FIC: The Illusion of Free Will (6/?)
Title: The Illusion of Free Will 6/?
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times? Messing with (what we can work out of) the canon timeline?
Summary: 29th May 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 33).
Sherlock looks over his shoulder, hoping the smile he gives John says everything that he can’t. “I should really tell you, if this is my last opportunity. I have to hope that it isn’t.”
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
29th May 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 33)
Sherlock had been to this pool only once before, after he dropped out of Cambridge at twenty-one, when he first came to London. He’s not sure why he went there, really. It wasn’t helpful, any evidence from the Carl Powers case was long gone by then. It was a rare moment of nostalgia, perhaps, for where he began as he was about to strike out on his own and establish himself in the position he invented because no other would fit.
Everything he had worked out about the Carl Powers case had been from the information in the newspapers in 1989, when he was just a boy. It gave him enough of an idea to be able to tell that something other than a seizure had happened to Carl Powers, something far more calculated. He hadn’t been allowed to go to London when he was just eight years old though. Mycroft wouldn’t take him, and it was difficult to make his own way there at that age.
It was John that made him drop his obsession, in the end. He told John all about the research he’d gathered during one of John’s visits and John had listened, patient as ever, before gently telling Sherlock he needed to let it go. He didn’t tell Sherlock that he was too young to be involved in such things like most of the adults Sherlock had spoken to, he just told him what Sherlock already knew - that his age would prevent anyone letting him get involved in such things.
He knows now that it was John’s first visit to him in the past. It helped him solve Moriarty’s shoe puzzle in the present when John told him the particulars of his visit after returning.
The stress of being unable to help the soon-to-be victims of Moriarty’s mind games mixed with his frustration with Sherlock over his apathy towards those same victims pushed John into travelling a few times after that.
He always returned without whatever fury or disappointment he left in, and Sherlock was glad for it while bitterly knowing that he can never live up to the innocence and promise of his younger self. John was enjoying the glimpses of a boy that no longer was. He probably thought that boy somehow redeemed the man Sherlock has become, and Sherlock has always known he’d be too selfish to tell John any differently when the time came.
He hopes leaving John out of this suicide mission is apology enough for that.
After learning the truth about Carl Powers, Sherlock couldn’t think of any other venue for his inevitable meeting with Moriarty. He remembered the layout of the building from 2002, but in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best place to choose for a blind meet with his self-styled arch-nemesis. There was a certain dramatic symmetry to it, of course, but strategically he’s made himself vulnerable. A lot could have changed from when he was last here. He should have chosen a more familiar venue to give himself more of an advantage going in. He’ll just have to hope that any disadvantage will be Moriarty’s too.
He looks around as he walks through the door, vigilant eyes flicking about for any sign of Moriarty. There are dozens of places he could be hiding. He glances upwards too, checking the balconies that overlook the pool.
It’s a peculiar place to be at night, empty and quiet, only the fluorescent strip lights creating any source of luminance and reflecting off the water. One light flickers above him. On and off, on and off. It’s distracting.
The stifling heat in the room is beginning to prickle at his skin. It’s warm enough that his palms are starting to sweat, and he holds the USB stick tightly so it doesn’t slip as he raises his arm to display it.
“Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present,” he calls out, voice echoing off the walls and water. “That’s what it’s all been for, hasn’t it? All your little puzzles, making me dance, all to distract me from this.”
He moves as he says it, still unsure where he should be directing his address. His back is turned to the pool when he hears a door open and shut with a metallic clang. He looks over his shoulder at the noise, still holding the memory stick aloft.
He looks over his shoulder and he sees John.
He sees John walk out from the changing rooms in a thick coat, hands in the pockets. His face is devoid of any emotion.
Sherlock suddenly feels like he’s the one to have been dosed with Botulinum toxin. His face is fixed in an expression of disbelief, his mouth won’t form words. He can’t lower his arm. His feet won’t shift from their current position.
It seems bitterness isn’t the only paralytic; he was wrong. Finally he understands what it truly means to be frozen in shock.
His mind has ground to a halt, he can’t think. He can barely breathe.
All he can think is: John was meant to be at Sarah’s. John was meant to be safe.
“Evening,” John says, his tone as flat and hollow as his features.
The sound of John’s voice, however foreign, seems to reboot Sherlock somewhat. His arm lowers as gravity takes effect to help him, but the rest of him remains stock-still, all his energy diverted to his brain as it starts back up, the usual rocketing engine chugging forward at a pitiful pace.
I’m here to meet Moriarty. John is here. John can’t be Moriarty.
John can’t be Moriarty.
John.
“This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?”
The single thought in his brain escaping from his mouth is how he finds he can move his lips again, as he lets out a hushed, desperate plea: “John.”
John cannot be Moriarty.
John is not Moriarty.
But this all started when John moved in, he only heard the name ‘Moriarty’ the day after he met John. What if that wasn’t a mere coincidence?
“What the hell-”
“Bet you never saw this coming.”
His lower limbs come back next, he’s got his full body under control once more. He walks forward a few uneasy steps, still confused, still shocked. He can’t contemplate this. This is John, his flatmate, his friend, the man who has already begun to visit him in the past.
John cannot be Moriarty.
He just can’t be. Sherlock cannot entertain the possibility for even a split-second, he can’t or he’ll go mad. He knows this is John Watson. Mycroft found him in Afghanistan, bleeding in a field hospital.
This is all a trick, it has to be. John’s face tells him that, his carefully blank expression melting into one of restrained anguish as he takes his hands out of his pockets and moves them (gloves, John doesn’t usually wear gloves) to hold open the coat…
Revealing a torso covered by a vest that carries the extensive wiring mechanism of a bomb.
A red dot meanders down over it - the laser sight of a sniper rifle.
Sherlock is back to paralysis again.
“What would you like me to make him say next?” John asks, the pauses between the words and the words themselves making it evident that Moriarty is talking in his ear, getting John to be his mouthpiece the way he did with his other victims.
“I have an idea,” John says slowly, eyes pinching shut and shaking his head as he listens to whatever Moriarty says next. “How-” John breaks off, shakes his head again. There’s a short silence before he opens his eyes wide, fixing them on Sherlock meaningfully, his bright gaze full of fear and apology. “How about ‘I love you’?”
John’s voice cracks on the last word and he shuts his eyes again tightly, bowing his head in shame.
Sherlock opens his mouth to retort why would I want to hear that, and nothing, absolutely nothing comes out except for a clicking noise from his dry throat . He clamps his mouth shut so hard that his teeth knock together painfully.
John speaks again with his eyes still closed. “Sherlock Holmes, speechless at last.”
“Stop it,” Sherlock says quietly when he regains the ability.
“But I’m having so much fun,” John is looking at Sherlock directly now, still with that awful regret shining out of his eyes. “I could make him say everything you’ve ever wanted him to say, would you like that?”
Sherlock finds himself moving forwards, moving towards John, looking around for Moriarty and the sniper (is Moriarty the sniper?) as he goes. He’s not going to play this game, he won’t let this be used against him. This isn’t a weakness, he won’t allow it to be.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, turning his head in all directions as he advances, searching for anything, any glimmer of movement. Moriarty has to be here, he would want to be here to see this.
“I think you do. Nice touch this, by the way. The pool where little Carl died. I stopped him.” The laser sight moves higher on John’s chest, points steadily at his heart. John visibly falters before giving the next bit of Moriarty’s narrative: “I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.”
“You do that,” Sherlock says, biting out the words, voice firmer than he’d hoped it might be, “and I will not rest until I stop yours. Now show me your face.”
The door opposite the one he came in through opens at the far end of the pool behind John.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” comes a lilting, sing-song voice. “Don’t you remember me? I gave you my number! I thought you might call…”
A man walks into the room, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. Sherlock recognises him instantly, though it’s quite a change from tinted eyelashes and garish green underwear.
“Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? Or,” the man grins, a flash of pointed, pearly teeth, “perhaps it’s John you’re pleased to see?”
Sherlock draws the gun from his trouser pocket and raises it to aim at Moriarty. “Oh, this is definitely all for you.”
The grin doesn’t falter. “I’m touched. Jim Moriarty. Hi.”
There’s not a lot for Sherlock to deduce about Moriarty - his accent is variable but clearly Irish, his voice is high-pitched but it drops, a hint of madness in the erratic speech pattern, his suit is pristine, clearly expensive, clearly designer. He’s either confident or careless, from the way he walks. Both, maybe.
“Jim?” Moriarty repeats, as if imitating what Sherlock isn’t saying in his silence. “Jim from the hospital?”
He continues to walk forwards along the poolside, moving closer towards them. Sherlock watches him advance, keeping half his attention on John, stoic and unflinching in the vest with his back to Moriarty.
Sherlock brings up his other hand to the pistol, the better to hold it steady.
“That’s where I figured it out,” Moriarty says, stopping a few feet from where John is standing. “In the lab. I know you were wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
Moriarty tilts his head and pouts. “Now you want to play games? All right,” he shrugs. “I know you were wondering how I figured out that you fancy yourself in love with him.”
Sherlock’s fingers tighten around the gun. He doesn’t dare glance at John, afraid of what he’ll see in his face. Anything but pity, anything but that.
It will hardly matter if John finds out if they’re both going to die here, but Sherlock isn’t planning to die today. He needs to cut this conversation off and quickly.
“You’ve got it completely wrong, how disappointing.”
“Oh, I haven’t. Before you met him, I happen to know that you spent at least four years searching for an army doctor, if not this one specifically. What happened, did you wake up one day with an unusual craving?”
Sherlock feels some of the blood leave his face, his stomach edging lower out of its usual position. How can he know about that? That was between him and Mycroft.
“Or rather,” Moriarty continues, “you had Big Brother searching. How did it feel, asking him for help? I don’t imagine it felt good.”
John’s gaze is a heavy weight on him, palpable in the tension, but Sherlock still can’t look at him, not when Moriarty is exposing him this badly.
“You weren’t very subtle about it, the pair of you. I managed to find out about your obsession without much effort, your brother obviously didn’t deem it worthy of much of a cover-up. Of course, most ordinary people wouldn’t be able to find out what you were up to. I doubt John here knows, unless you’ve told him.”
Moriarty reaches John as he says it and brings a palm down on John’s left shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees John wince, but he doesn’t jump.
“Imagine my surprise, Sherlock, discovering this search for an army doctor and then finding out that the second this one got invalided home he was moving in with you! What’s that all about? And then there’s the fact that, by all accounts, the two of you had never met before, so you’ve known each other for what? Two months now? Hardly long enough for our resident sociopath to form such an intense attachment that I would notice it on our first meeting.”
Sherlock thinks back to the lab, Molly introducing her new ‘boyfriend’ to him, him barely looking up from the microscope, dismissing Jim as gay… What sign had there been that he felt anything for John? He hadn’t even interacted with John while Moriarty was there.
“There was nothing to notice,” he says confidently.
Moriarty’s face positively lights up at that. “Silly, there was everything to notice. The first being your peculiar attentiveness towards him. You were looking down a microscope, but your head was angled towards him, just slightly. Was there a moment in that room when you weren’t aware of where he was? The way you’ve reacted to everything tonight has only confirmed it. I remember that he spoke for you, after you were so awfully rude to me. Looking at him now, he’s completely oblivious, isn’t he? He had no idea about this pathetic little crush you think you have on him.”
Sherlock flicks his eyes to John for a nanosecond, hoping he won’t be caught, but knowing he will be. John is looking straight at him, as predicted, and their eyes meet and hold. John doesn’t look angry, he just looks confused and sad, his lips just barely parted. He looks like he’s working out a complicated mental problem, like he’s revisiting all their previous exchanges and turning them over in his mind, looking for new meanings, things he previously thought were insignificant.
Sherlock fervently hopes he hasn’t been too transparent.
“Your powers of observation are evidently inferior to mine,” he says, trying to keep the usual coolness to his tone. “You’ve jumped to conclusions and ended up with the startlingly incorrect one that two plus two must equal five.”
“No, the conclusion I’ve come to is that you must have known him somehow before he met you. Why else would you be searching for an army doctor in Afghanistan prior to meeting him for what was supposed to be the first time? Why would you let him live with you and follow you around on your little cases? Why else would you act like you think you’re in love with him if it really had only been two months, after a lifetime of apparent celibacy and shunning just about all other human contact?”
“I would hardly expect you to understand.”
“I think I do, though. You see, I’ve begun to put this picture together. You and Big Brother, orchestrating this search. Johnny here getting shot, and all the reports about it being very patchy indeed. Him coming home and moving in with you. Tell me, did your brother organise for him to be shot?”
Sherlock is honestly surprised by the accusation. He looks to John automatically, he can’t help it, and finds John’s mouth open in shock, his focus shifted from Sherlock to Moriarty now. He’s listening to him, possibly believing what he’s hearing.
Organise for John to be shot? Sherlock would sooner organise a contract on his own life.
“I can’t work out why,” Moriarty continues, “but it seems like you wanted him in your life pretty badly. I’m sure you would have gone to the lengths necessary to get that, but I wonder how John feels about it, hmm? You can talk, Johnny boy. Go ahead.”
Moriarty moves forward and nudges John’s shoulder with his own. John edges away from him with a shudder of revulsion, closing his eyes at the unwelcome touch.
When he opens his eyes again, he looks to Sherlock, clearly seeking reassurance. He doesn’t speak. No doubt he’s been told not to talk at all, other than whatever poison Moriarty has been dripping into his ear.
Sherlock wonders what can he say himself. Yes, I was searching for you. No, I didn’t have you shot so you would be returned to me.
“You must know,” he ends up saying. “You must know that I wouldn’t.”
John has been upset with him for a while now - over his lack of care for the victims of the bombings, over his general refusal to be the one-dimensional hero John wants him to be. But John can’t really think that Sherlock would arrange anything that would directly hurt him. Or anyone, for that matter, without a good motive behind it. He’s not like Moriarty, he just doesn’t work that way.
Moriarty may be citing two months as too short a space of time to fall in love, and he may be right, but it’s enough time to develop an understanding with someone, if nothing else.
John’s mouth closes. His jaw is tight as he nods, certainty in his eyes.
“How moving,” Moriarty says, the lilting quality back to his voice, bright and mocking. “He believes you. He’s misplaced his loyalty in you though, Sherlock, hasn’t he? You’re not really in love with him, you’re not capable of that. He doesn’t know that you’re just like me. If it came to it, you’d trade his life for your own in a heartbeat.”
Said heartbeat makes itself known in his thumb against the gun as Sherlock grips the weapon with too much pressure at Moriarty’s words. His pulse thunders against the cool metal, wrong, wrong, wrong. It feels like a revelation, his own blood singing out the truth, but it’s nothing new, not really.
It’s always been the other way around for Sherlock, and he knows he’ll end up showing it. Tonight, probably.
John can travel. He’s already stressed, possibly even working to stay grounded already. If Sherlock can just ratchet up the tension a bit more, John will be gone. John will be safe.
“Perhaps,” he says, tilting the gun left and right in a so-so gesture, “but I’d rather trade yours.”
He takes aim steadily again. If he fires, the bullet will end up lodged right between Moriarty’s eyes. The laser point on John’s chest bobs - a warning.
“No, you wouldn’t. You need me, you need what I’ve shown you. I’ve given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on out there in the big bad world. I’m a specialist, you see. Like you!”
“I know. ‘Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover’s nasty sister?’ ‘Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America?’ Consulting criminal. Brilliant.”
Moriarty smiles: prideful, almost nostalgic. “Isn’t it? That’s why you need me, you need someone brilliant, someone just like you. But you’re getting in my way now, so this is a friendly warning, my dear: back off.”
“I will stop you,” Sherlock promises, but his eyes are on that laser sight.
The smile becomes a maniacal grin. “Not while I’m holding lover-boy hostage.”
Sherlock hasn’t looked at John since he didn’t immediately deny that he wouldn’t sacrifice John for his own sake. The disappointment in John’s eyes would be hard to bear, considering what he has to do now.
The plan is formulating: offer Moriarty the USB stick as a distraction, John will attempt to take Moriarty hostage, Moriarty will threaten Sherlock instead, John will back down, Sherlock will latch onto Moriarty then, dragging him away from John and he’ll point the gun ready to take them both down, with John far enough away that, when he fires, John will have just enough time to travel if he hasn’t already.
It’s not ideal, but he’ll eliminate Moriarty and save John. It’s the second best outcome he could have achieved.
Now to let it play out.
Eyes still fixed resolutely on Moriarty, Sherlock removes one hand from the pistol, reaching down to his pocket to hold out the memory stick. “Take it.”
“Oh, that,” Moriarty says, striding forwards to take the small, insignificant bit of plastic from Sherlock’s hand. “The missile plans!”
Moriarty brings the USB stick to his mouth, kissing it. He lowers it back down and considers it for a moment. “Boring!” he declares, flicking his hand to toss the memory stick into the pool. “I could have got those anywhere.”
This is the moment John chooses to lunge forward, bodily throwing himself at Moriarty’s back and wrapping both arms around him securely, one around his neck and the other around his chest.
“Sherlock, run!” he yells.
Sherlock had been expecting John to act at some point, but it still catches him slightly off-guard. He manages to keep the gun aimed correctly, even as he takes a small step back in surprise.
Moriarty actually laughs, like this is the best development he could have wished for. “Good,” he says. “Very good. Seems like he still believes in you despite everything!”
“If your sniper pulls that trigger, Mr Moriarty,” John is breathing hard as he speaks, trying to keep hold of his hostage, “then we both go up.”
“So ready to sacrifice himself for you,” Moriarty says, still speaking to Sherlock, the full force of his obsession breaking through as he barely blinks. “Maybe he does love you after all! Maybe it’s just that he’s your loyal pet. It doesn’t matter, because you’ve rather shown your hand there, Dr Watson.”
John’s eyes widen, the fire in them suddenly doused. Sherlock doesn’t have to be a genius to work out that there must be a little red dot dancing over his forehead, not with John’s fearful gaze trained there.
“Gotcha,” Moriarty says smugly.
John’s arms go loose at once and he steps back from Moriarty, raising his hands in surrender. Moriarty brushes both hands down over his suit to straighten it, irate.
Sherlock keeps the gun level, thinking about the next part of the plan. There could still be a way out for both him and John, if he says the right things. Moriarty is unpredictable enough and he’s talked as if he wants Sherlock alive. Someone brilliant, someone to challenge him.
Moriarty is speaking again. “D’you know what happens if you don’t leave me alone, Sherlock, to you?”
“Oh let me guess,” he drawls. “I get killed.”
Moriarty’s eyebrows lower and he looks briefly offended by the insinuation. “No, don’t be obvious. I mean, I’m going to kill you anyway, some day. I don’t want to rush it though, I’m saving it up for something special. No, no, no. If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burn you.”
He tips his head towards John pointedly, still standing with his hands high in surrender behind them. “I’ll burn the heart out of you.”
It’s a rather obvious metaphor, but Sherlock takes him at his word. He’s never feared that anyone might use John to get to him, so confident that his feelings were well-concealed, a secret to be shared between the two of them if it was ever to be shared at all. Looks like he was wrong. An unforgivable oversight on his part.
“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” he says softly, one last try for the safety afforded by denial.
Moriarty looks at him, mouth turned down as if in pity. “But we all know that’s not quite true. You most of all, Sherlock.”
Abruptly, his face changes, and he looks around the room as if searching for something for a moment. “Well, I’d better be off. It’s been nice to have a proper chat, but I’m sure you boys have a lot to discuss now.”
Sherlock raises the gun slightly. “What if I was to shoot you, right now?”
“Then you could fondly remember how surprised I looked,” Moriarty opens his mouth into a wide shocked ‘o’, raising his eyebrows. “Not for very long, of course, because killing me would be the end of your life too.” He begins to turn away, ready to leave. “So it’s goodbye for now, Sherlock Holmes.”
And with that he walks away, looking back only once before he heads through the door John came in through earlier on.
Sherlock keeps the pistol trained on him as he goes, walking forward after him to do so. “Catch… you… later.”
He points the gun at the empty doorway. Moriarty’s voice drifts back through, sing-song and childish: “No you won’t!”
The door closes. Sherlock waits for a few agonising seconds, waiting for Moriarty to come back. When nothing happens, he finally lets his eyes sweep over to John, instantly taking him in. Exhausted, relieved, mercifully unharmed. Still with a bloody bomb attached to him.
Sherlock drops the gun, ignores the way it clatters to the floor as he pitches forward, ending up on his knees before John and gets his shaking hands on the fastenings of the vest.
“All right?” he hears himself ask, voice hard and insistent.
He’s more aware of the words coming out of his mouth the second time, more urgent after John doesn’t reply, head tilted back as if he no longer possessed the muscle tone to keep it up. Sherlock’s fingers scrabble at the vest, desperate to unfasten it and get it away from John as quickly as possible. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” John answers, still panting, trembing under his hands, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
There’s a panicky feeling lodged somewhere around Sherlock’s throat as he stands, moving around John to pull the coat and vest off him. He tugs forcefully, breathing hard through his nose to match John’s gasps through his mouth.
“I’m fine,” John repeats, but he sounds very distant and quiet to Sherlock then, completely focused as he is on his task, still pulling at the coat and vest.
“You have to believe that everything he said was a lie,” Sherlock says loudly to cover the deafening white noise of panic in his ears. “You have to know that.”
“Sherlock, I-”
“You have to know, John.”
Finally, Sherlock manages to get the offending articles off of John, bending to hurl them away with all his might, satisfied when they skitter a good distance across the floor.
“Sherlock!”
The roaring in Sherlock’s ears dies down, the blockage in his throat recedes. He can breathe easy again. He turns back to John, looking at him almost blindly - no observations or deductions beyond whole, safe - before heading to pick up the gun again and then running through the door to the changing rooms after Moriarty.
He knows it’s hopeless even as he charges in there. It’s more of a check that he and John can relax for a moment rather than an attempt to chase and apprehend a criminal mastermind.
As he expected, Moriarty is long gone.
When he returns, John is slumped against the door of one of the changing cubicles. He’s squeezing his left hand with his right. Sherlock crouches down to his level at once, reaching out to grasp John’s shoulder in a futile attempt to ground him, to hold onto him.
“Are you going to travel?”
John shakes his head, but his face is twisted in a grimace of effort. “I’m calming down now. Is he gone?”
“We’re safe,” Sherlock says. “He’s-”
Sherlock stops dead and watches as John’s taut face slackens with horror. There is a red dot on John’s chest and, judging from John’s expression, he has a matching one.
John’s eyes are wide and frightened when he looks up from his own torso to meet Sherlock’s gaze. He shakes his left hand urgently before gripping Sherlock’s wrist with it, and Sherlock is overwhelmed with the most incongruous feeling of serenity. John is going to travel.
“Sorry, boys!” comes Moriarty’s exuberant voice from the opposite end of the pool. “I’m so changeable!”
“You’ll be safe,” Sherlock whispers, getting to his feet to face Moriarty and ignoring the frantic shaking of John’s head and the way John’s fingers pull at him to keep him down.
“Don’t-”
“It is a weakness with me,” Moriarty croons, “but, to be fair to me, it is my only weakness. What’s your weakness, Sherlock Holmes? I think I know.”
Sherlock once thought he had no weakness at all, but he knows now with everything in him that his only weakness is also his greatest strength, and also the greatest joy he’s ever known.
Of course we will, said a future version of John. That John gave so many hints and all but promised they would be together in the future, so Sherlock has to trust that what he is about to do now is the right thing.
“It’s no weakness,” Sherlock says. “You were wrong about me, you know.”
“Oh?” Moriarty sounds bored now. “Was I, really?”
“You said I’d trade John’s life for mine in a heartbeat, but…” Sherlock draws the gun again and points it steadily at the jacket on the ground between him and Moriarty. “I’d sooner die here and now.”
Moriarty laughs. “We’ll all die if you do that, you moron.”
“Not John.”
“Sherlock,” John’s weak voice says from behind him. “Please, don’t do this.”
Sherlock looks over his shoulder, hoping the smile he gives John says everything that he can’t. “I should really tell you, if this is my last opportunity. I have to hope that it isn’t.”
“Tell me what?” John asks desperately.
Sherlock turns his head back to face Moriarty without answering. The hand holding the gun doesn’t waiver as he tenses his finger, ready to pull the trigger. His resolve does though.
“Oh hell,” Sherlock says with a roll of his eyes. “I might as well. John-”
And that’s when the tinny sound of ‘Staying Alive’ breaks the standoff.
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock/John
Rating: NC-17 overall
Warnings/Spoilers: Bastardising of canon dialogue at times? Messing with (what we can work out of) the canon timeline?
Summary: 29th May 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 33).
Sherlock looks over his shoulder, hoping the smile he gives John says everything that he can’t. “I should really tell you, if this is my last opportunity. I have to hope that it isn’t.”
Disclaimer: This is the bit where they make me say I don't own anything. Sherlock is the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and, of course, the one and only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Time Traveler's Wife belongs to Audrey Niffenegger.
On AO3
29th May 2010 (Sherlock is 29, John is 33)
Sherlock had been to this pool only once before, after he dropped out of Cambridge at twenty-one, when he first came to London. He’s not sure why he went there, really. It wasn’t helpful, any evidence from the Carl Powers case was long gone by then. It was a rare moment of nostalgia, perhaps, for where he began as he was about to strike out on his own and establish himself in the position he invented because no other would fit.
Everything he had worked out about the Carl Powers case had been from the information in the newspapers in 1989, when he was just a boy. It gave him enough of an idea to be able to tell that something other than a seizure had happened to Carl Powers, something far more calculated. He hadn’t been allowed to go to London when he was just eight years old though. Mycroft wouldn’t take him, and it was difficult to make his own way there at that age.
It was John that made him drop his obsession, in the end. He told John all about the research he’d gathered during one of John’s visits and John had listened, patient as ever, before gently telling Sherlock he needed to let it go. He didn’t tell Sherlock that he was too young to be involved in such things like most of the adults Sherlock had spoken to, he just told him what Sherlock already knew - that his age would prevent anyone letting him get involved in such things.
He knows now that it was John’s first visit to him in the past. It helped him solve Moriarty’s shoe puzzle in the present when John told him the particulars of his visit after returning.
The stress of being unable to help the soon-to-be victims of Moriarty’s mind games mixed with his frustration with Sherlock over his apathy towards those same victims pushed John into travelling a few times after that.
He always returned without whatever fury or disappointment he left in, and Sherlock was glad for it while bitterly knowing that he can never live up to the innocence and promise of his younger self. John was enjoying the glimpses of a boy that no longer was. He probably thought that boy somehow redeemed the man Sherlock has become, and Sherlock has always known he’d be too selfish to tell John any differently when the time came.
He hopes leaving John out of this suicide mission is apology enough for that.
After learning the truth about Carl Powers, Sherlock couldn’t think of any other venue for his inevitable meeting with Moriarty. He remembered the layout of the building from 2002, but in hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best place to choose for a blind meet with his self-styled arch-nemesis. There was a certain dramatic symmetry to it, of course, but strategically he’s made himself vulnerable. A lot could have changed from when he was last here. He should have chosen a more familiar venue to give himself more of an advantage going in. He’ll just have to hope that any disadvantage will be Moriarty’s too.
He looks around as he walks through the door, vigilant eyes flicking about for any sign of Moriarty. There are dozens of places he could be hiding. He glances upwards too, checking the balconies that overlook the pool.
It’s a peculiar place to be at night, empty and quiet, only the fluorescent strip lights creating any source of luminance and reflecting off the water. One light flickers above him. On and off, on and off. It’s distracting.
The stifling heat in the room is beginning to prickle at his skin. It’s warm enough that his palms are starting to sweat, and he holds the USB stick tightly so it doesn’t slip as he raises his arm to display it.
“Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present,” he calls out, voice echoing off the walls and water. “That’s what it’s all been for, hasn’t it? All your little puzzles, making me dance, all to distract me from this.”
He moves as he says it, still unsure where he should be directing his address. His back is turned to the pool when he hears a door open and shut with a metallic clang. He looks over his shoulder at the noise, still holding the memory stick aloft.
He looks over his shoulder and he sees John.
He sees John walk out from the changing rooms in a thick coat, hands in the pockets. His face is devoid of any emotion.
Sherlock suddenly feels like he’s the one to have been dosed with Botulinum toxin. His face is fixed in an expression of disbelief, his mouth won’t form words. He can’t lower his arm. His feet won’t shift from their current position.
It seems bitterness isn’t the only paralytic; he was wrong. Finally he understands what it truly means to be frozen in shock.
His mind has ground to a halt, he can’t think. He can barely breathe.
All he can think is: John was meant to be at Sarah’s. John was meant to be safe.
“Evening,” John says, his tone as flat and hollow as his features.
The sound of John’s voice, however foreign, seems to reboot Sherlock somewhat. His arm lowers as gravity takes effect to help him, but the rest of him remains stock-still, all his energy diverted to his brain as it starts back up, the usual rocketing engine chugging forward at a pitiful pace.
I’m here to meet Moriarty. John is here. John can’t be Moriarty.
John can’t be Moriarty.
John.
“This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock?”
The single thought in his brain escaping from his mouth is how he finds he can move his lips again, as he lets out a hushed, desperate plea: “John.”
John cannot be Moriarty.
John is not Moriarty.
But this all started when John moved in, he only heard the name ‘Moriarty’ the day after he met John. What if that wasn’t a mere coincidence?
“What the hell-”
“Bet you never saw this coming.”
His lower limbs come back next, he’s got his full body under control once more. He walks forward a few uneasy steps, still confused, still shocked. He can’t contemplate this. This is John, his flatmate, his friend, the man who has already begun to visit him in the past.
John cannot be Moriarty.
He just can’t be. Sherlock cannot entertain the possibility for even a split-second, he can’t or he’ll go mad. He knows this is John Watson. Mycroft found him in Afghanistan, bleeding in a field hospital.
This is all a trick, it has to be. John’s face tells him that, his carefully blank expression melting into one of restrained anguish as he takes his hands out of his pockets and moves them (gloves, John doesn’t usually wear gloves) to hold open the coat…
Revealing a torso covered by a vest that carries the extensive wiring mechanism of a bomb.
A red dot meanders down over it - the laser sight of a sniper rifle.
Sherlock is back to paralysis again.
“What would you like me to make him say next?” John asks, the pauses between the words and the words themselves making it evident that Moriarty is talking in his ear, getting John to be his mouthpiece the way he did with his other victims.
“I have an idea,” John says slowly, eyes pinching shut and shaking his head as he listens to whatever Moriarty says next. “How-” John breaks off, shakes his head again. There’s a short silence before he opens his eyes wide, fixing them on Sherlock meaningfully, his bright gaze full of fear and apology. “How about ‘I love you’?”
John’s voice cracks on the last word and he shuts his eyes again tightly, bowing his head in shame.
Sherlock opens his mouth to retort why would I want to hear that, and nothing, absolutely nothing comes out except for a clicking noise from his dry throat . He clamps his mouth shut so hard that his teeth knock together painfully.
John speaks again with his eyes still closed. “Sherlock Holmes, speechless at last.”
“Stop it,” Sherlock says quietly when he regains the ability.
“But I’m having so much fun,” John is looking at Sherlock directly now, still with that awful regret shining out of his eyes. “I could make him say everything you’ve ever wanted him to say, would you like that?”
Sherlock finds himself moving forwards, moving towards John, looking around for Moriarty and the sniper (is Moriarty the sniper?) as he goes. He’s not going to play this game, he won’t let this be used against him. This isn’t a weakness, he won’t allow it to be.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, turning his head in all directions as he advances, searching for anything, any glimmer of movement. Moriarty has to be here, he would want to be here to see this.
“I think you do. Nice touch this, by the way. The pool where little Carl died. I stopped him.” The laser sight moves higher on John’s chest, points steadily at his heart. John visibly falters before giving the next bit of Moriarty’s narrative: “I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.”
“You do that,” Sherlock says, biting out the words, voice firmer than he’d hoped it might be, “and I will not rest until I stop yours. Now show me your face.”
The door opposite the one he came in through opens at the far end of the pool behind John.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” comes a lilting, sing-song voice. “Don’t you remember me? I gave you my number! I thought you might call…”
A man walks into the room, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. Sherlock recognises him instantly, though it’s quite a change from tinted eyelashes and garish green underwear.
“Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me? Or,” the man grins, a flash of pointed, pearly teeth, “perhaps it’s John you’re pleased to see?”
Sherlock draws the gun from his trouser pocket and raises it to aim at Moriarty. “Oh, this is definitely all for you.”
The grin doesn’t falter. “I’m touched. Jim Moriarty. Hi.”
There’s not a lot for Sherlock to deduce about Moriarty - his accent is variable but clearly Irish, his voice is high-pitched but it drops, a hint of madness in the erratic speech pattern, his suit is pristine, clearly expensive, clearly designer. He’s either confident or careless, from the way he walks. Both, maybe.
“Jim?” Moriarty repeats, as if imitating what Sherlock isn’t saying in his silence. “Jim from the hospital?”
He continues to walk forwards along the poolside, moving closer towards them. Sherlock watches him advance, keeping half his attention on John, stoic and unflinching in the vest with his back to Moriarty.
Sherlock brings up his other hand to the pistol, the better to hold it steady.
“That’s where I figured it out,” Moriarty says, stopping a few feet from where John is standing. “In the lab. I know you were wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
Moriarty tilts his head and pouts. “Now you want to play games? All right,” he shrugs. “I know you were wondering how I figured out that you fancy yourself in love with him.”
Sherlock’s fingers tighten around the gun. He doesn’t dare glance at John, afraid of what he’ll see in his face. Anything but pity, anything but that.
It will hardly matter if John finds out if they’re both going to die here, but Sherlock isn’t planning to die today. He needs to cut this conversation off and quickly.
“You’ve got it completely wrong, how disappointing.”
“Oh, I haven’t. Before you met him, I happen to know that you spent at least four years searching for an army doctor, if not this one specifically. What happened, did you wake up one day with an unusual craving?”
Sherlock feels some of the blood leave his face, his stomach edging lower out of its usual position. How can he know about that? That was between him and Mycroft.
“Or rather,” Moriarty continues, “you had Big Brother searching. How did it feel, asking him for help? I don’t imagine it felt good.”
John’s gaze is a heavy weight on him, palpable in the tension, but Sherlock still can’t look at him, not when Moriarty is exposing him this badly.
“You weren’t very subtle about it, the pair of you. I managed to find out about your obsession without much effort, your brother obviously didn’t deem it worthy of much of a cover-up. Of course, most ordinary people wouldn’t be able to find out what you were up to. I doubt John here knows, unless you’ve told him.”
Moriarty reaches John as he says it and brings a palm down on John’s left shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, Sherlock sees John wince, but he doesn’t jump.
“Imagine my surprise, Sherlock, discovering this search for an army doctor and then finding out that the second this one got invalided home he was moving in with you! What’s that all about? And then there’s the fact that, by all accounts, the two of you had never met before, so you’ve known each other for what? Two months now? Hardly long enough for our resident sociopath to form such an intense attachment that I would notice it on our first meeting.”
Sherlock thinks back to the lab, Molly introducing her new ‘boyfriend’ to him, him barely looking up from the microscope, dismissing Jim as gay… What sign had there been that he felt anything for John? He hadn’t even interacted with John while Moriarty was there.
“There was nothing to notice,” he says confidently.
Moriarty’s face positively lights up at that. “Silly, there was everything to notice. The first being your peculiar attentiveness towards him. You were looking down a microscope, but your head was angled towards him, just slightly. Was there a moment in that room when you weren’t aware of where he was? The way you’ve reacted to everything tonight has only confirmed it. I remember that he spoke for you, after you were so awfully rude to me. Looking at him now, he’s completely oblivious, isn’t he? He had no idea about this pathetic little crush you think you have on him.”
Sherlock flicks his eyes to John for a nanosecond, hoping he won’t be caught, but knowing he will be. John is looking straight at him, as predicted, and their eyes meet and hold. John doesn’t look angry, he just looks confused and sad, his lips just barely parted. He looks like he’s working out a complicated mental problem, like he’s revisiting all their previous exchanges and turning them over in his mind, looking for new meanings, things he previously thought were insignificant.
Sherlock fervently hopes he hasn’t been too transparent.
“Your powers of observation are evidently inferior to mine,” he says, trying to keep the usual coolness to his tone. “You’ve jumped to conclusions and ended up with the startlingly incorrect one that two plus two must equal five.”
“No, the conclusion I’ve come to is that you must have known him somehow before he met you. Why else would you be searching for an army doctor in Afghanistan prior to meeting him for what was supposed to be the first time? Why would you let him live with you and follow you around on your little cases? Why else would you act like you think you’re in love with him if it really had only been two months, after a lifetime of apparent celibacy and shunning just about all other human contact?”
“I would hardly expect you to understand.”
“I think I do, though. You see, I’ve begun to put this picture together. You and Big Brother, orchestrating this search. Johnny here getting shot, and all the reports about it being very patchy indeed. Him coming home and moving in with you. Tell me, did your brother organise for him to be shot?”
Sherlock is honestly surprised by the accusation. He looks to John automatically, he can’t help it, and finds John’s mouth open in shock, his focus shifted from Sherlock to Moriarty now. He’s listening to him, possibly believing what he’s hearing.
Organise for John to be shot? Sherlock would sooner organise a contract on his own life.
“I can’t work out why,” Moriarty continues, “but it seems like you wanted him in your life pretty badly. I’m sure you would have gone to the lengths necessary to get that, but I wonder how John feels about it, hmm? You can talk, Johnny boy. Go ahead.”
Moriarty moves forward and nudges John’s shoulder with his own. John edges away from him with a shudder of revulsion, closing his eyes at the unwelcome touch.
When he opens his eyes again, he looks to Sherlock, clearly seeking reassurance. He doesn’t speak. No doubt he’s been told not to talk at all, other than whatever poison Moriarty has been dripping into his ear.
Sherlock wonders what can he say himself. Yes, I was searching for you. No, I didn’t have you shot so you would be returned to me.
“You must know,” he ends up saying. “You must know that I wouldn’t.”
John has been upset with him for a while now - over his lack of care for the victims of the bombings, over his general refusal to be the one-dimensional hero John wants him to be. But John can’t really think that Sherlock would arrange anything that would directly hurt him. Or anyone, for that matter, without a good motive behind it. He’s not like Moriarty, he just doesn’t work that way.
Moriarty may be citing two months as too short a space of time to fall in love, and he may be right, but it’s enough time to develop an understanding with someone, if nothing else.
John’s mouth closes. His jaw is tight as he nods, certainty in his eyes.
“How moving,” Moriarty says, the lilting quality back to his voice, bright and mocking. “He believes you. He’s misplaced his loyalty in you though, Sherlock, hasn’t he? You’re not really in love with him, you’re not capable of that. He doesn’t know that you’re just like me. If it came to it, you’d trade his life for your own in a heartbeat.”
Said heartbeat makes itself known in his thumb against the gun as Sherlock grips the weapon with too much pressure at Moriarty’s words. His pulse thunders against the cool metal, wrong, wrong, wrong. It feels like a revelation, his own blood singing out the truth, but it’s nothing new, not really.
It’s always been the other way around for Sherlock, and he knows he’ll end up showing it. Tonight, probably.
John can travel. He’s already stressed, possibly even working to stay grounded already. If Sherlock can just ratchet up the tension a bit more, John will be gone. John will be safe.
“Perhaps,” he says, tilting the gun left and right in a so-so gesture, “but I’d rather trade yours.”
He takes aim steadily again. If he fires, the bullet will end up lodged right between Moriarty’s eyes. The laser point on John’s chest bobs - a warning.
“No, you wouldn’t. You need me, you need what I’ve shown you. I’ve given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on out there in the big bad world. I’m a specialist, you see. Like you!”
“I know. ‘Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover’s nasty sister?’ ‘Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America?’ Consulting criminal. Brilliant.”
Moriarty smiles: prideful, almost nostalgic. “Isn’t it? That’s why you need me, you need someone brilliant, someone just like you. But you’re getting in my way now, so this is a friendly warning, my dear: back off.”
“I will stop you,” Sherlock promises, but his eyes are on that laser sight.
The smile becomes a maniacal grin. “Not while I’m holding lover-boy hostage.”
Sherlock hasn’t looked at John since he didn’t immediately deny that he wouldn’t sacrifice John for his own sake. The disappointment in John’s eyes would be hard to bear, considering what he has to do now.
The plan is formulating: offer Moriarty the USB stick as a distraction, John will attempt to take Moriarty hostage, Moriarty will threaten Sherlock instead, John will back down, Sherlock will latch onto Moriarty then, dragging him away from John and he’ll point the gun ready to take them both down, with John far enough away that, when he fires, John will have just enough time to travel if he hasn’t already.
It’s not ideal, but he’ll eliminate Moriarty and save John. It’s the second best outcome he could have achieved.
Now to let it play out.
Eyes still fixed resolutely on Moriarty, Sherlock removes one hand from the pistol, reaching down to his pocket to hold out the memory stick. “Take it.”
“Oh, that,” Moriarty says, striding forwards to take the small, insignificant bit of plastic from Sherlock’s hand. “The missile plans!”
Moriarty brings the USB stick to his mouth, kissing it. He lowers it back down and considers it for a moment. “Boring!” he declares, flicking his hand to toss the memory stick into the pool. “I could have got those anywhere.”
This is the moment John chooses to lunge forward, bodily throwing himself at Moriarty’s back and wrapping both arms around him securely, one around his neck and the other around his chest.
“Sherlock, run!” he yells.
Sherlock had been expecting John to act at some point, but it still catches him slightly off-guard. He manages to keep the gun aimed correctly, even as he takes a small step back in surprise.
Moriarty actually laughs, like this is the best development he could have wished for. “Good,” he says. “Very good. Seems like he still believes in you despite everything!”
“If your sniper pulls that trigger, Mr Moriarty,” John is breathing hard as he speaks, trying to keep hold of his hostage, “then we both go up.”
“So ready to sacrifice himself for you,” Moriarty says, still speaking to Sherlock, the full force of his obsession breaking through as he barely blinks. “Maybe he does love you after all! Maybe it’s just that he’s your loyal pet. It doesn’t matter, because you’ve rather shown your hand there, Dr Watson.”
John’s eyes widen, the fire in them suddenly doused. Sherlock doesn’t have to be a genius to work out that there must be a little red dot dancing over his forehead, not with John’s fearful gaze trained there.
“Gotcha,” Moriarty says smugly.
John’s arms go loose at once and he steps back from Moriarty, raising his hands in surrender. Moriarty brushes both hands down over his suit to straighten it, irate.
Sherlock keeps the gun level, thinking about the next part of the plan. There could still be a way out for both him and John, if he says the right things. Moriarty is unpredictable enough and he’s talked as if he wants Sherlock alive. Someone brilliant, someone to challenge him.
Moriarty is speaking again. “D’you know what happens if you don’t leave me alone, Sherlock, to you?”
“Oh let me guess,” he drawls. “I get killed.”
Moriarty’s eyebrows lower and he looks briefly offended by the insinuation. “No, don’t be obvious. I mean, I’m going to kill you anyway, some day. I don’t want to rush it though, I’m saving it up for something special. No, no, no. If you don’t stop prying, I’ll burn you.”
He tips his head towards John pointedly, still standing with his hands high in surrender behind them. “I’ll burn the heart out of you.”
It’s a rather obvious metaphor, but Sherlock takes him at his word. He’s never feared that anyone might use John to get to him, so confident that his feelings were well-concealed, a secret to be shared between the two of them if it was ever to be shared at all. Looks like he was wrong. An unforgivable oversight on his part.
“I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” he says softly, one last try for the safety afforded by denial.
Moriarty looks at him, mouth turned down as if in pity. “But we all know that’s not quite true. You most of all, Sherlock.”
Abruptly, his face changes, and he looks around the room as if searching for something for a moment. “Well, I’d better be off. It’s been nice to have a proper chat, but I’m sure you boys have a lot to discuss now.”
Sherlock raises the gun slightly. “What if I was to shoot you, right now?”
“Then you could fondly remember how surprised I looked,” Moriarty opens his mouth into a wide shocked ‘o’, raising his eyebrows. “Not for very long, of course, because killing me would be the end of your life too.” He begins to turn away, ready to leave. “So it’s goodbye for now, Sherlock Holmes.”
And with that he walks away, looking back only once before he heads through the door John came in through earlier on.
Sherlock keeps the pistol trained on him as he goes, walking forward after him to do so. “Catch… you… later.”
He points the gun at the empty doorway. Moriarty’s voice drifts back through, sing-song and childish: “No you won’t!”
The door closes. Sherlock waits for a few agonising seconds, waiting for Moriarty to come back. When nothing happens, he finally lets his eyes sweep over to John, instantly taking him in. Exhausted, relieved, mercifully unharmed. Still with a bloody bomb attached to him.
Sherlock drops the gun, ignores the way it clatters to the floor as he pitches forward, ending up on his knees before John and gets his shaking hands on the fastenings of the vest.
“All right?” he hears himself ask, voice hard and insistent.
He’s more aware of the words coming out of his mouth the second time, more urgent after John doesn’t reply, head tilted back as if he no longer possessed the muscle tone to keep it up. Sherlock’s fingers scrabble at the vest, desperate to unfasten it and get it away from John as quickly as possible. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” John answers, still panting, trembing under his hands, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
There’s a panicky feeling lodged somewhere around Sherlock’s throat as he stands, moving around John to pull the coat and vest off him. He tugs forcefully, breathing hard through his nose to match John’s gasps through his mouth.
“I’m fine,” John repeats, but he sounds very distant and quiet to Sherlock then, completely focused as he is on his task, still pulling at the coat and vest.
“You have to believe that everything he said was a lie,” Sherlock says loudly to cover the deafening white noise of panic in his ears. “You have to know that.”
“Sherlock, I-”
“You have to know, John.”
Finally, Sherlock manages to get the offending articles off of John, bending to hurl them away with all his might, satisfied when they skitter a good distance across the floor.
“Sherlock!”
The roaring in Sherlock’s ears dies down, the blockage in his throat recedes. He can breathe easy again. He turns back to John, looking at him almost blindly - no observations or deductions beyond whole, safe - before heading to pick up the gun again and then running through the door to the changing rooms after Moriarty.
He knows it’s hopeless even as he charges in there. It’s more of a check that he and John can relax for a moment rather than an attempt to chase and apprehend a criminal mastermind.
As he expected, Moriarty is long gone.
When he returns, John is slumped against the door of one of the changing cubicles. He’s squeezing his left hand with his right. Sherlock crouches down to his level at once, reaching out to grasp John’s shoulder in a futile attempt to ground him, to hold onto him.
“Are you going to travel?”
John shakes his head, but his face is twisted in a grimace of effort. “I’m calming down now. Is he gone?”
“We’re safe,” Sherlock says. “He’s-”
Sherlock stops dead and watches as John’s taut face slackens with horror. There is a red dot on John’s chest and, judging from John’s expression, he has a matching one.
John’s eyes are wide and frightened when he looks up from his own torso to meet Sherlock’s gaze. He shakes his left hand urgently before gripping Sherlock’s wrist with it, and Sherlock is overwhelmed with the most incongruous feeling of serenity. John is going to travel.
“Sorry, boys!” comes Moriarty’s exuberant voice from the opposite end of the pool. “I’m so changeable!”
“You’ll be safe,” Sherlock whispers, getting to his feet to face Moriarty and ignoring the frantic shaking of John’s head and the way John’s fingers pull at him to keep him down.
“Don’t-”
“It is a weakness with me,” Moriarty croons, “but, to be fair to me, it is my only weakness. What’s your weakness, Sherlock Holmes? I think I know.”
Sherlock once thought he had no weakness at all, but he knows now with everything in him that his only weakness is also his greatest strength, and also the greatest joy he’s ever known.
Of course we will, said a future version of John. That John gave so many hints and all but promised they would be together in the future, so Sherlock has to trust that what he is about to do now is the right thing.
“It’s no weakness,” Sherlock says. “You were wrong about me, you know.”
“Oh?” Moriarty sounds bored now. “Was I, really?”
“You said I’d trade John’s life for mine in a heartbeat, but…” Sherlock draws the gun again and points it steadily at the jacket on the ground between him and Moriarty. “I’d sooner die here and now.”
Moriarty laughs. “We’ll all die if you do that, you moron.”
“Not John.”
“Sherlock,” John’s weak voice says from behind him. “Please, don’t do this.”
Sherlock looks over his shoulder, hoping the smile he gives John says everything that he can’t. “I should really tell you, if this is my last opportunity. I have to hope that it isn’t.”
“Tell me what?” John asks desperately.
Sherlock turns his head back to face Moriarty without answering. The hand holding the gun doesn’t waiver as he tenses his finger, ready to pull the trigger. His resolve does though.
“Oh hell,” Sherlock says with a roll of his eyes. “I might as well. John-”
And that’s when the tinny sound of ‘Staying Alive’ breaks the standoff.