Frozen/Burning
by Tutankhamun
For a few brief seconds the world stood still.
For an instant, the furiously calculating, figuring, thinking, planning, analyzing, comprehending, deducing machine that was Sherlock Holmes' brain stuttered and came to an abrupt halt. And all because of one word:
"Evening."
Head full of nothing but white noise and echoes, he froze, poised with one hand outstretched. The missile plans—the endgame, he was sure, of this entire charade—were forgotten in slim, pale fingers. Numb.
"This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock."
His brain gave a feeble kick. Even though the words formed a query, the voice speaking those words was devoid of any emotion, inflection, or curiosity. The sentence, therefore, was not a question, but a statement. Interesting. But chilling was the fact that this voice was not supposed to be flat and lifeless. It was meant to brim over with emotion and feeling. It was supposed to be vibrant and bursting with affection, frustration, humor, compassion, annoyance, trust, interest, certainty, acceptance, admiration, and a million other nuances. This voice did not belong to…
"John." The name, the intimately familiar name, left his mouth as a painful whisper; a plea: let this not be real, please John, please let none of this be real. But all he could say was, "What the hell?"
No response, no flicker of recognition in the tawny eyes he'd come to know—eyes he thought he knew. How could he have been so blind? The man he lived with, the Army doctor with a psychosomatic limp and a thirst for danger that matched his own…the man in front of him was not that man.
"Bet you never saw this coming."
Faced with this conundrum—when is your flatmate not your flatmate?—Sherlock could feel his brain leap and sizzle as neurons fired and data was collected, collated, analyzed, and scrutinized. When is your flatmate not your flatmate? When he is not who he says he is. When he is not who you deduced he is. When he is lying. When he is hiding his identity. Why would he lie or otherwise hide his identity? Why the elaborate performance? Why such an all-encompassing act? To deceive me. To lull me into false sense of security. To gain the upper hand. Who wants to hurt me? Who wants to best me? Who wants my attention?
Moriarty.
Therefore, John Watson is Moriarty. Or, rather, Moriarty pretended to be—invented!—John Watson. John Watson never existed. Or perhaps a John Watson, Army doctor, did exist once, but he was not the man Sherlock knew. Thought he knew. The real John Watson, if he ever existed, was probably dead somewhere, in order to make Moriarty's version more believable. The man in front of him was an illusion. He didn't exist. John didn't exist. John didn't exist.
In a daze Sherlock took a few steps towards the man he would always think of as John Watson.
John—Moriarty—fumbled with his coat. "What…would you like me…to make him say…next."
And all at once Sherlock's world froze again.
R & R!