Demons
[Part Two of Five]

"Curtain's call is the last of all;
When the lights fade out, all the sinners crawl.
So they dug your grave and the masquerade
Will come calling out at the mess you've made."
- "Demons" by Imagine Dragons

Baker Street was, surprisingly, almost exactly as Sherlock remembered it, despite the three passing years. There was a small layer of dust, but otherwise it seemed as though Mrs. Hudson had kept the flat running, as though her boys would return any day. He only briefly wondered if Mycroft had anything to do with it.

He almost immediately headed toward the bathroom, taking a clean washcloth and holding it under the tap. He pressed it to his face, to remove the smattering of dried blood that still remained from when John had punched him. He irritably walked back into the sitting room, still absently scrubbing at his skin, trying to avoid the tender areas.

Irene had once said that John must love him, to avoid his nose and teeth when he punched him in that ridiculous attempt so long ago. The fact that the white washcloth was now stained pink from his nose and upper lip did not escape him.

He glanced toward the mantle, where the skull still sat, and he sighed, shaking his head at it and dropping the washcloth onto the coffee table. "It seems that things have now changed," he murmured to his only companion.

"Aw, not getting sentimental, now, are we?"

The voice rang through the dark, empty flat in a horrifying trill. Slowly Sherlock turned toward the direction from which it came; there, sitting in John's chair, was Jim Moriarty.

The detective blinked slowly, staring at the man with distrusting eyes. However, knowing that the image was not real did not make it any less unsettling.

The man ran his hands along the arms of the chair, looking up at Sherlock with a smile. The sight of the criminal in John's chair made his insides burn, the anger at the utter disrespect coursing through him. It was wrong, so wrong to see that man there, when it belonged to such a good, wonderful person.

Yet there he was—or wasn't—he was only a phantom image, as he was still dead, after all. He had settled himself into the chair, leaning back comfortably with a smirk on his lips. "This place is so homey, isn't it?" he commented. "Pity there's no one to share it with, now."

"No," Sherlock said simply, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut. "I can't be hallucinating; I'm clean."

Moriarty chuckled at the man's disbelief. "The good doctor didn't hit you that hard," he assured him.

"You're not real," Sherlock said adamantly.

"No," Moriarty said. "I'm not." He paused. "Well, just to you."

"Why are you here?" Sherlock demanded. While he had long ago accepted that, in a drug-induced state, his vision of Moriarty had, in a twisted way, helped him piece together the clues about Iran, he refused to believe that there was some sort of internalized purpose for his current appearance. He wasn't even on a case; there was nothing to piece together, no information to look at. "You're nothing more than a figment of my imagination," the detective continued, half to himself, as he was reluctant to acknowledge the apparition sitting in the room. He eased himself into his own chair, hands clenching at the arm rests. "A lingering hallucination of something I long to forget."

"And yet, here I am!" Moriarty responded, gesturing widely. He pushed himself out of the chair and moved to the fireplace, looking at the skull on the mantle in feigned interest. "Have you even asked yourself why, out of all the people you could have possibly thought up, that it was me you chose to see?"

Now the frustration was mildly building up inside of Sherlock; it was bad enough that his mind was playing tricks on him and making him see the detestable man, but having him insinuating that he, Sherlock Holmes, was choosing to suffer his company? That was just ludicrous, and utterly insulting.

"It's not that ridiculous," Moriarty said calmly. Sherlock's eyes snapped to him, narrowing as he wondered how he could possibly have known what he was thinking. "Oh, don't act so surprised," Moriarty said, turning from the skull with his hands in his pockets, giving him an appearance that was so smug it disgusted Sherlock. "Let me put you out of your misery," he continued in a stage whisper, leaning forward slightly like he was telling a child a secret. There was a snide smile on his lips. "I am here, my dear detective, because you need me here."

It was stated as such a matter of fact that Sherlock couldn't help but stare. Need him? He needed him? The mere idea was laughable. "And how could I ever possibly need you?" Sherlock challenged.

A grin slowly widened on Moriarty's face and he chucked a little. The expression was one that Sherlock deeply distrusted. "My dear, dear Sherlock." Moriarty moved from the fireplace and made his way toward him. "Of course you need me. We're each other's complement; the world's only consulting detective and criminal. We're yin and yang, two sides of a coin. We, my darling Holmes, were made for each other."

Many years ago, John had made the same comparison and, at the time, the thought amused Sherlock. But hearing Moriarty jest this way did not have the same feel as when John had done it; it held none of the warmth or light-heartedness. From the deceased criminal, it was accusatory and rather disturbing.

"You disappoint me, Sherlock." Moriarty's voice was enough to bring him back to the present, but what put him on edge was how close his voice was. Somehow Moriarty had moved behind his chair and was now hovering behind him, too close for comfort, even if he was just an image and not truly there. "After all that trouble I went through, all the planning and careful preparation, you couldn't even die right." He sounded so disheartened in the admission that, had it been someone else, he would have recognized it as a place to apologize—which he still wouldn't, though, perhaps with the exception of John. "It gets to lonely in the afterlife, you know. It would have been such fun to have you here with me." Sherlock couldn't stand to admit even to himself that in that moment, he could feel Moriarty gripping the back of his chair, trying to lean closer. He didn't move, refusing to give in to his delusion. "Think of all of the trouble we could cause, chasing each other through the rest of eternity," he hissed, and Sherlock could feel the cool breath on his neck and ear, Moriarty right beside his face. "We could have continued our game."

Against all reason and logic, Sherlock felt himself stiffen at the word. He never wanted to hear the word again, and the sound of it falling from Moriarty's lips made his stomach tighten uneasily.

"Oh, don't be like that, sweetheart," he cooed. "I value you too much to kill you twice." He let out a low chuckle. "Still… we would have tried to constantly best each other, always outsmarting one another… Hell, I may have even let you win sometimes, just to see your mind in action." Sherlock sat more rigidly now, at the feeling of fingers running along a few loose curls against the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the sensation that he knew wasn't there. "Your beautiful, brilliant mind…" The criminal sounded almost in awe as he spoke, now. "It's what attracted me to you at first. Sure, any fool could call himself a 'consulting detective' and as long as he made decent enough observations, he could make his way. But you—" He felt the grip in his hair tighten, to which he squeezed his eyes shut even more. "—were brilliant at every turn. You could make deductions like no one else ever could. It was—" Tighter still. "—breathtaking." Moriarty's grip loosened, but his hand did not leave Sherlock's hair. His fingers were now brushing through the locks, pulling the curls back, almost massaging his head. "I had admired this mind for so long, but now that I'm actually inside it, living there, thriving, it's more than I could have ever dreamed of."

This caused Sherlock to open his eyes. "You're in my mind," he breathed out. It sounded so simple and obvious, stating it; it was, after all, what he'd concluded, aware that the only possibility was for the man to be a hallucination. Still, the gravity of the statement was overwhelming. Jim Moriarty, professional criminal and psychopath, had full range of Sherlock Holmes's mind.

"I must say it's been rather interesting," Moriarty commented in a teasing voice, "walking around your 'mind palace'." He chuckled almost affectionately. The brushing fingers were gone from his hair now, but he'd moved to the arm of the chair, perched even closer than before. "So many pathways and corridors to wander about; so many doors leading to old memories and emotions you'd rather forget." Another low giggle. "But I've gone through these doors, and trust me when I say you won't be forgetting any of those things for a very long time."

A dark edge had seeped its way into Moriarty's voice. It was a darkness that Sherlock had heard several times before now, usually just preceding a threat to his life, or the life of someone around him.

"He doesn't want you anymore, Sherlock." The simple statement caused him to snap his face up so that he met Moriarty's eyes. "You betrayed him. He'll never trust you again, not like before. You may be able to work together again—hell, you may even be friends again, but you'll never go back to the way things were… before."

Yet again, Sherlock Holmes had been rendered speechless. He had no idea what to say or how to respond. He tried to think of a retort, any remark, but it was like something had stopped his mind from functioning. He knew that Moriarty was to blame, but he could do nothing about it. He had, after all, taken residence up in his brain; perhaps by this point, he knew it just as well as Sherlock.

"But that's not even the worst of it," Moriarty continued, and the tone of voice made Sherlock hate him with every ounce of his being. "No. That's not what's killing you, eating you from the inside out. The worst part," he said, now looking into him, deeper than ever before, "is that he doesn't need you anymore."

The words were almost whispered, but they did their job. Sherlock felt as though the air in his lungs had gone, that his stomach had dropped; his head felt feather-light. It wasn't true. This was just another mind game, another trick his head was playing on him. He tried to formulate some sort of response—calling him a liar, trying to push through the doubt, using reason… but all that he could come up with was a hollow, "No."

Moriarty flat out laughed at the response. "Oh my dear, sweet, brilliant man…" He reached out and touched his cheek, and Sherlock couldn't help but flinch away; it somehow didn't matter whether it was real or not, anymore. "We both know it's true. Your dear doctor doesn't want or need you anymore! Anything you may have meant to him is gone."

"No," Sherlock repeated, unable to form any other words.

"You betrayed him," Moriarty spat. "He left. He moved on."

Sherlock shook his head. "He had to move on," he said, words finally returning. "He thought I was dead; he couldn't just spend his whole life mourning me. It would have been a waste of time and energy." Yes, logic. That he could still do. He felt a small, fleeting feeling of relief.

Moriarty laughed again. "If you really believed that," he said simply, "I wouldn't be here." He smiled. "Yes, he moved on because it's been three years, but that's not the real reason." He moved in front of him and crouched down to maintain eye contact. "He moved on because he wanted to." He was looking directly into Sherlock's pale eyes again, and the detective was unable to look away. "He wanted to be over you. He moved out, and he moved on. And," he added, delightedly, "he replaced you." The words struck harshly again, continuing the cut deep into Sherlock, the knife in his gut twisting so painfully that he thought he'd actually bleed out from it. "He replaced you in every way he could. He replaced you with a new home, and a new job, and most importantly, he replaced you with her." Sherlock had to look away; Moriarty didn't need to use a name to specify the 'her' he was talking about; and if the detective was honest, he didn't exactly want to hear the name, anyway. "It hurts you." The hand was back on his cheek, but this time, Sherlock ached too deeply to recoil from the touch. "It hurts you that he has her, that she's the most important person in his life, that they have a home together. He goes to her whenever he wants something, whenever he needs something. She is there for him in ways that you never could be, because he doesn't want you like he wants her—like he needs her."

That damn word again. "How could you possibly know what John needs?" he forced out, his tone biting. "You don't know him."

"Ah, but you do. You know him, and you know what he needs," Moriarty said simply. "Therefore, I know what he needs. That means you and I both are fully aware of what you could never give to him."

Sherlock closed his eyes again, hoping, begging, pleading, that when he opened them, Moriarty would be gone. He had grown accustomed to his mind tormenting him in various ways, never stopping, always racing, but this torture was different than any other. He could feel it affecting him all over—mentally, physically, and, admittedly, emotionally. The pain was becoming slowly unbearable, and the worst of it was that he knew he couldn't escape; he was at the mercy of his own mind.

"For someone so brilliant, so sure of himself, you have so much doubt. There's so much second-guessing, built up inside of you." Moriarty leaned in until he was right next to Sherlock's ear, his cool breath ghosting across his cheek. "And I can't wait to open every door and window, to dive into every chasm you have locked inside of you… until it swallows you whole." He could hear the sadistic grin in the vision's voice. "You asked why I'm here. I am here to make good on a promise I made to you long ago."

Moriarty pulled back and grabbed Sherlock's face, forcing him to turn and look into his cold, hollow eyes.

"I will burn the heart out of you." The words echoed in Sherlock's mind from all those years ago. He'd be lying if he said they didn't seem threatening then, but now—now, he felt them in his very core, vibrating beneath his skin, fire in his veins. "If only I had known that this was the way to do it," he sighed. "All that effort into the possibility of killing the ones you care about, but no, this is so much better, to completely destroy you from the inside. If I'd had known the complete anguish you'd suffer, I would have died long before I did, just for a chance at this." He let out a laugh, filling in the silence as he turned from Sherlock and took a few steps before dropping himself once more in John's chair across from him. "I've always had other men do the dirty work," he said casually. "Who would have thought that my accomplice on this one would actually be you?"

"Stop!" The shout tore through the detective's throat and echoed through the empty flat. Sherlock had pushed himself up out of his chair, flinging himself angrily to his feet, his fists clenched at his sides. His heart was pounding, now, fury ripping through him, but when he looked at the doctor's chair, it was empty.

He gulped in several deep breaths, trying to fill his lungs once more, as they burned angrily from the lack of oxygen. Without a look back, he climbed the flight of stairs to the bedroom that he now supposed belonged to nobody. He glanced around it as he dropped himself onto the mattress. He didn't plan to sleep; he had no hope of getting any rest that night. He only thought that, if he were lucky, maybe he could feel some peace by surrounding himself with John's ghost instead of Moriarty's, disillusioning himself into believing that things would be okay.