When Jim came home, he looked bored. He set his hat on the hat stand, then pulled off his coat, blood spattering his shirt. He turned to John, an eyebrow raised as he plucked off his gloves. "Didn't expect to see you still here."

"I didn't fancy going out today. Is any of that blood yours, boss?"

Jim looked down at himself as if seeing the blood for the first time. His lip curled in disgust. "No…" He ran a finger across on one of the stains, which hadn't dried, then looked at his red hand. "I do loathe getting my hands dirty…" He raised his finger in front of his face, examining the blood from different angles, then stared darkly into John's eyes, singing lightly, "Oh well."

John suppressed a shiver. Jim Moriarty had the singular talent of making his every move and word terrifying. He wasn't sure how he was going to be able to convince such a twisted man that he even somewhat liked him. "Do you need anything from me, Jim?"

Jim frowned at him, giving him an annoyed look. "No. Why would I need anything from you? I told you, you've got the day off. Go…rescue wounded puppies or pick flowers in a park or do whatever it is that you ordinary people do without your precious tellys and laptops."

John shrugged. "If you need anything, I'll be in my room."

Jim eyed John somewhat suspiciously as John crossed in front of him and climbed the steps to his bedroom.

One day, John came home from a rough job to hear Moriarty yelling at Jane in the kitchen. For a panicked moment he thought that Jim had found out that she'd agreed to help John, but when Moriarty came out, John could see he was just in one of his bored rages and braced himself.

Jim looked John up and down. John had had to dispatch three men, which had gotten messy, and he'd suffered a few bruises on his face and some shallow cuts across his arm.

"And where the HELL have YOU been?! That job should've been done HOURS ago!"

"Sorry, Jim—he had company. I had to get rid of a few extras."

"A FEW EXTRAS? I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO KEEP THIS CLEAN!" Jim took a step forward, and before John had time to react, he took a swing at him, his fist connecting hard with John's cheekbone.

John stumbled black, clutching his face, fighting back every urge to swing back at Jim. He finally muttered angrily, "Won't happen again, boss."

"That's not good enough!" Jim barked, grabbing John and punching him again in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. "FIGHT ME BACK! FIGHT ME BACK, YOU FUCKING COWARD!"

John was doubled over, clutching his stomach and trying to breathe. When he regained an ounce of breath, he clouded over with rage. "You want me to fight back?! Is that an order, SIR?" He wound back and punched Jim as hard as he could in the chest, knocking Jim backwards into the wall. God, it felt amazing to hit him. He could beat him for all eternity.

Jim was only momentarily taken aback before he fixed his eyes dark eyes on John's. He laughed and snarled, "Yes."

When Jim lunged forward to swing at John again, John ducked and swung his legs out to trip him, sending him sprawling to the floor. John was on top of him before he could get up, pinning his wrists to the floor. "Friendly word of advice, boss, don't pick fights with your hit men!"

Moriarty struggled to free himself for a moment, glaring up at John, then a smile broke out on his face. "Oh, John, you are so much more fun than I thought you would be… Now. Get the fuck off of me."

John wanted nothing more than to punch the last fragment of life out of Jim, but he forced himself to stand up, wincing and clutching his stomach. "I'm sorry you're bored, boss, but these stints always end. Something new always turns up."

Jim gave John a disgusted look before rolling forward and getting to his feet, breathing hard. He dropped onto one of the sofas and glared across the room, arms crossed over his chest, then clawed his fingers through his hair, mussing it from its slicked-back style. "This century is such a bore."

John's instinct was to leave Jim to rant until he felt better, but it occurred to him that perhaps Jim wanted to voice his complaints to someone. And John was the only one he could complain to. John sighed and sank into a wing-backed chair facing the sofa.

"I miss Westwood! And bombs, John! And technology."

"Yeah, me too. Technology, that is. Not so much the bombs or the Westwood." John missed, funnily enough, jumpers. They certainly existed in 1895, but he'd never seen anyone wearing one. Jumpers must be homemade things wives made for their husbands. Maybe it was a rural fashion. He was surprised to feel his mouth twitching up. It had been a while since he'd thought about something that didn't involve death or crime or how much he missed Sherlock and Hamish.

"And the weaponry," Jim continued. "Is it too much to ask for a decent Browning, for God's sake? Or even just a piece of spearmint gum? How is that not a thing yet?"

"You could always chew tobacco, boss. It would turn your teeth a lovely brown," John said drily. "Maybe it would instill fear in your enemies."

Jim grunted. "Dental hygiene these days is limited enough without getting that shit anywhere near my mouth." He stood and straightened his waistcoat, then looked down at John.

"If you want to make yourself useful, go to the kitchen and order us some dinner."

"What do you want?"

"I couldn't give two fucks."

Jim disappeared, and John breathed a sigh of relief. All things considered, he'd gotten off easy. Bored Jim was the worst kind of Jim; bored Jim carved patterns into peoples' eyeballs with a knife or set animals on fire or sat down and wrote out an elaborate, disturbing plan that would desecrate all of Ireland if he chose to put it to work.

As the weeks went by, John got fewer and fewer assignments, which meant he could visit Hamish more often, but the lack of jobs threw Moriarty into a rage of further boredom, which he dealt with by taking copious amounts of laudanum and sitting on the couch, growing increasingly frustrated and unkempt.

This meant that Jim was relatively harmless, but in his current state, John was never going to be assigned to London. And, just because Jim was listless didn't mean his hired men were. John knew several of them kept close tabs on him, whether he went out or stayed in.

After several weeks, John had finally had enough. He stalked over to where Jim was spread on the couch and plucked the laudanum bottle from his hand. "You're worse than Sherlock, you know that? Get up and stop this." It had been the first time John had mentioned Sherlock's name since he'd started working for Jim months ago, but Jim was too out of it to notice.

He didn't fail to notice that his laudanum was no longer in his hands, however, and he lolled his head to look over at John. "Give that back."

"You'll thank me later." John pocketed the bottle.

Jim raised his eyebrows, his expression slack. "Fine, go ahead and keep that one. It's not like I don't have more."

John eyed Jim's desk and grabbed two more bottles, running to the front door. Jim stumbled after him desperately trying to grab at them. "Give them back or I will kill you!" he snarled.

This made John falter for a moment. Would Jim kill him? "No…you need a gunman," he said, then darted past Jim and out into the street, chucking the bottles as far as he could.

They both watched the jars shatter on the cobblestones. The glass vials were immediately turned to tiny fragments, trampled by horse hooves and carriage wheels.

Jim spun towards John, grabbed his shoulders and slammed him against the outside of the building. "You FUCKING idiot!"

John winced, then growled, "Jim, people are staring."

Jim growled and punched the brick next to John's head before storming back inside.

John followed, closing the door behind him. "You'll thank me later, honestly. Most of these Victorian medicines should be avoided. Trust me, I'm a doctor." He eyed the bloody scrape on Jim's knuckles from where he'd punched the wall. "I'll disinfect that for you."

John grabbed his med bag and took Jim's hand in his to clean the wound. Jim was still seething, but too bleary to carry out any death threats, so he sat and glared at John. "You're not the boss of me, John Watson. You work for me, and you let me do what I bloody want."

"Being in a haze all day and night doesn't instill fear in anyone. Wouldn't want to lose your reputation," John pointed out. "Promise me you'll lay off the drugs."

"Fuck off," Jim said, snatching his hand away.

"I'll sleep in your room if I have to tonight, Jim. To make sure you don't take anything else."

"I don't need a babysitter," Jim spat. "Do you know what I did to my babysitters, John? Back when I was tender young boy?"

John didn't respond as he packed away his med bag. Jim was trying to scare him, but John noticed that Jim hadn't done anything major to stop him so far, and took it as a good sign. He would much rather have a preoccupied, plotting Moriarty on his hands than a bored one.

That night, John laid his blanket on the wood floor by Jim's bed. "I'm a light sleeper. If I hear a drawer opening or the rattle of laudanum bottles, I'll be up before you can shout."

"This is ridiculous," Jim muttered. "Go back to your room and go to bed."

"Sorry to disobey, but no. You pay me to protect you, so that's what I'm doing. Good night." John tossed his pillow on the ground and lay down, rolling the blanket around him.

"You've got a job tomorrow. I don't pay you to watch over me, I pay you to be rested and ready to kill. Now go the fuck back to your room, or I'll make sure you don't sleep well."

John rolled his eyes. "Great logic, boss." Jim was too drug-addled to do anything to him at the moment. He settled onto the floor.

Jim continued to sit up in bed, glaring down at John. "Get in."

"What?" John blinked.

Jim gnashed his teeth together. "Get. In. The bed. If you aren't going to leave, you are going to sleep in the bed so you're not stiff and sore and off your game. So. Get in the bed." He flopped onto the pillow, turning his back to the center of the bed.

John, unable to believe he was about to share a bed with Jim Moriarty, stood up hesitantly and slid into the bed, keeping close to the edge and watching the back of Jim's head warily.

The bed was extremely comfortable, probably the most comfortable bed John had ever been in, but just as he was beginning to drift off, Jim turned over to whisper, "If you snore, I'll stab you."

He rolled back over and it took John a very long time to fall asleep. Jim was asleep almost instantly; the laudanum was likely the culprit. John heard him mutter Sebastian's name a few times, which surprised him. He thought sleepily about Jim and Sebastian's relationship, trying to imagine Jim acting anything resembling loving to anyone.

When John woke up, Jim was frowning over at him.

"Erm…morning," John said, sliding out of bed and falling into his morning routine of push-ups, wondering whether last night's vigil was a horrible mistake or a step in the right direction. Jim hadn't stabbed or strangled him, at the very least.

Jim didn't say anything, just sat up and watched him before getting out of bed himself, a mixture of confusion, disgust and curiosity on his face, confusion winning out.