Thanks to jnicweb for beta reading! And happy New Year to all of you!
...Sherlock often saw Jim after the fall: his mad actions, mad words, mad smiles and the last shot that had put the last dot in red in their story. And once, exactly a year since his suicide, Jim came on his own, with no other memories of the past life, sat down next to Sherlock and asked:
"Did you miss me, Sherlock? Did you miss me? Did you?"
Now his voice was... weird. Creaking and cold. Colder than a handful of snow put behind one's collar. It was chilling, causing shivers, but any attempt to listen to it made it grow lower, and it only echoed in his ears: "Did you? Did you? Did you?"
Sherlock opened his eyes. The dream silenced and floated away. The opened window was creaking, letting chilly night air into the room.
His head ached. Caught a cold, maybe...
...
A week and a half passed. The ghost came out of the wall, sat on the bed and began:
"Did ya miss me?"
"No."
Jim bent down. A cold wave came from him. Sherlock pinched himself but felt nothing. It was a dream, only a dream...
Jim dived his hand under - through - the blanket. Sherlock felt it as if a huge piece of ice was on his chest.
"Why you didn't miss me, Sherlock?"
"Why would I?"
"Speak louder, I can't hear."
He had heard everything. Mocking? Sherlock took a good deep breath to answer the rude thing properly...
No.
He didn't.
Jim's hand got inside, under the ribs, into his chest, and now Sherlock could only open his mouth silently, like a shored fish, but not breathe.
"Count to ten, and I'll let go. Don't wanna? Well, I'll do it for ya."
He began bending the fingers of his free hand, muttering to be more precise.
"One. Two. Three."
Hatred flooded Sherlock. That maniac wouldn't leave him alone even being dead! But panic came faster. He wasn't able to breathe, and until ten...
"Ten."
He breathed in as deep as he could and burst in cough right away. He had to tuck his head in the pillow and coughed till his eyes were watering. And when he turned back to Jim, going to say out every thought he had...
The ghost was gone.
...
The good boy Jim hadn't dropped his habit (or hadn't lost his talent) of appearing in the most inconvenient time. For the literally first time during a week Sherlock got an opportunity of having a proper nap, and here was Moriarty, making himself at home.
"Did ya miss me?"
"The answer is negative. It's my dream. Begone."
The ghost shrugged his shoulders.
"Now it's ours."
"What do you want from me and, particularly, from my dream?"
Sherlock smiled at his own words. What old enemies come for at all? But Jim seemed to be waiting for the question:
"There is an undone affair I need to finish before I rid -"
"Firstly, rid me of your lofty style."
Jim smiled unpleasantly:
"Well. Firstly, I rid you of my style; then, of all other problems."
Let me guess. I'll get killed, Sherlock thought in response. This phrase had already been said once in such a situation. It was another place, but the same after-midnight with quite similar threats, spiced with lovely smiles.
"Oh, you've guessed, you a clever boy. I don't have enough might to hurt you badly right now, but still, you won't get bored, I promise."
The ghostly hand lay back on his chest, cold as ice.
...
Jim often visited him. Sometimes he was a usual mournful dead man; he was coming quietly, creaking the stairs, then sitting on the edge of the bed and singing Irish lullabies. His voice was dull, causing Sherlock shiver and then see the worst things in nightmares.
Sometimes he was wicked. He would enter through the window, not the door, and sit not just by his enemy but on his chest. He said that Death did the same when somebody was going to die in their sleep. When he did so, he would always find something to tell Sherlock. His voice was acerbic, words stinging painfully, and the heavy cold on Sherlock's chest choking him slowly.
There were also moments, though quite rare ones, when Jim was just himself. He resembled the alive Jim Moriarty the most but was restrained with nothing on earth. And it was the scariest to look in his brown eyes, filled with pure, fine hatred. Once he took a knife a paper knife from the table and tried the Glasgow smile on Sherlock, who woke up in the morning to find scratches on his cheeks...
In Jim's presence, Sherlock hardly ever could move a finger. It was usual for common people's nightmares but not for him.
...
"You were going to kill me. What are you waiting for?"
"Your request."
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
"Are you serious?"
Jim smiled softly. He knew he was.
"Yes. And you will have to beg me really well."
"You're mad."
"You underestimate me, my dear."
...
...Sherlock saw Jim rarely after the return. But now it didn't matter, for the detective began to see the sticky ghost when awake. The moment he turned off the lights in his bedroom...
The ghost cropped up in the middle of the room, not bothering himself with special effects. Sherlock was surrounded with rustle: "Did you miss me? Did you miss me? Did you miss me?"
The voice was the same icy and creaking, although the window was closed safely and it was nice and warm outside it. A wave of pulsating pain rose in Sherlock's head.
Moriarty laughed oddly and moved to his enemy, making him step back, but then suddenly glided forward... and came through him. The excruciating cold than went down Sherlock's body was disgustingly real.
"Did ya? Did ya? Did ya?"
The whisper was growing louder. Sherlock wasn't allowed to answer; the ghost, as if stepping backwards, went back into him - and stopped! The cold made his breath freeze in his chest and seemed to cramp all the muscles in his body...
Sherlock woke up, lying on the floor and feeling pain in the back of his head. Jim was bending over him with such a pleasant smile that his teeth began to ache.
"Are you hurt? Lemme help you up."
He was now laughing openly at the alive man's reaction to the ghost's touches. Sherlock, overfilled with loathing for the pushy hallucination, shook the ghostly hands off, stood up on his own and flopped down on his bed on his own, too.
Jim sat by him, as usual, as not more than a year but a couple of days had passed since their last meeting.
"How did you like our sweet Miss Morstan?"
"Who's that?"
He'd better not ask. Not only because he could have remembered it by himself: he amused Jim highly and rather too wildly.
"What does it mean, who? John's future wife! Yup, I can see the future! If you don't believe me, don't also believe in the tall blond guy of Scandinavian name. You'll meet him soon. That's my successor."
Sherlock turned away silently. But the cool hand lay on his shoulder, and he had to turn back to its owner.
"Are you upset? Why? Because of my words about the Mary girl? Well, everybody can betray. But I'm not everybody, Sherlock. I won't leave you..."
While talking, Jim was bending closer. The brown eyes were looking into the grey ones, catching any echo of a thought or of a feeling.
Sherlock tried to move away, but the host held him on the place with unexpected might. A thought flashed in Sherlock's mind that he would be entered again, but in the middle of thinking it he felt something like frozen iron on his lips...
He dashed away, lucky not to be paralyzed by the sleep. But the ghost had already disappeared.
...
One can escape a nightmare for the reality. And what about escaping the reality? Sherlock believed neither in ghosts nor in hallucination complexes, so his choice was between believing in the ghost and giving himself up for an asylum.
Jim was not seen in the light but still able to talk, more things around and paw at his victim. Sherlock's only luck was to avoid that. Jim was also commenting Sherlock's every step, but controlling and overcontrolling himself didn't help. And, in general, Jim appeared about, winking from behind an interlocutor's shoulder, peering out of a corner, passing by in the crowd. He wasn't now talking much when coming at Sherlock's "to wish him good night". It was quite enough to stare at the still alive man, not letting him sleep.
...
"Think about your last will."
Sherlock hadn't time to open his mouth in reply: Jim pressed a finger against his lips, and then melted in the air. Sherlock decided to question him the next time. But there was no next time.
...
...Sherlock didn't see Jim at all after John's wedding. There was no reason for that. Now, all Sherlock's attention was drawn by the damned successor, Charles Magnussen. Sherlock did remember the previous enemy from time to time and badly wanted the pause not to be a hush before the storm.
...
Moriarty had shot himself. Magnussen was shot by Sherlock. Those were different times, different reasons, different people; but the detective got a déjà-vu. He saw, very clearly, a brunet instead of a blond, one maniac instead of another, the best enemy instead of the worst.
Falling, Jim turned to Sherlock. Those were his eyes, brown and mad, and the smile was his. But Charles didn't turn anywhere or smirk at anybody, and the last look of his blue eyes was into the sky. When the body, whomever it had belonged to, fell, Sherlock blinked and turned away.
...
After that, there was absolutely no time to think about Jim. But yet he mustn't have been forgotten, and he proved that. Only a month since the murder, the first murder the guilt of which lay with Sherlock entirely, Moriarty was looking down from every screen in the Britain, searching for his nemesis. His question sounded familiar:
"Didja miss me?"