he saved the last dance for me [1/?]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 07:20:25 UTC
This is how you meet:
Your partner’s body is at your side, and he’s got a gun to your head.
Somewhere, deeply repressed and largely ignored in the back of your mind, you think you’re about to die. You’re exploring a thousand possible outcomes of the multitudes of what-if’s that can summarise your life’s experience; your metaphorical self is chasing down all the paths your actual self never took, looking for that one contenting ending that doesn’t see you on the wrong end of a pistol barrel.
But the rest of you, oh, the rest of you- it’s in a state of marvel, a trap of awe. Nobody ever comes this close to me, you think. Your training has always assured this, up until now. You’ve forgotten what people look like, up close. You’ve neglected fear to the state that it has become a foreign entity to you, and now it’s all rushing back. A tidal wave in the desert.
“Don’t worry,” he says. His voice is like music, playful yet virulent in one sweet beat. “Nobody ever gets to me, either.” His sight is trained on you; he intends to fire. His finger is outside the trigger guard; he’s not prepared to fire yet. “That’s what you’re thinking now, isn’t it? You’re so used to being behind that scope; you’ve forgotten what it’s like. To actually be afraid. To actually be acutely aware of the tentative balance your life is constantly in.”
“You’re good,” you say. You can’t remember the last time you’ve used those words in conjunction when you’re not being sarcastic, mocking; this time you’re actually being honest. Complimentary. It’s strange and thick on your tongue, but not unwanted.
“You’re sweet,” he replies. His smile is all teeth, carefully playing the edge between gorgeous and dangerous. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening,” you say because you’re intrigued, not because you’re stalling for your life.
“Good,” he croons, “then you’re already two steps ahead of your friend, here.” He gestures to the body at your feet with the gun. (An amateur mistake. Any other day, it would stick out in your mind, but here: you have no doubt every single machination is entirely calculated, and that he did it intentionally. A test within a test within a test.) “I could give you the world, you know. Anything you want; name it, if it is obtainable, it’s yours.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me what you want, first?”
He throws his head back and laughs at you, shrill. (You can’t believe he’s daring to take his eyes off you. It would be so easy. You could just reach out, take his gun. You could kill him, you could-) “I like you,” he chuckles. “But no, that’s not how we play this game. You get what you want, first, and then it’s my turn.”
he saved the last dance for me [2/?]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 07:21:59 UTC
“And what is it? That you want,” you add, quiet. Curious.
“Everything,” he answers with a harsh exhale, eyes wide. “I’m terribly bored, you see. And I do so hate when the undeserving have things, and isn’t the world itself rather undeserving?”
“It’s what sets us apart as exactly the same.”
“There’s that extraordinary I’d seen in you.” You shuffle your feet. The tension in your shoulders, the primal brace for brute force in your frame, has all melted away. You hadn’t even noticed.
“What could I possibly offer you?” you ask. “Extraordinary is on every street corner.” You don’t have a death wish, but you’re not inclined towards thinking you’re the make of something special. Superior, but not unique; not desirable.
“Oh,” he sighs, “you could give me more than you can even imagine.” He steps closer, until the toes of his shoes bump into your deceased teammate’s arm. He lowers the gun, presses it square against your heart, brings his free hand up to cup your neck. “We would be so beautiful together.”
You should say no. You should take a magazine full of bullets and fall to the ground, bleed to death on top of the cooling body of your comrade. It wouldn’t make you a hero; you would be unremembered. But you would still be pure.
Instead, you are acutely aware of his fingers drumming against the pulse in your neck, the heat of his hand on your skin, and; you lean into him before you even realise you’ve moved. Your mind screams yes as his thumb brushes your jawline.
“Wonderful,” he murmurs, sickeningly fond. “Anything; it is yours.”
You stop, closing your eyes against his ministrations, and you think. A minute passes before you look at him again, and then, “Take this body,” you say, “it feels wrong on me.”
he saved the last dance for me [3/?]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 10:12:14 UTC
This is how you work:
He gives you an entirely new life in a neat little manila folder. He’s chosen everything about you, down to the very last details - he’s been so meticulous, so precise, and you can tell between each and every line that he has enjoyed creating you from the ground up. He’s given you a bachelorette-style flat and a cat called Toby, and carefully manoeuvred you into a job in a London hospital that holds a generous weight of esteem without drawing too much unwanted attention.
He’s called you Molly Hooper, and even acquired a website domain for you to host a blog on. “For character building,” he whispers against the shell of your ear. When you shoot him a look, he nips at the rim, hard. “Everything is necessary. Have faith in me.”
“I do,” you say into his mouth. “I do, I do, I do,” you repeat like a mantra, and he swallows it all up with teeth and tongue.
He says he will be back for you, and you believe him, because he has always kept his promises.
-
It’s only a matter of time before you meet him.
Sherlock Holmes can be as brilliant as Moriarty is, and you hate him just a bit. Moriarty already knows you’ve crossed paths with him by the time you get home from graveyard shift; you’ve barely toed off your trainers before a shrill beep emits from your laptop, and an IM box pops up on your screen.
Pretend you are in love with him, it says. You give it another perfunctory glance to be sure, then decide to pour yourself a finger of whisky before you sit down at your desk. Toby leaps into your lap and nuzzles against your stomach, purring loudly.
He’s uninterested, you reply.
Good, Moriarty returns. That’s just how we want him.
You scull your glass, type What would you have me do if he did fall for me?
Play him like an instrument. You are the conductor and he is your orchestra.
You coax Toby from your lap, fire back a short sir.
From then on, you carry a small makeup kit in your purse full of shades and colours that accentuate your lips, eyes, cheeks; you learn all the ways Sherlock will have his coffee and virtually fall all over him every time he so much as opens his mouth.
He uses you up and throws you away each and every time he needs you, but, that’s okay. That’s what you want out of this; to accustom him to your presence so much that he forgets you are there, that he never sees you coming.
-
John Watson is an unexpected edition to the scheme.
You know his face from your past, from the war. It was barely a split moment, but you crossed paths, and you remembered him. He does not recognise you, and you wonder if this is because you look that different now, or if it was because you were simply unmemorable.
Wonderful, Moriarty responds when you tell him. So the game begins.
he saved the last dance for me [4/?]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 14:25:45 UTC
This is how you love:
You watch as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson fall for one another. Not at the same time, because life is never so simple and elegant, but they do - you observe as Sherlock falls so hard he can’t hit the ground running, too stunned at the discovery that he’s indeed capable of it; you examine the slow smoulder of John’s feelings as he compartmentalises over a period of time, scrutinise as he comes to a gradual realisation and acceptance of his own feelings.
You can’t help but draw the comparisons, and you’re not sure what to think, knowing that such a large piece of this - save some improvisational revisions - has been the intended play-out all along. Knowing that it is intentional does not tell you what it all means, but, you’ve learned not to expect all the answers (even if you have not yet learned not to want them).
-
In a state of boredom, procrastinating from mortuary work you should actually be doing, you write a blog. You raise an eyebrow when your email alerts you that you have a comment, but you forego clicking over just to affirm that it’s a bot trying to sell you makeup to play Farmville on Facebook instead.
A minute later, an IM box pops up on your screen. Check your blog, it instructs, so, you do. It takes a second to connect, but the moment it does, it’s all you can do to force yourself to stay in your seat to finish your part in your little act.
Moriarty looks wickedly unassuming when you meet him in the cafeteria, and it’s all you can do not to lay your hands all over him, reaffirm every nook and concave with your nails and your fingertips. He smiles shyly at you and you keep ducking your head and twirling a strand of hair behind your ear, and after you have finished your coffee, he asks if he can come by your place.
You bite your lip, stammer out that you have papers to finish but yes, sure, yes, and he beams at you so brightly that you temporarily disremember just who he really is.
When you get home he is already there, draped on your couch with his feet tucked under Toby. He nudges the cat to the floor when he spies you, and you’ve barely got the door closed behind you when you shuck off your belt and strip out of your trousers. You don’t even bother with your knickers, just let him push them aside as you sink down on him, hands bracing against the armrest for balance. You fuck down on him without grace or rhythm, biting his neck as he grunts endearments scattered amongst random tangents of thought into your shoulder, about theories of rebirth and destiny and you don’t even know, you don’t even care-
When he comes, he pulls your hair so hard your head jerks back to follow it, and your nails bring skin with them when they detach from his back. You rock yourself against his limp cock until he slides three fingers inside you and thrusts viciously, thumb rubbing against your clit, until you climax; and then for half a minute while you tremble and clench around his digits, struggling to breathe.
You have missed him, and this is the most alive you have felt in weeks. You think you may have voiced this, because Moriarty just chuckles in amusement and pets your forehead.
He washes his hands in your kitchen sink while you claim the shower, scrub yourself down and change into tracksuit pants and a shirt. You take a peek in your closet as you throw your work clothes into the dirty laundry hamper, and see that he has already integrated his wardrobe into yours.
“Towels are in the left-hand cupboard,” you mention as he passes through your bedroom to the bathroom.
he saved the last dance for me [5/?]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 14:28:22 UTC
He does not join you in bed, and you wake up with only Toby for company, furled on the pillows beside your head. You instead see him next at Bart’s that evening, and smile modestly as he nearly trips over himself crossing the room just to get to you.
“Do you like musicals?” you blurt out. “I mean- hi, but. Yeah, there’s this show on the telly with all these American kids who sing in a club and it’s brilliant, so I was wondering. If you’d like to watch it? With me? At my place?”
He scratches the nape of his neck, turns his feet in nervously. “That’s, yes, I’d like that.”
That night, he spreads you out against your bed and runs his hands-mouth-tongue across every inch of skin he can reach, just touching. Neither of you even come but it’s still oddly satisfactory, and you both spend the rest of the night streaming Glee episodes from your laptop while you paint your toenails and he calls various contacts from a disposable prepaid.
When he leaves, he plants a kiss between your naked shoulder blades and tells you that you that he’ll see you at work tomorrow.
-
The satisfaction you feel from playing Sherlock like the arrogant stereotyping fool he can so often be is... indescribable.
You go home and yell and scream at one another for the sake of your neighbours, but before he leaves he grabs your wrist, pulls you close and says hold your position, as if he trusts you to already know, but wants to hear it in his own voice.
This is it, you think, when your apartment is empty and hollow. This is all you have become and all that you have worked for, marching forward. This is another beginning.
-
The year soldiers on forward into April, and you take leave from the hospital to sit at home, flicking between channels to watch news reports and your laptop screen for any hint or prod in the right direction.
By day three, you think you’re going mad with inaction, and that’s when your phone vibrates on the kitchen counter.
Salutations from Brazil.
Your fingers fumble at the buttons in your haste but you quickly manage to reply, Warm greetings from London. The score?
One-Nil. Disappointingly predictable gameplay made the victory a handout.
he saved the last dance for me [6/6]
anonymous
January 13 2011, 16:07:25 UTC
And, this-
-this is how it ends:
The thing is, you never wanted to travel the world. You used to say you did, back when you were still Moran, because I became a military sniper to kill people was only a motivation that remained acceptable as long as it was unspoken.
The last few years, you have seen the globe, both on your own and by Moriarty’s side. You reminisce, distantly, on all the beauty and the devastation you witnessed in amongst the merry chase of the great game, and spare a moment to lament on how little it all actually meant.
It has come down to this, and now you know that it could never have come down to anything else: there’s a gun in your hand and it is aimed square between his eyes; there is a gun in John Watson’s hand, and it is aimed square between yours.
“I thought you were better than this,” John says. He’s filling the space between them; both of your fingers are resting on your respective triggers, this is a standoff that is going nowhere - all you can do now is talk, or shoot. Or wait, and hope-hope that it’s Moriarty that finds you both first.
“We’re not so different,” you tell him.
“We’re very different,” he insists, and you shake your head at him, pitying.
“You keep telling yourself that,” you say. “But it doesn’t make it the truth. You love him; you would die for him, and you would kill for him - and you already have. You already do.”
“Sherlock isn’t a psychopath.”
“But he could be,” you press. “If he wanted it. If he was pushed. The foundations are there. You’ve seen them, you can’t be so blissfully ignorant.”
“I believe in him,” John explains, undaunted.
“I believe in Jim,” you reply, “and that is why we are both the same.”
Something catches your attention and you risk the quickest of glances upwards, and you break out in a grin as you spot a welcome figure training their laser sight to the back of John’s head. “Looks like my ride is here,” you crow. His expression is carefully blank. “This is goodbye, John.”
You feel the muzzle of a gun press between your shoulder blades just as Moriarty’s laser sight snaps up from John, training on a new target just behind her.
“You first,” Sherlock says, eerily even.
“Chivalry won’t get you anywhere today,” you chastise, a little too breathlessly for your own taste.
“It’s still not too late,” John says. He is pleading with you, in that reserved, bleeding-heart manner you’ve come to expect from him over the years.
“There is no redemption for me,” you reply. “I am where I want to be.”
“Please,” John whispers, like he wasn’t on the verge of killing you two beats ago.
You inhale, readjust your aim, and fire on your exhale.
Your finger has barely left the trigger when you feel two bullets hit you in the back at close range, and you crash into the warehouse floor, gun flying from your hand and skidding across the cement as your world is narrowed down to sharp, burning, absolute agony, and the scream of gunfire and noises.
(“Sherlock!” and “God, Sherlock, she changed her trajectory,” and “she wasn’t shooting to kill” amongst urging and panic and go, god, go.
Somewhere up high and unobtainable, you think you hear your name.)
-
You don’t know how long it’s been quiet for when you feel a hand against your neck, fingers feeling for a pulse.
“Your aim used to be a lot better than that,” Moriarty says.
You can’t open your eyes. “My aim is better than that,” you answer, voice a barely coherent slur. It hurts beyond anything you’ve ever felt before to even suck in breath, let alone speak, but you want to. “Did we win?”
“Not this time,” he replies, and he shouldn’t sound this soft, shouldn’t sound like he’s speaking secrets into your ear while you sleep, volume leashed behind his teeth so he doesn’t rouse you.
“You know better for next time,” you whisper, swallowing thickly. You wonder what he looks like, in this moment, if he is truly sad or merely inconvenienced.
But it can only be that, now, a wonderment.
You feel his fingers in your hair, brushing stray strands back from your face. It’s a small comfort, and you are grateful for it.
I'm speechless here. Thank you for this wonderful fill. The style was fantastic, Jim was incredibly in character and it was the first time I saw on this fandom something that I love on the victorian one- Moran and Watson discussing how they're really the same.
Also... Jim ran to Brazil? Seriously? I'm brazilian! Can't stop laughing at the coincidence.
The ending broke my heart, but was perfect. Thank you.
Your partner’s body is at your side, and he’s got a gun to your head.
Somewhere, deeply repressed and largely ignored in the back of your mind, you think you’re about to die. You’re exploring a thousand possible outcomes of the multitudes of what-if’s that can summarise your life’s experience; your metaphorical self is chasing down all the paths your actual self never took, looking for that one contenting ending that doesn’t see you on the wrong end of a pistol barrel.
But the rest of you, oh, the rest of you- it’s in a state of marvel, a trap of awe. Nobody ever comes this close to me, you think. Your training has always assured this, up until now. You’ve forgotten what people look like, up close. You’ve neglected fear to the state that it has become a foreign entity to you, and now it’s all rushing back. A tidal wave in the desert.
“Don’t worry,” he says. His voice is like music, playful yet virulent in one sweet beat. “Nobody ever gets to me, either.” His sight is trained on you; he intends to fire. His finger is outside the trigger guard; he’s not prepared to fire yet. “That’s what you’re thinking now, isn’t it? You’re so used to being behind that scope; you’ve forgotten what it’s like. To actually be afraid. To actually be acutely aware of the tentative balance your life is constantly in.”
“You’re good,” you say. You can’t remember the last time you’ve used those words in conjunction when you’re not being sarcastic, mocking; this time you’re actually being honest. Complimentary. It’s strange and thick on your tongue, but not unwanted.
“You’re sweet,” he replies. His smile is all teeth, carefully playing the edge between gorgeous and dangerous. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening,” you say because you’re intrigued, not because you’re stalling for your life.
“Good,” he croons, “then you’re already two steps ahead of your friend, here.” He gestures to the body at your feet with the gun. (An amateur mistake. Any other day, it would stick out in your mind, but here: you have no doubt every single machination is entirely calculated, and that he did it intentionally. A test within a test within a test.) “I could give you the world, you know. Anything you want; name it, if it is obtainable, it’s yours.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me what you want, first?”
He throws his head back and laughs at you, shrill. (You can’t believe he’s daring to take his eyes off you. It would be so easy. You could just reach out, take his gun. You could kill him, you could-) “I like you,” he chuckles. “But no, that’s not how we play this game. You get what you want, first, and then it’s my turn.”
Reply
“Everything,” he answers with a harsh exhale, eyes wide. “I’m terribly bored, you see. And I do so hate when the undeserving have things, and isn’t the world itself rather undeserving?”
“It’s what sets us apart as exactly the same.”
“There’s that extraordinary I’d seen in you.” You shuffle your feet. The tension in your shoulders, the primal brace for brute force in your frame, has all melted away. You hadn’t even noticed.
“What could I possibly offer you?” you ask. “Extraordinary is on every street corner.” You don’t have a death wish, but you’re not inclined towards thinking you’re the make of something special. Superior, but not unique; not desirable.
“Oh,” he sighs, “you could give me more than you can even imagine.” He steps closer, until the toes of his shoes bump into your deceased teammate’s arm. He lowers the gun, presses it square against your heart, brings his free hand up to cup your neck. “We would be so beautiful together.”
You should say no. You should take a magazine full of bullets and fall to the ground, bleed to death on top of the cooling body of your comrade. It wouldn’t make you a hero; you would be unremembered. But you would still be pure.
Instead, you are acutely aware of his fingers drumming against the pulse in your neck, the heat of his hand on your skin, and; you lean into him before you even realise you’ve moved. Your mind screams yes as his thumb brushes your jawline.
“Wonderful,” he murmurs, sickeningly fond. “Anything; it is yours.”
You stop, closing your eyes against his ministrations, and you think. A minute passes before you look at him again, and then, “Take this body,” you say, “it feels wrong on me.”
“Of course.” He kisses your cheek. “Anything.”
Reply
He gives you an entirely new life in a neat little manila folder. He’s chosen everything about you, down to the very last details - he’s been so meticulous, so precise, and you can tell between each and every line that he has enjoyed creating you from the ground up. He’s given you a bachelorette-style flat and a cat called Toby, and carefully manoeuvred you into a job in a London hospital that holds a generous weight of esteem without drawing too much unwanted attention.
He’s called you Molly Hooper, and even acquired a website domain for you to host a blog on. “For character building,” he whispers against the shell of your ear. When you shoot him a look, he nips at the rim, hard. “Everything is necessary. Have faith in me.”
“I do,” you say into his mouth. “I do, I do, I do,” you repeat like a mantra, and he swallows it all up with teeth and tongue.
He says he will be back for you, and you believe him, because he has always kept his promises.
-
It’s only a matter of time before you meet him.
Sherlock Holmes can be as brilliant as Moriarty is, and you hate him just a bit. Moriarty already knows you’ve crossed paths with him by the time you get home from graveyard shift; you’ve barely toed off your trainers before a shrill beep emits from your laptop, and an IM box pops up on your screen.
Pretend you are in love with him, it says. You give it another perfunctory glance to be sure, then decide to pour yourself a finger of whisky before you sit down at your desk. Toby leaps into your lap and nuzzles against your stomach, purring loudly.
He’s uninterested, you reply.
Good, Moriarty returns. That’s just how we want him.
You scull your glass, type What would you have me do if he did fall for me?
Play him like an instrument. You are the conductor and he is your orchestra.
You coax Toby from your lap, fire back a short sir.
From then on, you carry a small makeup kit in your purse full of shades and colours that accentuate your lips, eyes, cheeks; you learn all the ways Sherlock will have his coffee and virtually fall all over him every time he so much as opens his mouth.
He uses you up and throws you away each and every time he needs you, but, that’s okay. That’s what you want out of this; to accustom him to your presence so much that he forgets you are there, that he never sees you coming.
-
John Watson is an unexpected edition to the scheme.
You know his face from your past, from the war. It was barely a split moment, but you crossed paths, and you remembered him. He does not recognise you, and you wonder if this is because you look that different now, or if it was because you were simply unmemorable.
Wonderful, Moriarty responds when you tell him. So the game begins.
What are we playing for? you ask him.
Pet, he types back, now we play for everything.
Reply
Reply
Reply
You watch as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson fall for one another. Not at the same time, because life is never so simple and elegant, but they do - you observe as Sherlock falls so hard he can’t hit the ground running, too stunned at the discovery that he’s indeed capable of it; you examine the slow smoulder of John’s feelings as he compartmentalises over a period of time, scrutinise as he comes to a gradual realisation and acceptance of his own feelings.
You can’t help but draw the comparisons, and you’re not sure what to think, knowing that such a large piece of this - save some improvisational revisions - has been the intended play-out all along. Knowing that it is intentional does not tell you what it all means, but, you’ve learned not to expect all the answers (even if you have not yet learned not to want them).
-
In a state of boredom, procrastinating from mortuary work you should actually be doing, you write a blog. You raise an eyebrow when your email alerts you that you have a comment, but you forego clicking over just to affirm that it’s a bot trying to sell you makeup to play Farmville on Facebook instead.
A minute later, an IM box pops up on your screen. Check your blog, it instructs, so, you do. It takes a second to connect, but the moment it does, it’s all you can do to force yourself to stay in your seat to finish your part in your little act.
Moriarty looks wickedly unassuming when you meet him in the cafeteria, and it’s all you can do not to lay your hands all over him, reaffirm every nook and concave with your nails and your fingertips. He smiles shyly at you and you keep ducking your head and twirling a strand of hair behind your ear, and after you have finished your coffee, he asks if he can come by your place.
You bite your lip, stammer out that you have papers to finish but yes, sure, yes, and he beams at you so brightly that you temporarily disremember just who he really is.
When you get home he is already there, draped on your couch with his feet tucked under Toby. He nudges the cat to the floor when he spies you, and you’ve barely got the door closed behind you when you shuck off your belt and strip out of your trousers. You don’t even bother with your knickers, just let him push them aside as you sink down on him, hands bracing against the armrest for balance. You fuck down on him without grace or rhythm, biting his neck as he grunts endearments scattered amongst random tangents of thought into your shoulder, about theories of rebirth and destiny and you don’t even know, you don’t even care-
When he comes, he pulls your hair so hard your head jerks back to follow it, and your nails bring skin with them when they detach from his back. You rock yourself against his limp cock until he slides three fingers inside you and thrusts viciously, thumb rubbing against your clit, until you climax; and then for half a minute while you tremble and clench around his digits, struggling to breathe.
You have missed him, and this is the most alive you have felt in weeks. You think you may have voiced this, because Moriarty just chuckles in amusement and pets your forehead.
He washes his hands in your kitchen sink while you claim the shower, scrub yourself down and change into tracksuit pants and a shirt. You take a peek in your closet as you throw your work clothes into the dirty laundry hamper, and see that he has already integrated his wardrobe into yours.
“Towels are in the left-hand cupboard,” you mention as he passes through your bedroom to the bathroom.
“I know,” he replies.
You smile, because it’s all so very stupid.
Reply
“Do you like musicals?” you blurt out. “I mean- hi, but. Yeah, there’s this show on the telly with all these American kids who sing in a club and it’s brilliant, so I was wondering. If you’d like to watch it? With me? At my place?”
He scratches the nape of his neck, turns his feet in nervously. “That’s, yes, I’d like that.”
That night, he spreads you out against your bed and runs his hands-mouth-tongue across every inch of skin he can reach, just touching. Neither of you even come but it’s still oddly satisfactory, and you both spend the rest of the night streaming Glee episodes from your laptop while you paint your toenails and he calls various contacts from a disposable prepaid.
When he leaves, he plants a kiss between your naked shoulder blades and tells you that you that he’ll see you at work tomorrow.
-
The satisfaction you feel from playing Sherlock like the arrogant stereotyping fool he can so often be is... indescribable.
You go home and yell and scream at one another for the sake of your neighbours, but before he leaves he grabs your wrist, pulls you close and says hold your position, as if he trusts you to already know, but wants to hear it in his own voice.
This is it, you think, when your apartment is empty and hollow. This is all you have become and all that you have worked for, marching forward. This is another beginning.
-
The year soldiers on forward into April, and you take leave from the hospital to sit at home, flicking between channels to watch news reports and your laptop screen for any hint or prod in the right direction.
By day three, you think you’re going mad with inaction, and that’s when your phone vibrates on the kitchen counter.
Salutations from Brazil.
Your fingers fumble at the buttons in your haste but you quickly manage to reply, Warm greetings from London. The score?
One-Nil. Disappointingly predictable gameplay made the victory a handout.
May have better playing next round.
We can only hope.
Reply
-this is how it ends:
The thing is, you never wanted to travel the world. You used to say you did, back when you were still Moran, because I became a military sniper to kill people was only a motivation that remained acceptable as long as it was unspoken.
The last few years, you have seen the globe, both on your own and by Moriarty’s side. You reminisce, distantly, on all the beauty and the devastation you witnessed in amongst the merry chase of the great game, and spare a moment to lament on how little it all actually meant.
It has come down to this, and now you know that it could never have come down to anything else: there’s a gun in your hand and it is aimed square between his eyes; there is a gun in John Watson’s hand, and it is aimed square between yours.
“I thought you were better than this,” John says. He’s filling the space between them; both of your fingers are resting on your respective triggers, this is a standoff that is going nowhere - all you can do now is talk, or shoot. Or wait, and hope-hope that it’s Moriarty that finds you both first.
“We’re not so different,” you tell him.
“We’re very different,” he insists, and you shake your head at him, pitying.
“You keep telling yourself that,” you say. “But it doesn’t make it the truth. You love him; you would die for him, and you would kill for him - and you already have. You already do.”
“Sherlock isn’t a psychopath.”
“But he could be,” you press. “If he wanted it. If he was pushed. The foundations are there. You’ve seen them, you can’t be so blissfully ignorant.”
“I believe in him,” John explains, undaunted.
“I believe in Jim,” you reply, “and that is why we are both the same.”
Something catches your attention and you risk the quickest of glances upwards, and you break out in a grin as you spot a welcome figure training their laser sight to the back of John’s head. “Looks like my ride is here,” you crow. His expression is carefully blank. “This is goodbye, John.”
You feel the muzzle of a gun press between your shoulder blades just as Moriarty’s laser sight snaps up from John, training on a new target just behind her.
“You first,” Sherlock says, eerily even.
“Chivalry won’t get you anywhere today,” you chastise, a little too breathlessly for your own taste.
“It’s still not too late,” John says. He is pleading with you, in that reserved, bleeding-heart manner you’ve come to expect from him over the years.
“There is no redemption for me,” you reply. “I am where I want to be.”
“Please,” John whispers, like he wasn’t on the verge of killing you two beats ago.
You inhale, readjust your aim, and fire on your exhale.
Your finger has barely left the trigger when you feel two bullets hit you in the back at close range, and you crash into the warehouse floor, gun flying from your hand and skidding across the cement as your world is narrowed down to sharp, burning, absolute agony, and the scream of gunfire and noises.
(“Sherlock!” and “God, Sherlock, she changed her trajectory,” and “she wasn’t shooting to kill” amongst urging and panic and go, god, go.
Somewhere up high and unobtainable, you think you hear your name.)
-
You don’t know how long it’s been quiet for when you feel a hand against your neck, fingers feeling for a pulse.
“Your aim used to be a lot better than that,” Moriarty says.
You can’t open your eyes. “My aim is better than that,” you answer, voice a barely coherent slur. It hurts beyond anything you’ve ever felt before to even suck in breath, let alone speak, but you want to. “Did we win?”
“Not this time,” he replies, and he shouldn’t sound this soft, shouldn’t sound like he’s speaking secrets into your ear while you sleep, volume leashed behind his teeth so he doesn’t rouse you.
“You know better for next time,” you whisper, swallowing thickly. You wonder what he looks like, in this moment, if he is truly sad or merely inconvenienced.
But it can only be that, now, a wonderment.
You feel his fingers in your hair, brushing stray strands back from your face. It’s a small comfort, and you are grateful for it.
You part your lips again, and.
-
fin
Reply
Reply
I think this might be my new head canon.
Reply
I want to kidnap this fill and just snuggle it while it wails and screams at how the gentleness burns.
Also - much love for the second person POV, I see it done so rarely, it seems to take huge talent to use it as beautifully as this.
*kidnaps fill* *snuggles* *puts it back in place for others to enjoy*
Reply
Wow.
I'm speechless here. Thank you for this wonderful fill. The style was fantastic, Jim was incredibly in character and it was the first time I saw on this fandom something that I love on the victorian one- Moran and Watson discussing how they're really the same.
Also... Jim ran to Brazil? Seriously? I'm brazilian! Can't stop laughing at the coincidence.
The ending broke my heart, but was perfect. Thank you.
Reply
Gorgeous and heartbreaking. I hope Molly does turn out to be Moran in the show, because I want it to be just like this.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment