Fic: First Time For Everything
Title: First Time For Everything
By: special_schizo
Prompt: sherlockmas 'Sherlock's Summer Vacay': 55 - Irene, Moriarty; how did they first come to work with each other
Category: Gen
Characters: Irene Adler, Jim Moriarty
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild references to BDSM - tamer than in the show - and murder.
Summary: In New York, Delysia O'Hara and Scott Thomas first cross paths; sixteen years later, Jim Moriarty gets back in touch.
Author's notes: There is a whole other larger fic that got cut out here. Some day I might finish it.
Also on my AO3.
First Time For Everything
The question’s getting rather popular these days: how did Irene Adler and James Moriarty start working together?
It doesn’t take an advanced intellect (of the sort that seems increasingly common these days) to realise that there’s some sort of story there. What happened at the pool is a mystery, so naturally the entire underground knows about it, and while an entirely separate debate concerns whether or not Moriarty really was going to have the trigger pulled, or even the bomb exploded, once somebody voices the other issue, it’s rather hard to ignore. You see, Moriarty might have connections, and plenty of them, and be the official or unofficial boss of everybody in London, and put the Krays to shame in terms of controlling the city, not to mention Jack the Ripper when it comes to basic power of fear…
Even allowing for all of this, how did Adler get Moriarty’s phone number?
That number is not handed out freely. People can be forwarded to it, certainly, but Moriarty interrupted a confrontation where he actually showed his face (the locals at the pub look at you in disbelief, and it takes a corroborator for the story to proceed). He knew who it was and broke off everything to talk.
Funny things happen once you get into the ‘underworld’ of this city. Definitely at the moment, with Sherlock Holmes on the scene and James Moriarty bedding in. Increasingly it feels like there’s a war on, and that does make for strange bedfellows. But a high-class dominatrix and the city’s new overlord - who seems so very very not interested in that sort of thing - seems to call for some sort of explanation.
Unfortunately, nobody has the story.
They seize on the few facts they have, and they speculate. They point out the advantage of Adler’s clients - except The Woman is famously independent. They point out Moriarty’s extensive connections - except that doesn’t mean personal. They point out the circumstance that is Sherlock Holmes - except that only makes events all the more unusual.
Within a week, rumours are getting out of hand. That’s what Moriarty likes. And business is booming, so Adler isn’t exactly complaining either.
They’re all trying to make it work in London. They’re trying to fit it into Moriarty’s rise to power. They’re trying to work within what they know.
Real life can be so much more complicated than that.
---------
Sixteen years and several lives ago, Delysia O’Hara and Scott Thomas met at a summer garden party. Delysia wore silk; Scott wore an apron.
The party is yet another high-end do for the rich and famous, and Delysia is rather delighted to find that as one of the younger stars of the opera, that includes her now. Admittedly, she’s only included as a +1, yet she didn’t get to this point in her life - finally looking down on the dull lights of New Jersey with a derisive smile - by being too proud to let a man delude himself as to the nature of their relationship. At the end of the day, he’s just an unfortunately talkative meal ticket, and this is hardly the first time such an arrangement has suited her.
When a waiter smiles and compliments her on her performance in La gazza ladra, she smiles coquettishly (she’s been practicing that for a while - she’s always loved the sound of the word - and she’s giving it a spin tonight), thanks him, and thinks, Gay.
It’s not just that he’s a man in his early twenties who cares about opera. There are a million signs and Delysia didn’t get to her current position without being able to distinguish who might be more susceptible to her more specialised attentions.
“Although I must say, I’m more of a fan of your other work.”
“Oh?” She raises her eyebrows and takes a sip from her cocktail glass, already planning how long she’ll humour this one before moving on. “Do tell.”
“Although you should stop leaving calling cards when you rob somebody. Sooner or later even these cops are going to be onto you. Judy.”
Her smile freezes.
The waiter is smiling charmingly at her. At least, initially it appears charming. The survival instinct that flares up at the suggestion of recognition causes her vision to narrow and focus instead on his eyes, because having always had trouble with those she knows to watch out for them. The smile says ‘pleasant’; the eyes say ‘liar’. They’re angry, but not at her. They’re angry at the world. They look like they’re on fire.
This isn’t someone taking shots in the dark. He knows. What matters is what he’s going to do with that.
She swallows and forces herself to recover. People are going to notice.
Perhaps her laugh sounds less than genuine, and certainly a shade off ‘tinkling’, but she still takes him by the arm and leads him to the side, focusing on the image of somebody passing on secret backstage tips and juicy gossip. “How about you tell me what you want?” She drops the smooth accent, lets her New Jersey drawl come to the fore, because she doesn’t want to be charming right now. At least, not yet.
His smile widens, enough to show his teeth. “What I said. I’m a fan.”
“Really.”
He holds out a hand, beaming falsely at her. “Scott Thomas.”
She doesn’t take it.
“Really? Scott?”
He scowls, expression shifting in an instant, and she feels a small glimmer of satisfaction. “Not everybody as disgustingly unsubtle as you, darling.”
She refuses to rise to the bait. “You’re just fine with people ignoring you? Like you’re nothing?”
“I am when I want them to underestimate me.”
Well, doesn’t that sound like somebody she wants to be associated with?
As a matter of fact, it does.
“So what’s your angle?”
He looks pained. “Media saturation is the blight of our times, my dear.” Quite frankly, it’s an odd turn of phrase. Sounds like he’s reciting something - a script, perhaps. Trying to sound impressive, or superior. Sounds like it wasn’t meant for the Queens accent he’s sporting.
Delysia will quite freely admit that a part of her wants nothing more than to live the ridiculous life of those characters on the screen, both big and small. She’s also far too used to people assuming intimacies. Therefore, instead of rising to either challenge presented - clearly this man who would love nothing else and clearly she can’t let him have what he wants - she rolls her eyes mockingly and asks, “Why come looking for me like this?”
“I want to see what it’s like working with a partner.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “I bet you do.” It isn’t hard to sound derisive - not when she already feels that way.
There’s some amusement in the way he haughtily draws himself up like an offended cat, even if it is rather off-set by the spark which suggests that his hair-trigger temper only just avoids a matching hair-trigger murder spree. “You utter -”
And then suddenly he closes his eyes - inhales, noticeably relaxes on the exhale - and when they open again, she restrains the urge to step back, because they’re accompanied by a slow, sly smile and a hiss. “If you’re not interested, I suppose I could leave you to your petty little life. I’m sure one or two people here would love to know what’s happened to their family heirlooms.”
Mood swings and a threat. Despite that flash of something interesting there… “So you’re blackmailing me.” How boring.
He winces. “Christ, nothing that vulgar.”
“Is there another word for what you’re doing?”
“How about insurance?”
She sucks in air, wanting nothing more to punch him. “I work alone.”
“Little League.” There. The emphasis on the words; the strength of the accent. Oh, he’s faking it alright. The question is, how much?
“It’s just something on the side.”
“But you want it to be more.”
She enjoys the thrill. Not that she’ll tell this nosy brat anything like that. “I’m afraid, Mr Thomas, this conversation is over. Now scram before I find your supervisor.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Delysia turns her head, intending something haughty and dignified, the epitome of every great screen performance. Except when Judy hesitates and glances back, somehow he’s vanished. That’s…unnerving. However, on the off-chance that he can still see her - she knows what she would do - she refuses to let that show.
Just as she doesn’t let it show when she’s towed back towards her date and she’s just so completely and utterly bored. Opera is glamorous; for the most part, these parties should be too. And yet she finds herself listening to stocks - useful, no doubt, but she was expecting something a little more exciting. Unfortunately, she’s just a +1, after all. This is a party where she’s nothing but eye candy. It makes her want to take risks and force these self-satisfied men and vapid women to admit she’s better than them. She clawed her way up here and they have never done anything.
Some might say that makes it a party where she’s vulnerable.
The thefts were always going to come back to bite her. It’s just… She hates dull, and she hates safe, and while the backstage politics of the opera are truly wonderful, keeping her hand in seems such a natural thing to do. She can’t trust life. Besides, she’s been at it a year, and this is the longest she’s stayed in a career. The shine is starting to wear off to show the rough beneath.
She tries to focus on the glamour. The painted smiles. The hidden messages. The high-class subterfuge. Noticing it usually makes her feel superior. While it still does, now though it makes the question rebound around her head: what does the mysterious man want?
Any one of her heroes would have found out.
Two tedious hours later, she catches him again, acting charming while promising death to every patron he looks at. “Scott’s not your real name.”
He just looks at her.
“Real accent?”
He rolls his eyes dismissively. While she’s not sure how far he’s faking his yawn, he’s definitely getting bored. And, well, he has a point.
She thinks about her life. Thinks about something exciting.
“What did you have in mind?”
Scott’s sudden grin is wide, wild and fierce. He looks like a man who wants to watch the world burn.
----------
And thus, over room service in Delysia’s penthouse suite -
“Tastes awful.”
“Of course it does.”
-- their first job is born.
Or rather, Scott outlines their first job, and then spends the evening coaxing a ‘yes’ out of her. Technically it doesn’t require a great deal of coaxing, but Delysia rather likes being pursued, so she acts coy in the only way she can: aggressively.
Scott fascinates her in a way that so few men do. So angry and so full of lies. She’s pleased because she can see through his falsehoods, flattered that he doesn’t try to stop her. As a girl she liked to hold her fingers in candle flames and watch the patterns of soot form, daring herself to push forward and hold for longer to prove that she was better than everybody else around her. This feeling of talking to this man - the giddy delight of a young acquaintance, not love but exciting nonetheless - feels so very familiar to her.
In the end, Scott has his ‘yes’, and Delysia has a wealth of background information on Scott Thomas, aged 22, college student with a vendetta against those who were merely born into their squandered wealth. So that all seems wonderful.
(It’s a lie, of course. No truth for her to tease out - not unless she wants to drive herself mad. One month from this moment, Natasha will look herself in the eye and promise never to believe in anybody else again. While this is not a promise she consistently adheres to, the lesson of distrust and faith only in yourself will endure nonetheless.)
Scott really does know how to sweet-talk her: a shocking opener - she’s less than impressed, or at least appears so, if only because she’d had a sense he’d want something like that the moment they met - and then, slowly but surely, he convinces her to go along with it, painting the plan in broad, exquisite strokes. His voice sounds different, a part of her notes, a part of her not already bedazzled. Nothing important will be hurt, he insists, because museums are ready for such things. But play their cards right, and they could have their choice of exhibits - or people, he adds, an afterthought (people always are, she senses), reluctant but apparently remembering how much fun she can have manipulating people. He talks about riches; he talks about statements; he talks about just how beautiful fire can be.
Delysia does like fires. Always has done. So does Scott, but not in the same way. Delysia enjoys light and heat and beauty; Scott smiles with sparks alight in his eyes.
Much as she’s been enjoying her opera, something about being bad, and of course a bad boy, reaches somewhere deep inside her. She dreams of being grand and magnificent, and she starts to dream of a heist nobody will forget.
----------
This is their first real job together.
They make their way into the party - this time some sort of company affair, she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care, not anymore - and play the crowd, Delysia the dazzling socialite and Scott the sardonic but silent waiter, noting marks, pocketing change and sparkles, the standard. Delysia is an old hand at this, and it's almost nice to find herself in such familiar territory. Nice because she knows this won't be all.
Then, with a few cat burglar tricks and a couple of mysteries from the supposed Man of Mystery, they burn the place.
Despite pocketing a few treasures, Delysia's thinking of opportunity, of the poor scared girl, simultaneously appealing and calling out for a man to help her. It's a mask she only enjoys because she knows it's not true. When men help her, they think they're in control. Her rescuer isn’t hard on the eyes either, although quite frankly Delysia’s already getting bored with men. Scott’s different, but she doesn’t want to sleep with him. At least, she doesn’t think she does. Which is also an intriguing first.
Unsurprisingly, at least in retrospect, the fire was Scott's idea. He just made Delysia think it was hers too.
She thinks it's one of Scott's little hits against the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ he's always talking about. That sounds about right. Delysia just tunes him out once he gets going - she couldn’t care less what he’s saying if it isn’t about the job, or something actually interesting. It's not like he's the first student who hates the upper-class that she's met in her life. Even the fake name would fit, and after all, she can hardly judge on that front. It’s the only boring thing about him, and to be fair, his protest stories can stir up a little interest. Peaceful protests really aren’t his thing.
----------
Museum Burning
Priceless Artifacts Lost
Police suspect foul play
Delysia is especially delighted with that last one. It has such a delicious ring to it. “Like a murder mystery,” she declares, allowing herself a girlish giggle at the thought. The diamond necklace her saviour of the previous night left lying around his apartment doesn't hurt either. The weight of it is wonderful.
Scott smiles.
(If Delysia had been paying attention, she would have noticed that smile never reached his eyes. The fire is already becoming something cooler. More deadly.)
In the weeks that follow, there are more jobs, picking at the edges of the rich and famous and laughing behind their backs. The papers are following their exploits, and while she should be worried, Delysia thinks ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and doesn’t care anymore. Thief and opera star, of a higher calibre of both than she’d ever really expected. It sounds like a show; like a movie. Scott just knows how to play people. He can teach her. He can keep her interested.
Delysia tries not to notice how increasingly unpleasant Scott's laugh can be. How he vanishes and returns the next day with no explanations for even how he got in without a keycard. Instead she focuses on coming up with something else, something more outrageous, something right out of the movies.
That is, until the day she reads about the bodies in the museum.
Shocking developments in museum heist
Murder First, Arson Second
The reality of their first job.
They might have been ‘innocent victims of the conflagration’ - which would have still been awful, of course - had they not been inside sarcophaguses. Had they not been dressed up as ancient pharaohs, and clearly dragged from the flames at just the right moment, where there was still just enough skeleton and skin to support the heavy gold and jewels and not crumble in their assembler's hands.
And if it wasn’t for the one right in the middle, dressed in such finery and clearly baked in it. The one who was already in that coffin before the fire started.
Delysia doesn't want to make the connection. But she can't help but think of the fact that she’d lost sight of Scott within five minutes. They'd agreed on that. Arranged it. They wanted different things. Only thinking about it, she still has no idea what exactly he had wanted.
He always likes to run off on his own.
And now Delysia thinks she knows why.
Much as she feels as if she should look up the rest of their work, she can already imagine the answers, and quite frankly she doesn’t want to carry it through and discover precisely how people might have died. She knows enough as it is. Too much.
She’s always imagined it as a clear-cut line. Herself on one side; killers on the other. The gray area isn’t a new concept, but not like this. Never like this. Delysia never wanted to kill anybody.
Maybe they might have died anyway. Scott has more than enough anger for it - she remembers their first meeting, and the moment when she thought he might lash out at her. She wonders, for what she realises with shuddering dread is the first time, just why he wanted an accomplice. Why then?
A decoy?
A cover?
A plaything?
She could go back. He'd be suspicious otherwise. Against anybody’s better judgement, she could walk right back to that man, and feel as if she’ll be safe for a just a little while from a man who can read even her so easily. And all because he hasn’t killed her yet.
Technically she does. Technically she rides the elevator; slides her keycard into the lock; opens the door on their penthouse suite. It's not bravery though: it's a gamble that pays off, because Scott truly loathes how flashy this room is. He’s only there when she needs convincing, whispering his words into her ear and making her forget about the real world out there.
The passport Scott knows about is in the safe.
The passport she wants is inside the box of tampons.
A trip to the pawnshop, Macy's, a hairdresser's and the airport later, Natasha finds herself bound for Europe.
----------
Perhaps that might be considered the end of the story.
After all, they’re rather different people now.
----------
A decade and a half later, in her third new life in the last five years, Irene Adler returns home to find an envelope addressed to her lying on her pillow, with no sign whatsoever as to how it came to be there.
It contains four things:
A printout from her website.
A photo of her outside her house.
An previously pawned diamond necklace.
And a sheet of notepaper from a hotel in New York that hasn't existed for at least seven years, containing only the address of a fashionable and expensive cocktail lounge - her favourite - and a promising missive. We should catch up. - JM
Irene has no idea what JM might stand for, but given that Scott was so obviously not his real name to begin with, she isn’t surprised either way.
Besides, she's cultivated one or two connections in her business of seeing the world the way she does. A quiet chat with a very attractive contact gains her, at the cost of a certain ring from her hoard and one night to test Irene's reputation, a list of several possibilities. While she doesn't know which is correct, at least she has something to go on the moment she finds her first clue. And find it she shall. She has no doubt about that.
Although really, the moment she sees the look on her contact’s face, she knows the man she’s looking for.
All she can think is that after his lectures about ostentation and ‘disgusting’ theatrics, James Moriarty must have done some growing over the years.
----------
She arrives fashionably late, if only because she wants the upper hand and it’s a fine way to anger any man. When she sweeps into the lounge, a perfect picture of elegance and grace, the eyes of everyone on her, she can find him in a moment by his cold-eyed glare.
Jim’s not impressed by her; he doesn’t talk to her breasts or her ‘arse’, doesn’t even seem aware that those exist, and she likes that. She likes a challenge, yes, but ever since her days curled up under the covers with a book (first alone and then with a friend), more than anything else, she likes a mystery. Scott promised a great deal that way; time has only improved him.
He wants her to call him ‘Moriarty’. That’s precisely why she doesn’t.
“So what can I do for you, Jim?” Irene asks smoothly, sitting back in her seat with the seductive glint in her eye which took her so long to hone from her initial undeniable promise. “I'm surprised you require my services, but I must say, I am intrigued.”
Jim's face does not change. At all.
It's the eyes, she knows. Scott's eyes could be thrilling and unnerving, the sheer depths of his hatred of the world - she was lying to herself with ‘anger’, it was always something deeper - and the sparks of pure creative genius, but they weren't terrifying. Scott burnt with something deadly, so naturally she was attracted, pulled towards the light; Jim has already burnt, and kills everything he touches, and she finds herself repelled as instinctively as from a shark. Jim's eyes are dead.
“The business of sex,” he comments, not the slightest change in intonation in a word that has always previously - with every man she has ever met, with eye-rolling predictability - produced some reaction, be it anything from covert thrill to disgust to perverted drooling. “You disappointed me, Ms Adler, you really did.”
She smiles. They're on her territory, and she refuses to let herself be played. “I wasn't aware I was seeking your approval.”
Before she can receive any real reaction - wishful thinking really - the waiter approaches, asks what they might wish to order, and Irene quickly cuts in to order a mojito for herself and a Screaming Virgin for her companion, just to study Jim's face. He doesn't look embarrassed, but he does react, so she counts it as a win, and ignores the fact that the reaction in question did not look pleasant at all. She is not in the business of being intimidated. Rather the opposite, actually.
When she voices this, just for an instant she regrets it, because Jim laughs in the most horrible way. Scott’s was nothing compared to this: his was just beginning to shiver down her spine, but Jim’s traces the sensation with a knifetip.
She thinks of Scott and the thrill of working with a man who didn't care about the world. For the first time, she admits that perhaps time might change a man in different ways to those she might prefer.
“It's adorable, you know,” he tells her, smiling in such a way to twist the words into their most patronising form. She wonders if the Irish drawl is any more genuine than when he hailed from Queens. She wonders if there’s anything real about him at all. “You thinking you’re in control.”
“Who says I'm not? I'm in the business of control.”
“As I just said, you're in the business of sex,” he says, suddenly harsh. “You control what pathetic people want to give you, and you think that puts you on my level. The truth, little girl, is that you're out of your depth and the sharks are circling.” He wants her to react. He wants her to retaliate. While she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of either verbally, she allows her hand to close on the stiletto she always conceals, because nobody calls her a little girl.
Jim meets her eyes, and as much as she tries, she hesitates, just long enough for him to talk again. “You know,” he says conversationally, switching tracks with dizzying ease and lounging in his chair like some great cat - for once not a simile that means something appeals to her, “you could do it, I'm sure - only I'm really not the best person to start on, and oh, I'd simply hate to put you off such an illustrious change in career.”
Oh, the bastard knows just why she left. Just why she panicked.
“You always did like to talk.” She only spits the words for now, but for that ‘little girl’ comment, she'd happily spit in his face. “That's all you are, though.”
“Now now, I had given you more credit than that. Then again, I gave you more credit than becoming a whore, so I guess we all make mistakes. I mean, just by way of example, you could stab me with that pretty little knife, and what a mistake that would be.”
“I have my methods.”
“And I have mine.” Jim's eyes slide away from her - unimportant, insignificant - to a man she'd written off as soon as he’d sat down at the next table over as someone remarkable only for being an ex-soldier frequenting such an establishment and, well, who is she to judge there? “Oh, Sebby dear?” Irene's eyes narrow as he practically coos the name.
She fancies she sees the man’s face twitch, but she must have imagined it - or rather, what happens next puts the sight out of her mind, as ‘Sebby’ rings a bell on the table in front of him and immediately everybody in the room freezes.
Then, as one, they all rise from their seats, and leave.
Irene stares as the lounge empties, until it is only the three of them.
“Funny, isn't it,” Jim comments with a smirk that was never ever genuine, “how often people who think they're in control find out that they're wrong?” He takes a sip of his drink and then spits it out, vulgar and animalistic. Feeling her hackles rise, Irene knows the look of disgust isn’t just aimed at the offending beverage. “And your taste has always been awful.”
She won't let him win. Not entirely. For some reason Jim wants to push her buttons. This is all about trying to get a rise out of her. But decades of survival instincts shouldn’t be ignored. “What do you want?” (this time)
“So glad we could come to an agreement.” Jim gestures, and his ‘friend’ stands to offer her, of all things, a dossier. When she only raises an eyebrow, he tosses it onto the table in front of her.
"Thankyou, ‘Sebby’," she says coolly, for nothing more than the satisfaction of watching him clench his fists and bite back an insult - Jim wouldn’t want her to win any victories. Jim himself might act immune, but that only makes it all the more satisfying. Especially when she looks back and sees his eyes narrow, just for a moment. Possessive. She wonders how Scott felt when he found her gone. “And who might this be?” she asks, as innocent as she's ever been able to fake.
“Your latest client.”
Irene runs an experienced eye over the top paper. “Nothing impressive.”
“Neither are you.”
“It’s your professionalism and your ability to rise above pettiness that I truly admire.”
She should really stop thinking of them as smiles. It’s an animal baring his teeth and nothing more human than that.
----------
Jim's little request is so innocent, so perfectly dull, that Irene knows she’s right to be suspicious.
He wants her to have “one of your little tea parties” - if she didn't know any better, she'd think he was taking a jab at her newfound accent - with a man of some standing. That might have been something, were it not for the fact that all her clients are ‘of some standing’. In fact, she looks over the files again and again, and can’t find a damn thing odd about this man on his own. He is, perhaps, the only truly unremarkable member of the aristocracy she’s seen.
What’s odd is what Jim wants. Actually no, what’s odd is how he’s playing at ‘missions’. The dossier is trying to make this look formal.
It’s trying to make her looked like a hired prostitute. How utterly charming.
Her ‘mission’ is to find something, of all things, the man has hidden on his body. Something about tattoos on ill-planned stag dos and a more unique way of smuggling information. Irene is about to call his bluff when she recalls that yes, some men are stupid enough not to realise what might be concealed within their ink. Especially if they were drunk and in a foreign country at the time.
At the phrase ‘Black Lotus’ she almost pulls out, but no. She takes the job, because Jim wants her to turn it down. She takes his orders, as much as it rankles. But she takes something a little extra.
Whilst her new client is still recovering, she sits and she talks. Or rather, she asks. She asks him about Jim Moriarty. And what he tells her - still lingering in the mentality of the obedient submissive, especially when she reassures him with a stroke of her riding crop that he’s safe here with her - well, it seems that Jimmy has been a busy boy indeed.
It seems that her dear little sociopath fancies himself the King of London.
It fits. It really does. And she recalls how, when Jim walked out and left her there “to think it all over”, she heard Sebastian ask whether ‘Holmes’ was going to get there first. Usually they would have been out of earshot, except Jim had had the music turned off with a ridiculously over-the-top click of his fingers - funny how performance was fine when he was doing it - and the acoustics in that lounge could be surprisingly helpful.
“What are you going to do?” Kate asks her, over the sleeping body. For once, Irene has summoned her to a client’s house, which might have been a breach of protocol if her profession had a strict protocol, not to mention if Kate weren’t such a ghost that Irene knows there isn’t the slightest chance of anybody knowing she was here.
Irene knows what she should do: run. Run the way she always has done. The way she did in New York. Moriarty is not a man she wants to be mixed up with, because, as she knows all too well, he is perfectly happy to let anybody else burn, should they become a hindrance, or just if he’s bored.
Then again…
She thinks of what ‘Scott’ has become, and what he aspires to be. She thinks of how Moriarty’s reach is clearly only growing. She thinks of Sebastian, a loyal dog if she ever saw one.
She thinks of a fragment of conversation, and the tingling sense of a coming war.
She thinks of how much she wanted, above all else, for her life to be an interesting, dazzling, exciting one.
Besides which, she knows why Jim made her do this. It’s a power play, plain and simple. She was the stooge in New York, and now he’s reminding her, and putting her in her place. As far as Moriarty is concerned, The Woman is only good for making men take their clothes off. The same way staging ostentatious thefts with a co-worker taught him how gullible and blind partners could be - how pliable.
Well now. They simply can’t let things stand as they are, can they? Not when he’s given her more than that.
“Stay.”
She smiles, and thinks of how much information she’s taken from this single client.
“We’re just getting started.”
It’s Irene’s weakness, just as it was Delysia’s, and Judy’s.
This isn’t over yet.
Natasha promised herself that fifteen years ago.
----------
Their very simple job ends very simply indeed, considering everything that might have happened, not to mention that this latest model of a man clearly fancies himself as somebody who leads by example. Then again, Irene hasn’t been subordinate - at least, not strictly. She likes to think she has established herself as separate from the clientele she reckons he’s used to.
She’s not oblivious to what Jim thinks of her. If he wanted it otherwise, he’d do a better job of hiding his tells; the slight twitch of his lips, the same as in the lounge at her entrance, that announces he disapproves.
(At this level, with such a minor job, Jim wants Irene to live under the illusion of control.)
(In truth, there’s still everything to play for. What neither of them knows yet is quite what a variable Sherlock Holmes will make.)
She waves the screen of her phone at him, a coy smile on her lips. “Something tells me this was just a test.”
“Really.”
“You wanted to know what I’d do.”
“I knew what you’d do.”
“But you could have had anybody strip him down and take some pictures. You wanted to get back in touch on a job where I couldn’t screw up and you wouldn’t lose anything if I, oh, were to alert anybody to these.” Because there had been more than one tattoo. She’d had rather a lot of fun, experimenting with layout and angles and lighting.
“Maybe I’ll want to use you later.”
“Or maybe you just wanted me to think you saw me as only a whore.”
She quirks an eyebrow, because given what he thinks of her profession, she highly doubts he wants her to service anyone. Maybe he’s playing a game where he needs a beautiful dame. Maybe she could play her own game. Being in with Moriarty, even when he hates you, even when at any moment he could stab you in the back, could be just the thrill she needs. As usual.
Besides which, she has a theory.
“You do think better of me. Or you should. Because I’m wondering whether the Black Lotus wanted you to see those tattoos. Or whether this is you gathering data - or perhaps muscling in on their territory? Covering it up because who would possibly suspect that Jim Moriarty would stoop to using a prostitute as cover?” She smiles. “Only I’m rather more than that. Despite what you say.”
The hatred from the other side of the table is almost palpable. It’s dangerous, but what the hell, Delysia wasn’t the only time she ever liked playing with fire.
Briefly she toys with the idea of mentioning Holmes. No, though - that would be a step too far at this moment. Far better to see what happens next. Especially now that Kate has told her a thing or two about who this ‘Holmes’ might be.
Instead, she tries a little provocation of her own - she’s good at that. “So what now? Is this the start of a beautiful friendship?”
“You never did stop watching your little shows. Little girl with your fairytales. I know the type.” This time the smile is slow and vampiric. Despite her (hidden) shiver of something instinctive, Irene files away this little piece of information. Apparently Jim has a girl in his life. She feels sorry for her already.
“I truly doubt you do.”
“I truly doubt that your opinion matters.”
And isn’t that the truth? Irene can already tell how little she matters in his eyes. This really was a power play. Contacting Irene before she could contact him. As she said before, she knows a thing or two about control.
“You know, you’ve given me an idea.”
“I’m not surprised. You don’t have any of your own.”
Irene wonders, with a thrill of delight, if Jim shows such clear dislike in all conversations with his contacts. Something so close to what he’s really feeling. She can’t imagine he got where he is that way. She knows about playing people, and even as Scott he knew how to soothe and coax and sink his claws into his targets before they realised what was happening. In the weeks spent running after the museum, it occurred to her just how much convincing must have happened to get that first body - the one that truly haunts her - the way he wanted.
Jim Moriarty does not like her. It’s like being his best friend.
“What can I say? You’ve opened my eyes to the possibilities of my work.”
“Is that so.”
“Because this client, your little play at politics aside, was small potatoes.” She slips into the familiar skin of her old accent, just for the phrase, just to enjoy the twitch around his eyes. “But some of the others?”
He narrows his eyes. Tread lightly. “What are you offering?”
“Oh, nothing at all. Not yet.” She pauses, hoping to force him to offer her the ‘but?’ He doesn’t, but this is so much fun, she allows it. Besides, right now she doesn’t want in on his crown - as she said, ‘not yet’. “But I deal with a rather select clientele, and you’ve rather put me in mind of insurance. I can’t imagine why.” Only some words almost two decade ago.
“Thank God,” Jim says, sitting back. “For a horrible moment there I thought this was going to be about money.”
“How do you know it won’t be?”
“You’re sticking around. Very stupid move, but I didn’t expect much better.”
“I’m guessing you don’t expect better from anyone.”
Jim just hums, his gaze suddenly going oddly distant as he taps a finger against his lips. He’s thinking. He’s not thinking about her. Just like that, she has ceased to exist. She hates that. She always has.
“I’m not saying I’m working for you,” she continues. “I’m merely letting you know the sort of things I might have access to.”
Still nothing.
She feels the rage only moments before she finds herself snapping, “So I want your phone number.”
That gets his attention.
“You can’t have it.”
“Fine. It’s not as if I’ll ever have anything you need.” She stands up. “Maybe I’ll hunt down this Holmes you’re so interested in.”
Oh, she only thought she had his attention before. Now it’s like being pinned beneath a microscope and it’s all she can do not to squirm. Feeling rather proud of herself, she holds her ground. In fact, she leans in close, dropping her voice, watching him intently. “I’m willing to be a neutral party in your little feud,” she murmurs, deliberately almost brushing his ear with her lips, realising just how she needs to play this if she wants to matter, if she wants to tread water. “Your new fancy sounds intriguing, but that doesn’t mean you’re not as well.”
He curls his lip. Oh, how he hates her. “Your number,” she insists. “I won’t deal with intermediaries, I’m far too busy for that. But you wouldn’t want to miss out on someone who has those sorts of people in such…vulnerable positions. And in return, perhaps I’ll help you if I feel like it.”
“You’re assuming an awful lot.”
“I don’t play for anything small. There’s no point. Life’s too short.”
“Yes, it is.”
They size each other up. Then Jim holds out his hand. “Phone.”
When she finds herself stifling a gasp, Irene realises she really didn’t think that was going to work. Judging by his expression of sheer confusion, neither did Sebastian. Then again, the glint in Jim’s eye suggests he has some other ideas. No matter. Irene wants to last, and she’ll need to navigate this man to do it. She draws out her phone and unlocks it, smiling as she notices him watching closely. “Don’t worry. I’ll change it. And change it again, if I catch you watching.”
“It’s nice that you think that’ll make a difference.” A flick of his fingers, and Irene is once again holding cold metal. Somehow it doesn’t surprise her that his grip didn’t leave a trace of warmth. Automatically she checks, and that does indeed seem genuine. At the very least, it’s not a string of zeroes, but then this time Jim has a little bit more class than that.
“Watch your step, Ms Adler,” Moriarty says, slowly rising to his feet, fastening his jacket like the gentleman he isn’t. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
And then he leaves, Sebastian trailing in his wake.
Irene rings the number. She’ll claim later it was simply to check its authenticity.
In truth, she just wanted to spoil his exit.
----------
Were you to ask the individuals in question about their first meeting, they might offer up either of those - should you be able to make them discuss the matter at all. After all, neither is particularly given to sentiment, or nostalgia, or honesty. Or, for that matter, indulging those who pry.
But here is a secret that neither Moriarty nor Adler knows.
A fairytale.
Once upon a time, a boy and girl met by chance, as is always the way, and decided to run away together. Their nasty parents didn’t love them, and they wanted to show the world how wrong that was.
The boy was hard-eyed and boasted he could already take good care of himself. The girl admired him, but could smile and laugh and make other people would love her - everybody except her horrible mother - and they would do everything for her. If only for a little while.
They lived together for three days in a toyshop, like in a movie which the girl loved very much. The boy taught her to lie and the girl taught him to smile.
He called himself Jim - a silly boring name, so easily forgotten.
She called herself Scarlett, after a woman she so wanted to be.
The cops came and the boy and girl were separated. They weren’t even allowed to say goodbye.
And they grew up, and they forgot.
And that is the first story.
The End.
By: special_schizo
Prompt: sherlockmas 'Sherlock's Summer Vacay': 55 - Irene, Moriarty; how did they first come to work with each other
Category: Gen
Characters: Irene Adler, Jim Moriarty
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mild references to BDSM - tamer than in the show - and murder.
Summary: In New York, Delysia O'Hara and Scott Thomas first cross paths; sixteen years later, Jim Moriarty gets back in touch.
Author's notes: There is a whole other larger fic that got cut out here. Some day I might finish it.
Also on my AO3.
First Time For Everything
The question’s getting rather popular these days: how did Irene Adler and James Moriarty start working together?
It doesn’t take an advanced intellect (of the sort that seems increasingly common these days) to realise that there’s some sort of story there. What happened at the pool is a mystery, so naturally the entire underground knows about it, and while an entirely separate debate concerns whether or not Moriarty really was going to have the trigger pulled, or even the bomb exploded, once somebody voices the other issue, it’s rather hard to ignore. You see, Moriarty might have connections, and plenty of them, and be the official or unofficial boss of everybody in London, and put the Krays to shame in terms of controlling the city, not to mention Jack the Ripper when it comes to basic power of fear…
Even allowing for all of this, how did Adler get Moriarty’s phone number?
That number is not handed out freely. People can be forwarded to it, certainly, but Moriarty interrupted a confrontation where he actually showed his face (the locals at the pub look at you in disbelief, and it takes a corroborator for the story to proceed). He knew who it was and broke off everything to talk.
Funny things happen once you get into the ‘underworld’ of this city. Definitely at the moment, with Sherlock Holmes on the scene and James Moriarty bedding in. Increasingly it feels like there’s a war on, and that does make for strange bedfellows. But a high-class dominatrix and the city’s new overlord - who seems so very very not interested in that sort of thing - seems to call for some sort of explanation.
Unfortunately, nobody has the story.
They seize on the few facts they have, and they speculate. They point out the advantage of Adler’s clients - except The Woman is famously independent. They point out Moriarty’s extensive connections - except that doesn’t mean personal. They point out the circumstance that is Sherlock Holmes - except that only makes events all the more unusual.
Within a week, rumours are getting out of hand. That’s what Moriarty likes. And business is booming, so Adler isn’t exactly complaining either.
They’re all trying to make it work in London. They’re trying to fit it into Moriarty’s rise to power. They’re trying to work within what they know.
Real life can be so much more complicated than that.
---------
Sixteen years and several lives ago, Delysia O’Hara and Scott Thomas met at a summer garden party. Delysia wore silk; Scott wore an apron.
The party is yet another high-end do for the rich and famous, and Delysia is rather delighted to find that as one of the younger stars of the opera, that includes her now. Admittedly, she’s only included as a +1, yet she didn’t get to this point in her life - finally looking down on the dull lights of New Jersey with a derisive smile - by being too proud to let a man delude himself as to the nature of their relationship. At the end of the day, he’s just an unfortunately talkative meal ticket, and this is hardly the first time such an arrangement has suited her.
When a waiter smiles and compliments her on her performance in La gazza ladra, she smiles coquettishly (she’s been practicing that for a while - she’s always loved the sound of the word - and she’s giving it a spin tonight), thanks him, and thinks, Gay.
It’s not just that he’s a man in his early twenties who cares about opera. There are a million signs and Delysia didn’t get to her current position without being able to distinguish who might be more susceptible to her more specialised attentions.
“Although I must say, I’m more of a fan of your other work.”
“Oh?” She raises her eyebrows and takes a sip from her cocktail glass, already planning how long she’ll humour this one before moving on. “Do tell.”
“Although you should stop leaving calling cards when you rob somebody. Sooner or later even these cops are going to be onto you. Judy.”
Her smile freezes.
The waiter is smiling charmingly at her. At least, initially it appears charming. The survival instinct that flares up at the suggestion of recognition causes her vision to narrow and focus instead on his eyes, because having always had trouble with those she knows to watch out for them. The smile says ‘pleasant’; the eyes say ‘liar’. They’re angry, but not at her. They’re angry at the world. They look like they’re on fire.
This isn’t someone taking shots in the dark. He knows. What matters is what he’s going to do with that.
She swallows and forces herself to recover. People are going to notice.
Perhaps her laugh sounds less than genuine, and certainly a shade off ‘tinkling’, but she still takes him by the arm and leads him to the side, focusing on the image of somebody passing on secret backstage tips and juicy gossip. “How about you tell me what you want?” She drops the smooth accent, lets her New Jersey drawl come to the fore, because she doesn’t want to be charming right now. At least, not yet.
His smile widens, enough to show his teeth. “What I said. I’m a fan.”
“Really.”
He holds out a hand, beaming falsely at her. “Scott Thomas.”
She doesn’t take it.
“Really? Scott?”
He scowls, expression shifting in an instant, and she feels a small glimmer of satisfaction. “Not everybody as disgustingly unsubtle as you, darling.”
She refuses to rise to the bait. “You’re just fine with people ignoring you? Like you’re nothing?”
“I am when I want them to underestimate me.”
Well, doesn’t that sound like somebody she wants to be associated with?
As a matter of fact, it does.
“So what’s your angle?”
He looks pained. “Media saturation is the blight of our times, my dear.” Quite frankly, it’s an odd turn of phrase. Sounds like he’s reciting something - a script, perhaps. Trying to sound impressive, or superior. Sounds like it wasn’t meant for the Queens accent he’s sporting.
Delysia will quite freely admit that a part of her wants nothing more than to live the ridiculous life of those characters on the screen, both big and small. She’s also far too used to people assuming intimacies. Therefore, instead of rising to either challenge presented - clearly this man who would love nothing else and clearly she can’t let him have what he wants - she rolls her eyes mockingly and asks, “Why come looking for me like this?”
“I want to see what it’s like working with a partner.”
She cocks an eyebrow. “I bet you do.” It isn’t hard to sound derisive - not when she already feels that way.
There’s some amusement in the way he haughtily draws himself up like an offended cat, even if it is rather off-set by the spark which suggests that his hair-trigger temper only just avoids a matching hair-trigger murder spree. “You utter -”
And then suddenly he closes his eyes - inhales, noticeably relaxes on the exhale - and when they open again, she restrains the urge to step back, because they’re accompanied by a slow, sly smile and a hiss. “If you’re not interested, I suppose I could leave you to your petty little life. I’m sure one or two people here would love to know what’s happened to their family heirlooms.”
Mood swings and a threat. Despite that flash of something interesting there… “So you’re blackmailing me.” How boring.
He winces. “Christ, nothing that vulgar.”
“Is there another word for what you’re doing?”
“How about insurance?”
She sucks in air, wanting nothing more to punch him. “I work alone.”
“Little League.” There. The emphasis on the words; the strength of the accent. Oh, he’s faking it alright. The question is, how much?
“It’s just something on the side.”
“But you want it to be more.”
She enjoys the thrill. Not that she’ll tell this nosy brat anything like that. “I’m afraid, Mr Thomas, this conversation is over. Now scram before I find your supervisor.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Delysia turns her head, intending something haughty and dignified, the epitome of every great screen performance. Except when Judy hesitates and glances back, somehow he’s vanished. That’s…unnerving. However, on the off-chance that he can still see her - she knows what she would do - she refuses to let that show.
Just as she doesn’t let it show when she’s towed back towards her date and she’s just so completely and utterly bored. Opera is glamorous; for the most part, these parties should be too. And yet she finds herself listening to stocks - useful, no doubt, but she was expecting something a little more exciting. Unfortunately, she’s just a +1, after all. This is a party where she’s nothing but eye candy. It makes her want to take risks and force these self-satisfied men and vapid women to admit she’s better than them. She clawed her way up here and they have never done anything.
Some might say that makes it a party where she’s vulnerable.
The thefts were always going to come back to bite her. It’s just… She hates dull, and she hates safe, and while the backstage politics of the opera are truly wonderful, keeping her hand in seems such a natural thing to do. She can’t trust life. Besides, she’s been at it a year, and this is the longest she’s stayed in a career. The shine is starting to wear off to show the rough beneath.
She tries to focus on the glamour. The painted smiles. The hidden messages. The high-class subterfuge. Noticing it usually makes her feel superior. While it still does, now though it makes the question rebound around her head: what does the mysterious man want?
Any one of her heroes would have found out.
Two tedious hours later, she catches him again, acting charming while promising death to every patron he looks at. “Scott’s not your real name.”
He just looks at her.
“Real accent?”
He rolls his eyes dismissively. While she’s not sure how far he’s faking his yawn, he’s definitely getting bored. And, well, he has a point.
She thinks about her life. Thinks about something exciting.
“What did you have in mind?”
Scott’s sudden grin is wide, wild and fierce. He looks like a man who wants to watch the world burn.
----------
And thus, over room service in Delysia’s penthouse suite -
“Tastes awful.”
“Of course it does.”
-- their first job is born.
Or rather, Scott outlines their first job, and then spends the evening coaxing a ‘yes’ out of her. Technically it doesn’t require a great deal of coaxing, but Delysia rather likes being pursued, so she acts coy in the only way she can: aggressively.
Scott fascinates her in a way that so few men do. So angry and so full of lies. She’s pleased because she can see through his falsehoods, flattered that he doesn’t try to stop her. As a girl she liked to hold her fingers in candle flames and watch the patterns of soot form, daring herself to push forward and hold for longer to prove that she was better than everybody else around her. This feeling of talking to this man - the giddy delight of a young acquaintance, not love but exciting nonetheless - feels so very familiar to her.
In the end, Scott has his ‘yes’, and Delysia has a wealth of background information on Scott Thomas, aged 22, college student with a vendetta against those who were merely born into their squandered wealth. So that all seems wonderful.
(It’s a lie, of course. No truth for her to tease out - not unless she wants to drive herself mad. One month from this moment, Natasha will look herself in the eye and promise never to believe in anybody else again. While this is not a promise she consistently adheres to, the lesson of distrust and faith only in yourself will endure nonetheless.)
Scott really does know how to sweet-talk her: a shocking opener - she’s less than impressed, or at least appears so, if only because she’d had a sense he’d want something like that the moment they met - and then, slowly but surely, he convinces her to go along with it, painting the plan in broad, exquisite strokes. His voice sounds different, a part of her notes, a part of her not already bedazzled. Nothing important will be hurt, he insists, because museums are ready for such things. But play their cards right, and they could have their choice of exhibits - or people, he adds, an afterthought (people always are, she senses), reluctant but apparently remembering how much fun she can have manipulating people. He talks about riches; he talks about statements; he talks about just how beautiful fire can be.
Delysia does like fires. Always has done. So does Scott, but not in the same way. Delysia enjoys light and heat and beauty; Scott smiles with sparks alight in his eyes.
Much as she’s been enjoying her opera, something about being bad, and of course a bad boy, reaches somewhere deep inside her. She dreams of being grand and magnificent, and she starts to dream of a heist nobody will forget.
----------
This is their first real job together.
They make their way into the party - this time some sort of company affair, she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care, not anymore - and play the crowd, Delysia the dazzling socialite and Scott the sardonic but silent waiter, noting marks, pocketing change and sparkles, the standard. Delysia is an old hand at this, and it's almost nice to find herself in such familiar territory. Nice because she knows this won't be all.
Then, with a few cat burglar tricks and a couple of mysteries from the supposed Man of Mystery, they burn the place.
Despite pocketing a few treasures, Delysia's thinking of opportunity, of the poor scared girl, simultaneously appealing and calling out for a man to help her. It's a mask she only enjoys because she knows it's not true. When men help her, they think they're in control. Her rescuer isn’t hard on the eyes either, although quite frankly Delysia’s already getting bored with men. Scott’s different, but she doesn’t want to sleep with him. At least, she doesn’t think she does. Which is also an intriguing first.
Unsurprisingly, at least in retrospect, the fire was Scott's idea. He just made Delysia think it was hers too.
She thinks it's one of Scott's little hits against the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ he's always talking about. That sounds about right. Delysia just tunes him out once he gets going - she couldn’t care less what he’s saying if it isn’t about the job, or something actually interesting. It's not like he's the first student who hates the upper-class that she's met in her life. Even the fake name would fit, and after all, she can hardly judge on that front. It’s the only boring thing about him, and to be fair, his protest stories can stir up a little interest. Peaceful protests really aren’t his thing.
----------
Museum Burning
Priceless Artifacts Lost
Police suspect foul play
Delysia is especially delighted with that last one. It has such a delicious ring to it. “Like a murder mystery,” she declares, allowing herself a girlish giggle at the thought. The diamond necklace her saviour of the previous night left lying around his apartment doesn't hurt either. The weight of it is wonderful.
Scott smiles.
(If Delysia had been paying attention, she would have noticed that smile never reached his eyes. The fire is already becoming something cooler. More deadly.)
In the weeks that follow, there are more jobs, picking at the edges of the rich and famous and laughing behind their backs. The papers are following their exploits, and while she should be worried, Delysia thinks ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and doesn’t care anymore. Thief and opera star, of a higher calibre of both than she’d ever really expected. It sounds like a show; like a movie. Scott just knows how to play people. He can teach her. He can keep her interested.
Delysia tries not to notice how increasingly unpleasant Scott's laugh can be. How he vanishes and returns the next day with no explanations for even how he got in without a keycard. Instead she focuses on coming up with something else, something more outrageous, something right out of the movies.
That is, until the day she reads about the bodies in the museum.
Shocking developments in museum heist
Murder First, Arson Second
The reality of their first job.
They might have been ‘innocent victims of the conflagration’ - which would have still been awful, of course - had they not been inside sarcophaguses. Had they not been dressed up as ancient pharaohs, and clearly dragged from the flames at just the right moment, where there was still just enough skeleton and skin to support the heavy gold and jewels and not crumble in their assembler's hands.
And if it wasn’t for the one right in the middle, dressed in such finery and clearly baked in it. The one who was already in that coffin before the fire started.
Delysia doesn't want to make the connection. But she can't help but think of the fact that she’d lost sight of Scott within five minutes. They'd agreed on that. Arranged it. They wanted different things. Only thinking about it, she still has no idea what exactly he had wanted.
He always likes to run off on his own.
And now Delysia thinks she knows why.
Much as she feels as if she should look up the rest of their work, she can already imagine the answers, and quite frankly she doesn’t want to carry it through and discover precisely how people might have died. She knows enough as it is. Too much.
She’s always imagined it as a clear-cut line. Herself on one side; killers on the other. The gray area isn’t a new concept, but not like this. Never like this. Delysia never wanted to kill anybody.
Maybe they might have died anyway. Scott has more than enough anger for it - she remembers their first meeting, and the moment when she thought he might lash out at her. She wonders, for what she realises with shuddering dread is the first time, just why he wanted an accomplice. Why then?
A decoy?
A cover?
A plaything?
She could go back. He'd be suspicious otherwise. Against anybody’s better judgement, she could walk right back to that man, and feel as if she’ll be safe for a just a little while from a man who can read even her so easily. And all because he hasn’t killed her yet.
Technically she does. Technically she rides the elevator; slides her keycard into the lock; opens the door on their penthouse suite. It's not bravery though: it's a gamble that pays off, because Scott truly loathes how flashy this room is. He’s only there when she needs convincing, whispering his words into her ear and making her forget about the real world out there.
The passport Scott knows about is in the safe.
The passport she wants is inside the box of tampons.
A trip to the pawnshop, Macy's, a hairdresser's and the airport later, Natasha finds herself bound for Europe.
----------
Perhaps that might be considered the end of the story.
After all, they’re rather different people now.
----------
A decade and a half later, in her third new life in the last five years, Irene Adler returns home to find an envelope addressed to her lying on her pillow, with no sign whatsoever as to how it came to be there.
It contains four things:
A printout from her website.
A photo of her outside her house.
An previously pawned diamond necklace.
And a sheet of notepaper from a hotel in New York that hasn't existed for at least seven years, containing only the address of a fashionable and expensive cocktail lounge - her favourite - and a promising missive. We should catch up. - JM
Irene has no idea what JM might stand for, but given that Scott was so obviously not his real name to begin with, she isn’t surprised either way.
Besides, she's cultivated one or two connections in her business of seeing the world the way she does. A quiet chat with a very attractive contact gains her, at the cost of a certain ring from her hoard and one night to test Irene's reputation, a list of several possibilities. While she doesn't know which is correct, at least she has something to go on the moment she finds her first clue. And find it she shall. She has no doubt about that.
Although really, the moment she sees the look on her contact’s face, she knows the man she’s looking for.
All she can think is that after his lectures about ostentation and ‘disgusting’ theatrics, James Moriarty must have done some growing over the years.
----------
She arrives fashionably late, if only because she wants the upper hand and it’s a fine way to anger any man. When she sweeps into the lounge, a perfect picture of elegance and grace, the eyes of everyone on her, she can find him in a moment by his cold-eyed glare.
Jim’s not impressed by her; he doesn’t talk to her breasts or her ‘arse’, doesn’t even seem aware that those exist, and she likes that. She likes a challenge, yes, but ever since her days curled up under the covers with a book (first alone and then with a friend), more than anything else, she likes a mystery. Scott promised a great deal that way; time has only improved him.
He wants her to call him ‘Moriarty’. That’s precisely why she doesn’t.
“So what can I do for you, Jim?” Irene asks smoothly, sitting back in her seat with the seductive glint in her eye which took her so long to hone from her initial undeniable promise. “I'm surprised you require my services, but I must say, I am intrigued.”
Jim's face does not change. At all.
It's the eyes, she knows. Scott's eyes could be thrilling and unnerving, the sheer depths of his hatred of the world - she was lying to herself with ‘anger’, it was always something deeper - and the sparks of pure creative genius, but they weren't terrifying. Scott burnt with something deadly, so naturally she was attracted, pulled towards the light; Jim has already burnt, and kills everything he touches, and she finds herself repelled as instinctively as from a shark. Jim's eyes are dead.
“The business of sex,” he comments, not the slightest change in intonation in a word that has always previously - with every man she has ever met, with eye-rolling predictability - produced some reaction, be it anything from covert thrill to disgust to perverted drooling. “You disappointed me, Ms Adler, you really did.”
She smiles. They're on her territory, and she refuses to let herself be played. “I wasn't aware I was seeking your approval.”
Before she can receive any real reaction - wishful thinking really - the waiter approaches, asks what they might wish to order, and Irene quickly cuts in to order a mojito for herself and a Screaming Virgin for her companion, just to study Jim's face. He doesn't look embarrassed, but he does react, so she counts it as a win, and ignores the fact that the reaction in question did not look pleasant at all. She is not in the business of being intimidated. Rather the opposite, actually.
When she voices this, just for an instant she regrets it, because Jim laughs in the most horrible way. Scott’s was nothing compared to this: his was just beginning to shiver down her spine, but Jim’s traces the sensation with a knifetip.
She thinks of Scott and the thrill of working with a man who didn't care about the world. For the first time, she admits that perhaps time might change a man in different ways to those she might prefer.
“It's adorable, you know,” he tells her, smiling in such a way to twist the words into their most patronising form. She wonders if the Irish drawl is any more genuine than when he hailed from Queens. She wonders if there’s anything real about him at all. “You thinking you’re in control.”
“Who says I'm not? I'm in the business of control.”
“As I just said, you're in the business of sex,” he says, suddenly harsh. “You control what pathetic people want to give you, and you think that puts you on my level. The truth, little girl, is that you're out of your depth and the sharks are circling.” He wants her to react. He wants her to retaliate. While she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of either verbally, she allows her hand to close on the stiletto she always conceals, because nobody calls her a little girl.
Jim meets her eyes, and as much as she tries, she hesitates, just long enough for him to talk again. “You know,” he says conversationally, switching tracks with dizzying ease and lounging in his chair like some great cat - for once not a simile that means something appeals to her, “you could do it, I'm sure - only I'm really not the best person to start on, and oh, I'd simply hate to put you off such an illustrious change in career.”
Oh, the bastard knows just why she left. Just why she panicked.
“You always did like to talk.” She only spits the words for now, but for that ‘little girl’ comment, she'd happily spit in his face. “That's all you are, though.”
“Now now, I had given you more credit than that. Then again, I gave you more credit than becoming a whore, so I guess we all make mistakes. I mean, just by way of example, you could stab me with that pretty little knife, and what a mistake that would be.”
“I have my methods.”
“And I have mine.” Jim's eyes slide away from her - unimportant, insignificant - to a man she'd written off as soon as he’d sat down at the next table over as someone remarkable only for being an ex-soldier frequenting such an establishment and, well, who is she to judge there? “Oh, Sebby dear?” Irene's eyes narrow as he practically coos the name.
She fancies she sees the man’s face twitch, but she must have imagined it - or rather, what happens next puts the sight out of her mind, as ‘Sebby’ rings a bell on the table in front of him and immediately everybody in the room freezes.
Then, as one, they all rise from their seats, and leave.
Irene stares as the lounge empties, until it is only the three of them.
“Funny, isn't it,” Jim comments with a smirk that was never ever genuine, “how often people who think they're in control find out that they're wrong?” He takes a sip of his drink and then spits it out, vulgar and animalistic. Feeling her hackles rise, Irene knows the look of disgust isn’t just aimed at the offending beverage. “And your taste has always been awful.”
She won't let him win. Not entirely. For some reason Jim wants to push her buttons. This is all about trying to get a rise out of her. But decades of survival instincts shouldn’t be ignored. “What do you want?” (this time)
“So glad we could come to an agreement.” Jim gestures, and his ‘friend’ stands to offer her, of all things, a dossier. When she only raises an eyebrow, he tosses it onto the table in front of her.
"Thankyou, ‘Sebby’," she says coolly, for nothing more than the satisfaction of watching him clench his fists and bite back an insult - Jim wouldn’t want her to win any victories. Jim himself might act immune, but that only makes it all the more satisfying. Especially when she looks back and sees his eyes narrow, just for a moment. Possessive. She wonders how Scott felt when he found her gone. “And who might this be?” she asks, as innocent as she's ever been able to fake.
“Your latest client.”
Irene runs an experienced eye over the top paper. “Nothing impressive.”
“Neither are you.”
“It’s your professionalism and your ability to rise above pettiness that I truly admire.”
She should really stop thinking of them as smiles. It’s an animal baring his teeth and nothing more human than that.
----------
Jim's little request is so innocent, so perfectly dull, that Irene knows she’s right to be suspicious.
He wants her to have “one of your little tea parties” - if she didn't know any better, she'd think he was taking a jab at her newfound accent - with a man of some standing. That might have been something, were it not for the fact that all her clients are ‘of some standing’. In fact, she looks over the files again and again, and can’t find a damn thing odd about this man on his own. He is, perhaps, the only truly unremarkable member of the aristocracy she’s seen.
What’s odd is what Jim wants. Actually no, what’s odd is how he’s playing at ‘missions’. The dossier is trying to make this look formal.
It’s trying to make her looked like a hired prostitute. How utterly charming.
Her ‘mission’ is to find something, of all things, the man has hidden on his body. Something about tattoos on ill-planned stag dos and a more unique way of smuggling information. Irene is about to call his bluff when she recalls that yes, some men are stupid enough not to realise what might be concealed within their ink. Especially if they were drunk and in a foreign country at the time.
At the phrase ‘Black Lotus’ she almost pulls out, but no. She takes the job, because Jim wants her to turn it down. She takes his orders, as much as it rankles. But she takes something a little extra.
Whilst her new client is still recovering, she sits and she talks. Or rather, she asks. She asks him about Jim Moriarty. And what he tells her - still lingering in the mentality of the obedient submissive, especially when she reassures him with a stroke of her riding crop that he’s safe here with her - well, it seems that Jimmy has been a busy boy indeed.
It seems that her dear little sociopath fancies himself the King of London.
It fits. It really does. And she recalls how, when Jim walked out and left her there “to think it all over”, she heard Sebastian ask whether ‘Holmes’ was going to get there first. Usually they would have been out of earshot, except Jim had had the music turned off with a ridiculously over-the-top click of his fingers - funny how performance was fine when he was doing it - and the acoustics in that lounge could be surprisingly helpful.
“What are you going to do?” Kate asks her, over the sleeping body. For once, Irene has summoned her to a client’s house, which might have been a breach of protocol if her profession had a strict protocol, not to mention if Kate weren’t such a ghost that Irene knows there isn’t the slightest chance of anybody knowing she was here.
Irene knows what she should do: run. Run the way she always has done. The way she did in New York. Moriarty is not a man she wants to be mixed up with, because, as she knows all too well, he is perfectly happy to let anybody else burn, should they become a hindrance, or just if he’s bored.
Then again…
She thinks of what ‘Scott’ has become, and what he aspires to be. She thinks of how Moriarty’s reach is clearly only growing. She thinks of Sebastian, a loyal dog if she ever saw one.
She thinks of a fragment of conversation, and the tingling sense of a coming war.
She thinks of how much she wanted, above all else, for her life to be an interesting, dazzling, exciting one.
Besides which, she knows why Jim made her do this. It’s a power play, plain and simple. She was the stooge in New York, and now he’s reminding her, and putting her in her place. As far as Moriarty is concerned, The Woman is only good for making men take their clothes off. The same way staging ostentatious thefts with a co-worker taught him how gullible and blind partners could be - how pliable.
Well now. They simply can’t let things stand as they are, can they? Not when he’s given her more than that.
“Stay.”
She smiles, and thinks of how much information she’s taken from this single client.
“We’re just getting started.”
It’s Irene’s weakness, just as it was Delysia’s, and Judy’s.
This isn’t over yet.
Natasha promised herself that fifteen years ago.
----------
Their very simple job ends very simply indeed, considering everything that might have happened, not to mention that this latest model of a man clearly fancies himself as somebody who leads by example. Then again, Irene hasn’t been subordinate - at least, not strictly. She likes to think she has established herself as separate from the clientele she reckons he’s used to.
She’s not oblivious to what Jim thinks of her. If he wanted it otherwise, he’d do a better job of hiding his tells; the slight twitch of his lips, the same as in the lounge at her entrance, that announces he disapproves.
(At this level, with such a minor job, Jim wants Irene to live under the illusion of control.)
(In truth, there’s still everything to play for. What neither of them knows yet is quite what a variable Sherlock Holmes will make.)
She waves the screen of her phone at him, a coy smile on her lips. “Something tells me this was just a test.”
“Really.”
“You wanted to know what I’d do.”
“I knew what you’d do.”
“But you could have had anybody strip him down and take some pictures. You wanted to get back in touch on a job where I couldn’t screw up and you wouldn’t lose anything if I, oh, were to alert anybody to these.” Because there had been more than one tattoo. She’d had rather a lot of fun, experimenting with layout and angles and lighting.
“Maybe I’ll want to use you later.”
“Or maybe you just wanted me to think you saw me as only a whore.”
She quirks an eyebrow, because given what he thinks of her profession, she highly doubts he wants her to service anyone. Maybe he’s playing a game where he needs a beautiful dame. Maybe she could play her own game. Being in with Moriarty, even when he hates you, even when at any moment he could stab you in the back, could be just the thrill she needs. As usual.
Besides which, she has a theory.
“You do think better of me. Or you should. Because I’m wondering whether the Black Lotus wanted you to see those tattoos. Or whether this is you gathering data - or perhaps muscling in on their territory? Covering it up because who would possibly suspect that Jim Moriarty would stoop to using a prostitute as cover?” She smiles. “Only I’m rather more than that. Despite what you say.”
The hatred from the other side of the table is almost palpable. It’s dangerous, but what the hell, Delysia wasn’t the only time she ever liked playing with fire.
Briefly she toys with the idea of mentioning Holmes. No, though - that would be a step too far at this moment. Far better to see what happens next. Especially now that Kate has told her a thing or two about who this ‘Holmes’ might be.
Instead, she tries a little provocation of her own - she’s good at that. “So what now? Is this the start of a beautiful friendship?”
“You never did stop watching your little shows. Little girl with your fairytales. I know the type.” This time the smile is slow and vampiric. Despite her (hidden) shiver of something instinctive, Irene files away this little piece of information. Apparently Jim has a girl in his life. She feels sorry for her already.
“I truly doubt you do.”
“I truly doubt that your opinion matters.”
And isn’t that the truth? Irene can already tell how little she matters in his eyes. This really was a power play. Contacting Irene before she could contact him. As she said before, she knows a thing or two about control.
“You know, you’ve given me an idea.”
“I’m not surprised. You don’t have any of your own.”
Irene wonders, with a thrill of delight, if Jim shows such clear dislike in all conversations with his contacts. Something so close to what he’s really feeling. She can’t imagine he got where he is that way. She knows about playing people, and even as Scott he knew how to soothe and coax and sink his claws into his targets before they realised what was happening. In the weeks spent running after the museum, it occurred to her just how much convincing must have happened to get that first body - the one that truly haunts her - the way he wanted.
Jim Moriarty does not like her. It’s like being his best friend.
“What can I say? You’ve opened my eyes to the possibilities of my work.”
“Is that so.”
“Because this client, your little play at politics aside, was small potatoes.” She slips into the familiar skin of her old accent, just for the phrase, just to enjoy the twitch around his eyes. “But some of the others?”
He narrows his eyes. Tread lightly. “What are you offering?”
“Oh, nothing at all. Not yet.” She pauses, hoping to force him to offer her the ‘but?’ He doesn’t, but this is so much fun, she allows it. Besides, right now she doesn’t want in on his crown - as she said, ‘not yet’. “But I deal with a rather select clientele, and you’ve rather put me in mind of insurance. I can’t imagine why.” Only some words almost two decade ago.
“Thank God,” Jim says, sitting back. “For a horrible moment there I thought this was going to be about money.”
“How do you know it won’t be?”
“You’re sticking around. Very stupid move, but I didn’t expect much better.”
“I’m guessing you don’t expect better from anyone.”
Jim just hums, his gaze suddenly going oddly distant as he taps a finger against his lips. He’s thinking. He’s not thinking about her. Just like that, she has ceased to exist. She hates that. She always has.
“I’m not saying I’m working for you,” she continues. “I’m merely letting you know the sort of things I might have access to.”
Still nothing.
She feels the rage only moments before she finds herself snapping, “So I want your phone number.”
That gets his attention.
“You can’t have it.”
“Fine. It’s not as if I’ll ever have anything you need.” She stands up. “Maybe I’ll hunt down this Holmes you’re so interested in.”
Oh, she only thought she had his attention before. Now it’s like being pinned beneath a microscope and it’s all she can do not to squirm. Feeling rather proud of herself, she holds her ground. In fact, she leans in close, dropping her voice, watching him intently. “I’m willing to be a neutral party in your little feud,” she murmurs, deliberately almost brushing his ear with her lips, realising just how she needs to play this if she wants to matter, if she wants to tread water. “Your new fancy sounds intriguing, but that doesn’t mean you’re not as well.”
He curls his lip. Oh, how he hates her. “Your number,” she insists. “I won’t deal with intermediaries, I’m far too busy for that. But you wouldn’t want to miss out on someone who has those sorts of people in such…vulnerable positions. And in return, perhaps I’ll help you if I feel like it.”
“You’re assuming an awful lot.”
“I don’t play for anything small. There’s no point. Life’s too short.”
“Yes, it is.”
They size each other up. Then Jim holds out his hand. “Phone.”
When she finds herself stifling a gasp, Irene realises she really didn’t think that was going to work. Judging by his expression of sheer confusion, neither did Sebastian. Then again, the glint in Jim’s eye suggests he has some other ideas. No matter. Irene wants to last, and she’ll need to navigate this man to do it. She draws out her phone and unlocks it, smiling as she notices him watching closely. “Don’t worry. I’ll change it. And change it again, if I catch you watching.”
“It’s nice that you think that’ll make a difference.” A flick of his fingers, and Irene is once again holding cold metal. Somehow it doesn’t surprise her that his grip didn’t leave a trace of warmth. Automatically she checks, and that does indeed seem genuine. At the very least, it’s not a string of zeroes, but then this time Jim has a little bit more class than that.
“Watch your step, Ms Adler,” Moriarty says, slowly rising to his feet, fastening his jacket like the gentleman he isn’t. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
And then he leaves, Sebastian trailing in his wake.
Irene rings the number. She’ll claim later it was simply to check its authenticity.
In truth, she just wanted to spoil his exit.
----------
Were you to ask the individuals in question about their first meeting, they might offer up either of those - should you be able to make them discuss the matter at all. After all, neither is particularly given to sentiment, or nostalgia, or honesty. Or, for that matter, indulging those who pry.
But here is a secret that neither Moriarty nor Adler knows.
A fairytale.
Once upon a time, a boy and girl met by chance, as is always the way, and decided to run away together. Their nasty parents didn’t love them, and they wanted to show the world how wrong that was.
The boy was hard-eyed and boasted he could already take good care of himself. The girl admired him, but could smile and laugh and make other people would love her - everybody except her horrible mother - and they would do everything for her. If only for a little while.
They lived together for three days in a toyshop, like in a movie which the girl loved very much. The boy taught her to lie and the girl taught him to smile.
He called himself Jim - a silly boring name, so easily forgotten.
She called herself Scarlett, after a woman she so wanted to be.
The cops came and the boy and girl were separated. They weren’t even allowed to say goodbye.
And they grew up, and they forgot.
And that is the first story.
The End.