Disclaimer.

I know I need to update my other stuff (thanks for your patience! ! !), but I had to write this :D James Moriarty is probably the most adorable psychopathic criminal mastermind/consulting criminal ever! (Sherlock 2010-2012). (If there's a 3rd season I wouldn't mind after what they pulled in the last episode). As my first Sherlock series-related fic, this will probably not turn out all that well. :) oh well! Please review!

By the way, I wrote this purely for the fun of it - not really caring if things were rushed. Which some things are and I apologize in advance for that. Thanks for reading!

Enjoy!


James Moriarty was staring down at the sleeping form of Charlene (Charlie) Lawrence, who'd taken up most of his bed. He could see a hand here, a bit of hair there - but she had buried herself in the sheets as soon as her eyes had closed. He frowned down at her.

No one had ever been in his bed before.

Not anyone he hadn't given permission before, anyhow.

The small rise and fall underneath the mass of sheets made his heart do this funny fluttering thing that it had never done before. Usually he killed his guests. No one - no one - slept over. It annoyed him. It was his space. It was his bed. Not hers. Not anyone's. It was why he didn't have a cat. The last pet he'd had he'd left on the streets. He shook his head slightly. No, that had been when he had been younger - he'd killed his last pet. For the fun of it.

But this thing in his bed, sleeping soundly as the sky slowly began to slowly brighten, wasn't something he'd kill for the fun of it. What angered him even more was the fact that the thought of her dead sickened him, to the point where he was ready to lock her inside one of his many unused flats and just hide her away for himself.

He hated that he felt this way, staring down at her. There were moments when he wanted to rip the skin off her bones with his bare hands - then he wouldn't feel this odd sensation in his chest and he wouldn't feel the need to rip it from him. But there were also moments - like this - when all he wanted to do was stare down at her.

She made a tiny snort and he felt the urge to smirk down at her, but restrained himself. He refused to become soft because of one person. One, meaningless person - who he could kill easily whenever he wanted. But he didn't.

He couldn't.

How could he - James Moriarty - care for someone else? He was a psychopath. He was a murderer. He was childish (according to Charlie). He was a murderous, childish psychopath who was a danger to everyone who walked on the same Earth he did. He did what he wanted - which included blowing things [people, buildings, and towns included] up - he said what he wanted, and no one and nothing could stop him. Nothing included Charlie, but she could try her best.

He sighed, frustrated, and resisted the urge to start stamping his feet. Instead, he sat himself down ungracefully on the bed, chuckling when a groan escaped from under his pillows before the normal breathing pattern resumed due to the disturbance.

He could kill her now. If she were anyone else - if she hadn't wormed her way into his head - she'd be dead. Gone. Strung up somewhere so everyone could see her. But she was Charlie. She was an average young woman from the middle of nowhere in Ireland. A nobody.

A nobody that was his.

He glowered down at her momentarily before standing up slowly, feeling the fatigue of a long day of being the world's only consulting criminal. Torturing people. killing them, threatening families, blowing things up - today there'd been too many tiresome clients that he hadn't gotten the chance to kill. Or torture as many as he would have liked. Torture helped relieved stress.

He began to loosen his tie, feeling dead on his feet.

He snorted at the thought.

"You stayed late..."

He turned his head towards the slurred, muffled words that came from under the pillows and sheets. He frowned, saying nothing, sliding his tie off his neck and placing it meticulously on the dresser next to him.

"What time is it?"

Almost comically, Charlie's head emerged from the torrent of sheets, glaring at him in the near-darkness. Her black hair was ruffled, her usually pale skin was flushed from being buried under the pillows, and James noticed with irritation that dark circles rimmed her hazel eyes. She didn't usually have those. Usually those only accompanied worry. And he needed no one to worry over him.

No one.

He detested people who fussed over every little thing. It annoyed him to the point where he needed to kill something, someone - anyone would do. But he hated it even more when she worried. She was not supposed to worry. That had been one of the rules. No worrying over evil geniuses allowed. None whatsoever.

"Not even dawn," he replied after a moment of examining her. She flopped back down, face first into the depths of silky fabrics.

"Awesome," she mumbled, "now get some sleep."

Her hands lazily emerged from under the covers and grasped his wrist, her fingers locking into place as she yawned from under her fort.

Instead of angered, he was amused by her sleep-filled words. She usually said stupid things when she was half-asleep. He usually hated people who said stupid things. They ought to have their tongues cut out or their mouths sewn shut. But no. She rarely ever failed to amuse him.

He sat back down on the bed, her hands still latched onto his wrist. With difficulty, he pried her fingers away.

"James," she mumbled.

He looked at her, studying the back of her head.

"Ja-ames," she said, lifting her head with what looked like a great amount of effort to look at him. Her eyes were filled with worry.

He wanted to gauge them out of her head for one brief moment. He'd told her exactly what she was and wasn't allowed to do when he'd told her that she was going to stay with him three years ago, when they'd first met. When he'd tried to kill her first. And she'd pissed him off beyond belief. Which had saved her.

"Charlie," he said in a sing-song voice that was laced with a silent warning. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep."

"Y'know, Moriarty, I'm allowed to worry about you," she more or less awake now. "Someone's got to worry about the world's only childish, murdering genius, right?"

He frowned. In her mind, though, it looked like a pout. It made her grin lazily up at him.

"I'm not childish," he snarled at her.

She shrugged, his threatening tone meaning nothing to her. "Says you."

"Yes, says me," his voiced became dangerously low.

She shrugged again, propped her upper body up on her elbows. He scowled. She was wearing one of his shirts, one of his most expensive ones. She was also wearing his trousers. They went with the white, button-down shirt. They were perfectly fitted for him, but even in bed, they looked baggy on her. Maybe it was because she was so short. And scrawny. More bones than skin.

"You have your own clothes," he said, his voice brightening again as he continued to study her.

"So?"

He blinked.

Had she really just said that to him?

She was a nobody with no right to say anything like that, and -

No.

"So - those are mine."

"Yeah. You're point?"

He suppressed a sigh. She was more of a child than he was.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she interrupted him. "Yours are so soft..." sleep began to slur her words.

No. She was not just any boring, ordinary nobody.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment and took a deep breath.

She was his nobody.

He opened them when he heard a single, soft snore and saw that she was back asleep, her hair flowing around her head like a halo as the familiar rise and fall under the sheets began their usual pattern.

James shook his head and stood up again, his eyes never leaving Charlie.