Warnings: Homophobia, Moriarty. Boredom, violence, death, destruction, vengeance.
Cast: implied Jim Moriarty/Carl Powers, implied John/Sherlock (possibly unrequited)
Notes: Naturally, my first fic in this fandom is about the villain. At least it's not Sherlock/Mycroft, because there was a chance it would be. I found it mildly annoying that we didn't get any scenes of John and Moriarty interacting after the kidnapping, and I rather like Moriarty, so... Also, the Moriarty/Carl was almost completely accidental.
Jim Moriarty was taught many things as a child:
You must not kill
Homosexuality is a sin
Everyone is alike.
Normal proverbs, ones most children hear. It is the last that Jim obsesses over, though. Everyone is alike. How can that be true, when Jim himself is so very, very different? He is so very special, and everyone else is so very...dull. Unoriginal.
Boring.
Jim hates boring things.
His mother is no help at all.
"You're special, yes," she tells him, time and time again, "but that doesn't mean that other people aren't special, too."
(Boys jeer. "Hey faggot," they say. Carl...Carl stares. Almost like he doesn't mind).
"No, no they're not," he says emphatically. "None of them are special."
His mother sighs, turns away. Shuts him out.
(Ordinary, Jim thinks. Even she is so very ordinary).
Carl, though, Carl is different. Not un-ordinary, but almost. As if all that is needed to make him extraordinary is Jim, for Jim to reach inside his head and tweak, just so. And that... that is wonderful. It is heady and exhilarating and Jim can't get enough of it, will seek Carl out and just bask in his presence, in his needfulness.
"I don't really get this advanced division thing," Carl says, and Jim's whole spirit soars.
"I'll show you," he answers, because he can, because for the first time in his life the tedium of school is useful for something other than in plans for the future. "It's simple."
With Carl by his side, with Carl needing him, life is almost interesting. The other boys' jeers fade, he can no longer hear his mother's irritation. He can hear only himself. And Carl, occasionally, when he bothers to.
Until, one day, the others find them. They come to their hiding place and they laugh and throw ridiculously unintelligent insults and Jim would almost have ignored it, would have dismissed them as inconsequential but annoying, like mosquitoes, but Carl leaves. Carl turns bright red, will not meet Jim's eyes, and then he leaves.
The next day, Carl laughs along with the other boys. Cold and cruel and normal.
Jim isn't sure when he realized that death isn't the terrible thing everyone treats it as. Perhaps he realized it in his father's absence, in his mother's loss of spirit. Maybe he realized it the first time he found a dead bird and it lay peaceful and still and so cold in his hand. Perhaps he realized it when he heard Carl laugh at him, the first time he understood the motivations for revenge.
Death is...inevitable. Death is soft, welcoming, darkness. Death is what happens.
Death is a common fear. Jim is above those. Jim is too powerful, too intelligent to be afraid of anything.
And it's so simple. Death is so simple that Jim wants to laugh, wants to shout how strong he is, how much more fantastic he is than anyone else in the world, from the tops of high buildings using a microphone that can take his words straight into the brain of every single living thing on the planet.
You shall not kill, his mother had said. But Jim has killed, has arranged a death, has slotted all the pieces together until they fit like a puzzle, until Carl was no more.
Homosexuality is a sin, his mother had screamed, hitting him hard with a belt. But Everyone is alike, had been wrong, his mother had been wrong, so why should this lesson be correct? Why should Jim ever constrain himself to the life set out in those proverbs, when he is so very obviously special? He is capable of going against those proverbs, of forging his own path, his own rules, of being powerful. Obviously, those proverbs were not meant for the likes of him. The brilliant ones. They were meant for the weak ones, the ones who need to be taught, the ones Jim can use. The ones who are weighted down with such inconsequential things as normality and the morals that are passed down, generation to generation.
After all, when Jim kills, he is not changing a person's life. Everyone is meant to die. All Jim does is change the way.
He keeps Carl's shoes as a trophy, a personal sign of victory, since he can't show it to the world, not yet.
His collection grows throughout school. Little things, but personal things, items that could be easily associated with the person they were taken from.
The world is much the same without Carl—and this only reinforces Jim's opinions on death.
He continues his little game, moving to London, gaining a reputation.
It is in London that he hears of Sherlock Holmes. And Jim knows, instantly, that this is what he has been living for. His triumph against "the world's only consulting detective" will be his finest puzzle, his masterpiece. It will prove his intelligence to the world.
He refuses to be anything but methodical. He carries on calmly, knowing the detective will notice his mark on the cases. It is easy to swap an old man's medical files with a different man's, to devastate him with news of impending death, and then to whisper in his ear of the glorious possibilities. 1,2,3,4 "suicides", Jim watches with glee. And if Sherlock wins that game, what does it matter? He is glorious to watch, precise and focused, but still so very fallible. And there was always meant to be two more—one nothing more than a space-filler, a chance for Jim to watch Sherlock work before he breaks him, the second the grand finale.
Jim chooses his tools carefully for last puzzle Sherlock will ever solve. It must be worthy of the detective, after all. Too worthy.
He carries on the theme, because he knows Sherlock would appreciate it, were it likely he would find the connection. The first woman is the mother of one of the boys who took Carl from him, the first man a brother to one them (the faces of the boys are now nothing more than blurs, unimportant. It's their names that remain, the connections they have to people still living, though they are dead themselves. Jim made sure of that).
He goes to his mother for the third tool. She is even more pathetic than he remembers, blind now, still as empty. She does not recognize his voice, and he takes pleasure in whispering "Goodbye, mother" into her earpiece before she blows up.
The fourth is a child. His age and face are immaterial. It is his genes that are important, his tie to Carl. The child is named after his uncle, a man he never knew because of the power Jim is able to wield.
And then, the coup d'état. John Watson. A stupid, unassuming man, but Jim has to resist the urge to kill him immediately, for taking up so much of Sherlock's time, for distracting him from what is truly important.
Instead, he talks.
"What is it like," he wonders out loud, as John struggles in his chair, gagged and tied up, "to be in his presence so often? It must be so very, very frustrating."
Idly, Jim circles the bound man, trailing a finger around his shoulders. "To always be able to look, but not touch. Does it hurt?"
John goes still beneath his hand.
"Yes, I see that it does."
Jim leans down, whispers in John's ear, in a parody of a lover's croon. "You won't have to worry about that for much longer. Soon, you'll both be beyond this. You'll never be able to think of him again. Think of how nice that will be, an end to the pain."
John starts to struggle again, face contorted. "And aren't you glad," Jim says, circling once more, "that you'll be the means of his death? Oh, dear Sherlock will try to stand against me, of course, but what's your life worth, to him, do you think? Not enough, that's certain. Sherlock and I are much alike. We are both intelligent, cunning men. There is nothing about you that could attract him. "
John's face has flushed red, and Jim has to laugh. The sound bounces off the walls of the pool.
"Come, my dear," he says. "We must get you ready for your debut. It would not do to be under-dressed when you see Sherlock for the last time. Tell me, how do you feel about wearing Semtex?"
John meets his eyes then, expression cold and hard, but he is unable to hide his fear and pain and Jim laughs again, delighted.
"Oh no, don't look like that. We wouldn't want Sherlock to think you're unhappy now, would we? It might almost make him pause."
Fin