A/N: I am utterly ashamed with myself. Please don't hate me for the direction that this fic is going to take. It's not my fault, it's those darn consulting criminals!
Anyway, I did not originally want this to be any more than a one-shot, but with the way my mind works, no stone can be left unturned. So, therefore, I started halfheartedly writing a second chapter. I was probably not going to post it, but in light of recent events (thanks to Harry-Potter-Addict-dA) my mind was changed. And now, without further adieu, I give you the second chapter of The Science of Deception!
Sherlock didn't do much in months following the incident at the pool. Of course, there was always the crime fighting, the deducting, the running, but in Sherlock's world, all of that was just a day job. The equivalent of sitting at a desk all day. The detective did almost nothing at all outside his 'work' ever since he'd lost his flatmate. He simply sat in his chair or stared blankly out the window. On occasion, he'd play a haunting tune on his violin, but usually he'd just stare into the distance at nothing in particular, lost somewhere in his mind. He tried to replace or completely delete all of his memories of John before that point, but found this an impossible task. The man had crawled silently into Sherlock's mind palace and woven himself into every detail. To delete John would be to crumble his entire sanity.
Instead, Sherlock found himself sifting through every single detail of John's projected personality. He'd re-lived every waking moment. From meeting John for the first time in the lab at Bart's, right down to the maniacal look on his face just before being obscured by a wall of mist.
How could he have been so thick? Looking back, Sherlock could find nothing even hinting to a ruse. Could John have been that great of an actor? Given, Moriarty had fooled Sherlock at first, dating Molly as "Jim from IT". It was just a matter of placing evidence where it could be deduced. The two consulting criminals were inside his mind. He didn't like it one bit.
He ran into a bit of the partners' consulting work in this time, but never a personal encounter. Sherlock had almost let himself believe that he'd seen the last of them. That is, until returning to Baker Street after a particularly tasking serial killing case (the first victim's sister-in-law did it) to find a swatch of red cloth hanging on the door handle to 221B. Sherlock noticed this immediately upon climbing the stairs. Upon further inspection, he found that it was fashioned into a small sachet that held biscuit crumbs. Additionally, he noticed that the cloth was not, in fact, red, but white and stained with blood.
"Jiiiim, this is getting boring again!" a man complained.
Moriarty didn't bother spinning his chair around, he would know this voice anywhere. He simply smiled, "Well," he said to the man, "what do you propose we do?"
"You did mention something about 'burning'..." he began, unable to control the excited quiver in his voice.
"Yes, I've been trying to come up with something good. Dramatic, clever, entertaining, ...scarring. Did you have something in mind?" He finally turned the chair to look at his black-clad companion leaning against the nearest wall of their hideout (a surprisingly cozy abandoned storage building. Essentially a large concrete room adorned with random furniture).
He crossed his arms and nonchalantly said, "Little Red Riding Hood".
Jim quirked up an eyebrow, prompting for more information.
"Little Red goes into the woods to bring a basket of sweets to her grandmother and meets a wolf on the way. She tells him her intentions without knowing just how dangerous he is. Being more clever, the wolf gets there first and eats Granny. Little Red doesn't know of the danger she's in until it's too late and she's eaten too." By this point, Jim was very interested. He leant forward in his chair, elbows on knees, and was listening intently. "So just replace eaten with tortured, wolf with, of course, you and I, Little Red, that's Sherlock, and Granny, the sweet old landlady that he so loves."
Jim grinned wildly, seeing the whole plan perfectly. "Sometimes, I wonder why I'm not the one working for you."
The man pushed himself away from the wall and pulled the crisp, white handkerchief from his jacket pocket, unfolding it in front of him with a simple flick of the wrist, "Let's go catch us a Granny."
A/N2: I AM NOT A PSYCHOPATH, I SWEAR! I do not, however, make any excuses for those two ^. I apologize for the shortness of the chapter, but nevertheless, please review! You will recieve a hypothetical cookie baked fresh from the hypothetical ovens of Moriarty!