The Devil Within

Part Two

Combined with Sherlock's dedication to aiding Will, this propelled him to work through every frustration the case posed. He would often retreat to his mind palace just to find Will there, attempting to offer more advice to be used in the hunt for Hannibal.

His most common advice was the oft repeated, "Keep yourself distant in your mind. Stay away from Hannibal Lecter." If it hadn't been well drilled into Sherloc's mind upon hearing it for the first time, it certainly would stick with him now. Nevertheless, Sherlock felt a certain amount of gratitude for being offered such advice.

But of course, Sherlock needed to track down Dr. Lecter before he could have any ture amount of contact with him. This was what he needed most, and it was something that none of Will's words within his mind palace could sort out. Not a soul new where Hannibal Lecter was - at least, not exactly.

The man was clever, almost too clever. For him, it would be easy to assume a new identity without an ounce of guilt or wistfulness. Killing people in this new home woud merely be a rite of passage for feeling more comfortable in the area. Everything he'd left behind could rot away under thickly knit layers of dust and grime.

For Will, all the wounds still felt as fresh as the day he'd first received them. He'd spilt so much blood, and blood was precisely what he shared with Sherlock. Although the cconsulting detective would never admit uch sentimentality, that was precisely the main motivation for him to continue with the case despite vague clues and limited success.

This was a case Sherlock decided to solve, no matter how long it might end up taking him and how much touble he went through. Sherlock felt so strongly about the ordeal, despite being made out to not care at all. This wasn't simply a case to be solved and hung away. This was doing what his older brother was currently incapable of doing.

However, this fervent desire to complete the case didn't make the monotonous portions any less tedious. All of his clues were coming to a lull - perhaps Il Mostro had gotten wind of Sherlock on the trail. He picked out scraps of details from the locals he spoke to, the places he looked at. If it weren't Italy, he would've been hopelessly bored by this point in time.

Like an answer to all of his desperate thoughts, Sherlock was finally granted something interesting to break the monotony - his mobile was going off, alerting to the fact he had a test. This was certainly not what he had been expecting - he wasn't supposed to have any amount of service in Italy.

Nevertheless, this only succeeded to further his sense of curiosity about what was going on with his mobile. There were a number of things that could potentially be going on, but he couldn't figure it out until he read the text itsself and saw who it was from.

Hello there, Sherlock. Can't help but wonder what you're doing in Italy right now. We miss you back here in London.

Sherlock felt his blood beginning to frost over as he began to understand what this was. Of course Moriarty would find out, of course he would find some forsaken way to use it against Sherlock. But if Moriarty wasn't in Italy, there would be very little he could do...at least, that was what Sherlock hoped.

Perhaps I needed a vacation from London. -SH

Moriarty was going to be paying games once again, Sherlock would be trying to use as many moves as he could possibly muster up. Nevertheless, he wouldn't let himself start to tear apart - especially not over texts when he could articulate his thoughts devoid of any bothersome emotion.

There was a brief pause before Sherlock felt the iritating buzz of another text leaping to his phone.

You're a bit too busy for a real vacation, Mr. Holmes. Seems like there is a lot in that mind palace of yours.