A/N: This contains spoilers. The whole story, really. If you haven't reached Face Off or The Reichenbach Fall, this will spoil quite a good deal. I don't want to put you off reading this story, but the last thing I would ever want to do is spoil the end of either episode because they are both masterpieces.
I only had one primary drive for writing this. I believe that the protagonists of this story are the two greatest villains television has ever given us. Bar none. When I watched some repeats of both shows on Netflix I decided I really have to put them in a fanfic together. The fantasy world and more or less everything grew out of that one desire, although I've had inspiration from a few books and films around the subject of another world.
Quick note before we begin...I know it looks like (spoiler spoiler spoiler) Moriarty is back at the end of Sherlock series four. I don't know if that's the case or it will turn out to be one of his disciples, Moran etc, carrying out his last wishes in the event Sherlock is alive. Or maybe I'll work it in to the story? I never have an idea of the end when I set out writing a story. Keeps things interesting.
Please enjoy! I own neither character.
The plain was long, endless and so peaceful it was surreal. It sloped gently, twisting and winding carelessly as it stretched as far as the eye could see. The sun, or a son, shone down, coating it in golden sunlight and illuminating the pathway ahead. Birdsong came from the few distant, misshapen trees scattered around the landscape. It had a different sound to that he had heard, an altogether higher pitch. The birds were not from earth. None of this was from earth.
He walked the plain slowly, cautiously. He wore a dark suit, a business suit, although he couldn't altogether recall why. Some of the grass was damp and this spread to the hems of his trousers, but he was too at peace to care.
He walked for miles without seeing another face or an end to this journey. Whatever world he was on, it did not rotate in the same angle around this alien sun, and thus he couldn't tell what time of day it was. He deduced by the level of light that it was early afternoon, but he couldn't be any more precise than that. He was hungry; the feeling had been growing in his stomach for the past hour or so. Hunger normally wouldn't have worried him, but he had seen no animals on this plain, and no vegetation apart from the grass and misshapen, lightly coloured trees. Was there any food here? Would he die?
As he journeyed on, and the hunger got worse, he saw a blot on the landscape ahead of him. It was a dark figure ahead, about a hundred yards in front of him. The figure was walking, purposefully, in his direction. Was he (it was almost certainly a he, from the gait) there to kill him? He had died before - he did not know how he knew that, but he knew it was true. He had died only a short time ago.
The figure got closer. He was tall, dark (Hispanic, perhaps) and wore a dark shirt and blue trousers. The shirt had rips and tears on the right side. He was about fifty, and wore one of the least expressive expressions he had ever seen. It wasn't vacant or bored; it was coldly and pragmatically observant, a stony poker face not giving an ounce of emotion away. The man made him realise that he was dressed as well; he had a dark suit that was covered in something unpleasant. He'd been clothed all the time; he just hadn't realised.
"Good afternoon," said the stranger. His voice was deep, exotic, and like his face, unemotional. "Have you wandered long?"
"What is this place?" he replied, in a daze. He's been so overwhelmed by the strangeness and eerie serenity of the place that the stranger's calm outlook was a maddening impossibility.
"A stranger I met a few miles back called it the Elysian Fields," replied the man, as if discussing the weather. "I liked it, so I'm repeating it to you."
"The Eleysian Fields?" he asked. "Like in Greek mythology?"
"Precisely," said the stranger, giving the faintest of nods. "I like the name because of how vivid it is. The realm of the undead. But I don't think this is the afterlife, and while I'm sure we both died, I think we're very much alive. You're hungry. Starving, in fact. You're making all the right noises. And I have jabbed myself enough with my fingernail to convince me that all my biology is in place."
"I am starving," he agreed, and with the verbalisation he realised how true this was. He realised also from the pain in his feet that he had been walking for at least half a day.
"We should get formally introduced," said the man. "I've been in search of a travelling companion, perhaps just while we get out of the fields, and the strangers I've come across have not been up to the task. "My name..."
"You don't need to tell me your name," he replied. Something was coming back, an instinct. Intelligence. Observation. He had a phenomenally gifted mind, and it was seemingly only just now willing to remind him of the fact.
He took a deep breath. "I know exactly who you are. The first thing I noticed about you was your military bearing. You've got it in the way you walk and the way you stand. But you've tried to disguise it. Nothing as vulgar as bad posture but everything about you screams that you don't want to be identified as someone who used to kill on command. You weren't a grunt, though; you have the air of someone who used to command a lot of rank."
He continued breathlessly. "That alone wouldn't identify you, but I'm only getting started. Your accent is South American in origin, and it's a fair guess to say that that's where your military background. I think you were in a junta. The stoicism says you did a lot of things you're not proud of and the little bit of arms dealing I've done in that continent tell me that juntas are the only ones that train their soldiers. I'm going to take a stab and say either Pinochet's Chile or Galtieri's Argentina."
The whirlwind continued. He felt his cunning returning to him."As for the rest...under your South American accent you've got a slight northern inflection. You've spent time in the States. As for region, there are four different types of sand caked into your trousers. Dry cleaning hasn't removed them. You've been around desert, which could be California, or Arizona or New Mexico. Those are the trousers; let's take a look at your shirt, putting the tears to one side. It's got splotches of grease, definitely from a deep fat fryer, and dry cleaning hasn't done anything for it. You've been spending a lot of time around the frier, and the shirt you've been doing it in suggests you either own or manage a fast food restaurant."
He geared himself for the masterstroke. "You used to be in the Chilean or Argentinian junta, let's say Chilean. You moved to America to set up a fast good empire. And your shirt suggests that you've recently been in the proximity of a pipe bomb. You could really only be one man...Gustavo Fring, recently-deceased head of one of the biggest crystal meth operations in the US."
Fring was visibly taken aback, and his shock pierced his stoicism. "That's...remarkable. Only a handful of people know my true identity. And even fewer know my part in the Pinochet regime."
"I know things about criminals all over the globe," he said, without boast. "It's my business. Can you tell who I am? Let's see how wide your knowledge basis is, Mister Fring."
"I have to admit an unfair advantage," Gustavo said. "I saw your picture, and I recognise it now. It was during your trial...you're wearing a very similar suit now to then. I'd been unaware of you until then, and while I didn't pay you much need after, I had to admit a professional curiosity. You're the Napoleon of crime, allegedly the world's first and foremost consulting criminal. Jim Moriarty. It's a pleasure."
"Thank you," said Moriarty. "Do you have anything to eat? I really am fucking starving."
"No," responded Fring, and his tone betrayed a startling lack of empathy. "But, once we hit the highway, I think there'll be plenty of it."
"Some of the people you talked to are from here," Moriarty deduced. "Or at least they've been here longer. They told you about what was beyond Elysian Fields."
"You really do have a startling intellect, Mister Moriarty," said Fring. "You're right. I've been able to get out of Elysian Fields since this morning. What I've been looking for, as I mentioned, is a travelling companion. The reports I've heard tell me this highway can be dangerous."
"You can call me Jim," Moriarty replied. "Let's hit the road."
They began to walk. Fring led the way, but they were side by side. He walked with the air of someone who knew exactly where to go, though with his blank, expressionless face, there was no way of knowing how true that was. The impossibly, dazzlingly bright afternoon had given way to a warm, glowing evening. The bizarre trees swayed in the gathering wind, which also sent a brief chill through Moriarty's bones. He didn't need to study the cycle of this alien sun to know it would be dark soon.
"So, Mister Fring," he said, after a silence that lasted around ten minutes.
"Gustavo, if you please. Gus."
"Okay, Gus. As we were talking about, you died. You got half of your face blown off like a Batman villain. Heisenberg, right? The South West's newest and most prominent drug lord?"
"Correct," said Fring, and he couldn't disguise the irritation that had crept into his voice. "You're dead also. Or, to choose my words carefully, you have died. After me, so I don't know the manner."
"I won a game the only way I possibly could," Moriarty replied. "But we're both dead. Which leads me to conclude that this is some sort of afterlife."
"What about reincarnation?" Fring asked, and his pace slowed slightly. "There are certain philosophers that believe that the human life is a never-ending coil. When a man dies before his time, his life is resumed, in our world, or another. And when his life reaches its natural conclusion, again on another world. When people talk about the circle of life, they're normally referring to the fact that when one someone dies, another is born. What if the circle of life takes place within a single human, recycled throughout eternity, on billions and billions of new worlds?"
"If your theory's right," said Moriarty, as his hunger forcibly picked up their pace, "then why don't people get reborn as themselves on earth? You get plenty of people who talk about their past lives, but they're born and raised on earth."
Fring thought for a moment. "Perhaps earth has a definite point in the life cycle." He gave a small, noncommittal shrug. "But it's definitely not the afterlife. This could never be heaven or hell. If it was hell...then this wouldn't be fair to the angels, would it?" He gestured to the natural beauty around them.
"And why can't it be heaven?" asked Moriarty.
"Think about it, Jim," said Fring, and a wry smile crossed his features. "If this were heaven, would either of us be there?"
They stopped for a moment, and in perfect unison, erupted into laughter. Moriarty put a hand on Fring's shoulder, supporting himself as he shook with laughter, his stomach heaving. Fring was clearly a man not used to laughing, but now he had an ear-to-ear grin and a tear of pure laughter spilt from his eye.
After a pure moment of such bizarre joy, the men became serious again and continued on their path. They both knew, without saying a word, why they'd erupted the way they did over such a small joke. Every so often in his past life, Moriarty would reflect on his terrible deeds and wonder if hell was waiting for him after he died. He was sure Fring had the same fears, especially considering how rampant Catholicism was in Chile. For them to not only evade hell but to wake up in this beautiful place was a cause for relief, and utter joy. It made them laugh because it was the closest happy emotion on hand. It was a laugh of defiance against any notion of divine retribution.