Disclaimer: I don't own anything (wish I did).
This has not been re-read by a beta; all the language mistakes are mine. Please be merciful though as English is not my original language.
A/N: This starts in the very same moment "The Great Game" ends. I've neither seen nor heard anything about the BBC's ideas of how to continue after that, therefore, if this should be unintentionally AU, you must forgive me.
Please! review. I need the feedback urgently as this is merdealore's first Sherlock fanfiction ever.
1. Moment of truth
Sherlock forced himself to focus on the thing in front of him. To be more precise: The thing in front of his weapon's muzzle.
The thing that had, only minutes ago, hung around a decent man's neck.
The thing that would explode and take all three of them to oblivion if he fired.
There was nothing else to focus on. If he looked at anything – or anyone – else, his enemy would see how clueless he was, how utterly vulnerable and that was something he could not afford.
Not when John Watson's life was at stake because Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, brainiac and self-styled best-of-the-best, had made a fucking, maddeningly stupid mistake.
He had underrated his enemy. Grossly, idiotically underrated the most dangerous man of all.
"C'me on, Sherlock" Moriarty teased, his unnaturally high-pitched, poncey voice scratching on the Detective's nerves. "You do not really want to blow us all up, do you?" 'Jim-from-the-hospital' opened his eyes even wider in a sarcastic mockery of fear. "Think of your poor loyal pet here. Whatever shall become of him if he's blown to pieces?"
"Shut up" John said but both Sherlock and Moriarty ignored him.
The criminal performed a little childish dance on the spot. He sang "all the King's horses and all the King's men..." while his feet shuffled over the ground.
"What about you Jim?" Holmes asked coldly. Nothing in his demeanour gave away how he really felt. Defenceless. Trapped. And unbelievably guilty. "All these ingenious plots, the great schemes. To end up as strawberry jam on the wall?"
Moriarty stopped his solitary Ring around the Rosie and smiled enthusiastically. "Oh, but it's you who's in the jelly pot. You're wobbling with fear for your little lapdog." He tut-tutted and waggled an admonitory finger. "You won't shoot, no, no, no. Friend Sherlock-who's-suddenly-found-his-heart, he won't shoot."
"Listen, you nitwit..." John started to say whilst he tried to get up. However, he stopped when only halfway up because the three flickering dots of orange light respectively dancing on his and Sherlock's chest suddenly became one dot concentrated on each man's throat. A broad hint at the six snipers that covered them. Inescapably.
"Hush your mouth!" Moriarty's infuriated roar rang from the walls of the pool area. "Nobody's interested in what you have to say!"
Sherlock swallowed furtively to steady his voice as best he could. "As you were, John!"
Discouraged by the sight of the death mark on his friend's neck, Watson sank back to the floor.
"What a fine sight an obedient doggy is" Jim sang, his sudden outburst already forgotten. Enjoying the game. Enjoying the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Enjoying his superiority. His power.
This was great. This was better than he'd ever anticipated. Much better. Much,much, much, much better.
Moriarty's shining dark eyes fixed on his opponent. The only worthy opponent he'd ever met in battle. In his life. Who needed a friend if he could have such unparalleled rivals instead? "You think this is it Sherlock, don't you. You think this is the end. You think you and your little doggy are dead. Your best chance is to take me with you."
"It's your game, Jim. You tell me."
Holme's hand trembled, ever so slightly. Almost invisibly.
Yet Jim saw it all. Heard it all. Smelled it all. There was the fascinating odour of sweat in the air. The weakest tremor in the detective's voice.
Scare.
Terror.
Moriarty sniffed the air as a connoisseur. Like the predator he was, smelling the blood of an injured prey. The most exhilarating aroma the world had to offer.
"Stupid detective. Stupid, stupid Sherlock. All the time staring at things. All the time missing the perfectly obvious!"
"Which is?"
"Which is the obvious way for all three of us to come out of this in one piece!"
"Which is?"
"Which is: You come with me like a good boy and we say no more about it." Moriarty made the sign of a cross with his thumb. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
Dumbfounded, Watson looked from one man to the other. What?
Holmes also cocked a questioning brow. "I do beg your pardon?"
"Watch it, Sherlock!"
Startled by Watson's sudden outcry Holmes spun round, only to curse his - and John's – foolishness immediately as his weapon came around with him, losing sight of the explosive bundle which so far had been their only ticket to safety.
But nothing happened.
Nothing but The Golem, who had been sneaking upon him from behind, halting in mid-stride before he showed his gruesome teeth in a grimace that bore no resemblance to a human smile.
"My game, Sherlock. Shall I teach you the rules? Shall I, shall I, shall I? Come on, say I shall" Jim sweet talked from his former place. He hadn't moved at all.
Holmes side-stepped until he had his weapon trained at the explosives once more while keeping a watchful eye on The Golem.
An absurd, unfounded hope stirred inside the harassed detective. A game. This was still a game. No intention to end it prematurely then. After the game, boredom would come back. Boredom was far, far worse than death.
Play, Sherlock. Play for both your lives. There's always a way. Think! Use your loaf! "All right, Jim. Teach me the rules."
"Lay the ugly shooter down, Sherlock. Push it to your doggy with your foot."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Your lapdog can have the bone, he's drooling for it anyway."
The detective hesitated. The automatic was his – their – only protection. But then, how much protection came from a weapon that threatened him and John as much as it threatened their enemy?
Play ball, Sherlock. Think, damn you, do the maths! Play the game. As long as you play, you will live. John will live!
Watson flinched when Holmes kicked the weapon towards him, just as he had been ordered to do. Hesitatingly the surgeon picked the automatic up, waiting for the reassuring feeling it's weight usually gave him. But not this time.
Somehow this was going awry. Somehow this was spiralling downhill. Even more so than before, although that seemed hardly possible.
"Come, little doggy, where's the bad bundle, search, search." Moriarty clearly had the time of his life. "Oh, he's found it. Such a clever little boy. Good doggy."
Helplessly John leveled the automatic at the explosives on the ground; an empty, totally and absurdly senseless gesture. He stared at his friend's blank face to find the same helplessness there. What now?
"Now I tell you how my game is played" Jim chimed in eagerly. "Our Golem friend will see the great detective out of this dreadful place. Outside they'll both wait for me for exactly five minutes. If I'm not with them by then, naughty Golem will wring ducky Sherlock's neck. Johnny will stay like a good dog 'till after we're gone."
"No way!" Watson said determinedly. Suddenly he knew what to do. No games. Not any more. "You're a coward, you don't wanna die, I know your type."
John's face hardened; he raised the weapon, trying to intimidate the hateful adversary. Resolved, whatever happened, to not leave his friend to the mercy of a sadistic lunatic's whims.
Everything happened at once in the blink of an eye.
"John, don't" Holmes yelled. His voice melded with the sharp, brutal sound of a sniper's shot and Watson's loud, pain-stricken scream when the bullet went through his arm. The automatic flew from his hand and into the water.
The sounds echoed in the huge, empty room like thunder, washed over them, ebbed away, died.
Suddenly it was very quiet.
John knelt on the floor, cradling his wounded wrist in the pit of his other arm. Biting back the pain that shook him. Biting back the tears of wrath that wanted to blind him. All he saw was The Golem effortlessly holding Sherlock in a stranglehold, his other hand firmly clamped over the younger man's mouth and nose.
"Barking dogs never bite" a voice whispered into his ear and with a jerk John realized that Moriarty had strolled over to him. "I knew you wouldn't shoot. Not while he's in here!" A casual wave of the carefully manicured, bloodless hand pointed at the detective whose struggling became weaker with every second he couldn't breathe.
"Bullet wound. Shock on impact. Nausea. Reaction slow." Somewhere in John's mind the army surgeon evaluated the situation of his body. Clinical, professional. Matter of fact.
The person John Watson however was far from such a state of mind. Fighting the overwhelming sick feeling in his guts, his blurred vision and his straying attention he stared at Moriarty's hatefully sarcastic face. Behind the criminal's shoulder he could see Sherlock cease struggling in The Golem's arms. "Please... he's killing him. Please..."
Watson was too weak to pull away when Jim patted his cheek affectionately. "No, he's not. He's just teaching your arrogant, self-important friend some manners."
With the put on grin of a baddie from one of last century's worst horror movies the criminal pointed at the orange dots that still flickered restlessly over John's body. "Please remain seated until the seat belt sign has been turned off." He bent down to his victim's ear again "if you don't, Sherlock will die before your very eyes and only then my men will blow your head off!"
Looking, indeed feeling like the obedient, dim-witted poodle Moriarty apparently saw in him John stayed as and where he was.
He watched The Golem dragging Holmes away. Sherlock was alive and at least semi-conscious as he moved his feet when the pressure left him no other choice.
The henchman and his captive were halfway through the door when John, through the sound of his own ragged breathing and the increasing noise of the Niagara Falls now astonishingly raging inside his head, heard a muffled scream. His name. Someone was desperately trying to say his name.
"SHERLOCK!"
Moriarty who was casually walking in The Golem's wake turned round one last time and waved a friendly good-bye. "Farewell, little doggy."
Then they were gone.
All was silent.
The hall.
The water.
Everything.
Someone was gasping, though.
And there was something else.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Drip.
Laboriously, most reluctantly John tore his eyes away from the door through which his friend had vanished.
He looked down.
Down. Further down.
Some orange lights. What did they mean? Were they important?
Further down.
Red.
Red liquid pooling in front of him. A constant flow of more red liquid from a hole in his shoulder to the ground.
Two holes?
Wrist! Punctured. Bad hole in wrist.
Shoulder. Punctured too. Bad hole. Worse hole.
Suddenly the orange lights were gone.
"Seat belt signs turned off" John thought, losing interest in counting holes. "Final parking position."
He giggled.
He had reached the finals.
This was final.
It had to be, as someone now switched off the lights, one by one, until he was left alone in the dark.
Home.
Time to go home.
Albeit he couldn't.
Something very important was left undone.
Therefore he would get up, accomplish one last mission before he could sleep.
Somewhere in the vast emptiness of a dark, forsaken public swimming pool a man made a weak attempt to climb to his feet before he fell over, closed his eyes and lay completely still.
Outside a compact van drove off with screeching tyres. It's hold stank disgustingly of chloroform.