Out of Service - Sherlock - John/Moriarty
Title: Out of Service
Pairing: John/Moriarty
Word Count: 3560
Rating: R
A/N: Written for the "phone sex" square of my kink_bingo card.
Summary: John starts to receive obscene phone calls in the middle of the night.
It's 1am.
It's 1am and his mobile is ringing.
Lying on his front, John's eyes crack open to stare with bleary vision in the direction of the offending noise. A phone call at this time of night can mean one of two things: a death in the family, or that Sherlock is bored.
All recent experience says that it is most likely to be the latter, but he fumbles for the phone anyway, just in case. His thumb presses the button to answer the call, and he mumbles a greeting when he presses it against his ear.
The voice on the other end of the line makes his eyes snap open immediately. Sleep is gone.
"John! You're awake."
The voice taps into memories of capture and fear buried at the back of John's mind. He usually doesn't think about what happened with Moriarty: thugs bundling him into the back of a car or the weight of Semtex around his chest. The sound of that voice, gleeful and happy in his ear, brings it all back.
"What do you want?" he asks - and he's carefully controlled, carefully emotionless. He won't give Moriarty the satisfaction of thinking he's scared of him, not ever.
"Thought we should catch up," Moriarty answers breathlessly. John frowns; he sounds as if he's running.
When he realises what the sound really is, his frown becomes a grimace. Behind the heavy breathing there is the slick sound of a hand on bare flesh. "You're disgusting," he answers.
He doesn't hang up. For all he knows, Moriarty has a bomb planted somewhere in his room. It seems his style.
"Oh, John, I'm disappointed," Moriarty pants. "You're a doctor. Masturbation is an entirely normal physical activity. You don't want to give me a complex."
"I doubt you need any help on that front," John says. Moriarty groans into the phone; John holds it away from his ear, but that doesn't help to protect him. His instincts want to wipe the entire thing down. "I'm hanging up now. Don't phone me again."
"John," Moriarty gasps. "If you hang up, I'll blow up a building."
From anyone else, that would be an empty threat. From Moriarty, it makes him hesitate. "You're sick."
"So they tell me." The sound continues, rapid-fire squelching, and John tries hard not to think of Moriarty hunched over with one hand on his cock and the other holding his phone against his ear. It's not an image he wants in his mind. "Are you going to tell me what you're wearing?"
"Piss off," John snaps without thinking about it.
Moriarty moans into the phone and it opens into a cry, then panting silence. John presses his lips together sternly, refusing to talk, trying to focus his mind instead into what it is that he needs to do tomorrow.
"That was gorgeous," Moriarty sighs, self-satisfied and slurred. "Talk to you later."
He hangs up without waiting for a response, leaving John fully awake in his bed with the possibility of getting back to sleep long gone.
(he's stiff beneath the covers, but the less said about that the better, as far as he's concerned.)
*
He's heading for the tube station when his phone begins to trill in his pocket; fumbling for it, he can already tell that Sherlock must have ran out of something in the kitchen and is going to demand that he renews the supplies immediately: it could be a matter of life or death, he will say, and John can still never tell when to believe him.
On the phone's screen, the number is unknown and withheld. It makes John's stomach clench immediately.
He pauses walking and edges out of the way of the streaming crowd, before he presses the right button to answer the call.
His ear is immediately assaulted with the sound of moaning and wet, sloppy sex. It's obscene and he's in public - his face reddens instantly, pink right to the tips of his ears.
"John," Moriarty sing-songs, exhaling his name in a long, contented moan. "I was just thinking about you."
John can hear sucking sounds, and a muffled groan. There is music playing quietly in the background; he can imagine Moriarty stretched out on sinfully red sheets, and then he doesn't want to imagine anything more at all. He looks around his surroundings. The commuting crowd doesn't seem to have any idea of what he's listening to.
"What are you doing?" he asks, before remembering that he doesn't want to hear the answer to that question. "Why are you phoning me?"
Moriarty chuckles. It's a warm sound: affectionate. "I've got a gorgeous young thing sucking my cock," he says. "It made me want to talk to you."
As an answer, it is far from satisfactory.
"You can't do this. It's harassment."
"Are you going to set the police on me?" Moriarty asks. He groans again; John gets the unsettling idea that his complaining is only turning him on more. "Will you send Sherlock after me? Or little Lestrade?"
"What is this about?"
It's not about sex, John knows that much. If Moriarty is anything like Sherlock, sex is secondary to all other objectives - and, as much as John might like to deny it, Moriarty and Sherlock are more alike than he can stand.
Moriarty pants and groans without answering; only the thought of blood and bombs stop John from hanging up. He doesn't want to be listening to this.
"I should get someone like you," Moriarty pants. "Someone to follow me around, do my bidding."
"Don't you have minions already?" John manages to keep his voice void of emotion. His face is blank. "I seem to remember a lot of snipers prepared to aim at my friend's head."
"Anyone can hire an assassin. You're different - more than that. There's loyalty. There's-"
John never gets to find out what is supposed to be at the end of that thought; Moriarty grunts and cuts himself off, and the sound of it is so visceral that John can almost see his face, red and creased from orgasm.
"Go on, get out; your money's on the sideboard," Moriarty says, his panting voice slightly muted - phone held away from his face, covered with his hand John would imagine. It doesn't stop him from hearing the words, and knowing exactly what kind of person Moriarty had to share a bed with.
John hears the sound of shuffling bedsheets and hopping footsteps. He glances at his watch; if he doesn't get moving soon, he's going to be late for dinner - not that it matters. Once he tells Sherlock about this, the prospect of eating is probably going to go out of the window. All they'll get to do is run madly after ghostly leads.
"Can I go?" he asks, when Moriarty doesn't seem in a rush to get back to the phone. "Only, I've actually got a life I'm supposed to be living."
There are a few more moments of shuffling sounds, before Moriarty comes back. "Sorry about that. It's always so awkward, getting them out of your room afterwards, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't know."
Moriarty replies with a hum that sounds thoughtful - and, no, John doesn't like that sound at all. Moriarty thinking about anything to do with him isn't going to end well.
"I really do have to go," John says. It comes out sounding apologetic, which isn't right. He isn't sorry about it; he doesn't want to hang about. What he wants is to go home to a nice, warm shower, to wash the filth from his ears.
He can hear Moriarty's smile. "Talk to you soon, John." He says his name like a sweet caress.
John doesn't bother to say goodbye. He hangs up, shoves his phone into his pocket, and gets the first tube home.
*
Sherlock is delighted, of course.
"Tell me everything, John. Every detail. Don't miss a single thing out."
It's not particularly an experience that John wants to relive, but he does as he's asked. There is something a little obscene about how excited Sherlock is about the whole thing; it makes John feel like he's a pawn in the middle of their twisted sex games. He's not a big fan of being a pawn in anything.
"What does it mean, then?" he asks. "What is he up to?"
For all that he has been examining him, Sherlock's answer is a vague sweep of his hands. "I'd say he's taken a fancy to you," he says.
And, no, that is not acceptable.
It must all be part of a plot to blow up the queen or take over the world; both are far more acceptable options.
Sherlock only stares at him blankly when he tries to suggest as much. "How would harassing you help with that?" he asks.
It's a fair point. John glares at him anyway. "We need to catch him," he says. "He needs to be in prison."
"I highly doubt that will ever happen. Moriarty is far too well connected to linger in a cell for long."
Sherlock doesn't sound quite as horrified by that as he ought to; he sounds impressed, actually. Not good, John thinks at him, but he hasn't yet acquired the ability to transmit his thoughts.
He leaves Sherlock late in the evening, and makes sure to turn off his cell phone before he goes to sleep. No more midnight calls. He never wants to hear the sound of Moriarty panting into his ear ever again.
*
"Call me Jim," Moriarty moans. "God, John, say my name."
"I will do nothing of the kind."
"You sound like a scandalised schoolmarm," Moriarty chuckles around a pleasured grunt. "I love it."
It's impossible to scold him without spurning him on. John opts for sullen silence.
"Ooh, not speaking to me now. Childish, so unlike you. Where's the brave soldier? Don't hide."
"I'm still on the phone, aren't I?" He'd always been crap at ignoring people. Harry could gleefully testify to that from their childhood falling-outs.
"Yes, it's ever so - ah, that's it - brave of you. Do you think I'll have someone killed if you hang up?"
"It's crossed my mind."
"I would," Moriarty agrees happily. "I'd have London burned to the ground if I had to."
"How romantic."
"I could be romantic too. Whatever you want."
"I want you to stop phoning me, actually."
"Well. Anything other than that."
"This is harassment. It's stalking."
"John. I've had dozens of people murdered."
On the scale of things, a few obscene phone calls are hardly a blotch on Moriarty's moral record. That doesn't make John feel any better.
"Would you come and see me if I asked?" Moriarty asks, blurting it out with high-pitched breathlessness that John recognises as meaning he's near orgasm.
John's fingertips tingle; he knows that feeling, as a sea of calm washes over him. He had lived for months in that calm haze while he was at war. When violence and danger threatens, the calm is what keeps a man alive.
"Would I have a choice?"
Moriarty groans, muffled and bitten back like he's trying to draw it out. "Yes. Yes, you get a choice. I'm not going to force you, I promise, I won't. I- Oh, fuck."
Moriarty's moan is followed by a clatter as he drops the phone to the floor. John sighs and looks at his watch. He's going to start falling asleep at work if this keeps up.
"Good night, Jim," he says pointedly when Moriarty comes back to him.
Moriarty gives a happy sigh at the sound of his name. "Good night, John."
(if John is smiling when he hangs up the phone, he would never admit to it, could never admit to it.)
*
On reflection, he perhaps should have known that something was up after a sleek black car followed him for most of his walk between the supermarket and home. In reality, however, he has his hands weighed down with several bags of shopping and his thoughts are preoccupied with mentally cursing Sherlock for not helping out.
It's only when the car slows to a crawl along the kerb that he notices it. The back door swings open, and a grinning face peers out at him.
John hasn't seen Moriarty in the flesh since the night at the swimming pool, despite hearing his voice almost nightly; the sight of him still makes the hairs on his arm stand on end. He clutches tighter to the handles of his plastic shopping bags, wishing for a gun, wishing for something that might help.
"D'you want a hand?" Moriarty offers, nodding towards his groceries. "We're heading your way."
John looks along the road and then back to the car. "I don't believe you."
"Good, I'm lying. Get in the car." When John continues to hesitate, Moriarty sighs at him. "Should I remind you that I'm heavily armed?"
John rolls his eyes, wonders why he doesn't feel scared, and does as he's told. The cool air conditioning wraps around him once he shuts the door behind himself. He takes a deep breath, and the car eases forward. His shopping bags slump around his feet.
"So what now, then?" John asks. "Are you going to strap a bomb to me, or jerk off during the conversation? It's hard to tell with you."
"I could do both at once." Moriarty's smile is wide and manic. "Might be quite a turn-on, actually. I loved you in that coat."
A muscle in John's jaw twitches. "I could have died."
"Exactly. How thrilling is that? Don't you and Sherlock go and knock one out together after your exploits? You must."
He's fishing, John can tell as much from his tone; Moriarty genuinely doesn't know. Maybe that is a world first, or something like it. He has to wrestle a smug smile from his own face. Taunting the psychopath wouldn't be the smartest move ever.
"I don't think I want to talk about my sex life with you," he says calmly.
Moriarty taps his fingers against his knee in unease. "I'd be jealous if you did," he says. "I might try to kill him again. I mean, I wouldn't 'try' to kill him. I'd do it, and properly this time."
John keeps his breathing calm and steady. His skin is tingling; he remembers the sun on the back of his neck and the metal of a gun in his hands. Those memories are long-gone now. The world isn't so simple any more, not for him.
"If you hurt Sherlock, ever, I will..." He doesn't have anything to threaten Moriarty with. The sparkling glee in the man's eyes says that he knows as much as well. John swallows. "I will never acknowledge your existence again."
Moriarty gives a half-laugh, curious but flat. "What?"
"You can phone me, abduct me, point as many guns at my head as you like. If anything happens to him - to anyone, actually - then that's it. As far as I'm concerned, you'll stop existing."
Moriarty gives another dull trill of laughter, but there's an edge of panic to it now. "John - "
"C'mon, take me home. You can talk to me tonight. With your clothes on, preferably." He doesn't know what he's doing. It's like his tongue has taken over, acting of its own accord, and plans are being made without permission from him.
An uncertain smile flickers on Moriarty's face, real instead of fake. "Really? We'll - talk?"
"Yes. I think, after today, I'll have a lot to talk about." A lot to complain about, actually, since Sherlock isn't exactly the perfect person to unload his annoyances onto. Half of the time, Sherlock doesn't hear a word that he says.
Seeing the way that Moriarty looks at him, bright-eyed and hopeful, makes John think (know) that he'll listen. He doesn't feel as bad as he should about taking advantage of that.
When Moriarty drops him and his shopping off outside 221b, John even makes sure to wave.
*
Moriarty calls that night, and they talk about stubborn patients and the damnable public transport in this city. It's an hour before they hang up, but Moriarty still has one request:
"Jim, please: call me Jim."
It's an easy enough request to fulfill.
*
"It'll end badly," Sherlock predicts, lying on the sofa with the day's newspaper spread out over his belly. Draped in his dressing gown, he hasn't been out of the flat for at least three days. Soon enough, he's going to start to smell badly; John makes a mental note to man-handle him into the shower if he won't go willingly. "When someone gets killed, I'll -"
"Run around gleefully solving the murder?" John suggests. He sighs and shakes his head. "I know he's dangerous. He's tried to kill me before."
"But you don't think he'll do it again," Sherlock states. There's no question in his voice.
John looks down. His mouth opens and closes several times; he can't find the words that he wants, that he needs. "He thinks he cares about me," he says eventually. "I don't know if he's right about that. I mean, I don't know if he is even capable of caring, but..."
But he hadn't known if it was possible for Sherlock to care either.
(i'll burn the heart out of you still echoes in his mind.)
"I don't trust him. I'm not asking you to either." John is a lot of things, but he isn't a fool. He knows better than to trust a man like Moriarty. Sherlock's eyes, narrow with derision, seem to disagree with him. John shrugs. "Lestrade says that the city's crime rate has dipped recently."
It would be rash to draw any conclusions from that - and, in its own way, arrogant to assume that it's anything to do with him. But still... he can't help but think, the possibilities lurking on the edge of his mind.
Sherlock huffs dramatically as if he can hear what John is thinking, and he rolls over onto his side on the couch with a flowing wave of his robe. "This will end very badly," he states.
John can hardly disagree with him.
*
"I know exactly what you mean," Moriarty agrees eagerly, as John lounges on his bed with his phone pressed against his ear. "There should be a rule about walking on the pavement in groups. Fines for blocking my way."
John smiles, and doesn't comment on Moriarty's change of tactics; he imagines that previously he would have threatened bodily harm and the spilling of blood rather than a mere fine. These days, Moriarty seems to be very careful about what he says to him. The constant undercurrent of a threat has faded from his words.
It's been replaced instead with something eager and needy; near-frantic in laughing desperation, John almost feels sorry for threatening to start ignoring Moriarty. Almost.
"It's getting late," Moriarty says when the clock has wound long past midnight. "You've got work tomorrow; I should let you sleep."
"I won't bother asking how you know my work schedule," John sighs. With men like Sherlock and Moriarty in his life, he has had to adapt to the simple fact that he never has to tell anyone anything. They both will always already know. "But you're right. I'm going to be shattered as it is."
Despite that, he holds onto the phone. They've been talking for long enough that his palm is sweaty where it's pressed against the plastic.
His stomach flutters with butterflies.
"Right then." Moriarty clears his throat. "Good night, John."
"Wait." He's going to regret this. He really, really is. It's going to go back to Moriarty calling him during the day and forcing him to listen in on him getting head from a hooker; it's going to be awful. "Jim, I - "
He doesn't know what to say. The words stick in his throat, but Moriarty waits patiently.
"Yes?" he prompts eventually, a lilting tease colouring his accent.
The sound of his voice, light again and confident, makes John smile. He holds it around him, warm and satisfying, and relaxes against his pillow as he asks. Jim gives a delighted laugh after the words come out; it makes John feel worth something for once. All for one question.
"So. What are you wearing?"
Pairing: John/Moriarty
Word Count: 3560
Rating: R
A/N: Written for the "phone sex" square of my kink_bingo card.
Summary: John starts to receive obscene phone calls in the middle of the night.
It's 1am.
It's 1am and his mobile is ringing.
Lying on his front, John's eyes crack open to stare with bleary vision in the direction of the offending noise. A phone call at this time of night can mean one of two things: a death in the family, or that Sherlock is bored.
All recent experience says that it is most likely to be the latter, but he fumbles for the phone anyway, just in case. His thumb presses the button to answer the call, and he mumbles a greeting when he presses it against his ear.
The voice on the other end of the line makes his eyes snap open immediately. Sleep is gone.
"John! You're awake."
The voice taps into memories of capture and fear buried at the back of John's mind. He usually doesn't think about what happened with Moriarty: thugs bundling him into the back of a car or the weight of Semtex around his chest. The sound of that voice, gleeful and happy in his ear, brings it all back.
"What do you want?" he asks - and he's carefully controlled, carefully emotionless. He won't give Moriarty the satisfaction of thinking he's scared of him, not ever.
"Thought we should catch up," Moriarty answers breathlessly. John frowns; he sounds as if he's running.
When he realises what the sound really is, his frown becomes a grimace. Behind the heavy breathing there is the slick sound of a hand on bare flesh. "You're disgusting," he answers.
He doesn't hang up. For all he knows, Moriarty has a bomb planted somewhere in his room. It seems his style.
"Oh, John, I'm disappointed," Moriarty pants. "You're a doctor. Masturbation is an entirely normal physical activity. You don't want to give me a complex."
"I doubt you need any help on that front," John says. Moriarty groans into the phone; John holds it away from his ear, but that doesn't help to protect him. His instincts want to wipe the entire thing down. "I'm hanging up now. Don't phone me again."
"John," Moriarty gasps. "If you hang up, I'll blow up a building."
From anyone else, that would be an empty threat. From Moriarty, it makes him hesitate. "You're sick."
"So they tell me." The sound continues, rapid-fire squelching, and John tries hard not to think of Moriarty hunched over with one hand on his cock and the other holding his phone against his ear. It's not an image he wants in his mind. "Are you going to tell me what you're wearing?"
"Piss off," John snaps without thinking about it.
Moriarty moans into the phone and it opens into a cry, then panting silence. John presses his lips together sternly, refusing to talk, trying to focus his mind instead into what it is that he needs to do tomorrow.
"That was gorgeous," Moriarty sighs, self-satisfied and slurred. "Talk to you later."
He hangs up without waiting for a response, leaving John fully awake in his bed with the possibility of getting back to sleep long gone.
(he's stiff beneath the covers, but the less said about that the better, as far as he's concerned.)
*
He's heading for the tube station when his phone begins to trill in his pocket; fumbling for it, he can already tell that Sherlock must have ran out of something in the kitchen and is going to demand that he renews the supplies immediately: it could be a matter of life or death, he will say, and John can still never tell when to believe him.
On the phone's screen, the number is unknown and withheld. It makes John's stomach clench immediately.
He pauses walking and edges out of the way of the streaming crowd, before he presses the right button to answer the call.
His ear is immediately assaulted with the sound of moaning and wet, sloppy sex. It's obscene and he's in public - his face reddens instantly, pink right to the tips of his ears.
"John," Moriarty sing-songs, exhaling his name in a long, contented moan. "I was just thinking about you."
John can hear sucking sounds, and a muffled groan. There is music playing quietly in the background; he can imagine Moriarty stretched out on sinfully red sheets, and then he doesn't want to imagine anything more at all. He looks around his surroundings. The commuting crowd doesn't seem to have any idea of what he's listening to.
"What are you doing?" he asks, before remembering that he doesn't want to hear the answer to that question. "Why are you phoning me?"
Moriarty chuckles. It's a warm sound: affectionate. "I've got a gorgeous young thing sucking my cock," he says. "It made me want to talk to you."
As an answer, it is far from satisfactory.
"You can't do this. It's harassment."
"Are you going to set the police on me?" Moriarty asks. He groans again; John gets the unsettling idea that his complaining is only turning him on more. "Will you send Sherlock after me? Or little Lestrade?"
"What is this about?"
It's not about sex, John knows that much. If Moriarty is anything like Sherlock, sex is secondary to all other objectives - and, as much as John might like to deny it, Moriarty and Sherlock are more alike than he can stand.
Moriarty pants and groans without answering; only the thought of blood and bombs stop John from hanging up. He doesn't want to be listening to this.
"I should get someone like you," Moriarty pants. "Someone to follow me around, do my bidding."
"Don't you have minions already?" John manages to keep his voice void of emotion. His face is blank. "I seem to remember a lot of snipers prepared to aim at my friend's head."
"Anyone can hire an assassin. You're different - more than that. There's loyalty. There's-"
John never gets to find out what is supposed to be at the end of that thought; Moriarty grunts and cuts himself off, and the sound of it is so visceral that John can almost see his face, red and creased from orgasm.
"Go on, get out; your money's on the sideboard," Moriarty says, his panting voice slightly muted - phone held away from his face, covered with his hand John would imagine. It doesn't stop him from hearing the words, and knowing exactly what kind of person Moriarty had to share a bed with.
John hears the sound of shuffling bedsheets and hopping footsteps. He glances at his watch; if he doesn't get moving soon, he's going to be late for dinner - not that it matters. Once he tells Sherlock about this, the prospect of eating is probably going to go out of the window. All they'll get to do is run madly after ghostly leads.
"Can I go?" he asks, when Moriarty doesn't seem in a rush to get back to the phone. "Only, I've actually got a life I'm supposed to be living."
There are a few more moments of shuffling sounds, before Moriarty comes back. "Sorry about that. It's always so awkward, getting them out of your room afterwards, isn't it?"
"I wouldn't know."
Moriarty replies with a hum that sounds thoughtful - and, no, John doesn't like that sound at all. Moriarty thinking about anything to do with him isn't going to end well.
"I really do have to go," John says. It comes out sounding apologetic, which isn't right. He isn't sorry about it; he doesn't want to hang about. What he wants is to go home to a nice, warm shower, to wash the filth from his ears.
He can hear Moriarty's smile. "Talk to you soon, John." He says his name like a sweet caress.
John doesn't bother to say goodbye. He hangs up, shoves his phone into his pocket, and gets the first tube home.
*
Sherlock is delighted, of course.
"Tell me everything, John. Every detail. Don't miss a single thing out."
It's not particularly an experience that John wants to relive, but he does as he's asked. There is something a little obscene about how excited Sherlock is about the whole thing; it makes John feel like he's a pawn in the middle of their twisted sex games. He's not a big fan of being a pawn in anything.
"What does it mean, then?" he asks. "What is he up to?"
For all that he has been examining him, Sherlock's answer is a vague sweep of his hands. "I'd say he's taken a fancy to you," he says.
And, no, that is not acceptable.
It must all be part of a plot to blow up the queen or take over the world; both are far more acceptable options.
Sherlock only stares at him blankly when he tries to suggest as much. "How would harassing you help with that?" he asks.
It's a fair point. John glares at him anyway. "We need to catch him," he says. "He needs to be in prison."
"I highly doubt that will ever happen. Moriarty is far too well connected to linger in a cell for long."
Sherlock doesn't sound quite as horrified by that as he ought to; he sounds impressed, actually. Not good, John thinks at him, but he hasn't yet acquired the ability to transmit his thoughts.
He leaves Sherlock late in the evening, and makes sure to turn off his cell phone before he goes to sleep. No more midnight calls. He never wants to hear the sound of Moriarty panting into his ear ever again.
*
"Call me Jim," Moriarty moans. "God, John, say my name."
"I will do nothing of the kind."
"You sound like a scandalised schoolmarm," Moriarty chuckles around a pleasured grunt. "I love it."
It's impossible to scold him without spurning him on. John opts for sullen silence.
"Ooh, not speaking to me now. Childish, so unlike you. Where's the brave soldier? Don't hide."
"I'm still on the phone, aren't I?" He'd always been crap at ignoring people. Harry could gleefully testify to that from their childhood falling-outs.
"Yes, it's ever so - ah, that's it - brave of you. Do you think I'll have someone killed if you hang up?"
"It's crossed my mind."
"I would," Moriarty agrees happily. "I'd have London burned to the ground if I had to."
"How romantic."
"I could be romantic too. Whatever you want."
"I want you to stop phoning me, actually."
"Well. Anything other than that."
"This is harassment. It's stalking."
"John. I've had dozens of people murdered."
On the scale of things, a few obscene phone calls are hardly a blotch on Moriarty's moral record. That doesn't make John feel any better.
"Would you come and see me if I asked?" Moriarty asks, blurting it out with high-pitched breathlessness that John recognises as meaning he's near orgasm.
John's fingertips tingle; he knows that feeling, as a sea of calm washes over him. He had lived for months in that calm haze while he was at war. When violence and danger threatens, the calm is what keeps a man alive.
"Would I have a choice?"
Moriarty groans, muffled and bitten back like he's trying to draw it out. "Yes. Yes, you get a choice. I'm not going to force you, I promise, I won't. I- Oh, fuck."
Moriarty's moan is followed by a clatter as he drops the phone to the floor. John sighs and looks at his watch. He's going to start falling asleep at work if this keeps up.
"Good night, Jim," he says pointedly when Moriarty comes back to him.
Moriarty gives a happy sigh at the sound of his name. "Good night, John."
(if John is smiling when he hangs up the phone, he would never admit to it, could never admit to it.)
*
On reflection, he perhaps should have known that something was up after a sleek black car followed him for most of his walk between the supermarket and home. In reality, however, he has his hands weighed down with several bags of shopping and his thoughts are preoccupied with mentally cursing Sherlock for not helping out.
It's only when the car slows to a crawl along the kerb that he notices it. The back door swings open, and a grinning face peers out at him.
John hasn't seen Moriarty in the flesh since the night at the swimming pool, despite hearing his voice almost nightly; the sight of him still makes the hairs on his arm stand on end. He clutches tighter to the handles of his plastic shopping bags, wishing for a gun, wishing for something that might help.
"D'you want a hand?" Moriarty offers, nodding towards his groceries. "We're heading your way."
John looks along the road and then back to the car. "I don't believe you."
"Good, I'm lying. Get in the car." When John continues to hesitate, Moriarty sighs at him. "Should I remind you that I'm heavily armed?"
John rolls his eyes, wonders why he doesn't feel scared, and does as he's told. The cool air conditioning wraps around him once he shuts the door behind himself. He takes a deep breath, and the car eases forward. His shopping bags slump around his feet.
"So what now, then?" John asks. "Are you going to strap a bomb to me, or jerk off during the conversation? It's hard to tell with you."
"I could do both at once." Moriarty's smile is wide and manic. "Might be quite a turn-on, actually. I loved you in that coat."
A muscle in John's jaw twitches. "I could have died."
"Exactly. How thrilling is that? Don't you and Sherlock go and knock one out together after your exploits? You must."
He's fishing, John can tell as much from his tone; Moriarty genuinely doesn't know. Maybe that is a world first, or something like it. He has to wrestle a smug smile from his own face. Taunting the psychopath wouldn't be the smartest move ever.
"I don't think I want to talk about my sex life with you," he says calmly.
Moriarty taps his fingers against his knee in unease. "I'd be jealous if you did," he says. "I might try to kill him again. I mean, I wouldn't 'try' to kill him. I'd do it, and properly this time."
John keeps his breathing calm and steady. His skin is tingling; he remembers the sun on the back of his neck and the metal of a gun in his hands. Those memories are long-gone now. The world isn't so simple any more, not for him.
"If you hurt Sherlock, ever, I will..." He doesn't have anything to threaten Moriarty with. The sparkling glee in the man's eyes says that he knows as much as well. John swallows. "I will never acknowledge your existence again."
Moriarty gives a half-laugh, curious but flat. "What?"
"You can phone me, abduct me, point as many guns at my head as you like. If anything happens to him - to anyone, actually - then that's it. As far as I'm concerned, you'll stop existing."
Moriarty gives another dull trill of laughter, but there's an edge of panic to it now. "John - "
"C'mon, take me home. You can talk to me tonight. With your clothes on, preferably." He doesn't know what he's doing. It's like his tongue has taken over, acting of its own accord, and plans are being made without permission from him.
An uncertain smile flickers on Moriarty's face, real instead of fake. "Really? We'll - talk?"
"Yes. I think, after today, I'll have a lot to talk about." A lot to complain about, actually, since Sherlock isn't exactly the perfect person to unload his annoyances onto. Half of the time, Sherlock doesn't hear a word that he says.
Seeing the way that Moriarty looks at him, bright-eyed and hopeful, makes John think (know) that he'll listen. He doesn't feel as bad as he should about taking advantage of that.
When Moriarty drops him and his shopping off outside 221b, John even makes sure to wave.
*
Moriarty calls that night, and they talk about stubborn patients and the damnable public transport in this city. It's an hour before they hang up, but Moriarty still has one request:
"Jim, please: call me Jim."
It's an easy enough request to fulfill.
*
"It'll end badly," Sherlock predicts, lying on the sofa with the day's newspaper spread out over his belly. Draped in his dressing gown, he hasn't been out of the flat for at least three days. Soon enough, he's going to start to smell badly; John makes a mental note to man-handle him into the shower if he won't go willingly. "When someone gets killed, I'll -"
"Run around gleefully solving the murder?" John suggests. He sighs and shakes his head. "I know he's dangerous. He's tried to kill me before."
"But you don't think he'll do it again," Sherlock states. There's no question in his voice.
John looks down. His mouth opens and closes several times; he can't find the words that he wants, that he needs. "He thinks he cares about me," he says eventually. "I don't know if he's right about that. I mean, I don't know if he is even capable of caring, but..."
But he hadn't known if it was possible for Sherlock to care either.
(i'll burn the heart out of you still echoes in his mind.)
"I don't trust him. I'm not asking you to either." John is a lot of things, but he isn't a fool. He knows better than to trust a man like Moriarty. Sherlock's eyes, narrow with derision, seem to disagree with him. John shrugs. "Lestrade says that the city's crime rate has dipped recently."
It would be rash to draw any conclusions from that - and, in its own way, arrogant to assume that it's anything to do with him. But still... he can't help but think, the possibilities lurking on the edge of his mind.
Sherlock huffs dramatically as if he can hear what John is thinking, and he rolls over onto his side on the couch with a flowing wave of his robe. "This will end very badly," he states.
John can hardly disagree with him.
*
"I know exactly what you mean," Moriarty agrees eagerly, as John lounges on his bed with his phone pressed against his ear. "There should be a rule about walking on the pavement in groups. Fines for blocking my way."
John smiles, and doesn't comment on Moriarty's change of tactics; he imagines that previously he would have threatened bodily harm and the spilling of blood rather than a mere fine. These days, Moriarty seems to be very careful about what he says to him. The constant undercurrent of a threat has faded from his words.
It's been replaced instead with something eager and needy; near-frantic in laughing desperation, John almost feels sorry for threatening to start ignoring Moriarty. Almost.
"It's getting late," Moriarty says when the clock has wound long past midnight. "You've got work tomorrow; I should let you sleep."
"I won't bother asking how you know my work schedule," John sighs. With men like Sherlock and Moriarty in his life, he has had to adapt to the simple fact that he never has to tell anyone anything. They both will always already know. "But you're right. I'm going to be shattered as it is."
Despite that, he holds onto the phone. They've been talking for long enough that his palm is sweaty where it's pressed against the plastic.
His stomach flutters with butterflies.
"Right then." Moriarty clears his throat. "Good night, John."
"Wait." He's going to regret this. He really, really is. It's going to go back to Moriarty calling him during the day and forcing him to listen in on him getting head from a hooker; it's going to be awful. "Jim, I - "
He doesn't know what to say. The words stick in his throat, but Moriarty waits patiently.
"Yes?" he prompts eventually, a lilting tease colouring his accent.
The sound of his voice, light again and confident, makes John smile. He holds it around him, warm and satisfying, and relaxes against his pillow as he asks. Jim gives a delighted laugh after the words come out; it makes John feel worth something for once. All for one question.
"So. What are you wearing?"