Well, as usual, my October has been rammed to the hilt - this happens to me each and every year and severely cuts into my writing time, unfortunate as I usually give myself a huge To-Do List regarding Halloween, that most delightedly spooky of holidays.

Nontheless, a very Happy Halloween to you all! May I present here the first part of Dreadful, which is something of a guilty secret of mine: This fic was actually Halloween 2011's update but, alas, I was unable to finish it. This year, too, I just couldn't get to finishing it, though I tried my hardest. :C I hope you will all appreciate this first installment (of two, I should think) and, again, I'm very sorry about all the delays and no-shows.

Real Life can be such an inconvenience at times. XD

Dreadful

"This city," said Sherlock Holmes, gnawing distractedly on the end of his pipe, "both delights and disgusts me."

"Disgusts?" England repeated, smirking, putting a hand to his heart. "Ah, you wound me, Mr Holmes – and you're one of my very favourites, too."

"Heh." Holmes' smile, too, turned up at the edges, congealing and tightening. "It is not I who wounds your heart – and were I you, I would be most inclined to look to blame myself." The detective – Conan Doyle's most famous creation – cleared his throat. "Now do not take me wrongly. This city has been good to me – I have found London to be a kind mistress at most times and would recommend her good spirit readily. There is adventure upon these streets and these I have drank up for years. However, more recently it has become apparent that these same streets have become nothing but the petty stage setting for the baiting of my intellect." Holmes prowed his hands together thoughtfully. "Quite simply, England, you have been leading me on a merry chase indeed. To that end, you may be assured that I am both delighted and disgusted. London has been our boards and there is so much of you in it that I feel that the performance – and, indeed, the investigation – has been rather... close."

"Incestuous, one might say," England agreed nonchalantly, examining his nails.

"You have murdered Dupin, of course."

"Naturally. This very night, in fact." England paused. "Well, you must forgive me. I take credit undue to myself. It was America, in fact, who carried out the killing. I merely watched."

Holmes cleared his thoat.

"Then I am the loose end," he said cheerfully. "Or am I the starting thread?"

"Perhaps a little bit of both," England replied airily. "It barely matters any more. I just wanted to beat you. This might be the case to break you, Sherlock Holmes; we shall see. I am testing Conan Doyle's construction of you, you might say." He arched his eyebrows. "So far, I am impressed."

"But nonetheless," Holmes went on, leaning forward across the carriage, "you mean to kill me this very night, England. Or..." Holmes cleared his throat, fake and delicate. "...Should I call you Jack?"

"Either is fine – whichever you will. And as for killing you... well, I suppose that depends." England glanced out of the window – at London trundling by in the dead of night to the steady beat of horse hooves. "...Will you allow me to?"

"I shall certainly do my best not to," Holmes assured him, his manner still altogether thoroughly pleasant. "Though I quite understand if you have tired of me by now. I could say the same of my author – another Arthur, incidentally."

England nodded; tilting his head to one side now, picking up those faster hooves thundering somewhere behind the coach, alien on the streets of the British capital.

"To be or not to be," he said serenely, "is the question indeed, Mr Holmes."

"But I did not ask it," Holmes replied, putting away his pipe.

"Yes, but... well, you are rather fond of Shakespeare's words all the same, are you not?"

"Ah." Holmes gave an icy little laugh. "I see. You know, my dear chap, all you had to do was ask if you wanted me to say it."

"Oh, contrarily, that will not be necessary," England said, dusting a speck of tobacco from the front of the travelling cloak draped like velvet wings about his shoulders. The hooves hastened and drew close and the prickling of companionship burned strong in him.

Soon, now. He straightened his back, watching Sherlock Holmes across the swaying carriage; the detective stared him down with an indulgent smirk.

"I shan't ask you," England went on gently, "for I am capable, you see, of saying it myself."

"Then please do," Holmes said, "and let us begin."

"Very well." England drew a breath as the horse came level with the carriage. (Ah, America. He lacked imagination at times – or, at least, one of his own so that he had to borrow from one of his own.) "The game is afoot – so you had better start running, Sherlock Holmes."

The old inn was at a crossroads – which made sense. There existed a thin, translucent line between their literature, blurred and biological, and in the gap was a bridge of borrowing, language the most important but by no means the only theft.

The raven – a large, crooked creature of bluish ebony – fluttered down at long last and perched upon America's shoulder, contented and weighty; glad of such prestigious company, America pushed open the door to the ramshackle little inn and stepped into the bar beneath the swaying old sign. The raven rustled its feathers, hunching, as the door swung shut behind them.

It was perfectly and suitably wretched, run-down in all the right places, faded and worm-eaten and despairing. The tables were filthy and the windows were grimy and the velvet on the seats was balding; the bar sold gin and rum and beer so bad the yeast floated on the top of it (and dirty water, too, should dying of cholera take your fancy). The patrons, too, looked no better, shirts grey and grubby and ragged, cravats moth-eaten, hats dented, all skulking together and talking in low voices over the fatal beverage of choice.

This was the underbelly of Victoriana, everything base and low and writhing about the era, the true things which nobody wanted to mention but had existed and produced the people to prove it.

America found England in the furthest corner, inversely glowing in his finery; nothing about him was shabby, his high-collared cloak and his top hat so deeply ebon that he gave the likeness of a black hole even amidst the shadows. Upon the table before him sat two grimy tumblers of cheap rum and a stack of books and newspapers.

"Ah, you came," England acknowledged him graciously; his white fingers knotted themselves together expectantly. "Do sit down."

So America sat, watching England all the while, and said nothing himself. He waited.

"I suppose you want to know why I called you here," England went on lightly, running his fingertips over the edges of the tomes.

"I think I already know," America replied, the raven shifting on his shoulder. "You want to play a game, do you not?"

England smiled.

"Very good." He sighed and tapped the side of his tumbler, making the thin rum sway in the dirty glass. "I am terribly bored, you see – and my authors do seem to be in the mood for creating worlds more exciting than our own."

America gave an exhale of his own.

"By which you mean that you want to kill people," he said wearily. "Again."

England smiled sweetly.

"It cannot be helped," he said, his tone imploring. "We are nations. Death is the most important thing about us – wars, sickness, starvation. We grow stagnant should the blood cease to run in our streets, so much so that even our citizens begin to yearn for it. Even for you, America, it has been some thirty years since your North and South settled themselves again." He clenched his fists on the tabletop. "Do you not starve?"

America rolled his eyes.

"Perhaps – but is it too much to ask that you pick off a couple of people who won't be missed and leave me out of it?" he grumbled.

"Oh, heavens, I have no wish to kill my own people," England replied. "I just want to kill to settle my blood again. You know as well as I do that there is a way of settling the matter without harming a single real human. That is why we are here, after all." He smirked. "And surely you must have at least indulged the thought of joining me, hence your regal companion." He nodded towards the raven. "Is it so awful that I, too, desire some company?"

"He is Poe's," America agreed nonchalantly, rubbing his knuckles fondly against the bird's skull. "Very well, I suppose I have been a little bored myself of late. Whose skin shall we wear for our massacre?"

"That's the spirit," England said cheerfully; and he took a swig of his rum before pulling the books and papers into the centre of the table. "I have more than you so I will lend you some of mine."

"How kind," America said dryly; and then he frowned. "Wait, some? How many... wh-what exactly is it that you are trying to do, England?"

"Play a little game, as you guessed," England replied lightly, beginning to separate the papers into two piles. "And to play a game we need some competition."

"Against each other?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. No, no – we shall work together under the guises of different murderers to kill as many as we can. Here are our adversaries." England pushed a copy of The Strand towards America, followed by a thin, battered collection of Poe stories. "Mr Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and his predecessor, Mr Poe's C. Auguste Dupin. That is a fair offering from each of us and worthy opponents, too, I should have thought."

Despite himself, America couldn't help but begin to feel quite interested.

"So how do we win?" he asked, looking at the two detective stories lying side by side on the table.

"We kill them, of course – but only after we have led them on a merry dance with our killing sprees beneath the guises of our other literary offerings." England tapped his two piles. "As I said, you are lacking in authors – but Poe has a wealth, nonetheless, which you may draw upon. We shall stick mostly to Victorian villainies but I will allow you the use of Mr Irving's charming tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

"And what about you?" America inquired.

England patted the much larger pile on his left.

"I have a great many," he answered, "as my authors have been prolific and deeply interested in the macabre of late. Dracula, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The String of Pearls, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde—"

"Fine, fine." America flapped his hand to cut him off. "There is no need to brag."

"I will lend you some of mine, as I said. You ought not to have to keep going back to Mr Poe."

"Huh." America looked at the papers again. "I have to admit that it does sound rather fun."

"Then you will play with me?"

"Well, sure, I guess I fail to see why not."

"Excellent." England smiled at him. "I am so glad." He took up his glass again and clinked it forcibly against America's. "Cheers. We shall begin at midnight, then. I see no reason to wait."

America took up his own glass and, after giving it a wary glance, took a sip. In a bid to avoid England's greedy, satisfied smile, America's gaze idled instead on the copy of The Strand spread before him. The headline running along the top, in print much bolder than The Adventure of the Speckled Band, cried out about the continuing hunt for the Whitechapel murderer known as Jack the Ripper.

America frowned, running his fingertip beneath it; his finger came back black with cheap ink.

"I suppose he does not count?" he asked lazily. "He is real, after all."

England smirked.

"And yet, for all the evidence they have found, he might as well be another fictional monster," he replied. "No, I have not ruled him out at all."

Given my very undeliberate slacking with Wicked Wednesdays, the "countdown" will actually continue into November, wrapping up both Dreadful and To New Mutiny, each with a second half, and the fic that should have been last week's, Albatross (which I will hopefully manage to get up tomorrow). The original promised update on Something Wicked This Way Comes isn't looking too good right now, maybe late December...? (I hope?!)

It's not ideal and wasn't my original plan but honest to god I've had so little time to write this month... :C

In the meantime, Happy Halloween, one and all! :3

xXx