Dear Jim, the voicemail says. Will you help me, please? I'm so bored I think I might die, and I desperately neeeeeeeeeeeed someone to entertain me.
Will you provide, dear Jim almighty? The sender chuckles, like gravel falling down the cliff from under a suicidist's shuffling feet. I know you can. Who else but you?
Oh Jim. I bet you can do everything. And that's the problem, isn't it?
Poor clever Jim. Poor rich Jim. Poor powerful Jim. Poor sexy Jim, wanted by everyone, wanting no-one.
It's dissstraction time. Now we go and kill people in ways yet unimagined.
oooOOOooo
Since Carl Powers' death every once in a while there's been this dream, this nightmare, that refuses to go away. It starts all nice and good, with little Carl struggling in luminescent water, rippling under the impotent flapping of his hands, translucent enough so as to give the perfect show. There's the excitement, the adrenaline rushing through his veins, blindingly hot and overpowering; Jim feels like the king of the world even though right now he has no power even over his own body, throbbing with pleasure, not unlike what an orgasm probably feels like.
And then – there's this shift, this disturbance, as Carl's body goes down with his last throe. Jim feels it through the giddiness, through the blindfold of his happiness, ecstatic and overwhelming, – the prickles at the base of his skull, a chill on his skin, right down to the marrow of his bones. He whips his head, looks around, sharply, trying to spot the source of the perturbation, risking to attract attention, even though there's no-one to see him, not in this hour; and not-exactly-in-his-ears, he hears a voice, stern and condemning, reproachful and unflappable, like a judge's: You have been found out.
But no-one ever found him out, and no-one ever will.
Jim wakes up sweating and shaking, shivering, trembling like an aspen leaf.
This time, The Voice sounded suspiciously like John Watson's. Jim clutches his head, disbelievingly, and mutters: what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck.
He goes on and on like this for a rather long time.
oooOOOooo
Dear Jim, the note says. Will you help me, please? I'm dying, right here, on the cold, hard tile floor, and that might be the funniest thing that has ever happened to me. And here I was, young and silly, dreaming to live forever.
I wanted to show them, is what the crooked letters in bright red don't say. To prove, that I am better than them, that I am better than their whole lot, and I will be the one who lives, after all. Who lives and leads, who's in power to bring all these vermins down if I wish so. Their girls never looked at me; I bought better ones, those they could never even dream of, and not just girls; and boys proved to be just as much fun at first (even more, actually), just as boring after. They laughed at my ragged clothes, so I bought smarter ones, those they couldn't afford to buy in a lifetime, and boy did I rock them. They laughed at my awkwardness and geekiness, so I learned to play pretend, and did I play well. Could snatch an Oscar for that, boys and girls, if I so bothered. But that was all it was to me: play, as they proved to be so easy to fool. No excitement, no real challenge; maybe that was for the best – for I would have to destroy the one that came close, if there even was one. Nobody was allowed to come close to me. Nobody was allowed to get to me. I crawled my way out of their compost heap, walking on their heads, and I pushed them back down in the dirt with my shiny polished boots. No-one is better than me, and here I am now, dying in the puddle of my own blood and vomit.
Maybe Jim's not that bored, yet. Why else would he think that living might just be slightly more fun than dying?
And just when he loses hope and starts pondering whom he could possibly pray to with the highest probable outcome (Zarathustra? Shiva? Loki, maybe, – this one has always been one of his favourites), help comes – help rather called for, not entirely unwanted, most definitely unexpected. Jim looks up with what remains of his strength – and goggles unabashedly.
He hasn't had his apple today, he remembers dizzily. Not ripe enough, wrong shade of yellow. Had the caterer removed and replaced, of course, but his liver would still be a rather poor substitution for Jim's apple, don't you think so?
No apple to sustain the healthy sheen of his skin. No apple to keep the irritating doctors away. One time, just this one time he's upset his routine – and now look at this doctor, this good doctor Watson loitering around and gaping unattractively.
He says, 'Jim' (oh dear, this old useless sentimentality again). He opens and closes his mouth like the dope that he is. He shuts his mouth and turns Jim onto his side, staining his hands with red and nasty greenish yellow. He doesn't flinch, doesn't turn his eyes away, doesn't wrinkle his nose. He flinched when Jim threw him away, oh yes, way less calm and collected he was when he phoned Jim, and phoned, and phoned again, and Jim never responded, because Jim didn't need him, never has and never will, except that now he kind of does.
His good doctor presses his hand over the huge knife wound in Jim's side, presses the keys of his phone with another one, smearing blood and bile all over the expensive appendage, when on earth did he get so well-off? Ah, sister's present – getting a divorce, according to Jim's sources, isn't she? Well, that was unexpected... not. To think that someone unable to sustain her own relationship would go around giving out advice on other people's love lives.
Jim's cute little John suddenly jerks down and presses his lips, thin and hot, to Jim's forehead. Jim is cold, Jim is so cold – John's lips burn him right down to his brain, leaving a mark on his grey matter, and he fervently wishes he had the power to throttle John Watson right now.
Luckily, he doesn't stay like that – no, his precious, so-very-reserved John shies away, muttering 'sorry' over and over again, and Jim would laugh if he weren't afraid to puke his guts out if he does so.
The ambulance comes in no time. Jim is lifted, laid down on a stretcher, taken away in an smelly old truck, and all this time, his dear, faithful, compassionate John never lets go of his hand, his clutch firm, unyielding and just a bit on the desperate side. He doesn't follow Jim into the operating room, though; Jim's heart beats sluggishly, tiredly – not much blood left to pump, anyway, as he slowly falls asleep, light and weightless, floating in the dazzling lights and blinding whiteness, as if he were empty inside.
He wakes up in the hospital to John's face. Jim knows he's got expressive eyes (charmed his way through a lot with those eyes, in fact) – John Watson's can compare in this regard. They seem larger when he's serious like that, weird complex colour that probably doesn't have a name in the English language, fluffy fluttery eyelashes over calm dusky pools with his soul see-through on the bottom of them. He's so much more on the inside than on the outside – the rest of his face is deceptively unremarkable but his eyes beg to differ. Jim's rarely seen them stone-cold and calculating, but when he had – boy, was that a sight to behold. But now they are just worried and helpless, and for no reason at all that cuts Jim right down to the marrow.
He's still mushy after the drugs, he realises (not a bit belatedly), his side hurts, and he's just thought up creative metaphors to John Watson's eyes. That doesn't bode well.
He escapes in three hours and faints near some trash bins half an hour later. John finds him and drags him back – of course he's been looking, his sweet Samaritan, his kind doctor, ever so loyal. Jim waits for a whole five more hours before leaving for good, again. This time he makes it farther, and John never finds him.
Moronic, annoying relief floods through him as he crawls on all fours to one of his places. He bleeds a bit, but that's okay, he's been through worse.
Jim desperately wants John Watson to leak away from his veins, from his memory and his thoughts with slow, dark blood, with bitter bile burning his throat. No such luck – John Watson's seared himself into Jim's skin, into Jim's flesh and bones and brain; everywhere his hands touched and pressed, patched and soothed, and the single thin scar where his lips have once been. Jim is dimly aware he doesn't have a mouth-shaped scar on his forehead but it feels like it. Does that make him Harry Potter?
Nah, the pipsqueak was practically useless. Jim, on the other hand, is almighty.
Only he can't get up and he can't forget. Jim frowns at the annoying failings, then perks up and starts imagining his revenge to the nasty sods who made an extra hole in his body. Got to make it creative – got to make it worth his while, worth his unfortunate meeting and his ruined shirt.
oooOOOooo
Why is it that Jim is so beautiful, so wonderful, so brilliant and unique and yet nobody ever wants him?
Jim is huddled in his oversized sweater, in a dim dusty corner, and nobody in the world seems to care that he is cold and hungry and his hair could really use some washing. Why, he asks out loud, with no-one to hear, why, pray tell, is it his eighth birthday and there are no presents, no laughs and cheers, like on the telly, like everybody else seems to get?
Jim thinks – is positively sure – that it's not a little bit unfair. He'd proclaim it out loud, to a sympathetic listener, but nobody ever seems to want to hear him speak.
Dad always tells him to shut up. Janey laughs at him for being clumsy and awkward (well, that's when she isn't busy yelling at him for spying). Mom just doesn't listen to him. She never listens. Jim feels like a shadow, a ghost that nobody sees; as if he's mute, as if he's never learned how to use his voice properly.
When he's alone words stumble out of him like cereal from a ripped box. He turns and twists them on his tongue, this way and that, tasting the way they feel, the way they roll off his lips and dissolve in the air, slowly, like a drop of ink in a glass of water. He enacts them – each word carefully pronounced with thousands of shades, each motion of facial muscles keenly observed in a small compact mirror stained with grease and dirt.
Once he steals his sister's new lipstick, because it's brand new and expensive and she dreamt about it for months. Because he's curious, he tries it on.
The lipstick suits him better, he thinks. His lips are so much prettier than Janey's.
Then he wonders if her mascara would look better on his eyelashes. They are longer and thicker anyway.
oooOOOooo
But someone does want him, eventually. When he's all grown up and sophisticated and worldly, when he's well on his way to owning them all and continues to associate with the ordinary mass rather out of habit than something else; when he's in his first year of university and puts it upon himself to try out all the earthly delights the society has to offer – he is found, on the night street, huddled in his pricey jacket (less stylish than those he wears now – refined taste does not come at once), teeth chattering, dimly planning the trajectory of his oncoming vomit so as to not ruin his expensive shoes. Fate comes in the form of a hand, burning hot on his shoulder, a voice higher than his own but rather pleasant in its own way, a smell of medicine and books and beer. He is asked, 'Are you okay?', and he jerks, surprised and oh so very drunk and not a little bit stoned, and turns to assess the intruder – and then he pukes, expansively, all over the horrible oatmeal jumper.
At some moment he presumably passes out because in the morning he finds himself on a lumpy sofa smelling of dust and mould, aching in the neck and hung-over and covered with a blanket. The blanket is old and worn out but very, very soft.
"Ah, you're awake," says the intruder from yesterday. He looks very plain and smiles a very open smile, and he holds out a glass of water.
Jim could crawl into his insides through this smile, honest and trusting, settle within like a parasite and drain him from the inside out, and on a whim, Jim decides to do just that.
"I'm– I'm so sorry do disturb you," he blushes, looks down sheepishly. Expression #16, long trained in his dusty corner. Oh, he's a superstar, he's Barbra Streisand and Rita Hayworth wrapped in one, he's so good.
"That's okay, this sofa's quite used to random guys crashing on it," the intruder laughs – high-pitched, very sincere, very ordinary. Jim is starting to get bored. He'll splay this small unassuming bloke open and tear through his mind and his heart, he'll leave him mangled and bleeding, and after that, he'll disappear – like a shadow, a ghost, leaving the good Samaritan to writhe. "Name's John, by the way."
"Jim." He shakes John's hand, firm and strong, small though it might be, he smiles and looks at John from under his eyelashes, a grand manipulation tool even without the mascara.
"Well, nice to meet you Jim," boring John leans back, looks him up and down, "glad to see that you don't look like an unholy apparition anymore. You know, you seriously should give up on dope – doesn't really suit your complexion."
Jim is slightly intrigued. He glances over maybe-not-so-boring John and murmurs:
"Ah, a first year intern, have just left your long-time girlfriend but already looking for a fling, not quite satisfied with your life, thinking of enlisting to the military... Lost a bet yesterday, money, I think, but not a significant sum. Waiting for a sister's visit but not exactly thrilled about it – oh, and you don't like cherry yoghurt, that's a shame, cherry yoghurt is truly one of the most remarkable inventions of humankind."
He never means to say all that out loud, but he's hung-over and thinking hurts, and John's eyes light up with wonder in the most amusing way.
And it all spins downhill from now on.
oooOOOooo
Dear Jim, a fleeting thought says. Would you make up your mind now, use your new toy for whatever it is you want him and burn him so no-one would pick him up and use him against you – use him again, because you never share? Dear Jim, would you stop wasting your time over bullshit? Just what is it you think you're doing?
John seems to think he's brilliant and unique even when Jim dons his shy mask. Beautiful, too, but he never says that out loud. He praises Jim seemingly for every word he utters and every move he makes, not to mention that he practically worships his mouth with his eyes, and Jim has yet to get bored of that. But Jim is getting too comfortable, too, too at ease, and his mask starts to slip, supposedly at random – a wrong word, a wrong move, a wrong smile and a wrong voice, and it's getting dangerous, and Jim starts getting tense, and the more he frets the more mistakes he makes, and the slip-ups keep piling up.
John never lets him know he's noticed, though. He cooks for him – he's a good enough cook and Jim is always hungry, always starving for food as well as for distraction; he phones him to schedule a meeting in a bar, he invites him over to talk shite and watch moronic movies; he smiles often, open and honest every single time, he looks at Jim with warmth and adoration, and he never asks why on earth a math student would know that Botox is a diluted form of botulinum.
Once, Jim tries to blow him. John is aroused, Jim can tell he is, from the way his hands shake when he pushes Jim's head away.
"Christ, Jim, what are you–" he never finishes. His pupils are dilated, and his breathing is erratic.
"But I thought you wanted this," Jim mutters plaintively. "I thought you wanted me. Do you not?"
"Of course I don't– It's not like that!" John sputters, and oh, he does, he so does. So in denial about that, though. "Why on earth would you think that?"
"But– weren't you courting me all this time? The walks, the talks, the telly and the bars–" Jim pretends to be hurt, resentful; comes out alarmingly easier than expected.
"No– no, that was you and me being friends! Friends tend to spend time with each other and do things together, but none of these things include putting your mouth on my– oh, forget it."
"And why, pray tell, would you want me for a friend, Johnny dear?" The question comes out snide and a bit too honest, and it's an opening, a vulnerability, and John, ever lightning-fast, doesn't hesitate to plunge a knife into Jim's soft exposed underbelly.
"Because you're wonderful and brilliant and unique and the most astounding person I have ever met. Because I like talking to you and listening to you, and I like it when you stop pretending to be all nice and cute because cute suits you, it does, but snarky definitely goes better with you. Because you look so bored sometimes and I like to entertain you, to make you smile, or grumble, or yell, so that you'd stop being indifferent; because you look so sad sometimes and I want to know how to help it. Because you are you, Jim... what kind of a stupid question is that?"
Jim is just a little bit overwhelmed, and this is when he starts to suspect that John Watson might be dangerous indeed.
He should run, he thinks, he should take whatever it is he wants and burn the bridges and run without looking back, but he never does. John is steel, solid and deadly under all those layers of soft fabric smelling of medicine and detergent, and Jim is a magnet. He tries to pry himself away, several times, half-heartedly, but it's laws of physics, simple and irrefutable, and laws of physics cannot be overthrown.
oooOOOooo
Jim slinks over to the door, from behind which muted voices can be heard, faintly: John's voice and another one, distinctly feminine if a bit husky. Jim picks up the words, comes to conclusions and forms decisions, trying to force down the bile in his throat.
It's John's sister, he figures, the one he isn't so fond of but loves nonetheless, and she is talking about Jim.
"So, you know next to nothing about him because he won't tell you anything – well, anything important, even though he seems all open and amiable, and he's hella versed in criminal law and forensics, and sometimes he acts a bit manic – okay, strange, don't you give me that look now, John Watson, and– Why did you even pick him up, back then?"
"He was so young and he looked so sad, and I thought – nobody this young should be allowed to be so sad. And he puked all over my jumper."
John laughs. The sound of it rolls like hot water over Jim's frozen body.
"And really, Harry, you should stop worrying. He's nice, he really is, and I like him, not to mention that I'm fully capable of looking after myself, you know? So drop it and tell me all about this Clara lady already."
"Oh no John Hamish Watson, don't you go changing the subject on me–" Of course Jim has long known that John's middle name is Hamish; doesn't make it any less amusing. "And you know what – I can tell that you like him, a whole fucking lot actually, so tell me how it came to my perfectly heterosexual brother suddenly turning gay."
"Oh for Pete's sake I'm not– Look, we're just friends. I don't know why everyone keeps assuming–"
"Aha, so it's not just me," self-satisfied, with a bit of friendly mocking. "I should probably warn you Johnny, your crush on the guy must be visible from space."
"Shut up Harry, you have no idea what you're talking about," John grumbles.
"Awww, come on, don't be like that! Have you already done it?" Voice childish, impatient.
"Well, he did try to blow me but that was obviously a misunderstanding – not a word Harry, or I'm kicking you out."
"Oh dear," she says softly, "you really have it hard."
"Stop, Harry. Just – stop."
John is silent for a bit, and then he says, in a very quiet voice – Jim has to strain to hear it:
"I– I don't want to ruin it, you know. He's obviously hiding something but that's none of my business unless he has a pile of bodies stashed in his basement," Basement? No, no – too vulgar, too obvious, and Jim doesn't get his hands dirty anyway – well, most of the time, "But he's – he's amazing, Harry. So young and so bright, and you should have seen his face when I told him I wanted him for himself, not for sex or – whatever, not in that way, shut up Harry, – and I feel like I might scare him away, any given moment, and I don't want that. He's my friend, Harry, my very best friend, there's no-one like him, and whatever happens I want to stay by his side, forever, if possible, and it has nothing to do with romance or– or anything, so shut it or I will tell mom about that time with the grass mower."
"Oh for fuck's sake, what about the fucking mower? Why do you always have to remind me– Look, nobody died, right? So shut it already and tell me what you're going to do about that little crush your Jim's obviously nursing–"
Jim never hears the answer. He creeps towards the stairs, slowly, silently; he isn't noticed. He opens the door and steps on the pavement, and walks away. He never returns.
No-one ever gets to him. The one that tried to, the only one, Jim will just throw away. He won't destroy John because it would mean that John really got to him, and that's not true.
Jim doesn't need anyone, and those who try to stick to him, he will just shake off. He needs no burden in his journey, much less a burden as useless as John Watson.
There will be others who will want him, want to get to him. Them, he will squash at once.
It should feel like victory, but, for some reason, it doesn't.
oooOOOooo
Dear Jim, the e-mail says.
Jim fixes it in half an hour (bit less than efficient, but he'll improve over time) and celebrates the first contract of his little enterprise with a cup of scalding hot tea. It tastes of memories and John, so Jim washes it down with a glass of brandy and gets back to work.
It seems interesting, even, for a whole of two weeks – but it's the best he's got.
oooOOOooo
"Morning, Jim. Your arse looks fantastic in those jeans, by the way," John hides a smile in the corners of his mouth, and Jim retorts:
"Well, that would be because you weren't the one to pick them out for me," and John laughs, honest and pure, and his laugh feels like boiling water, burning Jim right down to the bones. Jim soaks it in anyway, because John is a bit too unordinary for Jim's own good.
Jim opens his eyes. John is somewhere out there, in Afghanistan, getting shot at. Jim doesn't give a flying fuck.
Five years later, Jim crashes a Chinese vase against the wall of his room, blows a sex scandal wide open (the customer's a bit overwhelmed – he never asked for a scandal that huge, he says; he never meant to defame his wife like that, he says – well, Jim doesn't give a toss. He never returns the money, though) and hires one Sebastian Moran to shoot John Watson. Not fatally, mind you, – just grievously enough to get him temporarily disabled and invalided to England. Moran proves to be a useful addition; Jim is moderately pleased.
Jim continues to not give a single fuck about John Watson. John looks at him, in his dreams, solemn and wistful, and cards his fingers through Jim's hair.
oooOOOooo
Dear Jim, the letter says in John's atrocious handwriting.
Jim crumples the battered sheet in his fingers, throws it away. The ball of paper rolls under his bed, rests there in the dark.
Jim never lets anyone clean his room – too wary, too suspicious, didn't get all the way to the top by trusting right and left. He never digs the letters out from under his bed – they lie there, gathering dust and undisclosed desires. Their presence feels like a warm touch to his soft underbelly, to the soul he doesn't have, nagging constantly, soothing at night, when Jim can't fall asleep, – a bit like John's gaze.
The letters gradually recede and finally stop coming. Six months after the last letter is when Jim finally cannot stand it any longer; when Jim sends one short e-mail that says, "Tiger is go".
oooOOOooo
Jim is going better than ever. Jim Almighty, almightier than God himself. He can kill and he can maim, he can command and he can demand, he holds the destinies of men and countries at the flick of his fingers – that, God can do too. He charges for it, too, – with money, and lives, and souls, and that would be the devil's prerogative.
Jim is so surpassingly bored that he starts to wonder how God can possibly endure this – an eternity of boredom, an eternity of being stuck in a small, small world with all those inane people coming and asking, begging, praying. Thirty-four years of this have already been more than enough for Jim. Life is ashen to his tongue, and waking up is washed in disappointment.
It's time, Jim thinks, for a tiny... little... distraction.
So he goes and finds a smart smart site that nobody reads, and gets a funny little man with death hiding, waiting, patiently, in his tiny little brain (death in his head, death in his hand, death on his mind) to send Jim's regards.
He is distracted, though, even before the game starts in earnest.
oooOOOooo
Dear Jim, John rasps brokenly from his knees. Dear Jim, will you play with me to your heart's content, will you use me like I'm meant to be used, will you break me and throw me away and pick me up again and fix me back and take me, for I am yours?
Property of Jim Moriarty – branded in touches, bound in thoughts, so utterly used – in dreams, like this one – yet ever new and exciting. What is it about him, this silly little John Watson, that holds Jim's mind and memory in a firm grip, never lets him go, never lets him forget?
The whisper lingers. John's eyes are wide open – inviting, for Jim Moriarty to dive into the deep blue of his soul through them, to feast on it like the crow he is and leave John's heart lying in ruins, burnt and smoking with defeat.
Jim grabs a fistful of John's sandy hair, short and coarse under his fingers. Jim guides John's head down, to its proper place; unbuttons his trousers – expensive, stylish, impeccably pressed. Jim looks like a billionaire, like a movie star, like royalty – Jim is the king of the world, he knows it, and when John, plain old boring John in his frankly hideous oatmeal-coloured jumper opens his mouth and takes him in, – then, God help him, he truly feels like it.
John's lips are thin, soft and scorching hot, John's tongue is gentle, swift and ungodly skilful, John's throat contracts when Jim pushes down, and Jim whines, the softest, neediest sound, and John hums around his cock, licks at his balls, no hands: not on Jim's dick, not on Jim's neatly ironed trousers, good boy, docile boy, long learned your lesson, now have a treat. John closes his eyes, desperate to bring himself to completion, and Jim frowns, tugs impatiently on his hair: not allowed, remember the rules, Johnny-boy, eyes open, teeth covered, hands away. John's breath ghosts, searing, over Jim's dick, and Jim tightens his fingers at John's nape, drags him closer, closer, until John's nose touches the trail of dark hair on Jim's lower belly.
John wants it, oh, does he want it, does he want Jim, why won't he stop pretending, stop evading, stop lying?
John smiles around Jim's dick, and Jim gasps, clutching John's hair, John an anchor holding down the frail boat of Jim's mind in the roaring sea of pleasure, overthrowing him and leaving him breathless. His cute little Johnny-boy lets go of his dick, so that the first spurt lands on his face – so well-trained, Jim's beloved pet, so obedient and eager to please, – and then he captures Jim's cock with his lips, again, drinking Jim's spunk greedily, to the very last drop, a pearly trail dribbling from the corner of his lips.
"Good boy," Jim wheezes, shaking, and John's whole face lights up. Jim lays his hand on that bland, beautiful, unforgettable face, drags his thumb over John's raw lips, smears his cum – slowly, fascinatedly, as if anointing him for his own. John turns his head into Jim's palm, laps at his fingers, tongue quick and nimble. His, all his.
"Now, what do you say, Johnny-boy?" Jim asks lazily, tucking himself back into his trousers.
And John answers:
"Thank you for the treat," John says.
"I'm yours," John says.
"I love you," John says.
His eyes are trusting, sincere; wide open.
Jim wakes up in a wet spot and swears profusely, silently. John's eyes, warm and trusting, hazy with post-coital bliss, haunt him through the day.
oooOOOooo
Dear John, Jim says, frustratedly, one night slowly descending into dawn in the quiet of his bedroom. Sweet little John of mine, would you please stop giving me bloodshot eyes. John, honey, you are bad for my complexion. John, love, you are bad news for business.
John is bad news for Jim, tossing restlessly in his rumpled, sweat-drenched sheets. Every single position feels progressively uncomfortable; the creases of the fabric (cotton of the most refined, expensive kind) rub Jim's skin raw.
He tosses the offending sheets aside, gets up, naked, pours himself a glass of water, squeezes half a lemon into it; drinks all of it in one long gulp. A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, an unpleasant tickle, an offending itch – Jim brushes it off, absent-mindedly, and turns on his laptop. He chats with a little soon-to-be poisoner for a while, makes another half a million pounds, checks his mail, leaves a note for the elusive detective – so fascinating, so much like Jim himself. Jim is jealous, a bit, for a short moment, – this one seems to be almost as brilliant, almost as sharp. Jim has no real reason to worry, though, – this pretty little thing ain't getting anywhere near him, no, no, too childish, too passive, too pure. Has next to zero imagination, this one, and a severely underdeveloped creative streak – music is enough for him; has never been enough for Jim. Poor little Sherlock had to resort to crack to be able to feel, to make the world churn with colour; whenever Jim did drugs, it was precisely the opposite – to stop the relentless swarming of ideas, of works of art begging to be brought to life in the form of the most beautiful crimes.
Jim always had to go beyond – no boundaries were large enough to contain him, and obeying the law was simply no fun. The pictures he painted had always been surreal, breaking the limits of form and colour, a wild splash and mash of lines and strokes performed with artistic precision. The music he made was as powerful as a hurricane, a tornado, and always ended on a seemingly discordant note, leaving the occasional audience shaken and dazzled.
Right now, Jim thinks, he probably found the one spectator able to appreciate his performance, his elegance of a concertmaster. Such a sweet little puppet; such a skilful dancer. A perfect marionette, truly, – never the one to perform himself, though; never the one to contend. His brother is another story altogether – a puppeteer to match Jim, a grandmaster to play the game of power and deceit, play it in earnest; pity he isn't much of a player though, all wrapped up in his mundane little troubles, Queen and country and all that shite. Ain't got the spirit, that one, a truly appalling waste of a perfectly sharp mind and perfectly cold heart, and his brother – this one does have the taste for a chase… and no ambition whatsoever. Content to rot in his cocaine palace, content to get his kicks from chance murders, never seeking more, never going further. The only consulting detective in the world, Sherlock Holmes is no threat to the one and only consulting criminal Jim Moriarty, no brighter star to outshine Jim's brilliance.
He is a distraction, though. He makes the mad turmoil in Jim's head come right and flow in one direction, and isn't that a relief.
There was another cure to it, though. Jim opens John's blog, rereads the few pathetic lines the few pathetic entries contain. Well, the man does seem to be in quite a pathetic state.
Another thing probably even more pathetic, though, is that Jim has his blog on speed dial.
John has – used to have – this uncanny ability to put a muffler on the voices in Jim's head, to turn his chaos into some vague semblance of order. John was the quiet and the warmth, calming him when Jim got heated enough to burst in a nuclear explosion, warming him up when Jim was cold enough to crackle and shatter. John was very much like the blanket in his old flat – worn and warm, fuzzy and familiar, perfectly ordinary, in no way a work of art and yet somehow matchless, irreplaceable. John was a dangerous weakness and an addictive obsession, John entered his bloodstream and settled in his pores, the touch of his fingers etched like a burn mark on his skin, the soft nasal sound of his voice set to constant repeat in his head.
Jim never depended on others. Independent was what he was.
If only there was a rehab for Watson-holics – Jim might just subject himself willingly enough.
Jim reluctantly digs out a crumpled sheet of paper from under his bed.
Relapse.
He's never read a single one of these letters, not past the salutation. He reads it, again, written in John's hand, a barely comprehensible, truly doctorly chicken scratch; he hears it in John's voice, a worn-out greeting suddenly soft and warm and full of life, inexplicably, as words are brought back to their original meaning.
'Jim' is him, whatever he is, accepted and wanted and loved – a reflection in the eyes of a colour that probably doesn't have a name in the English language, a space in John's mind, a stake on his heart.
'Dear' is need and affection and warmth, a feeling so deep and pure Jim might choke on the truthfulness of it, an inhale of first-rate cocaine, a dose of happiness into the bloodstream, an injection directly into the heart muscle.
Jim is, as per usual, more than a bit overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of these two words; further reading may lead to overdose. Jim crushes the letter in his hand, again; brings it to his nose, breathes in deeply.
The letter smells of dust, and a bit of the cologne Jim has a habit of generously splashing himself with, and not at all of John. When it arrived, the remnants of the scent still lingered.
Jim is abruptly wrecked with need so basic and urgent he momentarily forgets how to breathe. The proximity of one Dr. Watson suddenly seems crucial to his survival and well-being, psychical as well as physiological, and John Watson is available, close, in this very city, in fact, constant irrational visions of life bleeding out of him replaced by the ghost of his smell, the phantom of his smile.
Jim never gives up; he just changes his mind.
Jim is an artist, first and foremost, and that's why he doesn't hail a cab, doesn't break into John's too-expensive, too-bland, too-cold flat, doesn't bend over him, staring into his sleeping face, doesn't taste the nightmares etched in small wrinkles onto John's face with his lips and tongue, dry with thirst, coarse with need.
Jim will make his life into a work of art, a symphony orchestrated by none other than his brilliant self.
He sends an e-mail and two texts, rummages through his wide collection of fancy suits and, finally, digs out an old T-shirt, a workaday-looking jacket and the jeans John never helped him pick out.
oooOOOooo
The next day, Jim sits on the bench, Wagner in his ears, eyes shut and head thrown back, silently counting down.
Three...
Two...
One...
And Jim opens his eyes, squinting at the sharp daylight, and there he is. Face shut down, scrunched in an unhappy mask, eyes wary and cold. He has a limp; he looks older. Jim remembers little from his recent encounter in the bar bathroom, dirty floor washed clean by his blood; he soaks the details in now, greedily, Wagner thundering in his ears.
John doesn't notice him – poor little John, poor broken Johnny-boy. Jim will fix him and reassemble him to his liking, Jim will play him like a chess piece, and Jim will win in this little game of his, like he always does. Jim will have what he wants, and perhaps the ghosts of the night will cease haunting him, after all.
"John!" he calls.
John snaps back, like he's been shot, again. His face is a raw, terrifying mess of emotions: reproach. wariness. joy. guilt. love.
Just one moment, and he looks nothing like the wreck that trudged through the park mere seconds ago. His eyes are frank and open, like a blade to Jim's gut all over again.
Jim smiles, lowers his eyelashes, looks back up, as if unable to look away from John (he is).
"Searching for a flatmate?" he asks nonchalantly.
John's mouth opens into a 'how', snaps shut with an audible clack of his teeth. And just like that, John laughs, honest and sunny and blindingly bright, with abandon that makes Jim's nonexistent heart stutter.
He straightens up. He walks to the bench – walks back, back to Jim. He looks at Jim as if he has eyes only for him, he smiles at Jim like he's Jesus and David Bowie wrapped in one. He stops still in front of Jim and takes him in, thirstily. Wagner rises to a crescendo and falls silent, deafening Jim's ears with the sound of wind and street noises and John's silence.
John regards him, smiling, his face so amusingly expressive. Then he begins to speak – coughs – starts again:
"As a matter of fact, yes. You got any ideas?"