Something short and-well, I say "sweet"-because I was bored on the plane home.
See You in Hell.
Jim Moriarty was seventeen-years-old when he made his first acquaintance.
It was the same day he first spoke with Molly Hooper. He was sitting in the school yard, ashen faced and sulking over his latest "warning", when it occurred. It wasn't his fault that people were stupid and that the stupid needed to be punished, and it wasn't his fault that today's Idiot of the Day had been a teacher. It wasn't his fault that "those who can't, teach". Besides, at least now the dusters were actually somewhat clean. Unlike the rest of the place, which was nothing more than a disgraceful mess. It was hateful.
He noticed her almost straight away after he'd been transferred to this shit hole. Though, he also noticed that no-one else noticed her, so he stuck to the status quo and ignored her. It was probably for her own good anyway. Nothing nice ever tended to happen to the few people that Jim actually bothered taking note of.
She was particularly good at science and practically unnoticeable. What a wonderfully volatile combination. She was plain looking; not pretty but not ugly. He'd never heard her speak, save for the one time she corrected the rude (and brainless) physics teacher. Everyone had gone quite, filled with the fear of what Mr. Hess might say, or do. Everyone except Jim. Jim had laughed. Mr. Hess asked Molly who she thought was and Jim had laughed more at that. He highly doubted anyone knew who Molly was—including Molly herself. Jim had gotten kicked out. He'd shared a wicked grin with Molly before he left the classroom, she didn't grin back, but he saw it in her eyes. It was just as wicked as his. Science was never his thing anyway.
They'd never spoken, never even looked at each other again, but Jim had seen it that day, that thing inside Molly. He wasn't too sure whether it was good or evil, but there was something—something—in her that he'd only ever seen in two others before. Once in the blue-eyed boy that had gone poking around Carl Powers' crime scene, and he saw it every time he looked at his own reflection. His, he was sure, was on the side of the Devil. The blue-eyed boy's was on the side of the Angels.
Molly's was both or neither, neutral, swayable.
"It's pretty shit, isn't it?" She said, taking a seat next to him on the cold curb, picking up a little spider between her thumb and her forefinger as she sat.
"What is?" Jim asked, already bored of the conversation. Her voice had been silkier than he'd expected, given the nerves he'd heard in it the last time he'd heard her speak. It kind of sounded how Bailey's ice-cream would taste if anyone ever made it right. No-one ever did.
"Everything." She replied.
And, just like that, Jim made his first acquaintance.
Jim was twenty-one when he made his first friend. It was a quarter to three in the morning, but he knew she'd be up-she never slept. "Molly," He drawled down the phone, stepping out of the pool of blood that was spreading around his feet.
"What?" He could tell she was drinking coffee. He could nearly smell it down the phone. That's all she ever smelled like. That and death. Which was understandable given that she spent most of her time, outside of university, training in a mortuary.
Pathology. Such a disgustingly perfect job for her.
"How do I clean a body of evidence?" He paused, looking down at the corpse. "It seems I've gotten my hands dirty..."
"You've killed someone?" She asked as though she was asking him for the weather report. He grinned.
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Jim." She said, but it wasn't questioning. It sounded almost as though it was more of a playful telling-off.
"It's a present," He told her gleefully. "For you, my dear, for your mortuary."
"It's not my mortuary."
"It will be someday." He'd make sure of it. Molly loved that hideous place. And what Molly wanted, Molly would get.
"Don't tell me who it is, I want to see if I can guess." He could hear the excitement in her voice and he couldn't prevent the smile that spread across his face.
She walked him through how to get rid of any evidence that would lead any trace back to him. She told him how to frame someone else. She figured out which body it was—he had purposefully put chalk dust on it, the cheat—and lied in the autopsy report for him. It wasn't the last time she lied in an autopsy report for him. Though, mostly, he got other people to do the footwork after that night. He'd realised that he didn't much like getting his hands dirty after all. The bodies were like presents to Molly, always interesting for her, always a new mystery for her to solve. He was like a cat bringing dead birds or mice to his owner to try and impress them, to try and earn their love.
"You're not mad?" He said, that night on the phone. In the best puppy-dog voice he could muster. Molly despised dogs. "I did just kill someone and ask you for help with the body."
"You did him a favour," Molly said flatly. "Life's pretty shit, anyway."
Jim grinned, though she couldn't see it. And, just like that, Jim Moriarty made a friend.
Jim Moriarty was twenty-seven when he and Molly became friends-with-benefits.
"I'm bored." He told Molly, entering her flat with a key she hadn't given him. It was nearing two am, but she was drinking coffee and watching a re-run of some wretched show from the eighties. He stopped for a moment, as he entered, taking note of her "nightdress". "Is that my t-shirt?" He demanded, petulantly.
"Is that my key?" She arched an eyebrow at him, getting up and he followed her into the kitchenette, folding his arms as she chucked the rest of her coffee into the sink.
"I'm borrrrred." Jim pouted again, ignoring her question.
"Come to put me out of my misery?" She asked flatly. "Bored with the informalities and cold blood murders?"
"God, I'd love to," Jim sighed wrapping his hand around her throat, pressing on it lightly with his thumb before dropping his arm back to his side. "But I'd miss you too much."
"So what do you want to do, then?" She asked, handing him a chocolate from the bowl on the counter. He popped it into his mouth and grinned.
"We could go dancing."
"At two in the morning?"
"We could go clubbing."
"You hate clubbing."
"We could play a gaaaaaame," He bore his teeth, taking another chocolate.
"No." Molly shook her head. "You play the games, I just clean up the mess." She rolled her eyes. "I'm like your mother."
"Or my wife." He said nonchalantly, throwing the sweet in the air and catching it expertly in his mouth.
"If I was your wife, I certainly wouldn't be cleaning up after you." She said defiantly. Sexism drove her crazy, and Jim liked to push her buttons. She was sexy when she was angry. She'd slapped him once—he couldn't remember what for—right across the face, hard and forcefully and it was all he had not to jump her bones right then and there. Instead he'd just sent her three presents at work the next day to make up for it. She'd forgiven him as quick as.
"Is that a threat?" He asked, taking another chocolate and throwing it in the air. This time, she caught it before he did and popped it into her mouth. He pouted.
"Merely an observation." She shrugged.
"That was mine." He moved toward her menacingly but she just stared him down.
"You can't have everything." She told him pointedly, as though talking to a child.
"Yes, I can." He said, almost offended at the idea that he couldn't. She leaned against the counter and laughed at the sour look on his face. It wasn't often that she laughed and the sound always made Jim giddy. He remained pouting at her, and she scoffed, handing him another chocolate.
"Aw," She stuck out her bottom lip. "Poor baby."
He refused the chocolate, putting his hand against her throat again, this time with more force but instead of pressing on her throat, he slid his hand all the way to down to her waist and she shut her eyes, shivering.
"Don't," She mumbled, but it was too late. He kissed her neck, his free hand sliding up her thigh, under his t-shirt (although he appreciated that she'd actually gone and stolen something), and she pulled him closer.
"You're an evil son-of-a-bitch," she told him, unbuttoning his Westwood shirt and he grinned, moving his lips to hers.
"I'm bored." He shrugged, lifting her up onto the counter.
"Life's pretty shit." She agreed, throwing his shirt to the floor.
"Just tell me to stop," He told her, looking at her for the first time with honest eyes. "And I will stop."
She didn't tell him to stop. They didn't stop.
And, just like that, Jim Moriarty had a friend-with-benefits.
Jim Moriarty was twenty-eight when he made another acquaintance in the form of a beautiful sniper, and he introduced Sebastian Moran to Molly Hooper, watching smugly as they became quick alliances, often ganging up on Jim during petty and playful arguments, but they both always made up for it. Not, however, in the same way.
Molly was quiet around everyone else, a completely different person. Only Jim knew Molly for who she really was.
A quiet genius with a slight death wish.
Jim loved the fact that she wouldn't mind whether he came around to her flat to talk, to dance, to have sex or to kill her. In fact, he more than liked it really, more than liked her, but he didn't really register (notice?) that other emotion. At least not until it was too late.
Jim Moriarty was thirty-one when Sherlock Holmes walked into Molly Hooper's life. He had always been obsessed with Sherlock, ever since the Carl Power's game, but he never expected Molly to take a shine to the consulting detective.
It wasn't fair, really. Sherlock was just a less-interesting version of Jim!
"He's a genius," She said, taking one of the chocolates from the bowl on the counter-top. "I mean, a proper-genius, not like you and me. He sees things that no-one would even think to notice."
That was the first time Jim got mad at Molly, really mad. He scared her, though she didn't say it- didn't even really show it- but he saw it in her eyes. He'd made her afraid him and, even though he'd made his point—that he was just as smart as Sherlock, just as clever and noticed the same things without exerting his genius to everyone in the room—he regretted it. He regretted it because she never looked at him quite the same after that. Not ever.
He decided then that he'd burn Sherlock's heart for this. It was, after all, his fault. Sherlock was the reason that Molly's heart hurt and Molly's heart hurting was the reason Jim's hurt. And, therefore, it only made sense that it should be Sherlock's heart that would suffer the consequences.
She pretended that nothing changed, but she didn't laugh after that—not ever again. She smiled, but it never reached her eyes. She kissed him, but the same way as before. She kissed him and that was it. And he never tried to push it. She covered for him at work, and he still sent 'presents' but she sooner went out for a drink and a dance with Sebastian than with Jim.
Sherlock Holmes had made Jim hate himself and Sherlock Holmes would pay for that. Sherlock Holmes would pay for having Molly love him and to not even care. Sherlock Holmes would rue the day he ever stepped foot into Molly's mortuary. That sounded cheesy, even to Jim, but it was true.
Jim Moriarty was thirty-one when Sherlock Holmes walked into Molly's mortuary.
Jim Moriarty was thirty-one when he lost his only friend.
Molly Hooper was thirty-four when she chose the side of the Angels over the Devil himself. She'd never done that before, but she was both or neither, neutral, easily swayed. Molly Hooper took Sherlock's side instead of Jim's. Molly Hooper was thirty-four when she lost the only person she ever really cared about.
She got a text message the night he died, obviously set to send at that specific time—three am. He had known she wouldn't be sleeping. That she'd be up, drinking coffee and trying to process the day's events.
"Life was pretty shit, anyway." It said.
That's when she cried. Really cried for the first time ever. But it was the last time she laughed too. Really laughed. It was the last time she really laughed and really cried, and she did them both together, like some twisted union of opposites. He was right, after all. Life was pretty shit.
Molly Hooper was thirty-four when she realised that she had always been in love with Jim Moriarty.
Molly Hooper was thirty-four when she realised she was too late.
Bit angsty, I know, but it was a long, boring, bumpy flight. And now I'm going to crawl my jet-lagged self into bed. Thanks for reading! ~Jenny. :)