archersline | James Watson

James Watson | Open Post

All I ask is to tell me what time period the thread is in.

Only a few short weeks have passed since Magnus pulled the rug out from under the Network and the Old City Sanctuary went up in flames. Only a few short days since she'd come to London to find him and tell him where all of the Abnormals now are. She'd smuggled everything out under his nose and though she'd assured him that she had somewhere safe for them, she hadn't let him know where.

Not until now.

And with all of that has come another piece of news: Doctor Watson is actually, incredibly still alive. Declan hadn't asked Magnus how she had managed it. In truth, he still isn't sure he wants to know. All that matters, he supposes, is that she'd managed it, though he won't deny that it would have been better on so many of them if they'd known earlier, if they hadn't believed for so many years that someone so dear and important and brilliant had been snuffed out and lost. But now Declan has the chance to meet the man who gave him a chance with the Network all those years ago, who had believed in him and made him the second-in-command, ready to take over after his death.

Declan isn't sure how to feel. He'd grown used to the idea of being more or less second only to Magnus, and Will in certain cases. Now Doctor Watson is here, somewhere, and Declan's relief is clouded only by the slight idea of confusion. He'll need to figure out where things stand again. Though he admittedly has a feeling that things will slide right back where they were as easily as fitting on a glove.

Taking a breath, Declan steps into the new library, a room as vast and grand as the London and Old City libraries had once been. Magnus left nothing wanting where a library was concerned. And if there is one place where Declan knows he'll find his former employer, it's a good library.

For all that he hadn't been involved - had, in fact, been categorically banned from being involved - he knows as soon as Helen and James return that things have gone a little pear-shaped. Perhaps not enough to make the whole mission be less than a success, but the scent of blood is unmistakable, even despite the wound being bandaged. The fact that Nigel is nowhere to be seen, meanwhile, is... not entirely out of the ordinary, but a little suspicious none the less. He lets both pass without comment though, at least at first. Helen will no doubt insist that James have his injury seen to, and he's still bitter about not having been allowed to go on the mission besides.

And when his curiosity finally wins out over his bitterness, nearly half a day a later, it's Helen he goes to for answers and not James. Mostly because he suspects that James is none too thrilled about being injured in the first place, much less whatever the medical orderlies have insisted besides. In fact, it's not until a couple of days after James and Helen have returned from their mission that he finally darkens James' doorstep, just when he's likely beginning to grow bored enough of being on the mend to start getting restless.

"I did say I should have been in on your little jaunt."

It's... pretty much an 'I told you so' sort of comment, but it's offered as gently as he knows how to be around the lingering traces of irritation, and the bottle of wine he offers to James is very nearly as good as a declaration of truce, coming from him. Especially considering the way his carefully-hoarded stock of wine bottles has been dwindling perilously low of late.

Edited 2018-07-30 02:49 (UTC)

For all that Druitt is well aware that there are yet those who would sooner see him hanging for his former crimes, unofficial pardon or no, even he can't ignore the outbreak of war. And at first, he believes like anyone else that the war will be over by Christmas. And then it drags on, with no end in sight. Just death, and blood and an unending stream of young men march off to war. And dying for same, which Druitt supposes he should feel worse about and can't entirely bring himself to.

The war, meanwhile, drags on and by the time the war - now being called the Great War - moves into its second year even he can't resist the urge to do his part. To make a difference, as best he can, and while he's never really had it in him to be part of the rank-and-file soldiery, he none the less has a certain... skillset. One that can perhaps be turned to good use, when all the world seems to have gone mad.

It's in the final months of 1915 that the rumors finally start to drift up out of the trenches. Rumors of a figure (or a specter, or a ghost; the stories are ever entirely clear) drifting through the trenches, leaving death in its wake. Which is no great surprise, perhaps. Death stalks the trenches on a daily basis, as it is, and the horrors of war can make for strange rumors on their own. It's the finer details of the rumors that make them stand out, especially to someone who still remembers the deaths of Whitechapel; who knows well enough what Druitt is capable of, even if he'd been the closest he'd been to what he'd been like before, when last they'd met.

For one, the deaths all come from bladed weapons. Sometimes a bayonet, when there's nothing else easily to hand, but more often knives - or so one would assume. The rumors focus on the what rather more than the how, as is their nature. But there's never even the slightest mention of any of the figure's victims being shot. And it's never very many either. A machine gunner or a sniper taken out at their post, a communications officer kept from reporting in; brief little strikes that never amount to more than a death or two at time. And then there's the fact that figure is said to simply vanish, whenever someone gets to close, disappearing into the ether or around a corner of the trench, only to be gone by the time anyone gets there themselves.

(Interestingly, it's always the German trench line in question. Never the British, and never any British soldiers or the soldiers of any of her allies.)

There's no guarantee it's Druitt, of course. It wouldn't be the first time he's had no involvement in something that looks for all the world to have his signature all over it. But it's not impossible either. It's just that Druitt hasn't really bothered to stay in touch, much, after the affair with Worth and the fact that he might also be spending a fair amount of time behind enemy lines adds another wrinkle to the problem of actually getting in touch.

(On the other hand, James has always been resourceful. If anyone can figure out how, it'll be him.)

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James Watson | Open Post

even in death there is always life to find

A couple of days post-Normandy

on this war-torn soil