finalflight | OPEN POST; [ SHERLOCK HOLMES / ACD/GRANADA ]

[ it is two o'clock in the morning, and there is a sharp rapping at the door.

not to 221B, mind.

the door outside. ]

[Sir? Don’t you know only n’er-do-wells call upon others so unexpectedly at such an ungodly hour?

Poor Mrs Hudson is spared from having to attend to it, though; perhaps she’s out of town for a few days, perhaps she’s steadfastly asleep as she deserves. Either way, the rapping receives no answer. Not yet, anyhow.

Only the dark gloom of a darkened Baker Street to keep this individual company, and a few echoing footsteps of late night wanderers coming and going.

(Maybe more so a set of footsteps approaching. Maybe.)]

[ lucky, then, that he's a ne'er-do-well. :)

knock knock! he does shave and a haircut on the door. does he hear the footsteps? yes. does that stop him? no. ]

[Well. He wouldn’t be the first, nor likely the last, to grace the doorstep of 221B.

Even so, it seems the footsteps will catch up to him before anyone answers the door, and the man who draws closer will be the nearest thing to a greeting he might obtain. This gentleman—dressed in tailored black, tall, with razor-sharp features, adorned with a flat-crowned hat—swoops in with slight aplomb bolstered by curiosity, though he of course stops just short of the stranger rapping on 221B’s door.

A huff, amused, despite the hour. He tucks his walking stick beneath an arm.]

My good sir, are you aware of the hour?

[bruh]

[ Leland, too, leaning on his cane, dressed in black—but he is a small and lithe man whose sharpness lives namely in his smile and the one mekhanical eye whirring in its socket.

it is audible even from a slight distance, such as now, as he tilts his head and glances up at the dark sky and chuckles. ]

Well, I'm only half-blind, aren't I?

[Any given individual presents a man like Holmes a deluge of information to garner, to interpret. There is no difference when it comes to this stranger he's found knocking at his door, though there are instances when one attribute is so pronounced that it temporarily tamps down all else.

Needless to say, that whirring mechanical eye? It qualifies. So much so that Sherlock cannot help himself but wear an expression of pure bafflement, followed soon by intrigue, stepping even closer to the boundary of invasion of personal space to get a better look. He's never seen anything like it. It's a bit like something from a penny dreadful.

And yet still, he smiles, clearly Invested despite not knowing what the heck is going on here.]

Oh, quite so. But not lacking the use of a pocket watch, surely? No matter. You call upon the residents of 221B in the dead of the night, and fortune presents you with one of them now. What business might you have here?

[ personal invasion means little to Leland, who either invades it of his own accord, treating it with a vicious disregard, or who hardly even notices it to care. when Holmes steps forward, he simply lifts his chin—for their difference in height becomes increasingly apparent. his eyeteeth glint in the evening gloom. ]

Are you not the man other men go to when something needs doing? Everyone says so.

[Then they're both just fine with the invasion of personal space to some degree, though it's unclear whether it's Holmes' innate Victorian Awareness that has him straightening soon after, or simply the mere, promising mention of "something that needs doing."]

Do they?

[He knows this, of course. A certain good Doctor has made sure he has something of a reputation in London, a blessing that Holmes treats ambivalently on a good day.]

That wholly depends on what needs to be done. Perhaps you'd like to discuss this inside?

[ welcome home, Holmes. there is the creak of someone inside the flat, a shadow beneath the door. ]

[Ah, of course there is.

The "guests" he's had come unannounced in his flat run the gamut, from welcome to worrisome, on a scale of Mycroft to Moriarty. There's so little to glean from the movement of a shadow beneath his doorframe, nor the creaking steps from beyond his closed door, but he can gather that it's neither of those extremes — a step too light to account for the weight of a large, grown man. A woman, most likely, though beyond that, he cannot say.

Holmes knows which parts of the hall to avoid a creaking, groaning step underfoot, too. He's traveled up and down this corridor heaven knows how many times, so that it comes naturally and without thinking. He's a quiet entity as he draws close to the door, testing its doorknob very, very quietly. A slow turn.

Locked or no? DID U LOCK HIM OUT OF HIS OWN ROOM]

[ indeed, a woman. from the subtle click of heels on the floor to the rustle of many layers of dress. and a woman under Sprezzatura Vaux's duress—would she think to lock the door?

of course not. she is hardly thinking at all, merely moving through this world on instinct and adrenaline—that combination which marks her deadly -1 to wisdom.

the knob... turns. ]

[A woman, indeed, then, with hurried footsteps that indicate she's either pacing or seeking something — but Holmes will not rely on sound alone for much longer.

Honestly, he should be more affronted that there's a stranger in his room, uninvited, but now he's merely curious. He opens the door... quietly. Peeks in... slowly.]

[ into a measure of chaos the flat resides in under only the most dire of circumstances: paper, everywhere. drawers open. and the woman in question hunching with her back half-turned over the dining table as she frantically pores over his ledgers. she murmurs the names to herself beneath her breath.

when the door moves—she sees it barely in the corner of her vision and feels her heart leap into her throat. a coarse cry punctuates the way she startles and tries to lunge for the adjoining water closet, a door she can hopefully lock, or at least close. she's fast, but there's no way she can disguise the colour of her skin or the curve of her horns with "fast".

FUCK ]

OPEN POST; [ SHERLOCK HOLMES / ACD/GRANADA ]

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crawls back a thousand years later

opens my arms and engulfs you into the void

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THIS TIME WITH AN ACTIVE OC VOICE

MISS VAUX IS HERE <3

SHE'S HERE SHE'S HERE SHE'S HERE

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