractures of the intervening time Paradisa shoved in the middle) and what has he to show for it?

Gladstone plows through a drift in front of him, scattering snow for the sake of it, his tongue large and lolling. (A far cry from the noisy, stuttering thing Paradisa left in his (their) flat last Christmas, slipping over too-large paws and leaping from John's lap.)

Sherlock folds the cover of his journal back and smooths his thumb over the next blank page. The chunk of filled ones shouldn't fit into the space of his palm, but does.

(Magic.)

He speaks, even and clear and calm.]

Have you gotten your money's worth, residents?

[a beat]

Don't answer that. I don't actually care. [He says it without any venom, just a statement of fact. (Saves everyone time.)] I'm not in the business of retracking covered ground. Wasn't, at least. Only so much to take from Cair Paradisa, it seems, for as much as it likes to take from everything else.

[The journal picks up Gladstone snuffling. Sherlock has bent to pet him.]

The point is, reconsider whether your rent is worth it.

[That's all he has to say. He doesn't particularly care if his meaning has gotten across (it rarely ever does). The journal shuts.]

[There's no denying that he's been tightly wound, as of late. In need of a major stress relief, of which he doesn't have many. Barring all his other options, Sherlock Holmes has gone back to the tried-and-trusty method of blowing something up in his kitchen.

The journal opens with a POP! and a clatter. The edges of the page curl and singe with brief, intense heat, and there's a splatter of some kind of colorless chemical.

Sherlock's voice is faint, like he's a good distance away from the journal.]

Ah! That was a good one, wasn't it?

[He sounds to be in a good mood, at least, but there's something strained in it, too, happiness laced with anger. Gladstone barks in the background, and continues barking. Sherlock seems to take it as a good sign.]

How would you rate it, residents? On a scale from one to ten?

[He's not actually asking; he's made up his mind. But he sounds pleased with himself regardless.

His voice gets clearer as he comes closer to the journal to pick it up off the floor.]

Oh.

Might want to avoid writing on this page for the moment. [Beat.] And maybe for the next few pages, too.

[There are a lot of things he could take away from the past week. A lot of things he has taken away. But there's only one that's worth mentioning publicly on the journal with the amount of urgency he's displaying now.]

I want to learn how to do that. [A beat. Clarifying:] The magic. It doesn't have to be that exact type, I'm not picky. I don't care about anything advanced, it just makes things easier.

If you'll teach, I'll pay you. I don't care. Just as long as it's quick.

[A pause. His pen taps restlessly.]

If your instinct is to tell me it can't be done, go away. I'm not talking to you.

There's honey in the kitchen.

[It's about as unceremonious as announcements gets. It has the air of something he forgot to do over and over and over and over again before he snapped and did it just to stop being reminded of it.]

I'd call it a testament to my colonies' success, but it's taking up space in my flat and I need to get rid of it. I have more than what I need for my own purposes, so if you want it, take it; if you don't, I don't care. Not as if it's in a rush to spoil.

[True to his word, there is honey in the kitchen today.

Jars and jars of it, stacked more in mounds than in rows. Multicolored sticky notes are attached to jars at various intervals, with notes along the same general theme scrawled on them in permanent marker: a purple one that says 'FREE,' a green one that says 'PLEASE DO TAKE,' a blue one that says 'SAFE TO EAT.'

This is true for all but three jars, which have been set in a row slightly away from the others. There is one hot pink note attached to each: 'DO', 'NOT', and 'TOUCH', respectively.

Beside it all is one Mr Sherlock Holmes, sitting cross-legged on the counter in front of the toaster oven, journal open in his lap and mobile phone in his palm, the king of multitasking.]

Lewis and Clark!

[It's practically bellowed into the journal, and edged with laughter. He has an announcement to make. The journal scrapes against dirt and metal, as if it's on the ground with Sherlock bent over it.]

Good morning. Hello. Are you listening? [More scraping as he lifts the journal and, presumably, himself.] Try to. As some of you may know, I loathe repeating myself.

You're late. Your time isn't running out, it has run out. There's a different sort of timer now. I suggest you pick your brains out from the rubbish and get a move on before you run that one dry, as well.

[A split-second pause, and suddenly his voice loses all traces of good humor. It's replaced by anger and, on some level, fear.]

No. I refuse-- I refuse to allow this. Everything I've done, all that I've worked for, you think you've dismantled it, but you haven't even begun. I'm better, I've won.

Stop it, stop. You think I can't tell the difference between reality and, and this? STOP!

[Silence, except for his heavy breathing.]

Lewis and Clark! [His mind is running a thousand miles per second, and his mouth is struggling to keep up. It's making him jumbled, trying to direct the right statements to the right people (real or otherwise.)] Do I need to say it again? Perhaps you need it. Just the once: hurry up.

If you don't, there's only one course left. And it is a long way down, I can promise you that.

[He trails off. There's a moment of quiet, followed by a burst of breathless laughter.]

God. I would kill every single one of you for a cigarette.

( [ Room Filter ] )

[ Filtered Away from Jim Moriarty ]

[He's calm when he speaks.]

Dr. John Watson is gone.

[Home? No, he can't say that. Not for certain. There's a possibility the castle's kept him on a string, tucked away, mind wiped, barely himself. Is that better than the alternative? (He doesn't know, can't know, useless.)

Gladstone whines. The journal shuts.

He has nothing else to say.]

( [ Private ] )

[When the journal opens again, Sherlock seems to be mid-ramble. The usual smugness or abrasiveness that's usually in his tone when he talks to Paradisa at large is absent; he sounds monotone, almost like he's talking to himself. The only indication that he even knows he's speaking to the journal is that he opened it in the first place.]

Magic doesn't exist in my world. The idea of it is fanciful and pointless, and most are actually reasonable enough to recognize it. Those who don't are simple minded people in need of an excuse not to face the realities of life, or death, or whatever else it is they won't look at too closely.

Even still, you can't hear the end of it. There are stories, loads of them, about different worlds with different rules, about magic. Those worlds are either better or worse than mine, depending on the genre and the age level. They're works of fiction, all hopeless exercises in the impossible, but ordinary people snap them up like candy.

They say they don't believe in it, but the sentiment is the same. They don't want to acknowledge the obvious in our world, so they demand a different one. Easiest way to make a world not like ours is with magic.

This world, though. Hardly different at all, is it? The pool of resources is different, but the rest of it is similar enough. Not even all human, and you're still an adequate enough approximation for humanity. It's almost--

[He stops, abruptly.]

Oh.

[A pause. His voice gets clearer, like he's coming back to earth.]

Never mind. Disregard all that.

[And he flips the journal shut.]

[The journal opens to the sound of footsteps on these very icy hallways, and the voice of your very favorite giant toolbag, mid-sentence.

He's rambling, a little.]

-- not impossible to suppose I may have overlooked some potential of the castle's recent redecoration. Not to say that it isn't insipid, of course, because it is, but if we're to suffer this through the holiday, there must be something, something, something....

[There's a pause. He climbs onto one of the ice couches in one of the ice hallways, stands braced with one foot on the arm and the other on the not-so cushions, ostensibly to look at the wall.

When in doubt, climb furniture.]

Oh, yes. I can 'make it work,' as it were.

((Open, both over the journal and in person! Feel free to run into him anywhere in the castle; he's super bored, and will be climbing shit anywhere and everywhere. Also, kissmas shenanigans (planned or unplanned) are welcome!))

[He hadn't intended to say anything at all, really. He's scanning through the journal as usual, checking for anything of interest (there usually isn't) when something seems to occur to him.]

Oh.

[The faint sound of page flipping, and he hums, faux impressed.]

Congratulations, Paradisa, seems you weren't actually able to bore me into oblivion. Let's keep the momentum, shall we? Or, better still, pick it up a bit. I'd rather not subsist only on bread and cheese when there's plenty of other options secreted away.

[And, dryly cheerful:]

Here's to next year.