This story is based on two prompts from sherlockbbc_fic prompting on livejournal. One is the following:
John Moriarty would really like to know who the hell this weird Jim bloke is and why he's impersonating him. Like John would ever try to kill Sherlock, the only truly interesting person he's ever met.
Bonus points if John's minions take down Jim's minions spectacularly at the pool.
Extra bonus points if Sherlock and Mycroft had no clue that John's last name wasn't really Watson.
The other prompt demanded some dark!side characters.
Hope you enjoy!
John Moriarty was more than mad. It had been just over two months since he had learned that someone was running around, impersonating him and that just wouldn't do. But the worst thing was that he just couldn't find the one responsible, even with his vast amount of resources. He had set his best people on the problem, after all.
However, all they had been able to find out so far, was that the impersonator called himself 'Jim' and wanted to take out Sherlock Holmes in order to climb ranks in John's organisation. And he really couldn't have that.
The bug had to vanish and for several reasons. First: nobody impersonated him. Second: the bug had betrayed him with doing so. And last and definitely not least (more like most important of all): NOBODY TOUCHED WHAT WAS HIS! And Sherlock Holmes most definitely was his.
The man was interesting and refreshing and attractive and… but he was losing track right now. The thing was that Moriarty had started his endgame some hours ago and John was losing his patience with his people.
And he was mad at Sherlock, because Sherlock didn't care about the innocents. That was another rule that the impersonator had broken and that in itself warranted the man's death. Never involve innocents.
John knew that he most likely had a too high moral principle for the boss of the world of organized crime, but so far it had worked pretty well and those that didn't play by his rules and were in some kind of organized crime didn't live long. There was not much he could do about those that were not in any kind of organisation, but that was the way things were. He just couldn't prevent all kinds of petty crime.
It was only a few short minutes after he had left the flat in a huff that his mobile chimed, telling him that he had a new text message. He pulled out the phone and opened it.
'Your boyfriend arranged a meeting with JM at the pool. Found the others.'
John sighed heavily and answered.
'Take them down then. Might have to vanish afterwards, be prepared.' That one he sent to all his most trusted, those that knew his face and that were in the UK right now to take down the impersonator.
Then he deleted those messages and went on with his walk.
John felt when he was being followed immediately. And he had to say that these men were not that stealthy. He snickered soundlessly. So Jim wanted him to be the fifth pip. How sweet. The man wouldn't know what hit him when John's people came, but for now he would play along and have fun watching the idiot dig his grave deeper.
It was two hours later, that John finally had enough. He had hoped to let his people take Jim down quietly, but the idiot had just come back and threatened Sherlock again.
Sherlock had his gun aimed at the bomb vest and was looking to John for guidance whether or not he should pull the trigger. John however, shook his head only minutely. In another life, where he really was who he pretended to be, he would have nodded, but not here.
Here, he stood up as Sherlock let the gun sink in bewilderment.
"I knew you didn't have it in you," Jim gloated. "And you actually listen to your little lapdog. How sweet."
"You made a mistake, Jim," John said then. "I may call you Jim, may I not? After all, your name isn't Moriarty. You are Jim McGuire, an idiot who wants to climb ranks in his bosses organisation and who's done it the totally wrong way."
Jim paled as the man in front of him changed from the small, agreeable and a bit cowardly, because, come on, the guy hadn't even fought back when they had taken him, army medic to a man that knew exactly who he was. Nobody had ever found out his real name. Nobody. Even his men only knew him under Jim Moriarty.
"You drew the wrong kind of attention to yourself with your stunt, because you broke the most important rules there are in the organisation."
By now Jim was making frantic signs for his snipers to kill John, but the man only laughed at that.
"Really, Jim? Did you really think your snipers are still up there? They are either dead or incapacitated." John smiled sweetly at Jim.
"Now, I'm going to tell you which rules of your boss you broke," John said as the red dots went from him and Sherlock to Jim.
"First rule: you do not impersonate the boss. Second mistake: you betrayed the bosses trust when you did that. You killed innocents, which the boss really doesn't like." Then John went closer to Moriarty and whispered the fourth mistake in the other man's ear. "And you touched what's mine, little bug, and I will crush you for it."
Jim was white as a wall by now and looked like he'd soon be sick.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, his voice quivering.
John only smiled chillingly. Right now, he couldn't be considerate of Sherlock. Right now he had to make a point and prevent something like that from ever happening again.
John stepped back and bowed with a flourish.
"May I introduce myself?" he asked. "My name is John Moriarty and you, idiot, impersonated me. That was idiotic, you have to admit that yourself."
"What?" Sherlock and Jim asked at the same time.
"You are Moriarty?" Sherlock demanded. He looked like he had been slapped and seriously disappointed. Much like he had done at the beginning at the meeting when he had thought that John was responsible for the bombing.
"I am John Moriarty. I'm not him," John said with distaste gesticulating to the impersonator. "I have principles. Principles that miscreant dragged through the mud for which he will pay.
"And yes, I am your boss and you made me really, really mad." The last was directed towards the impersonator.
Jim got even paler at that. He had heard what happened to people that had had made the boss mad.
"Guys, I think you can bring him away now," John said as he turned to Sherlock, totally dismissing Jim.
At that four people entered the room and two of them immediately went over to Jim while the other two came over to John and Sherlock.
"Are you okay?" Lestrade asked, worriedly.
"Of course," John said as Mrs Hudson started to fuss over John and Sherlock.
"Are you really okay, my dears?" the older woman asked.
"Yes, Arabella," John grinned at her.
"Good," she said and then she slapped him. "You know how much I hate to do the heavy lifting."
Then her whole demeanour changed for the second time in only a very short time span.
"We found all of Moriarty's men," Mrs Hudson then reported, "they have been taken care of."
"Good," John said and smiled at them. "Well done, people."
Sherlock could see how they all lit up under John's praise.
"Sally, Agathon, if you please," John said and gestured for Anderson and Donovan to transport Jim out. They complied immediately.
"Of course, boss," Anderson said and bowed slightly. Moments later, they were gone and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade had gone as well and left Sherlock and John alone.
"So you are not really John Watson," Sherlock said after a while of silence. "You led me on the whole time. You just used me."
John winced and Sherlock could see that the leader had gone again and only the man remained he had thought he had known.
"I didn't use you. That I met you was just chance. I was so to say on holiday to recuperate from my GSW. I couldn't be out in the field the way I was, so I came to London to get a breather. That I met Mike and he introduced us was just a coincidence. I was intrigued by you. That's the reason I stayed. I like you. You are interesting. The most interesting person I ever met. And you made it possible for me to do something on a small scale."
Sherlock stared at John dumbfounded. John had stayed because he liked him. Not because he could lead him to Moriarty or rather the impersonator, because Sherlock could see that John and his men were more than capable of tracing the man and his co-workers down, but because he was liked for the first time in his life.
"You have an interesting 'Inner Circle'," Sherlock observed to change the topic. "But really, Anderson?"
"Hey! He's good at his field of work!" John exclaimed indignantly. "But all my people couldn't seem way overqualified. Else they wouldn't have been able to stay close to me. They had to blend in, that means they had to act like they were worth less than they actually are. All of them could solve most of these petty crimes in this city with eyes closed. We all have our covers that we have to keep."
Sherlock looked at him as if he highly doubted that and John grinned to himself.
"Well Arabella was more than able to fool you," he said, still grinning and Sherlock looked at him dumbfounded as they left the pool.
"Huh?" the detective made and thought to himself 'very eloquent.'
"Well, the murder they nailed her husband on?" John started and Sherlock nodded. That case had been interesting. "She did it and she fabricated all the evidence that he would be the one blamed."
Sherlock looked at John shocked. Mrs Hudson had framed her husband?
"That was actually how she came to be my second in command," John said conversationally. "Her husband was it before her, but I really don't like it when my people hurt innocents. He hurt his wife and so I gave her the okay to frame him and it wasn't like the man she killed to do it was an innocent either. He was a drug dealer that poisoned his drugs before he sold them. All in all, everyone was happy with the outcome."
"So that's what you do then?" Sherlock asked. "You are the criminal over boss and make sure that there are no innocents that get hurt and if they do the people responsible are killed by you."
John shrugged.
"Worked for me so far. Can't do anything about everyday crime, but I can make sure that organized crime kills as few bystanders as possible."
John looked up and saw Mycroft waiting by his car which stood on their way out.
"Hello, Mycroft," he greeted amicably.
"So this was Jim Moriarty," the elder Holmes said and John pulled a face. Mycroft had clearly seen some of the others leave with the man. He hoped he hadn't seen Arabella.
"God no," he exclaimed. "That was idiot who thought it was clever to impersonate his boss."
Mycroft frowned that. This was not the answer he had expected.
"And you know that how?" he asked and looked at his brother as the younger man snorted.
"Because I am the one he impersonated," John said, coolly. Better get the lines clear with the older Holmes as Sherlock seemed to accept him as he was.
With how quickly the older man's head spun to John again, the doctor was surprised that he didn't get a whiplash.
"What?" the man wheezed. It seemed like he had chocked on something.
"My name is John Moriarty, the boss of everything organized crime in the western world and some parts of the eastern one as well," John said, smiling sweetly at the older Holmes. "Nice to meet you."
"But…but…but…" Mycroft didn't seem able to go on. How had his background checks not turned that up? His little brother had been working and living with a criminal for two months, damn it! And he hadn't seen it. That also shone a completely different light on the people he had seen with not-Moriarty. They most likely worked for this criminal as well and Sherlock had been working with them for a few years! He himself had even felt drawn to Lestrade more and more often since his brother had started to work with the man and now this! Now Lestrade seemed to be from the other side of the law as well.
"I think you broke him, John," Sherlock said and the young man didn't even seem to get the gravity of the situation.
"Sherlock, come away from him," Mycroft said and to his astonishment his brother only raised an unimpressed eyebrow.
"I want to ask you a question, Mycroft Holmes," John said calmly. "In the last eight years, what can you tell me about the numbers of innocent bystanders getting hurt regarding organized crime?"
"The numbers went down," Mycroft said lamely. He had no idea what that was all about.
"And in the last eight years, what about the numbers of junkies that died from dirty drugs?"
"They went down as well," Mycroft frowned.
"And, in the last eight years, what about human trafficking that was against the will of those that were brought somewhere else?"
"Became nearly non-existent in most parts of the world."
"And what about prostitution?"
"Only in brothels right now and those that do it, do it because they want to."
"You see how it is better to have me doing my job?" John asked amicably.
"That's your doing?" Mycroft asked dumbfounded. He had tried that for years.
"Been busy," John shrugged nonchalantly. "And I had help and people I can trust. I'd be more comfortable if we could agree that you do your job and I do mine. I'd so hate to have you taken out, and believe me, I can. You did some good work in the last years."
Mycroft could clearly hear the threat in the other man's voice. And he had no illusion that the other man would be able to let him vanish. He hadn't even known that the other existed until now.
Mycroft nodded and John's face lit up.
"Splendid," he exclaimed. Then Sherlock took his hand and started to drag him down the road.
"Sherlock, what the fuck?" John asked, but they were already too far away to be overheard by Sherlock's brother.
"That's exactly, what I plan to do now if you agree," the detective said as he dragged his friend down the street. John couldn't help but laugh and walk quicker.
Hope you liked it! Tell me what you think, please!