Chapter One; Dirty Hands

"I can hear your slow little brain ticking."
He laughed a high, shrill, almost manic noise that ricocheted through the empty apartment.

How he had gotten here, how he had gotten anywhere was beyond John. Had the police not found his body on the roof of that same hospital, a bullet through his head?

But, here he was. James Moriarty was most definitely before him.

Well, unless John had finally fallen off the edge. He had, after all, taken Sherlock's death extremely hard. But, he had been so alone before Sherlock. Living in a dingy, one-room apartment, living off of an insignificant army pension. It had been so dull and so lonely, but Sherlock Holmes had brought back a spark into John's life. Rather, he'd brought back the excitement and fight and the suspense that he had so sorely missed.
But then he'd watched it all dissolve before him and jump from a roof.

And this man was supposed to have also died on that very roof.

So why was he sat in Sherlock's armchair?

He should have run. He'd come only to reminisce, as he did from time to time. He'd come to remember the good times.
Instead, he found himself closing the door to the apartment behind himself.

Moriarty was only visible in profile; the manicured brows, the gleaming brown eye and the sadistic grin. It sickened him. "Please," he hummed, gesturing to the armchair opposite him, "Have a seat."

Almost without hesitation, John seated himself in the old armchair and studied James for a few moments. There was not even the slightest clue that he had been even close to death from the front; no scars, no bags, nothing. He looked so healthy. How was this? How was it that he was before John, now, with that crazed smile and those huge, brown eyes?

John hadn't missed it; Moriarty's other hand held a gun.
He couldn't help but wonder, just for a moment, if it was the same gun he'd shot himself with. He recognised it as a Beretta 92FS; maybe it was the same gun, maybe not.

"I don't really like getting my hands dirty, Dr Watson. It's not something I really do." He said lightly, eyes boring into Watson with some kind twisted intensity. It reminded him – and it sickened him, but it was true -, it reminded him of Sherlock; the way his eyes were so seemingly observant.

Then, his gaze moved away from the doctor and moved to the pistol in his hand, running long, slender fingers across it, as though in a caressing manner.

"Right. I sense a 'but'." John replied, his own tone a little thick. He didn't understand, not even a little bit. All those months, years with Sherlock and none of it seemed to have rubbed off on him; he couldn't 'deduce' anything from this situation. But, what Sherlock had was natural talent. What John had was nerves of steel and an experience with the most horrid parts of life.

Maddened, brown eyes flickered back up to him in delight. "Ooh, good observation, Dr Watson!" He teased gently, moving his hands in a sudden motion to grip the gun, rather than stroke it. His lips curled into a further, more engaged smirk. "Very good. Hm, yes. The 'but', the 'but' John is that for everything to fall perfectly into place-"

He gestured with his hands, as though stroking the air, running his fingers through the space before him and placing them lightly on his knee – as though they had fallen and landed. "Well, I need to get my hands dirty. With you. A little dirty."

As though the entire situation had not been bizarre enough, but now John's features twisted in utter confusion. Then horror, anger, but no fear. And then, after a second of contort, his face relaxed. He closed his eyes, drew his head back slightly and he sighed. He sighed, as though he was tired just at the idea of this.

"You're bored, Johnnyboy? With me? Oh, that's so sad." Whimpered Moriarty in a mocking tone. He laughed again and leant forwards, "Maybe I'll amuse you then. I can see you have questions!"

Which was true. John did have questions, oh so many questions. First, he supposed, was obvious.

How was Moriarty alive?

But, after so long living and working with Sherlock, John refused to simply ask. He wanted to understand, to at least try and use a few of those skills he had watched Sherlock deploy so often.

Ignoring the look of confusion from his adversary as he did so, John leant forwards and rested his elbows on his thighs, interlocking his hands and creating a seat for his head. He studied Moriarty for a moment and then stood up.

The man's gun was instantly raised and followed him. "What are you doing?" he asked with a sort of humoured chuckle.

"Trying to work something out." John replied. He hesitated and turned around, narrowing his eyes as he focussed out of the little window, "I guess there's probably a snipe out there somewhere, like last time?"

Moriarty only grinned; what a fine specimen Dr Watson was turning out to be. He was so much more than ordinary, he kept telling himself, even if he was a long way from the spectacular level that he himself was on. But something of Sherlock Holmes seemed to have been left behind in John Watson; after all, John had spent a very long time following, living and working with Sherlock, and then writing about it, too. How could he not have picked up a thing or two?
"Yes. So be careful!" He confirmed, extending comically the vowels within 'careful' and watching John with a new level of excitement.

Clumsily, he moved to walk to the side of Moriarty – since Sherlock had left, the war had slowly left him and a dull void had taken a place. When Sherlock had been there, he'd always been helping to fight someone – fighting the war that he missed. Well, now he was not fighting anyone and so he missed it. And when he missed the war, his leg grew more and more uncomfortable. He was already at the stage of needing his walking stick once again.

Moriarty's gaze followed John as the doctor assessed him, focussing hard.

So, maybe he felt he hadn't picked anything from Sherlock, but he was still a doctor – and a bloody good one. No doctor of his calibre would fail to notice the tight, pink scar tissue across the back of Moriarty's head, near the rear of his right ear. Hairs had begun to grow on it, but unevenly and a slightly different shade of brown to the rest. John himself had, so many times, patched up shot wounds. Admittedly, not as many to the head as to other locations, but he had still done so. With little hesitation, he tapped the spot and watched as James flinched and changed his expression to that of displeasure.

And, suddenly, it occurred to him. Oh, that was clever of Moriarty! So clever but so stupid! So clever that John actually had to sit down; anger, absolute rage flooded his mind and tainted his vision.

"You knew you wouldn't die."

The accusation was so simple, so utterly obvious and yet John couldn't mutter it without curling is features in disgust.

"You knew where you were shooting, you knew you were on a hospital roof, you knew you'd be okay! You did it to trick Sherlock into taking his own life!" yelled the army doctor, slamming his fist against the armchair and cursing under his breath. He was not sure what truly happened on that roof; Mycroft had told him that the two had conversed, that Sherlock had made some form of revelation and Moriarty had shot himself. Then Sherlock jumped. That was all he knew. Mycroft's men had not got to Moriarty's body, Moriarty's men had first. John had got quite angry at first; what if Jim was alive? But his anger had eventually subsided and he had decided to trust the judgement of the Holmes' brothers.
How wrong he had been.
His lips pursed and contorted as he fought not only the urge to just attack Moriarty, but to also cry. He turned his head away and instead watched the empty fireplace, trying to calm and focus himself.
Whilst, opposite him, Moriarty was almost impressed. For a regular person – a soldier, no less -, John had made an intelligent assumption. Not only intelligent, but correct. Now, God, that excited him more than anything so far had! The idea that, maybe, John was more than a little pet to Sherlock – though he was a good pet –: maybe John was more of an apprentice. Exciting!

"Oh. You got me, John! Clever boy." He giggled, crossing one leg across the other, whilst his pistol was still poised toward John. Gently, he ran a hand across his chest, brushing his expensive, dark suit down. He let a few seconds pass, allowing John a moment to clear his head, but himself also; organise his thoughts, produce his explanation. Eventually, he broke the silence in a crisp, dry tone, "You're right, Johnny. I had people who knew where I was. See, that's the difference between people like me and people like you. I'm prepared to do anything and you're not. But I'm still smart enough to have a little way out of everything!"
Lightly, he chortled, partly at himself and partly at the hateful expression on John's face. "Of course I knew where I was shooting! I mean, too bad if I'd died, but I was prepared for that. But I didn't. I'm alive."

John thought it through carefully. There something stupid like a 2-5% chance of him surviving such a shot to the head; handgun, obviously, not rifle. He could have died of blood loss, or choking. He could have shot his brain, or something else vital, like the carotid artery. But, he was on top of a hospital and his people knew he was there.
Not to mention, he could probably have taken various drugs before – and most definitely after – to increase his survival. Diuretics lowered the pressure in one's brain, John remembered. He wasn't sure if they would have helped before hand – after all, doctors didn't tend to give their patients drugs before they were injured. And there were plenty of drugs to limit blood-loss.
Moriarty's intellect was almost similar to Sherlock's, was it not?
He was important, intelligent. Lucky to be alive, too.

It was clear when he had tapped Moriarty's head that, behind the scar tissue and irregularly-grown hairs, there was metal plating.

Dear God, it angered him so deeply; that Moriarty had voluntarily attempted to take his own life and survived, when Sherlock had everything to live for, wanted to live, and wasn't allowed.

John sat back in his seat and slowly drew back his gaze to the man sat opposite him. He narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips and folded his arms. His expression and body language had already tensed, curled into a mix of aggravation and weariness. "I can see you're alive, that's kind of obvious." he replied in an almost tedious tone, locking those grey-blue eyes of his onto James. "What isn't obvious is why you're here?"

Delight, humour and excitement each, in turn, crossed Moriarty's face.
"Oh, yes, now that's the exciting part, isn't it John?" he cooed, a relatively manic expression setting his features alight. Something insane flew to life in his large, dark eyes and he allowed a mischievous chuckle to leave his lips. "I beat Sherlock Holmes and I won, didn't I? Well, I've got to return to playing with the ever so boring, ordinary people. Like you. Sort of."

In that moment, several things fell into place. Moriarty had to get his hands dirty; had to play with John. Maybe it was cocky of him, but John laughed at that thought. How many years had he spent fighting? In violence, always, under pressure, being taunted and played with by fellow soldiers, enemy soldiers… Did Moriarty think he could be different?
So, what; he had a handgun and someone sat somewhere ready to snipe him. Big deal, it wasn't as though he wasn't used to it – or, he had been used to it once upon a time.. James could hurt him as much as he wanted, anyway. Without Sherlock, the idea of physical pain felt like nothing. Ever since Sherlock had left, there had been nothing but pain; agony, trauma. Inside. Sherlock had been everything; a best friend, a brother, something more? He didn't know. But he knew one thing; any physical pain Moriarty could inflict on him could not even compare to the emotional horrors he faced every second after Sherlock had jumped.

And in response, Moriarty almost looked surprised. Almost. "Something funny, Johnnyboy?" he asked, raising his chin. No answer met him, simply a look somewhere between tired and vaguely amused from Dr Watson. "You look bored. That's good, because I'm bored, too."

What happened next happened very quickly.

Jim moved to slam the brunt of his gun into John's face, probably to try startling the elder man, but John rose to meet it and sent the weapon flying across the room. A smile lit the younger man's face at John's strength – he had anticipated that the other would be a good fighter, but he was getting old now. Just as that thought reached his mind, John swung his fist and hit Moriarty in the face.

John was fairly sure he'd split Jim's lip and broken his nose by the third time he'd punched him. There was blood on his fists and on Moriarty's face and he wasn't sure which of the two was actually bleeding but he didn't care. He really, really didn't care. He was so angry. At everything. Everyone. Particularly James Moriarty.

For taking Sherlock.

In his blind rage, he didn't notice as he threw James into the fireplace. James threw back a punch or two and John felt the familiar crunching of fist on flesh into the bone on his jaw, wondering if the other may have actually fractured it.

Quite suddenly, Moriarty took a hold of the skull on the end of the mantelpiece. A strange, protective rage rose in John's chest at the idea that Moriarty was holding something that belonged to Sherlock – it was one thing to have Jim within Sherlock's old apartment, another for him to touch his belongings! The anger was cemented by the fresh pain against his head as Jim hit him with the skull again and again. John wrestled against him as he tried to come down for the third time and slammed the base of it against Moriarty's face, splitting open the skin of his forehead triumphantly, causing blood to run down his face and yet the two of them continued to wrestle over the skull, growling. Very suddenly, Moriarty's arm flew to the side and he made to grab something on the other side of the mantelpiece.

John had been stabbed, before. Twice, in fact.

But that was years ago. That was one of many agonies that he had remembered so vividly and yet those memories were welcomed compared to this.

A slight, uneasy and most certainly uncomfortable gasp escaped John's lips, before he dared to look down. When he did dare, he saw what he had feared.

The bladed side of the multi-tool knife – the one Sherlock had used to pin letters to the mantelpiece, the one that belonged to Sherlock was wedged quite thoroughly into his lower chest.

It took everything he had, but John had to ignore it for now. He wanted to freak out, to assess his injury, call himself an ambulance, but he couldn't. He was a soldier and he would not simply give up because there was a little piece of metal inside of him! He judged quite quickly that the knife hadn't seemed to hit a rib, which meant it could have punctured something. Probably not a lung, because he was still stable and though his breathing was shaken, it was not laboured.

John was quite tempted to simply strangle the life out of Moriarty. He'd probably have enough time before he passed out. He also relished the idea of risking his own chances of survival and stabbing Jim with the very same knife. But both ideas were foolish; if he survived and Moriarty died, there would be trouble. Not to mention, he imagined the snipe – wherever he or she was – would shoot him before he had time to thoroughly damage Jim further.

The skull had been dropped on the floor between their feet, but John didn't think he'd get up again if he crouched down to reach it.

In the end, he came to a dirty resolution and simply kneed Jim in the balls. Jim groaned and clutched himself and John, despite the situation at hand, couldn't help but to giggle drowsily as he stumbled backwards. He fell over the arm of the chair he had not so long ago been sat in and collapsed onto the cushions, catching a disturbed glimpse of the blood seeping through his jumper before he slipped from consciousness.

Amongst Moriarty's whines of pain, he heard someone, somewhere, nearby, running. Shouting something.

Was that his name?

Thank you for reading! Please point out any flaws! I did a lot of research for this because I haven't a clue, so help would be adored!

I'd like to say thank you to my amazing friend, Sgt Peanuts! Love you, thank you for the crit and plot help! Everyone check her dA and Tumblr, she's a fantabulous artist and just generally a fab person.

sgtpeanuts . tumblr . com

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