fossilised | For John Watson

For John Watson

It was the worst blizzard that London had endured for three hundred years. That's what the news reports said before they all cut off, the power lines giving under the weight of the snow. It had started as just inclement weather (everyone take care out on the roads!), and then escalated into proper warnings (the emergency services recommend you stay indoors), and had finally ended in full lockdown (up to 65% of Londoners are trapped in their homes today).

John had been planning to catch a train to visit Harry, she claimed to be off the drink again and it was his duty as brother to go and support her. It had just made sense to stay an extra hour or two until the snow let up. Big mistake, as it turned out. Now he was fully snowed in with an extremely bored and agitated Sherlock Holmes.

No radio. No internet. No TV. No electricity of any kind.

Sherlock hadn't said anything for fifty-seven minutes, probably a relief to the poor beleaguered John, but that was because he was busy. He had to do something to occupy his mind, it was either that or dig into his stash of drugs hidden in John's bedroom, and he had chosen the fridge. Slightly manic movements have helped him get literally everything out from the fridge and freezer, distributing it all over the living room floor. There's everything from a glass jar of thumbs in formaldehyde, to three half eaten tubs of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream.

His treasure trove assembled, Sherlock crouched on the floor and began to move things around, organising them and then reorganising them in an ever more frustrated manner. It took only a further fourteen minutes before he stood up and shouted, explosively.

"DAMN IT!"

Before he threw a ceramic pot of left-over stew at the wall, where it shattered with a loud crash and drenched John's chair (and John, if he happened to be in it) in congealed lumps of meat in gravy.

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Sherlock had been intent on a split bin bag at the side of the road, half submerged in the snow and apparently full of food refuse, half convinced that it might hold a body part when all of a sudden he wasn't very conscious any more. It was almost a relief. His final thought before he sank into the mire of a comatose state was a single ah, finally some peace.

When he came around he was distinctly less relieved.

He remained still to begin with, keeping his breathing exactly as it had been to mask his return to wakefulness in order to give himself a precious few minutes to deduce the situation he had found himself in. Nothing felt broken, all his clothes were in place, and he could even feel the press of his mobile phone in his pocket at an uncomfortable angle to his hip. Not a mugging or a robbery then. He was somewhere warm, a kidnapping then. But why? That was much more difficult to ascertain, mainly due to the large amount of possibilities. It could be someone who thought to get to Mycroft and thus the government through him, it could be an ex convict that he had helped put away, it could even be someone he had irritated on the street who happened to be a psychopath.

Nobody talking so an accent couldn't be identified, but he could hear breathing. Male, excited by the sound of it. He inhaled and got a faint scent of an aftershave he hadn't smelled since that night at the pool. His own heartbeat quickened in excitement and fear mingled, before he finally opened his eyes with a smile as if they were old friends meeting for tea.

"Jim Moriarty, you could just have called, I know that you do have my number."

“Sherlock!” Huffing in a breath, the Irishman pressed a hand to his lips as if he was truly shocked. “Civilised men discuss their plans and issues face to face,” he insisted, having no idea (or every idea) that he was mirroring the words spoken by Sherlock’s brother at right about that time. They had a good relationship, he and Big Brother. And little sister, incidentally, too. Oh, he did love the Holmeses so, but none quite as much as the man sitting in front of him.

Jim didn’t so much as touch Sherlock as he rose to his feet and titter-tottered over the cut in his head with a fawning sort of lack of compassion.

“Besides, I’ve wanted you over quite badly for forever, and here you are!” He turned, arms wide open, to indicate this shell of a room (for it was indeed a shell, not actually his place at all but a reconstruction of a living room of quite good taste thank you, in a warehouse with a lovely view of the city from the Southbank. “We shall have such a fun night, two of us!”

Sherlock pulled himself into a sitting position and ignored the way that his head swam and nausea brought bile to the back of his throat. A concussion then, and not a particularly mild one. He should be careful of feeling too sleepy, for he certainly did not trust Moriarty to wake him if he did slip. The pain dulled as he compartmentalised it, focusing instead on his surroundings and the man in front of him.

"I'd love to have visited before, but I'm not visiting even now. A facsimile of a room, acoustics suggest warehouse and the smell indicates a packing plant for computer parts, likely only abandoned a year or two ago."

Having conquered sitting, Sherlock now decided to try standing. That was a mistake as it turned out, but aside from swaying he managed not to give too much of an outward show.

"Recently abandoned computer plant, Southwark? Am I to assume the snow has bored you too?"

"Very, very good," Jim cooed. "All accounts. Top marks!" Save for the common misconception about it being dangerous to sleep on a concussion. Moriarty wasn't a mind reader. He couldn't just skip through Sherlock's thoughts as much as he wanted to. And besides, Sherlock didn't know the most common of things so why would he know about that?

Moriarty's smile was jovial and almost sweet as he helped himself to a chair dragged across the room.

"It's still a very good facsimile. Bit like the house John and Harry grew up and and very much like the house Harry is currently residing in now."

He rocked forward almost to the point of tipping over into Sherlock's lap.

"Snow is never boring and I am never bored. There always more work on my side of the scale than there will ever be on yours. Sometimes I slip up just to give you something to do. And sometimes-- All I have to do is sit back and wait until you wander about so happily on your own." He pulled a monstrous face and then laughed merrily. "Have you missed me?"

Sherlock didn't know about the true way to treat a concussion, that's why he kept John around, his expertise were not medical by any means. He found the human body, when it was alive, to not be at all interesting. He was not trained, and the not sleeping was simply something he picked up via osmosis along the way and had never bothered to check.

The answer to that question was a resounding yes. He had missed Moriarty deeply, they were two sides of the same coin and it was so much fun flipping that coin to see where it would land. He had been bored out of his mind, nearly literally, with his thoughts flying all over the place and unable to be tamed, but now he was sharp and focused and interested.

"No."

That, of course, was the correct response.

"You're a spider, I don't miss spiders, I squash them under my heel."

"Liar!" He liked a good lie as much as the next person, it made everything so much spicier. Delicious! He just also liked to yell and he did his best to take every opportunity possible to yell. It got the blood moving, it was like a good, cold shower or a nice stiff drink. "Maybe not so much about the spiders. But spiders have uses, darling. Dearest. Sherlock. We both know that. Homeless for you. Criminal sorts of absolutely all kinds for me. Won. Der. Ful. "

Jim reached up to come an inch or so from Sherlock's hair, as if he might pat down curls that were slightly damp from the snow.

"If your heart was capable of love, you would love me. I'm so much better than your lapdog. I come when called too," he grinned, never quite sure if Sherlock understood the racier things he said meant.

Such a shame.

Sherlock understood more about sex and innuendo than most people gave him credit for, he just didn't have any interest in it at all. Or so he told himself and everyone around him whenever the subject came up. He was a man of logic, of deductive reasoning, he did not need to engage in that sort of foolishness with anyone.

He raised an eyebrow and moved to sit on one of the comfortable chairs in this makeshift flat, putting his back slightly to Moriarty as though he didn't feel any fear from that vulnerable position. This was chess, that was all.

"Then why don't you put the kettle on and bring me some tea, if you're so obedient?"

Makeshift! Sherlock, this is museum quality furniture you're rubbing your snowy self all over! These are antiques. The paneling and silk wall covers are too! He's gone so such trouble, such lengths--

But Sherlock had always been hard to get. A difficult nut to crack. Oh. He loved it. The feel and the enjoyment of it. This whole thing was just so delightful!

"I would be honoured to make the great Sherlock Holmes some tea," Jim responded. He'd put something in it of course. Many things in it. That was part of the fun. The biscuits, though,settled on the saucer, were pristine. Good qualify Swiss chocolate.

Jim never messed around with biscuits.

"I hope you enjoy it."

Sherlock took a biscuit. He was hungry, he had clearly had a head trauma, and so putting some fuel in his body could only help him feel better. He was not afraid that Moriarty may have tampered with the biscuits, it was very hard to tamper with biscuits. And what would be the point? He had him unconscious, at his mercy, for some time and done nothing. Why bother poisoning or drugging him after the fact?

It was this miscalculation which meant he did actually take a large gulp of the tea that Moriarty brought over to him.

"The missing tube train last week, that was your work." It suddenly snapped into place from the back of his mind, a memory of seeing the small piece in the paper about it. "A rolling base, very clever. Where is it kept when you're not using it?"

It truly didn't matter about the train. That wasn't the point of this. Of any of this. He'd been so excited to have Sherlock here that he was almost giddy. It was wonderful! And then he had to go and drink the tea. Well. At least it wasn't poisoned.

Not in any sense of the word that Jim might use. Sherlock wouldn't vomit or die, but he had seeded him with something oh so terribly mean.

It was just a taste, and a bit outside of Sherlock's usual solution, but it did mix so easily with the tea when heated first and stirred in. The tingling in his tongue and throat and the punch of wakefulness would surely clue him in to the cocaine.

"Irrelevant! Oh Sherlock. Sherlock you disappoint me. Why? Why when I go out of my way to make this so easy for you?!"

Sherlock was not a stranger to cocaine. He was not a stranger to most of the harder drugs out there, much to the disappointment of Mycroft, and he had really gone down a hole once or twice in his younger days. Not since meeting John, not since a short time before that when he had managed to get Lestrade to allow him to work on murder cases. Oh, he slipped every so often, but always carefully.

This was not careful, this was not a dose he had chosen for himself, and so he immediately put the cup down on the table.

"I like to allow you some smaller victories," he said, voice level and calm despite the inner deductions already racing at the likely solution percentage and how badly it would affect him. "It can demoralise an opponent if they are consistently crushed."

As if he was a five year old and someone just trampled on his drawings, Jim marched around with a sort of bulldog face, arms hanging loose. He let his oddities just be out there. He was tired of hiding it all and had grown that way around the age of ten and so he'd just decided to make everyone worry more for their safety then his histrionics. "Wrong!" Shouting again, but this time out of anger. "Wrong! I have so much hope for you! It's demoralizing when you fail to live up to your potential!"

Jim sat heavily beside Sherlock, reached for, and drank down his tea all while staring up at him with his massive eyes and slicked back hair. Moriarty had a slight build but also a great tolerance for whatever he dosed people with. He'd gotten bored for a few years and just built resistance up to everything he could.

There was obviously not a lot of cocaine in the tea. No one wanted that. No matter how strong a level he could stand.

"Don't let me win. Don't even let me win. That's cheating. I thought better of you. I should have someone bring your dog around and teach you how cheating feels. But!"

His smile returned and he picked the biscuit off of the saucer to hand over to Sherlock. "I don't know your brand. It was either these or Pink Ladies."

This was what made James Moriarty so dangerous, he was legitimately insane. Brilliant, perhaps even almost as brilliant as Sherlock himself in a different way, but utterly unstable with it. He was ruled by his emotions just as much as Sherlock was ruled by logic, and the two of them were destined to push and pull against one another in equal measures.

He could almost wish that John were here, he would be a steadying influence. Sherlock knew his own foibles, and he could quite easily be talked into some dangerous things, even life threatening things, just to prove himself right. The smartest person in the room.

"Perhaps it's you failing to live up to your potential, if I have to allow you some victories then doesn't that suggest that you're lacking?"

It probably wasn't the right thing to do to taunt Moriarty, but keeping himself from speaking what was on his mind had never been one of Sherlock's strong suits. He took the biscuit and bit into it with a smug sort of smile.

"Southwark, let me see, Great Guildford Street. Number thirty. Too easy."

Jim never touched Sherlock. Never. It was sort of like he was off limits, too perfect and light to put his hands on. Like he didn't want to sully him. That didn't mean that Jim didn't half mimic putting his head on Sherlock's shoulder. "Oh poor Sherlock. Allowing me victories just means that you're not up to the task. And that just makes me oh so sad. I could just cry buckets of tears. Buckets!"

He couldn't help himself sometimes but be over the top. Not just because it was expected, but because it threw people off. It certainly threw Sherlock off! He wasn't insane.

He was just a high functioning psychopath. Maybe. He killed the last psychiatrist he'd had that told him that he didn't have emotion. That he played at having them. Jim had been sad after.

He figured that proved that he was wrong, which in turn made him happy. Go figure.

"Now that you've discovered where we are, shall we send that voice snippet to dear John?"

Sherlock did not want John Watson anywhere near Jim Moriarty. He could still recall the sight of him with semtex strapped to his chest, a certainty that he was going to die. Perhaps that had been the moment that made his realise that he truly did have a friend, not just an assistant who also happened to live with him. Not because they had been through something so dangerous together, but because he had realised that he was afraid of John dying.

He chose to eat the rest of the biscuit before replying, licking the chocolate off his fingers from where the heat of his skin had allowed it to melt slightly against him.

"What would be the point? If you wanted him here, you would have waited until we were together and taken us both." It irritated him that he had barely been aware of John's absence, but it turned out to be a blessing in the end. "You're attempting to frighten me by using base emotional manipulation, don't you think we're beyond that?"

Moriarty obviously wanted him for something, Sherlock just had to wait until the pieces revealed themselves to find out what.

Jim wanted to play. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sherlock was a distraction of the best sort. Killing him was not what he wanted even if he'd said it a few times now. He was just so changeable! For instance, usually he wore designer suits but today he was in a white tee shirt and some black jeans with boots. He was like those kids that hang up at the Stables. Or how he imagined Molly's boyfriend might be like. He missed that character.

He wanted to kill every single cat he saw now because of her but she was a little sweet. And she made a lovely cuppa. And always had his favorite little nibbles. Sweet girl. Maybe he'd look her up again. She'd probably call the police though. Hm.

"I had wanted the both of you but your brother came along and snatched your little pet up. My not so little pet can't think of all of the variables." He made a little shushing noise as he pulled a phone out of his pocket. "Why don't you ever let me play with your toys? I'll let you play with mine!"

If Sherlock knew that Moriarty even recalled Molly and considered her a possible future entertainment, this day would play out very differently. For all that she was forgotten and overlooked, for all that she was sometimes seen as pitiable, Sherlock loved her. Not in the way she wanted, never that, but he loved her and he loved so few people. Steady, dependable, friendly Molly. She did not deserve the attentions of Jim Moriarty.

"Sebastian Moran? No, thank you."

He didn't reveal how he knew the name, the months of painstakingly vague research that had gone into uncovering even a fraction of the web that Moriarty had spun about himself. He just said the name as if it were commonplace, known to all.

"If this is just a social call, don't you even have monopoly? Chess? Even Twister."

"Would you really play Twister with me?!" Jim didn't care that Sherlock knew about his Sebbie. He didn't care that all of the former soldier's records were out there. Sebbie was his. So was a thousand other people, across the globe. Their identities didn't bother him at all, though Sebbie was his favourite right now.

Maybe because he'd served when Sherlock's John had. Maybe because they were both so good at what they did. Jim loved the parallels. He loved how they fit together. They were pieces of a well worked puzzle, the edges faded a little from constant ups and downs, pushes together and pulls apart.

"Now we have to have your pet come and play!" He dialed the phone with a slow, exaggerated push of each button and then put it on speaker (well not really) before he pressed a finger to his lips.

John of course answered immediately. "Tell me where you are right now!"

And Sherlock's voice repeated the address.

"How did you get to South-- Never mind. I'll be right there."

It didn't matter if Sherlock spoke. This was a closed system. The phone was just for show.

Sherlock didn't bother to speak. He knew that Moriarty would not place a call to John that Sherlock could interfere with, and so speaking up would only serve to make him look foolish, something he had no love of doing at any point. Especially not when he was with a criminal almost as clever as he was.

He instead took that time to properly look Moriarty up and down. He was hard to read, harder than most, because he could become a chameleon so very easily. He altered everything about himself in a moment, becoming Rich Brooke or Molly's boyfriend in a second. But he was himself now, Sherlock believed that much, and so he attempted to gather all he could.

Pristine nails, slightly ragged at the tip suggesting that he used to have a habit of biting them, but had stopped about five months prior. Favoured stepping out on his left foot about seventy percent of the time, probably left handed, then.

Nothing useful.

He reached out and picked up his teacup again, thoughtfully swirling what little liquid remained, before he all of a sudden surged to his feet and went to smash it into the side of Moriarty's head. Crude, but effective, if it worked.

Jim's a lover. Not a fighter. But he didn't have to be a fighter. Not when his Sebbie was close. It didn't matter how he hurt or disrespected his man, Sebastian Moran was loyal through and through. Just like John Watson.

Sherlock's little decision to ruin their fun came at a price. Yes, in the short term, he was rewarded with laying Moriarty out cold on plush carpet, turned at the waist but otherwise face down. He managed to draw blood too, good show, but there was a very large Colonel waiting just outside and while Sherlock might have been a fantastic practitioner of Judo, Moran was a viper.

And very protective over the small Irishman groaning on the floor.

He knew better than to hit Sherlock in the face, Jim wanted him pristine, but Moran did rush at the British detective with fists aiming for his ribs. His goal would be to handcuff Sherlock to his chair. Still a very nice chair, of course, and comfortable, but the iron bracelets were annoyingly necessary.

Nobody could be more loyal than John Watson. The man had refused desperately needed money a mere hour after meeting him in order to keep his secrets, had killed a man for him only a few nights later, and had never given an indication through word or deed that he would ever be anything but wholly loyal.

That was why Sherlock had to take out Moriarty, for he could not let John simply walk into a trap.

Of course he expected Moran outside the door and he had been ready to duck any blow sent to him. Unfortunately, the sting of his concussion and the slight spike in his heartrate thanks to the cocaine kept him from being at his best. Which left him winded, wheezing, and cuffed to his chair.

Damn.

Moran knelt next to Jim and gently turned him over, examining the cut to his head before his boss half slapped him with a flailing hand. "Off! Monster! Brute! You're smothering me! If I want my mother, I'll climb into her casket." Jim growled even when Moran seemed unphased by the abuse and helped his boss up to his feet. "Go away, Sebbie! Get ready for our fourth player!"

Moran looked at Sherlock as he passed him. The contempt was almost palpable, and the click of the door behind him followed by a latch being thrown.

Jim was still dazed, but bit at the air behind Moran in a way that was very reminiscent of how he had bitten the man's lip not too long before.

"I never hurt you," Jim said, gesturing at the cuffed man. "Never once. Never even touched you. And you do this? You're the worst friend."

"So John tells me on a frequent basis," replied Sherlock, voice dry as if he were not bothered by being cuffed to a chair awaiting his only real friend to walk into the spider's web. "Never had much practise at it, I'm afraid. Enemies, though, that I'm good at."

He smiled. For Moriarty was his greatest enemy, someone it would always be a thrill to tangle with. There was a connection between them, but there was also an underpinning of fear and hatred that fuelled everything with a sharp bitterness.

"It'll be hard to play twister like this. Just an observation."

Not that they would be playing twister. He disliked imagining what Moriarty actually had planned for when John arrived.

“Mmm. You’re right,” Jim mused. “It will be. But we’ll see how you manage. More tea? Oh wait.” His smile dropped completely. “You broke the cup. 18thcentury, you know. Gift from the Queen. Or so I was told when I took it.” His eyes scanned the mess on the carpet before he toed the jagged edges.

Oh, oh Sherlock. It might have been smarter to break the cup and gouge his eyes out instead, eyes that flickered back to the trussed up man in the plush red chair.

“Now. What were you doing out in the snow? My hunch,” and he shrugged his shoulders very high before he shoved his hands into his pockets, “is that you were looking for a body. We should do that together! In about 15 minutes.”

He was bluffing. John would take at least twenty to get here, even in Mycroft’s car.

Sherlock ran through the possibilities of what Moriarty might intend for when John arrived. His thoughts worked at a rapid pace, running through the corridors of his mind palace, but there were too many variables to work with. He could intend to kill Sherlock. No, discarded as foolish, he liked Sherlock alive as a playmate. He could kill innocents and have John and Sherlock hunt them out in a macabre guessing game. Unlikely, it would be too repetitious after the bomb treasure hunt and Moriarty liked to keep people on their toes. He could actually want them for twister and tea, also unlikely and almost ludicrous. He may intend to kill John, for nothing else would motivate Sherlock quite as much as that. Unfortunately, a dangerous possibility.

He stretched in his chair, long legs crossing one over the other. His voice was deceptively mild, as if asking for more tea, but there was a stern firmness behind each word that said he was not bluffing.

"If you harm John, I'll bite off my own tongue and end the game prematurely."

Ever the flair for the dramatic. But Sherlock had never had a friend before, only Redbeard his dog, and he feared losing John with an intensity that didn't quite make sense to him. He had not lost anyone before, there was no trauma there, but still the fear was encompassing enough to have him willing to sacrifice himself before he saw John killed.

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