Fic: A Terrible Price For Freedom
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Character death, violence
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, James Moriarty, Mycroft Holmes
Words: 1450
Beta: lady_t_220
Summary: Everything had been building up to this point, this moment right here. The stairs up to the roof loomed large in front of him, but nothing would stop Sherlock now.
A follow up to Hearts Under Fire. Part Five in the Hearts At Home series.
****
Everything had been building up to this point, this moment right here. The stairs up to the roof loomed large in front of him, but nothing would stop Sherlock now. He took a step, and another, and another.
He felt numb. No, that wasn't quite right - not numb, exactly, but so completely absorbed by his rage that nothing else seemed to penetrate. It left echoes of desperate pleas in broken English, and Deus salve me over and over again. He didn't even realise that his hands were shaking until he reached out for the door handle at the top of the stairs. He took a deep breath to steady himself, thinking of John - calm John, steady John, John... who is stuck in a police cell right now because of him--
Sherlock closed his eyes tightly, counting backwards from ten in Russian, and when he got to odin, he opened his eyes and pushed the door open. Moriarty was waiting for him.
Moriarty smiled as Sherlock closed the door behind him and stepped out onto the rooftop.
"So nice to see you, Sherlock. No John with you?" Moriarty asked pleasantly.
Sherlock made no reply, keeping his face a blank mask but holding his fists clenched in tight balls, his whole body quivering with suppressed anger.
"Oh now, come on," Moriarty said with a pout. "You wanted to play the game, Sherlock. This is how we play."
"You'll regret what you've done," Sherlock said in a low voice.
"I doubt that very much," Moriarty answered with a laugh. "Oh, Sherlock, are you really so upset that I got rid of your little boyfriend? I thought you'd appreciate the chance for a little one-on-one time together."
"I don't want anything to do with you."
"Ohh! You wound me, you really do."
"What will it take to get rid of you?" Sherlock asked in a strained voice, hopeless question though it was.
"There's no getting rid of me. You should know that by now."
"That's what that farce of a trial was about. You showing just how untouchable you are."
"Now he's getting it!" Moriarty said excitedly. "I am untouchable, Sherlock. There's nothing you, or your brother for that matter, can do to stop me."
"I could kill you." The words came so easily, and again, his mind tortured him with the faint echo of a man pleading for his life, jumbled English and Portuguese tumbling over each other in desperation.
"I'd like to see you try," Moriarty said, smiling slyly. "That would work out quite nicely, actually. You could go and join your dearest John in prison."
"John won't go to prison and we both know it," Sherlock said solemnly.
"Are you sure? I think you'd be surprised how easily the police... and the media... will believe that a priest - oh no, not another one! - has been interfering with children."
"There's no evidence."
"No, no physical evidence. Just the testimony of a poor boy taken advantage of by a trusted teacher."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes, even as his stomach churned. "So that's how you've done it. You've hired some idiot to claim that John abused him."
Moriarty's only reply was a snake-like smile that made Sherlock feel even iller.
"It won't work."
"It will," Moriarty said. "And poor John will be banged up for the rest of his life."
Sherlock had to take several steadying breaths at the thought of John, his John, rotting away in prison.
Moriarty gave a mock pout. "I do worry about what might happen to someone like John in prison. Such a dangerous place for one harmless man. And, you know, child molesters really aren't very popular, even among criminals."
Moriarty smiled then, clearly pleased with himself. "It would be such a shame if something were to happen to him..."
Suddenly, it was too much. He couldn't bear to listen to another poisonous word, and before he even knew what he was doing, he lunged for Moriarty, wrapping long fingers around his throat.
Sherlock had the advantage of surprise and size, and Moriarty gave a choked cry of shock, stumbling back under Sherlock's attack. He brought one hand up to claw helplessly at Sherlock's hold, but the scratch of his nails barely even registered.
Sherlock should have known better though. He could tell Moriarty was fumbling for something in his coat, but his focus was on one thing and one thing only - squeezing the life out of the man who wanted to take everything away from him. It was only as he felt the muzzle of a gun pressed to his side that he realised the extent of his error.
Moriarty smiled widely and, a beat later, Sherlock bellowed in pain as a bullet tore through his side. Even through his shock, he couldn't take his hands away from Moriarty's throat, his fingers clenching through the tearing agony in his abdomen. Moriarty stumbled backwards again, trying to shake Sherlock off as he fired again, this time sending white hot pain through Sherlock's shoulder.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the edge of the roof appeared behind them. And maybe Sherlock would have stopped but he didn't - he couldn't - and they were tumbling over it and falling to the ground, locked together, Moriarty's shocked expression the last thing Sherlock saw before the world faded away.
****
Everything hurt. Even thinking hurt, and Sherlock let out a low groan as he slowly, tiredly, opened his eyes. Mycroft was standing over him with a frown that morphed fleetingly into a look of relief.
"Thank God, you're alive."
"Moriarty?" Sherlock whispered. His throat was sore - they must have put a tube down it at some point but it was gone now.
"Killed on impact."
Sherlock's eyes fluttered closed, but he forced them open again. "No."
"Sherlock?"
Sherlock had never heard his brother sound confused before, and it was quite a pleasant feeling to have caused it, if only for a few seconds.
"I need... to be... dead too," he got out weakly, his eyes already falling closed again.
"I don't understand."
"It's the only way."
He succumbed to the darkness once more before he could explain to his brother that being dead was the only chance he would get way to eliminate every single strand of Moriarty's web.
****
When Sherlock woke again, he was in an ambulance and Mycroft had been replaced by his assistant.
"Mr. Holmes told me to inform you that he has made all the arrangements," she said gently.
"Arrangements for what?" Sherlock got out painfully.
"Your death."
Sherlock let out a slow breath and nodded. Trust Mycroft to know, without being told. He was silent for several more moments, almost being lulled back to sleep by the movement of the ambulance. A thought nagged at the back of his head for a long moment before he spoke up again.
"John?"
"He was released from custody an hour ago."
"Does he... know the truth?"
"No," she said, one simple word that cut like a knife. Thinking about the pain he would bring - probably had already brought - to John almost made Sherlock wish he hadn't survived the fall.
"Where is he?"
"With your brother, at the hospital."
Sherlock let out a pained sigh and let himself be pulled into unconsciousness again.
****
It was night when Sherlock next woke, and a nurse was checking his vitals.
"Ah, you're awake. How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Awful," he got out.
"Not surprising," she said with a small smile, leaning over to shine a light in his eyes.
"Where am I?"
"A private facility in Kent. You'll be moved to France as soon as you're stable."
Sherlock fell silent, staring at the ceiling as the nurse finished her checks.
"You should try to sleep some more," she suggested softly. "I'll be back in a few hours, Mr. Vernet."
He started slightly at the name, but said nothing more as the nurse left him alone with his thoughts. There was so much to do. He didn't even know how badly injured he was, how long it would take to heal enough to begin the hunt. He didn't even know where to start. All he knew was that he had to do this - he had to destroy every single trace of Moriarty - and he had to do it as quickly as possible, so he could go home to John.
Sherlock's eyes fluttered again, tiredness pulling him under, but in the moment before sleep swallowed him, he could see John in his mind's eye. He could feel the phantom touch of John's hand, smoothing over his hair and soothing him to sleep. He would be home soon, he was sure of it, and life would return to normal.