Author's Note: So I wrote this on my flight back to Madrid to start my new semester in college, obviously before the last episode aired. No spoilers for it. Good for me.
"It's done, then?"
The two men stilled their wake as a third voice, distinct from their laughter-tinted timbers, rang out, disturbing the hushed monotone of their conversation. They stilled, turning toward the proprietor of the voice, who, with a movement so practiced it looked almost as if he'd been born with it, disengaged the rifle he'd had previously swung over his shoulder in a cavalier manner, and spat out his cigarette, putting it out with the heel of his boot — a peculiar habit, his boss had noted once, as most people favoured to murder their cancer sticks with the sole. The man was still, his swiftness exhibited in the previous split-second gone, replaced by an animalistic hunter-like calmness for white he'd been nick-named.
"Yes, Tiger. Done," drawled the shorter of the two men and as they both stepped into the light, the rifle-bearing man could see the elated inhuman grin that just refused to be removed from his face. The man's eyes shone with unshod tears of mirth and Tiger felt a twinge of jealousy as he realised he himself had never been able to make this insane clown laugh quite like this.
"Pity," he said quietly, watching the taller of the two step closer behind the insane man. Tiger had a hard time accepting the taller fellow as part of them, whoever they were. Before the flagpole came along, there had been two of them — and that was already enough, he had thought. Apparently, his boss had different ideas, as he'd soon found out after a particularly deafening argument. He was the brawn. He had no brains. He was the tool of destruction the two in front of him would design. Such characterisation stung, and so had the way his boss had just cast him off like an unwanted piece of designer clothing. Worthy enough but with no value, he was told. "I would have liked to set off some fireworks."
"Well, you would, wouldn't you?" The short man quipped with little acidity in his words. He genuinely thought Tiger was stupid and the sniper supposed he couldn't blame him for it — after all, to a genius, any man of ordinary thinking — be quick as it may, in his case — was an idiot. Tiger supposed his boss thought he considered himself honoured to have been included in present company. In a way, he was. With these two, he was having the time of his life, that much was true.
The taller man remained wordless as the trio swiftly walked the underpass toward the armoured Mercedes parked beneath the emergency stairway that led to the roof. There wasn't much time to escape, and even though his boss had tried pouting and demanding a fancier vehicle for their retreat, the taller man had put his foot down with just enough force to make him see reason — as much as he was able to, anyway. For that, Tiger was thankful to the new fellow, even though he'd unlawfully taken his own much-coveted spot by the madman's side. It still remained debatable who was on who's side, even though all their resources at this point stemmed from the shorter man's considerable wealth. However the new member of their team provided intelligence — which made an already beautifully operating machine more powerful, more dangerous, and faster than it had ever been.
Tiger strapped himself into the driver's seat as the two took their places in the back. He considered the taller man through the rear view mirror as the car roared to life before he pulled them out of the driveway and down the escape route they'd devised meticulously, down to the microseconds needed for traffic lights to switch.
"How does it feel, Holmes?" He asked quietly, not a hint of malignancy in his voice.
"Hm?" The man looked up to Tiger's eyes reflected in the driver's mirror, his face blank. It was clear he had been deep in thought up until that point.
"How does it feel? Losing a friend?" Tiger asked calmly and turned his glance away back to the road. There was a lengthy pause.
"One would think you'd know the answer to this question at this point, considering how many of your own you've shot between the eyes and stabbed in the back, Moran," came the reply, delivered as calmly as one would make an observation about the weather.
"Boys," the shorter man said curtly, although his voice was undoubtedly laced with curiosity. He openly admitted to adoring the way the two struggled over the place under the sun – Tiger unwittingly, a jealous pet, and Sherlock due to his competitive nature, to which, of course, he refused to accept. Despite the three of them having been working together for quite a while now, it was obvious that the status quo still hadn't been settled – if ever it would, and so far the only position that was clear within their triad was occupied by himself.
The ride was silent until they reached the city limit and the tension became slightly less bearable without the steady honking of London cabs to diffuse it.
"Sherly, we need to come up with a name for you," the short man said, glancing sideways at his companion. The man raised an eyebrow.
"I already have one, as you are well aware. You are also aware that it is not Sherly," he replied quietly. Tiger stifled a snigger, masking it badly with a bout of cigarette-induced coughing.
"Well, Sebastian's Tiger, I'm Magpie and you-,"
"Sherlock Holmes, glad to make your acquaintance," the man snapped irritatedly. He was still unaccustomed to his companion's peculiar childishness when it came to dealing with, well, life in general, which was quite dangerous, Tiger mused to himself, considering the man was a murderous psychopath.
"Sherly it is then," replied Magpie merrily, humming a weirdly sinister version of London Bridge under his breath. There was another lengthy pause.
"Fine," the taller man sighed, as if dealing with a particularly pesky kindergartener. "What do you propose then, Magpie?"
A smile sneaked its way onto the shorter man's face, showing satisfaction in getting his way – like always, Tiger thought.
"Tiger here once said you looked like an otter."
The silence in the car suddenly became deadly.
"But as much as I love fur, I don't think you're adorable enough." There it was again. Given Sherlock's propensity for argument, he would have started a dispute, yet being defined as adorable was definitely not something the man would ever want. He was being backed into a corner over the smallest thing. Tiger enjoyed it.
"I think you're better of as a snake. Wisdom. Cunning. That sort of thing," Magpie said thoughtfully. Neither of his two companions said anything, knowing he was genuinely involved in a thought process, considering his catalogue of serpentine breeds carefully.
"Viper."
And Viper it was.
The celebration of his new Christening was quiet. The three sat together in Magpie Manor over restaurant-ordered delicacies. A bottle of rosé wine stood unopened on the table as none of them drank, therefore it served a purely symbolic purpose. Magpie toasted his two companions with water as he congratulated them on the successful operation they'd conducted previously that day. The interactive screen hung to his left over the dinner table sparked to life regularly, updating them with news of Sherlock Holmes' Death! and Tragedy Strikes as Madman and Plotter Commits Suicide! The subject of the headlines only glanced at them disapprovingly once in a while, his face reflecting the displeasure of having lost his reputation which he'd been building since that first Carl Powers case so many years ago.
A particularly nasty article courtesy of Kitty Reilly popped up and Magpie felt him tense up. The reporter was obviously out of the loop of the bigger plan, yet she had turned out to be quite the character as she continued to try to prove the inexistent Richard Brook to life whilst besmirching Sherlock Holmes' name in every way possible. With a sigh, Magpie slowly, so as not to startle the man, rubbed his sock-covered foot against Sherlock's pant-clad shin soothingly. A moment of even more tension was replaced by relief and the man seemed to lose all rigidity in his muscles within a nanosecond.
"It's what we planned," Magpie said soothingly, his manner eliciting a raised eyebrow from Tiger who'd been more fascinated by his fillet mignon than the headlines onscreen. "The death of Sherlock Holmes."
He bent to whisper into the man's ear dramatically, knowing full well both men could hear him perfectly.
"The birth of Viper."
Tiger observed the taller man's face change from frustration to grief to relief to contentment to blankness within a moment's notice. With a heavy sigh, he raised his glass of water to toast his boss and the now infamous detective.
"Sherlock Holmes is dead. Long live Viper."
The two stared at him blankly before raising their own glasses.
"To Viper."
"To Viper."
Tiger was an observant man. He prided himself on the way he frequently startled his boss with his powers of noticing slight details. It was easy for him to deduce, though he wasn't a famed detective, that something other than the execution of their master plan had occurred on the roof of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital. The unspoken something was almost palpable between his boss and Viper, who, efficient as he was, was proving to be an invaluable asset to their team, as Tiger had grudgingly admitted. He was still a bit sore about the fact that Magpie had let him in on their name game, silly as it was, and the bird and feline had acquired a serpent as companion. Nevertheless, the silent – compared to Magpie, that was, – man was starting to grow on him, therefore it fell directly to his notice how much distance had appeared between the two geniuses. It was difficult to avoid each other within their living space, no matter how posh or big, and their cases, as Magpie had accustomed to calling them (obviously yet another jab at Viper's past), required them to pour over blueprints and instruction deep into the night.
Magpie was a very tactile person. He was almost like a cat himself – marking territory with the smallest touches, brushing up against people to make them uncomfortable, staking claims on those who were in his service, – yet when he accidentally let his elbow skim along the shirt-clad skin of Viper's arm, he jumped a foot in the air and distanced himself by miles. Literally. After one incident he had simply walked out and driven away to Ireland on a whim, not notifying the other two men of his whereabouts for days before coming back in a semblance of normalcy.
Viper, on the other hand, had always been generally disgusted at touch, therefore it seemed almost normal when he would wince away from Magpie's ever-moving hands. Nevertheless, there was something about his face that gave away a deeper cause to his anxiety. Something almost human.
The two danced around each other for weeks now, and Tiger was getting quite fed up with whatever was happening between the two men. On the surface, everything was fine, as their operations were going as smooth as Viper's Morning Shave, as Magpie had put it once, to the man's horror. Yet there was a rift stealing its way into the triad swiftly, all to swiftly, considering the recent formation of their team.
Were he anything like the two, Tiger would have spent hours pondering the issue and coming up with deductions and ideas, one crazier than the other. But, as he was considerably dumber, and also quite a bit more practical, he headed to the office where Magpie's server stood, housing all sorts of important information on their cases including
SEARCH FOR: ST BARTS FOOTAGE THE FALL
He sat in the room for what felt like hours. There was very little to think about, as the video had been short, yet the monumentality of the material seemed to weigh on him like a thousand problems of sphinx-like complexity. This changed everything, he realised, as the piece of the recent weeks came together into a mosaic which screeched at him: feelings. They have feelings. Feelings for each other.
If he was completely honest with himself, Tiger didn't know what he himself was to think. Before the flagpole came along, there had only been minimal competition for Magpie's... well, he would never give his heart away, that was for sure, but his attention, Tiger supposed. Only a chosen few had been allowed near enough the man to even expect some form of recognition, and among those few only Tiger himself had had access to the Consulting Criminal. It was – or, rather, as it seemed now, had been, a long-standing arrangement between the two of them that Tiger would pay regular visits to his boss's bedroom for tension relief, as the shorter man had delicately put it. It had been a win-win for both of them, as Tiger would get his fill without risking the life of his potential partner (as Magpie was rather notorious for his possessiveness), meanwhile his master could enjoy some moments of humanity. The way their relationship worked was, overall, a mystery, to Tiger, as it was in a constant state of fluidity – some days he would find himself with a lapful of his boss, purring and demanding like a cat, some days they would not speak at all, some days... he would find himself with a knife at his throat and a mad glint staring him down from within wide eye-sockets. Come to think of it, ever since Viper had come along, such episodes had been very scarce. It was almost as if Magpie did not want to scare the man off. Almost as if he wanted the former detective to see the normal side of himself.
It clicked together like Lego blocks and Tiger felt nauseated for a moment. All that work, for nothing. He'd spent ages struggling to climb up the career ladder of Magpie's empire to get closer to the boss, he'd worked days and nights on end attending to the man's every whim, simpering for attention and recognition. He was not in love with the madman, that much he was sure about, yet he needed the man to survive. They had become a matter of symbiosis. Now, though, he felt more like an unfortunate parasite seeking entry to an already occupied host.
Damn that Sherlock Holmes. Damn that Viper. He had been able to do what Tiger could only dream of doing – effortlessly slipped into Magpie's world, turned it around, interested him in every way possible, created adventures for him out of thin air by merely existing. Tiger had hoped that the interest would wane ever since Viper joined them, that he would be less fascinating as an ally than a nemesis, yet it seemed Magpie's fascination with the man only grew each day. That, mixed in with the obvious romantic (Tiger grimaced) side of their relationship, could only mean one thing – Magpie had chosen his companion.
And it was not Tiger.
There was nothing he could do but sit back and enjoy the ride as the two geniuses would destroy each other with their inability to be human.
After his discovery, it did not come as a surprise when Magpie suddenly walked in on a planning session – having given them the go-ahead to get started without him, – and planted a firm, moist kiss on Viper's lips. Recently, Tiger had been spending too much time watching the man, memorising him, and cataloguing his every feature in order to see what it was that made him so fascinating to Magpie. Tiger had to admit the man was rather striking visually, with his sharp cheekbones and crystalline eyes, his proud stance and brooding manner. Viper's lips, he had to admit, were quite interesting too – almost heart-shaped, when he parted them. Tiger almost wished the former detective would have the nasty habit of biting the end of pencils while writing. He wanted to see what those lips would look like then.
He shook himself just in time to be unsuspiciously shocked and appropriately surprised by the sudden invasion of Viper's personal space.
"Jim, what–," the startled man began only to be cut off by Magpie's mouth covering his once more. Then, without a word, the man slid off Viper's lap where he'd weaseled his way earlier, and disappeared through the door the way he came. Viper turned to look at his colleague, pupils blown wide, a confused crease decorating the left side of his mouth, right where the redness had set in from Magpie's considerable smooch.
"Long overdue," Tiger said quietly and returned to the blueprints.
When Magpie walked in nonchalantly a few minutes later and settled into his usual seat, burrowing his way through stacks of plans, none of them said anything. There was no need to address the elephant in the room. God knew it was already turning into a zoo, Tiger thought.
Viper's first wound came by Tiger's indiscretion. That had been completely unintentional on his part, and he was genuinely sorry when the man was dragged in by a foot-soldier, bleeding from the left side and gasping.
He was even sorrier when Magpie's disappointed glare kept him pinned to his seat in their makeshift hospital for hours, the two of them sitting wordlessly over a fitfully sleeping Viper.
When morning came and the man's eyes fluttered open, Tiger decided to simply blame it all on the sedatives when Viper's heart-shaped lips stretched into a smile and uttered:
"Magpie. Tiger. You're here."
"Obviously," Magpie was prompt to reply, yet there was no bite to his words. "Sleep, Viper."
For the first time, Viper complied without arguing.
Tiger was surprised when one day, a few weeks after the shooting, Viper walked into his room – they had a rule against knocking, – and leaned against the doorway in a manner very reminiscent of their third partner who at the moment was off on some slimy business in Cambodia of all places.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" He asked as if it was a daily sort of question alongside would you pass the salt? and where the hell have you been?
"Sure," Tiger replied without thinking and soon enough the two of them were driving the Mercedes to their walk – another one, of course, the one from the Fall had had to be incinerated with gleeful whooping by Magpie in order to destroy evidence. They parked a few blocks away from Baker Street and even though Tiger had been the one driving, and Viper had been the one keeping silent, they both knew this was their destination. The doors were slammed shut and the two men soon found themselves staring at the entrance of Speedy's.
"Magpie texted me yesterday," Viper broke the silence. Tiger turned to look at him and realised they were almost the same height. He hadn't noticed that before.
"She died."
So that was what this was about.
"So?" Tiger ventured. Viper hadn't been very vocal about his former engagements, but from what Tiger could gather, there were a few relationships the man had been more fond of than others.
"Nothing. I thought this was what people did," Viper answered quietly, his eyes never leaving the door. It was almost as if he was expecting it to open and reveal her. They stood like that together for a while before Viper let out a steady sigh and nodded at the entranceway, as if recognising an old acquaintance.
Wordlessly, Tiger took his hand.
He didn't let go until dusk settled onto the musky facades of Baker Street buildings and they were forced to get back to the Mercedes.
It was a quiet evening of planning a minor bombing when the three of them finally addressed the issue in their own particular way. When the final details were finalised and the hit-men hired, Magpie threw his mobile phone frustratedly at the wall. It didn't shatter, as Tiger and Viper had chipped in and custom-fitted it with an extra-durable casing for such occasions.
"So when are you two going to do it?" He asked loudly. Tiger watched Viper raise an eyebrow and said nothing.
"Do what, Magpie?" Viper put down his binder full of maps and important scribbles, as Magpie had affectionately named them.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about. Don't insult me."
Tiger let Viper's curious, long stare X-ray him for a moment.
"Judging from Tiger's reaction from what you just said and his quite obvious fascination with walking by both yours and mine bedroom doors casually, I would say next week at the latest."
"Good. Wouldn't want him to beat me to it."
It really is a zoo, Tiger thought, puffing out smoke and handing his cigarette to Viper, who took a long drag. He'd been gasping for a cigarette for days now. The only time Magpie would let either of them smoke was after sex. And he had to be there to see it for himself.
What a tight-arse.
Viper let out an uncharacteristic chuckle and Tiger realised he'd said the last part out loud.
The two combusted into laughter, waking Magpie with the shaking rumble of their chests as slowly whatever walls had been built by the fall crumbled down.
"Quiet down, you idiots. It's like a zoo."