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The rocks are steep and slippery, and a perpetual grey mist hangs in the air, thrown up by the thunder of the falls.
Moran picks his way down one breath at a time, the soles of his boots sliding a little on the stones, and if not for the constant crashing of water, water, water he would begin to doubt his own senses, his own perception. He reaches out a hand in front of himself and can barely see his own fingertips.
Something is terribly, terribly wrong and he knows it, has known it since the doctor came back in and vanished into the crowd, wordless and hurting, and reappeared gazing out the windows looking out on the falls, and Moran had felt his heart seize and left without a second thought, pushing his way out into the night.
There is a dark shape ahead of him in the dimness and the fog, and Moran edges forward carefully, one boot inching forward, slow, before he recognizes the remains of a fine fur cloak, a hand thrown out on the rocks, and he feels the blood drain from his face, a caress of cold.
Moran scrambles across the rocks and falls to his knees.
“I miscalculated,” Moriarty whispers, harsh, and Moran lifts his shoulders gently, cradles his head. “You didn’t,” he says, “Holmes cheated, it wasn’t - it isn’t fair.” He hates the way it sounds, childish and pleading.
“He cheated better,” Moriarty says, then coughs, and his whole body seizes with it. His face twists in pain, and Moran notices the red silk thread of blood running from the corner of his mouth, the faint bubbles around his nostrils.
“Come on, let’s get you up to the road,” Moran says, “we can get you help, you can cheat better next time.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Moriarty says, and Moran knows, he knows that Moriarty is right, god damn him, god damn him to hell and back.
“There might,” Moran says, “you and I, come on, we can take the world by storm.”
“Perhaps the next one,” Moriarty says, and there’s a nasty gurgle to his voice, and more blood bubbles up at the corner of his lips. Moran raises a thumb and brushes it away, and red smears across his skin and marks him, burns him.
Moriarty won’t ask him to stay.
Moran does stay anyway, as the last light fades from the sky. Moriarty shakes in his arms, from the cold he can’t feel and the blood in his lungs, and Moran wipes the blood away, brushes his hair away from his face, and waits with him.
The last candles in the chalet above are being blown out when Moriarty fumbles for Moran’s hand, presses it in cold fingers. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, “we could have been so much - so much more,” and the words have him coughing again.
“But we were,” Moran whispers, gentle, “we were,” and now Moriarty’s breath rattles with every inhalation. “We were.”
Moriarty smiles, but it turns into a grimace of pain, and he coughs desperately, and Moran feels his ribs, all in the wrong places, watches helplessly as Moriarty struggles for one breath, then another, and the third fails to come, watches Moriarty’s spine arch and seize, and holds him close through the worst of it, holds him until he falls still, holds him until he can’t feel his own hands for the strength of his own grip and the cold.
Moriarty’s eyes are closed. Small blessings , Moran thinks, and pulls the ruined fur cloak over to shroud him.
Moriarty would want an open ending, would want to disappear, and Moran gives it to him, carries him to the edge of the water, the basin carved from stone, like a child, like a bride, and holds him for a moment, head bowed, eyes closed, before letting him slip from his arms.
The night is dark and the water even more so, and Moran turns away from the one and walks into the other.