Fic: I Am So Changeable
Title: I Am So Changeable
Rating: R
Characters: Jim Moriarty, appearances by Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes, hints of Molly/Jim
Words: 2900
Warnings: dark!fic; rape/non-con, violence and drug-use by a viewpoint character
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Jim is a nice guy. He really is. He just has the unfortunate luck of sharing his body with another soul - Moriarty...
Author's Notes: Originally written as a sherlockmas gift fic for radial_symmetry.
Huge thanks go to my super-reliable last minute beta garonne and to moriquenda not only for beta’ing, but also for constant cheering, encouragement and brain-storming.
Comments and criticism are always very welcome! Enjoy! :)
I Am So Changeable
“Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast,
And one is striving to forsake its brother"
Although they were born on the same day, at the same hour and in the very same minute and although they look completely alike, Jim and Moriarty couldn’t be more different. Jim has always been a nice, if somewhat quiet boy, whereas Moriarty has never been nice in his life, at least not without an agenda. And while Jim doesn’t approve of most of the things Moriarty does and sometimes gets so furious he wishes Moriarty the worst he can think of, he can’t imagine living without him either.
It hasn’t always been like this. If Jim tries hard enough he can still remember a time without Moriarty, way back when he was too young to fully appreciate his normality. His memories are full of holes, though, and anyway it is hard to imagine such a thing as being completely alone. It must have been very quiet, Jim is sure of it. However, whether it was quiet and boring or quiet and peaceful, he can no longer remember. Probably a mixture of both.
~~~
He is five when Moriarty first decides to show himself. Slowly he creeps into Jim’s dreams, which turn into nightmares, faintly he whispers from dark corners until Jim starts avoiding them and almost unnoticeably he starts to steal Jim’s body whenever Jim doesn’t focus strongly enough to keep control. In the beginning, Moriarty only manages to keep control of him for brief periods of time, so most people do not even notice or if they do they assign the boy’s strange behaviour to some momentary flight of fancy.
Jim’s mother always knows how to tell them apart. How could she confuse her sweet obedient little Jim, who always eats his vegetables and cleans his room, with the rebellious Moriarty, who has a talent for making other people do exactly as he wishes and always gets his own way? More than once, Moriarty makes her cry and fervently wish Jim were like all the other children. But when Jim crouches next to her later, apologising with all his heart, she could not love him more. Since they apparently cannot get rid of him and since Jim’s mother is a very practical woman, she finally decides to accept Moriarty, too. After all, he is a part of her son and in some way she does love them both.
When Jim overcomes his initial fear, he rather starts to enjoy meeting Moriarty. There is always someone to talk to when his mother has to go to work and excitement is never far away when he is with his other self. Moriarty no longer has to force his control over Jim’s body as Jim gives it up voluntarily from time to time. He likes to sit back and think in peace while Moriarty deals with the rest of the world. Often Jim isn’t happy about how Moriarty deals with other people, but he doesn’t feel like arguing.
Actually it is not so different from having a very good friend or a twin, Jim’s mother tells him when he wonders why other children don’t have a Moriarty. And sometimes it is. When Jim cries because other kids have laughed at him, Moriarty never comes to console him. But he makes sure the others will never make fun of Jim again. Inserting the poison into Carl’s medicine takes only seconds and as Jim is still busy crying, he doesn’t notice anything. Only when he hears about Carl’s death on the news does he wonder for a split-second, but he quickly dismisses that thought. Even though Moriarty can be cruel sometimes, he wouldn’t kill anybody. After all, he is Jim in a way.
~~~
Twelve years later, Jim’s mother has died and only Moriarty is left to take care of Jim. Not that Jim needs a caretaker - he is quite able to support himself. Getting a job after school has been almost too easy. Everybody is suddenly going crazy about computers and since he has a knack of working with them, he has dozens of jobs to pick from. Jim rather likes computers because he’s good at fixing them when they’re broken. Moriarty prefers to fix people.
Luckily computer specialists are needed everywhere and when Moriarty messes up his meddling into other people’s lives, Jim stuffs his few belongings into his big suitcase with a sigh and blindly points to a map to figure out where they are going to live next. Life is far from perfect this way, but at least Jim gets around a lot and meets a lot of interesting people. And it’s not like Moriarty causes any lasting harm.
At least it’s been that way until the fateful evening on which Moriarty claims his second victim.
The night started out so promising. For the first time in months, Jim has managed to arrange a date. It isn’t that girls don’t like him - he is smart and friendly and his awkwardness evokes a motherly instinct in many women - but when he has to move around constantly, it is hard to establish and maintain any lasting relationship. This time he has taken his first opportunity to ask the beautiful woman working in the office next to his for a date. Almost to his surprise she agrees. Jim knows she is quite out of his league, but why not enjoy some company over dinner at least?
It turns out that Alexia isn’t only beautiful, but smart and interesting to converse with, too. Jim enjoys the dinner and the conversation more than he probably should and finds himself making all kinds of silly jokes to raise a smile from her. Completely engrossed in hopeful dreams of a shared future and slightly dizzy by the unusual amount of drinks he has had tonight, he doesn’t notice how his control over his body gradually slips away.
Only when he feels Moriarty twist his lips into a predatory smile does Jim sober up abruptly. But it is already too late for him to regain self-control. He can only watch in horror as Moriarty coaxes Alexia in a velvety voice into following him to his flat. When Moriarty proceeds to do unspeakable things to her, Jim cries and whimpers and begs him to stop, but to no avail. Only when Alexia stops breathing after what feels like an eternal purgatory to Jim does Moriarty give up control over his body. Jim collapses, sobbing, cradling the mistreated body helplessly in his arms.
He spends the whole night weeping for Alexia, hating himself for every little moment in which he has allowed Moriarty to increase his influence. In the morning, though, he finds himself at a loss. Where does one hide one’s colleague’s body? With immeasurable self-contempt, he lets Moriarty take charge once more...
But even after running away again, Jim cannot forget about Alexia easily. She visits him in his dreams and whispers from dark corners until he finally understands that she will haunt him forever.
~~~
The years which follow are a living hell.
Once Moriarty has tasted blood, it gets harder and harder to hold him back from taking over Jim’s body completely. Jim fights him as hard as he can, but Moriarty hasn’t spent all that time manipulating other people in vain. With a few well-placed words he can turn Jim into a trembling piece of self-loathing with no resistance to offer. The best Jim can do is to keep his eyes and ears tightly shut and pretend not to notice how Moriarty drags him down further and further into dark and evil places.
With every person Moriarty kills, Jim loses himself a bit more. Not all souls are strong enough to survive the death of their bodies and to find refuge in Jim’s mind. And of those that do none is powerful enough to take control of Jim’s body like Moriarty does.
What they can do is drive him slowly mad. Screams of agony and despair echo constantly in Jim’s head and souls that do not scream whisper threateningly. Jim doesn’t know which is worse. Only when Moriarty takes control does everything become eerily quiet. The souls can handle Jim and ruin his life, but none would dare to take on Moriarty.
While Moriarty sits Shelob-like in the middle of his ever expanding criminal network, Jim tries to find refuge in the arms of drugs that make him forget and give him dreams that do not consist of dead people. And maybe if Jim can numb his mind, it will be harder for Moriarty to think, too, and if Jim makes his body weak and feeble, surely that will slow him down. Resistance isn’t Jim’s strength - hell, strength isn’t his strength! - but if he can manipulate himself in order to prevent Moriarty from claiming more victims, he will do so.
It is on one of these many drug-induced highs that Jim (or Moriarty - it becomes harder and harder to distinguish) first hears the whisper of a name. Sherlock Holmes - apparently the most intelligent man anyone has ever heard of. His name reeks of adventure and hope. They are both tingling with excitement. Jim hopes to get free of the other people sharing his mind, Moriarty longs for intellectual stimulation and crude games. So together they go hunting.
~~~
Tracking down Sherlock Holmes is easy, but getting to him is distinctly harder. It takes Moriarty years to devise a plan clever enough for them to meet him without being fully recognised. He spins a delicate web around London, its threads spanning people from all social classes, occupations and beliefs, all united in fear of their ferocious master. Creating and directing all those joint efforts feels exhilarating and at times Jim can forget that this whole enterprise revolves solely around Moriarty and a certain consulting detective, not around him.
Moriarty has planned out everything in detail - every one of his little games. Although Jim objects to his methods, he decides that it is best to play along. Because without Moriarty he will never get close to Sherlock Holmes and the screaming inside his mind will never stop. He is careful not to think that aloud, though, as he is never quite sure whether the other souls can understand him.
Then the first people start dying and Jim becomes terribly uneasy and frightened. Can fixing his life be worth the lives of others? But it’s too late- the ball has started rolling and Moriarty, the only person who could stop it, has no intention of doing so. On the contrary, it seems he is enjoying himself immensely. Apparently he has always dreamed of serial killers and the Chinese mafia. Jim hasn’t, but what choice does he have, anyway? So when Moriarty tells Jim to get a job at the IT department of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Jim doesn’t even ask why. He applies and gets the job immediately and then awaits Moriarty’s next orders.
When Moriarty tells him to befriend that awkward little girl from the morgue, Jim does so without questioning. He finds he rather likes Molly. At least she doesn’t give him orders. But then something happens that Moriarty has not foreseen. As soon as Jim enters the same room as Molly, all the voices inside his mind suddenly fall silent. He can’t even hear Moriarty’s orders anymore. And whenever Molly looks at him, Jim feels her eyes piercing right through into his soul, feels all of his other souls hiding in the dark, careful not to move and give themselves away. Even Moriarty.
Jim wants to sing out loud. Moriarty has made a mistake - a mistake he might be able to use to his advantage! He doesn’t know what it is about Molly that makes the other souls shrink away in her presence (maybe it is her experience with death and the dead), but he knows that the silence in his mind, unperturbed save by his very own thoughts, is the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given to him.
For the first time in years, Jim is able to think clearly. He has almost forgotten what thoughts feel like - first swirling around shapelessly, then taking more precise forms. Beautiful! Now he spends hours lost in thought, watching every single idea evolve into shapes designed by him and him alone. Of course Jim is very careful to always stay in Molly’s surroundings. Molly loves the sudden attention and Jim craves her company, so it feels only natural to engage in a relationship. And if Jim hasn’t told her everything about himself, it’s just because with her the other souls don’t matter.
Jim is not stupid, though. He knows Moriarty would never approve of his falling in love, so when he is alone and thus susceptible to his other selves again he claims Molly is but a tool to get to Sherlock Holmes. It is characteristic of Moriarty’s dark nature that he not only accepts that claim without questioning Jim further, but even congratulates him for making a contribution to their plans for once.
However, when these plans are put into action, they bear Moriarty’s signature again. He gives Jim very detailed instructions on how to behave when first meeting Sherlock Holmes, puts layer upon layer of disguise on him until Jim does not feel like any of his selves anymore. Whatever intention Jim might have had for this meeting, it is now replaced by a well-orchestrated sequence of lies and subtle clues. Not for the first time, Jim feels like a helpless puppet.
And yet, on the day of days, fate smiles upon Jim. Molly is with Sherlock Holmes when Jim finally makes his move. So Moriarty hides away, unable to take control. And Jim will not blow this chance. He is nervous, fidgeting about and stammering his way through his countlessly rehearsed lines. Once he almost breaks a Petri dish. None of this matters, though. What matters is the fact that he has given Sherlock Holmes his number without Moriarty noticing.
Once he has left the room as quickly as he entered it, Jim punches the empty air in triumph and allows himself a smile. If Sherlock Holmes is half as smart as they have estimated, surely he will see through all the layers of Jim’s fake persona. Then he will call him and together they can sort out Moriarty.
But Sherlock Holmes does not call.
And it is only when she comes crying to him that Jim realises his disguises were meant for Molly as much as for Sherlock Holmes. His efforts to convince her otherwise prove futile and he frantically watches his one hope for a clear and quiet mind rush off in anger. He feels Moriarty’s devious laugh more than he hears it.
While Jim believed he had outwitted Moriarty, in fact the opposite has happened. Jim’s little rebellion has been nothing more than another well-orchestrated move in Moriarty’s elaborate plans. As it turns out, his actual game has already reached the next round. There are lives at stake again. And Moriarty has already proven to Jim that Sherlock Holmes isn’t as clever as he thought. So what can Jim possibly hope for? The other souls seem to feel his hopelessness for they scream louder than they have in months. There is almost nothing left to keep Jim from surrendering to them.
And then another person dies, a helpless old woman Moriarty has used as bait for Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly Jim feels he can’t take all of this anymore - this chaos and madness and destruction and most of all Moriarty’s unshaken evilness. Disgusted by what he has allowed this part of him to produce and weary of the consequences, Jim retreats to the deepest regions of his mind, leaving the control over his body to Moriarty or whichever soul might be able to challenge him for it.
Jim does not pay much attention to the continuation of Moriarty’s crude game - in fact, he does not pay much attention to the outside world at all. His life is over, finished in disgrace and shame. Surely the rest of the world is better off without him. It would be even better without Moriarty, too, but there is nothing Jim can do about that. Or nothing anyone else can do, either. Thus his days are spent in apathy and depression amongst all his other desperate souls.
But when Jim hears the name Sherlock Holmes mentioned, he suddenly snaps to attention again. And indeed, there he is - the man in whom Jim has put so much hope and who has disappointed him so thoroughly in return. He listens as Moriarty tells him lie after lie, carefully weaving in some truth or at least what passes for truth for Moriarty. As Moriarty mentions how much he has enjoyed their game, Jim knows that’s meant for him as much as for Sherlock Holmes. He winces.
For a moment he hopes this thing is over and maybe no-one will get hurt after all, when Moriarty leaves all of a sudden. But of course he is just playing with his victims like a cat would play with its next meal. There is no way out. There cannot be one for Moriarty has planned everything meticulously. Then he hears it:
“I am so changeable! It is a weakness with me, but to be fair to myself, it is my only weakness.”
Jim knows what to do immediately.
Then everything goes black.
Rating: R
Characters: Jim Moriarty, appearances by Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes, hints of Molly/Jim
Words: 2900
Warnings: dark!fic; rape/non-con, violence and drug-use by a viewpoint character
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Summary: Jim is a nice guy. He really is. He just has the unfortunate luck of sharing his body with another soul - Moriarty...
Author's Notes: Originally written as a sherlockmas gift fic for radial_symmetry.
Huge thanks go to my super-reliable last minute beta garonne and to moriquenda not only for beta’ing, but also for constant cheering, encouragement and brain-storming.
Comments and criticism are always very welcome! Enjoy! :)
I Am So Changeable
“Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast,
And one is striving to forsake its brother"
Although they were born on the same day, at the same hour and in the very same minute and although they look completely alike, Jim and Moriarty couldn’t be more different. Jim has always been a nice, if somewhat quiet boy, whereas Moriarty has never been nice in his life, at least not without an agenda. And while Jim doesn’t approve of most of the things Moriarty does and sometimes gets so furious he wishes Moriarty the worst he can think of, he can’t imagine living without him either.
It hasn’t always been like this. If Jim tries hard enough he can still remember a time without Moriarty, way back when he was too young to fully appreciate his normality. His memories are full of holes, though, and anyway it is hard to imagine such a thing as being completely alone. It must have been very quiet, Jim is sure of it. However, whether it was quiet and boring or quiet and peaceful, he can no longer remember. Probably a mixture of both.
~~~
He is five when Moriarty first decides to show himself. Slowly he creeps into Jim’s dreams, which turn into nightmares, faintly he whispers from dark corners until Jim starts avoiding them and almost unnoticeably he starts to steal Jim’s body whenever Jim doesn’t focus strongly enough to keep control. In the beginning, Moriarty only manages to keep control of him for brief periods of time, so most people do not even notice or if they do they assign the boy’s strange behaviour to some momentary flight of fancy.
Jim’s mother always knows how to tell them apart. How could she confuse her sweet obedient little Jim, who always eats his vegetables and cleans his room, with the rebellious Moriarty, who has a talent for making other people do exactly as he wishes and always gets his own way? More than once, Moriarty makes her cry and fervently wish Jim were like all the other children. But when Jim crouches next to her later, apologising with all his heart, she could not love him more. Since they apparently cannot get rid of him and since Jim’s mother is a very practical woman, she finally decides to accept Moriarty, too. After all, he is a part of her son and in some way she does love them both.
When Jim overcomes his initial fear, he rather starts to enjoy meeting Moriarty. There is always someone to talk to when his mother has to go to work and excitement is never far away when he is with his other self. Moriarty no longer has to force his control over Jim’s body as Jim gives it up voluntarily from time to time. He likes to sit back and think in peace while Moriarty deals with the rest of the world. Often Jim isn’t happy about how Moriarty deals with other people, but he doesn’t feel like arguing.
Actually it is not so different from having a very good friend or a twin, Jim’s mother tells him when he wonders why other children don’t have a Moriarty. And sometimes it is. When Jim cries because other kids have laughed at him, Moriarty never comes to console him. But he makes sure the others will never make fun of Jim again. Inserting the poison into Carl’s medicine takes only seconds and as Jim is still busy crying, he doesn’t notice anything. Only when he hears about Carl’s death on the news does he wonder for a split-second, but he quickly dismisses that thought. Even though Moriarty can be cruel sometimes, he wouldn’t kill anybody. After all, he is Jim in a way.
~~~
Twelve years later, Jim’s mother has died and only Moriarty is left to take care of Jim. Not that Jim needs a caretaker - he is quite able to support himself. Getting a job after school has been almost too easy. Everybody is suddenly going crazy about computers and since he has a knack of working with them, he has dozens of jobs to pick from. Jim rather likes computers because he’s good at fixing them when they’re broken. Moriarty prefers to fix people.
Luckily computer specialists are needed everywhere and when Moriarty messes up his meddling into other people’s lives, Jim stuffs his few belongings into his big suitcase with a sigh and blindly points to a map to figure out where they are going to live next. Life is far from perfect this way, but at least Jim gets around a lot and meets a lot of interesting people. And it’s not like Moriarty causes any lasting harm.
At least it’s been that way until the fateful evening on which Moriarty claims his second victim.
The night started out so promising. For the first time in months, Jim has managed to arrange a date. It isn’t that girls don’t like him - he is smart and friendly and his awkwardness evokes a motherly instinct in many women - but when he has to move around constantly, it is hard to establish and maintain any lasting relationship. This time he has taken his first opportunity to ask the beautiful woman working in the office next to his for a date. Almost to his surprise she agrees. Jim knows she is quite out of his league, but why not enjoy some company over dinner at least?
It turns out that Alexia isn’t only beautiful, but smart and interesting to converse with, too. Jim enjoys the dinner and the conversation more than he probably should and finds himself making all kinds of silly jokes to raise a smile from her. Completely engrossed in hopeful dreams of a shared future and slightly dizzy by the unusual amount of drinks he has had tonight, he doesn’t notice how his control over his body gradually slips away.
Only when he feels Moriarty twist his lips into a predatory smile does Jim sober up abruptly. But it is already too late for him to regain self-control. He can only watch in horror as Moriarty coaxes Alexia in a velvety voice into following him to his flat. When Moriarty proceeds to do unspeakable things to her, Jim cries and whimpers and begs him to stop, but to no avail. Only when Alexia stops breathing after what feels like an eternal purgatory to Jim does Moriarty give up control over his body. Jim collapses, sobbing, cradling the mistreated body helplessly in his arms.
He spends the whole night weeping for Alexia, hating himself for every little moment in which he has allowed Moriarty to increase his influence. In the morning, though, he finds himself at a loss. Where does one hide one’s colleague’s body? With immeasurable self-contempt, he lets Moriarty take charge once more...
But even after running away again, Jim cannot forget about Alexia easily. She visits him in his dreams and whispers from dark corners until he finally understands that she will haunt him forever.
~~~
The years which follow are a living hell.
Once Moriarty has tasted blood, it gets harder and harder to hold him back from taking over Jim’s body completely. Jim fights him as hard as he can, but Moriarty hasn’t spent all that time manipulating other people in vain. With a few well-placed words he can turn Jim into a trembling piece of self-loathing with no resistance to offer. The best Jim can do is to keep his eyes and ears tightly shut and pretend not to notice how Moriarty drags him down further and further into dark and evil places.
With every person Moriarty kills, Jim loses himself a bit more. Not all souls are strong enough to survive the death of their bodies and to find refuge in Jim’s mind. And of those that do none is powerful enough to take control of Jim’s body like Moriarty does.
What they can do is drive him slowly mad. Screams of agony and despair echo constantly in Jim’s head and souls that do not scream whisper threateningly. Jim doesn’t know which is worse. Only when Moriarty takes control does everything become eerily quiet. The souls can handle Jim and ruin his life, but none would dare to take on Moriarty.
While Moriarty sits Shelob-like in the middle of his ever expanding criminal network, Jim tries to find refuge in the arms of drugs that make him forget and give him dreams that do not consist of dead people. And maybe if Jim can numb his mind, it will be harder for Moriarty to think, too, and if Jim makes his body weak and feeble, surely that will slow him down. Resistance isn’t Jim’s strength - hell, strength isn’t his strength! - but if he can manipulate himself in order to prevent Moriarty from claiming more victims, he will do so.
It is on one of these many drug-induced highs that Jim (or Moriarty - it becomes harder and harder to distinguish) first hears the whisper of a name. Sherlock Holmes - apparently the most intelligent man anyone has ever heard of. His name reeks of adventure and hope. They are both tingling with excitement. Jim hopes to get free of the other people sharing his mind, Moriarty longs for intellectual stimulation and crude games. So together they go hunting.
~~~
Tracking down Sherlock Holmes is easy, but getting to him is distinctly harder. It takes Moriarty years to devise a plan clever enough for them to meet him without being fully recognised. He spins a delicate web around London, its threads spanning people from all social classes, occupations and beliefs, all united in fear of their ferocious master. Creating and directing all those joint efforts feels exhilarating and at times Jim can forget that this whole enterprise revolves solely around Moriarty and a certain consulting detective, not around him.
Moriarty has planned out everything in detail - every one of his little games. Although Jim objects to his methods, he decides that it is best to play along. Because without Moriarty he will never get close to Sherlock Holmes and the screaming inside his mind will never stop. He is careful not to think that aloud, though, as he is never quite sure whether the other souls can understand him.
Then the first people start dying and Jim becomes terribly uneasy and frightened. Can fixing his life be worth the lives of others? But it’s too late- the ball has started rolling and Moriarty, the only person who could stop it, has no intention of doing so. On the contrary, it seems he is enjoying himself immensely. Apparently he has always dreamed of serial killers and the Chinese mafia. Jim hasn’t, but what choice does he have, anyway? So when Moriarty tells Jim to get a job at the IT department of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Jim doesn’t even ask why. He applies and gets the job immediately and then awaits Moriarty’s next orders.
When Moriarty tells him to befriend that awkward little girl from the morgue, Jim does so without questioning. He finds he rather likes Molly. At least she doesn’t give him orders. But then something happens that Moriarty has not foreseen. As soon as Jim enters the same room as Molly, all the voices inside his mind suddenly fall silent. He can’t even hear Moriarty’s orders anymore. And whenever Molly looks at him, Jim feels her eyes piercing right through into his soul, feels all of his other souls hiding in the dark, careful not to move and give themselves away. Even Moriarty.
Jim wants to sing out loud. Moriarty has made a mistake - a mistake he might be able to use to his advantage! He doesn’t know what it is about Molly that makes the other souls shrink away in her presence (maybe it is her experience with death and the dead), but he knows that the silence in his mind, unperturbed save by his very own thoughts, is the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given to him.
For the first time in years, Jim is able to think clearly. He has almost forgotten what thoughts feel like - first swirling around shapelessly, then taking more precise forms. Beautiful! Now he spends hours lost in thought, watching every single idea evolve into shapes designed by him and him alone. Of course Jim is very careful to always stay in Molly’s surroundings. Molly loves the sudden attention and Jim craves her company, so it feels only natural to engage in a relationship. And if Jim hasn’t told her everything about himself, it’s just because with her the other souls don’t matter.
Jim is not stupid, though. He knows Moriarty would never approve of his falling in love, so when he is alone and thus susceptible to his other selves again he claims Molly is but a tool to get to Sherlock Holmes. It is characteristic of Moriarty’s dark nature that he not only accepts that claim without questioning Jim further, but even congratulates him for making a contribution to their plans for once.
However, when these plans are put into action, they bear Moriarty’s signature again. He gives Jim very detailed instructions on how to behave when first meeting Sherlock Holmes, puts layer upon layer of disguise on him until Jim does not feel like any of his selves anymore. Whatever intention Jim might have had for this meeting, it is now replaced by a well-orchestrated sequence of lies and subtle clues. Not for the first time, Jim feels like a helpless puppet.
And yet, on the day of days, fate smiles upon Jim. Molly is with Sherlock Holmes when Jim finally makes his move. So Moriarty hides away, unable to take control. And Jim will not blow this chance. He is nervous, fidgeting about and stammering his way through his countlessly rehearsed lines. Once he almost breaks a Petri dish. None of this matters, though. What matters is the fact that he has given Sherlock Holmes his number without Moriarty noticing.
Once he has left the room as quickly as he entered it, Jim punches the empty air in triumph and allows himself a smile. If Sherlock Holmes is half as smart as they have estimated, surely he will see through all the layers of Jim’s fake persona. Then he will call him and together they can sort out Moriarty.
But Sherlock Holmes does not call.
And it is only when she comes crying to him that Jim realises his disguises were meant for Molly as much as for Sherlock Holmes. His efforts to convince her otherwise prove futile and he frantically watches his one hope for a clear and quiet mind rush off in anger. He feels Moriarty’s devious laugh more than he hears it.
While Jim believed he had outwitted Moriarty, in fact the opposite has happened. Jim’s little rebellion has been nothing more than another well-orchestrated move in Moriarty’s elaborate plans. As it turns out, his actual game has already reached the next round. There are lives at stake again. And Moriarty has already proven to Jim that Sherlock Holmes isn’t as clever as he thought. So what can Jim possibly hope for? The other souls seem to feel his hopelessness for they scream louder than they have in months. There is almost nothing left to keep Jim from surrendering to them.
And then another person dies, a helpless old woman Moriarty has used as bait for Sherlock Holmes. Suddenly Jim feels he can’t take all of this anymore - this chaos and madness and destruction and most of all Moriarty’s unshaken evilness. Disgusted by what he has allowed this part of him to produce and weary of the consequences, Jim retreats to the deepest regions of his mind, leaving the control over his body to Moriarty or whichever soul might be able to challenge him for it.
Jim does not pay much attention to the continuation of Moriarty’s crude game - in fact, he does not pay much attention to the outside world at all. His life is over, finished in disgrace and shame. Surely the rest of the world is better off without him. It would be even better without Moriarty, too, but there is nothing Jim can do about that. Or nothing anyone else can do, either. Thus his days are spent in apathy and depression amongst all his other desperate souls.
But when Jim hears the name Sherlock Holmes mentioned, he suddenly snaps to attention again. And indeed, there he is - the man in whom Jim has put so much hope and who has disappointed him so thoroughly in return. He listens as Moriarty tells him lie after lie, carefully weaving in some truth or at least what passes for truth for Moriarty. As Moriarty mentions how much he has enjoyed their game, Jim knows that’s meant for him as much as for Sherlock Holmes. He winces.
For a moment he hopes this thing is over and maybe no-one will get hurt after all, when Moriarty leaves all of a sudden. But of course he is just playing with his victims like a cat would play with its next meal. There is no way out. There cannot be one for Moriarty has planned everything meticulously. Then he hears it:
“I am so changeable! It is a weakness with me, but to be fair to myself, it is my only weakness.”
Jim knows what to do immediately.
Then everything goes black.