Misdialed - Sherlock/John fic - Chapter 22
Title: Misdialed
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Word Count: 62,009
Chapter Count: 22/22
Beta: satsuki_tears
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I don't even totally own the idea. :P
Warnings: Character Death
Summary:
AU John needs a new phone, one that doesn’t bend time and have an amazing man on the other end who claims to be the world’s greatest detective, except that he can’t figure out how he called Dr. Watson instead of his brother. However, with a criminal mastermind on the loose, John's phone connection may be the only thing that can save him.
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Chapter 22
When he first regained consciousness, John noticed the sound of water lapping gently nearby. Then he noticed the sound of an engine, or a turbine perhaps. The sounds had a slight hollow sound to them. Someone took a few steps, and the clop of their shoes on the hard ground echoed slightly. John took a slow, steady breath. He had two possibilities for where he was, and since the ground below him felt very solid and he wasn't moving at all, he narrowed it down to one.
He was at a pool.
Without opening his eyes, John could tell he wasn't blindfolded. Moriarty didn't care if John saw him or not. John already knew what he looked like. John had already told the police that Moriarty was present at each crime scene. By now the police should have identified him, maybe even found him, and yet he had been there on the street. And John had seen him, clear as day and a foot away, so a blindfold wasn't necessary.
He also knew that his hands were held behind his back. Rope by the feel of it. Not too tight, because he would have already developed a burn from them in his unconscious state, but they were definitely tight enough. Legs too. No gag though, so Moriarty must not be worried about being overheard. There would be no one around within ear shot.
Great mess you got yourself into this time, he scolded himself. So worried about Sherlock when you bloody well should have been worried about yourself.
"Comin around," a gruff man said as a door swung open, and John realized he'd been noticed.
He let out a half-heavy breath and opened his eyes a crack, as though just waking up. He saw the cement and tile floor of a public pool below him and the rope around his ankles, then he raised his eyes up to the thug of a man standing in front of him. John's neck screamed at the new position, and he rolled his head to get out some of the kinks.
"Sleep well?" a familiar voice asked, and Moriarty strolled casually in front of him. "Wouldn't want you to be in any physical pain."
"Well my neck is a bit sore," John admitted, a friendly sass in his voice. "Don't suppose you have a chiropractor on hand?"
Moriarty, for all his crimes, smiled. "No," he said and folded his hands behind his back. "But don't worry, Doctor. It'll be the least of your problems."
"What will be the worst?" John asked, trying to hide the fear he was feeling. It was bubbling up in his stomach like a sour juice in the aftermath of the sass. He'd rushed out of the Diogenes club alone. He'd been on the road alone. He'd been captured alone.
No one knew he was missing.
"The worst will be.... hm," Moriarty paused and put a finger to his lips. "You know what? I'm actually really torn. Help me pick how you're going to die." He clapped his hands together and then twirled a finger in the air. The thug stepped up from behind him with a gun, but Moriarty didn't take it.
"Why would I help... pick my own death?" John asked. He swallowed thickly. The gun was aimed at him, and though the man's finger wasn't on the trigger, that didn't mean he couldn't change that very quickly.
"Because it's more fun that way," Moriarty said as though John had asked an especially dumb question. "Now pick. I could have Henderson shoot you in the head and make it look like a suicide - couldn't take the pressure of Sherlock Holmes or whatever. I could have him drown you in the pool and make it look like an accident - slipped, fell, hit your head, bled out and inhaled too much water. Or I can put you in a taxi and send you home." The small man paused, and John felt a surge of hope. "But just before you reach your destination, the driver has a heart attack, swerving into the path of an oncoming vehicle - maybe a truck. The taxi is hit from the side, crushing you in your seat before you have time to call for help."
"You're demented," John gasps out.
"Well you don't get where I am by being a sweetheart, do you?" Moriarty asked with a laughing grin. "So which is it?"
John took a deep breath and, for a moment, actually debated which he'd prefer. Something made him pause. "Do you ever do any of your own dirty work?" he asked.
The criminal gave a pause and considered John. "No," he said, a slight air of confusion in his voice, as though he couldn't figure out how the conversation had shifted into a boring topic. "Why on Earth would I have lackeys if I did the work myself? Honestly."
"You get to enjoy all the credit and do none of the work," John accused, energized by a sudden rush of adrenaline from his eminent death.
"How dare- Did you-?" Moriarty looked at the thug man beside him and motioned to John before looking at his victim again. "Do you have any idea how much work goes in to coming up with perfect murders and making them look like suicides and accidents? This is my life work!"
"You're a tiny man hiding behind bigger men," John taunted. Why was he doing this? So he could die faster? No. Because maybe, just maybe, if he threw Moriarty off his game, John could have a chance at escape, and even if he died, the crime may be so sudden that evidence will be bound to be left behind to catch this creep. Even if both John and Sherlock had to die because of him, maybe there would be a chance of stopping him.
"No!" Moriarty snatched the gun from his man and held it against John's forehead. "You are the one hiding behind others."
"What are you on about?" John said, his eyes squinting a bit, prepared for the shot that would take his life.
"You have been hiding behind Sherlock's good work, living with that old woman who took care of Sherlock, and hiding inside the walls of your job this whole time. For the last several months- months! - you've been hiding behind Sherlock's defenses! And you think you're innocent!"
"What defenses? I haven't done anything!" John shouted. Moriarty hit him upside the head with the gun.
"The Baker Street Irregulars," Moriarty sneered, spitting out the name.
'His network of the homeless, the drug addicts, the riff raff, and the oddly loyal followers he finds on his cases,' John heard Mycroft explain from earlier.
"They've been circling you since you moved into Baker Street, calling attention to spies, endangering my men, foiling traps. Do you understand how infuriating that is?" Moriarty asked. "But today, today was good. Poor little John Watson rushed down the street, all alone, with no addicts in sight, no one knows why or how. But he ran right into my hands."
'Don't be surprised to find me guarding you... in my own way.' Sherlock's recording rang through his head. Sherlock really had been protecting him... all this time.
"Are you awake, Doctor? I didn't accidentally kill you already, did I?" Moriarty asked, and John turned his head away from the handgun. "Good." He took a deep breath and backed up from John. He dusted his suits lapels off and smiled again. "Now you know why you even came up on my radar, correct?"
"Mycroft tol-"
"WRONG!" Moriarty shouted. "You're here because of Sherlock Holmes. If you had stayed away from him, you wouldn't be a target, but you had to be one of the closest people to him, and that makes you a target for me."
"Why? Why do you hate Sherlock?" John asked. Moriarty stood straighter, his left eyebrow lifting. He looked contemplative, as though he'd never been asked this question before.
"Why?" He tapped his gun against his head. "Because he's the greatest mind in the world after my own, because this is the great game... because we have to solve the final problem."
"What is the final problem?" John asked, voice lowered. Moriarty shrugged. Then he frowned, his entire expression deadly.
"Who is the greater mind?" he asked. "Is it the devil or the angel? I set the game and the pieces. He solves the cases. But he keeps losing people, because he isn't focusing and the time limit slips by. You're the only one - the only one he seems to always be around. Never leaves you alone. I know because you'd already be dead if I'd ever had the chance."
"Very reassuring," John said.
"It should be." Moriarty's expression was similar to Irene, someone who longed for Sherlock's love and attention and was jealous and angry that John had it when they didn't, and they'd worked so hard for it. "Do you know how to solve the final problem?"
"Kill me?" John guessed, the lump in his throat threatening to choke him, and still he sounded almost normal. He pulled at his hands gently, but they refused to give at all.
"What? Oh no, no," Moriarty assured, shaking his head and smiling. A funny laugh even came through his throat. Then he held up the gun and aimed it at John, his expression one of homicidal glee. "That's only the first step." He paused, his eyes looking up in thought. "Well, more like the tenth step, but it's all the same really. I kill all the people he's ever cared about and then-"
"You kill Sherlock," John finished and let out a huff of air. He felt squished, like someone was laying on him even though he was in a chair. Moriarty had already killed Sherlock, so what did it matter anymore?
"Correct. I kill Sherlock Holmes. You're the largest obstacle in that plan. Everyone else would merely forget Sherlock if he died, but you actively meddle in his life. You would continue to remind people of him, and I can't have that happening." Moriarty took a deep breath and let it out as a quick sigh. "After you I just have to finish off his silly Irregulars... and maybe take out the police inspector, and then everyone who Sherlock cares about will be gone."
The irregulars? Moriarty was going to take out random drug addicts and street urchins? Was he going to kill Raz too? John knit his eyebrows together. That boy with the old woman on the street before John had been knocked out - that had looked a lot like Raz. But Raz was in prison. It was impossible. It must have been John's imagination, but what difference did that make?
That kid could be an Irregular. Hell, the old woman could've been. Raz seemed to be one. They'd all be murdered by this madman. They were innocent. They were people, fallen on hard times by choice or accident, who helped a genius solve crimes and put bad men behind bars or in morgues. And the worst man of all was going to kill them for it.
"You'll never win," John said as soon as the response came into his head. Moriarty's grin dropped entirely, and John clenched his fists. He was sealing his fate. "Even if you kill all of us, you'll be caught or killed. Sherlock's work will help someone defeat you. No matter how many people you kill, you're still the loser, Moriarty. Because it takes no skill to win when you know all the rules, but it takes a genius to succeed when he never knew the rules to begin with... and Sherlock has matched you countless times. You lose."
Never had John seen so much rage on one face. It sent ice into his gut, down his legs, through his chest. He would never make it out of this alive.
"I will skin you alive," Moriarty said, his voice shaking from emotion. "I will make a chair out of you."
"Not if I make a rug out of you first," a new voice called monotonously from somewhere hidden on the sidelines.
John closed his eyes and held his breath. Was it possible to die without feeling the pain of a bullet? It was fairly common for those near death to hallucinate but-
"Speak of the devil and he appears," Moriarty sneered, his demeanor unaffected by the new addition. "Or I suppose I did just say you aren't a devil."
"Drop the gun, Moriarty," Sherlock said, stepping from behind a plastic wall, a gun held high in his strong hand. "And let him go."
"Just like a Holmes to give orders first and do anything later, but I refuse. You heard my speech. This is a war between us - the two greatest men in history." Moriarty shrugged and raised his free hand to thump off the side of his temple. "And you know... when two celestial bodies collide and whatnot.... Bound to be a couple casualties."
"Not anymore." Sherlock put both hands on his gun to steady his hand. He was wearing that damn good purple shirt with his tailored suit and looked, for all purposes, to be going on a date instead of facing down a murderer. "This isn't a game. And if it were, you've lost."
"How do you figure?" Moriarty asked.
"Because I brought back-up." Sherlock's lip tugged up in a smirk as a dozen red gun scopes aimed themselves at Moriarty. John let out a huff of relief when Moriarty slid his eyes shut and removed his finger from the trigger. He raised his hands up in surrender, eyes still closed, and didn't move. "Gun," Sherlock reminded. Moriarty dropped it with a clatter.
Sherlock lowered his weapon too and hurried over to John. He moved fluidly, his face a mask of concentration, and knelt behind John to undo his bindings.
"Are you alright?" he asked. John could only let out an exasperated giggle, and Sherlock moved to undo his ankles. "Are you alright?" the detective asked more harshly. It sounded just like the day they met, when John had no idea who this bleeding, dying man was.
"I-I'm fine," John said, although his legs felt unstable when he stood up. Sherlock helped him stand, and they just smiled at each other for a minute before someone shouted, a shot echoed off the tile, and Sherlock was tackled into the pool.
"Sherlock!" John gasped.
Moriarty was in the pool on top of Sherlock, using his whole body to hold the slender man under water. There was a fight of limbs, water splashing, and Sherlock made his way to the surface. He gasped in air, and Moriarty slammed his knuckles into the side of his face. Sherlock went down again, slipping beneath the surface. The red dots of the guns hovered around helplessly, unable to safely take a shot. John shook his head.
He flung himself into the pool and onto Moriarty. He wrapped his arms around the stunned man's neck and pulled back, peeling Moriarty forcefully off Sherlock. Moriarty kicked out at Sherlock and clawed at the arms choking him. Just when Sherlock got his legs under him and broke the surface again, Moriarty nailed John in the corner of the eye with his elbow, weakening the doctor's grip enough to allow escape.
John stumbled awkwardly in the water until he caught the edge of the pool. When he looked back, Moriarty had his arms around Sherlock, using him as a human shield. Sherlock's arms were raised in surrender, but his eyes were on John and his face was deadly calm.
Moriarty's gaze was up where the lights were coming from. "Brought your well trained puppies, the men of the yard, to save you?" he asked, voice conversationally low. "But they won't shoot the hero to kill the villain."
Sherlock's eyes flickered away from John and then back. John was watching those eyes, his heart hammering loudly, his adrenaline pumping, his worry mounting, and suddenly he thought he understood. He turned his head to the edge of the pool, slowly so as not to draw attention, and saw what Sherlock was motioning toward.
Sherlock's gun was within arm's reach, dropped before the fight. John looked back at Sherlock, staring into those bright, serious eyes, and he asked a question without using words. Sherlock's chin lowered a fraction and raised back up. Acceptance. Approval. John sucked his mouth shut and nodded back, his eyes hardening. There was only one option. Moriarty had to be stopped.
In the time of a blink, Sherlock threw his head back, catching Moriarty in the nose and causing the man's hold to weaken. In the same moment, John snatched up the gun and spun it around on the two other men. Sherlock pulled away from Moriarty, but the slippery man grabbed for him again almost as quickly. John took a steady breath and felt his heart stop when he pulled the trigger.
As the gunshot echoed, Sherlock dropped into the water, Moriarty on top of him. Blood was leaking out to mix with the water around the slumped bodies. John's hands started to shake and he tossed the gun away.
"Sh-Sherlock?" he panted, chest still heaving with anxiety.
Moriarty's body rolled off to float face up in the water, a gunshot in his temple. Then Sherlock stood up, soaking wet and breathing deep. He nodded at John again and they silently dragged themselves from the pool while officers swarmed the area. The thug from earlier and the two others who had helped grab John on the street were found, cuffed, and herded together.
Lestrade was there and he smiled at them both. "Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" he gasped. "I thought he was going to shoot you both. Good work, the pair of you."
The inspector clapped them both on the back and started rambling about how good of a team Sherlock and John had been, how Sherlock had found John with his contacts and alerted authorities, about how all of this was apparently some great plan between John and Sherlock, but John couldn't begin to understand what had happened. Lestrade wasn't stunned to see Sherlock at all. He didn't seem overly happy or relieved either. You'd think Sherlock had never been dead at all.
"Thank you, Inspector," Sherlock was saying, and he didn't seem to find speaking with Lestrade to be odd either. "Sorry about not bringing him in alive."
"We can deal with that later. You shouldn't have anything to worry about - self-defense and all. I'll take care of it." Lestrade was looking at John now, but John still couldn't believe his eyes. "You alright, Doctor Watson?"
"What?" John shook himself. "What? Yeah. I'm fine. Not a scratch." He touched his temple even as he said it, knowing he would bruise.
"Just a bruise," Lestrade said. "That'll be in your favor, probably... So I know you two haven't spoken in awhile, and John looks like he's about to burst. I'll take the men back to the yard. Join us when you're ready, alright?" He took two steps back and stopped, hands up. "Before the day's end." And he gave Sherlock a look that told John Sherlock must have a habit of keeping his own schedule.
There were men taking photographs of the pool, of the body and the blood. John was no policeman, but this could take awhile. How were they meant to have a private conversation? Just then, he found his arm snatched up in a firm grasp, and he was led from the room. They stepped out through the same door Sherlock must have come in through, hidden behind a long plastic wall. It was a locker room with tile around showers and changing rooms but then thin carpet around the actual lockers, muffling the echoes of the room.
Once the sounds of shuffling feet and complaining men had faded away, John was released. The lanky detective was looking him over, water clinging to his bangs and dripping from his clothes. His breathing was heavy, but so was John's even though he hadn't done much during the fight. He still couldn't believe it. Sherlock was alive, standing there in front of him. How? How was he- Why did it even matter? He was here.
"Sherlock?" he asked and swallowed heavily, trying to regain control over his flimsy vocal chords.
"There is no answer," Sherlock said and pushed his bangs out of his face. God, he looked even better. Maybe John was dead.
"Come again?" John took a deep breath.
Sherlock stepped closer to him, as though he would tell John a secret. "Two heads, two hearts, eight limbs, and is colored red and blue. There is no answer." He stopped a foot from John, which made it increasingly difficult to breathe. "Tell me I'm right. You gave me a riddle with no answer."
The bright eyes, the dark hair, the pale face, the deep voice. John was going to pass out. He nodded slowly. "There's no answer. It was the only way I could guarantee you'd never figure it out."
"And yet I did. Took me a long time, but it was the only logical solution. Had I died that day, I would never have known... and that would have killed me," Sherlock said. He ran his thumb across John's forehead, catching water before it got to his eyes. "Brilliant game, John. You are... something. I haven't decided what yet."
John let out a pant and then a gasp, his eyes being forcefully pulled to Sherlock's lips. "You'll figure it out."
"Well," Sherlock said, and his lips tugged up on the right. "Can I suggest a different game of sorts for the time being?"
He leaned slowly forward, and John nodded slowly, then rapidly. Sherlock smiled more, a deep chuckle coming from his throat, and then they were kissing for the second time ever, almost two years later. John grabbed Sherlock, feeling his arms, his shoulders, his back. Feeling him to prove that he was solid, here,... alive.
"You're alive," John huffed out when Sherlock pulled back to breathe deeply.
Sherlock made a grunted approval of a noise. "I heard you on the phone. I knew you were in trouble, and I couldn't very well die knowing you could be following me there. I don't know how it happened the first time, but suddenly all your comments about changing the past came to me, and I knew I had to live. So I changed it."
"But nothing changed. Moriarty still came after me." A drop of water hit John's nose when it fell from Sherlock's hair. He loved it and gripped Sherlock's silky shirt cover arm as he moved closer for the chance of it happening again.
"Moriarty is a psychopath," Sherlock answered, voice dangerously low. "You still started working on the case. I knew your timeline and worked around it so we'd never meet and your time would progress smoothly, but my death or life changed nothing for Moriarty."
"My time?" John asked, and he felt a bubble of betrayal in his gut. "Why did you mind my time? You could have talked to me, could have let me know you were alive! I went through hell with grief over you!" He released Sherlock's arms and pulled away from him as though Sherlock had physically shocked him.
"Things would be different if I'd interfered," Sherlock said. He didn't follow John's steps, didn't reach out for him. He just watched while John took more steps away and ran his hands through his hair.
"What would be different?" he asked. "What could possibly have gone wrong if you'd just come and talked to me?"
"You wouldn't love me."
Sherlock's voice was so unemotional, so matter-of-fact, and his face was open, relaxed, but revealed no feelings. He might as well have been commenting on the God damned weather. He watched John absorb the answer like he may watch a child's movie, with mild interest.
"Wouldn't-," John lost his voice and his chest heaved once. He dropped his hands to his side. "Wouldn't love you?"
For the first time, Sherlock seemed to doubt. His lips became thinner, his forehead ever so slightly creased. "Was I wrong? I'm sorry. I thought-"
"Shut up, Sherlock," John ordered, sighing and rubbed his face. "Why wouldn't I love you if you talked to me?"
"Well obviously you'd have thought my phone calls were lies. I wouldn't be some mysterious past caller. I'd be the bloke downstairs who set the flat on fire. I left my casework on Moriarty, traveled, did freelance work elsewhere all so you'd have at least a similar timeline... Although by your reactions, I'm assuming nothing changed for you." Sherlock paused, considering this. "You still thought I'd died."
"Bloody right I did," John said with a grunt. "Your brother told me the day after Christmas."
"My brother has never met you," Sherlock amended, and a small smile played with his lips at John's confused sound of a response. The doctor squinted at Sherlock a bit, trying to remember. The more he tried, the foggier his memories of Mycroft became. He still remembered the older Holmes, but the specifics of conversation scampered from his questioning mind. He tried again, this time thinking about the day Sherlock died... and found that too was cloudy.
"But-," John began and then stopped himself, unsure of how to continue. He remembered the bullet in his shoulder, the lamp sparking as his phone crashed into it, the sight of Moriarty running down the street and Raz's panicked apologies, but he could not clearly remember the sight of Sherlock on the ground. He knew Sherlock had died, had slipped away before his very eyes, but the haunting image would not come from the recesses of his memory.
quot;Time has shifted, my dear John. I kept him out of your life for your own sanity.. Although I guess my efforts were in vain. You still remember the old timeline."
"I'm not following." John took a deep breath. Timelines. Sherlock was alive in this one, but he'd actually been dead before? It wasn't all some trick? Mycroft didn't know him? But before they've spoken at least once a month. Lestrade, Molly, Irene, Raz - would any of them know him now? What was different in this timeline? Why did John still remember the old one?
"As far as I can tell, the timelines are nearly identical. I still sent you on the scavenger hunt at Valentine's Day. My messages still made it into your hands. The only difference would be my living instead of dying. By my guess, the only reason you still recall any of my death is because you and I were at the center of the temporal shift." Sherlock folded his hands behind his back. "Are you angry with me?"
"What?" John tilted his head to the side and then straightened up again. "What? No. Of course not. You're alive. It's a miracle! I'm just wondering about the messages."
"What about them?" Sherlock asked.
"Well I never got the last one," John explained. "Recording... one."
Was it possible for Sherlock to look embarrassed and totally calm at the same time? "I mailed that one. It should have arrived before recording 8, where you learned I knew of my fate. Honestly, I thought that was the reason you quit speaking to me. I should've known the post would be unreliable."
"I stopped calling you because you kept talking about death as an absolute, and I couldn't handle the stress. Idiot." John shook his head and took a step closer to Sherlock. "What was so bad in the last message?"
The pale man gave a noncommittal shrug. "It was the recording explaining my feelings for you. Even so long ago, I knew where this relationship was headed. Irene was furious. I'd never taken an interest in anyone, male or female, but something about you sparked something within me." He took a shallow breath. "Recording one was about my affections for you."
Now it was John's turn for shallow breathing. His chest couldn't concentrate long enough for deep breaths. Sherlock's affections? Sherlock... had assumed, correctly, that John loved him. Of course that had to mean - "Oh sod it," he said and closed the distance between them once more.
He grabbed Sherlock by his shoulders and leaned in for a kiss. Sherlock's hands, while strong, were placed tentatively on John's waist as the detective leaned down and accepted the kiss. It was only one - one simple, solid kiss, and then John pulled Sherlock closer and just hugged him.
Sherlock's arms around him were long, firm, and warm. Every reminder that Sherlock was here and alive made John's heart speed up, and he could only hold on tighter, burying his head into whatever part of that slim torso was nearest.
"I missed you," Sherlock admitted quietly in his deep voice.
"Idiot," John scolded. "God, I missed you too."
The End
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